Pahlava Campaign Rant

[Eaglefirst]

Alright before I begin let me say this mod easiy surpasses the other mods I have played and currently would like to complain not to put down the mod but hopefully either point out a problem or learn something. I have played 3 Pahlava campaigns. The First was a spiralling failrue into debt. The Second had the Seleucid Empire crumble but the Baktrians made the Sarmations(Sorry I forgot the name you gave them ) and the Yuehzi thier protectorates causing theier treasury to skyrocket to the point where I could'nt compete. My third and ongoing campaign is doing well after I got past a CTD that plagued my game. Currently the campaign is going well but I have some problems that I found or don't understand.

1. Horse Archers. I liked playing Parthia in other mods for Horse Archers but unfortunetly they seem pointless unless you are rich to the point where you can afford a few. Currently my armies consist of 95% Ershatar Arshaba (Sorry for Spelling Again). The Horse Archers have a upkeep of 677 which is enough for about 4 of the aforementioned infantry. The main problem I found is one horse archer is not much better than one unit of the archer/spear infantry. Now according to what I learned Parthia had little/no standing army and instead "called up" their troops from feudal lords. Ok so the high upkeep is justified but then why should I have to pay 3200 Mnai for them. I'm not building equipping or training them it seems so if I'm understanding the Parthian militray shouldn't they have a high upkeep like the one they already have but a low cost to purchase. This would make it able to call up your army but make it difficult to go on rampage due to the cost of keeping them assembled. Please Enlighten me on the subject .

2. CPU Economy. I understand that the CPU needs a boost to keep up with the player but currently they don't have any reason to stay in the positives it seems because they get bailed out all the time. For example in my current campaign Baktria started a war with me. Quickly 2 Baktrian Full Stacks and a half stack poured into my land. Out of curioisty I undid the fog and checked how many territiories they owned. I coundl't belive my eyes 1 city and 2 and a hlaf stacks plus another half stack garrison. I have 6 cities and can't afford more than 1 stack if I put my self into debt. I could understand if the Selucids had money up the wazoo with their 328023 cities but a single province Baktria with that much economic might. I call Shenanigans!

3. Genrals Cavalry. From what I have played with Cavalry seem perfect not weak to the point where Cataphracts get beat by Indian Militiamen like RTR. Not to strong like Vanilla where a Cataphract coud steamroll a phalanx headon. Cavalry seems to be perfect strong enough to rout weakend infantry easily or cause a quick rout from hitting from behing but sucidal to frontal chrage infantry. Back to the problem tho . My city with its 2 Star general and his I belive 1124 Ershatar Arshaba (Spelling Sorry) get sieged by 1 phlanx unit and a selcuicd faction heir with a silver chevron. I laughed and sallied. After fireing all my arrows on the genral I killed a grand total of 0 cavalry which is expectable considering how heavily armed they are. Next he sent his general like a locomotive headlong to his death straight into all 1120 of my infantry who had their spears out. To my surprise 3 minutes go by and I killed two of his guards. He killed around 820 of my infantry all my generals bodygurads and took the city... Now I can understand eleite untis but common this guy was literally an army of one...

Well good job on the mod and hopefully I dont sound like a **** (fill in favorite comment).

[Ludens]

While I can't answer 1), both 2) and 3) will be improved in the next patch. Hellenistic generals are deadly, especially those with double hitpoints.

[QwertyMIDX]

1. Horse Archers. I liked playing Parthia in other mods for Horse Archers but unfortunetly they seem pointless unless you are rich to the point where you can afford a few. Currently my armies consist of 95% Ershatar Arshaba (Sorry for Spelling Again). The Horse Archers have a upkeep of 677 which is enough for about 4 of the aforementioned infantry. The main problem I found is one horse archer is not much better than one unit of the archer/spear infantry. Now according to what I learned Parthia had little/no standing army and instead "called up" their troops from feudal lords. Ok so the high upkeep is justified but then why should I have to pay 3200 Mnai for them. I'm not building equipping or training them it seems so if I'm understanding the Parthian militray shouldn't they have a high upkeep like the one they already have but a low cost to purchase. This would make it able to call up your army but make it difficult to go on rampage due to the cost of keeping them assembled. Please Enlighten me on the subject .

Every army in RTW has to act like a standing, professional army. That is how the game system works and it's the only thing the AI understands. In reality only the post-Marian legion functioned in such a way, but we have to treat all armies like that because of the system we have.

If we give things a low training cost and a high upkeep the AI won't handle it properly, and we'll have no hope of ever doing anything better than giving it thousands of Mnai every turn.

[Steppe Merc]

The Pahlava do not have their final general's unit. And everything is still being tweaked, and I agree the Pahlava Shivatir have too high of an upkeep (greater than the Daha cavalry, which is a higher level unit).

Really the best thing to do as Pahlava is to get Parthava and other neighbouring Selekuid provinces to rebel. You steal those, burn them to the ground while disbanding a lot of your military that you don't need to conquer hold your land.

Thank you for your concerns, and I assure you, we are still working on trying to get the Pahlava better. But in the end, they shouldn't be an easy faction really, because they start out as a nomadic tribe, not as the rich empire they become.