Best RTW Faction NOT INCLUDING ROMANS

[beans_on_toast]

So ive completed the campaign with the House of Julii, and im looking to start a campaign with a different faction, but after looking for a suitable faction, It seems the only factions with any decent units are the romans, I love the greeks so I started playing with them but found out they have crappy units, anyone else find this?

Which brings me to the question, whats the best non-roman faction in RTW? by 'best' I mean with the greater units etc..

[The Stranger]

i'd say the seleucids based on the units they have...even though they get them late

[The Spartan (Returns)]

gaul,britons,germania,seleucids,carthage,greeks,macedon,egypt,perhaps parthia, armenia and pontus.

[Wingman]

Tough call. I agree with you about the Greeks. I'm playing a campaign with them right now and the lack of anything except better and better phalanx spears to look forward to gets a tad monotonous, though they really quite good. I'd say the Carthaginians, as they have a balanced and good-looking infantry along with the potential to train elephants. Seleucids suffer too much from the same monotony as the Greeks. Sure they have a wonderful range of units at the higher levels, but most of the game will be played with uninteresting pikemen levies.

[Andres]

Carthage is difficult, because you'll have to deal with the Romans in the very beginning of your campaign.

The Egyptian campaign turned out to be very easy, even playing on H/H. Tons of money and superior units. I feel they are the easiest faction to campaign with.

Germania turned out to be pretty difficult: money problems and almost immediately at war with the Gaul and Brittons. When the Julii started to attack me, I had a very hard time. It was one of my hardest short campaigns ever, even on M/M.

Enjoy trying out all the factions!

Oh, and welcome to the Org, fellow "junior" member.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

Carthage is a bit easy. use those elephants to your benefits and make sure they dont die. vital for easy wins against the Romans.

[Oaty]

Well IMO the Gauls are ripe for a cakewalk campaign VH campaing/normal battles.

Anyways plenty of cities to help you kickstart a massive economy. Plus there good units are much lower on the tech tree. And vs Romans just the plain old warbands are'nt a joke as long as you can match them 1-1 ratio in number of units on the field. The main fact is that a warband is 1 and a half times larger than a cohort so thin yr line and block the units near yr main point of assault

[stalin]

The greek cities have heavy peltrasts. Those bad boys rock with a little armor/weapon upgrade. My armies usually consist of 4 units of armored hoplites, max 2 units spartans, a unit of archers and about 10 units of heavy peltrastsand maybe greek cav (max one). Afer they throw their 8 javelins they go hand to hand while my phallanx units counter the cavalry/ act as reserve.

[Helgi]

Try adding Dimebago's XGM mod, The greeks in this, are kick ass, and will make things for Rome interesting

[Goalie]

Well first off the developers probably named the game ROME Total War for a reason. Armenia can put up a decent fight, they are very well rounded and cat archers are some tough dudes. I dont play campaign a ton anymore but seleucids can beat Rome even later in the game.

[IrishArmenian]

Look at my nam. No wat do you think I will say?*
Armenia obviusly.

[Goalie]

Well you could explain why you think that. Otherwise there isnt much point.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

Try adding Dimebago's XGM mod, The greeks in this, are kick ass, and will make things for Rome interesting

the only thing i dont like about XGM is the weird recruitment line ups. very confusing.

[roman pleb]

It's Germania!
An army composed of chosen axemen, spear warbands, chosen archer warbands, berserkers, warhounds, and barbarian noble cavalry can stand against the Romans and is interesting to play as.

[Ciaran]

I´d not say the Greek (the faction or the culture?) have crap units, it´s just that Phalanx units need a different tactical approach than the Roman cohorts/manipels. It takes a bit training to use them properly, but once you know how to use them properly you´ll be able to literally push every enemy off the map.
So, if you want to put up with using phalanxes, I´d suggest the Seleucids, they have a lot of provinces to start with so that you can afford to lose some battles at the start. Later in the game they also get a very nice Combined Arms army with pike phalanxes (to hold the line), Seleucid Legionaires (to do the killing and for siege assaults) and Cataphracts (heavy shock cavalry). Add to that chariots, elephants and (I think) Cataphract Camels (the latter two only in selected provinces) and they get even more appeal.
I´d suggest against the Egyptians, their main units are phalanx-style as well, but they aren´t that great stat-wise and you´ll probably get easily beaten. On the other hand, Egypt has a lot of rich and very much upgraded provinces, so you might be able to afford the losses.
I don´t know about the barbarian factions, I´ve yet to try them, but if you want to, I´d suggest Britain (so you won´t have to face their chariots).

[beans_on_toast]

Hey thanks for the advice everyone! I think Im going to go with the Seleucid Empire, mainly because they've got legionaires, But is there any way you can say give the Greeks legionaires and other kick ass roman units?

Is there a file that contains the info, becuase I know you can edit starting money, towns and units in the DESC_STRAT.txt file..

[gmjapan]

Armenia has Legionairres too, I would suggest playing them.

I had great fun on my Greek campaign, everyone was suitably hostile and devious towards me. I focused on capturing all of Sicily while I built better barracks / stables / ranges everywhere else. After Sicily I went straight to Croton in Italy and worked my way up. All my allies stabbed me in the back at somepoint.

Certain factions have too much starting money (and I dont mean the lump sum, I mean make too much money a turn) to make them hard; Egypt, Greeks, Selucid, Carthage.

