Hayasdan Guide request !

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

268 BC, i controll Kotais, Mtsketa, Armavira, Ani-Kamak, howewer my army is composed of very bad units, those kind of Caucasian Levies wich are unable to put up a decent fight against anything but rebels. (i play M/H with house-rules, never attack unless attack, never break alliances unless betrayed, etc).

I am planning to take Trapezus, but it will require a large army as it is very well defended.

I am afraid that eventually the Seleucids will invade my poor kingdom....
And even on equal terms, lack of phalanx and strong infantry could prove disaster for me. They are faring well against the Ptolemies and eventually will invade me. Not to mention i am unable to raise anykind of decent infantry or cavalry...

I request someone put up a Hayasdan guide... at least for surviving the Seleucids.

[Elminster12]

The trick against the Seleukids is to keep a very close eye on them and make use of your cavalry. Your infantry is best-suited to chase down skirmishers and hold a phalanx. Slingers and foot archers are also your friends....

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

But cavalry is damn expensive ! I managed to get some scythians in Kotais (they rock), but the simple recrutiment is well over 1000 Mnai

Hopefully, with the capture of Trapezunt i will be able to make some boost on my little empire.

It seems that the only VALID direction for expanding is west, towards the Black Sea coast.. if you are lucky you may be able to capture Sinope before Pontus is moving in, ... east is very poor, those caspian sea settlements are well guarded and poor as welll. Supplyes will run low until you get there, and there is no city to camp during the winter.For the sake of men`s morale Do not deserve throwing away the troops to get there.

[JeffBag]

Maybe you should stop expanding and get to fixing up your provinces. With your capital and the two nearby cities all with mines you should find 1000 mnai easy. You really need to develop your provinces because your tier 1-3 cannot even hope to draw with their tier 1-3. Horse archers are low tier, and you can use your generals as cataphracts, but you need to be able to finance those horse archers. Then you can pull off the classic Eastern strat: Horse archers + Cataphracts = Heroic Victory.

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

Hmm, unfortunately only Kotais can recruit Horse Archers for now, in the regional barracks.

I have attempted entering Pontus_Paraetolia region, and the advisor warned me of war with KH. Yet still, i continued. KH was to farr and to busy to face me. Faced an ambush by some rebel skirmisher army in the deep forests just of the shore. Probably some wild tribesman, i never even see them well in the dense wood, but yest still i scatered them with the General unit. Howewer my skirmishers had some heavyy losses. Than i attacked the settlement. It was a close defeat. Armenian levy infantry units don`t stand a chance even against the classical hoplites. They get slaughtered... or better said, butchered by the 8 star enemy general hoplit unit! But gladly i killed him. It was quite a nice loss afterall... I am sure that even the lowest quality hoplite can defeat with no problem an unit of Nizag Gund...not to mention Kavkaza sparabara....

I gathered some Pontic Doriforoi mercs... damn expensive for such crap units, but the second time i managed to storm the garrison. Scythians helped me alot... actually, they cost alot to build, but theyr upkeep is managable (around 242 Mnai).

268 BC and stil no Seleucid attack. Bactria, Pahlava and Pontus all declared ostilities towards them, but to this moment none dared to chalenge to an open fight the big grey beast I choosed to keep the alliance with AS as the Ptolemies really made no progress against them (they have captured Bostra, but large AS stacks are on the move !). Some Seleukids stacks roam in the area close to the Caspian Sea... really, i am afraid ! Maybe gifting them should postpone the inevitable war ?

[Mordecai]

A tribute may work. But you will have to fight them eventually. But 268 is still very early in the campaign. You can tell when the AS is going to attack when they start sending diplomats to your towns. As for infantry, well what can I say. I would recommend Nizag Gund to be the main of your infantry armies until you can recruit the elites. Scythian archers are pretty good too.

[Elminster12]

Oh, a word of caution....Kabalaka sucks as much as most steppe settlements(I'm talking Thissakata level of development here people). If you're looking for peaceful expansion after Mtskheta and Kotais(which you absolutely should take. Both get Scythian HAs from local barracks and, more importantly...MINES!) Trapezous or even Phraaspa are the way to go...

