Faction difficulty ratings (your help is needed)

Much has changed since EB1.0 but not the difficulty ratings of factions since, they severely need updating and here your experience playing as these factions can help.

(We already had a thread about it but due to a TWC crash every thread between the crash and december 25th, the last back up of the forums, has dissappeared.)

Please use the following format:

Early game difficulty: easy-nigh impossible
Late game difficulty: easy-nigh impossible

Army/unit: please list strengths, weaknesses and challenges.
Campaign: please list strengths weaknesses relating to starting position, adversaries, economy and building options.

Your help is needed and very welcome. Thanks in advance!

Karthadast
Early game difficulty: Medium
Late game difficulty: Medium

Army: Carthage has a huge selection of troops. They have a good cavalry force with dependable medium cavalry and great heavy cavalry. They also have Rome of the best skirmishing cavalry at their command ranging from the incredible useful numidians to great cantabrian mercenaries. They also have a solid choice in Infantry. While not as heavy as some other factions they are quite dependable to hold the line. A big plus for Carthage is their wide variety of good skirmishers they can recruit. be it balearic slingers numidian archers or lybian skirmishers there is always a good skirmishing unit you can recruit. They also excel in light/assault/flanking infantry with iberians and gallic units at their command (and later when they are released african swordsmen)

Campaign: Carthage by beeing a trade empire has it's possessions divided by the sea. Which means you start with a big fleet. They own the area around carthage + lybia. A third of sicily, Sardinia and corsica the balearic islands and a southern part of spain. You will have to ship your armies around if you want to attack different positions. Especially if you play on a historical basis. The starting economy of carthage is good tho i would recommend disbanding one fleet or you will most likely see negative numbers at the beginning of the game. One of it's rivals the numidians are directly on your border in africa but they never showed any aggression towards me in any carthage campaign. In spain you have the warlike lusitanni who will trade with you but will later become your main rivals in the conquest of spain. Rome is still recovering from the phyrric war and will take some time to deal with their problems in the north and the south. Be warned tho that they will surely try to wrestle the control of the Mediterran sea out of your hands once (or if) they have dealt with the northern tribes and epirus. Epirus is still at war with you at the beginning of the game and will most likely raid your ports. Getting a peace agreement would be advisable.
You will be able to build settler colonies as carthage.

All in all carthage very balanced on the campaign map and has a solid roster. I would highly recommend them if you are new to eb

Boii
Early game difficulty: Challenging
Late game difficulty: Challenging-Very Challenging

Army: The Boii like most other Keltoi, are largely based in infantry and have a similar roster to the western continental Celts, except they also get unique east Celt units and less chariots starting off. They do have a few good supporting light cavalry units which should be on par with many of their neighbors light cavalry, and heavy cavalry that is decidedly better than most of their neighbors(except the other Keltoi). Their heavy infantry units, like the other Celtic factions(except the pritanoi) wear a fair bit of armor, which makes them tougher than their northern neighbors, and well able to tango with most of their southern counterparts. As well, quite a number of their heavy infantry units use javelins. Their decent heavy cavalry and good heavy infantry work well with the classic hammer and anvil tactics, but many of their infantry units are also very suitable for flanking and assaulting as well. One of the bigger hurdles you will have to face as your empire grows is dealing with superior heavy cavalry. You might be on par with the Gauls, but the Makedonian heavy cavalry, the Sarmatian heavy cavalry, and a few others you might run into will blow yours out of the water. Against enemies who have superior cavalry than you, your infantry and cavalry will really have to work in conjunction with one another. The strength of the Boii is still her infantry, looking at their roster you'll see they have a wide variety of footmen available to you. In general, the Boii have a fairly balanced roster with acceptable light infantry, good heavy infantry and adequate cavalry. They may not have walls of spear phalanxes or cataphracts, but a good Bogios or foreign conqueror will make use of their many dependable units.

