Do you cheat with Pahlava?

[penguinking]

My Pahlavan campaign, 246 BC (VH/M difficulty)


I really didn't find it too hard. I just attacked the Seleucids immediately. You start with two armies, so one can go south and quickly take Asaak, Zadrakta, and the other Seleucid town near there, while the other can go east and take the two northernmost seleucid provinces before joining up with your other army. By this point I had enough cash to hire some mercenary foot archers for garrison, and could support a stack of 3 FMs and 4-6 horse archers. I defeated three seleucid half stacks before sweeping south again, quickly taking Gabai and Persepolis, and then the rest of the seleucid's eastern possessions.

At this point my economy took off, and I could afford two half stacks of horse archers, with which I invaded Mesopotamia. After taking Babylon I decided to stop expanding for awhile, but eventually got tired of constant annoying battles and took Syria. Perhaps I was lucky, because neither Baktria nor Saka attacked me. Eventually I decided to raise another army and crush Baktria just for fun. So, cheating is definitely not necessary.

[Jebivjetar]

My Pahlavan campaign, 246 BC (VH/M difficulty)

You rule, man

[Jebivjetar]

And one more thing about money: i send my diplomat in Italy, offered map information to Romans and they didnt want it at all, they just gave me about 5000 minai. In next turns i did the same, and they gave me about same money if ill pay them tribute: i accept agreement and immediately canceled it: i did it in few turns, Romans blame me for "transgression", and it was my first "skirmish" with them!

[Subedei]

And one more thing about money: i send my diplomat in Italy, offered map information to Romans and they didnt want it at all, they just gave me about 5000 minai. In next turns i did the same, and they gave me about same money if ill pay them tribute: i accept agreement and immediately canceled it: i did it in few turns, Romans blame me for "transgression", and it was my first "skirmish" with them!

Nice one! Good job!

[Atraphoenix]

why do you need cheat, I do not understand; just blitz AS until you burn Antiocheia!
then restore your country and baktria is piece of cake after you can send them your Cataphracts!

My pahlava campaign 243 BC no cheat!:

Even I have submods for 0 recruitment and more movement points too, but I did not use them in that campaign.

until you can send AS to the west of euphrates mercenaries are your friend... hyrkanian hillmen best phalanx killer believe me...

P.S. I gave maks trapezus to make them alive cos I plan them to be as a buffer state between me and epirot monster.

[Jebivjetar]

@ Atraphoenix: i never cheat, never... i just asked people who played Pahlava for some stories based on their experience with Pahlava, because, to me, on the beginning it seemed imposible to play with them without cheats and at that point i wanted to quit. But not anymore! This is what i achieved this far (and i think im gonna go for victory screen)

here is my picture:

[Atraphoenix]

I never said you cheated. It was a rhetorical questions like "Who knows?"
It is quite opposite to historical accuracy but you need to blitz with Pahlava to survive, and every pahlava fan may agree with me.

Hyrkanian hillmen and other axemen are good phalanx hunters just order them loose formation so they can outflank phalanxes while they are holding the line your HAs handles the rest.

even Catas cannot be so mad to attack from front so always charge from back or flanks.
Though I tested that grivpandar can annihilate argyspides (elite phalanx) front front.

P.S. Do not recruit noble catas just recruit normal catas because nobles have sword normal catas have AP as second weapon.

I hope it helps you to revive old glory of persians. I like late times with pahlava because you feel like xerxes when you besiege athens. also it is quite fun to disembark elaphants on Italy

[Cambyses]

@ Atraphoenix: i never cheat, never... i just asked people who played Pahlava for some stories based on their experience with Pahlava, because, to me, on the beginning it seemed imposible to play with them without cheats and at that point i wanted to quit. But not anymore! This is what i achieved this far (and i think im gonna go for victory screen)

here is my picture:

Ive got to say, for someone who is finding it so difficult, you sure have a large empire at an early stage of the game! The thing is to use all cavalry 3/4 stack armies. The basic horse archers and a couple of FM/riders should be enough to kill anything. They arent so expensive and move very fast. So you will find that youre upkeep is less than if you were using infantry (which you need a lot more of to cover the same area). Also you should suffer hardly any casualties and tehrefore not need to spend time/money retraining. If you are short of cash dont use elites and dont use mercs and dont build stuff you dont need. Many of the most expensive buildings give you very limited benefits and just arent necessary until you have more money than you know what to do with.

