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.

[Slaists]

with "auto-pilot" do you mean just skirmishing or actually putting a group of skirmishers under AI control?

[Doug-Thompson]

Just skirmishing. Leaving the "skirmishing" and "fire at will" buttons on. I'll clarify the post.

[todorp]

I just did a Parthian campaign H/H. It was a great fun until I captured 10 cities and then it become very easy. This means I was very poor and had a very hard time before I got 10 captured.

My strategy:
1. I focused on making money. I made 3 diplomats and send them to sign trade treaties and sell maps to every fraction. One went north around the black sea to Europe, one west into Asia Minor (Turkey) and one South West. The maps sell for around $6,000-$7000. This income kept me going, until I captured a port city.
2. I captured 3 rebel provinces next to Parthian: Dumatha, Palmira and Phraaspa.
3. Now the fun/bad luck started J, Egypt allied with Selucia ?!?!?, attacked and took Palmyra from me.
4. I pumped only Horse Archers HA.
5. For many long turns I was on the defence, barely hanging on. Each year I defeated one full Egyptian stack in the Arabian deserts. My general become 10 star general in the process. I need to give good marks for the Egyptian AI. The first armies were mass infantry with a chariot general. After being annihilated by my HAs, the next Egyptian armies were mass of cavalry, chariots and archers. I was poor and couldn’t replace high loses. Thanks to my super 10 general and the 3 silver chevron HAs I managed to win.
6. Quietly after 30 turns managed to build a second much smaller army, then attacked and sucked Babylon, extracted nice $10,000. The Selucian armies are 90% phalanx and build my experience. Then the wheels started rolling. Conquered Hastra (Assyria) and finally Antioch (Syria).
7. After the suck of Tarsus (Cilicia) I could build at last PA (Persian Archers) and a 3rd small army to block the mountain pass north west of Tarsus. My second already very experienced army wheeled south and hit the Egypt along the sea: Sidon, Damascus, Palmyra and Jerusalem. My fist army moved east and sucked Bostra.
8. Egypt still managed to produce 2 or 3 full stack armies and then went out of steam. My Arabian army finished off Egypt and captured Petra, Alexandria, Memphis, Thebes, Siva and Cyrene. Salamis on Cyprus remained Egyptian. On the east I bordered the Roman Scipio fraction.
9. My Babylonian army turned back and finished off Selucia: Sardis and Halicarnassus. I started building a full stack navy.
10. Greeks attacked me, I give poor marks for the AI on this one. Greeks were in war whit all the Roman fractions, Pontus and Macedonia. Their massed phalanxes were slaughtered quickly by my PAs.
11. At 232BC I had $200,000 in the treasury and making $5,000 per turn after the expenses. The rest of the game was trivial. I could build what ever I want, catafracts and war elephants, but I didn’t. I kept on building PAs.

[FEMTO]

@ GodsPetMonkey,

could you tell me where you got hold of the eastern heavy infantry, and catapract aracher mods from? I have looked every where and i just cant find them anywhere. thanks.

[R'as al Ghul]

