Sarmatians (BI faction)

[frogbeastegg]

Guide.

[Ayra]

Having just received BI, I figured I should try my hand with my favorite faction: Sarmatia / Scythia. Difficulty Hard/Hard.

The first important thing to know is that you WILL need to horde very soon. Both the Vandals and Huns starts a province adjacent to yours. I did a few tries, and every single time the Vandals went straight at me, and the Huns twice. No possible alliance.

So what I did was to build as many units as I could in the time I had free, then turn into a Horde and sacked the town (Sorry ). Looking at the victory conditions, Sarmatians need both a territory in the Sassanid land and the Eastern Roman Empire. Sarmatia turned Horde has about 4 full stacks in total (Including my starting units and the 4 units I had time to build). I didn't want to migrate far west away from my objectives just to stay away from two enemy hordes, so I headed East instead. I forced the Roxolani into a horde by attacking from the east since they rejected my alliance, forcing them west just to increase the damage on the Eastern Roman Empire in order to make it easier for me later on. I then continued toward Sassanid land.

I'm starting to regret my decision, though. Their frontier town had 1.5 stacks defending. I continued to a less defended one which I'm currently sieging, and I see another 1 full stack comming my way, with 1 stack from the first town heading my way also. So right now I see 2 poorly defended towns, 1 well-defended one and 3 stacks all in all. That's only at the doorstep of their empire, and I have only 3.5 stacks (Lost some against Roxolani), that I can't replace, which are mostly horde units with low morale. I made an alliance with the Eastern Roman Empire, but I'm not too optimistic about my odds against the Sassanid. My only chance is to reduce their strength dramatically before settling down, will 3.5 stacks be enough against their mighty empire..? At least Sarmatians have no peasants, so there's no completely horrible units in my horde.

I'll post an update, but chances are it will be to restart with a different strategy after my hordes are crushed. Not sure what though! Maybe to held on the northern steppes after the huns and vandals have passed and the Roxolani have passed... After all, from an objective point of view, the Sarmatian starting town is perfect. It's just impossible to keep at first.

[Bullethead]

Howdy. I don't think I've posted anything since MTW days. I decided to play the Sarmations because I'm descended from one, or at least that's the best theory for how I got that Y chromosome...

Anyway, like Ayra said, you WILL become a landless horde early in the game. Either the Huns or the Vandals will overwhelm you before you even get accustomed to your original part of the map. This has been a real learning experience for me, and I'm nowhere near done, but I think I'm getting the idea of how to run the Sarmations now. At least I can offer some things NOT to do...

#1. Don't attack the Roxalani right off the bat. They will turn into a horde while you're not, so will greatly outnumber you, take back their town, and then hurt your territory so bad (assuming the Huns haven't gotten you yet) that you won't have much of a horde yourself when it's your turn. So I restarted the campaign...

#2. Don't reject an offer by the Huns to become a protectorate. Things get pretty ugly after that, whereas accepting would have let me off the hook. However, I survived and have now had my revenge.

#3. Don't trust anybody. In the beginning, the other steppe nomads see you as a rival for space and loot, so won't like you at all, and will break any deals you make with them the very next turn. The Sassanids and the Byzantines are willing to talk to start with, and the latter will even ally with you as a help against the other barbarians. However, you're still barbarian scum yourself, so as soon as they think they can get away with it, they'll backstab you as well. So always be ready.

#4. Don't be surprised if factions which you've never encountered, and whose homeland you couldn't find even if you had a map, decide to declare war on you for no apparent reason. This may be the result of your horde settling in rebel lands which once belonged to them. Now they're a horde themselves, mostly several provinces away, but every so often an army will show up in your new lands, even though you don't share a border with them. Nor can your diplomats find them to try to resolve the situation.

Now for the things you probably (as far as I know right now) should do....

Immediately build walls around your initial town. You live in mud huts on the steppes with little plunder, and the Huns know nothing of siegecraft. So if they can't ride right in, they'll usually sniff around the walls for a turn, then head off west. They'll be back in a few years, but at least some of their energy will be expended on somebody else first.

Once they go away, expand westwards yourself in the wake of the Huns and Vandals. They go through and sack all that stuff for the money, leaving easily conquered rebels squatting in fixer-upper decent towns. So move in, fix up the damaged buildings, and take advantage of them while you can.

After a little while, things get really nasty. The Huns and/or Vandals will return to your original homeland, because they haven't sacked it yet, and they're now looking for lands to settle in. Meanwhile, the original owners of your new territories will be coming to reclaim them (usually Goths and Byzantines, with whom you'll probably have now-broken alliances). Hopefully, the Huns will come first with the ultimatum of protectorate status. I said above you should probably take that offer. Here's what you can expect if you don't accept.

First off, the ultimatum was delivered along with several full stacks of the Hun horde. They will now assault your original capital. They're not very good at this, however, and you can inflict HORRIFIC casualties on them as they try to get through your walls. Horses just ain't good for that. After winning several "Heroic Victories", however, they'll have worn you down and your garrison and whatever nobles are there will get dead. The Huns will sack the town, then take it again from the rebels and settle there. They'll also settle in central Europe west of there. This removes them as a threat, which was largely based on their horde numbers, and they'll have been considerably thinned out from losses after all this. You'll be able to wipe them out in a while, never fear.

At this point, the Goths and Byzantines will want your new territories back. Fight the Goths hard, hurting them as much as possible, then pull back to Dacia to face the Byzantines. You'll probably see this as a hopeless situation, because there will be a very large army of these erstwhile allies now moving on your last town. NOW is the time to become a horde. Abandon your only remaining town and go on a rampage. The Goths by this point are nearly out of the game, after suffering attacks from all directions. So the idea now is to hurt the Byzantines as much as possible, to give you time to breathe.

Use your now huge horde army to annihilate the Byzantine army in Dacia. Then take your horde all through the Balkans and maybe even down into Greece, sacking everything in your path. Most of this will be fairly easily done, because by now the Byzantines will have most of their forces fighting their own rebels in Anatolia and the Sassanids further east. The garrisons in your target area will also have already been depleted by the previous barbarian waves, but these are BIG, RICH cities, which withstood those waves. Now they can't withstand you, and you'll become fat with spoils. For the finishing touch, sack Constantinople and make a pyramid of over 22,000 skulls and carry off more money than you can imagine (plus set civilization back a thousand years).

You will now be able to settle comfortably in the northern Balkans. Basically, you're going back and retaking rebel cities that have already been sacked a time or two, but they're better than what you started with. And the Huns are a spent force, the Vandals have moved on westwards, the Goths are all but extinct, and you've driven the Byzantines completely from the European continent. And you've got a nice buffer zone of rebels between you and the major threats. So you settle down and become respectable, using all your loot money to rebuilt your new homeland. And about this time, your original homeland will revolt from the Huns and you'll get that back, too, although it'll be a HUGE money drain for many years. There goes all your plunder.

