Today we discuss which is the best barbarian faction on Rome Total War (Germania, Britannia, Spain, Gaul, Scythia and Dacia) Second channel: / @lugoreviews2805 Discord: / discord
@@lugotorix6173 trade isn't that useful because while i was playing as Egypt, i had quite a lot of trade treaties but it was only profiteering me around 1200 denarii which by my stage in the game, that was nothing and i would rather declare war on them.
Playing as Germania now and watching Berserkers go full Sauron on Roman soldiers is some of the most fun I've had since Parthia spamming horse archers.
Yeah, Lada has the same problem. At least Seat starts with a greater displacement, of 4 settlements. Peugeot and Jaguar are pretty solid factions too, but Volkswagen definitely wins the top spot because of how it puts the power down.
1. Germania. Beserkers can take on anyone, chosen axemen can beat legionary cohorts, best spear warbands cos of phalanx, best heavy cavalry for barbarians with Gothic cavalry. Also have chosen archers. 2. Scythia. Great horse archers (arguably best), good heavy cavalry with noble lancers who have good charge bonus, head hunting maidens are armor piercing. Despite weak infantry they have chosen archers who can hold their ground in melee (just about) 3.Gaul. Could possibly be second, but they are limited. You just need an army filled with chosen swordsmen, barbarian noble cavalry and Forester warband (arguably best archer unit in the game) who can also hold their ground in melee. 4. Dacia. I wasn't sure at first but they have similar units to the above but also have falxmen. I only placed Gaul above because of forester war band. 5. Britain. Didn't place higher because they have no archers or good cavalry. Chariots aren't bad but in prolonged melee will suck. If this was based on auto resolve they would likely be number one. 6. Spain. scutarii are ok, Bull warriors are really good and long shield cavalry are ok. No archers though. Just meh overall.
Very interesting list and I understand your logic. Mine was slightly different and in retrospect I may have ranked Britain too high, but I certainly agree with Germania and I like the fact that you have respected Scythia
@@lugotorix6173 Britain do probably have the most secure position, quite like egypt which is why they both usually do well (also chariot auto resolve). I wish the devs hadn't given them so much starting territory so they had a more interesting beginning e.g uniting Britain and then moving into samarobriva etc etc.
I must agree on that. Germania is really strong with chosens. If you like better archers earler and weaker infantry early, and stronger armored units later, Dacia is better. It is the same deal with Numidia and Carthage. Numidia have archers on tier1 practice range and have good but not armored melee. Carthage have better heavy infantry that is armored, but the range is getting to work later (yeah, slingers, woo)
Britain light chariot is an extremely powerful unit, with very long range and very large ammunition they can produce huge casualties in the open field, and they can shoot over low city walls. Hugely powerful unit only needing a blacksmith to recruit. I would be interested to know any units nearly so powerful only requiring a blacksmith? Gaul or Germania can tech up to more formidable armies, but needing much more development for the units.
@@britts9215 Exactly. Anyone who merely says "Chariots are not bad" isn't using them properly. Light Chariots are absolutely bonkers. Shoot until you're out of ammo, then pick off weakened or wavering units. Don't stay in melee, just charge-retreat-charge and you're golden. They cause a lot of morale damage and straight up murder enemy cavalry, general's bodyguards included.
@@yniekac8851 Scythia IA usually floods Horser Achers and moves them around their territory using and abusing their "movement points" to intercept or weaken the enemy. I believe this is the basic and KEY strategy of scythia
I mean you start out on a freaking island and invade Ireland and never get invaded. Those 4 settlements are super secure. Then the the settlement on the other side needs immediate settlements invasion to control ports. Then bam instantly controls any opportunity to of any aggression. And their general is a horse chariot, guarantee early unit that can 100% beat any army via timeout system~
Really selling Dacia short here. They are the only barbarian faction with both chosen archers and chosen infantry, and also have siege equipment which most barbarian factions don't have at all. They also have noble cavalry. While their army might lack flashy units save for the falx men, it's pretty descent.
In my opinion Dacia's redeemeing qualities are that they get archers pretty early on (no spear throwing unit) and they get falxmen pretty quickly too, also they get good mercs early, as Scythian Horse Archers are available, Merc hoplites and Cretans are close also to the starting position. Good natural borders at Aquincum, Iuvavum, Segestica, Campus Gatea, and closing off with Greece. Also they have a farming temple.
> Dacia > Need to tech up roster > Poor starting position Storm Macedon first, take over the Greece, and you get cities that can pump out Chosens, and economy that allows you to never stop.
Nope at all lol, rome 1 really has bad bugs (pathfinding) and the fighting is too fast and the single units running around is annoying too. I mean its a great game for that time, but many new total war games are far better and im not talking about the graphics.
I really like Dacia because they have more down-to-earth colors and approach. You get both the best barbarian swordsmen and second best reliable heavy bowmen. Light shock infantry in the form of falxmen and actual siege equipment is also nice. My favorite one is the Germania tho. Gothic cavalry is absolutely insane and you also get phalanxes and berserkers.
Fun Fact about the Head Hurlers: The reason why they do so much damage, is because they coat the heads in quicklime, (A chemical taken out of finished limestone kilns) which when applied to an object sticks To it and is severely corrosive when contact is made with the skin, (The use of Quicklime in warfare also resurfaced and reappeared around The Age of Enlightenment to the Napoleonic Era) (Its also stated it, at 9:53)
One of the greatest games ever made in the history of gaming. I still lose hours of my life every week to this game.... I play mostly mods now which keeps it fresh. This and medieval kingdoms will stay my favorite games. (Empire is amazing for the map but isn't nearly as fun to play.)
Funny thing, if you give falxman armor piercing (which historically makes sense and i have no clue why they don't have it in the first place) they become really, really good. Thrace and Dacia suddenly become actual players in their region
I believe that early in the beginning of the original game, both falxmen and archer warband had that. traces of that even persisted in the base game for a long time, in unit cards. they've nerfed these units long time ago since they were simply overpowered.
I also find it very weird why the Naked Fanatics don't have the scare nearby troops ability, they are very weak, low troop count, no armor just decent attack and they take 2 turns to train.
Great! Now I have to Play my Germanic Campaign!!! Thanks for reinspiring me to play the campaigns on Very Hard. I always played on Normal and it was decent, now it's time to up my game.
Bro how dare you disrespect us dacian boys like that, we are by far the the highest iq barbarian faction. We get archers super early (only needing a practice range to get them) and we are the only barbarians that even thought of making artillery. So all we need to do is sweep through Greece with our archers whilst they fuck around with there peltasts and militia hoplites and then voila, we are the richest country in the game plus we have thessalonica that has all the buildings to give us our powerful units: chosen swordsmen, chosen archers, and onagers. With this newfound power we get to plunge rome into 10,000 years of darkness. So in conclusion, yes we may not have the best army BUT that is because we have the highest IQ of all barbarian factions and we get access to our full roster in like 8 years putting us far ahead of all other factions in tech therefore making us the best faction in the game really it's not even close Also how dare you disrespect the dacian dark orange that all brave warriors of dacia have proudly worn into battle?
Yes but Gauls could just as easily hyper focus on the Romans and get all the same units they need, plus better ones. The only thing they lack is artillery, but really artillery rather sucks in this game anyways other than large sieges. But even then you can do without them if need be.
I think Spain was nerfed, considering it took Rome longer to fully conquer Spain than France and they copied some of their equipment from the Celtiberian and other tribes. Both the pilum and gladius were based on Spanish designs. The Celtiberians even used javelins dipped in pitch and set on fire which flared into a huge flame as they flew. Hannibal used the Spanish light infantry to great effect, as they could stand toe to toe with Rome's best, let alone the heavy infantry and both Hannibal and Rome valued the slingers from the Balearic islands, who could hurl projectiles of over 400g with great accuracy. The Iberian steel was also of extremely good quality and the swords were excellent. As I mentioned earlier, the gladius was based on Iberian designs and the falcata was a beastly sword that could chop a head off a horse. They also had good cavalry, light ones, who like the Numerians used javelins, albeit not quite as good and heavy cavalry similar to the Celtic tribes in Gaul.
In my Gaulish campaign(one the most fun and interesting to play) Lugotorix become my heir of faction and I sent him conquering Italia kinda hard at the start but once you got swordsman this is the end lugotorix became a god among man literally... 8 in commander 6 in gestion 8 in influence he’s name was Lugotorix the conqueror... what a man.... (he has fertility problem lmao)
Scythia is amazing in the open field, but it's a struggle in sieges, and I'd never want to fight against proper stone walls with them. Thankfully, the AI likes to attack you in the open field rather than sallying forth. Germania is my favorite. A berserker spam can slaughter pretty much anything, even an urban cohort can be torn to pieces by unleashing berserkers on them (although berserkers are often a one-use unit since you can't pull them back and they won't retreat). They don't have great mobility, and I'd hate to go up against horse archers with Germania, but if you can manage to avoid fighting Scythia in the open field, their isn't much that they can't take on.
