The build tree:
In my opinion, Spain has the worst build tree in RTW. Your units start off pathetically weak for even the first tier, stay on this level for the second tier, and only gain a little bit of muscle in the third and final tier. On the positive side, this can be a fun campaign because you are always at a disadvantage unit-wise in the early stages. As a “barbarian” faction you can only reach the third construction tier at 6000 pop., though this isn't really fair, because unlike other barbarian factions you get access to the Punic line of units, depriving you of the solid early Warband infantry.
As a town, your settlements have access to Town Watch as you most basic infantry. This is the worst unit in the game at this level. Even Eastern Infantry is better.
You may think that the next level of pop. will save you, but think again! You get some useful units at this level that can win territory for you if you know what you're doing on the battle map. In a one-on-one they may not be very strong, but combined arms can get the job done, even when the units are poor. You get Iberian Infantry. A step up from Town Watch, though not by much. You also get access to Skirmishers as your basic ranged unit. You get Round Shield Cav though, so it's not all bad. These cav are weak but cheap, so can be recruited en masse for the best effect. Through one of your temples you can get Naked Fanatics, which I would consider using for Spain. Given that they take two turns to recruit though, I'm still not sure about whether it would be worth it. Still, an army with II/NFs, a couple of Skirmishers and heaps of cav should be able to conquer well into enemy lands, as long as you do it before they get some good stacks roaming around, in which case you'll need to increase the size of your own.
At 6000 pop. you've reached the pinnacle of Spanish greatness. Unfortunately, it's not that great . You can recruit Slingers and Long Shield Cav and can finally get some decent infantry in Scutarii, but you also gain access to your unique unit, the Bull Warriors.
I've had some debates in the past about which should be recruited. In my opinion, Bull Warriors should be recruited in as many settlements as you can afford and have reached the top tier of production. Their superior stats should make them last better than Scutarii. There are a couple of negative outcomes of this though. One of the chief problems is that Bull Warriors require a Sacred Circle of Esus. This prevents you from building the Epona temple tree that grants units +3exp when recruited or retrained there. These are pretty much the only two shrines you should be building as Teutatis is inferior to Epona and Abnoba is largely worthless except in a single settlement to upgrade the missile attack of Slingers or Skirmishers. Put the Abnoba temple on the way towards the war so any ranged units you produce can stop off there on the way for the extra attack. Bull Warriors also take two turns to recruit, giving you one unit instead of two, but their power makes up for this in my opinion. Another disadvantage is that if your top-tier settlements are recruiting Bull Warriors, you can't recruit the other top-tier units, Long Shield Cav and Slingers. I wouldn't worry about the slingers, they're not great, though they can be vastly improved using two temples. Long Shield Cav are much stronger than Round Shields though.
My suggested solution to the problems of what to recruit for a typical Spanish army would be to take Bull Warriors in all settlements once they hit 6000 pop. In all other settlements you can crank out Skirmishers with temple bonuses for 10 attack, and Round Shields with two experience. These should see you through. Once you've got enough high-pop cities, you could keep two for Abnoba and Epona temples respectively so that you can train high-end troops there if you want. You could also skip Barracks upgrades altogether. Simply rely on NFs and Bull Warriors to do all your infantry fighting. The buildings are cheaper this way too.
Location:
Unfortunately, Spain is off on the side of the map. This makes it harder to expand aggressively. You are located on the sea however, so use that to your advantage and expand by taking other settlements along the Mediterranean. Gaul and desert Numidia are less appealing, but you can go there, just probably leave it until you've got a strong foothold in the Mediterranean. You'll find everything much easier once you take up to Rome because you'll have plenty on money and plenty of Bull Warriors being produced from top-tier cities.
Opponents:
You have two opponents on your little peninsular; Gaul and Carthage. Carthage shouldn't be any trouble at all, just make sure you buy the mercenaries before they do. Your units are similar, so just mob them with superior numbers. Gaul's units are tougher. Take plenty of Round Shields with you against them. And try not to fight them on the town square because they will really hurt you. In fact, try not to fight large battles in settlements against them at all. Moving into Gaul in a limited manner sticking mostly to the sea is a good idea to increase your trade income, and it takes a while before their units advance to a level that should be worrying, and by that time you should have Bull Warriors which win anyway. Numidia is another early opponent you should be going for. Try to take Tingi early on as the short distance between it's port and Cordoba's nets high cash. Unlike Gaul, you want to fight in settlements against Numidia to stop the havoc caused by their javcav. Their other early troops are also not that much better when used by the AI who seem to like to spam jav units instead of something useful. You will also come across the Julii early on, often with an invasion coming through Osca, so be prepared for that. The best was to stop the invasions is to take one of their Italian cities, so that's a good target to aim for 10 or so turns into the game. |
RTW : Vanilla : Rise of Iberia
and has 1 or 2 of everything he could become a good general
are they coming from?
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Originally Posted by Genius of the Restoration
Re: RTW : Vanilla : Rise of Iberia
ill destroy them all 
and so they did. I also had minor casualties, this was a major day for the Iberian Armys. This would become a glorious holiday for the people in Iberia and many more such victories were to come.
When we finally arrived at Massila we discovered that the city was in Gallic hands, not Roman (another worry)
