nexus.gg/italianspartacus Thank you so much for watching today guys! You can find the link to my Nexus store above if you haven't picked the game up already! BUT!! It's 50% off if you own the game, so make sure you take advantage of that through Total War access!
I also remember loving the Salucids for the shear diversity of their roster; they have a bit of everything and are passably competent in each category.
Cheers Spartacus. I was in my late-20s when Rome came out. So many hours sunk into it - the music is so evocative. I was always a Carthage boy - the clean, purity of their colour scheme and the ability to roleplay a counterfactual Punic War was irresistible. I have to agree with your Seleucid pick - easily my second favourite campaign. Also with you on the Scipii, all the way.
Yeah, I really wanted to buy this game. But, after spending 2 years gathering dust in my library, I started getting hooked on Rome II just as the remaster came out. Now I don't even know if I should still buy lmao
@@PewPew1234567 Ehhh...even if we generalize the Rome 2 factions into broad clumps like "Gauls" or "Germans" or whatever, the unit variety per faction is still incomparably superior in Rome 2.
Seleucids definitely have the best late game roster in the game. With that said, 1 of my favorite factions in the original Rome Total War was the Scythians, which were only accessible by editing the game files. The Scythian roster is so unique and so incredibly powerful right from the get-go that it lets you snowball incredibly quickly and your tier 3(max for barbarians) cavalry units can give tier 5 Roman Legionnaires a run for their money and with some knowledge of the game and half decent micro completely dominate thanks to how OP cavalry is in this game. Just beware of sieges as that will be your biggest downfall.
Armenia has the best late game roster now. They buffed Armenian Legionaries to 8 morale. And buffed eastern pikemen. So you have a great morale heavy infantry and heavy pikes with cataphracts and cataphract archers that can out range Scythian horse archers so they can't run away. If you can actually survive to late game units..it's the only army in the game with great morale pikes/infantry combined with heavy cavalry and armoured long range missile cavalry. It's impossible to be outflanked by any faction including Macedon now with Armenia in human battles and will probably by changed.
@@johnirby8847Yeah, no matter how good your late game units are, if you have horse archers it doesn't really matter, even if you would run out of ammo, you can withdraw and do it all over again without casualties. Very overpowered units even the basic ones are stupid overpowered.
Egypt is kinda ridiculous, because they can win the short campaign so insanely fast. you really have to play fast as the other factions to not lose to egypt without ever meeting them. they only need to conquer a bit of rebel territory and a few seleucid settlements, who get stockpiled from every direction. The coloss is also quite ridiculous. My first campaign was with the brutii and at the moment I conquered rhodes, I was not able to spend my money anymore. Building and recruting everywhere, but my money still increased. So I bribed pretty much all of egypt. I bribed most of their generals. I had at one moment almost as many egyptian generals as family member generals. And I was never at war with them.
That's because the Egyptians and the Britons who will also dominate almost always because of their chariots, they break the auto resolve and thus giving them free wins each time, also their general units are chariots so its an easy win for the auto resolve.
Isn’t to hard when you really look into it. Just take all of the Middle East, push into Greece and Macedon take some of the Thrace and Dacia settlements and boom you win. After that if you still want to you can push into Italy and take Rome which I did. Primary enemy was the Brutii and the Scipii but mostly the Brutii. Brutii from the north and Scipii from africa but that part wasn’t to active so I just stationed some soldiers there to fight off whatever got through the horrible path finding lol. Though save corrupted so I was stuck at when I first took over all of Greece and some of the north which was very sad.
The biggest flaw in Rome TW for me is the lack of development possible in barbarian cities. It makes the lategame a drag with rebellions, and could definetly use some creative writing.
I conquered the whole world with Julii within in the first 30hrs I played. Rolling through now as the Seleucids and man it's a breeze, enjoying it a lot.
I think Armenia deserves a spot in honorable mentions: clearly cataphracts and horse archers with a decent phalanx and legionaire unit are a pretty good roster overall, but what makes it great is that you can make cataphract archers in a minor city and none of their units require more than a large city. Meanwhile seleucids and carthage need to wait until lv5 to get their best cavalry, and dont get anything as good as cataphract archers until a large or huge city.
Pontus might be my favorite faction to play. All of the units you mentioned are great, but i actually start out just spamming pontic light cav then pontic heavy cav. Theyre actually surprisingly decent, especially en masse, and especially the pontic heavy cav. The only missile cav that can contend with it are the cataphract archers, but its half the cost of those. They form the backbone of my army. Ill line them up in front of an infantry line, have them throw javelins to provoke them, then once they start breaking their own line ill pick apart their infantry line with mass cav charges. I found that pontic light cav is better at dealing with sieges than militia hoplites or levy pikemen: as pontus i can sally against a sieging army, and use the cavalry to pick apart the enemy and even help support my general to kill their general. But as seleucids i usually wait for them to assault so that i can force them to walk into my phalanxes when they assault. Another great thing about pontus is that the tactics of the pontic heavy cav, cappadocians, scythed chariots, chariot archers, and phalanxes can all be used well in different combinations.
I really enjoyed playing the Greeks. I made a giant army pretty early in the game and conquered Rome (the city) and was funny watching all 3 houses trying to re take the city. I’m currently playing the selecuids on the remastered version. I remember playing them as a kid and actually getting conquered because everyone was attacking me. This time around I’m taking it easier and focusing more on expansion to rebel cities and building up income before trying to fight back hard.
