Nomad Buildings

[Nobo]

Hey guys! I just started a campaign as Baktria and after conquering my first village, I found some buildings I've never seen before: "Warlord's Camp", "Warlord's Court" and "Small Nomadic Settlement". The building descriptions were interesting (as always), but didn't mention any effects. I was just wondering what purpose those buildings served and whether I could demolish them....

[johnhughthom]

Pahlava, Saka and Sauromatae use those lines of buildings to provide units and so on. No benefit for Baktria so demolish and get the money.

[Nobo]

thanks for the quick answer.... I guess it's about time I try out one of those factions

[Grriffon]

thanks for the quick answer.... I guess it's about time I try out one of those factions

Nomadic factions that are prevalently horse archer based armies are both very fun, and very challenging.

If elephants are ancient day tanks, horse archers would have to be the fighter jets. Their strength lies in being so maneuverable. They can easily outrun any infantry while raining arrows and this leads to always being able to shoot an enemy in their most vulnerable area. However, since they are such a powerful unit, you will likely always be engaging very numerically superior forces, so expect to either be getting a lot of heroic victories or else be in big trouble. All in all, the nomad factions are really a blast to play.

[Nobo]

I just found out the hard way that horse archers are a pain to fight against... wouldn't mind being on the other side of that bow the next time

[Kromulan]

Fortunately, I found out long ago what a pain horse archers can be. . .
So, my first encounter with them in EB wasn't exactly a shocker. It still stung a bit to watch my Drapanai get MASSACRED while I was maneuvering to smash the HA's. . .

I'd say 95% of my "heroic" victories in EB have come in the ~2% of battles I've played as nomad factions. You're always outnumbered and the AI has no idea how to deal with HA, so you wind up crushing "superior" enemies without taking any losses of your own.

[Nobo]

got any tips on how to best deal with HA's? Right now I just counter them with horsearchers of my own, but it's not working out all that well

[Chris1959]

Scorpions & Testudo:beam:

[Kromulan]

Pretty much the only good way to deal with HA is to outrange them with archers of your own. . . unfortunately for you, the Saka HA outrange any of your native missile troops, which means you need to badly outnumber them, which shouldn't be too hard. Also, watch the terrain - make sure your missile troops are at a higher elevation than theirs.
Lots of persian archer-spearmen will wipe out their lower-level HA (with casualties to you, of course).
Their nobles and generals . . . good luck. Those are extremely tough SOB's. Early Baktrian armies will have to count on AI stupidity. Lure them into melee vs some cheap spears and charge them repeatedly with your generals (or other heavy cav). Mob them with cheap spearmen or any infantry with AP weapons.
Tough fights, but fun.

[Dutchhoplite]

I would almost say: don't fight them in the open ;) Attack their cities and keep pressing them.

Besides that: i often try to fight from the defensive. It's better to let them walk into a rain of arrows than the other way around :)

In my Bactrian campaign i'm fighting the Saka with a mix of pike, foot archers and slingers, it works pretty well.

[Grriffon]

Also, try to have an arrow-catcher in your armies. That is, someone who has very high armor and shield values who you can send out first in front of your army to hopefully absorb most of the arrows without casualties while the rest of your army is safe and hopefully attacking the horse archers.

But yeah, fighting them in the open is truly hard. Horse archers are awesome.

[Nobo]

Thanks, I will definately try some of these tips...

I started a short saka campaign and I have to say that I was utterly crushed. Mostly by debt, but I also found out that life as a nomad really isn't right for me, hehe. I think will stick with the more settled factions....