Personal Ranking of Playable Factions

[A☈ougeButt]

Howdy ya'll. I'm curious, I wanna know what the general consensus is around the different playable factions in the game. Feel free to drop your personal tier list or just mention your favorite and least favorite.

I highly doubt that everybody is playing Rome II without any mods, so feel free to mention the mod you're playing with.

My favorite faction to play with is Epirus with the Radious Mod.

[Iron Ben]

My #1 is hands down Baktria.

They have a little bit of everything you'd want; pikes, slingers, assault cavs, archer cavs, good boats and artillery.

Everything short of the kitchen sink...

[Stevcorp]

Rome - Their heavy infantry is unmatched. It's the reason they won the game in real life.

Selucids - Their unit roster has almost every top tier unit in the game. Including elephants, chariots, heavy cavalry, spears, pikes, archers, swordsmen, javelins. You can make any kind of army you want.

Parthia - Having an army made up of armoured horse archers and cheap expendable spears makes for a very different kind of game. But there's nothing funnier then wiping out a third of the enemy's army and then retreating with almost no casualties - then doing it again the next turn.

Carthage - Your mercs are too expensive, your territory is spread too thin, your allies are too weak and the strongest faction in the game wants you dead. But you want a challenge, don't you?

[Yews]

Originally posted by Stevcorp:

Rome - Their heavy infantry is unmatched. It's the reason they won the game in real life.

Except in real life it sucked and often suffered massive casualties, had poor gear that became even worse when they adopted professional soldiery, and whether they ‘won’ is debatable because their wars against Persia in her many forms dragged on for about a millennium with no clear winner. 😀

[Sledge]

Vanilla? Tough to pick just one.

DeI - the Greco-Macedonian factions. The phalanx killing power is significantly reduced (and rightly so IMHO), so you really need to employ combined arms tactics to win. Simply letting your pike wall eat whatever is thrown at it is not a viable option.

[Huitzilopochtli]

I like Kush and Lusitani tribes best. I like Kush archers and they mix in females with their troops which is cool, plus they have a wide range of good units.

Lusitani has a nice starting position in Portugal area, and very good slingers and delicious toffee color.

[Akaya]

Tough choice as it depends on a multitude of factors like with or without DLC factions, vanilla or modded, your personal play style so on but when it comes solely to the campaign experience, I think there's the nearly universal agreement, that the "Nomadic Tribes Culture Pack" factions are the worst. My personal favorites are probably the "Black Sea Colonies" + "Desert Kingdoms" DLC factions and to be precise mainly Cimmeria
& Kush.

[Argakyan]

I haven't played it in a long time, but I'm a big fan of Carthage just in general. The entire history around it etc. The faction is also cool in this game (I wouldn't call it a challenge if you rush Rome immediately & don't let it grow).

Other than that I'm unsure. I tend to play defensively, so pikes or spears & archers combined with artillery is my go-to. This can be done with any Hellenic faction.

I feel like more stuff would be interesting if Rome 2 TW had better vassal play or province exchanging, if only as a mod like somebody already got region trading into Attila by now.

Also from non-playable factions it can be fun to try doing a session as the Helvetii.

[Spawn of Azathoth]

Originally posted by Yews:

Originally posted by Stevcorp:

Rome - Their heavy infantry is unmatched. It's the reason they won the game in real life.

Except in real life it sucked and often suffered massive casualties, had poor gear that became even worse when they adopted professional soldiery, and whether they ‘won’ is debatable because their wars against Persia in her many forms dragged on for about a millennium with no clear winner. 😀

LOL! Tell that to the Samnites, the Etruscans, the Volscii, the Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Macedonians, the Celts, the Gauls, the Iceni, the Germans, the Batavians, the Cimbri, The Numidians, the Dacians, the Catuvellauni, the Ligurians... the list literally goes on and on!

[A☈ougeButt]

Originally posted by Iron Ben:

My #1 is hands down Baktria.
[...]

Baktria always seemed like a very underrated faction, but I think it's mainly because of their extremely boring position close to Hindu Kush. In the map, it's at the end and there's only one way out.

Originally posted by 1.ID | Pvt. Sledge Ranger:

Vanilla? Tough to pick just one.

DeI - the Greco-Macedonian factions. [...]

I feel like the Greek Factions got really screwed over, especially Epirus. Epirus was one of the factions given a limited roster that would allow you to struggle solidly against one of the most aggressive starts in the game.

Originally posted by Nukoolamukmuk:

I like Kush and Lusitani tribes best.[...]

Lusitani is by far my favorite "barbaric tribe" and the African tribes were really well done with their DLC.

