Early Campaign Conquest Guide

[shikaka]

Bribing isn't very efficient unless you're targetting a general with bad traits. For the cost of two units of Cataphracts you could train a half stack of HAs for instance, and at the start of the game, this sort of money isn't easy to come by for Armenia. Maybe when you take Greece or Asia Minor and wait a couple of turns, but you should be able to finish the Imperial Campaign in under 20 years anyway.

I usually don't bribe if there is a general with the army. (exception is when I am either short on governors or really can't spend the cash I have)

But Parthia cannot really recruit anymore of those heavies, and you can add it to your army.

Without the catas, the Parthian sieges will be made of eastern infantry swarms only, which is no threat.

I should have said that I would only do this if I am attacked by Parthia early.


About Spain-Carthage-Cordoba bribe: I think that still is a good idea, the most problematic thing for me as Carthage is to train enough men to both defend the city and conquer. And iberians/roundshields led by a captain are not really expensive.

If this happens, you can invade their lands, but it's often not worth it for a while IMHO, because you wont destroy the faction, so they'll continue to send out armies until you march into the desert to take a settlement that you really don't need in the early game. With the same effort you might as well take Croton which would help a lot more to speeding up your campaign. Short sea trade routes are indeed the most valuable.

Well I usually don't bother with their desert provinces, and I don't attack them until they start a war.

What usually happens is that they send a big, but crappy stack at Carthage, what will be defeated instantly. I create a small army (4-5 iberian inf, 2-3 roundshield, 1 elephant) and take their coastal cities, and train up garrison (3-4 units of town watch).

Even if they can save up some money to create a half stack army, and siege my cities, it is easy to hold out in the town square with the town watch forces.
(I never use peasants for garrison when some kind of militia is available)

[Genius of the Restoration]

Thrace and Spain are two factions I've wanted to play as but never do to well with early on. I'd like to see guides on them, actually. Past that, I'll just enjoy reading any guide that pops up on here.

They'll be on their way then.

**defensive rant**And missiles aren't bad for Carthage. I rather like slingers, personally. And normal skirmishers aren't bad, if you ask me. **end defensive rant**

They're not bad, they're just not that good . I think we have different play styles, though all missile units are useful in some way. Even slingers

I'm wondering what you think is the easiest and hardest faction to beat in a long campaign? Without including the Romans of course as I would think they would be the easiest to win with...especially after the Marius Reforms.

Hmm. The easiest might be the Greek Cities or Egypt and the hardest might be Numidia. It depends how good you are with different units though I suppose.

Without the catas, the Parthian sieges will be made of eastern infantry swarms only, which is no threat.

But as an Eastern faction with HAs, Armenia wouldn't ever want to battle in a siege. You'd sally at the very least to get the most out of your cavalry.

About Spain-Carthage-Cordoba bribe: I think that still is a good idea, the most problematic thing for me as Carthage is to train enough men to both defend the city and conquer. And iberians/roundshields led by a captain are not really expensive.

Perhaps, everyone will find a different way to cope. Spain shouldn't be that hard though, because you've got access to 4 units of Balearics if you hire the mercenaries and ship one and your general over from Palma. Bribing is still pretty expensive and you need that money early on in my experience.

What usually happens is that they send a big, but crappy stack at Carthage, what will be defeated instantly. I create a small army (4-5 iberian inf, 2-3 roundshield, 1 elephant) and take their coastal cities, and train up garrison (3-4 units of town watch).

Ah you've got elephants by this time then. I completely agree that you with a unit of elephants a small army is all that's needed to take out Numidia.

[Delta21]

Really nice !
i'm gonna try Britannia too,
can't wait for the other factions

Edit:

Here is my 55 year old Barbarian Spartan

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

spartan is a state of mind . You don't have to originate from Greece at all and be an epic spartan dude

[Stu.]

I'll do Pontus, Germania, Numidia and Dacia in the next day or two, so stick around!

Thanks dude.

[NotYetRegistered]

Waiting for the Numidian one,

I tried them once but they're really really hard.

[shikaka]

Waiting for the Numidian one,

I tried them once but they're really really hard.

