What makes playing Saka the hardest faction in the game?

[Spartan498]

Title says it all. I'm think im starting a Saka campaign because I want to use the faction that has the best horse archers but was curious why everyone says they're so hard. The unit roster shows a good bit of diversity comparably to the Sarmatians which people are saying is easier to play. Opinions welcome.

[polehammer]

In my opinion Saba and Sauromatae are significantly harder than Saka. Saka has hard start (you must be very cautious with Pahlava!) but after that you are able to take any army with a half stack of Saka cavalry.

Sauromatae also have HAs but have no money (and no real possibility of making real money).
Saba has money but rather weak infantry and must fight on two fronts with AS and Ptolemaioi full stacks of elite phalanxes.

[Duguntz]

i'm speaking honestly when i say that... i really don't know! i played a Saka campain, and it really wasn't the hardest i played! if you rush to take the two rebel setelement, then built a bit your economy while with your remaining armies and your fm's regrouped together you go rampage on the eastern AS province, you're good... it's not blitzing, it's pillaging fast a couple of settelement! the exact translation of : nomad warfare!

[Macilrille]

I believe the hardest faction is the Haysdan. Hardest I have undertaken in any case.

[anubis88]

And if you want the faction with the best Horse archers then your choice must be the Pahlava. They are stronger than any other faction in that part. They have all kinds of HA

[Cute Wolf]

Sauro is definitely "Much" easier than Saka, because they usually expands westward, and facing largely less or unarmoured Sweboz as their chief source of wars... compare than with Saka who face countless Pezhetairoi and Argyraspidai spam, and typically better armoured army...

Yeah, with Saka, you need to properly micromanage your HA to get best effectiveness, but with Sauro, all was too repeatable.... attack gawjam X, let them foolishly run toward you and you decimate them, close in for mop up the higher tier (and better morale) foes, and you won.... I have completed them both (and with Saka, I was archieve world domination... har - har - har....), and I must say, with Sauro, I had built a lot of pile of skull using Sweboz, Aedui, Avernii, and Romans..... the first three was a largely unarmoured levies....

BTW: Saka reform will save your ass.... Hoplitai Hellenikoi FTW, and you'll made the best mix of army at the world!!!

[vartan]

I believe the hardest faction is the Haysdan. Hardest I have undertaken in any case.

I'm going to have to agree with Macilrille. Most of my time playing EB has been as the Hai. The reason it's so hard to play as the Hai, more the case in MP than in SP, is the fact that we Hai have what I like to call "The Worst Units in the History of Mankind." As Usher would say himself, the Hai "got it bad."

EDIT: Saba may actually be the worst in MP; I forgot to mention this!

[Julianus]

I always think leading a HA army and shooting down all those tin cans must be cool.
But after giving the nomads several tries I find that I just don't have what it takes to command those damn HAs...
Especially when fighting another HA-based army all those ponies run wild across the whole battle map, I just cannot grasp what the hell is going on...

[Tombles]

Sauro is definitely "Much" easier than Saka, because they usually expands westward, and facing largely less or unarmoured Sweboz as their chief source of wars... compare than with Saka who face countless Pezhetairoi and Argyraspidai spam, and typically better armoured army...

I've played two Sauro campaigns (they were my first EB faction, in fact), and neither time has my expansion been primarily westward. Both times I was attacked quickly by the Pahlava, which of course drew me eastward and toward the teeth of the AS. You simply don't have the money early on as the Sauromatae to have much of an army, making beating back the other nomads, and then the phalanxes of the Arche... difficult. Thankfully, Sauromatae bodyguards are gods until their neighbours get their own super-heavy cavalry, and pick up chevrons incredibly fast.

[Cute Wolf]

I've played two Sauro campaigns (they were my first EB faction, in fact), and neither time has my expansion been primarily westward. Both times I was attacked quickly by the Pahlava, which of course drew me eastward and toward the teeth of the AS. You simply don't have the money early on as the Sauromatae to have much of an army, making beating back the other nomads, and then the phalanxes of the Arche... difficult. Thankfully, Sauromatae bodyguards are gods until their neighbours get their own super-heavy cavalry, and pick up chevrons incredibly fast.

So we have a really different approach then, almost everytime I play Sauro, I always pick for the weak first... never try to share a border with my fellow nomads (so they won't attack me), and with no money to be found, I kill those smelly nude barbarians with my arrows... and plunder their allready poor cities... by the way, when you own entire baltic (easily, your enemies had no real counter for HA's and your BG's), you'll start to made some money to spent on Voinos and more HA... after that, just keep enough garrison at the east, and march west, made the Barbarians arrow cushions! - Turn to the east once you got really rich and big...