[Karo]

Don't relay on your infantry but just youse youre generals they are almost unbeatebel and youse horse-archers to slaughter those phalanxes and youse your elites when you can take antioch selucia and susa asap so you cripel there recruitment then move on to asia minor and rest. That's what I do evrey time I play with Hayasdan. Hope it helps

[Morte66]

I've been fighting the Seleucids as Pontos for 20 years and I have a couple of thoughts:

- Slingers are dirt cheap. Slingers are absolutely deadly hitting a phalanx from behind. That's behind, not side on. To make this work you have to turn off skirmish mode, turn off fire at will (never waste ammo shooting heavy troops from the front), and micromanage closely.

- Cheap spearmen will hold a phalanx long enough for slingers to sprint round the back and kill it, if their morale is good enough. Good morale comes from good generals, who are made by having one or two family members do all the commanding to get all the upgrades.

- Slingers will take some losses at times from peltasts etc, so be very careful to retrain them rather than merging them and get their experience up. By the time you get that silver chevron they'll be doing about twice their original damage. [Slingers are a mathematical oddity.]

- Horse archers do less damage than slingers -- they don't have the "effective against armour" descriptor, or the flat trajectory that works so well against packed formations. But the penalties for tactical errors are less: slingers die, HAs gallop away; they're expensive to hire but with low losses they're cheap to retrain. And they can chase down routers, which is where half you kills come from in a lot of battles. You should never be letting more than 10% of the Seleucids leave the field alive, or you'll win the battles and lose the war.

- Beating phalanxes is all about manoeuvre. You want to be circling, pulling their line apart, destroying one phalanx at a time and killing the routers as the rest blunder around looking for targets.

- Unfortunately, Seleucid phalanxes keep company with skirmishers/spearmen/cavalry. Those can move, and they like nothing better than charging your horribly exposed missile troops. So make a virtue of necessity: whilst your missile troops are positioned to kill phalanxes, thay are simultaneously bait. Cover them with cavalry or spearmen, and be ready to sprint the missiles away. Your covering forces charge into the flank of whoever chases your missile troops, melee ensues, and the missiles can now hit their pursuers from behind.

- It's all about motion. All you need to do is learn to juggle chainsaws. After that it's easy.

- If you can find some way to get just a few phalanxes as a solid base for everyone else to fall back on, that's a godsend.

- Foot archers are for setting fire to siege engines. They're simple to use in battle, but if you stick to simple tactics the Seleucids will conquer you.

- I presume Armenia has some cataphracts. They might put useful charges into the backs of the phalanxes. The Pontic cavalry aren't good enough for that, they're better off acting as escorts for the missile troops.

- Offensive siege tactics... Use missiles to scare the enemy away from the walls and into the square. Batter your way in. Park slingers in the outskirts so they can just reach the square. Park defensive troups half way to the square. At those distances the slingers can fire over their heads despite the flat trajectory. Do this from at least two directions. Be very thorough with the preparation, and set hotkeys for single/triple speed so you won't go to sleep as your troops walk around town.

- Defensive siege tactics... Phalanxes are awesome street fighters since the walls secure their flanks. Don't fight defensive sieges if you can avoid it. Sally, or send relief troops. The key is having troops in the right place at the right time. You need roads and good intel to make this work on the strategic map.

- Don't forget that forts are free. A sacrificial unit of "poor bloody infantry" in a fort will hold up a huge army for a turn, while you concentrate your forces. And in the mountain valleys around Armenia they're great for channelling enemies and making them fight in places you like better.

My field army, currently sat in Antioch:
- 4 pike phalanxes: anvil
- 4 slingers: hammer
- 1.5 merc horse archers: ok missile damage, good decoys, rout-chasers
- 2 family medium cavalry: cover the slingers, chase routers, charge weaker troops (especially missiles at the start of the battle)
- 2 spearmen: fast-moving defensive troops that can fill a hole when you screw up
That'll take out a great big seleucid army pretty reliably.

