I hate hordes !

[ScarletSorceror]

Barbarian Invasion - did no one play it before releasing it ?

Saxons and Franks are unplayable because 99% of the time the sequence goes: -

1) Play 5/6 turns.
2) Be invaded by a horde
3) Get totally wiped out.

If your settlements are not protected by stone walls (and at the start your settlement isn't usually large enough to sustain stone walls) then defending yourself from a horde up to 24 times the size of your defending army when the attackers have a liberal selection of generals and elite units is practically impossible. What's the point of playing ?

The Selucid campaign is the only one worth playing because you are far enough away from all the hordes not to be generally bothered by them - at least until the later stages when you might stand a fighting chance.

It's a pity because without the hordes Barbarian invasion would be a good game. It lacks the directives of the senate (and the bonus resources they provide) so it takes some skill to nurture upwards a faction surrounded by large numbers of potentially hostile factions.

They didn't do a mod to switch of the hordes powers did they ?

Sorceror.

[Dave Strider]

1st. I like Hordes. They crush the timy armies of your enemies.
2nd. Hordes don't appear in your turf for a while unless you're the Sarmatians or Roxolani.
3rd. There isn't a 'Seleucid Campaign' in BI.

[ScarletSorceror]

Yeah, meant Sassanid instead of Selucid.

The main criticism still applies though - Hordes at the outset give "losing" factions suddenly forces far, far, tougher than anything else in the game. The game balance is ruined as a result. Virtually every time I play as Saxons or Franks invading hordes cause chaos. When you only have two settlements even the loss of one to an unbeatable enemy becomes frustrating. The Sassanid campaign was interesting because it pitted you against a very tough Eastern Roman enemy - eventually I did win but at the start it was a heavy challenge.

Sorceror.

[Magic_8_Ball]

Yeah, meant Sassanid instead of Selucid.

The main criticism still applies though - Hordes at the outset give "losing" factions suddenly forces far, far, tougher than anything else in the game. The game balance is ruined as a result. Virtually every time I play as Saxons or Franks invading hordes cause chaos. When you only have two settlements even the loss of one to an unbeatable enemy becomes frustrating. The Sassanid campaign was interesting because it pitted you against a very tough Eastern Roman enemy - eventually I did win but at the start it was a heavy challenge.

Sorceror.

And you didn't find the challenge enjoyable? You weren't satisfied that you came out as winner? In that case, Barbarian invasion is definitely the campaign for you.

[Publius Quirinus]

The main criticism still applies though - Hordes at the outset give "losing" factions suddenly forces far, far, tougher than anything else in the game. The game balance is ruined as a result. Virtually every time I play as Saxons or Franks invading hordes cause chaos. When you only have two settlements even the loss of one to an unbeatable enemy becomes frustrating.

imo it brings an interesting dynamic to BI. I'm still more partial to the imperial campaign myself, but BI is undoubtedly a better-designed game. A horde cannot retrain their lost units until they settle down, so it's possible to whittle them down at strategic chokepoints. The thing to remember with hordes is that unless you're pretty late in the game, you cannot meet a horde with brute force in the open field. In this way the game forces you to pay more attention to where you place your armies.

On a campaign map level I think the horde system gives the map more variety. Fifty years into an imperial camapign, it's a safe bet that the map will have Egypt looming large in one corner, the same with Britannia in the opposite corner, and the Roman houses everywhere else. This isn't necessarily the case with BI. In the same amount of turns in BI I've seen the Roman Empire intact, Celts overruning Gaul and Germania, Vandals in Italy....

There's no inner logic why in defeat a faction suddenly gains access to a lot of elite troops that it did not have previously. A better system would be an "elected horde" system whereby a "hording faction" with only one last city could elect to abandn it and turn horde. The horde should then be made up primarily of barbarian peasants and levy spearmen - the sort of troops that untrained civilians would be likely to make.

One thing to point out is that, of course, they won't all be untrained civilians. Keep in mind that the horde represents an entire nation on the move. I would think at least some of the soldiers defending it would be drawn from the cream of the crop.

From a gameplay perspective, a horde made entirely out of peasants and levies could easily be wiped out by a single decent army on autoresolve... which would defeat the entire purpose of hording.

Basically, the only way that I see hordes could be fun is by sacking everything except your goals, take those cities, and then win, but in a normal situation you should really not use them, cause all the fun of RTW goes down the drain.

Dunno, seems to me that you could just ignore the victory requirements. It's not like the game forces you to go that way.... in my last Goth horde campaign I built a Syrian-Goth kingdom centered at Antioch. Very difficult (especially to someone used to playing Roman/Greek factions) but also very fun. Just saying.

[Magic_8_Ball]

Barbarian Invasion - did no one play it before releasing it ?

Saxons and Franks are unplayable because 99% of the time the sequence goes: -

1) Play 5/6 turns.
2) Be invaded by a horde
3) Get totally wiped out.

