I was bored last night. I had been traveling for 7 hours straight on a bus, readung Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" and i had felt the need for some TW, but my crappy laptop can't run Europa Barbarorum and definitely can't run MTW2. So, onward to vanilla RTW!

I could have continued with my Brutii save. I actually loaded it - hello! 7 star general, a full stack of pricipes/veites/cavalry, knocking on Macedonia's door. The most profitable greek cities were mine. Naval supperiority was mine. And i had 11,000 denarii in the treasury, even with all my cities stacked with completely full build ques. Not that there's no challange... But i was bored.

The Seleucids were also a possiblity, but those slow phalanxes and the horrible mobility in the vastly spread out empire was too time consuming for me. I felt that i just wanted to conquer, pure and simple. Unhindered by terrain, slow units, long battles where i sit and wait for the AI to impale itself on my pikes or pilli. I thought - wouldn't it be nice to emulate the Barbarian Invasion horde factions in goold old RTW? Just massess of horses and plowing trough the civilized countries?

It would be! And so i started with the Scythians, and boy did i have fun! Of course, i hate that RTW vanilla makes the barbarian factions look like neanderthals in the late game - city after city rebelling due to lack of peace buildings and squalor. So even though i started a long campaing, I told myself i want to conquer Macedonia, Greece and the romans. Once i sacked rome, burned it down and massacred it's population, then perhaps I'd feel good enough and just leave it at that.

So, first thing's first, I looked around my starting settlements - a few measly huts and an outhouse is hardly a city. The territories are vast but poor, however they are bordering the black sea. Here is what i did:

Disbanded all the Archer Warbands but the ones that are with the faction leader (the upkeep is too high and they are not needed for anything but fighting Thrace).

On turn 1, i built roads everywhere. I set out with the faction leader and laid siege to the Thracian city south of Campus Schythi. I had placed my spy there beforehand and he had managed to open the gates, but i recruited the uinit of Thracian mercenaries the moment i laid siege to the town anyway (but not before, as they will slow down your stack and you will be unable to siege on turn 1). Next turn i killed the garrison and the Thracian faction heir with relative ease, even though Horse Archers don't shine in city battles.

I moved out my general (sititng on the bottom middle of your provinces, he has a goldsmith retinue) and grabbed some more HA's, and sent him to meet up in the newly conquered settlement with my goold ol' faction leader, who now had some pretty useful combat retinues. Meanwhile, the faction heir got some HA's and HA mercs and went North-East to take out the lonely Pontic settlement on the edge of the map - I'll be damned if i leave such a liability at my back. It took me a while to find the damn village (several turns worth of trudging trough darkness and sands).

Meanwhile, i've been growing my villages in to towns, getting ports, traders, markets and temples with +2 exp. That, combined with selling map info, trade rights and promises of attacking Thrace (which i did anyway) got me enough denarii to sustain myself. Onwards to the south and the taking of the Thracian capital (which is where my current day home town of Veliko Turnovo is at btw). The Thracian faction leader was kind enough to assault my general (who had exchanged retinues with the faction leader and was now a very good warlord) in an uphill battle. 2 units of thracian mercs and 2 archer warbands was all the non-cavalry i had. However, burning arrows + skirmish mode off on those archers make thracian jav cav in to burning piles of horse goo. Meanwhile my HA's were going back and forth, trying to take out these scary scary thracian infantrymen (forgot their name, but they wiled some nasty scythes). It was a close battle, some of my units routed but that warlord's stack i had plowed trough so many peltasts... He got several chevrons right in to the battle.

Overall, after i won the Thracian capital fell in one turn and the faction was vanquished by turn 4 or 5. Sadly i had to stop playing the game at that point, but i will keep you guys posted once i get some more free time. My next immediate targets are: getting Byzantium from the rebels to complete my dominance of the Western shores of the Black Sea (that trade agreement with Armenia really helps your economy btw, be sure to get it asap). Then plowing trough the Macedonians, although it will take numbers to deal with their good melee cavalry. The Greeks will be a piece of cake IF i can get them to come out of their cities. I do not want to be fighting hoplites among the narrow streets of Sparta. Then.. It's good night Romans! Pre-Marian legions can't use testudo, and pre-Marian archers can't decimate my HA's. Good luck to them i say.