Virtues and Defects of the Berber Faction

[Vishas]

Well, first of all, I want to point out that I have played with other factions of the game a long time ago, among them, the KIDARITES. I must say that this last faction, in previous editions of the game, had serious lacks for the gameplay, but over the years, it has been improving somewhat its options (although they still maintain lacks).

I had never tried to play with the Berbers, but this time, I wanted to see the potential of the faction and check, if I could really conquer the whole world, with them. Well, the result after almost half a century of play, is that unfortunately, the berber faction is not a faction with which it is easy or possible to conquer all the known orb, since its best units (the Berber Cavalry), can only be recruited in the North of Africa, being in the hands of Roman regional units already from the Iberian Peninsula. This is a catastrophe for any plan of conquest. Hardly in the half century that I have been playing, I have been forced to transfer huge amounts of cavalry to the Gallia to correct this deficit.

On the other hand, I believe that the Berber cavalry (along with the Mauri Cavalry), are one of the best cavalry units throughout the game. Resistant, brave, hard to the death ... is the most powerful unit of the entire berber army. On the other hand, their Garamantes Spearmen, resist excellently well several cavalry charges, holding up to make possible a counterattack with the rest of the infantry. These two units (Berber Cavalry and Garamantes Spearmen) are two of those that took me to the heart of Gaul and Northern Italy, where I defeated even several units of Legion Palatinae (high rank) and Domesticorum Peditum. Combined and added to the rest of a compensated army, they can save you on multiple occasions from any adversity.

As for the unit available to the berbers of militia romanii, I have appreciated that it maintains the same shield design as in the rest of the barbarian factions. Humbly, I think it could be modified towards a design of some of the variants of North African natives, which appears in the Notitia Dignitatum, as in the case of the maurii osimiacii (regardless of whether it is a cavalry or infantry unit), so I would add some singularity to its roman units (instead of repeating the design in all the barbarian factions); On the other hand, in the berber faction they appear as FARAMANNI and evidently, it is an error: it is correct for the case of germanic factions but not for the berber case .. By the way, of the latter, it is obligatory to depend and resort already from Hispania to maintain a dignified infantry....

A infantry worthy of the one that the berbers suffer seriously. Except for the garamantes spearmen, the rest of units are very fragile to any enemy crash. That is why they are precisely the roman units, the most suitable to cover this grave emptiness.

Within these infantry units, I have missed the presence of some units of SLINGERS. Taking into account that throughout the whole of Roman Africa, you can acquire a unit of slingers... Why not incorporate a unit of this form of combat in the berbers?

I have detected two major problems when managing the faction, which also prevents any rapid and consistent progress. The first is the impossibility of carrying out the PALACE OF THE WARLORD in several cities. The population continues to rise and in a few shifts, you have dissidence and alterations in public order. In the indicator of buildings, indicates that the GRAN BAZAR must be created, but this does not appear in any turn and in the end, you end up losing the square because you do not create the mentioned palace.

In the religious buildings, the berber pagan constructions are very fragile and do not have any strong ideological weight on the settlement. The proof is that by bringing only two christian characters to the region, in just two turns, there was already a strong christian influence on the settlement. This is a very serious problem, in the case that you maintain a philopagan policy (as was my case).

In this last point, I have detected some despair before the huge amount of CHRISTIAN characters among the berbers. I am not an expert in this field of particular study, but as far as I understand, the berbers near the Roman limes, were not mainly christians, but a good part of all of them pagans (they maintained their native beliefs until the arrival of Islam, especially in the west), while only a minority of them existed as christians. In ten turns, I no longer had hardly any pagan character among the members of my family.

P.S. Another important and difficult point is the lack of construction among the berbers of the PORTS. Unless they are already built by Rome, I can not build or establish any port point. Logically I do not aspire to elaborate a complete fleet of “trirremes maurii”, but at least transport ships that serve as minimum “navy” of transport or combat against pirates. Unless it is already built, the system does not allow any port construction.

