This guide will help you how to deal with the Barbarians in the game. This also includes advanced tips and basic gameplay.

 

How to deal with barbarians

As I mentioned earlier, you must quickly get rid of the Alemanni and Celts. They can’t turn into a horde and provide some quick new lands for taxes/recruitment/defense. The real problem lies with the other barbarian factions. The Saxons will always send a fleet towards Britannia, as they have victory conditions. Sometimes the Franks or Burgundii can be noisy neighbors. And of course the hordes are marching towards Europe. You will most likely betrayed by the Eastern Empire at some point. Here are some tips to help you deal with the most troublesome factions.

Saxons

Send an army to their lands preemptively (or let it stay on a boat nearby). Once you see them loading up their army on ships, declare war, and attack Britannia! The Saxons cannot become a horde, just like the Alemanni and the Celts. Take the weakly defended Vicus Saxones quickly and the entire army will be disbanded!

This fleet is loaded with a huge Saxon army, ready to take Britannia…

Vicus Saxones, meanwhile, is under siege. He will fall quickly and destroy the faction before their large army can do anything.

Franks/Burgundii

It all depends on the situation. Sometimes they’ll be peaceful neighbors, sometimes, they’ll be aggressive neighbors. You can use the army you used to kill Saxons to hold them off while you move reinforcements. Be aware that both the Franks CAN and the Burgundii groups CAN can turn into a horde. Make sure to kill all family members before attacking their final city.

Quick tip: The faction can become a horde and their last family member is hiding within the final city. Attack the city, kill the family members, then retreat to lose the battle. The city will rebel, the faction will be killed, and there won’t even be a horde!

Huns/Vandals/Roxolani/Sarmatians/Goths/Ostrogoths/Slavs/Whatever the hell comes off the steppes

These two factions can be summarized in two words: horse archers. These mounted mobile turrets can make it difficult to deal with them, as your horse archers are expensive and hard to find at the beginning. Your main troops will be made up of heavy infantry that will only be shot at a distance. You can create legions or carefully choose the battlefield to hunt down horse archer horde factions. You can even increase your chances of winning by limiting the mobility of horse archers through river crossings and other maps.

Your armies may not be able to handle large numbers of horse archers, but you can let them grind their teeth against your city walls. Here’s how it works. Sally out when they take over a city. If necessary, you can provoke them with cavalry to get them to move closer to the towers. If the enemy resists, send all your cavalry back into the city and end the battle. The game will declare it a draw and you will be back on your campaign map. Continue this process until the hordes quit or die.

Loads upon loads of dead Vandals outside Salona’s walls. The archers’ experience from shooting thousands of men below is evident.

After a successful battle, bring the cavalry inside and end the battle. Although the game declares it a draw you have done a lot of damage to your enemy. Keep going with this pattern and let the towers do the heavy lifting.

Advanced tips

Did you know that AI can sally out again during an end-turn if the battle ends in a draw? This is something the player cannot do. The AI can sally out only once per turn, while you can do it as many times as you like. A bit unfair right? You can do the exact same thing with a little bit more saving. Here’s how it works. Sally out and fight like the hordes section. All cavalry must be returned to the city. The game will tell you that you can’t sally out again once you are back on your campaign map. Quick save and quick load the game (ctrl+s and respectively ctrl+l) to allow you to sally out again in the same turn. This combined with the power of towers during battle can wipe out entire stack horde armies within a single turn. This is the fastest way to wipe out large horde armies.

Rome: Total War Tips How to Deal With Barabarians is described in this guide. If you notice anything that needs to be fixed or updated, please let us know in the comments, and we’ll get to it as quickly as possible. May this be a good day for you. Creator and writer TheMBmulti was the inspiration for this article. Don’t forget to add us to your bookmarks if you like the post; we update regularly with fresh stuff.