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Thread: Parthia

  1. #241
    Emperor of the Brutii Member Emperor Mithdrates's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parthia

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson
    @#$% Egyptians.

    I posted a long rant on another thread about how much I hate the @#$% Egyptians. Kill 1,000 and another 1,000 jump up, of better quality than the first bunch.
    I here yuh buddy. those friggin Eygptions just wont leave me alone.

    I stopped playig on medieval total war because they kept bugging me and got RTW but then as the selucides they just wouldnt leave me alone. They're not even a proper eygptions. Theyre the old cuts of the old greek empire.

    wooo, go Greece.
    [B][I]"Sometimes you have to serve in order to lead." - Odysseus: King of Ithaca

    "We have the best archers in the world and our walls have never been taken, We can win this war!" - General Briskais of Troy


  2. #242

    Default Re: Parthia

    Egypt must be stopped quicky. Forget about Armenia and Seleucids early on and just take out Egypt.

  3. #243
    Member Member Brave's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parthia

    The Parthians begin with a historic Ruler (Arsaces I of Parthia) he is legitimacy to the throne was doubtful, he fought wars to keep the people on his side.

    You begin with three settlements. I propose that you abandon the northen most town and use your ship to transport the horse archers and the family member to beat the Armenians to the capture of the rebel settlement located next to your Capital. The Parthians fought on horseback, you should do the same with Peasants as cheap, effective garrison for cities which are not on the front lines.

    The Seleucids under Antiochus will be engaged in a bloody war with Egypt and should not be wanting a war on another front. This gives you time to go to war with Armenia who most certainly will want to capture a settlement and see your faction as the weaker option. Let them think that. Presuming that Armenia attack and you go on an offensive against them you should be able to incorporate their cities into your Parthian rule giving you five cities which are profitable and only Susa can possibly be under threat as the other four are located in the mountainious wastes.

    Egypt under Ptolemy II can not be allowed to grow too powerful and if they are winning the war with the Seleucids (which is a high possibility) then you could consider an alliance with the Seleucids to attempt to balance the power in the east or sieze the chance to forge an empire at the Seleucid's expense.

    More to come later.
    Last edited by frogbeastegg; 03-14-2008 at 20:16.

  4. #244
    Member Member Brave's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parthia

    If you wish to take the second option and openly declare war on Antiochus and divide his empire up between you and Egypt you could entice Pontus and even Greece into declaring war upon the Great Man and he shall fall quickly. This leaves the East and Asia Minor in a situation where all factions will think of themselves as the powerhouse and could see Egypt demand you be their protectorate, an easy chance to declare war on Egypt.

    Brace yourself for a long hard slog, try your best to out produce them, block their ports, make them suffer. Even after smackus maximus they will be very rich and powerful and will field many stacks of high quality units. Just keep up the pressure and do not be fooled by 4-1 and 5-1 against ratio, your cavalry is better than the computer estimates.

    Try not to drag yourself into a war with more than one faction. Make life easy for yourself. It is a near certainty that Pontus will eat up Asia Minor and not be satisfied by that. Tempt them to attack you by leaving weak stacks of high mobility Horse Archers for them to attack with their poor infantry then give them no mercy. Asia Minor is yours, well done.

    By this time you should be in a commanding position, the Romans will most likely control most of Greece and you out produce them, you have more money than them, you have th secret to beating them. Your cavalry. Make sure you are properly prepared for the voyage to Greece. Aim to strike hard to the large stacks around Greece, leave them with no military then starve their cities out. Land with more armies than they could ever imagine possible, 5 or 6 full stacks led by able generals should do it.

    By now the map should look something like this with the exception of Campus Sakae.



    Continue your conquest of Greece until you control it. Up to the Danube is a reasonable conquest amount.

    From here you can recruit more armies and more fleets to aim to land on Italy and use similar tactics as you did in Greece. Scicily could be needed for your 50.



