Sassanids (BI faction)

[Hamilcar Barca]

Thanks Flavius Flave.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

BTW, welcome to the hood Ham Bee.

[Hound of Ulster]

Its good to see more followers of the Savaran amongst the org.

If you feel that the vanilla campaign is a pushover, try the House of Sassan in both Rio's Flagellum Dei and the Invasio Barborum mods. Its hard. very hard.

[Roslagii Keel]

Faction Overview: Sassanids
Wow, this sure is a popular faction! Good for me I like to write. Don't know if I can provide any new insights, but hopefully this will be some moderately entertaining reading.

General Overview
The seal is broken. The Parthians overthrown. The spirits of the Immortals stir from their slumber, eager for combat and new glory. The legacy of Alexander is gone, our old enemies conquered by the Romans. But they are a divided people. Ripe. Once more the peoples of asia stand united under the banners of Persia. Once more the armies of the east stand ready to claim their rightful place as rulers of this wretched world. As leader of the known world's oldest empire, you must use every edge at your disposal to crush the Romans, who will stop at nothing to halt your ever-increasing dominion of the east. By bow and mace, dagger and diplomacy, the light of Zoroaster and the world's finest generals, the Sassanids will be victorious!

The Sassanid Army
The key strength of the persian army (and sometimes it's key weakness) has always been it's multi-ethnicity. Together with a core of levy infantry and persian elites, you command the finest warriors from all over asia: Specialized elites who cannot easily be matched by the copycat romans. It's relatively easy to use the sassanid's best units effectively, but to master them, you must learn to use the supporting units as well.

Infantry
Levy Spearmen suffer from a lack of special abilities and are probably the worst of their kind in the game. Their main achievement is the tight formation, unlike the unwieldy and vulnerable "horde formation" utilized by runaway slaves and peasants. This alone make them better fodder units than peasants, and good training (extra experience) also helps. Use them with wild abandon to tie up enemy units and don't be alarmed when they die or run away as there is always plenty more ready for training in the nearest settlement. Unless you have an all-cavalry army, always bring two more levies than you really need and watch the enemy crumble under the sheer weight of numbers. Sughdian Warriors are very badass-looking with their cruel maces and face-covering helmets, and are the terror of roman legionaries! Understand that roman infantry use swords and spears exclusively in hand-to-hand; good weapons against barbarians, but not against disciplined heavy infantry. A skilled mace swing on the other hand can crush a shield and the arm that holds it, and a man wearing chainmail hit by a mace could just as well be naked. If you're not afraid of micro management, you should continue to train sughdians in the cities were they are available and continuosly spread them around the empire. Make sure you have at least two units in every important border town, as such a settlement will be very hard to take. They will typically suffer few casualties, so don't consider sending them back for retraining unless they have lost about 50% of their numbers. A carefully managed unit of sughdians with silver equipment and high experience is a nigh unstoppable force. Also, garrisoned at border towns they are near at hand if you feel they are more needed in your field armies.

Cavalry
Nomad Archers are your standard horse archers and this subject hardly needs to be further elaborated upon. Clibinarii are the awesomeness of the east and make the "equites clibinarii" of the ERE look like mounted, armored bakers (I mean, look at those wooden clubs!) Cataphracts are the usual "finish them" cavalry, and now look even more awesome with the symbol of persia emblazoned upon their shields. Camel Riders are a bit tricky, since they are your only light cavalry and not nearly fast enough to be reliable in that duty. Often you are forced to use nomads instead and while this is an adequate solution it would sometimes be better to have more meleeish light cavalry at your disposal. Still, good when taking the southern provinces from the ERE. Armoured Camel Riders are slow, very slow. They are cavalry-routers of the highest degree but difficult to use offensively. I´ve found them to be a great supporting unit for my infantry, especially when the time comes to wrest Thracia from whatever steppe faction that holds it. Present a line of levy spearmen to the enemy elite cavalry, receive the charge and send in your camels quickly. War Elephants. No one else has them anymore. They are worth bringing to battle just for the sheer fun factor of watching them tear up enemy formations. Send them to tie up one enemy flank, pin the enemy center with your infantry and send all your fast and nasty units against your enemy's other flank.

