Parthia [Archive]

GodsPetMonkey

10-11-2004, 00:04

Parthia –

I. Introduction
II. General Strategies
III. Money
IV. Battles
V. Sieges
VI. Mid to Late game

I. Introduction -

Parthia is the ‘major’ eastern faction, being the only one that CA made unlockable. It relies almost entirely on cavalry, which is both good and bad. The good is, this includes cavalry archers, the bad is a lack of heavy infantry hurts every now and then. The aim of a Parthian army is speed and range despite having War elephants and 2 types of Cataphracts, horse archers are going to be the most potent weapon at your disposal.

Any suggestions or corrections are welcome ~:)

I personally run the game with a few modifications.

Move Speed mod – I put in some small penalties of my own

Kill speed mod – Reduced the attack speeds to 50%. I have tried, and didn’t like the double HP mod, and whilst this isn’t perfect, it slows down combat with out shifting the rock-paper-scissors balance.

Parthia now has Cataphract Archers – Never could work out why they didn’t in the first place.

Parthia now has eastern heavy infantry – Whilst I rarely use them, its nice to have something to man the siege engines and doesn’t run at the first sign of an arrow.

By adding those 2 units, Parthia becomes very Armenia like, and while I didn’t want to subtract from their uniqueness, there is still one key difference, Armenia gets legions, and heavy infantry is something you will really miss, especially after playing the Romans or Barbarians. You don’t have to play with these changes, they only make life a little easier, but neither shift the balance in any major, or even moderate way.

I play at Very Hard/Hard difficulty for the Map/Battles. Lesser campaign battle difficulties would be the best way to make the game easier, especially in the diplomacy side of things. Egypt may even keep an alliance.

II. General Strategies

As Parthia, the biggest problem will be money. Despite the intro money, the only thing flowing through your lands is sand. Be prepared to do a lot of tax-rate tweaking to maintain a balance between money and growth. Its imperative that you keep as many family members as possible in garrison. As you will be hard pressed to field more then one ‘killer’ army, as too many of your best offensive units will drain the treasury in a matter of years, this isn’t so hard. I play with one designated general (to start with) in charge of my main army, try to get plenty of the extra movement ancillaries for him, he will be doing a lot of marching.
First up, there are 2 nearby rebel provinces, either bribe them, or attack them. Arabia will take a long time to grow into something useful, so just put a minimum garrison there and let it make some money. Atropatene is more useful, mostly because it separates you from Armenia. Take them both, and make sure you build roads early (build them everywhere!) the East is a big place, and it takes an infuriating amount of time for you to move up re-enforcements to the Mediterranean, once you start fighting there.
Your first target should be Armenia. Right from the start, make alliances with everyone, especially Egypt, the longer you can play them off, particularly against Seleucia, the better. Make an army, your starting Cataphracts are an obvious inclusion, but add in as many horse archers as you can, even bring some down from Campus Sakae if you feel the need for them. Bring along some foot archers and eastern infantry if you have some to spare, or bribe of few rebels on the way, they will help to boost your numbers, a field battle is unlikely at this stage and foot archers can be very useful in early sieges against wooden barriers. If you are willing to wait a little, and hope that no-one attacks you first, you can aim for some Persian cavalry, which can be great in melee (remember to turn of skirmish though, I have made the mistake of leaving it on a few times, and they don’t seem to be able to fight properly, even if cornered, with it on).
After Armenia has fallen, Seleucia should be at war with Egypt and losing (as they always do). Try to grab Babylonia, especially for the Gardens wonder, as you will probably be bleeding for cash by now, and it’s a very handy boost. After this, work your way west. I’ll cover mid to late game later in this guide.

III. Money

The Parthians are in dire financial problems right from the word go, you have to be REALLY careful on your building selections for some time. It also means you can’t support many armies, a good idea is to have one main army, and a supporting one of a smaller size. Don’t bother building up trade in your far eastern cities, they don’t seem to have much to offer to trade to each other, and the Silk Road line of buildings is to expensive for now, and doesn’t pay off on the first level.
As you expand, especially towards the med, you will pick up a few provinces. Try to worm your way towards Egypt, which is a cash cow, and grows like mad too (which is why its so damn powerful, all the time!).
I try to balance out growth and taxes, and aim to get two cities up to Huge City (and Camel Cataphracts). Most of your armies will be Persian cavalry as well as Cataphracts, and a few elephants, both Large City level units, which is pretty easy to achieve, you may as well tax the crap out of cities after they reach this stage, even if most of your units are cheap upkeep.

IV. Battles

Battles are very different from the other factions (except the modable to be played Armenians and Scythians, but even they have some half decent infantry). Its all about the cavalry, particularly horse archers, which are nothing short of devastating, especially after a little experience.
Some general tips –
I know its obvious, but avoid melee at all costs, even with their nice melee attack stats, Persian cavalry (and Cataphract archers if you mod them in) will be eaten by any half decent infantry. A very much at-a-pinch move.
Keep skirmish on at all times, except when they are forced into melee. The skirmish engine is a lot better then that in MTW, which makes massed horse archers even more devastating. You can micro your Cataphracts and not worry about anything else.
Forget infantry. Except for sieges (covered later) and city defence, they will just slow you down.
War Elephants are essentially walking arrow towers, even after the first patch. Charge them in if you want, but it’s a waste of a good harasser. I make them stand in the middle of my deployed line, and whilst my archers flank, they sit their shooting away. When the enemy is broken and half routed, charge them in for a laugh. Beware though; elephant’s aren’t so good vs. later game troops. More then once some over enthusiastic armoured hoplites have given my silver chevron elephants a nasty surprise.
Make sure your general has a cherigon or equivalent. I find that most of my friendly fire casualties heal with one of them around, and you will have a lot of them in some battles.
Keep your horse archers in loose formation. This helps reduce their friendly fire casualties, and helps against the best counter to them, archers.
When auto firing, units don’t take into account nearby friendlies, so make sure your archers aren’t firing before sending in the Cataphracts, otherwise you might lose as many expensive horses as the enemy looses cheap infantry!

I use similar deployments for both offensive and defensive battles. My ‘standard’ line up is (when grouped) –

1 * 3 War elephants [E]
3 * 3 Persian Cavalry [P]
1 * 3 Cataphract Archers [A] (substitute Persian Cavalry if you prefer)
2 * 2 Cataphracts [C] (of either type)
1 * 1 General [G]

I generally deploy them like this.

.....PPP...EEE...AAA....
PPP.....CC.G.CC.....PPP

The archers attack from the side, the elephants hold, and the Cataphracts charge where needed, normally chasing down enemy cavalry sent after my archers. It’s the same in defence, except the enemy makes it easier by coming to you. You can really set up some nasty cross fire as they approach your elephants, with pretty much a constant stream of arrows hitting on 3 sides. Rarely do any enemy infantry make it to my elephants line before routing.

Now, heres something very important. Something that makes the Parthians the bees knees, the Parthian shot. It’s why you leave four archers set to fire at will all the time (except in very rare circumstances, normally to do with friendly fire). Its great watching your archers shoot away at targets they pass on their way to where you told them to go, it makes skirmish even more powerful, as they shoot their chasers whilst they run away. And, when the enemy starts routing, just send all your archers to the point at which they are leaving the map, and they will start shooting those poor cowards on the way. Whilst horse archers are powerful in their own right, Parthian shot is why you don’t need any infantry, why use something to protect and pin, when you can kill whilst moving to safety. Its almost unfair.

V. Sieges

Sieges are where the Parthians hurt, and try as I may, I can’t find a way to pull off a non-phyyric victory.
Against wooden walls, its easy enough, walk up to them, and shoot anything stupid enough to be defending close by, ram your way through, then kill at your leisure.
Against stone walls though, your lack of heavy, or even medium infantry becomes all to evident. The arrow towers hurt a lot, and if they have some archers on their walls, its going to be hard to approach them with anything. I have tried sapping the walls then covering my advance with elephants. The elephants live, but once in the city, it just gets worse. With nowhere to manoeuvre, the horse archers are at the mercy of the defenders, and Cataphracts are to expensive to bring in huge force. If your enabled heavy spearman, you could try a Greek like hoplite attack, but they are weak on the offence, and will be eaten by any decent infantry (like legions). Most of the time, I just starve them out. To do this, hire some mercs, and put them on siege duty. Try to draw their garrison out first, and obliterate it with archers in their backyard, then just wait the 8 or so turns, which is infuriating, but with a decent army roaming nearby, the city wont be relieved by an external force.
I normally enslave when I capture, it boosts my core cities pop, and reduces negative effects in the city I just took, that’s a win/win!

VI. Mid to Late game

The mid game depends a lot on how the dice have fallen. It’s a given that Egypt will be powerful, and will make for your hardest opponent pre-Rome, it took me about 20 years to take Antioch and Sidon from the Egyptians, but those 2 cities gave me enough funds to fuel a second major army. The main challenge is not that they will butcher you with superior units, far from it, they just have an endless supply. On the whole, their cavalry is pretty poor, and infantry succumb to arrows in their hundreds, the only real threat is their archers, and they normally get a face full of Cataphracts.
Taking Egypt should resolve most of your financial problems, but unless they are in a nasty war with the scipii in the west, expect it to take some time. After Egypt has been crushed, you can either take the rest of Asia Minor, or head west into Africa. If you go the Asia route, there’s a good chance that the Greeks still exist, finally some foes that cant fight back. They lack cavalry, and their hoplites are well armoured but to slow to prove any challenge. Threat them as a warm up for the final show, Rome. Most likely you shall meet the scipii or brutii first, but once one goes to war, expect the other front to flair up. By now you should be the king of the eastern med, I personally think Greece is a nicer target then Carthage, but either way.
The Romans are a hard team though, the toughest infantry in the game, very good ranged unit, and a moderate selection of cavalry, but most important of all, by the time you meet them in battle, they will have a killer economy, so expect droves and droves of cohorts. The only time I ever ran out of arrows was in a battle vs. the Romans. Don’t let their lack of spears tempt you to go Cataphract crazy either, upgraded cohorts can kill them if they stop their charge, and vs praetorians or urban cohorts things can get very nasty. Stick to collecting their richer holdings, although money shouldn’t be an issue anymore, it denies them valuable denarii, and will help with a few more armies.

Doug-Thompson

10-11-2004, 15:13

A well thought-out guide, GodsPetMonkey.

The Seleucids don't defend Seleucia in the opening moves, for some unimaginable reason. Taking it in the early turns eases the money problems.

HopAlongBunny

10-13-2004, 16:09

sakuraoni

10-13-2004, 22:06

I also have noticed that early in the game you may want to make a dash to get coastal provinces (most ideal would be the caspian sea ports which connects to the med. sea). By gaining trade access that way, you can greatly improve your cash flow, then use the funds to finance your way on egypt and the seleucid empire. I havent got past that part yet but will inform ;)

Doug-Thompson

10-13-2004, 23:34

I might have to try this faction again.

I went after the practically undefended wonder in the first cpl turns. Soon after, Egypt showed up on my doorstep and declared war; followed by Armenia; followed by Scythia.

Had some nice battles, but it was just a (frustrating) downward spiral.

@#$% Egyptians. :furious3:

I posted a long rant on another thread about how much I hate the @#$% Egyptians. Kill 1,000 and another 1,000 jump up, of better quality than the first bunch.

I had to declare war on Armenia just so I can conquer their provinces to get enough revenue to support my war on the @#$% Egyptians.

The @#$% Egyptians can't be strong everywhere. The fighting so far has been in the Palmyra-Damascus corridor. Lately it shifted to Bostra-Arabia.

I'm going to put an all-cavalry army where it can threaten Damascus, Jerusalem and Bostra at the same time, with plenty of spies. Let's see if the @#$% Egyptians are strong enough to guard all three. I'll attack one and won't care if I can maintain the siege or not. I'll just draw the @#$% Egyptians into a fight and whip them piecemeal. If I take a town, I'll burn it down. I'll also launch a smaller force at Petra.

I assume the AI will spam fleets in the Red Sea again, but if they don't or if I can get around them, I'm going to cross that sea and put a bunch of cavalry in the Nile valley.

When I finally break the @#$% Egyptians, I'm going to put their cities to the torch just out of principle.

GodsPetMonkey

10-14-2004, 04:17

I might have to try this faction again.

I went after the practically undefended wonder in the first cpl turns. Soon after, Egypt showed up on my doorstep and declared war; followed by Armenia; followed by Scythia.

Had some nice battles, but it was just a (frustrating) downward spiral.

I know what you mean, Egypt is by far the hardest faction you will face, mostly because they outnumber you totally and completely, and you dont have the cash to upgrade your cities to super unit factories.

In my current Parthian game, which most of that quide was based on, there are about 10 great battle markers in Syria alone from me battling them, several times I would attack their army in my turn, then in theirs they would attack with another, a great bloody war that was, it wasnt untill I was able to push them down to the nile that they were finally broken, and that took 50 years. You would seige a city to find they have 5 full stacks of troops marching towards you.

Its also one reason why I went for Armenia rather then Seluecia straight off, those north provinces are normally safe (Pontus rarely bothers me) and can keep you afloat whilst you and egypt exchange blows down south. Another reason is that Egypt and Seluecia had a alliance for the first 10 years of that game, and some very large stacks kept walking up and down my border, I wasn't willing to provoke them. Should they go to war straight away, a quick grab would be a good idea, but hope they dont feel like some retribution.

Marshal Murat

10-16-2004, 00:07

Ahh, parthia.
Just as the horse riders, I use them to raid (namely thous #@!*% Egyptians)cities, mostly I'll conquer them, exterminate, get the bag of the buck.

Selucia is a nice prize.
Armenia is very anti you, so go and burn thier eyes out. Pontus is a good ally. However Seleucids are practically dead. Feed on thier carcass. Pontus and the desert are buffers, keep cavalry patroling the area. Scytia can match you with cavalry so block all the mountain passes to them with mercs. Very effective.

A interesting story, I got a army of Scytian, Sarmatians, and Parthians into Roman lands. The hastati, Princpes, and Triarii are chewable. Heavy infantry are easy prize, so the Greeks are no problem. However archers are havoc.

Get your cavalry archers pumped out as much as your money allows. With alot of them, you can spread them out. I like to micro my troops to one units against larger armies, and just arrow them and then withdraw, until you can get a huge army of horse archers, then just pummel thier carrions with arrows, and once thier broken, charge.

Careful with the Egyptians chariots, they can almost match your HA speed, and have almost twice the firepower.

Doug-Thompson

10-18-2004, 15:28

I have one complaint about the faction: Too many battles.

Yes, that's a strange complaint, but I can't get no rest.

It's not at all unusual for the main army to fight two battles in the same turn. Between brigands and near-constant two-front wars, I might fight four or five battles a turn.

The campaign game has become rather lengthy.

Oh well.

Chancellor Kroll

10-18-2004, 23:16

:help:

I'm playing my 2nd campaign as Parthia on Hard/Medium. Things are going well. Its 265BC and I'm the largest faction and am extending my borders on 3 fronts, into Turkey, Russia and South towards Egypt.

BUT

My generals are always getting killed. Even in routine bandit hunting raids where I heavily outnumber the enemy. I rely on large horse archer armies but my generals have a heavy cavalry bodyguard. When I start a battle the enemys heavy cavalry charges down my general, chases him around the map and eventually corners him and kills him. My HA usually finish of the enemys army, and I win the battle, but lose my general. Its very frustraing.

Does anyone know how to protect these vulnerable Parthinian generals with their weak skirmishing bodyguards?

Doug-Thompson

10-19-2004, 03:11

Raizen

10-19-2004, 03:55

LordKhaine

10-20-2004, 03:30

First off... don't pick this faction if you dislike cavalry. It's a really fun faction to play though, so I advise trying them! Anyway... here's how I did the first bit, which is usually the most difficult period of any campaign.

I quickly built up a few turns, and then launched into Armenia. I rolled through them with ease, and you should too! I allied with Scythia at this point. It's not worth going north. The plains are huge, poor, and simply not worth the effort. You also have the mountain range north of your newly aquired Armenian provinces, this is an easily defendable line. I just left a token guard along the north line, and placed a few towers to get advance warning of any invasion from the north. Next I aimed south...

Pontus! They may look friendly, but they quickly sent a large army towards me. So I did what any Parthian general should do, I quickly counter attacked! For me at least, they simply used large hordes of Eastern Infantry. As this (http://www.zen17212.zen.co.uk/Pics/RTW/rtw2.jpg) screenshot shows... eastern infantry are fodder under the onslaught of horse archers. Spare no-one! At this point you'll be very poor, but your horse archers are your strength! With them you will get rich. Just keep pushing at Pontus, and don't stop until you have them wiped out!

At this point you should be making a fair bit of money, and you can select where to go. I myself took on the seleucid empire, egypt, and greece, in that order (though the latter two attacked me...). Looking back Greece should perhaps of been my first enemy. If you push them out of their eastern provinces and then make peace... you can make a ton of cash out of trade. Going south always leads to a messy prolonged war with the seleucid empire and egypt. Certainly doable with great protential income... but a hard and long fight. By the time I was at peace with other factions, I had taken all of the western greek provinces, and gone as far south as the river nile. At this time I stopped advancing simply because I was making such an insane amount of money. This faction has the potential for a HUGE income via trade. If you get to this point you'll be in a very good strategic position as well.

As for the tactical side of things. Horse archers are fast, pack a punch, and are pretty cheap. At the start I pretty much fielded entire armies of horse archers, with merc infantry simply there to keep the enemy busy and man the siege equipment. Their downsides are a lack of melee abilities, and they're tricky to maneuver in a town. But they're pretty much all you have at the start. Eventually you'll want to entirely replace them with Persian cavalry. These guys are basically horse archers... but they're in a tighter formation and can handle themselves far better in a melee.

Concerning the heavy side of things. It will be a long time till you get a city that can produce cataphracts. So grab all the merc heavy cavalry you can get your hands on. Arab cavalry and the camel archers/warriors are also handy for desert combat. Eventually you'll get cataphracts and cataphract camels, and you wont have to depend on mercenaries. And if cataphracts arent heavy enough for you... you're blessed with the ability to get war elephants!

As for infantry, you'll want some eastern infantry and bowmen (slingers will do until you get the tech for bows) to defend your cities and towns. I highly advise getting stone walls as soon as you can. Hillmen are preferable if you want to use infantry in battles (they're faster and have a better morale). But just remember the Parthian way, infantry are there as fodder to simply tie the enemy up, it's the cavalry that will decide the battle. Between the horse archers and heavy cavalry you can get by without infantry... except for sieges. Stone walls will give you a lot of trouble until you get onagers. Then you can simply charge into the breach with your elephants and cataphracts and hope for the best.

Anyways... this post was a bit of a ramble perhaps... and plenty of it simply repeated what others said.. but hopefully it still added (or reinforced) some decent advice. Just remember to have fun with this faction, and don't play it like it's greece or a roman faction!

GodsPetMonkey

10-20-2004, 08:13

This faction has frustrated me to no end. The horse archers are wonderful, but sometimes they aren't enough, and the Parthians really don't have much more of an option early on. Eastern Infantry are terrible, Hillmen are even worse. Money is tight, so mercenaries are few and far between. HAs have served me well in sieges, since the enemy is often stupid enough to run back and forth behind the wooden walls, but in open battle, it's extremely frustrating. As an extreme example, one rebel hillman got too close to two HA units, and all 108 of them backed off.

And forget about fighting other cavalry in the open. Taking Armenia was easy enough until I ran into their cataphracts. That was an exercise in patience, and it didn't turn out well for me in the end.

Egypt is a large pain as well. Go at them early, and you have only one main army that has to go through some provinces to get to the Egyptians, and then you get worn down by their stacks of Nubian Spearmen. Go at them too late, and you won't be able to keep up.

Parthia is by far my favourite faction to play ;)

Horse archers are very deadly, but melee isnt where they belong.
At first, I would loose quite a few in battles to them being trapped as well, but that doesn't happen anymore, I think its just a case of learning where to best apply them, as a rule, I send them after cavalry first, then fank in on infantry.

A quick point though, when they are forced into melee, make sure you quickly turn off skirmish, it seems to be that they will try to run away even when they cant, and dont bother with HTH attacks, end results, loads of casulties, not many kills, persian cavalry in particular can give attacking infantry (and even light cavalry) a VERY nasty surprise. After learning to turn of skirmish, the rare HTH engagement was no longer a problem.

Vs cataphracts, its about tiring them out, but its best to hit armenia early so to remove their menace, very nasty horses, but HAs will out run them easily. I wouldnt risk my own limited early cataphracts against them, and yoru general will be eaten alive, so try to bait them into chasing HAs all battle long.

I found egypt pretty easy to butcher, but by then my horses had a bit of experiance from battles with armenia and seluecia. Anything in phalanx is HA bait, nubians and nile spearmen are a joke, and the AI never wants to set them in normal formation. The big problem with egypt, is for every man you kill, 5 are marching from the nile towards you, way to much money, way to much growth, its crazy. One idea maybe to try to slip though and capture an undefended city early, then raise it to the ground. Damascus may be a good idea, as its not so great to be worth keeping, yet far enough in their teriitory to be relatively undefended. You get some good cash from tearing all the buildings down, and set them back a bit.

But always expect a LONG war with Egypt, 50 years is probably good, unless they get rushed in the west. Thats another thing, pray for the numidians and the scipii to attack egpyt early, dividing their attention. But trust me, their cities on the eastern med are worth it. Antioch (although seluecid at the start) is very rich, but Jerusalem is just insane, despite having a huge population, and thus supporting a large part of my army, its making over 4000 denarii per turn, and thats with being at war with my 2 coastal neighbours (Greece and what remains of Egypt). Whats more, with very high taxes, no governer (I have a shortage) and just 2 eastern infantry for a garrison, it has a loyalty of about 220%. Seems like the Jews like that zoroastra bloke ~;)

Chancellor Kroll

10-20-2004, 10:11

Hi GodsPetMonkey,

I took your advice on dealing with Egypt by "try(ing) to slip though and capture an undefended city early". Memphis is mine. The world map shows a spec of purple in a sea of yellow. It was a crushing blow to the worlds biggest faction and devastating to their finances. What a success.

It started many turns ago. My armies were stuck in Turkey when Egpyt attacked on masse. Heavily outnumbered I had to do something radical. I slipped 8 HAs and one good general through the front line and pressed heavily into enemy territory. The Egpytians tried to engage me many times, but I always withdrew and pressed on south. Finally I created a fort to the East of memphis and recruited mercs every turn. I built up a large army in the heart of the enemys kingdom.

I conducted terrorist raids and wiped out any small stacks that came close to the fort. After wiping out most troops from the safety of my fort I beseiged Memphis. The idiot Egyptians rallied out. I guess they outnumbered me 2 to 1 and knew no fear. Those phalanxes and spearman didn't have a chance. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. I gained a wonder from the most powerfull faction with a small, fast strike into their heart.

Good luck to all fellow Parthians.

GodsPetMonkey

10-20-2004, 10:30

Nice work Chancellor Kroll! Even more successful then I had thought!
Another benefit about Egyptian cities is they are well built up, with any luck, you should be able to start producing higher cavalry units in Memphis, then strike at Thebes and Alexandria, which should be crippling.

But better still, it means less of their men will be heading towards your territory, as they attempt to retake Memphis, its a solid plan. I recommend building loads of archers and the best walls you can get ASAP, if they lay siege, just 'sally out' with the archers, dump them on the walls in the deployment phase, and wait for the AI to do some trademark stupid act.

Actually, I'm starting to wonder why so many people aren’t being a lot more effective with their HAs. Even with fresh troops and a so-so general, I am able to kill hundreds of opponents with few losses... change it to my now dreaded (if the AI could dread) stack of all gold chevron cavalry, with gold weapons and armour upgrades (courtesy of Jerusalem) and if i suffer more then 50 losses from my 1200 or so troops, I feel it was a tough battle (well, maybe not, but with something that powerful, its hard to find a good challenge).
Perhaps more discussion is needed on the best way to work the old horse archer.... damn the lack of replays for single player.

wanderingblade

10-20-2004, 15:10

Started a campaign as the Parthians, and they're superb.

The main trouble I've noticed is lack of money at the beginning - which can be rectified by selling Map information, trade rights and alliance left right and centre. The Selucids are in particular good for this and I've yet to have any trouble from them. I've struck out west mainly - took the rebels first, then I invaded Armenia.

Armenia only have one big army, which frankly looked too nasty to me. So I dispatched a few units of Eastern Infantry to sit in the way of his line of march and flee from every battle. This left the big army more or less impotent, and I'd slipped a few units of horse archers and my general around it to lay siege to his capital. I just sat the siege out, then in a few years that big stack had gone rebel and I got a nice army and 2 generals for 17,000 or so.

I'm now engaged in war with Pontus, who I'd waited to be busy with Macedonia and Thrace. Settled down to starve his first two cities with a few roaming horse archers exterminating any unit of eastern infantry they see. I'm about to make a stab at his last city in Asia Minor - its going to be long, because he's got a lot but its all Eastern Infantry.

My next move has yet to be settled. Egypt and Selucia are at war. My choices are to back-stab the Selucids which will make Egypt more powerful, or neogiate military access and help my allies. Hopefully here they can both exhaust themselves while I make the rapid strikes to disable Egyptian money holes, allowing me to roll over them. This is looking my more favoured option.