P.D2: the unit of the chief mauri, is so weak, that throughout the game, but was accompanied by other capable units, I dared not throw it against any enemy unit, fearing that possibly kill my general... to a simple skirmish unit. I enclose my final advance, to this day, in which I have managed to amputate the Western Roman Empire from two of its main loops: Hispania and all of North Africa. Right now they subsist only thanks to Italy and the Illyric.

[Diocle]

Good post and great empire Vishas. Your post is very interesting for two aspects: 1) The concept of balance applied to a Mod that has the goal of being Historically Accurate as much as possible on RTW-BI engine. 2) The startegic objectives in TW campaign.

1) About the first point I think that the concept of balance between different factions has not to be based on an arcade balance between competing factions, which could turn the game into a Fantasy game in which each one is able to conquer the world. In my opinion instead, a good balancing of the Mod has to be based on the historical situation at the middle of IV century AD, and in that age the berber factions didn't have the skills, the power and possibly even the will to build any world-wide empire. This is not a Fantasy game, Alamans can't build a worldwide empire, Persians can, Romans can, Why? Because this is what history tells us. For example any game allowing Italy to win WW2 conquering the USA is a silly arcade game, that may be even fun to play, but it would have nothing to do with real history. In historical wargames the concept that should guide us is the most absolute historical accuracy of the military forces, of geographic locations, of economy and technology, of demography, and of the cultural development in that particualar age, under those peculiar conditions. This means, in my opinion, being historically accuarte when we approach the concept of wargaming in history.

2) Sadly the objectives or the Victory Conditions, even in the most recent titles by CA, are one of the weakest points of the serie. Being the games based on an arcade mix between fantasy and history, also the campaign objectives tend to be arcade and fantasy, so that even the smallest factions share the same objectives of the major nations on the campaign map and this is fool and it's not even fun! Objectives and victory conditions should be based on the whole historical painting we are trying to depict, they shold be the natueral consequence of the historical balance about which I was talking above in the first point. Having the Berebers conquering the whole map, would be simply arcade gaming and if SAJ would allow such absurd chance, I would not be playing SAJ and I would not have written rivers of ink in these last ten years, singing the praises of SAJ as THE BEST HISTORICAL MOD IN TOTAL WAR HISTORY AND THE BEST TIME-TRAVEL YOU CAN EXPERIENCE ON YOUR PC.

That said, I've nothing against arcade games, the point is that I want arcade games well apart and well differentiated from historical wargames and SAJ is the best historical wargame I know.

[Vishas]

I agree with everything you say and I have reached a point in the campaign in which it is not possible for me to have REAL hopes of conquering the whole map (for that, it should no longer be a Berber Empire, but purely a Roman-Sasanian Empire from which are the only units that can really give me the achievement of conquering all the known orb, as I did in their day, with the KIDARITES). However, I have already played the game with other different factions and I wanted to take the challenge in this chance, like managing a very inferior faction in every way, like the Berbers. However, I would like Julianus and other members of the team to reconsider the option of incorporating at least one remote attack unit (slingers) and reconfiguring the costumes of the "roman" native units of the Berbers, as incorporating the shield that already I pointed lines back (maurii osimiacii for example, thus avoiding the repetition of the design of the units in all non-Roman factions) and above all perhaps the point that still less convinces me: that christianity is the majority among the Berbers at this time.

Despite the advances, I think I'll leave it there. Perhaps it could destroy the Western Roman Empire in a few more turns, but the Sassanians have immense potential and have already done away with the Eastern Empire and are on the way to annihilating the heirs of Procopius. With this threat to the east, the Burgundians kneading power in the north... and without being able to increase the level of my cities due to the poverty of buildings in the faction... (not counting the impossibility of using my best units beyond Africa...) it becomes really IMPOSSIBLE to dominate the world. With the Kidarites, at least the avar cavalry, along with the eastern units of the nomad archery cavalry, could hold out...but the Berbers force me to fight almost always in the final analysis FACE TO FACE. Clearly, whoever conquers the whole world with the Berbers, is tremendously tenacious and reckless.

I do not have to comment that it has cost me a lot and I have even conquered everything that I have. And that was NOT far from Africa...

Anyway, a hug.