AI parthia

[athanaric]

Funny. I always have the same issue with the Romans when playing as Parthia. Or Pontos. I believe it's a combination of two factors:
firstly, the RTW AI's inherent desire to expand northward (which is utterly absurd for all factions except Egypt and Carthage and maybe Pontos. I'd really like to know why CA programmed a Roman-centric game that way). This makes AI Parthia stay in the steppes and AI Rome try to conquer the Alps. Also, it boosts their southern competitors (AS or, in Rome's case, Carthage),
and secondly, those goddamned pikemen who'll win every autoresolve battle. Carthage has them, too, and the Carthaginian AI loves to spam them. Note: If you hate fighting battles by hand, just recruit a fullstack of Chaonion Agema and autoresolve everthing. Not even Satres will manage to overcome this.

[TheLastDays]

I'v stated it before, but I'll say it again: I hate Satres ;)

But on topic:
Actually in my recent Baktria and Romani games the parthian AI has done pretty well... in both games they cut their way through the AS down to Persepolis and then saw what they could do... in my Baktria game I'm not much further now so we'll see but sooner or later I'll have to kill them anyway... In my Romani game they took all the eastern AS belongings (Bactria was obliterated, surprisingly enough, by the AS and the Saka) - but now the Saka keep advancing and have taken most Pahlava territories... I'v never seen such a Saka AI expansion before...

[Fluvius Camillus]

I found them advance pretty decently when supported with an active ally.



It's a sad thing they betrayed me a few turns later...

~Fluvius

[fomalhaut]

totalllllly off topic but Baktria is the coolest faction with the best looking bodyguard units.

also, yeah i've never seen ANY AI, especially not Parthia, eat up Seleukaia while on the eastern side of the map. Hai goes down sometimes

as Aedui they got most of their eastern territories... by baktria. Saka always goes west to Sarmatian territority. but yeah, the auto calc against horse archers destroys the game for parthia since they fight mostly arche

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I've completely given up on long campaigns in EB 1.2. Now I only play short campaigns (the first 20 years are the most enjoyable for me, with any faction. Other than that, I make do with the historical battles, which are really good with the latest mod for them.

[vollorix]

I´ve seen Parthia rampaging AS many times ( as Pontus, Armenia, GSC, Macedonia, even Epirus ), mostly when i was beating the hell out of AS, first in Asia Minor, and then down to Seleucea and Babylon.
Right now i´ve increased the recruitment time for elite phalangitai from 1 to 3 turns, any other factional elite unit ( the onec they really love to spam due to very high armour + superb stats etc. ) take 2 turn to recruit. That helped a lot - no elite stacks any more, as far as i could see. Instead they rely on Pandotapoi/Machimoi and Kleruchoi phalangitai, which is quite acceptable, imo. One can see the lack of elites especially once AI faction is under pressure - it needs men power, the super quality of elites doesn´t mean that much then.
OT: I gave Baktria a try for the first time, and i must say it´s very well balanced for a player ( even an agressive one like me, though no powergaming intended ). By the year 260 i´ve solidly expanded to the surrounding rebell settlements, and took a couple from AS, but Bactrian economy doesn´t really allows you to stretch too far, nor to fast, since there are 2 dangerous factions lingering around - Parthia + Saka ( and, btw, i broke all my alliances with Parthia, Hay, and Pontos, since i didn´t join them in their "crusade" against AS, and held firm to my GSC allies, like AI allways seems to do ). I thought, it´d be boring if "we" all steamroll the poor AS ( playing H/M ).

[moonburn]

kyprus krete or one of the 3 regions in sicily should be the roman "homeprovince" that would make the game more realistic imho

and ofc bring to the mediterranean the problematic of the cilician pirates that rome had to deal with in atleast 2 times (cesar 1st great victory was against the balearic pirates that where attacking in the thyrranean sea and then pompey great victories against the cilicians)