I would say Dacia due to the fact that they can recruit artillery, have falxes and are close to Greece allowing them recruit mercenary cretan archers and hoplites which can demolish the german berserkers who are overrated in my opinion due to most people ignoring their very low armour
Well if bezurkas get into close combat, they will absolutely destroy but i rarely see it happen because thier always focused down but defending, you can eliminate enemy archers with your archers and then your bezurkas are unstoppable.
I have seen berserkers rip apart Spartans so I'm not so sure about them being overcome by hoplites. But yes to the armour thing. Just shoot them. Just. Shoot. Them. I feel like people do forget that despite the low armour being common knowledge.
Excellent review. One thing I'd mention is Germany has resources everywhere, especially those amber fields in the north. A little bit of development and they are rolling in money.
1. Germans - good unit variety, decent starting position, very good at defending with their spears, and good against late-game romans. By far the best barbarian faction. 3. Britain - good unit variety, safe starting position, head hurlers are insane. Chariots can be good, but i wish the general wasn't a chariot because it sucks at siege fights and they work a bit derpy and can sometimes die instantly for seemingly no reason. 3. Spain - decent starting position, weak but scale well and got a good mix of decent cavalry. Bull warriors can fight against late-game romans. No archers but slingers can be a good early replacement, and bull warrior and scuttari javelins help. Weak early game but their starting position is good enough for it. 4. Dacia - IMO they are strictly a gaul upgrade. Falxmen are better at offense than swordsmen but worse in defense, but they have the standard warband to be a wall to hold for falxmen to shred from behind. Getting basic archers early in the game is amazing. Terrible starting position though, if not for that they would be higher than spain. 5. Gaul - basic trash barbarians. If not for druids (which britains also have, and germans if you count screechers), and foresters, this will be the worst overall faction. Good starting settlements, but if you don't take care of the romans early, you're done, and you don't generally have the tools to resist after that point. 6. Scythia - kinda a joke, horse archers are OP but that's all you got. Also terrible starting position. TL'DR. Dacia is not bad.
If you read the discription of the head hurler unit in the campaign it says the heads tehy throw haev quicklime on them which is a higly corrosive substance which is why they deal so much damage
Germania is the most powerful Brittania has best start position and potential fun factor. Scythia is meant for hit and run tactics and speed. played right they can be as powerful as the Germans Gaul is closest to the main action and probably the hardest of the factions due to that
Germania has very powerful unit roster. Warband is great defensive unit. They have excellent cavalry, excellent archer, excellent charger unit and terrified berserkers. Their only weakness is siege technology, i think.
Yes, playing as scythia, you have easy access to Themskyra, but how are you going to hold on to that city? I get nightmares from years ago when I think about it🤣
Germania was ridiculous. Good, cheap pikemen, great cavalry, great melee axe and board infantry, accessibility to Greece and Cretan archers, and Berserkers were ridiculous. I once fought a bridge battle with two Berserkers and one light cavalry against a full stack of early Romans and wiped them out.
Scythia suffers from lacking infantry when assaulting settlements but they bring out the most fun someone can have when skirmishing your enemies to oblivion in multiplayer, using both foot and mounted archers
Thanks for your videoes on this game. I am new to it. I took my selucids to britania within the first few turns. I didn't like their position so I moved them. I played as bruiti and Egypt (my favourite faction) but wanted a "migration campaign". Have you tried a "migration campaign"? Would be a good topic.
Small amount of history on the head hurlers. Whilst Creative Assembly took a few liberties the historical sources make references to the heads being bags of flesh filled with an ancient version of quicklime which caused severe burns when it came into contact with enemy combatants. It was mentioned on a time team episode at one point so should be sources around somewhere.
About Head Hurlers: now, I don't know how effective heads would be in real life, but hypothetically, it's a 15-lb/6.5 kg projectile coated with quicklime (a highly corrosive substance - see the chemical burn scene in Fight Club). Throwing a 15-lb object is honestly pretty tough, but if you can manage it, and if it's covered with something that instantly starts burning you, chances are it'd be pretty effective as a weapon.
Hm. Strange. I would take the dacians over the spanish and scythians any day. They are not the best in everything, but are good enough in all fields. Especially considering their early enemies: you can go cavalry on thracians, and archer warband on macedonians. They work better than they look. Also, start position: I would go for Thrace first, second Macedon, plus rebel Byzantium. Greece is the richest part of the map, and you have perfect counters to the home factions. Also: gaul is one of my favorite positions. The spread out nature makes it easy to Blitz. Even if you lose Alesia, Rome provides better income. This is similar to my other favorite starts, greeks and Carthage.
It's true, I played Britannia to maybe 20 A.C. I didn't conquer anything because I wanted to check how game will be go. And Brutii conquered whole europe but they never went to Britannia. Noone for over 300 years had come to Britannia
Imo Gaul easily have the best campaign starting position amongst the barbarian factions. They can buy one settlement each from Spain, Carthage, Britons and Germania while also taking Segesta instead of leaving it to the Julii. They're essentially starting with 12 settlements which is way more than any other faction except for the Slaves. Their start is still quite difficult, but they have the necessary tools to drive Britons back to their island asap (and keep them there, as they won't attack your 1 ship with their 1 ship) and conquer Spain while still defending against Julii and Germania. Once Britons and Spain are sufficiently dealt with, the campaign becomes quite easy.
I count the Thracians as a barbarian faction, as even tho they are far more Helenic then the Dacians, they still use similar weapons, the Falx is very similar to the Rhomphaia. Anyways, I find Thrace to be better then Dacia as it has a mix of both deadly shock Falxmen and Phalangite pikemen, also great vid!
I have 1000 hours in Rome Total War. I put it down because I worried that was too much time to devote to any game. Every time I see a video like this I am tempted to start a new Grand Campaign and get back into it.
Just saw this, and for reference the Head Hurlers were likely based on the use of Quicklime soaked projectiles by tribesmen as missile weapons at times. Quicklime itself will burn any exposed skin, and will get into armour and the like.
