Rome TW: Germania
Probably my favourite barbarian faction of the lot in this game! I think they have one of the best range of troops available for a Barbarian faction, combining brilliant infantry options with heavy cavalry and specialist archers to instil fear into any man that dares go to war with them. Played on Vh/Vh
An Uneasy Start
As Germania you begin the game just South of Scandinavia with 5 provinces under your control. Unfortunately two of these are rapidly losing money (and never seem to recover) and your economy is in poor shape. Annoyingly the short campaign is actually incredibly difficult, since the requirements (Beating Dacia and Scythia) cannot be accomplished until you've dealt with relentless enemies in the West! Both the gallic nation and the Britons despise you, and often form an uneasy alliance of sorts just to destroy you! If Dacia joins the combination you can be looking at a very nasty war on two fronts that you simply cannot afford and your demise will be ensured
The Problems
The Gauls: These fools from Western Europe will always wander your lands with their men, with their eyes firmly fixed on Trier. Be careful of attacks from not only Alesia and the West, but also from Northern Italy in the South, I've been pincered before and it isn't nice when 3-4 whole stacks are walking upon you from every direction!
Britannia:The men from across the way! Nasty chariots will cause alot of problems in your ranks, as well as the feared head hurlers who will decimate your slow moving spear warband. Be sure to destroy both these units as soon as you can in any battle! After capturing modern-day Ireland they will come after you with full force!
The Romans: Your conquests will result in the Senate becoming a little weary of you and war will ensue. Heavily armoured, disciplined troops will cause alot of headaches for your traditional armies. Specialist units and elite cavalry are a necessity to taking out this large threat
The Dacians:These men are relatively peaceful, only attacking if you stray into their conquered rebel lands! Stupidly they spread their men so thinly that you can quickly capture much of their territory in a few turns and reduce their empire to a few cities rather efficiently. Definitely the least worrying of your enemies
The Scythians: Fearsome Horse archer units and a large landscape to conquest, young generals will be grandfathers by the time they finish with the campaign into Scythian lands! Light cavalry with backup from foot archers is essential in con-questing these skirmishers!
The Army....Advice for Troop production
I know that there is alot of debate over the best unit in the Germanic faction. Is it the fearsome Berzerkers? The Gothic cavalry? Maybe even the Night Raiders? Well I'm here to push that the simplest, yet most effective, of units the Spear Warband is by far your greatest asset!!
Spear Warband have the advantage of being able to form a phalanx, a strategy that is disgustingly effective against their barbarian foes! Warband's of other factions, and even stronger Tier 2 units like Swordsmen will lose one on one against these guys solely because they can poke and prod the enemy with Spears from a distance. Not to mention they decimate the Barbarian cavalry and even General units that will be spammed against you.
Not only are they amazingly effective in battle, the best part is they're easy to retrain! Most cities you conquer will be able to retrain these guys straight away, meaning no hassle or time wasted in cities. You can be on the move the very next turn! Add on top of that their average morale which means they can hold their own even against stronger troops so you can get other men there to back them up!!
Gothic Cavalry vs Barbarian Noble Cavalry?
I think it's actually useful to have a few of each unit in your army over one or the other! Whilst Gothic Cavalry have the better stats, the nobles have the benefit of being easily retrained. This is especially true when you're blitzing through Italy and need to keep on the move, you really don't have time to build Circles to Woden whereas you can retrain the Nobles fairly easily. That being said having a couple of Gothic cavalry units is still recommended since they are a necessity vs the Romans
Chosen Axemen vs Night Raiders vs Berzerkers?
The final component to your army, aside from the obvious chosen archer choice, these guys are your shock troops and the flankers. Berzerkers are a must have, a few units of these sent into your enemies line will cause routing all over the place, but they're expensive and there aren't many of them. You need a secondary shock troop to help!
Night Raiders have the advantage of frightening enemies, having some armour and a shield. This means they won't just drop like flies against arrow fire, they'll come a close second to falling though! However Berzerkers already frighten the enemy, and in the end they'll be routing regardless of the small bonus these guys give right?
Chosen Axemen have such a cra**y defense stat it's almost not worth considering them for your army. They will fall very quickly and easily against ranged fire as well as prolonged melee combat. If it wasn't for the fact they have a huge bonus against armour they'd be kind of disregarded.
In my experiences Chosen Axemen pip the Raiders solely based on the Roman's armour value, that really hinders the rate at which they die. The fact these guys can hack through their armour (and anything else) puts them slightly above the Raiders need. On top of that they only take one turn to produce and 2 units of Axemen is much better than 1 unit of Raiders!!
So your early armies should be consisting of mainly Spear warband, with whatever support you can muster up! Skirmishers do the job until the much needed archers arrive and light cavalry + general combo nicely chases all routing enemies and can smash through stubborn men!
Plans for Conquest
1. Economic Troubles
- Germania's biggest issue is its poultry economy that makes it very, very difficult to actually expand at a rapid pace.
- Not only is the economy poor but it's frustratingly difficult to upgrade your cities to the third tier. Other factions can access this very early on and start pumping their best troops out rather quickly. Unfortunately your high end troops are that insane that if you reached the level the game would be too easy and you'd wipe the floor with any Barbarian scum that dares face you!
- Prioritise capturing the coastal settlements as they bring in much needed sea trade which will greatly boost your economy! Unlike Dacia or Scythia that can quickly take rich Grecian lands you'll be slogging against poor, inland barbaric cities for a fair while.
- Shrines to Woden are your most useful shrine as they instantly give an experience boost to every unit trained there. I was rapidly pumping out two chevron troops from Mongontiacum within the first 5-6 turns.
