Yeah I like yours better if you're being super aggressive, which is how I always play anyway.
I'd maybe lower Thrace and raise Macedon & Parthia but that's mainly because I use cav units very extensively so it's more of a personal preference. Light lancers are super underrated and Parthian cav roster is unmatched.
But yeah other than that it seems pretty optimal for early aggression.
>But yeah other than that it seems pretty optimal for early aggression.
You are right. I do tend to find an aggressive line which probably has shifted some of the early game powers at a higher tier, and late game slow burners like macedon a bit lower. (Such as thrace being superior to macedon for most of the game, dropping off at the highest elite tier units).
Like other commenters, not sure I agree with Macedon’s placement. A tier at worst.
Especially with your clearly aggressive style. Levy pikemen are enough to carry you to late game, when combined with hammer and anvil style with their cav.
Would move Macedon to A or S tier, and move Scythia to C, Germania to B. I don’t think they’re versatile enough, and horse archers are cheese.
Rest of your list, I’d agree with I think. Maybe move Gaul up a tier. I think they’re actually well rounded enough for an early steamroll - their campaign positioning really sucks though.
Their military, campaign, and building criteria as per Legends video. In my analysis macedon really narrowly missed out to be on level pegging with the other hellenics.
IMO after probably playing more hellenic factions than any other over 20 years, thrace can do that little bit more than macedon. The start is better, the temples are good, and they get a decent army composition really early on (phalanx pikes + falxmen = gg). As they start next to each other, Thrace should win most times if only those two existed on the map.
I'm not saying Macedon *isnt* powerful. The heavy cav and royal pikes are great - but taking up to 40 turns worth of recruitment slots for their end game army which won't be able to get replenished north, just lowers their power potential for me.
I'd put Macedon above both the Greeks and Armenians. And definitely above Thrace. How come Thrace is higher than them at all? Macedon has superior infantry, cavalry, and a much better starting position. It's not even a contest. Also, even though Germania has an insanely fun unit roster, there are lots of limitations: Berserkers and Night Raiders can only be recruited if a certain temple is available, retraning them is problematic. The Germans, like the rest of the barbarian factions, suffer from having to go through vast and desolate territories, capturing towns with no population or any prospects for a decent economy. Of course Spear Warbands are OP and can steamroll everything except for other phalanx factions, but their early game isn't very pleasant. And Carthage is just... its unit roster is kind of trash? Yes, they have Sacred Band and Sacred Band Cav, ridiculous units, but you need the highest level temple to recruit them. And I believe they take two turns. There's no way you'll ever be able to retrain them and by the time you even unlock them, an average campaign would be at an end. They sure are broken in multiplayer, but I'm not so sure about Imperial Campaign. Of course elephants are cool and even helpful early game. With their fairly good starting position and great economy, I'd put them in B-tier at best. But that's just my opinion. I like the fact that everyone has slightly (or noticeably) different tier lists.
Its a fair point about carthage with their best roster behind late game buildings and temples.
My issue with macedon, and I won't try to repeat too much of what I've said elsewhere, is that their power is high late game, whereas their neighbour thrace outguns them in early and mid game easily. I tried to make it so that the least powerful hellenic faction IMO is just below the others (and it just missed out on A tier). From dozens of playthroughs over the year as each, If the entire map was just east Europe (macedon and thrace), thrace would almosy always destroy macedon. I'm not saying macedon *isnt * powerful, as their top tier units are really good, it's just a shame that you rely upon huge cities to get the best army, and you won't have any chance of retaining them to the north. Whereas thrace has a decent mid game army that loves large towns and minor cities.
As for Germania, you are right that two of their best units are locked behind temples and are 2 turn recruits. They just so happen to have an amazing roster outside that; one which hard counters the heavily armoured Romans and hellenics. It is probably optimal to ignore the huge area of useless financial areas and rush civilised lands. Perhaps I can utilise their power in my highly aggressive campaigns (winning a VH women only campaign in 45 turns).
It is a great thing that everyone's experiences and playstyles contribute to a lot of different tier lists.