At this point, which will be about in the 390s AD, you'll be unable to do anything but put down roots, due to a lack of money. However, you will have created conditions in which you can do this in peace, thanks to all the devastation of the previous decades. So by say AD 425 or so, you'll be able to move on like a normal faction. Which is a good thing, because now you've got to deal with the winner(s) of the Byzantine civil war and the Byzantine-Sassanid war. Do all you can to help the Byzantine Rebels while the real Byzantines and the Sassanids kill each other. Try to get friendly with the Sassanids, too.

That's as far as I've gotten so far, except for a war with the Lombards that I can't figure out. I was sitting there learning to be civilized when their king and a small army showed up in Dacia saying we were at war. So I had to kill them all, and now I can't find any more of them to try to get a ceasefire going.

[Ayra]

Nice strategy! It's certainly turning out better than mine...

I managed to take down most of the Sassanid, and allied myself with the East Roman Empire. This is when things turned sour. I was planning on leaving a buffer between myself and the ERE, so that I could use part of the old Sassanid land to settle down in comfort. The ERE moved much faster than I expected though, and took one of the remaining Sassanid towns, and then made them their protectorate.

This means that I was forced at peace with the Sassanid due to my alliance with the ERE, so I couldn't finish the Sassanid off. I recognized I wouldn't have any peaceful time to settle down, so I did it at that point and took three of the previously-saked Sassanid territories. The ERE broke our alliance and sent a full stack at me, which I still managed to repel, due to the few units I had time to build at the start of the game. The ERE then took ME as protectorate, and I had no choice but to accept in order to survive. I tried to finish off the Sassanid capital so I could get one menace off my back, and my assault failed in the end (6 Clibanarii immortals anyone?). The ERE betrayed the protectorate, destroyed my fleeing troops (Some made it back miracoulsly, but my faction leader and heir both died there), and took me back as a protectorate the very same turn...

The situation currently is that I have 4 of the Sassanid provinces, and the two steppe provinces in the NE of the map. I'm having a small army taking over the rebel steppes (Three rebels to take still according to my spy, shouldn't be too hard) and I have about a stack and an half all in all and I still turn a 1.5k profit per turn finally after having burned all my looted money, but I'm not too confident. The Sassanids are nearly dead, with 1 territory and me having destroyed most of their army in my failed siege attempt. ALL the hordes are dying out, none went for the ERE. No ERE rebelions at any point either. Only the Berbers are doing well according to the faction graphs. The ERE is at the height of it's power, strong economy and no potential enemies at all since I destroyed the Sassanid for them; No potential enemies except for me that is.

I'm their protectorate, but I know hell will break soon, and I'm not sure that a stack guarding 4 territories is enough to stop the full might of the ERE... We'll see though!

[ChaosLord]

I started a VH/H game with the Sarmatians. The Sarmatians certainly have an annoying start, since it seems you really have to horde to get anywhere. In my game I decided to try holding Vicus Samartae and expanding outward from it. Unfortunately I made some mistakes early on(Hiring mercs, building armored horse archers) and while I was able to build up a good enough army to fight off Vandals and Huns I ended up 4k in debt.

But I had survived, so I considered that somewhat of an acomplishment so I kept playing. I sent my spare cavalry up north taking Tribus Vandali and Locus Bararicum since they were rebel/abandoned, and managed to dig myself out of debt. Sadly, this didn't last very long as the Burgundii decided that the 700 pop city was essential to their empire and sent 3/4ths stack after it(perhaps this is why the Burgundii never seem to go anywhere). Then as if this wasn't bad enough the Lombardii sent a full stack at my main town in an unprovoked war.

I lost Tribus Vandali(forced it to rebel, to make it hard for Lombardii or Burgundii to take it since I couldn't defend it) and returned to Vicus Samartae. I fight off the Lombardii stack, and then a couple more Hun stacks since they had apparently not got enough in the previous war. I spiraled back into debt because of this of course, but was able to net about 2500 gold after my forces got knocked down a fair way and it let me build a decent sized army while putting me back in debt.

Now at this point you'd think the Lombardii after losing several stacks against me and now that I have a larger/better army then them would quit? Hardly, they just keep coming. Finally at 398 AD after spotting yet another full Lombardii stack heading my way decide to abandon the city and horde. I still think that it might be possible if you're careful with your cash early on and the Huns/Vandals don't get too interested in destroying you. I beat them back because they only sent one stack at me at a time.

After I horded I turned on the only Alliance that had been faithful to me, the ERE and rampaged through their balkan cities. I sacked Constanstinople/Sirum/Salona to creat a screen of rebel cities, and seiged Athens/Thessalonica and timed it to get both the cities on the same turn. Unfortunately that took me like 15 years to do, so now i've got to race if I want to meet the goals. All these balkan cities are developed quite well though, so assuming I can win a war agains the Sassinids(who now own the Middle East, thanks to me demolishing the ERE in the balkans) I can pull it off. I don't want to go north though, as the Huns are sitting in Tribus Lazyges and the Goths are still in Dacia.

Oh and I was offered the chance by the Huns and Lombardii several times to become their protectorate, so perhaps with that I could have come back with just Vicus Samartae, but my pride made me refuse.

[Bullethead]

I think calling the Sarmatians a "moderate difficulty" faction is an understatement. I've played the Sarmatians numerous times now and have yet to win. I've never been wiped out, but I can't satisfy (sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot) all my victory conditions before some other faction wins. The problem is that it's impossible to have a coherent stragety in the early game. Because you're weak and totally surrounded by powerful enemies, you have to play the early game in reactive mode instead of being proactive. And because the other factions have always acted quite differently in all my games, I've had to react in different ways each time, without being able to carry over lessons from the previous games.

In a perfect world, the Vandals would quickly move west, never to be heard from again. Meanwhile, the Huns would waste themselves obliterating the Goths and putting a big dent in the various Germans and WRE, leaving you free to occupy the deserted lands. Then you and the Sassanids carve up the ERE and you win. I've never seen this happen, however, although things have looked deceptively to be heading that way sometimes. But then either the barbarians gangbang you, or the ERE wastes the Sassanids and then turns on you, or the ERE and Sassanids decide to get along and come at you around both ends of the Black Sea. Not to mention ERE and maybe WRE amphibious ops all along the Black, Ionian, and Aegean Sea coasts.

