Your choice of faction: a "rational" explanation

[Treverer]

Hello there,

first let me thank all of you who posted in my previous question-thread. Again I'm curious how you players of EB take decisions. Here it goes:

"What are the 'rational' reasons/motives behind your choice of faction?"

E.g.: I like to play with Epiros because they have a relativly strong starting position.

- Pyrrhus and his army can conquer both Makedonia and Thessaloniki in turn one, thanks to the Elephantes Indikoi.
- After disbanding both the Elephantes and the Petekoterei (spelling ?), the budget is balanced. Both Pella and Dalminion have most valuable mines and more mines are in the vincinity. All modern-day Greece/Albania provinces have/can have ports, thus allowing the profitable sea trade.
- Makedonia and KH are at war with each other, giving Epiros some time to consolidate and to prepare for the complete conquest of Hellas.
- Taras can either be defended by building stone walls, by recruiting Archer/Slingers and by replacing the Hoplites units with Levy Phalanxes. Alternativly it can be abandoned by dispanding all the units and by destroying all the buildings, the later giving a lot of mnai to the budget.
- The gov-buildings provide nice boni with acceptable mali.

Thanks in advance,
Treverer

P.S. if your decision is made up by certain units, do explain why: are they stronger than your neighbours? Do you use them often and how do use them?

[Empedocles]

EB is so great than playing a faction is completely different than playing another one.
I'm playing the sauromatae right now and I'm having lot of fun killing those endless stacks of Seleukids armies while my economy is slowly growing.
On my next campaign I will play a completely different faction.
I don't know if I should decide on the KH, the AS or the Lusottannan.
I like the KH because it's a completely different way of fighting that with the Sauromatae.
I like the Lusotannan because.....well.. they are from Spain and I speak spanish...
I like the AS because you start with a big empire and have enemies at all your borders.

I really don't know. I should get back to work....

[Landwalker]

Right now, I'm enjoying a campaign as Carthage. Here's why:

1a) After games as Macedon, Epeiros, Pontos, Hayasdan, and Baktria, I'm freaking sick of dealing with phalangites. They're too clumsy to move around the battlefield in anything approaching an acceptable time frame. I've decided to trade them in for more mobile and utilitarian units.

1b) Carthage's Libyan Spearmen are probably the best Tier 2 unit in the game that I've encountered so far. They're of the same caliber as Camillan Principes and are available earlier than Thureophoroi. They're mobile, they're capable. By the same token, while mobile spearmen are probably the critical issue, Carthage also has access to some very nice mobile swordsmen heavy infantry (Elite African Infantry, Iberian Assault Infantry), as well as the Iberian non-assault troops, which are nothing to sneeze at.

2) Carthaginian units really don't get worse later in the game. Elite African Infantry are very appealing swordsmen (with armor-piercing swords) who come in good quantities and with very nice stats. They're as good as or better than Marian Legionaries (Cohors Reformata) in every attribute except morale and number. Sacred Band infantry are spectacular mobile spears. Elephants are good times. Iberian Assault Infantry is a blast. Iberian Heavy Cavalry, period.

3) Good map position. Don't have troublesome neighbors, don't face immediate debt. The African Eleutheroi aren't impossible, but they're aggressive, and you have to be on your toes to keep from losing a settlement or two in the early game. And once you consolidate your holdings, your neighbors aren't pushovers--especially if the Romani have been doing their job--nor are they immensly frustrating (I was so exasperated at the notion of facing a Ptolemaic army with ten units of Kleruchoi Phalangitai that I just quit my Macedonian campaign--not because it was unbeatable, but because it was just an annoying prospect to have to deal with).

4) If you desperately need phalangites, Elite African Pikemen are a very nice option.

5) Unlike Rome, you don't have to conquer nearly the whole map to win the game. There's enough there to keep you occupied, but you don't have to rush out willy-nilly in every direction.

6) Carthaginian Generals / Sacred Band Cavalry just look cool.

Cheers.