Campaign: The Boii start off as the largest Keltoi faction, and one of the bigger in Northern Europe in general(not hard when most factions are one trick ponies starting off). You start off with a larger army because of your size, a potentially better economy than most of the neighboring factions and pre-built roads connecting Streuinta to Alkomoennos. While you won't border anyone at first, given your Central European position, you're going to get a lot of neighbors, quite quickly. At the game's start, there are 4 rebel roving stacks situated at your borders. These stacks are one of the bigger early game hurdles, and stand in the way of a slower build player as well as the early expansionist. If you don't disband your army, the Boii will go into debt, which is one of the reasons why their early game can't be rated as moderate(easy-medium factions tend to have a good starting economy, which makes life significantly easier). At turn 1, construction of farms should be started in both settlements to increase pop growth and economy, then mercenaries should be hired and cheap levies recruited in Streuinta, as Alkomoennos starts as a protectorate. Unite all your armies into one, taking your FL and FH along as heavy cavalry, and leaving the other 2 FMs as governors/garrisons of your settlements. From there, attack the rebel stacks surrounding you, and one by one capture the settlements they usually try to protect. This will have a two-fold effect of decreasing economy devastation, as well as increasing your economy by conquest of a new territory. Once you defeat all those rebels and capture as many towns as your starter army will allow, your economy will significantly improve, but as you get bigger, so can your problems. The Boii will end up sharing it's borders with a whole wealth of factions, and in a long campaign you must destroy/outlast(lets face it, YOU will likely have to destroy most of them) the Swebozes, the Aedui, Aruernoi and the Romani. This means that the Boii will have a whole wealth of wars to come in the future, especially given it's Central European Position. You can also expect to have to fight the Lugians, Getai, Sauromatae and the KB, depending on how you or they expand. You might even end up fighting the Greeks, if you expand well into Illyria or the Balkans(and the Boii CAI often does).

In summary: the Boii's rating as a Very Challenging faction through and through can be somewhat misleading. They have a significantly easier early game than many of the neighboring factions, with a decent starting army, 2 provinces and pre-built roads. The part where things may get Very Challenging, is usually when the Boii start interacting with it's many neighbors, whom might covet your possessions(especially Rome and her incredible infantry). These complications, however, are still difficult to truly distinguish as Very-Challenging, for me(as I've played so many Boii campaigns), and I can see how someone might rate their overall game as Challenging, as well. Things don't necessarily get easier for the Boii(although better finances certainly give you more breathing room), but they also don't necessarily don't explode into a greater challenge, though the difficulty can increase somewhat because of your geographical position.

Getai
Early game difficulty: Hard
Late game difficulty: Hard/Medium

Army
The Getai started with an interesting roster, that is balanced and sometimes more powerful than the Kelts or Gauls (your potential future nemesis). The Light Phalanx is superior to most spearmen fielded by the Kelts and Gauls, it could hold off the Celtic Spearmen and even in some cases it would do considerably well against the Bataroi or other sword wielding infantry. The Komatai is a very versatile unit, I usually kept 3-4 of that unit in my stacks as they performed dual role of skirmishing and flank assaults, they are better than most skirmishers in melee and are excellent for ambushes. The Komatai Epilektoi however imo is not as good as the Komatai, I usually kept one or two units in my stacks but they have so few men in their unit and a komatai would be able to do flanking jobs just as good as the Epilektoi, despite that they do have a staying power when placed in guard mode and could hold off most of enemy levies even though they are badly outnumbered. The Thracians provided better early cavalry, the Esvanai is slightly better than the Mezenai in terms of skirmishing and melee combat. The only drawback for the Esvanai is its loose formation (If I remember correctly the Mezenai have tighter formation). The Phylakes Daoi and Tarabostes are simply superb, they are very useful in my campaign against the Lugiones, and pretty much superior to most Hellenic cavalry. They are slightly worse than the Donno Epodoroi but as long it is well supported by light cavalry it would do well in the battlefield. The problem I faced as the Getai is the lack of strong Line Infantry when fighting Hellenic factions or the SPQR. They have vastly superior infantry, and even though your units didn't rout but most of my victories against the KH resulted in my army losing 30% of its line infantry. This does not mean their line infantry is terrible, they just need more attention for a person who is used to fight using 'civilized' faction line infantry.

