Faction Guide: Thrace

After finishing my first faction guide, I have recieved some feedback and I have decided to do a Thracian Campaign. I have only played the Thracians once before, but I stopped once I had conquered Scythia, Dacia, and Macedonia. I will play a short campaign on Thrace, but the concepts can be used for a long campaign as well. This guide also focuses on some gameplay basics and battle tips. Enjoy!

History and Current Situation

HISTORY
Source: Wikipedia
The Thracians were considered barbarians and dirty by their 'civilized' Greek Neighbors, much like the Macedonians. They never had a ruling dynasty for long, and were mainly tribes. In the 8th Century BC, the Greeks founded colonies in Thrace, and for a time many Thracians were ruled by the Persians. By the 5th Century BC, the Thracians had grown in number, and it is believed that Peltasts orginiated from Thrace. However, the Thracians were still divided and seperate. Philip II of Macedon managed to conquer the Southern part of Thrace in the 4th Century BC. Then, Alexander the Great went ahead and conquered the mighty Persian Empire, and when he died, his sucessors, the Diadochi, fought for control over his lands. Lysimachus, one of Alexander's officers and Diadochi, took control over Thrace. He died in 281 BC.
SITUATION:

As Thrace, you start with 2 settlements, Tylis and Campus Getae. Campus Getae is losing money, but Tylis is making money. You have 12 Family Members, 3 Generals, a spy, and a diplomat. To the North of you are the troublesome Scythians, and to the South are the Macedonians. To the west are the Dacians, and in the east are the Greeks and Pontics who will expand into Anatolia.

TYLIS:
Tylis is your capital city. It has a population of 4000, and the public order is fairly high. It is garrisoned by a General unit, 2 Militia Cav, 1 Militia Hoplite, and 2 Peltasts.

CAMPUS GETAE:
Campus Getae is your second city, and your frontier against the Scythians. They will most likely attack Campus Getae sooner or later. The population is 3500, and it is garisoned by a general unit, a falxmen, 1 militia hoplite, and 1 peltast.

The Beginning

Turn 1:

What I usually do in Turn 1 is to raise all my taxes to "Very High" unless the Public Order goes below 110%. Then, I train a peasant unit in Tylis and merge all the units in there except the Governer with the army outisde Tylis.Then, I construct roads and send my Diplomat and Spy west. I also construct a watchtower with my general unit outside Tylis. You should construct watchtowers whenever possible.

Turn 2:

I construct Temples of Ares in both of my settlements, and continue moving my General (Sautes) east. My goal is to take out Macedon first, attacking their capital,Thessalonica. Move your diplomat to the Dacian Area in the North , and your spy into Thessalonica.

Turn 3:

For Thrace, economy is everything. That's why you should build ports in all settlements on Turn 3. Take Sautes, your faction leader and attack Thessalonica. Also, continue sending your diplomat north. If you spy is sucessful, then take Thessalonica with its open gates. If your spy isn't, then construct 3 battering rams and wait until next turn. That's it for Turn 3. Note: Only do this if Macedon has next to no garrison in Thessalonica. If they have a large army, wait the siege out. Always try to force the enemy to attack you.

Turn 4:

Macedon will have most likely reinforced Thessalonica with a large army, and you will have to fight the battle. Now, it's time to end this section and continue to the next one.

Fighting the Macedonians

Macedon will have reinforced Thessalonica with a large army now, and they are intent on crushing their hated Thracian enemies. Don't worry, Macedon has become nearly harmless now compared to the Alexander the Great days. Macedon's army will most likely compose of Militia Hoplites, some peltasts, and some Macedonian Cavalry.

Remember, the Militia Hoplites are REALLY crappy, and a head on charge with a general unit can take one out (not that I'm recommending it though). The Militia Hoplites also don't have much of a morale. In my battle, Macedon came at me from two sides. From the opposite side, and from the left flank. The army with 157 units charged at my hoplites, and believe it or not, crushed them. Fortunately, I managed to help with my general and kill their general, causing the entire small army to rout. The main body was pretty easy as well. My falxmen cut through them like a knife cutting through butter. I did many hammer and anvil strikes with my militia cav, and it was what saved the day. However, I did lose my peltasts due to careless micro -_-.

Macedon's starting units aren't the best, and use that to your advantage. The best they can train by now is probably Levy Pikemen. Right after the battle outside Thessalonica, my faction leader Sautes died of natural causes. But fortunately, Ziles came of age the next turn. If you haven't captured Thessalonica yet by killing its units outside, do it now.

I retrained all my units in Thessalonica and trained some peasants to guard the settlement when my main army was out. I think that you can survive on your own from now on. You have 3 settlements, are making a healthy 1500-3000 denarii a turn, and have Macedonia divided. Macedon is beset from all sides, and they will likely succumb soon. This part of the guide also goes to fighting the Greeks. Their unit roster is pretty much the same, except the Greeks have 1 spartan unit in the beginning and stronger phalanxes. The Greek Cavalry are really crappy as well, and they rout almost always when attacked by a stronger cavalry force.

Now, we are ready to move on to fighting the Scythians.

