Spain

[Tzar Dusan of Serbs]

I don't like Spain they have poor armies from my point of view.If you wan't to play sucessfully you must bribe everyone you can,and honestly I find that boring.I wan't to play with them but their Scutarii are to weak for chosen swordsman of the gauls even swordsman if used corectly is beter then scutarii.In Spain you can build real economic empire,but what after that?
Where to expand?I would expand further north to Gaul but we all know that without bribery that would not be possible,also I don't think that any force Spain can built can match Roman post Marius Army.Only good troop is Bull warior,and I must said that they are awesome troops,but I realy find it borring to play with just one selection of troops.Can anybody say that I'm wrong?I admit that Spain is Chalenge but I dont think its possible win this campaighn withaout bribery,so I anostly believe that this faction can not rule the world without cheating(and I find bribery as cheating!!!!).
If someone have other opinion I would like if he share this opinion with me,thanks

[Avicenna]

Scutarii volleys are always powerful. There is no way they are weak: the Roman legions were modelled after the Scutarii, with the scutum and gladius. The Gauls have low morale, and after the two volleys at least one unit should rout. Afterwards, just send in the bull warriors and cavalry and use the Roman tactics of divide and conquer. If even Numidia can defeat armies, Iberia is definitely no problem. The Gauls especially are easy prey: They're under attack by at least the Julii and Britons, if not the Germans. Gaul is usually the first faction to fall.

[grapedog]

I'm using v1.5 of vanilla RTW, no BI, and I'm using the unofficial bug fix patch.

Since this is only my second campaign after not having played for at least a year, feels more like 2...I'm having fun. The spaniards are definately tough with both Gaul and Julii coming right at me. I took the benefit of saving before a big fight and doing some auto-resolve battles. In my next 5-6 turns I'll see two fulls stacks of Julii, and 2 1/2 fulls stacks of Gauls all heading to Osca.

As soon as I loaded up the game, I went and took over the single carthaginian town and the gaulish town. First buildings in all my towns were roads and mines and markets...so I'm getting plenty of cash. I'm not bribing anyone as I don't like to us it, but I am picking up as many units in the field that my generals can find, as possible.

I have trade agreements with most of the factions near me save all the roman factions and the gauls.

I started to fortify Osca and I have 4 towns as my unit producing towns, I've gone all Esus temples for now because I want Bull Warriors, and naked fanatics are nice also and I'm not good at running multiple temples and moving troops around to get the benefits of all the different temples. I had 2 of three forts set up around Osca, but I've had to pull back all my troops to Osca and a 5 star general that I've cultivated thats hanging out next to Osca. I own all of the spanish peninsula, and I managed to bribe one rebel town thats almost directly south of Italy...near the egypt area...which I will use later on.

My strategy after the next few turns of constant full stack fights is going to be building up my navy which I'm working on now, and taking that little island off the coast of Osca. That place is a hatasti breeding ground for the Julii and that needs to stop. I figure if I can field a decent navy in that area, I can sink a lot of Julii ships and keep them weak. Then I can work on the gauls, I think if I can nab two or three towns of theirs I can break their momentum.

For unit make up's, I'm using mainly what I can dredge up for mercenaries...Iberian infantry, and some skirmishers are the bulk. I have some naked fanatics coming in, but I'm not relying on them because of the 2 turn build time...which kinda sucks, but it's still doable, they are nice shock troops and can definately hold a line from what I've seen so far. I'm aiming for bull warriors, then perhaps a good mix of 3-4 cav units and 3-4 archer units. I'll have to see what they have later on down the line.

I think overall, I'm going to sweep north in Gaul lands, and take out the Britons as well....leaving Germania intact and see if I can keep good relations with them. Then I'll head into the Italian peninsula...I hate trying for Africa and East asia because there are so few provinces for the size of the area as opposed to Italy/Greece/Macedonia.

Every time I've played a Roman campaign, the Brutti go east, the Julii go west and the Scipii go south. It will be interesting to see how it turns out if I can nip the romans in the butt early and see if some of the other factions can hold their own for once.

So far I like the spanish, but I'll have to get a bit deeper into their roster of units before I can make a final determination. I have a weakness for cavalry, I love em...and I know thats not one of spains hot points. I'll update this info in another bunch of turns to let you know how my plan worked out...

[grapedog]

I haven't started from my spot last night, but I've been thinking strategy over. If I go east and try and take some of the italian boot, I'll probably have the senate on me for the entire game, but I'm thinking about taking the islands between spain and italy so I can better control the Julii/Scipii navy. I think after that, I'm in a toss-up after that. I can go south and fight off the Brutii, or I can go north and fight the gauls. I figure south might be the better option though, if I can control the islands and block Scipii, i can let the gauls/germans and britons take their tolls on the Julii...hopefully keeping them smaller and I can work on Scipii, letting the Brutii head West into Greece and Macedonia.

