S'aba tips and travails?

[Codyos Vladimiros]

Howdy all, I have just started a S'aba campaign and I'm wondering what I should expect, as it's the first time I've played this faction (my last campaign was Epieros, before that, the Seleucids, and before that, Pahlava, so it's not as if I'm new to EB).

What, for those who have played this faction, did they use successfully? What wasn't successful? What makes money? What doesn't? Where on the Arabian peninsula do I obtain ships to sail across to Ethiopia, or should I wait until the Ptolemies capture it and it revolts? ETC, and so on.

Thanks!

Codyos Vladimiros, formerly known as Justinian 42.

[Jorduan]

First and foremost - PATIENCE!!! - this is key for playing with Saby'n. It takes a long while to get up and running and competative in the theater of war.

You can train ships in the city to the south of the starting city...
Some extent of early debt is inevitable, as you will need an army to conquer this city.

One consideration, rather than focussing on expanding through the eastern half of the arabian peninsula - AND rather than expanding initially into Ethiopia - Is to capture the southern indian settlement... This can provide Indian units, which personally I feel are more capable than ethiopian units. Also, this territory is out of the greedy grasps of the Ptolemies, and the Baktrians will not reach this distance for a LONG time into the game.

Also, Bostra is an important target, as this provides you with faction troops, while the settlements around this largely do not.. And you will inevitably fall into conflict with Ptolemy, so to strike first here is a usefull option.

In terms of Battles - the Bodyguard infantry is fantastic.. Use them as often as possible and get their experience up to turn them into outstanding infantry... In order to achieve completion with Saby'n I had to resort to mass archer tactics for long periods of time. You simply dont have the units capable of fighting the Greek style armies in their own manner.. As you said you played as Parthia - you should be aware of fighting like a sneaky bastard!!! Be as sneaky and back-stabbing as possible...
Also - once you take the nile delta you will be blessed with mercenaries which are an absolute neccessity to conquer further.. Galatian Wild Men, Thessalonikan Cavalry, and Cretan Archers seriously improve your armies...


A couple of annoying things however, include the way that the generals occassionally get "Stuck" for turns.. and get lots of movement restrictions. Also, some marginal Ptolemaic settlements rebel and this can create a war before you are ready...

Either way . Good luck, and I hope that some of these points can help..

[Lovejoy]

I made the mistake to invade "africa" too early. At the start the invasion was a succes, but then the ptolemois came... They have toooons of heavy infanteri and there is no real way countering them without taking heavy losses.

What made things worse was that the ptolemoi sent a navy down the redsea killing every ship I build and blocking my ports(seriously, I waited for years, they refused to leave!!!). That way my army got stuck in africa without any reinforcements. All I could recruit was native units which are no good at killing heavies...

But I actually made it all the way to alexandria, but at that point my army was so depleted that when the ptolemois sent reinforcements I had no way countering them.

I gave up.

[Ricardo the Patriot]

Saba is probably the faction I have had the most fun with in EB, mostly because the enemy factions you will encounter first have much better troops and recources than you. When I played, I first captured the 3 cities closest to my capital. In 1.1, unlike previous versions, you actually have an okay economy becuase your capital already has a mine built. I also allied with the Ptolomies early, because while they will attack you pretty much as soon as you share a border, an alliance seems to discourage naval invasions (with BI).

I then moved on to Africa after building a ship in the city south of the capitol. This was probably a mistake, because expanding east would have been safer, but the challange my decision provided was great. Almost the turn after I took Meroe, the treacherous inbred prolemies attacked the city. Sallying each turn helps alot when defending against Ptolemain attacks, as long as you have slingers.

The trick with winning against the Egyptians is to keep them on the defense. They were fileding elite units by the time I wound up in africa, so fighting them on equal grounds usually goes badly. The trick is that, as long as the Egyptians are at war with the Selecids, they tend to leave their southern cities lightly guarded. As long as you avoid roaming armies, you can usually send a few units to attack a city and take it before reenforcemnts arive. Extermination plus destructions (useless buildings and "wonders") will make you a lot of money, and with the cash you can build mines in Carna and Meroe, both of which have "1200" mines and will give you plenty of room to create a goodsized army.

I often sacked cities multiple times before taking them for good. The trick is to be attacked before they rebel, as this tends to tie up reenforcements and prevents "rebel army" creation. I liked to leave sacked cities in control of a weak depleted unit, and take the rest of my raiding party to the next city. Using this tactic, you can keep the Ptolemies tied up taking back their cities long enough to build infrastructure and train more guys in your home land.

The hard part is keeping Prolemain cities under your control (ie not revolting). I recommend sending high influence generals to these cities and moving your capital to africa. While I harassed southern egypt, I send a massive armyby ship to Alexandria, which was also thinly garrisoned, and soon was in control of Egypt and on my way to training heavier troops.

One thing to keep in mind is the large distances between cities in Arabia and southern egypt. This will be helpful in allowing you to takecities beofre reenformencts can arrive, but they will also tire out youtgenerals very fast. Strangley enough, tiring (w/ movement restrictions) also applies to boats, it took me almost a year and a half to sail from southern arabia to alexandria.

Also, if the Ptolemies do attack your homeland with a large army (which they did to me), your best bet is to get your city to rebel back to you. Using spies and destruction of mood-helping buildings before attack, I had Carna revolt back to me in no time. I used the ridiculously expensive rebel army mostly composed of experience 5 arabian skirmisher cavalry (who rock my socks) to take down the enemy army (somposed of elite phalanx andheavy infantry) easily, then disanded most of them to save my treasury.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun with all this, and if it appeals to you, good luck.