Starting as Breton

[Cheomesh]

In wait for the next version and as a break from Rome, I thought I'd start as the Britons. These guys are in horrible shape! Losing money fast and with units not quite robust enough for a seige. How am I supposed to start off well with these guys?

M.

[Quinn Inuit]

They're pretty easy, actually. (I should know, as there isn't much else to do while running long test games. ) Gather your whole army and siege the city to the left. If they sally, you can beat them in the field (nothing fancy, just open with your skirmishers, then hit them with your chariots in the center of their army followed by your army in a long single line--don't let them deploy fully). If not, you stomp them in the city. Then build up your economy till you can conquer most of the rest of the area, then move to the mainland.

[Cheomesh]

Ah, I was at first intimidated by the daunting coin loss and pretty poor quality of my own troops. Captured the first two cities alright and managed a nice empire, until my faction leader died as I left the capital -- only to have it revolt and kill the new faction leader.

Was doing pretty good until that happened, so now I must rebuild.

M.

[Quinn Inuit]

Doh! That stinks.

btw, one trick I forgot to mention. After you capture city #1, disband most of your remaining troops. That'll save your economy.

[Cheomesh]

Ah, I got lucky and quickly captured the second one; waited several turns to get money, then started upgrading my realm.

Kinda fun, being alone on your own little island...

M.

[Carados]

First of all, build the farms.

Then, besiege the settlement on the left straight away, and drag all the troops bar Caratacus as far as you can to join them. On the next turn you can get them all to join and easily take the settlement. Make use of the chariots ability to frighten infantry. Hit a single shaken/wavering unit with both chariot units and you could cause a cascade of panic that leads to you annihilating everything in the immediate vacinity. Build farm/trader.

Once you have taken the settlement, disband the chariots, but leave your infantry. Move the infantry to attack the other settlement north of London (Calleva? never heard of it ). If you want, you could recruit some skirmishers in London to act as a garrison and use Caractacus to lead this army. When you besiege the settlement, they should sally out. You are unlikely to win this battle, however your aim is not to win this battle but to inflict as many casualties as possible on the enemy and to slay the enemy general. If you can achieve that, and lose most of your troops - mission accomplished. Either way, at the end of the battle disband all remaining troops and concentrate on building up your settlements for a short while.

Eventually, you should be able to build a couple of chariots and maybe even some chosen units. This is why I suggest you make a mockery of the 2nd settlement, rather than disbanding your units straight away as Quinn suggests. You won't have to recruit as many of these units since the garrison is smaller. Thus you should take it rapidly. Disband the expensive units straight away and repeat the economy build-up. In a short while you should have a large enough economy to actually support a half stack and still build. When you reach this point, you can think about attacking Scotland, before taking on the home of Guinness itself (in which case when you ransack the place, save me some!! ).

Hope that helps ^__^