Best faction for a new player?

**orwell** · 05-12-2006, 07:57

I'd say charge in as the Romani. What you don't know you'll pick up eventually. Or that's what I did.

**Equilibrium** · 05-12-2006, 08:30

Yup, rome is a good choice for a beginning eb player, but a good knowledge of vanilla rome doesn't hurt. The romans have a good economy and good beginning troops, not too many strong enemys around them, so yes a good starter's faction.

**Dayve** · 05-12-2006, 08:34

Rome, Ptolemaics or Carthage are good ones for any EB begginner.. You don't have to play vanilla before you jump into a mod really... Anything you don't get, just make a thread here and ask all your questions... We'll help you with them.

**econ21** · 05-12-2006, 09:16

Rome is good - a nice, small starting position so you are not swamped by micromanagement and choices. But obviously lots of potential and great freedom where to expland to. Plus you probably have a pretty intuitive feel for how their army should fight.

Read the gameplay guides - EB typically makes starting armies rather too large for a human to afford (the AI gets cash bonuses), so you may have to disband some stuff (your fleet?) to get your cashflow into the black.

The only downside of Rome ATM is that you have to put up with Greek voices and family members' faces.

**Rodion Romanovich** · 05-12-2006, 09:30

Rome is a good start, but just don't get shocked first time you meet the gaesatae, they're extremely powerful and should only be dealt with using triarii, javelin cavalry and more.

I think Makedonia is one of the easier factions. As Makedonia, first turn, disband most of the foot units you don't need for garrisons and save 2 hoplitai and 2 akontistai for your armies, also disband all of your fleet except a single ship. Same turn, send most of your cavalry, and the 2 akontistai and 2 taxeis hoplitai I mentioned above with one or two of your generals down to besiege Athens. Then move on and take Sparte. After that your annual income will go positive and the only problems you'll have after that are purely military. You start at war with Epeiros too, so the next step after conquering Sparte is to go back north and deal with Epeiros before they deal with your weak garrisons in your northern cities. After that you can choose between offensive or defensive, both options are possible as you have a pretty solid economy. I find the other factions in EB difficult due to the weaker economy they have, so I guess Makedonia could be a good faction to start with.