The Pahlava campaign is impossible.

After failing THREE campaigns as the Pahlavans I've concluded that it's almost impossible to complete their campaign. I've already noted that the Baktrians will never betray you, provided that you don't bother them at all, however, the Seleucids are a different story. First, let it be known that I've tried every possible thing you can do with the Pahlavans, it's either capture Seleucid territory at a fast pace, as your cavalry army becomes unstoppable against the slow moving Seleucid Phalanx but later, lose all of your territory to a giant Saka army led by 6+ star general, then fall into a massive, unrecoverable debt. Or, you can go straight for the Saka tribe and possibly end your biggest threat in the game, but later, lose your two starting cities to the Seleucid empire and end up into a massive, unrecoverable debt. Is there some kind of secret I'm missing to playing these guys? If so, help is really appreciated.

:beam: :whip:

I suggest you try another faction. You can see the difficulty level of each when selecting the faction, there are many easier than Pahlava.

You could try hiding behind the stone walls. If you have enough Phalanx dudes you can stop the Saka.

What?I already won 2 pahlava campaings,you just have to use HAs to their full extent and attack Seleucids on the first turns.

The Saka are insignficant, smash south and abandon your home provincs give them to the samaritins, it makes things easier).

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Originally Posted by okmanl
After failing THREE campaigns as the Pahlavans I've concluded that it's almost impossible to complete their campaign. I've already noted that the Baktrians will never betray you, provided that you don't bother them at all, however, the Seleucids are a different story. First, let it be known that I've tried every possible thing you can do with the Pahlavans, it's either capture Seleucid territory at a fast pace, as your cavalry army becomes unstoppable against the slow moving Seleucid Phalanx but later, lose all of your territory to a giant Saka army led by 6+ star general, then fall into a massive, unrecoverable debt. Or, you can go straight for the Saka tribe and possibly end your biggest threat in the game, but later, lose your two starting cities to the Seleucid empire and end up into a massive, unrecoverable debt. Is there some kind of secret I'm missing to playing these guys? If so, help is really appreciated.

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Thats why they're called the Grey Death. :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by okmanl

After failing THREE campaigns as the Pahlavans I've concluded that it's almost impossible to complete their campaign.

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Since you're new to the forum I'm guessing that you aren't a very experienced EB player? It is much harder to win than in Vanilla, and you chose one of the hardest factions, if the the absolute hardest. I suggest you try an easier faction like Rome or Carthage for a couple dozen turns until you've got the basics of managing your economy etc., and then go back, more confident, into a Pahlava campaign.

As for the campaign itself, it seems the trend these days among EB players is to migrate. You might want to try falling back north from they silver death's onslaught, and vying for supremacy in the steppes. Yes, this may kill your economy, but if you get out of the direct way of the Seleucids you will have a greater chance to establish a homeland that is not in immediate danger of being swarmed with grey stacks. Play defensively, focusing on making money and having no borders with the selucids until you can take them on confidently.

Sauromatae, Saka, Pahlava... just make a horde and loot cities...
disbanding and building up is possible but leaves you VERY vulnerable... better to use those nice mini-hordes early on to weaken your foes!

Impossible? No. Hard? Oh yes. Be very certain that I've personally made sure of this. Arsaces' achievements should not be trivialized; He paved way for regents like Mithradates I, Phraates II, Mithradates II and finally to the pinnacle during the co-rule of Orodes and Pacorus, and the formation of the Indo-Parthians. The Saka are tought, but on siege-craft they are arguably the weakest early on; For defences I suggest hiring Iranian archer-spearmen almost exclusively while leaving behind a few cavalry (Ideally, you will want to have all cavalry focused on settlements like Asaak, Hekatompylos and Zadrakata, which should be your absolute priority number one.). Prepare yourself for the loss these areas, do not count on keeping them if you have problems holding off the Saka.