My empire is crawling with bandits - which I just love because they're free experience for my horse archers.

In short, Parthia are great fun to play and look like being quite different.

Doug-Thompson

10-26-2004, 07:02

Perhaps more discussion is needed on the best way to work the old horse archer.... damn the lack of replays for single player.

There's an excellent thread in the Medieval:Total War guides section by Ludens, and a brief update by me:

"How to use Horse Archers" in R:TW (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38464)

GodsPetMonkey

10-26-2004, 09:03

There's an excellent thread in the Medieval:Total War guides section by Ludens, and a brief update by me:

"How to use Horse Archers" in R:TW (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38464)

Good stuff, I remember HAs were underutilised in MTW by alot of players, including myself! But just from my experiances playing parthia I can say they have been boosted immeasurably, particularly in user friendliness, no more constant zooming about the battle field maknig sure you HAs aren't about to be eaten up by the enemy. I can actually rely on Skirmish mode, something I would never do in MTW.

Doug-Thompson

10-27-2004, 16:19

I can actually rely on Skirmish mode, something I would never do in MTW.

Check that link for updates. Looks like some veteran testers are going to explore some important questions next week.

Bhruic

10-27-2004, 18:41

no more constant zooming about the battle field maknig sure you HAs aren't about to be eaten up by the enemy. I can actually rely on Skirmish mode, something I would never do in MTW.

I don't think that opinion is going to last you long. ~;)

As I've said before, it is better, but they still have numerous quirks in the system. For example, if you have cavalry chasing one of your horse archers, they will get eaten up, unless you micro them. And sometimes even that doesn't help.

Bh

GodsPetMonkey

10-27-2004, 23:37

I don't think that opinion is going to last you long. ~;)

As I've said before, it is better, but they still have numerous quirks in the system. For example, if you have cavalry chasing one of your horse archers, they will get eaten up, unless you micro them. And sometimes even that doesn't help.

Bh

Its lasted me 4 games as Parthia (2 loss, 2 victory). Very few cavalry units are fast enough to catch up to HAs (not cataphract HAs, just normal and Persian Cavalry) and besides, the first thing I go for in a battle is their cavalry!
After that, I normally concentrate on the centre of my line, which are my elephants and cataphracts, making sure they dont run into battle untill the timeing is right. I keep an eye on my unit bar, if I see a HA with-out a bow icon, I send them after something new, if he is stuck in melee, I quickly set them out of skirmish mode and try to get any nearby HAs to help (I normally keep them in groups of 3, and even lowly HAs atacking on 3 flanks can beat alot of very tough enemies!)

It's very rare that skirmish lets me down, but its half due to ensuring it can't. Anything that can catch you will succumb to arrows pretty quick, so get them first, then avoid map borders.

Bhruic

10-28-2004, 00:10

GodsPetMonkey

10-28-2004, 01:49

It doesn't matter if they are fast enough to catch them or not. All they have to do is chase them to the map's edge, where they just stand there and get slaughtered.

Yes, if you micro your units, you can avoid that. But you could do the exact same thing in MTW. My point was you can't set a unit on "skirmish" and forget about it. If the enemy has any cavalry, they will chase your unit down and destroy it.

In the same way, you can't manuveur your units with skirmish off, and simply turn skirmish back on and expect them to work. In non-sally fights, your units skirmish towards the closest border. And they don't care if there is anything between them and the border. So they will happily "skirmish" through enemy units.

The worst enemies for those problems are the Egyptians, as they get bigger cavalry units. It's hard to whittle them down enough with bowfire to take a stand. And as they are quite fast, you aren't going to be able to get away from them. The best "defense" seems to be counter-charging them with non-missile cavalry units (general or cataphract work well).

Bh

You sure your not confusing skirmish with withdraw?
I have never had a unit in skirmish try to run through an enemy unit when it wasn't surrounded, and I haven't seen skirmish favour any particular direction.
That and I don't manouver with skirmish off, unless I want my units to charge through the enemy.

I agree that HAs arnt fire and forget, but they don't need to be babysit either, I pay as much attention to them as I do an average cohort as the Romans, most of the time they can look after themselves, send them off to attack something, and start to pay attention if something goes wrong.

Perhaps we just have different play styles.

afrit

10-28-2004, 02:54

GodsPetMonkey

10-28-2004, 03:37

I have just finished fighting several battles as Parthia against Egypt on Medium difficulty. I had a pure HA/Persian cav army (no infantry, no cataphracts, no general. A captain commanding).

My conclusions:

Skirmish works well with enemy infantry. Not so with cavalry. As your archers skirmish to the edge of the map, they will eventually run out of space and get engaged by the enemy cav. Since HA's are very weak in melee, they are as good as dead. Persian cav has a better chance against the eggies, although their large unit size cav is a problem. You have to double team them.

HAs also need to be micromanaged regarding fire at will and friendly fire. If you have them charge (alt-click) a routing enemy unit, they can sustain a lot of casualties from friendly fire. I always turn off fire at will in all nearby unit if I want to pursue a routing enemy. Unlike foot missiles such as Velites, simply having all units in the vicinity alt-click charge the enemy does not turn off their missiles, as they can fire on the run.

In summary, I agree more with Bhruic: HAs in RTW are a lot easier to use than MTW, but they still need micromanaging in certain cases.

With a pure HA army, your bound to run into these issues. With nothing else to chase, what are the enemy units going to go for?
Again, I think its playstyle, out of a 20 man stack, only 12 of my units are HAs, the 3 elephants I normally include in my army arn't for smashing infantry apart, they are giant magnets for enemy units. If they have 6 cavalry units deployed, and 2 of them go after my elephants, the other 4 are split up between my 2 flanks of HAs, that means 6 HAs get to deal with 2 cavalry (normally I would only put 1 group of 3 HAs onto the cavalry problem on their flank, its more then enough). With that much firepower, the enemy cavalry are normally routing from losses by the time they even enter charge range, they just dont get close enough. If they do get lucky, and close in, my HAs have got almost half the battlefield to skirmish in (I always deploy my Parthian armies as close to the enemy as possible! Even when defending). The cavalry strong enough to weather a few volleys from several HAs and still have something left are normally to heavy keep up anyway. Once the cavalry are gone (again, always my first target) its time to mop up the infantry.

Of course, chariots are a different matter, especially the archer variety. They are hell fast, very strong and may be able to shoot back.

In my experiance, the natural enemy of HAs is Archers, not light cavalry. A few good volleys will decimate a unit of HAs, even in loose formation (I always keep them in loose formation). The 2nd worse killer is definately FF, HAs seem to carve them selves up well enough to make most enemy units redundant.

Bhruic

10-28-2004, 04:04

GodsPetMonkey

10-28-2004, 04:22

Could be playstyle, but I find it more of a "speed of battle" issue. I generally don't like to use pause, as it breaks the suspension of disbelief. So trying to issue orders to units can get tricky when you are trying to watch the "main" battle, as well as numerous HA who are skirmishing. Most often I'll only notice a problem when they get attacked, by which point they are as good as dead.

Bh

I don't use pause much either, but I do use it as soon as the battle starts to inspect their battle lines (its not like any good general wouldn’t have scouted before the battle, or seen a large body of troops move into position a few hundred meters away!).

Apart from that, if something goes horribly wrong I may pause to recompose myself, but I like to fight in a 'come what may' manner, and it adds a bit more challenge, which can be lacking with the Parthians (esp. vs Greek style armies, phalanxes are just too slow!).

I will admit I did have problems with HAs vs Cavalry early on, but the more I played with Parthia, the more I found what worked best, and what didn't. Now its more or less knowing the best way to deal with cavalry, not helped by the fact that the AI is incredibly predictable, its very easy to anticipate whats going to happen.

Doug-Thompson

10-28-2004, 20:37

Auto-pilot skirmishing works quite well enough when enemy units are killed quickly.

(Edited clarification: By auto-pilot, I mean just leaving the "skirmish" and "fire at will" option on -- not putting the units under AI control.)

Putting HA/Persians into big, square formations that can fire on the move in any direction. This leads to massive, rapid concentrations of firepower from several units whenever it's needed. I've seen Greek cavalry charges stopped cold just by arrows.

I'm a convert from long, thin lines of HA to great big blocks of them. As illogical as it sounds, casualties from friendly fire are reduced because there is less overlap between units.

Three times as many HA can occuply the same "frontage" if they are densely packed. Don't crowd them, though. Put more space between formations. Then they can move, and concentrate rapidly wherever needed. Coordination with melee cav is better, too. The melee folks have more room to move.

Before you know it, you'll have shot the enemy's cavalry to pieces and be surrounding his foot units, firing into their very vulnerable sides and backs.

In the single-player game, the ability to concentrate cavalry on the strategic map is just as powerful.

========

The mini-map is very handy, but only if you zoom in a bit. Everything looks like it's in contact when that map is fully zoomed out. I put a unit of good melee cav in the middle, one out to the right and one out to the left, with the HA in front. That way, I can double-click on one of the melee cav and get to the area of the battlefield I want to view.

Slaists

10-28-2004, 22:06

with "auto-pilot" do you mean just skirmishing or actually putting a group of skirmishers under AI control?

Doug-Thompson

10-28-2004, 22:31

Just skirmishing. Leaving the "skirmishing" and "fire at will" buttons on. I'll clarify the post.

todorp

10-29-2004, 23:28

I just did a Parthian campaign H/H. It was a great fun until I captured 10 cities and then it become very easy. This means I was very poor and had a very hard time before I got 10 captured.

My strategy:
1. I focused on making money. I made 3 diplomats and send them to sign trade treaties and sell maps to every fraction. One went north around the black sea to Europe, one west into Asia Minor (Turkey) and one South West. The maps sell for around $6,000-$7000. This income kept me going, until I captured a port city.
2. I captured 3 rebel provinces next to Parthian: Dumatha, Palmira and Phraaspa.
3. Now the fun/bad luck started J, Egypt allied with Selucia ?!?!?, attacked and took Palmyra from me.
4. I pumped only Horse Archers HA.
5. For many long turns I was on the defence, barely hanging on. Each year I defeated one full Egyptian stack in the Arabian deserts. My general become 10 star general in the process. I need to give good marks for the Egyptian AI. The first armies were mass infantry with a chariot general. After being annihilated by my HAs, the next Egyptian armies were mass of cavalry, chariots and archers. I was poor and couldn’t replace high loses. Thanks to my super 10 general and the 3 silver chevron HAs I managed to win.
6. Quietly after 30 turns managed to build a second much smaller army, then attacked and sucked Babylon, extracted nice $10,000. The Selucian armies are 90% phalanx and build my experience. Then the wheels started rolling. Conquered Hastra (Assyria) and finally Antioch (Syria).
7. After the suck of Tarsus (Cilicia) I could build at last PA (Persian Archers) and a 3rd small army to block the mountain pass north west of Tarsus. My second already very experienced army wheeled south and hit the Egypt along the sea: Sidon, Damascus, Palmyra and Jerusalem. My fist army moved east and sucked Bostra.
8. Egypt still managed to produce 2 or 3 full stack armies and then went out of steam. My Arabian army finished off Egypt and captured Petra, Alexandria, Memphis, Thebes, Siva and Cyrene. Salamis on Cyprus remained Egyptian. On the east I bordered the Roman Scipio fraction.
9. My Babylonian army turned back and finished off Selucia: Sardis and Halicarnassus. I started building a full stack navy.
10. Greeks attacked me, I give poor marks for the AI on this one. Greeks were in war whit all the Roman fractions, Pontus and Macedonia. Their massed phalanxes were slaughtered quickly by my PAs.
11. At 232BC I had $200,000 in the treasury and making $5,000 per turn after the expenses. The rest of the game was trivial. I could build what ever I want, catafracts and war elephants, but I didn’t. I kept on building PAs.

~:cheers:

FEMTO

11-02-2004, 15:47

@ GodsPetMonkey,

could you tell me where you got hold of the eastern heavy infantry, and catapract aracher mods from? I have looked every where and i just cant find them anywhere. thanks.

R'as al Ghul

11-03-2004, 12:50

Parthia rules!
I'm currently playing Parthia on VH/VH. And it is very hard. ~;)
I played four or five other factions before and this is yet the most challenging. You face more problems than you can solve. Limited unit roster, bad income, strong neighbours. The only advantage is that your eastern borders are safe, no Mongols approaching for the next 1500 years or so.
To improve the income I figured I had to conquer pretty fast. From a Seleucid campaign I knew that the region between Antiochia and Sidon is quite rich, including Damaskus and Palmyra. Another way of getting cash is to send out diplomats and sell map info and trade rights. See if you can get 10k from your neighbours and about 20k from factions further away like Greece, Macedon or Brutii. This is pretty much your only income for the first 20 turns, so you have to negotiate the best deals for you.
With a spy from Susa I pretty early found Seleucia to be empty of troops and started a war on the Seleucids by taking it. The plan was to conquer the Seleucids fast and keep peace with everyone else for the time being. Seleucia's population was enslaved to make my own cities grow and keep unrest low.
My low number of forces were split between North and South. From Campus Alanni I transported 2 units of HA down to the capitol to strenghten those troops which later marched on Armenia. My second army was collected together from the 2 southern cities. Both armies consisted mainly of HA +the 2 Cataphracts and the Generals that you begin with.
With Seleucia conquered, income is still pretty low and I had to conquer on. Armenia attacked me, so I wiped them out in a couple of turns. Problem was his HA which are, due to the VH level, better than mine. As if he knew it, he charged them right at me. You have to double-team them or charge your general at them. Once reduced to foot troops the AI will easily break to your arrow-fire. To avoid any siege situations I used a spy to open the gates. Worked every time for me.
With Armenia gone, Pontus was now my neighbour. During my war with the Seleucids, Pontus allied with them as well as Egypt. The Scyths remained calm after I took Campus ? from them and negotiated a ceasefire. Pretty much surrounded by Pontus, Seleucia and Egypt, I managed to get alliances with Dacia and Thracia which are both battling Pontus now. Mainly on sea.
The Egyptian and Seleucid invasion armies are early discovered by watch towers and easily defeated by HA-only armies in the desert. As Doug already said, the number of battles in one turn can easily add up to 5-6. Yesterday I accidentally pressed "end turn" instead of "diplomacy" and *zapp* 3 cities are besieged by forces I intended to fight in the open desert. Damn.
When Susa grew due to enslavement I was finally able to upgrade to Persian Cavalry which is more expensive but has also better stats than HA. It is easier now to defeat the ever approaching egyptians. I don't know where they breed those huge armies. ~:confused:
Another problem is the lack of family members. Don't know what to do about it, but my three oldest are in their sixties, one is about 50 and two others are around 25. Few of them have management skills but all of them have or had the name-suffix "The Horseman" (translated from German). Governing skills being low and the low number of family members leads to little income. Guess I have to conquer on. There will be no leaning back until either Seleucia or egypt is all mine. :charge:
Tips: Use spys and Watchtowers to control your realm. Use diplomats to bribe those small stacks of rebels. You cannot afford to waste MPoints of your armies and they cost only between 500 and 1000 denari.
Use diplomats to get money from other factions. This was my only chance to tech up my cities. Switch to PersianCavalry as soon as possible. Use extermination when short of money. Expand your family whenever possible (bribing?) Have Fun.

R'as

The_Emperor

11-05-2004, 00:31

My god those Egyptians are annoying!!

In my campaign i realsied what everyone means by the Parthians being hard financially... I found myself scraping every last florin from their lands and regularly selling maps just to stay afloat!

Ok here's my advice.

1) Always take out Armenia. I didn't in my first game and it cost me bad when Egypt turned up on my doorstep and Armenia decided to have some fun and invade during the chaos.

2) After you conquer Armenia move on the Selucids and try to reach Antioch (its a good province), then try and ally with Pontus. This will secure your northern border for the main event.

3) War with Egypt is inevitable. I tried my hardest to stall it but the moment my spies spotted two large armies heading for Selucia I then realised I had no choice but to fight them...

So right now while they are heading for Selucia and I am mustering a Horse archer army in defence we will block the river crossing first. Meanwhile I have sent an army to drive south through Sidon and Jerusalem.

The problem is those Egyptians are as numerous as the desert sands!! I saw another full stack near Sidon! Looks like this is going to be one major war...

They certainly should be less rich.

Doug-Thompson

11-05-2004, 19:05

My god those Egyptians are annoying!!

Or, as I ususally refer to them @#$% Egyptians. :furious3:

The first time I ever built elephants was when I had the @#$% Pharoh trapped. I already had more than enough troops to win, but I wanted to see him stomped by a monster, then bury him in the dung. I hired some merc elephants, too.

=======

The Parthians can relieve their major money crunch by sacking a major town.

Easier said than done. Parthia is not exactly known for their outstanding early-game siege. Still, I've sacked Jerusalem before and deleted lots of buildings there. The Egyptians revolted and got a full stack, but it was all gold-chevron peasants. Without any military buildings, that's all the town could make. Having 2,000+ peasants (large size) doesn't do the Egyptians much good. They cost more than 200,000 denari a turn just to maintain and die like flies to HA. I could have wiped them out, but decided against it.

Another time, I simply besieged the Jerusalem and watched it go rebel.

==========

The one disadvantage of pushing all the way to Antioch is, Egypt will attack Parthia and the Seleucids, too. It's nice to have somebody else to share the misery.

==========

Parthian life is good after the @#$% Egyptians are dead.

They are richer than the Egyptians used to be. They have HA/Persian Cav, cataphracts and elephants. What's left of the Seleucids and Pontus don't give much trouble while they are being wiped out of Asia Minor.

There are excellent mercenaries in the former Greek/Seleucid provinces of Asia Minor. These include Cretean archers, hoplites, Thracian mercs, Bastarcian (sp?) mercs -- so much for not having any good infantry. ~D There's plenty of money to pay for them, too.

Way up north, there's a seeming endless supply of merc Sythcian HA -- as if you need more of those. In the south, there's camel cataphracts.

My Parthian campaign would be over by now if I'd just push on through Greece, but I want to practice city management, diplomacy and "covert operations" instead. I'm enjoying the longest period of peace I've ever had in R:TW. I completed the conquest of Asia Minor (except Rhodes) by bribing a Greek province there for about $35,000. This avoided war with Greece. The province revolted, and I just bribed it again for another $35,000, and still have $300,000 in the bank. I can't spend the money fast enough. Every city that can build anything is building.

Bordering factions are: Numidia, which is no threat and at war with the Romans; Greece, which doesn't have much of an army left thanks to my bribes and is at war with the Romans; and Scythia, which is a rump of what it used to be after I bribed away much of their military strength and one of their provinces, and is at war with my allies, the Dacians.

My faction leader is an Egyptian who was bribed decades ago.

The_Emperor

11-05-2004, 20:05

Well I pushed to Antioch because it is a well developed city, with a strong income. It was either that or move against Pontus.

At any rate I was already at war with the Selucids, but they allied with Egypt (just like they did in my previous game). it was much betetr for me to actually gain some lands and an income so i could fight a war with the Egyptians.

You can't parr them off.

Doug-Thompson

11-05-2004, 23:35

You can't parr them off.

That's not true, Emperor.

In my very first campaign as the Parthians (H/H) I got into a war with the Seleucids, taking two provinces from them and giving them some very costly, very early tactical defeats. Then I was attacked by Egypt and was at war with both, and they allied themselves too.

Then Egypt backstabbed the Seleucids. At first the Seleucids wouldn't accept a ceasefire. I ignored that and acted as if we were allies anyway. I fought Egyptians even when they were on Seleucid territory. I ignored Seleucid armies, which already had their hands full in fighting Egypt.

After a few years the Seleucid treasury was severely bare. They accepted an offer of a cease fire and trade agreement.

Then, when I defeated an Eqyptian army that was beseiging the Seleucid town of Damascus, my offer of an alliance was finally accepted. It lasted for many years, long enough for me to capture all Egyptian provinces in the Near East and get into Egypt proper. By that time, a Seleucid stab in the back was too late.

The_Emperor

11-06-2004, 14:20

Well to each his own.

For my part I plan on taking all of Egypt for myself... it is just too rich for its own good. Anyways I managed to take Alexandria, Memphis jerusalem and Sidon.

Now All Egypt has is Thebes and two other towns (Petra and the other one nearby)... They are so dead meat!!

I won a heroic victory against them with my HA's, I had around 600 men and they faced off against me with 1,500! Their cav died fast and then the Infantry just chased my guys around in a very futile effort!!

Man I love the new Horse Archer warfare!!

Doug-Thompson

11-06-2004, 17:09

I won a heroic victory against them with my HA's, I had around 600 men and they faced off against me with 1,500! Their cav died fast and then the Infantry just chased my guys around in a very futile effort!!

Man I love the new Horse Archer warfare!!

Now there's something we agree on totally.

Doug-Thompson

11-10-2004, 17:45

I normally don't like discussing "favorite" armies, but have found that I'm following a pattern with Parthian armies.

I'll start out with HA and the starting cataphracts, plus some mercenary camels and cavalry. As I add Persian Cavalry, I'll keep the HA, many of whom are veterans now.

I'll put one or two HA on each end of a long line. I'll put Persian Cavalry on the inside of those. Then I'll put the remaining HA in the middle. Those HA in the center are backed up by lines of my melee cavalry. If there's more melee cavalry to spare, I'll put some out behind the Persian cavalry.

The missile cavalry are spread out as far as possible, put in squares with space between them. If I can give the missile cavalry a height advantage by using a shorter line, I will, but that sort of thing is a matter of judgement.

Deployment's over and the battle starts: The HA on the ends race to get past and behind the enemy. The rest of the front line engages with missiles while the melee cav hangs close, but behind the fighting.

If the enemy charges the middle, they are surrounded by missile cav and facing my best melee cav. If he charges the Persian cavalry, he risks getting flank-charged by the melee cav in the middle. If he attacks the very ends, he can't catch the HA and risks getting flank-charged by the Persian cavalry and any extra melee cav.

The goal is to put the enemy in a "bag" of missile cavalry, all of whom are firing. This is possible even when the Parthians are heavily outnumbered because the HA don't have to maintain a continuous line. In fact, a continuous line is just about the worst thing the Parthians can do. Instead, they have some squares that are as far apart as they can be while still supporting their neighbors, shooting all the time.

The biggest danger has already been described on other threads: The AI sends a melee unit after each of your units. These charges happen a lot more on the harder tactical difficulty levels, when the AI thinks it's Conan.

The best answer to that is to micro the HA that are most threatened, although the details of that are still new. Somebody needs to break free, get in the middle, and start shooting some enemy unit in the back. Once one part of the enemy's "circle" is broken, the whole formation will begin to collapse.

===========

On campaign on the strategic map, I like to go ahead and besiege a heavily defended town with an all-cavalry army and start building sapping points (assuming that a spy hasn't opened the gates and that those open gates don't have boiling oil.)

If I can hire mercenary infantry the next turn that can sap, I'll do that. If not, I'll march up some infantry. Slingers, by the way, are somewhat faster than other infantry, and they can sap.

All that's needed from there is one sap that is somewhere near a decent, wide street leading to the central plaza.

R'as al Ghul

11-17-2004, 15:59

I had to give up my first Parthian campaign. It just wasn't possible to defend Hatra and Kotais every year. Palmyra was Egyptian, Damaskus and Antioch were Seleucid and they kept attacking me in Hatra. Pontus, supported by the Seleucids, attacked Kotais frequently. I just didn't make eneough money at a certain point and my diplomats had either died or were bribed. No way of trading maps, retraining armies. You only can win so much battles when outnumbered, without retraining.
Inspired by Maltz' stories, I started over again.
I'll spare you the long story and just give you two tips.
I figured that to conquer quickly I needed more units than I had at Susa and Artaxarta (your capitol). I moved my general and the HA out of Campus Sakae and built a diplomat there. After two turns this diplomat met the Skythians and sold Campus Sakae to them. By this time my campus sakae army was already onboard the single ship you start with and on it's way to the capitol. It's important that Campus Sakae is empty when you want to sell it. Try to get a multi-round tribute from them. Next turn Campus Sakae revolted with 5 units East-Inf and 12 units of gold chevron peasants. ~:eek: I didn't expect this but was happy to have a little inf. garrison. The EastInf was shipped, the peasants disbanded because their upkeep is too expensive, Campus Sakae was sold again. To make it short, it happened two more times. ~D After this northern army from Campus Sakae joined the middle army of Artaxarta, which had in the meantime taken the rebel town to the west, they moved against the Armenians.
I remember that Campus Sakae was particulary troublesome during my other campaign, as it is so far from anything, doesn't make enough money etc. I guess it was a good idea to get rid off it at the beginning but you may consider to do it only once to increase your forces by a loyalist rebellion.

