Persian Super Friend Justice League...

[C.Maximus]

The Persian empire is a massive faction that has 8 factions total in its starting position. The overlord holds a good 10 cities and by himself is a capable foe. Playing as the ERE... things are going decent.. I cut my ties in Libya after some brutal battles and retreated to Egypt... the North Africans seem fine sacking my cities to the far west... In the Balkans I am holding... the Visigoths were destroyed and the Thracian rebels they created were also put down... Life is good.. My ties with the WRE have been taken down to merely a non aggression pact since i did not want to be pulled into their wars and I decided to pawn the Huns off on them (Like a good Eastern Roman would). I was just about to pull myself out of this crap shoot of a starting position they give you when the Persians decided they wanted to go at me full force... They have been at war with me for 3 turns and I abandoned Edessa moving back to Antioch... This is when my troubles began.

Basically I am out numbered 10 to one... at least. The Sassasinds have 5-6 stacks and they are not afraid to use them. On top of that all 7 of their vassals sport atleast 2 stacks, some almost 3... I managed to secure an alliance in the caucus mountains and take out a military ally (Arman I think) but now I am losing a war by simply being overwhelmed. I have armies in key locations along my borders but they will siege my city with 2-3 stacks then use other stacks to blow past me and start sacking my smaller towns. Syria and Israel are both on fire and I just got an amphibious invasion into Egypt from the Red Sea (Damn smart AI)... my Egyptian legion is now tasked with defending against the North Africans as well as various Eastern vassals...

If I march out I can usually win 1 on 1 even 2-3 army battles have happened where I came out on top killing all their generals... However when I try to continue forward I am met with 2-3 fresh stacks waiting for Roman blood... These guys have no enemies other than myself and are so friendly with one another you would think they are one faction... but more powerful than one faction as each sub faction sports 2 stacks...

I love a challenge and am enjoying this struggle... (NOT A COMPLAINT THREAD)... But I need some advice.. I don't know what you guys can say to help me, but I have considered everything from using my Caucus mountain army and sail over the Caspian to invade from there.. Doing that might leave me open though and it may not even work as I do not know how many defenders they have over there...

Any ERE experts out there? the Huns... pah.. they are push overs compared to this Persian super friend justice league...

[Bramborough]

- Agent spam. Spies to slow them down and champs to wear them down. Priests aren't much good for direct action against armies, but they can be useful in assassinating the higher-quality generals and converting their agents.

- So your defensive line basically runs Antioch-Melitene-Trapezus? I'd put an army in each one. The presence of a full army in a settlement is a big deterrent...although the Sassanids do seem less reluctant than most to attack strongly defended towns.

- If you max out on armies because of imperium, don't forget you've also got fleets available. You could use fleets to bolster your garrison in, say, Antioch and Trapezus, thereby freeing up more armies for field work. Fleets could also help out down south in Egypt and Palestine.

- Sassanid/eastern armies tend to have a lot of cavalry and spears. I had success against them with spear-heavy armies, using Armored Sagitarii and Ballistarii for my missile complement. The archers provide high volume of flaming shot and are good against the cavalry units, while the Ballistarii are just gruesome against their infantry. I didn't use a lot of cavalry against the Sassanids, but in retrospect I probably could/should have, as ERE melee cav is quite good.

- In my own big Sassanid war, I basically played defensively, and tried not to give them an opening. Eventually I pushed a 3-stack group towards them slowly, trying to use terrain as best I could. My main goal was to force a large battle in which they were the attacker, with several stacks. Even if I lost, I wanted huge losses on their side and lots of dead generals. The battle occurred, I think they brought 8 separate stacks (although not all of them were full), so the big fight was actually 2 stages. Result; epic, glorious bloodbath (one of the largest and most uncertain battles I've ever experienced in any TW game). Thanks primarily to the crossbows, my armies won (barely), but were torn up quite badly. The bigger effect, however, was eight Sassanid stacks shattered. I was able to follow up with a couple of fresh armies and mow through Asoristan before they could recover.