I agree Spain is tough especially at the beginning. Once you get your temples upgraded and you’ve recruited balaeric slinger though, Spain can be quite powerful Scythia is cool because you can take time to build up your settlements and the horse archers can mess up most units. Scythia is one of my favorite factions to play as because you’re left alone by the bigger factions until you’re ready and if you have the highest shrine of teutatis your axmen and archers can easily win most encounters
Ok, regarding Head Hurlers. The reason they do some much damage is because the heads are coated in quicklime, which then splashes onto the target. It's caustic, which results in burns, ontop of the blunt trauma of being struck by a human head. As for the Gauls only having ok cavalry, seems strange to me since the Gallic cavalry was frequently described as being so skilled and effective in historical records, being drafted as auxiliary troops to bolster or outright replace Roman cavalry which was considered less effective
Ok, where do I start? 😂 I'm going to have to disagree on most of your reasoning. Sorry no hard feelings it's just opinion. 🙂 Firstly let's reorganise the list. Units 1 Scythia 2 Dacia 3 Germaina 4 Gaul (I will give you that one) 5 Spain 6 Britannia Position (This is more difficult) 1 Spain + Britannia (for different reasons) 2 Dacia 3 Sycthia 4 Gaul 5 Germania Ok, so let's begin. Scythia has the best army for 4 reasons. 1) their basic horse archers will beat almost any unit in the game and if they can't beat it they are cheaper by far so you can just spam the enemy to death! For example, they can pepper a unit of chosen Warriors with arrows and run them ragged until they are exhausted then charge in and make them run and cut every one of them down without taking a single casualty. Vs say Armoured elephants they can't win... but they cost significantly less. When you invade Greeks cities you end up getting gold level arrow technology and your Temples give you + 3 experience. At that point you are totally unstoppable! Imagine a full enemy army, you may have 3 to 4 units of cavalry, 2 units of artillery 2-3 units of missiles and the rest infantry. The Scythia army is say full horse archers. . The enemy infantry are no threat to you at all, you can out run them until they are completely demoralised. . The archers and artillery are not a significant threat as you can out manoeuvre and charge them down or shoot them to hell before they can hurt you significantly. . The enemy cavalry however heavy it is can be lead into a trap, surrounded and overwhelmed. . Once the cavalry is gone the infantry is yours to play with. It works every time. And if for whatever reason you can't win you can always retreat because a full horse army will out run any other army on the map. If an enemy is strong I like to go in one turn use all my arrows, retreat, then Attack again the next turn. Normally they don't put up much resistance after you shot them up. With 800 strong army of Scythian horse archers you can completely destroy army's of 2-4,000 enemies. 2) the war dogs are bigger units! Fantastic for taking cities, open a gate and let the dogs rush in, if you have enough they will do all the work for you without any losses to your men. 3) 2 army system. You have field armies of horse archers that do the main work and a follow up army for taking cities after the enemy is crushed. The city armies consist of ax men, heavy archers, artillery and lost of war dogs. Job done. 4) importantly Scythia has war Machines! Most barbarians don't have them and that makes Scythia very powerful. Try taking a high level city with Germans to find out why it sucks not having catapults! Next Dacia 1) they are the only other barbarian race to have catapults and the only one to have Balistas. This is extremely useful in taking cities or demoralising or completely obliterating enemies before you have to use swords. 2) they have some of the best arches in the game so why worry they only have one unit of arches. Long-range bows and good protection and can fight hand to hand if needed. 3) falxmen are fantastic shock infantry that are fast moving. Combined with the chosen swordsmen they make for a formidable force. 4) Cavalry, equal to, or better than all but the Germans. More than good enough. 5) the lack of choice is an advantage, for example, when I play Germans or Gaul I never use Druids or women because I'd rather have an extra unit of cavalry or full size infantry unit! Having more choice slows production, complicates your battle strategy and means you need more production Centers. Dacia doesn't have this problem. It's streamlined. Germania Yes I agree on this one, very powerful infantry and good cavalry. But no war Machines and that makes taking cities without losses hard. And the spear warband are actually slow and hard to use in many situations. They can easily be outflanked. Gaul Yes I agree with you, and the Forrester warband are extremely good, that's the only reason for me they get the No4 spot. That thing has got incredible stats and strengths. Just amazing all round unit. Spain It's like playing as early Romans, but without archers... so just like playing as early Romans! Ha Ha. But the fact their infantry have a strong missile Attack makes them very useful. British ... nothing special, yes head hurlers have a strong missile Attack, but poor range and weak Defence is not great. And chariots? Rubbish, hard to use in formation, a disaster if you try to use them on mass like horse archers it just goes wrong. They get trapped and killed. They die so easily that your family members always get killed. So frustrating. And they have no archers and no artillery. Just terrible. Position! Spain and Britannia are good, Britannia for the reasons you gave but Spain is good because if you take only 2 city's you have all of Spain to yourself! From there you can proceed to Attack the mediterranean, Italy or Africa. And with only 1 way into Spain you are very defensible. You also have (I think) 4 cities in Spain that have mines! Lots of lovely money! Dacia, good position? What am I smoking? But hear me out. Yes you are in some ways surrounded, but normally only Germania Attacks you in the beginning and their cities are so far away they aren't Normally a big threat early on. You are also surrounded by defensible mountains! You forgot they have Gold mines? How did you miss that? And they are next door to the richest most "wonder full" land in the game! Greece! Flood down into there and you will have money and power in no time. Also having no need to build ships is in some way an advantage, it doesn't take money away from your armies and barbarians are rubbish at ships anyway. Scythia Quite safe, plenty of space, plenty of rebel places to take and the fact you use mostly horses means you can travel fast, also water access from the Crimea helps. Gaul Difficult at the beginning because you are Attacked from all sides, your basically set up. But if you can crush the British early on that's good, and you get to kill the Romans very early. It's a hard position but it has benefits for a God player. Germania It's sucks, you get Attack on 3 sides by 4 different civs and it's a big empire that needs every city to make troops! So really expensive! And all your early battles are in dark forest and that's not fun when you can't see anything. Phew! That was hard work ha ha 😂
I tried Spain. After i waited 16+ turns to gather army close to the Spain-France boarders to defend from the Gauls and Romans who were allies with each other,the moment the remaining of what was left from my army has turncoated twice. Fastest quit I've ever done in my whole RTW career.
Make em run, use the weight of their armor against them with fatigue. Have more heavy cavalry. Use an armor piercing infantry unit if you have them against engaged Roman general. Cavalry is always key against Rome.
Dacia is like Gaul but with better ranged (2x archers instead of javelins+archers and has siege). No clue how You got Gaul units over Dacians, especially considering how good falxmen are. Must've been the colour really.
I think he did not took into account that foresters are built in 2 turns. As in RTW money is not an issue when you can build such units, more units are better, than a slightly better unit with poor defense capabilities (they are good when attacking and ambushing but nothing else, taking stonewalled cities ia pretty crap)
@@Vektordeformacio not sure about the "nothing else" part. they are the best archers in the game, having the highest base damage, and on top of that, you have temples for gold weapons as well as +3 xp. this nets to 17 ranged attack right of the gate. they obliterate everything in this game, including elephants. only pharoh's bowmen have (slightly) higher base overall stats while being far more expensive to upkeep, though, the extra stats are mainly on defense, thus, they perform worse in the pure archer role.
@@jonsnow7092 Sure, if you fight field battles, they are good. In sieges, they are not that good. They take a long time to train, and in my opinion they are not really worth it. 2 turn units have to be extremely powerful, like Cata Archers.
@@Vektordeformacio 2 turn recruitment time does not matter when you can recruit them everywhere, you can get as much of them as you can upkeep. with the temple boosts, they have 17 ranged damage. with some extra XP (that they will easily get as they are the killers in your Gaul army), as well as a high star general, you get something like 25-30 ranged damage. get 10 of these units in an army, the vast majority of the troops in this game will melt before they make contact with your army, including most cavalry. only extremely well armored units will not die instantly by default, but you can always focus fire things like cataphracts or elephants. and they are disgusting in sieges. defensively, they are absolute gods, nothing gets close to your walls. offensively, they outrange anything that's not elite archers so enemies will have nothing on the walls. if there's some weird roman archer unit on the walls, you get all 10 of them in range at the same time and those roman archers are dead in a matter of seconds. After that, taking walls with 1 tower is easy. Get 1 unit on the walls and walk it through all the towers and gates. Now the enemy can't get close to your walls. Get the Chosen swordsmen in, the foresters behind them and massacre anything that's in that city.
Well done Lugo. I was specting to see Scythia in place number 2 or 3. But I agree Germania and Briton are really OP. Specially because both armies have something in common: Cause Fear in the enemy. Yes the have units that scared and took out the moral quickly. Britons have Chariots, Dogs, Woad Warriors and Head Hurlers when Germania have the Screatching Womens, the Night Riders, the Naked Fanatics , the Dogs, the Berserkers and the Chosen Archers with flaming arrows. Make an army with all that units and the enemy will be wavering before get close.
Thank you! Yess i was tempted to put scythia high but for me the British and defiintely the Germania armies are stronger overall, although those damn horse arches are OP haha
@@Ugh718 I know but they have an axe warrior called Night Rider that can hide in grass and give fear to the enemy. Also later the german states of the 17th century have a cavalry unit called Reiter who armor and horses whore black armor and were called Night/Black Riders by their enemies and allies.
Surely it's got to be Scythia? In the hands of a player who knows how to use missile cav, they are almost unbeatable, especially by other barbarian factions. The AI has no clue of course, but that's true of everything. The only way I can think of another barbarian faction beating Scythia is if Gaul rocks up with like 6 or 7 units of Forester Warband in their army, and they essentially use focused massed volleys on single Scythian horse archer units, essentially 'assassinating' units one by one. Other than that, I just can't see it. Edit: I should mention I'm talking strictly army composition. Not factoring in campaign map placement or such. Then I'd say Dacia.
Scythia is a tricky one to rank because it very much depends on how much you like using cav, but i agree with the right person controlling them they can be seriously OP
@@carl-os4603 Yeah I forget they have spears. In the Rise of Persia mod there's also a Persian unit that are archer-spearmen. It's a really cool unit style that you very rarely see.
Yeah, Scythia's real weakness is the low public order, low income, low settlement development at start iirc. (maybe even low population at start, i played Scythia a long time ago, don't quite remember it) The horse archers are great, few units can even counter them. Their position on the map is great imo., the rebel settlements are mostly easy to capture, the only faction from the East, Parthia has only two settlements at start, so that's a steamroll, the rest are usually small factions too. But the starting resources and poor settlements make it hard to take benefit of all that. Good if you like to play more defensively, i guess, thry can only attack from a few directions so you can focus on taking the time on development and amassing resources instead.
the only thing peasants are good is the public order: cheap to recruit and to pay their maintance, but effective because of their high troop number in their unit
Also ok for flanking for their price if there are no better alternatives. Two units should be effective enough against something already engaged with a heavier unit or spearmen. Wouldn't use them past early game though.