- Shrines to Donar should be built in towns that aren't being use for troop production and are centered towards your main battle fronts. Later on they'll be pumping out Berzerkers so you want a couple of towns with this shrine
- Shrines to Freya should be built in small rebel settlements that barely have 500 men and require a boost to the population. These towns are generally going to be far from the action, and only really used as economic centres!
2. The Rebel conquest
- As soon as the game starts move your army from Damme towards Bordersholm to the North, by turn two you should have this town captured and making some money!
- Begin recruiting Spear Warband and a unit of peasants to garrison at Vicus Marcomanni. Once you have 3 Spears, move the general + troops towards Vicus Gothii. This town should be captured by about turn 4. This army will then continue up to take Domus Dulcis Domus, which is just a few turns to the North
- Don't take Aquincum or Lovosice just yet, it will lead to an unnecessary war with Dacia far too early in the game. You'll be stuck fighting a war in two fronts that you cannot afford!
- Move the army from Bordersholm down towards Luvavum and take the town. This town will act as a nice little barrier between you and the Southern Gallic states. Even if the town is taken it doesn't matter, it gives you the time you need to get men to that front!
3. To war with the West...ern Barbaric factions!
- Gather all troops from your cities and split the army into two. Recruit spear warband in every town and get those troops to the frontline! War is coming and by about turn 10 you'll be in one of the biggest wars in the beginning of the game!
- March your largest army on Alesia. This town has to be taken first over Samobrivia! The Gauls have a much stronger economy than yours and will reinforce this town with stacks of men! Taking this central point will hit the Gauls hard and fast and dampen their control in Northern France!
- March the other army on Samobrivia! Try to fight the Chariot unit when they are in the city! Against a phalanx in the narrow streets they will be utterly pulverised, you don't really have any units that can take them on in the field (and actually catch them) so aim to kill them there
- Post Alesia's conquest march straight down to Lugdunum, I know previously I said prioritise coastal towns but these two towns are pivotol for the Gauls. It puts pressure on them at their coastal settlements of Narbo Martius and Massila, and will retract attention away from Luvavum and your Southern borders!
4. Kill those Gauls!
- The army stationed in Samobrivia should face a heavy resistance at either Condate Redonum or Lemonum, but once you beat this army the Gauls will be crushed in France and their settlements will be yours for the taking! Hopefully Condate Redonum has a port built, and for once don't enslave or exterminate the populous as you need to be able to get over to Britain and wipe the bas**** out completely!
- With Northern France falling under your control by the second, your army from Lugdunum needs to mop up Narbo Martius and push the Gauls completely out of France! With any luck the House of Julii should have taken Osca, so the gauls won't send any troops from Numanthia to help! Their cities in Southern France are completely alone and will be swiftly crushed!
- Massila is the obvious next target and will ensure that you dominate Western Europe! With the Gauls pincered in Northern Italy and the Britannians well on their way to destruction the campaign should be looking alot better!
5(a). Britannia's demise
- Hopefully if you attack Samobrivia fairly early on Britannia likely hasn't had time to take Ireland so you won't have to worry about troops popping up from nowhere when you're conquesting Britain. The other great thing is Britannia is an even poorer nation than you without Samobrivia!
- Be weary whilst you are taking Condate Redonum and Lemonum though! Britannia badly wants Samobrivia back and will randomly drop entire stacks of armies off, so be prepared to backtrack a couple of times to knock the army out before continuing!
- The best idea to invade is to time the invasion so that you have just defeated a large British landing force near Samobrivia then in the next turn hop on a ship and besiege Londinum! Britannia will have just lost its armies and will have little defense on the mainland against you. The armies I faced were paltry, just a few rag tag Warband groups plus a couple of chariots here and there!
- Continue taking the island and then you can take Ireland if you want some more conquesting fun! With Britannia out of the game you'll be able to prepare for your biggest enemy yet! Rome.....
5(b) The Dacian campaign
- I hope you didn't forget the rebel towns I told you to leave alone earlier, it's time to start expanding East!!
- Aquincum and Lovosice usually have only one roaming Dacian army near them that is of any threat and once its nullified you can capture these towns very quickly! Dacia generally has the bulk of its forces tied up in Porollisum fighting the Thracians and Macedonians so you can sweep through their lands rapidly.
- Falxmen will be the first infantrymen that your spear warband will actually lose against one on one so be very careful leaving a few units of warband alone to take these guys on! Be sure to have some backup!!!
- Honestly the Dacians are of little threat in comparison the the Gauls who spawn insane amounts of stacks and the superior Roman troops. Once you take the above towns and move on Campus Iazyges it will be all over.
- Porollisum will be a bigger challenge since it's their main town, so make sure you retrain and recuperate in Campus Iazyges before moving on their capital! It is a great city to take though as its buildings will likely be upgraded by now and you'll be pumping out the high tiered troops!
- After this you can chase them down to Vicus Venedae and erase the faction from the map! With Dacia out of the picture as well, both your Eastern and Western fronts are secure and you can move on to Rome!
6. The sacking of Rome and final tips
- Pincer the Gauls in their remaining cities, Mediolanum and Patavum and then prepare your men for the long slog ahead against the Romans.
- Make sure to train chosen axeman and have the best of the best ready for the fight! Arretium and Ariminum are your first targets, but also besiege Osca, not only will this knock out an obvious possible threat it will give you a foothold in Spain and gives you the chance to finally kill the rest of the Gallic dogs in Numanthia!
- Continue through Rome and Italy, and finally the main city is yours!!!
Further conquests
- Take the fight to the Spanish and unite Iberia under the Germanian banner
- Continue fighting the Brutii in Greece, knock Thrace out with your armies from Porollisum and pincer the Brutii from Italy and from the North
- Chase the Scipii to Sicily and take the world!!!
Thank you for reading))))
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Originally Posted by Jean=A=Luc
