I picked up Barbarian Invasions cheap and started playing again…interesting.
But how in heck do you deal with foreign hordes? Killing nomads doesn’t seem to be worthwhile, they’ll just turn into a horde and destroy you. I’ve played the Huns a few times and only now have I figured out a strategy. Burn every town you come to that isn’t occupied by nomads, you don’t want to occupy anything except a top city, and you don’t want to set loose a horde.
So I moved my Huns past all the potentially good cities of the Balkans and Greece and moved into Italy. Even though Rome and Ravenna and Tarantum and Mediolanum have huge walls they are pretty lightly defended. So if you still have your hordes they are easy to take.
But I had to learn the hard way how to deal with this. Because those horde units essentially mean that you can take any three provinces you like, but once you do you’ve only got a skeleton force left. So only take the very very best.
Although I did have some fun due to my first fumbles with the Huns. In my first game I had a horde setting off to menace Constantinople, but I foolishly stormed a greek city. And my horde units vanished, and all I had left was one leader and one heavy cavalry. Which was promptly attacked by an Eastern Empire uberstack. Over 400 units, mostly spearmen and archers but also some commitenses, only one or two peasants. Of course I try to retreat, but they attack again, so no retreat. I resolve to wipe out as much as I can before my two lonely horse units are cut down. Of course, it’s almost not worth it to wipe out enemy peasants, because they cost him 100 gold per turn, if you wipe them out he saves money!
But I decide to kill everything I can. Run wide around the spearmen, hit the archers and roll them up, as per usual. Pick off the peasants and kill them, as per usual. Which leaves about 10 units of spearmen and heavy troops. Well, I can probably get a few before I’m wiped out. And with only two units you can really micromanage. So I pull a unit out with one cavalry, then charge from the rear with the other. Kill his lone cavalry unit and his general goes down! Kill another spearman, and I’ve only taken a few casualties. And on and on, his guys chasing me across the map, exhausted and unhappy. And I’m killing and breaking his troops one by one, once they break my heavies can wipe them up easily, no survivors, and I can run away from any concentration of troops. Finally, with only 4 guys in my general unit and three in my heavy cavalry I break his last heavy legion, overcoming more than 12 to 1 numerical odds. Man that was great. Both my units went up 3 experience levels, my general got a special award. Awesome victory. And it just shows the power of heavy cavalry on an open battlefield, even against spearmen. If you can keep running and never charge the front, a unit of heavy horse can rule the battlefield. Only trouble comes when you try to capture a town…
I have to admit that I never have checked. When I get a sub standard family member the first thing I do is swipe any of his retainers that are any good (if any). Then I directly take them out of whatever city they are in…perminently. They are then tasked to take shit troops around in the back country and hunt down the various bandits and rebels on auto…until they die of battle wounds or old age.
