Just ocurred to me...

[LordCurlyton]

Since the Pahlava Reformed Gov't is a bit tricky to obtain, shouldn't the AI get that placed in all the territories it can be had when they conquer one of said territories? I just thought of this because I noticed that in all my campaigns where Pahlava gains any ground (and I'm not playing as them) that they will ALWAYS build the Reformed Pastoralism (assuming that isn't what they are given upon conquering) but without the Warlord's Horse Herds then there is no way for the Pahlava to access the Reformed Gov't as AI, essentially crippling them. While I've seen decent progress before with them it is almost always due to mercs or regionals. While I won't say I've never seen the AI make it to Parthian Catas, let's just say that it is a rare sight in their armies assuming you don't play a nearby faction and they survive/expand enough for you to encounter them.

[Tristuskhan]

I have a slightly different problem in my Getai campaign, 160BC: Pahlava controls the Iranian plateau, Caucasus, Mesopotamia and a good chunk of steppes, and fields army after army against me. Those armies are, on average: 5 pantodapoi phalangitai, 6 archers of all available kinds, 4 heavy horse-archers (Dahae or Armoured Parthians) and five Cataphracts of different subspecies (FM, Grivpanvar, noble and ordinary).

Believe me that's very, very painful. Scordici heavy inf. with one gold chevron, put on "hold" position, take an average 40% losses to a single Cataphract unit's initial charge. I have to rely on mercenary medium phalanx to hold them, but they die faster than I can hire them.

BTW, it would be nice if high-end herds were built automatically when AI Pahlava conquers a city, you're right.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Believe me that's very, very painful. Scordici heavy inf. with one gold chevron, put on "hold" position, take an average 40% losses to a single Cataphract unit's initial charge. I have to rely on mercenary medium phalanx to hold them, but they die faster than I can hire them.

You have to counter-charge the charging cavalry if you want to avoid taking losses from just the charge. Pike phalanxes suck against heavy cavalry anyway. They are great as meatshield for those arrows, as phalanxes are virtually impervious with their 5 shield, but otherwise, I have found out that their greatest weakness is heavy cavalry. Cavalry is really the only unit in EB that can get through those pikes. What you need to hire are some Greek phalanxes. The Getai have an elite phalanx unit, and also you can hire Hoplitai (Greek Classical Phalanx). Then once the Pahlava cavalry is engaged, you can charge them in the back with your own heavy mounties.

[johnhughthom]

That sounds like an awesome campaign Tristuskhan, would make a great AAR.

[burn_again]

Since the Pahlava Reformed Gov't is a bit tricky to obtain, shouldn't the AI get that placed in all the territories it can be had when they conquer one of said territories? I just thought of this because I noticed that in all my campaigns where Pahlava gains any ground (and I'm not playing as them) that they will ALWAYS build the Reformed Pastoralism (assuming that isn't what they are given upon conquering) but without the Warlord's Horse Herds then there is no way for the Pahlava to access the Reformed Gov't as AI, essentially crippling them. While I've seen decent progress before with them it is almost always due to mercs or regionals. While I won't say I've never seen the AI make it to Parthian Catas, let's just say that it is a rare sight in their armies assuming you don't play a nearby faction and they survive/expand enough for you to encounter them.

They are given Reformed Pastoralism by the script, but I think they should get Homeland gov. They usually repair the AS governments, so that they can build everything they could with a lvl 1 gov except for factional barracks. This is a problem with all nomadic factions, but it's especially crippling the Pahlava since they field huge pantodapoi armies and get their heavy cavalry in Khiva only. Not only that they can't build their factional barracks (which the other nomads don't have), they can't build any nomad recruitment buildings with reformed pastoralism either.
They also never recruit horse archers from provinces like Marakanda and Antiocheia-Margiane where they should build nomadism or pastoralism but just repair the AS gov and get weak regionals only.
This could be the reason they are not doing so well most of the time and I think something should be done about this. It's kind of dissapointing fighting them without any of their factional troops.

[Tristuskhan]

That sounds like an awesome campaign Tristuskhan, would make a great AAR.

Poor english and untermensh capacities using any kind of photoshop-like will prevent it, alas. The best I could do is sending savegames to those interested.

edit: Aemilius Paulus, I always try to countercharge, but it's still very uneasy facing cataphracts. Hoplitai are a way to go, but I prefer classical hoplites over Getai elites (too expensive for such short life expectancy). And since the best heavy cav. I can field is Scythian nobles, still a bit lightweight, I have better times engaging pinned Cataphracts with Elite thracian Inf, the issue beeing that Parthians never stay in melee, they fall back and charge again.
the main problem with my campaign is that there is not only one or two Cats' in every army, something I could easily deal with, but more something like 6 minimum. Ever faced a charge by 6 Cataphracts units? It's awesome.

[johnhughthom]

Your English has always seemed fine, plenty of people without English as a first language have written AARs. As have many with no phottoshopping skills, like me. The real problem with AARs is the amount of your time they take up. It does sound like an interesting campaign though, a save would be nice...