'Britain has no Archers' - true, very true, but this is why you mod in some numidian or other blue coloured archers, problem solved - same with cavalry. After all, this thing called 'learning from new ideas when you saw them' happend in history lol. If the lands you are taking is already AU to history, might as well change the units to fit as well... It's the Chariot General I hate, he is almost always the first to die when the unit charges. What is the point of HAVING a heavy/shock unit if over half the time you have to sacrifice a general to USE it?!?! In the end I gave up on them and found a guide to replace them with Cav Generals!
I played a Gaul campaign a while back. I was aggressive as hell and completed the long campaign objective before my first faction leader died. I lost one general the entire time. The general? Lugotorix. I think he died from from RNG due to plague or a storm or something. I had a lot of fun with it. Underrated faction, though the Germans are my favorite barbarian faction.
LOL... did you miss the "coated in quicklime" part? They're hurling caustic spheres at the enemy. I'd have gone with lower damage and a morale debuff, but their damage comes from chemical warfare, not from 10 pound soft missiles.
You're underestimating the power of light cavalry. I played on hard with gaul and wiped a roman reinforcement army using only 3 units of light cavalary (I sent them to reinforce one of my armies that i sent to break a siege but they stumbled on a ambush of infantry and archers with 1-2 units of spearman. Exhaust them. Spread them across the map so they cannot stay in group. Pick them off. Last units that I had to fight were spearman that went on the middle of the map. Had them charged from 3 sides at the same time and withdrawn the units that were charging in the spears. Charge-Withdraw-Charge-Withdraw-Charge till none left)
Ranking is tough because how the cpu uses them is different than how we can use them. Britain seems to sweep europe easily while gaul, dacia, and scythia are usually pathetic in campaign.
Spear warband, chosen archers, and berserkers for the win. Never underestimate upgraded and experienced war dogs either. The short campaign always wants Germania to expand to the east but I always take out Britannia and then Gaul so I minimize the number of fronts I'm fighting on. Expanding to the eastern steppes takes forever as barbarians because you only have dirt roads and the cities are so far apart and don't generate a lot of profit initially.
How can you put scythia at second worst? They get cav archers from their first military building! I mean, I get that newbies aren't going to use them well, but cav archers are very powerful in rtw
I would personally put spain last even though their late game infantery can be very powerfull, their early and even midgame infantery and cavalary cant compete against the other barbarians (ibirian swordsman usually lose to ordenairy warband deu to differance in stats and entity numbers.)beyond that i would rate scythia higher. beiing able to recruit horse archers from a musterfield means you dont even need to tech up at all to be able to dominate the map, once you learn how to use them
When I play with Spain campaign on VH/ VH mode, Julii immediately attack to my city Osca which is very annoying. Because if you choose another faction you may know that Julii do not attack to Spain immediately. They usually take Caralis and deal with Gauls in Padavium and Mediolanium at the first. Due to that, I do not play with Spain.
@@carl-os4603 not on VH/VH, on that difficulty, they can only beat pesants and town militia with extensive causalities. Also hastati are better than scutrii on an even playing field.
@@danielbalderrama4137 I dont play VH/VH anymore, only VH/M, because I just hate "enemy peasants are better than your light inf" And dont compare mercenary and native scutarii, their stats are different.
@@xbox_cheeto5338 I live in european part of Russia, so i believe thats true for all countries in Europe (obviously not true if you live in America, Asia or Australia)
I just remember having so much fighting the Gauls as Rome or British Celts and then going East and for some reason I’m suddenly fight phalanxes and axe men who can massacre legionaries. Kind of took me out of the Barbarian feel
I think you’re sleeping on Sythia slightly. They are in a great spot on the map where they don’t have to worry about attacks from the East, and as long as you quickly take out Thrace, you pretty much only have Germania and the Brutii to worry about. Dacia is almost always very weak or destroyed by the mid game, so it’s a fairly straightforward path to taking all of Russia and the Balkans. The horse archer units can’t really be countered by any of the barbarian or Roman factions, and you can just spam them to destroy any opposing army in the field. Sieges aren’t as big of a problem because you can force them to sally forth. Plus they have some artillery. Ultimately, if you take advantage of the cheese of the game, they can’t really be beaten. Oftentimes you can eliminate half of the enemy forces before they’ve even killed any of yours. Although I get that not everybody wants to play like this. I think I’d put them at No 3 behind Germania and Britannia, and ahead of Gaul just because Gaul always gets wiped out by the Julii.
I personally sit Britannia at 1 because their light chariots are pretty much horse archers. Also, chariots have double hit points, and since British generals are in chariots, they're pretty much gods. You can use your general a lot more liberally than with other factions. And on the campaign ma, having their own private island and a foothold make them easily the best situated.
It's difficult to decide whether Spain or Numidia has the most boring campaign in RTW. Spain gets Bull Warriors but Numidia can tech up to large/huge cities.
This game is around 16 years old. And people are still talking about it. That says something how great the game is
yess I definitely agree, such a great game
@@lugotorix6173 We need a true remaster because within the next 5 years it probably won't run on modern computers anymore.
True that my fellow citizen. Roma Invicta.
This video is like 2-3 years old and comments are rolling in.
Thats testament to the content.
(It helps that Lugo doesn't have an annoying voice)
@@RecklessInternetting Pretty sure the video was uploaded a few days ago
I like how France is Gaul and England is Britannia but Iberia is called Spain
Good point
this would have been useful back when i was in elementary school
hahaha yess im a bit late to the party
@@lugotorix6173 better late than never I guess lol
@@lugotorix6173 trade isn't that useful because while i was playing as Egypt, i had quite a lot of trade treaties but it was only profiteering me around 1200 denarii which by my stage in the game, that was nothing and i would rather declare war on them.
Daniel Balderrama the trade would generally only happen if their cities were close. E.g. britons aren’t going to trade with Egypt even with a treaty
This game has unlimited replay value tho.
I guess the real barbarians were the friends we made along the way
If you call the slaves "friends"...
@@andoniarmentia1024 you mean, kamerad?
We will not forget this
#DaciaGang
hahaha blame Creative assembly not me!!
Dacia got shafted in Rome 2 with how weak their lone falxmen unit is
I'll stand with you against this injustice.
#SpainGang
John Turner Spain only has one good unit. That’s it and gets gang banged quick.
In total war arena (canceled game by wargaming) dacians were at tier6-8/9 at barbarian army tree.
Playing as Germania now and watching Berserkers go full Sauron on Roman soldiers is some of the most fun I've had since Parthia spamming horse archers.
but in hard or very hard having your towns getting To the level To get the berserkers is long af
@@alexandremarinov7966 My biggest issue is the late game civil unrest since I can't tech up past level 3.
@Palace4Life EagleArmy negative
@Palace4Life EagleArmy Germania has an answer for all of Britannia's forces. I've only struggled with Scythia so far in this play through.
Berserkers are so OP. you need that against rome
Dacia suffers from a low displacement. A car its size should have at very least a modern 1.6L engine with ~100hp.
c'mon man, you made me spit my drink!
Yeah, Lada has the same problem. At least Seat starts with a greater displacement, of 4 settlements. Peugeot and Jaguar are pretty solid factions too, but Volkswagen definitely wins the top spot because of how it puts the power down.
Dacia Sandero: best car.
1. Germania. Beserkers can take on anyone, chosen axemen can beat legionary cohorts, best spear warbands cos of phalanx, best heavy cavalry for barbarians with Gothic cavalry. Also have chosen archers.
2. Scythia. Great horse archers (arguably best), good heavy cavalry with noble lancers who have good charge bonus, head hunting maidens are armor piercing. Despite weak infantry they have chosen archers who can hold their ground in melee (just about)
3.Gaul. Could possibly be second, but they are limited. You just need an army filled with chosen swordsmen, barbarian noble cavalry and Forester warband (arguably best archer unit in the game) who can also hold their ground in melee.
4. Dacia. I wasn't sure at first but they have similar units to the above but also have falxmen. I only placed Gaul above because of forester war band.
5. Britain. Didn't place higher because they have no archers or good cavalry. Chariots aren't bad but in prolonged melee will suck. If this was based on auto resolve they would likely be number one.
6. Spain. scutarii are ok, Bull warriors are really good and long shield cavalry are ok. No archers though. Just meh overall.
Very interesting list and I understand your logic. Mine was slightly different and in retrospect I may have ranked Britain too high, but I certainly agree with Germania and I like the fact that you have respected Scythia
@@lugotorix6173 Britain do probably have the most secure position, quite like egypt which is why they both usually do well (also chariot auto resolve). I wish the devs hadn't given them so much starting territory so they had a more interesting beginning e.g uniting Britain and then moving into samarobriva etc etc.