[beatoangelico]

I'm playing Baktria for a few reasons, some are game related and some are not.
First I was always fascinated by this hellenistic kingdom so far away from mainland greece, that prospered so much for a (relatively) brief period of time and then disappeared from History, get in the middle of one of the countless huge population movement of central asia.
The game related ones are mainly the position on the map (never played anything that is centered in central asia), the peaceful initial situation, and the great variety of units (counting the indian and indo-greek units the baktrian one is the more variegated unit roster)

[Beefy187]

Playing KH purely for the Spartan agoge

I just cant wait to get a nice 16 year old spartan sharp/charismatic/vigorous kid in the agoge.

That kid is soo gonna lead my army in the future

KH gets a extremely challenging starting position. It got a lot more harder then 0.8. But I like their reasonably fast units. Its a shame that my cavarly are shamefully weak.

Might try Baktria next for the Indian units

[Tellos Athenaios]

Me AS. The units I don't get, I can face on the battlefield; or try in a CB anyway.

IMO AS is among the best/or is simply the best when it comes to Unit Line up; and apart from that it really offers a lot of nice traits & ancillaries to look for. What faction's general has got a pet tiger? What has got such an excellent mix of both Hellenic & 'Eastern' fighting style? What faction has such appealling objectives? The AS has got it all!

[Beefy187]

Plus they got Spartan agoge dont they

I never tried AS. Dont really like huge empire about to get attacked from all fronts. Reminds me of end of roman empire

[Pharnakes]

Me AS. The units I don't get, I can face on the battlefield; or try in a CB anyway.

IMO AS is among the best/or is simply the best when it comes to Unit Line up; and apart from that it really offers a lot of nice traits & ancillaries to look for. What faction's general has got a pet tiger? What has got such an excellent mix of both Hellenic & 'Eastern' fighting style? What faction has such appealling objectives? The AS has got it all!

Why do you have a KH sig, if that is how you feel?

And incedentaly, I have to disagree on the lineup, Maks have the best.

[Digby Tatham Warter]

Playing KH purely for the Spartan agoge

I just cant wait to get a nice 16 year old spartan sharp/charismatic/vigorous kid in the agoge.

That kid is soo gonna lead my army in the future

Can't any of the Helenic based factions train in the Spartan agoge, or is it all factions?
After 2 turns playing as the Maks, my young family members were in a position to enter it.
I'll find out real soon if AS can have the same honour.

When it comes to which faction I usually play I prefer AS, it's cultural & military diversity between East and West offer more depth.
You face a challenge from so many different enemies and you have perphaps the strongest & best looking troop line up going. I feel like the Persian king Xerces(spelling?) when I can draught troops from all over my provinces to make composite armies for Western invasion.

But it is a difficult campaign in terms of the work involved, particulary, if like me your fussy about detail and every thing has to be reasonably perfect. I rarely stick to just one campaign, I have the AS as my main one, but for a break from the heavy 'turns' a few simple campaigns are fun, like a Parthian, Mak and Baktrian one, and a Samation one beckons I feel.

Overall when it comes down to battles involving armies that are largely infantry based, I try 'free for all' armies(not tight formational) but find I keep coming back to the immaculate ordered battles that pike based armies offer. Where a line is usually held and doesn't bulge fit to burst(at times) and it's only the flanks that have a degree of organised chaos to them.

[LiveattheOasis]

Hayasdan, then Pahlava then probably the Sweboz.

I love the ability to take Armenia and do well with them. They have been screwed over far too long.

They are located right in the middle of EVERYTHING, meaning you go all four directions and you can expand in any of them. You straddle the world.

I love horses, as do most who play this game, and the Cataphracts are a nice plus.

I want to take Babylon, and Armenia will do it.

I want to play with Pahlava so that I can take over the East, and then push back the Greeks.

I am ethnically German, and have never played a barbarian faction before, so I think it would be alot of fun.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
I chose Lusatana for my first campaign because I don't like head-on conflict and expansion; would build up a strong and economically stable homeland first. They start with no enemies around. (The White Death is the southern neighbour with only lightly defended two provinces.) You are somewhat isolated from the rest of the world and can be left on your own, or let them on theirs for quite some time. (I think it was my third king, Ambon, who had punished the insolent Poeni daring to besiege my capital breaking a fruitful alliance.)

