Goths (BI faction)

**Sir William Wallace** · 10-03-2005, 19:25

Ok, the Goths are pretty tricky to play. First you start off with low public order, a blue face appears. You need to build a religious building your first turn to get it up to green. You also start off with no defences so I suggest building a fence/wall within your first turn. This will come in handy very soon, as the Vandals and/or Huns will come and invade your primary settlement within the first 10-12 turns in my experience so far. However, if the Vandals and/or Huns invade the Sarmatians first, you will have a few extra turns to build up your defences and your army. This will also bring the Samartians in as a roaming horde headed at your settlement. (I am not at home right now so once i get home i will make this much more detailed). Secondly on your first turn, I suggest taking over the settlement directly to the left of your starting settlement. This will allow you to concentrate on building money making buildings once you have built some basic defenses on it (you will need it them to give yourself a fighting chance and a sanctuary to retreat to once the hordes come). Once you have gotten the queues filled, send out your diplomat, trying to make alliances first then trade rights right after with them. I have found you can get 4-5 alliances/trade rights fairly quickly within the first 5-6 turns. Also within the first 10 turns you should have a son or 2 come of age and a marriage celebration, leaving you with 4 or 5 generals to start off with and combat the hordes. When building up your stockpile of units, go for the units that will give you numbers,(ie) peasants, spearmen) by the time the first wave of hordes come you will be severly outnumbered. You can build a blacksmith and retrain everyone so the peasants won't be entirely useless. I will be adding more tonight when i can get into some more detail for you guys.

**Sir William Wallace** · 10-03-2005, 19:32

does anyone mind if i add more? im not sure if it is ok to post like that in here? i apologize if i wasn't supposed to. I'm just really interested in succeeding with the Goths.

**Theodoret** · 10-03-2005, 22:24

I certainly don't mind. My Goths got pulverised after a few years (damn Huns) so I'm all ears.

**Rodion Romanovich** · 10-06-2005, 08:06

Edit: Oops double post, but it didn't appear at first... Sorry. I'm keeping the parts of this post that wasn't included in the below post, editing out the rest...

Some recommendations on troops: goth spearmen are very powerful! They're better than any roman, vandal or hun spearmen. Against roman heavy infantry they need a supporting cavalry charge to do well, but they hold their own for very long even without it. The raiders are VERY vulnerable to missiles, so if fighting enemy archery or missile cav, consider putting them behind the infantry when the enemy archery comes closer. But if their numbers are sufficient (3 units or more), they do quite well. The general's bodyguards will be key troops early in the campaign, to support the goth spearmen in their pinning actions. Hiring a few mercenary horse archers is also a good idea - 3 units of alan horse archers proved very effective in my fighting against the ERE - the early ERE seems to lack horse archers, and sometimes even archers at all. Mercenary bucellari are also interesting to consider. They're not much good in battles, but they have a sapping ability and are the cheapest mercenary units available that can sap.

