Starting as one province tribes

[ollobrains]

Ok this applies to the french-germanitc tribes. Tips suggestions etc on how on going about development, keeping the barbarians at bay and generally trying to get in a position where youre not swamped by rome.

I started playing as parasii took over the northern province basically the stability dropped to -3 and then they started getting swamped a) barbarian raids b) rome expanding and the german tribes falling like dominoes

So discuss and offer advice plz

 

[ollobrains]

if u can get a sizeable army is it smart to head out and start keeping the barbarians subdued and taking slaves while u wait for those civilisation ratings in nearby provinces to creep up ?

 

[Harle]

I had a lot of difficulty with the tribes. They don't make enough money and have difficulty supporting armies. The barbarians that other nations deal with easily, ironically, just walk over the tribes. Since there is -so- much empty space around them, you tend to get big stacks at least once in a while, stuff that you couldn't possibly fight. The biggest army I've had with a tribe was six units, and I had to keep my maintenance low because there was no way to make money to pay for them.

Alliances between the tribes are useless, because you can't ask them to help fight barbarians. I never once had an ally walk over to help fight them.

All you can really do is play out a long series of trying to build up a nation only to have it knocked down by some wandering horde, then you pick up the pieces and try again. Until Rome decides it wants your land.

This could really use some tweaking. The tribes shouldn't be quite so vulnerable, they were pretty powerful forces in history. But as it is, the random barbarian attacks are far worse than anything the nation tribes can throw together. Even as an alliance.

 

[Harle]

Worst part about them is that you start off with such slow tech advancement, and you're already at a disadvantage, and as time passes you're just getting more and more screwed. =/

It's really disappointing, I was really looking forward to playing the tribes, but it seems like they're just there for Roman Invasion Flavor. =(

 

[unmerged(77207)]

For tribal provinces having barbarians attack your provinces isn't too bad. They move on. You get a good ruler from them occasionally.

The taking slaves thing doesn't seem to happen that often though. Particularly as a barbarian army that you make flee will then start moving southwards towards Rome. They don't even come back for you to keep defeating them. I wasted a lot of manpower subduing and fighting the barbarians hoping to do this as Suebi and really should have focused on the westward semi-civilised provinces as they could be taken over (although the penalties from disconnect make annexing almost worthless early on - I think Suebi have to rely on tribute and try to vassalise).

In this game there is no option for these tribes to try to peacefully build their way up with some good researchers and building infrastructure (which is historically and plausibly accurate - I mean the game has got it right, not that it would have been possible).

Maybe objectives for these tribes should be to survive a certain amount of time (maybe the whole game time period) and still have possession of their core provinces, maybe without ever paying tribute or soome other stipulation. Playing these guys is a far cry from playing Civ4 and not getting the starting location with two gold mines.

 

[Mo3biu5]

hey, that it meant to be hard and frustrating

like fighting with Liberia or Tibet in Hearts of Iron...
occasionally you can come with some glory
but the majority of times you will be blown up...

it's historical afterall, maybe you can wait for some ahistorical mod
or wait the guys of EB to work on it!

 

[Harle]

hey, that it meant to be hard and frustrating

like fighting with Liberia or Tibet in Hearts of Iron...
occasionally you can come with some glory
but the majority of times you will be blown up...

it's historical afterall, maybe you can wait for some ahistorical mod
or wait the guys of EB to work on it!

The prospect of going up against Rome as the tribes is an intimidating one, and it shouldn't be easy, but there's no method of appreciating it, really. It's frustrating in the sense that playing Tetris on level 99 is frustrating. The whole thing is just set up in overlapping methods of destroying any possibility of succeeding in even the remotest sense.

Because the concept of colonization is based on 'civilization' you can't expand. Because even late in the game the tribes just don't generate civilization to that level. You can't colonize.

Which is silly, because the tribes were nomadic and certainly didn't need that much of a 'base' to expand upon. 50% civilized is supposed to be the same from province to province. So a Roman province at 50% is just as uncivilized as a Tribal province at 50%. That shouldn't be a requirement for the tribes.

They're already penalized enough, at least lower their civilization requirement down to something that befits a nomadic, barbarian tribe.

