Parthia

[Doug-Thompson]

I have one complaint about the faction: Too many battles.

Yes, that's a strange complaint, but I can't get no rest.

It's not at all unusual for the main army to fight two battles in the same turn. Between brigands and near-constant two-front wars, I might fight four or five battles a turn.

The campaign game has become rather lengthy.

Oh well.

[Chancellor Kroll]

I'm playing my 2nd campaign as Parthia on Hard/Medium. Things are going well. Its 265BC and I'm the largest faction and am extending my borders on 3 fronts, into Turkey, Russia and South towards Egypt.

BUT

My generals are always getting killed. Even in routine bandit hunting raids where I heavily outnumber the enemy. I rely on large horse archer armies but my generals have a heavy cavalry bodyguard. When I start a battle the enemys heavy cavalry charges down my general, chases him around the map and eventually corners him and kills him. My HA usually finish of the enemys army, and I win the battle, but lose my general. Its very frustraing.

Does anyone know how to protect these vulnerable Parthinian generals with their weak skirmishing bodyguards?

[Doug-Thompson]

I'm playing my 2nd campaign as Parthia on Hard/Medium. Things are going well. Its 265BC and I'm the largest faction and am extending my borders on 3 fronts, into Turkey, Russia and South towards Egypt.

BUT

My generals are always getting killed. Even in routine bandit hunting raids where I heavily outnumber the enemy. I rely on large horse archer armies but my generals have a heavy cavalry bodyguard. When I start a battle the enemys heavy cavalry charges down my general, chases him around the map and eventually corners him and kills him. My HA usually finish of the enemys army, and I win the battle, but lose my general. Its very frustraing.

Does anyone know how to protect these vulnerable Parthinian generals with their weak skirmishing bodyguards?

Mercenaries: Hire camels in the desert, Samarian Heavies in the northern provinces. Group them with your general. Don't leave home without them. That will more than tide you over until you can make some cataphracts. I've seen the AI stop cavalry charges and turn them around just at the sight of a unit of camels.

[Raizen]

This faction has frustrated me to no end. The horse archers are wonderful, but sometimes they aren't enough, and the Parthians really don't have much more of an option early on. Eastern Infantry are terrible, Hillmen are even worse. Money is tight, so mercenaries are few and far between. HAs have served me well in sieges, since the enemy is often stupid enough to run back and forth behind the wooden walls, but in open battle, it's extremely frustrating. As an extreme example, one rebel hillman got too close to two HA units, and all 108 of them backed off.

And forget about fighting other cavalry in the open. Taking Armenia was easy enough until I ran into their cataphracts. That was an exercise in patience, and it didn't turn out well for me in the end.

Egypt is a large pain as well. Go at them early, and you have only one main army that has to go through some provinces to get to the Egyptians, and then you get worn down by their stacks of Nubian Spearmen. Go at them too late, and you won't be able to keep up.

Parthia is by far my favourite faction to play ;)

[LordKhaine]

First off... don't pick this faction if you dislike cavalry. It's a really fun faction to play though, so I advise trying them! Anyway... here's how I did the first bit, which is usually the most difficult period of any campaign.

I quickly built up a few turns, and then launched into Armenia. I rolled through them with ease, and you should too! I allied with Scythia at this point. It's not worth going north. The plains are huge, poor, and simply not worth the effort. You also have the mountain range north of your newly aquired Armenian provinces, this is an easily defendable line. I just left a token guard along the north line, and placed a few towers to get advance warning of any invasion from the north. Next I aimed south...

Pontus! They may look friendly, but they quickly sent a large army towards me. So I did what any Parthian general should do, I quickly counter attacked! For me at least, they simply used large hordes of Eastern Infantry. As this screenshot shows... eastern infantry are fodder under the onslaught of horse archers. Spare no-one! At this point you'll be very poor, but your horse archers are your strength! With them you will get rich. Just keep pushing at Pontus, and don't stop until you have them wiped out!

At this point you should be making a fair bit of money, and you can select where to go. I myself took on the seleucid empire, egypt, and greece, in that order (though the latter two attacked me...). Looking back Greece should perhaps of been my first enemy. If you push them out of their eastern provinces and then make peace... you can make a ton of cash out of trade. Going south always leads to a messy prolonged war with the seleucid empire and egypt. Certainly doable with great protential income... but a hard and long fight. By the time I was at peace with other factions, I had taken all of the western greek provinces, and gone as far south as the river nile. At this time I stopped advancing simply because I was making such an insane amount of money. This faction has the potential for a HUGE income via trade. If you get to this point you'll be in a very good strategic position as well.

As for the tactical side of things. Horse archers are fast, pack a punch, and are pretty cheap. At the start I pretty much fielded entire armies of horse archers, with merc infantry simply there to keep the enemy busy and man the siege equipment. Their downsides are a lack of melee abilities, and they're tricky to maneuver in a town. But they're pretty much all you have at the start. Eventually you'll want to entirely replace them with Persian cavalry. These guys are basically horse archers... but they're in a tighter formation and can handle themselves far better in a melee.

Concerning the heavy side of things. It will be a long time till you get a city that can produce cataphracts. So grab all the merc heavy cavalry you can get your hands on. Arab cavalry and the camel archers/warriors are also handy for desert combat. Eventually you'll get cataphracts and cataphract camels, and you wont have to depend on mercenaries. And if cataphracts arent heavy enough for you... you're blessed with the ability to get war elephants!

As for infantry, you'll want some eastern infantry and bowmen (slingers will do until you get the tech for bows) to defend your cities and towns. I highly advise getting stone walls as soon as you can. Hillmen are preferable if you want to use infantry in battles (they're faster and have a better morale). But just remember the Parthian way, infantry are there as fodder to simply tie the enemy up, it's the cavalry that will decide the battle. Between the horse archers and heavy cavalry you can get by without infantry... except for sieges. Stone walls will give you a lot of trouble until you get onagers. Then you can simply charge into the breach with your elephants and cataphracts and hope for the best.