I must agree on that. Germania is really strong with chosens. If you like better archers earler and weaker infantry early, and stronger armored units later, Dacia is better. It is the same deal with Numidia and Carthage. Numidia have archers on tier1 practice range and have good but not armored melee. Carthage have better heavy infantry that is armored, but the range is getting to work later (yeah, slingers, woo)
Britain light chariot is an extremely powerful unit, with very long range and very large ammunition they can produce huge casualties in the open field, and they can shoot over low city walls. Hugely powerful unit only needing a blacksmith to recruit. I would be interested to know any units nearly so powerful only requiring a blacksmith? Gaul or Germania can tech up to more formidable armies, but needing much more development for the units.
@@britts9215 Exactly. Anyone who merely says "Chariots are not bad" isn't using them properly. Light Chariots are absolutely bonkers. Shoot until you're out of ammo, then pick off weakened or wavering units. Don't stay in melee, just charge-retreat-charge and you're golden. They cause a lot of morale damage and straight up murder enemy cavalry, general's bodyguards included.
Britain is easiest to play, Spain is most fun, Germania has the best strenght/fun ratio.... Gaul is basic and begginer friendly
Britania has great economy, territory, anti-phalanx / armor units, and killing machines under wheels
Yup and Dacia just sucks. Synthia is fun but takes too long to become anywhere near actual enemies
@@yniekac8851 Scythia IA usually floods Horser Achers and moves them around their territory using and abusing their "movement points" to intercept or weaken the enemy. I believe this is the basic and KEY strategy of scythia
I mean you start out on a freaking island and invade Ireland and never get invaded. Those 4 settlements are super secure. Then the the settlement on the other side needs immediate settlements invasion to control ports. Then bam instantly controls any opportunity to of any aggression.
And their general is a horse chariot, guarantee early unit that can 100% beat any army via timeout system~
@@yniekac8851
Dacia doesnt suck
Dacia is closest to Greece and Turkey...where the money is
Really selling Dacia short here. They are the only barbarian faction with both chosen archers and chosen infantry, and also have siege equipment which most barbarian factions don't have at all. They also have noble cavalry. While their army might lack flashy units save for the falx men, it's pretty descent.
In my opinion Dacia's redeemeing qualities are that they get archers pretty early on (no spear throwing unit) and they get falxmen pretty quickly too, also they get good mercs early, as Scythian Horse Archers are available, Merc hoplites and Cretans are close also to the starting position. Good natural borders at Aquincum, Iuvavum, Segestica, Campus Gatea, and closing off with Greece. Also they have a farming temple.
GERMANIA HANDS DOWN.
MY CHILDHOOD FRIENDS LEARNED WHAT FEAR WAS WHEN WE HAD OUR LAN PARTIES AND THEY ENTERED THE FORESTS
Everyone fears the spear warband!
@@allewis4008 BERSERKERS
> Dacia
> Need to tech up roster
> Poor starting position
Storm Macedon first, take over the Greece, and you get cities that can pump out Chosens, and economy that allows you to never stop.
Yeah, Dacia is basically a migration campaign. Anyone who is close to Greece has a great chance to get ahead.
"Dacia need to tech up roster"
Dude they're literally THE ONLY BARBARIAN FACTION THAT HAS TECH IN ITS ROSTER lol(aka catapults)
Its crazy how a total war game from 2004 beats any other modern total war games
yess ikr, goes to show graphics aren't everything
Nope at all lol, rome 1 really has bad bugs (pathfinding) and the fighting is too fast and the single units running around is annoying too. I mean its a great game for that time, but many new total war games are far better and im not talking about the graphics.
@@julianlipsky2323 Bullshit.
I really like Dacia because they have more down-to-earth colors and approach. You get both the best barbarian swordsmen and second best reliable heavy bowmen. Light shock infantry in the form of falxmen and actual siege equipment is also nice. My favorite one is the Germania tho. Gothic cavalry is absolutely insane and you also get phalanxes and berserkers.
Fun Fact about the Head Hurlers: The reason why they do so much damage, is because they coat the heads in quicklime, (A chemical taken out of finished limestone kilns) which when applied to an object sticks To it and is severely corrosive when contact is made with the skin, (The use of Quicklime in warfare also resurfaced and reappeared around The Age of Enlightenment to the Napoleonic Era)
(Its also stated it, at 9:53)
One of the greatest games ever made in the history of gaming. I still lose hours of my life every week to this game.... I play mostly mods now which keeps it fresh. This and medieval kingdoms will stay my favorite games. (Empire is amazing for the map but isn't nearly as fun to play.)
Funny thing, if you give falxman armor piercing (which historically makes sense and i have no clue why they don't have it in the first place) they become really, really good. Thrace and Dacia suddenly become actual players in their region
I believe that early in the beginning of the original game, both falxmen and archer warband had that. traces of that even persisted in the base game for a long time, in unit cards. they've nerfed these units long time ago since they were simply overpowered.
I also find it very weird why the Naked Fanatics don't have the scare nearby troops ability, they are very weak, low troop count, no armor just decent attack and they take 2 turns to train.
Great! Now I have to Play my Germanic Campaign!!! Thanks for reinspiring me to play the campaigns on Very Hard. I always played on Normal and it was decent, now it's time to up my game.
This game is so good that even now, years later, we're still talking about it. Incredible. There really will never be a game like Total War.
Yess I agree its a classic that will last forever
I think u meant *_DECADES LATER_* lol
It seems only Crusader Kings 2 and 3 understand the appeal of a nice, clean map that TW used to have.
Bro how dare you disrespect us dacian boys like that, we are by far the the highest iq barbarian faction. We get archers super early (only needing a practice range to get them) and we are the only barbarians that even thought of making artillery. So all we need to do is sweep through Greece with our archers whilst they fuck around with there peltasts and militia hoplites and then voila, we are the richest country in the game plus we have thessalonica that has all the buildings to give us our powerful units: chosen swordsmen, chosen archers, and onagers. With this newfound power we get to plunge rome into 10,000 years of darkness. So in conclusion, yes we may not have the best army BUT that is because we have the highest IQ of all barbarian factions and we get access to our full roster in like 8 years putting us far ahead of all other factions in tech therefore making us the best faction in the game really it's not even close
Also how dare you disrespect the dacian dark orange that all brave warriors of dacia have proudly worn into battle?
True!
YES FINALLY SOMONE REALISE HOW FAST THEY TECH UP (also brown is buetiful)
YES FINALLY SOMEONE WITH IQ
@@rareslight8166 they start with a minor city anda large town like bruh im making my death stack turn 10
Yes but Gauls could just as easily hyper focus on the Romans and get all the same units they need, plus better ones. The only thing they lack is artillery, but really artillery rather sucks in this game anyways other than large sieges. But even then you can do without them if need be.
I think Spain was nerfed, considering it took Rome longer to fully conquer Spain than France and they copied some of their equipment from the Celtiberian and other tribes. Both the pilum and gladius were based on Spanish designs. The Celtiberians even used javelins dipped in pitch and set on fire which flared into a huge flame as they flew. Hannibal used the Spanish light infantry to great effect, as they could stand toe to toe with Rome's best, let alone the heavy infantry and both Hannibal and Rome valued the slingers from the Balearic islands, who could hurl projectiles of over 400g with great accuracy. The Iberian steel was also of extremely good quality and the swords were excellent. As I mentioned earlier, the gladius was based on Iberian designs and the falcata was a beastly sword that could chop a head off a horse. They also had good cavalry, light ones, who like the Numerians used javelins, albeit not quite as good and heavy cavalry similar to the Celtic tribes in Gaul.
I think their troops suck, because they're not spears and they're light infantry.....
The game just makes light infantry trash.
In my Gaulish campaign(one the most fun and interesting to play) Lugotorix become my heir of faction and I sent him conquering Italia kinda hard at the start but once you got swordsman this is the end lugotorix became a god among man literally... 8 in commander 6 in gestion 8 in influence he’s name was Lugotorix the conqueror... what a man.... (he has fertility problem lmao)
Scythia is amazing in the open field, but it's a struggle in sieges, and I'd never want to fight against proper stone walls with them. Thankfully, the AI likes to attack you in the open field rather than sallying forth.
Germania is my favorite. A berserker spam can slaughter pretty much anything, even an urban cohort can be torn to pieces by unleashing berserkers on them (although berserkers are often a one-use unit since you can't pull them back and they won't retreat). They don't have great mobility, and I'd hate to go up against horse archers with Germania, but if you can manage to avoid fighting Scythia in the open field, their isn't much that they can't take on.
Chariots are great but sometimes their pathfinding makes me want to rip my hair out. For this reason alone I prefer using cavalry.