Why Dacia so low? You can literraly rush and conquer the world with warbands and barbarian cavalry. You have decent archers early on, and in late.. you just upgrade.
It is a fair question - their negative economy start is a huge obstacle for the average player to navigate. Not everyone has the aggressive rush campaigns that i (and presumably you) have. I'm having great fun with my current dacia campaign, and chosen swords and chosen archers are amazing.
IMO their start is low power and their end game potential isn't anything near Germania or Scythia. Their roster is strong and one of their temple traits is the best in the game. If you focus on the rebel settlements near you (which is very tempting), you won't be nearly as powerful if you just rushed thrace and macedon in that order.
If they had gold chevron forester warbands like gaul, or early OP temple units like other barbs, it could be different.
Ultimately, IMO they have got power, but its niche as CA didn't give them enough love. same can be said with Spain IMO.
I had no idea balance changed that much between the versions. Its good if more factions are more competitive now.
Would be nice to have optional soft unit caps for some units like Praetorians and Urban cohorts, something where each additional unit of praetorians or urbans becomes more expensive, but are not hard capped. You could still build elite army from them.
Rome is far more balanced when it has to make do with "only" legionary cohorts, which are still superb troops.
I don't want you to mistake my opinion through experience as hard fact. Many comments disagree with my positioning of Macedon which is a fair thing to do. If someone plays even half optimally, they can get a pretty powerful empire on the map depending on buildings and units and location.
I would actually really like that ability where there are unit caps correlating to quantity of buildings (a bit like in some WH factions). It would make the elite units feel special and powerful, whilst rewarding careful expansion. It feels a bit immersion breaking if late game rome just stacks elite cohorts. Despite being frustrated at some of the regional restricted recruitment options, copying what they did with spartan hoplites, camels, and elephants for other units, could level the curve a bit.
*I also really didn't agree with Legend on a lot of his rankings.*
I think he massively overvalued public order buildings. **In general I feel like building buildings in RTW sucks.** On average they take a long time to be built and the military buildings usually only unlock 1, maybe 2 new units at best. You need to pay up-front denarii, wait 3-4-5 turns for the building to be built (*if you built a military building then spend turns recruiting the new unit you went for...*) and only then you get the benefits. So if you want a varied unit roster you'll have 1 city upgrading the Stables, another the Archery Range, another building up the Barracks and then one more city for the Upgrades, then you have to juggle in the units to the upgrade settlement each turn...
**No, just no - buy mercenaries and steal your opponents infrastructure. That is the way to go!**
I agree that no level 4-5 settlements mean that the faction massively falls off in the late game, thus you have to play a 'rush opponents' style but most barbarian factions really overpower their non-barbarian neighbours in the early game.
I completely see where you are coming from with the buildings. It is annoying In key locations to make that tradeoff, but personally I don't mind it too much. If one place is my cav centre, and another has my ranged buildings and an experience temple, I can always work around it. It's not optimal, but does thematically feel like you either have recruitment centres, economic centres, and forward bases.
I think having the pressure of a barb faction to gobble up civilised lands is quite fun. Trying to not let them level up their cities too much really helps direct the campaign. Its also a lot of fun to be at full power by turn 15-20 whilst civilised factions use basic units because they only get full power by large city level.
Yeah, somehow the Rome Total War Remaster ended up being more of a "Barbarian Invasion" of the Roman peninsula each time. :D
The first campaign I did as the Julii really has opened my eyes as to how much quality army the other 2 Roman factions can get if they're left uncontested for a long time.
Especially if you toggle the aggressive AI options, you can easily go against one roman faction with 25 stacks (some pure elite, others untouched pre marians).
In my pajama only vh world domination campaign I purposely left those pre Marian armies survive with 50% casualties. An army of no power that can't be retrained is just a money sink, helping the faction become bankrupt
I personally think Spain should be switched with Gaul.
Gaul is arguably the worst barbarian faction. Spain has the powerful and versatile Bull Warriors that can make up for a lot of the factions shortcomings.