The Sarmation victory conditions (own Panonnia, Illyricum et Dalmatia, and Colchis, plus 12 others) requires the creation of an empire stretching from ex-Yugoslavia to Georgia. This imposes a few certainties in what otherwise is total unpredictability:

1. The Goths Must All Die
They live in the middle of your desired territory and are required to remain there to win. Thus, genocide is the only answer, because they'll never leave as a horde, but will just try to retake their homeland.
2. The Huns Must All Die or Be Marginallized
They need to own most of your desired terriroty to link their required conquests of Rome and Constantinople. Being lazy, they'll start in the east where they are already instead of marching off to Rome in the beginning. This means you have to kill them all, or at least enough to drive the remnants west out of your way.
3. The ERE and Sassanids Must Bleed Each Other
You want these factions to fight a never-ending, expensive, bloody, inconclusive war. That way, they keep each other occupied and out of your desired territory, without either gaining enough to win the game.

That's a pretty tall order. From your weak starting position, you have to become strong enough to inflict decisive defeat on the Hun horde, doing at least enough damage to drive them far to the west. You also have to totally irradicate the Goths when they're a full-blown horde. And you don't have any direct control over #3, although you can give it your diplomatic best.

[ravinnder]

1. The Goths Must All Die
2. The Huns Must All Die or Be Marginallized
3. The ERE and Sassanids Must Bleed Each Other

That sounds about right. I have experimented with different strategies on (VH or H)/H with them. I agree Moderate difficulty is definately wrong, the Sarmatians are hard not just because of their position, but becasue of their victory conditions, so there is no strategy that makes the most sense. However, I think that Kotais being your last required province to win might make sense. I haven't been able to win either, but I can't die either.

I've experimented with several strategies, numbered below:

1. Borrowing from Vanilla RTR Scythian province distribution, I built some infrastructure in Vicus Sarmatae (starting city), turned into a horde and used the horde to turn away any other Hordes (like Huns, Roxolani). Then I carved out a 3 province area similar to the RTR Scythian area using the hordes after I was sure the Roxolani and Huns were gone. At this point I was at peace with the factions closest to me. Then I just wanted to survive and eventually attack the ERE. Unfortunately the Lombardi and Burgundi became too powerful and I didn't have enough money to retalitate.

Another variant on this strategy was defend Europe from the Huns. By using Sarmatian hordes to counter the Hunnic ones. I managed to marginalize the Huns after winning and losing some large battles (3-4 stacks on each side) around the starting city, but also became too weak in the end.

2. In this strategy, I tried attacking the Sassanids (at Kotais) after hording, unfortunately, they seem to have quite a lot of forces in that area so several times I tried that strategy, I was too weak after settling. I considered an Asia Minor attack on the ERE, but the problem would be that once the ERE is weakened too much, the Sassanids will come in the long term, not to mention the ERE still attacking from Antioch. However, Asia Minor and the islands there have good financial backing through sea trade.

3. My last strategy seems like the historical one and I'm guessing the one intended to be pursued. Immediately horde and attack/sack Constantinople and basically attempt to settle in the areas possesed by the ERE in the Balkans. There are several advantages to this strategy.

- Constantinople and Greece is close thanks to the road network and have good trade routes, so you won't be wasting turns walking 1/4 through the map.
- Most of the cities in that area are pagan, which is also the religion for Sarmatia.
- You have a protected flank from the east and once the ERE is weakened enough, your enemies are probably from the north and it's a one front war.

Hopefully the WRE will have been weakened by attacks and won't be able to retaliate as you take the victory provinces in the west. The only problem after this point is holding your initial areas. The ERE is probably out of the picture for you; however, the Huns, Goths, Lombardi, and maybe the Roxolani like to attack your areas. Also, it is extremely hard to move after settling in the Balkans. It's possible to attack Asia Minor and then go for Kotais to win, but the Sassanids and ERE will pose problems. Also, the Sarmatian navy is really weak and pirates/ERE will make that difficult.

After that point, I'm not sure how to proceed.

[DojoRat]

I took a different approach. (H/H) After a few turns to add a few cav units and a diplomat I went horde and headed south. I avoided the Goths and was able to cross the Danube over the eastern bridge before the ERE covered it.

As my armies were moving I used my diplomats to get as many alliances as I could before I went to war with ERE.

The ERE field army retreated to Constantinople so I struck at the lightly held Thessalonika instead and took it as my new homeland. Athens was also lightly held so I took it next and got a house at the shore. The ERE field army left Constantinople to give battle, dumb, they were overwhelmed and after a few turns of seige I assulted and took the imperial city with acceptable losses.

So now what. With my horde gone I needed to build new armies and had plenty of cash from putting Athens and Constantinople to the sword. What i didn't have was time as the Goths came down to party followed by the Vandals. It was an intense 10-15 turns but I found that if I let them come to me their horde stacks were easier to handle on the defensive. Money became an issue as I constantly rebuilt and recruited (and needed large garrisons to hold down the masses) but I found if I streamlined each city to produce one type of unit I could cash in on the other buildings as well as aqueducts and academys.

After coming up for air I went west and took Salonika and Sirminum (sp?)
By now my units had high experience and were able to push staight through to Milan, Ravenna and Rome. This solved my cash problem so I was able to push north of the Danube and across the Aegean to Ephesus. Right now (414) only a lightly defended Sinope stands between me, Kotais, and victory.

I would definately consider moving south right away because if your going to battle for territory it might as well be rich territory.

[Bullethead]

I would definately consider moving south right away because if your going to battle for territory it might as well be rich territory.

<S> to you for getting so close to victory. And I agree with the above axiom.

The Sarmatian player has 2 main choices to make:

1. Horde immediately, wait to build a few things, or horde only when forced?
2. Once in a horde, which way do you go?

As to the 1st question, I've tried all options. The problem is, it's a choice you make blind, because you only reap the advantages of each strategy if your neighbors act as you expect.

Voluntary early hording (IOW, before the Huns arrive at your house, whether or not you stay a few turns to build/upgrade) puts you first in line to sack the rich Balkans, so you can accumulate more money than the Huns, Vandals, and the Goth horde you create. However, this not only gets the Goths after you, as well as the ERE and maybe WRE (depending on where you settle), but also makes the Huns look east for plunder, so they'll stir up the Roxalani, who will usually then come calling. Plus, your plunder makes you a target for the Huns once you settle down. Not to mention that when you horde, you're the smallest horde on the block, less than 2/3 the strength of the Huns and Vandals, and about equal to the Goths in numbers, but they've usually got you beat on quality. Thus, horde-on-horde battles in the open will usually result in pyrrhic victories at best, leaving you in no position to turn on your other natural enemies for a long time to come.

Because you've got to kill most of the Huns eventually, and horde-on-horde isn't a good long-term strategy, you need to fight them with terrain on your side. You can't hold them at any rivers and there ain't no hills on the steppes, so the next best thing is your town wall. The Huns really suck at assaults, so you can often annihilate several horde stacks before being overrun, at which point you're still a decent horde and the Huns are much more manageable. Then you can go off pillaging for a while before settling down, to get the money you'll need to take on the next enemy.