Fighting the Dacians

The Dacians have an advantage in the beginning, because they get to train archers immediately. When you fight them, most of their armies will be made of archers, falxmen, cavalry, and warbands. Just as Pontus spasm Eastern Infantry, barbarian factions LOVE training warbands. They never seem to learn, because getting just 1 cavalry unit behind their line and doing a hammer and anvil strike will cause a massive chain rout. It’s the archers you have to worry about, though. Thrace was simply made not to fight Dacia without heavy casualties. Depending on when you attack Dacia (sooner or later, they attack you), Dacia will have different varieties of units. Your slow moving phalanx will be crushed against their troublesome archers, and your cavalry will find themselves outmatched by the barbarian cav. Even your falxmen will have a hard time against the swarms of warbands.
The way to fix this is to only fight defensive battles. Never attack Dacia head on, and when besieging their cities, wait it out until a reinforcing army comes. Of course, when you get better units, Dacia won’t be as worthy an adversary, but as I’ve said, Dacia will attack you sooner or later in the beginning of the game. Always place your men on hills (this is not multiplayer, don’t be afraid to do that) and make the enemy come up to you. Also, harass them with your militia cav and try to rout some archers before they get in range. When your falxmen and phalanx engage the warbands, move cavalry (even the general is good) behind their lines and do a couple of charges on their rear. This will cause a chain rout.

Fighting the Scythians

The Scythians are a whole different story from the Macedonians and Dacians. They don't follow the normal rules. Instead of hand to hand fighting, they use arrows and axes. The Scythians are a very sly opponent, and are very hard to fight. As soon as you feel ready, you should being to build an archery range. Start training tons of archers, and many, many, phalanxes. The Scythians will not engage you head on, they will shoot around you with their horse archers. Their head hunting maidens are a pain, too. The reason you need archers is because archers are your only defense against horse archers. Sure, you can spam cavalry and chase them down, but your men will be exhausted before the get to the HAs (horse archers). However, you don't have to worry about Scythia attacking one of your settlements. They don't seem to quite know how. I once fought a battle where the Scythians brought about 10 units of Horse Archers, and 1 unit of the axemen (forgot their name). Of course, instead of reinforcing their single axemen, the Scythian HAs hold back. I used a single general unit and 1 cav to charge out of the gates and slaughter the the 1 infantry unit pushing the battering ram. Of course, if you want Scythian blood, and something like this happens, you can always get your phalanxes to guard the chokepoints of the settlement (for example, the gate). Then, fast forward the game, get a drink of water, take out some chips, and wait for the slaughter to begin.
Basically, the two points I've mentioned in this section is
1) You need a lot of archers and phalanxes, and some cavalry, to defeat the Scythians on the field.
2) If the Scythians ever besiege your cities, and you have more than 2-5 phalanx units, they are screwed.

The Middle and End Game

By the time you have taken out the Dacians and own Greece, you will be in the Middle Game. If you encounter the Romans, make an alliance with them and hope that it will last for enough time that you can build up defenses in Greece. The Pre-Marian Roman units are a bit crappy, and well balanced and large armies should take them out. You have many choices now:

Invade the Italian Peninsula
Doing this will be difficult. You will need at least 2-3 stacks (full armies) to attack the Romans. Take the two Brutii settlements in the mainland first, stablize the cities, and then train some ships. Why? Build the ships and send 1 stack onto it, and then go up to where Rome is. See the river, the Tiber?Now, see the 2 crossing points? Send your army onto the tip of the crossing point, and wait for the Romans to attack you. Now, you have a river battle. To suceed, I'm sure all of you know, is to send the phalanxes at the river crossing point in your side, and guard it. The Romans will charge in, only to get slaughtered. Archers should be shooting at the Roman flanks. This is perhaps the easiest way to defeat the SPQR army.

Attack Scythia
I've already explained this

Attack the Germans
Go on to attack the Germanic barbarians, and then invade Rome from the north.

Sail east and attack Pontus
A good idea, but you will need a lot of units to defeat the Egyptians. The Pontics will have armies of Eastern Infantry spam.

That's it! I hoep you enjoyed this guide. Please, give me feedback and suggestions of what my next faction guide should be.

[Lt. Ladders]

Scythian axemen are named Axemen. You got the name right the first time.

They suck though. HAIL SCYTHIA(N HORSE ARCHERS)!!!!

[Aquilifer]

I find that Scythia isn't really a problem. I've gone through hundreds of turns and they conquer at best, 2 or 3 territories, either west or east. I haven't seen them conquer Thrace except when I'm playing them.

[Aquilifer]

My faction leader died after 2 TURNS

[Magic Rince (SIMS4=WIFE)]

I really want to play thrace after the "Hercules" movie :) ty

[Death's Bane]

Thanks ! :)

[Yup Dig Bungus is Back]

gg {good guide}

[balroc]

thanks, i look forward to trying thrace out

[Harb]

Thanks for the guide mate! :D

[Locky]

Aaaaaand toppled :P

[Locky]

Thanks, i just took out Macedon with this guide, moving on to Sparta :).