Worst faction?

[Al Khalifah]

I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but here goes:

Which is the worst faction in R:TW ?

For me it would have to be Britain. There doesn't seem to be anything that they do well and they just feel really disapointing to play. My list of grievances:
No foot archers
No horse cavalry
No siege equipment
Minor city maximum settlement level
No heavy infantry
Weak navy
Only 1 mercanery unit on homeland (that they can recruit anyway)

All this faction seems to do is chariots and to be honest, they're nothing special. They seem to totally rely on strategy and generalship to get anywhere. I also find myself using lots of mercs just to get by - especially Barbarian cavalry. The loss of Belgica really could finish the Britains off since no barbarian cavalry mercs can be recruited in Britain.

[player1]

Chosen Swordsmen is hardly bad heavy infantry.

And it's the barbarian faction that can get it most quickly, since they have temples that give health bonus, and thus growth.

Good thing with britons is that they are set up that way that they have thier backs covered, so they can focus on conquest more easily. No wonder why briton AI almost always beats german and later gaul AI.

[Coldfish]

i haven`t played RTW....since may...i`m not feeling in the mood to play,when i know soon it will appear R:TW-BI ....but to respect the topic....i would say Gaul is the weakest from your point of view...followed by Dacia and Numidia

[player1]

And chariots with archers are handy.
It's not HA though, but it's something.

[Marcellus]

I would say Britain also. Their tech tree is pretty poor, and their range of units is hardly amazing.

[IliaDN]

There is a thread on this topic, so if you are interested, you may check " What is the worst faction in your opnion?" ( or something like that ).

[Mikeus Caesar]

I would say the generic barbarian factions, Briton, Gaul and Dacia. So bland. The only thing that saves Gaul is the Archers, and Dacia the Falxmen. With Briton, those temples with health bonuses are handy, as it does allow them to upgrade quicker, but apart from that, all 3 of those factions are utter crap.

My warning level is 2!! Finally!! I am a good person, see!?

[Al Khalifah]

I would say the generic barbarian factions, Briton, Gaul and Dacia.

I think you hit the nail on the head with the problem there Mikeus - some factions in R:TW are just so GENERIC and completely lack any character at all. Not only does this make them hideously boring and repetitive to play, it makes them rubbish in combat as well.

I've actually noticed a correlation, the further a faction gets from the South-East of the map (in general) the more generic and boring it seems to get. All 7 wonders of the world are in the SE too. Compare Egypt, Seleucid Empire, Parthia to Britain, Gaul, Germania.

I don't understand how the designers thought that if Britain had developed well enough as a civilisation to have conquered Rome, Germania, Gaul and Iberia (like I have done) it would have kept the exact same set of units as when it was just in control of Britain. Surely it would have adopted units from these factions into their own line up.
Also, for Britain to have dominion over these vast lands, surely for pure logistical purposes they wouuld have had to adopt better road systems and larger cities. A permanent empire of such size would surely have otherwise folded.

[antisocialmunky]

What about Numida? You're the guardians of about 2000 square miles of sand? You jsut run around in the middle of nothing since your cities are so far apart.

[Mikeus Caesar]

What about Numida? You're the guardians of about 2000 square miles of sand? You jsut run around in the middle of nothing since your cities are so far apart.

Oh dear god no, please don't remind me of that!! I tried playing a Numidian campaign once, it was unbearable!! It takes years to get anywhere!! And by time you get some where, Carthaginians and Romans and Spanish have crept around your attacking armies and defeated you.

[Kekvit Irae]

Gauls? Weakest? Maybe at the very start when the forces are spread out, but consolidate and march on Rome, and you have a force to be reckoned with (read my post in the Gaul thread in the RTW Guides for more info).

I would have to go with Numidia for worst faction. Look at them, they border Egypt and Carthage! If that doesnt spell doom, I dont know what does.

[King of Atlantis]

I would say numidia. They dont really have anything that great. The have their javlemen, but the dont have anything that can fight close range.

[Garvanko]

Its pointless playing Numidia. Utterly pointless.

Britons are OK. And they have a decent yet challenging roster of units.

[Conqueror]

The point of playing Numidia is for the challenge. It's quite nice actually, to have to make do without any elite units at all.

[Silver Rusher]

Well the most boring to play as imo is Scythia. (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn)

But that weakest has to be Numidia. The people who have posted in this thread seem to be divided between those two ideas.

