Where to go now?

[PaulTa]

I'm looking for a challenging civ with a decent unit selection that isn't barbarian (Can't stand the limited tech tree and almost as limited unit selection). I've already worked through a campaign as Carthage, which was entirely enjoyable until stomping out all of the Roman factions.

Any suggestions?

-A Medieval player lost in a Roman world...

[Comrade Alexeo]

In my experience, the Roman factions and Carthage are the most fun for campaigns, because you're involved quickly and you have a diverse selection of troops.

The Grecian factions, being in a very competitive position, would be more fun if phalanx combat wasn't so horribly slow in RTW. Macedon is more fun than Greece because they at least have decent cavalry. I've never tried the Seleucids, and I imagine their diversity makes them interesting, but fighting Egypt must be hell...

Speaking of Egypt, they're not really that fun because you can just roll over any faction... well, more so than other factions.

For a real challenge, try Parthia. It's an absolute nightmare at the beginning, but it's very satisfying to ultimately storm Rome with mobs of Eastern Infantry :D Armenia has a much better infantry core (and probably the best color scheme ), and Pontus has good infantry AND a decent position in Anatolia, although I can't say that I've tried them in campaigns.

If you decide to slog your way through a barbarian campaign, I'll recommend Germania. Chosen Archers and Gothic Cavalry are some of the most underestimated units in the game, and while getting to the point that you can use them is a chore, once you do have them you'll find yourself with an army par excellance.

Good luck with whatever one you decide!

[Ciaran]

I found Egypt a very enjoyable faction, right at the start you have a big war going on with the Seleucids and since several of your cities do have some developement you don´t need to put up with just the basic troops for too long. The Seleucids are fun as well, but if I recall correctly, they do need a bit of developement before they reach their full potential of their very diversified armies.
If you´ve unlocked all factions, Pontus is similar to the Seleucids in terms of diversity and Armenia is a realy challenge, wedged in as they are, though I´ve yet to play with them, the same goes for the Greek and Macedons.
I´m not entirely sure, but Spain could be interesting as well, they´ve got a more diversified army, combining Carthagian and Barbarian elements, than the other barbarians, but I don´t know if their city development stops at level 3 as well.

[naut]

Egypt or Pontus.

[Karo]

I would say try Armenia or Seleucia i playd with both of them and they are fun to play and are very challenging

[PaulTa]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Lately, I've just found myself completely frustrated with the lack of troop selection in Rome. The only nation that gets a really decent kick start along the lines of diversity is Germania, and the tech lvl 3 restriction means that I can't necessarily turtle since squalor will kill me.

I think that I'm going to settle on either Seleucids or Macedons. Macedons have the awesome temples, while seleucids have the most diversified unit line-up.

Off topic- Why in the name of all that is holy did the Greeks get stuck with no usable cavalry? :(

[Byzantine Emperor]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Lately, I've just found myself completely frustrated with the lack of troop selection in Rome. The only nation that gets a really decent kick start along the lines of diversity is Germania, and the tech lvl 3 restriction means that I can't necessarily turtle since squalor will kill me.

I think that I'm going to settle on either Seleucids or Macedons. Macedons have the awesome temples, while seleucids have the most diversified unit line-up.

I say Seleucids. They have a very good unit roster, if you live against the Egyptians long enough to use them!

Off topic- Why in the name of all that is holy did the Greeks get stuck with no usable cavalry? :(

Because historically the Greeks were not very good horsemen.

[The Teacher]

go with eygpt, they are strong with money and citys, but they have nice big wide open borders that attract armys like bees round honey. Currently im fighting a way with four of my neighbours ! brill ..

[jhhowell]

I think that I'm going to settle on either Seleucids or Macedons. Macedons have the awesome temples, while seleucids have the most diversified unit line-up.

Off topic- Why in the name of all that is holy did the Greeks get stuck with no usable cavalry? :(

I'm having a blast with the Seleucids - awesome faction! Read up on the faction guide, it has very useful tips. Attacking both Egypt and Parthia by turn 2 works exceptionally well. Remember, everyone is weak and unprepared at the start of the campaign - including you, but aggressive play plus mercenaries fix that quickly. The Seleucids will never have money problems thanks to the Hanging Gardens and their nice trade position.

