The Parthians
I. Brief History
The Parthians are nomadic people who conquered and settled in the area near the Caspian Sea in the 4th Century BC as part of the Dahae confederation. Since that time the Parthians, under their Arsacid rulers (named after King Arsakes I), have fiercely maintained their independence. The Seleudics have from time to time claimed to be the overlords of Parthia and from time to time, have actually been strong enough to try and enforce their claim. This is not something that endears the Seleucid Empire to the Parthian Kings.
The Parthians have the potential to be a great power - perhaps a great Empire - as they sit close to or astride the main trade routes of the Mediterranean. The wealth of the world flows through these lands: a fortune that could pay for any army that an ambitious King could imagine. This wealth is there for the taking, for the people with the will to stretch out their lands and grasp.
Historically the Parthians managed to become a great power and fight off the advance of Rome into their heartlands.
II. Economy
The Parthians start their campaign with 3 provinces: Susa, Arsakia and Campus Sakae. Those 3 provinces alone cannot make up any serious income at the moment to pay the upkeep of the army and have some profit as well, so it is essential for the Parthians to expand as soon as possible with their generals.
Meanwhile it is important to try to put a high priority into your cities, to build farm upgrades, trade buildings and roads. It will be very important for boosting your income in the short-term and in the beginning, where you will need to squeeze every single denarii off your provinces in order not to become bankrupt.
As for the tax policy concerning your current provinces as well as the ones you are about to conquer and expand to, one must put the taxes as high a possible even if the public order falls under 100% as long as it is 80% or more. Being lower means red face in your campaign map which will lead to riots and you certainly don't want that, especially in the beginning and blue faces, even though they don’t cause riots, need extra attention in the near future in order not to evolve to worse problems for your cities and garrison army. This tax policy will be needed a lot, until you manage to build up a nice income, lots of denarii in hand and a good deal of provinces for your empire.
Finally a good deal of boost in your available denarii will be gained by trying to use your diplomats to sell trade rights, alliance and map information.
III. Construction and Training
In the beginning of the campaign you will face problems putting higher taxes, because of the low public order in most of the cities. So it is essential and a first priority in the buildings queue, to build Temples and their upgrades. That will enable you to increase taxes without having to worry about public order and riots and will decrease the garrison army needed to watch out the city. (Thus fewer units will be needed to be trained or the rest can be used for boosting conquering and border forces)
For your cities that do not face any public order problems, the first priority should be as mentioned above, to increase the income as much as possible by building farm upgrades, roads and trade upgrades.
Farm upgrades will increase your population growth (which due to the fact of the high tax policy is decreased somewhat) and your income, especially after you take over Seleucia province that has the Gardens of Babylon miracle (increases farmland output by 40%!as we will see later on.
Trade upgrades are also important for your basic income and in the long-term when you expand to richer lands and ally with some factions or just grant trade rights.
As for roads, they can increase trade income and help the movement of your army which is good considering that some of the provinces of the campaign map are huge.
Unfortunately Parthians cannot build anything better than roads, in contrast to Romans who can build paved roads and highways as well that are extremely beneficial. Ports will be important later on when you capture provinces in the Mediterranean, although you can build at some point one in Campus Sakae, for instance, to increase trade between your eastern cities.
After you manage to expand your empire (we shall see later how), build a nice income and so on, you can then concentrate on building barracks, stables and other military buildings and any other buildings that you wan,t depending on the needs or region and tastes of the player.
Coming to Training decisions in the beginning, you will have to be very careful with your available denarii and not overdo it with training units, as they can drain it fast, plus in future the upkeep of the army will have a negative effect of your income. Also, since your first priorities in buildings aren’t the military ones, you can build units in your main cities and specifically the Horse Archers. Avoid training peasant units as they aren’t worth the upkeep, unless it is an emergency for increasing the garrison in a close to rioting city. Slingers and Eastern Infantry units are weak, but good for garrisoning provinces.
So in other words, train only as many units as you need to keep your cities with enough garrison and to boost the wandering armies of yours that will be doing the expanding of the empire and guarding of borders. Be careful, especially in the first years, in order not to face an early bankruptcy that will prevent you from building structures in your cities and raising armies.
