Nomadic Factions Guide.

**USERMAATKA** · 08-10-2009, 16:38

Hello All,

Ive been playing EB since last christmass and have been folowing the forum since then, Only joined last week and this is my first post.

There have been several guides to nomadic factions that are essentially very good. I intend here to compare all three factions to give future players a heads up shoud they intend to tackle one of them in the furute. I tried pahlava as my intro to EB, form chritmass to march, suromatae till last week. Started saka for a week now and managed to siege persopolis by 267 and capture the mess to its north.

The pahlava and sauro were on 1.1 saka is on 1.2. Since saka is ongoing ill take as many screenshots as i can. Sauro and pahlava i can only show the aftermath of whats happened.

I am a bit busy im traveling next weekend so its a mess right now. Ill start the intro to nomadic factions tomorrow and start with one of em.

p.s thx to ibrahim for his cavalry guide.

regards

**USERMAATKA** · 08-11-2009, 16:13

Hello again,

Ill start with a comparison of the 3 factions.

Pahlava
Strategic advantages:
1. you can field excellent types of cavalry notably heavy cataphracts and heavily armored horse archers.
2. with reforms you can actually bild and maintain a good economy and advanced cities.
3. If needed you can field decent infantry.
4. you mainly have AS to worry about early in game (which is good) early on thyre weak in the east and make good target practice.
5. youre very close to alot of cash cows the silk road lots of mines and big cities u can sack.

disadvantages:
1. you limited to the southern caucases and the steppe for horse archer recruitment enough for victory conditions but not enough to expand westward without shiping horses all the way.
2. ur sanwiched between saka, AS, bakria and sometimes later in game sauromatae. with good diplomacy and a bit of luck ull have mainly AS to deal with.
3.ur broke and have low population levels but better than saka.

SAKA
Strategic advantages:
1. you can field monster cavalry units anywhere on map almost. meaning u can stick to ur horse tacktics all over the map.
2. again with reforms you can pump out infantry if u need them.
3.ur in a corner and no one initially is annoying u and ur safely far away from anyone.
4. oyu have a cluster of weak towns for the taking on ur doorstep.
5. lots of cash cows nearby to take in first 5 years or so.
6.

disadvantages.
1. ur going in the red quick
2. your nomadic and cant do much in cirty development like palava.
3. ur going to take a long while before u can relax and arent criticaly endangered of loosing ur armies wich r almost irreplacable and take forever to ship to front.

SAUROMATAE
advantages
1. u can field horse archer anywhere no heavy armoured on just medium but still excellent ur core armies will mainly be sarmation noble horse archers.
2. in my opinion the easiest u have absolutely no one annoying u and ur with reach of everyone almost and non of them can anoy u or will bother u early on. so u can take ur time!!
3.next door to u is hayasdan and the getai and the getai are excelent target practice not much armour and its raiding orgy in a few turns.

disadvantages.
1.you are going in the red when u start.
2. not much options in developing cities so economy will depend on expansion and capturing huge cities. which are a pain to hold on to. same as saka. pahlava have an advantage here.
3.ur a bit isolated which means u wont take of for a while and will have to be gamble heavily in the caucasus if u want to stand quickly.

sorry for the stupid intro.

Hopefully the images worked!

Tactical and strategic notes:

from the images ull c specially with pahlava my basic field army ideally is 1fm 16HA 2 Armoured HA or catafracts for a total of 19 units. This leaves one slot to hire infantry when sieging. its keeps the cost downcoz most mof the army is light cheap horse archer and the expensive units are at a minimum.

Keeping it horses only of coure means u can fly around causing havoc giving u tactical and startegic mobility over anyone else. and u dont have to keep sending them home to retrain or merge units coz u hardly have any loses.

However with teh sarmations and saka is seems ull be stuck with armoured nobles because light horse archer need nomadic settlement which arent every where. This is true for sauro im not sure for the saka yet.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER. your first 10 years or so. ULL have to aquire tons of patience tons. besieging a ful stack with 3 HA and having them sally out 5 times a turn is NORMAL. starving a city is normal. though in early game ull besiege superior forces and thyll sally wipe them out over several salies. wait for the times to run out. unrealistic? maybe i would argue u went back to get anouther arrow load form u pack horses.

Patience is a Nomad i read somwhere.

once ur up and running and have a full fild army moving then the pace will pick up and sallies will die in a go.
A few rules i use ealr on

1.Always always always fight in the open never get besieged. U c them coming leave the city of stip its garison and put ur HA in the wai they attack u u wear them out if thyre alive wait for the timer. u win repeat again. or leave the city and thyll take it then besiege it again.

