Barbarian Invasion

[PaulTa]

Anyone else playing BI? Any thoughts on different civs, interesting strategies with different civs, etc?

Let's generate some discussion.

[Roman_Man#3]

im playing BI. i find that it is not a very good game. i love the franks, and it does have some cool features, but overall, its lacking. i do love the frank campaign and units, as i said, but i also like the WRE. although it takes a lot of micromanaging at the beginning of the campaign, if you get your empire stable, you can expand anywhere, will have pretty decent trade and money income, armis to battle hordes. and when you take ERE, its only fitting that the roman empire's capital be ROME.

[jhhowell]

im playing BI. i find that it is not a very good game. i love the franks, and it does have some cool features, but overall, its lacking. i do love the frank campaign and units, as i said, but i also like the WRE. although it takes a lot of micromanaging at the beginning of the campaign, if you get your empire stable, you can expand anywhere, will have pretty decent trade and money income, armis to battle hordes. and when you take ERE, its only fitting that the roman empire's capital be ROME.

What did you find lacking?

I'm not sure, but I think I like BI a bit better than RTW. The fewer, larger provinces seems like a down side at first, but I think it works out for the best in the end. After a certain point a RTW faction will have essentially infinite money since there are so many provinces (esp. ports in certain regions); step 1 in a BI game seems to be getting a positive cash flow. The ERE is OK for money after a few turns, but never overflowing like an Aegean/Levant power would be in RTW. I've read that hordes can sack their way to huge money stockpiles, but they probably need every bit of it when they settle down.

Generals losing loyalty about as fast (or faster) than they gain command stars is also interesting - no more "Vibius the Butcher" style supermen, and you have to think whether it's worth using your top commanders before a battle.

I also like the fact that cities start out decently built up. My RTW games usually end before I get to play with the high end units very much. Not as much of a problem in BI, especially for whoever controls Rome. Money permitting, of course.

Speaking from the Roman perspective, the character of the game is quite different. Your goal is mostly defensive (except ERE vs. Sassanids) - hold on, fend off internal disorder (esp. WRE), kill the hordes in defensive battles, then go nick a few key provinces from the other half of the Empire for the win. Can't say a whole lot about the barbarians. Lots of horse archers and various other cavalry, at least in the eastern barbs. The only chariots in the game are Scotti Chariots up in Ireland and Scotland, and they unambiguously suck.

Regarding the Alemanni, note that they're one of the few barbarians who cannot go horde... Could be very tricky, depending on what the WRE and Franks do. Good luck, if that's the faction you try!

[The Spartan (Returns)]

i just didnt like the BI campaign.

[dacdac]

the celts rule!! Granted you have to mod the files a little bit, but it is a small price to pay to use them. The chariots are really fast, the bersekers are really strong, and are at a good point offensively with a weak Roman garrison and a distracted Frank, Saxon, WRE, and Alemanni towns to the south. Plus, i can trace my ancestry back to them so i got to represent!!!!!!

[PaulTa]

You care to elaborate on that, or were the stars just aligned in a certain way at your time of birth, hence deciding your unexplained hatred for the first expansion of a game some odd years later? :P

I'm finding night battles interesting, as it gives you more options on the attack. I like that Chosen Axemen, for example, aren't ridiculously strong on the attack while wearing nothing but boxers and bear slippers. Since Rome's combat is quite a bit faster than MTW, I think flanking has become a bit of a lost art anyways.

I also appreciate the fast availability of decent units. No more 40 turns of camping to use a unit I thought would be cool.

Religion is a bit more prominent as well, and I love the developed tech trees for barbarian factions.

[dacdac]

night battles are sometimes hard for me though. You can't always see the units on the field and how they are doing. When it is daytime, you can see the difference between units, but a night it is harder. I end up having to pause to change commands that i made to the wrong unit in my rush...to crush.

[Ciaran]

The fewer, larger provinces seems like a down side at first, but I think it works out for the best in the end. After a certain point a RTW faction will have essentially infinite money since there are so many provinces (esp. ports in certain regions); step 1 in a BI game seems to be getting a positive cash flow. The ERE is OK for money after a few turns, but never overflowing like an Aegean/Levant power would be in RTW. I've read that hordes can sack their way to huge money stockpiles, but they probably need every bit of it when they settle down.

So true, it gave me quite the nasty shock playing BI the first time (I took up with the Goths). I thought "hey, less provinces to conquer in Greece, makes less time needed to do it and then it´s time to rake in the cash". What can I say, I was young and stupid

[Phoenix]

I like BI more. The lower number of provinces means it hurts more when you lose a province or get a plague and there's a much smaller number of settlements that can become Huge Cities which makes certain provinces more important.

I also like that cities start out better developed as it makes early battles more interesting and the game a bit more challenging. In my experience, poorly developed towns were always a bigger hindrance to the AI than to me especially since the AI keeps recruiting units from towns which prevent many of them from growing.

All in all my only problems with BI is that battles are still too fast and some of the non-historic units annoy me.

[avatar]

I have enjoyed this expansion. It is a bit different than RTW, but easy to adapt to. I have played all the factions except the WRE; (not sure I will get the opportunity to explore this faction as I am very eagerly awaiting MTW2). My favorite faction was the Huns. I pillaged half the map before settling down in Rome and completing the objectives, which were easily accomplished with the superb Hun Elite Cavalry.

[Celt Centurion]

I also like the fact that cities start out decently built up.

Your cities are built up in BI?

I have to have installed something wrong!

