The Dacians. Way more exciting then I had ever thought. A Story and overview

[Pelican Man]

HELLO DARTHMOD TEAM AND COMMUNITY!!!!!!!!!!

Here comes a story by me, the P-Man, on what I think about the Dacians.

ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!!

Difficulty: h/h

Well, I would like to start off congratulating the Darthmod Team. Excellent job. I dont think I will play another mod. (Maybe full version of Troy total war and Iberia Total war, if they finish) So I shall begin with the story.

First, the starting provinces are a little stretched out...so there are key points right off the bat that have to be stated. ROADS!!! had to build them first. btw, Spent 4-5 hours last night playing it. = ) The thing with Dacians, the POP Growth is not high at all (with a few traders, and farms, military build is quite nice). I feel that everything is balanced. Then i began building mili right away. First direction of my plan was to take the northern rebel city between the capitol and the far city to the right. (keep forgetting the names) Took that with some ease, lost maybe 20% of troops out of 6 units against 3 units. So somewhat respectable. Also, being allied to ZE germans, Gauls, and thracians is nice. But , I expected them not to last, and that is exactly what happened. I might be about 15 years into my campaign, and Im seeing quite huge armies comming my way. So lets begin on how that happened. After I took the rebel city, I decided to sit back, build some economy and military buildings. Then, I catch a spy from thrace, so im thinkin that they are aiming for me. So i allied to the macedonians. = ) good call, cause next turn the thracians sent an army towards my capitol. Still being allied to them, I took the initative. I hit them. and completely slaughtered their army. Lost maybe 5 percent of troops where I had about 9 units, they had about 7. (they also had no gen. ) OH!! btw, good gens for them too... im seeing a pattern.... :hmmm: (from my brits story) My gen, was born a genius. He is giong to do some nasty things. So I sent him to take the city beside londinum ( i think.) Took that city, and used it as a defence point. Well, I moved on to attack the northern city of the Thracians, lost about 30% of troops ( 14 units= 5 units warband, 3 units falxmen (amazing), 2 archers, 1 gen, 1 light cav, and one Illyrian peltasts.) Took the city, retrained, built up 1 more unit, and recruited Sarmatian Cav, and moved onto the capitol. well, on the way to the capitol, the thracians built up a full stack, so i was outnumbered 3:2. which wasnt too bad, my Faction leader was about 9 stars, and with some crazy traits to boost morale. Then, the backstabbing came. Gaul hits my rebel city (the one beside londimum, i think) and my first city thats to the far left, ZE Germans hit the other rebel city to the north. so, now, i have a three front war. IM in a pickle. I decided earlier to build up an army of about 15 units while i was taking thrace over, cause i suspected just one backstab. but there were two. lol and after that, both asked for me to become protectorate. :tooth: I couldnt stop laughing. I declined, and then i asked each of them to give me their capitol with a nice fee to pay me also 10000 denari.. or florins...(BAD MEMORY. dont laugh. lol :tooth: ) So, the three front war is quite interesting. Im ready to take out thrace, and i have a nice force with another genius kid, lol wow i got lucky on those gen's growing up, and They have stacks comming at me. :hmmm: So what should i do now??? well, I decided to let the germans take the northern city, and I won the two battles against the gauls. I then, marched my newly appointed faction leader (19 years old, and is a genius, with a ton of traits from i dont know where... lol) to ZE germans. He is on his way, and By now the army that is going towards thrace had to stop because the original faction leader died. (hence, the newly appointed faction leader... lol) Well, guess what, here comes another kid out of the ranks, and is a general now... YAY. He is 3 stars for command, 1 influence, and 1 management. Used him, and sent him to take the capitol, which wasnt sooooo easy. Had to defeat a rebel army to get to them, and it was a decent stack, about 6 units. not many casualties, maybe 5%. But, The thracians, sent up another army from byzantium , so now instead of being outnumbered 3:2, im outnumbered 3:1. not sooo good. Well, here is how the battle went.

The Battle of the Mouth of Danube

Here are the formations of my army, and his army. (the first army)

http://img180.imageshack.us/my.php?i...bemouthwl0.png

So first we began with the skirmish battle. I sent my archers to take out his missle cav. Mission succesfull. killed most of his missle cav, and now i wasnt too worried. remember, i had to do this right, cause the next army was comming. WIth a better gen (faction leader, and way better troops).
Then, they decided to attack me. Everything so far was going accordance to plan. They powered on my left flank, like I anticipated, cause i put really weak units there, and my main force on the right. but, My sarmation cav was placed behind the lines, little to the right from the middle so they would think i would send it to the right side. Well, They came in on the left, and starting to decimate it. :tooth: THats what he was thinking. lol I timed it so that my sarmation cav. would wrap around the left flank, and my gen and his units would wrap around their right flank. The gen was like so he charged my gen not knowing that my cav is even better fighting other cav. (oooooh i love the Dacian Gen. ) this first battle came out nice, but the second army was comming, and they had their faction leader. :hmmm:
So i route all of the first army, destroy it, with about 30% casualties... which isnt that bad. Mostly the mercenary peltasts and warband. So my new line looked like this, and theirs looked like this.

http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?i...thpart2au2.png

BTW, for some reason, the damn terrain was flat. bad for me. good for him. lol damn hoplites.

