Tips for starting a Pahlava campaign

I really need some help here guys. Pahlava is one of the few factions, with whom i haven't played any serious campaigns... the reason for this was, that i'm more at home with infantry based factions, than nomad ones, and every time i started a campaign, i lost my nerves after getting attacked by some huge stacks from AS and Baktria, where i could afford even a few horses... I want to try them now, since i got at war with them now as Pontos, and although i always loved their units, i just fell inlove with there Catas, and really want to use them as my own...


So please:
- how to start?
- when to expand?
- where to expand?
- what armies would be "historical" with pahlava?
- any other peculiarities that the nomad factions have?
- how should i try to keep my diplomatic relations?
- what are the unique features of a Pahlava campaign? (i know about the reform:sweatdrop:)

etc.etc.etc...

I know there are a lot of Pahlava fans out there, so please, help a potential fan become a real fan:2thumbsup:

Check this out :)

i have some tips from my outgoing campaign (which is my first successful Pahlava campaign)

- go for Baktria first, destroy them and your life will be much more easier
- when you destroy Baktria (at this point you should be in Kophen, since Baktria take that town early in the game), go for AS: leave those rebel towns in India for the future.
- when you conquer a settlement, build local occupation, pastoralism where you can and lvl1 Mic where you can train Hellenic native spearmen.
- in battles, do not rely on horse archers only, train those native spearmen too, and use them as anvil, and your horses as hammer. although Pahlava has good missile units, you will need some melee infantry as well
- primary build your economy (markets, roads etc), because you will need good economy in order to build your reforms and to train Pahlavan reformed units
- do not exterminate citizens of your newly conquered cities: do that only if public order is very low because you don't want your army to get hurt in revolts.
-if you already didn't install EB fix for general recruitment, do that in order to train mercenary generals (in cities where you install Client kingdom)
- in cities where you want to do reforms, no not build highest level Mic before you build Settled aristocracy
- Pahlavan catas are better then Noble catas (higher morale, AP maces...), and are less expensive then nobles, so train them instead of the latter

Pahlava is the easiest of the nomad factions. An army of 1-2 FMs + 5-8 HAs (use the cheapest ones) can beat almost anything AS or Baktria can throw at you (including full stacks of their infantry!). Do not be afraid of battles when an infantry army outnumbers you heavily. After a couple of battles you will have silver chevroned HAs which can kill even armored units.

Do not attack Saka at the beginning. Rather go south for rich AS lands with mines, and let AS, Baktria and Saka war in the north east.

You can play with cavalry armies only, using archers only for garrison duty. You can even attack cities with pure cavalry armies - the AI will probably sally on the first turn (as they outnumber you) and you are able to conquer the city quickly and efficiently.

Funnily, Pahlava is the only faction I never played a campaign with.

Im doing a parthian campaing as well. i think it is necessary much work on this campaing. since i rely only on mounted units. so i never have manny garrissons, only an army of horses in some key cities to defend that area, not only a city. anyway at leats in the biginning.
If you have an army of horse archers with family menbers and you are under siege do not be afraid to sally out and destroy the enemy. it will work nice. The anoying part is the enemy is always atacking. So manny battles to do. I did go south first, im allies are the saka, and im at war with bactria and AS. I just conquer Persia from AS but i intend to destroy bactria as well.

Just be careful not to get bored destroying stack after stack of Seleukids. And once you do get bored, do something crazy like this.

When I played as Pahlava, I only used horse archers and family members. The trick is to tell your armies to withdraw when they run out of arrows, and then attack again. This can be challenging because technically you will "lose" many battles and your armies may get stuck in bad positions when you retreat, however you will be able to defeat stacks much larger than your own without taking very many casualties.

As soon as you can afford them, Asavarân-î Dêhbêd (Noble Medium HA) should be one of your main units. They are fairly cheap for a Noble unit, fast, decently armoured and yet have great stamina. Not to forget their powerful AP lance. Although their range is inferior to that of Saka units, they can tackle any army in the game, if deployed correctly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by athanaric

As soon as you can afford them, Asavarân-î Dêhbêd (Noble Medium HA) should be one of your main units. They are fairly cheap for a Noble unit, fast, decently armoured and yet have great stamina. Not to forget their powerful AP lance. Although their range is inferior to that of Saka units, they can tackle any army in the game, if deployed correctly.

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Well, the Saka version has less ammo...

Just try to mop up your enemy with pahlava shivatirs' arrows, and all will be ok...
Try to avoid war with saka too early, because if you didn't prepare armoured men, both sides got bloody casualities.... and AS or Baktria will easily pwnd ur depleted men...

