I want to try a horse army.

[yutterh]

So what is the best faction to do this with? I was thinking the selucids with their cataphracts but the beginning is hard for them so i wasnt sure. I know the egyptians have godly chariots but I jsut want to try steamrolling everynation with an army of horses.

[ReluctantSamurai]

You've already named the two easiest factions to play from that part of the world....the Egyptians and the Seleucids. If you want to play as one of the Horse Archer factions, Scythia or Armenia are your best bets. Parthia rates, but is harder than the other two, IMHO.

but I jsut want to try steamrolling everynation with an army of horses.

You can attempt that with just about any faction.....just recruit only cavalry units

On the games harder settings, you won't be getting too far with just cavalry, as they are not so good for assaulting cities..................

[Cretan]

So what is the best faction to do this with? I was thinking the selucids with their cataphracts but the beginning is hard for them so i wasnt sure. I know the egyptians have godly chariots but I jsut want to try steamrolling everynation with an army of horses.

I think it depends on the type of Cavalry you prefer to use, If you want to avoid Horse archers i suggest Seleucid they have a very good selection of mounted units including Cataphracts, Companion cavalry, Armored Elephants, and Greek Cavalry.

Pontic, Armenia, and Parthia armies are mostly composed of ranged cavalry, even their Generals use a ranged weapon which i personally diden't like. Of course you can Alt+click for melee, but it can get messy and you might find your own troops dieing from friendly fire.

Same could be said about Militia cavalry, they have a tendency to shoot themselves and/or friendly troops if not payed strict attention too.

Horse Archers are a pain to fight because they use skirmish attacks the whole time and they move very fast. But they also take a long time to kill other units as opposed to Melee cavalry.


Regards starting locations, Parthia is quite hard because their empire is split up and vulnerable to attack.

Selecuids are in a vulnerable spot and share borders with Pontic,Greek cities, Egypt, Armenia and Parthia, but their forces are much more consolidated. By turn 10 you will most likely be at war with all of them, but don't let that worry you. Seleucid have a very strong economy and have a good number of starting settlements.

From turn 1 you should already be organizing small armies to take the rebel settlements Dumatha, Palmyra, Nicomedia, Halicarnassus, and Ancyra .. once these are secured you will have the economic infrastructure to fight off any and all attacking factions.


In my Seleucid campaigns i found it wise to wipe out, or weaken all the factions that have access to Cataphracts before they develop themselves as they pose the biggest threat, but don't worry they will come to you. :)

Combined forces: Sure its possible to defeat the whole map with pure Cavalry armies, but if you don't want to get your men slaughtered while charging them into Pikemen i suggest recruiting Cretan archers mercs, they are one of the few Archer units with maximum range missiles and are invaluable to your army, treat them well and level them up and they are lethal in battle. They can be recruited from regions such as Phrygia, Peloponnesus, Attica and nearby regions. From memory they spawn once every 3-4 years.


I recommend Seleucid for Cavalry based armies, they are the most fun and diverse in terms of units. They are imo the most powerful faction in the game (if played by a player) useless if played by the Ai though.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Yutterh,

Cretan suggests the Seleucids, and they certainly offer some good cav options. If you've mod-ed the game, the Macedonians also work well for this. I like mixing light lancers with Macedonian cavalry. Of course, post-Marian Roman factions offer you three different units of heavy cavalry for some serious stomping power. If you haven't tried this, try stocking up on equites just before the Marian reforms kick in. Equites are faster than your post-Marian heavy cavalry and will give you some pursuit capability.

Personally, I'm fond of the Carthaginians. Round shield and long shield cavalry, with elephants and sacred band heavy cav can give you a serious cav army. The combat casualties you suffer in round shields and long shields can easily be replaced in most cities once you get the cavalry stables built. So you can easily restock. Elephants and sacred band are a bit more problematic when it comes to restocking the unit after combat as not every city can recruit elephants and sacred band require the top of the line royal stables to recruit them, and those will only be found in 'huge' cities that have built out to royal stables on the building schedule.

My only problem with cataphracts is that they're a bit slow and have limited stamina. You can certainly break some infantry lines, but I wouldn't call them serious swarm material. But . . .that's just my opinion. To each his own.

[Quirinus]

Another thing the others have not mentioned (I think) is that Armenia gets cataphract archers, which are simply awesome. They are slower than regular horse archers, but then again they are also a lot more heavily-armoured. So you can count on them to win horse archery duels, while you can simply charge any light/medium cav or archers that threaten you.

Also I agree, Carthaginian cavalry are pretty deadly as well. Massed round shields can be very cost-effective.

If you like barbarians try the Scythians, they can retrain their basic horse archer in the lowest-tier barracks, which makes steamrolling the lightly-armoured Germans very easy. They also get Scythian Noblewomen (or something like that), a superior heavy horse archer unit later on.

You can even go cav with the Romans, post-Marian. Just make sure you go growth in at least one of your Italian cities so that you get the reforms sooner, the Romans' pre-Marian cav blow.

There are plenty of good cavalry factions, so it really depends on what culture you like, and who you like to fight.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Horse Archers are a pain to fight because they use skirmish attacks the whole time and they move very fast. But they also take a long time to kill other units as opposed to Melee cavalry.

I would like to point out an advantage (among several others) that horse archers have over melee cavalry. While chasing a routing or retreating unit, or any other unit that turns its back to your HA unit, you will be delivering missile fire to the rear of the enemy unit where they don't get the benefit of any shield bonus and subjects them to morale penalties.

Equites are faster than your post-Marian heavy cavalry and will give you some pursuit capability.

I did this all the time when I played Roman factions

Another thing the others have not mentioned (I think) is that Armenia gets cataphract archers, which are simply awesome.

These are my favorites! Chariot Archer killers, excellent ranged attack, and can go over to melee when necessary because of good A/D melee stats. They're almost obscene, really

There are plenty of good cavalry factions, so it really depends on what culture you like, and who you like to fight.

The best advice of all!

[yutterh]

Thanks guys sounds liek the carthaginians, scythians, and armenians are up my ally. Now abouot teh cataphracts for seulucide empire when do i get those?

[Cretan]

Thanks guys sounds liek the carthaginians, scythians, and armenians are up my ally. Now abouot teh cataphracts for seulucide empire when do i get those?

To recruit Cats you need to build Elite cavalry Stables, to unlock that building you need the following:

Large city - requires 12,000 population
Cavalry Stables

Something to note, its a good idea to make your military cities in regions that have Elephants in them, such as Antioch as to take advantage of the full tree of units. (Armored Elephants)

Also make sure you have Shrines/Temples dedicated to Hephaestus to get the weapon and armor training bonus.

To speed up the process of upgrading your cities, have Governors only in your Military powerhouses and when conquering cities Enslave them and you get a nice bonus to population in those respective cities.

This is great for advancing your technology in military relatively quickly, giving you an edge over your enemies.