Of course, all bets are off if the Vandals decide to hang out in the east for a while. Also, sometimes when you plan on bleeding the Huns like this, they perversely refuse to attack you. So they go off and plunder all the good stuff before you can move, then come back to hit you while you're trying to get the sloppy seconds.

Once you're a horde, you have the choice of going north, southwest, east, or west. There's nothing really to be gained in the northern wastes. You'll probably be safe from other hordes because you're out of their way, but you can't really grow up there, either. East isn't a good idea because it's a long walk to anything worth stealing, and then it's usually Sassanid anyway, whom you want to be friendly with so they keep the ERE occupied. West has some good loot in places, but it involves you with Germanic tribes you'd as soon keep as friends between you and the WRE. So that leaves southwest, into Goth and ERE territory in the Balkans, maybe WRE lands in your Yugoslav victory provinces.

In my experience, it seems best to leave the Goths alone in this phase. First off, you've got enough enemies already. Second, you need to leave something unpillaged as Hun bait, and if they end up dying while taking down the Goths for you, so much the better. Also, a vengeful Goth horde (and perhaps the appearance of hostile Ostragoths as well) is the last thing you need when you're trying to hold your new Balkan home. So that leaves the ERE at least. Sack your way through Constantinople, Thessalonika, Athens, and Sparta, maybe even the WRE provinces you need in Illyricum et Dalmatia and Panonnia. Then pick some places to settle down that you think you can hold. Problem is, your new wealth makes you a target for any Hun, Vandal, Goth, or Roxalani horde still running around loose.

The annoying thing with this strategy, besides the above factions not acting as expected, is that the ERE and/or WRE rebels have a tendency to appear in the very provinces you want to sack and/or occupy the most. In general, you want these guys on your side (until you're strong enough to backstab and overrun them on your way to ultimate victory), so finding them holding your target areas when your horde arrives puts you in a bind. Do you take those provinces anyway, and alienate the rebels for the foreseeable future, or do you change your plans on the fly and go back to hit the Goths?

Another annoying thing is that sometimes when you bypass the Goths and head into Greece, and the Huns hit the Goths as you'd hoped, the Goths don't cooperate. Instead of doing mutual destruction with the Huns, they go on their own westwards sacking spree, so they get rich and neither they nor the Huns bleed much. This makes it even harder to deal with the Goths when the eventually come back home.

Flexibility and opportunism are therefore the keys to Sarmatian success. For them, nothing ever goes as planned or expected. Sometimes they catch lucky breaks when other factions do providential things to each other, but more often than not, 1 or more factions cause all plans to fail nearly immediately, after the Sarmatians are already committed to them. Then it's just roll with the punches and do like in NASCAR and hope for a yellow flag at an opportune moment to allow you to catch back up with the pack. It really seems that being lucky in what your neighbors do has more to do with ultimate success than anything the player intends.

[Kitt]

So far my experience after completing several other factions
1st attempt stubbornly tried to hold onto starting pos, got overwelmed by both huns and vandals..
2nd attempt made a horde went east was hunted down by the huns><
and finished off by roxa's
3rd thort of going north west , this ended in mass riots and another hunnic demise
4th attempt after some thinking turned into a horde went south took constantiople+thesse+athens in sieges on the same turn now happily behind some very think walls continued to take salona in the northwest
.... now things start to go sideways
a, thort may as well try going christian .......
after experiencing a full stack rebellion in athens+thesse and taking them back
i moved all my pagan heirs/warlords to salona leaving only garrisions in what was once ere land.

My question is how long does it take for a leader/warlord whose trait is pagan to convert if the town+pop is premdominately christian?
In constan+thes+athens still cant seem to get any christian warlords or hiers
so my conversion to christianity is still in the works.
I tried making a warlord in athens where i have a christian cathedral and the pop is 90%+ christian yet he comes out pagan !!!!!!
really unwilling to reroll the campaign let u know how it pans out if your interested

396ad finally a christian marries into the royal line !!!!! "sets faction heir* hopes this wont start a mass revolt

[DojoRat]

Why go Christian? Only Constantinople is heavily Christian and if you put the population to the sword when you take it, after a few years you can take down the churches and build your temples. The best way to convert a population is with leaders and strategic pieces like diplomats that have a Pagan vnv. This will shift the population rather quickly and when you have the majority you want and a decent sized garrison you can tear down the old and build the new.


I restarted the Sarmations again to see if my go south strategy was valid and my second go around was much tougher. I still took Constan/Thess/Athens with relative ease but then the Huns came. The funny thing was they left me alone but gutted Salonika, Sirmiun, Aquinum (sp?) and set up shop in the Goth homelands. I was able to take the now rebel cities but the populations were low and all the buildings needed extensive repairs so I had little cash to build up my armies. I tried to force the issue with the Huns and won a close battle but had no money to rebuild my now depleted army. Reboot.

I'm now in my third try and took the same go south route but this time The ERE was tougher. Even after defeating a decent field army they still had large garrisons in Sirmium and Constantinople. I eventually took both but was painfully thin. Luckily, the Goths and Vandals fought it out north of the Danube while I rebuilt and cheered them on. The Huns never showed but the Ostrogoths did appear and marched west then south, finally taking Ravenna. They have now doubled back and attacked me. I just broke the seige at Salonika but their Inf was tough and it was touch and go until I killed their faction leader. Once I can defeat them it "should" be clear sailing.


This is a good example of the play ability of BI. Same faction, same strategy, but great variation in events. Nice

[Kitt]

i went christian because i figured the total end bonus of cathedral would help me tax them to the hilt better late game order bonus's etc.
Still holding on danube, crossed over and took 3-4 ere towns south of the black sea

[DojoRat]

i went christian because i figured the total end bonus of cathedral would help me tax them to the hilt better late game order bonus's etc.
Still holding on danube, crossed over and took 3-4 ere towns south of the black sea

Yeah, I thought of that after I posted. The problem is you get maybe one family member who's Christian in the initial stages and so many of the towns you take will be pagan. The problem with the advanced Roman cities, even after your temples are maxed out, is that they are so developed it takes forever to get over the culture penalty.

I usually go with a large herdsman, slave garrison and live through the plagues/riots. To be economically viable you need to take the 3 WRE cities (Salonika, and the 2 along the upper Danube) as well as the 4 ERE in the Balkans. From there a rampage into Italy will give you enough cash to build a second army in Constantinople and then along the south coast of the Black Sea to victory.

[Kitt]

hmm my main venturing armies atm, i have 2 up and running either resting up at a newly conquered towns or on the move. not incuding a half stack of pagan familiar/warlords traveling to destination not yet known but somewhere far far away to the North East because they were messing with my Christian provinces.