2. the optimum target for ur army is a fat city. its they dont sally armies will come so u kill em gain experience and get a city. if they sally take the city and ur economy is up.

3. always find a target for ur HA never have them idle. even if is 2 and ur on the doorstep of italy or egypt got raid them. itll keep them busy and will stop themn form taking the initiative and counter attacking. if they do and ur forced to atack a fulstack besieging an important city ur scewed in terms of loses u could have avoided.
(excellent example of this is aniochea and the cluster of cities around it. i hit it form the east form edessa which i had built up as a recruitment centre. i took atiochea eliminatein 2 stack in the process they cam to help. sack it hiresomthing and keep it in keep a spare FM in seperate ur fild army in 2 one goes into anatolia raiding and one hits damascos sidon jerusalem. U can hold them u might capture a few leave them after u knock out MIC and retrain in edesa keep the on thyre toes untill ur holding is secure in atiochea).

4. welcome every battle u get more experience since u never loose any men. this will need ALOT of patience spending 3 days on one turn might happen!!

5. micromanage. put them on hold fire encirle and individually select target with backs towars u. assasinate generale/ cavalry and charge archers with ur FM ealry on so all thts left is infantry that ur specifically hitting in the back dont rush it let them run in circles getting tired chasing u when ur out of arrows u can isolate and charge em with 4 units always let ur FM lead the first charge and therefore sustain the loses. OR u can ait till time is up and redo.

I hope this intro was helpful if u need any clarification or I forgot somthing please do tell me.

ill start with the saka campaign somtime before the weekend coz its short and im at 264 or so.

regards.

**Skullheadhq** · 08-12-2009, 10:10

o thanks, I'm going to start a Sauromatae AAR in a week or so

**satalexton** · 08-12-2009, 11:04

Will you, skull, do what would make me proud?

Good guide, I'm a fan of the indo-greek units. Might play as Saka sometime....

**Andronikos** · 08-12-2009, 12:27

Can Saka build mines? They don't have them in building tree.
I am considering a Saka campaign too with an AAR but this may take ages to become reality.

**USERMAATKA** · 08-12-2009, 14:15

Ull love them. Im not sure u started yet but if u do grab a fm and a 2 or 3 ha and head for hayasdan. the rest for the crimean pininsula. will infenetely make life better.

Originally Posted by Andronikos

Can Saka build mines? They don't have them in building tree.
I am considering a Saka campaign too with an AAR but this may take ages to become reality.

Yep they can build mines. but from what i c so far the first level.
all my towns are small maybe ill have the option of building the bigger mine upgrade if the towns expand. though i doubt it.

**USERMAATKA** · 08-12-2009, 15:32

Hello again.

Now for the saka so far im not to far along so ill finish it in one go.

The saka start of in the north east corner with one city chiglu. U have a bit of money and 3 battle groups. one west next to gava saka (group1) another north of chach (Group2)
and finally anotherone south near sulek(group3) but a few turns away.
option1 disbanding is one way to get out of dept but it will be boring for a loooooong time and ur enemies will get stronger faster than u.

Option 2
as advised in other guides is expand. (and dont diband ANYTHING) AND SET ALL UR TAXES ON GROWTH!!!!!! it will help u on the loooong run when ur polulation is not 600 per town. how to get money conquer of course.

in ur capital u should have a fm and HA unit, you need them out and charging. so First spend ALL or ur money on 1 foot archer and the rest on HA. move ur horses out leave the capital uninhabited. Now u may choose to move the capitals horses to support the group outside sulek coz its the toughest. and this is the weakest battle group. or gamble and have them go to chach but west towrds gava saka then south to chach. (this is the best route coz the direct route south of sulek near gava hoamvarga whats its name. is guarded by too many rebels.

Youl say why spend ill say ull need them to take and hold the entire area south of u and you wont train any for a while.

Now group1 atack gava saka in the first turn ull have to do it by leaving the footarchers behind coz they run out of movement points. dump them in the next turn to garison gava saka.

move group2 toward chach take it sack it and move out of it southwardsto the other 2 towns. dont stop. next turn ull. have the foot archer garison in chiglu so move ur capital to chach. and nock the other 2 towns neat ot with souther battle group.

In the meanwhile move the easter group out of gava saka and move them south itll take a few turns. and by the time u have the chach trio of cities secured. group 3 should attack sulek. this will be a very tough fight. use ur fm to engave any horse archers in range block them at the entrance to the town and use the horse archers to shoot at anything specially the saka havy cavalry in there and keep ur horses out of arow shot. after that leave the fm in there for now and move ther horses south vea the path west of chiglu towards

THE whole emphasis of this part is speed and minimise loses in allll ur units except ur FM. its a pain to retrain. chach is the only available one provided it has people but since ull sack it that will be a while. move all the HA u train to chach the minute their ready leve nothin that has 4 legs north. in chiglu and sulek.

