Baktria

[Celtic_Punk]

well i come from being used to classical hoplite warfare and naked fighting... ive started myself a baktria campaign, and well pahlava is inflicting massive casualties with their archers and my slow heavy cavalry and phalanx's are getting chewed out there... im winning battles but the casualties are unacceptable.

any hardcore baktrian player's willing to give me some advice would be appreciated

[Hax]

Fight the Pahlava in cities, not in steppes. They are at a disadvantage there.

[Celtic_Punk]

damn, how come i never thought of that before... thinking back i destroyed 2 fullstacks from pahlava in baktria with two 1st class phalanx's and one thereupoi(the new hoplite thing) and 1 good general unit (had a gold chevron cause his bodyguard got constantly annihilated and never routed all the time)

[Hax]

Also, use slingers against their bodyguards and heavier cavalry [also heavy armored horse-archers]. Use normal archers [rather Median or Persian archers] against their normal horse-archers.

[Celtic_Punk]

awesome thanks man

[Che Roriniho]

even better, use saka foot Archers. Highest range in the game, I think. Plus they're damned good against anything that moves. Oh, and hunt HA's in pairs. Use cataphracts.Isolate one, hunt them down, and hope to hell you catch them. And the fact that hallf of their army will start off effectively unthreataned, as you will need 2 units of cataphracts for every one of theirs. Scout ahead, and your life will be easier.

[mlp071]

As Baktria, I managed to run over Pahlava within 5 years using mix of spearmen-archers, saka archers, 1-2 Katas and ... bunch of Prodromoi:dizzy2:(cheap to recruit and very mobile).Didn't experience any significant casualties.

Let archers loose on them , then when they separate their forces to chase archers, hold them with spear and mass charged them with your cavalry, one by one.No unit can withstand 4-5 charges.

[The Persian Cataphract]

To defeat the Pahlavân, you need to adhere to two strict military axioms:

* Apply a "Scorched-Earth" strategy for defence. If you find a Pahlava army out in your territory, let them roam around while you bulk up the defences of your garrison. Invest in walls, foot-archers and centre-piece shield-bearers (Whether it be natives or Greek soldiery) in order to bait the horsemen. The philosophy is to hold them in that place, keep them occupied and to weaken their armies by exploiting their pathological weakness in siege-warfare.

* When attacking, be swift. Don't dawdle around in the plains, and when campaigning keep close to the mountains just in case so that you don't get surprised when nomads are attacking; Light cavalry is not going to help you. Invest in mounted archery, foot-archery, a picked force of heavy infantry and try to amass as many generals as you can. The key is to reach the enemy cities as soon as possible, and at the same time to avoid open conflict/conserve casualties. Bring a generous amount of troops, and as a safety measure bring a train of infantry reinforcements to your rear so that the siege itself doesn't need to take any longer than it should.

Additionally, if you want some form of bait, keep a small scouting party of light cavalry of one or two units to clear your path from obstacles.

It is important to get rid of the Pahlavân early on, because they usually tend to pack a beating on the northern areas of the Seleucids, and they tend to be much stronger after they are done carving out the Eastern Seleucid sphere. Against Saka, you are only expected to maintain a resolute northern frontier.

[paullus]

i usually could manage ok against the pahlava, but i'd always have a disastrous battle or two against that huge pack of eleutheroi horse archers. it'd be early enough in the game that i couldn't afford better foot soldiers than pantodapoi phalangitai and some thureophoroi, and then i'd recruit a ton of slingers. the battle map would be filled with their horsemen, and i somehow always ended up screwed on the battlemap, being at the lower end of a hill. i don't think i ever won that battle without taking around 50% casualties, or worse. By the time I got to the Pahlava, fast attack columns attacking cities usually handled everything. The one time I got screwed was attacking a city with a large garrison, a large relief army came up, and so I had to fight out on the field, instead of in a siege. Nearly a full stack got waxed. From then on, I tried to get spies to have the gates open, then I don't have to wait outside the city.

And man, I'll say this, the best battles I've ever fought in EB were all with Baktria. My top 10 even, all with Baktria.

[Grriffon]

I just started a new Baktria campaign again too. This time, instead of hammer and anvil'ing it with levy phalanxes and trying to carve out some space from the Rebels while bowing knee to the Seleukids, I went at it totally different way.

I immediately headed west and took the nearest western Seleukid town right next to Baktra. From there I went south to Alexandra-Ariana or whatever it is, then West again straight to Hetakolympos and the city due West of it, attacking only the Seleukids. Instead of using phalanxes, I just have a roving army of about 6 FM's with 2 Javelin HA's and 2 Archer HA's. The javelins tear up the heavily armored troops, and the archers tear up everything else, with your FM's making charges left and right. If I ever have any infantry, it's just a unit of archers to man a ram or add a little extra ammo to the barrage. I've gotten lots of heroic victories this way, and now, with Hetakolympos and the city west of it both having mines in them, I'm ROLLING in gold, Pahlava is still my friend, I deal with the Seleukids from a position of strength. Perhaps I will run into some troubles later, but so far, I'm loving this "Head West" strategy fueled by almost pure cavalry.

[Todd]

Playing Baktria has been the best so far because it forces numerous different strategies depending on the faction.

All of the recommendations so far on Pahlava have been excellent. However, one that hasn't been mentioned that worked well for me is to focus on securing your flank first. Take out Saka first. I found them easier to dispatch. Fight Pahlava defensively. Let Pahlava get stronger in the West while you are securing the East and capturing province after province of the AS. Your power will increase much faster than theirs. Plus, when you don't have to worry about maintaining garrisons against Saka attacks, you can put those experienced foot archers to devastating effect against Pahlava.

Todd

[Celtic_Punk]

I lost my eastern valley province to Saka, so now I'm down to Baktria only. The Pahlava have changed army composition from entirely archers to spearmen as well. I have to hold on till Pahlava bankrupt themselves and hold off for a bit, and then i can recapture the valley NE of Baktria and carve an empire through the Indus till i get to the water. I think ill take a purely defencive strategy on the Pahlava, and hold them at river crossings if possible. Saka - as someone said before - ill hold them in place with a heavy garrison fort in the NE pass. uniting all the valleys should bring in some good trade, which will help me fund the superior numbers needed to take on the Pahlava later on. As of the AS it has yet to be determined if they will survive the blitz from the Persians and the war of attrition with Ptolemy. but I want to expand to the Mediterranean and take the Nile. So by the time I'm ready to expand West the Yellow-White death war will have been all but decided.

[Baktria Ownz All]

i pretty much agree with everyone above. get mainly long range units with some heavy inf and just inch ur way to there towns with forts and u will be fine :P

[cux47]

Build forts, use steppe raiders well
so you can mantain a small army and save your coins.

[antisocialmunky]

The old persian tactic of 'wall of dudes with archers behind them' works alright. You might want to consider getting Persian Heavies for archers if you can but the Saka ones work great too.

The general strategy is to just overwhelm them with volume of fire and take the unarmored HA out as fast as possible. Don't both shooting the FMs too much, take out all the unarmored stuff. The arrows from Catanks and unarmored hrose do about the same damage.