My second tip considers the south. It's very easy and a good idea to take Seleucia in the second turn. But after that, try to take Palmyra as fast as possible before anyone else can. This has the effect that 1. Seleucia won't be attacked and 2. Palmyra is quite a comfortable base for a Cav-army. You can reach Damaskus and the bridge to Hatra in one turn. Antiochia, Hatra, Sidon and Jerusalem need only two turns. Reinforcements from Seleucia take three turns to reach Palmyra. And, it's a good territory to hire Bedouin Warriors.
From this base I try to conquer the 5 surrounding cities. So far I took Damaskus and destroyed almost all military opposition. Jerusalem has 2 units, Sidon 2, Antiochia has 4 and 6 in a fort while a full stack of Hoplites roams around Hatra. It helps to have at least 2 spies around Palmyra.
I think that once I've take Jerusalem and Antiochia, there won't be much left of the opposition. :charge:

R'as

lismore

11-18-2004, 17:37

Thanks that was a really interesting guide.

For my Parthia campaign I modded in some Judean Zealots. They look the same as Numidian desert warriors but they give the persians more options for foot troops!

Lord Smart

11-24-2004, 22:17

@ GodsPetMonkey,

could you tell me where you got hold of the eastern heavy infantry, and catapract aracher mods from? I have looked every where and i just cant find them anywhere. thanks.
I could not also find them anywhere or have you had it edit?

GodsPetMonkey

11-25-2004, 10:18

I could not also find them anywhere or have you had it edit?

You have to edit some files to get them in game, export_descr_unit.txt and export_descr_buildings.txt to be precise.

Check my signature for a link to my unit and building editors. I should make a guide to demonstrate how its done really, its quite popular for the non-modders to just want to allow units to be trained by more factions, and its a dead simple process too.

m4rt14n

11-25-2004, 19:50

How in the blue hell is Parthia supposed to counter those freaky Elephants?? They have absolutely no good infantry (easterners would just die on contact), no javelin throwers (besides ur general). Other than using ur own elephants against them, or running around them trying to confuse them, does anyone have any tips?

R'as al Ghul

11-26-2004, 11:13

You need to read the How to use Horse Archers-Thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38464).
In this thread we collected all our knowledge about Parthias prime unit. Elephants are of course difficult to fight. Your only chance is to seperate them from the main body of the army. Sometimes you can make them chase one unit of your HA round around the battlefield until they're tired and break. Slingers or Peltasts work also to lure them away. Concentrated fire from four sides is a thing that makes Elephants nervous pretty fast, same with chariots.
When they run amok, they can be killed by Cav charging in their rear. Be careful, though.
Hope this helps.

R'as

Raziaar

11-28-2004, 07:11

Heh, you guys won't believe what I did. I spend a few turns of the game building up a small force, using what I had to conquer some surrounding territories, especially Babylon. This is done to first get out of debt and accumulate some excess wealth, and maintain a slightly larger army.

I then, consolidated all of my armies save for a couple peasants/eastern infantry, and moved them west from Babylon to the coast, conquering cities as I went by making sure I had a infantry type unit or two to use battering rams to make access into the city, killing everybody and demolishing every available structure within to not only set my enemies back, but give me a large surplus cash store for the voyage ahead. Once I reached the shore, I built a single boat, and decided to let luck be my guide, on the very perilous journey from the Middle East, to spain where I landed and started making a home for myself.

All while I was sailing, I was demolishing the previous buildings in my home provinces, and they eventually succumed to rebels and my Armenian neighbors who were previously allies. This actually gave the Armenians a GREAT headstart it seemed, that they never used to get before, and hopefully they are one of the enemies I might have to face in the end game. It also let me avoid confrontations with egypt, and focus my energies on demolishing the Spanish, and barbarians of the west who were unaccustomed to my horse archers. Well, actually the only barbarian enemy I made, who seemed very bitter towards me afterwards were the Britons, and i've been in a bitter feud with them.

My campaign is on Very hard for campiang, and moderate for battles, because I hated being so penalized and the enemies so bonused, as it was unrealistic. But, so far its proving to be a bit 'too' easy. I'm demolishing several thousand man armies and only losing a few men, usually to friendly fire, and my horse archers are gaining several golden chevrons.

Its definately different, and it was very difficult to get to Spain to forge a new home for myself, but its proving to be very successful. Even on very hard campaign, spain is a VERY profitable region that is able to support large armies of horsemen, as long as you keep the intial number of enemies down.

Anybody else tried something like this?

King Azzole

11-29-2004, 02:11

I did the same thing playing as Numidia. Except I sold all my previous citys to Carthage so they could withstand the Scipii. This gave me enough cash to conquer spain ( I exchanged one of my citys and some map information for corduba with carthage to avoid war) and I eventually managed to conquer all spain AND maintain a solid alliance with Carthage, we even have military access to eachothers lands. Lots of fun to "relocate" a faction.

Raziaar

11-29-2004, 09:08

Doing what I did, is giving Armenia a fighting chance! I'm so happy at how far they've come. My old watchtowers in the area let me see quite a bit, but I decided to turn off fog of war for a second with a cheat just to see how vast the armenian empire was so far, and i'm quite happy about it. Looks like they're keeping egypt and Seleucia etc at bay. Excellent! Maybe they'll be one of the end game nations i'll have to fight.

So far, from the looks of it, there's quite a few equally powerful nations in my game so far. But I already knew most of this as 3/4th of the map was revealed to me using numerous map information bribes. Unfortunately, they stopped selling it to me after a while. Heh.

Oh yeah. I'm Parthia, the purple countries in the west. Opposite side of the map from my starting area =) Armenia are the teal looking guys.

http://img96.exs.cx/img96/7808/Parthia.jpg

Doug-Thompson

11-29-2004, 17:00

Well, that's something new.

All in all, I'd rather take Egypt because of my blind, searing hatred of the @#$% Eqyptians.

However, I have to admit that the poor barbarian factions don't really stand a chance against well-managed HA, not if you hit them hard before they can obtain Chosen Archer Warbands.

For sheer fun, though, nothing beats using a bunch of elephants against barbarians. The beasts are a mobile siege train. They're excellent missile archers, too.

Piko

12-05-2004, 18:58

i am playing with parthia and i think horse archers are really bad.
a.if an enem cavalry catches them theyre dead
b.they can weaken an enemy unit but no way they are gonna finish him off
and finally c.read a and b again i mean come on!
anyway after some serious reconsideration i have found that when fighting phalanxes they are deadly but otherwise they s***

Piko

12-05-2004, 19:20

GodsPetMonkey

12-05-2004, 23:59

okay in my campaign(i play medium/very hard) i've successfully defeated the armenians and started battling the egyptians and seleucids at the same time......HUGE mistake but after winning a heroic battle or 7 they both backed of with me in control of seleucia hatra and antioch too bad that the egyptians and the seleucids allied and retook antioch meanwhile i had destroyed the pontus to the west and scythians to the north (around 244 bc)
after some more huge losses for egypt and the seleucids they could take tarsus but were stopped and had to retreat.
my next problem was thrace they caused me much problems and a very costly campaign of 11 years.
after a string of events i find myself battling a dacian empire with backup (for them) from the julli,fighting egypt in my heartlands and the brutii in greece with the backup of the great gaul empire and britons,can anyone give me advice on wich faction i should destroy first?im now in the year 200 bc.
:help:

In your case, I would sacrifice the frontiers for the sake of my homelands.

I presume your fighting in Europe, with European holdings though.

I would haul my armies back from costly distant campaigns, and try to solve you local problems first, besides, the middle east is very attractive cash wise, so there is no reason why you should favour Europe over it (unless you REALLY want a capital in the west).

I'd keep one major army in the west though, but on a defensive role, if they are going to take your lands back, make sure they are hurting every step of the way.

Piko

12-07-2004, 21:35

thanks dude it helped me i've now defeated the egyptians and taken the nile delta yay!ive lost my grip on greece but the brutii's forces were decimated along the way!
~:cheers:

Piko

12-07-2004, 22:30

you say that europe doesn't give you many riches but athens my last Greecian city reeks in 6000 a season

The Apostate

01-09-2005, 15:52

This is my fifth Parthia VH/VH campaign and finally I've managed to annihilate the last Egyptian remnants which will give me control of all the east.

My advice is that Parthia like Numidia is a Conquer or Die faction - your starting provinces are too poor and far apart and you have too many potential enemies to allow any strategy other than a mad rush to take as much territory as possible in the first moves.

So you need to simultaneously attack Phraaspa, Campus Alanni and Seleucia and then immediately go onto to take Hatra and Artaxata as well.

However even if the Seleucids and Armenians prove pushovers you can still come seriously unstuck when the Egyptians attack you - particularly if they take Antioch and Tarsus from the Seleucids before you reach them.

The difference in campaign #5 was that I spent everything I could on trade buildings in the early moves and built diplomats rather than troops - these then allowed me to bribe over the Armenian and Brigand armies who while mostly crap eastern infantry and peasants were good enough to storm cities.

Trade buildings also have the advantage that if you are under siege and are going to lose the city anyway you can destroy them and recoup at least some money, whereas all the farm upgrades you've made just enrich the conqueror.

Other big difference in this campaign was that I delayed the inevitable Egyptian onslaught by building a chain of double forts (one on each bank) at all the Tigris river crossings as well as at the bridge over the Euphrates between Hatra and Antioch.

As the AI seems scared of forts their armies just wandered aimlessly up and down the south side of the Tigris for a decade without attacking at all and gave me the time to finish off the Armenians and cripple the Seleucids and Pontus.

When Egypt did attack, my economy was strong enough to bribe most of their armies and the ones I couldn't bribe were funneled across the one bridge over the Tigris at Seleucia which doesn't allow you to build a double fort - which made them a lot easier to deal with.

Once I'd taken Antioch, Sidon and Palmyra their economy seemed to collapse and it was then a walkover taking Egypt proper - only problem I experienced at this stage was using war elephants against them, which are just sitting targets for their oversized units of bowmen firing flaming arrows and would run amok without even taking any casualties.

The one area the move one rush strategy failed was against Scythia where the army sent from Campus Sakae was not strong enough to hold Campus Alanni agianst the Scythian armies that kept appearing - it's now 204 and I am retaking it for probably the seventh or eighth time.

If you can't hold Campus Alanni you need to build forts in the Caucasus passes or you'll have Scythian raidng parties taking towns like Phraaspa.

In the end this was actually a big help in that they took it twice and in both cases prompted an immediate gold peasant revolt allowing me to build a full stack of uber-peasant units which routed multiple smaller Egyptian armies and were perfect for storming cities (however this getting awfully close to taking advantage of a bug - should 2000 pop towns be able to raises 2000 men+ peasant armies with upgrades that are actually impossible with a Parthian tech tree twice within a couple of years?).

Did try the 'sell Campus Sakae to the Scythians, watch it revolt and sell it over again' scam in an earlier campaign but at VH/VH this can totally screw your fragile starting economy - a few moves later I was 10,000 denarii in deficit and never really recovered.

However it might work if you leave it a few moves until you have enough other cities to keep your economy afloat (you should check how much of your trade is coming from it before selling).

Shadar

03-26-2005, 12:24

Heh. i tried the relocating tactic for Parthia. So far has backfired totally on me. I had rushed Seleucia, then rushed west, taking Palmyra, Damascus and Antioch, leaving them smouldering wreckages. Then i built a navy, and island hopped my sole army across to Salamis, to Rhodes then to Kydonia. THEN, i island hopped my way to Spain, since it seems such a good idea to get as far away as possible from those :furious3: Egyptians.

I swear those Egyptians are annoying... the only way i've been able to defeat them is to concentrate ALL my 10-16 units of horse archers into one position and then harass them like crazy from one side - eventually kills the chariots and the elephants off (stupid multi-hp stats). Unfortunately, on my push across the west, Egypt just took city after city, since i wasn't leaving anything more than a single unit to defend it. I had to rush Salamis as soon as i realised i was about to lose Antioch from a massive full stack Egyptian army with a LOT of chariots in it. For an army built for mobility, i.e. no infantry, that was really bad news.I'm just establishing myself in Spain right now. and see how well i do compared to my other short game with Parthia.

With my other game, i had taken provinces all the way to Jerusalem (leaving the Armenian homelands and bordering the Seleucids in Hatra). Having just soundly defeated the 2nd last Egyptian full stack army, i'm about to push south and take Egypt. I did that in exactly the same time i took to get my army eventually TO spain (about 80 turns or so. Yes, i'm slow) - and my income, army and tech was in much better shape too. But i guess the moving way was a lot more interesting.

Edit: In less than 20 more turns, Egypt has now taken over the entire southeast corner of the map and should be about to start pushing into Asia Minor soon. And amazingly enough Gaul did very well and had even pushed the Julii into one city - but then within a dozen or so turns Britain had taken all their homelands and theres only one Gallic province left. Funny how fortunes change at the drop of a hat.

Craterus

03-26-2005, 19:05

i annihilated the parthians long ago in my egyptian campaign and i haven't started a campaign playing as them...
someone said that they had a 200,000 denarii treasury and were making 5,000 per turn

i have a 2,000,000 denarii treasury and i'm making almost 50,000 denarii per turn...

cunobelinus

03-31-2005, 10:10

i found these alrite but didnt enjoy them that much i made huge armies of horse archers and use to win that way but i got bored quickly

Craterus

03-31-2005, 16:23

don't you enjoy watching eastern infantry rout? :charge: lol they have terrible infantry so i don't think even I would enjoy playing as the PArthians..

cunobelinus

03-31-2005, 21:22

hillmen are as bad they are really poor but eatern infrantry are the worst infrantry other than peasants .do people agree with me?!? :duel:

Craterus

03-31-2005, 21:24

I don't know, but I think Eastern Infantry are pretty bad.. I don't know how the Parthians survive, you have to have some sort of decent infantry to accompany any army.. and Eastern INfantry, Hillmen and Peasants don't come into the group of DECENT INFANTRY..

cunobelinus

03-31-2005, 21:26

hillmen are poor but can fight alrite if u get them to hold hte fight u can round them up with catphracts

Craterus

03-31-2005, 21:30

It depends what you ask the Hillmen to hold against, they won't hold a cavalry charge.. but they could hold a light infantry.. maybe for 10 seconds..

I've decided Parthia are one of the harder factions to advance with but maybe using some of these guides, I could get a successful campaign out of them?

cunobelinus

04-03-2005, 18:29

its pointless goin to attack anyone on foot with them though they are one of the worst infrantry teams but with catphracts and persian cavalry they are pretty good

Craterus

04-03-2005, 18:43

Cataphracts and Horse Archers are the elite units for Parthia.. and Persian cavalry are ok ~D

Scythia don't have a lot of infantry options also, but Axemen are better than Eastern Infantry. ~D

cunobelinus

04-03-2005, 18:53

i think scythia are pretty good good noble calvary and good axmen and archer warband are ok and choosen archer warband are good!parthia are hard campaign to do i think it would be a challange

Craterus

04-03-2005, 18:57

Maybe a challenge for us? ~D ~D

Dromikaites

04-03-2005, 22:57

Pontus, Armenia and Parthia start with lousy infantry units. Armenia can eventualy get somewhat better troops and so does Pontus too, with its decent phalanxes (pikemen and bronze-shields). But Parthia is stuck forever with hillmen, eastern infantry and slingers.

Good news is that those troops are not that crappy anymore if we train them in towns with weapons & armour-enhancer buildings (blacksmith and above). Not to mention that some Seleucid cities we capture might have temples of Vulcan. Since we need to build blacksmiths & such for our cavalry, we can also use them to increase the stats of those infantry units needed for sieges. Also keep in mind that upgraded slingers have better stats than normal balearics, the best slingers in the game (except for charge, but charging with slingers or archers is reserved only for really desperate situations - see my post on "Numidia" on this subject).

tibilicus

04-06-2005, 12:35

Some 1 help me plz. i luv parthia to bits. ther probably the funest faction out there ! but when ever i play a campaigh as them it just gets so boring takin on stack after stack after stack of egyptian armies. they just keep on coming draning away ure income and ure units. also parthias provinces being so far apart its also a task trying to get any suport to ure troops on the frontline fighting the egyptians. Has any 1 got any solushians if so i would plz love to hear them. Oh ye ive been playing on medium/medium.

Franconicus

04-06-2005, 14:21

Tibilicus,

I never played this faction. But in gerneral I guess there are three possible solutions for your problem.

1. Defensive: Built a ring of forts along the border (LIMES). Try first to find a defendable frontline. Then let them attack you as long as they like to. You can be offensive in an other area.

2. Offensive: Try the katank strategy. Attack the enemy at once and go straight to his production centre. Don't hestate, don't wait for reenforcements. Speed is all that matters.

3. Flexible response: That's the Mao Tse-Tung strategy - When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue. keep some good mobile armies outside the towns. When the enemy comes attack him only when you have the advantage. Try to cut his supply. Attack him when he is besieging. This strategy takes time and is a bit risky - but it shure is fun!!

So good luck ~;)

tibilicus

04-06-2005, 14:52

thanks for that Franconicus. i tried the tatic of just rushing every thing into the egyptian provinces and so far it seems to be working even though im only 7 years in this campaign ive managed to get 1 egypt province and ime not in dept even better suprisingly the selucids and egyptians have turned on each other erly so fingers crossed egypt should fall. But im still woried about armenia seming my garisons are almost non exsistant........................... ~:handball: :jawdrop:

Craterus

04-06-2005, 16:16

You should try to sign an alliance with the armenians and the seleucids. Then team up on the Egyptians.. They are more likely to fall that way. Usually the Seleucids cannot deal with their wealth and almost always fall..

cunobelinus

04-25-2005, 17:54

with parthia there is no point attacking egypt but wen egypt take secluid empire like they always do try and scrap as much land as u can without attacking egypt then hit armenians as hard as u can but dont hold back egypt unless u need to because it is very hard to beat them with as week infrantry but u can beat them sometimes with hit and run but if u are ganna attack them hit them early and get alliance with secluid and milatry acces if u can

tibilicus

04-25-2005, 17:56

Egypt cause real problems as parthia. try and help the Selucids with them early. Thats always worked for me.

Craterus

04-25-2005, 19:17

No need for military access, take Dumatha and build it up to take troops out of there. If you can sweep through the desert and sneak round the back and hit them at the undefended delta, Thebes is left very unprotected, then go up and get Memphis and Alexandria (2 WONDERS) this will cripple them and give the Seleucids the opportunity to hit hard and finsh them off at the other end.

pezhetairoi

04-29-2005, 01:22

I would do my Germanic strategy, and empty my towns of everything, surrendering my home provinces, to sweep into Asia Minor and setting up shop there. The cities are much closer to one another (and they're more numerous for the same land area), and besides, they're way richer, and their approach choices are far more limited. You have passes you can easily watch, you have Tarsus, which WILL be a battleground but which focuses so much Egyptian attention there you really just have to keep bribing them cos they usually only send captains to lead their army. And with Asia Minor, easy access to the Levant and MORE rich cities! (coincidentally Egyptian.) And forget the Seleucids, they can't do anything about you because you're a HA race and they're a hoplite empire. I think it's the most daring thing any starter faction can do--but the results are awesome, like when Italia became Germania Nova.

Meanwhile, in the north your Sakae army can trash the Scythians and do a modified Scythian campaign with conquest of the steppes and a charge into Thrace and Greece (also abandoning the steppe provinces as you go along should Germania attack).

After all, the two richest areas on the map are Italia, Egypt, and the Aegean. So it stands to reason possession of those areas is essential. Why not get it right at the start? You can carry out the Reconquista of your ancestral lands if you want, after you're secure in a new (and far more valuable) power base.

I can't believe the cheek of the Parthian starter movie in claiming access to the Silk Road, and still remaining one of the poorest factions. >.

orcorama

05-14-2005, 20:15

i have taken the dumatha, seleucia, hatra im sieging antioch which will fall next turn.
i beat some of armenias family members and now with my HA army im sitting next to armenia's capitol demanding tribute
im pulling my HA out of the north province to hit the armenians from the north
I could conquer scythia but i have an allience and traderights so ill just leave them alone.
I havent gone to war with anyone other than seleucia and armenia but i can conquer armenia anytime.
seleucia is about to crumple and theres Egypt
im planing on sneaking an army in behind them and trashing their home provinces
then Ill take on pontus and finish off the seleucids
by that time ill be rich so i can attack greece and Rome
then ill basically win

Craterus

05-14-2005, 20:24

Yep, it's plain sailing once you have Egypt and Seleucid out of the picture.

If you conquer Africa, you can hit Italy through Sicily and also through the Aegean, that was my Egyptian plan.

Dead Knight of the Living

06-20-2005, 19:30

OK, I'm good to go with playing as the Romans, Macedonians and Greeks. Parthia is my first Eastern faction. I've just finished conquering Armenia. Now, I'm at war with Pontus. I'm mad because I wanted to go after Seleucia. I really only have one full stack army and a half stack army. I'm playing RTR 5.4 on VH/VH. I'm doing well so far I think. Just some opinions is what I'm after. Would you all try to make peace with Pontus and then go after Seleucia or just take out Pontus first. My concerns are the Egyptians are in southern Asia Minor. When I played as Macedonia and invaded Pontus, the Egypptians attacked me. So, I'm thinking if I go at it with Pontus I'll have to deal with Egypt now. While I'm certain I could handle a one on one with Seleucids, I don't think I'm ready for a fight with both Pontus and Egypt. I think peace with Pontus would be better. That way I can take out the Seleucids who are also at war with Egypt. By the time I complete my land grab with Seleucia I'll be able to take on Egypt. Hopefully.

Combat with Parthia is much more fun than with the Romans and Macedonians. I used a very dispersed formation. I have no line at all. I divide my units into four groups. 3 groups of HA and Cats and 1 group of like two Sparabara which I leave in ambush somewhere. I attack the enemy from every which way. I've made units rout before they even get hit with one arrow. If I get a Horse archer to be chased by some ground units I lead them to my infantry in ambush and spring it on them. Best part is after I spring the ambush, I put those units back in the woods and do it again later.

Deus ret.

06-20-2005, 22:21

Crush the Egyptian threat as soon as you are able to because it will grow worse every turn if you leave them alone (i.e. with the Seleucids as their victims). Your goal is to conquer Antioch before they can; if you succeed, you have a good foothold to take on the stacks after stacks that the Egyptians will send for you.
Maybe it's not as bad in RTR but prepare for some hell in the shape of those Eggy chariots....particularly if you let them reach your cav. If you manage to vanquish both the Eggies and the Seleucids (except for Sardis, it's not as urgent) you have basically won because one of the richest areas on the map is now yours.
Pontus should be a cakewalk now, even if they have taken one or two cities from you. Usually they just use masses of crap EI.

Dead Knight of the Living

06-21-2005, 14:39

Yeah, it's that bad in RTR. The only difference from RTR and 1.2 that I can see is there are some extra cities and the map extends almost out to India. The whole central Asia area is still poor. All the cities on the east side of the Med are rich as crap. I think I'm already headed for disaster. I've lost quite a few of my cataphracts so far. I've fought a lot of battles that really gained me nothing. Pontus wouldn't accept peace and now the Seleucids are marching armies on my territory. It's weird. They haven't attacked me. They're just marching around in my territory. I checked to make sure I didn't inadvertently give them military access. I didn't. I think it's just a matter of time before they attack. They could just be marching across my land to reinforce their armies fighting the Egyptians. But right now, as it is so far, there's no way I can fight the Seleucids or Egyptians. I would start over, but I'm going to roll with it and see what happens. I have two good armies so at the very least I can go on the defensive and build some more infrastructure. That will probably just delay the inevitable. And another problem I'm experiencing is rebels. Every turn a rebel army with 6-8 units pops up. They always have archers. While I"m beating them they are taking their tool on my HA's. I don't have cataphracts with my anti-rebel army because I don't want to wast them on rebels. The HA's trash these rebels every battle, but even with just a few casualties it mounts up after many turns. And I can't retrain because I can't build Parthian Aux HA's yet.

The going is tough, but I think it's going to make for a good storyline when it's done.

Dead Knight of the Living

06-22-2005, 12:51

And now I'm forked. The Egyptians have attacked. THis is going to suck. If I had onagers right now, I'd be set. I could rampage through Asia minor with my one unstoppable army that is fighting Pontus. Meanwhile, I'd use Fabian tactics against the Egyptians in the south. Right now looks like I'm going to have to take some troops from Pontus and reinforce against Egypt. I think I can hold Pontus with a few less troops over there.

Deus Ret. Your advice came a bit too late for me. But I'll definitely take it the next time I play this campaign.

orcorama

06-22-2005, 16:21

pull out of pontus with all your men adn attack antioch then fight egypt up and down the coast til you can take sidon meanwhile bring in whatever men you can from your home lands to hit the nile delta kinda like taking the back door if you manage that you have beaten them mop up the egyptians and then the SE if they exist
now you can take on pontus and whoever else you want

edit: remember to use spys to take the nile cities they move faster than artillery and you need to be quick to get in behind the main eggy forces fighting you in jerusalem, antioch, sidon, damascus area

katank

06-22-2005, 17:12

Consider Dumanthra and then Petra and Bostra, kinda like backdoors into the Nile.

A single boat on the Red Sea can be a nice ferry operation.

Deus ret.

06-23-2005, 19:44

Dead Knight of the Living, thanks for the honor. :bow:
I hope you still enjoy your campaign although it seems to become desperate now.....try to carry on; if you win through, you will gladfully remember those early, hardish days....

