SAB'YN CAMPAIGN

[PelicanMan]

Saba are pretty tough, later on when the Ptolemaioi and the Seleukoi expand in Sinai, Nabataia, Tadmor or Gerrhaia, locals will most likely rebel in your favour, but making you declare war on the two super-powers...

I plan on taking Gerrhaia and Charax and setting up shop @ Charax. There seems to be great defensible terrain there.
As for Petra, I will let the Phtoemaioi keep it until I can make it rebel; then I think I will concentrate on Ptolemaioi. Yeah. I think that is the direction I should go.

As for goals you'll need one hellenic province at least in order to build Pantodapoi Phalangitai

Do you happen to know which one that could be? I went through the EB Recruitment program for Regional & Native and the only unit I could find is the Red Sea Hoplites. Maybe that program is a bit old... I am not to sure.

If you can arrange matters so that you are only fighting one superpower at a time and are allied to the other one, that might help. Preferably fighting the Ptolemies and allied to the Seleucids. Perhaps it might be worth allowing the Seleucids to take Gerrha without retaliation for a while, just to keep them happy while you're fighting the Ptolemies.

I will definitely try attacking one and staying allied to another. I will though have to fork out a tribute to AS so that they do not attack Gerrha and Charax. I want those towns whether they like it or not. Will see if that works out.

Maybe you could help defeat both the Ptolemies and Seleucids by using numerous spies and assassins to help forment rebellion in their towns, rather than relying on sheer brute force to fight them off? Keep them busy fighting rebels, as far as possible.

I will definitely use that strategy to some extent; I wont go all out with spies and assassins, but I will have a small group known throughout the Saba community

Also you can build a port in the city directly south of your starting town. Two levels of ports are available. Perhaps the lvl 3 government is preventing you from building it or you havn't built the mercentile port yet.

Brave Brave Sir Robin is right, I think the town is called Tamane or something. It should be able to build ships. Maybe you need to upgrade the town level first though? I've done a good many saba campaigns and it can be worthwhile to expand into nubia. Since that region is actually your homeland region maybe in the future you can turn that 'mini faction' into an incorporated part of your tribe.

From there, once you have power either northwards into egypt is easy enough of you can fortify and the go eastwards to India. Can be very fun to set up a nice coastal Indian ocean empire.

Well then, I wish I knew that!!! But I think I will continue with my plan of bribing Axum; Kinda want to role play it. Also, I think I do have to build the town upgrade for the port.
But first, I want to invest on building those mines first; yes, they are ridiculously expensive, but it definitely will fuel the machine for establishing Charax as a start point for invasion (after I turtle there for a while) of AS and also setting up my Mini Faction across the Red Sea.
Also I wanted to point out, when looking at the EB Recruitment and Charax has a few good choices for Regional Units. That could get interesting.

You will notice that winning battles is very easy once you get the right mindset. Avoid melee in most cases until you can get your red sea axemen involved. Get them on the flank to attack and their AP weapons can chop through phalanx easily. Also I HIGHLY recommend as many archer spearmen as you can get. They are a phenomenal unit. Mildly capable in melee and decent at range but so cheap and with great retraining radius (anything that borders arabia, even babylon and seleukia). Very handy to soak damage while your better units flank. Plus your units are so fast, even when on foot. Get local battle superiority and use your advantages.

So as soon as I found out which region contains the phalanxes, I will create an army something along these lines:

2-3 Red Sea Axemen
2-3 Archer Spearmen
3-5 Light Spearmen
3-4 Pantodapoi Phalangitai (as soon as I could find them)
1 General
1 Noble Infantry
1-2 Skirmisher Cavalry

That will most likely make up my Main Army.

I do not want to go too unrealistic, so I definitely will only allow my next army to be no more then 1/2 that size; same goes with the Third army.

Let me know what you guys think of all that.

= )

THE P-MAN