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Anyone have a good suggestion for the Baktrians as far as their army goes?

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That depends entirely on what foe you intend to engage, and which units you prefer to be in your army.
You can go all Hellenistic or all Native, for example. You can also create an Indian army or a mixed one. Perhaps you should tell us what your preferences are.


Personally, I prefer mixed armies that are able to engage all sorts of enemies. For example:

1 FM
1 Elephant unit
1 Baktrian Heavy HA
1 Baktrioi Hippeis
2 Dahae Riders
2 Thorakitai
1 Pezhetairoi
4 Kleruchoi Phalangitai
2 Indo-Hellenic Hoplites
2 Baktrian Hillmen
2 Subeshi Archers
1 Eastern Slingers

Of course, this wouldn't be the most expensive combination.


A general hint: don't use Hellenic Toxotai. They have cool skins (if you play Baktria) but are the weakest recruitable unit in the game.

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I really find the territory of Baktria to be unsuitable for Phalanx warfare(Both Practically for Horsearchers and for roleplaying), so once my economy is good enough I end up with mostly Thorakitai.

Don't waste money on naked elephants, go for the armoured ones those ones will destroy all.

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Thanks for the suggestions! I usually play as the Romani because it offers a chance to micromanage... This is my first attempt at playing one of Alexanders successors.

I disbanded all none hellenic at first so was down to 4 native phalanx*that I cant seem to recruit anywhere else* and then recruited 2 archers/slingers *hellenic* and was able to take both Kophen and taksashilia but then Selucia got rowdy... I am just looking to survive.

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Muahaha, naked elephants. Makes my think of the hidden super unit "Elephantes Indikoi Gaesetae"
Wild blue painted Elephants on drugs...

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I thought 'Gaesatae' derived from 'spear'-something. Mori Gaesum, for example, means "Sea Of Spears".


On-topic, I usually have a hellenic infantry center ("backbone"), augmented with Persian/Eastern archers/auxilia and a lot of cavalry (Heavy hellenic and light local units). Unlike some, I do tend to utilize phalangites, although they do not form a large part of my armies.

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Cavalry, especially heavy, is good, since youre facing a lot of missile units in the east. Upgrade ur MIC and get the high tier baktrian cavalry they rock. Against Parthia and Saka (and Sauros) youll be wanting plenty of missile to counter their HAs. I mostly use archers/slingers + levy phalanxes in the beginning of the campaign to take them down. U can even form boxes with ur missile units inside if under attack.
Of course, cavalry of your own to take them down is better, but more expensive. Prodromoi is a viable option early on.
Against seleucids u shouldnt bring to many missile, they have so much armor its not viable. Instead take them down with lighter infantry and cavalry to flank their phalanxes. Locals with axes are good. Baktrian light infantry are a great way to flank phalanxes. Thorakitai are a great way to defend your flanks against seleucid cav also, thureophoroi if you dont have the cash.
Oh, i forgot persian archer-spearman. IMO the best counter against HA.

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Hellenic Catanks eat sword infantry for breakfast

My Royal army (intended for destroying AS and other successor armies).

1x Faction Leader
1x Family Member
1x Hellenic Cataphracts
1x Baktrioi Toxotai
1x Elephanthes Kataphraktoi/Indokoi
4x Pezhetairoi
2x Subeshi Archers
2x Hindus Pattiyoddha
1x Baktrion Agema
1x Pheraspides/Peltastai Makedonikoi
1x Sreni Pattyayoddha
2x Thorakitai

2x Other troops, possible mercs or locals.

~Fluvius

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Well dear boy, don't waste your time with Baktria, go for the Arche Seleukia, incredibly challenging and more micro-management than you can sake a Gaesatae's nobbly bits at.

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You'll need

a solid pike force to counter the Seleukid tide of mellee-type troops
1 X pezhetairoi (when you can afford them)
3 X pantodapoi phallangitai

lots of shooters!!!
2 X eastern slingers-armor killers with high ammo
2 X persian archers for missile duels
2 X archer-spearmen as bombers after missile superiority has been established
2 X eastern skirmishers they add numbers have great stamina and make make decent flankers

plus 2-3XFM members to use as flankers, or to counter enemy cavalry...