Enemy

2Samartian armoured archers ------------------2Samartian armoured archers

3-4 Virgin foot archers "set fire-skirmish":D
1-2 various Inf mercs 3-4 bosphoran spears
space for Virgin foot archers :D
Sacrificial "pagan family member" in charge

lurking somewhere around 4 units of virgin calvary for flankers or backup for Saa's depending on defense or offense

'Ive learnt to love Saa's' with a lil micro management' anything that leaves the formation gets pincered even the generals often get taken out b4 the enemy reachs my main formation, ie general gets annoyed from peppering or that i just charged threw his edge of peasants chases after one Saa"i" the other Saa"ii" immediately ctrl attacks general while Saa"i" feints away until Saa"ii" engages with general then Saa"i"immediately engages, resulting in minimal casualties rinse repeat for anything they brought to the field.

Sure its not as sweet as half a stack of hunlancers under your command but ive managed 3v1 odds on open fields with less then 100 casulties.

Personally i cant stand slav spears:
they die,
they cause major routing
according to the sidenotes pple dnt respect them. /signed eh heh:D
Is there really a choice Virgins or Herdsmen :D

Garrisons of 4-6 mixed Virgin foot + bosphoran+ one christianspy+ a christian general if available make up my garrisions depending on city pop/happyness/proxomity to hostile forces, if im going to lose a city im taking as many down as possible.

On a side note
i sent my 80 year old PAGAN Leader on a what i thought would be a one way trip into stack of rebels.
1xScitrom spear unit +3xhvy inv +1 light cav
Winner 80 year old pagan + 16 bodygaurds remaining.
Of course i ddnt just throw him into them and sit back but still ... Charge retreat charge fall back charge seems to be a lil overpowered.
Hvy cav in BI seem to be able to really charge hme/through/around and get out with minimal loses even vs the new circle spear formation 2 charges then a half charge move through them then engage seems to send them routing with maybe a loss of 3-4men cant imagine trying that to the front of a Phalanx.

Yeah the culture penalty hurts a lil but so far ive managed to upgrage or destroy most of the "roman" from my towns. The goths(allies)currently buffer my western empire, i somehow swindled them into paying me tribute for what i cant remember but its 150g for 89 or so turns and im not complaining:D
As well as another with WRE for a similar deal that i remember was for a ceasefire. Whilst the italian penisula is always alluring i figure a hard push to the east then north then west will get me to my goals.

[Oda Matsu]

Real lucky shocker in the Sarmatian South Strategy bid - a total (and happy)upset in Sirmium I didn't really plan for and didn't expect at all.

As you said, the ERE manages somehow to pay for and keep huge garrisons in some of the Balkans cities - in Sirmium they had a full house in the city, with plenty of scary comitatenses units and whatnot in the garrison. I brought up about a half stack of armoured missile cav - on site, so I could threaten an assault, i bought two merc vet cohorts and a bosphoran.

My plan was to harass the city, to perhaps keep him from building the unit per turn he seemed to be cranking out of it. If he attacked I planned to harry his light forces with an arrow storm, then bugger off when he got into melee range, leaving the mercs behind to stall him. Meanwhile I built up some seige towers, figuring to be ready if the ERE didn't come out, so that I could get some follow-up infantry on the walls if the option came up.

Well, the ERE comp player outnumbered me almost three to one, with gaggles of heavy infantry and cav support, so he wasn't waiting - a surprise attack at the first option he had after I sieged. Now I'm stuck - I can't retreat easily, as my infantry is stacked with the two siege towers I managed to build. So I thought, well, let's rush the walls. I dodge my command cav unit around, sack my bospho unit to (more or less) block the door and slow up the sea of reinforcements, ... managed to get the towers to the walls, and as he's attacking me he doesn't bother to put anything up there ...

Now about 1/3 - 1/2 of his army is outside, caught between my missile cav and a gate he no longer owns, peppering his troops from all sides. Nothing manages to escape.

Next my vet legion cohorts walk halfway around the wall. I now waltz in, take the two vets off the walls and use them as blockers, then mow down his remaining garrison troops with my cav. When I run out of arrows I make a massive cavalry charge.

End result? 1400 dead EREs for about 150 casualties of my own (mostly from mercs i was going to dismiss post-battle anyway), and of course Sirmium. And my best general is awarded the "Unusual" trait - maybe the stress of that crazy battle was too much for him ...

[DojoRat]

Oda Matsu - Sounds like a great battle, and as most of the great ones are, it was forced upon you by necessity.

Kitt - The top end pagan temple that begins with a K gives plus 3 exp so after a few battles you get slave spears with silver stripes. They are now a cost effective battle line that will hold long enough for the Bospho and cav to flank. If you have a decent leader you'll keep the routing to a minimum. Also the AI often follows the routing units blindly leaving huge wholes in his line for my cav to exploit.

I find your Christian crusade intriguing, though I guess your focus is more east than mine. Ravenna, Rome, and Milan are too rich for me to resit.

It took me awhile to rid the world of the Ostrogoths, though. Their Chosen warriors (foot) did give my slav spears fits and I sweated out one battle when 2 broke before I could roll up the Goth line. I plugged the line with a SAA (their def is good!) and eventually they caved.

Unfortunately they still had Ravenna with a 2 leaders so I couldn't take the city without them forming another horde. I guess I could have been tacky and killed the leaders during the assault and then carefully withdrawn. It might of worked. Eventually I got luckily with a high level assassin and Italy was mine.

[Kitt]

Kitt - The top end pagan temple that begins with a K gives plus 3 exp so after a few battles you get slave spears with silver stripes. They are now a cost effective battle line that will hold long enough for the Bospho and cav to flank. If you have a decent leader you'll keep the routing to a minimum. Also the AI often follows the routing units blindly leaving huge wholes in his line for my cav to exploit.

If i cant win my current h/h ill consider trying pagan lol with ure beloved slave spears:D

[Vulcano]

My biggest problem with Sarmatians is no peasants for garrisons. You really have to concentrate on your objectives as the weight of your garrison cost will catch up with you very quickly.

[Trithemius]

My biggest problem with Sarmatians is no peasants for garrisons. You really have to concentrate on your objectives as the weight of your garrison cost will catch up with you very quickly.

Agreed! No siege gear for rapid re-conquest and punitive extermination makes this a real problem.

I find myself praying for plagues, and even moving agents around a bit -trying- to contract them...

[RemusAvenged]

My Sarmatae adventure started by prepping my forces for a horde. Built a armory and just before the Vandals and Huns came and then horded to get the extra units, then retook my town and started retraining my hordes. Once the storms were past I horded again before any neighbors could come back and sacked the town. Later the Goths took over the whole area.

Then I travelled to Sinope to establish my empire and allied with the Sassanids. Over time I worked down into Antioch with the help of two good sized allied ERE rebel provinces nearby. Am finally getting entrenched and am collecting some good cash and will try and knock our the ERE rebels before taking on the Sassanids then moving into Egypt or Athens/Thessalonika.

