Saka "building" bodyguard cav (I think an error)

[mikepettyrtw]

By tribal I was thing along the lines of their BGs, archers and armoured horse archers (but not too armoured). Still moderately effective

If thats what you want for early Pahlava, with no chance of Cat's until they settle, then this VVVVVVVVVVV will happen:

Nah, I never have trouble facing parthians anymore. With realistic Movement mod, I can avoid their field armies and take both their cities wiping them out in 3 seasons. So winter 272 BC = no more Parthians

in every single game!
As I just said......Cataphracts ARE their tribal cav, what YOU want is to make them into Sauro to make steam rolling them easier! (Sorry for loosing it right there)
Nonetheless, what your saying, would turn them into Sauro, (The worst steppe faction in EB) and they would indeed disappear really fast. As another poster has said, HA suck in Auto_Calc.
Believe me, of all things, this I KNOW (lost battles that way)
When you play as a steppe faction, you have to micro-manage EVERY battle....You pretty much can never use auto_calc.
I know what your thinking :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

But Saka almost always rule the steppe and kick Arche and Bakria's rear!

The only reason Saka rule the steppe is because they ARE master horsemen. They have access to highest range archers and horse archers in the game. Their regular HA will outrage Kreatan Archers and they have the best noble cav in the game. Even their early noble cav will defeat Hetairoi, let alone their armored nobles; which are their pre-MOT bodyguard unit, that IIRC are recruitable. Plus, as has been said before, they can get their Cat's fast (provided they have money, so on hard camp difficulty, expect them). By that time they would have had them anyway.
These people were some of the hardest to defeat in the history of the world, and it says something, that of all the settled leaders of history, only a handful can claim to have tasted victory while fighting them on their home front and all of them have the term "The Great" in their name. IIRC : Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Alexander the Great, and Antiochos III "the Great". 2 Persians, 1 Macedonian, and one Heterogenes.

That's it. Where as, everybody can say they defeated the Seleucid's, everybody can say they defeated the Romans (virtually every civ in history defeated them at least once even if in a minor engagement)....But nobody can say, they defeated a Mongol army on the Steppe. No one can say they defeated the Saka on the Steppe. Except other steppe peoples (that even apply's to the mongols, Subutai was defeated a handful of times fighting the Indo-Iranians)

PS. As I have said to you before, the Realistic Movement Mod unbalances the game, people have explained to you why here :
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...on-VH-campaign
From d'Arthez in that thread:

Which suggests that the AI of smaller factions (1-3 provinces) is rather hampered by the realistic movement mod, rather than helped by it. Of course this is a natural outcome. Also, because movement is greatly increased, AI will probably find it easier to send its armies to do something somewhere. Bear in mind that the AI completely forgets about its plans when you load a game (!), which has the unfortunate effect of leading to a million and one stranded superstacks. This of course will be more of a problem with lower movement speeds, due to the time (and reloading) involved. Hence those triarii stacks doing nothing. Realistic movement mod goes some way to eliminate that particular problem and eliminate said stacks as well, due to them being used!.

Major factions will find it easier to send fullstacks somewhere, while smaller factions lack the economic resources to compete with the fullstacks that are sent to them. Hence Lusotanna being owned. Their economic basis is too limited to compete with the bigger factions around them. Upkeep costs are much less of a barrier to bigger factions than to smaller factions (if it would take you a year before a superstack saw some action, that could well mean an additional cost to your treasury of 25000 Mnai, due to upkeep). This is completely consistent with the SPQR being the dominant faction in Europe (it is the biggest faction in Europe, and the only real competition is locked in a three way war in Greece). Thus the realistic movement mod may have the effect of making money scarcer for smaller factions. They can get rid of more expensive troops more easily, but they also need the troops more, since a new superstack from Carthage knocks on the door every 3 or 4 turns for Lusotanna.

Sweboz suffers from the problem that too many roaming superstacks are within its reach. Beat one, and another one will defeat them. As far as I know, the realistic movement mod does nothing to increase the speed of recruiting, so their bank account takes quite a hit each and every time they have to raise a big stack (due to upkeep).

