Goths (BI faction)

[rvg]

Is it really necessary to horde at the beginning? I always hate giving up dacia, simply because there is so much arable land there (seriously, build some farms and watch the entire province sprout fields. It is an incredibly rich province, and the capital, so giving it up seems a waste unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.

All depends on whether or not you can withstand the (almost inevitable)Hunnic/(frequent)Vandal/(sometimes)Sarmatian assaults on Dacia. If you can beat them, you'll be fine where you are. Otherwise it makes sense to pack up and leave.

[Ozzman1O1]

dont forget those blasted Roxalanis!

[Renco]

My strategy centres rather heavily around my style of play. Start with building economic buildings and build enough of a garrison for two towns. Then, when the hordes come, abandon starting settelment. Become a horde of your own. Get all your horse archers into one group, with about 6 left over to merge when you sustain casualites. Then just pick off the vandals one by one. You can take down 2 horde armies with one horse archer army on H/H at a stretch and come out with a 7% casualty rate on your side.

On my own campaign, I beat the Vandals using this method. I didn't want to settle yet though, as the Hun were still rolling around at full strength. They were currently sieging the Sarmatia town to Goth's right. So I allied with Sarmatia (for a hefty sum :D) and just stood my HA army on the bridge. Huns re-seiged, I sided with Sarmatia and went to war with the Huns. They sent roughly two half armies at a time at me on the bridge. So I would slay 10 units with arrows, then the reinforcements would get there and I would kill another 8 and run down the rest with a proud general. After a crushing defeat, that same turn the Huns would send another set of the same. With new arrows my men put them to shame. The Huns lost 80% of their military strength that turn. I lost a total of 500 men out of 1700.

The above strat has worked twice for me. Once it failed though. Still, it is highly recommended, as after defeating the immediate hordes the world is a ripe plum on a Roman platter for the Goths.

[RobInconformista]

Is it really necessary to horde at the beginning? I always hate giving up dacia, simply because there is so much arable land there (seriously, build some farms and watch the entire province sprout fields. It is an incredibly rich province, and the capital, so giving it up seems a waste unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.

People have succeeded fighting off the hordes, but the Goths don't want the WRE & ORE to consolidate, so hording and joining the mayhem is probably more fun for most, rather than trying to defend against the Huns or Vandals.

Looking at the faction, trying to retain the settlement and build economically, I converted to Paganism (so the heir meets the leader, takes the income boosting retinue, the church is demolished, the pagan spy remains in province, the christian diplo crosses the borders and a shrine to Agni built, soon few christians remain so unrest plummets). The rebel settlement is captured and the faction leader then takes merc horse archers off on a tour building watch towers etc, staying in the 100% pagan province, whilst spies give early horde warning.
The Christian diplo, goes off to get trade rights and map info swap with the ERE, then to Aquincum to get tradewith WRE, they wanted to sell me for an exhorbitant amount map info, so that was declined.
Now I've seen the Vandals transgress but decide to follow the road westwards, whilst the Huns follow them to my north, but may try and sack the Sarmatian's capital.
I almost had the finance sorted, but once I'd got 2nd level Grove of Agni up, I've prepared defences against a Hun arrival. From forum posts, it's possible to defend but difficult, I am using the rebel province as source of population by shipping peasants, so I can choose to abandon it, with plan of hording with a larger population later on. The captial is over 12,000 and new gov buildings gone in, to try to raise population yet further so I have a choice of hording or mopping up post-horde rebel settlements.
It's a bit strange, not doing much, I'd likely be more comfy as one of the Roman Empires with more to do, or doing the horde route.
There's announcements about the ERE & Sarmatians fighting, but I have no idea how they got involved as I appear to be a buffer state. Also unfortunately on first mission, spying a Hun stack, my pagan spy was killed failing, reducing opportunity to cause unrest in the civilised christian south to help prepare Romans for their new Gothic Architecture ;)