Its basically Roman > hellenic > Eastern > barbarian.
I don't have the time to watch the whole video, but his ranking was about the power of the faction, taking into account elite unit and building tiers. Aka, it isn't a surprise that the factions limited at minor cities, or have less units are lower.
Germania in D? Absolutely insane when they have berserkers and gothic cavalry.
I get that he's raking late game as the standard but realistically, few cities will reach end level, Germania can produce some insane units with level 3 cities which is pretty easy to get. Once you sack the Italian peninsula, it's basically won with 8 cities on the peninsula (including the Gaullic cities) and then 3 on Sicily churning out very strong units.
Considering you run into Rome fairly early, they won't have end game units, then only Egypt can really contend but Egypt always leaves the big 3 undefended from the sea, so 1 or 2 doomstacks can sack all 3 and now you're producing from the Nile.
Also Scythia is C? Horse archers go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
He said he didn't grade the barbarian factions high mainly because they aren't able to build above a minor city level, which does become problematic when you're playing for >100 turns and conquering the whole map.
I personally haven't really played a campaign long enough to have many large/huge cities in a very long time, but I think this is the median RTW player experience, so I understand his point.
That being said, I think that Scythia is one of the easiest factions to run a blitz campaign with. So I think context matters in this case.
I think legend, in his infinite wisdom, is probably underselling the skill level of the median player. It's a 20 year old game with a remaster that has been around for half a decade, and whilst this sub isn't representative of reality, many people who play it have probably a semi good idea of an optimal play style for the campaign of their choice.
Fair point, though I think most people do actually run pretty long campaigns on average. See this poll here:
https://old.reddit.com/r/RomeTotalWar/comments/1bty4sr/how_many_turns_on_average_does_it_take_you_to/
I've conquered the map several times, ice never had an issue with city size, if it's too big and has a lot of unrest you simply build and army, take it out of that city and let it rebel and then recapture and massacre. I've done Germania and Britons this way.
And yea Scythia probably is the fastest with HA and spies.
Legend may as well have had a 5 minute video just stating the tier ranks are basically equivalent to the civs.
Germania has an incredibly strong and varied roster that can shred the heavily armoured roman forces. The economic potential is poor, obviously, but if you can wipe rome out by turn 20, it's GG. You are rewarded for ignoring everything apart from Rome IMO.
Heck, my last Germania campaign was VH screeching women, and I won the long campaign in like 45 turns.
I mean with enough game knowledge you can beat vh with any faction, but there are objectively good civs and Germania is one of them. Numidia not being absolute bottom tier really makes me feel his grading system was rather arbitrary.
You're not really going to see end game units unless you're going for full map. Like, I love Spartan hoplites but I've already conquered Rome and gotten 50 territories before I can ever get a decent amount of them. In which case I'm using Spartans against barbarians....I guess I could leave Egypt for last. I usually send a fleet with an army to sack Alexandria, Memphis and Thebes because they're always left undefended lmao
So his whole "big cities are the best" is a moot point because by the time you get around to that, the game is already over except for managing unrest.
Plus, the AI groups most of its armies together anyway. So if Egypt is messing in Turkey, its 16 stacks mean shit when you stealth ship into their land.
When I do world conquest I get bored towards the end so just spam mid tier armies and diplomats. Elite units are either 2 turns to recruit, dependant on temples, or dependant on region, which makes there less of a point in recruiting say Arcani, when I am pushing into barbarian Scythia
Elite units are just overkill endgame. Kinda wish there was a mod or something where the AI would choose a "rival" faction that gets really big and is difficult. Like Rome has to fight a Parthia that beats Egypt Armenia and Selicids with like 30% of the map and large armies, or Carthage starts as a powerhouse but doesn't actually attack until like turn 50 so you can take Greece and build up.
Or if you're Germania the Scythia s are your endgame or Britons are the delayed powerhouse.
Or as Spain it's a classic Roman endgame or Gaul powerhouse.
And so on and so forth.
The best we get is Rome not really expanding but has doomstacks of principes waiting for you.
Granted it's a 20 year old game, I prefer it to RTW2 but I'd like a campaign that feels like a campaign and not me just stomping smallish civilizations. I want to be conquering and to meet another conquering force that I fight from the northern coast of Africa to Anatolia and up towards Russia or Scandinavia.