As orcorama stated, leave Pontus alone for the moment. They can do little harm to you because you will be more than compensated for whatever they may be able to take from you. So, the back door route is a very elegant way to cripple the Eggies. Which you should do even faster as Parthia than as anyone else because, as you may have noticed, your infantry is too limited (or downright crappy in vanilla RTW) to take on the chariots effectively. Additionally, they succumb to the bowmen far too quickly. In a siege chariots are next to useless, though, so go for the populated Nile valley, especially Memphis because of the Pyramids; this will break their back. Now you can watch the Eggies running headlessly from city to city, wasting their time and precious armies in hapless efforts to stop you while (with a little maneuvering) you can close your iron circle around their remaining domain and, in due time, outproduce them.

Always keep in mind that once you conquer them, not only the hardest battle will be won, but you will also be in possession of seemingly infinite resources, both money- and populationwise.

katank

06-23-2005, 21:14

Note that eastern inf are only good for pushing rams etc.

Even when the gate is broken, go hammer down walls before going in.

Letting your cav pour through multiple openings is good and also gives you more time to soften up the confused whirling chariots and the slow phalanxes before you go inside.

Despite the bowmen, you should still be able to outshoot them. Nearly every unit in your army should be missile capable.

Dead Knight of the Living

06-24-2005, 13:17

All this is great advice. And believe me I'm making little notes for the next campaign. But right now I just lost a town to a rebel army. It's the first time I've ever seen a rebel army actually besiege a town and take it. I had 4 peasant units vs 2 sparabara, 1 horse archer and 1 bowman. THe peasants obviously folded. I sent three units out to destroy the ram. It didn't work. they got routed quickly. Regrouped inside the gates. Then routed again when the rebels got inside. I just took that town back this last turn.

I'm ravaging Pontus with my one army. I have a 6 stack army of HA's fighting another 800 man Pontic army. I attack and expend all my arrows, then they attack me and I expend all my arrows again. I dwindle them down little by little. I'll have to beat them on the next battle or they'll besiege the town I'm using to retrain my HA's and I'll be SOL. I think I will beat them next time. Though they have 800 men, all their units are understength. And they have no missile troops remaining.

I have a strong army with cataphracts vicinity of Seleukia. I just obliterated an Egyptian army full of Macedonian Mercenaries. This is RTR 5.4 keep in mind. I don't remember seeing these units in 1.2. They're phalanx troops. I hardly lost a man. They had a unit of archers only 16 men strong so that was no problem. And they had about 4 units of peasants. It was fun standing back with the HA's making them chase me all over the place and die. Basically, they were about to take the Seleucid city east of Seleukia. I stopped them because I didn't want them to have it. I can't siege it because it'll leave Seleukia open to attack. I know Egypt has a couple of armies inbound too. I don't want Seleucids to declare war on me. But again, I think it is inevitable because their armies keep marching in my boundaries around my cities. I don't know what they're waiting for? But I'm not going to provoke them. My northern and eastern boundaries are completely undefended. And the Seleucids could swarm me in these areas.

Pulling out of Pontus is so hard for me to do right now. I'm whipping their anuses. I can't believe they still have an army in my territory and are not returning to defend their homeland. The reason I am considering withdrawing from there is because I have no onagers to take their stonewalled cities. If only they were all wooden walls. But I"m having a blast prancing in their country side. My cataphracts have been phenomenal. But if I pull out of Pontus I see two things happening. They continue to harass my western border and i end up having to fight them anyway. Because they did invade me first. Or, the Egyptians conquer them and get more money from their cities. I just can't see a benefit to staying there or leaving really.

If I had one more decently sized army to hold the border I'd pull my main army out, but I don't have that necessary border guarding army right now. Perhaps after Exterminating a couple more towns I will. BUt then I'll find it hard to maintain them if I let those cities go.

And as for the Army in Seleukia. I'm slowly getting more units there and hope to go on the offensive somewhere. But I'd be left wide open if I did it now.

And the infantry. Why do I even bother with them. I have four infantry units in my Army of Seleukia. They hang back by the red line ready to withdraw if attacked. That's all I do with them. I leave them on the board so the enemy still has to be concerned with them, but they are nothing more than a distractor.

pezhetairoi

06-27-2005, 03:35

It's hard to pull out of a campaign you're winning, but if you don't defend your frontier against Egypt there won't be any point in gaining Pontus anymore. You only have to hold out against the stacks; you're Parthian, so you can just field armies of horse archers and try to divide them. Divide your armies and sweep into Egypt's territory, refuse battle with all enemy armies except all-infantry armies, make peace with Pontus and demand heap big heap tribute from them, using the tribute to bribe what Egyptian armies you can. With Egypt, you must bribe, or you will go under, because their chariots are the one nemesis that your HA have no answer to. Instead of going for the huge battle of annihilation, the Cannae, go for small-unit tactics if you can.

Fleet tactics are also an advantage. If you happen to have control of any Mediterranean port, start churning out ships and use them to gain naval superiority. With that you can start landing piecemeal armies all over the place in Egypt, forcing them to divide their forces to deal with your multiple threats. Once they have armies lured away from one place, siege the other and assault it. If they counterattack, raise the siege and siege another city. The trick is to keep -some- cities besieged so they cannot produce any units from that settlement.

Now, some strategic observations about Egyptian weaknesses based on my experience in the Egyptian campaign: They are weak at Jerusalem. Take that down, and Sidon is yours for the taking. Two armies can pull this off, one striking from Bostra for Jerusalem, and the other advancing down from Antioch, assuming, of course, that Antioch is still there. Following that they will be pretty much reduced to the three Nile cities, which can be quickly taken simply by sending your main army at Alexandria while you use one unit to besiege Memphis and Thebes each so they cannot produce any units to relieve Alexandria while they use up their turn's move in sallying. (AI armies never make more than one move a turn, so if they sally, you withdraw and simply renew the siege next turn, until Alexandria is taken)

A thought just occurred to me; if you can make peace with the Seleucids, do so. Your HA can crush their troops -easily-, so it's no harm to leave them for now. Ally with them if you can, pay them if you must to get this. Concentrate on Egypt with whatever you have left, and you will be assured of the might of Seleucia (or what's left of it) behind you. If you cannot, then simple peace will do. The Seleucid navy is useful against the Egyptians.

Okay, that's disembodied but will work on purely theoretical basis. I haven't tried Parthia yet, but I've tried that with Scythia against the Romans, so by extension it should be about the same, just a little harder.

Dead Knight of the Living

06-27-2005, 14:37

Pretty good advice pezhetairoi. I'll try sending some HA's into Egypt when I play next. right now I've conquered about a quarter of Asia Minor. The Pontics sieged the city I just took. I'll easily annhilate them. The Egptians just lost another army at the bridge south of Seleukia. The Seleucids and I are at peace. They just keep marching troops into my border and back out again. I don't even get the option to ask them for an alliance when I send my diplomat to them. After like 10 campaigns I still haven't figured out why I cannot ask certain nations to ally with me.

But Seleukia in the south is at the mercy of the Eggies. I've been defending the Seleucids more than my own land. They are fighting the Sarmatians (Scythians) in the north. I don't know why they took that route. But I have a spare army of 6 HA's. I'm just going to march them around Egypt and keep adding units to them as available. We'll see what that does for me.

Deus ret.

06-27-2005, 20:14

I don't even get the option to ask them for an alliance when I send my diplomat to them. After like 10 campaigns I still haven't figured out why I cannot ask certain nations to ally with me.

In my experience, that's due to this nation being already allied with someone you're at war with. When two of your allies battle, you also have to decide for one. Thus, they are possibly allied with Pontus.
Apart from that, good luck while smashing the Egyptians. Wait any longer and they'll smash you.

pezhetairoi

06-28-2005, 00:49

Dead Knight of the Living

06-28-2005, 15:02

In my experience, that's due to this nation being already allied with someone you're at war with. When two of your allies battle, you also have to decide for one. Thus, they are possibly allied with Pontus.
Apart from that, good luck while smashing the Egyptians. Wait any longer and they'll smash you.

See, I thought the same thing. But they are allied to nowone. They haven't been allied to anybody since the start of the game. Maybe it is because I took one of their cities in the beginning though.

Dead Knight of the Living

06-28-2005, 15:06

Oh, Dead Knight, did I mention you should recruit as many mercenary hoplites as you can and fight bridge battles wherever possible with your hoplites surrounding the ford/bridge's other end? Guaranteed enemy annihilation especially with coupled with HA support. Those are the only places where you should fight concentrated. Otherwise you should just march divided ;-)

I've been fighting a lot of bridge battles. The AI is so stupid for attacking me there. I always stay close to bridges. If not, I engage with HA's until the arrows run out. When the battle is over I move to the nearest bridge and the enemy always attacks me there on their next turn.

Eaglefirst

06-28-2005, 19:35

Parthia is in my opinion the faction that has the most fun considiring your opposistion. I have played 4 Parthia campaigns on VH/M and all have been exciting and (somewhat) challenging. First if you want to play as Parthia or as any of the horse-archer heavy armies it's imperative to have Player 1's bug fixer patch since it fixes Horse Archers so they can fire while they move.

Military: Horse Archers, Horse Archers and more Horse Archers should be the composition of your early armies. Until you can get Persian Cavalry you should hire the Bedoin/Arab Cavalry Units to use for the rare occasion your Horse Archers don't pull through. Focus on enemy cavalry/chariots first then focus on archers/skirmishers then finally you can massacre the infantry. I don't use the circle formation thing much since it tires your horses out very fast. Keep Horse archers in Skirmish mode and disable fire at will unless they are chased. If your horse archers are chased enable fire at will since it seems to make them fire more volleys at the chasing unit. Beware if you leave fire at will on it may take many orders to get them to fire on a unit that you choose since they have a habit of shooting at what they want to.. Once an enemy unit is listed as Shaken (Highlight enemy unit if it is close to see its status) rush from behind with another horse archer unit to rout and massacre the unit. Persian Cavalry do what HA's do except better treat them the same with the option of flanking and routing units that aren't shaken more often and they have better arrow capability. The last important part of your army is the cataphracts. Cataphracts have the capability of taking out almost any unit 1 on 1 although they rarely need it since a single flank can rout most units. Save the Cataphracts to guard your HA's from other cavalry and to flank and destroy enemy's units that are resistant to arrow fire such as urban cohorts, armored hoplites, other cataphracts, etc. After a Cataphract charge don't forget to alt-click with them to make them use their even more deadly weapon their Mace. The cataphracts mace bypasses armor and allows the cataphracts to destroy heavily armored enemies that rely on armor. Infantry should not be used in the open field except for emergencies. Use Eastern Infantry as garrisons and Archers as garrisons. Try building two units of EI to every 1 unit of archers. They are used for siege defense only and the occasional rebel killing. You can get elephants later or you can hire elephants, use them for busting down wooden walls and as mobile archer towers. They are also excellent at dealing with melee chariots. Up north you can hire Sarmation Cavalry and Scythian HA’s. Most of my campaigns that deal with fighting with Scythia I start with a large army of HA’s and as they lose troop numbers I merge and hire all the Mercenary HA’s to recuperate from the losses. Try to avoid fighting the Scythians in snow since they’re units get bonuses in snow. When fighting any army that has more than two foot or horse archer units remember to place your horse archers in loose formation to minimize losses.

Sieges: This is your weak point but with some planning you can use your put your mobile HA’s to use. First it is important to build the best walls possible in your cities. Until your cities have stone walls they are vulnerable. When defending Place all your Eastern Infantry on the walls where you think they will attack. The next part is the most important use your archers to prevent the ram from opening the gate. Use fire Arrows to burn the ram to pieces. If you can prevent the ram from breaking the gate you’re in good shape. Then as your EI hold the enemy infantry at the walls you can use your horse archers to pick apart enemy infantry as they sit and fight the EI and get shot to pieces. If they break the gate use your heaviest unit to hold the enemy at the gate if you have no units retreat and place all your units in the town square and hope for the best. Besieging wooden walled towns is generally easy. Place all HA’s into loose formation and sit near the gates and pound the enemy with arrows once you have weekend them considerably pour your horse archers through and swarm enemies. You will take losses but you can retrain the units at the town.

Eaglefirst

06-28-2005, 19:37

Expansion: When you begin you start there are 2 Rebel Towns to be captured. One is just west of your capital you should take that one easily the next is going to be your major battle ground with Egypt it is southwest of Susa. Both are lightly defended and easy to conquer. Keep an eye on Seleucia usually the AI takes it garrison out for a walk so you can capture that town and its wonder. Next decide what to do with Armenia. Armenia is generally very trustworthy to alliances and is a buffer from Pontus. You can either crush them or Ally with them but if you ally with them you must pursue expansion north into Scythia and West into the Seleucid Empire. Scythia also is generally trust worthy but I always take the town south west of your northern town. It has mines and it can trade on that sea. The town can be defended easily on both of the river passes with forts. Build HA’s in Susa/Seleucia and send them to Dumantha to meet your soon to be favorite enemy, Egypt. Egypt will send stack after stack after stack after stack at Dumantha. Your HA’s should deal with Egypt. Diplomats should secure trade rights and trade Map info for Map Info (I don’t sell map info since the money you get for it makes the game to easy). Beware the Seleucids and Egypt do not honor Ceasefires/Alliances. If Egypt asks you to become they’re protectorate do so. It seems being a protectorate makes Egypt a true ally. Later you can break the alliance when you feel ready. When dealing with late game Pontus beware of scythed chariots. I retreat all my generals from the battle map if they have more than 2 scythed chariots since the like to chase and kill your generals. Focus all fire on those chariots with your HA’s once the chariots are gone they’re army consists of EI and Hillman which are asking for arrows from your HA. I also prefer expanding and destroying the Scythians since it destroys a military that can match yours if left alone. Aslo it gives you some much needed ports into the black sea. Ally with whoever is west of you after your northern expansion so you can pursue expansion through the Seleucids/ Egypt.

Economy: Secure Trade rights with anyone you’re not at war with. All your provinces except the few Northern ones should have Very High Tax Rates. Check with the VH tax rates what the population growth is, If the growth is under 1.5% build a farm upgrade. If the growth is over 1.5% do not build farm upgrades. Be sure to build roads first thing since your empire is huge in terms of size. Build ports for your cities that border the Caspian Sea for troop/family member transport and trade. Focus on Trade for all your cities. The only early military buildings you should have are stables and barracks. Never upgrade your barracks since it provides no benefits besides hillmen which are useless in single player. Stables should be built in all cities. Try to build an Archery Range in a few cities for archers but you do not need archery ranges in all cities. Stone Walls are important to all your cities if they are on the front. If you exterminate a just conquered city put the money looted into trade buildings/caravans.

Diplomacy: You have 5 Nations you could call neighbors, Egypt, The Seleucid Empire, Armenia, Pontus and Scythia. Egypt is the most powerful and you can either join them and pick off the remains of the Seleucids but then later you will face the Egyptians alone which is a long and costly proposition unless you become they’re protectorate or ally with the Seleucids. The Seleucids are #2 in power behind Egypt and they are also not to be trusted. You can Ally with them early and destroy Egypt if you want or fight against them like I stated earlier. Beware if you do not take part in the war one side may become to powerful and cause you a MAJOR headache later. Armenia is your western neighbor. Armenia is generally very trustworthy. You can ally with them early if you want to focus on Egypt/ Seleucids and they provide a buffer from Pontus or you can destroy them to gain Kotais which has a port to the black sea and a mine making it a fairly decent money maker. Pontus is just west of Armenia and are #3 in terms of power in the East ahead of you and Armenian at the beginning of the game. Pontus can sometimes be trustworthy and other times not so keep an eye out for them. They also have the ability to decide the fate of the Seleucids. If Pontus allies with the Seleucids Armenia will fall and you should steal the provinces before Pontus does and you should ally with Egypt and pick apart the Seleucid Empire. If Pontus allies with Armenia the Seleucids will crumble fighting a two front war and Armenia will generally try to fight the Seleucids also. Scythia is your northern neighbor and I have yet to been backstabbed by them. They have never attacked my northern province. Scythia is fairly weak and it takes them eons to move forces for counterattacks so they are easy pickings to attack. Early I always to they’re western most town and wait for they’re single counterattack which is again generally weak then I build a fort and some watchtowers at the 2 River crossings. The Scythians will generally honor Alliances/Ceasefires. One last note before you attack an allied faction use a diplomat to break the alliance first since it seems back stabbing makes diplomacy difficult.

Deus ret.

06-28-2005, 22:48

Good posts, eaglefirst. I've enjoyed reading them. At least there are some people who do not surrender to the chariots without at least some half-decent infantry, as I did when I was Parthia....if those darn hells-on-wheels were not there, playing HA factions would be too easy anyway.

pezhetairoi

06-29-2005, 00:56

Nice posts indeed, they rival mine for length and detail :-) And the detail is more coherent than mine.

nameless

06-29-2005, 17:34

M/M

First time with an Eastern Faction, I took all of my troops and sped as quickly as I could into Egypt with a spy. I waited until the Egyptians sent out most of their troops to fight Numidia and Selecuid and sent in a spy to assist in capturing Alexandria. With that in hand, I kept a small force on a mountain to lure out the remaining egyptian forces to attack me where they got slaughtered. I kept my HA on a very steep hill and when the enemy got closer, by that time tired, my cataphracts charged home and smashed their lines easily. From there most of their garrisons have been weakened because of this so I easily captured Thebes and Memphis afterwards. I was seiged by a large egyptian army so I let them in where my East Infantry men held them at a bottleneck long enough for a cataphract unit to come behind and smash their lines.

If there's one thing I noticed the AI is really disorganized when they have troops that just entered a city and attempt to get back into formation, use this to your advantage as the Cataphract's charge is really powerful.

East Infantry men are also good for taking out chariots as there are so many of them(240 on Huge) the chariots get clogged up and fall like flies. If anything, I think EI are good to use in battles where you can send them in to attract an enemies attention on them and expose their flanks long enough for your horsemen to smash in.

I also surrendered to the Selecuids in order to get them to stop blockading Alexanderia's port so I could get out of my debt. As most people said, the factions around you are not very good people and will backstab you even with an alliance, a protectorate status keeps that in line. This gave me time to conquer Salamis, Kydonia, and Rhode island which usually have small garrisons to get enough money in which I used to help build up my forces in the Egyptian area. For some strange reason the Greeks, despite being attacked on all sides, sent a fleet and army to take me out in Egypt :furious3: So I took Rhode Island as a punishment but what the heck! I broke my alliance with the Seleucids though the Egyptians in the Jerusalem area are acting as a buffer so I wouldn't have to pay tribute to them anymore.

If any of you are wondering about how I did this I lost all my starting cities to Pontus, Armenia, and the Selecuids as I attempted to capture Egypt but not before I brought taxes to high and destroyed all my buildings except for campus statke or something, it's the one near Scythia. So yeah my empire is kinda stretched out alot ~D

Viking

06-29-2005, 20:00

I also surrendered to the Selecuids in order to get them to stop blockading Alexanderia's port so I could get out of my debt.

You`re playing with 1.0 right? Otherwise you should barely have money.
I remeber in my first Parthian campaign with 1.0, I surrendered both to Egypt and The Seleucid Empire so that I grew strong again.
Man, I miss those days.. ~D

nameless

06-29-2005, 20:19

No 1.2, by the time I got Alexandria I was like -4800 denari, then I executed the lot to get the money back. I guess I got lucky but I was in debt.

pezhetairoi

06-30-2005, 04:52

Craterus, you miss the days of surrender? tch, tch... :-P

Viking

06-30-2005, 20:09

Craterus, you miss the days of surrender? tch, tch... :-P

Nah, more 1.0 as a whole ~:cheers:

But please call me Viking! :bow:

pezhetairoi

07-01-2005, 02:20

*slaps forehead*

You'll kill me for this, I know, but I never realise Craterus'd become Viking... >.< I see Bartix has become a part of Org lore, eh. :-)

Agent Miles

07-01-2005, 09:55

My first shot at playing Parthia:

My setup was vanilla RTW 1.2, i.e., no extra units added or mods. I chose a strategically sound course (I hope) of attacking and destroying one enemy at a time. To this end, I abandoned Campus Sakae and sent the garrison to “lower Parthia” in the bireme. Before CS revolted, I “built” a diplomat that I sent first to the Scythian faction and then on to Europe. I also added a diplomat at Susa and sent him to talk with the Seleucids and the Egyptians. The diplomat I started with, went to Armenia and then Pontus. Within four turns, I was able to ally with Scythia, Pontus and the Seleucids, as well as gain over twenty thousand denarii in tribute for trade and such with them and Armenia. This was a decisive factor in keeping my finances going in the early game.
I quickly took Phraaspa and built two forts at the river crossings to the north. I built a third fort at the river crossing south of Susa. These would delay a Scythian or Egyptian army if they betrayed me. With the forces from Arsakia and Campus Sakae united, I stormed into Armenia. A spy opened the gates to Artaxarta and my HA’s shot the garrison apart from three sides. The cataphracts finished them off. I then quickly moved on Kotais and captured it before the Armenians could get organized. Next, I cleared out the rebels and brigands that dotted my regions while my new public were brought in order. I built another series of forts to close all of the mountain passes around former Armenia and one on the river north of Kotais. At this time, my allies, Pontus and the Seleucids, went to war. I chose to side with the Seleucids, so Pontus broke our alliance. This was great! The Seleucids could now keep Egypt in check and I could take Pontus for myself. My army consisted of my general (a “cavalry commander of genius”), two somewhat under-strength Cataphracts, four Persian Cavalry and twelve HA. I slipped down the valley between the mountains that run to Sinope from Kotais, and took Pontus by surprise. With the help of spies, I stormed Sinope and captured it. I then offered Pontus a ceasefire, on the condition that they give me Ancyra, which they did! Pontus was now split in two and finishing them off was a simple matter. Also, I could finally build Cataphracts at Sinope.
Next, I built a navy and took Rhodes away from a weakened Greece and then Kydonia as well. I got a ceasefire from Greece and left my ally Macedon to finish them off. This gave me a lot of income. I built watchtowers along the Black Sea coast, on Rhodes and both ends of Crete. I sent spies to Salamis and caused a revolt. My army took the rebel city right from under the noses of the evicted Egyptian garrison. I also built watchtowers on both ends of Cyprus. With a large navy, I destroyed the Egyptian fleet and blockaded their ports. Egypt offered a ceasefire, and I demanded Dumatha. They agreed! I sent an army into Arabia to build a series of watchtowers that gave me a great view of the surrounding area. Several spies were then positioned to give me a complete view of the Seleucids’ regions. I let Egypt survive (for a while) because the Seleucids would have gotten the lion’s share of Egypt’s settlements if I weakened them too much. Basically, Egypt and the Seleucids had been locked in an even-sided struggle and neither had expanded much. Pity.
I had an assassin whack Seleucid agents until they broke the alliance, because I believe that your diplomatic record matters (don’t attack an ally). Then I was ready for the next phase. The Seleucids had a small navy and most of their army was fighting the Egyptians. They held Sardis, Halicanarssus, Tarsus, Antioch (the capital), Hatra, Palmyra, Seleucia, Damascus and Jerusalem. I had three cavalry armies as above, one outside of Mazaka, one on Cyprus and the last in Arabia. My plan was to destroy the Seleucid navy and blockade all their ports. The armies on Cyprus and near Mazaka would take Tarsus with the aid of spies and build a fort at the pass between Tarsus and Antioch. This would split the Seleucid’s realm in two. One army would then move west and take Sardis and Halicanarssus. Spy teams caused these to revolt and the garrisons fled. The other army held the pass. The army in Arabia would lay siege to Seleucia (which I was able to take) and threaten their eastern flank. This gave me a lot of income again and I was able to make another cavalry army, which aided in the final destruction of the Seleucid faction.
During the war with the Seleucids, Scythia declared war. Fortunately, they were a paper tiger. About nine spies went through Scythia like a wrecking ball, while three ships blockaded their Black Sea ports. I sent a cavalry army north to clean up what was left.
With the fall of the Seleucid faction in 213, I had met the goals of the short campaign. I am the top overall faction. If I continue, it should be a simple matter to turn what’s left of Egypt, Numidia, Cathage and Rome into a breakfast entré. ~D

pezhetairoi

07-05-2005, 02:05

Welcome to the Org, Agent Miles. It's an interesting expansion path you have, and certainly one of the best displays of diplomatic manoeuvre I've ever seen (as compared to the warmongers loitering in large numbers here who believe in slaughtering every army they come across, no offence meant :-P).

I don't believe I've made as liberal use of spies as you have, but it certainly is an option given the cavalry-sparse Parthian unit roster. Very impressive work for a first post. I'd never considered moving along the black Sea coast, I must confess. My thoughts were on striking south and west through the desert and along Mesopotamia to take out the eastern Seleucid Empire and hit Egypt at Jerusalem where they least expected it, to cut them in two.

Strategic considerations based on 'most advanced faction' in all my campaigns indicate that Egypt is the faction to beat because with their advancement they are capable of massing ranged units and chariots which will become your Parthians' nemesis. Hence you may wish to consider beating Egypt instead of playing them off against the Seleucids, because the Seleucids are infinitely more vulnerable with their fixation on phalanx units, and the relative vulnerability of their scythed chariots.

But otherwise, it's a very potential axis of advance that I will try when I play Parthia.

