well, yesterday, i gave a second try to the pahlav, i read somewhere that 0.81 will not be savegame compatible... but i was so tempted that tryied a campaign on VH/VH.
the first surprise is that i had the "late bodyguard" with my second generation of family members (is that a feature?), and with my immense pleasure that bodyguard are simply fantastic.
well they were so fantastic that i tryied a different strategy, why dont disband all my army and fight only with family members?
so i started, all went well, i defeated the first small rebels with no proble, im used to this cavalry and i had no problem to charge (and again the charge seems to work much better with this new incarnation 0.8)
after i begun to defeat seleucid armies in the same manner, i faced the enemy units one after another, trying to separate them, seeding the caos...
well this was easy in 1.2, but is hard in 1.5, cause the AI i admit seems to be more coesive in this new build, and the AI units are harder to separate...
i conquered 2 towns, A-Margiane and Asaak, (I used 1 unit of eranshar artsabara mercenary to build the rams) and that was no problem
It was a great fun, a too much great fun. I was STARTING TO THINK that i could have been able to CONQUER THE WHOLE WORLD WITH JUST 5 (FIVE) FAMILY MEMBER.
and that was even more real, when i defeated an almost full stack of seleucids (all nizagund, pantodapoi, and pantodapoi phalangitai) with that 5 family member.
but then...
.
.
.
I was sieged in Asaak. And all my 5 family member where trapped in that town...
the seleucid army was an almost full-stack (i think about 15-16 units), all basic except a family member general (hetaroi) + 1 mad asabara + 3 phalangitai + 1horse-archer (i think it was a merc, cause it was a scitian one, and seleucid can train only pahlava shivatir from what i recall...)
but this time somethink went bad...
I sally out, and with my usually 5 generals (1 pontic + 4 late bodyguards) i tryied to catch the enemy family member hetaroi, i didn't succes, cause he always flee behind his spearmen (I started to think i was fighting against an human player!), but i dont know how, after a lot of tryout, i succeded to destroy him (it was very difficult cause hetaroi have also the "effective against armour" bonus like my bodyguards, and he was helped by that unit of mad asabara, and scytian h-archer.
anyway i destroyed him and the mad asabara, and the h-archers (who after have finished their ammo charged against my generals and died)
So i thought i was going to win, cause i had only to destroy the remaining army...
I destroyed all the pantodapoi, all that jewish spearmen... but when i charged against on unit of them i lost my king... he charged in a different direction, and when i saw that he was in the completely wrong way it was too late...
so i withdraw...
the next turn i sally out again, this time it should have been easier i thought, there were not cavalry anymore, and i was winning but...
I lasted for the end that 3 phalangitai units, i sayd ok i won, just 3 unit again... (i destroied all the remaining basic infantry enemy units)
but for some reason i forget to make to rest a bit my 4 remaining family member, so they were exhausted, and their charge was almost useless, i lost 3 of them...
well draw again...
but this time there was not a draw, was a CLOSE-DEFEAT...
and i forgot to say that my 5 original family member were ALL MY FAMILY MEMBER...
so ASAK was lost, and even the last family member died...
and then:
well, that late bodyguards were too good, just too good, as i sayd, they were so much good that i was starting to think i could have conquered the world with just 5 family member...
what a foul...