I keep looking up at Britannia and thinking, that is my goal. I just want to get up there with one of the tribes. And that did happen. But it's not likely to happen in the game. Since we're giving historical/ahistorical lectures.

And frankly, I don't actually believe that Paradox intended for the tribes to be knockovers. The tribes should be the -most difficult- of the barbarian societies to conquer. They should -the ones- who cause the Romans so many problems as they try to spread their borders north and colonize. But they're not. As it is, the tribes are the easy path to gaining land in the north. You can declare war on one and instantly annex three provinces, since you'll just walk over them.

Try it, with any civilized country. Get some 10,000 troops over there as soon as you can raise them, and just take the land. They're not going to be able to stop you.

In comparison, trying to spread your borders with colonization is rocket science.

It just shouldn't be that way. The tribes need to have an opportunity to expand, to get a base with which to raise and maintain armies, so that they -can- put up a resistance when Rome comes knocking at their door.

They need to change some of the modifiers, and maybe the behavior of the barbarians slightly. I find it strange that the barbarians are so keen to work together and never fight, but the same tribes made up of the same people and the same cultures, are just as much targets as the Romans, with all their wealth and prosperity. I'm certainly not saying the barbarians shouldn't attack at all, but the tribes are in a particularly vulnerable position against them due to all that land I was talking about.

It's got nothing to do with history, it's just the way the game is set up and the systems that are all based on a Roman standard. The tribes(and perhaps other nations) could use some variation in their colonization requirements, their supply limits, and their maintenance costs.

Tribal technology doesn't(and shouldn't) keep up with Roman technology, but that doesn't mean they can't raise armies. They were warrior cultures. Rome raised armies of trained warriors, but the tribesmen were -all- warriors, more or less. Not disciplined ones, not well armed ones, but there was a lot of them. That's historical, and it's not really represented in the tribes.

Represented in the barbarians, sure. But not the tribes.

 

[ollobrains]

well im going to keep playing it, i might just let the barbarians constantly take over my settlements ( u get the new leader the old leader dies) and u can get some pretty kickbottom units. Maybe its a good idea not to fight em u get barbarian blood into youre dynasty. Im just wondering if we are going about this the wrong way backwards. Im going to adjust my current game focus more on trade and less fighting back ..... any thoughts

 

[Harle]

Well, my first thought is... that's just not what I want to play in a tribe. Constantly being conquered and reconquered by barbarians while trying to trade(very hard for the tribes, I note) isn't the tribal nation I was expecting to get.

Yes, you can certainly play it that way. Heck, you could start a war and just keep taking troops from the barbarians by letting them conquer you and throw them at your enemies.

But.. what's this got to do with history? It's kind of arcadey when you play it like that.

I really, really think Paradox needs to tweak some things for the tribes to make them not only viable to play(and when I say that, I don't mean 'viable like Rome is viable', I just mean viable in that you can -do- something with them), but also viable opponents in the north for Rome. I found it tremendously dissatisfying fighting the tribes as Rome. They were worse off when I got to them than they were in the start, because they were constantly getting pounded by barbarians. They should be able to function as nations, even if they're essentially set up to fail.

 

[unmerged(49649)]

Build eight or so units at the start, immediately declare war on your one-province neighbors. Don't annex just demand money and tribute. Use some of the money to raise stability to -2. Repeat with next one-province neighbor and their allies.

Once you beat them all you should have something like 500g. Thats after stabbing pigs to +3 stability .

Thats what I did last night anyway. Unsure where to go from here, though. Research is reaally slow and I can't colonize anything.

 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Personally I think it might be best if there was a specific tech-tree for the tribes (like an addition to civic, religious, military, etc.) as one should not forget that the tribes, be they celtic or germanic or otherwise, could go toe-to-toe with any of the civilised nations throughout the period.
They had the numbers and had the technology to do so, nor were they extremely poor. What they lacked was -usually- the military discipline and trappings (writing, coinage, centralised state,etc) of the advanced states.

Seems like stuff for an expansion or some heavy modding.

 

[Zaku]

I wanted to play as Suebi, but its hopeless for them. You can't colonize with 30Civ rating, you can't trade, and because there are no neighbours, you cant wage war either. When I tried to annex a gaul tribe, barbarians attacked my army, and they kicked our ass back to our hovels ... so it was very boring, I stopped playing after 50 or so years

 

[crazy canuck]

I would hate to see the Tribes colonizing in the same way as the civilized nations. From the way you describe it Harle, I would say they have it about right.