My chariots who can't find their way around a goddamn rock: *_ARE WE A JOKE TO U!?_*
I would say Dacia due to the fact that they can recruit artillery, have falxes and are close to Greece allowing them recruit mercenary cretan archers and hoplites which can demolish the german berserkers who are overrated in my opinion due to most people ignoring their very low armour
Well if bezurkas get into close combat, they will absolutely destroy but i rarely see it happen because thier always focused down but defending, you can eliminate enemy archers with your archers and then your bezurkas are unstoppable.
I have seen berserkers rip apart Spartans so I'm not so sure about them being overcome by hoplites.
But yes to the armour thing. Just shoot them. Just. Shoot. Them. I feel like people do forget that despite the low armour being common knowledge.
Excellent review. One thing I'd mention is Germany has resources everywhere, especially those amber fields in the north. A little bit of development and they are rolling in money.
1. Germans - good unit variety, decent starting position, very good at defending with their spears, and good against late-game romans. By far the best barbarian faction.
3. Britain - good unit variety, safe starting position, head hurlers are insane. Chariots can be good, but i wish the general wasn't a chariot because it sucks at siege fights and they work a bit derpy and can sometimes die instantly for seemingly no reason.
3. Spain - decent starting position, weak but scale well and got a good mix of decent cavalry. Bull warriors can fight against late-game romans. No archers but slingers can be a good early replacement, and bull warrior and scuttari javelins help. Weak early game but their starting position is good enough for it.
4. Dacia - IMO they are strictly a gaul upgrade. Falxmen are better at offense than swordsmen but worse in defense, but they have the standard warband to be a wall to hold for falxmen to shred from behind. Getting basic archers early in the game is amazing. Terrible starting position though, if not for that they would be higher than spain.
5. Gaul - basic trash barbarians. If not for druids (which britains also have, and germans if you count screechers), and foresters, this will be the worst overall faction. Good starting settlements, but if you don't take care of the romans early, you're done, and you don't generally have the tools to resist after that point.
6. Scythia - kinda a joke, horse archers are OP but that's all you got. Also terrible starting position.
TL'DR. Dacia is not bad.
If you read the discription of the head hurler unit in the campaign it says the heads tehy throw haev quicklime on them which is a higly corrosive substance which is why they deal so much damage
Germania is the most powerful
Brittania has best start position and potential fun factor.
Scythia is meant for hit and run tactics and speed. played right they can be as powerful as the Germans
Gaul is closest to the main action and probably the hardest of the factions due to that
Germania has very powerful unit roster. Warband is great defensive unit. They have excellent cavalry, excellent archer, excellent charger unit and terrified berserkers. Their only weakness is siege technology, i think.
Also leader management skills
Yes, playing as scythia, you have easy access to Themskyra, but how are you going to hold on to that city? I get nightmares from years ago when I think about it🤣
Germania was ridiculous. Good, cheap pikemen, great cavalry, great melee axe and board infantry, accessibility to Greece and Cretan archers, and Berserkers were ridiculous. I once fought a bridge battle with two Berserkers and one light cavalry against a full stack of early Romans and wiped them out.
I know I haven't been around in a while, glad to see your still going good (congrats on 8k holy moly)
I was just wondering what is the best and who to play and this video comes out
haha perfect timing
You won't be able to do the guerrilla warfare that Romans suffered in Hispania if you can hop from settlement to settlement easily I guess.
Personally, I'm partial to horse archers, just wish scythia had at least one more decent infantry unit or Parthia one more mounted archer unit
Scythia suffers from lacking infantry when assaulting settlements but they bring out the most fun someone can have when skirmishing your enemies to oblivion in multiplayer, using both foot and mounted archers
Lugotorix you made me nice line about, "never heard of him before." You only named you TH-cam channel after him lol.
You forgot to mention that head hurlers also do damage to morale, every time I used them after one or two salvos of heads enemy units break
Great video mate, very entertaining
Excellent overview and totally agreed! Next we need to see a best Eastern factions roundup. :)
Thanks for your videoes on this game. I am new to it. I took my selucids to britania within the first few turns. I didn't like their position so I moved them. I played as bruiti and Egypt (my favourite faction) but wanted a "migration campaign".
Have you tried a "migration campaign"? Would be a good topic.
I love the video. What it lacks are shrines. Getting +3 infantry is a huge boost. Also huge boost would be how they affect your general.
Small amount of history on the head hurlers. Whilst Creative Assembly took a few liberties the historical sources make references to the heads being bags of flesh filled with an ancient version of quicklime which caused severe burns when it came into contact with enemy combatants. It was mentioned on a time team episode at one point so should be sources around somewhere.
Glad your back love your videos
Thank you! More to come
Excellent content as usual
Germania and scythia, op close combat vs op horsearchers
About Head Hurlers: now, I don't know how effective heads would be in real life, but hypothetically, it's a 15-lb/6.5 kg projectile coated with quicklime (a highly corrosive substance - see the chemical burn scene in Fight Club). Throwing a 15-lb object is honestly pretty tough, but if you can manage it, and if it's covered with something that instantly starts burning you, chances are it'd be pretty effective as a weapon.
One of the most fun games for its simplicity and yet complex nature. Population is by far one of the greatest mechanics.
Head Hurlers chuck severed heads "coated in quick lime" is where the damage comes from.
Great videos. Really enjoy the content. Lessthanthree.
Hm. Strange. I would take the dacians over the spanish and scythians any day. They are not the best in everything, but are good enough in all fields. Especially considering their early enemies: you can go cavalry on thracians, and archer warband on macedonians. They work better than they look. Also, start position: I would go for Thrace first, second Macedon, plus rebel Byzantium. Greece is the richest part of the map, and you have perfect counters to the home factions.
Also: gaul is one of my favorite positions. The spread out nature makes it easy to Blitz. Even if you lose Alesia, Rome provides better income. This is similar to my other favorite starts, greeks and Carthage.
It's true, I played Britannia to maybe 20 A.C. I didn't conquer anything because I wanted to check how game will be go. And Brutii conquered whole europe but they never went to Britannia. Noone for over 300 years had come to Britannia
Is something very important to note about the Gaul archers Is that they fight with spears, Which have a bonus against cavalry. This is a hidden detail
Gréta video as always, Lugotorix. What barbarian faction would you advice for Galatian migration campaign?
Hmm... I guess Dacia is the closest based on the position the celts migrated from. You could go with Gaul though for the true 'celt' experience.
Imo Gaul easily have the best campaign starting position amongst the barbarian factions. They can buy one settlement each from Spain, Carthage, Britons and Germania while also taking Segesta instead of leaving it to the Julii. They're essentially starting with 12 settlements which is way more than any other faction except for the Slaves.
Their start is still quite difficult, but they have the necessary tools to drive Britons back to their island asap (and keep them there, as they won't attack your 1 ship with their 1 ship) and conquer Spain while still defending against Julii and Germania. Once Britons and Spain are sufficiently dealt with, the campaign becomes quite easy.
I count the Thracians as a barbarian faction, as even tho they are far more Helenic then the Dacians, they still use similar weapons, the Falx is very similar to the Rhomphaia. Anyways, I find Thrace to be better then Dacia as it has a mix of both deadly shock Falxmen and Phalangite pikemen, also great vid!
I have 1000 hours in Rome Total War. I put it down because I worried that was too much time to devote to any game.
Every time I see a video like this I am tempted to start a new Grand Campaign and get back into it.
Just saw this, and for reference the Head Hurlers were likely based on the use of Quicklime soaked projectiles by tribesmen as missile weapons at times.
Quicklime itself will burn any exposed skin, and will get into armour and the like.
Good list, but it's always been for me what tactics I'm willing to play. Your logic is spot on though👍
Thank you, yes it is also very much to do with the individuals tactics
I agree Spain is tough especially at the beginning. Once you get your temples upgraded and you’ve recruited balaeric slinger though, Spain can be quite powerful Scythia is cool because you can take time to build up your settlements and the horse archers can mess up most units. Scythia is one of my favorite factions to play as because you’re left alone by the bigger factions until you’re ready and if you have the highest shrine of teutatis your axmen and archers can easily win most encounters
Scythian's campaign was the most fun experience i've ever had with RTW.
Ok, regarding Head Hurlers. The reason they do some much damage is because the heads are coated in quicklime, which then splashes onto the target. It's caustic, which results in burns, ontop of the blunt trauma of being struck by a human head.
As for the Gauls only having ok cavalry, seems strange to me since the Gallic cavalry was frequently described as being so skilled and effective in historical records, being drafted as auxiliary troops to bolster or outright replace Roman cavalry which was considered less effective
Ok, where do I start? 😂 I'm going to have to disagree on most of your reasoning. Sorry no hard feelings it's just opinion. 🙂
Firstly let's reorganise the list.