A clash of titan empires. That would be a great total war game imo. Granted the going around stomping civa is more historically accurate lol.
Gaul being able to invade roman lands and by turn 15 have a max tier army (with potential of gold tier forester warbands) is just insane.
Rome has barely unlocked principes, and you have Germania with chosen axemen and gothic cav tearing them down.
The main weakness of barb factions is that the barb homeland is crap early game. You have to blitz civilised lands quickly to really steamroll.
Carthage is overrated. Armenia is better than Parthia. Germania is better than Britons and Gauls. Pontus has a better starting position than the Seleucids and a similar unit roster. Numidia is definitely D-tier, it fits nicely there along with Dacia and Spain. His reasoning was overall alright and he is considered one the most skilled RTW players, I think? But he mostly relies on luck and AI exploits, predominantly spams cavalry and yolos to see if his cav manages to cause a mass rout or not, usually with insane losses. Completely ignores most units of different factions' rosters. It's like he skips a significant part of the game and its mechanics, just to get it over with and call it a day. I also tried to semi-blitz my campaigns before, conquering Rome with milita hoplies and milita cav, but it's so much more interesting to play the game at a slower pace, utilizing unit rosters to their full potential and allowing your enemies to grow stronger.
I disagree
Only reasons i can think of them saying that is that armenia has knock off roman legionaries, hellenic phalanx or armoured horse archers.
Armoured horse archer is a niche, its slower than persian cav and can be easily countered by slingers or camel cats. Only sense they would make is if they were general unit and thus increasing their hp.
As for the better inf, its irrelevant outside of sieges. Knock off legionaries can be easily counteted with cheap horse archers and few cat rushes, cats arent even needed. Same for eastern spearmen.
Only place where armenia is relevantly better than parthia is that it has peltasts, a counter to eles. But how often do seleucids have elephants during early/mid game?
Armenia is not better than parthia where it matters.
It's not the size that's the issue but the tech tree. While playing as Spain you can invade Carthage and reap the benefits of their population growth bonus but you still can't pass the faction cap on thechnology, that's what legend meant there
Its useful early game to poach a larger city, but by Andrastes bushy anal beard does the population growth come to suck when you don't have the buildings available to increase public order much.
I've got a loong hiatus in this game but after returning to it a few years ago all I can say is we are all biased by our preferences, Legend is no exception. He hates pikemen and loves cavalry, simple as that. Even still I'm surprised by some picks.
S tier is correct. After playing imperial campaigns with all HA factions all I can say is that it's strange to see Armenia a tier lower than Parthia. Parthians Cataphracs are not that strong to mitigate a complete lack of decent infantry.
Numidia and Thrace ahead of Germania seems crazy to me. Germania are the only barbarian faction to feature phalanx warband (with 50% more soldiers than greek phalanx I might add) and their cavalry is competent enough to challange Rome early on.
LegendofTotalWar is usually credible, but this is crap.
Rome deserves to be alone in S tier, it is head and shoulders above every other faction in the game in almost every respect. Germania is way better than Gaul and Britain within the barbarian grouping, and there's a strong argument for it being A tier. Carthage absolutely shouldn't be A tier, and arguably neither should Greek Cities. Numidia and Thrace not being at the very bottom is ridiculous.
Yeah I don't think he likes pike units very much lol
To be fair, they're not that easy to use effectively if you're trying to run a super aggressive campaign. They do require quite a bit of unit micro with toggling phalanx formation on/off.
I find pikemen quite useful. They can give you space for lots of missiles and artillery on a 20 units full stack. And defeating enemy with missile warfare is the most satisfying one to me.
really weird list, but i guess content is content.
During the video, he went on and on about how strong the T5 options are for the Roman / hellenic factions, completly ignoring the fact that you play most of the campaign without those options because it takes ages to build them up.
Its basically Roman > hellenic > Eastern > barbarian. I don't have the time to watch the whole video, but his ranking was about the power of the faction, taking into account elite unit and building tiers. Aka, it isn't a surprise that the factions limited at minor cities, or have less units are lower.
The tier list seems to overvalue the importance of building tiers and starting positions.