NOW phase 2 theres no pause between them by the way.

I had a candidate for adoption in chach so i left him in the city in the left of the trio and left the city on the right ungarisoned. group 2 continued towards Antiochea-margiane sack it thyll sally out. U should have some money hire a mercenary archer unit leave it in and move group2 towards pahlava!!!! (better kill them in the womb.

by the time u kill aniochea margiane. group1 from the west should have arived at baktra besiege it. When i did it they were all at kophen except one 3/4 stack which i killed. let them sally as much as they want in a turn. or kill the garison off if they r supported by an outside army.. So i took bakra hired mercenary archers kept an eye out south and moved group1 out of baktra towards kophen took that too so now bakria is out of the game.

In the same time as Kophen. Id engaged pahlava in nisa they were all out u c. i hired somthing put it in and moved towards khiva. and they died a turn after bakra.

Ull ask what about AS attacking me in the centre form the south. well as i expected pahlava was besieging asaak when i killed them off so that part was defended for me by them. and Group 3 the one freshly trained in the far north and the remnants of sulek. had arived they stopped AS attack form the southern direction.

and it attacked towards alexandria ariana. and group1 from kophen towards prophthasia.

LIKE so sorry dont have earlier pics!!

Sorry i do not have earlier pictures.

I was a bit lucky As was besieging alexandropolis east of prophthasia but failed to capture it so i didnt have to swing east. and i had 4 new FMs and they did horrible things to AS

Now Phase 3

At this point well rename the armies again. u should have a group in pahlava (group1 'north'). A group in alexanria- ariana (group 2 'centre') and one in prophthasia (group 3 'south'). each one should have 2 FM so use em as hammers and anvils. if not move the FMs towards them to join up but dont stop the momentum. actually ur not sopping till selukia.

Group 1 heads towards asaak then down the coast of teh caspian. group 2 towards apamaia then gabai. group 3 towards the town east of persepolis then persepolis itself

Like so! by the way now u have alot of money. and i still have all my taxes on growth build and im spending all my money on pop growth enhancing buildings.

so u keep moving west group 1 as ull c next will head for ekbatana then. group 2 for susa. what i did next was split group 2 and divide it equally between group 1 and 3 (when group 3 arives from persepolis). one covers susa and one takes phraaspa and protects pases west of ekbatana.

now this folowing image happened outside susa and pleas note this is group 2 is has not been retraianed since it arived from north from gava saka!!! group 1 did at nisa. make sure u micromanage use terain so here i parked on top of a mini hill made the phalanxes walk into that ravine sent my FM one begind them on the right and on on the left. all of them o hold fire. and the minute they turn towards generals behind them. u shoot in the back fomr abaove. if they turn back towards ur HA order HA to sieze fire and FM to open fire in their back. till ur out of arrows then kill em!! with charges.

the arrow marks where most died

and also note no loses in the HA groups. Only FM had loses which will be replaced.

NOw i held here at susa and ekbatana in teh next pix ur 2 battle groups should be were the blue X s are and hold until u can train infantry from susa at least. so u can garison the area without hiring expensive mercs.

when ur ready to move. move with the northern group and harrass them near arabela and went with group 2 in the south to selukia and babylon thll fall quicly . actually i conered the faction leader and the heir came to his help at seleukia so 2 of em and 1 phalanx unit. naturaly they died.

AT this point phase 3 is complete. and ull be swiming in cash. i am getting 12K a turn and after sacking all babylon selukia and arabela ended up with 55k and now im at 260 bc down to 7k. why. I spent allllllll the money on mines. and markets and anything else i developed phraasma as my nomad light HA training centre and ekbatana and selukia as the armoured noble HA training centres. so im still getting alot of money.

Pics tomorrow hopefully

What u do now is prepare for phase 4. raise an army in nisa armoured HA and knock out india. about 6 to 8 noble HA. take ur time. in the west i took 6HA 2FM and went to charax. And the rest were alllll in one group causing mayhem between edessa and karkiothokerta. capture them but dont hold them for now. just sack them and destroy the baracks. why u ask. because my nearest recruitment centre was nisa. and i needed to develop the towns i captured first.

Ill pst the pics as soon as i can.

In terms o politics ptolemaio offered me an alliance. and i sold my map info and trade right to anyone i met. for extra mony even pahlava before it died.

use ur spies well. have on like i do keeping an eye on the sarmations and 3 or 4 in the mess of mountains in the caucases. and since ur holding ur position for now blanket ur border with watch towers anyway.

regards .