sassanids infantery

this is my first time not playing the romans so I am used to having quite effective groundforces.

I am now playing the Sassanids and the only way I can win is using my cavalry (they are very effective for sassanids). Due to the weakness of my groundforces I have had to change the tactics of seizing cities (I wait wait long to attack the city to reduce the amount of men per unit).
My units get truly decimated by the walls defences and on the wall if they meet a heavy cohorte, they are truly without a chance. Yesterday I only just managed to conquer the walls with 4 units in the towers versus 43 heavy cohortes.

Is this going to get any better? Will I receive later on in the game better units? How the hell am I ever going to get on the wall if they for instanve have 2 or 3 full units of cohortes on the wall, or a first cohort??

Train Sughudian Warriors in Cetisphon. And move them straight to the front. They can match Roman Comitatenses.

I've found out the hard way Sughdians can shred Clibanarii on open ground (the rebel stacks that spawn in the Media-Atropatene region often include a few merc ones). Nasty fellows. As Sassanids can normally fight and win their open-field battles with cavalry just fine the Sughdians are pretty much their siege assault specialists. They take two turns to train and can only be trained in certain provinces though, namely those with "hidden_resource sughdian".

I just started a Sassanid game for the first time, and I'm running into exactly that problem on sieges against the ERE. It's the early game, and I haven't trained much beyond the basic units, plus whatever mercs I can afford. I'm getting killed on the initial wall assaults.

Is sapping a better option? I never tried that in my other games because I always had infantry that could handle fighting on the wall (or where the opposition wasn't as strong as the ERE... at least in the early game like this).

I'll have to try those Sughdian guys, but I don't have time right now to train them up and ship them west. I'm trying to do a quick breakout to the Med. Maybe sapping will work.

Those Sughidian Warriors are useless though on VH diff.. It takes 3 units to beat a Plumbtarii.. That's why I really find it boring to play on VH battle diff with horse based factions.

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Originally Posted by Zenicetus

I just started a Sassanid game for the first time, and I'm running into exactly that problem on sieges against the ERE. It's the early game, and I haven't trained much beyond the basic units, plus whatever mercs I can afford. I'm getting killed on the initial wall assaults.

Is sapping a better option? I never tried that in my other games because I always had infantry that could handle fighting on the wall (or where the opposition wasn't as strong as the ERE... at least in the early game like this).

I'll have to try those Sughdian guys, but I don't have time right now to train them up and ship them west. I'm trying to do a quick breakout to the Med. Maybe sapping will work.

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With horse based factions, sapping is far and away the best option against stone walls. get those Clibinarii in the streets stomping away..

I always sap whenever I can. Break down those walls, get the enemy infantry to come down to your level, and attack them while theyre disorganised.

maybe a stupid question.. but can the Sughidian Warriors zap? (i too have found them useless on the walls)


My Sassanids strategy: I first make 2 all cavalry armies who can preceed my siege army and can kill any ERE army wondering around the territory.

What usually happens is that a city will empty to create an army and the city garrison that will remain is apporimately 1/3 strength. I will attack that 2/3 army with my cavalry army (and decimated it without much losses, max 150). After that I will lay siege to the city with my siege army.
Covering the back of my siege army will be the cavalry armies. Either they will have no other armies near or will not attack me due to the concentrated strength. I will lay siege for quite a while and they will become so weak that even Sughidian Warriors can conquer the walls.

another tip after sacking a city as Sassanids:
Kill their religion and start the sassanids religion and destroy the Roman barracks. They are no use to you anyhow. You will see that if they riot (and they will) they will have NO strong infantery units (since they have no barracks :-) ), this way your Sughidian Warriors will also be some use to you in the field after they riot. They can only make peasants, archers and cavalry, and all those 3 are like candy to the great Sassanids cavalry. From this point on they will again create an army, leaving a garrison for 1/3 total strength and you can start over again.
And their rioting is an awesome way to make money and after destroying the barrack they are so easy to get back :-) You'll also notice your armies will be extremely experienced after a while, I have several single and double silver experience chevrons cavalry unit(now also with silver armor) in the all cavalry armies. They are now besides very mobile also very strong
With this strategy I have now taken the upperhand in the region and am slowly going from city to city making them mine and finding less and less armies of ERE to oppose me.