Iberia apparently received hardcore research and labour of love. Not that the rest didn't but they were one of the less lucky with fewer ready material to work on and more stuff to be dug out so to speak. The language was somewhat re-constructed from bits of whatever remained, Goidelic and Proto-IE (per Sarcasm), history thoroughly examined, unit/building tree shaped etc. I remember how stupid a treatment the vanilla Spanish received from the developers (Iberian Bull Warriors anyone?) and know how hard EB people such as Aymar de Bois Mauri, Sarcasm and others worked to make it such a fun and immersing faction.

On top of all that, it's intriguing to play a what if scenario, in which a western Mediterranean commune rising to power from tribal dominance carving upwards, instead of those barbaroi of the Appenines.
.

[Reno Melitensis]

I always play Romans, simply because since I was a young boy ( and that is a long time ago), I always played Romans and Gladiators with my friends after seeing the old epic movies. And being so close to mainland Italy, makes me part of the greatest empires of the ancient world. But after my Roman conquest is over, I will try Pontos, Hyasdan or the Parthii, and try to kick the ass of the Hellenic Kingdoms.

Cheers.

[L.C.Cinna]

Started to play a Pontus campaign and it's really really great:

- you really have no money in the beginning and have to be quick to take some towns around you in order to make money, shouldn't lose too many soldiers because you can't rebuild.


- great cultural mix of persian, greek, celtic and steppe features.

- you can create great armies with huge variety of troops including some of the best units of the area even in your factional buildings.

[konny]

I have started a new campaign as Makedonia because,

- They are one of the few factions that really have a "mission" in the game.

- As soon as Greece is under controll the game will still be challanging but not difficult beyond frustration.

- The territories where "subjugation" is available is stretching from Italy to most of the former Persian empire.

[Kromulan]

Saba
They have a nice, quiet starting location where you can get your economy "up and running" without too much interference from AI powers. Interesting unit roster with infantry FM bodyguards and most of your units will be "lighter" than your adversaries, so you can't just bull rush them in battles.
Oh, and when you're ready to get involved in the world of international politics, RTW style, you get to hack through either Ptolies or AS (usually both).
Kind of a "Taking out Phalanxes 101" if you will.

[The Celtic Viking]

My favourite factions are by far Casse/Aedui/Arverni (no specific order). My reasons for this are:

- The celtic hero system is highly appealing to me - so much that the Celtic units have actually become true heroes in my eyes. Stats be damned, I prefer them over anything else.

- If I'm playing as either the Aedui or the Arverni, the starting civil war is of course fun. Played "right" without blitzing and good role-playing, it's a great, great start.

- If it's Aedui/Arverni I'm playing as, an early clash with Rome is always good. I like them Cohort Kebabs.

- The Casse have an interesting starting position

- I like the Casse generals, and especially the kluddobro unit

- When playing as the Arverni, your faction leader is not just a king... he's a GOD!

- They're just Celtic, all right?!

- Gaesatae and Uirodusios...

[Pharnakes]

I like the Casse generals

[Sarkiss]

1. Armenia, for an obvious reason.
2. Pontus. facsinating mix of Greek and local eastern cultures. also very challenging empire building.
3. Carthage. dont know, but there is something about them... maybe their unfortunate fate.
4. eastern successor states. same mix as Pontus and more! not so challenging however.
and im still to try a barbarian faction and Rome. not really feeling it though.

[ross1025]

carthage.

1,hannibal

2,capable of recruiting Gaesatae,the best infantry and balearn slingers,the best missile units in the western world. and also have mighty own units such as african elites and sacred bands and elephants.

3,the economy and start position is perfect.

[Jarardo]

I'm pretty fascinated with Alexander, so I like Makedon. I'm also pretty fascinated with Rome, and Carthage. So I like to play as them too. That's pretty much the reason I play any faction.