[The Errant]

If you take Trapezous or Sinope, make sure to install a type 4 gov. You'll get a load of good greek units. A single unit of Hoplitai Haploi in Guard Mode held my gate in Sidon when the Seleucids attacked the city. They managed to slaughter the Pantadapoi Phalangitai unit manning the ram, once they broke trough the gate, along with four units of mercenary cavalry (two light and two medium) and their entire generals bodyguard and the enemy general.

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

Thanks, people !
The inevitable happened, and i entered in a full scale war against the Seleucids. I fight sometimes 3 to 4 battles per turn.

In the begining, they attempted to penetrate the Caucasus and take my strong cityes. I had to relieve a couple of sieges, and yes, indeed, slingers saved me from total defeat.

A sort of "guerrila" warfare ensued then between me and them, with lots of small stacks in the area hunting down one eachother... I won most of the battles, howewer there is clear thing that you need to micromanage alot your forces. Autocalculating is not an option by any way !

I managed to gather some Scythians and with a bit of luck, took Phraaspa and Kerkithekra from AS. Ptolemies took Antioch, but lost Jerusalem and Sidon.

I launched from Phraaspa an expeditionary force towards Ekbatana in the winter, but it was a disaster due to the lack of any proper infantry on my side. I was utterly defeated. AS launched then a counterattack in the spring towards Phraaspa, but i managed to defeat them twice .

Kerikithekra was besieged by AS, but i managed to succsesfuly sally. My spies went to Palmyra and made it rebel to Sabaa, wich was a big succes in my opinion.

Howewer, Ptolemies are loosing ground, and it is higly likely that they will end conquered sooner or later, despite the fact that they managed to keep Antioch. It is 260, winter, and 2 of my armyes are marching decided to give 2 important blows against the Seleucids : take Edessa and Ekbatana, both of wich are rather poorly defended. Still, in the case of the latter, direct siege is not a valid option.

Unfortunately Bactria and Pahlava are stuck dead in their lands, no movements so farr. Pontus attempted to take Mazaca, but they failed utterly. I have proposed to them friendship, but they are not interested. War with them is going to come for sure...

[Enguerrand de Sarnéac]

To defeat the Hellenistic armies you oughtn't try to fight their phalanxes, but, as Morte66 explained, try to manoeuver and break them. But don't risk your weaker Caucasian troops to kill them, you'll need better infantery to dare that; later Armenians or Babylonian mercenaries of all sorts.
Slingers are very useful, if you're used to their range and ballistics, else they can be a pain, cause you can't put them directly behind your lines. They have to manoeuver swiftly, in order to find clean fields to shoot, but they shoot hard; you'll have to have them supported by threats from general's bodyguards or other cavalery. Eastern archers can do the safer job behind the lines, but you shouldn't forget to be very swift, you cannot stand ground if the phalanxes move. I personally find that foot and horse skirmishers are very useful, it doesn't matter how many die, they can be retrained in almost any town you'll possess.
Horse skirmishers are also valuable, and they can kill off the fleeing units afterwards (this is important)

If you aren't used to eastern non-hellenistic warfare it's a bit hard to begin, you can't fight like the Hellenes, Romans or Celts and Germans, cause in the first years you won't have a lot infantry that can stand in a fair fight against enemies. Most of the spearmen are for garrisons, missile troops don't stand on themselves, and it's only after you got the heavy blows that your troop options will ameliorate You should indeed hold on to your mountainions properties until you have better armies, then come out of the mountains and conquer, so now it's best to have a stable basis in the Caucasus (and don't try to 'consolidate' by having only Homeland; look for troop diversity)

BTW, Kartvelebi Dashna-Mebrdzolebi rock

[mAIOR]

Well, I plaied in .8 with Hayasdan and let me tell you what I did against AS:
I ambushed their armies a lot :) really it works and use your generals as Katraphacts. Lots of missile troops and some light cavalry and generals.my tactic was to break their army. Made them pursue parts of my army in diferent directions and then, with my generals I'd destroy those units left more alone. I'd usually stay way from their phalanxes as long as I could but once they made a mistake there were 3 generals ripping the Phalanxes appart It was amusing as they had nothing they could do against hit and run tactics... I'd charge them from behind and, once they turned the Phalanx I'd use another general to charge from behind again... In 3 or 4 atacks their army will start to flee. If they have Hetaroi or generals, try to lure them with you general and rip them to pieces. Later in the game start making Katraphact archers. They win batles alone as they do everything.