Parthia rules!
I'm currently playing Parthia on VH/VH. And it is very hard.
I played four or five other factions before and this is yet the most challenging. You face more problems than you can solve. Limited unit roster, bad income, strong neighbours. The only advantage is that your eastern borders are safe, no Mongols approaching for the next 1500 years or so.
To improve the income I figured I had to conquer pretty fast. From a Seleucid campaign I knew that the region between Antiochia and Sidon is quite rich, including Damaskus and Palmyra. Another way of getting cash is to send out diplomats and sell map info and trade rights. See if you can get 10k from your neighbours and about 20k from factions further away like Greece, Macedon or Brutii. This is pretty much your only income for the first 20 turns, so you have to negotiate the best deals for you.
With a spy from Susa I pretty early found Seleucia to be empty of troops and started a war on the Seleucids by taking it. The plan was to conquer the Seleucids fast and keep peace with everyone else for the time being. Seleucia's population was enslaved to make my own cities grow and keep unrest low.
My low number of forces were split between North and South. From Campus Alanni I transported 2 units of HA down to the capitol to strenghten those troops which later marched on Armenia. My second army was collected together from the 2 southern cities. Both armies consisted mainly of HA +the 2 Cataphracts and the Generals that you begin with.
With Seleucia conquered, income is still pretty low and I had to conquer on. Armenia attacked me, so I wiped them out in a couple of turns. Problem was his HA which are, due to the VH level, better than mine. As if he knew it, he charged them right at me. You have to double-team them or charge your general at them. Once reduced to foot troops the AI will easily break to your arrow-fire. To avoid any siege situations I used a spy to open the gates. Worked every time for me.
With Armenia gone, Pontus was now my neighbour. During my war with the Seleucids, Pontus allied with them as well as Egypt. The Scyths remained calm after I took Campus ? from them and negotiated a ceasefire. Pretty much surrounded by Pontus, Seleucia and Egypt, I managed to get alliances with Dacia and Thracia which are both battling Pontus now. Mainly on sea.
The Egyptian and Seleucid invasion armies are early discovered by watch towers and easily defeated by HA-only armies in the desert. As Doug already said, the number of battles in one turn can easily add up to 5-6. Yesterday I accidentally pressed "end turn" instead of "diplomacy" and *zapp* 3 cities are besieged by forces I intended to fight in the open desert. Damn.
When Susa grew due to enslavement I was finally able to upgrade to Persian Cavalry which is more expensive but has also better stats than HA. It is easier now to defeat the ever approaching egyptians. I don't know where they breed those huge armies.
Another problem is the lack of family members. Don't know what to do about it, but my three oldest are in their sixties, one is about 50 and two others are around 25. Few of them have management skills but all of them have or had the name-suffix "The Horseman" (translated from German). Governing skills being low and the low number of family members leads to little income. Guess I have to conquer on. There will be no leaning back until either Seleucia or egypt is all mine.
Tips: Use spys and Watchtowers to control your realm. Use diplomats to bribe those small stacks of rebels. You cannot afford to waste MPoints of your armies and they cost only between 500 and 1000 denari.
Use diplomats to get money from other factions. This was my only chance to tech up my cities. Switch to PersianCavalry as soon as possible. Use extermination when short of money. Expand your family whenever possible (bribing?) Have Fun.

R'as

[The_Emperor]

My god those Egyptians are annoying!!

In my campaign i realsied what everyone means by the Parthians being hard financially... I found myself scraping every last florin from their lands and regularly selling maps just to stay afloat!

Ok here's my advice.

1) Always take out Armenia. I didn't in my first game and it cost me bad when Egypt turned up on my doorstep and Armenia decided to have some fun and invade during the chaos.

2) After you conquer Armenia move on the Selucids and try to reach Antioch (its a good province), then try and ally with Pontus. This will secure your northern border for the main event.

3) War with Egypt is inevitable. I tried my hardest to stall it but the moment my spies spotted two large armies heading for Selucia I then realised I had no choice but to fight them...

So right now while they are heading for Selucia and I am mustering a Horse archer army in defence we will block the river crossing first. Meanwhile I have sent an army to drive south through Sidon and Jerusalem.

The problem is those Egyptians are as numerous as the desert sands!! I saw another full stack near Sidon! Looks like this is going to be one major war...

They certainly should be less rich.

[Doug-Thompson]

My god those Egyptians are annoying!!

Or, as I ususally refer to them @#$% Egyptians.

The first time I ever built elephants was when I had the @#$% Pharoh trapped. I already had more than enough troops to win, but I wanted to see him stomped by a monster, then bury him in the dung. I hired some merc elephants, too.

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The Parthians can relieve their major money crunch by sacking a major town.

Easier said than done. Parthia is not exactly known for their outstanding early-game siege. Still, I've sacked Jerusalem before and deleted lots of buildings there. The Egyptians revolted and got a full stack, but it was all gold-chevron peasants. Without any military buildings, that's all the town could make. Having 2,000+ peasants (large size) doesn't do the Egyptians much good. They cost more than 200,000 denari a turn just to maintain and die like flies to HA. I could have wiped them out, but decided against it.