Agent Miles

07-05-2005, 16:25

Thanks, you're most kind. So far, everything has worked without a snag. Having crushed the Seleucids, I attacked Sparta with a mercenary army of hoplites, thracians, cretan archers, peltasts and slingers. This finished off the Greeks and gave me a temple that grants three levels of experience to the Persian Cavalry trained there. I have blockaded all ports in Thrace, who are at war with my ally Macedon. I think that I will take her settlements and gift them to Macedon. This should make Macedon strong enough to cripple Brutii. I'm also giving denarii to Germania in hopes of slowing down Julii. Scipii I will take care of myself. As for Egypt, they attacked me outside of Damascus. I blockaded Alexandria and Sidon. Then I encircled and annihilated about forty Egyptian units, to include the Pharoah, in two great battles. Sidon fell also. I'm sure that in Alexandria they are ready to cry "Mummy". ~D

Dead Knight of the Living

07-05-2005, 21:29

Little update on my campaign. I don't get to play a whole lot so I haven't gotten very far. But I've conquered all the way out to the west coast of Asia Minor. I forgot the northernmost town name there.

Meanwhile, I'm decimating every Egyptian army that comes after Seleukia. But they've now branched out and are sending some armies into Asia Minor after me. It's getting tougher. They've taken no cities from me, but I can't stop all their fully stacked armies. I'm only getting 2-3,000 for money. It sucks.

Pontus only has two cities left. I'll beat them, but I believe the Eggies will be relieving me of responsibility of some of my own cities here pretty soon. My horse archers and persian cavalry are too much for them. With 4-500 HA's and PC's I wipe out entire stacks of Eggie Armies. I manage to go back and retrain and hit the field again. BUt they've become so wealthy they are replacing one army with two.

If it continues on like this I'll be through. I can't get any help from the Seleucids who lost all their western cities.

What I'm hoping for is that I can take all of Asia Minor, securing my western flank and than take the Eastern Med coastal cities (Antioch, Damascus, Jerusalem, etc.) If I can't build catapaults soon I won't be able to accomplish this. The Pontic towns are easy enough, but the Eggie towns all have stone walls.

The situation is desperate. But I'm still alive. The next 10 turns will determine my survival or demise I think. I have to get the catapault range built and crank out at least one catapault for my "Army of Asia Minor" I'm confident the Eggie towns will be meat when that happens. I have to disrupt and delay Eggie movement in the vicinity of Seleukia and my eastern Asia Minor cities. I can only afford to lose one or two of those cities. If I hold onto Seleukia and Western Asia Minor I'll be good to go.

pezhetairoi

07-06-2005, 01:01

Play nomadic. Pack up your show and cross over to Greece. Surrender your eastern cities, let them starve the cities out and take them but don't bother with anything more than a one-peasant garrison. Leave eggy alone while you move into Greece. It's easier prey for you, since hoplitai are just Greek for 'sitting ducks'. Also, Italy, whose legionnaires are also Latin for the same. Take those out and you've got a far more profitable and much safer base of operations. Then you can adopt my Brutii strategy for a 'shock and awe' campaign on Egypt: Phase 1, 10 turns of diplomatic bribing, phase 2, kitting out 2-3-4 armies to land simultaneously at various points in the Egyptian empire while producing Grand Fleets to get naval superiority from the Egyptians and blockade them until they cry mummy, to borrow Miles' expression ;-) Then phase 3, complete annihilation based on three-pronged attack mixed with manoeuvre and splitting of forces to bewilder the AI. Let Pontus live as a bulwark against Egypt. If Seleucia dies, you can't help it. They're pretty much defenceless anyway. If you want to stop Egypt from touching Seleucia, try to build a fort at the crossing south of Seleucia. Chances are that the Egyptians have possession of Dumatha, so they will launch attacks from the deep desert. Build a fort at the crossing, and a watchtower at the extreme south to watch for Eggies.

If you can't fight them, bribe them. But to do that you need to make more than 2-3k a turn. To do that you need Greece and Rome, since your moneymaking Asia Minor is definitely NOT safe.

Egypt cannot be beaten in a casual campaign. Lots of planning and preparation needed to weaken them.

Dead Knight of the Living

07-11-2005, 13:16

Two cities left and all of Asia Minor is mine. I'll be relieving the Eggies of responsibility for governing Antioch in the next two or three turns too.

I had an unbelievable turn of good luck. Seleukia was besieged and the city to the west of it as well. I submitted as protectorate to them in exchange for them paying me 3650 denarii for 10 turns. I moved my army to one of the bridges west of Seleukia. Sieges were lifted. Next turn, the Eggies attacked anyway. Three full armies attacked the bridge one at a time. And one at a time I David Copperfielded them. It bought me a lot of time to heal up my other very depleted army. The tide is slowly changing. I'm pulling in like 4,000 denarii per turn now. That still sucks, but it's better than the 1500 I was getting a few turns ago. I've kicked the Eggies out of Asia Minor completely. I only have two rebel towns left to take. Smyrna and the other one's name escapes me. Once Asia Minor is completely subdued I'm off to take the holy land. Eggies are still fielding a lot of full stacks, but they're dropping like flies when they attack my armies. This is definitely the most fun campaign I've ever played. I'm glad I didn't start over.

And Pezh,

I kind of took your advice. I didn't completely abandon the eastern cities, but I'm not really paying attention to them anymore. I've moved my capital to Samosota which is further west towards Asia Minor. I plan on moving it to Apamea since I've almost conquered all of Asia Minor. I'm focusing all my development on the Asia Minor Cities. The only city in the east I care about is Seleukia because it's fairly developed. And the eggies seem to be magnetized to it. I guess because of the world wonder attached to it. I kill most of the Eggies on the bridges by Seleukia. It's definitely my center of gravity right now. Thanks for all the pointers everybody.

VAE VICTUS

07-11-2005, 18:27

What Or Who Are Eggies?persians?

Dead Knight of the Living

07-11-2005, 20:36

What Or Who Are Eggies?persians?

Eggies=Egyptians
Persians=Persians. People who lived in what is now Iran. Or the name of empires formed by non-Persian people, but formed the empire or nation in the land of Persia (Iran).

pezhetairoi

07-12-2005, 00:53

Dead Knight of the Living

07-15-2005, 15:07

Lol, first time I saw anyone ask about Eggies. Yay, dead knight, glad to know it works. As long as you defend at the Seleukia bridge you won't have any problems. The east is incredibly poor though. How's your campaign against Egypt doing?

It's going well. I've taken all of Asia Minor now. IT's all mine. I'm about to grab Malta I think. The one with the Colossus Wonder. That'll boost my trade very well. I took Antioch also. They've besieged it, but I'll easily lift that. It's still a little hairy over by Seleukia. They've now figured out to bypass my army on the bridge and go around. I've had to fight a couple of battles away from the bridge. IT's no problem though. I win, I go to Seleukia to retrain and go back to the bridge. And now I've another 8 unit army over there to help keep them running around. I basically use this army to siege Eggie towns and turn their armies away from Seleukia. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. If it doesn't I attack with the 8 unit army and expend all my arrows on them. By the time they get to my main army in Seleukia they are at least 50% strength and ineffective.

The biggest thing going in my favor is that so far they have never put more than two archer units in their armies. I rarely see chariots and if so never more than one or two units of them. It's normally all phalangites. My HA's and Persian Cavalry chew them up slowly and spit them out. If I can't defeat them in one battle I at least attrit them down far enough so in the next battle I wipe them out. I rarely lose more than 20 or so men in a battle.

One disturbing thing though. Before taking Antioch I fought a battle and they had two units of Pharoah's Guard Bowmen. I thought for sure I'd take a bunch of losses. But what I did is surrounded their entire line. Whatever side of my circle they moved to I withdrew and closed the other side of the circle. I also kept moving the units laterally to help throw them off balance. Eventually a hole opened up and I sent my General and my only unit of cataphracts in to take out one of the PGB's. Also, they had one unit of Native bowmen. These idiots advanced ahead of the phalangites so I charged them with two units of PC's. Instant Route. These PC's took a few casualties from the sole remaining PGB. Not much. But before this last PGB unit did more damage I managed to get my general and cataphract units on them too. AFter that is was just a matter of taking out phalanx units one at a time with the classic

>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<
>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<
>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<
>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<
Persian Cav Enemy phalanx

^^^^^^^ Flanking Persian Cavalry
^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^

One at a time. Slow and STeady wins the race.

I will add this. If the Seleucids decide to declare war on me, I'm done. They'll be free to siege my towns and I won't be able to spare an army to stop them. Now, that of course is slowly changing. My income is increasing each turn. And after I take Malta I'm sure I'll be able to build an army to defend my eastern borders from them.

Craterus

07-15-2005, 19:54

I'm about to grab Malta I think. The one with the Colossus Wonder.

Not even close. Malta is south of Sicily. Not to worry, you were only a few hundred miles out. :book:

jacked

07-18-2005, 01:45

I think the one with the colosus wonder was Rhodes

Dead Knight of the Living

07-18-2005, 12:50

Not even close. Malta is south of Sicily. Not to worry, you were only a few hundred miles out. :book:

WHat's a few hundred miles when your empire spans thousands. Hey, they're both in the Med. I was close. ~;)

Craterus

07-18-2005, 17:42

Very true.

And jacked, you were right Colossus of Rhodes is located on Rhodes.

Dead Knight of the Living

07-18-2005, 19:43

Very true.

And jacked, you were right Colossus of Rhodes is located on Rhodes.

Yeah, I missed that whole of Rhodes part. I'm square now. Good thing I'm not a travel agent.

pezhetairoi

07-19-2005, 01:08

My, imagine a tour to France to see the historic city of Pompeii... >.<

SpawnOfEbil

07-22-2005, 09:56

How on earth do you kill those &$E^%I%^ chariots?!?

They are ^£%*$£&^"$ impossible to kill with HAs. :furious3:

pezhetairoi

07-22-2005, 10:20

...arrows. Lots of them. And eastern infantry stacked really deep. You have HA, dammit! Stay away from contact since their scythes are nuts! Just shoot them to pieces... You don't have a choice, unless you happen to have a coupla cat units you can afford to lose...

2 ways with cav. With HA, engage them in a longrange fire battle. With shock cav, swarm them. Since you obviously don't want to sacrifice your cats to their 12 armour-piercing attack (12 ap > 9 ap, I hardly need tell you) don't use the second method.

1 way with inf. Beef up your slinger and peltast corps, spam a few useless EI units as fodder. Form up the EI deep, use your HA to attract the chariots to move close while getting behind the chariots, charge your EI, (or better if the chariots charge you) and then let your slingers and peltasts do the nasty work. Slingers are deadly accurate, can fire faster, and their attacks for some reason seem to have good effect on chariots, and peltasts have a bonus against chariotry. So.

One more thing which may be of use for you to know, and for you to make sense of: Chariots can run amok like elephants. Yeah.

SpawnOfEbil

07-22-2005, 11:52

Ah, so infantry are actually useful at times?

I've gotten into the habit of not building anything apart from HAs, so might want to upgrade.

Deus ret.

07-22-2005, 14:00

I've gotten into the habit of not building anything apart from HAs, so might want to upgrade.

In Parthia's case, downgrade might be a more suitable expression considering your choice of infantry :dizzy2:
Anyway, you can do it any way pez said plus another one: hold the line with your EI as described above and set your archers to flaming ammo. They will not cause terrible losses but the chariots are likely to run amok pretty soon, just as elephants.
One last note: Be aware of panicking chariots. Since they're routing, your cav will ignore them even with skirmish turned on --- so if they reach your cav, prepare for a carnage. Better watch them and take them out asap, or let them rout off the battlefield. Better still if they rout through your enemy's lines as most rtw generals are mounted. If you can cause a mass chariot rout, the enemy is more or less finished.

pezhetairoi

07-25-2005, 03:33

ah but note, deus, that Parthia has no archers. So archers on flaming ammo for Parthia is not practical. Only massed HA fire have a chance.

Deus ret.

07-25-2005, 08:46

?? really ? .... [looking up]....

Deus ret.

07-25-2005, 08:47

... dammit you're right! I entirely forgot about that. It's too long past that I played this faction ....and lost to Egypt btw. Well, it was my second campaign...
thanks anyway & cheers!

Dead Knight of the Living

07-25-2005, 19:10

Parthia has archers in RTR 5.4. I'm using them to flame some elephants. I don't know about RTW 1.2 or any other mods. I keep archers in my garrisons most of the time. But I bring one in my field armies because the Eggies are picking up merc elephants. I use the archers just for them.

By the way. Egypt is as good as finished. I have Antioch, Dumatha, Haftra (I think), I razed Damascus, am about to raze Sidon. I have plenty of men and they have no prayer of defeating me. I took Rhodes and my trade income is much more phat. I've finally gotten to the point where I have to figure out ways to spend money rather than struggling to earn money.

I've gotten quite a few kataphract units and they spank anything the eggies throw at me.

Now I'm busy squashing rebellions. I don't know if it's an RTR trait, but the rebels are all over the place in my empire. I have two small armies dedicated exclusively to rebel crushing.

ANd in another couple turns I'll have the biggest navy around.

Deus ret.

07-25-2005, 20:53

Dead Knight,
I bow before you. Thrashing the hell out of Egypt with the Parthians is what I have dreamt of since they ruined one of my earliest campaigns :bow:
You truly deserve a place at Zoroastra's side.

And no, the rebels are not a special RTR nuisance. It seems to depend on the campaign map difficulty setting, among others. If you have too much money, keep on bribing them and your exchequer will soon be relieved....

pezhetairoi

07-26-2005, 01:30

Wonderful work, dead knight... I'm about 10-20 turns away from starting to work on Egypt as Armenia. Hopefully their chariots aren't too much of a trouble. The Pontic ones didn't even touch me once before dying, and the Seleucid ones ran amok the instant my cataphracts made contact having been put under incessant arrow fire for goodness knows how long before that.

Dead Knight of the Living

07-26-2005, 14:48

I feel I've been more lucky than not. The Egyptian armies I'm facing are full of phalanx, native auxilia, and Armoured Bowmen, with a general and usually one light native cav and 1 Cleuruch heavy cav unit. I've only faced chariots when I fought the Seleucids in the beginning of my campaign. They were quite a problem though I overwhelmed them with my HA's. I took a lot more casualties in those battles though.

The battles I have lost to the Eggies were when they grew enough brains to stack their units with archers. In those cases I end up having to withdraw and retrain. By that time they have divided their army up and I take them out one at a time.

I don't know why they haven't built chariots in this campaign, but if they'd have built them in sufficient numbers my story would be very different. I've crushed these phalanx armies with like only 6 or so HA or Persian Cav units. Phalanx is no match for HA.

Also, I seem to remember Egyptian generals being in chariots. In RTR 5.4 they are regular heavy cav. So, I think that's worked in my favor.

pezhetairoi

07-27-2005, 01:00

Well, in RTW Egyptian generals are first in chariots then they are heavy cav after upgrading. But I think chariotry are the better choice for Egyptians. I have a thing for their scythes.

My Eggies so far as Armenia don't seem to have much of a thing going for egyptian chariots which was their fetish when I was Macedon...

Silver Rusher

07-27-2005, 20:14

I haven't been bothered to read through this thread and see if someone has pointed this out already, but you DO NOT need infantry (vanilla parthian infantry is pathetic) or elephants for a siege. You don't even need siege equipment. When assaulting a huge city with full walls, you can stroll in and dominate if you simply send a full subterfuge spy ahead of your army (they aren't hard to get if you have been using this strategy throughout your campaign). So then you can just march in your HAs and cut down the town's garrisson with a shower of arrows.

pezhetairoi

07-28-2005, 00:50

Ya, but the thing is not all of us use spies THAT much, and it's useful to carry infantry along as a siege train so you have a garrison once the city is taken. And what will you do at the beginning before you get full-subterfuge spies, may I ask?

Silver Rusher

07-28-2005, 09:05

I think you start off with a spy in the Parthian campaign, (I play on Mundus Magnus, but I can't remember how it is in vanilla) so if you use him on some weak rebel provinces and stuff like that he gets his stars. You only need super subterfuge ones on big cities you know.

pezhetairoi

07-29-2005, 01:42

mmm... I see your point. But it seems a little un-warlike to me :) But, hey, this coming from the guy who uses diplomats more than his armies, maybe you should take what I say with a pinch of salt. :) In other news, I just built my first assassin EVER in 8 campaigns.

Comtempt

07-29-2005, 21:33

I love these guys. I managed to basically humble Eygpt by taking over Sidon, Jerusalem, and Alexandia with a 6 Horse Archer army, with two regular mercs and my general. Granted, my General has 9 Valour and 10 command stars, but, I still managed to kill two 1500 armies they sent at me, then conquer and destory their cities. My Generals stats, just from fighting the Eygptians, are:

Legendary Commander
Great Defender
Cruelly Scarred
Chancer
Cavarly Commander of Genius
Heroic Attacker
Utterly Fearless
Conquering Hero

And he's only 33! :dizzy2:

pezhetairoi

08-01-2005, 04:22

I hate Egypt. Officially. I'm playing Armenia and Egypt is THROWING chariotry at me. AUGH. But I have two mighty generals now in Egypt and they're doing nicely, with 10 command (by actual count, nearly 15) 5 management and 8 influence. Beautiful. And Egyptian academies are helping very much.

Slicendice

08-01-2005, 14:27

I have had a different experience with Parthia. I don't bother waiting to build up the economy I just attack simply because I kept going broke even with just a few troops being built. Take Seleucia on the first or second turn and then move the the next Seleucian city. Once there hold the bridge until you get sufficient troop upgrades to take Antioch.

Above Seleucia move your army west to take the rebel city and don't bother making alliance with Armenia because they won't keep it. Move into their territory with what you have and destroy them. When you get to the sea concentrate on trade and replenish your troops. Then move to Pontus. Take their main seaport because it is their main troop production city as well. This will give you Persian Cavalry and another valuable trade route to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile in the far north you should be wiping out scythia. If you move quickly with only horse units you can reach some of their cities before they build walls. If not have infantry bring up the rear. Build lots of watchtowers away from the roads along the way and you can pick your fights. Once you reach the river at Dacia and Thrace put forts on your side of the bridges and it tends to keep the enemy out of you area.

I got to Pontus, destroyed Scythia, and reached Antioch at the same time. For fun I engaged that little hidden barbarian city with the Amazon Chariots. (had never done it before) and I finished off Seleucia from two sides.

EGYPT: Egypt is a paper tiger and i don't care what anyone says. They are easy to destroy because they do not invest in a navy. I build a navy and with Elephants, Mercenary hoplites, and lots of archer/horse archer units I attack each of Egypts coastal cities. I can attack in one turn, destroy the defenders, then move all my troops out of the city and back to the boats except for my general. I then give the city back to Egypt or some faction I'm at war with and then capture the city again. Each time I enslave the population and increase the population of my good cities. Until I can take the pyramids it is going to be too hard to hang on to Egyptian cities. I also destroy all the improvements I can in the city. Then either give the city back to Egypt to prevent them from getting an instant rebellion army or I can give the city to the Roman Senate. I have never seen a city rebel from the Roman Senate EVER nor have I ever seen a faction take a city from the Roman Senate.
Move along the coast and repeat until Egypts major coastal cities have been reduced to 400 each and their ports, and trade, and troop production is devastated. Now you can move in-land and not face as many troops. Take the Pyramids first it makes life a lot easier.

Sigh I wish I could destroy the walls like the Greeks did to Troy.

By now you have taken enough cities that have advance troop buildings in place and you can rebuild your armies and prepare to move west.

pezhetairoi

08-02-2005, 01:27

Hey slicendice, it's not true that Egypt doesn't invest in a navy. It does. Problem is, you didn't give it time to :) Actually, Egypt's navy is mostly in the Red Sea, for reasons best known to Pharaoh...

I like to capture Egypt's cities whole and keep them. It's tough with Egypt if you are katanking. You tend to lose a lot of 'energy' quickly. It would certainly make life easier if you attacked both ends of the Empire at once to prevent them from responding concentratedly.

As to Egypt being a paper tiger, well.... That view bears some merit, but the confidence of that statement suggests you've never faced 3-heavy chariot 2 chariot archers 2-general 4 desert axemen 4 nile spearmen 5 bowmen armies before... o_O

Skott

08-02-2005, 04:37

The Egyptian navy is quite strong given enough time for them to develope it. One of the strongest in the game in fact. The weakness is that the AI doesnt use the fleet properly. If it did you'd find it quite challenging but, alas, the AI isnt very smart in sea battle tactics.

Also in the RtR 5.4.1 mod they put elephants into the Egyptian tech tree. This makes them a little tougher on land.

Agent Miles

08-02-2005, 20:35

Slice, what you are doing to the Egyptians is what we call exploiting the AI. It's like occassionally gifting all your settlements to your enemy and then exterminating them for profit. Try conquering Egypt without your trick.

Seamus Fermanagh

08-02-2005, 20:41

Guide tactics which exploit "loopholes" in the AI do not seem rare.

Has any Modder taken on the AI itself? Is it even accessible?

pezhetairoi

08-03-2005, 01:06

I think the consensus is that the AI is incorrigible and unmoddable. We've all given up on the recalcitrantly bad generals on the -other- side.

gardibolt

08-03-2005, 18:00

I've been dealing with numerous Egyptian full stacks of ships at sea, which are a serious pain, so I don't understand the comment about them not building a navy. Mileages may vary, I guess. I have the same experience with the Thracians, and even after wiping them out as a faction, the naval stacks are still there, just turned Rebel and they still have to be dealt with.

Seamus Fermanagh

08-03-2005, 21:55

Can you bribe fleets? Rebel/pirate should be easier.....

pezhetairoi

08-04-2005, 01:51

*shakes head* you cannot bribe fleets. Not unless your diplomat is Jesus and can walk on water.

yogol

08-08-2005, 07:07

Just finished a very hard / very hard long campaign with Partia and decided to share some thoughts, like the "Yogol's thoughts on ..." that perhaps some of you know from Shogun and MTW.

----

There are two decisions to make in the beginning with Parthia :

1. Attack Selucia or Armenia ?
2. How to handle the economy ?

----

1. I decided to go for Armenia. The reason was that if you go for Selucia, you'll get in contact with the dreadful Egypts very soon and they are STRONG when you don't have you Kataprhacts yet.

So I conquered Armenia : I took the rebel city west of my capital and grouped ALL troops (from the far north with a boat and from the far south by foot) there. Then I took the two Armenian cities.

After that I took Pont. Then that-faction-who-is-so-small-I-don't-even-remember-their-name. Then I threw the Greek out of the Eastern parts (made peace with them afterwards, no need to take their cities in Greece itself). Only THEN I went after Selucia : their cities fell fast.

Then I was ready for the Egypts : they didn't get have a chance against my Kataphract-stacks, you're south of Gibaltrar before you know it, wondering why you didn't bring ships with you !

I managed to get GOLDEN kataphracts : +2 forge and an egyptian building that gave +1 to armor and weapons. I retrained all my Kataprhacts there and then just took whatever region I wanted to take untill 50.

----

2. At the start the economy was terrible. Instead of trying to fix it, I decided to make it even worse and get all troops out of it that I could take : I sold all buildings that I didn't need and used ALL the money I had for horse archers (and one single road at my capital to move the troops from the south quicker). You'll go in debt VERY fast and deep (like minus 8000 after a few turns), but with a few city captures and looting it will get positive again. This way you got the most troops for your money.

Forget about building up your starting cities : once you take the Greek cities at the west of your little empire, move your capital. You'll get more money then you can spend (as in 20k per turn) this way AND you got bigger cities then your starting cities will ever get.

When you take the Egyptian cities, you should get 50k each turn. If you can't win the game with that much money, you should go play Tetris or Pong.

Once you go above 50k money in your treasury, you can remove ALL governers and make peasant garrisons instead, because those governers will cost ALOT ALOT of money once they get those money-spending traits :-(

----

Some remarks...

a) Until now I usually let the computer resolve the battles but I noticed that with the horse archers you lose ALOT of them. So I played the battles "myself" : just run the archers to their enemy and go eat a sandwich, clean your desk or read a good book (I recommend the latest Harry Potter). Every once in a while the archers get into trouble, but that's an exception.

----

b) Once you can make Kataphracts, don't make anything else, these troops will kill everything. E-VER-Y-THING. They are amazing, even if I don't have a clue how to spell their name :-)

Another benefit on these is that you can let the computer do the battles again, even he can win with these troops.

----

c) A nice bonus of going west fast are the three wonders there, they make some happy citizens !

----

d) After each battle, I merged the troops I could without losing units : if I got a stack of 20 I merged them so I got (for example) 16 at full strength and 4 at 1 or 2 soldiers. Those 4 units I retrained somewhere.

This way you can fight several fights in one turn, as long as your general doesn't get too few boduguards (somehow the AI always loses bodyguards in each fight, I don't know how he manages it).

----

e) I'm still unsure what's best to take a city : use one troop of peasants and make use that tunnel-thingy or take one catapult with me in my army. I don't know, shrugh.

----
----

Hope you find this useful (if anyone reads this board, it seems dead to me).

Seamus Fermanagh

08-10-2005, 00:53

In English it's spelled:

c-a-t-a-p-h-r-a-c-t

Latin and Greek (other?) spellings exist, and the EB folks and others will have it spelled properly in their mods.