And I strongly dispute your claim that the Greeks have no usable cavalry. Play a Greek faction and you will learn differently. I grant that Militia Cav is the worst of all the jav cavs, and Greek Cavalry seems to be the second worst of the light cavalries (better than the Macedonian Light Lancers - avoid Macedon since they don't get Militia Cavalry). But that's a strictly relative judgement, in absolute terms Militia Cavalry is a campaign winning uber-unit. The fact that it's a basic stable unit is very helpful as well - one could argue that that fact alone makes it superior to Cavalry Auxilia despite the weaker stats. Also note that horse archers have terrible melee stats - this is key to crushing Parthia in the first few turns, since your militia cav can just run them down and kill them. As an aside, it's also helpful that the toughest units you'll face in the east (2 Parthian Cataphracts, one Armenian Cataphract) are on your unit list, so when you bribe them you get those units for yourself.

The person who complained about slow phalanx combat may also share this mistaken view of Greek cavalry. In my experience, phalanxes rarely see much actual combat (except street fighting and some small rebel engagements). Their role is to be really unpleasant mobile terrain around which your generals and militia cavalry (and archers, chariots, elephants, cataphracts, and companions) operate. It's not at all unusual for my phalanx line to get zero kills even in a large battle. From what I recall reading up about the Seleucids on wikipedia, this is historically reasonable - they were successful with combined arms, but had a lot of trouble when they tried to use phalanxes alone as the decisive arm.

Macedonian temples are indeed nice (my 3-4 experience Militia Cavalry are loving the gold weapon upgrade from Thessalonica!), but Seleucid temples are adequate for their needs. Dionysus is good for Jerusalem and the Nile cities (Athena or another law temple would be better, but Dionysus is good enough); Asklepios is good for the Arabia and Armenia cities with terrible population growth; and Hephaestus works well everywhere else. Like the Scipii, you'll have quite well upgraded troops by midgame.

[PaulTa]

I've got a question for the old timers on the forum... Before CA altered the Chariots, were the Heavy chariots useful? Currently, they seem like more of a handicap for two turns and around a thousand denari.

[jhhowell]

I've got a question for the old timers on the forum... Before CA altered the Chariots, were the Heavy chariots useful? Currently, they seem like more of a handicap for two turns and around a thousand denari.

I'm not an old timer, but since nobody else is speaking up I'll comment.

Looking at the stats, the British heavy chariots seem comparable to the Seleucid/Pontic scythed chariots and the Egyptian chariots. I know for a fact that both of the latter are quite effective (far too good, in fact) and well worth their ~1000D, two turn cost. I consider chariots to be the centerpieces of rebel-quashing groups, and optional but effective additions to main armies. If chariots have been nerfed, CA didn't go far enough. Take away the magical cavalry massacre ability and reduce their speed to camel speed, and chariots would be pretty reasonable IMHO.

[PaulTa]

In my honest opinion, the computer doesn't make enough cavalry for chariots to be worth the time and trouble. If you look at the civs that do get chariots, they are surrounded by civs that only use HA and chariot archers, so the anti-cavalry ability is sort of null and void. Against infantry, the brits are right by germany (spear warband), Seleucids right by Pontus (pikemen)/Egypt (nile spearmen), Pontus by Seleucids (pikes)/greeks (hoplites)/egypt (nile spearmen), etc.

The description for scythed chariots states that they are heavily armored, but they have a defense score of one? The dude in the chariot is dressed up like a cataphract unit, but he might as well be naked to represent his armor status. If the Chariot was armored a bit more, I could see a bit of use for them in SP.

MP, on the other hand, is anybody's guess. I know how fragile MP is to slight changes, being an AoE 3 veteran.

[PaulTa]

Also kind of forgot to mention that chariots don't really seem to kill anything as much as they seem to push things around, followed with a quick death rate when the pushing stops. Following up with some heavy cavalry seems like a legitimate course of action, but like I said earlier, 1000 denari and two turns is pretty steep for a formation disruption unit that dies quickly. :(

Hell, war dogs do the same sort of thing, cost less to make and maintain, and regenerate losses every battle.

