What is up with the ai in barbarian invasion being such jerks haha more details below

[Wolfe1924]

i havent played in a while but played alot back on disk and always played on easy easy difficulty

so playing as the goths for example its slated as "easy" however whenever i start a game normal normal difficulty the huns or vandals will ALWAYS come and clean out my clock at beginning of the game guaranteed when its not near any of there actual in game objectives. this happened on 3 different runs so it wasnt a one off. same as the samaritans (pardon my butchering of spelling)

so i played with the roman western empire it is a difficult one im aware.
im not kidding you when i say everyone had it out for me which is to be expected but the second turn in the game the eastern roman empire attacked me SECOND TURN like for real?

this doesnt happen with all factions i recently beat a normal normal campaign with eastern empire and never lost a city to a revolt and i ended up attacking the western empire.

so my thought process is what gives? i know the ai aint perfect and this post was made as more of a joke around post but just inquiring like maybe there is a way to stop this or make it less likely to happen like i expected the eastern empire to attack someday but not the second turn lol

[Red Spot]

It is called 'barbarian invasion' for a reason and was designed for the more die-hard players that liked a wee bit of a challenge. Seems to be working just fine :D

[B2H]

I just tried barbarian invasion for the first time, went in on very hard mode. My faction is Germanic Frankish and I took over Lombarian capital on turn 4. Then it said the people from lombardi fled and they formed 4 full flag armies lmao. At the same time my alliance to the Romans broke and they attacked my capital. So I had to build 2 half flag armies in each city to defend the cities.

But because my army size was too big I was not making any surplus money. So it left me in a financial pickle. Definitely not so easy. I'm going to restart and stay in my capital for a bit and see if I can build up that city before getting my second city. Maybe that will help idk.

[HazardHawk]

Originally posted by B2H:

I just tried barbarian invasion for the first time, went in on very hard mode. My faction is Germanic Frankish and I took over Lombarian capital on turn 4. Then it said the people from lombardi fled and they formed 4 full flag armies lmao. At the same time my alliance to the Romans broke and they attacked my capital. So I had to build 2 half flag armies in each city to defend the cities.

But because my army size was too big I was not making any surplus money. So it left me in a financial pickle. Definitely not so easy. I'm going to restart and stay in my capital for a bit and see if I can build up that city before getting my second city. Maybe that will help idk.

When a faction flees and becomes a horde, it is mostly very basic junk units (civilians though all are fighters in that culture). As a horde of several armies they can do some serious damage. Catch them alone and they are very weak.

[Red Spot]

Also the hording factions tend to not be that aggressive as if they wish to save their troops not realizing they will just destroy themselves that way (in the long run).
I loved playing the, iirc, Vandals, and going horde myself .. sack the eastern empire and wait for the moment I had to deal with a rather aggressive opponent that would surface a wee bit later :)

Note that BI is set to be more difficult from the bat. If you happened to play VH in Rome and felt it was your limit, you would get crushed in BI if you play VH. So try it on normal to start with, possibly even easy and realize the game may be near impossible for some factions.

[76561198814511849]

Originally posted by Wolfe1924:

so playing as the goths for example its slated as "easy" however whenever i start a game normal normal difficulty the huns or vandals will ALWAYS come and clean out my clock at beginning of the game guaranteed when its not near any of there actual in game objectives. this happened on 3 different runs so it wasnt a one off. same as the samaritans (pardon my butchering of spelling)

One way to deal with this is to become a horde in the very first turn and advance deep into roman territory, possibly Spain, and settle down there. This way you avoid the path of the initial hordes of huns and vandals.

Or you can prepare for an early fight that is expected to be hard. The classification of easy takes into account that you can become a horde yourself.

Originally posted by Wolfe1924:

so i played with the roman western empire it is a difficult one im aware.
im not kidding you when i say everyone had it out for me which is to be expected but the second turn in the game the eastern roman empire attacked me SECOND TURN like for real?

After i had encountered that myself i decided that the best way to deal with this is to attack first. The settlements taken there are already roman culture and make excellent additions to the empire. This is how you deal efficiently with roman treachery.

Originally posted by Wolfe1924:

so my thought process is what gives? i know the ai aint perfect and this post was made as more of a joke around post but just inquiring like maybe there is a way to stop this or make it less likely to happen like i expected the eastern empire to attack someday but not the second turn lol

The only way would be to have a strong garrison to deter invaders. But this is expensive and at least when playing the western empire you donnot really have the funds for expensive troops to sit idle in a garrision.

You need to cut the amount of troops per city by about 50% to get a decent financial balance. Taking into account some decent to agressive expansion this means only about 40% less army maintenance, but distributed over 30 cities instead of the initial 25 ones. As the roman western empire aggressive expansion in the first 2 to 5 turns is key. It decreases expenditure and increase revenue. Also it gives you additional provinces as a buffer against the hordes. You donnot ewant them to enter your more profitable core provinces


AI will hardly ever not attack you. This is not new, it is the same as in the base game.

As a roman faction your troops are much more expensive than in base game, which makes the game harder.

The barbarian factions are in the advantage here, but they start without a properly sized empire to start with, which makes the initial 15 turns somewhat tricky.

If you made the right decisions in the first 15 turns, then you have a strong empire, be it a barbarian one or a roman one. Both have their strenghts. The romans troops are more expensive, but once you have them in decent quality and can afford them in decent quantity this is no longer a big concern.

When playing the Sassanides you start with 5 provinces that are reasonably well developed and you have the means to expands further at a decent pace. Maybe this faction is most easy to play. Just their unique religion can be a bit tricky to handle, which makes holding new territory harder, while defending well esteblished provinces is reasonably easy.

[B2H]

Originally posted by HazardHawk:

When a faction flees and becomes a horde, it is mostly very basic junk units (civilians though all are fighters in that culture). As a horde of several armies they can do some serious damage. Catch them alone and they are very weak.

That's good to know, looks like I got spooked for nothing lol.

[B2H]

I just learned that the only way to actually win in Barbarian invasion is to start of really aggressive.