To me the greatest threats right off the bat are the Grey and Blue deaths; If you are good and quick, also the Yellow death. Once you get provinces with possibilities for reformed governments you are pretty much safe sailing in relative terms. The reason why the Saka are so difficult to fight against is another historically strengthened facet. As long as you are on the defensive against the Saka you should not have too much trouble with them. Avoid open battle with them, your armies are expensive and more suited to slaughter infantry-based armies with minimal casualties; Alternatively, you may want to use a decoy strategy using very small armies to lure away large Saka contingents. If you feel that the Saka are on the winning edge on your north-eastern frontier, make sure to arrange a feasible exist-strategy; Destroy all buildings to compensate for financial losses, lure them out to favourable terrain (Generally you'd want to draw out conflicts for as long as possible in order to dismay the enemy through inflicting as many casualties as possible). Think more in terms of logistics; If the conflict is on your turf the advantages in attritition will exclusively be yours.

Playing Pahlava is no joke; It's military and future expansion possibilities are almost too good to be true. Their cavalry is almost unbeatable by any other faction, and their building tree is perhaps the most flexible of them all, encompassing nomadism in proper provinces in combination with Persian and Hellenistic concepts. But this won't come for free at all, you will need to fight for it. It is necessary because in nature a seasoned Pahlava player is hard to defeat.

Also, bear in mind that Nisa starts out with nomadism; The player is given an option to destroy it in favour of imposing pastoralism, as it may improve economy somewhat but takes longer time to complete.

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Originally Posted by okmanl

After failing THREE campaigns as the Pahlavans I've concluded that it's almost impossible to complete their campaign. I've already noted that the Baktrians will never betray you, provided that you don't bother them at all, however, the Seleucids are a different story. First, let it be known that I've tried every possible thing you can do with the Pahlavans, it's either capture Seleucid territory at a fast pace, as your cavalry army becomes unstoppable against the slow moving Seleucid Phalanx but later, lose all of your territory to a giant Saka army led by 6+ star general, then fall into a massive, unrecoverable debt. Or, you can go straight for the Saka tribe and possibly end your biggest threat in the game, but later, lose your two starting cities to the Seleucid empire and end up into a massive, unrecoverable debt. Is there some kind of secret I'm missing to playing these guys? If so, help is really appreciated.

:beam: :whip:

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yes, the Pahlava campaign is pretty difficult, so you have to move quickly, you start out at war with the Saka, what I did was to grab Chach (the town nearest Baktria) real quick (just put all my starting units together and ran top speed at them) and then left them alone for a few turns and got a cease-fire, they have left me alone since (it helps to annihilate one of their large armies to make the point) I then immediately turned on Baktria, quickly took Marakanda and Baktra (try to do this in 2 turns), and baited their large army in Alex-Eschate to attack me at the bridge below Chach (thus the reason for taking that town in the 1st 3 turns) after killing off all the Baktrian royal family, A-E became a relatively weak eleutheroi stack and was easy to take, but killing off the Baktrian Greeks will pi$$ off the GreyDeath, and of course they turned on me. I managed to obtain Antoichia-Margiana (sp) -modern day Merv- by using my spies to incite a rebellion, and been kicking AS all over the map. I suggest using your spies to scout weak AS towns and taking them with a smaller stack supplemented with some infantry from Baktra (client kingdom, you can get a decent inf lineup from there; panto-phalanx, thuereophoroi, peltasts) and take your main army directly toward Susa and Ekbatana, take them and KILL THEM ALL. Now you can try to get the AS to be your protectorate, but I would try to get all the lightly defended towns in the far eastern AS first.

It is 229 BC and I have the AS as a protectorate (they are down to 3 provinces) am allied w/ Ptols, Hai, and some far away barbarians. I own all the Eastern AS lands except Persepolis and Karmana (wasn't expecting them to accept protectorate deal, should have waited out the sieges first)

oh, and save money, loot AS military buildings and BUILD MINES, this is the only way you can support your expensive armies...you want Kataphrakts, you gotta have mines

Make peace with Saka and then try to make money and make due with tiny HA armies until the AS show up and start trying to take your towns. At that point you should start taking towns with one army while having another army defend your homelands. As long as they're in the field, they aren't defending their settlements. Plus, since oyu have small HA armies, the AI is very likely to Sally and negate the siege equipment.

Greetings fellow historians/warmongers,

I thought I would start up a Pahlava campaign, because I never play this type of faction.
I'm on H/M settings, just to see how I get on.
It's about 254 BC and I've barely moved, it's being very easy, no one has attacked me except one rebel army attacked a city with 2 family members in it. My 150 men V's 960 weak rebels, an easy win.