If you plan to march east into India you'ld also better invest in a couple of Baktrian lights (Kavakazas)... they'll clean the stone walls for you from the deadly Indian mellee infantry...
for extra-easy elephant killing (on an open field) you could use some skirmisher cavalry (either Arachosian or Dahae)...

This is a low-cost, low-tech force which i find very effective during the initial decades of playing as Baktra...

after some time i have found it easier to change my fighting style to pseudo-nomad tactics ... i recruit dahae riders and use FM's en masse to counter the Pahlavas, Seleukids and Sakas... not very realistic i know but VERY effective, rewarding and fun...

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1 high influence general's Late Companion Cataphract can pretty much one man army anything without a phalanx.

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My armies are similar to that one posted by athanaric, helenic heavy infantry, local cavalry, archers, light units and specialists. I like to train regional armies too, like indian army, persian army, nomad army, reformed army (thorakitai and thureophoroi instead of phalangitai)...

examples:
royal army
1 FM (factiol leader or heir)
1 FM (the worst by traits and ancillaries, captain of heavy cavalry as I rp him, optional, only if such FM exists)
(1 elephant) if no FM is crappy enough to be used only in previous way
1 Hellenikoi kataphraktoi
1 Baktrioi hippotoxotai
2 Dahae riders
2 Baktrioi hippeis
5 Pezhetairoi
1 Baktrion agema
1 Peltastai makedonikoi
2 Subeshi archers
3 Baktrian light infanty

1st indogreek army
1 FM
1 elephant
1 Taxilan agema
2-3 Indo-Iranian light cavalry
2 Pezhetairoi
3 Klerouchoi phalangitai
1 Indohellenikoi eugeneis hoplitai
2 Hoplitai indohellenikoi
1 Peltastai indohelenikoi
1-2 Infantry guild warriors
2 Indian longbowmen

These are elite armies, non-elite armies don't have Pezhetairoi, Peltastai Makedonikoi, Baktrion agema and Indohelenikoi eugeneis hoplitai (latter three are replaced by Thorakitai and Thureophoroi). In normal armies cavalry is lighter, so instead of HellCat + BH, there are BH + IILC (but I don't restrict HellCat only for royal army), skirmisher cavalry (Arachosians and Dahae), more light infantry (my favourite are Eastern axemen) and foot archers.
I don't use Toxotai, Akontistai and Sphendonetai, I use eastern variants instead.
In early armies, archer spearmen and Pantodapoi phalangitai are mostly used, later these are used for garrison.

I am still experimenting with anti-nomad army as in my campaign Saka uses strange units, most of their armies are mix of cataphracts and foot archers with few elite HAs. I want to get to melee ASAP, so I use both heavy and light cavalry, light spear infantry and foot archers, HAs are too expensive to waste them for archery duels with superior units.

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My previous post could be TLDR for someone, so a highlight from it, which I invented
abbreviation for Hellenic cataphracts = HellCats
if only they had the awesome mask of Hetairoi kataphraktoi, but as Hetairoi kataphraktoi voicemod is Hellenikoi kataphraktoi, it could apply for them as well.

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Holy Mother of Awesome

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You get the native phalangitai not in baktria, but in most of the cities to the west of Baktria.
With baktria you have a huge problem if the AS decides to atack you to early.
On Hard the KI will now do nothing else than focus the troops of their whole empire to destroy you.
Good Luck (I did the baktrian campain once, but wow, I had to restart once and I fought more battles than I ever have before in a EB campain. Even more than with my marian romans )

My tactic was to only try to conquer lands in the east and use baktria as a choking point to fight the seleucs. Still the indians have general units with more than 40 Elephants, but its still better than the AS
After that I had a lot of money and could start to build up two armies to atack the seleucs.

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Bakrian light infantry are cheap, decent melee and have many javalins. Use those guys as your staple early on, mixed with slingers and archer spearmen. You'll be surprised in how much these guys can do....

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The best thing about Baktria is the cavalry, so forget the clumsy phalanx and foucus on your riders from the beginning. My idvice would be to captiure Kophen and taksashila and then defend the westrern border until you build all the mines. After that, you will have enough money to build catapharacts.