With a largely mounted army such as Parthia fields, it may be a good idea to have a separate half-stack army or two for siege work, letting your HA concentrate on field battles. Siege weaps and cheap infantry slow your main body if you mix. Parthia may use combined arms tactics, but is one of the few factions where keeping theelements separate may be the best choice.

The siege army should have infantry for sapping/rams etc.
The siege army should have a pair of onagers.
The siege army should have 1 or 2 cav units as flankers.

SF

Agent Miles

08-10-2005, 16:42

Well, I finished off Egypt. After destroying their armies outside Damascus, I laid siege to Bostra and Petra. I chose to “starve them out”, so that the remaining Egyptian forces would be drawn into Asia in order to relieve them. The relief force had some chariot units. The trick to defeating chariots is to use War Elephants. Just get near them and the chariots run amok (or if you have a low frame rate, “trot amok” ~D ). The HA’s can then easily slaughter them. I was thus able to deal with the relief effort. Both settlements eventually fell without a fight from the garrisons. Now that they were defenseless, I also took the Nile settlements as Egypt collapsed. I have fortified the Nile and turned my attention elsewhere.
After smashing Thrace and gifting the settlements to my ally Macedon, the Macedonians betrayed me (and paid for their transgression). I had my armies hunt down the royal family of Macedon and slay them. Their settlements became rebel.
In the northeast, I’ve taken Campus Alanni and retaken Campus Sakae with one army. I am going to upgrade this force and finish off Scythia. I built a fort blocking the ford on the Volga and I will use this as a base for further expansion.
I’ve recycled my military. A temple in Athens upgrades my missile units to gold and I have a temple city with a foundry in Memphis that upgrades my units to golden armor and melee weapons. I’ve replaced almost all of the HA units with Persian Cavalry, who can shoot and fight. My field armies now have fifteen Persian Cavalry (arranged five to a group, on each flank and the center), with four Cataphracts and a general (change #1, I switched one of the Cataphracts out for a War Elephant unit). I was able to crush a Roman legion in a custom test battle with this arrangement.
I was forced to make siege armies because my spies were unable to penetrate Roman settlements and open the gates. I have two siege armies, each with four Onagers, four cataphracts, a general and an assortment of Eastern Infantry and Archers (as well as two mercenary hoplites and two cretan archers) for support. The Onagers blasted the gate at Brutii held Thermon and made for a great show! The remaining garrison was “cat” food.
I’ve built an armada and blockaded all Roman faction ports. Eight Brutii armies are decending on Greece, where my armies are staging. It looks like a real cataclysm brewing! I am going to take Sicily, Caralis, Carthage and Thapsis with the siege armies while my field armies bleed the Romans white in the Balkans. This should leave Italy defenseless. So far, continuing with the long campaign has indeed been worthwhile and interesting.

LestaT

08-22-2005, 09:20

I play RTR each one with different type/race ? First obvouusly Romans , then Macedon (hellenistic) , then I was confuse either Barbarian or the Eastern faction . Since as Roman or Macedon I always on war footing with barbarians I decide to venture east. Seleucia is too much like greeks , egype (ptolemaic) looks wonderful but I prefer to have them as enemy (great battles assured!!)

Then it came to Armenia or Ponthia . Looks at unit description . Same but Armenia will eventually got legion . Nice. And Parthia . Well Didn't they get elephant ? I'm not much fond of elephant (esp tone down stat for RTR) and also the color (ungu in malay / eer.. duno what's in English purple ? violet ?) definately turn me off.

So it's Armenia .

Cheers..

Upps. I'm in a wrong thread...

Marquis of Roland

08-23-2005, 03:04

Just started my war with the Brutii myself. Got rid of HA's as soon as I could, so around 250 or so. Romans attacked me four times in one turn with a total of 12000 men. Shot the crap out of them.

gmjapan

08-24-2005, 10:54

vh/m - vanilla 1.2 + player1s BugFixer
My own Parthia campaign is not going so well! Although the map is turning out to what I would call my wierdiest yet...

Following some advice from here I used HAs en mass and wondered what all the fuss was about. That was until they started getting some chevrons each - then it made sense. I took Thraapsa and Arabia straight away and started planning who to attack - only to find out that Egypt, Selucid, Armenia, Pontus and Sycthia had all allied and none were ineterested in letting me join! I was poor and there was no conflict to take advantage of ~:eek:

While wondering what to do, Egypt made the decision for me by sieging Arabia. I didnt have trouble with their units, only the never ending stream of them! Well, you all know about that here. I lost my army commander, Arses (nice name - Egypt kicked my Arses!!) and the dude on garrison trying to defend.

I cant afford more armies, my family tree has been halved, I cant cover all the borders with such a big alliance smothering me (never seen ALL these guys ally before) and a big rebel fleet in the Caspian is preventing me shipping my reinforments from the North (damnit!).

So I take a protectorate offer from Egypt to tide me over but all my provinces are high/very high taxes and I only make 800d a turn. This is bad, I cant break out and they are all only going to get stronger the longer I leave it. But with my one and a half army I cant see a way out. Well, not one that won't see my enemies pour in from all directions.

I have actually allied with Thrace but they refuse to help.

Anyway, thats just just the frustrating part! The better part is the wierd map and this is the only reason I havent quit and restarted yet:

Thrace is massive and has exterminiated the Macedonians early. Greece was exterminated early. The Jullii havent taken any towns, as far as I can tell they built a fort inbetween their 2 starter cities and parked the entire army there! Instead, the Brutii have taken Patavium and Segesta (the Jullii 1st mission) and all round the coast to Thermon.

I never seen the Bic Mac and Greece be exterminiated so early, Thrace be so successful, the Jullii not move an inch, the Brutii think they can do all the work and the entire east (minus me!) allied. Normally losing half my family and being poor would inspire me to restart but it is so different from any other campaign I have played I just cant put it down! If only I was Carthage, I could use my trusty "Man of the Hour" abuse to bulk up my generals count.

Apologies for the long post but I felt the need to share!

On a side note, seeing the success of Thrace in certain provinces in this game led me to start my own Thrace campaign and take on Macedonia. I never knew Falxmen were so devestating to cavalry, even the general units! So long as they a deployed deep enough to withstand the charge. I almost feel sorry for the Cav. Almost. My new favourite unit - the Falxmen!

Craterus

08-24-2005, 12:36

If you're going to be crushed by a huge alliance, your best chance of saving the campaign is moving north. Piledrive into Scythia. It's ambitious, but it could work.

EDIT: Try and agree a ceasefire with the alliance factions (those that are at war with you), otherwise they might chase you to the end of the earth, or just the northern steppes. ~;)

Agent Miles

08-24-2005, 16:29

@gmjapan
I would recommend taking out Armenia. You can blitz them in three turns with a spy and some luck. Then you have a port on the Black Sea. From there, you can invade Kydonia and then Rhodes and Salamis. If you put forts next to the river crossings on your northern border with Sythia and the mountain passes in the south, you should be fairly secure. The ports give you enough denarii to continue expanding, more than you would get from taking Scythia.

Seamus Fermanagh

08-24-2005, 19:51

Good for you. Your map and the progress of this game are simply too "rich" to stop it. THRACE!!!???! How fun!

Previous advisors have given good advice though:

Fort-up your southern border.

Pick a direction N (lots of space, hard to "pin" you) or W (those islands are lucrative, especially if you can add Western Islands as well).

3rd option is a raiding army on an exterminate/enslave "jihad" just to build cash up and allow you to build nearly unbeatable armies to go South.

Seamus

Craterus

08-24-2005, 22:39

By going north, you'll be able to take the Bosphorus, and then eventually take the islands.

Of course, taking out Armenia is another smart option because it'll give you a stronghold, and perhaps a bit more cashflow. By taking Armenia, you also have a starting point for an invasion of Asia Minor. Especially if you can pincer with an extra army from Rhodes/Salamis.

gmjapan

08-25-2005, 12:17

Cool peeps, thanks for all the suggestions!

I went for the Armenia break. The relocation by piledriving through Scythia was my favoured option as it would link me up with Thrace eventually and give me a more defendable locale away from the bad guys but I decided against it due to previous "relocating" experience with Germania. The lands are huge and I hate crossing them for so little return. That would slow down my re-emergance for my "revenge tour" of the East! And that is the bit I am looking forward to the most!

So I used my protectorate status to buy me time and I spent my meager 800d income each turn on Briremes in the Caspian until I had enough to beat the rebel fleet. Took a while (so unfair - how did they get so many Triremes for the start those turds!) but it unblocked my port for more income and gained a direct route to much needed re-informents from the North, I couldn't really do anything without them. I disbanded all but one ship that now blocks the Scythian port there.

With the reinforments I started the "blitz Armenia" campaign that set me at war with Armenia, Pontus, Sycthia, Seculids and, oh yeah, Egypt. Armenia went down in 4 turns (my spy was useless!), easy and gave me a few benefits - a new port on a new sea, more cash and (more importantly) the alliance of five is now an alliance of four! Haha. Okay, so it is only two towns from one of the weaker opponents but it feels like more.

On the flip side, it has introduced more than a few problems - I am back at war on so many sides for one thing. They all seem too eager to attack. The huge Selucid and Egypt armies that were hovering on my borders just growing and staring before made a beeline for my towns. There are rebels blocking vital road trade that I cant deal with because I cant afford to spend two moves chasing them and then two moves to get back.

Using the speed of an all horse army I smashed into the Selucid town with the wonder and then the neighbouring province west completely ignoring their invading armies. I used the siege on their towns to lure their invading armies out of my territory and force them to deal with me. This plan worked great and I thought was more pro-active than chasing them around as they laid siege to me. Plus, I gain a town whilst getting an opertunity to kick their arse - and that makes me smile!

So I have made some progress (yay!) and it feels better but the full effect of my actions hasnt hit yet because it hasnt really improved my finances greatly and the enemy armies are likely still "on-route".

I cant yet afford the forts and a garrison to block the passes but I am willing to count on the inability of Scythia to mount an effective assualt for now (uh-oh!) but this is a high priority and I really need some in the south. The other problem building forts is I have now lost more family members to old age so there is only really the army commander available to do it and he is, er, kind of busy!

So far I have had the importance of HAs hammered into me. I know it was said by the posts at the start but I find the key is experienced HAs. The green units are near useless and I almost abandoned them wondering what all the fuss was but it slowly started to happen and now they are holding my empire together (ish!). Do whatever you can to get them experienced and preserve them! Fight and withdraw, retrain or flee until they can hold their own in battle. Others have said it better.

Hot damn! This is much more fun than than prancing around Gaul with the Julii.

Seamus Fermanagh

08-25-2005, 14:20

Send the commander off with some light forces to build you those forts and towers.

Meanwhile, your army's "captain," given that you are doing the fighting for him, should be able to earn a family spot as the man of the hour -- and it sounds like you need more factioneers.

Seamus

Deus ret.

08-25-2005, 16:18

gmjapan, you're making quite good progress. congratulations!

You may have noticed that waging war against all the non-HA factions is basically a cakewalk. Steer clear of their archers and you are fine.

Just one thing: When you fight Egypt, be well aware of their chariots. Employ some archers yourself, alternatively peltasts; slingers are reasonably accurate vs chariots because of their low fire angle. Or just build elephants if possible and mash those chariots into the ground! :charge:

As for Scythia: If a rebel stack happens to appear to the North of either Artaxarta or Kotais, leave it there even if you lose some trade through them! They are cheap and effective border guards, at least for now.

Agent Miles

08-25-2005, 16:36

Nice work! If I understand you correctly, you only have one Family member active? If so, then you need to park him in a settlement where he can “stud” for a while. As Seamus posted, use a captain to lead your army. Maybe you’ll get a “Man of the Hour” so that your faction’s family tree has a new branch. Get some more “face cards” in your deck ASAP. If you lose your last faction member, then it’s game over.
Don’t forget about diplomacy. As you can see, if you ignore other factions diplomatically, they will not ignore you. I’ve found that the best time to ask for a ceasefire is after you have taken a settlement from a faction. You may still be able to get a ceasefire from the Seleucids this way. Don’t forget to demand tribute or a settlement in exchange for your benevolence! If you can deal one of the factions out of the “gang of four”, then maybe they’ll start attacking each other. ~;)
Finally, you can fight over all the desert settlements you want, but the “club Med” islands are there for the taking and provide lots of easy denarii. Good luck!

pezhetairoi

08-26-2005, 02:14

gang of four, eh. :) Try allying with the Seleucids against Egypt. The Egyptians are more dangerous because of their ranged units, and you would do well to use the other factions to get them out of the way. After that you can turn on the Seleucids and pin their pathetic phalangitai to the ground with arrows like butterfly samples.

Chimp

10-25-2005, 15:09

I finally found a way to make Parthian armies ROCK. I used to play them as Armenians, but now I realize that horse archers shouldn't be the center pieces in Parthian armies.

The problem is that unlike Armenia, you don't have a solid battleline which you can bang cataphracts against. So the only alternative seems to be to use the HAs as a means to divide the enemy up in smaller pockets, and then scoot around with cataphracts and mob them up which is all incredibly tedious, longwinded and illsuited for bridges and sieges in general.

But there's another way to use cavalry. Send in shock troops to leave the enemy ranks in disarray first, and then sponge up with cavalry. That way we avoid the problem of not having a battleline.

So use elephants - not just 1-2 units like you would with Carthage, Seleucids or Numidia, but 4-6! First unleash the elephants, either on the flanks or through the centerline if it's not a phalanx, and then swoop down with 4-8 cataphracts - or even hillmen. Tadaaa! Battle over in less than a minute, and the chance of 4-6 elephants running amok before they've breached the enemy battleline is slim to done, so it's a very solid lineup. If you prefer a more reactionary style, add 4 onagers, or 4 archers - or some combination thereof. This will also make it much easier to take cities.

As far as the cavalry component goes, I favor 1 General, 2 Camel Cataphracts, and 3-5 Cataphracts. The camels' job is to eliminate Armored Elephants and to assassinate the enemy general. I don't use more than 2 since they seem rather slow on the uptake. The cataphracts' primary function is to eliminate enemy archers immediately after the initial breakthrough so that the elephants don't freak out over arrowfire, and after that it's mob-up duty.

Here's some of my favorite army compositions so far:

The Parthinator:
4 Onagers
6 Horse Archers
4 War Elephants
6 Cataphracts

The MasterBlaster:
8 Onagers
6 War Elephants
6 Cataphracts

The Allrounder:
2 Onagers
4 Archers
4 Hillmen
4 War Elephants
6 Cataphracts

25K Online Army:
5 War Elephants
1 General
2 Camel Cataphracts
4 Cataphracts
6 Persian Cavalry
2 Beduin Archers

All have been thoroughly tested and work brilliantly against Rome, Egypt, Carthage, Britannia, Germania and Greece, on or offline, medium, hard and very hard difficulties.

pezhetairoi

10-28-2005, 02:30

Fascinating combinations. My favoured ones are 2 generals, 4 cataphracts, and the rest persian archers. Light, fast and nasty. Not to mention they can retreat in a hurry if need be. Elephants and eastern infantry used when facing egypt, but little else otherwise.

sebas_man

11-09-2005, 04:04

I went bankrupt with these bastards !!!

Craterus

11-09-2005, 19:23

The answer to backruptcy is conquering and setting up some trade routes.

And use the horse archers, they are your friends.. ~:grouphug:

pezhetairoi

11-10-2005, 04:33

Sebas: they do that, yes. Go the whole hog... use your starting treasury to pump out HA. queue them up so you get a steady supply for the next 10 turns, then besiege all the nearby cities with 2 HA units and let them sally out at you. Then shoot them to pieces :) With 2-3 HA a city you should be able to take 3-4 in one breath once your building is completed. Then, just wait (or keep conquering) until your treasury goes back into the black. Exterminate some.

GrandInquisitor

11-23-2005, 04:35

i'm curious about some opinions for my strategy, which has taken a lot of refining. i guess i'm not much of a blitzer; it takes the fun out of it for me, but there's nothing wrong with it. i like to make a sort of mobile fortress when using parthia. that way my enemies have a chance. beginning i do bum rush armenia, seleucia, and tribus alanni; there's no way around that for me. i avoid arabia, since it usually provokes egypt sooner than i like. my next move is to take palmyra. from there, i basically send out units of horse archers to harry enemy armies while i heavily fortify my cities (well, as much as parthia can). that way, when i go on campaign, i don't have to worry about egypt sneaking an army in through arabia and catching me with my pants down. picking off smaller armies gains experience, and sacking towns along the mediterranean coast -- in as much as RTW allows -- gives money (while not having to worry about defending them if it's impractical at the time). eventually, i have veteran armies to consolidate, a very firm eastern foundation, and a glorious series of wars ahead. it's meant for more patient-types, like myself, but i've found it very interesting many times. any opinions?

pezhetairoi

11-25-2005, 06:06

It's fine, i guess. But not to my taste. :) It doesn't feel in the spirit of the HA factions. I like to wheel and deal my way across the East in a flash.

Speaking of which, what tips have you for siege assault for Parthia, if any? I obviously can't use my iron fist Roman methods with Parthia, and I get kinda lost when I try to take Khiva in MM 2.0 when it's stonewalled and all I have are HA.

GrandInquisitor

11-25-2005, 08:34

wait it out costs the least, by far, and has the least hassle. let the enemy sally out and cut them down with archer fire and you're set

Seamus Fermanagh

11-26-2005, 03:57

Pez' is not a "waiter" by preference.

Three Possibilities:

1. If you are keeping the somewhat a-historical Onager, 6 or so of them along with some shock cav and HA should do. Just need a lot of arty since you'll need 3-4 holes to make it work.

2. A separate siege army, with a couple of cav, but lots of hillmen, archers, and a few spears. You'll need to use rams, towers and ladders in a mix so that a few units get where you need 'em -- since morale isn't sterling -- but this should get the trick done.

3. Send a noble through asia minor/antioch to create your siege army using mercs. You supply the cav component, but pick up Barb Inf, Cilly Pirates, Merc Hops, Merc Pelts and maybe even some Cretans/Rhodians. Pick up enough for a stack and a half (with cav), so that you can blend/merge to keep units a strength a long time.

Heck, with luck, you might even pick up a merc hefalump earlier than you can build your own. Send the noble with the appropriate cadre of spies, assassins, and diplo-dunks to accomplish much groundwork on the trip. This is, of course, the most costly option -- but then it gives you a purpose for all that fun raiding earlier.

Pontifex Rex

02-28-2006, 14:29

I started my first Imperial Campaign with the Parthian last night and in the first five years have captured Arabia as well as knocking out the Armenians. The large quantity of horse archers and the tactics required to successfully use them have been a bit of an adjustment after Romans, Britons and the like. It is quite entertaining and a new twist. I have never seen so many rebels or in such numbers as I have out here in the east. I haven't modded them out as I cannot see what else we human players would do with all these troops if we were not forced to form "patrol groups" or suffer from some economic dislocations.

I just fought a rebel group of 1 General, 1 Horse Archer, 2 Archers and 3 Eastern Spearmen up by the capital which required 9 of my own units to defeat (6 Horse Archers, 1 slinger and two Eastern Spearman). Near the borders of the Seulicids I just lost a commander to rebels possessing 1 heavy cavalry, 1 Horse Archer and 4 Spearmen, although in the end I managed to win the battle. Now I face a small rebel band in Arabia and another large band lead by a general just outside Susa. To top it off the remaining 10 units of the Armenians including their last general and Cataphracts just went rebel as their homeland was crushed,... that is not going to be a fun fight and I doubt such a large force can be bribed easily.

Is this rebel problem a common experience with Parthia? It seems I may need to scatter 12-15 Horse Archers plus adidtional Slingers and Spearmen around the empire to police and protect the economy.

Cheers.

gardibolt

02-28-2006, 18:54

Are you hiring mercs in the area regularly? I've noticed that if I buy up all the mercenaries in an area, the rebels don't seem to spawn nearly as often. Is it possible that enters into the formula?

Pontifex Rex

02-28-2006, 19:02

At present the only mercs available in the effected provinces are 3 Eastern Spearmen, yet the rebels contain all sorts of units. Besides, buying up the 3 units would exhausted the treasury. Parthia is not quite rolling in the gold by the caravan load at the moment.

Pontifex Rex

03-01-2006, 06:53

Well, its 20 years in and it looks like Partia will survive. The Parthian-Seulucide alliance has checked Egypts aspirations and in 3 major clashes the Parthian Horse Archer army has destroyed 4 Egyptian armies and taken Bostra. Casualties amongst the cavalrymen has beeen heavy, nearly 40%, and units are now forced to rotate all the way back to Susa for rebuilding. This means that the army only has about 40% of its strength at the front in Nabataea. There was a second host made up of 5 Spearmen and 3 Slinger (drawn from various "patrol groups" back in the home provinces) that had supported the cavalry all the way from Susa across the Arabian desert but nearly 2/3 of it was lost holding off Egyptian reinforcements. It looks like "The Battle of Bostra Plain" has dealt a crippling blow to the Egyptians army east of Sinia.

What may be of more importance is the fact that Rhodes, falling into rebellion as the "Greek Cities" collapsed, and Crete have fallen to Parthian troops. Four Horse Archers, 1 cataphract and 2 Spearmen were loaded onto 20 Biremes in Colchis and sailed across the Black Sean, through the Dardenelles and happened to be in the right place at the right time. The origianl plan was to actually land in the Nile Delta but the plan was scuppered when the entire fleet of 40 Biremes was lost as they tried to run in a general who had just recruited 2 merc Hoplites and a unit of Creatian Archers. All hands were lost and the Parthian army units were stranded in Crete until the port was completed and new ships could be built. As of 251 BC, the Egyptian navy is still strong enough to make moving difficult but with luck the army may be able to also add Lycia to the empire while the fleet is under construction.

The new plan will be for the land forces at Bostra to strike for Petra in about one year (250 BC) and push on to the Red Sea. In 249, the navy will carry the Mediterranean armies from Crete and Rhodes and land it on the coast of Judea with the aim of conquering Jerusalem and Sidon. Afterward, the combined forces will move on the Nile while preparations are made to deal with the powerful Seleucid and Pontian empires.

Attached is a map of the position going into summer 251 BC.

https://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f163/Gerryp1/ParthianSea.png

Cheers.

Bulawayo

03-01-2006, 10:32

You should also take Cyprus as soon as possible. That is always one of the first provinces I take from Egypt as it gives you valuable trade money while Egypt loses the same amount, or even more. Halicarnassus should also be taken before Pontus gets it. It makes you build the bigger city improvements faster than normal, and also gives you great trade with Rhodes.

:charge:

Pontifex Rex

03-01-2006, 13:53

You should also take Cyprus as soon as possible... Halicarnassus should also be taken before Pontus gets it.

Most definitely. The reason for delaying the invasion of Judea is so that the army can be ferried over from Rhodes to Lycia (Halicanassus). Both Rhodes and Crete can build Biremes, Horse Archers as well as Spearmen (the latter do have their uses), so the forces waaayy out in the Mediterranean are now self-sustaining.

:duel:

AndyNgFL

03-26-2006, 00:52

Ver 1.3
Difficulty - VH/VH

I am a player who like challenges and try different approaches. Difficult situations will require you to think out of the box. After a lot of trail and error, I have found my own method of playing Pathia the most EFFICIENT.

Strategy - Blitz Armenia. Take Seleucia. Attack Egypt. The world is at your feet once you conquer egypt.

Becoz Pathia has a bad economy, only enough Peasants are recruited to garrison your own settlements. A peasant unit consist of more men (more men = lesser units to recruit = less $ to maintain), cheap to recruit and low cost to maintain. The only situation which you require other Infantry is when you siege a stoned walled enemy city. I have not used more than 2 Peasant, 2 Eastern Infantry, 2 Hillmen + 1 or 2 mercenary infantry units in any seige. I usually have only 2 EI, 2 Hillmen + 1 or 2 mercenary infantry.

Change Tax Rate of every city to Very High.

Region : Tribus Sakae / City : Campus Sakae
Build to Temple of Zoroastra (Increases Public Order and reduce corruption = less required garrison, more income). Then build Roads. Recruit enough Peasants.
After building roads, move your Gen Phraotes out of the city with 4 HAs to get rid of rebles and strategically place Watch Towers in Tribus Sakae.

Scythia is huge. It is not wise to go to war with this faction. If you can maintain around 8-10 untis of HAs in Tribus Sakae, the Scytians will not be able to take your city easily. They usually wont bother you.
IF they decide to wage war .... Once you spot a full orange stack coming into your territory, pump up your HAs as many as you can. Take out thier invading army, replenish and counter attack. Take thier city Campus Alanni, but no furhter than that or else you will spread yourself thin.

Region : Media / City : Arsakia
Disband all slingers. They are useless since Paseants can garrison & HAs can fire while on the move.
Faction Leader Arsaces should remain in the Capital City Arsakia with 2 Cataphracts.
Build roads and pump out HAs until Armenia is eliminated.
Faction Heir Ardumanish should lead the Blitz against Armenia. Only hire 1 mercenary infantry for siege assault. Else, the Blitz army should consist of only HAs.

To Be Continued ...

