Sabean missile choice & the underdog strategy discussion

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So, slingers vs archers-spearmen? I'm in love with the second choice- i have to fight mainly seleukid armies made out of approx. half-stack phalangites backed up by their , but unfortunately armored archers and a cavalry regiment or two. With archers/spearmen i dont have to constantly fear their general wrecking havoc in my archer section- I go with desert mobile warfare->arrow in the back tactics against the immobile seleukids, so i dont have men to spare deffing my archers. on the other hand, slingers have the blunt weapon bonus vs the heavy armor buggers, and i believe they run fast too... the only thing setting me back is that pocket knife they carry around, so i cant use them after missiles run out and i cant withdraw anymore:/ a lot of people seem to love the slingers , that's why im asking + maybe some advanced tactics you can advise when using them?
TLDR- armor smashing missiles, but 1 point in meelee vs archer/spear?
So about the underdog sab'yn. I've created stable alliance consisting of baktri pahlava me and ptolemai- seleukids almost pushed the latter out of upper kingdom territory, but now the 4-front warfare seems to be hitting them pretty hard- ive only been getting native and medium phalangites instead of the heavy troops, also, no generals for a long time(been fighting them near nowaday UAE for ~30 years now). I have now launched an expedition over the persian gulf into iran to wreck their 1-troop defended settlements. Ptolemais have finally complected 1.5- 2 stacks and baktria has gained considerable power from india, so it looks like seleukia is a goner. During it's collapse there will be this massive race for power, so:
1) Should i give the captured cities of iran to baktria in order to make our alliance stronger, the weak pahlava to create a war between the two, or hold them myself and risk a war with both of them? I fear to make baktria too powerful.
2)The yellow death(ptolemais) - should I backstab them from Erythrea while they are still struggling against seleukids and risk getting kicked out of the future superpower alliance, just let them fight it out and, as I fear, make ptolemais into an empire after they get the rich iudeian provinces? I also fear that when I and seleukids beat the ptolemais, they will gain northern egypt- this might save them from destruction. Baktria seems to be favoring ptolemais more- I already lost their alliance early in the game through the diplomacy, but got it back.
Playin on H/H

[athanaric]

They are different units with different tactical roles. Archer-spearmen have:
- significantly higher missile range (they outrange most missile units of the region, barring Heavy Persians and Kretans)
- a higher missile attack, translating to a more devastating result when used against light units
- a much more potent close combat weapon (that doesn't mean they are made for anything resembling a main battle line, though. It simply means they can fend off light cavalry and can be used as auxiliary flankers).
- a bigger unit size, translating to higher damage potential

By contrast, Arab slingers have:
- a shield, translating to better protection against missiles
- an AP attack, translating to more power against heavily armoured units (i.e. Seleukid elites, cataphracts)
- much easier availability, being a tier 1 unit, having a bigger AoR, and also being available to every faction (a moot point with Saba though)

So, to conclude:
You should generally field both.
If When you're facing the Diadochoi or Carthage, slingers are a great asset because your enemy will usually field a disproportionally large set of slow, armoured elite units, which are very difficult to whittle down with archers. You'll still need the archers against the lighter unit types though, and for taking out enemy missile units.
If you're facing any kind of Iranian troops, your slingers will get badly outmatched in terms of missile range and power (yes, the Iranian slingers are better, too). This means you have to bring more archer-spearmen, who are about equal to Iranian missile units on these grounds (even slightly better than Persian archer-spearmen). Slingers still have a role though in pelting heavily armoured cavalry.


Oh and please use Medium battles, otherwise your game is imbalanced and heavily biased towards missiles. Generally the most popular modes with EB players are M/M, H/M, and VH/M, which vary from "weak AI with annoying stack spam" to "absence of any diplomacy and retarded AI stack spam".

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So, to conclude:
You should generally field both.
If

Props, i'm now giving the slingers a chance, too; also ive been using red sea infantry and also they tend to die fast, axes qork good against phalangite backs. There seems to be a AI flaw where at some point phalanx unit just stands there, taking the beating. I'm thinking it's something to do with the aggro.
And yes, Pahlava stopped playing on the grand scale after baktrian campaign was launched on them. Currently, they're cuddled up with the nomads.


Also, all of the factions seem to be massive ice queens in terms of diplomacy- I mean, I'm giving you a country, and they're like "oh, stop it ,you!" O.o I worked it out lore-wise that they are afraid to cause anger from seleukids. at the end, baktrians gave in and accepted one (of course, i went full-barbarian rage and levelled cities to the ground and then ran away at the site of first phalanx stack).
Ptolemais asked for military access, the backstabing bastards.
Currently thinking about starting an AAR, as there have been some interesting things goin on.
Anyway, which barbarian faction would be the best for the lovely massive middle europe forest full-meelee clashes, berserking pagan feel and ? Casse seem lacking in challenge, cause of the Britannia left uninvaded.

[athanaric]

Anyway, which barbarian faction would be the best for the lovely massive middle europe forest full-meelee clashes, berserking pagan feel and ? Casse seem lacking in challenge, cause of the Britannia left uninvaded.

If you're asking what the most primitive and feral one is, I'd say Swêboz. They're even similar to Saba in their unit roster (tons of spearmen, mostly unarmoured), with a few major differences: Their archers are far worse at archery, and (by contrast) they have very strong close combat units. Pretty good in the anti-armour department, and almost all of their units are cavalry killers (actually, all of them). They have two expensive but funny fear inducing units.

If you want something like "Swêboz on crack with horse archers", try Getai. Swêboz and Getai units generally have great morale. Also, Getai have cheaper and more reliable falxmen, which basically work like a close combat RPG (they die in the process, but can take on any kind of armoured enemy. Hard countered by archers though).