Excellent list, ItalianSpartacus! I do disagree on a two points: 1) I don't think Carthage has good infantry. At least, not until you get to the very top (Poeni infantry and Sacred Band). I hear Carthage's infantry was buffed a bit and that's great but without those (or knowing how they affect the actual battles) I would always advise new players who want to play as Carthage to focus on their cavalry and navy. 2) My experience playing Pontus was that, yes you are limited by poor early units and small settlements (thus also economy) at the start but there are mitigating factors. The Greek Cities are most likely preoccupied more with the Scipiones, Brutii and Macedonians, the Seleucids can't really spare much when they have to face the powerhouse of Egypt (of course I hear Egypt was nerfed a bit, interesting to see how that changes things). Leaving Armenia. And because of the mountains and sheer distance players should be able to hold Armenia at chokepoints and ideally see them coming by placing some forward watchtowers. That is, until the player is ready for a counterattack. I think you listed all my favourite campaigns, the two at the top being the Germanic tribes (diverse roster, solid spears, nice for a quiet start and fun battles), the Greek Cities (strong hoplites, using navies, the challenge of managing your territories and different enemies). Never played as the Seleucids though.. imagine they're quite fun as well.
Gaul was hard mode. I usually played Germania but man do I love Seleucid Army options. Sadly, I always got bogged down in endless wars everywhere as you mentioned.
Seleucids were my favourite TW Faction in fact they were the first faction I ever played on TW it wasn't easy but I withstood all the early stage hardship, and once I got to those mid stage units I started making progress and when I got to the last stage units I just steam through all the other factions
Seleucids were always the most interesting campaign, IMHO, back in the day. Bit stressful but lots of fun. Sheer variety of options and shifting fronts made them a fun challenge. Haven't gotten around to remastered yet, though I do have it. Agree with the list but, since I always make it a point to the CRUSH the miserable Pontus folks and not a big fan of Egypt, would substitute Parthia in for them. Can't wait to try Numidia. Also, thank you for giving Carthage some respect! I loved playing as them back in the day. Aut inveniam viam aut faciam.
Sounds fair, for my self(from 1 to 5) the Seleucids, the Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Carthage and Egypt has a special place. I respect them allways if i play Seleucids.
Armenia or Seleucid migration campaign is probably the most fun thing in the game. You can immediately build a port and load all your family and army in a boat and take Thessalonika in turn 6...change it to your capital and abandon your home lands. My favorite was migration to England. It takes some time to get there but it is incredible to play from the British Isles....destroying Gaul and Germania and the Romans just hit Armenia or Seleucids when they invade into Europe 🤣
I was always a Greek Cities player. When i tried the Scythians for the first time I fall in love with their army. Their colour is so good and aside from the great ranged units they have decent infantry. I dominated Thrace, Macedon and Greece pretty easy but had some difficulties with the Romans in the original so i will try them in the remastered to see how it goes.
Great timing! I never got around to playing TW:Rome. I've been looking forward to this remaster. Looks like I've got my next 5 campaigns sorted Also all hail the black square! (middle-upper-left corner of the screen, gave me a lil scare, thought my monitor was failing)
And Carthage has access to Balearic Slingers (2 bronze chevrons if you recruit them from the Balearic Islands). Very useful for taking on Rome's armoured legions or Greece's/Egypt's hoplites.
Great video thank you! Two days ago I started a campaign with the Seleucids and I am loving how it goes. 27 regions under control so far and as intimidating as it is to start with them, since you have Egypt below, Parthia in East and Pontus+Armenia from north, you can actually make it work in your favour if you start quickly before they get strong. Turkey is overall easy to capture since most towns are under rebels. In the East take Susa from Parthians quickly and they will not bother you for long time and probably the most important, go quickly South and have a goal to destroy Egypt as they can be extremely hard to defeat later. So capture Sidon and Jerusalem fast and you are good! Later gather an army to head to Alexandria and take the three belt towns there. The last Egyptian town was Petra which is in the middle of the desert and they are pretty much broke and K.O. so good last battle. 😉 Its so far my favourite campaign I had. Focus on each term and make big steps quickly from all sides. ☺️🎉
11:12 Wait a moment. Wasn't ptolemaic egypt the last succesor kingdom? It managed to survive until the rise of Emperor Augustus. And I think Pontus wasn't actually a state created by a Diadochy, but a pre macedonian satrapy that was heavily helenized after Alexander's conquests.
I'm not 100% on the Pontus line as I thought it had been. You're right. I double checked, they fell 3 years apart from one another with Egypt being last. I got the two dates confused. Sorry about that brother!
I believe it's that Seleucus was the last of the successors to die, having the largest kingdom that spanned all the way back to Greece as Ptolemy had died a scant few years prior as well Hahah
@@italianspartacus Only 3 years apart? Or did you mean 30? In any case, I didn't know the Seleucid managed to last for that long. I always though they were ancient history by the time of Cleopatra VII. Good to know.
I found that Gauls, Carthaginians, Greek City States and Seleucids are the most enjoyable campaigns for the whole game. Their overstretched situation really tests the players mettle in choosing the right offensive and defensive policies. They eventually will be ganged up upon in which the early game economical advantage can't easily offset. If they were to be ranked as hard campaigns, it would be: 4th place - Gauls 3th place - Carthaginians 2rd place - Greek Cities 1st place - Seleucids
my top 5, totally unbiased 1 - Seleucid. You make a ton of pikes, and late game maybe a couple other units as well 2 - Macedon. You make a ton of pikes, and maybe a bit of cavalry / archers 3 - Thrace. You make as many pikes as you can, but are against some tough opponents 4 - Greeks. Your hoplites aren't as fun as a ton of pikes, but at least they're virtually immortal 5 - Egypt. The game tries to distract you with other units, but eventually you will want to create a ton of pikes
My favorite is starting thracia and migrating to illyria its a hard campain but that is the fun of it after your in the adriatic sea you start an invasion in italia with 3 armys thats how i did it.but first take rebel and greek / macedonian settelments.