If your settlements are not protected by stone walls (and at the start your settlement isn't usually large enough to sustain stone walls) then defending yourself from a horde up to 24 times the size of your defending army when the attackers have a liberal selection of generals and elite units is practically impossible. What's the point of playing ? <-- because it's fun for some people silly head!

The Selucid campaign is the only one worth playing because you are far enough away from all the hordes not to be generally bothered by them - at least until the later stages when you might stand a fighting chance.

It's a pity because without the hordes Barbarian invasion would be a good game. It lacks the directives of the senate (and the bonus resources they provide) so it takes some skill to nurture upwards a faction surrounded by large numbers of potentially hostile factions.

They didn't do a mod to switch of the hordes powers did they ?

Sorceror.

Some people enjoy the challenge that the factions you talked about bring.

Seleucid being the only faction worth using is an opinion. <-- and you're thinking of vanilla Rome.

Not have hordes as a good thing is an opinion.

Potentially hostile factions, sure, but that's what makes the game challenging. Perhaps the barbarian invasion campaign isn't for you.

The Senate was a lot less influential at the time frame of Barbarian Invasion, which is probably why they weren't included in game. Besides, they're a pesky force that I wish I could invade the first few turns

Not sure about a mod switch though.

I see lots of whining in this post but it doesn't make any striking points other than the fact that you don't enjoy hordes.

[C-Rob]

As the saxons by the time the hordes showed up in my campaigns I had 11 cities so could absorb them effectively.

In my ERE campaign I had Vandals and the Huns rampaging my european holdings. It was tough going and my sasssanid front took a lot of gambles but ultimately profited and stablized the east so I could win back europe. Tough as nails though.

[Dave Strider]

Wait...if the armies are 24 times the size of yours....you're using less than 1 unit. That's why it's hard.

[empr guy]

but dont the saxons or franks form their own hordes?

besides the goths get invaded alot earlier since their right in the path of the sarmations and huns. (they form a horde to)


"hordes give losing factions forces far, far tougher then anything else in the game"
To be truthful, without hordes the game would get boring because there are not that many factions, and many start off with one province and could be easiley rushed by western rome. Without them western rome would be practicly not worth playing.

[War lord]

but dont the saxons or franks form their own hordes?

The franks do as the saxons you sould be invading england anyway.

[Parzival2211]

I like the challenges the hordes pose. I played as the Franks and didn't find it too hard. In the beginning, I had a tough time defending against the WRE, Burgundi and Lombardi, but after a while, I stabilised and started expanding. The hordes arrived much later, when I was strong enough to handle them.

IMO, the hordes are the distinct factor in BI, which only make BI worthwhile playing.

[Medkirtys]

Yeah, hordes are good, i played with Sassanids, and Roxolani formed a horde, but only with blocking mountain passes in Armenia i was able to stop them, and then defeat them, but that was interesting and cool.

[ScarletSorceror]

The twenty four times the size refers to the fact that with hordes you usually have between four and six fully populated armies to face - I've had battles where there have been four armies to my one. If at the start you only say have 4 to 5 units defending that's a ratio of 4/80 or 5/80 in units - sixteen or twenty to one.

With decent AI regarding fortifications (one enemy army was virtually totally destroyed by walking round my city next to the stone walls) and a fatigue system that dramatically increased the amount of fatigue caused by combat (so your generals can't single handedly wipe out half your enemies' army singlehandedly just by flank or rear charging their infantry) hordes would be virtually unbeatable at the initial stages of the game.

There's no inner logic why in defeat a faction suddenly gains access to a lot of elite troops that it did not have previously. A better system would be an "elected horde" system whereby a "hording faction" with only one last city could elect to abandn it and turn horde. The horde should then be made up primarily of barbarian peasants and levy spearmen - the sort of troops that untrained civilians would be likely to make.

[Magic_8_Ball]

The twenty four times the size refers to the fact that with hordes you usually have between four and six fully populated armies to face - I've had battles where there have been four armies to my one. If at the start you only say have 4 to 5 units defending that's a ratio of 4/80 or 5/80 in units - sixteen or twenty to one.

With decent AI regarding fortifications (one enemy army was virtually totally destroyed by walking round my city next to the stone walls) and a fatigue system that dramatically increased the amount of fatigue caused by combat (so your generals can't single handedly wipe out half your enemies' army singlehandedly just by flank or rear charging their infantry) hordes would be virtually unbeatable at the initial stages of the game.

There's no inner logic why in defeat a faction suddenly gains access to a lot of elite troops that it did not have previously. A better system would be an "elected horde" system whereby a "hording faction" with only one last city could elect to abandn it and turn horde. The horde should then be made up primarily of barbarian peasants and levy spearmen - the sort of troops that untrained civilians would be likely to make.