Nice faction but the lack of peasants is their biggest problem. I think next time I try them I'll horde early and head to Rome or Spain to set up a homeland within WRE's borders and by sacking a few towns first get some cash to build with.

[Aetius22]

I tried playing these guys in my early experiences with BI. First time I tried staying put. That was a disaster, I managed to somehow kill the first Hunnic stack that attacked me. Those General Bodyguards are tough b******s. The second stack pulverized my weakened forces before I could replenish them. I went into a horde and kicked the Roxolani out. They moved west and conquered Constantinople!! Now they were getting rich and kicking butt, while I was stuck with their poor lands and Campus Sarmatae. The Huns took over my original home town, and just for kicks fortified it with a full stack!

I just couldn't produce units and still keep my main city happy. The population growth overwhelmed me (and that's sad since it really isn't anything great). When I finally had a decent stack to go after the Huns, the Sassanids had triumphed over the ERE and came after me! I decided I had enough, folded my tail between my legs and wept.

I have decided that next time I play these guys I will move Southwest and pillage and plunder as much as I can. I figure I will settle in Athens since during all my games I have yet to see a horde pillage or settle there.

I agree that the Sarmatians should be rated as Hard. I mean their starting position puts them square on the sights of both the Vandals and the Huns. Not to mention the lands around them are resource poor. Add the fact that you don't have peasants to garrison your cities and things aren't looking favorable. At least you can horde, a small consolation.

[gardibolt]

A common thread seems to be that if you're playing a faction that can horde, it behooves you to horde immediately and rampage to a huge city, devastating everything that gets in your way.

[Byzantine Mercenary]

i horded went to the saxons territory and conquered it, i build a boat sailed to britain left the saxon territory and conquered britain and then spent about 40 turns turning them into a christian faction!

[vonsch]

I am in love with these guys, but still struggling to pull out a win. I may try the Rox since they are basically the same except with lighter victory conditions.

My latest effort involved some light sacking in the Balkans, then settling up seiges to terminate the same season in Athens, Thessalonica and Constantinople. That worked. But the economies post-garrisons really only pay for one stack, which means leaving the base unguarded while expanding.

I headed east into Ephesus. That's a good expansion, as it plays well with the sea trade routes, but the ERE has been darned tenacious about coming after it. I fought off 6 armies (fortunately only 1/4 to 1/2 stacks, on the whole, but one was 80%) at the bridge to the NE with my half stack of horse archers and a couple Alan Noble cav, but it's wearing... and not really enough left in the denarii flow to gear up a second stack. I managed to ally with the Sassies and had the ERE and Sassies going at it a bit, but the Sassies came my way and are my border now, which is a bit scary. I don't trust them for some reason... like they need Constantinople! Infantry, even heavy Roman infantry is far preferable to those nasty armored archers.

And I made an attempt at Ancyra and stirred up the ERE again, so now I have 2 fulls stacks and a half stack inbound. Bad move. I couldn't get a cease fire out of ERE, they won't even really talk, but they did back off a bit for a couple years. It may just have been a rebuilding lull though.

I do have almost a full stack waiting for them, but it's 413AD and I have 5 of 15 territories and none of my designated ones. And there's now a Goth horde (fortunately, I'm allied with them too... so far) to my Northeast settling into one of my target territories.

I also took Kydonia (another nice one to play in with my sea routes) easily, but it's very hard to support if they should ERE decide to take it back. Sarmie fleets are very brittle and all the rebel pirates are a bigger problem than the ERE fleets.

Still, I have learned a few more things. I went with Alan horse archers this time, but that's still silly. I do not ever melee with them. Sarmation armored archers are even sillier, they take a full year to recruit and cost more. I use my general's heavy cav for the charges to rout units the horse archers crossfire into panic. I also tried Alan heavy cav this time. It's very nice, and cheaper in maint for the horsepower than generals, but it may be too expensive too.

Also, garrison costs are eating up my cash flow, so need to focus more on ridding myself of culture penalties (I DO love those nice Roman buildings I can't build, but the price is probably too steep). The idea of converting to Christianity is intriguing, but I don't see how to pull that off. I rarely see any Christian family members.

I'm rethinking sacking. Sacking may be best used defensively, not as a norm when hording. If I aim to keep a city, a simple extermination is probably better. No repair costs, instant facilities to build (until demolishing them to rid the city of the evil Roman influence!). And the income is pretty close to sacking. I suspect the net, after repair costs, is close or better. Slaves I don't need since the cities are all big. At least the ones I've been taking to date. And enslaving boosts the growth rate and increases my pop control issues. On this topic, I think I can afford to lose more of my horde too. I've been very protective of it, but just don't need the starting pop. Pop is easy. Just need enough horsepower to take 2-3 cities when settling.

Anyway, my next try will be Virgin Horse Archers and Virgin Cav to chase routers. More cost effective. More units is better because crossfires are so important in dealing with the heavy infantry units. I can afford more router chaser cav compared to the Alan Noble (about 5:3 ratio), and about 8:7 ratio on the horse archers. That's 2 more horse archers in a full stack, and 3 more 2-3 more cav to chase routers, for the same upkeep costs. The key is the missile ratings are all the same. With the cav there's a noticable drop in quality, but if they are just being used to intimidate and chase routers, that's not a big concern.

Another nice thing about going light is I only need a tier one muster field (for the runaway slave garrisons), a tier 1 stable for the cav, and a tier 2 range for the horse archers (and foot archers for garrison duty too). That will let me more easily scrap and rebuild all those captured Roman (ick!) rebuildings without feeling I'm wasting denarii. With a nice forge building (typically the Roman ones aren't maxed, so I can "build over" them to cut the culture penalty) and a Kolaksay Circle I will get +3 exp and +1 to +2 weapons and armor.

I may have to try infantry mercs for sieges, rather than try to train Bos. And aim to actually storm the walls rather than always starving them out. Time pressure makes waiting an issue. A side benefit of cheaper stacks is more simultaneous sieges. I usually do 3 at once with the starting horde, and only end up fighting if reinforcement pop up by sea or on the do or die last turn of the seige. Most of the time reinforcement are a blessing. The garrison sallies and I get the city early. It's when a competing horde turns up that I get twitchy. If they are neutral, they usually just keep on going. The Huns are normally the only worry as the others seem pretty open to alliances. The intial quick jump through Goth lands makes them mad, but if I have to agreements with them when I pass through, they get over it and make nice before they get expelled into a horde too.