**Rodion Romanovich** · 10-06-2005, 08:36

Looks like my very, very long post here just disappeared... I'm too lazy to rewrite all that, so here's a shorter version:
1. conquer Campus Iazyges on first turn. Don't invest too much in it, as you're going to give it up soon. Only build level 1 walls and perhaps a trader. It's supposed to be a money maker for you for a little while
2. try to get many alliances early. Most will probably be broken. Also try to ally yourself with one of the hordes if possible. That may delay them. I allied to the vandals, and it had that effect, but they eventually backstabbed me of course.
3. attack the ERE as quickly as possible. Use at least 4 goth spearmen, 3 raiders, some mercenary (alan) horse archers, some general's units and a unit of mercenary bucellari. The latter is hired merely for it's sapping ability, makes assaults easier. Your first target is the city of Sirmium, then move on to Constantinople. Exterminate both cities, or low loyalty might lead to the appearance of the ostrogoths. Their appearance can sometimes be good for you, as they'll, once you retake Sirmium that they appeared in, move west and weaken the WRE, but not making them appear at all is IMO a wiser thing to do. If you conquered Constantinople and Sirmium quickly enough, you should be ready before the hordes arrive at your starting cities. You can then even train a good defensive garrison in Constantinople and Sirmium and then conquer Thessalonica and then move the main army back north to deal with the hordes, and in the meantime have trained a nearly full army (if you use mercenaries too) in your starting city. Now you only have to choose between two strategies:
a. split up your army in Provincia Dacia between that city and Campus Iazyges, and make the huns and/or vandals assault, then do as much damage as possible to them during the siege defenses, but be prepared to give up the settlements.
b. give up one of the cities by putting peasants only and no good troops in it (preferably Campus Iazyges), and have your full or nearly full army in your capital, and try to manage to completely repel the assaults of the horde/hordes, if they'd attack there. The hordes may ignore the city instead, and instead capture Campus Iazyges, so it's not a safe thing to do if you don't want to lose Campus Iazyges.
c. combine a or b with sending your main army from the south, perhaps reinforced by troops from the Sirmium garrison, to relive any sieges made by the hordes. But this is risky, as you may lose this important main army in such a fight. I recommend using a or b, then letting the hordes exhaust themselves in the assault/assaults, and move in the main army from the south to strike only if the hordes are weakened enough by the assaults.
d. don't care about the north, and continue conquering in Greece. The hordes will bother your capital and Campus Iazyges, but most likely continue westwards and fight the WRE and others, and thus help you in a way. But it's hard to predict exactly what they'll do, so this method can result in a risk losing Sirmium. Constantinople they'll probably not succeed in taking, and if they assault Sirmium they'll take huge casualties, so it's not a strategy that'll lead to a risk losing the entire campaign.
4. once you've dealt with the hordes or have let them pass, you can go on the offensive. If you're short of money, exterminate some cities, but it's probably not necessary at this stage to do so with more than perhaps 1 or 2 cities. Your economy should be so steady that you can train all the armies you want, so the rest should be easy, especially if you weakened the hordes. Remember to keep armies to defend your homelands while going on the offensive, and you should be fine.
5. the following campaign could be played in a number of different ways. There are several things to consider
a. Sarmatians - attacking their city would wipe them out as a possible future threat, but make them a horde that'll probably try to settle in your other home provinces. Not attacking them could make them a huge threat in the future.
b. ERE - should you cross the Bosphorus and hunt down the last of them? I suggest not, it would only result in getting a border to the sassanids or other difficult opponents. Instead the ERE should be made an ally or protectorate if possible. If they aren't dealt with, however, it's necessary to maintain armies in the Constantinople area and so on to defend against counter-attacks. I'd suggest punitive expeditions and then making them a protectorate. They're a good buffer zone. Perhaps one province east of the Bosphorus could be a good base to have.
c. the WRE - it's necessary to attack them because you need Rome. They'll have plenty of trouble from all their wars, so they should be easy to strike, and methodically conquering their settlements one by one should be possible. The problem might perhaps be if they're so weakened that the other barbarians are strengthened and end up threatening you. I suggest conquering mainly the eastern parts of the WRE, and not touching the rest of their empire. In order to get the needed 16 provinces, you can go into the Switzerland area late in the campaign if needed.

**Dubius Cato** · 10-06-2005, 18:30

My strategy as Goths is quite different, although it has its own complications. Because I cannot build ports as Goths (?) I started a great trek east, then went south into Armenia, through the Sassanid lands, through the Arabian desert and into Egypt, and finally to Carthage and into the Berber lands. I decided to forge an Empire in Africa, with carthage as its centre city. On the way, I avoided conflict until I entered Egypt and sacked Alexandria. AI avoids war with a four stack horde too, and they didn't dare to attack me on the way. It was quite eerie to see the ERE "escorting" me with full stacks through their southern lands (it was like they knew what I was up too ;) ), but I managed to block them at a bridge and forced them to take a southern ford over the Nile. At that time, I struck Alexandria.

After that, I settled in carthage and attacked the Berbers. During all the time I spent trekking around, the Franks managed to conquer a sizable Empire and already have Rome.

My strategy was: Conquering the Berber cities while at the same time going searaiding undefended cities from east and west empires. With that money, I take on the ERE in Egypt and maybe the holy land/Levant area. The Islands are a target too, as is Iberia. When I had enough provinces, I wanted to go for Rome and Constantinople at the same time and win!

Now I think I will try to attack Italy first, to keep the Franks from winning.

As BI seems to have a completely different balancing than RTR (what I played before) even the Berbers seem to be a challenge now as a Goth horde. I suffered a sizable defeat against them, and lost many horde units and all of my precious foot archers. In the end, I won with a second stack through sheer numbers.

I have the impression that christianity is a must for the goths, as they are short on happiness/health buildings. Which is a pity, as I wanted to go for human sacrifices one more ... maybe I mod the health buildings in.