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

When I played Sauro's a while back, the Saka attacked me about 25 turns in. They completely blitzed the steppe and I was up against armies chock full of HA's and those lancers. Fortunately Sauro BG's are god and I minimalized my losses by sending them in front to absorb arrows

[gamegeek2]

I'm going to have to agree with Macilrille. Most of my time playing EB has been as the Hai. The reason it's so hard to play as the Hai, more the case in MP than in SP, is the fact that we Hai have what I like to call "The Worst Units in the History of Mankind." As Usher would say himself, the Hai "got it bad."

EDIT: Saba may actually be the worst in MP; I forgot to mention this!

Their infantry are rather sub-par for the most part, but they have strong, capable horsemen. I could put up a fight with them, if it were possible to reinstall EB on my comp (can't fix the directx problem, no matter what I try)

[A Very Super Market]

The Saka are hard because there is seriously nothing of use in your immediate vicinity. You need to capture some far-away cities and sack them to sustain your economy, unless you feel like disbanding all your good units and making 10 mnai a turn selling goats.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

Saka have it relatively easy with regards to their military (early horsemen eat infantry for breakfast and can usually digest most other horsemen, late infantry just plain kick arse) but they have a horrible money situation. Sauros have a money problem too, but there is enough easy prey around to make up for it eventually. Sort of.
Hayasdan has an annoying position but they have better access to major bread-winners (Babylon, Pontic areas) and they also have horse archers.
Saba is the worst though. Their specialty is skirmishers and light troops (oh boy, that'll go far) and they get to be playmates with both of the regional superpowers (AS, PM) or just one ultra-powerful superpower, depending on how the game goes.

[artaxerxes]

For me, it is usually the money situation that can make me give up a campaign early. Playing as Carthage or Macedon, fx, came as a relief after trying to master the AS, Saka or Pahlava economies. Nothing can kill a campaign easier than being dead in the water with no income and no army to change the situation. Saka are worse than other factions with money-problems (AS fx aren't exactly poor, they just have so many fronts to invest in) because they have no money-making heartland of any value whatsoever

unless you feel like disbanding all your good units and making 10 mnai a turn selling goats.

that is so unbelievably funny, I actually fell out of my chair laughing :D

[Tuuvi]

I'm currently in the middle of a Saka campaign and I agree that the hardest thing about playing them is the lack of a good economy. What I did to overcome this problem was build pastoralism whenever possible. By carefully budgeting your money and saving up for caravans, markets, farms, roads and Druvaspa religious buildings you can slowly build a decent income. The only problem with pastoralism is you will not be able to recruit your basic HA's, but you will be able to build walls and recruit foot archers and saka spearmen, which make it easier to defend your settlements.

[athanaric]

I'm going to have to agree with Macilrille. Most of my time playing EB has been as the Hai. The reason it's so hard to play as the Hai, more the case in MP than in SP, is the fact that we Hai have what I like to call "The Worst Units in the History of Mankind." As Usher would say himself, the Hai "got it bad."

Hai units are good; they are just very expensive compared to others. Infantry is versatile, but costlier and more restricted by AoR than Roman and Greek infantry; cavalry is strong but a lot more expensive than Parthian or Nomad cavalry.

I'm currently in the middle of a Saka campaign and I agree that the hardest thing about playing them is the lack of a good economy. What I did to overcome this problem was build pastoralism whenever possible. By carefully budgeting your money and saving up for caravans, markets, farms, roads and Druvaspa religious buildings you can slowly build a decent income. The only problem with pastoralism is you will not be able to recruit your basic HA's, but you will be able to build walls and recruit foot archers and saka spearmen, which make it easier to defend your settlements.

Exactly. You have to decide between greed and cavalry unit availability, and with me, greed comes out on top. That's the main difficulty I see, actually (apart from massive unrest due to cultural penalty - hopefully EB II will provide more options for Saka (as in eventually becoming more civilized with a better build tree).

[Tombles]

Interestingly, although Saka units generally have a higher range than Pahlava or Sauromatae, they also have fewer missiles- 30, rather than the usual 40 for steppe cavalry. The only Saka factional unit with 40 missiles is their basic horse archer, which sacrifices its ranged advantage over the other steppe factions in order to carry more missiles. This puts the Saka at a disadvantage in fighting Seleukid phalanx spam, and arguably in shootouts with the other steppe factions.