Originally posted by Akaya:

[...] I think there's the nearly universal agreement, that the "Nomadic Tribes Culture Pack" factions are the worst. My personal favorites are probably the "Black Sea Colonies" + "Desert Kingdoms" DLC factions and to be precise mainly Cimmeria & Kush.

It's universal the Nomadic Tribes and the Pirates & Raiders pack are the two worst DLCs. None of the factions added have remotely decent starting positions, good rosters or any real form of political intrigue.

Originally posted by Argacyan:

I haven't played it in a long time, but I'm a big fan of Carthage just in general. [...]

Carthage has always been one of my favorites. Loved them in Rome 1. I definitely agree with you on the vassal play, most of the vassals I create tend to not really pan out to be useful.

[Sledge]

Originally posted by Spawn of Azathoth:

Originally posted by Yews:

Except in real life it sucked and often suffered massive casualties, had poor gear that became even worse when they adopted professional soldiery, and whether they ‘won’ is debatable because their wars against Persia in her many forms dragged on for about a millennium with no clear winner. 😀

LOL! Tell that to the Samnites, the Etruscans, the Volscii, the Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Macedonians, the Celts, the Gauls, the Iceni, the Germans, the Batavians, the Cimbri, The Numidians, the Dacians, the Catuvellauni, the Ligurians... the list literally goes on and on!

I would ignore that person….he has an agenda on this forum.

[Huitzilopochtli]

Jasper, I don't even know what Bactria is and my brain defaults to telling me it is a kind of bacteria. I will try to find it next time I run the game today. As for African tribes, there is also Petra which is nice and not actually African I think but they have the famous Petra wonder made of sand. I don't know much about it but I have a game going with them as well as my favorite Kush in a tough war against Egypt and other neighbors.

I like Carthage too but barely played it cause I seem to often be doing futile last ditch defense battles of islands and in Spain against rebels and other neighbors. It was too hard for me to get it stabilized with nearly zero income and rebels sprouting up with large stacks that took over my provinces one by one. I prefer Kush, Macaroni (spelling?? the main German tribe), some of the Gauls for a bit and Iceni are nice with the woad warriors and chariots, and the Black Sea tribes are interesting.

[Argakyan]

Originally posted by Nukoolamukmuk:

I don't even know what Bactria is and my brain defaults to telling me it is a kind of bacteria. (...) Macaroni (spelling?? the main German tribe), (...)

This is the forums post ever

[Talilover]

Rome is my definite fav but like the other dude said Baktria is also a really solid choice. They get a great roster, great faction effects (they just don't care about the sometimes massive PO deduction of different cultures, that's insane) and a snug starting position where all you you have to worry about is going further and further west.

Have to admit tho with 200 hours I haven't played the vast majority of factions (I like playing as Rome, and then more Rome) so I can't give a detailed ranking of all of them... can say that sadly Sparta is a pretty bootycheek faction tho so that be my bottom pick.

[KingofWinter]

The successor kingdoms are all great. The factions in the steppe are the worst in my opinion

[Yews]

Originally posted by Spawn of Azathoth:

LOL! Tell that to the Samnites, the Etruscans, the Volscii, the Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Macedonians, the Celts, the Gauls, the Iceni, the Germans, the Batavians, the Cimbri, The Numidians, the Dacians, the Catuvellauni, the Ligurians... the list literally goes on and on!

Everyone you listed was well aware of that, hence the Roman casualties in the corresponding conflicts. Reading comprehension; I never stated Rome had a weak military, I stated heavy infantry was not the reason it was successful.

Often when people say that they won in Rome II they mean that they conquered the entire map, which in real life Rome shared 50%-50% with Persia and traded minuscule territory back and forth for a millennium (and actually lost about half of it for good by the sixth century).

Originally posted by Sledge:

I would ignore that person….he has an agenda on this forum.

I wonder what on earth that agenda might even be. 😀 What the hell is this even supposed to mean? Like conspiracy theory type of thing? 😀 The funniest thing about your comment is that you have obviously got an agenda and that agenda is that Rome II is like the epitome of the video game industry or something, it is a complete godsend, there are no bugs in it, its design is ideal yada yada, that is the overall point of most your posts that I have stumbled upon. While I agree that Rome II is generally a good game, I for one am able to recognise its countless technical and historicity issues, and do not attempt to frame any and every one of them as either the player failing to understand the ingenious design, or being bad with computers, or the issue being so unimportant that you are insane if you even noticed it. I would say that your agenda comment is the pot calling the kettle black but thing is, I am no kettle whereas you appear to be a pot indeed.