I forgot about sapping, because usually sapping costs me more men than I'm willing to lose.

The overall goal as a Sassanid army attacking a city is to get your Clibs/Cataphracts inside the walls. Once in, about the only thing that can stop them is a RTW-style Phalanx, and they don't exist in BI. Sapping works, as do onagers or other artillery. With those, you will be unstoppable.

An alternative I've used in my last Sassanid campaign was to recruit as many merc of the Roman front-line soldiers as I can (I forget their name). These guys are as tough as the best Roman soldiers, and I'll use them for tough sieges. If they start losing the wall-fight, I'll send in my clibs as fire-support, since their armor lets them shrug off most of the fire from the walls (at least the regular stone walls).

If you're interested in what I call an "exploit", you can turn on "fire at will" mode for your siege towers. On large/epic wall sizes, they fire gatling-style ballistae (this is a bug I think), which can clear a section of wall of any defenders in a very short timeframe. Even the arrows shot by regular stone wall siege towers are pretty effective. I don't use this because it's obvious this is a bug because there's no way that a single siege tower would be able to fire 30+ ballistae shots per minute with their tech. If they did, they'd use these in defensive towers (built into the walls), and/or in the field, and nothing else in the game has quite this kind of firepower.

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Originally Posted by hoof

I forgot about sapping, because usually sapping costs me more men than I'm willing to lose.

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I don't how you're sapping then, as it doesn't cost me anything at all. If anything, using Seige towers and ladders is far, far more dangerous. More spectacular of course, but too much of a risk, imo.

Sapping is safer and more effective.

To make sapping effective, you must build lots of sapping points. I'd say about 10 minimum. This way you have better chances to have at least one point in a place where it's out of the range of the wall towers and any archers that might be on the walls. You should also set the infantry unit to a very narrow formation before marching them to the sapping point. If they are in a wide formation they'll be more likely to take fire from towers/archers. You should sap as many sections of the wall as you can (safely). This will force the defenders to divide their units to guard every opening, while you can concentrate your attack on 1-2 holes and overwhelm them.

I have never sapped... but 10 points sounds like a LOT..

one would need 10 units that can sap, and would they all have losses as they dig?

10? I only ever build two or three..

You only need *one* unit that is capable to sap. It can take care of multiple points, one at a time. And the reason why you want to queue up lots of sapping points is because they are automatically placed on the battle map; you can't choose where to put them. When you build many of them, there's much better chances that at least some of the points will be well-placed.

I usually use mercs if I sap, mercs I hired only for that siege, so I don´t care much about their losses. I very often use mercs for sieges to spare my elite troops. As soon as there is a hole in the walls/the gate is open for me, I decide wether I need to use my regulars or wether the mercs can go on alone.

You don't care about their losses? They're darn expensive.

On saps. Sure, build as many as you like, but 2 or 3 is easily enough, and given the zone you're allowed to deploy in, one of them is usually well placed. I don't spend too much time sapping multiple sections, though. Just pick a spot, break it, then move in quickly with the Heavy Cav and Infantry.

Here's a better idea. Ignore any other armies and make a bee-line for the city. Then when one of the other armies attacks your besiegers and the garrison sally you can kill both in the field, removing any need for an assault. Remember, Master Tzu says assaults are the greatest waste of men and your last alterative.

I got toally massacred like that once... he had a full stack in the city AND came with 2 armies in my back.

being in a sandwich between 3 full armies is no fun being the sassanids, the infantry hardly can hold their line, so your archers route quickly... then only your cavalry can do something... but against 3 armies, especially heavy infantry.. they have a hard time..

Charge, rinse, repeat.

I can rip up a whole army like that using Sarmation Auxillia, with horse-acher support its deadly. You have to use manuver warfare and never let yourself get bogged down. You also have to be practive and ATTACK.

wigferth Ironwall.... dont you have that when you charge a unit, then withdraw your horses for another charge always a few (to many i think) horseman are killed?
They seem to be extremely vulnarable in the back (logical of course)

Not with Kats or Cibs, you need to rotate, so just before one pulls back another hits your target, use them in pairs.