[Dram]

That is interesting... though as I'm in the middle of a Saka campaign I wish I hadnt read that!

My 2 cents about Saka - It's important when playing a Nomad faction to forget about holding territories. Dont get too attached to anything. There are nomand regions as far as Dacia in which you can quickly set up a nomadic government and train horse archers. By all means you should defend towns with mines or good trading ports, but dont be afraid to leave them behind eventually if theres somewhere better to go to.

The Seleukid east is very poorly defended and full of unarmoured pantopadoi units. You can easily storm through every town (esp the ones without walls!) enslaving everyone. After killing everyone you only have to leave a single cheap unit in town to keep order. You can usually just recruit a persian archer from the merc pool. Then you can move on to the next town!

Run a full cavalry army. If the town has walls just attack them with less troops than they have - they will sally forth to attack you, allowing you to kill them without needing to siege. Even if you cant hold a town due to large amounts of nearby enemies, take it and kill everyone and destroy all their buildings then leave. You can make a lot this way. I got about 26000 all up destroying the town, people and the wonder in Media.

Once you have eneough towns you'll have eneough income to stay out of debt without ever investing in the economies. That can come later!

Anyway in my current campaign I split in 3 directions with my starting armies and got as far as Media and Alexandropolis then had to turn back due to the Baktrians following in my wake to snatch my poorly defended towns away from me. This allowed the Seleukids to re-capture some of their towns but now that I've got the Baktrians pushed back I'll soon be able to turn back to raiding the Seleuckids.

I'm hoping to eventually migrate all the way to Dacia, keeping a 'Sphere of towns' under my control temporarily as I make my way there.

[Hannibal Khan the Great]

You could be the non-Altaic Huns! And if AI wasn't so berserk Pahlava could be a client state in Baktria and India representing the Hephthalites.

[seriousbusiness]

The Saka, Pontos and Hayasdan factions are all very difficult.

It comes down to having such a dodgy economy. Once you defeat your immediate, threatening enemies, your #1 priority must be fixing your long-term economy. Absorbing mining provinces is the single best way of doing that, I've found.

[WinsingtonIII]

The Saka, Pontos and Hayasdan factions are all very difficult.

It comes down to having such a dodgy economy. Once you defeat your immediate, threatening enemies, your #1 priority must be fixing your long-term economy. Absorbing mining provinces is the single best way of doing that, I've found.

There's a big difference between the economic issues of Pontos, Saka, and Hayasdan though. For Pontos and Hayasdan, the economy is really only difficult in the early game. As you said, mines are a great way of improving it, but when you come down to it, they are both settled, "civilized" factions, and so they can build up decent economies given the time. With the Saka, since you are a nomadic faction, your economy will most likely always be weaker than you would like, it's much harder to build a stable economy as a nomadic faction, even as you get further into the game.

[satalexton]

The Sakae economy, though not as versatile as the Parthians, can stabilize pretty well by initiating the Indo-Hellenic Reforms. The Indo-hellenic troops have the best infantry stats in the east, and a fair amount of which can be recruited anywhere in the Hellenic world. Reaching west bound to sack Barbaropolis is not a dream for the Sakae player at all.

[Badass Buddha]

The Saka are difficult in the very beginning when you are making no money and have to fight horse archer armies that outnumber you. Capture the closest towns quickly with the three separate armies you work with (the army near Gava-Saka, the army near Chach, and the army in your capital that I unite with the units near Sulek.) Quickly capture the aforementioned cities and then capture Alexandreia-Eschate, Gava-Alanna, Marakanda, and Gava-Mazskata, making them all pastoral settlements. If you can do this, then the rest is cake. Use your FMs; like all eastern bodyguards, they are unholy juggernauts of annihilation. I united them all into a single army, and had killed Baktria and Pahlava by 260. After that, just start chipping away at Seleukeia. I find in general if you leave the Sauromatae alone they'll leave you alone. When you feel like you're strong enough, capture Gava-Haomavarga (It has a massive army of excellent foot archers, horse archers, and heavy cavalry, and in my experience is always an epic battle) and the three Indian cities (Even if you have Saka Hoplites by then, which you should, forgo an assault and use your family members. You'll be outnumbered, the enemy will sally, and you can shoot them up. For the elephants, use skirmisher cavalry). Again, I cannot stress how useful FMs are. With a few chevrons, nothing can stand against them.

