Favorite faction in RTR VII

[Willowran]

Illyria. Probably a hangover from RTRPE, in which i played a fantastic illyrian campaign. And i like slaves

Naw, its more likely just because theyre are a smaller, weaker, more challenging faction to play with.

[Mausolos of Caria]

Illyria. Probably a hangover from RTRPE, in which i played a fantastic illyrian campaign. And i like slaves

Naw, its more likely just because theyre are a smaller, weaker, more challenging faction to play with.

As you have been playing Illyria a lot, do you also have background knowledeg about them? Because I don't know much about Illyria and always asked myself why slaves were so important there (and you also mentioned them here) respectively why they had so many slave soldiers. It would be nice if anyone would know more about them

[Maurits]

RTR VII preview III: The Illyrians

[Mausolos of Caria]

RTR VII preview III: The Illyrians

Oh yes, of course, thanks

[DukeCanada]

Fun fact: I've never had a successful campaign with the Illyrians. Every time I play with them I'm tempted to build an army and attack Rome after securing a few more territories in the North. In Italy I promptly lose 50% of my army after two or three battles against full legions because I am a terrible commander. The rest of the army gets to hobble around Rome in the style of Hannibal...except less successfully.

I promptly raise as second army, except by that point Epeiros or Macedon have become too powerful to for me to attack. The Norici are a pain to fight, but I usually try to fight them anyways. Eventually someone comes in with an army or two of quality soldiers and takes me out.

Moral of the story? Never let DukeCanada command a nation, he'll probably run it into the ground. Also, the Illyrians are very fun to mess around with. They're one of the few factions who offer a play style where you have to avoid pitched battles...

[Maurits]

Hm. Wouldn't it be possible to secure one or two cities with access to the main Greek AoR? Then you'd be able to add e.g. polis hoplites to your armies to give them a backbone. Armies like that, consisting of a hoplite-battle line supplemented by Illyrian flanking troops and skirmishers should be able to survive Roman or Macedonian attacks. I'm temped to try it out myself lol

[Caligula Caesar]

Attacking the Epirotes early is a good bet (or at least, it was last time I tried it, which was, admittedly, quite a while back, so things may have changed). By taking Apollonia and the MiRs over there, you can basically double your income and cripple the Epirotes on that side of the Adriatic. I tend to leave the northern provinces untouched, since it makes it more likely the other Barbarians will attack, and they don't give so much economic benefit.

[DukeCanada]

I've never actually tried the economic model with the Illyrians. I only ever go for the raiding, which is why I dont really start a war with Epirus. If I am at peace with Epirus then I can move my Italian army into the South when I'm cornered. The Romans are typically less determined to follow me in those regions.

If I was to play with the economic model I would definitely go for Epirus and those Greek MiR's. After that I suppose you can always branch off. I'd like to see someone try to take Sicily instead of mainland Greece. I wonder how it would affect the game in the long run.

[Maurits]

That would be an interesting scenario! Leaving your homeland with some garrisons and establishing an Illyrian colony on Sicily by taking for instance Messena or Syracuse. Wouldn't be my style of campaigning, though, but could be fun when you like such games

[DukeCanada]

Perhaps I'll try it! Right now I'm trying to squeeze a bit of time in a Macedonian campaign though. I think that 20 years have passed and I've taken most of mainland Greece (with the exception of Athens because I dont want to go to war with the Independent City States to the north of Lysimachae. I dont want to expand North because I'll be drawn into a fight with the Getae and the Norici, which is not a trap I want to fall into again.

I have three choices
1 - Ionia
2 - Sicily
3 - Italy

At the moment Carthage holds Sicily but recently lose Messena to the Romans. I'm currently inclined to take Ionia while focusing on infrastructure in Greece. After that I hope to wage war against a Rome which has secured the entire Italian Peninsula and Sicily. I think it would make an interesting campaign, I'd probably field 6 full armies in Italy because I wouldn't have to worry about the East or the North. What that means is I'm fielding roughly 18 000 - 20 000 soldiers (which is historically accurate for armies of this period) and it would be a fairly high risk invasion.

Its not easy to bring 6 stacks home for retraining, which probably means they would have to stay in Italy. If I lose these veterans I can basically consider my game over. Fighting the late game "super factions" is almost impossible without a solid core of soldiers. Capturing Italy and Sicily would also be very difficult with raw soldiers.

[Maurits]

Sounds interesting Duke! Please make some screens when you get your Italian campaign going

Wouldn't it be possible to split the army in two halves? Three stacks would be fighting, the others travelling and retraining. Then you'd be able to preserve your valuable veterans and conquer Italy at the same time

[Caligula Caesar]

Hmm, I started an Illyrian campaign and seized northern Epirus, but I've been filled by a sudden urge to play a Roman campaign (which I haven't done since the time of FoE ), so I'll put that on hold...

[Mausolos of Caria]

That sounds like a really interesting campaign, Duke. Securing Ionia first and then waging war on Rome seems to be the most historical way, too If not following Maurits' idea with the retraining, you could just land one army at lets say Kroton and one at lets say Aquileia (or whatever settlement is there iN RTR VII, I forgot ) and then march for Rome from two directions.
Even if the Romans would have bigger armies than you they could probably only concentrate the masses of their legions on one front and you could occupy the wealthy Italian cities on the other front which would give you more money so you could hire mercenaries or train new troops home on Greece to make up for the casualties.

[DukeCanada]

Those are great suggestions! I'll definitely keep you guys updated

I managed to play for 10 or so turns last night. Unfortunately the Illyrians have decided to attack, but I dont want to conquer them. So im forced to sack their cities and exterminate the population .

I can vouch for the Illyrians CC, its alot of fun

[Sphere]

Who was that crazy guy who did an AOR where he migrated the entire Seleucid faction to Briton and survived in RTR: PE?

'Twas pretty awesome.

I'm thinking of possible recreating it in VII with some faction, maybe Sparta to Northern Gaul?

[DukeCanada]

I remember that! It was rather astounding.

I dont know how feasible it in in RTRVII because of the settlement system we use. Most factions need to keep their faction capital in order to survive.

[DukeCanada]

Hello everyone! So I managed to squeeze some play time in last night. As planned. I subdued Ionia, left garrisons along the northern border of my empire, and prepared an invasion force.

This is the result

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The army you see is one of two very experienced armies, where the seconded army is actually commanded by Alexandre Antigonid, who still lives and reigns as the Basileus of Macedon. There is a third "semi-veteran" army, which is half composed of veterans, and the other half is mostly battle hardened mercenaries. The remaining three armies are entirely fresh.

[Xerrop]

Voted for the Antigonids.
You have to reconquer your heartlands first and then subdue Greece. One of the few factions ingame where the early and midgame expansion seems plausible and is also historical accurate.

[Visarion]

hmmm Antigonids have 7 and Aiakides 1... I wonder why...

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

I don't know, you'd think Pyrrhus would have more influence