I dispanded all troops on the first turn, then built econemy and put four generals together after swopping traits, to take the former Seleukid city to my bottem left(I think it rebelled from them and Bakria's first assault failed).
I have just been watching and building, waiting for the time to strike out. Saka took the rebel city up north, which I didn't like. But then Baktria 'poured' troops across my lands to take it from them. I have never seen the AI move so many splintered stacks before, I thought I was about to suffer a major invasion.

I am building continually and making about 4,500 a year profit, and have 160,000 in the bank. My capital city is nearly fully built up including the 1 experience, 3 morale temple.
Soon I will build small powerful armies, bearing in mind my narrow profit margin, although I can steal from my large reserve and make it up with plunder.
Do I attack the 4 Seleukid cities to my bottem left(gold mines) and thus start a war with the grey death? Will Bakria stay allied with me?

I have noticed that alot of my family members are of good stock, ie; sharp/ charasmatic/vigorous, maybe it's a just fluke? By now I have several of them nicely groomed to lead. I think I will favour the 16yrs old, he will be 17 when I finally move off the bat, great conquests are expected of this promising youth, and a long period of service lies ahead of him.

When do you get your hands on the late Cataphracts(besides later you funny people). Is it purely based on one of the Roman reforms, or do I have to do something besides wait?

Any hints or tips welcome, cheers.

Baktria will usually stay with the AS and send massive spam armies. The AS usually has most of its troops focused in the west until around Susa.

I suspect the late bodygaurds come with the vannila marians, ie when a Italian city that isn't rome becomes a huge city.

Aside from Ptolemaioi, all factions that share a border with the grey death are difficult at first. However, at least all of them (with the exception of Hayasdan) get a powerful-ish starting army to actually do stuff with. Pahlava isn't impossible... just difficult. You have like 8 units of mounted archers and some medium/heavy cavalry and generals to begin with, that army, if used correctly, will last you pretty much until you decide to replace it or change it or whatever.

If you want to see impossible, play as Hayasdan. Start out with crummy spearmen, surrounded by crappy towns with low population and no income, can't even recruit levy-phalanx units at the start and WILL be attacked by the Seleukids before you've even climbed out of your starting debt.

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when a Italian city that isn't rome becomes a huge city.

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Romani already has many huge cities in italy ,But I didn't get "Grivpanvar" yet?!

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Baktria will usually stay with the AS and send massive spam armies. The AS usually has most of its troops focused in the west until around Susa.

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I usually play AS, infact I have an epic one on the go, just wanted a break from all the hard work.

So to avoid making things difficult on lowish coffers, I may wait for awhile to see if Bakria will break away from AS, does this happen much? and if so, is it reasonably early? (I am asking from the perspective of AI V's AI, not AI V's Human)

For me, Pahlava is one of the easiest campaigns in the game. By 250 BC, 22 years after the game begun, i had destroyed both Saka-Rauka and Baktra and I had reached the sea. By 241 BC my map looks like this:

https://img260.imageshack.us/img260/4315/241bcds5.png

Never really found the Pahlava campaign too hard. I found the Saka were too busy at war with the Baktrians to do much, and the trick to the south was to send spies to incite rebellion in the Seleukid provinces. As for battles, make sure you have a horse archer stack lead by a good Daha/Saka general. Then, just use your armoured HAs to take out enemy archers and horse archers, then use your mobility to get round the flanks of the enemy and weaken them. After they split their forces, some charges from the noble cavalry should rout them. That was on N/N, not sure how it would go on harder difficulty, but I'm up to 217bc now, and have most of the east.

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Originally Posted by Pharnakes

I suspect the late bodygaurds come with the vannila marians, ie when a Italian city that isn't rome becomes a huge city.

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Uhh, I believe you have to build an imperial palace somewhere in Italy (Rome included) and the year must be at least 220BC for the Marian Reforms to happen in vanilla.

Where did you get your information? If what you said is true, those playing City Mod are having some issues.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

Uhh, I believe you have to build an imperial palace somewhere in Italy (Rome included) and the year must be at least 220BC for the Marian Reforms to happen in vanilla.

