Parthia

[Doug-Thompson]

Auto-pilot skirmishing works quite well enough when enemy units are killed quickly.

(Edited clarification: By auto-pilot, I mean just leaving the "skirmish" and "fire at will" option on -- not putting the units under AI control.)

Putting HA/Persians into big, square formations that can fire on the move in any direction. This leads to massive, rapid concentrations of firepower from several units whenever it's needed. I've seen Greek cavalry charges stopped cold just by arrows.

I'm a convert from long, thin lines of HA to great big blocks of them. As illogical as it sounds, casualties from friendly fire are reduced because there is less overlap between units.

Three times as many HA can occuply the same "frontage" if they are densely packed. Don't crowd them, though. Put more space between formations. Then they can move, and concentrate rapidly wherever needed. Coordination with melee cav is better, too. The melee folks have more room to move.

Before you know it, you'll have shot the enemy's cavalry to pieces and be surrounding his foot units, firing into their very vulnerable sides and backs.

In the single-player game, the ability to concentrate cavalry on the strategic map is just as powerful.

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The mini-map is very handy, but only if you zoom in a bit. Everything looks like it's in contact when that map is fully zoomed out. I put a unit of good melee cav in the middle, one out to the right and one out to the left, with the HA in front. That way, I can double-click on one of the melee cav and get to the area of the battlefield I want to view.