Historical Battle help... pesky parthians involved..

**Leet Eriksson** · 09-27-2004, 18:37

Ok i'm stuck at carrhae Historical Battle, problem is you think you have a load of cavalry in that mission but guess what! (SPOILERS AHEAD!) The Parthians cut them to peices in the cutscene, and i end up with my general and 1 cavalry and a load of useless first cohort legionnaires, i tried several tactics to defeat the parthians, among them are making my legionnaires form a line and get out of testudo, and another splitting my army in half with 1 cavalry each shooing the parthian horse archers, so i can do a pincer attack on the heavy cavalry, alas i failed in all of them.

Anyway to beat those pesky parthians? they are getting on my nerves now...

**Leet Eriksson** · 09-28-2004, 12:54

Eh kinda annoying, but i'm getting desperate here, i vowed i won't complete the campaign unless i kill every one of them parthians in that battle, i keep losing though... they made them like european knights... HELP!

**The_Emperor** · 09-28-2004, 13:13

Can you play either side of the battle? I'd rather be the Parthians... The Romans were Loossseerrss at Carrhae!

**Underhand** · 09-28-2004, 13:47

I have not played the game, so this is only a theoretical suggestion. It relies on the Parthians using their historical tactics of riding round and round an exposed unit, firing arrows inward. Take your one cavalry unit and ride it forward, so that it's horribly exposed. The Parthians should begin peppering it with arrows from all sides, so you set up some of your infantry in a line nearby the near side of their circle, flanks projecting forward. Any fast infantry you have should be ready on the flanks. Advance your concave line forward, and rush your fast infantry forward on the flanks, cutting into the ring of Parthians. Do this right and you should be able to form your own ring consisting of your line of infantry, your flanking fast infantry and... your cavalry unit that the parthians thought they were slaughtering! The ring will contain about half of the parthian force, and you just turn in and slaughter them. Should make your job with the rest considerably easier. It would work better with more cavalry, both in place of the flanking fast infantry I mentioned and to rush through your concave screen, but there's nothing to be done about that.

This technique hopefully maximises your advantage, ability and close-in fighting, while minimising your disadvantage, maneuverability. Hope it helps!

**Underhand** · 09-28-2004, 13:52

Just had a thought regarding what I just said. It may be better to use an infantry unit (or even two, to cover each other's rear) in place of the cavalry unit in my plan. Reasons being that cavalry appears to be at a premium for you since you have so little, and that the infantry unit(s) can go into testudo formation, maximising how long they can delay the parthians. Incidentally, that (going into testudo) is pretty much what the entire Roman force did historically, with predictable results.

**Leet Eriksson** · 09-28-2004, 14:22

Originally Posted by The_Emperor

Can you play either side of the battle? I'd rather be the Parthians... The Romans were Loossseerrss at Carrhae!

Nope can't play the other side in Historical Battles, only Marcus Licinius Crassus (Brutii)

**Leet Eriksson** · 09-28-2004, 14:23

Originally Posted by Underhand

Just had a thought regarding what I just said. It may be better to use an infantry unit (or even two, to cover each other's rear) in place of the cavalry unit in my plan. Reasons being that cavalry appears to be at a premium for you since you have so little, and that the infantry unit(s) can go into testudo formation, maximising how long they can delay the parthians. Incidentally, that (going into testudo) is pretty much what the entire Roman force did historically, with predictable results.

Yeah covering the rear is important in this battle, after the horse archers sluaghter your troops, they charge them in the rear while the cataphracts keep em busy in the front.

Although your strategy was helpful i still couldn't beat them

i feel like a noob

**Underhand** · 09-28-2004, 14:34

Originally Posted by faisal

Yeah covering the rear is important in this battle, after the horse archers sluaghter your troops, they charge them in the rear while the cataphracts keep em busy in the front.

Although your strategy was helpful i still couldn't beat them

i feel like a noob

What exactly do you and they have as regards units? And what do the Parthians usually do tactically? And what happened when you tried out my idea?

**Leet Eriksson** · 09-28-2004, 15:34

I'll go in detail:

The Parthians are split in 2 armies, 1 horse archer, the other Cataphract, they have some 4-5 Cataphracts.

The Romans have 6 First Cohort Legionnaires, all of em in testudo in a box formation surrounding 2 cavalry units.

the first Parthian army,the horse archers, are already pelting the testudoed legionnaires with arrows, the second army is a bit far, but are dead on charging your legionnaires.

basically its like this:

C= Cataphract

HA= Horse Archer

Legionnaire = L

Marcus & Cavalry = RC

CCCCC

HA HA HA
HA LLLL
HA LRCL HA
L L
HA

Here i apply the strategy you provide, i formed the legionnairs, into a line with 2 covering the flanks and the other 2 covering the rear, the parthian cataphracts charge while my cavalry shooed the horse archers, i don't have any fast infantry so i tried using my flank legionnaires to form a ring around the cataphracts, while my cavalry complete the ring, like so:

LRCL
CCCC
LLLL

but the problem is the horse archers reform that circle, and add to that my cavalry charge impact could not kill the Cataphracts quickly enough, although i turned their cataphracts into motionless heaps of iron, my legionnaires were terribly reduced, and then there are 2 parthian generals who advanced in (1 cataphract and the other horse archer i think) and finished the job.

After the battle marcus had evening tea with the parthian generals, except they served him a warm cup of molten gold instead of tea

**Underhand** · 09-28-2004, 17:13

My that sounds tricky. I didn't realise you had to start in the formation that the Romans historically used. Hell, try being historical; charge Marcus straight into the parthian army and when his unit's been slaughtered, form a dense blob and cry for mummy

The idea was, if I can get this pseudo-diagramatical stuff to work (I'm going to use underscores to seperate units because I can't see any other way to do this):

HA HA HA
HA RC HA
HA HA HA

That would be the first stage, with the parthians laughing and prancing gaily in circles around your exposed unit. The second stage is forming a screen below the predicament:

L_________L
__L_L_L_L

Then you cut through the parthian circle (again this relies on them actually playing by the rules of steppe nomad warfare) as hopefully follows:

___HA HA HA
HA L__RC___L HA
L HA HA HA HA L
__L_L_L_L_L_L

And you crush the half of the army caught in your new ring. Numbers of units may vary (dunno exactly how much you've got) and variations depending on situation may be in order.

The horse archers in your ring shouldn't be able to reform a new ring if you box them in sufficiently (again I don't have the game so I'm assuming this can be done). I'm not sure what to do about the cataphracts, but if they're inside your ring then hopefully you can overwhelm them with local superiority, if not then I guess pray they don't intervene until you're done. This would be a lot easier with some light infantry and a little more heavy cav.

After the battle marcus had evening tea with the parthian generals, except they served him a warm cup of molten gold instead of tea

Mithridates is gonna be pissed when he finds out the parthians stole his idea