Guide for Nomad factions

[americancaesar]

Is there a guide for the EB nomad factions. I would really like to try them without immediate failure. If there isn't, post some tips here, please.

AC

[Laman]

First thing is that of the nomads the Sauromatae are easier then Saka Rauka. Pahlava starts as nomad but are a special case, so I won't talk that much about how they work. First thing to know is that the steppe doesn't provide much wealth, so it is "easy" to become big, but difficult to get rich. The settled lands are where the money is.

For governments first build occupation of local towns, it is cheap and quick (one turn) and provides some public order. If you haven't migrated into the province you may create the nomad equivalent of level 4 government, which functions just like a settled level 4. If you don't want to have the allied government, migrate. After migration there is two choices, pastoralism and nomadism. Nomadism will allow you to get basic horse archers while pastoralism will allow the training of infantry. One thing to note is that nomad recruitment does depend on settlement size like recruitment in vanilla (although not to the same extent).

Both will allow nobles (heavier horse archers then the basic ones, but also more expensive), though in order to construct the building to train those, you must have constructed elite herds first.

[mrtwisties]

Once you master the art of nomad warfare, everything else about ruling a nomad faction falls into place. There are three maxims.

1. Engage the enemy in open terrain whenever you can. Destroy their missile units with massed fire and Cantabrian circles, then surround the enemy with your horse archers. Once your last arrow has thunked into the back of a hapless Pezhetairoi, begin with the cavalry charges. You have the advantage of speed, and by now their army will be in disarray. So be the fastest with the mostest and charge five or six horsemen into a weakened enemy unit from every direction. Once they break, use the same trick on the next unit. Your advantages in open terrain are so absolute that securing victory is partly a matter of tempting the enemy into battle in such places.

2. Use locals for any dirty work. If you're facing armies with a strong missile component, hire Greek skirmishers to "absorb" their fire. If you're storming a city, hire the best assault troops that are available. If the enemy have a lot of heavily armoured phalangites, hire your own "anvil" troops and beat Makedonia at its own game. The last thing you want is for your core troops to die - they can only be replenished back in your homelands, which are often a long way away and underpopulated in any case.

3. Withdraw when necessary. You can win a battle with no casualties in favourable circumstances. There's no reason to win them in unfavourable circumstances, where you may end up sacrificing the strategic initiative for victory in a single battle.

If you've got all that down, you can pursue the same strategy that nomads have always pursued - pick on the weakest settled faction you can find. They don't come much weaker than the Seleukids. Their eastern empire is garrisoned by troops that are tailor made to be cut down by horse archers, and the weather conditions are generally pretty good for archery.

Oh, and if you're wondering where the money for "hiring locals to do the dirty work" comes from, the answer is "sacking and pillaging". The starting armies of the Saka Rauka, the Sauromatae and the Pahlav are all sufficiently strong for you to wade across the map, sacking and pillaging until you've burned Seleukeia to the ground. Even after the cost of hiring mercenaries, you should end up with 150,000 mnai and an experienced core army.

Once a nomad faction has money and an experienced core army, there's very little that can stop you.

One last note, this one on how to maintain a standing army. I like to maintain armies that are 20% heavy archer-lancer cavalry and 80% light archer-lancer cavalry. Your FMs can supply all the heavies you'll need, and the lights won't cost much at all to maintain.

A half stack of this kind is enough to take on almost any army that the settled peoples will throw at you, if you've mastered all three maxims of nomad warfare. And since your generals can cover enormous distances very swiftly, you'll only need a small number of these half stacks to keep your empire thoroughly under control.

Using this strategy, a nomad faction can maintain a really good army on the cheap. I strongly recommend doing this.

Okay, so that wasn't the last note - let's talk about developing your provinces. The money for your economy will pretty much come from the rich faction provinces that you put under "allied" government. Well, that and pillaging. You can spend a little bit of money developing these rich provinces, but you just don't have the same range of buildings available as the settled peoples do, so don't get too excited about turning Pella into the money-making powerhouse that it is for the Makedones.

When you're bothering to develop a province, your prime concern is to develop a good source of horse soldiers. Under nomadism, with all MICs built, you tend to get a lot of really good, cheap light cavalry, plus heavier noble cavalry. Under pastoralism, with all MICs built, you tend to get a lot of foot units, plus heavier noble cavalry.

Based on my earlier posts, you can guess which of these I prefer. Build nomadism wherever you can. Then build both lines of MICs. I forget how it works, but basically both lines of MIC are for your factional troops - one produces light cavalry, while the other produces your elites. Just experiment a bit with process_cq to figure out which is which, I can't remember all the names.

Once you've got provinces that provide an adequate reserve of horsey manpower, a good (and cheap) standing army, a strong (plundered) treasury, and a bunch of wealthy provinces that you took from, say, the Greeks - well, the world is your oyster. I like to amuse myself by raiding and role-playing, but am strongly considering using "console_command control factionname" to give myself the challenge of opposing my mighty armies.

[americancaesar]

Thanks for the info. Should be more than enough to get started with.