    The world is yours.


    Last edited by frogbeastegg; 03-14-2008 at 20:21.

  5. #245

    Default Re: Parthia

    Parthia is great fun, Horse Archers dominate just about every faction, the only units that they don't absolutely destroy are elephants, and you really don't have to face them that much as the Seleucids die quickly and Romans deal with Carthage for you. You do need to get used to waiting longer to take cities though, you've got no decent infantry so it's best to just siege with a few HAs so the enemy sallies, then slaughter them until you're out of arrows, then return and repeat until they're wiped out.

    Opening moves: Move your force from the province north of the caspian sea to the Scythian province right next to it and conquer it, they are generally kept too busy in the west to bother retaking it, eventually they will try but their army is really terrible at attacking cities, just remember to put a couple of Eastern Infantry up there later.

    Move your army from your capital/Susa towards Pharapsaa, the Armenians are also trying to take it which leaves their armies in the open. You start with a couple of cataphracts, use them in combination with HA's to run down Armenia's main army outside of Artaxarta, both of their provinces are usually lightly defended at this point, siege them with your horse archers and if they sally, destroy them. Once you take Colchis use its port to build two Biremes to blockade Scythia's ports, build a third once they take Crimea. Have a diplomat near them and get peace as soon as they'll accept it, you'll probably need to beat them at a few sieges in Campus Alanni before they'll agree to it. There is no point in attacking Scythia past that first territory, they are poor, the provinces are vast and sparsely populated, and rebels are everywhere, better to keep them as a buffer against Thrace and the other western powers.

    Once the Armenians are taken out, Seleucia is the next best target, take it and Hatra from the Seleucids. Best strategy for this is sending a few HA's to siege, they will sally, you will kill a lot of troops, then retreat. Do this 2-3 times and you will win without having to bother with infantry. Don't bother with Arabia, Egypt will just declare on you for it later, let them have it as it's pretty mediocre. Take all of the Seleucid territory you can, but unless Pontus is attacking you already don't bother with Sardis or Tarsus, Pontus will declare on you to take those every time.

    After you've crippled the Seleucids war with Egypt is inevitable. Use horse archers, lots of them. Their chariots may beat your archers 1v1 but you can produce two HA's in the same time they build a chariot. Sidon has high level cavalry stables so you can build Persian Cavalry there, one of the most solid one turn production units in the game imo. Spam as many HA's as you can, siege their cities and lure them into wasting units, keep in mind that if you can maneuver HA's behind phalanx units you will slaughter them. Before pharoah's bowmen the Egyptians have nothing that can stand up to your HA's. Don't bother with the former rebel provinces the Egyptians take, go for Sidon/Jerusalem and then into their African lands. You can come back around to the rebel provinces later, taking them first just wastes your units garrisoning them as they aren't populous or advanced enough to produce units themselves.

    From there, you are master of the east and have untold amounts of wealth at your disposal. You're going to win the game at this point so you could do anything you wanted, my favorite options are conquering Anatolia or Africa and heading into Greece or Italy from there.

  6. #246

    Default Re: Parthia

    I am playing the Parthians, and annihilated Seuleucid, Armenia as well as take two large provinces from Scythia. To protect myself from Egypt, I have made myself their Protectorate, and enjoyed a peaceful time. I will perhaps go on and destroy the Pontus. It seems that Egypt was hard for me, since they have chariots. Another thing, it seems that Desert Cavalry was powerful against Cataphracts. I cannot beat them at close combat, meaning that all rest on Persian Cavalry, yet if they chase me, I am clueless.

  7. #247
    the angry, angry elephantid Member wooly_mammoth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parthia

    Ah, as the saying goes, once you go horse, you never get to come back.

    So, continuing my OCD fixation with rome total war, it's time to make the Arsacids the rulers of the known world. After examining the initial conditions, my first reaction was "F*%$!!1". These guys can't build roads any better than weather beaten dirt paths and have no toilets at all.They also inhabit sterile provinces with 0 trade potential. Well, we all have to start somewhere when forging an empire.