I did something similar but by migrating to Anatolia, completely abandoning all settlements in the Balkans. Taking care of the estern part of the map and getting back to Greece lategame was insanely fun.
I prefer to be on defensive first anyways. As long as you have archers on towers your golden. If you have a catapult inside the walls then your unstoppable. I personally like to go outside the normal conquest when playing the longer campaign and I move my entire army to attack something that I wouldn’t normally attack such as playing Germanic tribes and taking over Britain first. I may lose some towns in the process but I gain all of northern and western front first then it’s a simple push with all my men south and it’s pretty much game no one will go deep into your territory when you always have stacks of armies in the front
I think the most interesting campaigns are determined by geography, which means Greece, Turkey and Italy the best places to be as you can go anywhere. Carthage also has a nice position, however it is hard to survive. Britannia is dull in my opinion, while Egypt is really hard since the amount of settlements per square mile (tax income / square mile equation) is way lower than a faction like Julii that can easily capure alot of nearby settlements. So, I think the geography really determines how hard the game is but also how much fun it is. Which is why Greece, Rome and Carthage are my favorites. The Egyptians are also nice though. Spain and Britannia not so much. Gaul could be fun if you start to fight for Rome directly.
Egypt is by far the easiest faction in the game. Sure, settlements are far away but why is this a relevant fact? It's not like any faction will ever attack you. You get the Numidian town on the first turn and you'll never see them again. Not only that they don't ever come back east but they will likely get obliterated early on. Outside Seleucids, there's no other faction that wants your lands and Seleucids are your first victim. Parthia is the same as Numidia, you take their city and they are pretty much out of the game, only having a crap settlement on the other side of the map. Pontus and Armenia are not too aggressive towards you early on and by the time you face them in their lands, you steamroll. With a few watchtowers and 3 armies, 2 in North defending the mountain range and with 1 in Cyrene, you literally defend your empire. You focus on Anatolia and by the time you're done, you are late game with insane economy and access to some of the best units in the game (boosted by amazing temples). The game is done at that point, anything the game can throw at you, even on VH/VH is trivial to deal with.
Numidia is personally my favorite faction to play, desert infantry, early archers, good cavarly. Its challenging because you start out dirt poor and basically have to conquer Carthage early on to make some money. Or you could try and conquer Egypt which is much harder early on and get your ass to Salamis which is handsdown the most profitable settlement in the game. But it clearly shows these kind of factions weren't meant to be played in the original, the Numidians are basically fodder for Carthage.
Amazingly, 3 of my favorite factions are on this list. Good to see Pontus getting some love. Im surprised you picked greece instead of macedon, though, as they have similar phalanx advantages but also great cavalry to back it up.
Germania would be the 4th of my favorites on your list. You didnt mention two of their best units: the gothic cav and the chosen archer warband. Gothic cav have higher stats than sacred band cav or companion cav, yet are available in a minor city.
I played this game but only once. I gave up when it took a long time to build the army and the soldiers took 10 minutes to reach the enemy and I seemed to have absolutely no control over the battle because the pc started hanging!
My favorite faction is Seleucid. I think they have, hands down, the best unit roster of any faction in the game. It's strong, with some of the top tier units in each category, and it's _varied_ in that it has strong cavalry, infantry (a mix of attack and defense), and some specialty units like elephants and chariots (though I will interject here that I don't think the chariots are that good in this game ... at least not in OG Rome). The drawback is how incredibly difficult this campaign is. Again, I'd say it's hands down the most difficult campaign in the game. I am a huge fan of Carthage though, just thematically. Their roster is solid as well, though their lack of archers is a bit of a dark mark on the faction overall.
Scipii was my first faction in classic Rome TW(of course except Julii in the Prologue campaign) I was shocked as a kid that there is no armor/swords bonus in other Roman factions' shrines 🗿🗿🗿
This is my first total war title ever, all I know is that when the little arrow next to my money is green and points up I'm earning money next turn. Never knew there was a way to tell how much exactly you'll get.
Germania was always my favorite. A good wall of wolf warriors and berserker back up with screeching women. Watch armies shit their pants and flee from the charge. Course I love Britain as well with their chariots but more importantly the head hunters throwing heads at people. Sadly all barbarians suffer late game in vanilla but I've still sacked rome many times.
I have a strange issue with the game. I played the original back in 2005-2008 and it was going great. Now the issue is that no matter which faction I go to play, my surrounding enemies always spam multiple armies. I kill them one after another, but they never stop coming. I play on hard/hard difficult, but I tried on normal/normal and the behavior was the same... I don't mind a challenge, but I cannot progress at all, because I am stuck on constant replenishment and army killing ....
I think it's a glitch in the game. I get around it by sending spy's to there city's so the computer can't make army's out of nowhere, because your watching there citys
Your playing too slow that means stop going for perfect full strength armies and push the enemy gathering what you can and preparing in advance rather than reactively
In reality, Carthage did not need to improve its infantry, because they have elephants and that is enough to crush the infantry and cavalry of the neighboring factions, the elephants are the main unit and the strongest of their faction. In addition, Carthage is surrounded by factions that do not have spearmen in an early campaign with you taking two troops of elephants, you conquer all of Italy and all the barbarian factions.
I used to own so many online players in PVP in Rome (2004) version. Using Britannia. Not even the phalanxes can match the mobility and firepower of the headhurlers!!