My Baktrian armies consist of:
I FM
II 2-4 Cataphracts
III 3-4 Baktrian horse archers
IV 2-4 Dahae riders
V 2-4 Podromoi

Beats everything, no need for the infantry. With such an army you can defeat the cavalry armies of Pahlava and Saka Rauka ( the only ones who are your match), and slow, slumsy and armoured armies of Arche Seleukeia. Even the elephants won't help the enemy much, just seperate them from the rest of enemy forces (shouldbe easy as you have horse archers) and surround them with your own units, still peppering them with arrows. Elephants will panick (works on vh/vh).

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How long does it take to have enough many for a pure cavallery army...
A really long time
And you are going down, if you have to fight in woods.

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It took my until 250 bc to have cavalry-only army. UNtil then, i manage to defend against the Seleucids using an army made up of FMs, Baktrian HA and phalanxes.
Afterwards, about 240-250 bc you should have Baktria, Kophen and 3 settlements in India, and two cavalry armies roughly between half stack and two thirds stack. Such two armies is perfectly enough defend your lands and expand, either against Seleucids, Pahlava or Saka Rauka.

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Ofc, that's only if you have the micro-managment skillz to use cacalry like that. I don't, because I prefer to use Baktria's strengths (Hellenic Infantry/Armour+Persian/Eastern Archers) as a whole, rather than one specific area.

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Well, you can get a smallish cavalry army pretty soon, a few BGs and Dahae Riders/HAs/Shivatir-i Pahlavanig can make a mobile task force that can take AS stacks pretty effectively, and as you conquer more you can increase the size of your cavalry army.

... Now don't even try to say you were at peace with AS until 250s/240s?

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- sure not, but once AS is beaten in even a single battle, they agree for peace. than they attack again a few turns later, or even the very next turn. they are beaten again and agree for ceasefire again... finally, after one battle, they do not agree for peace, and when i reached that moment i already manageed to prepare for a longer and more serious war.

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I never played with bactria but im doing a pahlava campaing, and tey got only horses. mainly. im at war with Bactria, and AS, i manage to conquer a few setlements,as far as persopolis, only using horse archers, no infantry. you just need to have some patience with micro maneging. Horse archers and heavy cav, are extremly efective. I didnt manage to conquer bactria, but i manage to repeal every armie they trowed at me. funny thing they did was to pay one of my family member, and his army, with his city, and bring then to bactria faction. i did curse the gods for this. lol
But i kill the FM in batle later on and retake the city.

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So exploiting the AI?

Well, Pahlava has amazing cavalry, and Baktria's isn't quite as good. Buuuut, Baktria's infantry could rip yours apart like a soggy tissue. I'm more of an infantry kind of guy, so I prefer Baktria

Heh heh, some nice RPing there

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Late Baktrian FMs are killer though. They were only part of my army to routinely survive steppe excursions. After that, all you need are a few phalanxes and the HAs can't touch you.

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Yes Pahlava infantry isnt the best, but i dont use then, only for garrisson duties. to keep the order.
and when baktria have those late Kats, and elite infatry, and armoured cav, i by then i have my own Kats, and heavy archers too its pretty well balanced.
Oh i like Infantry asweal, but just for a change i did like founding a persian empire with the phartians :P
It requires diferent tactics, but i lost track of the heroic battles i won against the AS when i was serious out numbered, and only had mouted units. I loved the way i crush the phalanxes with cavalry charges from all sides, they dont know wich way to turn
and get routed. The sieges are rather easy asweal, i just sail forth with horses, and do as an open batle, for conquer i just wait :) has a good nomadic peoples army would do, they had all the patience in the world. like the mongols for instance.

Maybe will try a Baktria campaing , i did enjoy playing on that side of the map. i like their royal guard units and the noble indo hellen hoplites.

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One of Baktria's Katanks are worth more than one of the Parthia's except Parthia gets like 4x as many.

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? What do you mean?

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See, there is EBs biggest probklem. Players with horse archers are really strong and can defeat even phalanx armies.
But on the other hand you can beat an army full of horse archers with a few phalanx and archer units
But I a am sometimes thankfull for it. Fighting other horse archers with the saka rauka was as painfull as it gets

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I belive only the late general baktrian units is worthy. The others are almost the same.

I like the balance as it is. You can destroy a horse army with phalanx,and archers, but it depends on the situation, if a phalanx are charged by all sides, then it wont get much chance, even if is fully armoured.

well remeber carhae, the parthians had only horses, and won against the romans. I think is wisely used and army of horse archers is good.

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