Another time, I simply besieged the Jerusalem and watched it go rebel.

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The one disadvantage of pushing all the way to Antioch is, Egypt will attack Parthia and the Seleucids, too. It's nice to have somebody else to share the misery.

==========

Parthian life is good after the @#$% Egyptians are dead.

They are richer than the Egyptians used to be. They have HA/Persian Cav, cataphracts and elephants. What's left of the Seleucids and Pontus don't give much trouble while they are being wiped out of Asia Minor.

There are excellent mercenaries in the former Greek/Seleucid provinces of Asia Minor. These include Cretean archers, hoplites, Thracian mercs, Bastarcian (sp?) mercs -- so much for not having any good infantry. There's plenty of money to pay for them, too.

Way up north, there's a seeming endless supply of merc Sythcian HA -- as if you need more of those. In the south, there's camel cataphracts.

My Parthian campaign would be over by now if I'd just push on through Greece, but I want to practice city management, diplomacy and "covert operations" instead. I'm enjoying the longest period of peace I've ever had in R:TW. I completed the conquest of Asia Minor (except Rhodes) by bribing a Greek province there for about $35,000. This avoided war with Greece. The province revolted, and I just bribed it again for another $35,000, and still have $300,000 in the bank. I can't spend the money fast enough. Every city that can build anything is building.

Bordering factions are: Numidia, which is no threat and at war with the Romans; Greece, which doesn't have much of an army left thanks to my bribes and is at war with the Romans; and Scythia, which is a rump of what it used to be after I bribed away much of their military strength and one of their provinces, and is at war with my allies, the Dacians.

My faction leader is an Egyptian who was bribed decades ago.

[The_Emperor]

Well I pushed to Antioch because it is a well developed city, with a strong income. It was either that or move against Pontus.

At any rate I was already at war with the Selucids, but they allied with Egypt (just like they did in my previous game). it was much betetr for me to actually gain some lands and an income so i could fight a war with the Egyptians.

You can't parr them off.

[Lord Smart]

@ GodsPetMonkey,

could you tell me where you got hold of the eastern heavy infantry, and catapract aracher mods from? I have looked every where and i just cant find them anywhere. thanks.

I could not also find them anywhere or have you had it edit?

[GodsPetMonkey]

I could not also find them anywhere or have you had it edit?

You have to edit some files to get them in game, export_descr_unit.txt and export_descr_buildings.txt to be precise.

Check my signature for a link to my unit and building editors. I should make a guide to demonstrate how its done really, its quite popular for the non-modders to just want to allow units to be trained by more factions, and its a dead simple process too.

[m4rt14n]

How in the blue hell is Parthia supposed to counter those freaky Elephants?? They have absolutely no good infantry (easterners would just die on contact), no javelin throwers (besides ur general). Other than using ur own elephants against them, or running around them trying to confuse them, does anyone have any tips?

[R'as al Ghul]

You need to read the How to use Horse Archers-Thread.
In this thread we collected all our knowledge about Parthias prime unit. Elephants are of course difficult to fight. Your only chance is to seperate them from the main body of the army. Sometimes you can make them chase one unit of your HA round around the battlefield until they're tired and break. Slingers or Peltasts work also to lure them away. Concentrated fire from four sides is a thing that makes Elephants nervous pretty fast, same with chariots.
When they run amok, they can be killed by Cav charging in their rear. Be careful, though.
Hope this helps.

R'as

[Piko]

i am playing with parthia and i think horse archers are really bad.
a.if an enem cavalry catches them theyre dead
b.they can weaken an enemy unit but no way they are gonna finish him off
and finally c.read a and b again i mean come on!
anyway after some serious reconsideration i have found that when fighting phalanxes they are deadly but otherwise they s***

[Piko]

okay in my campaign(i play medium/very hard) i've successfully defeated the armenians and started battling the egyptians and seleucids at the same time......HUGE mistake but after winning a heroic battle or 7 they both backed of with me in control of seleucia hatra and antioch too bad that the egyptians and the seleucids allied and retook antioch meanwhile i had destroyed the pontus to the west and scythians to the north (around 244 bc)
after some more huge losses for egypt and the seleucids they could take tarsus but were stopped and had to retreat.
my next problem was thrace they caused me much problems and a very costly campaign of 11 years.
after a string of events i find myself battling a dacian empire with backup (for them) from the julli,fighting egypt in my heartlands and the brutii in greece with the backup of the great gaul empire and britons,can anyone give me advice on wich faction i should destroy first?im now in the year 200 bc.