Right now none of the factions of Rome will talk to me, so I'm going to see if I can secure contracts with everyone else, and then just beat up the romans navy wise and see how much the rest of the factions can beat up on the romans. I'll try and sell cash and maps and anything for factions to attack Roman areas...I'd love to see the Romans quashed since they always seem to win anyhow.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I actually thought pretty well of the Spanish roundshields in an old spain game. Took lots of casualties, but I then had 6 somewhat over-sized units at 2 silver or better -- fun to play with. It was a medium game, I think, so I had lots of fun sending doggies into packs of gauls.

[grapedog]

As it sometimes happens, things did not go exactly to plan. The Gauls kept sending huge armies at me, though the Julii stopped. I got so annoyed with the Gauls that I took Narbo Martius(my main general is right now 10 stars...but 60 years old).

I also took the next island over to the East from Palma, SE from Narbo Martius...a Julii settlement. The Julii are now sending armies by boat but I keep sinking them, while the Gauls just keep coming after me. The Britons are going after Germania, and Germania is being squeezed by Dacia as well who has expanded quite a bit from my last map update.

I'm debating what to do now, I think I may just trash all the buildings on that little island east of Palma and let it revolt and leave the island. Let the Julii come back in and fix it. I'll pull back and finish off the Gauls I think since they are being so annoying. They can't have much left in the tank, and I have roughly three full stacks of armies marching around.

The only real problem is money, after playing the Brutii campaign it's a definate shock to the system, but it's still do-able, I'm just much slower in my growth.

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edit/add: Its a bunch of turns later and everything has turned to crap...Numidia was my one big trading buddy, but they declared on me. I had three 10 stack navy's out and about killing Romans, but when Numidia declared me it all went to hell and I went into serious negative numbers. Somehow Gaul is STILL throwing full stacks at me, though it's almost all warbands with a few chosen archers and swordsmen. Julii has also stepped up their attacks AND their navy...most of my coastal cities and gaul cities have been under seige and unable to retrain troops because of my negative cash flow.

I managed to take the Numidia town just south of spain across the ocean, i ransacked it, exterminated the populace and retrained most of my troops. These next few turns could break me, but I think I can pull through. I'll try and sack one more Numidia town, then destroy all the buildings and gift it for peace. I grabbed a ceasefire with them for one turn before they re-declared...so, I'm gonna have to teach them a lesson. I've been gearing up for Gaul, and those extra troops are the only thing saving me at this point...so hopefully If I can get Numidia to back off, I can retrain and finally nip Gaul in the head, chest and extremeties once and for all...

I don't know WHAT in the hell the Romans are doing, they are no where to be found...shouldn't Scipii be taking over the southern continent...well, he's not...and Julii are not taking over Gaul...I don't know whats going on sadly....i was hoping the Romans would do their things, but they are not....

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Another edit/add:


Ok, it's been a bunch more turns, i did some auto-resolving even though it generates higher losses to get through some tougher parts more quickly, and get back into the black.

The Gauls got a mid sized army into my mainland and captured one of my cities breifly...but I took it back about 3 turns later with mix and match units from the surrounding cities.

I went further south on the southern continent and grabbed the next Numidia town...

I also took Lemonum briefly, trashed all the buildings and pulled out. I grabbed Lugdunum and Alesia too...the turn after I took Alesia I got hit with the friggin plague. I had 5 generals in that army...and they are all infected now.

I'm on the warpath and Gaul is going to get a serious beat down now...

I don't think I'll win this one in the time alloted to me yet, I've been exterminating as I go for the extra cash to re-train all my troops, i know that will come back to haunt me cash wise down the road, not pulling in as much taxes, but I won't have to worry as much about troops hopefully.

[Ezephkiel]

Hi, first post for me.

I decided to start a spanish campaign the other week (H/H), been playing a long greek one and gotten sick of phalanx, so wanted to go far away as possible.

Started off pretty slow, and just got control of the iberian penninsula, concentrating on my economy for the start, the gauls kept coming in their massive armies, so my army was training itself, up, even though it needed to be reinforced quite heavily.

[Got a picture but i need to post atleast 1 post apparently]

As you can see, theres quite a few super powers in the world at the moment!

Im allied with egypt, armenia and scythia.

At war with the romans and gaul.

Carthage and gaul are allied, and the britons are just at war with everyone i think, they keep attacking my navy, then signing ceasefires every so often. But they're getting their arses kicked by the Scipii now, who are pushing into middle europe.

Pontus is a protectorate of the brutii, who are using them to attack into armenia.

I've recently taken segesta and raised it twice, going to build barbarian buildings , does it convert it slowly over time?

I've left the remainder of the gauls as a buffer inbetween britain and plan on joining in when the romans have their civil war (gonna be ugly in greece)

Ive got 3 armies, pretty similar to the one in the picture, gonna have to send one back to spain soon though to do some massacreing of cities.

I'll keep you updated if anything interesting happens ;)