Got a difficult situation. I am trying to spread the yellow death to all corners of the world and have almost succeeded (only the Casse, Pahlava and some rebels are remaining). The Pahlava have been beaten back to one small town in the far north. I built up an army of HA to finish them off however upon besieging the town I found that right next to the town was an army of something like 10 family members (all of which had large, ultra-heavy bodyguards).

The problem that I had – how do you defeat an army like this? I do not think that I can access experienced/strong enough troops to take on an army of that nature. The tactic that I usually use against Satres and the like has been phalanx combat but the heavy horse will push through phalanxes even in head-on charges (plus there is the problem of cutting through the heavy armour). I tried assassination but this just ended up in the death of my assassins (including all the experienced ones). I could try hitting them with 2 or 3 armies at once but I don’t trust the AI not to do something stupid with the reserve armies. I have enough gold that I could bribe all the family members however diplomacy doesn’t seem to work (and I don’t want to use FD because I want to complete my conquest without cheating).

Any suggestions? I was thinking of recruiting full stack of elite Thracian infantry but don’t know how well they will go against heavy horse.