Barbarian Pride

[Hippias]

Anyone seeing Gaul, Germania or Scythia surviving long term in their games? With the exception of that scythian AAR where the guy blitzed everything they do seem to end up being crushed well easily by the western civilized factions.

The 'uncapturable desert regions' have been such a great feature that perhaps this, or something similar, could be used to keep the GCS, Armenians and Rome flattening the barbs to early. What about blocking the mountain range between Armenia and Scythia so that if armenia wants to go north it has to get their via the IGCS cities in the Crimea? Similarly, perhaps the Danube could be made uncrossable, so that Rome has to reach the Germans via Gaul or Thrace.

Regarding Gaul - they always seem to get the shaft as an AI faction. I support the 'rebel/shadow' factions, but think Gaul has it hard enough without needing loyalty as well. Could the Gaul Rebels become playable as the Independent Celts? If you give them the Gallic provinces in Northern Italy you could play them like the GCS, as sub-factions (Cisalpine Gauls, Galatians and Danubian Celts). They (not Gaul) could be the faction that starts at war with Rome - you could then have a dynamic of Gaul, Indie Celts and Germania alternnatively allied to or at war with each other.

Another idea - what about increasing the recruitment time of all 'non-barbarian' units (i.e. 1 turn to 2 turns,2 to 3 or 4) but leaving the Barbs as they are. This should always give the barbs a built in numerical advantage in battles, which is their best chance of defeating armoured opponents.

[Zarax]

Barbarians needs mostly a roster overhaul, imho they are severely underpowered in general...

[cherryfunk]

Yeah, something needs to be done, Gaul just gets vaporized in my campaigns, caught between Rome, Iberia and the indie Celts.

[Scutarii]

Barbarians definitely got the short end of the stick, they all need new units, particularly Gaul. Other than Naked Fanatics being changed to Gaesatae, they have no roster changes.

[Archbaker]

Barbarians really need better post-Marian units. I propose an armoured spear unit for Germans and some sort of heroic armoured sword unit for Gaul. The AI may also need to be able to field slightly larger garrisons early in the game.

I also like the idea of starting Rome out at war with the Independent Celts instead of Gaul.

Lastly, I think we can add more bad loyalty traits for Rome, to increase the chance of Romans turning on themselves and neglecting their invasion North.

[lankylars]

Scythia typically survives pretty long, and right now in my campaign they've captured Byzantium and a good bit of northern Greece. I do think that the Gaul/Ind. Celts situation needs looking at, but I like having those two factions in the game.

[Ephialtes The Dog]

You guys should really check out RS barbarian unit roster. In most of my campaigns playing RS the barbarians do extremely well.

[Zarax]

A short term solution would be to change carthaginian diplomacy.
Put them at war with both independent greeks and roman rebels, this will stimulate them to go after the rest of Sicily and pose a bigger challenge to the romans

[lankylars]

That sounds like a good idea. It's disappointing, really, how much of a backseat Carthage takes during the game. They never seem to really challenge Rome, or anyone else, for that matter. Most of the time they sit alone in their corner of the world.

[Hippias]

it's almost as if Germania and Scythia need a protected heartland - some sort of unconquerable regions or 'one way landblock' so that they could come out, but invaders can't come in. An extension of the 'hording' ability so that they are always in the game - as some others have said, the civilized nations weren't interested in conquering a sea of grass or forests and swamps to the horizon.

If GCS, Rome, Armenia etc were not interested in the extreme north & northeast of the map they could get on with struggling for the money belt i.e. the Med and the old persian empire. There would be the constant threat throughout the game that a bunch of bare arsed Germans or psychotic horse archers would errupt every 20 years or so to cause mayhem.

After all, those regions never were conquered, hence you later got the Vandals, Goths & Huns coming out of the uncharted wilderness looking for mischief....

Just think out loud here - bad day at work - Smirnoff Black Label and XGM ease the pain so well

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

IBERIA!

Ever tried playing as them of late? Those poor sods have to fight Rome and Carthage, frequently at the same time, with what might be the most bland, generic and underpowered lineup in the entire game. Now that bull warriors have been changed to steer warriors, they're badly outgunned.

I propose the following for AI balance, just off the top of my head:

-Autoresolve seems to badly underestimate horse archers, but overestimates the value of terrain bonuses and morale. Bump horse formation numbers down a bit, pare back their melee, drop one or two points from their ranged attack and give them a +3 bonus versus horses. Give them four more morale. Give horse archers more bonuses in their own climates and stiffer penalties elsewhere. If it's not been done, drop all defense into defensive skill, eliminating armor and shield entirely for basic HAs. Increase ammo count. Why? The Sons of Tartigus AAR was instructive in showing that basic horse archers are actually quite proficient when used in melee. Being forced to use them more restrictively would be better for human players.

