Pahlava Strategy Guide

[Jive]

I was hoping this would be developed more as Pahlava is without a doubt my favorite faction. Am currently in the midst of my first full-fledged Pahlava 1.1 campaign. I've actually found Pahlava a tad more difficult this go-around (last played them back in November with 1.0). There's been a lot of good guides floating around for other factions recently, maybe I'll pitch in more later.


Some general tips

1] The AS likes to send FMs and small armies to reclaim their lands. This is the perfect opportunity to build up experience for you horse archers. What I do is use spies as advance scouts to spot these AS armies. Then I send out two-unit hit squads to hit and run these armies. I usually have around 4-5 horse archers along with a FM in my newly-taken settlements.

So what I do, is send out one hit squad, empty quivers, withdraw. Then send out another 2-3 hit squad, empty quivers withdraw. Don't send out family members as they get negative traits if they withdraw. It may be an exploit, but I justify it role-playing wise as these are small hit-and-run raiding parties sent out by the FM to scout and engage if possible the invading armies.

These are stunningly effective. Two units of Parthian horsearchers will kill 125 or so enemy units each. While taking zero casualties if you're lucky. You can take out and entire unit of crap Hellenic Native Spearmen, Skirmishers, or Slingers with just two-units. The next hit-squad will take out the men who heal from each unit from the first-engagement and a chunk of another unit. Really it's just brutally effective.

You'll end up losing a lot more battles then you win. But it's not really a loss if in a single turn, you end up depleting a 600 strong AS army to around 300 or so, is it? Once they're weakened enough you can deploy the whole army (4-5 HAs along with FM) to destroy it.

Using this tactic will build up experience in a hurry. You'll typically get an experience point for every unit every battle (125 kills - zero/minimal losses).

2] It's been said before, but choose nomadism where you can, pastoralism where you can't.

3] Dahae Riders are worth every penny. Horse archers who can charge.

4] Use your family members. Don't let them sit there. They are awesome. Horse archer/heavy cav combo.

5] You have to play out all the battles. And they do require micro-management. But they're fun. Nothing better than watching phalanxes run around like idiots while they're shot to pieces. I turn off fire at will, so I can choose my targets. Although, I'm not sure if this really works, I think they fire at their closest target regardless of where you direct them to fire. But I do it anyway. Whittle down unit by unit.

6] On the two-man hit squads. This is just my opinion and I'm not sure if the engine bears it out, but my feeling is two two-unit squads (say) are more effective than one four-unit squad. I just feel like if four-units are firing away on one target, there will be a lot of redundancy. 400 arrows to kill a 240 unit basic spearmen unit, when 200 arrows (or whatever the actual number is) will do the same. I'd be curious to hear if this is the case.

That's it, for now. I'd love to hear others' take on Pahlava. Without question, they are my favorite faction. I love me the shiny ponies an' bows and arrows. ON TO BABYLON!

Sorry to resurrect an old, obsolescent thread from v. 1.1, but this advice is spot on. Especially the part about choosing nomadism--or pastoralism if it's unavailable--at least in the early going. It won't get you the much-ballyhooed reforms, but it leads to horse archers, which are absolutely essential for the Pahlavan strategy of conquer-and-plunder.

Otherwise you're stuck recruiting mostly light ground-pounders or conventional cavalry, which simply doesn't cut it against the opponents you're facing. The reforms can wait. But first, you gotta get them horse archers!

One caveat though: It's not always easy to withdraw with enemy cav on your tail. Sometimes your HA's get cut off and mangled before you can steer them to a safe exit (and how can you be sure exactly where the exit area is?).