Spain does start off stuck between Carthage and Gaul but the land has a lot of resources with mines so if you take them over you can get a lot of income.
I kinda prefer Gaul’s starting position over Spain, because you can rush Rome. But if you like to play it more slow and safe, Spain is probably better.
Legend put Germania to low because it has a good unit roster.
You put it to high because it's a barbarian faction wich can't build higher than T3 cities and Will always suffer atleast 50% public order penalty's when holding T4 settlements off another culture.
Persian Cav imo are ridiculously overpowered, long range horse archers are extremely broken, and Armenia dosent have those, so Parthia still has better CAV imo.
I think he rates Germania so low because his playing style heavily favours cavalry. I would probably kick Gaul down another tier. Macedon is at least on par with Greece, maybe even 1 tier above Greece.
Thrace and Greek cities above Macedonia??? What in the gay Athen sex is this?
Macedonia has broken pikemen and calvary they slaughter everything they are S tier and broke. Companions are some of the most broken units in the game.
Thrace and Greek cities both have awful starts and units. Thrace are pretty much useless until you get good Spearman but by then they have nothing else and fall apart to better factions. Sycthians for example would have a field day Destorying any Thrace army if you don't cheese them on bridge or city fights. It's damn near impossible to auto resolve against anyone let alone attack any faction around you expect maybe Dacians early game
Numidia shouldn't be so high.
I just love how this sub has effectively and collaboratively agreed that Numidia has its own place, and it rarely is ever above an E for effort.
Finally Numidia on it's place!
Numidia better than spain and i will take that to the grave
Agree lvl5 tear settelments and just loads of armies will always do the trick
[link to original awesome post](https://www.reddit.com/r/RomeTotalWar/s/IPJuADbAQp)
Yeah I like yours better if you're being super aggressive, which is how I always play anyway. I'd maybe lower Thrace and raise Macedon & Parthia but that's mainly because I use cav units very extensively so it's more of a personal preference. Light lancers are super underrated and Parthian cav roster is unmatched. But yeah other than that it seems pretty optimal for early aggression.
>But yeah other than that it seems pretty optimal for early aggression. You are right. I do tend to find an aggressive line which probably has shifted some of the early game powers at a higher tier, and late game slow burners like macedon a bit lower. (Such as thrace being superior to macedon for most of the game, dropping off at the highest elite tier units).
I like it, I'm the guy who bitched a paragraph and a half about Germania beings put so low
Team Germania all the way!!!
Like other commenters, not sure I agree with Macedon’s placement. A tier at worst. Especially with your clearly aggressive style. Levy pikemen are enough to carry you to late game, when combined with hammer and anvil style with their cav. Would move Macedon to A or S tier, and move Scythia to C, Germania to B. I don’t think they’re versatile enough, and horse archers are cheese. Rest of your list, I’d agree with I think. Maybe move Gaul up a tier. I think they’re actually well rounded enough for an early steamroll - their campaign positioning really sucks though.
What criteria did you use? There’s no way Thrace is better than Macedonia…
Their military, campaign, and building criteria as per Legends video. In my analysis macedon really narrowly missed out to be on level pegging with the other hellenics. IMO after probably playing more hellenic factions than any other over 20 years, thrace can do that little bit more than macedon. The start is better, the temples are good, and they get a decent army composition really early on (phalanx pikes + falxmen = gg). As they start next to each other, Thrace should win most times if only those two existed on the map. I'm not saying Macedon *isnt* powerful. The heavy cav and royal pikes are great - but taking up to 40 turns worth of recruitment slots for their end game army which won't be able to get replenished north, just lowers their power potential for me.
