Getae campaign - impossible?

[tangoman 999]

Hi all,

I'm playing on vanilla. Usually play on either hard or legendary difficulty.

I just cannot get to grips with playing as the Getae. I've just got a game over for about the 18th or 19th attempt, and it is the same thing every single time. Suebi, Basternae, Pergamon and Sparta declaring war around turn 30-33 (all at the same time, within 2 turns of eachother) and there isn't anything that I can do. I have 2.5 stacks vs around 8-10 stacks. Getae units are just too weak to hold on Hellenic units and even if I rush to the chainmail tech for the improved units there still isn't anything I can do long term when outnumbered so heavily, and attacked from all directions.

The few settlements i'm able to hold on to or win back quickly just suffer from low public order and i then lose to revolts and I have game over by around turn 40. It doesn't matter what direction I go in to conquer - down to Asia minor, into Thrace and Northern Greece, across to Illyria or across the steppes. It's the same factions who just team up, despite having no diplomacy with eachother and there seems to be no way to win. I literally haven't got beyond turn 55 in about 150 hours of attempts.

Is this a recurring theme? What am I doing wrong?

[tangoman 999]

The other thing that i forgot to mention is, of course, oathsworn. The Getae have absolutely no response at all - they can easily go through 400 units by themselves in a 2000 unit battle. They need a huge nerf early game!

[Salty Nobody]

This sounds like a job for me!

*Drops everything and fires up a Getae Campaign*

[BRAN MAC BORN]

you are playing vanilla.

[Welsh Dragon]

It's been ages since I played them but for battles try playing them more like a skirmisher/cavalry faction.

Stay mobiles, use skirmishers and archers to whittle down their defences and use your falxmen like shock cavalry, charging at their exposed flanks to do brutal damage to already engaged forces. Use your mainline infantry less as a wall (like the Greeks) and more as a temporary pinning force, holding the enemy just long enough to hurt them with your other units before splitting off when they turn to deal with the new threat.

Play to your stengths and exploit the enemies weak points, instead of trying to play them at their own game.

So basically less hammer and anvil, more death of a thousand paper cuts.

Also look for opportunities to use ambush stance, which can be a great leveller especially when combined with burst damage weapons like falxmen and javelins.

As for Oathsworn they are fearsome (especially in melee) but not invulnerable. Take them apart at range or get them chasing your lighter units around and tiring themselves out.

There's also no shame in turning down the difficulty if you aren't having fun. I've played this game for years and rarely gone above hard because it gives the AI sone help without the bonuses getting out of hand and messing with the battle mechanics.

Hope that helps.

All the best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Salty Nobody]

@OP

I can see why you are having problems. I don't even think you are doing anything wrong, it is just that hard.

I'm currently 70 turns in and I only have a tenuous hold on my second province. By which I mean I only hold half of it and there are a bunch of enemy stacks contesting it. The momentum seems to finally be on my side and I should be able to win the campaign from this point, but for awhile there I thought for sure I was going to lose. Fortunately I then remembered how predictably dumb the AI is and all the ways to take advantage of it. Usually it takes me several attempts to get off the ground in a campaign like this but this time I managed to pull through on my first attempt with the help of luck and experience.

And I recorded all of it. It will take days to upload it all and as the campaign continues still more videos will be generated, but here is the first one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmhQCwgfIQ8&feature=youtu.be


Edit: and the second. Starting to see what you mean by factions piling on you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNcBwGu1MyA&feature=youtu.be

[tangoman 999]

What a brilliant community this is - every time I have a problem I get great replies. Not just me being rubbish at the game i'm glad to see!!

Originally posted by Welsh Dragon:

It's been ages since I played them but for battles try playing them more like a skirmisher/cavalry faction.

Stay mobiles, use skirmishers and archers to whittle down their defences and use your falxmen like shock cavalry, charging at their exposed flanks to do brutal damage to already engaged forces. Use your mainline infantry less as a wall (like the Greeks) and more as a temporary pinning force, holding the enemy just long enough to hurt them with your other units before splitting off when they turn to deal with the new threat.

Play to your stengths and exploit the enemies weak points, instead of trying to play them at their own game.

So basically less hammer and anvil, more death of a thousand paper cuts.

Also look for opportunities to use ambush stance, which can be a great leveller especially when combined with burst damage weapons like falxmen and javelins.

As for Oathsworn they are fearsome (especially in melee) but not invulnerable. Take them apart at range or get them chasing your lighter units around and tiring themselves out.

There's also no shame in turning down the difficulty if you aren't having fun. I've played this game for years and rarely gone above hard because it gives the AI sone help without the bonuses getting out of hand and messing with the battle mechanics.

Hope that helps.

All the best,

Welsh Dragon.

Yes this is all you can do, especially until you get the infantry chainmail tech. I usually go quite heavy on the skirmishers with just a few spear warriors to pin other units down. But against the heavier pike units with companions from the hellenic factions there really is so little you can do. I think all I can do is knock the difficulty down - i just feel like im giving up by doing that!

[Salty Nobody]

Originally posted by tangoman 999:

What a brilliant community this is - every time I have a problem I get great replies. Not just me being rubbish at the game i'm glad to see!!