Cheers...

[Orb]

May I suggest Galatian kluddolon mercs?

In my 0.74 (I know, ancient history ;)) campaign, I had a standing army with HAs and Cataphracts only, which hired (then disbanded) the surprisingly lethal and expendable Kluddolon mercs wherever it went to. I was thus able to run all around Asia Minor to fight the KH.

[Zenith Darksea]

Rex Pelasgorum, I have to say that I feel your pain entirely. Hayasdan is one of my favourite factions, yet they are so incredibly hard to play as. In the current version I've found that the Seleukids always attack you around about 265 BC - there is no way to dissuade them that I've seen. My strategy is usually to pack their neighbouring cities with spies to try to provoke revolts, though sometimes the citizens prove to be ludicrously loyal.

Now, the advice to build up your mines as quickly as possible is undoubtedly the best. The surrounding rebels are far too strong, and so you can only hope to conquer at the most three provinces (if you're very lucky) from them at the start. Conquest then is not going to earn you money. Mines will, but it takes a long time to build them and costs a lot of money. You'll need to disband your armies completely and spend several turns doing nothing while you get some money.

But then it's a Catch 22 situation. 265 BC (approx.) roles by, and the Arche Seleukeia declares war. Always. So, you might have built a couple of basic mines by then. But you've got no soldiers to speak of. You'll scrape the first few victories, and might even take a couple of Seleukid settlements. But then you'll grind to a halt. What's more is that your cities won't have enough people in them to man your armies, although that won't be a problem, because even with your basic mines you still won't be able to afford troops capable of taking on the multiple full stacks that the Seleukids will send at you.

I think that Hayasdan is a faction that the team should look at again (and Pahlava too, to a lesser extent). Is it right that horse archers should be so insanely expensive? I don't think so.

[Morte66]

Another way to deal with the AS is to just get out of Dodge.

[dumuzi]

To chip in myself, ive played several campaigns as Hayasdan, and definitely agree that they are a little too difficult to play as. I think the problem isnt just the Seleucids (who--with eastern tactics and good generaling--can be beat) but is also the fact that by the time you conquer them you have to deal with the Ptolemies. In my campaign i managed to take a lot of Mesopotamia and chunks of Syria: the AS situation was under control. But then the Egyptians (with whom i had an alliance) decided to eradicate me. Ive found that this usually happens because of the AI system of RTW. No matter how many alliances you have, you often find yourself at war with more than one neighbor. Playing as a smaller country, it makes the game very difficult.

[Sarkiss]

Ptolies and AS are making a sandwich out of me in my current campaign
next time i play, as son as new build is released, i will go south east towards Persepollis and not anywhere near (beyond Karatiokerta) to Ptolies. as soon as you get a common border with them they are back stabbing

[Landwalker]

Just thought I'd chip into this old thread my own request for a "formal" Hayasdan guide. Not so much a military manual, but I would love to see a "Getting Started" guide in the same vein as the stickied guides for the Romani, Casse, Sweboz, etc. I'm trying to start up a Hayasdan campaign myself and it's... intimidating.

Cheers.

[tapanojum]

I'm playing VH/M and am finding myself constantly attacked by HA attacks from the north *Those General HS Cav are so freaking tough* AS declared war on me in 271bc, and half rebel stacks lurking around attacking every once in a while.

I was on defense for about 10 years, each turn fighting 2-4 battles. After the AS lost around 15FM I was able to break through and expand south. At the same time I ended up attacking Pontus and got their capital and Sinope. Now I find myself at a halt. Not enough income to continue any campaigns any further, and large enemy stacks all around my borders. Time to fortify my positions and build those dang mines!

The Bodygaurd Cavalry are the only things keeping me alive. I ussually start off by having my general run on the perimeter of the enemy forces waiting for a good time to strike at the weak spearmen and missiles. Ussually after a few attacks I can distract a decent size chunk of the enemies army into following my General while my main army engages a now smaller enemy force.