[GodsPetMonkey]

okay in my campaign(i play medium/very hard) i've successfully defeated the armenians and started battling the egyptians and seleucids at the same time......HUGE mistake but after winning a heroic battle or 7 they both backed of with me in control of seleucia hatra and antioch too bad that the egyptians and the seleucids allied and retook antioch meanwhile i had destroyed the pontus to the west and scythians to the north (around 244 bc)
after some more huge losses for egypt and the seleucids they could take tarsus but were stopped and had to retreat.
my next problem was thrace they caused me much problems and a very costly campaign of 11 years.
after a string of events i find myself battling a dacian empire with backup (for them) from the julli,fighting egypt in my heartlands and the brutii in greece with the backup of the great gaul empire and britons,can anyone give me advice on wich faction i should destroy first?im now in the year 200 bc.

In your case, I would sacrifice the frontiers for the sake of my homelands.

I presume your fighting in Europe, with European holdings though.

I would haul my armies back from costly distant campaigns, and try to solve you local problems first, besides, the middle east is very attractive cash wise, so there is no reason why you should favour Europe over it (unless you REALLY want a capital in the west).

I'd keep one major army in the west though, but on a defensive role, if they are going to take your lands back, make sure they are hurting every step of the way.

[Piko]

thanks dude it helped me i've now defeated the egyptians and taken the nile delta yay!ive lost my grip on greece but the brutii's forces were decimated along the way!

[Piko]

you say that europe doesn't give you many riches but athens my last Greecian city reeks in 6000 a season

[SpawnOfEbil]

How on earth do you kill those &$E^%I%^ chariots?!?

They are ^£%*$£&^"$ impossible to kill with HAs.

[pezhetairoi]

...arrows. Lots of them. And eastern infantry stacked really deep. You have HA, dammit! Stay away from contact since their scythes are nuts! Just shoot them to pieces... You don't have a choice, unless you happen to have a coupla cat units you can afford to lose...

2 ways with cav. With HA, engage them in a longrange fire battle. With shock cav, swarm them. Since you obviously don't want to sacrifice your cats to their 12 armour-piercing attack (12 ap > 9 ap, I hardly need tell you) don't use the second method.

1 way with inf. Beef up your slinger and peltast corps, spam a few useless EI units as fodder. Form up the EI deep, use your HA to attract the chariots to move close while getting behind the chariots, charge your EI, (or better if the chariots charge you) and then let your slingers and peltasts do the nasty work. Slingers are deadly accurate, can fire faster, and their attacks for some reason seem to have good effect on chariots, and peltasts have a bonus against chariotry. So.

One more thing which may be of use for you to know, and for you to make sense of: Chariots can run amok like elephants. Yeah.

[SpawnOfEbil]

Ah, so infantry are actually useful at times?

I've gotten into the habit of not building anything apart from HAs, so might want to upgrade.

[Deus ret.]

I've gotten into the habit of not building anything apart from HAs, so might want to upgrade.

In Parthia's case, downgrade might be a more suitable expression considering your choice of infantry
Anyway, you can do it any way pez said plus another one: hold the line with your EI as described above and set your archers to flaming ammo. They will not cause terrible losses but the chariots are likely to run amok pretty soon, just as elephants.
One last note: Be aware of panicking chariots. Since they're routing, your cav will ignore them even with skirmish turned on --- so if they reach your cav, prepare for a carnage. Better watch them and take them out asap, or let them rout off the battlefield. Better still if they rout through your enemy's lines as most rtw generals are mounted. If you can cause a mass chariot rout, the enemy is more or less finished.

[pezhetairoi]

ah but note, deus, that Parthia has no archers. So archers on flaming ammo for Parthia is not practical. Only massed HA fire have a chance.