PPS. Pretty please, try and play a campaign as Saka on Very Hard Campaign difficulty with the realistic movement mod. You will see how the boot feels on the other end. Grey Death will form FAST! Even the finest nobles in the world are defeated by Argyraspidai full stacks.

[seleucid empire]

If thats what you want for early Pahlava, with no chance of Cat's until they settle, then this VVVVVVVVVVV will happen:

in every single game!
As I just said......Cataphracts ARE their tribal cav, what YOU want is to make them into Sauro to make steam rolling them easier! (Sorry for loosing it right there)
Nonetheless, what your saying, would turn them into Sauro, (The worst steppe faction in EB) and they would indeed disappear really fast. As another poster has said, HA suck in Auto_Calc.
Believe me, of all things, this I KNOW (lost battles that way)
When you play as a steppe faction, you have to micro-manage EVERY battle....You pretty much can never use auto_calc.
I know what your thinking :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

But Saka almost always rule the steppe and kick Arche and Bakria's rear!

The only reason Saka rule the steppe is because they ARE master horsemen. They have access to highest range archers and horse archers in the game. Their regular HA will outrage Kreatan Archers and they have the best noble cav in the game. Even their early noble cav will defeat Hetairoi, let alone their armored nobles; which are their pre-MOT bodyguard unit, that IIRC are recruitable. Plus, as has been said before, they can get their Cat's fast (provided they have money, so on hard camp difficulty, expect them). By that time they would have had them anyway.
These people were some of the hardest to defeat in the history of the world, and it says something, that of all the settled leaders of history, only a handful can claim to have tasted victory while fighting them on their home front and all of them have the term "The Great" in their name. IIRC : Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Alexander the Great, and Antiochos III "the Great". 2 Persians, 1 Macedonian, and one Heterogenes.

That's it. Where as, everybody can say they defeated the Seleucid's, everybody can say they defeated the Romans

PPS. Pretty please, try and play a campaign as Saka on Very Hard Campaign difficulty with the realistic movement mod. You will see how the boot feels on the other end. Grey Death will form FAST! Even the finest nobles in the world are defeated by Argyraspidai full stacks.

I don't really care if they turn into Sauros or not since I wipe them out in 3 turns. I would gain and lose nothing if the cataphracts were disabled for early parthians since i kill them long before they recruit it. Im thinking in terms of historical accuracy. Would they really have cataphracts with full armor like that?? The way I understood it was that in the beginning of the EB time frame the Parthian Kingdom didnt exist and was part of the Arche. If that was the case chow could they have developed the fearsome cataphracts so early?

Actually, I dislike facing Sauros more than Parthians. At least Parthians recruit mostly lightly armored horse archers and cataphracts. The Sauros have stacks of noble horse archers which are much more annoying since they are so damn versatile, even in the hands of AI. And yes I know that I cant auto calc, Ive played several Saka and Parthian campaigns where I exploited my bodyguards heavily

The reason those generals have the epithet of the Great is not cause they defeated a bunch of nomads (-___-)
Alexandros: Conquered the Persian empire in 8 years. Thats why he was named the great
Cyrus: Created the Persian empire. Faced the Medians, Lydians and Neo-babylonians, the 3 great empires of hie time
Darius: WAS DEFEATED by the Sycthians. He was named great for his administrative achievements like introducing Satraps and formation of the navy.
Antiochus III: only called the great cause he restored Alexandros empire outside of egypt and macedon

Also they were not the only ones called great. A list of other people, many who never faced horsearchers are also called the great. The epithet doesnt only go to conquerers. They could go to kings who were superb administrator or they could go to Kings that won a victory against a Hated enemy or to kings that crushed all rebellions and restored order to a crumbing empire
list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...n_as_The_Great


I have already played a Saka Campaign since I started using realistic movement mod: It was not that hard. The eastern seleucid provinces are way-underdeveloped. 255 BC I had most of Iran and Bactra. The main problem WAS NOT SILVERSHIELDS. IT was trying to hold on to the damn cities with my quarter-stacks and crappy governors (but great generals)

P.S. I dont know why everyone is telling me how OP grey death is in VH/realistic mod. Im playing a VH, Saba Campaign with realistic move mod and let me tell you. Ptolemies are much more OP. They have four fullstacks in Egypt, One in carthage lands thats taken Lepki off them and 3 in the southern coast of Asia Minor. Its 262.........................

