How to deal with early horde? :D

[TinyGeneral]

ok, so i started up a boii campaign, since theyre new, and have many cool new units already implemented, and you start off sourrounded by enemies.
i thought to myself i'd be smart and take out one of my direct competitors early.
so i gathered up all my troops, plus one or two new recruits and some mercenairies and headed for the lugiones capital.
slaughtered their fullstack and a little extra and thought yay that went great! until i saw the 5 and a half fullstacks of lugiones horde next to my capital ;D
i got about 3/4 of an army. any tips? i can take on 2 at a time i guess, but 5 and a half does seem a bit exessive this early in the game.
does this happen everytime you wipe a (barbarian) faction off the map, or is there some way to completely exterminate them?
or are we just not supposed to kill them off, or at least not at this point? :/

[Coldfire88]

or are we just not supposed to kill them off, or at least not at this point? :/

Yes, that.

Im wondering though do the hordes disband once they take a town and resettle? or once they are spawned they dont go untill you kill them?

[TinyGeneral]

wow that seems harsh. most of the barbarian factions need to take out 1 early. the iberian ones need to take care of each other before setting their eyes on carthage, the gauls need to take the other one out before rome jumps at them same with the germanic tribes and the boii.

[Moros]

Hordes are typically reserved for pastoralist factions.

[tavix]

Why do you want to take them out so fast? there are plenty rebel settlements to grab.

[TinyGeneral]

because theres also the sweboz, romans, gauls, getai and greeks to worry about soon enough.
it seemed like grabbing a few rebel settlements (which will make me share borders with all kinds of people) wouldnt be enough backbone to sustain a 3 front war that would be pretty much impossible to avoid sometime soon. so i wanted to take care of at least 1 front early.
also it just feels right as the boii to go north towards the baltic first, clear out your back, before you do other stuff.

[TinyGeneral]

so basically the only way is:
grab rebel settlements and expand towards rome and balkans/greece before you can secure your backyard, inevitably get into conflict with at least 2 european major powers, while you wait for the 2 germanic tribes and the gauls to run you over from behind because you cant take any of them out early and wont have the resources until very much later in the game to be at war with them and keep them small but not take them out in the same campaign. so basically you can only take out the barbarians once youve pacified pretty much all of europe and have several stacks with nothing to do to take care of hordes that will spawn. because before youre done pacifying europe you wont have spare stacks, because as weve already established, we cant take anyone of our natural competitors out, and have to deal with expanding south and the factions that lurk there while we defend against anything that might come from north east, north west, west, and east, without actually killing any of them.
am i missing something?

[Principe Alessandro]

In my opinion you should wait until you have two full stacks ready before erasing an enemy barbarian faction, going for rebel settlements and developing your towns should be your first priority.

[TinyGeneral]

yeah guess i'll restart my campaign and try that. 3+ front wars incoming

[Moros]

People always asked us to up the challenge, so we did.

Though obviously certain factions have it quite a bit harder than others.

[TinyGeneral]

oh i'm up for it
just need to get rid of that eb1 mindset of "blitz your neighbour to secure your back, build up, then start proper wars"
who knows, maybe i can even ally with one or two of them

[athanaric]

who knows, maybe i can even ally with one or two of them

You can. Make sure you ally with the Sweboz before you share a border with them, with some luck the alliance will hold for quite some time.

[bovi]

You could move smaller stacks into their territory to provoke them into attacking. This will allow you to reduce their army in smaller battles, to keep them from getting too strong but still leaving them alive. Keeping such smaller stacks in action will be a drain on your economy, of course.

[Emperor Hantscher]

Or besiege them until the last possible turn then make them a protectorate.