Guide.
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Guide.
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) –
I generally deploy them like this.Quote:
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]
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.Quote:
.....PPP...EEE...AAA....
PPP.....CC.G.CC.....PPP
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.
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.
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 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 ;)
@#$% Egyptians. :furious3:Quote:
Originally Posted by HopAlongBunny
I posted a long rant on another thread about how much I hate the @#$% 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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by HopAlongBunny
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.
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.
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.
: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?
Mercenaries: Hire camels in the desert, Samarian Heavies in the northern provinces. Group them with your general. Don't leave home without them. That will more than tide you over until you can make some cataphracts. I've seen the AI stop cavalry charges and turn them around just at the sight of a unit of camels.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chancellor Kroll
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 ;)
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 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!
Horse archers are very deadly, but melee isnt where they belong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raizen
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 ~;)
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.
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.
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.
There's an excellent thread in the Medieval:Total War guides section by Ludens, and a brief update by me:Quote:
Originally Posted by GodsPetMonkey
"How to use Horse Archers" in R:TW
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson
Check that link for updates. Looks like some veteran testers are going to explore some important questions next week.Quote:
Originally Posted by GodsPetMonkey
I don't think that opinion is going to last you long. ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by GodsPetMonkey
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!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bhruic
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.
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
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bhruic
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.
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by afrit
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.
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!).Quote:
Originally Posted by Bhruic
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.
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.
with "auto-pilot" do you mean just skirmishing or actually putting a group of skirmishers under AI control?
Just skirmishing. Leaving the "skirmishing" and "fire at will" buttons on. I'll clarify the post.
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:
@ 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.
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
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.
Or, as I ususally refer to them @#$% Egyptians. :furious3:Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Emperor
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.
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.
That's not true, Emperor.Quote:
Originally Posted by The_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.
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!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Emperor
Now there's something we agree on totally.
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.
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
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!
I could not also find them anywhere or have you had it edit?Quote:
Originally Posted by FEMTO
You have to edit some files to get them in game, export_descr_unit.txt and export_descr_buildings.txt to be precise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Smart
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.
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?
You need to read the How to use Horse Archers-Thread.
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
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?
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.
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
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.
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***
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by shadowstar
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.
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:
you say that europe doesn't give you many riches but athens my last Greecian city reeks in 6000 a season
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).
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.
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...
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
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..
hillmen are as bad they are really poor but eatern infrantry are the worst infrantry other than peasants .do people agree with me?!? :duel:
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..
hillmen are poor but can fight alrite if u get them to hold hte fight u can round them up with catphracts
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?
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
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
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
Maybe a challenge for us? ~D ~D
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).
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.
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 ~;)
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:
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..
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
Egypt cause real problems as parthia. try and help the Selucids with them early. Thats always worked for me.
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.
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. >.
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
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.