Update: I think I might end up going on a MTW leave of action until MTW 2 comes out. I recently jacked up the difficulty of the campaign to VH and was pleasantly suprised to see that the campaign AI shot up a good few notches, but the game is still too easy with some factions, and just too boring to continue with others. :(

Someone snap me out of it with a previously overlooked faction that has a good tech tree, decent unit selection, swordsmen instead of the silly phalanxe all the time, and a fight of your life starting position. :P (Too much to ask for, it seems)

[Ciaran]

In my honest opinion, the computer doesn't make enough cavalry for chariots to be worth the time and trouble. If you look at the civs that do get chariots, they are surrounded by civs that only use HA and chariot archers, so the anti-cavalry ability is sort of null and void. Against infantry, the brits are right by germany (spear warband), Seleucids right by Pontus (pikemen)/Egypt (nile spearmen), Pontus by Seleucids (pikes)/greeks (hoplites)/egypt (nile spearmen), etc.

The description for scythed chariots states that they are heavily armored, but they have a defense score of one? The dude in the chariot is dressed up like a cataphract unit, but he might as well be naked to represent his armor status. If the Chariot was armored a bit more, I could see a bit of use for them in SP.

MP, on the other hand, is anybody's guess. I know how fragile MP is to slight changes, being an AoE 3 veteran.

Defense is different from armour. A high defense skill means the unit can protect itself very well in melee, due to training, agility etc, while arour represents the amount of metal (or leather or whatever else) the guy is clad in. Armour also protects against missiles as well as against melee attacks, defense skill does not. The melee protection therefore is defense plus armour (plus a shield in a couple of cases, which is a special form of armour since it only protects the front and left side of a figure, and is, to the best of my knowledge, not subject to the armour-piercing ability that some units have).

[professorspatula]

The thing worth noting with chariots is that there are two sets of defence ratings: one for the driver/passengers, and one for the chariot itself. The Scythed Chariot for example has no armour for the chariot, but 18 (same as a cataphract) for the driver. You don't see this rating, but I assumed this rating was used against missiles, whereas the chariot rating was used for close quarters/melee fighting. That would explain why scythed chariots can be difficult to kill when firing missiles, but much easier to kill when charged into a basic unit of troops.

However, before posting that, I thought I'd better do some tests to make sure. And it actually seems the stats for the drivers defence are indeed ignored completely. Setting the hitpoints to 1, I copied the scythed chariots, so I had 2 variations to test. The first had the normal stats (18 armour) but 1 hitpoint, the second had only 1 armour for the driver and 1 hitpoint. By using just 1 hitpoint, I could therefore test if a single volley of arrows would prove whether or not driver armour matters. If it did, the unit with 18 armour would die slowly, the other would die very fast. Lo and behold, both units suffered massive casualties in each volley. Both units also fell apart when they crashed into the Town militia stood in front of the archers.

I then changed the 2 sets of scythed chariots so the chariot itself had 18 armour and the driver 1. This time the chariot withstood several volleys of missiles, plus withstood much of the attacks from the town militia. I then went back to adding massive amounts of armour to the driver and reducing chariot armour to 1, then just set my town militia on the chariots to see if in melee, driver abilties did matter at all - and it was a resounding no.


With this in mind, it seems better to give the chariots heavy armour but just 1 or 2 hitpoints. The game seems to strongly rate units with high hitpoints, thus ruining the results in auto-calced battles. I don't know if it's common knowledge, but it's new to me.


Sorry I've kind of gone into modders discussion mode which doesn't help the original poster whatsoever. It does, however, make me want to play with chariot stats some more. So excuse me, I've got some scythed chariots to steer over the heads of some unruly peasants.

(PS: I haven't tried them, but Armenia would be ok for a new RTW challenge. There's quite a bit of variety to their roster once you get going. And although their infantry isn't all that great, it's sometimes fun just to spam rubbish armies. The Seleucid campaign is great, but similar in some ways to the Carthage one you completed: ie, very tricky start and lots of battles, but then incredibly powerful elephants to finish everyone off)

[PaulTa]

I think I'm just going to have to default on a Roman campaign, even though they are really feast or famine. Pre-marian, famine, post-marian, no one can touch you.

They seem to be one of the only civs with decent infantry, archers, and cavalry. Germania is nice, but limited barbarian tech tree is a bummer.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Roman factions are more fun than you think, especially early on because of the Senate missions and the fact that you're in the middle of everything.

I'll point out, though, that Pontus especially and Armenia both offer very nice troop selections, if you want to try an eastern campaign...