I am currently playing Julii on very hard, and its very tough. Gaul has been overrun by the British, and they are really fucking hard. I keep winning battle after battle, but again and again they seem to just summon up full stack armies from nowhere, while my troops are whittled down over time and forced to retreat and abandon ground. Places that I conquer are not developed enough to allow retraining legionary cohorts, so i settle for early cohorts....which get butchered by chosen swordsman, which the British seem to be able to spam.....its crazy! It's like they gave the AI unfair advantages, because there is no way a player can field that many stacks composed of that many Chosen swordsmen almost instantly
Currently playing Armenia now. Decided to take on Parthia first (with how expansionist those bastards are, I had no choice but to attack first) It was a good call. Pontus is too worried to take on the rebels and thw Seleucids to worry about me. And now I'm taking them on Things are getting funny now that I got my heavy spearmen and about to get Cataphract Archers
As much as I love RomeTW, I never have finished a single campaign ever, usually when I'm halfway through I get bored because of the stupid AI that keeps throwing peasants, warbands, town watch, militia hoplites, those low tier units at me over and over again, it rarely happen I had a epic fight with top tier units.
Armenia is the hardest to play. Trash units at the beginning and surrounded by enemies. But if you can make it to archer cataphracts and cataphracts you are unstoppable. Scythian horse archers can't get away from the range of the cataphract archers so they can't win. Seleucids and Pontus can't even get close with pikes and their heavy infantry just gets slammed with cataphracts.
i just finish playing as pontus, annoying as well. fighting cities is so bad early game. you need your overwhelming numbers until you get better infantry. and during my campaign... i went to finish off trace.... suddenly macadonian and julia declared war on me... god damnit man
Carthage has a very weak early game and Greek cities is boring af because you camp corners, streets or bridges the whole time. The other choices are decent, though my favorite campaigns will always be Scythia, Parthia, Dacia and Numidia.
The video is great but the game you are disscusion is too much outdated. Rome 1 was my first total war game, and I enjoyed so much that for my first campaign didn't use resolve battle. Once I mastered this game, it was very boring without mods. Rome 2 with DE is way better and I never got bored playing it even now. The worst part of Rome 1 is Rebel Faction, that is idle AI waiting to be conquered. In general the AI is stupit, with the general rushing first. Most of the units are ahistrical, and the elite units are like superman, you can defend a city with just 2-3 urban cohorts. The Senate titles are fiction like Pro Consul, that was a honorary title than a real office. And I hate that Rome has 4 faction, in the end there is just fighting romans that have conquered everything by 150 BC.
Dont get the remastered myself when you got DEI and theres a mod for Atilla thats brill.. A £5 maybe ..but £25 you are having a laugh..nothing short of a cash grab. Reminds of Baldurs gate remastered... Caveat emptor.
Got it for half price, the game is ok to me personally. It's by no means a full remaster, you get half of what you'd expect and the other half was somehow taken away from the original. No prologue, certain keys are locked, pathfinding is dogshit, ai is horrible etc. Although I never moved on from m2tw, ergo, I'm used to the shitty responsiveness of the originals. That being said, it's not worthy of the title "remaster" in 2021's standards.
This game is more of a nostalgia remembrance for those who loved the game when it came out. Its a remaster not a new game. Some will say its just a cash grab by CA.
nexus.gg/italianspartacus
Thank you so much for watching today guys! You can find the link to my Nexus store above if you haven't picked the game up already! BUT!! It's 50% off if you own the game, so make sure you take advantage of that through Total War access!
Hey man I tried to purchase the Game over the Website. Apperently it doesnt Work living in Europe. Sry
i know Im pretty randomly asking but do anyone know of a good place to stream newly released series online ?
@Shiloh Corey Try FlixZone. Just google for it :)
@Rhett Samir yup, been using FlixZone for months myself :D
@Rhett Samir thank you, signed up and it seems to work =) I really appreciate it !
Seleucids have such a cool looking color scheme to me
Imagine how the silver shield pikemen would look with a visual mod to make the shield bigger and and helmet to be the “armored hoplites” helmet style
True. The, just have everything someone could wish. From Hightech Buildings to great Troops ä.
I also remember loving the Salucids for the shear diversity of their roster; they have a bit of everything and are passably competent in each category.
SOO Enjoyable
Elephants. That’s all I’m gonna say.
Cheers Spartacus. I was in my late-20s when Rome came out. So many hours sunk into it - the music is so evocative. I was always a Carthage boy - the clean, purity of their colour scheme and the ability to roleplay a counterfactual Punic War was irresistible. I have to agree with your Seleucid pick - easily my second favourite campaign. Also with you on the Scipii, all the way.
Gotta get that BLUE!! :)
JULII, are the true Roman's
I forgot how little factions there are in this game. I’m so used to having tons of factions in games like Rome 2 and Attila.
Me too dude hahahah
It may be ahistorical, but i gotta say, I prefer it.
Yeah, I really wanted to buy this game. But, after spending 2 years gathering dust in my library, I started getting hooked on Rome II just as the remaster came out. Now I don't even know if I should still buy lmao
Yeah, but the factions are actually different unlike in Rome 2, where a lot of the factions are basically the same.
@@PewPew1234567 Ehhh...even if we generalize the Rome 2 factions into broad clumps like "Gauls" or "Germans" or whatever, the unit variety per faction is still incomparably superior in Rome 2.
Seleucids definitely have the best late game roster in the game. With that said, 1 of my favorite factions in the original Rome Total War was the Scythians, which were only accessible by editing the game files. The Scythian roster is so unique and so incredibly powerful right from the get-go that it lets you snowball incredibly quickly and your tier 3(max for barbarians) cavalry units can give tier 5 Roman Legionnaires a run for their money and with some knowledge of the game and half decent micro completely dominate thanks to how OP cavalry is in this game. Just beware of sieges as that will be your biggest downfall.