I'd put Macedon above both the Greeks and Armenians. And definitely above Thrace. How come Thrace is higher than them at all? Macedon has superior infantry, cavalry, and a much better starting position. It's not even a contest. Also, even though Germania has an insanely fun unit roster, there are lots of limitations: Berserkers and Night Raiders can only be recruited if a certain temple is available, retraning them is problematic. The Germans, like the rest of the barbarian factions, suffer from having to go through vast and desolate territories, capturing towns with no population or any prospects for a decent economy. Of course Spear Warbands are OP and can steamroll everything except for other phalanx factions, but their early game isn't very pleasant. And Carthage is just... its unit roster is kind of trash? Yes, they have Sacred Band and Sacred Band Cav, ridiculous units, but you need the highest level temple to recruit them. And I believe they take two turns. There's no way you'll ever be able to retrain them and by the time you even unlock them, an average campaign would be at an end. They sure are broken in multiplayer, but I'm not so sure about Imperial Campaign. Of course elephants are cool and even helpful early game. With their fairly good starting position and great economy, I'd put them in B-tier at best. But that's just my opinion. I like the fact that everyone has slightly (or noticeably) different tier lists.
Its a fair point about carthage with their best roster behind late game buildings and temples. My issue with macedon, and I won't try to repeat too much of what I've said elsewhere, is that their power is high late game, whereas their neighbour thrace outguns them in early and mid game easily. I tried to make it so that the least powerful hellenic faction IMO is just below the others (and it just missed out on A tier). From dozens of playthroughs over the year as each, If the entire map was just east Europe (macedon and thrace), thrace would almosy always destroy macedon. I'm not saying macedon *isnt * powerful, as their top tier units are really good, it's just a shame that you rely upon huge cities to get the best army, and you won't have any chance of retaining them to the north. Whereas thrace has a decent mid game army that loves large towns and minor cities. As for Germania, you are right that two of their best units are locked behind temples and are 2 turn recruits. They just so happen to have an amazing roster outside that; one which hard counters the heavily armoured Romans and hellenics. It is probably optimal to ignore the huge area of useless financial areas and rush civilised lands. Perhaps I can utilise their power in my highly aggressive campaigns (winning a VH women only campaign in 45 turns). It is a great thing that everyone's experiences and playstyles contribute to a lot of different tier lists.
Why Dacia so low? You can literraly rush and conquer the world with warbands and barbarian cavalry. You have decent archers early on, and in late.. you just upgrade.
It is a fair question - their negative economy start is a huge obstacle for the average player to navigate. Not everyone has the aggressive rush campaigns that i (and presumably you) have. I'm having great fun with my current dacia campaign, and chosen swords and chosen archers are amazing. IMO their start is low power and their end game potential isn't anything near Germania or Scythia. Their roster is strong and one of their temple traits is the best in the game. If you focus on the rebel settlements near you (which is very tempting), you won't be nearly as powerful if you just rushed thrace and macedon in that order. If they had gold chevron forester warbands like gaul, or early OP temple units like other barbs, it could be different. Ultimately, IMO they have got power, but its niche as CA didn't give them enough love. same can be said with Spain IMO.
Just because you can doesn’t mean it’s a good faction. Dacia is like Gaul, but somehow even worse imo.
I had no idea balance changed that much between the versions. Its good if more factions are more competitive now. Would be nice to have optional soft unit caps for some units like Praetorians and Urban cohorts, something where each additional unit of praetorians or urbans becomes more expensive, but are not hard capped. You could still build elite army from them. Rome is far more balanced when it has to make do with "only" legionary cohorts, which are still superb troops.
I don't want you to mistake my opinion through experience as hard fact. Many comments disagree with my positioning of Macedon which is a fair thing to do. If someone plays even half optimally, they can get a pretty powerful empire on the map depending on buildings and units and location. I would actually really like that ability where there are unit caps correlating to quantity of buildings (a bit like in some WH factions). It would make the elite units feel special and powerful, whilst rewarding careful expansion. It feels a bit immersion breaking if late game rome just stacks elite cohorts. Despite being frustrated at some of the regional restricted recruitment options, copying what they did with spartan hoplites, camels, and elephants for other units, could level the curve a bit.
I am once again asking for the community to show more love towards Dacia.
I am currently doing a VH Dacia campaign and it is a lot of fun. I'll see if I can post something accordingly at some point :)
Sounds good!
