HA vs HA - tactical help required

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

The only solution I've found is to use foot archers in combination with your own HA, to increase your firepower at minimum cost. Get the enemy HA to start shooting off their ammo on your foot archer cannon fodder, before you send in your own HA.

And I still needed to have superior numbers to win.

[Ibrahim]

try getting subeshi archers-if mercenaries are available in sarmatia (I dunno-I play AS and they're everywhere on the frontier)

[Tiberius Nero]

Try disrupting the enemy HA lines with your heavy cavalry family members while your HA shoot at them, your heavy cavalry is unlikely to take much damage frontally from the arrows and if it takes any it doesn't matter after the battle, since it will replenish for free.

Also have your own HA in loose formation to minimize casualties.

[zooeyglass]

Also have your own HA in loose formation to minimize casualties.

I do, of course, use loose formation. i think between tiberius nero and dubius cato, there may be an answer....

of course, foot archer, HA and FM combo is ideal here, and remembering to use a loose formation and cycle targets to whittle down the enemy. disruption and fluid movement are also essential - i will persevere - thank you for your help.

[Dubius Cato]

I have the same experience with my Parthian campaign against the Saka. While I was able to win the battles, it was always pretty close, but they have simply many more units with their AI script, with my one or two cities I couldn't hope to match them. Foot archers are surely helping, but the Saka have always nobles in their armies, they are armored and they charge and kill my foot archers easily. Smart move.

My idea is to concentrate fire, but only for a short time. Do not try to kill the whole enemy unit before switching to a new target, but shoot at it until they have lost about 60% of its soldiers. Then go on to a new target. I use this tactic because I have the impression (might be wrong) that the more soldiers there are, ie the more density the unit has, the more of your own arrows will hit something, and the more are hit and die, the less arrows will come your way. The efficiency of your concentrated fire is higher with fully manned units, so to speak, you don't kill whole units faster or make them rout, but you kill individual enemy archers faster, protecting your own troops. After you have circled through the reachable units, you can go on and try to destroy or rout them totally.

[overweightninja]

My idea is to concentrate fire, but only for a short time. Do not try to kill the whole enemy unit before switching to a new target, but shoot at it until they have lost about 60% of its soldiers. Then go on to a new target. I use this tactic because I have the impression (might be wrong) that the more soldiers there are, ie the more density the unit has, the more of your own arrows will hit something, and the more are hit and die, the less arrows will come your way. The efficiency of your concentrated fire is higher with fully manned units, so to speak, you don't kill whole units faster or make them rout, but you kill individual enemy archers faster, protecting your own troops. After you have circled through the reachable units, you can go on and try to destroy or rout them totally.

I do the same, Saka are the bane of my early Pahlava campaign, seems to help me at least.
Cheers

[zooeyglass]

I do the same, Saka are the bane of my early Pahlava campaign, seems to help me at least.
Cheers

those saka FMs caused me trouble both as baktria and now as sauromatae - do they have no weakness??

[machinor]

As Baktria, my Anti-HA-Army-Army includes Persian Archer-Spearmen (cheap as hell, as archers ok and if HA charge them, they do quite a good job with their spears), Persian Archers (more range than HA AFAIK), HA (mostly Dahae) and General's Bodyguard. My HA advance and pepper the enemy with their arrows and lure them in range of my Persian Archers who do the main damage dealing. If the enemy HAs want to charge my arhcers, the Archer-Spearmen can break their charge fairly good (assumed they're not to heavily armoured); then the General's Bodyguard finish them off.
I haven't faced any armoured/heavy HAs so far, but I guess that a) Persian Archers outrange them and thus can lure them closer and b) Medium or Heavy Cavalry would do the trick against them, since heavy HAs should be slower and clumsier then standard HAs. However, this tactic is purely hypothetical since I never faced heavy HAs so far.

[pezhetairoi]

In my limited encounters with standard armies against HA and foot archer armies, I simply sent the entire army at a charge at the enemy to give them minimal time to fire and to close the range. Perhaps this is still the most suitable tactic. Perhaps even more effective for you, because when you chase them trying to close to melee, they are firing into your front while you are firing into their backs. And once you catch them (one HA caught will make the entire unit turn and fight), your heavy cavalry can break them. That, or a simple concentration of horse archers on the same unit in charge.

[Orda Khan]

Try to manoeuvre your own HA in a way that more than one of yours target only one of theirs. In other words, concentrate your arrows on one flank, while avoiding the other....and keep moving


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