Armenia has the best late game roster now. They buffed Armenian Legionaries to 8 morale. And buffed eastern pikemen. So you have a great morale heavy infantry and heavy pikes with cataphracts and cataphract archers that can out range Scythian horse archers so they can't run away. If you can actually survive to late game units..it's the only army in the game with great morale pikes/infantry combined with heavy cavalry and armoured long range missile cavalry. It's impossible to be outflanked by any faction including Macedon now with Armenia in human battles and will probably by changed.
@@johnirby8847Yeah, no matter how good your late game units are, if you have horse archers it doesn't really matter, even if you would run out of ammo, you can withdraw and do it all over again without casualties. Very overpowered units even the basic ones are stupid overpowered.
Egypt is kinda ridiculous, because they can win the short campaign so insanely fast. you really have to play fast as the other factions to not lose to egypt without ever meeting them. they only need to conquer a bit of rebel territory and a few seleucid settlements, who get stockpiled from every direction.
The coloss is also quite ridiculous. My first campaign was with the brutii and at the moment I conquered rhodes, I was not able to spend my money anymore. Building and recruting everywhere, but my money still increased. So I bribed pretty much all of egypt. I bribed most of their generals. I had at one moment almost as many egyptian generals as family member generals. And I was never at war with them.
Sooo true. I didn't emphasize it enough, but it's great for people getting back into the game because you can win SO fast
Yeah it happend to me in my first campaign in rome ever as Bruti, they won before our borders crossed
That's because the Egyptians and the Britons who will also dominate almost always because of their chariots, they break the auto resolve and thus giving them free wins each time, also their general units are chariots so its an easy win for the auto resolve.
I really don't like fighting battles when my general is a British Chariot Unit as the General dies so easily!!
Parthia is also a really fun campaign if you somehow get their cities to not rebel
Macedon and Thrace are pretty fun, too imo.
Started my Carthage campaign today. Already destroyed Scipii and Gaul has taken over Europe lol
I have only a fraction of the freetime that I used to, so it's good to know what to go for right out the gate. Thanks!
Seleucids were always my favorite to play, as a kid I remember being so proud to win a grand campaign in under 70 turns with them!
Isn’t to hard when you really look into it. Just take all of the Middle East, push into Greece and Macedon take some of the Thrace and Dacia settlements and boom you win. After that if you still want to you can push into Italy and take Rome which I did. Primary enemy was the Brutii and the Scipii but mostly the Brutii. Brutii from the north and Scipii from africa but that part wasn’t to active so I just stationed some soldiers there to fight off whatever got through the horrible path finding lol. Though save corrupted so I was stuck at when I first took over all of Greece and some of the north which was very sad.
The biggest flaw in Rome TW for me is the lack of development possible in barbarian cities. It makes the lategame a drag with rebellions, and could definetly use some creative writing.
They actually did improve them with Barbarian Invasion. Hence the name.
@@Casketkrusher_ True, but not enough.
I conquered the whole world with Julii within in the first 30hrs I played. Rolling through now as the Seleucids and man it's a breeze, enjoying it a lot.
I think Armenia deserves a spot in honorable mentions: clearly cataphracts and horse archers with a decent phalanx and legionaire unit are a pretty good roster overall, but what makes it great is that you can make cataphract archers in a minor city and none of their units require more than a large city. Meanwhile seleucids and carthage need to wait until lv5 to get their best cavalry, and dont get anything as good as cataphract archers until a large or huge city.
Pontus might be my favorite faction to play. All of the units you mentioned are great, but i actually start out just spamming pontic light cav then pontic heavy cav. Theyre actually surprisingly decent, especially en masse, and especially the pontic heavy cav. The only missile cav that can contend with it are the cataphract archers, but its half the cost of those. They form the backbone of my army. Ill line them up in front of an infantry line, have them throw javelins to provoke them, then once they start breaking their own line ill pick apart their infantry line with mass cav charges. I found that pontic light cav is better at dealing with sieges than militia hoplites or levy pikemen: as pontus i can sally against a sieging army, and use the cavalry to pick apart the enemy and even help support my general to kill their general. But as seleucids i usually wait for them to assault so that i can force them to walk into my phalanxes when they assault. Another great thing about pontus is that the tactics of the pontic heavy cav, cappadocians, scythed chariots, chariot archers, and phalanxes can all be used well in different combinations.
I really enjoyed playing the Greeks. I made a giant army pretty early in the game and conquered Rome (the city) and was funny watching all 3 houses trying to re take the city.
I’m currently playing the selecuids on the remastered version. I remember playing them as a kid and actually getting conquered because everyone was attacking me. This time around I’m taking it easier and focusing more on expansion to rebel cities and building up income before trying to fight back hard.
For a good test playing as Spain can be a struggle for some players.
My 2nd favorite game of all time behind X-com 2 the complete collection.
I will pick this up tonight great video👍👍
Excellent list, ItalianSpartacus! I do disagree on a two points:
1) I don't think Carthage has good infantry. At least, not until you get to the very top (Poeni infantry and Sacred Band). I hear Carthage's infantry was buffed a bit and that's great but without those (or knowing how they affect the actual battles) I would always advise new players who want to play as Carthage to focus on their cavalry and navy.
2) My experience playing Pontus was that, yes you are limited by poor early units and small settlements (thus also economy) at the start but there are mitigating factors. The Greek Cities are most likely preoccupied more with the Scipiones, Brutii and Macedonians, the Seleucids can't really spare much when they have to face the powerhouse of Egypt (of course I hear Egypt was nerfed a bit, interesting to see how that changes things). Leaving Armenia. And because of the mountains and sheer distance players should be able to hold Armenia at chokepoints and ideally see them coming by placing some forward watchtowers. That is, until the player is ready for a counterattack.
I think you listed all my favourite campaigns, the two at the top being the Germanic tribes (diverse roster, solid spears, nice for a quiet start and fun battles), the Greek Cities (strong hoplites, using navies, the challenge of managing your territories and different enemies). Never played as the Seleucids though.. imagine they're quite fun as well.