You can capture and sack Carthage city, Thapsus, and Memphis pretty early. (Egyptian cities will not even have walls ), it is easy from that point. The only tricky battle is what you face when the Egyptian general (Aja?) attacks you, in your new wall-less city, and you only have skirmishers to fight.

If you want to be friendly with Carthage it is hard because of the lack of money

[Genius of the Restoration]

Numidia will come soon. I'll do it next, then Germania and Dacia.

How are you with javcav NotYetRegistered?

[Chicken]

good guides +rep

[ninjabanana]

Excellent guide. Keep it up!
(Pontus rules!)

+ rep

[NotYetRegistered]

@GeniusOfRestoration

Pretty bad.
Btw, +rep for the guides.

@Shikaka

Thanks for the advice. +rep to you.

[Julius Barca the Great]

Nice post on Pontus. I hate to admit it, but I actually never realized anything you posted in the last paragraph of it. I had assumed the pikemen were identical to their Macedonian/Seleucid brethren. Interesting info.

[Darth Umbrage]

Great guides GoR, a good foundation to build something larger . Im not too huge on short campaigns personally but the lessons are useful none the less. Like Barca I also prefer more balanced armies, unless of course I make them for a specific purpose. My campaigns do tend to go a little slower though since I like to have my armies a certain way, but you can never be too careful when creating an empire, right? I did manage to get all 50 provinces and Rome in roughly 35 turns with Gaul some time ago which is pretty good for me. ALOT of hard battles in that campaign, but after Italy fell it got pretty easy from there.

I am curious about what kind of guides you will put together for Macedon and Thrace. Thrace is just intersting and I love Macedon. Had a Macedonian game about a month ago (which I ended up saving over on accident) where I kicked the Greeks out of Greece and took Byzantium within 10 turns. After that I exploded in pretty much all directions, but I never got to finish the campaign. Im not sure if I could repeat it, but a guide or alternative approaches may inspire me to try again.

[Genius of the Restoration]

Glad people are finding it good. Numidia has just been put up

@Sammo
The guides are meant to set you up for winning the Imperial Campaign in a shorter time than you might have been used to otherwise. I'll get to Thrace and Macedon after my current back order then! Macedon has also been one of my favourite campaigns over the years.

@Julius Barca
It's a really strange thing and I'm not sure why CA did it but kept the unit's name the same. Bizarre, but fitting for Pontus.

[NotYetRegistered]

Thanks a lot!

[shikaka]

comments on Numidia:

The Egyptians usually go for Siwa early, but you can keep it and build a stables there to produce javcav.

Why not attack Egypt?
IIRC there is a family member, 1 javcav and 2 skirmishers in Siwa.
The southern egyptian city has no walls, and small garrison of 1 archer and 1 spearmen!
Easy picking.

You will be attacked by Kiya's army though, so that first battle against Egypt (defending that wall-less city) is not easy.
But if you manage to keep it until you build walls, it cripples Egypt, stops attacks on Siwa, and is a good point to conquer the Nile delta from.

Not easy, but worth mentioning in a blitz-guide IMHO

Try to get an expedition out to take Tingi ASAP and build ports for wealth.

For blitzing, roads are better as first builds IMHO.

Opponents: Egypt

I consider skirmishers throwaway troops, and even really bad javelins like Lybian mercs can take care of chariot generals. With 30-40% losses, true, but your javelinmen are cheap, easy to retrain and not a big waste if it doesn't work. (stand ground, and let the chariots charge into them. With their bonus against them, they can hold their ground until the others - legions, spearmen - catch up)

What is a bit more difficult is when they start to field armies with lots of archers and desert axemen. If you have lots of longshields they can charge these armies to retreat, but it is easy to lose good number of your horses if you don't pay attention.


Legions? Spearmen?:
I don't think that spearmen become obsolete with legions. It is better to mix them. (spearmen against enemy cav, pila against infantry)

[Lucarius]

Can't wait for Thrace

[Genius of the Restoration]

comments on Numidia:
Why not attack Egypt?
IIRC there is a family member, 1 javcav and 2 skirmishers in Siwa.
The southern egyptian city has no walls, and small garrison of 1 archer and 1 spearmen!
Easy picking.