AndyNgFL

03-26-2006, 02:15

.... Continued

Once you have exterminated Artaxarta (Armenia), replenish and pump out HAs for 2-3 turns. Keep pumping those HAs from Arsakia (Capital) and your newly conquered city, until you have AT LEAST 10 HAs. Leaving only 1 Peasant unit or 1 Mercenary unit in Artaxarta, your Faction Heir should be out to exterminate the last Armenian city, Kotais. Once Kotais is exterminated, spilt your HAs into 2 or 3 groups and take out the rebels. At the same time, your general must build Watch Towers in strategic positions to watch over your huge land.

Becoz your land is huge, it is not wise to keep any infantry unit in your army as it will slow your entire army down. Peasants should be used to garrison and Infantry units should be used for seige only.

Region : Elymais / City : Susa

Disband all slingers.
Build to Temple of Zoroastra (Increases Public Order and reduce corruption = less required garrison, more income). Then Build Stables. Recruit Peasants.

On Turn 1, a Seleucid army moves out of Seleucia.
On Turn 2, move your Gen Bagabigna with all your HAs to the border of Elymais and Bablylonia. The Seleucid army moves away to Hatra.
On Turn 3, seige Seleucia with a mercenary Infantry and if you are lucky, your spy will open the gates for you on the same turn.
On Turn 4, you should have captured a wonder.

Pump out a full stack of HAs ASAP. By now Armenia should be dead. While rallying your HAs for the invasion of Egypt, wipe out the rebels and place Watch Towers in strategic positions. Get a young General and march out of Seleucia towards Memphis (Egypt) ignoring anything and everything. Around this time, the Seleucid Empire will make peace with you as you rally your army or march out of Seleucia. If they do not make peace, send your diplomat over to them. Take this oppotunity to ceasefire. An army full of HAs marching out of Seleucia is threatening. Once done, move into Arabia and recruit some mecenary Infantry along the way to Memphis if any.

A few of the above moves are "borrowed" from experts who had earlier posted in this forum. I thank them for thier brilliance.

Summary :
Top Priority - Blitz Armenia
Secondary Priority - Prepare an army to take Memphis (Egypt)
Low Priority - Maintain enough army to clear your trade roads of rebels and to discourage invasion from Scythia, Pontus, Seleucia.

Battle : Retreat, Retreat, Retreat

Playing Pathia is different from any other factions like Julii, Babarians etc.
You do not have a battle line and you do not need a battle line.
Depending on situations, I put my HAs on loose formations (to reduce friendly fire casualties) and sometimes Double Line formation. I fight a retreating battle. Enemy infantry will advance towards you, you slowly retreat in formation. But your HAs will continue to rain arrows at the enemy. Some will pursue some will fall back to thier line. You slowly retreat in formation. But your HAs will continue to rain arrows at the enemy. You do this until they rout and run. You can choose 1 HA unit, put it in close formation and turn off skirmish mode to charge at the routing unit or advance slowly in formation to thier main army.
If thier calvary charges towards your battle formation, your HAs will flee furthur back and sometimes enemy calvary will find themselves in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by HAs with arrows raining onto then. This is a good time to concentrate your arrow fire on Chariots and Enemy Generals.
The trick here is retreat, retreat, retreat. Finish off the enemy a little bit by a little bit. If time allows, rest your HAs back to FRESH before raining your next wave of arrows into the main army . Then retreat, retreat, retreat.
This way, your casualties will be very minimum while you inflict a great deal of damage to the enemy.

If ... you are facing an army which you think you cannot win,
1) If you are ATTACKING, spilt your army into two. The aim of the first assault, is to inflict as much damage and use up your arrows as possible. The second assault is to wipe them out.
2) Try your best to inflict as much damage to the enemy by trying to use up all your arrows before withdrawing. Fight again another day.
OR
3) Take out the enemy's General. Thier moral will drop. Inflict as much damage to the enemy while taking less casualties as possible and (HOPE) they will rout and flee.

Barbarossa1221

04-02-2006, 21:15

Seamus Fermanagh

04-02-2006, 21:49

GeneralHankerchief

04-02-2006, 22:04

In the words of Vizzini from The Princess Bride, you fell victim to one of the classic blunders:

Never get involved in a land war in Asia. More specifically, Russia.

It's just not worth it enough to spend your time and money on troops for ridiculously poor cities that take years to get to. Seamus talked about some good tactics, but I would also resort to bribery. I've bribed more Scythian generals than any other faction in my RTW career, and you can even take cities fairly cheaply since they're all so poor. Send a good diplomat to the Steppes, have him work his magic, and Scythia will be done.

Ludens

04-04-2006, 20:57

In the words of Vizzini from The Princess Bride, you fell victim to one of the classic blunders:

Never get involved in a land war in Asia. More specifically, Russia.
I think it was Montegommery. The actual quote went something like this: "Rule One on page one of the Book of War is: Never March on Moscow. Rule Two is: Never Fight with your Land Armies in China". It should be noted however, that the Mongols broke both these rules and got away with it.

That said, I agree completely with your analysis. :bow:

Piko

04-07-2006, 17:34

Well, playing RTR this is certainly not the case.

AndyNgFL

04-21-2006, 08:56

I'm having serious problems as parthia right now, Ive got loads of cash around 40,000 and up. But scythia decided to declare war on me so now im stuck in these endless plains vs horse archers! every battle is more and more draining its basically my HA vs theirs.
Any tips on trying to beat these nomadic jerks?

1) Use Diplomacy
Its not worth waging war with Scythia as some of the experts here have said.
They have generally better HAs than Parthia. Thier cities are not worth the plunder. Thier cities and land is too vast to attack and defend.

2) Occupy Strategic Positions (Defensive)
If Diplomacy fails, occupy strategic positions e.g Briges, Mines, Roads, Forests(Ambush)
They are forced to attack you.

Battle Tactic :
Form Double Lines of HAs in loose formation. As they come for you, 1st line retreat behind the 2nd line. As they come nearer, 2nd line retreat behind 1st line. Repeat.
If any unit charge into your double line formation, they will find themselves surrounded by your HAs, press "C" for close formation, "S" for turing skirmish off, "A" for turning Fire At Will off, and CHARGE. Once the unit is routed or dead, return to Double line loose formation, skirmish mode and auto fire on.

Generally Scythian HAs are better than Parthia's HAs, you'll suffer more casualties, be prepared to pump out more HAs than you lose from your far away cities to replace fallen HAs. Press PAUSE in battle, take a look at thier stats.

3) Take ALL thier cities
Recruit mercenary Infantry for seige battles only. Else, your army comprises only of mobile units in the vast land of Scythia. Are you prepared to waste at least 10 game years, army maintainence, and WatchTowers built around your new conquered land?

Patriarch of Constantinople

05-06-2006, 22:42

I need some help with my Parthian campaign

ok so money is going good and ive been taking pontic and armenian provinces. but now the Egyptians, who i have been allied for 20 years decided to attack Arabia. the problem is im funding a campaign in Asia while funding one in Egypt and its been costly for troops and money. Should I abandon my Asian conquest to reinforce my men at Egypt?

Craterus

05-07-2006, 00:05

That's wiser in the long-term because Egypt will be a bigger problem later on. Don't just abandon your campaign in Asia Minor, make sure your conquered provinces are safe and well-garrisoned.

Patriarch of Constantinople

05-07-2006, 01:15

thx Craterus ive already gotten an army of 3000 troops to attack egypt. asia is falling easily and wont be a problem. thx to my persian cav ive taken out alot of their troops

Tellos Athenaios

05-07-2006, 01:46

Personally, I never found Egypt the serious threat - simply because by the time they declare war on me they can only field loads of cheap, worhtless mass and some chariot's and good archers. By that time I can both field some decent armies, and I have cash to spend.

One of the key things is - play safe. Fight those you can handle and fight where you can handle the war, thus: fight Armenia, fight Pontus, fight the Greeks. But: leave the Seleucids to Egypt.

Don't care about Scythia - unless you can afford several decent armies to be way out of the sight of home ignore. And even if: it's not worth the effort. With a bit of luck Scythia is busy retaking settlements from Thrace, or taking Tracian settlements (with my campaigns their frontier moved now and then several settlements, but never ever made it to either last hold).

As with any campaign get as much out of diplomacy as possible.

Back to the Greeks: ever considered that the Aegean is just as rich, if not even wealthier than the Mid-Eastern coast? I've seen Athens frequently making over 10.000 a turn, sometimes Pergamum would get close to that amount too. Forget about ""the man who controls Rome rules the world" - it is: (as it should be) "the man who unites the Aegean and the Peloponessus controls the world."

Seriously, the Rhodian skyline and the Games held in Olympia alone should make you try it.

Anyone controling Greece can easily smash the Egyptians - and even better: he also has acces to some decent infantry mercenaries popping up in a decent time.

GeneralHankerchief

05-07-2006, 02:28

Seconded on Greece. Either take it and wear Egypt down or assemble a strike force and go straight for Memphis. If you do Option 2, I guarantee the Egyptian collapse will accelerate due to infrastructure problems.

Don't forget about diplomacy. You could continue on Asia Minor and Greece whilst bribing the Egyptian armies that come your way.

And just one comment: Don't ever trust the diplomatic situation that Egypt will attack the Seleucids. I once had the misfortune of being hit with an Egypt/Seleucid/Pontus alliance. Still can't remember how I survived that one, although I do believe I did quite a bit of extermination...

Patriarch of Constantinople

05-07-2006, 17:39

:2thumbsup: Thx right now i took your advice and hit the heart of memphis then Alexandria, Thebes rebeled ,jerusalem sucked defending and seleucids took care of the rest. then i took care of seleucids

Tellos Athenaios

05-08-2006, 22:20

And just one comment: Don't ever trust the diplomatic situation that Egypt will attack the Seleucids. I once had the misfortune of being hit with an Egypt/Seleucid/Pontus alliance. Still can't remember how I survived that one, although I do believe I did quite a bit of extermination...

Hey, our Egyptian friends/foes have to attack the Seleucids, unless they give it a go for Arabia! Just leave the Seleucids as a sort of airbag against those Egyptian battering ram - that should do the trick.

At any rate Egypt is bound to go for Antioch at some point - they always do that.

I'm also of the opinion that Egypt is one of the most unreliable 'allies' you can have - if not the worst. Even in my first campaign, playing as Easy/Easy with the Julii they've hit me in the back despite our aliance and my support in their war with the Seleucids.

Now on to the next part of our 2 strategies - I tried once, playing as the Seleucids to sneak in and take Memphis. Fortuna adiuvat me, I thought, why not try and take that Pyramids Wonder, that should give me some help in maintaining public order among the Egyptians I had conquererd in both Sidon and Salamis, it should help me rule those Egyptians from Memphis - and above all it should weaken the Egyptian armies in the field because Egypt will need larger garrisons. Oh, yes - so far it worked out nicely. But it didn't help me all that much in comparisson with my experience of taking Jerusalem playing as the Greek Cities.

With Jerusalem I experienced several large stacks of fodder (numidians etc.) aproaching me in a pathetic attempt to take back what once was theirs. Easily crushing those stacks meant that there was now very little left in Egypt itself (the place they apparently came from), turning it into a place just waiting to be conquered by me, and that I had the momentum to do so because of my army that was already near the border with the Nile provinces.
After the fall of Egypt itself, Petra and Bostra didn't pose much of a threat.

On the other hand - without taking Jerusalem but sneaking into Memphis I had the problem of being a nice gray piece of map - surrounded by yellow. And what was worse: those large stacks of fodder continuously tried to siege the city. Since I had sneaked in - I hadn't included much of heavy infantry unit's. Not that numidian's are likely to win it in hand to hand combat from a 5 star general, but then again... my general wasn't likely to survive some 5 full stacks of them either. And to cup it all - being cut off from any source of trade my strongly reduced population of Memphis couldn't even pay up for themselves properly.

Now, General, your strategy truly has the full potential of fighting your enemy from within his borders. The reason why it didn't turn out so succesfully in my turn probably was that Egypt was busy reorganising her armies, sending in reinforcements, and therefore wasn't prepared to fight off my assault on the walls of Memphis - but did have the reserves to turn back and reclaim what had been theirs. So: yes, it probably is one of the best things to do when fighting Egypt -haven't I read somewhere in the Guide to the Brutii about a very similair move?-, but maybe it is also a very wise thing to make sure that you've got her full attention in, say, Jerusalem by attacking there first. (And repeatedly, if needed.)

Could even turn out to be a win win one, because if you can't either take or hold Memphis, you always have still a chance in Jerusalem - and vice versa.
Maybe I just try this version, next time I encounter the Sphinx.

GrandInquisitor

05-09-2006, 03:59

Quick question--hopefully having not been asked--at the end of a tragic campaign. I've dominated as Parthia many times, but decided to try something different. I abandoned Campus Sakae--and in effect Campus Alanni which I take for security reasons--and tried to set up my empire more or less like the Sassanids in BI. For about twenty years I did better financially, since I wasn't busy staving off Scythia and building outposts and fortress cities in the north. Production sky-rocketed, and trade was finally safe with the extra army.

But I was wary when Scythia, Egypt, the Seleucids, Pontus, and Thrace suddenly came to an alliance (Seleucids my only non-ally). When the-now-Scythian Campus Sakae revolted BACK to me, they all declared war against my wealthy empire. Now my treasury is virtually empty, and my army is slowly losing the ability to recover.

I've used spies to cause revolts in Alexandria and Memphis, but the Egyptians don't seem overly concerned with retaking them. And with all the ranged/mounted units these guys are fielding, plus fleets blockading, I'm struggling to plan any sort of offense--not to mention combating rampant plague from Egypt.

Does this strategy sound salvageable (leaving Scythia)? Parthia's always been my favorite faction, and even my experience tells me this game is dimly hopeful--despite my love of epic challenges. I really enjoyed not having to worry about Scythia and the north, while concentrating more strength in the west; but those two extra territories almost seemed to make a HUGE wartime difference. Perhaps demolishing Eastern buildings would have lessened Scythia's culture penalty and prevented the war. I don't know.

GeneralHankerchief

05-10-2006, 01:26

The Egyptians always go for Antioch unless you play Numidia, in which case it's an all-out effort to get Siwa. Funny, huh? :juggle2:

As far as fixing Egypt's attention somewhere else first, it's a fine strategy but defeats the purpose. The goal is to take control of the Pyramids so that the Egyptians lose a TON of loyalty bonuses and eventually some of their cities rebel. Then the Egyptians are stuck between a choice of taking back many cities from rebels or their most important city from you. They will be disorganised.

What would have been better is if you left Jerusalem to the rebels. That way the two would wear each other down in multiple battles for the city and you could swoop in afterwards and claim the city for yourself, while not having to fight five full-stacks.

*************

Inquisitor: The campaign is still extremely salvageable. Take your diplomat and sell Sakae to the Scythians. Try to get a ceasefire if you can as well. If so, immediately sell trade rights. Before you give it to our orange friends, demolish every building that you can for even more cash. I trust that will be plenty of denarii to help out the Egyptian campaign. :2thumbsup:

Lorenzo_H

05-15-2006, 13:12

Where the heck is Parthia on the map? I can't find it.

Craterus

05-15-2006, 16:24

Far East. They're the purple ones. They may have been eliminated in your campaign.

Avicenna

05-15-2006, 16:34

The three Easternmost Northern provinces that are separated by the Caspian sea. They're usually eliminated, so unless you're playing an Eastern faction or play with FoW off you probably won't see them. You could finance them if you want them to grow large of course.

Craterus

05-15-2006, 17:07

In my campaigns, Parthia usually take a slice from the Seleucids whilst they're being pounded by Egypt. And Egpyt tend to go into Asia Minor than bother with the poor eastern provinces.

Seamus Fermanagh

05-15-2006, 19:22

Where the heck is Parthia on the map? I can't find it.

In RTW (vanilla) they start with 3 provinces: Camp Sakae above the Caspian, A_____ below the Caspian, and Susa in Mesopotamia. All 3 border the extreme Eastern edge of the original map.

Avicenna

05-15-2006, 19:43

Isn't it a better idea to trade with the Selucids and take the rich Egyptian provinces? If you allow the Egyptians to run riot with their multiple stacks, you'll have quite a hard time.

Lorenzo_H

05-15-2006, 20:50

Well they haven't been destroyed yet then - because I haven't unlocked them yet!

GeneralHankerchief

05-15-2006, 21:04

Isn't it a better idea to trade with the Selucids and take the rich Egyptian provinces? If you allow the Egyptians to run riot with their multiple stacks, you'll have quite a hard time.

It isn't.

First of all, you need money fast. So are you going to make the trek through tons of desert, losing lots of turns along the way and praying you don't run into any Egyptian armies along the way before you finally reach the Nile, or do you swing by Seleucia that is two seconds away, destroy the pathetic Seleucid garrison there with your HAs, and gain the 40% bonus on farming income wonder?

From there you can begin to finance an efficient campaign against your enemies. I took over Armenia, the Seleucids, Pontus, and even grabbed Halicarnassus before I went on the offensive against the Egyptians.

It may seem annoying staying on the defensive for years against the Eggies but just make sure your HAs don't run out of arrows, engage them in the open field, and things should be fine. :2thumbsup:

Tellos Athenaios

05-15-2006, 21:56

It is far better to advoid the war with Egypt for as long as possible, than hoping for a quick decisive campaign.

General Handkerchief pointed this out very clearly, so there's no need to make that effort myself - but I do have something to mention on the topic of going Westward.

After taking Seleucia, I think it's better to leave Antioch - as this generally triggers the war with Egypt. You might conquer Hatra, but from then you should - in my opinion - simply leave a small mobile force of HA's in your former Seleucid provinces, and move on to what's now modern Turkey.

If you're done with Armenia, follow the roads down to Pontus (you might hit into some, but lightly armed rebels) , and eliminate this faction. This should gain you the control of most of Turkey.

If they haven't been done in yet, expel the Greeks from Pergamum. Take what's left of Turkey - and you'll have a powerfull money making engine to support your warefforts against those who die at the Paraoah's command. (That's the only Egyptian virtue in RTW, others who have frequently fought them will recognise this.)

Now it's time to turn yourself on the Egyptians - it's time consuming, but given your solid preparation for it you're unlikely to lose it. Meanwhile, if you can gain Greece, you will have so much money making steamrollering power - that no faction will be able to succesfully stand in your way.

Dominii

06-09-2006, 18:39

It's been a nightmare campaign so far, on H/VH I've had to fight against Egypt, Scythia, Pontus and Armenia simultaneously. After 40 years I've managed to take Campus Alanni and hold the Scythians off, Take all of Pontus' larger citiest on the east of their inital territory and start assaulting the rest of Turkey. They still have their only large army in Tarsus, and my HA army is bearing down on them fast. Pergamum is theirs also, so that'll be worth taking. Damascus has a full stack of Seleucid militia hoplites at war with me, whilst I have Antioch, Sidon and Jerusalem and am busy defending it against the Egyptians. This leaves no spare army to take out Damascus as I have to fight off the egyptian sieges of the 3 cities and Palmyra, whilst simultaneously holding off their expeditions into Arabia. I've finally managed to stabalise my fronts having destroyed Armenia and irrevocably weakened the Seleucids and Pontus. Egypt are on the defensive once I get my Persian Archer armies moving and Scythia are no problem.

Parthia is a very good faction to play if you like easy battles and lots of them.

Plaguelion

07-13-2006, 18:32

:help:

I have a problem. Well, thats not completely true, i have hit a snag in my campaign. Vh/Vh Parthian campaign. I dominate the east completely and utterly I control all of asia minor and eastern Russia, and i have began an invasion of Europe, through Greece and Thrace. Now my Campaign is doing great, i make a fortune every turn and my real problem is spending the money, which i do buy having long queues in my cities and buying off rebels.

To my problem. I have thrown the Romans back into Europe, they fought tooth and nail to stay but i ripped them off anatolia. I did this on the backs of elephants and rushing with persian cavs. i believe just by sheer momentum i did that. but now i have to fight Huge roman stacks on European soil, i can bring elephants but it is tedious to move small armies to europe, plus i have only three or four regions that can build elephants. so my real question is does anybody have ideas for army structures that would be useful against endless roman stacks.

and Dont tell me to just macro Persian cav, and i use cats.
But anything you can tell me or suggest would be greatly appreciated.

GeneralHankerchief

07-13-2006, 22:09

and Dont tell me to just macro Persian cav, and i use cats.

Hate to tell you, but that's what works best.

Play the Battle of Carrhae (Historical Battles section) and you'll see why it worked so well. If the legionnaires don't form testudo they die under a storm of arrows. If they do form testudo then the cataphracts charge home and completely wreck the formation. The horse archer/cataphract combo destroys all Roman troops in the open field.

The area where Parthia is weak is infantry. Since you'll be doing a lot of sieging ahead I suggest either starving them out or hiring mercs to do the dirty work for you. I advise you to stay off of the walls; instead just try to bust through the gate/sap a wall. Your HAs will be more effective in street fighting than on the walls.

-Open-field ideal army: General, tons of HA's/Persian Cavalry with cataphracts/elephants as finishers.

-City battle ideal army: Sacrifice some of your HA's/Persian Cav for infantry mercs and/or Eastern Infantry. Onagers would help too. Leave the elephants at home however.

Hope this helps, and good luck! :2thumbsup:

Seamus Fermanagh

07-14-2006, 03:05

[QUOTE=GeneralHankerchief]
-Open-field ideal army: General, tons of HA's/Persian Cavalry with cataphracts/elephants as finishers.

-City battle ideal army: Sacrifice some of your HA's/Persian Cav for infantry mercs and/or Eastern Infantry. Onagers would help too. Leave the elephants at home however.QUOTE]

In general, I agree with this, but I'd refine it a bit.

1. If you have not already, snap up Crete and Rhodes. Between these provinces and Anatolia, you should be able to come up with a useful batch of mercs: Rhodians, Peltasts, Cretans, Hoplites.

2. Don't try a naval campaign unless you're willing to try to outspend all 4 Roman factions at once.

Build towards:

1 or 2 Field Armies:

General, 3-4 Cat's, 3-4 Hef's, 4-5 Spears/Hops, 3 Cretans, 1 Slinger (as bait), 2 Peltasts. Classic combined arms tactics for these folks. They are responsible for smashing the major field armies. Should avoid the immediate environs of a city when possible.

2 or 3 Siege Armies:

2-3 Cat's, 2 Cretans, 2 Slingers, 2-3 Onagers, 2-3 Generic archers, 6-7 Spear/Hop/Thracian/EXPERIENCED Hillmen. General a nice plus. They will be taking on the tough towns -- but the garrisons they attack should be isolated as these forces follow the Harrassers and Field Groups.

5-6 Harrasser Groups:

3-7 Horse Archers, possibly with some light cavalry. These groups attack small rienforcement groups, slow major forces, whittle the enemies numbers down -- especially the cavalry and missiles whenever they can target them. They bypass cities and forts. These groups should also screen the field armies when they are rebuilding following a major action or three.

Plaguelion

07-15-2006, 01:09

landing middle sized stacks of persian cav seemed to calm down greece, the romans are all locked down in their cities, and my siege army is working on athens.

i found having hillmen and onagers for sieges with masses of cats, work really well.

the hillmen and use sap points, and the onagers can bring down the walls, then cats charge thru. Granted i can only take on small garrison forces, anything sizeable and experienced i still have to wait out

but thanks for the help

whtdoesitmatta

09-03-2006, 02:18

Fun, Fun, Fun

I play on M/M because I basically suck at life so... Here's how it went
I started out taking the province between Armenia and Partia's lower Caspian bordering province(sorry for lack of names here).

I then Declared war against the selecuids, and took seleciua and got my favorite wonder, not the bonus, but the wonder itself. :2thumbsup: I then Allied myself with a few places like Egypt, Pontus, and Greece. I sold map information to everyone! I could find. Only thing that kept me alive for awhile.

I started building up the HA's and Persian Calvary, whenever I got them.
I then swept through Armenia, and wiped them out in 2 turns, one to build, one to assault. They had almost a full stack, but it didn't make it back in time...

I then sort of stalled, and started on a downward spiral, I started having severe money problems. After readind so much on here, I thought, lets go city trashing.

Took my army from The most north-east province, and went through Scythia-Great place to do this eh?-. Yeah, it didn't help too much thanks to the great distance between cities, and my only infantry was a group of peasants that eventually died...

I then really started having money problems... and Diplomatic problems.
Pontus decided they wanted to take those 2 Armenia provinces. So they pulled up 2 full stacks, one for each city, I pulled out of one just in time of one of the cities to get on my one Bireme. They took both of them.

I then decided to go desperate, knowing the 3 best places money wise, are: The Aegean, Italy, and Egypt and the Eastern Med. Seeing as the Eastern Med is currently a being covered in dead soldiers. I then Decided to send almost all my army from Susa and Selecia, down and around, and into the heart of Egypt. I am currently neutral with them, as they sided with Pontus in the lose of Armenia.

In order to help 1 and a half stacks of pure calvary, I send that one bireme of 5 hillmen around to the lighthouse. Getting there was slow and expensive as I went into the red. I used my second Scythian province as a way to break bac k even and hire the last of the mercs.

I then split up the bireme, which was unattacked all the way there(far east black sea- the lighthouse. I easily took Memphis, but it took me two tries to take Alexandria.