I had heard that as well. SEEMS to be true from what I tested. And! I like the added challenge :D
Rome, Rome, Rome, Rome and Rome.
Gaul was hard mode. I usually played Germania but man do I love Seleucid Army options. Sadly, I always got bogged down in endless wars everywhere as you mentioned.
Seleucids were my favourite TW Faction in fact they were the first faction I ever played on TW it wasn't easy but I withstood all the early stage hardship, and once I got to those mid stage units I started making progress and when I got to the last stage units I just steam through all the other factions
Seleucids were always the most interesting campaign, IMHO, back in the day. Bit stressful but lots of fun. Sheer variety of options and shifting fronts made them a fun challenge. Haven't gotten around to remastered yet, though I do have it.
Agree with the list but, since I always make it a point to the CRUSH the miserable Pontus folks and not a big fan of Egypt, would substitute Parthia in for them. Can't wait to try Numidia.
Also, thank you for giving Carthage some respect! I loved playing as them back in the day. Aut inveniam viam aut faciam.
My absolute pleasure brother :)
Lol Numidia is boring af but at least a challenge to conquer the world, the units suck hard
Sounds fair, for my self(from 1 to 5) the Seleucids, the Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Carthage and Egypt has a special place. I respect them allways if i play Seleucids.
Armenia or Seleucid migration campaign is probably the most fun thing in the game. You can immediately build a port and load all your family and army in a boat and take Thessalonika in turn 6...change it to your capital and abandon your home lands. My favorite was migration to England. It takes some time to get there but it is incredible to play from the British Isles....destroying Gaul and Germania and the Romans just hit Armenia or Seleucids when they invade into Europe 🤣
I was always a Greek Cities player. When i tried the Scythians for the first time I fall in love with their army. Their colour is so good and aside from the great ranged units they have decent infantry. I dominated Thrace, Macedon and Greece pretty easy but had some difficulties with the Romans in the original so i will try them in the remastered to see how it goes.
Great timing! I never got around to playing TW:Rome. I've been looking forward to this remaster.
Looks like I've got my next 5 campaigns sorted
Also all hail the black square! (middle-upper-left corner of the screen, gave me a lil scare, thought my monitor was failing)
The Brutii are disgustingly strong economically especially it you can snipe Syracuse and Carthage like I often do.
And Carthage has access to Balearic Slingers (2 bronze chevrons if you recruit them from the Balearic Islands). Very useful for taking on Rome's armoured legions or Greece's/Egypt's hoplites.
Never played the Selucids sounds like a challenging and fun campaign
if you want challenge, play Dacia or Numidia. The only worse then thoose are Spain and Thrace. Take "worse" lightly, you will just struggle more
Fantastic review!!!!
Great video thank you! Two days ago I started a campaign with the Seleucids and I am loving how it goes. 27 regions under control so far and as intimidating as it is to start with them, since you have Egypt below, Parthia in East and Pontus+Armenia from north, you can actually make it work in your favour if you start quickly before they get strong. Turkey is overall easy to capture since most towns are under rebels. In the East take Susa from Parthians quickly and they will not bother you for long time and probably the most important, go quickly South and have a goal to destroy Egypt as they can be extremely hard to defeat later. So capture Sidon and Jerusalem fast and you are good! Later gather an army to head to Alexandria and take the three belt towns there. The last Egyptian town was Petra which is in the middle of the desert and they are pretty much broke and K.O. so good last battle. 😉 Its so far my favourite campaign I had. Focus on each term and make big steps quickly from all sides. ☺️🎉
11:12 Wait a moment. Wasn't ptolemaic egypt the last succesor kingdom? It managed to survive until the rise of Emperor Augustus.
And I think Pontus wasn't actually a state created by a Diadochy, but a pre macedonian satrapy that was heavily helenized after Alexander's conquests.
I'm not 100% on the Pontus line as I thought it had been. You're right. I double checked, they fell 3 years apart from one another with Egypt being last. I got the two dates confused. Sorry about that brother!
I believe it's that Seleucus was the last of the successors to die, having the largest kingdom that spanned all the way back to Greece as Ptolemy had died a scant few years prior as well Hahah
@@italianspartacus Only 3 years apart? Or did you mean 30? In any case, I didn't know the Seleucid managed to last for that long. I always though they were ancient history by the time of Cleopatra VII. Good to know.
Great video! Can you do the Barbarian Invasion campaigns next?
I found that Gauls, Carthaginians, Greek City States and Seleucids are the most enjoyable campaigns for the whole game. Their overstretched situation really tests the players mettle in choosing the right offensive and defensive policies. They eventually will be ganged up upon in which the early game economical advantage can't easily offset. If they were to be ranked as hard campaigns, it would be:
4th place - Gauls
3th place - Carthaginians
2rd place - Greek Cities
1st place - Seleucids
I loved to play the Seleucid and Carthage. But the Germans are very difficult when you don't play aggressive.
this game is pure nostalgia and the remaster is pretty good
my top 5, totally unbiased
1 - Seleucid. You make a ton of pikes, and late game maybe a couple other units as well
2 - Macedon. You make a ton of pikes, and maybe a bit of cavalry / archers
3 - Thrace. You make as many pikes as you can, but are against some tough opponents
4 - Greeks. Your hoplites aren't as fun as a ton of pikes, but at least they're virtually immortal
5 - Egypt. The game tries to distract you with other units, but eventually you will want to create a ton of pikes
My favorite is starting thracia and migrating to illyria its a hard campain but that is the fun of it after your in the adriatic sea you start an invasion in italia with 3 armys thats how i did it.but first take rebel and greek / macedonian settelments.