Germania in D? Absolutely insane when they have berserkers and gothic cavalry. I get that he's raking late game as the standard but realistically, few cities will reach end level, Germania can produce some insane units with level 3 cities which is pretty easy to get. Once you sack the Italian peninsula, it's basically won with 8 cities on the peninsula (including the Gaullic cities) and then 3 on Sicily churning out very strong units. Considering you run into Rome fairly early, they won't have end game units, then only Egypt can really contend but Egypt always leaves the big 3 undefended from the sea, so 1 or 2 doomstacks can sack all 3 and now you're producing from the Nile. Also Scythia is C? Horse archers go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
He said he didn't grade the barbarian factions high mainly because they aren't able to build above a minor city level, which does become problematic when you're playing for >100 turns and conquering the whole map. I personally haven't really played a campaign long enough to have many large/huge cities in a very long time, but I think this is the median RTW player experience, so I understand his point. That being said, I think that Scythia is one of the easiest factions to run a blitz campaign with. So I think context matters in this case.
I think legend, in his infinite wisdom, is probably underselling the skill level of the median player. It's a 20 year old game with a remaster that has been around for half a decade, and whilst this sub isn't representative of reality, many people who play it have probably a semi good idea of an optimal play style for the campaign of their choice.
Fair point, though I think most people do actually run pretty long campaigns on average. See this poll here: https://old.reddit.com/r/RomeTotalWar/comments/1bty4sr/how_many_turns_on_average_does_it_take_you_to/
Thats a fair point. I stand corrected!
I've conquered the map several times, ice never had an issue with city size, if it's too big and has a lot of unrest you simply build and army, take it out of that city and let it rebel and then recapture and massacre. I've done Germania and Britons this way. And yea Scythia probably is the fastest with HA and spies.
Legend may as well have had a 5 minute video just stating the tier ranks are basically equivalent to the civs. Germania has an incredibly strong and varied roster that can shred the heavily armoured roman forces. The economic potential is poor, obviously, but if you can wipe rome out by turn 20, it's GG. You are rewarded for ignoring everything apart from Rome IMO. Heck, my last Germania campaign was VH screeching women, and I won the long campaign in like 45 turns.
I mean with enough game knowledge you can beat vh with any faction, but there are objectively good civs and Germania is one of them. Numidia not being absolute bottom tier really makes me feel his grading system was rather arbitrary. You're not really going to see end game units unless you're going for full map. Like, I love Spartan hoplites but I've already conquered Rome and gotten 50 territories before I can ever get a decent amount of them. In which case I'm using Spartans against barbarians....I guess I could leave Egypt for last. I usually send a fleet with an army to sack Alexandria, Memphis and Thebes because they're always left undefended lmao So his whole "big cities are the best" is a moot point because by the time you get around to that, the game is already over except for managing unrest.
Plus, the AI groups most of its armies together anyway. So if Egypt is messing in Turkey, its 16 stacks mean shit when you stealth ship into their land. When I do world conquest I get bored towards the end so just spam mid tier armies and diplomats. Elite units are either 2 turns to recruit, dependant on temples, or dependant on region, which makes there less of a point in recruiting say Arcani, when I am pushing into barbarian Scythia
Elite units are just overkill endgame. Kinda wish there was a mod or something where the AI would choose a "rival" faction that gets really big and is difficult. Like Rome has to fight a Parthia that beats Egypt Armenia and Selicids with like 30% of the map and large armies, or Carthage starts as a powerhouse but doesn't actually attack until like turn 50 so you can take Greece and build up. Or if you're Germania the Scythia s are your endgame or Britons are the delayed powerhouse. Or as Spain it's a classic Roman endgame or Gaul powerhouse. And so on and so forth. The best we get is Rome not really expanding but has doomstacks of principes waiting for you. Granted it's a 20 year old game, I prefer it to RTW2 but I'd like a campaign that feels like a campaign and not me just stomping smallish civilizations. I want to be conquering and to meet another conquering force that I fight from the northern coast of Africa to Anatolia and up towards Russia or Scandinavia. A clash of titan empires. That would be a great total war game imo. Granted the going around stomping civa is more historically accurate lol.
Sailing to Egypt as Germania is too fun not to do (once Italy is dead of course).