    My policy was to tighten the belt all the way down on the expenses, carefully picking the build plans so as to accelerate with maximum efficiency the economic growth, tax the living hell out of my subjects and unleash a tireless onslaught westward, slaughtering everything in my path. The result: on the eve of 260 BC I am amassing a small fortune, I have conquered the steppes of the Allani, the armenians are history, Sinope and Mazaka harbor purple banners with a black, five-pointed crowns and Antioch is the third city the Seleucids are about to lose to me. I have a hard time understanding what could stop a horse archer army. I usually organize them in two wings that wrap around the enemy and a central core, the point being that whenever the enemy turns towards one of the wings or the core, there is someone around to shoot him the back. Also, eastern generals are complete beasts.

    Oddly enough, Egypt started a war with the Numidians. I will have one army ready in Antioch to meet their hordes, with another one encircling from the arabian deserts and reinforcements coming from Anatolia when I am certain it has been pacified.

  8. #248
    the angry, angry elephantid Member wooly_mammoth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parthia

    Love this faction. By 250 BC I am invading the known world from all possible positions: the lybian desert, the hellespont, the steppes.

    Anyway, quick question. I noticed that not all provinces can build trade caravans but I couldn't figure out yet what the gimmick is. It's not related to camels, since I have provinces with camels where this building tree is not available, and provinces without camels where they can be made. Is it a hidden resource placed around by the devs in a balanced way or is there another thing to it?

  9. #249
    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parthia

    I guess I never really paid attention to which provinces can build caravans, and which couldn't. My favorite ME faction is Armenia, and I don't recall not being able to build them in any province I haven't played Parthia in a very long time, so perhaps it's a faction related issue
    High Plains Drifter

  10. #250
    the angry, angry elephantid Member wooly_mammoth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parthia

    I just realized that it may be the case of me not noticing that those towns weren't big enough to support such advanced buildings yet.

    Anyway, I didn't write that in my last session I got a bit of big time excitement. The Brutii performed a surprise landing in Rhodos with a huge army! How often do you see that? Not sure if they're just mean or if the AI believed that Rhodes still belonged to the greeks (the romans haven't made it further south than Larissa yet). Unfortunately for them, a crack army of horsemen that had beaten the deserts all the way from Media was stationed there, so it was a complete slaughter.
    Last edited by wooly_mammoth; 04-21-2015 at 04:12.

  11. #251
    the angry, angry elephantid Member wooly_mammoth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parthia

    And just finished horsing around. Took Rome by the winter of 236 BC but probably could have been done even faster. I simply never rested those horses and only picked the odd mercenary here or there when I needed a ram. Had no use at all for cataphracts or elephants, I think I would have gimped myself by using them since there's really nothing for the AI to do once it is surrounded by the most basic of horse archers. I ended up disliking persian cav because they have less ammo and can't run as fast. Their armor, longer range and ability to fight in melee doesn't really compensate when you have to fight a doomstack of armored units + reinforcements since they have the exact same ranged attack as regular horsemen, so less ammo -> less kills.

    Starting from the parthian homelands, my empire stretched continuously west and along the south of the Mediterranean all the way to Carthage, through Anatolia and over the Aegean Sea into Laconia and up to the Carpathians (first time I play rtw and actually bushwhack my dacian ancestors), and along the shores of the Black Sea, across the northern steppes up to the forests of Germania. At this time I ferried a veteran horse archer army from Carthage into Rome, had one hell of a horse party over Latium and the game was over.

    City battles are just awful and probably the main reason I decided to finish the campaign early and not take my time to conquer Sicily and Italy. Cavalry units have horrible pathfinding and response in narrow streets.

    The first real change will follow. Gaul is next.
    Last edited by wooly_mammoth; 04-30-2015 at 22:12.

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