What should I do first when I play as parthia?

[scannerfish]

title says all . What should I conquer first to end my debt situation?

[DimeBagHo]

I just started a Parthian campaign with XGM 4.1.2, which gives the Parthians a slightly better start than earlier versions.

My advice is to attack the Seleucids immediately. The way to beat them early on is to exploit your horse archers to their full potential. (1) Let them attack you. After you are done shooting the full of arrows, let them chase you around the map until the timer runs out. (2) Always use the cantabrian circle when facing other ranged units. (3) If you don't have the numbers to defeat a garrison outright, starve them out, and see (1) for how to win. (3) Don't waste your cataphracts. The only units the Seleucids can throw at you early on, which you can't beat easily with horse archers, are Median Cavalry. This is what you need your cataphracts for. (4) If you don't think you can hold a captured city, then you should exterminate the population, destroy everything you can, and abandon it. When the Seleucids move back in, lay seige again, or just move on to the next target. Exterminating a few cities will help out with your cashflow problem.

[Kara Kolyo]

other thing that you could do is to try to capture Gushan early in the game- it is minor city and gives you quick access to persian cavalry. but it might bring you war with the seleuc rebels so maybe Dime's strategy is better.
Edit: i tried something simmilar to Dime's advice- ardjumanish and his army strike at asaak and southwest. the other cavalry army takes merv, which has no walls at the start and than goes for bactria. the sel rebells usualy leave it with weak garison and you can take it quickly cause their king is overconfident and salies. than is time for the second rebel city and southern seleucid provinces. arround bactra there is merc elephant unit - you know what to do

[scannerfish]

So basically rush the seleucids? Any close free cities that I can raid?

[Kara Kolyo]

rush the seleucids and the seleucid rebels. in the last version you have the means to do it. right now my empire has 10 provinces and i think to go after the free cities after 3-4 more seleucid towns change ownership.

[LittleWeiz]

i myself played the parthia and got quite stuck when better armoured phanlangites starts coming out from seleucid towns. My horse archers aren't effective at all in front and when i try to shoot them from their flanks they (most of the time) turn back to face my HA and pursue them. It was fine in the start though when they were using sparabara full stacks. Shoot them until their number is half or lesser, then run and charge them with your general units. =D They usually rout in a matter of seconds when my general charges them even in VH difficulty.

i've been playing the parthia faction just because i liked the idea of having archer-infantry (sort of like athenian marines but are better at close) companions. Right now i am far from a Lv 4 barracks because the selucids had too much armoured troops now. The cataphracts and elephants are a bonus to those infantry. Having 10-15 units of archers and infantry at the same time would be cool. I think by the time i reach rome those legions would own my spearmen though.