I did something similar but by migrating to Anatolia, completely abandoning all settlements in the Balkans. Taking care of the estern part of the map and getting back to Greece lategame was insanely fun.
The Greek Cities campaign is amazing, in the end you just have to keep on trying to stop waves and waves of Roman armies 😂
I prefer to be on defensive first anyways. As long as you have archers on towers your golden. If you have a catapult inside the walls then your unstoppable. I personally like to go outside the normal conquest when playing the longer campaign and I move my entire army to attack something that I wouldn’t normally attack such as playing Germanic tribes and taking over Britain first. I may lose some towns in the process but I gain all of northern and western front first then it’s a simple push with all my men south and it’s pretty much game no one will go deep into your territory when you always have stacks of armies in the front
I think the most interesting campaigns are determined by geography, which means Greece, Turkey and Italy the best places to be as you can go anywhere. Carthage also has a nice position, however it is hard to survive. Britannia is dull in my opinion, while Egypt is really hard since the amount of settlements per square mile (tax income / square mile equation) is way lower than a faction like Julii that can easily capure alot of nearby settlements. So, I think the geography really determines how hard the game is but also how much fun it is. Which is why Greece, Rome and Carthage are my favorites. The Egyptians are also nice though. Spain and Britannia not so much. Gaul could be fun if you start to fight for Rome directly.
Egypt is by far the easiest faction in the game. Sure, settlements are far away but why is this a relevant fact? It's not like any faction will ever attack you. You get the Numidian town on the first turn and you'll never see them again. Not only that they don't ever come back east but they will likely get obliterated early on. Outside Seleucids, there's no other faction that wants your lands and Seleucids are your first victim. Parthia is the same as Numidia, you take their city and they are pretty much out of the game, only having a crap settlement on the other side of the map. Pontus and Armenia are not too aggressive towards you early on and by the time you face them in their lands, you steamroll. With a few watchtowers and 3 armies, 2 in North defending the mountain range and with 1 in Cyrene, you literally defend your empire. You focus on Anatolia and by the time you're done, you are late game with insane economy and access to some of the best units in the game (boosted by amazing temples). The game is done at that point, anything the game can throw at you, even on VH/VH is trivial to deal with.
The settlements while leading an imperatorial army usually ruined cause the allies want too much to support your emperor
Numidia is personally my favorite faction to play, desert infantry, early archers, good cavarly. Its challenging because you start out dirt poor and basically have to conquer Carthage early on to make some money. Or you could try and conquer Egypt which is much harder early on and get your ass to Salamis which is handsdown the most profitable settlement in the game. But it clearly shows these kind of factions weren't meant to be played in the original, the Numidians are basically fodder for Carthage.
Amazingly, 3 of my favorite factions are on this list. Good to see Pontus getting some love. Im surprised you picked greece instead of macedon, though, as they have similar phalanx advantages but also great cavalry to back it up.
Germania would be the 4th of my favorites on your list. You didnt mention two of their best units: the gothic cav and the chosen archer warband. Gothic cav have higher stats than sacred band cav or companion cav, yet are available in a minor city.
I played this game but only once. I gave up when it took a long time to build the army and the soldiers took 10 minutes to reach the enemy and I seemed to have absolutely no control over the battle because the pc started hanging!
I came here searching for the answer to how much laundry detergent is too much and was thoroughly disappointed
Always use the first line unless washing bedding! The other lines are a ploy to make you waste detergent!
@@italianspartacus 😂 Thanks man! FYI really enjoy your content. Thanks for all the effort ❤️👍🏻
Hahaha thank you for watching my dude!
My favorite faction is Seleucid. I think they have, hands down, the best unit roster of any faction in the game. It's strong, with some of the top tier units in each category, and it's _varied_ in that it has strong cavalry, infantry (a mix of attack and defense), and some specialty units like elephants and chariots (though I will interject here that I don't think the chariots are that good in this game ... at least not in OG Rome). The drawback is how incredibly difficult this campaign is. Again, I'd say it's hands down the most difficult campaign in the game.
I am a huge fan of Carthage though, just thematically. Their roster is solid as well, though their lack of archers is a bit of a dark mark on the faction overall.
Scipii was my first faction in classic Rome TW(of course except Julii in the Prologue campaign)
I was shocked as a kid that there is no armor/swords bonus in other Roman factions' shrines 🗿🗿🗿
Im a bit torn between the seleucid and pontua campaigns, where where they are geographically the campaigns both play very much the same.
Seleucids for the win!!!!
Seleucids and the Greeks are my favorite.
Can someone explain how the income and expenditures tab works? I never know how much im gonna make the following turn
This is my first total war title ever, all I know is that when the little arrow next to my money is green and points up I'm earning money next turn. Never knew there was a way to tell how much exactly you'll get.
Chariots have supposedly been nerfed. Which is good.
So was cavalry, but they're still very strong!
Germania was always my favorite. A good wall of wolf warriors and berserker back up with screeching women. Watch armies shit their pants and flee from the charge. Course I love Britain as well with their chariots but more importantly the head hunters throwing heads at people. Sadly all barbarians suffer late game in vanilla but I've still sacked rome many times.
The Germania used to be my favourite. Always had one or two screaming women cheering my army on. 😛
I have a strange issue with the game. I played the original back in 2005-2008 and it was going great. Now the issue is that no matter which faction I go to play, my surrounding enemies always spam multiple armies. I kill them one after another, but they never stop coming. I play on hard/hard difficult, but I tried on normal/normal and the behavior was the same... I don't mind a challenge, but I cannot progress at all, because I am stuck on constant replenishment and army killing ....
