never charge 2 horse archers at the same unit! build the green horse building to unlock advanced cavalry units. firendly fire means a lot of micromanagement is needed. during your first battle have your horse archers melee-charge the enemy's- as they try to retreat because of skirmish mode your horse archers will knife them in the back. send the spy to see the enemy on the way and hopefully catch them force-marching. work the first military tech-tree to unlock those sweet armored horse archers ASAP. force your enemy to come to you by placing a raiding army on their side of the border while another one inside your border is recruiting horse archers. don't bother with trade agreements- the AI demands a payment of 10 turns up frost and they will be dead by the time you will make a profit from that investment.disband any infantry!5-6 shots from horse archers will kill them all. speed is key here because if you give them breathing room they will win the arms race and leave you with no cash to resist the waves of invaders they will throw at you.īuy any armored mercenary on the very first turn.if you don't buy them the enemy sure will.
with your "kings purse" or whatever Rome 2 calls it you can recruit and maintain almost a full stack of horse archers before the other guys and rush them. Strategic situation: with the AI having access to virtually unlimited cash the first 15 turns go down like a c&c game: who can raise a full stack first. a good idea to consider is to leave armies on raiding stance to reduce their high upkeep costs. unlike that cheating AI you will need about 50 turns to field two full stacks for purely financial reasons. the big problem is as with any barbarian faction-money. their horsemen and especially horse archers are unmatched and will obliterate stack after stack of "eastern spearmen" with no casualties. Military situation: the nomads can raise large armies very fast (5 per turn) as long as they have the money. Get caught fighting on 2 fronts and the reinforcements will never make it. your settlements are few and far between so it will take some diplomacy to give you a fighting chance. Persians to the east, pontics to the south and Dacians to the west. Various other cultures await on the edge of the steppes, waiting for sings of weakness. You can choose to either conquer them or merge with them for a hefty sum of money. of those 3 are playable: the skirmish focused Scythia, the lancer focused Roxalanii and the heavy armor focused Masagatei. The steppes are home to about 6 factions which share the nomadic horse archer lifestyle. this article also contains battle tips to those unaccustomed to the whole "Mongol" battle style. Since all 3 nomadic cultures start in roughly the same location and with roughly the same units it stands to reason to unite them under one article.