They Also had a full flag in Thebes... Not sure if they were expecting company or not...

I finally got the half stack out of Thebes and into the open with a less then half stack of pure HA and PC. Well guess what my first marked battle of the campaign. I then slid in and took Thebes.

Now with my money getting worse and worse, I decided to go drastic. I emptied all my cities except Egypt, and started the movement towards the Eastern Med.

I finally broke back green when I got sold map info to Carthage, who had recently conqured the closest city to egypt. I used this to pump PC's as long as I could. I finally got those guys from the closest abandoned cities and was able to sneak into Sidon, and take that.

I lost all but 3 PC's and a slinger.
Then Egypt attempted to take it back with a 3/4 flag and a half flag. I just sat there waiting for them to take it back, so I decided to Demolish all none profit makers in order to get some more money, and hinder Egypt. Well, They for some reason just left, I think it was because Sele's took back Damascus.
This left me with a city that couldn't train anything but peasants weird...

I finally had a my second wave of reinforcements and sent them to Jeruselem.
At this same time I sent a good calvary army to the city to the east of egypt starts with a "P". I Took Jeruselem, and that finally put me back in the green for good. In the P battle I was sieging the city, when they brought down one of those never ending full stacks. I had one half stack to 1 full and 1/3 stack.

In the battle I quickly took care of the 1/3 stack, and conserved a good bit of arrows, thanks to my one group of cataphracts, and those long speared 1200$ mercs. I then Hid in the woods, and surrounded the full stack, beating them senseless. Hurray, another Battle Marker, This then gave me the city, because their defence was no more.

The P citied boosted Thebe's profit by alot. now I had 3 cities making 2000, and 2 losing 1000.

I am getting bored so...
here is what else has happened.
I have taken sidon, and Anitoch from Egypt, and am Allied with the Sele's only and only at war with Egypt. I am missing one port from the red sea, but Egypt has that city way too guarded. should I Go for Halicarnusses, and start fighting the Pontus. Betray the Selecuids, or finish a weakened Egypt. I want to go after the Selecuids because their lands can produce Camels and Elephants, but they have a very good army.

BLAH

G_Pan

03-22-2007, 21:57

:help:
I'm having slight troubles with Armenian cataphracts. No parthian city can build cataphracts early on in the game and whenenver I'm facing Armenian cataphracts, I just use HAs to tire them out, shoot at them as long as possible, and rush EVERYTHING i have at them... any other solutions?

Poulp'

03-22-2007, 22:43

Hello G_Pan, welcome here

now about your problem

cataphracts are so armored that you need to shoot them in the back, or you'll waste too many arrows.

use your HA in tag teams, switch off fire at will and let the cats chase one of your HA, then send another HA after them and shoot them.
if they turn and chase your second unit, have the first one do the shooting.
it requires lots of micro management, but the results are awesome (zero casualties)

now, if you don't have time to play cat and mouse with the cats (pun intended) there is another solution, stick them on place with spearmen and send two or three family members on them.

Ludens

03-24-2007, 19:43

cataphracts are so armored that you need to shoot them in the back, or you'll waste too many arrows.
I beg to differ here. Armour rating protects from attack from all directions: it is the shielded units that are more vulnerable in the back. Since cataphracts don't have shield, it doesn't really matter that much from whence you shoot at them. Otherwise, I agree with your tactics: tiring them out by running rings around them with your horse archers works wonders. Catching them on the business end of a phalanx is also a great idea, especially if you can then take them from the side with a family member or another decent unit.

Poulp'

03-25-2007, 14:19

Sorry

I wrote down cataphracts but I was thinking roman cavalry at the same time.

but the idea is still valid.
I have one thing to add, tiring they out only works if faigue is switched on.

Seamus Fermanagh

03-26-2007, 21:04

I remember testing Cataphracts in the old 1.0 version.

Basic 54-member unit frontally charging a unit of 120 Silver Shield Pike in phalanx. No additional commands given, no pull-out and re-charge etc.

Result: 50% casualties among Cataphract unit; 60% among Pike which routed. This ended the test (casualties in a real battle would have reached 90-100% during the rout).

Kept adding valor until the Silver Shields won -- needed 1 silver stripe to defeat (narrowly) the cataphracts. Even at 3 gold chevrons, the pike unit NEVER suffered less than 33% casualties in winning.

Answer: Must swarm cataphracts. Anything approaching even numbers of units or unit quality pretty well guarantees a cataphract win.

HA does okay against them (no shields) but against multiple units of cat's may well run out of ammo before running low on targets. Melee at less than 25-1 odds with the HA and the cat's will beat them.

Be careful in the early game. The at-start cat units have NO opposition. None of the spear units that Pontus or Parthia or Selukia can bring to bear against them will hold them long enough to allow a flank strike. Merc hoplites will hold long enough (barely) to let you hammer them with a general or three. Otherwise, you have to swarm them with bodies on all sides and absorb the horrid losses necessary to take them down -- no elegant solution.

Caius

04-02-2007, 23:05

how to play as Parthia?

I started to play, but I dont have a remote idea to do

Stuperman

04-03-2007, 02:04

guineawolf

04-06-2007, 17:06

LOTSA horse archers, and think cheap, only peasents for garisons, takes Pharaaspa ASAP, wait till the Seleucids are at war with the eggies, armanians and pontus (or at least till they have a few enemies) before going after Seleucia. Watch for opportunities to attack when there are few armies present on your front. When you have to fight the eggies, pray, and hope you can afford some cataphracts (sp).

note: I have only ever played them once, VH/H, kinda quit after fighting Egypt for 50 years with NO advancement by either side.

play guruella tactics would help,sending small army(bring only Horse Acher,no infantry,recruit mecernaries if you got the chance to take down that city,and do it quick) entering their heartland to siege their city,egytian cities not at the frontline mostly low garrison...,if you have the chance(you siege and there is no reinforcement come,assault,take that city,exterminate,looting,leave a archer garrison,then attack another city,if there is reinforcement,leave and attack another city,then so on and so on,like mongolian horde):2thumbsup:
even you don't take that city,you oredi disrupt their army movement...

LuckyDog Trojan

04-12-2007, 18:56

As Stuperman has suggested, it's all about creating armies centered around HA's (with cataphracts as support as soon as you can get them). Also, the Persian Cavalry (HA unit) will give you some measure of melee value.

Hillman and Eastern Infantry are arguably the most worthless infantry in the entire R:TW world. Still, they are effective in their use as "bait". Encircle and then rain down arrow upon arrow on your enemy forces as they approach your main battle line. If all goes as planned, you'll witness multiple enemy units routing prior to engagement with your infantry.

Be forewarned however, Hillmen or Eastern Infantry will run if the sun goes behind a cloud or an enemy combat unit approaches them and says "boo". :scared: Hire mercenaries when you get to other regions.

Careful management of finances in the early going is key to success when playing Parthia. Acquire provinces with sea ports as soon as possible - AND - avoid conflict with Egypt and to a lesser degree Selucia for as long as you can.

paul_kiss

04-13-2007, 17:30

guineawolf

04-14-2007, 03:08

When I played for Parthia I relied only upon cataphracts, coz nearly all other units definetely suck.

But as for money, after some time I just didn't count the finances, I was bribing Romans and their towns not paying any attention to the ammount of price, and not having any money lack.

It's well known that a bribed town won't tolerate your troops for a long time, so, knowing that a bribed Roman town will soon get back to them, I used to demolish all buildings possible to riun, and when Romans had their settlement back it wasn't a megapolis, they had a hole where everything must have been started from the very beginning.

my campaign of Parthia,i do attacked by egypt,but by then i send my diplomat to ask the egyptian for cease fire,they ask me become protectorate,i accept(get 10000 denarii into my coffer).After that,my cities near egytian front become safe,that make me have the spare money to take out Pontus(all balkans) and the Greece(Thracian own it),now i got 50k net income per turn.With these income i start build up my cities and begun to produce cataphract....:2thumbsup:

paul_kiss

04-14-2007, 11:38

Yes, I also was a protectorate of Egypt. This is that after I had a few fights with Egyptian troops my troopes proved themselves totally incapable. That time I uswed to have eastern infantry, hillmen, horse archers etc. So I had to have peace with Egypt, needed some time to develope my cities, build a strong army etc. And I had to abandon a couple of provinces in the far east and give them in to Egypt.

But many years after Egypt weakened greatly and I finished it like a wounded beast it was.

http://pics.livejournal.com/paul_kiss/pic/00019hkz

Sometimes it's usefult to make 5 steps back in order to make 20 steps forward in future.

And except cataphracts I used archers, coz something with arrows was certainly needed. But Parthian archers are weak as most of their troops.

Zasz1234

06-18-2007, 19:51

Yeah, with Parthia it's all about horse archers. And as far as the Egyptians are concerned, hit them head on. Us an army of all horse archers and just ride cricles around them and rain death on them. When you run out of arrows retreat and then head back again and kill more. The key is mobility and don't be afraid to run in and hit archers with your missle cavalry, especially Persian Cavalry who are actually fairly decent in melee and have long ranged missles. The only really bad part about Parthia are sieges where all your speed and mobility are useless. In these cases hire strong infantry mercs or just use waves of eastern infantry and sap some holes for Kataphracts. The worst part about Parthia is only being able to build dirt roads and no public health buildings so getting bigger cities and dealing with squaler are big problems until you get the big Seleucid and Egyptian cities.

GM1940

06-19-2007, 18:41

Re: defeating cataphracts; while I endorse the horse archer advice for Parthia, I actually had a surprisingly easy time with Armenian and Parthian cataphracts as Seleucia, in part because I tended to fight defensive battles. 1 on 1 I'm sure no single phalangite is going to have very good odds, but I massacred them with militia hoplites simply because you get so much phalanx for your money; and because I dragged them around with jav cav before leading them up a hill to my infantry, at which point their performance weren't so impressive. (Still good, but surely not cost effective, especially against militia hoplites and eastern mercenaries)

There's perhaps a question of what is and isn't cheesy vs. the AI - using terrain, using corners, using cavalry to disorient them - but ultimately an amount of gaminess is part of the game, since to maximize the ai's intelligence would require you to play with somewhat boring and routine tactics.

bahram_aria

07-13-2007, 12:16

parthia was very Mighty but this game is not.

Seamus Fermanagh

07-13-2007, 14:29

They can be devastatingly good in RTW, though they have a tough start.

You are not the first to note the a-historical character of this game. If you want a different perspective, read up on the Europa Barbarorum threads -- those chaps revel in correct history.

Hanno

08-03-2007, 19:38

I've always enjoyed playing Parthia because its the closest you will get to playing the Persians on vanilla RTW.One thing that always bugged me was the lack of infantry Parthia has,sure there calvary is brillaint, the combination of horse archers and cataphracts and Elephants is unmatched, This never really bothered me until one day on the mods forums I saw the Extended Greek Mod which I downloaded. It was pretty much the same as vanilla apart from the Greeks had a more diverse selection of Units,Rome was jst one factions no longer 3 families and the senate, the map went more eastwards into India and the Parthians had the Heavy Spearman that Armenia has and the famous Persian Immortals which teamed with the original cavalry selection was unstoppable.I soon missed the original RTW and scrapped the mod and went back to vanilla but someone said on this forum that they added cataphract archers and the heavy spearmen to Parthia and if there is any kind of mod to add the immortals and the spearmen tell me please.:help:

Cheers.:beam:

Ludens

08-04-2007, 10:52

Hello Hanno, welcome to the Org ~:wave:. This forum is for discussion of Parthian strategy, so your question would be more likely to be answered in the Entrance Hall (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=28) or the R:TW Mod Discussion (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=119).

Hanno

08-04-2007, 11:02

Thanks I'll have a look there :beam:

Master Young Phoenix

11-02-2007, 17:08

I tried Parthia (vanilla RTW) a few times, but, despite my fondness of (missile) cavalry, it never stuck... I found it tedious at times because you can't autoresolve against a 1-3 peasant rebel army if you are fond of your horse archers... the AI can't use them at all...

I tripled Game speed most of the time I fought those measly rebel armies, as you can easily beat them with a few horse archer cohorts on Cantabrian Circle, I can't understand why the AI uses most special abilities (flaming munition, phalanx, war cry) but NEVER EVER the cantabrian circle. It's one of the best special abilities in eastern factions. If the AI would use the Circle, I'd be autoresolving a lot more against those tedious rebel peasants.

I got frustrated by the lack of money and the resulting slow development... you always get in the red with parthia whatever you try, and only your trade rights and map info offer some solace. And off course, that money needs to go to more diplomats or you'll be in the red every other turn no matter what.

It a hard start with parthia, even on medium difficulty, and I haven't been able to keep playing this faction for more than ten game years before I decided to do some other faction...

Hound of Ulster

11-03-2007, 03:43

Build all-cav armies and take Babylonia right away. Don't piss off the Egyptians, crush the Selucids and the Armenians.

That said, if you want a good TW experience with the House of Arsces, play the mods Europa Barborum or Rome Total Realism. The map in vanilla RTW does not serve Parthia well.

Oddly this is not an issue for the Sassinsids in BI. They kick butt no matter what.

Quintus.JC

01-05-2008, 17:01

Parthia's cavalry does seem really appealing, but early on their finicial status is disastrous. even on medium difficulty, it is just too hard for them to make any money.

mrdun

01-06-2008, 21:34

I generally tend to stay away from eastern factions. In the imperial they really do not interest me. It is not the units be the cities/location.

Xipe Totec

02-21-2008, 16:24

I am enjoying what for me has been a relatively challenging and long campaign as Parthia. With most factions in this region I find you can dominate once you get decent phalanx infantry supported by archers and flank protecting cavalry. As Parthia you never get any even half-way respectable infantry so the challenge is conquering cities full of phalanxes with mainly cavalry armies. In a previous Parthia campaign I have thrown everything at Armenia from the start and then Pontus followed by the Seleucids using mainly horse archers. When the inevitable clash with Egypt started I found amies of horse archers were torn apart by chariots whereas Persian Cavalry could avoid contact more easily and deal with any survivors by melee when the arrows run out.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of RTW which is basicly missing from M2TW is the ability to massacre AI armies with minimal casualties and gain experienced veteran units you really care about through a long campaign. This is especially true of Persian Cavalry which usually starts with no experience and can become awesome.

In my most recent campaign I let the north alone at first and sent everything at Seleucia. The problem was once I was at war with the Seleucids I could not afford to attack Armenia for a long time and before I could develop Seleucia to produce Persians it was invaded by four stacks of Egyptians who sat there burning my valuable farmland at a rate I have never seen in this game before! For a long time I could only afford one decent army who eventually drove out the yellow scum. I so wanted to march all the way to the Nile but knew the Seleucid stacks would not sit idly by if I wasn't there to defend Seleucia. As my economy stagnated I realised the only long term way to survive this situation was to attack north through Armenia and Pontus as I should have done at the beginning. I found this a lot easier than I had expected and it allowed me to afford enough Persian CAvalry to take on the Seleucids and Egyptians together who formed a lasting alliance against me. That was a surprise and this remains the only game of RTW I have ever played where Eggies and the the big S never went to war!

The Seleucids were quickly annihilated although I made the near fatal mistake of besieging Antioch with my full stack of veteran Persian cavalry ON THE BRIDGE. Next turn I was attacked by a seleucid relief army of chariots and hoplites from Tarsus from the other side of the bridge and a full stack of mostly Pike Phalanxes from close behind me. I thought I was going to lose my best army in a spiky mess for sure and had nowhere to run away (discretion is definitely a horse archers best friend). I put all my units close to the bridge with skirmish off and routed the attacking army as they crossed then found I was tightly packed and surrounded by pike phalanxes bearing down from all directions. There was only one hope: the General was in the middle of the tightening circle with some peltasts. My entire stack charged en masse and broke through, surrounded the now leaderless greek horde and wiped them out. God I love moments like that when you turn certain defeat into glorious victory! I still think in future I will avoid sitting on bridges with horse archer stacks though!

Once you have Antioch Victory is assured, and you can enjoy the great battles with the Egyptians without the feeling of being overwhelmed by their endless stacks. With Persian cavalry you see more enemies as an opportunity to level up! Chariots can be scary when they charge though. Taking Antioch also allowed me to build war elephants for the first time which enabled a blitzkrieg against the lightly defended Egyptian wooden walled cities and stomped on their pesky chariots.

Key points:

1. Focus early on Armenia and Pontus.
2. Send the Campus Sakae army south by boat to join the attack on Armenia and let Sakae rot, it's worthless.
3. As soon as you can, build as many Persian Cav as you can and keep attacking.
4. Don't be afraid of the Seleucids big stacks you can always run away when you run out of arrows.
5. Don't despair no matter how many stacks Egypt sends your way. I almost gave this campaign up for dead when I was invaded by four stacks when all I had was Media, Babylonia and Elymais and one army. Now I am the regional superpower marching my armies down the Nile and plotting to start on Greece and Rome.

Quintus.JC

02-22-2008, 14:17

Great first post Timoleon the Brave. Welcome to the forum.

It does take some time for Parthia to get going, but once established. They're unstoppable(like most other factions).

Renco

02-27-2008, 22:14

So does anyone have any real money woes at the begining of the game? I've heard a few people say so but I never had any on H/H. I had a decent rate of expansion too. It seems if you just siege Selucia and score the hanging gardens and the city next to it with your general and 4 HA you dominate from their on.
I never buy infantry untill later when I need effective garrisons. It works out great.
And the answer to Cats is elephants isn't it?

Horseman

02-28-2008, 01:11

When I played as Parthia I found my answer to enemy cataphracts were my own cataphracts!

Quintus.JC

02-28-2008, 18:08

The only factions apart from Parthia that is able to recruit Cataphracts are Armenia and Seleucids. Both of these should be eliminated early on. Elephants are capable of killing the best cavalries in the game; even armoured generals can’t offend these beasts.

Quirinus

03-04-2008, 11:24

The Seleucids were quickly annihilated although I made the near fatal mistake of besieging Antioch with my full stack of veteran Persian cavalry ON THE BRIDGE. Next turn I was attacked by a seleucid relief army of chariots and hoplites from Tarsus from the other side of the bridge and a full stack of mostly Pike Phalanxes from close behind me.
Ugh, yes, that happened to me too, only I didn't win like you did. I lost very badly.... even lost my ten-star Ardumanish the Horseman. Taught me a lesson I would not soon forget.

I find that the best counter to cataphracts is camels, especially camel cataphracts. Those humpy beasts kill cavalry, and especially cataphracts like nobody's business.

Quintus.JC

03-04-2008, 16:34

I find that the best counter to cataphracts is camels, especially camel cataphracts. Those humpy beasts kill cavalry, and especially cataphracts like nobody's business.

I forgot about camels, they do well against other horsemen, but I'd still imagine elephants are the tougher one.

Emperor Mithdrates

03-05-2008, 18:54

@#$% Egyptians. :furious3:

I posted a long rant on another thread about how much I hate the @#$% Egyptians. Kill 1,000 and another 1,000 jump up, of better quality than the first bunch.

I here yuh buddy. those friggin Eygptions just wont leave me alone.

I stopped playig on medieval total war because they kept bugging me and got RTW but then as the selucides they just wouldnt leave me alone. They're not even a proper eygptions. Theyre the old cuts of the old greek empire.

wooo, go Greece.

The Wandering Scholar

03-05-2008, 22:25

Egypt must be stopped quicky. Forget about Armenia and Seleucids early on and just take out Egypt.

Brave

03-14-2008, 13:40

The Parthians begin with a historic Ruler (Arsaces I of Parthia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsaces_I_of_Parthia)) he is legitimacy to the throne was doubtful, he fought wars to keep the people on his side.

You begin with three settlements. I propose that you abandon the northen most town and use your ship to transport the horse archers and the family member to beat the Armenians to the capture of the rebel settlement located next to your Capital. The Parthians fought on horseback, you should do the same with Peasants as cheap, effective garrison for cities which are not on the front lines.

The Seleucids under Antiochus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_III_the_Great) will be engaged in a bloody war with Egypt and should not be wanting a war on another front. This gives you time to go to war with Armenia who most certainly will want to capture a settlement and see your faction as the weaker option. Let them think that. Presuming that Armenia attack and you go on an offensive against them you should be able to incorporate their cities into your Parthian rule giving you five cities which are profitable and only Susa can possibly be under threat as the other four are located in the mountainious wastes.

Egypt under Ptolemy II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_II_of_Egypt) can not be allowed to grow too powerful and if they are winning the war with the Seleucids (which is a high possibility) then you could consider an alliance with the Seleucids to attempt to balance the power in the east or sieze the chance to forge an empire at the Seleucid's expense.

More to come later.

Brave

03-14-2008, 16:38

If you wish to take the second option and openly declare war on Antiochus and divide his empire up between you and Egypt you could entice Pontus and even Greece into declaring war upon the Great Man and he shall fall quickly. This leaves the East and Asia Minor in a situation where all factions will think of themselves as the powerhouse and could see Egypt demand you be their protectorate, an easy chance to declare war on Egypt.

Brace yourself for a long hard slog, try your best to out produce them, block their ports, make them suffer. Even after smackus maximus they will be very rich and powerful and will field many stacks of high quality units. Just keep up the pressure and do not be fooled by 4-1 and 5-1 against ratio, your cavalry is better than the computer estimates.

Try not to drag yourself into a war with more than one faction. Make life easy for yourself. It is a near certainty that Pontus will eat up Asia Minor and not be satisfied by that. Tempt them to attack you by leaving weak stacks of high mobility Horse Archers for them to attack with their poor infantry then give them no mercy. Asia Minor is yours, well done.

By this time you should be in a commanding position, the Romans will most likely control most of Greece and you out produce them, you have more money than them, you have th secret to beating them. Your cavalry. Make sure you are properly prepared for the voyage to Greece. Aim to strike hard to the large stacks around Greece, leave them with no military then starve their cities out. Land with more armies than they could ever imagine possible, 5 or 6 full stacks led by able generals should do it.

By now the map should look something like this with the exception of Campus Sakae.

https://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/The-Brave-One/Untitled.jpg

Continue your conquest of Greece until you control it. Up to the Danube is a reasonable conquest amount.

From here you can recruit more armies and more fleets to aim to land on Italy and use similar tactics as you did in Greece. Scicily could be needed for your 50.

https://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/The-Brave-One/Untitled2.jpg

The world is yours.

https://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg74/The-Brave-One/ArcasestheConqueror.jpg

Kietharr

08-23-2008, 22:15

Parthia is great fun, Horse Archers dominate just about every faction, the only units that they don't absolutely destroy are elephants, and you really don't have to face them that much as the Seleucids die quickly and Romans deal with Carthage for you. You do need to get used to waiting longer to take cities though, you've got no decent infantry so it's best to just siege with a few HAs so the enemy sallies, then slaughter them until you're out of arrows, then return and repeat until they're wiped out.

Opening moves: Move your force from the province north of the caspian sea to the Scythian province right next to it and conquer it, they are generally kept too busy in the west to bother retaking it, eventually they will try but their army is really terrible at attacking cities, just remember to put a couple of Eastern Infantry up there later.

Move your army from your capital/Susa towards Pharapsaa, the Armenians are also trying to take it which leaves their armies in the open. You start with a couple of cataphracts, use them in combination with HA's to run down Armenia's main army outside of Artaxarta, both of their provinces are usually lightly defended at this point, siege them with your horse archers and if they sally, destroy them. Once you take Colchis use its port to build two Biremes to blockade Scythia's ports, build a third once they take Crimea. Have a diplomat near them and get peace as soon as they'll accept it, you'll probably need to beat them at a few sieges in Campus Alanni before they'll agree to it. There is no point in attacking Scythia past that first territory, they are poor, the provinces are vast and sparsely populated, and rebels are everywhere, better to keep them as a buffer against Thrace and the other western powers.

Once the Armenians are taken out, Seleucia is the next best target, take it and Hatra from the Seleucids. Best strategy for this is sending a few HA's to siege, they will sally, you will kill a lot of troops, then retreat. Do this 2-3 times and you will win without having to bother with infantry. Don't bother with Arabia, Egypt will just declare on you for it later, let them have it as it's pretty mediocre. Take all of the Seleucid territory you can, but unless Pontus is attacking you already don't bother with Sardis or Tarsus, Pontus will declare on you to take those every time.

After you've crippled the Seleucids war with Egypt is inevitable. Use horse archers, lots of them. Their chariots may beat your archers 1v1 but you can produce two HA's in the same time they build a chariot. Sidon has high level cavalry stables so you can build Persian Cavalry there, one of the most solid one turn production units in the game imo. Spam as many HA's as you can, siege their cities and lure them into wasting units, keep in mind that if you can maneuver HA's behind phalanx units you will slaughter them. Before pharoah's bowmen the Egyptians have nothing that can stand up to your HA's. Don't bother with the former rebel provinces the Egyptians take, go for Sidon/Jerusalem and then into their African lands. You can come back around to the rebel provinces later, taking them first just wastes your units garrisoning them as they aren't populous or advanced enough to produce units themselves.

From there, you are master of the east and have untold amounts of wealth at your disposal. You're going to win the game at this point so you could do anything you wanted, my favorite options are conquering Anatolia or Africa and heading into Greece or Italy from there.