Strongest and weakest AI factions?

[afrit]

In my 3 campaigns so far, it seems Egypt almost always ends up being the strongest AI faction. Britannia seems to do well too. Gauls start strong, but in all my campaigns I ended up fighting them , so I can't assess their strength against other AI factions.

Factions that frequently die early are the Seleucids, Greeks and Carthage.

Has that been your experience too?

[DisruptorX]

Gauls are stronger than Julii Rome, for sure. They usually end up capturing a few julii cities. They also tend to make a mess of most factions surrounding them, but don't completely dominate only because they have fronts on all sides.

Egypt is ridiculous.

The seleucids are *very* weak. As in, killed by pontus weak. Spain is very weak too. Numidia is technically stronger than Carthage, but tends to not fare well. Carthage is weak, too, but doesn't die due to its large spread. The city of Carthage tends to fall immediately.

[troymclure]

In all my games Egypt has never failed to dominate the middle east (unless i'm playing around there), gaul always do well for a while but then fall to combined british/german/julii forces about the time of the marius reforms.
Whoever is in control of greece also hold out till about the same time, sometimes falling earlier (normally greece stays a hodgepodge of macedonian/thracian/greek with the thracians normally doing the best mostly because they have the least interaction with the brutii).
Carthage does tend to fall early but carthage as a nation can survive for a while just because noone ever bothers to go take that island city they own. Numidia normally keeps that part of the map warm till the scipii get the reforms.
Besides that i've noticed dacia can do quite well. Of all the barbarian factions they seem to survive the longest with the most land mass.
Scythia almost always control russia though never really seem to expand much beyond.
Parthia unfortuantly doesn't do very well sometimes getting wiped out normally just surviving on a couple of provinces.
Pontus are the only nation i've seen consistently capture whats now modern day turkey, though egypt will eventually get up there.
Brittania and germany tend to duke it out with gaul up the top, normally britannia does ok, germany i've never seen expand too much tho.
and oh yes spain does ok from what i've seen, i've never seen them wiped out (unless i did it), sometimes they're just a couple o' provinces, but sometimes they take the whole iberian pennisula and one game i saw them expand down through and africa ending up owning everything up to carthage.

[Red Harvest]

Weakest that I've seen are:

1. Numidia--try playing them and you will understand. They only survive because they are in a corner and Carthage is busy fighting the rest of the world. Egypt takes away their best territory in the first few moves.
2. Spain--Gaul usually hammers them if I don't get their first. They are in a precarious spot, as you learn from playing as them.
3. Carthage/Seleucids--While not weak in their own right, each has a high likelihood of getting knocked out early. Carthage succumbs in its fight vs. the world. The Seleucids get hammered by Egypt and opportunists.

Strongest:
1. The Roman factions since they play as a team
2. Egypt
3. Gaul

[Tzar Kaloyan]

Yep, Spain is tough at first, but if you survive the original onslaught of the Julii, it gets much easier due to its location on the map. I am playing a fun campaign as Spain and have written about my experience in the guides section.

Strange to find Numidia among the 'weaklings'. From my experience from three campaigns (never as them), they always do well under the AI. Plus, there are some rebel cities you can take control of pretty quickly.

[DisruptorX]

Its the Gauls that trash spain, not the Julii. If you can bribe off the Gauls armies so that they literally can't declare war on you, you can eventually get strong enough to fight. Otherwise, they will crush you.

[Red Harvest]

Strange to find Numidia among the 'weaklings'. From my experience from three campaigns (never as them), they always do well under the AI. Plus, there are some rebel cities you can take control of pretty quickly.

Granted, in AI hands they get the opportunity to build up some trade and capture some rebel cities because of Carthage's giant bullseye, and because Egypt is busy killing off the Seleucids. Numidia doesn't get targeted early (unless the human is playing as them), because Carthage is juicier. Numidia starts with an economy in the red and finds it hard to get enough economic traction to field any real armies. They can and do take advantage of small opportunistic targets. Egypt targets Siwa early but that leaves a "buffer zone" of rebel provinces. The Scipii (after dealing with Carthage) often start taking the former rebel provinces the Numidians have acquired. While Numidia might survive awhile, it appears to be more of a lack of interest by Egypt et al. rather than any ability to defend themselves.