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Essentially the same isn't it? I thought a city had to be huge for one to be able to build an imperial palace.

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Originally Posted by Digby Tatham Warter

I usually play AS, infact I have an epic one on the go, just wanted a break from all the hard work.

So to avoid making things difficult on lowish coffers, I may wait for awhile to see if Bakria will break away from AS, does this happen much? and if so, is it reasonably early? (I am asking from the perspective of AI V's AI, not AI V's Human)

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I've never seen Baktria backstab the AS in a game where I was in that area.

Atleast never on VH/M. They tend to hate you the most. As Parthia, the AS will inevitably backstab and the the blues usually dogpile a little later with tiny stacks and an occasional huge spam stack. While the nomads strangely love you even though they could steam roll you with noble cavalry if you don't get an alliance quickly.

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Originally Posted by fallen851

Uhh, I believe you have to build an imperial palace somewhere in Italy (Rome included) and the year must be at least 220BC for the Marian Reforms to happen in vanilla.

Where did you get your information? If what you said is true, those playing City Mod are having some issues.

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Actually, I moved the locations of the cities that have to be huge for getting the reforms with the Citymod (version 3.1).

you don't need to reach 220bc, just a huge city in italy

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Originally Posted by KingOfTheIsles

Never really found the Pahlava campaign too hard. I found the Saka were too busy at war with the Baktrians to do much, and the trick to the south was to send spies to incite rebellion in the Seleukid provinces. As for battles, make sure you have a horse archer stack lead by a good Daha/Saka general. Then, just use your armoured HAs to take out enemy archers and horse archers, then use your mobility to get round the flanks of the enemy and weaken them. After they split their forces, some charges from the noble cavalry should rout them. That was on N/N, not sure how it would go on harder difficulty, but I'm up to 217bc now, and have most of the east.

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really? I'm finding my best generals to be from the Suren clan, with Daha coming in a close second, my Saka FMs are all slow and lazy for some reason, and have the annoying tendency to get "under the weather " or worse quite often.

All cav armies. nuff said.

You don't make any money with the Pahlavi at first, but if you take Persepolis, you can split the Seleukids in two and attack each part of thier dying empire in detail

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Originally Posted by fallen851

Uhh, I believe you have to build an imperial palace somewhere in Italy (Rome included) and the year must be at least 220BC for the Marian Reforms to happen in vanilla.

Where did you get your information? If what you said is true, those playing City Mod are having some issues.

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The 220BC requirement for vanilla reforms was removed in the 1.5 patch. I remember that this was extensively tested for RTRPE, so I am absolutely sure all you need is an Imperial Palace in any region with the "italy" hidden resource.

To the original topic: Pahlava aren't impossible. I bumrushed Baktria at the start (VH/M), looted a few cities and then headed directly north with a reasonably-sized HA army with decent experience. The Sacae were quite hard to defeat, but they had more heavy cavalry and foot archers than horse archers so I still had the advantage of mobile firepower. It was only in the last stages of the northern war that the Seleukids declared war on me, which was enough time for me to return south and retrain my army. After that, I split the army into two forces of 4 HA units led by a general - this is easily enough to beat (and utterly destroy) the armies that the Seleukids will send against you, if you know how to use HAs properly. The biggest challenges you will face are against armies with lots of archers and slingers (particularly horse archers).

After conquering Baktra I was running on a bare profit and dipped back into the red a few times, but once a few Seleukid cities were captured (particularly Hekatompylos and its mines) I was getting a decent amount of money again.

Playing as any steppe faction requires you to be efficient in using small armies comprised mostly of horse archers. Learn to beat armies 3-4 times the size of your own and you'll be able to do it.

Although not historical, my Parthian forces are small mtd armies with all the archers(3 max) being armoured, medium-heavy.
When playing as AS(my main campaign) and trying to get the Cataphract trait(still havn't managed it, despite 4 attempts) I was very impressed with the Parthian heavy HA. One unit ragged 3 of my unarmoured HA units, who were all firing at once. I do like durability in my troops, particually when the steps are so big and my troops so isolated.

Whilst I'm here, why are the Dahae Noble cav, classed as 'fast' when the Parthian Noble Medium cav with less armour(thus lighter) are not?

Cheers.