Quote Originally Posted by TKaz84 View Post
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 ;)