[jhhowell]

In my honest opinion, the computer doesn't make enough cavalry for chariots to be worth the time and trouble. If you look at the civs that do get chariots, they are surrounded by civs that only use HA and chariot archers, so the anti-cavalry ability is sort of null and void. Against infantry, the brits are right by germany (spear warband), Seleucids right by Pontus (pikemen)/Egypt (nile spearmen), Pontus by Seleucids (pikes)/greeks (hoplites)/egypt (nile spearmen), etc.

The description for scythed chariots states that they are heavily armored, but they have a defense score of one? The dude in the chariot is dressed up like a cataphract unit, but he might as well be naked to represent his armor status. If the Chariot was armored a bit more, I could see a bit of use for them in SP.

I disagree about the anti-cavalry magic being useless. Cheesy, ahistorical, and unreasonable, yes, but not useless. Chariots do fine against horse archers if necessary (a rebel force with HA, for example). Chariot vs. chariot is actually pretty interesting. Perhaps it's a playing style issue, but I do find enough AI cavalry for chariots to be useful flank guards. A couple of equites or a single general can disrupt my jav cavs, while if there's a chariot unit hanging around the jav cavs can go about their business and if the enemy actually attacks the chariots will clean them up pretty quickly. Other units can serve the same role, of course. Note that AI Macedon in particular fields very large (and very bad) cavalry forces, so if the AI knew what it was doing that could be very painful, even with a chariot unit on hand. Sadly, the AI is a terrible general...

I also don't follow your point about all the spears. So what? As long as you're not crossing a bridge or clearing a city, it's easy enough to run around and charge the flanks or rear, just like with cavalry. Until/unless they lose momentum chariots are death on wheels to infantry, pike or otherwise. Basic elephants do the disruption with few kills you mention, chariots get plenty of kills. As you say, chariot plus cavalry works better (cav kills faster than chariots) but chariots can also rack up 100+ kills per battle pretty easily.

Regarding defense, I've found that chariots either take minimal losses or massive casualties (usually going berserk at the end), nothing in between. Thus my emphasis on using them against rebels - quick routs are fairly common.

The cost and time both seem quite fair for what you get. Since it's a basic blacksmith unit, if it took a single turn to build you'd get a silly chariot rush tactic (especially given the low manpower use) at the start of the game. The ~1000D is also about right for it's effectiveness; also note that at least two of the chariot powers really don't care what any unit costs since they have money coming out their ears. There's almost zero opportunity cost - build inf/cav/archers at your main troop cities, and push out a few chariots here and there from your minor cities.

On your faction question, BI is nice. I'd guess you'd prefer either the mod which makes the Romano-British playable, or just pick one of the barbarians (Franks maybe? I think they're the least cavalry-centric barbs...). Picking a fight with the WRE early on will put you in a fight for your life situation even if you don't start in one.

[PaulTa]

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, as much as I'd like to drag this out until you accept that you're wrong. :P

I was seriously considering BI. The barbarians actually have a developed tech tree, and the unit selection for most civs is great. I'm thinking Allemani (sp?), or maybe the burgundii.

I'm a big fan of units that have one specific use that they are amazing for, rather than all around jack of all trades units. I guess it kind of comes from my AoE experience.

[daliu139]

In my experience, the Roman factions and Carthage are the most fun for campaigns, because you're involved quickly and you have a diverse selection of troops.

The Grecian factions, being in a very competitive position, would be more fun if phalanx combat wasn't so horribly slow in RTW. Macedon is more fun than Greece because they at least have decent cavalry. I've never tried the Seleucids, and I imagine their diversity makes them interesting, but fighting Egypt must be hell...

Speaking of Egypt, they're not really that fun because you can just roll over any faction... well, more so than other factions.

For a real challenge, try Parthia. It's an absolute nightmare at the beginning, but it's very satisfying to ultimately storm Rome with mobs of Eastern Infantry :D Armenia has a much better infantry core (and probably the best color scheme ), and Pontus has good infantry AND a decent position in Anatolia, although I can't say that I've tried them in campaigns.

If you decide to slog your way through a barbarian campaign, I'll recommend Germania. Chosen Archers and Gothic Cavalry are some of the most underestimated units in the game, and while getting to the point that you can use them is a chore, once you do have them you'll find yourself with an army par excellance.

Good luck with whatever one you decide!

of course Egypt is excellent.Its procreation is bloom because of the Nile's fertility.Just like the chinese army in the Korean War.