**teja** · 10-14-2005, 20:13

Gothic Way in BI

I did very well with my Goths. I like their units well. My main experiences are that you have to turn into a HORDE after a few ticks. I used the main tips I made for the Frankish fraction which can be found here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...458#post955458

The key to my strategy is what I called Blitzkrieg above.

It was my goal to avoid the main Horde way west like Vandals, Huns and Sarmatians did. No wonder that I went into Greece. First I plundered Salona and besieged Thessalonica. Some times I travelled apart of enemy Hordes, and plundered some cities several times. I think that I did this with Salona 4 times during the game.
Well behind Macedonia there is not much resistance. It is easy to plunder Athens (I thought about settling in there and move across the water into Italy, but that does not work. Your navy sucks, Rebels rule the sea and you cannot improve navy installations!). So I turned against Constantinople and got a lot of money there.
Meantime other Hordes had overrun the Danube Rivers defension of the WRE and Illyrian. I marched through that lands and plundered the Rebels here and there on my way to Italy. Here the WRE defends Milano very hard, but has only small garrisons in other cities south of it (compare with my Frankish thread). While go into position at Milano, the Vandals came in there too. They fought some WRE units and suffered some losses. I helped them to manage the big WREs packs there too and allied up with them. Finally I was the one that could lay siege at Milano first and the Vandals started unwilling to move to Gaul.
I did not trust them and got right. While I besieged Ravenna, they declared war at me but did not approach me in a reasonable way. I decided to force them out of Italy. I stormed the bridge in the Alps between Gaul and Italy under Vandal fire and took position with an army there. My force was bigger, but the coming Vandal attack used much more men I had at this location. But I defended this bridge well. Due their losses against others and me they had only 2 small packs left. I used a proper cavalry army to pursuit them into Gaul. In several battles I forced them over the Spanish borders where I knocked them finally out.
The war with the Vandals changed my plans. I started to siege Ravenna, Rome and Tarentum while I fought the Vandals. Because I could not make a new home and loose my armies during a hard war. So I delayed this besieging operations several times (breaking the siege and start it again in the same tick). Because I went into Spain pursuiting the Vandals I pillaged Tartassos, Arles and Marseille on my way back, while other small forces pillaged Augusta and Carnutum in the north.
This way I had around 170000 Denari when I finally took Rome, Tarentum and Ravenna in the same tick, starting immediately to build forces.

Huge stacks of farmers and some good units scared away the Sarmations and Huns that tried to come into Italy while I build up. Easy to sack other cities like Milano, Arles and Marseille from the Rebels. This time my initial province Dakia made a rebellion to my favour, but I was not able to keep it and moved my forces out into Macedonia. A rebellion there established the Ostrogoths in Dacia.
Because nobody took the once pillaged areas of Greece and Macedonia I did it with my forces out of Dacia and some reinforcements. Later I took Constantinople with them too, but there was often a problem with Rebels and other tribes at the Balkans.
To improve my purse I made a few ships and snaked into Sardinia and later Sicily to made them become my own. This was a very good move. This helped me to establish trade routes to the Berbers who owned all northern Africa but Egypt and filled my now absolutely empty purse again. I made peace with ERE now, because they had left nothing in Europe. To trade with Berbers and ERE made me strong again. To get the missing provinces for my victory conditions I only had to take over some provinces at the Balkans and Gaul mostly from Rebels, but also from Langobards and Ostrogoths. Nastiest moment was when the Huns tried to come into Italy. Fortunally they fought long and hard before this against the WRE in northern Gaul and kicked the Alamanni out of the game. So their forces still where dangerous but no match for my generals and their proven forces. All my field armies where made in Ravenna, Milano or Rome and had at least 3 veteran points and or silver shields/weapons or both while building. So I killed the Huns Horde and won the game ;)

**CXA** · 10-24-2005, 19:30

I have only begun, but have been lucky enough to Horde on turn one and march my way to Rome. I sacked a couple fo cities on the way. I currently own all of Italy and am moving slowly west. Other then the Oster....(sp) I have had no real threats. They have taken over most of WRE and have attacked me with some pretty huge armies. While taking them on on my own land I have taken a smaller army west into their heart and exterminated some weak cites. Use the next turn to repair my whole army then sell ALL buildings. Then march to find the next victim (city). This is slowing them down and I will soon go for their throat. I have been lucky as other Hordes have shown their faces but have yet to march into my land. I really like to keep a good network of towers and spys to keep a good eye on all my neighbors. Money and happiness are good. Waiting to see who the next real threat will be!!