[satalexton]

I actually semi miss the previous versions, where Baktra gets more initial settlements. It makes the early game that much more epicwin.

[Cute Wolf]

yeah, Playing Saka = unless you FD Baktra to become your client kingdom.... that will be always for early Baktrian eradication, but the opposite is not true (Pahlava Often moves further west in Seleukid land)

[Rahl]

After playing mostly Hellenic or Barbarian factions i decided to start a Saka game two weeks ago. I am now between the 80th and 100th turn and the economy was never a great problem. I conquered this one settlement in the first turn near the faction leader and disbanded all but one unit. I also disbanded the two HA units in the mainland (one in Capital, one near the southern border). In the second turn i conquered Chach and disbanded this army as well. Then i conquered Alexandreia-Eschate, Marakanda and Antiocheia-Margaine only with my FMs leaving most towns without any garrison. That was very unusual and new for me but it worked quite well. In Antiocheia-Margaine i destroyed everything what i could and gave it to Baktria. I think it was maybe just luck but because of that i had 2-3 years peace and also conquered the northern indian settlement and the great mine there with my Faction Heir and a army of mercenaries (but i must say i only won because i followed fleeing units in the city conquering all gates there while the silver chevron Ele-Guard desytroyed nearly all my mercernaries without losses - i really fear this beasts now).
In all the time i could build in most of the settlements without any break. I also began to build mines of my own. Then Baktria attacked and i reduced them to Alexandropolis conquering Baktria, Antiocheia and Kophen. After that i even had enough money to build a halfstack of HAs, Riders and Nobles to attack Pahlava and to build in all towns.

Now i have mostly between 60000-80000 mnai, reduced the Pahlava to Asaak (stone walls there, i starve them out), the HA-army, some allied archers and light infantry and some more units of the early nobles. Money isn't the problem since i still have no garrison in some cities.

I don't know if i was just lucky or this tactic will work for others too since the Pahlava may betray and attack them. But the Saka can build mines early like i did so they can make some money.


My problem is i don't know how to face the hordes of phalangitai. The dumb AI send some troops to Antiocheia-Margaine, maybe the Seleukids want to expand eastwards now that Pontos and the Ptollies are defeating them in the west or they are sad because there are no more parthian HAs to get killed by, i don't know. This army near my gates is also containing silver chevron elite-phalangitai -.-
Don't get me wrong i know how to defeat even that, but because i want to "roleplay" a migriation to the west I won't have the time to hire many regional troops because this migration should not take centuries. I don't know if there are some tactics to beat the phalanxes only with my HA's and foot archers i didn't find out.
And is it just my feeling or are the phalanxes are even harder to shoot down from the flanks and the back then other heavy units? I know they are overpowered in melee because of the RTW engine and that they are nearly invulnerable from the front but i feel that my archers even hit can hardly hit them from other directions. Is it just my feeling or has it something to do with the phalanx ability/formation?

Since this is my first post and i know that some will welcome me i just want to say 2 things:
1. I am not really new to this forum, i play eb since 8.1 and read here for more then one year relative activily. But i dont like to write since i understand english much better then i can speak or write it. But i hope its enough to understand me
2. Hello!

[Badass Buddha]

It requires a lot of micromanagement. You must divide your horse archers into groups and send one flank them and fire at their exposed back while the first group stays put to fire from their side when the phalanx turns around. If you're using FMs, try to lure one away from the others and charge them from all 4 sides at once.

[dominique]

The 500 000 mnae victory condition.

I've played the campaign several times, got all the right provinces, and I'm stuck with the pathetic Saka build tree, no economy (5000 per turn) and no more towns to raze east of the Mediterranean. The farthest I got was 230 000 mnae and I was getting city revolts everywhere and multiple Ptolemaioi and Sauromatae stacks homing in every turn.



I think the worst job in EB is to be a mercenary in a successor state' stack who fights the Saka. You'll run for miles... And miles... And miles... For a stupid general who thinks the best way to fight HA is to rush them on foot.

[Cute Wolf]

I bet you forgot to learn it (or allready learn it the hard way), most time in EB, the best thing you can do is saving off your money, fighting with low tier troops, and invest the money on mines...

Of course, Saka can only build the very basic mine, and that means if you blitz the Baktria and AS... you must build your own mines, and they are making less money. I suggest you to save Baktra for the last, kick Pahlava first, and only Raze babylonia to the ground (but don't expect to really hold them until much later)