I think it's a glitch in the game. I get around it by sending spy's to there city's so the computer can't make army's out of nowhere, because your watching there citys
Your playing too slow that means stop going for perfect full strength armies and push the enemy gathering what you can and preparing in advance rather than reactively
they aren't limited by the population like they were in the original.
economy in this game is last thing u need to worry about.
Gaul or Carthage is always fun
In reality, Carthage did not need to improve its infantry, because they have elephants and that is enough to crush the infantry and cavalry of the neighboring factions, the elephants are the main unit and the strongest of their faction. In addition, Carthage is surrounded by factions that do not have spearmen in an early campaign with you taking two troops of elephants, you conquer all of Italy and all the barbarian factions.
My game have issue with left click mouse.Sometime need like 5 sec to response.Okay then repeat again
what about barbarian invasion or Alexander?
I used to own so many online players in PVP in Rome (2004) version. Using Britannia. Not even the phalanxes can match the mobility and firepower of the headhurlers!!
I like Armenia. Good unit roster and I just like starting in the mountains.
The music in Rome 1 is, IMO, unrivaled so far
Pontus has legionnaires i thought
I am currently playing Julii on very hard, and its very tough. Gaul has been overrun by the British, and they are really fucking hard. I keep winning battle after battle, but again and again they seem to just summon up full stack armies from nowhere, while my troops are whittled down over time and forced to retreat and abandon ground. Places that I conquer are not developed enough to allow retraining legionary cohorts, so i settle for early cohorts....which get butchered by chosen swordsman, which the British seem to be able to spam.....its crazy! It's like they gave the AI unfair advantages, because there is no way a player can field that many stacks composed of that many Chosen swordsmen almost instantly
Currently playing Armenia now. Decided to take on Parthia first (with how expansionist those bastards are, I had no choice but to attack first)
It was a good call. Pontus is too worried to take on the rebels and thw Seleucids to worry about me. And now I'm taking them on
Things are getting funny now that I got my heavy spearmen and about to get Cataphract Archers
Cavalry, not calvary
Armenia was always my favourite.
I would love to join in on the fun but all I get is a white campaign map.
As much as I love RomeTW, I never have finished a single campaign ever, usually when I'm halfway through I get bored because of the stupid AI that keeps throwing peasants, warbands, town watch, militia hoplites, those low tier units at me over and over again, it rarely happen I had a epic fight with top tier units.
What about spain? You can do the spanish inquisition and nobody would expect that un the BCs
Armenia is the hardest to play. Trash units at the beginning and surrounded by enemies. But if you can make it to archer cataphracts and cataphracts you are unstoppable. Scythian horse archers can't get away from the range of the cataphract archers so they can't win. Seleucids and Pontus can't even get close with pikes and their heavy infantry just gets slammed with cataphracts.
i just finish playing as pontus, annoying as well. fighting cities is so bad early game. you need your overwhelming numbers until you get better infantry. and during my campaign... i went to finish off trace.... suddenly macadonian and julia declared war on me... god damnit man
Original rome didnt have 18 factions? Julli, Scipii, Brutii, Gaul, Britain, Germany, Carthage, Egypt, Seleucid, Parthia, Greek cities.
Macedon, Spain, Numidia, Dacia, Thrace, Armenia, Pontus, Scythia, Senate all required messing with the files to play.
Thrace is the hardest campaign for me
Macedon is a very enjoyable campaign
How to make one of best games of all time look like a mobile game.
PONTUS? I DONT WANT TO PLAY AS PONTUS
MWHAHAHA
aren't there only 3 campaigns? lmao, you're describing which factions are your favourite.
Y.. Yes.. That's.. That's the point
Carthage has a very weak early game and Greek cities is boring af because you camp corners, streets or bridges the whole time. The other choices are decent, though my favorite campaigns will always be Scythia, Parthia, Dacia and Numidia.
Armenia is the best!
I was really struggling to put them here rather than Pontus, but I wanted a bit of a different approach!
Selucids in Rome 2 are the easiest in the game, mate!
The video is great but the game you are disscusion is too much outdated. Rome 1 was my first total war game, and I enjoyed so much that for my first campaign didn't use resolve battle. Once I mastered this game, it was very boring without mods. Rome 2 with DE is way better and I never got bored playing it even now. The worst part of Rome 1 is Rebel Faction, that is idle AI waiting to be conquered. In general the AI is stupit, with the general rushing first. Most of the units are ahistrical, and the elite units are like superman, you can defend a city with just 2-3 urban cohorts. The Senate titles are fiction like Pro Consul, that was a honorary title than a real office. And I hate that Rome has 4 faction, in the end there is just fighting romans that have conquered everything by 150 BC.
Remastered have better graphics, but load everything LOOOOONG time. Time is money. I play original version.
Il play it again if they fix that UI
UI is fine. Far better than Rome 2.
Dont get the remastered myself when you got DEI and theres a mod for Atilla thats brill..
A £5 maybe ..but £25 you are having a laugh..nothing short of a cash grab. Reminds of Baldurs gate remastered...
Caveat emptor.
@@codyj9983 Oh and youtubers are always right....funny I thought a lot did it for views rather than on principle.
You got a lot to learn it seems.
Got it for half price, the game is ok to me personally. It's by no means a full remaster, you get half of what you'd expect and the other half was somehow taken away from the original. No prologue, certain keys are locked, pathfinding is dogshit, ai is horrible etc.
Although I never moved on from m2tw, ergo, I'm used to the shitty responsiveness of the originals. That being said, it's not worthy of the title "remaster" in 2021's standards.
@@The_Caledonian Thats pretty much what I thought.
First 😊
you are misleading the players...
I dont get it. Rome 2, these days, is so much better.
This game is more of a nostalgia remembrance for those who loved the game when it came out. Its a remaster not a new game. Some will say its just a cash grab by CA.