IV. Diplomacy
Diplomacy is also an important factor for all factions in the game. It must be well planned and adapted to one’s plans of expansion and need for deals. Parthians have several choices on this section and many strategies can be sound. Since the short campaign of the game says Seleucid Empire and Armenia are your main targets, it means you will have to concentrate on eliminating them first and in the meantime do deals with the neighbours of those factions. Of course, choosing to attack Egyptians in the very beginning can be good as well, but we can’t confront all those at once so let’s assume we first attempt to conquer Seleucid and Armenian lands. Scythians will be a target too once the above are weakened and your upper province Campus Sakae has enough garrison, so that your general in that city can go a make a “walk” in their lands.
Since as we said many times before, Parthians have economy problems so in the beginning selling trade rights, alliances and map information could provide you with several thousand denarii. So for a start, send your diplomats to the Egyptians and sell them some trade rights and map information. Do the same with the Pontus faction who are neighbours of Armenia (alliance would be nice too since they might help fighting them). Also use those diplomats to bribe wandering rebel armies near your lands as they are cheap and a quick way of gaining some troops for your conquering and border armies. That is IF you can afford it and IF the army isn’t all a peasant one. In that latter case, it would be better to train your generals with those and your Horse Archers instead of wasting your denarii bribing them.
So after you manage to weaken enough or conquer Seleucid and Armenian lands and in meantime expand in the north too in Scythian lands, you must decide (depending on the situation of other factions and your taste), if they go attacking the Egyptian lands that can bring a lot of income. They are usually very strong by that time (so allying with Numidians and/or Carthage can be helpful at that stage) or you can continue taking over the whole Minor Asia and then decide what to do with them.
A couple (or more) spies will be also very important for revealing lands, spying armies and opening gates of cities under your siege and so on.
V. Battle Planning
The Parthian army is generally consisted mostly by lots of cavalry (light and heavy) units, but they lack any serious infantry. Their infantry is considerably weak and consists of:
* Eastern Infantry. They are very weak spearmen that are mostly useless in any kind of melee, even against horses which combined with their poor morale can not lead to anything good. Nevertheless they are better than peasants and good to be used carrying siege equipment, to open gates and to put as garrison army in your cities.
* Hillmen. They are a bit better than Eastern Infantry, though still weak in melee and less in quantity.
* Archers. They can be useful with their flaming missiles when defending or attacking, but must be protected well as they can run away easily and are very vulnerable. They are a good unit to put as the garrison too in your cities.
All the above are fast moving units, but nevertheless very weak and vulnerable to most units and can only be used good by hunting routers or supporting other units or as a bite sometimes.
Now, concerning the Cavalry units: they are the heart of your army and your advantage against most of the other factions. They consist of:
* Horse Archers. Those are very fast cavalry units and your main power in the beginning of the game. They can form a cantanbrian circle which can be good against infantry (i.e phalanxes) mostly as it is used to continuously fire arrows at a unit to lower the morale, but not good vs. horses because takes time to be formed and if hunted down they can be caught in very vulnerable position and get slaughtered and routed in no time. Their ability to fire arrows while skirmishing or moving is also their main advantage as well as their speed. They can be only hunted down by similar units and only if pushed in the edge they might be caught by same speed units. They are also very good router hunters, but very weak in melee. Still the trick of attacking in the rear, then withdrawing immediately can be useful to give the final blow to an enemy unit’s morale and make it rout.
* Persian Cavalry. They are horse archer units that will be available to you later on after military building upgrades. They are pretty much better than Horse archers, mainly because of their much better morale and very good ability on melee.
* Cataphracts. Your cataphract units are your main heavy weapon to tear off almost all enemy units with their wedge formation and powerful charge. They can easily beat most enemy general units and give the decisive blow to most strong enemy units. A very hard nut to crack and very effective against horses but also to break any infantry unit in flanks or rear.
* Arab Cavalry is also a nice Cavalry unit, good for hunting routers and attacking flanks but nothing special.
After you have built your empire and conquered Seleucid, Armenia, Scythia and Egypt lands, you will be able to concentrate in the Seleucid lands (i.e. Seleucia) the training of War Elephants. Elephants are the most fearsome unit in the game few can stand in front of them. Their main problem is the possibility of running amok or becoming involved in melee with phalanx units. Their ability to fire arrows makes them even more effective. But they do have the great disadvantage of extremely high cost of training and upkeep, which is the reason you will be able to build them after lots of years, when you have built a strong and wealthy empire and have lots of denarii available.