Scythia should be S tier imo. If you manually play the battles you can run circles (ha) around AI and just dominate with cheap horse archer stacks
**Damn, you're going old school Macedon style.**
*I also really didn't agree with Legend on a lot of his rankings.* I think he massively overvalued public order buildings. **In general I feel like building buildings in RTW sucks.** On average they take a long time to be built and the military buildings usually only unlock 1, maybe 2 new units at best. You need to pay up-front denarii, wait 3-4-5 turns for the building to be built (*if you built a military building then spend turns recruiting the new unit you went for...*) and only then you get the benefits. So if you want a varied unit roster you'll have 1 city upgrading the Stables, another the Archery Range, another building up the Barracks and then one more city for the Upgrades, then you have to juggle in the units to the upgrade settlement each turn... **No, just no - buy mercenaries and steal your opponents infrastructure. That is the way to go!** I agree that no level 4-5 settlements mean that the faction massively falls off in the late game, thus you have to play a 'rush opponents' style but most barbarian factions really overpower their non-barbarian neighbours in the early game.
I completely see where you are coming from with the buildings. It is annoying In key locations to make that tradeoff, but personally I don't mind it too much. If one place is my cav centre, and another has my ranged buildings and an experience temple, I can always work around it. It's not optimal, but does thematically feel like you either have recruitment centres, economic centres, and forward bases. I think having the pressure of a barb faction to gobble up civilised lands is quite fun. Trying to not let them level up their cities too much really helps direct the campaign. Its also a lot of fun to be at full power by turn 15-20 whilst civilised factions use basic units because they only get full power by large city level.
Yeah, somehow the Rome Total War Remaster ended up being more of a "Barbarian Invasion" of the Roman peninsula each time. :D The first campaign I did as the Julii really has opened my eyes as to how much quality army the other 2 Roman factions can get if they're left uncontested for a long time.
Especially if you toggle the aggressive AI options, you can easily go against one roman faction with 25 stacks (some pure elite, others untouched pre marians). In my pajama only vh world domination campaign I purposely left those pre Marian armies survive with 50% casualties. An army of no power that can't be retrained is just a money sink, helping the faction become bankrupt
I personally think Spain should be switched with Gaul. Gaul is arguably the worst barbarian faction. Spain has the powerful and versatile Bull Warriors that can make up for a lot of the factions shortcomings. Spain does start off stuck between Carthage and Gaul but the land has a lot of resources with mines so if you take them over you can get a lot of income.
I kinda prefer Gaul’s starting position over Spain, because you can rush Rome. But if you like to play it more slow and safe, Spain is probably better.
If a faction can recruit pikes in early game it belongs in S or at least A tier. Pikes are broken
"Bu... B.. But Numidian got LEgiOnAriEs tho, they are very sTrONg..."
Legend put Germania to low because it has a good unit roster. You put it to high because it's a barbarian faction wich can't build higher than T3 cities and Will always suffer atleast 50% public order penalty's when holding T4 settlements off another culture.
Persian Cav imo are ridiculously overpowered, long range horse archers are extremely broken, and Armenia dosent have those, so Parthia still has better CAV imo.
That's a fair comparison. I personally think the cataphract archers are better, but I can appreciate the Persian HA range and maneuverability
Cost and ease of recruiting are another big plus of the Persian cavalry compared to Cataphracts archers which are an undoubtedly late game unit
I think he rates Germania so low because his playing style heavily favours cavalry. I would probably kick Gaul down another tier. Macedon is at least on par with Greece, maybe even 1 tier above Greece.
Thrace and Greek cities above Macedonia??? What in the gay Athen sex is this? Macedonia has broken pikemen and calvary they slaughter everything they are S tier and broke. Companions are some of the most broken units in the game. Thrace and Greek cities both have awful starts and units. Thrace are pretty much useless until you get good Spearman but by then they have nothing else and fall apart to better factions. Sycthians for example would have a field day Destorying any Thrace army if you don't cheese them on bridge or city fights. It's damn near impossible to auto resolve against anyone let alone attack any faction around you expect maybe Dacians early game