Anyways... this post was a bit of a ramble perhaps... and plenty of it simply repeated what others said.. but hopefully it still added (or reinforced) some decent advice. Just remember to have fun with this faction, and don't play it like it's greece or a roman faction!

[GodsPetMonkey]

This faction has frustrated me to no end. The horse archers are wonderful, but sometimes they aren't enough, and the Parthians really don't have much more of an option early on. Eastern Infantry are terrible, Hillmen are even worse. Money is tight, so mercenaries are few and far between. HAs have served me well in sieges, since the enemy is often stupid enough to run back and forth behind the wooden walls, but in open battle, it's extremely frustrating. As an extreme example, one rebel hillman got too close to two HA units, and all 108 of them backed off.

And forget about fighting other cavalry in the open. Taking Armenia was easy enough until I ran into their cataphracts. That was an exercise in patience, and it didn't turn out well for me in the end.

Egypt is a large pain as well. Go at them early, and you have only one main army that has to go through some provinces to get to the Egyptians, and then you get worn down by their stacks of Nubian Spearmen. Go at them too late, and you won't be able to keep up.

Parthia is by far my favourite faction to play ;)

Horse archers are very deadly, but melee isnt where they belong.
At first, I would loose quite a few in battles to them being trapped as well, but that doesn't happen anymore, I think its just a case of learning where to best apply them, as a rule, I send them after cavalry first, then fank in on infantry.

A quick point though, when they are forced into melee, make sure you quickly turn off skirmish, it seems to be that they will try to run away even when they cant, and dont bother with HTH attacks, end results, loads of casulties, not many kills, persian cavalry in particular can give attacking infantry (and even light cavalry) a VERY nasty surprise. After learning to turn of skirmish, the rare HTH engagement was no longer a problem.

Vs cataphracts, its about tiring them out, but its best to hit armenia early so to remove their menace, very nasty horses, but HAs will out run them easily. I wouldnt risk my own limited early cataphracts against them, and yoru general will be eaten alive, so try to bait them into chasing HAs all battle long.

I found egypt pretty easy to butcher, but by then my horses had a bit of experiance from battles with armenia and seluecia. Anything in phalanx is HA bait, nubians and nile spearmen are a joke, and the AI never wants to set them in normal formation. The big problem with egypt, is for every man you kill, 5 are marching from the nile towards you, way to much money, way to much growth, its crazy. One idea maybe to try to slip though and capture an undefended city early, then raise it to the ground. Damascus may be a good idea, as its not so great to be worth keeping, yet far enough in their teriitory to be relatively undefended. You get some good cash from tearing all the buildings down, and set them back a bit.

But always expect a LONG war with Egypt, 50 years is probably good, unless they get rushed in the west. Thats another thing, pray for the numidians and the scipii to attack egpyt early, dividing their attention. But trust me, their cities on the eastern med are worth it. Antioch (although seluecid at the start) is very rich, but Jerusalem is just insane, despite having a huge population, and thus supporting a large part of my army, its making over 4000 denarii per turn, and thats with being at war with my 2 coastal neighbours (Greece and what remains of Egypt). Whats more, with very high taxes, no governer (I have a shortage) and just 2 eastern infantry for a garrison, it has a loyalty of about 220%. Seems like the Jews like that zoroastra bloke

[Chancellor Kroll]

Hi GodsPetMonkey,

I took your advice on dealing with Egypt by "try(ing) to slip though and capture an undefended city early". Memphis is mine. The world map shows a spec of purple in a sea of yellow. It was a crushing blow to the worlds biggest faction and devastating to their finances. What a success.

It started many turns ago. My armies were stuck in Turkey when Egpyt attacked on masse. Heavily outnumbered I had to do something radical. I slipped 8 HAs and one good general through the front line and pressed heavily into enemy territory. The Egpytians tried to engage me many times, but I always withdrew and pressed on south. Finally I created a fort to the East of memphis and recruited mercs every turn. I built up a large army in the heart of the enemys kingdom.

I conducted terrorist raids and wiped out any small stacks that came close to the fort. After wiping out most troops from the safety of my fort I beseiged Memphis. The idiot Egyptians rallied out. I guess they outnumbered me 2 to 1 and knew no fear. Those phalanxes and spearman didn't have a chance. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. I gained a wonder from the most powerfull faction with a small, fast strike into their heart.

Good luck to all fellow Parthians.

[GodsPetMonkey]

Nice work Chancellor Kroll! Even more successful then I had thought!
Another benefit about Egyptian cities is they are well built up, with any luck, you should be able to start producing higher cavalry units in Memphis, then strike at Thebes and Alexandria, which should be crippling.

But better still, it means less of their men will be heading towards your territory, as they attempt to retake Memphis, its a solid plan. I recommend building loads of archers and the best walls you can get ASAP, if they lay siege, just 'sally out' with the archers, dump them on the walls in the deployment phase, and wait for the AI to do some trademark stupid act.


Actually, I'm starting to wonder why so many people aren’t being a lot more effective with their HAs. Even with fresh troops and a so-so general, I am able to kill hundreds of opponents with few losses... change it to my now dreaded (if the AI could dread) stack of all gold chevron cavalry, with gold weapons and armour upgrades (courtesy of Jerusalem) and if i suffer more then 50 losses from my 1200 or so troops, I feel it was a tough battle (well, maybe not, but with something that powerful, its hard to find a good challenge).
Perhaps more discussion is needed on the best way to work the old horse archer.... damn the lack of replays for single player.