Campaign
The rebels are a nasty surprise, I had two great mistakes in the beginning of my campaign. 1st one is conquering Histria, if it is not exterminated they will be highly unstable and will revolt to Kimmerians and it sets a state of war between you and them and simply will be too much for the Getai to handle. Second is that I learn it the hard way that there are 2 rebel stacks roaming in Getia. The first one is quite easy to spot and the player could defeat it. The second stack however remained hidden and until I captured Tylis I didn't spot them at all, it is possible they are hiding in the northern forests. They sacked my capital city and nearly ended my game. Fortunately I control Odrysai and after a great victory at Beripara I finally can move back to reclaim Getia. The battle is fierce and your manpower will be stretched to the brink but if the player manages that then there is no problem at anymore. In the short run (the first 100 turns) your main problems would be the Rebel stacks popping here and there even after you defeat the two major stacks I mentioned. The devastation from wars will obliterate your early economy unless you disband your army. After the first 100 turns a Getai player might consider invading the rest of the Balkans and grab all of the mines in the territory and provinces with Amber route before the Boii arrives. By turn 200 you would have Petty Kingdoms installed and maybe Royal Lands to unlock the remaining construction options. The mines itself will help sustaining a large army and will give you the funds needed in your upcoming wars (there is even one with 3 bonuses and one of the bonus is a +3000 mnai). In the long term, a tedious and long and grinding war against the world empires would be inevitable, but by this time your economy would be one of the finest in the Mediterranean and it would definitely sustain most of your campaigns (still not sure if my invasion on the Hellas is a good choice or not, they have dozens of stacks albeit most of them are still consisted of hoplitai). Getai main challenge is in the early game, in late game it is very possible to defeat any nation you wish to fight (i.e Hellas, Boii, Lugii, Sweboz).

Macedon
Early game difficulty: Hard
Late game difficulty: Medium

Army/unit:
Macedon has a good mix of heavy infantry with phalangitai and hoplitai. Before the thureos reforms your army is more focused on heavy line infantry but it becomes more flexible over time. Their infantry is supported by some of the best cavalry in the game, the hetairoi and Thessalian cavalry. Unlike Epirus you aren't able to recruit royal regiments like the hetairoi, agema, hypastists and makedon peltastai. Even though you start with some of these units you can't retrain them so you have to take care to preserve them if you want them experienced.

The light army options aren't great, just your regular greek skirmishers, archers and slingers as well as light skirmisher cavalry. These units do their job but their Tracian, Illyrian and Dacian counterparts are much better. This means that in the early campaign you won't have access to all the best light troops. Fortunately you will be able to recruit mercenaries from Crete and Illyria without much problem.

At first overall you will have quite expensive units to train and upkeep, but after the first reforms you will be able to recruit lighter, cheaper units.

Campaign:
The start with the Macedonians can be challenging. You start at war with both the Koinon Hellenon and Epirus and both these factions surround your realm. Epirus has a huge stack close at hand lead by Phyrrus, the great general. If he should choose to attack quickly, he will make your life very difficult indeed. If these factions give you some time however, your campaign will start much better.

Once your kingdom is secure from its most immediate threats you are in a very good position though. The Greek lands are rich in population, resources and its central position gives great trade opportunities. With this income you can repair the mines and tombs in Pella to improve further your income and recruitment pool.

After Greece is in your hands the campaign becomes much more easy. Your realm is fairly easy to protect and there are probably still rebels in Illyria and Thrace to expand to. These regions will give you great light infantry and cavalry options to use with your heavy Greek and Macedonian units.