I think I will aim to settle in Italy next time, and take islands for territory count since that should let me build more of an economic base from maximally defensible positions. Then head into the Balkans for the rest, and hook around (or risk shorehopping across) the Black Sea for the last objective. The 3 main Italian cities are pretty defensible. Can use strategic forts as corks to slow any invaders, have bridges for fights on my terms, and Ravenna's walls, with a good garrison, can serve as a breakwater for passing hordes. Aim for peace with ERE and hope they and the Sassies can bloody each other. Load of competition for beating up on the WRE, but I do reasonably well with diplomacy with the horde factions (knock on wood).

Aim to settle earlier and with less preliminary sacking, next time. I think I can make 30-40k do. I can get that from exterminating the Roman cities. Leave the rest to the other hordes or for later defensive sackings.

Settling sooner should mean more babies too. Babies are good.

I had no idea this faction was gonna be this hard. I do l love horse archers though.

[Byzantine Mercenary]

settle in britain, go on, you know you want to!

[PietrolEremita]

After playing ERE, WRE, Huns, Alamans (the german non-hording faction) and Saxons, I decided to play the Sarmatian.
I am playing VH/M, it is about 413, I have 13 territories and 5 almost full stacks roaming around. I found it quite easy (and I am not a good TW player) then I read these posts and now I am wondering: was I lucky? Was I born to play the sarmatians? Or is the "M" in battles that makes the difference?

So here it is what I thought before starting:
1) I like to build a faction tactic around his "most effective" unit. In the Sarmatian case it is easy: armored horse archer(AHA) (initial cost is irrelevant in general: what is important is maintenance, and the difference is very little with the alan horse archer)
2)Given my tactic of choice (AHA) what faction is really dangerous for me? All the factions with massed HA (Huns) and with armored HA like me (Sassanids)
3)What is my objective? I need two blocks of territories, one east and one at the center of the map. Probably the best strategy would be to build my empire in one of the two locations and conquer the other (blitz) when I want to end the game. Both places are very poor though.
4)From my ERE and WRE experience the richest part of the map are Italy, the Aegean sea (greece+turkish coast) and especially the Antioch-Sidon-Jerusalem stripe in the middle east
5)As an horde faction I am going to have population control problems and money problems

So my strategy was clear:
1)Conquer the middle east to take out the sassanids before they can mass clibanarii (my nemesis!), have a densible part of the map, and have the richest part of the map
2)Sack and THEN slaughter BEFORE conquering to have the minimum possible starting population. Money is going to come from trade anyway


I built a few alans, and when the vandals and huns got close, I destroyed all the buildings and horded. Then I got out of the way (south) and let the two hordes pass, then I headed east bypassing the roxolans (I didn't want them to horde and follow me).
I got some money from ERE for peace and I decided to take out the sassanids. I bypasses Kotais and arranged my horde in three fighting stacks:
1) An all HA horde army with my best general
2) The leftover horde HA with the horde swordsmen and a few slaves to fill the stack
3) My initial army (mostly Alans HA) with a few slaves to fill the stack
+ All the leftover slaves in a separate stack that followed me at distance

The Sassanids had two full stacks around, but for my stacks 1 and 2 it was easy (took a lot of losses, but whatever). Then I sieged Artaxata, Phraaspa and Arsacia. Waited them out (and took another 1 and a half stack out) and sacked. Then I went south and sacked Hatra, Dimmidi and Seleucia.
I discovered later that the Sassanids got Artaxata back so they didn't disappear. I was at 70k by this time.
I effectively took out the only faction that could beat me in a straight up fight.

Then I attacked ERE by besieging Jerusalem, Sidon and Antioch. I destroyed three of their stacks with my stacks 1 and 2 (three separate battles - roman infantry is no match for HA) and had to hire a lot of mercenaries at this point. I conquered Antioch and slaughtered Jerusalem and Sidon. Pop was low but I still had loyalty problems and I spent most of my money to rebuild and hire new units. After 5 or 6 turns I was at 25 k but I had three stacks again. Then I destroyed all the christian buildings and build an altar to Kolaskay in Sidon and Jerusalem. They went in the red even with low taxes. Then I put high taxes and made them rebel.
After that I did the same with Antioch, got out... and horded again!
I had 6 stacks now! Antioch went back to ERE.

Then I sacked Alexandria, Philadelphia and Tarsus. At this point the ERE rebels got Jerusalem and Philadelphia. I allied with them.

I was at 60k now. I attacked again Antioch, Sidon and Alexandria. I took Antioch and slaughtered Sidon and Alexandria. They had between 3 and 7k inhabitants by this time.... no loyalty problems! And they were pagan now, fired the mercenaries, repaired building and built more Alans. I destroyed another ERE full stack.
Then I took 5 HA and a general and took Sidonia.
By this point I had 15k left but even bulding and hiring HA everywhere every turn I was making money.

After that it was a walkover: I build everywhere (and even tear down roman buldings and rebuild them) buy slaves or AHA everywhere, and I am still making money! Having Antioch/Sidon/Alexandria/Jerusalem/Tarsus/Sidonia is enough to not have any more money problem ever. Also I am surrounded by rebels only, basically: Sassies with one territory, ERE slowly pushed back and having to fight the hordes in europe at the same time. Also, I backstabbed the ERE rebels and destroyed them in one turn).

Now I have everything south of the caucasus up to Egypt. I have still to conquer a few rebel territories and 3 more in Turkey, but with 5 14-20 units HA/AHA stacks who can stop me?
My point is that I will soon have almost 20 territories and not even one of my objective!!! I will get Kotais soon (since it will be my border with the Roxolani) then I will put together 3-4 stacks and send them to take the other two territories I need. I will have to declare war to a couple of factions, but who cares? The game will be over in a couple of turns.
A walkover.

Btw, I won the same way with the Huns.

NOTE: I waited out ALL the sieges. If you attack a full stack of HA without massed foot archers (never happened) or massed HA (that's why I avoided the Huns and killed the Sassies fast) you are asking for a lot of coffins.

[Krakra]

First, let me start with a thank you to CA. I have played all of their TW games with hundreds of hours of entertainment.

Just bought BI; I know, late. Being Bulgarian by birth, I figured I will re-live the days when the Proto Bulgarian tribes crossed the Danube and settled in on Byzantine lands. So I picked up the Sarmacians on VH/M (I like fighting on medium as the AI seems to better handle tactics). The first try was a disaster. The second was much better and I got my objectives. The third was a repeat of second's strategy and won me the objectives again. Here is what I learned (most echoes what others have described):

1) Don't hang onto your initial homeland. I tried that the first time; restarted probably 5 times. Never figured how to stop the Vandals and the Huns. None offered me to become protectorates and both insisted on destroying me first before moving on. Even when I horded, I still couldn't win, as their hordes are larger. Even if you win, you are so exhausted that you can barely retake your city from the rebels. At which point you are too poor to build much and too weak to stop the Roxolani or Goth or Ostrogoth hordes that will surely visit you.