Missile
I just love Kurdish Javelinmen. "Eat javelins, roman oppressors!" Suprisingly effective in melee, these guys really deserve to see more use by sassanid players. While the "skirmish screen in front of infantry" tactic is oldfashioned, the kurds can run right back into the fight when your spearmen has received the charge and make a good account of themselves. Needless to say, they are also superb ambushers. Mountain Slingers are another unit that is easy to underestimate. They can soften up comitanses and force them to come to you, and can even inflict casualties on equites cataphractii and clibinarii. Remember, even a single casualty on these units is a good achievement becase of their cost and high defense. Slingers can now hide in long grass, and considering the range of slings compared to javelins this can be really useful in striking at the heavy cavalry of the enemy, then forcing them to pursue the slingers out of position, creating a gap for you to exploit. Lastly we come to the persian Desert Archers. They are another cool-looking unit, with shields strapped to their bow arms making them look like the elite skirmishers they are. Persia has always been famed for it's archers and these guys are no exeption. Superior equipment, training, and stamina ensure that they are way above average foot archers.

General's Bodyguard
The Immortals are back and where are the greeks now to oppose them? As every sassanid commander will know, this is the best bodyguard unit available to any army. They should play a more active role in battles than other generals, as they are less fragile and can often steamroll the enemy almost by themselves.

Buildings/Technology
Your main enemy control more provinces and sea trade than you, so make sure to give the building of trade caravans high priority. Being an entirely zoroastrian faction is a great edge over the ERE, as this nullifies any governors religion penalties and zoroastrian temples provide more public order due to law bonuses than any other religion. Combined with some good old eastern law enforcement rioting and revolts should be a rare occurance in your provinces, if indeed they happen at all. Otherwise the Sassanids have access to pretty much the same buildings as earlier eastern factions. They can build level 3 roads and this is really, really nice for trade and distributing sughdians to the far corners of the empire.

Diplomacy
The Eastern Empire Rebels will be your key allies in the early to mid game. They are frequently too weak to do more than annoy the ERE, but this is still desirable. If they manage to get a stable foothold within ERE lands and you have money to spare, consider donating some to your allies. The rebels will frequently invest this money in better walls and more troops, and as long as the ERE and EER stay at war this aids your cause greatly. Other important allies include the Roxolani (unless driven away by the Huns.) Don't let the ERE get an alliance with them before you! If they are not driven west and control Tribus Alanni, they will occasinaly attack your northern provinces unless you're allies. You don't need that annoyance. Encourage them to expand west instead. It is also good to be allied with wathever steppe faction currently causing the most trouble in the ERE's western provinces. Usually this means the Huns, but occasionaly the Sarmatians, Goths, or Slavs. Keep a diplomat in the area if things turn complicated (as they will.)

Campaign Advice
Just some general opinions:
§ Don't bother taking Campus Allanni or Dimmidi. They are poor, far away from your objectives, and not worth the time and effort. Invest your armies elsewhere.
§ Keep track of the Eran Shahbod and the High Priest of Zoroaster(can't remember the titles correctly.) While the bonuses from these positions seem minor, they are frequently your best general and best governor, respectively. Your starting supreme commander, Melchior, is simply amazing. Use him.
§ Choose your battlefields. Many of your units excel in rough terrain, while many ERE units do not.
§ Exploit the AI's tendency to attack cities with captured eagles. Build the best possible walls, train a good garrison and strike hard whith your field armies while the romans smash themselves on your city.

[gollum]

The Sassanids are too easy, almost anti-climactic as once you take Antich from ERE and cut them in two there is no going back for them, and taking Antioch can happen very fast... Unfortunately due to win requirements there is no need to fight the Hordes or the barbarians - however the Sassanid campaign can shine at 34 or more required settlements that include the Italian peninsula, North Africa, and the balkans.

[Callicratidas]

Long ago I had a Sassanid Persian miniatures army. As I recall the "Levy Spearmen" where moral class "D" ( "A" being the best) one article said that in many cases these where slaves or bound men whose morale was so poor that they where in some instances chained together !

I remeber a unit of cataphracts rated as "Super" heavy Cavalry and elephants of course. The meat of the army was an "Extra" heavy Cavalry archer/lancer the rider had chain mail and the horse was armored on the front.