Cutting their ranged attack, unit count and melee a bit will keep them from running over infantry in 3D combat the way they do now. Having to use more difficult enveloping maneuvers to shoot enemy infantry in the back will be more interesting than just gunning down the line. Shooting up enemy cavalry should not be difficult, however, both for logical and gameplay reasons. A horse is a big target, and most of the enemy horses are unarmored; they should me more susceptible to arrows. horse archer peoples would have spent most of their lives shooting at other horse archers too, due to the nature of their society. Finally, having horse archers as a mounted, ranged cavalry counter is interesting. Horse archers need more ammo for gameplay and logical reasons; on a horse you can carry a larger quiver, and everything I've read suggests Scythian quivers carried a goodly number of rounds. If we are to restrict horse archers to ranged combat alone, it also makes sense to give them enough ammunition to do their jobs properly.

On the autoresolve side of things, giving the scythian horse archers more bonuses in their own areas and more penalties elsewhere will keep people from invading the steppes, and keep the scythians from invading everyone else, except maybe Germania, which is acceptable. Giving the basic horse archers a bonus versus other horses will keep HA armies from getting mowed down by heavy cavalry, which makes no sense, and bumping up their morale will make them perform in autoresolve better generally, while it will have little significance in 3D combat since HAs don't much benefit from great morale due to being ranged units.

More advanced cavalry archer types can be left more or less alone.

-I vaguely recall archaeological work being done on Scytho-Sarmatian cities showing that some of them were fairly large. For game balance purposes, maybe increase the starting size and defense levels of all steppe cities, but reduce the number of buildings in them? That should help keep people off the steppes, and make scythian blitzes harder.

-The Iberians need another spear unit, or their current one needs to be cheaper. Iberian spearmen are not very cost effective in my experience. Bumping up their morale so they can actually hold a line like proper spearmen ought to be able, and giving them the same javelins as the scutarii would make them the perfect unit for holding towns during seige. They could lose a point of two of attack if their unit number was the same size as the caetratii. Then the Iberians would have a decent late-game garrison unit, which they lack ATM.

-Iberian cataphract-style lancers. You know you want to.

-AOR Basque units! The history of the Basques is sketchy in the game's timeframe, but I think it's reasonable to assume that they would have been a little different than the other celts about at the time. The Romans seem to have been fond of the Vardulli warriors, since they named one of the cohorts of them the "Fida". Since that unit was part cavalry, it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to make the AOR unit a tougher version of the Barbarian cavalry.

-One or two more Carthaginian buildings that improve trade. Giving Carthage a little more cash, if they survive, would allow them to shake up the world more.

[chazap]

most campaigns i play Gaul almost always gets wiped out....in my current campaign, Scythia and Parthia are extremely strong and own about a 1/3 of the known world...

[Hurlbut]

well looking at the other mods, like EB, would provide ideas as to improve the barbarian factions. Or ask the mods' authors if their units can be "burrowed"

[Archbaker]

I would like to see the Iberians rely on a lot of local AOR units. I don't think the logistics of shipping units out of Iberia in the event of an expansion would be too difficult.
EB has some nice Euskari heavy infantry units. They also have some Lusitanian spearmen, which I think would make for another great Iberian AOR unit coupled with a small reduction in price for Heavy Spearmen. And I think Cantabrian javelin cavalry is already on everybody's wish list.
Playing as Carthage, I also got the impression that basic Iberian units could use a morale boost. I won most of my battles in Iberia by routing more than half the opposing army. Perhaps Iberia could use a Command unit of some sort.

For Gaul, I would like to see the Gaesatae throw javelins before a charge, and an elite armoured sword unit to match post-Marian Romans.

For the Germans, I personally like the idea of heavy post-Marian spearmen or swordsmen. These could be called Thegns or Hearth Warriors, or simply Chosen Spearmen. Club warriors would be another nice addition, but not really necessary unless they were to be even cheaper than current axemen.

[Hippias]

new units are good, and there are some fine ideas here and elsewhere, but i think the barbarian cultures need something radical on the campaign side to help them, else they will be stomped before they have built up enough to afford these heavier units.

[Archbaker]

In my experience they don't get completely stomped until after reforms, but I suppose we could try to direct Rome's attention elsewhere.

[DimeBagHo]

For Scythia and Parthia I am testing out Lgk's method of improving their auto-calc performance. The initial tests look promising. It would also be easy enough to make the steppe regions harder to hold - either through building penalties, or by making unrest and rebellion more common and nastier.

The western barbarians will, sooner or later get some new higher level units. But the thing that most people are objecting to here - Rome stomping on the western barbarians - is unavoidable. The only alternative is a weak and feeble Rome that stays in Italy, which would be no fun at all.

[cherryfunk]

Switch Rome to 'prefers naval invasions' -- this might direct their attention south and east.

[DimeBagHo]

Switch Rome to 'prefers naval invasions' -- this might direct their attention south and east.

That might work out OK if the Romans had the whole of Italy at the start of the campaign (something like the vanilla start) but with the current start, we really want them to take Southern Italy, Sicily, and Northern Italy.

[Paul d]

they do. then they go over to corsica an sardin and there. i did a campaign with naval invasions for rome. they invaded greece.