Question for expirenced nomad faction players

[stupac]

When I use horse archers I use the steppe riders, and if I have acces the arosi riders. These are the horse archers which also have a lance that can get a pretty decent charge going. What I do is I charge say a phalanx unit from the back with one unit of my steppe riders, and when the phalanx unit turns around to meet the threat I unleash about 4 units to its back. The phalanx instantly breaks even the elite phalanx units. I dont use the horse archers which have a little dagger for melee the steppe riders when charging in numbers say 3 units and up break anything.

True, the riders have way better melee, but often the standard HA have way more arrows, so I still keep them around. For some reason the AI also seems to target my heavier calvary, and my standard, unarmored HA's make it out unscathed by missiles. I think in my Sauromatae campaign I had half a stack of standard HA's with gold chevrons towards the end.

These tips were very well thought out and I'm sure I'll have a blast with my new Saka campaign. Thanks again. Oh and one more thing Stupac. You get a for being such a big help. You earned it dude.

Hurrah, my first balloon. Because I'm super long winded once I get to thinking. Gracias.

[fenix3279]

^
No problem

Many of you seem to know a pretty good deal about these ancient nomadic cultures. I had a question I wanted to ask to all of you. Out of all the nomadic factions, which would you say were the most feared, infamous, or influential to the world? I heard many amazing things about the Skythians and how there military prowess bought them great riches. I heard a Pharoah once paid them tribute to keep them out of his lands. I'm also curious about the Parthians. It was said their composite bows were powerful enough to penetrate the hardy Roman scutum. I believe it was Tacitus who once spoke of them as being ghost and nigh impossible to catch. Even in the testudo formation, the Romans found no shelter from the deadly Parthian arrows as they soon became "nailed" to their own shields. I was also interested in the Sarmatians and Saka. I admit, I always though that Saka was just another Scythian tribe. Not an entirely different faction like in EB. If you know of any good sites about this sort of thing, feel free to bring them up. Voice your opinions too, if you want. I love learning more about ancient cultures so this is all cool to me.

[Ibrahim]

^
No problem

Many of you seem to know a pretty good deal about these ancient nomadic cultures. I had a question I wanted to ask to all of you. Out of all the nomadic factions, which would you say were the most feared, infamous, or influential to the world? I heard many amazing things about the Skythians and how there military prowess bought them great riches. I heard a Pharoah once paid them tribute to keep them out of his lands. I'm also curious about the Parthians. It was said their composite bows were powerful enough to penetrate the hardy Roman scutum. I believe it was Tacitus who once spoke of them as being ghost and nigh impossible to catch. Even in the testudo formation, the Romans found no shelter from the deadly Parthian arrows as they soon became "nailed" to their own shields. I was also interested in the Sarmatians and Saka. I admit, I always though that Saka was just another Scythian tribe. Not an entirely different faction like in EB. If you know of any good sites about this sort of thing, feel free to bring them up. Voice your opinions too, if you want. I love learning more about ancient cultures so this is all cool to me.

the most feared nomad faction is not in EB.. (try ibfd)
but EB wise, pick pahlava, they ended up with a long lasting empire(if you call ~300 years long for a state)-they also wooped the AS and took most of their lands..

[Parallel Pain]

True, the riders have way better melee, but often the standard HA have way more arrows, so I still keep them around. For some reason the AI also seems to target my heavier calvary, and my standard, unarmored HA's make it out unscathed by missiles. I think in my Sauromatae campaign I had half a stack of standard HA's with gold chevrons towards the end.

If I read the unit recruitment correctly both HA and riders have 40 shots.

Personally in my Saka Rauka campaign I found the charge more important during offensive battle and any battle on flat ground. Without elevation advantage arrows don't do much to the massive amounts of armored/elite phalanx the seleucids and ptolemy put on the field.

[stupac]

If I read the unit recruitment correctly both HA and riders have 40 shots.

Personally in my Saka Rauka campaign I found the charge more important during offensive battle and any battle on flat ground. Without elevation advantage arrows don't do much to the massive amounts of armored/elite phalanx the seleucids and ptolemy put on the field.

You are correct, hmm. Strange, I always seemed to run out of ammo with the riders and nobles before the standard HA's. Maybe it's my imagination, but I could swear they had more ammo. Ah well, I stand corrected, Parallel. I still find archery to be extremely effective (at least on medium difficulty on huge unit size) against lighter phalanxes and light infantry, which is usually extremely numerous early in the game. You are right, against armored units, arrows are next to worthless, still firing into their backs you can get a few casualties and more importantly, demoralize them.

[Midnj]

If they have archers either try to draw their archers out with a cheap horse archer unit enough to hit them with a multi-direction charge (you can only draw them out a bit.. but enough to create separation from regular troops so you can do this).

Alternately just send your fast cav in to charge/feint repeatedly so that the archers are never really firing, just skirmishing back and forth... then bring all your horse archers into range (a semi-circle around the enemy army works very well) ... their formation will start to break out and you will have isolated units going in all directions to hit with cav charges from multiple directions.. pretty much any levy or regular unit in EB will break when hit by a proper cav charge from two directions at once (and the cav has a decent charge rating) and you will do good damage on elites even if they may not break right away.

I generally find armies made up entirely of horse archers to be inferior to mixed cav armies of maybe 2/3rds horse archers and 1/3rd shock cavalry. With the latter you can actually kill the enemy army to the last man if the strategic situation calls for it (eg enemy is sieging your city, or is getting close to one) whereas with a total horse archer army you are relying on attrition only over a long period of time.

[Korlon]

I find it quite nice to just have about 1/4 or 1/3 extremely heavily armored horse archers with xyston secondary. Then the rest as many lancer horse archers as possible with a couple of those knife horse archers for the rest. If you're playing on regular RomeTW.exe, just stick the heavily armored in the front. The enemy will pretty much just target them with arrows and lead bullets.

Generally, no town of mine is garrisoned with horse archers. Horse archers are valuable for my main army. Usually spearmen and regular archers will be in those towns. If a town of horse archers was really besieged, just sally and hit them with arrows. If I remember right, even if you quit, it would just be considered a draw and you can do the same thing the next turn. But the cataphract horse archers would nicely take care of the the rest of the army just fine after you've expended all your arrows. Use the poorly armored lancer horse archers if necesssary. You won't get many casualties.

You hardly ever see large stacks of soldiers moving around in the eastern part of the map. Biggest stack that ever besieged me on my Pahlava campaign in 1.0 was probably around six units.

[Parallel Pain]

In my Saka campaign I have "regiments" of 3 riders and 1 armoredHA commanded by one family member. These regiments of all cavalry dot the map. 1 regiment is used to take out any rebel that appear. 2 is an army capable of taken on almost all AI armies, and when absolutely necessary I throw 4 together.

Saves money and saves time (all cavalry).
Also in early gain spys are a must. They warn you what attack's coming where so you can shift forces to match, allowing you to cover a wide front with minimum troops. I covered 4 border province with two regiments at my most outstretched times.

[Korlon]

Right, spies are very important, especially with cavalry only armies. With the weak garrisons of the eastern towns, you can usually make a town revolt with three spies or at least make it so that the gate opens 100% of the time allowing for easy sieges from horse archers.