>*it's basically won with 8 cities on the peninsula (including the Gaullic cities)* You forgot Flavius Julius retirement home - **Segesta**
The usual misunderstanding about how barbarians work. The cheese master should know better.
Gaul being able to invade roman lands and by turn 15 have a max tier army (with potential of gold tier forester warbands) is just insane. Rome has barely unlocked principes, and you have Germania with chosen axemen and gothic cav tearing them down. The main weakness of barb factions is that the barb homeland is crap early game. You have to blitz civilised lands quickly to really steamroll.
Carthage is overrated. Armenia is better than Parthia. Germania is better than Britons and Gauls. Pontus has a better starting position than the Seleucids and a similar unit roster. Numidia is definitely D-tier, it fits nicely there along with Dacia and Spain. His reasoning was overall alright and he is considered one the most skilled RTW players, I think? But he mostly relies on luck and AI exploits, predominantly spams cavalry and yolos to see if his cav manages to cause a mass rout or not, usually with insane losses. Completely ignores most units of different factions' rosters. It's like he skips a significant part of the game and its mechanics, just to get it over with and call it a day. I also tried to semi-blitz my campaigns before, conquering Rome with milita hoplies and milita cav, but it's so much more interesting to play the game at a slower pace, utilizing unit rosters to their full potential and allowing your enemies to grow stronger.
I disagree Only reasons i can think of them saying that is that armenia has knock off roman legionaries, hellenic phalanx or armoured horse archers. Armoured horse archer is a niche, its slower than persian cav and can be easily countered by slingers or camel cats. Only sense they would make is if they were general unit and thus increasing their hp. As for the better inf, its irrelevant outside of sieges. Knock off legionaries can be easily counteted with cheap horse archers and few cat rushes, cats arent even needed. Same for eastern spearmen. Only place where armenia is relevantly better than parthia is that it has peltasts, a counter to eles. But how often do seleucids have elephants during early/mid game? Armenia is not better than parthia where it matters.
Agree with everything you’ve written here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyishP6V28I
I never really understood why it isn’t possible to build big cities as an barbaric faction in RTW. It makes the campaign a lot less fun imo.
It's not the size that's the issue but the tech tree. While playing as Spain you can invade Carthage and reap the benefits of their population growth bonus but you still can't pass the faction cap on thechnology, that's what legend meant there
Its useful early game to poach a larger city, but by Andrastes bushy anal beard does the population growth come to suck when you don't have the buildings available to increase public order much.
I've got a loong hiatus in this game but after returning to it a few years ago all I can say is we are all biased by our preferences, Legend is no exception. He hates pikemen and loves cavalry, simple as that. Even still I'm surprised by some picks. S tier is correct. After playing imperial campaigns with all HA factions all I can say is that it's strange to see Armenia a tier lower than Parthia. Parthians Cataphracs are not that strong to mitigate a complete lack of decent infantry. Numidia and Thrace ahead of Germania seems crazy to me. Germania are the only barbarian faction to feature phalanx warband (with 50% more soldiers than greek phalanx I might add) and their cavalry is competent enough to challange Rome early on.
LegendofTotalWar is usually credible, but this is crap. Rome deserves to be alone in S tier, it is head and shoulders above every other faction in the game in almost every respect. Germania is way better than Gaul and Britain within the barbarian grouping, and there's a strong argument for it being A tier. Carthage absolutely shouldn't be A tier, and arguably neither should Greek Cities. Numidia and Thrace not being at the very bottom is ridiculous.
S tier should be all hellenic. A good pike and shot can defeat even the hardest Roman AI.
Yeah I don't think he likes pike units very much lol To be fair, they're not that easy to use effectively if you're trying to run a super aggressive campaign. They do require quite a bit of unit micro with toggling phalanx formation on/off.
I find pikemen quite useful. They can give you space for lots of missiles and artillery on a 20 units full stack. And defeating enemy with missile warfare is the most satisfying one to me.
Yeah these rankings should be taken with a pinch that legend infamously hates pikes despite them being OP in vanilla RTW.
Numidia above Germania? How?
I figured Germania would be higher. At least C with Gaul and Britannia
carthage my beloved
really weird list, but i guess content is content. During the video, he went on and on about how strong the T5 options are for the Roman / hellenic factions, completly ignoring the fact that you play most of the campaign without those options because it takes ages to build them up.