[Morte66]

Mostly, I like:
- A stiff challenge on the strategic/tactical map.
- Variety of opposition.
- Variety of tactics.
- A change from the previous faction I played.

I'm not fond of:
- Great big empires, where you roll into town and your 20 stack army can't keep order.
- Factions with a small factional recruiting zone and/or bad roads, who need 2 years to get troops from the nearest level 3 MIC to the battlefront.
- Fighting Seleucids, because once you've proved you can run rings round them it'll still take a hundred turns to finish them off.

So I tend to play short campaigns, and stop when the happiness/recruitment rules are giving me more trouble than the military opposition. I'd say my favourite factions playing this way are Pontos and the Getai.

In my current Pontos game I rule from the Aegean to Hayasdan and down to Sidon/Damamscus/Palmyra, I've had some fantastic battles and pulled strategic manoeuvres that made me giggle with glee. I've seen the "largest faction" and "most advanced faction" messages. But it strikes me that I now have to conquer the AS and the Ptolies, which will be a real grind through elite spam and ever-increasing distance penalties. So I might start a fresh faction soon.

I think next I want a faction with wide ranging government and recruitment, that neither uses nor faces phalanxes (much), and is a long way from the AS.

[geala]

I play mainly Greek factions because I'm interested in the culture and history.

With 1.0 I started a Ptolemaioi campaign (not so popular, as it seems). Reasons:

1. I'm dreaming of hot sunny country.
2. I like the position, you have enemies but not on every side. When AS, Pontos, Saba and the treacherous Carthaginians attacked me at the same time, I had a difficult time nevertheless.
3. It's a shame to say, but for my armies more or less I only need some Psiloi, Klerouchoi phalangites, Thyreophoroi (or Thorakitai), Cretan Archers (it must be a fault that the Ptolemaioi cannot recruit them, I made them recruitable)and some light and heavy cavalry. So the beloved and very interesting special units of other factions would be wasted.
4 With one exception: Indian Armoured Elephants (all elephants in EB got 4 or 5 Hp from me and the units feel now a little bit like the historical beasts, still too weak perhaps), a very nice feature to fight against elite troops/phalanges; the Ptolemaioi can ship them in from their colony (to be erected) in south India.
5. I wanted to have Ethiopian Cavalry (which should be recruitable by the Ptolemaioi, but are not in EB 1.0, but I made them recruitable)
6. I like the Machimoi units and still use them in my weaker medium quality armies
7. I wished to recruit Garamantine Infantry (but I'm seemingly still not in the regions where it could be done).

For the next campaign I consider Koinon Hellenon or Epeiros. Epeiros is of course much stronger with good cavalry, elite phalangites and Indian elephants (unfortunately unarmoured) at the door. Baktria would be very nice indeed, but I like the Cretan Archers and am a bit addicted to the Mediterranean world. Let's wait and see.

[Narhon]

Rome: As a small child the Roman Empire has represented order and stability and glory. Now I am grown and have read Tacitus, Polybius, Gibbons and many others and I know better. However the seeds planted in childhood are still in my mind and I cannot help but admire the Romans. If one wants to admit it or not the Romans have been a large influence on the world. Also after the Polybian reforms the troops are better and one can start making the world Rome. This may not be the answer one would call rational but that is it

[Renegen]

I'm playing as Saba just because they're very different from any other faction. They're remote and their units are mostly light and they're arabic!

After getting my ass whopped in my first campaign with them I started a second because I like the challenge of being against the 2 biggest empires.

Next campaign I'm thinking KH or Gauls, KH because they have variety and I've almost never played as a Hellenic faction and the Gauls because they're neglected and pose interesting challenges. Maybe even Lusonatia!

[Tiberius Nero]

I like playing factions with historical achievements in that timeframe like the Romans or the Parthians or those I know pretty much nothing about, like the Saka or the Sarmatians, and achieving great conquest with them would look plausible. Factions that were in decline at that time period or did not achieve much in the way of conquest historically, I never touch. Also I wouldn't touch a faction if in order to win as them I would have to destroy Rome, that is an inviolable taboo for me.