A Good Campaign for a EB Novice

[americancaesar]

Whats a good nation to play as a novice to EB such as myself? Ive been play with Epirus and its fun, though Im deep in debt, but are there other good place to start. Iwant have fun and learn the ropes at the same time.

AC

[Warmaster Horus]

Rome.

If you make it to 175BC, and get the Marian Reforms, you can just be invincible.

If you like to turtle, though, I recommend the Casse. The financial situation may be slightly difficult at the start, but if you play your cards right, you'll be fine.

[bovi]

Rome is powerful, and the Ptolemaioi may also be good choice. Sweboz and Getai have a great deal of time before getting attacked by any faction. Getting in dire debt means you're going about it the wrong way. Either you must conquer a couple of settlements fast and disband units that are expensive to maintain, such as cavalry and fleets, to get in the black (my choice). Or disband immediately and focus on building your economy, building ports and roads, mines if you have access to them, negotiating alliances and getting trade deals with everyone etc.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

If you play as KH or Mak and quickly knock out the other one quickly, you'll be rich before you know it and have a pretty easy time.

[The Errant]

Carthage is your best bet. Their starting regions are safe from neighbors. They have a great economy. And a fantastic unit roster.

[Beefy187]

I recommend Aedui.
It might be hard for you to get rid of your debt but if you get your whole army on the ship and start conquering Britain youll get rich in no time.

[Musopticon?]

Actually, the best starting faction has go to be Epeiros. Rome is easy, but you'll quickly get annoyed at how realistic it is, trust me. Play it once you get the hang of things in EB and learn to like the ponderous aspects of it and stuff that initally feels like stupid restrictions. That said, Epeiros is great experience if you have just come from normal RTW or some other mod(like RTR or TE for instance). It's at the center of things and starts out very small and seemingly in trouble, but you are actually prety safe and can start conquering whicever way you want. Italy is also near so you'll meet plenty of Romanic stuff on the side if you like that. Imagine stumbling through the ashes of the relics of their history. Epeirus also has a nice unit roster, plenty of usable low tier units such as Illyrian(imagine Greek barbarians, heh) and Italic auxilias, also very nice high tier units including phalanxes, yet you don't have to play as a phalanx army if you don't want. Lots of possibilities. They also offset that weakness that Greek factions had in original RTW, Epeirus has great cavalry.

Go for it.

[Ravenic]

Did even ONE person agree on the best campaign? I guess that's a good sign that EB has it right.

I'd go with Arche Seleukeia, you start out huge and fairly powerful, so good for newbie's, and it's nearly impossible to actually DIE because of your sheer number of provinces.

[bovi]

AS is powerful yes, but you'll have everyone against you pretty soon, including your own subjects . Also they start really big, so it might be hard to start with.

[Tyfus]

I heavily advise any of the western hellenic factions, rome or carthage. These are all big money makers so you won't have to worry about your economy too much and you can focus on military and infrastructure build up. The Greek factions especially are fun because they aren't usually well played by the AI and so you don't see them that often unless you start right next to them. Rome messes around with almost every western faction so you get to see them alt anyway. The key to the western greeks is securing both sides of the agean sea. After that with trade and mines pumping out the cash you'll even bee able to Kick AS across asia minor and beyond!!!

[Musopticon?]

Hellas is definetly the key to world power.

[Pied Piper]

I think Rome and Carthage are the two easiest for the beginner. However, remember one of my firsts was AS and loved it. But what I did was go ahead and break it up and try to rebuild it. It was hard to let Asia Minor go, but I really enjoyed building a strong center then expanding. And of course I couldn't let the new occupants benefit from breaking of the "old" empire as I slashed and burned everything to the ground. I got plenty of money that way.

But with AS, I really loved their units.

[sgsandor]

Rome is the most fun but it took me a while to hang with the boys in red. I say go with Carthage, Epiros or Makedonia. Even if you dont stick with a whole game you def learn alot and quickly

[Ice]

SPQR (Romani)- They are the most fun in my opinion. Words of advice though: Don't expand to far north in the beginning. Take North Africa, Italy, the Islands, Greece, and Spain.

[The Celtic Viking]

Some factions that you should probably stay away from as a newcomer would be the nomad ones like Saka Rauka and Sauromatae. I haven't played them myself (horses are for cowards to flee faster with) but from what I've heard they should be pretty hard.

Most good starter factions have already been named. Rome, Carthage, Ptolemaioi, Epeiros, those are some nice ones. Casse are also great, but don't give up if you try them and the rebels destroy you, just try again with a different strategy and/or tactic (or the same and hope for better luck). It will be worth it when you succeed.

My first campaign was as Sweboz, and that went well. At first it was a little hard, but you get the hang of it pretty fast. No need to worry about being attacked either, and that's always good.

[americancaesar]

What level should I play on? Ive been trying VH/H, but that seems a little above my level (I played vanilla RTW on medium or hard ). Should try a lower level to begin with?

Also, thanks for all that advise already posted.


AC

[Ravenic]

The recommended is Medium battle difficulty, Very Hard campaign difficulty. The former is only medium because the bonus' the A.I. gets unbalances everything, as the game was made and stats put down with a level playing field in mind.

[Ice]

What level should I play on? Ive been trying VH/H, but that seems a little above my level (I played vanilla RTW on medium or hard ). Should try a lower level to begin with?

Also, thanks for all that advise already posted.


AC

Definitely not VH/M. VH is out of control. I find H/M a better combination. If you are really trying to get comfortable with the game maybe M/M. Look in the modding section and install mini-mod. It has two great scripts which limit mercs so the AI doesn't keep attacking you.

[Musopticon?]

It depends, on M/M the AI, particularly Eleutheroi doesn't like to attack your cities, resulting in that Eleutheroi are hardly a thread often, more like bandits plaguing hinterlands that occasionally you stumble upon when you grand royal pikemen army marches the Ariana-Syria All-night-long express way, instead of independent factions that just didn't get featured thanks to slot limit, with their own generals and semi-factional troops. On VH, however, the AI is agent crazy, it bribes your stacks and your generals, sends tons of assassins once it has access to them and your cities are full of Eleutheroi spies. Granted, the AI doesn't pose as much a challenge on H, especially little factions like for instance Hayasdan(unless you let them spam Zharakir Netadzik *brrrr*), but it's a good middle ground between the two.