[NoHelmet]

You should take Kophen (just east of Baktra), you could have a nice amount of cash from mining, and after that, India is always tempting. Even though that means another army, it will pay of. And dont forget the fact that cities in india have elephants in their garrisons, so bring some skirmishers

[xypherx]

Hmm I think there is no need for sacking cities and giving them up - I usually just conquer everything I can get as early as possible right before resistance can be recruited and i use many spies to encourage/suppress rebellions- sure they cost 100per turn but you will need them to move on with your forces instead of leaving leaders or horsearchers in town.
I think Pahlava is quite easy to play - you have the best heavy calvalry you can get - capture persepolis build barracks - build cataphracts and crush anything in your way,
on VH/VH you will have to use your general's guards exessively - just to reduce recruiting costs for other units - I usually charge with 3 units into a phalanx (as long as there is no faction member general present) and they usually just flee - just try to get away before they switch the direction of their lances an you will lose only 0 till 2 men - but thats fine with me - horse archers when they get some experience will even shot down heavier troops so in the end you will have the most effective army in the game at your command. But one thing is really annoying - skirmisher against cavalry i hate peltastoi - you charge into them and sometimes you kill just 3-6 and the rest of them is slaying your guards because of their missile attack - they are as long as under AI control often more effective than heavy spearmen - that sucks^^

I think the factions mentioned hard to play in the introduction are quite easy ones - as long as you are aggressive enough (hayasdan - just capturing AS capital and babylonia +3 other towns in the beginning and you will have an easy game) - I have more difficulties with Sweboz and others just due to the fact that you are low on money and every battle costs quite an amount of lives and you will have no possibility to recruit new ones without money( last game i conquered 8 provinces with the first forces you get in the beginning but had about 80k depts and was just slightly recovering as the getai got pissed off)

[ChingizLink]

Hmm I think there is no need for sacking cities and giving them up - I usually just conquer everything I can get as early as possible right before resistance can be recruited and i use many spies to encourage/suppress rebellions- sure they cost 100per turn but you will need them to move on with your forces instead of leaving leaders or horsearchers in town.
I think Pahlava is quite easy to play - you have the best heavy calvalry you can get - capture persepolis build barracks - build cataphracts and crush anything in your way,
on VH/VH you will have to use your general's guards exessively - just to reduce recruiting costs for other units - [snip made by Chingiz Link]

Okay, this is another thing that is totally news to me viz-a-viz EB: I had no idea that spies cause a ruckus and all other kinds of shenanigans when in a settlement that isn't your faction's! (this would explain why my allies all have such crappy public order, and why they tend to be so cold toward me when we hang out...I thought Rome just felt weird partying with Pontos, Saka, Sauromatae, and then their competitors like Macedon and Carthage...)

I've looked around the forum for info on that (and I'll keep looking, sorry for the off topic tangent), since I can't seem to get the public order in an enemy faction any lower when I use more than 1 agent. Is there a trick I'm missing?

Also, I totally agree re Pahlava (or Parthia in other realistic RTW mods) being fun to play/not difficult, though I'm probably biased (for several reasons).

[Ludens]

I've looked around the forum for info on that (and I'll keep looking, sorry for the off topic tangent), since I can't seem to get the public order in an enemy faction any lower when I use more than 1 agent. Is there a trick I'm missing?

Maybe only the highest-level spy causes unrest? There is an agent guide for M1:TW, but I don't know of similar research into R:TW. In any case, it's usually a waste of effort to try and get enemy towns to revolt, as the threshold for A.I. towns appears far lower than for the human player.

[xypherx]

they can actually cause quite an amount of unrest - just test it - the seleukids have many spies in that area and when you have some good spy or assassin just kill one of them in your town an than you can see a difference in civil unrest, spies are able to even provoke revolts quite easy and early in this region - the problem is that you will have to oppose a stronger rebel garrison than factional garrison in some rare cases,
when you have a problem with capturing the easternmost settlements of AS - send spies, when you have problems with their public order, send a trained spy usually there is a Saka spy in one of them and you will have to throw him out or kill him in order to get control of the town (same with the AS southeastern provinces - often AS has 2 or more spies in or near them and they really suck)