Saxons (BI faction)

[Random Dude]

I just tried playing the Saxons. I first took the Rebel town to the SE, and when I went to the SW town, the Romans had already taken it. However, they rebelled soon after, and I allied with the WRE Rebels in order to have that boarder somewhat protected from the Romans (which worked, as the Romans unsuccessfully seiged that town many times through the campaign, ignoring Vicus Saxones completely). So, then i built a strong army, strengthened my navy, and sent my faction heir over into Britain. I conquered Londinium with ease, and had a pretty good economy after that. I also allied with the Celts to gain support against the Romans. So, I retrained my army in Londinium, and started to build some levies to defend while I was to go to Eburacum. However, my economy started to go way downhill, and I was actually losing money every turn. So that pretty much forced me to go to Eburacum with a smaller army than I would've hoped. I got crushed by the Romans there, and now Londinium is on the brink of rebelling.

I think that if I had gone for Eburacum first, I could've had an easier time in Britain. Or perhaps I should've gone west in Europe first. Thoughts?

[Deus ret.]

forget eburacum, take londinium and exterminate it. once it is a large city, it'll be your main asset since vicus saxones is under permanent threat from some horde or another most of the time and can't produce too many units for the war in the west...in addition, eburacum would make you, not the romans the prime target for the celts. in my game, I took londinium and waited for the celts and romans to battle it out. both of them had more than a full stack while my somewhat crappy army consisted of some keels, hunters and spearmen with very limited cav support, and no funds for more troops were available.... the romans and celts even were allied for some time but just be patient and wait it out. they'll go to war sooner or later.
so the celts took eburacum, annihilated the respectable roman army and lost the greatest part of theirs. so far so good, but then the romano-brits appeared and headed straight for me instead of going after the celts. they got crushed when they assaulted londinium though (don't meet them in a field battle, their heavy cavalry will likely chew you) and afterwards it was no big deal to wipe the weakened celts off britain.
londinium is not really a problem to hold unto; besides the usual strategic (anti-CP) build policy, simply spam a horde of peasants as garrison units and you should be fine.

as for the spearmen, I definitely agree with Zorn. they come with 4exp (wodan) and basic upgrades and they simply ROCK.120 men, low upkeep...perfect garrison troops with an edge! with shield wall turned on, those nice little buggers are guaranteed to repay for their cost, and they're also excellent troops for emergency missions due to their rather high attack rate. not to mention their pila which hurt like hell! and if they die, well, they're more than easily replaced. when defending londinium against the romano-brits they were my winners since I didn't have any hearths or axes with me, and on the walls they distinctly outclassed the keels.

[Deus ret.]

oh, and take samarobriva ASAP, this will solve your financial problems if you already occupy londinium. another issue is to keep the Romans out, but with the additional funds this should be no problem

[Shabbaman]

I just finished my first successful BI campaign. After a failed attempt with the Lombardi (no gold...) I tried the Saxons. My main objective for the game was to capture Frisia, since I'm Frisian. To my dismay the WRE got there first... When they sent an army towards Tribus Chatti (which I conquered instead), I decided to attack them. They were weaker than I thought. The main problem was that they had already allied with the Burgundii and the Frankii, so I had to keep a large garrison in my heartland.
I had a hard time to keep up financially. Because the Romans weren't pushing, and they didn't want to sign peace, I went for some Roman cities: Colonia Agrippina and Augusta Treverorum. I thought Cologne would make a decent income, but it didn't. Trier was a little bit better, but it made up for it: the barracks there allowed me to build Saxon hearth troops (and chosen axe, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't even try them). After that, it was a walk in the park.

Later on I noticed that Samarobriva was the cash cow I should've gone for first.