[Slicendice]

I have had a different experience with Parthia. I don't bother waiting to build up the economy I just attack simply because I kept going broke even with just a few troops being built. Take Seleucia on the first or second turn and then move the the next Seleucian city. Once there hold the bridge until you get sufficient troop upgrades to take Antioch.

Above Seleucia move your army west to take the rebel city and don't bother making alliance with Armenia because they won't keep it. Move into their territory with what you have and destroy them. When you get to the sea concentrate on trade and replenish your troops. Then move to Pontus. Take their main seaport because it is their main troop production city as well. This will give you Persian Cavalry and another valuable trade route to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile in the far north you should be wiping out scythia. If you move quickly with only horse units you can reach some of their cities before they build walls. If not have infantry bring up the rear. Build lots of watchtowers away from the roads along the way and you can pick your fights. Once you reach the river at Dacia and Thrace put forts on your side of the bridges and it tends to keep the enemy out of you area.

I got to Pontus, destroyed Scythia, and reached Antioch at the same time. For fun I engaged that little hidden barbarian city with the Amazon Chariots. (had never done it before) and I finished off Seleucia from two sides.

EGYPT: Egypt is a paper tiger and i don't care what anyone says. They are easy to destroy because they do not invest in a navy. I build a navy and with Elephants, Mercenary hoplites, and lots of archer/horse archer units I attack each of Egypts coastal cities. I can attack in one turn, destroy the defenders, then move all my troops out of the city and back to the boats except for my general. I then give the city back to Egypt or some faction I'm at war with and then capture the city again. Each time I enslave the population and increase the population of my good cities. Until I can take the pyramids it is going to be too hard to hang on to Egyptian cities. I also destroy all the improvements I can in the city. Then either give the city back to Egypt to prevent them from getting an instant rebellion army or I can give the city to the Roman Senate. I have never seen a city rebel from the Roman Senate EVER nor have I ever seen a faction take a city from the Roman Senate.
Move along the coast and repeat until Egypts major coastal cities have been reduced to 400 each and their ports, and trade, and troop production is devastated. Now you can move in-land and not face as many troops. Take the Pyramids first it makes life a lot easier.

Sigh I wish I could destroy the walls like the Greeks did to Troy.

By now you have taken enough cities that have advance troop buildings in place and you can rebuild your armies and prepare to move west.

[pezhetairoi]

Hey slicendice, it's not true that Egypt doesn't invest in a navy. It does. Problem is, you didn't give it time to :) Actually, Egypt's navy is mostly in the Red Sea, for reasons best known to Pharaoh...

I like to capture Egypt's cities whole and keep them. It's tough with Egypt if you are katanking. You tend to lose a lot of 'energy' quickly. It would certainly make life easier if you attacked both ends of the Empire at once to prevent them from responding concentratedly.

As to Egypt being a paper tiger, well.... That view bears some merit, but the confidence of that statement suggests you've never faced 3-heavy chariot 2 chariot archers 2-general 4 desert axemen 4 nile spearmen 5 bowmen armies before... o_O

[Skott]

The Egyptian navy is quite strong given enough time for them to develope it. One of the strongest in the game in fact. The weakness is that the AI doesnt use the fleet properly. If it did you'd find it quite challenging but, alas, the AI isnt very smart in sea battle tactics.

Also in the RtR 5.4.1 mod they put elephants into the Egyptian tech tree. This makes them a little tougher on land.

[Agent Miles]

Slice, what you are doing to the Egyptians is what we call exploiting the AI. It's like occassionally gifting all your settlements to your enemy and then exterminating them for profit. Try conquering Egypt without your trick.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Guide tactics which exploit "loopholes" in the AI do not seem rare.

Has any Modder taken on the AI itself? Is it even accessible?

[Quintus.JC]

Parthia's cavalry does seem really appealing, but early on their finicial status is disastrous. even on medium difficulty, it is just too hard for them to make any money.

[mrdun]

I generally tend to stay away from eastern factions. In the imperial they really do not interest me. It is not the units be the cities/location.