Historically the Gaulic tribes were always at eachothers throat. I would say you experience with constant barbaric incursions was a good thing.

 

[unmerged(49649)]

After playing almost a hundred years with the Suebi I can only agree that it is hopeless.

You can get tons and tons of money, no problem there. But you can't do *anything* with it so money itself gets completely useless.

Maybe atleast bring in the EUIII feature that allows you to invest a sum of money to boost tech.

 

[Arven]

Well, it took about 10 restarts as different tribes, but I finally have a successful game as the Artrebates. Being the Artrebates is absolutely crucial, as being on the ocean enables you to trade with Mediterranean nations right off the bat which gives you a LOT of money.

Before you unpause the game pick 2 nations bordering you that you are going to invade. Then all the 2 nations bordering the target nations. Also queue up the recruitment of as many troops as possible before you unpause. Assasinate people in one of the target nations until you get a CB, then invade. Repeat on the second target nation (if they weren't already at war because they were allied to the first). If you're lucky your two "allies" will have broken the alliance and refused to help you invade, which gives you a CB against both of them. Once you have 5 provinces stop there. Leave the rest of the Tribal nations as buffer states between you and Rome.

Build up a big standing army and weather the storm of Barbarian invasions. I had two 9k armies that I patrolled around as needed. Defenders get a huge advantage when defending a strait, so with an 18k man army with competent commanders you can smash any invasion that comes out of Britain.

After 70 years or so you'll reach tech level 1 and you'll be set. After level 1 the research times are SIGNIFICANTLY shorter.

In my game right now it's year 590 and I'm level 2 in all techs, have a 24k man army, and am rolling in money.

The only thing I can't figure out is how to increase the Civilization level of my provinces so I can colonize surrounding frontiers

 

[Asmodeous]

That's he problem, Arven. In order to colonize you have to trade with more civilized nations or be bordered by them, which if you're bordered by them you're already being conquered.

Something needs to be done, the only question is what?

Me.

 

[unmerged(77207)]

Strike first! Conquer the civilised.

 

[Harle]

I would hate to see the Tribes colonizing in the same way as the civilized nations. From the way you describe it Harle, I would say they have it about right.

Historically the Gaulic tribes were always at eachothers throat. I would say you experience with constant barbaric incursions was a good thing.

That's just it. 'At each other's throats' isn't what happens.

The tribes cannot put up any resistance to barbarian invasion. Period. That's not 'constant tribal warfare' it's just getting trounced repeatedly.

Your only option to avoid constant barbarian invasion is to take one of the provinces that has a buffer of tribes, and even that helps very little.

That the tribes have to deal with barbarians and each other is a given. That the tribes basically roll over like lapdogs in every circumstance is not historically accurate.

And as for colonization; you'd hate to see the tribes colonize? The whole idea of colonization is that once a province grows beyond a certain point, it begins to make sense to start to move the excess to border regions; thus, colonization. The natural spread of borders.

There's no dedicated 'oh hey let's send a ship with colonists to the West Indies.' No, that doesn't happen for any of the nations in the game. You need to be established before you can spread. And I like it that way.

But to say that the tribes couldn't do this is pretty fundamentally wrong. If their population grows to a certain point, they darn well should want to spread out. That's just a natural response to demand for space and resources. You need to feed and house people. That was the whole point of expansion.

Getting the population isn't the problem. It's getting the civilization requirement. It should be around 30 or 35% for the tribes. That seems to be the tipping point for them. They just don't get up past 40%, while Rome can easily get up to 90%, so even at 30% the tribes are still at a disadvantage.

 

[Arven]

I've been trying to find in the game files where to edit it so that I can colonize at 35%, but I've yet to find it.

 

[unmerged(97246)]

And if we're talking "historical accuracy" the Suebi did actually become a major faction in the world (they helped in beating the hordes during the end of the western roman empire in France), and still exist (southwest Germany is full of "swabians")....so the fact that they get run over repeatedly by barbarians and eventually the romans is totally frustrating.