Bactria was Made for Cavalry!

[Tidster]

Admittedly I’ve only played as Bactria since the update (3 play throughs), so I don’t know how the experience compares to other nations...

With access to the Persian and Greek Military Traditions, there’s a lot of easy to access boosts to mounted units (heavy cavalry, light cavalry, mounted archers) and it’s easy to get capital bonuses for both mounted archers and heavy cavalry. Once you break away from the Seleucids, you can enact the law to form legions right away. Filling that legion with just heavy cavalry, light cavalry and mounted archers is just bestial, especially after the legion get awards for victories. Basically it’s just stackwipe after stackwipe.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Filling that legion with just heavy cavalry, light cavalry and mounted archers is just bestial,

Pun intended?

 

[Yuanshu]

Admittedly I’ve only played as Bactria since the update (3 play throughs), so I don’t know how the experience compares to other nations...

With access to the Persian and Greek Military Traditions, there’s a lot of easy to access boosts to mounted units (heavy cavalry, light cavalry, mounted archers) and it’s easy to get capital bonuses for both mounted archers and heavy cavalry. Once you break away from the Seleucids, you can enact the law to form legions right away. Filling that legion with just heavy cavalry, light cavalry and mounted archers is just bestial, especially after the legion get awards for victories. Basically it’s just stackwipe after stackwipe.

Well the Bactria cavalry is quite famous so that was to be expected...
But now I have a doubt, did you have any problems with loyalty? because if you fill your legion a lot right after independence you increase the powerbase of the person who commands the legion a lot.

 

[Tidster]

Pun intended?

Actually... wish I was clever enough to make that pun intentionally. It’s a happy accident.

 

[Tidster]

Well the Bactria cavalry is quite famous so that was to be expected...
But now I have a doubt, did you have any problems with loyalty? because if you fill your legion a lot right after independence you increase the powerbase of the person who commands the legion a lot.

As a matter of fact, I did have issues with loyalty. It did help a bit that these high martial commanders would frequently ask for a martial related government office when I would befriend them. I did need to award a few triumphs to change command.

 

[Surimi]

Bactria is a really fun nation, in part because it can go in a lot of different directions, both literally and figuratively. You have fairly easy access to three traditions (Greek, Persian, Indian) with incredibly strong synergy. You can go for really strong cavalry with the Greek and Persian traditions, or you can create some kind of mega-phalanx with Heavy Infantry, Elephants and Light Cavalry. Personally, I think the latter might be stronger (in part because a lot of innovations also directly benefit heavy infantry) but there's definitely an appeal to having all-cavalry armies which can move fast and still bring the stackwipes.

 

[Jiben]

or you can create some kind of mega-phalanx with Heavy Infantry, Elephants and Light Cavalry. Personally, I think the latter might be stronger (in part because a lot of innovations also directly benefit heavy infantry) but there's definitely an appeal to having all-cavalry armies which can move fast and still bring the stackwipes.

Why LC if you go elephants/HI? Persian traditions got some REALLY good bonuses for HC so i would assume a HI/HC/Elephants legion would wreck althought it would be expensive as hell.

Macedonian levies also got HC and not LC like most greeks so it would help with normal levies aswell.

 

[Surimi]

Why LC if you go elephants/HI? Persian traditions got some REALLY good bonuses for HC so i would assume a HI/HC/Elephants legion would wreck althought it would be expensive as hell.

Honestly, you're probably right on that, mainly because I've just realised that shock action gives +200% effectiveness to elephants, which is huge.

But if that wasn't the case, I'd probably still favour light cavalry. They're about half the cost, and have lower supply requirements (bear in mind, we're talking about an insanely supply heavy army to begin with).

The reason I'd include cavalry in this army at all is because both heavy infantry and elephants have extremely low manoeuvre scores. A big part of why those cavalry armies are so good at stackwiping is because of the enormous manoeuvre score of horse archers. As soon as the enemy starts losing and their line is shorter, those flanking cavalry become essentially bonus damage. As mentioned, light cavalry are very cheap, but they're also a bit more manoeuvrable than heavy cavalry which makes them sort of ideal for filling out the flanks.

But yes, I think heavy cavalry are probably worth it simply for the fact you can supercharge your elephants and still give big bonuses to your entire army.

 

[Wethospu]

Honestly, you're probably right on that, mainly because I've just realised that shock action gives +200% effectiveness to elephants, which is huge.

--

That's not how it works. If you counter the enemy tactic (statistically 20% chance) you get up +20% damage depending on your tactic effectiveness. Yes, elephants allow you to reach that +20% quite easily but statistically it's only 0.2 * 0.2 = +4% damage on average.

 

[Surimi]

That's not how it works. If you counter the enemy tactic (statistically 20% chance) you get up +20% damage depending on your tactic effectiveness. Yes, elephants allow you to reach that +20% quite easily but statistically it's only 0.2 * 0.2 = +4% damage on average.

Wow, I've been reading tactics wrong.

In that case, horse archers all the way.

 

[Nostalgium]

Wow, I've been reading tactics wrong.

In that case, horse archers all the way.

To further elaborate, the value of very high effectiveness in a tactic is to make up for units with lower efficiency. For example, HA have 0% shock efficiency, and EL have 200% - this means that 1 HA + 1 EL = 100% shock efficiency, i.e. the full 20% damage bonus if Shock counters the enemy tactic. 2 HA + 1 EL = 50%, so 10% damage bonus, and so on.