Suggest a faction please

[Garbad]

I play almost exclusively as Rome, because roma victor. However, I want to try a campaign or two using some of the lesser nations. My rules are:

1. MUST have a good missile cav unit. 30 or more armor, javs or bow is ok. Auxilla is ok if you can get it closely to your starting point.
2. MUST have decent quality sword infantry. Ideally roman style or thorax swords capable of holding a line in mass infantry tactics.
3. Unique units are cool, especially good quality skirmishers, archers, or non spear/phalanx infantry.

I'm considering:

Arche Bosphorus: Horsebows + greek power ftw!
Gatae: Interesting infantry + javcav + variety
Thrace: Javcav + rhompers
Baktricia: Horsebow + greek infantry in a strange starting place
??

What would you suggest? I am looking for any fun, unique factions, basically, but I love my ranged horse!

[dahooscarl]

Egypt, Selucid Empire and Hayasdan have some the biggest variety in unit selection this side of Rome. All 3 get access to good or elite style troops in every category.

[dahooscarl]

Also Carthage. Numidia/Libyan Jav Cav and after reforms infantry capable of going toe to toe with legionaries.

[Amras89]

I would suggest Parthia.
You have bad infantry in beginning yes but you will get some great ones later in campaign.
At the early campaign the infantry do not matter - the real king is the horse archery...
With only one army of 12 horse archery you will steamroll the eastern provinces

[Augustusng]

All your options are good. Not much else to say. My favorite faction is Arche Bosphorus, but the others are fun too. Getae and the Odrysian Kingdom in particular have very difficult starting positions, so if you want more of a challenge, try those.

[Garbad]

Hayasdan looks pretty interesting. Partha I've tried and it wasn't my thing. Same with selucids/egypt.

[KAM 2150]

Yes, Hayasdan seems to fill all of your needs from above

[Lord Dakier]

I've recenetly done a Hayasdan campaign in Imperator Augustus. Exciting stuff being the protector of Mark Anthony in the east I took the fight to Partha spending years at war where we fought over the same provinces continually. Eventually I cut down their allies and then brought my extra armies to bare onto them crushing them.

I then later turned my attention to claiming Asia for my own and went to war with Mark Anthony. Pushed all the way into Greece major and left his forces in Illyria.

[Vardano]

Yes, Hayasdan it's exactly what you need, I'm finishing my Imperator Augustus campaign on a legendary difficulty and, oh Lord, I'm tired of those horse archers you can't imagine how much.
By the way, I should say that Legendary difficulty is really enjoyable and only the only difficulty which is fair towards AI, in my opinion.

[Hoplitus]

By now you got some good suggestions by the helpful community, so I feel free to add my two cents:

Be proactive, decide yourself!

[Garbad]

http://i.imgur.com/LZKzzoW.jpg

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GREEKBOW!

[Ivan_Moscavich]

I would suggest Pergamon, they're basically a greek Rome after the update.

This coming from someone who also plays exclusively Rome.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

I would suggest Pergamon, they're basically a greek Rome after the update.

This coming from someone who also plays exclusively Rome.

To add to this, I've found it very interesting to play around with having a few less sword melee infantry than I would as rome, but instead use more of the peltast units. Peltasts are just extremely solid and versatile infantry.

Immediate access to rhodian and Cretan mercenary troops, with Rhodes and Knossos just south of you for less expensive (but exact same stats) aor versions of the troops means you have some of the best ranged troops in the game almost immediately.

Roster access to tarantine cavalry, as well as a more heavily armoured thureos jav cavalry than most greeks get. The melee cavalry is also top notch.

Late reform units like the elite peltasts and silver swords units are incredibly effective.

Overall I found them as probably my second favorite roster to use in custom battles, after Rome, obviously.

I may try a longer pergamese campaign one day, but my time for video games is extremely limited as of late due to my profession. So the chances I do get to play Rome II, are, as usual, as Rome. Or just short tests for dei testing purposes of other factions.

[Garbad]

To add to this, I've found it very interesting to play around with having a few less sword melee infantry than I would as rome, but instead use more of the peltast units. Peltasts are just extremely solid and versatile infantry.

Immediate access to rhodian and Cretan mercenary troops, with Rhodes and Knossos just south of you for less expensive (but exact same stats) aor versions of the troops means you have some of the best ranged troops in the game almost immediately.

Roster access to tarantine cavalry, as well as a more heavily armoured thureos jav cavalry than most greeks get. The melee cavalry is also top notch.

Late reform units like the elite peltasts and silver swords units are incredibly effective.

Overall I found them as probably my second favorite roster to use in custom battles, after Rome, obviously.

I may try a longer pergamese campaign one day, but my time for video games is extremely limited as of late due to my profession. So the chances I do get to play Rome II, are, as usual, as Rome. Or just short tests for dei testing purposes of other factions.

Any chance you have a saved game or screenshots that can show me a good pergamon army? From what I have seen they are mediocre.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Any chance you have a saved game or screenshots that can show me a good pergamon army? From what I have seen they are mediocre.

Sure, can do now that I am finally home. But it might not be for a few days.

I have a Macedonian wars save where I have most of the map conquered in less than 80 turns with just one pergamese army, and a couple battle screenshots.

[dahooscarl]

Pergamon not available in GC though.

[KAM 2150]

Yes it is You need the DLC to have it unlocked, but you need the same DLC to use Pergamon in other campaigns anyway.

[dahooscarl]

Yes it is You need the DLC to have it unlocked, but you need the same DLC to use Pergamon in other campaigns anyway.

Yuppers. Just double checked my Steam account. Black Sea Colonies. The one I never purchased and forgot about. *face palm* Well that and beasts of war.

I can still play Perg in MW campaign though.

[Garbad]

Sorry I don't have that DLC.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Sorry I don't have that DLC.

Battle screenshots are from grand campaign and custom battle.

The campaign map and army will be from the Macedonian wars campaign. There is no difference in army composition between the grand campaign and the dlc. It just happens that I made a lot of progress in that dlc campaign rather than a grand campaign.


Edit: Actually it was 62 turns, not 80.

Later game army composition. With how effective the elite peltasts were, I actually phased out my merc Cretan archers and rhodian slingers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This is at the start of the grand campaign, I took out the large city south of my with this army composition with relative ease. It also taught me that there is a reason karian axemen mercs are so cheap. They're freaking useless.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'll add a few more when I can dig them out. Most screenshots are on my old desktop back in the states.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A ranged and cavalry heavy army is just very effective when backed up by Pergamon's elite melee troops.