Yes this is all you can do, especially until you get the infantry chainmail tech. I usually go quite heavy on the skirmishers with just a few spear warriors to pin other units down. But against the heavier pike units with companions from the hellenic factions there really is so little you can do. I think all I can do is knock the difficulty down - i just feel like im giving up by doing that!

Yeah the pikes are hard. I managed to avoid having to play out pitched battles with Macedon for the most part. Most of my battles with them they were either outnumbered 2:1 or they were getting ambushed, and the auto resolve was well in my favor.

The one time I had to fight them in the open at a disadvantage they just about wiped my army out, and winning that battle at all took several attempts. I actually had to adopt my anti cavalry formation since they had a bunch of cav as well. Luckily that did a good job of screening my missile units from the pikes as well.

The AI likes to chase your units with the pikes, to the point where the pikes can end up alone and isolated. Once your peltasts run out of ammo they can start rear charging them while whatever is left of the spears distracts the pikes from the front.

Luckily Sparta ended up my friend and all the other local pike factions got killed off or I would have serious problems...

[Salty Nobody]

Ok, so that river between Dacia and Thracia is a natural barrier that the AI has a hard time crossing, especially if you keep a stack in or around Malva as deterrence. That and dragging other AI factions into wars with my enemies helped keep me alive long enough to get the armor tech. Remember that if you wipe out the armies from a faction they are temporarily seen as weak by themselves and other AI factions. Right after winning a major engagement is the best time to seek peace or invite other factions to join your wars.

The Nomads are significantly easier to deal with than the Helenics and Celts. If you want to be aggressive before the late game I suggest going in that direction. Cimmeria might go after you but their roster isn't any better than yours and they lack pikes so it should be a fair fight.

Also remember that as a barbarian faction you can liberate settlements of dead factions. This means that particularly hard to hold places like Singidun can be kept out of enemy hands even without needing to defend them yourself.

Here is part 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCej4Ul0Spw&feature=youtu.be

[MANWHATADONGA]

I am going to watch your video later,thanks for your effort.

[Salty Nobody]

Don't give up OP you got this. Even without the armored spears you can at least hold on to your own province if you play diplomacy right.


Part 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q1ESojk_Rs&feature=youtu.be


Part 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euM8RW9HAII&feature=youtu.be


Only problem is without the armored spears I couldn't launch an effective counter attack. If I didn't also have some of the civil tech that gives cultural conversion and public order I would have a hard time expanding as well due to never ending public order issues. Now, at turn 51, I have both and am ready to invade Thrace once again. In the next video.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2256866543

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2256866754

[tangoman 999]

Thanks for your great replies! I finally managed to make some headway, admittedly by dropping the difficulty down to medium. But even then it's far harder than most other civs, even on the hardest difficulty settings. Heavy skirmishers are a great unit but their low ammo means they have limited uses. Until you can pick up noble spears and swords in the late game they have a very small roster.

In my current game, somehow the Seleucids managed to conquer asia minor (and not Galatia for once) so into turn 80 and im somehow having to contend with elephants! The map has turned out quite nicely though with Massalia conquering most of Iberia and North Africa, Rome up into Gaul and Germania (and turning their sights on me) and Macedon all of Greece and Illyria. I'm having some great battles with Seleucia though,some of the best i've had on R2TW. I somehow managed a pyrrhic victory with about 3200 vs about 7000 pesky Seleucids so very happy with that!

[SEPPU]

Honestly I've run the Getae many times and always just end up getting ground into the dust. Feels bad. Tips some youtuber gave out included early removing Seleucids etc etc Heavy skirmishers but I just dont know how well integrated their factions roster was into the game. Seems to be the case with some of the other 'phenomena' factions. love this forum

[Fay]

I'm currently running a getae campaign on very hard campaign/normal battle and things were going okay until like the entire western half of the world declared war on me. Maybe I can still salvage it. Maybe.

[tangoman 999]

Originally posted by Taciton:

Honestly I've run the Getae many times and always just end up getting ground into the dust. Feels bad. Tips some youtuber gave out included early removing Seleucids etc etc Heavy skirmishers but I just dont know how well integrated their factions roster was into the game. Seems to be the case with some of the other 'phenomena' factions. love this forum

Yes it is a punishingly hard campaign. No allies in any direction apart from the Odrysian Kingdom - but even they usually drag you into pointless wars. Horrible starting position and dreadful unit roster. One of the posters in this thread has managed it on hard but I haven't got beyond about turn 50. Even on medium it was very challenging (but has definitely improved my micro in battles. hammer and anvil just doesn't work at all, you really have to hit and run).

[tangoman 999]

Originally posted by Fay:

I'm currently running a getae campaign on very hard campaign/normal battle and things were going okay until like the entire western half of the world declared war on me. Maybe I can still salvage it. Maybe.

This happens every time. I'm on medium and within 12 turns I had Rome, Boii, Sparta, Lusitania, Massilia, Armenia, Galatia (confederation) and Syracuse all declare war on me. Surprisingly the toughest by far was the Boii but luckily Rome hadn't got to legionaries yet so it was "only" hastati and principes!