[King of Atlantis]

sychtia is fun to play in rtr, but i have never seen numidia fun to play. I'm really glad EB chopped um.

[steve]

I think the Brits are a great faction to play... i would say the worst would be Numida

[pezhetairoi]

Numidia! At least the Britannic saving grace is chariotry...

Numidia is OMG. What, you start out with complete s*** troops called javelinmen that just toss toothpicks at everyone that hurts no one? It takes you forever to get desert infantry, and it takes you FOREVER (with underline) to get ANYWHERE, Carthage included! Let's face it... if you're an early-stage campaigner who just plays campaigns in the early stage to see how efficient you are at starting up, for Macedon you can stop at the Balkans, for the Julii at Gaul, for the Egyptians at half the Seleucid Empire... for the Numidians? If you can even reach Carthage you're good. Jeez. I'm so glad Bartix replaced Numidia in EB.

[Norxis]

Alright, I agree that playing as the Britains are annoying (especially the chariot generals - I hate chariot generals, they die far to easily), and numidia, why bother.

But one faction I've always disliked is the Greek cities - why? every single army ends up looking the damn same! a line of hoplites, with a couple of units of really bad cavalry - boring. At least then hellenistic factions have pikemen and more range of cavalry, makes things bit more entertaining. Usually what makes a faction bad to me is a lack of troop variety, with little hope of getting lots better troops as you progress in the game - thats why I love the Romans and Selucids so much.

[pezhetairoi]

Chariot generals die real fast because of defence skill being 1.

I guess it's a tradeoff for HP extras, but HPs are useless when you run through them so fast anyway. I'd rather giving them the standard general's cavalry attributes in the hope that they survive longer.

Also the fact that their units are armoured, but their chariots are not. And once the chariots die, so do the entire crew. So I always mod the chariot mount stats up. Which is, of course, to my immense disadvantage since right now I'm not using them, I'm facing them.

[Gaius Magnus]

I started a Numidian campaign once.....

[Papewaio]

My Criteria: The worst faction is the easiest to win with.

[King of Atlantis]

The only way i can ever lose in rtw is SQUALOR!

I think it's stupid that the only challenge in the game is someones citzens trashing their own cities.

[pezhetairoi]

Quite true.

Papewaio, if you're going to say the worst faction is the easiest to win with, then I suppose Eggy has a good running for it which I fully agree with. And perhaps, also the HA factions...? That seems a little more dodgy. Depends on whether you're talking about easy to 'win' as in gain final 50-victory/world domination victory, or 'win' as in pass the point of strategic domination where there is really no faction left in the world that can pose a major threat to you?

[Spartiate]

Egypt get my vote as the worst faction.Just so unrealistic to take apart Roman Cohorts with those Axemen with no bloody armour.The Numidians are the most frustrating i think but i did enjoy the challenge.You need to rely on a lot of mercs to get anywhere but once you capture a few developed cities the Numidian Legionaries make adequate line infantry backed up by archers and flanked by barb cav.It's fun to have to use tactics again.
I agree that the Gauls,Britons,Dacians and Germans are boring and the same with the Greeks for lack of variety but not just as annoying as the damn Egyptian with their invincible units.In RTR they are replaced with the(correct) Ptolemic Empire and are more enjoyable to play with and against.

[Viking]

Numidia got those freakin` cool legionaers people, don`t forget that! But appart from that are they an utterly boring faction.

The definition of a bad faction lies in its unit roster:

Thrace,Numidia, Dacia and Gaul=boring(few (unique) units)

Britannia=boring(no cavalry? That sucks!)

Egypt=boring(these units are the ugliest to be found in RTW)

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah, too bad you can't lead enemy armies around the desert so they roast to death as the Numidians, it would provide for a good LOL factor.

I take it back about Numidia because Egypt, while playable, is GAY! They kill all the interesting factions and have enough money to bribe every single thing on the map.

Atleast with the Numidians you can joke about melting all your sand down to create giant convex lenses and burn the Romans like ants. Freaking Numidian superweapon.

[pezhetairoi]

...lol.

Egypt? In my game it's now not as bad because the Axemen have been modded to 3 armour. So Numidia now takes the cake because there's nothing I can do about them to make them less...erm...underpowered.