Dacia (RTW Faction)

Dacia are one of the factions in Rome: Total War designed to be non-playable. However they can be made playable by simple modifications to the game files.

Game Play

Starting Position

They begin in the Balkans region in Eastern Europe in what is nowdays the countries of Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. They are a landlocked state, which leads to low income until you can build good trade routes and expand to the sea to develop ports.

Win Conditions

Long Campaign: Hold 50 provinces including Rome. Short Campaign: Hold 15 provinces and destroy or outlast the following factions: Macedon, Thrace.

Units

Dacia's army is well balanced although not very powerful.

Infantry

The basic warbands The falxmen, which are really quite powerful considering that you can train them quite early on. Chosen swordsmen, a powerful heavy infantry unit, but they will not stand against most "elite" infantry units.

Missile

Archer warbands, unlike most factions, the first missile unit available to Dacia are the basic archers. Chosen archer warbands, one of the best archer units in the game, and they only take 1 turn to recruit, but they do cost quite a lot. Ballistas, a siege unit useful to to break down enemy walls and gates. Onagers, fires large rocks, if used correctly they can be devastating.

Cavalry

Barbarian cavalry, light cavalry unit useful for flanking, killing archers and skirmishers, and for chasing routing enemy troops. Barbarian Noble cavalry, medium cavalry, very good at flanking heavy infantry and chasing routers, but not a match for the heavy cavalry of other factions.

Unique Units

Sadly, Dacia doesn't have any unique units, although they are one of the only 2 barbarian factions that can obtain siege weapons (ballistas and onagers).

Strategy guides

In the beginning, Dacia is landlocked and surrounded by Rebel settlements. However, Thrace, to the south, Germania, from the North and West, and Scythia, from the east, will eventually consume all of the territory around the area, eventually plunging you into war with at least one of these three factions. So, it is the best possible strategy for you to expand into much of the rebel territory as possible or eliminate one of these rival factions. If you can hold your core areas long enough, then if the Romans start to move in, you should have been dealing with traitorious enemies for awhile now and can stop them from expanding further.

History

The Dacians (Lat. Daci, Gr. Dákai) were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia (roughly corresponding to modern Romania and Moldova) and parts of Moesia (mostly in northern Bulgaria) in southeastern Europe. They spoke the Dacian language, closely related with Thracian and Albanian. The first mention of them is in Roman sources, but classical authors are unanimous in considering the Dacians a branch of the Getae, a Thracian people known from Greek writings. Strabo specified that the Daci are the Getae who lived in the area towards the Pannonian plain (Transylvania), while the Getae proper gravitated towards the Black Sea coast (Scythia Minor).

The Roman Emperor Trajan invaded Dacia mostly to benefit from its vast gold and silver mines. Trajan's Column was constructed to celebrate the invasion of Dacia.

The Dacian kingdom reached its maximum expansion during King Burebista. The capital of the kingdom was the city Argedava (also called Sargedava in some historical writings) situated close to river Danube.

Later the Romans eventually abadoned the province due to barbarian invasions.

See Also

• Factions in RTW

RTW Factions
Armenia | Britannia | Carthage | Dacia | Egypt | Gaul | Germania | Greek Cities | The House of Brutii | The House of Julii | The House of Scipii | Macedon | Numidia | Parthia | Pontus | Scythia | Seleucid Empire | Senate | Spain | Thrace | Rebels