I start out in BI without even traders in most places. Some already have a stone wall, or a simple barracks, but for cities that have been existing for centuries (most of these are the same ones from RTW), most of them do not even have a trader or a blacksmith, while I had the same cities built up to docks, foundries, and Curias in RTW.

What hurts me in BI is that I have these large cities with a few troops to defend them, but the buildings I need to retrain them do not exist, and are several phases from even being able to build them. Meanwhile, there are these hordes with 9 or 10 full stacks attacking.

What I've been doing when besieged by hordes is try to drive them off with what I have. If that ends in a draw, and I'm still under siege, I destroy every "destroyable" building in the settlement, and set taxes to very high, hoping that a revolt will "throw" my army out (to be retrained elsewhere), and the hordes go in and find a destroyed city.

But for some reason in BI, a revolt rarely has the army thrown out. They simply disappear! You don't even have an army to take it back with!

I went to a lot of trouble to get BI working again, but except for the night battles, I prefer playing RTW.

Strength and Honor,

Celt Centurion

[jhhowell]

Your cities are built up in BI?

I have to have installed something wrong!

I start out in BI without even traders in most places. Some already have a stone wall, or a simple barracks, but for cities that have been existing for centuries (most of these are the same ones from RTW), most of them do not even have a trader or a blacksmith, while I had the same cities built up to docks, foundries, and Curias in RTW.

What hurts me in BI is that I have these large cities with a few troops to defend them, but the buildings I need to retrain them do not exist, and are several phases from even being able to build them. Meanwhile, there are these hordes with 9 or 10 full stacks attacking.

What I've been doing when besieged by hordes is try to drive them off with what I have. If that ends in a draw, and I'm still under siege, I destroy every "destroyable" building in the settlement, and set taxes to very high, hoping that a revolt will "throw" my army out (to be retrained elsewhere), and the hordes go in and find a destroyed city.

But for some reason in BI, a revolt rarely has the army thrown out. They simply disappear! You don't even have an army to take it back with!

RTW: you start with cities in the ~4000 population range and pretty minimal buildings.

BI: many cities already have the Imperial Palace level government building and have quite high level troop buildings (Rome - max. archery and blacksmith, max-1 cavalry, max-2 infantry). WRE is admittedly better off than ERE in terms of troop buildings, but it doesn't take much time before the latter can retrain their comitatenses and hippo-toxatai. ERE economy is also much better.

You're certainly correct that the economic buildings are lacking in BI. Not sure why exactly, but it gives the player something important to work on before the hordes arrive. The distribution of troop buildings can also be painful (good luck retraining the comitatenses and Sarmatians in Britannia, for example), but that's hardly an insurmountable obstacle. I can say for certain that the ERE has plenty of time to get their economy and troop buildings set up before the hordes arrive; I expect the same is true for the WRE (more work to do, more turns to do it in).

Regarding your siege-revolt tactic - does that work in RTW? Seems fair to me that a city which revolts while under siege will wipe out the garrison. I certainly wouldn't expect the garrison to be teleported out beyond the besieging army somehow.

[Mithras]

It's a good game within itself, but it's a little rough around the edges. My list of beefs.

1)Some of the units look Bland or ugly or half finished (Samerian Roman general example).
2)several of the faction are clones of the others (the lombardi,burgundi and slavs).
3)Pagan temples/retinue members/traits feel half finished.
4)The nomad tech tree sucks which disbalances the factions.
5)The hun are annoyingly weak
6)The nomad Arian factions have 'Arian' as a negative traits
7)If you rumage around the programing you can see a lot of stuff which should be in the game which was left out- such as the extra faction (Gasp)
8)no speaches, the ending exactly the same for all factions

somebody should make a BA XL-Hint modders

[Celt Centurion]

In RTW, a revolt throws the garrison out on it's rear, but the garrison is still intact, and usually with the same manning that was there when the revolt occured, example,

Revolt

Your Citizens Killed, 4,329
Your Soldiers Killed, 0

and the units that were there inside the city, are just outside of it. I usually besiege it immediately, and depending upon what the enemy has inside, wait till they surrender, or attack.

It used to be the same way in BI most of the time. Once in a while the purple units would simply turn green, but more often than not, the purple or red army would simply be thrown out.

I think that installing the 1.6 patch in may have had something to do with it.

As for transporting them out of range of the besieging army, it doesn't happen, but as I see it, if a revolt throws them out the gate, and the besieging army goes in, the too weak garrison can try to escape to a stronger point.

That has happened in history. I'd hoped to pull it off. So far, it hasn't worked in BI, but it has worked in RTW. But with RTW, I seldom have a city not strong enough to defend itself.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[GottMitUns]

Generals losing loyalty about as fast (or faster) than they gain command stars is also interesting - no more "Vibius the Butcher" style supermen, and you have to think whether it's worth using your top commanders before a battle.

Hah! Vibius gets some press. In his defence and as an aside- Vibius the Butcher was the only truly great faction leader I had in that compaign (now completed). I don't think it is historicaly inaccurate that once ever twenty or so generations an ubermensch emerges and changes his world. The kind of man that manifests as the culmination of the zeitgeist of an epoch, he rides the wave as much as he IS the wave. His spirit prevails as a pseudo deity, an ideal which millions will fight and die for long after his death. Gaius Julius was such a man, as was Augustus, Alexander, we come close with Washington etc. More recently even Patton, Chesty Puller and the like.

So personaly I don't have a problem with the Uber characters if they only emerge very rarely.