I'm a fan of the Daha units (except for Daha Rog Baexdzhyn Aefsad, although they are the best elephant killers in the game) .
Both Daha Baexdzhyntae and Daha Uazdaettae are excellent units.

Try to remain at peace with the other nomads, i.e. do not expand too much towards them, and make sure they have borders with each other, not only borders with you (should you offer them a settlement as a gift, include enough money with the offer to pay for a sizeable garrison).
Send a diplomat to them and inform them of any attacks you are about to launch against their enemies, by offering them as gifts. Should they refuse the gift, prepare for war.

For cavalry archery combat, seek the higher ground, seek forested ground, make use of cantabrian circle (unless they chase you with fast horses). Use a single unit in cantabrian circle or a heavily armored unit to soak up most of the enemy's arrows.

I use spies to the fullest... I usually take the four closest Selucid cities by unrest using my spies to try to hold off a war with Selucia... some times you get lucky and take another city before you get the lovely little transgression pop up. By then though you should be able to support a stack to run circles around the phalanxes. I use cities defensively too... sally out use my arrows return and do it again the next season.

The Saka will probably be a pain in the ass, but there's nothing you can really do about them early on. Just hold them back at Khiva if possible, but be prepared to lose that city. If it is lost, don't let them keep it though.
Baktria will stab you in the back sooner or later, and taking them out will remove that nuisance and will put you in a better position to eventually destroy the Saka or go into India. (the indian elephants don't like arrows)
If the Seleucids attack, and they will, you'll want to take them down as soon as possible unless fighting full stacks every two turns is your idea of fun. Overrunning the old Perisan provinces is often a good idea, though it is sometimes frowned upon around these parts because it is a 'blitzkrieg'-type strategy.
Whatever you do, I advise that you not piss off the Sauromatae until you've got a decent sized empire.
Hayasdan and Pontos won't be a real problem, though they have some obnoxious armored horsemen.

As for armies, I think standard horse archers, a few nobles and bodyguards, and javelin cavalry would probably be the sort of army composition that would have been used historically, but I'm hardly an expert on the subject.

Oh, and you're probably going to be dirt poor for most of the game.

Wow, thanks for all the great suggestions.
I started playing, and now hold Khiva, Nisa, Asaak, Apameia, AM, Hecatompylos and Zadrakata. I lost and regained them a few times, won countless Historical Victories agains AS and everything seemed well.
But i left Marakanda in AS hands, and now they attacked me from the north with 3000 men. I only have about 400 defending the area. I+m gonna have some problmes now.

Fortunatly the Saka and Baktria have left me alone so far

Make sure that you take over all the eastern Seleucid provinces or they'll attack from two sides. Had that happen to me and it was very annoying.

If they manage to hold them long enough those weak little towns build up and start pumping out units. Remember that every time the AI recruits a unit they get a population boost as compensation. This allows them to build up military towns very quickly if playing on anything less than huge unit size.

If you are going to leave a town as a buffer make sure to keep a spy in the area and watch for a force build-up. Still, you should be able to fight them back eventually. Good luck.

Credits to everybody finishing an EB parthian campain by not only blitzing everything. :2thumbsup:
I got incredibly bored and frustrated halfway. :sweatdrop: Still the units are just awesome. If you ever get the reformed ones^^

Quote:

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Originally Posted by seienchin

Credits to everybody finishing an EB parthian campain by not only blitzing everything. :2thumbsup:
I got incredibly bored and frustrated halfway. :sweatdrop: Still the units are just awesome. If you ever get the reformed ones^^

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Nah... I still love my pastoralism settlements... actually I only got reformed governments at the very late of my pahlava campaign back in 1.1... after that, some years passed and I got Victory condition...:2thumbsup:

It's noteworthy that Daha Nobles do anything I want they do on the battlefield, and I kick both Baktria and Saka out of existance with my mostly horsearcher armies (I only build Nizag Gund as wall plug and garrison, as well as some archer spearmen)

EDIT: But It was high speed blitz.... taking baktra entirely by surprise, and kicking Saka as quick as possible...

may I hijack this thread a bit?

I just checked in the RV and found I could train Grivpanvar in Antiocheia-Margiane well then I checked the map for the reformed government which suggests that I cannot establish a reformed government there. I've already got the reformed government in 3 locations and fairly progressed in many of the others so it would not be too big a blow at least a smaller one than trying to upgrade that city although It will be of no use. so who's right here RV or map, I know both are fairly old so I wouldn't be suprised if both were wrong :D

on topic:
once I was out of the initial expansion/dept phase I maintained squads of 2-3 HAs(1-2 Normal HA; 1 noble(or in a more problematic region: 1 FM)) to intercept small armies moving through my territory or close to it, to gain some XP and avoid unpleasant surprises near my "cities" with minimal garrison. just not too many of them.