sassanids infantery

the sassanids infantery have a BIG problem

you can only make their medium infantery in the home territory and their spearman are, well... they are just spearman!
All you can do is use the horses and archers and use the spearman to block the attack.

yesterday I encountered a roman army with very good cavalry and I nearly lost. Normally I crush their cavalry while my spearman hold the line by piling their own bodies and hold till I am able to attack the roman infantery in the back after returning from the chase of the fleeing roman cavalry.

The only way to conquer a city is to wait it out, forget about fighting on the walls. They could have added one decent infantery unit...

sugdhan infantry are not that bad- unfortunately they can only be recruited in certain cities.

you're using them wrong. The spearmen are for garisons and to protect the flanks. Your super heavy cavalry is what you deploy in close combat as the sassanids. In the end you should be relying on your cataphract style units in mass cavalry attack. If you want to play infantry use the germanic barbarians.

In siege deploy an army made up of sungdans and siege weapons.

Easier said than done Mithras.

I played Sass on VH/VH, and believe me, the only army that can hold up against ERE advanced armies is an all cav one. Just put in loads of clibs and Nomad Horse Archers and 1 ele unit. You pin the enemy's army with your arrows then charge it, and bang, it routs. The worse thing is in sieges as you've said. I remember waiting a couple of ticks to get some Sughidian Infantry to the front lines to assault. I only used them to take over the walls, then I open the gates and charge with my 16 cav unit, whatever is in their shall soon die.

Since the sugdhians are hard to get, and anything else gets creamed up on the walls, I used sappers for most sieges. Two or three different sapping positions ensure a good flanking attack in addition to the main break. That worked pretty well, especially if you can manage to get a sapping point underneath enemy units up on the walls. It feels like cheating with other factions, but sapping is one of the few ways to take a city without heavy losses as the Sassanids.

IIRC, sapping doesn't work on the largest walls, so I would try to flood the city with enough spies to open the gates. Anything to avoid going over the top of walls.... unless you happen to have enough sugdhians or mercenary heavy infantry to pull it off.

On the largest walls, use Heavy Onagers.

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

Easier said than done Mithras.
.

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But worth it.

I deployed an specialized siege army of sungs and onagers behind the main armies (comprising of the cavalry units). my main army would butcher the Romans on the field while the siege army systematicly picked of roman cities. Tricky to manage but effective. The only downside is the constant sung train flowing back and forth from the front line to replenish losses.

eh do you even need infantry 2 to 3 fam members can whipe out entire armies losing just a few men

Again not on VH..

eh i did that on veryhard...i beat every army i came across.

Ok.. 0-o

2-3 family member can beat any army?

even if they have 1 or 2 first cohortes? with same heavy cav units and their own general? I doubt it.

if you f.i. manage to attack a first chorte in the rear, it will keep you occupied so long that other units will attact you in the rear

I have changed tactics in the getting cities with the sassanids, I tried sapping or opening the gates but they fight also so poorly on the ground and my sassanids cavalry is stopped at the gates/breeches and during the fight the towers will inflict enough casualties to make them route.

First of all I use assassins to sabotage their keep people happy buildings (temple, sewers, etc) to make the city loose troops due to uprisings and after I siege them and wait it out.... often they come out (and are massacred)

:)

Sughdians will do quite well against romans with their armour piercing ability :) the sassanids spearmen are too poor morale wise for anything other than garrison duty.

They can be used as sappers or ram batterers.

Spearmen will always be useful against cav.

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Originally Posted by Wishazu

Sughdians will do quite well against romans with their armour piercing ability :) the sassanids spearmen are too poor morale wise for anything other than garrison duty.

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Wish.. The thing here is that it is on VH.. It takes 3 Sughs to take out 1 Plumb in VH!!

VH battles are pointless. The bonuses the AI get are just plain ridiculous. The sughdians should be good against the Romans if on Medium (all even, no bonuses to anyone).

Also, the spearman can be used to demoralise the enemy. They always get nervous if you have masses of men, even if they're rubbish.