If you want something with an actual tech tree, try one of the Gallic factions. Their units are more diverse in the morale department compared to the two factions above, meaning their low tier troops rout more easily, while their elites can take incredible punishment. Both factions are heavily biased towards swordsmen (having some of the best ones in the game).

Casse are like a more extreme and primitive version of the Gauls (antiquated stuff like chariots, slightly weaker economy, brittle levies vs strong elites). Interesting tactics though as they rely a lot on morale boosting and fear inducing units.

For people who like terrorism, Lusotannan are the right faction as they're almost all skirmishers with excessive focus on hit and run tactics (unless you start using more Iberian or Gallic units). They don't really have an economy either but that doesn't matter since they're located in Iberia, which has so many mines that you'll get rich anyway (If you conquer all of Iberia as Rome or Carthage and tech up the mines and other stuff, you can buy the rest of the map).



Also, there's a big guide on Swêboz units and strategy in my sig. Just sayin'.

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Yeah, I'll mosy probably go with sweboz. The one thing unfortunately is , that up until shogun 2 the countries on the sides of the map don't seem to be challenging at all :/ I really like the casse rouster, but i think they will pose an enjoying challenge only on VH/H, and even then i don't know whether AI is even interested in invading Britain. I guess I'm masochistic like that, the best campaigns so far for me have been HRE on Medieval 2, WRE on BI, Lithuania in kingdoms and Gondor in LOTr mods.
Nice sweboz guide btw

Jesus christ, how can a discussion miss the track so much...

[Casual Tactician]

Currently thinking about starting an AAR, as there have been some interesting things goin on.
Anyway, which barbarian faction would be the best for the lovely massive middle europe forest full-meelee clashes, berserking pagan feel and ? Casse seem lacking in challenge, cause of the Britannia left uninvaded.

Some good points by athanaric there, but as I'm currently really enjoying my Gallic campaign I'd propose the Aedui. Unlike the Sweboz which have a secure position at the start the Aedui face trouble early on: your at war with the Arverni (your direct neighbours), the Lusotannan will probably sooner than later cross the Pyrenees and attack you, the Sweboz will close in from the east and the Romans will probably attack your settlement in Gallia Cisalpina. All in all you can expect a grand "massive middle europe forest full-meelee clash".
I'd strongly recommend using the RSII environments for EB, the forests of Gaul/Germania (and also all other battle environments for that matter) look absolutely awesome - better don't use the trivial script to launch EB with RSIIenvs though (link). And as Feriad said the Force Diplomacy Mod can be quite helpful to deal with weird AI behaviour.
The Aedui also have the advantage of being able to recruit the Druidic Heavy Infantry, which the Arverni cannot. As for the "berserking pagan feel and " - have a look at these battle-hardened warriors: the Gesatae (take a look at their HP). If you conquere the Belgae provinces you can also recruit Celtic Chariots. What's also nice about quite a few Gallic (and Germanic) units is, that they wield vicious longswords with 0.225 lethality (compared to the 0.13 of spears and swords); the Bataros are a good example. Last but not least the Gallic BGs, the Brihentin, are a more than decent heavy cav; the Sweboz generals are eltie infantry.

All in all the Aedui are a good choice, but the Sweboz are also great and the more gritty 'barbarian' faction. Both will be fun to play.

Regards!

[Spike]

build foreign native barracks and train panda phalangitai, that will works as your mainline infantry

if you don't have it yet, just use arab light infantry, they are javelineers, but pretty decent in melee though

[Ferdiad]

VH/VH VH/VH VH/VH. Its what real men play.

[Wulfburk]

Real men plays through all the reforms instead of editing and skipping polybian. joking.. heheh

[Ferdiad]

Real men dont play video games. Real men go back in time and join the legions.

[Thuycidides]

If the AI didn't spam huge stacks of elite units without economic penalty then I would play VH/VH.

Sorry for the OT.

[Bob Doad]

yea im a man see my avatar! whopp whoppp

[Entropy Judge]

TLDR- armor smashing missiles, but 1 point in meelee vs archer/spear?

Athanaric already gave some great advice, primarily that you should field both. I'm personally more of an Archer fan mysefl, but then I play factions that either don't have to deal with pike phalanxes of DOOM or have tough enough units to deal with them (neither of which match the Saba).

1) Should i give the captured cities of iran to baktria in order to make our alliance stronger, the weak pahlava to create a war between the two, or hold them myself and risk a war with both of them? I fear to make baktria too powerful.

My rule of thumb regarding any settlement I take is that if I don't have a contiguous territorial line, I drop it and let it revolt (unless it's an island or otherwise strategically valuable). Often enough it will go to the Eleutheroi anyway, and if it doesn't it frequently allows other factions to bleed each other with the units the recipient gets. In any case, unless you have a pressing desire to hold the cities in question (better units or income, generally) I would not recommend holding them. So, Pahlava or Baktria? They may end up going to Baktria no matter what, as depending on how built up Baktria's borders are, and how powerful their armies are, the Pahlavans may not be able to hold the cities unless you come in on their side against Baktria, at which point you have an even stronger Baktria potentially able to devour the Pahlavans, when what you'd wanted was to bleed them both.

VH/VH VH/VH VH/VH. Its what real men play.

Real men don't need to puff their egos by insinuating that whatever they play must be the only way real men play.

[Ferdiad]

I enjoy fighting Eltie stacks, maybe its cos im an Elite stack spammer myslef.

[Ferdiad]

Real Men get jokes.

[Ferdiad]

Force Diplomacy is what you seek.