I see nothing but complaining in this post. Hordes are supposed to make the game more than a slaughter house for the human player. Once again, barbarian invasion isn't the game for you if you believe that hordes are too challenging for you to stomach.

[Final Frontier]

The whole point of BI is uncertainty. In RTW, once you had provinces inside your territory that didn't border other factions, you could just keep stacks of peasants without batting an eye. In BI, hordes have the ability to navigate through territory and pick which spot they want to settle in or sack.

It's the dominating factor that actually makes the game interesting. Most barbarian factions, barring the Saxons, Celts, and Alemanni, simply will not "disappear" after being conquered- instead, they try to find a new land to settle in and develop again. The period was very turbulent itself, and it would make sense that the dynamic experience revolves around having massive groups roaming around causing destruction.

If you play a horde faction, you'll see the other end of the spectrum and help create the instability and chaos in Europe, rather than be a victim of it.

[florin80]

The whole point of BI is uncertainty. In RTW, once you had provinces inside your territory that didn't border other factions, you could just keep stacks of peasants without batting an eye. In BI, hordes have the ability to navigate through territory and pick which spot they want to settle in or sack.

Indeed. It`s the more random course of action that I like too. I think the whole campaign is more dynamic and fast in BI than RTW. And it makes you think twice before taking some small faction`s last settlement. In my mod I`ve actually made the hordes slightly bigger and with a slower disband rate. I find it very fun to be confronted with such a serious challenge all of a sudden.

[empr guy]

There's no inner logic why in defeat a faction suddenly gains access to a lot of elite troops that it did not have previously. A better system would be an "elected horde" system whereby a "hording faction" with only one last city could elect to abandn it and turn horde. The horde should then be made up primarily of barbarian peasants and levy spearmen - the sort of troops that untrained civilians would be likely to make.

any faction with horde capabilities CAN abandone their last city. The problem is the AI (in my games at least) seems to value its last province more then the potential as a horde, and i dont recall a faction becoming a horde by choice.


I can see why you might say that hordes should be peasents and spearmen, but i think the reason for some elite uinits is that not everyone is poor in any city, (or town) and even if they have no experiance they can buy their own equipment to fight with.

my suggestion for you is Rome total war vanilla. Easy, no hordes, and heavily weighted so that the romans can kill anyone and everyone!

[Rainbow Dash]

I don't really find hordes that annoying playing against them, its playing AS them that is boring. In my Goths campaign, the goals were to get Constantinople and Rome. Instead of building up a huge empire over time, which would have been really fun, I decided instead to just make myself a horde, as I expected both cities to be defended by HUGE armies. I get to Constantinople 4 turns later, and its only defended by a general and around 4 other units. I easily get Constantinople, sack it for money, take it AGAIN from the rebels, and then its mine.

When I got to Rome a few turns after that, it had even LESS troops stationed in or around it. I easily won, and exterminated the populace (no sacking after your first settlement).

Then, since my horde armies were not gone yet, I took Athens just for kicks. Unfortunately, then all my hordes became citizens, so now the cities I captured are now as lightly defended as they were when I attacked them. Now, I know that in a few turns, the AI is going to take back Athens and Constantinople because it has a HUGE army in Thessalonica, and if the Western Romans manage to build up any kind of army, they will also pretty easily take back Rome.

Then I will be in the same place I started in...what I'm trying to say is that using hordes is like cheating, getting things very easily, and feeling no accomplishment, and when your hordes disappear, no satisfaction will come from the cities you took, since now that they are lightly defended, if at all, you know that you will become a horde again in a few turns.

Basically, the only way that I see hordes could be fun is by sacking everything except your goals, take those cities, and then win, but in a normal situation you should really not use them, cause all the fun of RTW goes down the drain.

Just my opinion.

[Cornelius Plautus]

I usually play as the Eastern Roman Empire, and I enjoy the looming threat of hordes because they deffinately add a new dimention to the game. Since the Roman factions don't have the manpower of hordes initially, it is a real challenge to fight against them, with the odds turned against the player (unlike in the initial Rome Total War, where the Roman factions were rather overpowered). Additionally, the removal of the 'Senate' faction was a necessity for a game that portrays the later Empire, since from Augustus' principate onwards, the Senators did not have a fraction of the power they had in the Republic. Also, Roman Family Members in Barbarian Invasion can get the 'Caesar' and 'Augustus' traits, making them the junior or senior Emperor respectively, which I found to be a lovely touch, as one can finally lead a battle as the Emperor himself.

[Entropy Judge]

Then I will be in the same place I started in...what I'm trying to say is that using hordes is like cheating, getting things very easily, and feeling no accomplishment, and when your hordes disappear, no satisfaction will come from the cities you took, since now that they are lightly defended, if at all, you know that you will become a horde again in a few turns.

Take two cities. Build up regular soldiers. Keep Horde troops in the field until your defenses are secure.