[Ciaran]

Hey thanks for the advice everyone! I think Im going to go with the Seleucid Empire, mainly because they've got legionaires, But is there any way you can say give the Greeks legionaires and other kick ass roman units?

Is there a file that contains the info, becuase I know you can edit starting money, towns and units in the DESC_STRAT.txt file..

Yes, there is, for details how to add units (either completely new ones as well as shifting units between factions) I´d like to refer you to the respective tutorial in the Scriptorium subforum, you´ll find all questions answered there.

[Avicenna]

gaul,britons,germania,seleucids,carthage,greeks,macedon,egypt,perhaps parthia, armenia and pontus.

Not many factions you haven't mentioned

My advice is to download a mod, they're far far better than vanilla

[beans_on_toast]

thanks, the XGM mod looks amazing, im really looking forward to playing it, which one did you choose..(obviously i would post this in the appropriate forum, but I cant post anywhere else than here!!)

HZ plume
V plume
Bronze Plume
cant remember the other

I chose the Bronze plume, it makes the soldiers look like the ones from the old ancient greek films...

[Garvanko]

I love playing the Greeks and Macedon, especially with XGM. Both are centrally located, so you will come into contact with pretty much every culture before your campaign ends.

the only thing i dont like about XGM is the weird recruitment line ups. very confusing.

How so? I think alot of units are pretty much the same as what many other mods have adopted as well. And I also think DBH has implemented Area of Recruitment very well, and much better than most.

My advice is to download a mod, they're far far better than vanilla

Good advice, too.

Other excellent mods at the moment are Terrae Expugnandae 5.0 and Darth Mod 8. Both are getting excellent reviews at the moment. And both are lots of fun to play.

Other great factions to play: Try the Spanish - Bull Warriors and Scutarii rock.

[orangat]

RTW unlike BI has quite balanced factions. There are a whole bunch of somewhat evenly strong factions if you can exploit their strengths properly.

Germans are the best of the barbarians because of the low tech cheap phalanx (which other barbs don't have) so you can just churn them out and Gothic cav is powerful.
Seleucid is the best of the Greeks because they have the best selection of units in the game although you need to survive with early weak units to tech up and good units like the legionaries are 2T units.
The eastern factions are well matched, Parthia's infantry sucks but they have war elephants which the others don't. I don't consider Armenia's weak legionaries (as weak as Numidian legionaries) to be better than Parthian war elephants.
Carthage has a very good selection but they have no archers. Egypt has some very good missile units and chariot units.

IMO Carthage and Seleucia have the best units to beat Romans in an offensive battle. They have alright infantry to pin down the legionaries and have elephants and/or armored cataphracts to break the Roman cavalry.

[Celtic_Guardian]

Macedonia if you use effective tactics, pin and flank. Selucids have a good mix, parthia is a good challenge. And egypt is a bit overpowered (iirc their axemen have about the same stats as legionarries)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I've had fun with most of the factions. The biggest (vanilla) challenges seem to be:

Dacia -- good infantry, decent archers, and good late game cavalry. So what's the challenge? They're land-locked and dirt poor. You'll need to exterminate towns to get out of debt -- but then they're not able to help your economy so you go into debt again!

Carthage -- great late-game units and elephants! The down side? You're typically at war with: 4 Romes, Gauls, Spanish, Numidians, and Greeks (though the latter are a naval threat only if you handle Sicily well). The REALLY fun part? This is a typical list of your opponents by turn 10.

Greece -- all of your neighbors have one of the following: swordsmen with javelins, elephants, spearmen with longer spears, or powerful cavalry. Macedon, which is mixed up with you, has two of these. Oh, and none of your 4 starting cities are in mutual support range of one another.

[Conradus]

Don't the greeks start with 5 cities?

My favorite one would be Egypt or one of the more barbarian factions (Scythia, Dacia or Brittania)
Egypt's just a moneymaking country from the first day and in the beginning you can easily beat the starting seleucid armies and become the only dominant force in the eastern mediterranean.
And the barbarians are just nice for a play, hidden deep in the woods or roaming with horses over endless steps :p

[Celtic_Guardian]

I like playing the Scythians too, they have so much land, but you don't get much income so its sort of tough. Rich lands to your south however.

[Caius]

Carthage is a bit easy. use those elephants to your benefits and make sure they dont die. vital for easy wins against the Romans.

But remember, with Chartage DONT let the romans capture thapsus, Lilybaeum and Caralis at the same time or you will be in a hurry

[][GERUDO][Mojoman]

britannians no contest...head hurlers just own everything, and the chariots own the leftovers...

[bedlam28]

I am loving playing the Brits at the moment, totally destroyed the Guals, and now learning how to disrupt the Germans.
Having grief with the chariots though; Generals heavy chariots get mauled all the time and the general seems to be the first bugger to die, and the Light chariot Archers cant seem to hit a barn door, I left 2 units of chariot archers against 1 unit of Germans and after a ten minute battle on the otherside of the field I returned to note that they had managed to kill a grand total of 4 enemies !! well whoopy do.

Sigh, miss the Roman archers so much, but love the Head Hurlers and Druids.
Rule Britannia !!

[The Spartan (Returns)]

I love playing the Greeks and Macedon, especially with XGM. Both are centrally located, so you will come into contact with pretty much every culture before your campaign ends.How so? I think alot of units are pretty much the same as what many other mods have adopted as well. And I also think DBH has implemented Area of Recruitment very well, and much better than most.

i dont understand recruiting Sparabara....... its a long list and i just want some good troops.