Best and final Guide to: Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion Western Roman Empire Very Hard / Very Hard (RTW BI WRE VH/VH)

[Waldeule]

Hey! After I tried many of the existing guides I realized, that they are all rubbish. So, I made a useful one. 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!