* Camel units are also a decent when fighting against horses and the Bedouin Camels are equally annoying as the Horse archers although not as fast but better in melee.
* Siege equipment that Parthians can build are the Onagers. Excellent help when laying siege on cities and killing down enemy units from long distance.
The above are more or less your main options of unit training to use in your battles. As you can see your main armies will mainly be consisted by horse archers and some cataphract units, perhaps a couple archers and Eastern Infantry units.
Facing the Seleucids you will face tons of Phalanx units (such as militia Hoplites), which are not used very well by the AI, some cavalry units (general or medium), peltasts (not very effective against your Cavalry armies) and maybe a few Scythed Chariots as well as one or two Elephant units. Phalanx units can be torn down by your arrow volleys while your cataphracts can deal with and easily destroy any opposing cavalry and light infantry (such as the Peltasts). If you are fast enough you won’t have to see and face many of the Elephant units that Seleucid can train. The main trick is to make them run amok with your arrows and cataphract units, using as bite some Eastern Infantry units to pin them in one place.
Armenians have very similar army to yours containing mainly Cataphracts and horse Archers. To win the battles against them, you must firstly try to destroy their heavy Cavalry and general by using your main Cavalry in wedge to face them and use some rear charge for final blow from your Horse Archers. As for the enemy Horse Archers to beat them you will use fire against fire, meaning you will use your Horse Archers to hunt them down, as the AI will put them into skirmish. They will both fire while moving, so when you force them into some edge and eventually charge into them and rout them. Also you can use your spare ( if any) Horse archer units to do the good old “sandwich” trick with a couple of Horse archer units. The result is both effective and tasty.
Scythians mainly have Horse archer units also, which you can face as described above, while you use your heavy cavalry to destroy their general and light infantry from flanks of rear.
Egyptian armies have some weak phalanx units and chariots. The phalanx units are slow and thus can be killed slowly form your horse archer arrows. Chariots can be very deadly if used right, but they are by no means unbeatable. In contrast their very poor defence rating makes them very vulnerable in melee, even though they have more hit points than other units. So if one pins them in one place after the charge they will be killed easily in melee. Also another way to face chariots is to use horse archers that can skirmish from them and fire arrows in the same time.
In conclusion, the battle planning, the mix of cataphract units and many many horse archer units can effectively face your first 4 enemy factions. Later on, with the addition of War Elephants, Onagers, Persian Cavalry etc, you will be able to confront even stronger armies such as the Romans.
VI. Conquering and Expanding
As mentioned above, in the beginning of the Campaign it is essential to send your armies and conquer new lands, as your income is too limited and unable to pay up your army and the construction queue of all cities.
Thus, firstly send your faction leader and most of the army into Arsakia and head off to take the barbarian village Phraaspa. Take with you not only the Cataphracts and Horse Archers, but also some slingers to help you in garrisoning your cities and carrying the siege equipment for your future sieges. You faction leader will be a very important weapon in the first years. He is an excellent commander and is accompanied by the powerful Cataphracts. Also take your general and most of your army in Susa (keep back enough to keep the public order 80% or more, even lower if needed the taxes and keep traning horse archers). Use this army to head against Seleucia. There you will face an army of hoplites mainly and the general but your horse archers should be you advantage to slowly kill off their phalanx units. It will be a tough battle which is why you need as much army as possible from Susa, but the reward if more than worth it. A new wealthy province plus an amazing boost of your income from farmland output by 40% because of the miracle the Gardens of Babylon that this province contains. It will help you a lot building a respectable income in the long-term too.
In the first couple of years you must go take out the above 2 provinces. As for the general and the army is Campus Sakae, leave it there for the moment, build religious temples to increase public order and train some Horse archers too, so you can take some of them later along with a peasant unit (will explain why). When you reach Campus Alanni of the Scythians you will use the peasant unit to carry the ram to open the gate in their city as your Horse archers are not capable of that mission. When the gate is opened then your horse Archers can get in and use their arrows to take out the city.
