Barbarian Invasion sucks

[Silver]

There, I said it.
The new horde mechanic they introduced just doesnt work for the AI. When an AI faction loses its last province, it becomes a horde of several stacks. So far, so good. They then go and attack some other province capital. But the problem is, they do not conquer it. They just besiege that city until that province somehow magically turns into a grey rebel province, that's when they lift the siege of the city and idly stand around in that province.

Similarly, the vanilla diplomacy bugs remain, like you being able to ally yourself with almost everyone super easily early game, or trade rights often not increasing your trade income at all, or the mid game diplomacy stops working, as in, even a tiny faction refuses to agree to a ceasefire even though you are one of the strongest factions.

So far, the only real action I have seen with the AI is western and eastern rome getting rebellious and infighting amongst their own rebellious twins.

Oh and the Barbarian roster remains piss poor in terms of variation, i.e. very limited.

[elixEtneicnA]

The Barbarian Invasion was really good from my perspective anyways. I always enjoyed the minor decisions such as when I played as the Franks. Either choose christianity so you could create Paladins or stick with Paganism and only use the Barbarian Nobles. The game is old and not up to the standards of modern day expectations so it's a "take it with a grain of salt kind of thing". The idea wasn't to be friends with everyone but to conquer the world so diplomacy wasn't a big issue. Nowadays it's different because people want to play Total War games more "diplomatically". They also want black Roman troops and black Saxons in the game too for example. Why would a tiny faction become your ally when you're taking over the world? Should Denmark of became allies with Germany during the World Wars because they were a "tiny" nation? I do admit the AI had issues with the horde system but it wasn't game breaking. Good issues that you brought up but for an old game Rome was amazing to behold/play. I wasted so many rainy teenage days on it that it wasn't funny.... Nostalgia.....

[Silver]

i played rome 1 in fall 2019 after i got all of this working in terms of performance with the d3d8.dll patch and i enjoyed the heck out of it. my barbarian invasion complaints arent in relation to modern tw games but in relation to the rome 1 grand campaign where i felt everything was perfect the way it is and i really didnt have any complaints. i thought BI would be the same experience but with the addition of an expanded barbarian roster and the introduction of the horde mechanic and with religious conversion like in medieval 2, but was kinda let down as most provinces start out as 100% pagan and even mithraism is considered pagan rather than its own thing, so as a pagan barbarian who conquers provinces, you arent changing anything lol.

[elixEtneicnA]

Originally posted by Silver:

i played rome 1 in fall 2019 after i got all of this working in terms of performance with the d3d8.dll patch and i enjoyed the heck out of it. my barbarian invasion complaints arent in relation to modern tw games but in relation to the rome 1 grand campaign where i felt everything was perfect the way it is and i really didnt have any complaints. i thought BI would be the same experience but with the addition of an expanded barbarian roster and the introduction of the horde mechanic and with religious conversion like in medieval 2, but was kinda let down as most provinces start out as 100% pagan and even mithraism is considered pagan rather than its own thing, so as a pagan barbarian who conquers provinces, you arent changing anything lol.

Rome had the same type of AI issues that BI had. If certain things would occur the Brutii would just sit in one spot for example and the same for the Scipii etc. etc. etc.... Once again though for that day and time the religious system in BI was a new innovative feature to play with and much welcomed. It was tweaked further, then utilized in Medieval II to very good effect. I mean you'd have to of went through the dinosaur years of Shogun and Medieval one to appreciate the features to full effect.

[Sebasta]

As for the horde sieges part: AFAIK those hordes do not siege to conquer, but siege to raze and leave the settlement in desolation.

They reworked this in TW: Atilla with an option to completely destroy a settlement.

[Ian.K]

Playing as the Western Romans is a tedious affair which makes me give it up after a couple of turns...all because of those silly revolts that break out at the start. I don't need all that c***. I just want to concentrate on the...Barbarian Invasions??

[4ced2Wype]

I completely disagree. I love BI.

[Sebasta]

Originally posted by Lisbon:

Originally posted by 4ced2Wype:

I completely disagree. I love BI.

that ^

This ^

But: agree to disagree.

[Ed]

Originally posted by 4ced2Wype:

I completely disagree. I love BI.

Same.