The problem, as you say, is if you get attacked at Siwa on the way there. You actually start with 2 javcav and 3 skirmishers with the possibility of recruiting another of each as mercenaries (this will eat up a third of your starting money on vh though). If Kiya or Hekhemmut bring their units towards you though, you'll get ruined against Egyptian Generals and 2 Chariot Archers. In my opinion an immediate attack against Egypt is risky because you can't defend your original settlement while you head that direction. I think it would be better to wait until you've built your stables and can recruit javcav to defend your settlement with before you use the troops that are garrisoned there to attack Egypt.

For blitzing, roads are better as first builds IMHO.

You're absolutely right and that's what I'd build as well. I mentioned ports to help with the economic situation, but I'll go back and edit in that roads should be built first to save any confusion.

I consider skirmishers throwaway troops, and even really bad javelins like Lybian mercs can take care of chariot generals. With 30-40% losses, true, but your javelinmen are cheap, easy to retrain and not a big waste if it doesn't work. (stand ground, and let the chariots charge into them. With their bonus against them, they can hold their ground until the others - legions, spearmen - catch up)

I prefer not to use them like this. My reason is because they break very easily, and with penalties on vh against chariots, this can happen far too soon for my liking. Even if you consider them expendable and not a big waste if it doesn't work, the routing of one unit hurts your army as it seeing units fleeing and their morale suffers.

What is a bit more difficult is when they start to field armies with lots of archers and desert axemen. If you have lots of longshields they can charge these armies to retreat, but it is easy to lose good number of your horses if you don't pay attention.

Archers and axes would be better served with a mostly javcav-based army IMO. The archers on skirmish mode can be driven away from the axes and attacked in melee with javcav or Longshields, while the axes can be hit in the back with javelins.

I don't think that spearmen become obsolete with legions. It is better to mix them. (spearmen against enemy cav, pila against infantry)

I disagree on this point. Once the legions become available you'll have had access to Camel Riders for a while which should be used to attack enemy cav. Once legions appear, I'd begin phasing out the Desert Infantry in settlements that can recruit legions. It's good to have some Desert Inf for the occasional battle against multiple family members (like against Rome), but I'd prefer to have all legions instead of the spears. Being spearmen, they can't hold the line as well as the swordmen, but are only effective against cav, a speciality that is covered better by the Camel Riders. Not all of your settlements will be able to recruit legions (requiring 12,000 pop.), so an expedient army builder will still have many armies with Desert Infantry. Ideally, I'd go without them though.

Thanks for your thoughts, they're always appreciated

[shikaka]

The problem, as you say, is if you get attacked at Siwa on the way there. You actually start with 2 javcav and 3 skirmishers with the possibility of recruiting another of each as mercenaries (this will eat up a third of your starting money on vh though). If Kiya or Hekhemmut bring their units towards you though, you'll get ruined against Egyptian Generals and 2 Chariot Archers. In my opinion an immediate attack against Egypt is risky because you can't defend your original settlement while you head that direction. I think it would be better to wait until you've built your stables and can recruit javcav to defend your settlement with before you use the troops that are garrisoned there to attack Egypt.

I usually do this and can kill the family member and the 2 units in the southern Egyptian city easy. In the following battle I usually win against Kiya, and when it is done, you can start producing archers.é
If they take Siwa (they usually don't), then it is a good trade.

But I admit that it is a risk.

Archers and axes would be better served with a mostly javcav-based army IMO. The archers on skirmish mode can be driven away from the axes and attacked in melee with javcav or Longshields, while the axes can be hit in the back with javelins.

True, but a javcav heavy army (with camel/general/longshield support) rules over everything the AI can field

[ninjabanana]

As I have said before, this guide is brilliant! I can't wait for the Gaulish guide

Genius, I was wondering, are you gonna do a similar guide on BI factions?

[shikaka]

Genius, I was wondering, are you gonna do a similar guide on BI factions?

Well that is a good idea...

There are not many guides on BI!

I can't wait for the Gaulish guide

If you don't mind losint territory, you can just pack your things on the first turn, and erase Julii+SPQR from the map and settle there

Also, gaulish temple's rock! +XP and a weapon type upgrade, and usefule priest of... retinues (like +1 command for cav)