2) Build walls as the first building. Then build a market and a port. That will earn you some cash in the short term. Have your diplomat actively seeking trade rights and sell your maps.

3) Build units every turn. When the Huns approach you, go into horde mode. With the army you have built (I suggest Sarmacian Armored Horse Archers) and your horde army, you should have almost 5 full stacks. Also, make sure you have built a second diplomat and a second spy.

4) Devide the stacks: one group goes south, the other goes west. The southern stacks take Constantinople, Thessalonica and Athens. The westward stacks take out the more northern ERE cities.

5) My westward stacks contained almost completely horse units. That was so I could put some distance between my horde and the Vandals and the Huns behind me. I relied solely on my spy to open the gates, which tipically happened within the first 3 rounds. Then I will smash into the city from 3 directions using mostly my generals to clear the gate area. The horse archers moved in next shooting to pieces all other units around the center.

6) In roughly 6 turns, I have cleared the Balkans from ERE; took some of their cities twice to fill my coffers (a mistake, in the long term though). However, my coffers had ~ 80k by the time I settled in Athens and, shortly thereafter, in Salona.

7) When you settle, make sure you have enough troops around to garrison the city. The Christian population doesn't look lovingly on the Pagan invaders (incidentally, I wanted to become a Christian faction, but couldn't figure out how). If your city happiness is below 75%, don't bother repairing -- chances are there will be revolts that will damage what you have repaired again. Make sure your population is happy before you repair the buildings.

8) Start cranking Sarmatian Virgin Archers and Bosphoran Infantry (you only really need 2 Bosphoran Infantry units, the others can be archers). These are your true garrison troops. I had 3 hordes attack me in Salona. They were sorry they did it. Station your archers on the walls. Start by shooting normal arrows at the guys in the towers. Once the towers got close, switch to flaming arrows. Don't worry about the rams -- your wall towers will destroy those (the beauty of stone walls!). Typically my archers will destroy all but 1 tower -- this must be a programmed feature, to give the AI a chance to invade your city. That's the spot your Bosphoran Infantry runs to guard. By the time the unit spills out of the tower, your archers have reduced it to a 1/4 of its original size, so your own infantry makes a short work out of them. Have your archers continue to shoot at the seige tower though. Mine typically burned it right after the unit in it spilled out on my wall. With just one unit -- greatly reduced by your archers -- it is easily contained and dealt with. Then the seige is over. With the enemy losing over 500 men, while you have lost less than a 100 archers.

9) Once you have built enough units, load an army and take Kydonia, Constantinople and Thessalonica. Once those are yours, the money rolls in. In fact, I couldn't build fast enough and I still was in the black almost every turn.

10) Well, people say that money corrupts. So true in RTW-BI. When you settled in Athens and Salonia, you, like me, probably would have ~ 80k. That money goes down over time, but it never came under 30k even after I filled in the construction queue. And after taking the other ERE towns I never came lower than that. The unfortunate part was that ALL my family members had such horrific anti-management traits that it was better not to use them as governors. So, what's their use?

11) They are your field army. Those guys just rule! I had 6 of them in a stack (I had only one that I used to convert new towns and gave that guy all possitive 'friends' from my other guys). With those 6 guys, I cleared the rest of the hordes. They were unstoppable. My faction leader, who lived to 78, had a bodiguard retinue of 47 people. I would take him and his heir towards the back of an enemy. My other guys will charge from the front, these two guys charged from the back. A charge in the back with 47 heavy knights is a hard thing to take. Very few enemies withstood more than 2 charges by those guys. Most broke and ran after the first charge.

That's pretty much it. Stay in the Balkans and get your 14 settlements. Then take an army and get your last objective accross the black sea.

[Robespierre]

the implication of unit size for horde nomads is a whopper.
with big units your disbanding will have a much bigger effect on happiness when settling down. and if you grab a metroplis like Constantinople for its high level tech, recruiting will help keep population growth in check.
as for my Sarmatians, we rule! but nearly all the family are over 50. doesn't this make them less likely to breed?
children are good

[Sebastian Seth]

I noticed the 2 extra family members when I started my first game with sarmatians. They come because theres minimum requirement of 4 family members when hording. I edited the minimum requirement to 2 and started again.

I build virgin cavarly and horded just before the huns came. The ERE general in charge of constantinopole whent for walk and I used whole horde to sack weakly defended constantinopole. After that I took macedonia as my new home and weakly defended athens as well. At this point I still had some of the horde and nice amount of cash so I hired all mercs I could find and took constantinopole from rebels. I allied myself with Sassanids and Goths.

I figured I have pretty good standing and started building up armies. This was propably mistake since 3 of my 4 faction generals got traits that reduce tax collecting and management (faction leader had 4 different ones), faction heir was dangerously mad and the last one had bad health (-6 hitpoints).

I noticed that tribus lazygens was still rebel and took all my merceneries and expentable units at the leadership of faction leader and 2nd oldest son there to take it. Took it only to find out that I was sieged by vandal horde in 2 turns. I managed to fight of the first attack they made but I was left with 5-10% of the man streight I came with and took a beating when the next attack came.

I was left with the faction leader "Rumo the Mad" and the 4th son that has -6 hitpoints. I whent for defensive mode and managed to get some chilren and one adoptee. Rumo the Mad was terrible governor but pretty good general, so I decided that its good time to take sarmatia back. I assempled nice force and whent there just to notice that its held by vandals. Took it out of em easy and noticed that the goths where going for tribus lazygens.

Huns are living in modern turkey, I have no clue where roxolani are, ERE is fortified to Sirlindumding, Salona is rebel, WRE is really strong but allied with me, barbarians are pretty harmonious, I think sassanids are going to take out ERE if the huns dont...

---

The virgin cavarly has nice charge and when they get 3 experience from start they are nice force. Bosborans are also key element in my tactics cause they can keep the comistaes occupied while cavarly kills other. I usually do charges with all my cavarly to the strong points of enemy in 2 waves; 1st the virgin cavarly then the generals + armored archers. The retreat the 1st wave trought the 2nd wave and then charge again with 1st and retreat 2nd and so on...

I also build church of pai to constantinopole and it seems to give out anchillaries that help with getting children. The sarmatian women of my family tree are having 3-4 babies per head at the moment.

---

I also noticed that my poor sarmatians dont have much of buildings and therefore getting rid of culture penaly is really hard. I normally destroy roman buildings I dont need but the roads, farms, imperial palace, harbors... Are there to stay...

[gardibolt]

Just for a different tack on the Sarmatians, I tried hording and heading north, away from the Vandals and Huns. I attacked Lombardy and Burgundy, making some nice cash and in the process sending them both west in horde mode against the Franks. My goal is to have them tie up the Franks and WRE while I head south again for some coastal territories to settle in, but it'll be interesting to see what throwing rocks into this hornet's nest will produce.