Carthage gets Spanish Mercs, too. I still don't see why Scutarii are so great, either. They take forever to get and aren't better than Hastati.

4 Provinces, two sets of two isolated provinces.

The second biggest Gallic city is in Spain, and they tend to build quite a few troops there and attack Spain, whenever I play. They're also the strongest faction from the get-go.

Europe = not exactly rich, Africa = extremely poor until you control all of it. I prefer the option of, "Greece, or Eastern Provinces/Anatolia?"

How can you be confident in your army's abilities when all you get is Round Shields, Town Militia, and Iberians? Are you going to beat armoured hoplites with that?

Oh yeah, Bull Warriors are almost as expensive as Spartans, but aren't even the third best infantry in the game. Maybe not even the fourth. In a sword fight I'm fairly certain that Spartans, Urbans, and Praetorians can beat them.

The Gauls can't build up a large force in (I forgot the city's name but the province is Celtiberia.) if you take it early on.

Yes but that doesn't change the fact that Spain gets Spanish mercs too.

Isolation isn't a big issue since you should be controlling
the whole Iberian peninsula soon.

I think the important thing with Bull warriors is that they
aren't the worst high tier unit in the game. You don't alwys need to have the best of everything.

Yes, you can beat armored hoplites with Spain. You could even beat Spartans. If that's referring to the mass migration strat, they really don't have too many armored hoplites by the time you're there.

Oh yes, yet another thing. Do you always need to be filthy rich? Isn't it enough that you can build all the things you need, not just the ones you want. I'm never filthy rich, just because it isn't much fun.

Isn't the main point of missile units to fire from far away? And don't skirmishers fullfill that requirement?

I hope I'm making a good stand in the name of Spain.
*gets arrested for being fanatical*

However, i dont like playing them in campaign because they are SO DAMN BORING. fighting with them is like moving furniture..... Half an hour later and you still havent got anything interesting to say !

1) Round shields are their best cavalry. In other words about twenty-thirty turns into the game the only reason you'd ever put cavalry in your army is to chase routers.

2) On harder difficulties the games dynamic goes out the window. The Julii will cheerfully ally with their arch enemies (the Gauls) and both attack you.

3) Until they get a minor city their units are as follows: Skirmishers, Iberian infantry, Round Shield cavalry, War Dogs, Naked Fanatics. That's it. For a very, very long time that's all you've got.

4) Slow-building armies and reliance on mercs. In the early game if you're playing on VH battle difficulties the ONLY units you can use (unless you want to loose every battle) are War dogs, Spanish Mercs and Naked Fanatics. Everything else runs almost instantly. Both of these units take a large town and 2 turns to train. Not all of your towns are large at the start.

5) Temple paradox. In the late game the Spanish temples which allows you to build bull warriors do not boost your soldiers in any way. So any city set aside for Bull Warriors production will not be able to produce other troops (slingers, skirms and round shields for running down routers, war dogs, Scutarii, etc) with bonus exp. Bonus EXP that your soldiers truly need; especially on harder levels. The fact that they need three temples to train troops that are up to par (Esus, Battle-forge and Abnoba) presents a logistical challenge.

Spains good points:

1) Best native slingers in the game. The ability to train slingers with +3 valour and +3 attack (total attack: 10) means Spain isn't actually too bad off for missile units. It could be said they beat out Parthia, Armenia, Briton, the Selucids, Carthage, Numidia and Pre-Marian Rome for non-mounted missile troops. Especially when you consider they can snatch Baeleric slingers and retrain them for +3 attack as well.

2) Exellent buffs all round. Makes units like Scutarii, slingers, skirmishers, etc. Worthwhile well into the game.

3) Wealthiest Barbarians. Spain is a fairly fertile place with good trade routes; Spain starts in a better economic position than any other Barbarian.

4) Free punching bag. Spain can use North Africa as a slave-tap by building small, mobile armies to rob Numidia blind in cycled phases of enslavement; this helps them get their needed units more rapidly.

Summary: Spain differs immensely from other 'hard' nations in that there is very little cheese to exploit. The only faction that equals them for toughness is Numidia who can at least conquor Carthage very quickly giving them the ability to train their best soldiers. No matter how good you are they're always going to be a long, possibly rather boring, slog.

The weakness of their troop selection is also less significant in campaign. As has been mentioned, they get a great selection of buffing temples. However, this isn't all. Because they seldom need to fight on more than one front at a time it is easy to concentrate all your most experienced troops in one army and let them gather a LOT of experience through constant fighting. Even round-shields, when you get them up to silver or gold experience with weapon/armour upgrades, can be very effective.

The main annoyance is the problem Dad-savage pointed out where you can't train bull warriors with exp upgrades. This isn't such a major problem though. Because Spain is so easily defensible you can afford to devote a few cities to training nothing but bull warriors. They may not be the best value for money but if you have enough of them in one force they can be unstoppable. In campaign the cost is irrelevant.

In the end I got bored because I was marching around the map with full-flag armies packed with bull warriors stomping everything in my path. There wasn't any variety because the Spanish troops selection is so limited. Maybe I'll mod them to give them a few more troops and then give it another go.

The infantry is crap though bull wariors are good but you can't produce them for ages. As for Iberian infantry they're just auful pure auful, not much up from a roman town watch. Scurti I actually like As did the romans look well and you'll see they're clones of legionaries, actually the other way round. Obviosly legionaries are better but the frame work was laided out by the spaniards.

Long sheilds are reliable but they have no cav you could say are battle winners and they're missle units are appalling.

However, any faction can be good in the campaign. Just because they're good in campaign, doesn't mean they're a good faction. Look at the Greek Cities. They're one of the best and most fun campaigns, but they're terrible for online play, IMO.

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Quoted from DKIII:

No; the Visigoths came into Spaina round the time of the fall of Rome. Prior to Roman conquest, it was inhabited bu Celtic and Celtiberian tribes, and a few Barcid Carthaginians.

Spain is not the best faction, but in campaign, it is not the worst. Gaul is busy with other factions, so you can take Numantia, Carthage is also busy, so you can take Corduba. You now have to defend three passes in the Pyrenees, and against naval assaults. Your trade routes are good, but not the best, and your growth rate is non too shabby. Scutarii and Bull Warrioirs will take out any pre-Marian infantry, and Round Shields will hold off Equites. Rome's weakness is its pre-Marian units, which many factions can beat with their later units.

Befor you go around totting your "enlightened" and nationalistic view of the world cultures, please get it right.

It is "Espaņa", not "Espana".

And no, "Hispania" was the name of a province claimed in the name of the Spanish Royal Crown during the age of discovery. I believe it was Columbus who first discovered the island.

-Ron

And...guys, please don't think that Wikipedia is anything more than a slightly glorified chat board...If I were you guys, I'd double or triple verify what I read there.

But if you really want to take something out of that wikipedia quote, take this:

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Under that logic, is it racist calling China "China" instead of "中國", or Russia "Russia" instead of "Россия"?