[Tristuskhan]

Your English has always seemed fine, plenty of people without English as a first language have written AARs. As have many with no phottoshopping skills, like me. The real problem with AARs is the amount of your time they take up. It does sound like an interesting campaign though, a save would be nice...

Nice, PM me you e-mail and I'll sent you a few saves. The game is RTW.exe, no submods, fixed.

[LordCurlyton]

I think I'll PM you too. I'm interested to see if they are just using the beginning recruitment to field the heavy cav or if they managed to luck out somehow...also, if they managed to conquer some mor of the steppe the amount of available HAs/heavy cav increases exponentially.

[johnhughthom]

There are a lot of odd traits Tristuskhan, for example your faction leader seems to have Saka ethnicity. Has something weird happened in the cross to my computer or have you noticed these too?

[bovi]

If you're not on the same version of EB as he (including submods), the savegame is likely not compatible.

[LordCurlyton]

Well there is a Saka ethnicity for the Pahlava. Unless you mean he has an ethnicity that only the Saka should have...

[johnhughthom]

It's the Getai faction leader, Getai and Saka wouldn't share ethnicities would they?

[LordCurlyton]

Oh then no I don't see how that could happen unless he bribed a Saka and was allowed to make him Heir, then FL...

[Reno Melitensis]

Reading this on the Pahlava Cataphracts awsome charge makes me wonder how I am going to fight them in my campaigns. The reason is that the Pahlava are second to Rome in almost everything, exept military strenght. Their empire is from the Indus valley to Edessa, the Selucids have been cornered in the eastern med. coast. Sending spies I noticed that by the Reforms that happened circa 150 BC they got the beatiful magestic new bodyguard cavalry, their armies are mixed, there are armies composed of Parthian Spearman, Spearmen archers and a wide variety of Archers and Slingers, but they have armies made up almost 80% cavalry.

Cheers.

[LordCurlyton]

Basically you just take it from the catas. Work on getting rid of everything else as quickly as possible then gang tackle them. They were Pahlava's war-winners, after all.

[Tristuskhan]

There are a lot of odd traits Tristuskhan, for example your faction leader seems to have Saka ethnicity. Has something weird happened in the cross to my computer or have you noticed these too?

Uh, my faction leader (Moskon per Tomis, aged 41), is of Agathyrsos ethnicity. There must be something bugged. My game is an EB 1.1 one, with no submod, and with (as far as i know) all fixes installed. Or maybe not, I don't remember (last time I installed the game was when 1.1 went out, and I included the fixes since then). Probably every one of them.

My method to deal with strong Pahlava armies:

- first use my own horse archers (I always have three or four units in an army ) to get rid of most foot archers and slingers.
- then my own foot archers (Cretans) for the last enemy foot archers and some of his horse-archers.
- then Rhodian slingers for the remaining horse-archers first, switching to general and/or Cataphracts.

Too often the slingers run out of slingshots before they can kill the general. If I'm lucky enough to kill the general with missiles, the battle is almost won but... well it does not happen so often.

And then the slaughter begins. In my game Pahlava fields quite few pantodapoi, relying mostly on Pantodapoi Phalangitai, who always reach my battleline and engage my center. And I have to deal with cataphracts working on my flanks, nasty beasts.

I think I'm going to finish that campaign and go back playing Pahlava again. Wasteland rules!!

[LordCurlyton]

Well if you're using 1.1 that's the answer. I'll bet johnhughthom has already upgraded to 1.2, as have I.

[johnhughthom]

Well if you're using 1.1 that's the answer. I'll bet johnhughthom has already upgraded to 1.2, as have I.

As I suspected, and the fact I use Steam means it's very difficult to have two EB builds...
I was able to have a go at a few battles though and was reminded why I first tried a Pahlav campaign, I bloody hate fighting HAs. Those catas just made it even worse, I really want to have another Pahlav campaign now...

[Tristuskhan]

Oh sorry.... it seems that i'm working too much, since 1.1 came out I only played two campaigns, one Pahlavan (fatal CTD 99BC!!!) and the current Getai, still quite far from completition. i like to play slow, manage everything, use rebels to train my horse-archers and so on.... I wish I was still unemployed like three years ago.

@johnhughthom: so how does it feel?

[johnhughthom]

How does it feel to be crushed under the hooves of a heavily armed horseman? It feels great, I'm almost tempted to give up my Romani AAR to see if it will be third time lucky with the Pahlav.

[Tristuskhan]

How does it feel to be crushed under the hooves of a heavily armed horseman? It feels great, I'm almost tempted to give up my Romani AAR to see if it will be third time lucky with the Pahlav.

Well I could send you a savegame, probably the Pahlav faction leader will be of the Gens Cornelii.

[johnhughthom]

Lol, you could just imagine a Roman going all the way to the Iranian plateau, only to find the Cornelii hog all the top posts there too.