All in all a very well balanced faction, should you live through the opening stage of the game.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

excuse any typos and writing errors :thumbsup2

Correction:

As Makedon you are able to "recruit royal regiments like the hetairoi, agema, hypastists and makedon peltastai". But you can do it only from the highest tier government (Basilike Patris), which you can build in only one city (it has to have highest city upgrade). It's best to place Basilike Patris in Makedon (Pella) because there is a hidden resource that allows you to recruit agema phalangitai. If you build it elsewhere, you should still have access to Hetairori, Hypastis and Makedon Peltastai, but not necessarily Agema.

Good point forgot about that.:thumbsup2

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AntigonosDoson

Correction:

As Makedon you are able to "recruit royal regiments like the hetairoi, agema, hypastists and makedon peltastai". But you can do it only from the highest tier government (Basilike Patris), which you can build in only one city (it has to have highest city upgrade). It's best to place Basilike Patris in Makedon (Pella) because there is a hidden resource that allows you to recruit agema phalangitai. If you build it elsewhere, you should still have access to Hetairori, Hypastis and Makedon Peltastai, but not necessarily Agema.

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Not correct. Agema Phalangitai are recruitable everywhere you build Basilike Patris as Makedon.

What this hidden resource in Pella does though, is that it gives you access to regular phalangitai from higher tiers of governments (Hellenic Administration, Supervised Hell. Adm., and obviously Basilike Patris), beside the usual access to them from hel. colonies. The same resource works for Epeiros and some other hellenistic factions too, so it's worth to take Pella as Epeiros for the same easy available access to phalangitai.

Yeah, Pella has the hidden resource that makes it give automatically phalagitai from goverments. I think theres other 2-3 settlements that do that aside from colonist buildings.

Still it makes sense to build it in Pella been the region of Makedonia and your capital hehe.

bump.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jervaj

Yeah, Pella has the hidden resource that makes it give automatically phalagitai from goverments. I think theres other 2-3 settlements that do that aside from colonist buildings.

Still it makes sense to build it in Pella been the region of Makedonia and your capital hehe.

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Pella, Alexandreia, Antiocheia - three places with large Makedonian populations already present, thus the bonus Phalangitai recruitment.

Macedon:
Early game difficulty: hard
Late game difficulty: medium/easy

Basically I agree with what has been already said above. Once you defeat Koinon Hellenon and Epirus, its pretty much it. I had some troubles with Pergamon also. Anyway, try to make an alliance with Seleucid, as I did, end Pergamon, Getai and after that its super easy. Especially now with a passive AI, which is being solved for another patch. I am about to end Pontus, Ptolemai and then i will see...anywaym great mod!

End another faction and it becomes easy...some nasty surprises in 2.2 waiting for people who's plan to win involves killing other factions off. :laughter:

I take it you guys had a breakthrough on re-emergent factions? :whistling

Or perhaps the AI gets "emergency defense armies" when someone closes in on their final provinces (some of the submods for TA:TW use this to enhance the survival of AI factions).

Thats not so bad if its just for their last region but if the mod ends up drowning in garrison scripts i am gonna be disappointed. :no:

Nope, no garrison script.

Perhaps other nations severely dislike you if you wipe out a faction...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

End another faction and it becomes easy...some nasty surprises in 2.2 waiting for people who's plan to win involves killing other factions off. :laughter:

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Nice to hear :), so I guess its gonna be something like in Rome: barbarian Invasion, where you captured all the cities and their ppl went all-in with 3-4 full stacks

Uh, I am intrigued in that mechanic.

Although it must be said that in hellas specially for Makedonia killing at least a faction seems the way to go to simplify your fronts. I always try to kill KH as it also makes sense historically. Epeiros I only bother to kick them out of hellas although this tend to end with them dominating Italy as they will build the troops there and Rome just sucks early game at least for the AI xD