Units
1 Scythia
2 Dacia
3 Germaina
4 Gaul (I will give you that one)
5 Spain
6 Britannia
Position
(This is more difficult)
1 Spain + Britannia (for different reasons)
2 Dacia
3 Sycthia
4 Gaul
5 Germania
Ok, so let's begin.
Scythia has the best army for 4 reasons.
1) their basic horse archers will beat almost any unit in the game and if they can't beat it they are cheaper by far so you can just spam the enemy to death! For example, they can pepper a unit of chosen Warriors with arrows and run them ragged until they are exhausted then charge in and make them run and cut every one of them down without taking a single casualty. Vs say Armoured elephants they can't win... but they cost significantly less. When you invade Greeks cities you end up getting gold level arrow technology and your Temples give you + 3 experience. At that point you are totally unstoppable! Imagine a full enemy army, you may have 3 to 4 units of cavalry, 2 units of artillery 2-3 units of missiles and the rest infantry. The Scythia army is say full horse archers.
.
The enemy infantry are no threat to you at all, you can out run them until they are completely demoralised.
.
The archers and artillery are not a significant threat as you can out manoeuvre and charge them down or shoot them to hell before they can hurt you significantly.
. The enemy cavalry however heavy it is can be lead into a trap, surrounded and overwhelmed.
.
Once the cavalry is gone the infantry is yours to play with. It works every time. And if for whatever reason you can't win you can always retreat because a full horse army will out run any other army on the map. If an enemy is strong I like to go in one turn use all my arrows, retreat, then Attack again the next turn. Normally they don't put up much resistance after you shot them up. With 800 strong army of Scythian horse archers you can completely destroy army's of 2-4,000 enemies.
2) the war dogs are bigger units! Fantastic for taking cities, open a gate and let the dogs rush in, if you have enough they will do all the work for you without any losses to your men.
3) 2 army system. You have field armies of horse archers that do the main work and a follow up army for taking cities after the enemy is crushed. The city armies consist of ax men, heavy archers, artillery and lost of war dogs. Job done.
4) importantly Scythia has war Machines! Most barbarians don't have them and that makes Scythia very powerful. Try taking a high level city with Germans to find out why it sucks not having catapults!
Next Dacia
1) they are the only other barbarian race to have catapults and the only one to have Balistas. This is extremely useful in taking cities or demoralising or completely obliterating enemies before you have to use swords.
2) they have some of the best arches in the game so why worry they only have one unit of arches. Long-range bows and good protection and can fight hand to hand if needed.
3) falxmen are fantastic shock infantry that are fast moving. Combined with the chosen swordsmen they make for a formidable force.
4) Cavalry, equal to, or better than all but the Germans. More than good enough.
5) the lack of choice is an advantage, for example, when I play Germans or Gaul I never use Druids or women because I'd rather have an extra unit of cavalry or full size infantry unit! Having more choice slows production, complicates your battle strategy and means you need more production Centers. Dacia doesn't have this problem. It's streamlined.
Germania
Yes I agree on this one, very powerful infantry and good cavalry. But no war Machines and that makes taking cities without losses hard. And the spear warband are actually slow and hard to use in many situations. They can easily be outflanked.
Gaul
Yes I agree with you, and the Forrester warband are extremely good, that's the only reason for me they get the No4 spot. That thing has got incredible stats and strengths. Just amazing all round unit.
Spain
It's like playing as early Romans, but without archers... so just like playing as early Romans! Ha Ha. But the fact their infantry have a strong missile Attack makes them very useful.
British
... nothing special, yes head hurlers have a strong missile Attack, but poor range and weak Defence is not great.
And chariots? Rubbish, hard to use in formation, a disaster if you try to use them on mass like horse archers it just goes wrong. They get trapped and killed. They die so easily that your family members always get killed. So frustrating. And they have no archers and no artillery. Just terrible.
Position!
Spain and Britannia are good, Britannia for the reasons you gave but Spain is good because if you take only 2 city's you have all of Spain to yourself! From there you can proceed to Attack the mediterranean, Italy or Africa. And with only 1 way into Spain you are very defensible. You also have (I think) 4 cities in Spain that have mines! Lots of lovely money!
Dacia, good position? What am I smoking? But hear me out.
Yes you are in some ways surrounded, but normally only Germania Attacks you in the beginning and their cities are so far away they aren't Normally a big threat early on. You are also surrounded by defensible mountains!
You forgot they have Gold mines? How did you miss that?
And they are next door to the richest most "wonder full" land in the game! Greece! Flood down into there and you will have money and power in no time. Also having no need to build ships is in some way an advantage, it doesn't take money away from your armies and barbarians are rubbish at ships anyway.
Scythia
Quite safe, plenty of space, plenty of rebel places to take and the fact you use mostly horses means you can travel fast, also water access from the Crimea helps.
Gaul
Difficult at the beginning because you are Attacked from all sides, your basically set up. But if you can crush the British early on that's good, and you get to kill the Romans very early. It's a hard position but it has benefits for a God player.
Germania
It's sucks, you get Attack on 3 sides by 4 different civs and it's a big empire that needs every city to make troops! So really expensive! And all your early battles are in dark forest and that's not fun when you can't see anything.
Phew! That was hard work ha ha 😂
+++
I tried Spain. After i waited 16+ turns to gather army close to the Spain-France boarders to defend from the Gauls and Romans who were allies with each other,the moment the remaining of what was left from my army has turncoated twice. Fastest quit I've ever done in my whole RTW career.
Hey Lugotorix, can you make a video about "How to beat Romans?"
Make em run, use the weight of their armor against them with fatigue. Have more heavy cavalry. Use an armor piercing infantry unit if you have them against engaged Roman general. Cavalry is always key against Rome.
Flank them? Take them early on just like the Egyptians?
Love a 2020 rtw video
Dacia was the first faction I conquered whole map with
Dacia is like Gaul but with better ranged (2x archers instead of javelins+archers and has siege). No clue how You got Gaul units over Dacians, especially considering how good falxmen are. Must've been the colour really.
I think he did not took into account that foresters are built in 2 turns. As in RTW money is not an issue when you can build such units, more units are better, than a slightly better unit with poor defense capabilities (they are good when attacking and ambushing but nothing else, taking stonewalled cities ia pretty crap)
@@Vektordeformacio not sure about the "nothing else" part. they are the best archers in the game, having the highest base damage, and on top of that, you have temples for gold weapons as well as +3 xp. this nets to 17 ranged attack right of the gate. they obliterate everything in this game, including elephants. only pharoh's bowmen have (slightly) higher base overall stats while being far more expensive to upkeep, though, the extra stats are mainly on defense, thus, they perform worse in the pure archer role.
@@jonsnow7092
Sure, if you fight field battles, they are good. In sieges, they are not that good. They take a long time to train, and in my opinion they are not really worth it.
2 turn units have to be extremely powerful, like Cata Archers.
@@Vektordeformacio 2 turn recruitment time does not matter when you can recruit them everywhere, you can get as much of them as you can upkeep. with the temple boosts, they have 17 ranged damage. with some extra XP (that they will easily get as they are the killers in your Gaul army), as well as a high star general, you get something like 25-30 ranged damage. get 10 of these units in an army, the vast majority of the troops in this game will melt before they make contact with your army, including most cavalry. only extremely well armored units will not die instantly by default, but you can always focus fire things like cataphracts or elephants.
and they are disgusting in sieges. defensively, they are absolute gods, nothing gets close to your walls. offensively, they outrange anything that's not elite archers so enemies will have nothing on the walls. if there's some weird roman archer unit on the walls, you get all 10 of them in range at the same time and those roman archers are dead in a matter of seconds. After that, taking walls with 1 tower is easy. Get 1 unit on the walls and walk it through all the towers and gates. Now the enemy can't get close to your walls. Get the Chosen swordsmen in, the foresters behind them and massacre anything that's in that city.
19:17 How'd you know? Learned something new today 🤣
Well done Lugo. I was specting to see Scythia in place number 2 or 3. But I agree Germania and Briton are really OP. Specially because both armies have something in common: Cause Fear in the enemy.
Yes the have units that scared and took out the moral quickly.
Britons have Chariots, Dogs, Woad Warriors and Head Hurlers when Germania have the Screatching Womens, the Night Riders, the Naked Fanatics , the Dogs, the Berserkers and the Chosen Archers with flaming arrows.
Make an army with all that units and the enemy will be wavering before get close.