[Waldeule]

Hey! After I tried many of the existing guides I realized, that they are all rubbish. So, I made a useful one, playing VH/VH. Here it comes:

Don´t give up any settlement prematurely you will loose none if you follow this guide!!!!!!!!

Make Decimus the faction heir!! Move him from Sardinia to Syracuse (to convert it to Christianity). Meet with the guy from Carthago midway and take his Ancillaries, then move the other guy back to Carthage. Move the Emperor to Ravenna and give his Ancillaries to any general that is nearby. The goal is to see Decimus on the throne, so try to kill the Emperor off as quickly as possible. That is crucial!

DO NOT try to convert every Settlement in Turn one. Do it gradually, like this: Move all your Christian Generals, most importantly Spurius Flavius, (except for the guys in Carthago, the South of Italy and that of Spain) and Diplomats to Ravenna (first, use those in modern-day Germany, to take out the Alemanii on their way down to Italy), form a "Conversion-Army". This Army of Christian Generals takes two turns to convert any Settlement to 100% Christianity! Move it west along the coast until you reach modern-day Holland and then upstream the Rhine along the Limes.

Destroy all military buildings outside of Italy, with the exceptions of stables in one Settlement in each Germany and Pannonia, so that possible rebels won't have good troops!
Train Sarmatian Cav in Rome from turn 2 on, until you have 1,5 - 2 Stacks! Besides your Peasants and Generals, you only need this one unit, don't build any other!!! You can retrain it in Level-2-Stables, which you can build almost everywhere from the start. They are immensely powerful and all you really need for dealing with Hordes and Eastern Romans alike!

Move the heathen-General from Africa to Salona, take the one from Syracuse with you, and send two Sarmatian Cav with you also. These 4 troops are enough to hold Salona agains a possible Eastern Roman Attack, if you keep them fihting in the Towns Main square! Send all other heathen-Generals gradually to Pannonia, where they form a super-Cav-Stack to use against the incoming hordes, but take Sirmium from the Eastern Romans first, if they have attacked you allready. On their way to their destinations, retrain all your Generals in Rome for the armor-bonus!

Destroy all nearby non-horde-factions right away with what you initially have troop-wise:
Take out the Britons, after that, move your General there also to Pannonia - he will be the main guy there!
After you have taken out the Alemanii, move the involved troops, now under a heathen-General, on your side of the Rhine up towards the Saxons and destroy them.
Use your troops in modern-day Spain, together with the only Christian General there, to attack the Berbers from the West, while your guy in Carthage, with the troops from Syracuse, attacks from the east.
Disband in Turn one all troops and ships you don't need for this missions. Train (many!) peasants instead! They are far cheaper and keep your cities under control just as well as the more expensive ones!

After you have destroyed all those enemies in the West, disband all troops used and replace them with peasants! Send your remaining generals to the Christian or the heathen General-stack respectively.

Focus your building strategy on Arenas, Harbours, roads, churches, traders and sanitary buildings! Without a strong economy, you will lose.

Try to optimize the Ancillaries of your generals, creating super-Generals!

Send many spies against your enemies, so you know where their troops are and where they are not! Build many watchtowers!

After you have dealt with the attacking hordes, take the Balkans by dividing your troops into three Armies!

There, Victory! Easy as pie!

[MODERATORS HAVE BRAINROT]

Lol who plays vanilla? Your fault bro.

[Ed]

^ I do.

[MODERATORS HAVE BRAINROT]

Originally posted by Ed:

^ I do.

Vanilla is so bland. Do yourself a favor....

[MODERATORS HAVE BRAINROT]

I'm playing 58 bc imperator lol


https://www.moddb.com/mods/58bc-caesar-imperator/downloads

[Lordly Cinder]

Originally posted by Ian.K:

Playing as the Western Romans is a tedious affair which makes me give it up after a couple of turns...all because of those silly revolts that break out at the start. I don't need all that c***. I just want to concentrate on the...Barbarian Invasions??

Change religions in settlements from pagan to christian or vice versa, most can be save maybe one or two can be let go and reconquered.

[Dustyn]

BI is awesome, have to disagree with you. I remember waking up in the morning at 5 AM before school to play it for a few hours. It might not be the best game when you first played it in 2019 but if you played it back in the day especially it was awesome.