IN fact on VH camp difficulty with realistic move mod, Yellow fever always dominates if your not playing AS. I think its because they start of with better barracks and can send their elites early on. Without Realist move mod that would be a problem since they have so few places where they recruite elites. But with the mod it doesnt trouble them so they can send it everywhere.

The Only factions I hate facing more than Parthians are the Ptolemies and after that, the Romans


I can see that you will argue for the steppe factions till your last breath. I would do that same for hellenistic factions and Carthage (I like factions with both good infantry and cavalry) so lets just agree to disagree :LLLL

[mikepettyrtw]

The reason those generals have the epithet of the Great is not cause they defeated a bunch of nomads (-___-)
Alexandros: Conquered the Persian empire in 8 years. Thats why he was named the great
Cyrus: Created the Persian empire. Faced the Medians, Lydians and Neo-babylonians, the 3 great empires of hie time
Darius: WAS DEFEATED by the Sycthians. He was named great for his administrative achievements like introducing Satraps and formation of the navy.
Antiochus III: only called the great cause he restored Alexandros empire outside of egypt and macedon

Meh on my behalf....
I should have worded that more clearly. I was not implying that they are "Great" becuase they defeated nomads, ......Just that it takes a great general to defeat nomads.
As for Darius, the Scythians eventually vassalized, and he was never decisively defeated by them. Hence, the pontic steppe became a part of the Persian Empire.

can see that you will argue for the steppe factions till your last breath.

Actually no....My first major non-roman campaign in vanilla was as the Macedonians, and I greatly enjoy Hellenistic warfare. I have awesome memories of the romans sending fullstack after fullstack legonairies against my silver shields and slamming them in hammer/anvil tactics.
Of my save games I have right now, only one are steppe, the rest are Hellenistic. This is no fight to the death over Cat's. The Seleucid's are an awesome campaign that I enjoy.

I don't really care if they turn into Sauros or not since I wipe them out in 3 turns.

I got what you mean, but, when your not playing as the Seleucids, they are what keeps Grey Death from forming, (at least IMO) because they keep the AI preoccupied. This can occasionally cause Yellow fever, but in my campaigns at least, the Ptollies make enemy's fast once they go viral, so they lose what they gained equally as fast as they got it.
Even though at the start date, they were not independant, they were still armed, as were the Baktrians. They would have had Cat's, and nobles, and several other things that were fancy.
That's all bro, no harm intended. I have never said that Hellens suck, and people who play them are lard. I have fought the Parthians as the Seleucid's as well. I am not religiously dedicated to a culture, or a peoples, or a heritage.

[Ca Putt]

On Cataphracts as Tribal cavalry: The thing about cataphracts is that they already were present pretty long, the equipment is hard but not impossible to craft/buy/steal for a nomad tribe. However they lack the capacities to field them at large scale. similar to the Dos... the other two ultra heavy chain veil footmen. They were disabled because they were just a small elite within a small tribe, that did not expand and is not represented as an individual faction in EB. The Parni on the other hand are much larger and afaik had a broader class of "potential cataphracts" than those two obscure Irish/Spanish tribes, furthermore they Did expand and are represented as a faction, thus it is plausible that with enough investment and battle "luck" a mighty Parni tribe would be well able to field their cataphracts on a sizeable scale. A Parni "empire" as powerfull as that of the Player would indeed be capable of that. Restricting a Parni empire that has that has managed to attain great wealth and huge tracks of land from fielding Cataphracts that they already have(in smaller numbers) would be a not quite nice.