Thank you! Yess i was tempted to put scythia high but for me the British and defiintely the Germania armies are stronger overall, although those damn horse arches are OP haha
"Night riders"lol.This isn't lotr u know XD
@@Ugh718 I know but they have an axe warrior called Night Rider that can hide in grass and give fear to the enemy.
Also later the german states of the 17th century have a cavalry unit called Reiter who armor and horses whore black armor and were called Night/Black Riders by their enemies and allies.
Surely it's got to be Scythia? In the hands of a player who knows how to use missile cav, they are almost unbeatable, especially by other barbarian factions. The AI has no clue of course, but that's true of everything. The only way I can think of another barbarian faction beating Scythia is if Gaul rocks up with like 6 or 7 units of Forester Warband in their army, and they essentially use focused massed volleys on single Scythian horse archer units, essentially 'assassinating' units one by one. Other than that, I just can't see it. Edit: I should mention I'm talking strictly army composition. Not factoring in campaign map placement or such. Then I'd say Dacia.
Scythia is a tricky one to rank because it very much depends on how much you like using cav, but i agree with the right person controlling them they can be seriously OP
Ah Forester Warband, the only archers that can destroy cavalry in meele...
@@carl-os4603 Yeah I forget they have spears. In the Rise of Persia mod there's also a Persian unit that are archer-spearmen. It's a really cool unit style that you very rarely see.
Yeah, Scythia's real weakness is the low public order, low income, low settlement development at start iirc. (maybe even low population at start, i played Scythia a long time ago, don't quite remember it)
The horse archers are great, few units can even counter them.
Their position on the map is great imo., the rebel settlements are mostly easy to capture, the only faction from the East, Parthia has only two settlements at start, so that's a steamroll, the rest are usually small factions too.
But the starting resources and poor settlements make it hard to take benefit of all that.
Good if you like to play more defensively, i guess, thry can only attack from a few directions so you can focus on taking the time on development and amassing resources instead.
the only thing peasants are good is the public order: cheap to recruit and to pay their maintance, but effective because of their high troop number in their unit
Also ok for flanking for their price if there are no better alternatives.
Two units should be effective enough against something already engaged with a heavier unit or spearmen.
Wouldn't use them past early game though.
'Britain has no Archers' - true, very true, but this is why you mod in some numidian or other blue coloured archers, problem solved - same with cavalry. After all, this thing called 'learning from new ideas when you saw them' happend in history lol. If the lands you are taking is already AU to history, might as well change the units to fit as well...
It's the Chariot General I hate, he is almost always the first to die when the unit charges. What is the point of HAVING a heavy/shock unit if over half the time you have to sacrifice a general to USE it?!?! In the end I gave up on them and found a guide to replace them with Cav Generals!
I played a Gaul campaign a while back. I was aggressive as hell and completed the long campaign objective before my first faction leader died. I lost one general the entire time. The general? Lugotorix. I think he died from from RNG due to plague or a storm or something. I had a lot of fun with it. Underrated faction, though the Germans are my favorite barbarian faction.
LOL... did you miss the "coated in quicklime" part? They're hurling caustic spheres at the enemy. I'd have gone with lower damage and a morale debuff, but their damage comes from chemical warfare, not from 10 pound soft missiles.
You're underestimating the power of light cavalry. I played on hard with gaul and wiped a roman reinforcement army using only 3 units of light cavalary (I sent them to reinforce one of my armies that i sent to break a siege but they stumbled on a ambush of infantry and archers with 1-2 units of spearman. Exhaust them. Spread them across the map so they cannot stay in group. Pick them off. Last units that I had to fight were spearman that went on the middle of the map. Had them charged from 3 sides at the same time and withdrawn the units that were charging in the spears. Charge-Withdraw-Charge-Withdraw-Charge till none left)
are you playing in eu or na servers ? If it is eu we could play one or two games
Ranking is tough because how the cpu uses them is different than how we can use them. Britain seems to sweep europe easily while gaul, dacia, and scythia are usually pathetic in campaign.
Spear warband, chosen archers, and berserkers for the win. Never underestimate upgraded and experienced war dogs either.
The short campaign always wants Germania to expand to the east but I always take out Britannia and then Gaul so I minimize the number of fronts I'm fighting on. Expanding to the eastern steppes takes forever as barbarians because you only have dirt roads and the cities are so far apart and don't generate a lot of profit initially.
Can't wait for Dacia playtrough 😁
How can you put scythia at second worst? They get cav archers from their first military building!
I mean, I get that newbies aren't going to use them well, but cav archers are very powerful in rtw
scythian noble woman. 0 losses battles full stack. the end.
Where can I find your video on how to play with Dacia? Is always crashing when I click on it. 😁
Berserkers on settlement walls are truly a sight to behold.
I would personally put spain last even though their late game infantery can be very powerfull, their early and even midgame infantery and cavalary cant compete against the other barbarians (ibirian swordsman usually lose to ordenairy warband deu to differance in stats and entity numbers.)beyond that i would rate scythia higher. beiing able to recruit horse archers from a musterfield means you dont even need to tech up at all to be able to dominate the map, once you learn how to use them
He is BACK!
Hi, Lugotorix. You should try a mod Lanjane's Barbarian Empires. Its keep a style ,spirit and dynamics of original game, but add a lot of content.
No resources in Dacia? Dunno if it was reflected ingame, but they have gold mines.
When I play with Spain campaign on VH/ VH mode, Julii immediately attack to my city Osca which is very annoying. Because if you choose another faction you may know that Julii do not attack to Spain immediately. They usually take Caralis and deal with Gauls in Padavium and Mediolanium at the first. Due to that, I do not play with Spain.
It's a challenge because of the difficulty, i had the same thing happen to me but i managed to repel them
Just use ambushing tactic and dont forget, Scutarii are better than Hastati while worse than Principes.
@@carl-os4603 not on VH/VH, on that difficulty, they can only beat pesants and town militia with extensive causalities. Also hastati are better than scutrii on an even playing field.
@@danielbalderrama4137 I dont play VH/VH anymore, only VH/M, because I just hate "enemy peasants are better than your light inf"
And dont compare mercenary and native scutarii, their stats are different.
@@carl-os4603 i know, i played the game for 8 years. I know the matchups of every unit on an even playing field.
Selects the army with lugotorix in Italy: You have this fella, never heard of him before. This had me laughing so hard
I wish the servers werent dead :( i was online yesterday and only 2 other people online
The servers arent dead actually. Just check online in late evening or during weekends. (online sometimes goes up to 30 players)
@@defrigerat0r that depends on time zone, but true
@@xbox_cheeto5338 I live in european part of Russia, so i believe thats true for all countries in Europe (obviously not true if you live in America, Asia or Australia)
@@defrigerat0r Do you think more Europeans or Americans play RTW?
@@xbox_cheeto5338Imho there is 2 to 1 proportion between European and American people
I just remember having so much fighting the Gauls as Rome or British Celts and then going East and for some reason I’m suddenly fight phalanxes and axe men who can massacre legionaries. Kind of took me out of the Barbarian feel
I think you’re sleeping on Sythia slightly. They are in a great spot on the map where they don’t have to worry about attacks from the East, and as long as you quickly take out Thrace, you pretty much only have Germania and the Brutii to worry about. Dacia is almost always very weak or destroyed by the mid game, so it’s a fairly straightforward path to taking all of Russia and the Balkans. The horse archer units can’t really be countered by any of the barbarian or Roman factions, and you can just spam them to destroy any opposing army in the field. Sieges aren’t as big of a problem because you can force them to sally forth. Plus they have some artillery. Ultimately, if you take advantage of the cheese of the game, they can’t really be beaten. Oftentimes you can eliminate half of the enemy forces before they’ve even killed any of yours. Although I get that not everybody wants to play like this. I think I’d put them at No 3 behind Germania and Britannia, and ahead of Gaul just because Gaul always gets wiped out by the Julii.
Please do a Romano-British faction guide? For barbarian invasion
I've never played as them before but if I do a bit of research I will consider it :)
Correct, Black Sea is North of the Mediterranean while the Caspian Sea is that long lake across the edge of the map
Human heads are fairly heavy. Imagine being smacked in the face by what is essentially a medicine ball that looks like your neighbor.
I personally sit Britannia at 1 because their light chariots are pretty much horse archers. Also, chariots have double hit points, and since British generals are in chariots, they're pretty much gods. You can use your general a lot more liberally than with other factions. And on the campaign ma, having their own private island and a foothold make them easily the best situated.
It's difficult to decide whether Spain or Numidia has the most boring campaign in RTW. Spain gets Bull Warriors but Numidia can tech up to large/huge cities.
12:44 I did some testing. Beserkers can beat armoured elephants in the right conditions.
Iberia peninsula has a lot of gold mines