In the meantime, right after you take out the village Phraaspa, you should be able to keep the public order over 100% easily, even with only one unit for garrison due to the small population it has. So after leaving the unit take the rest of your army there lead by your faction leader and march towards the heart of Armenian army, the City Artaxarta. You should by then have your spy over there to be able to open the gates in the event of siege. Usually though they will try to bring reinforcements and try to lift the siege with a big force. Do not worry though. In this battle odds may be against you, but your general should be a far better commander than the Armenian one, plus you cataphracts and horse archers will have better morale than them. Again first priority will be to take out their Cataphracts first (if they have them still there) by using your own cataphracts with wedge formation and some help if needed from your Horse Archer arrows or rear charge. Once their main force is destroyed you can try to take out their highly annoying Horse archers, either trying to push them to the edge with your own Horse Archers or maybe some “sandwich” trick if the circumstances permit it. After this important battle you will have given your faction leader heaps of stars and traits that will be useful to win many battles as long as he is alive even if the odds are against you.
While you have been marching towards Artaxarta, at the same time you must prepare an army to continue the campaign against Seleucids and hire in needed mercenaries or bribe (preferably) rebels around with your diplomat. Your next target is the City of Harta. Again you might face tons of army stacks with hoplite units but by now you know the trick to face them, plus your general has gained lots of experience and stars.
After that your empire will contain the cities of Susa, Seleucia, Hatra, Arsakia, Phraaspa, Artaxarta, Campus Sakae and Campus Alanni. You can also go take out with some random army if you have some spare the Dumantha City in the South for some extra income, if the Egyptians didn’t go take it by now. Anyway by then your initial cities will have built the roads farmland outputs and trade buildings which, combined with the miracle in Seleucia province and your newly conquered lands, should make up very good income. Also by then the deals that your diplomats will have made selling trade rights in neighbours around those faction like Egyptians, Pontus, Greeks etc you will be given a good denarii breath to train some units for garrison and to guard the borders. As soon as new generals pop from coming of age or have married your daughters, send them immediately to the new cities or use them to go continue the expanding in the Seleucia and Armenian lands. You income by now should be respectable enough to have the luxury to build lots of Horse Archers to send out to fight the Seleucid and Armenians and take out Damascus Antioch, Kotais and so on. Also in the North you may continue the expanding in Scythians lands of Tanais or Campus Sarmatae that are located in huge provinces and you should check the map provided with the game, to spot them without losing time searching for them around.
After you finish off Seleucid Emprie and Armenians and have lots more than 15 provinces (thus fulfilling the objectives of the short campaign of the Pathians) you can now decide where to expand to.
A good idea would be to try and solve your income problems once and for all by trying to build large armies to take out the fertile and considerably rich provinces of the Egyptians starting with Sidon and Jerousalem that are close to your borders.
Another sensible thought would be to continue trading with Egyptians, profit from it and go take out the rest of Minor Asia that also has lots of rich lands and gives access to the Mediterranean trading and therefore put an end to the Seleucid Empire.
The above two approaches can be done with by move order depending on the strength of Egyptians by then. In the meantime the north forces of yours can finish off the Scythian, reaching the borders with Thracia. (with whom making an alliance or some trade deal would be good).
So with your empire growing income and lands after taking out the Minor Asia and Egyptians (with any order), one can concentrate on building even better units and invest in perfecting the Parthian Army.(War elephants Persian Cavalry Cataphracts and Onagers)
After that the player can decide on their own and depending on their tastes what their new faction targets will be and so on, since your empire will have grown tremendous amount of denarii to be able to bribe cities armies and easily take out any opposing faction including Romans.
VII. Conclusion
In conclusion, the Parthians are a very interesting faction to play with, with an interesting mix of cavalry units and tactics that can adapt and beat many opposing armies if used correctly. After their initial financial problem is solved and after the first two enemy factions are eliminated, you should be able to by then build some good income and thus armies to be able to continue the expanding into Egypt, Scythia, Minor Asia and why not… ROME!
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Then I assasinated every Selucide family member on sight (damn it's hard, they kept popping up in Selucide armies out of nowhere, in the middle of my territory), until all their armies turned into Rebels and lost the charriots 
Originally Posted by Professor420
