What faction is the best for me?

[Magraev]

Hi all

My R:TW gaming has entered a new era - moving in with my new girlfriend leaves me with far less time to play, and I want to get the most of it.

So - I'm starting a new game today (she's at work till late you see...). What faction should I choose?

I want to play a slow turtling type game on m/m. So I want a faction that doesn't have to grow too fast at first (like the seleucids seem to do - my usual favorites). I like a mix of missiles, inf and cav, but I'll go with what you decide is best.

I'm considering the following:

• A) Carthage - Drop Spain and Caralis, take Sicily and subjugate the Numidians, but avoid excessive growth.
  
• B) Greece - Ideally taking Corinth and Athens and no more (at first anyway).
  
• C) Sassanids - Taking Antioch, and the ERE-cities south of that. (yes - I have BI...)
  
• D) Other ideas?

Please help me decide

[TinCow]

I voted Sassanid thinking it read Selucid. The best 'turtle' games I have had so far have been the ones where I took the Selucids and sailed them to Britain, abandoning the Middle East. This provides and interesting challenge in the beginning just getting them there without going broke and then beating the Britons. However, once you have done this you have four cities, three of which will almost certainly be VERY primitive and your expansion will eventually come up against the Romans.

These games essentially have a few phases for me:
1) Holding the line in the starting cities without building much at all while my starting family members + a few other units sail to Ireland.
2) Taking all of the British Isles and letting the remaining Middle East cities fall.
3) Building up the British cities.
4) Expanding on the continent, soon encountering Rome.

I've always massively enjoyed these games. It's nice to have a 'civilized' non-Roman faction in Europe.

[econ21]

Why would you want to drop your Spanish territories as Carthage? I found that faction one of the most fun in the early game as you are trying to hold on to a sprawling divided kingdom against multiple threats. Without trying to hold Spain, it would be too easy - surely? Turtling is most fun when you are vulnerable and the AI is out to get you (like HRE in MTW and Oda in STW).

For a turtling game, I'd recommend the WRE and ERE in BI but I guess you've played them already? I had a fun game as WRE where I disallowed myself from destroying any buildings or taking any non-Roman cities. That way you have a tight budget and keep your near neighbours as threats as well as the looming hordes.

Have you tried Rome Total Realism? I prefer it to vanilla as the combat is slower and the balance of arms/units etc feel more authentic. I've had a lot of fun as Rome in that game - especially taking a historical core (ie half allies and not too many of the amazing Principes). Playing as Rome is the opposite of turtling - as you start with 2 provinces - but it sure is slow and epic.

[Magraev]

Thanks for the ideas.

I want to limit the number of cities in my empire since that gives me a more personal feel for each one. Hence abandoning some as Carthage. Carthage have the potential for great units and may be an option. Rome on the other hand is not - I'm sick of the roman factions, and the senate would resent my turtling ways...

The idea of taking the boat to Britain is a great one! I think I might try that. Would I lose if each of my eastern cities are lost before I arrive?

[econ21]

There's no Senate in RTR (at least as of 6.0) - if you haven't tried it, you should look into it. Have a look at the new unit skins on their webpage and I defy you to tell me it is not worth investigation. Plus the combat is very different from vanilla - the balance of arms (missiles, cavalry etc) is very different and it plays at MTW speed. The whole package raised RTW from being rated a "6/10" by me to being a "9/10".

Carthage or Greece in RTR might be fun.

[Magraev]

Thanks for the advice about RTR. I'll give it a try when they come out with a 1.3 edition (or maybe sooner if that is unlikely).

[TinCow]

[edit] Doh, didn't see that you had already started before posting this.

The idea of taking the boat to Britain is a great one! I think I might try that. Would I lose if each of my eastern cities are lost before I arrive?

Yep, and it gets VERY costly too. I recommend gathering all your family members together in Antioch, sail your one ship there and build at least two more to protect against pirates along the way. Pile all of your family members onto the boats and sail west. I've done this a few times and found the following things:

Bringing extra units with the family members is very useful, especially your starting elephants (they will only have wooden walls when you arrive) however it will dramatically increase your expenses in the long run. Don't take a massive army or you will go broke by the time you arrive and it is VERY hard to recover from a debt hole with no military and undeveloped cities.

Don't build much at all in your cities except commercial buildings and stone walls in Antioch. You want to accumulate gold, so be thrifty. Strengthen Antioch so that it can withstand multiple assaults, but do your best to defend the others with only your starting units. You will lose them eventually, but you should be able to hold Antioch until your fleet arrives in Britain.

Taking Ireland is very easy if you do not feel you can attack Britain straight off. However, Londinium is always the only decent city in the isles at that time and you would do MUCH better if you can somehow take that first. This can be difficult though depending on what the Britons have done and how large a force you brought.

When you have one city in Britain/Ireland, destroy all building in your Middle East territories, disband all units and send the family members who were born back there into suicide attacks.

Have fun!

[Magraev]

I did much of whatyou suggested actually. I arrived with 27 biremes (out of 80) so it could have been a disaster.

I actually had Salamis when I got to Ireland, since I tried sending two young family-members after the main fleet, but had to jump ship since the egyptians were everywhere. They took salamis with the aid of a band of pirates. When I made Tara my capital I got instant red heads in the east, but only salamis wasn't under siege at that time anyways.