Carrhae - 53 BC

In 55 BC, Marcus Licinius Crassus had just finished serving his joint-consul year with Pompey. At the time, Crassus, Pompey, and Julius Caesar formed a powerful and secret triumvirate that all but controlled Rome. As a part of this élite group, Crassus felt a great desire to add new glory to his name. He had seen no action since his defeat of Spartacus nearly 20 years earlier. Crassus drew out the maps of the Roman Imperium looking for a target to attack, and decided that the most glorious one would be the Parthian Empire. Many members of the Roman Senate tried to dissuade him from this course of action, but Caesar and Pompey stood firmly behind him and the senate relented.

Crassus arrived in Syria in late 55 BC. With the aid of Hellenic settlements in Syria and support from Artavasdes, the Armenian king, Crassus marched directly to the Parthian mainland instead of attacking from the mountains of Armenia. In response, the Parthian king Orodes II divided his army and sent half, which were infantry troops, to punish the Armenians and sent the other half, which were cavalry units, to combat Crassus. The enemy armies subsequently encountered each other near the town of Carrhae...


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This is my next Historical Battle. The right landscape was hard to find, but the units involved are pretty easy except for some cavalry.

What can I use for Syrian, Arabian, and Cilician cavalry for the Romans? Can Hellenic medium cavalry represent the Cilicians?

I will just say this battle will not be like the vanilla RTW version. You will command a huge Roman army like Crassus at Carrhae against a relatively small Parthian army, but the victory conditions for both factions have been changed to represent what happened during the first day of fighting.

You will need heavy scripting. Hmm, the romans in fact had very few, and these man forming the roman vanguard where ambushed by the parthians some good hours before the actual battle begun.

Later on, the Parthian horse archers (recruited from Dahae, Yuezhi and other nomadic tribes - there are apropiate units in EB for this), harrashed continuosly the roman infantry. Romans also had many gallic auxiliaries.

If you could simply replenish somehow the parthian horse archers arrows supply (like in the real battle), otherwise the arrows will run down, and the battle will not happen like in real history. Also, the AI is very dumb, it will probably charge the romans with Horse Archers... scripting needed ~:(

A good terrain for would be the Syrian deserts, large flatlands bordere on one way by hills. Actually, the few roman soldiers wich managed to escape, where those who run to the hills ~:)

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Originally Posted by Rex_Pelasgorum

You will need heavy scripting. Hmm, the romans in fact had very few, and these man forming the roman vanguard where ambushed by the parthians some good hours before the actual battle begun.

Later on, the Parthian horse archers (recruited from Dahae, Yuezhi and other nomadic tribes - there are apropiate units in EB for this), harrashed continuosly the roman infantry. Romans also had many gallic auxiliaries.

If you could simply replenish somehow the parthian horse archers arrows supply (like in the real battle), otherwise the arrows will run down, and the battle will not happen like in real history. Also, the AI is very dumb, it will probably charge the romans with Horse Archers... scripting needed ~:(

A good terrain for would be the Syrian deserts, large flatlands bordere on one way by hills. Actually, the few roman soldiers wich managed to escape, where those who run to the hills ~:)

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There will be no need of scripting. My tests show that horse archers stay skirmishing until they are out of ammo, while the Cataphracts will surely charge like it happened.

The terrain is excellent dont worry. I have even made some little changes to get an appropiate hill for Publius last stand.

The only problem I am having are the Cilicians, Arabians, and Syrian cavalry. I am tempted to use some Hellenic and Eastern cavalry since I couldnt add some of the Sabaean units.

Well the about the arabians, I think one of the two sabean cavalry units could do. About the syrian cavalry, perhaps the hayasdan aspet? No idea about the cilicians.

The Cilicians would be one of the hippakontistai type units, rather than a hippeis unit. The Ptolemaic version (generic-looking) would be better than the KH version...maybe the Ptolemaic one is just a generic version, and the Romans would get it too. The Ayrudzi could also fit (Pontic/Hayasdan unit).

Hi.

One of the most important strategies used by the Parthians during this battle was the replenishing of ammunition using camels. Their victory over the Romans can be attributed to this, their manouverability and the heat.

The Roman army was three times as large as the Parthian army, but without ammo replenishment, an army of HA's smaller in number than infantry will be unable to inflict enough casualties on the heavy infantry in Rome:TW before they run out of ammo.

Also the advanced Parthian bows were able to penetrate Roman armour, something HA's are unable to do in this game without significant experience upgrades.

You will have to consider these when designing this battle.

To be honest, Carrhae is an interesting battle in history, but I'm not too sure how much fun it would be to play in this game, as the Roman infantry will not be able to catch the HA's, and the HA's will have difficulty killing enough Romans to weaken them enough vs the cataphract charge, causing a stalemate.

I suppose the Parthians could mount concentrated localised HA charges against the Romans and destroy them eventually (and this is quite possible in game, I've destroyed a full Seleucid stack with just 7 units of Steppe Horse Archers), but this is quite unrealistic.

The Parthians will not need to destroy or rout the entire Roman army to win the battle. The victory conditions for them will be different so that they have the chance of winning before they use all their arrows. They will also have a morale boost and an upgrade. Dont understand why they dont have effective against armor, but I upgrade them to make them more effective.

The Romans dont need to rout or destroy the entire Parthian army to win the battle. I dont like to try to catch HAs around the hot desert of Carrhae.

So here u go tell me what u think? I am really not very pleased with the battle, but I dont think I can make it better at least for some time.

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Good points servusa. It does seem to be a difficult one to realize in the current engine. It's only fun as the Romans if you go into it as ignorant as the Romans were of what lay ahead (not realizing the danger they were in). :grin:

For those who want to play it historically accurate and want to have long frustrating times with the Romans fighting in the shade because of a rain of arrows just go to preferences in your RTW folder and change...

LIMITED_AMMO:TRUE

for

LIMITED_AMMO:FALSE