Well, I had little over half of missle, so i used it on the missle cav, with some left. Then, I decided to charge them with one unit to support. But when i charged them, i wanted it to turn into a U, so I could concentrate it from all around.I moved my middle back a little, with some casualties, and It worked. I held them for a bit, brought my gen around and charge his gen, also with my sarmations (of what i had left) brought the falxmen to the left side, and pinned their falxmen, then brought what i had left of the mercenary Ilyrian peltast around and threw a rain of death at them, and also brought my archers and rained death on them tooo. Well, you know what, they held.
But I got reallll lucky. Their faction leader, DIED. it was basically over... one unit of falxment of theirs broke when i charged them with my gen, so the falxmen could come around and continue the domino effect. But I payed a hefty price. I lost a total of 65% of my troops. but it was one of the best battles i have EVER had. It was just absolutely exciting.

So, I took their capitol, enslaved it, and rebuilt the army, with 1/2 the army gaining some or more valour.

This is where I stand.

Now, my army heads towards Byzantium, and Im ready to take them out. My Faction Leader's army, is currently ready to attack ZE germans, and I have a couple of Chosen Swordsmen in that army, but there are 3 full stacks from ZE germans, so that shall be interesting. :hmmm: there is 2 full stacks of Gauls I think are headed my way, and Macedonians are looking Suspicious. So that is where im at so far.

Overview:
I like it. lol :tooth: I think it is a good challenge, I might actually lose, dunno yet. The battles are really good. Much, much more challenging. Campaign is good, AI movement is fairly well. OH!!!!!! almost forgot. One thing I noticed while I was fighting hoplites. WOW do these falxmen ever do some serious damage to them. I mean serious. I've been reconsidering changing my strategy so I could face the Macedonians in a different way. Im talking about a large Falxmen army. I think im going to test that out. You know what, I am. I'll give that a try. lol sounds good.
Anyways, back to the overview, One thing i was really impressed with was how the macedonains are doing, which are doing well, to my surprise, and with hwo the gauls are doing a decent job with fending off the romans. But I know im going to have another problem, thats the brutii. They have a full stack close (but not that close) to my lands. I think im going to build falxmen army and help out the macedonians, so I could conquer the roman lands first, then the macedonians. Maybe the other way around. I dont know yet, but I am open for suggestions.

hmmm... anything else??? I think not. alright. Well, hope everybody enjoyed, spent a couple of hours doing this at work, its sat, so im just here for fun, lol seriously..... ... ....:hmmm: ....... And I felt it was necessary to contribute my story to everybody. So I hope I can get some suggestions with what to do, and some thoughts about my story.

BTW, more will come.

Thank you,

THE P-MAN

[Shaggy1973]

Very very thorough description

[Eird-Way]

Ha, at work, eh? Is your company hiring?

I enjoyed the story. It's always great to see someone's imagination so fully engaged by the game. I think you are right to try and crush the Thracians first. After you take Byzantion (which wasn't really a Thracian city, but nevermind), you've got one flank covered by the ocean, and then you just have to leave one stack to guard against invasion from the steppes. Make sure Macedon doesn't get left with nobody but you to fight, or you're screwed (especially if they've destroyed Greece).

Falxmen are just the coolest damn thing ever. In DM 7.5 I would pillage with whole stacks full of them. In battle, I would deploy them in glorious barbarian fashion - loose-order (heroes need lots of room! - they also get shot less), stretched in one line all the way across the map. Falxmen inflict casualties so quickly that they only lose a melee when they are too bunched up and not enough can fight at one time. The wave of men would instantly and easily wrap around and annihilate any enemy army. The force of the shock was such that I hardly suffered any casualties. I haven't tried this in 8.0, but I am guessing with the AI's new ability to spread out it won't be so easy. Curse you, Darth!

I was playing as Thrace (whom I somewhat prefer - weren't Spartacus and Orpheus Thracian?), and when I finally sacked Rome with a full stack of silver-chevron Bastarnae, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

And those mercenary peltasts have really amazed me sometimes. Once a superior Roman force, two nearly full stacks, stormed Apollonia (I had left it unguarded while invading cisalpine Gaul), and I lay an ambush force of two Bastarnae and two Illyrians in wait to attack the Roman rear once they had engaged the phalangites in the town square. The plan backfired, and the AI actually cut off and surrounded my ambushers, far from help, hideously outnumbered. The Bastarnae were heroes, but even they could kill romans only so quickly. The Illyrian mercs stood in the back, providing missile support, but had to function as an emergency rearguard when the damn Romans cornered me -- otherwise the Bastarnae would have been flanked and annihilated. Those heavy peltasts held the line like nothing I have ever seen! In the end, my plan ended up working backwards. The relief force of 5-6 fresh falxmen finally came to the rescue, cutting through the rear of the exhausted romans like a hot knife through butter. They were full-blown segmentata legionaries, but exhausted and outflanked by the most effective shock infantry in the game, they died like lambs.

Crap, now I want to go play. I have things to do this afternoon!