Hi everybody,
I recently picked up Media Atropatene as my next campaign since conquering world with Pergamon felt just so artificial (its called a city-state for a reason!). Reconquering Middle East to form Median Empire once again feels justfied and not far-stretched for me - if Parthians could do that while being nomad people a while back then why the heck can't former eastern overlords do that?
The campaign itself is very enjoyable with really hard early game. Maintaining relationship with Seleucids so they don't rip me to pieces with the hellenic heavy inf and fighting Armenia ajd Kartli on the north and getting war declared by Bosphorians who kept pushing me to the limits was really fun however also a bit stressing. Im currently fighting Indians for the control of the far right of the map while Seleucids got their ass handed to them by Galatians and Egypt and it's hell of a time. I was never fond of wars on esstern part of the map but I just might change my opinion on that.
Oh, and btw those Indian elephants are terribly strong! Charged my 5-men-deep Persian hoplites and wrecked it with not much of a hassle. Good thing that I had my archers shower them with arrows and rout them finally as my front line nearly collapsed! Sure am looking forward to add them to my forces as AoR units.
Now to move on to tue roster itself. I really like how they are archery based with so many units having bows as ranged weapon. Satrap guard spearmen make for an excellent reserve with good bows and nice ammo, while being able to join flank fights or pin enemy to hammer them in the rear with lancers charge. Currently my favourite unit in their roster with lancers right behind them. Talking about lancers I don't feel like the Atropatean lancers should have super heavy shock cavalry type assigned - they certainly don't look super heavy to me. Imo cataphracts should be the only super heavy cav around. Also, lack of any horse archers feels restraining a lot. I don't know if they should have any from historical standpoint but they are living in an area known for archery and horse breeding so that feels natural for me that they could field at least light HA.JMO ofc
Let's move on to critique now. Their roster feels somewhat weaker than all of factions around. Cavalry is on the point but then again, no HA really hinders mobility of your cav. I tend to put my cav near to some archers, most often those elite spear/bows so that I can effictively rout enemy cav. Their melee cav uses swords do they get rekt while fighting enemy spear cav. Lancers are on point but I have yet to fight reformed Parthians (they are busy finishing off Bactria with an ally and will be a worthy opponent in the future) so we'll see how I will fare against them. I suspect they will prove to be a problem though. I was performing a very careful diplomacy dance with Seleucids so they don't declare war on me before their satrapies rebel - I felt that I got no chance against their elite hoplites and they would massacre my lines.
I've got sort of mixed feelings about them. I really like how unique their roster is and how units complement each other. Yet I need to do a lot of micro to effixiently use my forces. Their infantry feels really mediocre (as they should, I guess) but they ha e no top tier units to compliment this gaping weakness. Archers feel natural for them but they're nothing special. To make their archers more useful I would grant better bows to their basic "Persian archers" (the one with 175 range) to emphasise that they are archer civ. Right now Greek archers and Persian archers got similar stats with same quality of bows - that's really not how it was tho, right? They get heavy elite archers later on and they are fun to use. But nearly all factions around get such archers but that should be the one part that Persians excel at, right? Meanwhile Parthains get upgraded heavy spears with phalanx, better quality archers and armoured HA. I would give them some sort of edge in archery, that's all. Right now they struggle too much vs. other cultures
Secondly, I compared their roster with Parthians and I'm kinda worried bout war with them. Their whole roster feels superior in almost every way. I get that Parthians conquered the Middle East and made Medians their satrapy, but we're changing the history here, right? I'm rebuilding the Old Median Empire and for that I need an appropriate war machine.
Next on, I have to mention their elite spears from lvl 3 rax. I cannot find any use for them in my army. They don't get bows so they lose utility on flanks where spear/bows excel. Neither do they get a place in my front line - without phalanx they have much less staying power than Persian Hoplites. I bring at least 3 of those to every fight to make sure that my front stays intact while I try to outmanuever enemies on flanks. To make things worse those elite spears are formed with nobles making replenishment a pain in the... hoplites hoplite use up 2nd class citizens and let me save precious nobles for elite cav anf elite spear/bows.
To sum up my rant about their roster, I need to mention the problem with replenishment. All their elite (which means almost all decent) units are of noble origin - that goes for axemen, archers, spear/bows, spearmen and heavy cav - making fielding a strong army really tough. Almost all other units are subpar and useless on the battlefield.
Before posting my recommendations for the faction I will say this first: I know that Persians got owned by Greeks and Parthians. Thst their armies were too poorly trained to fight both of them effectively. But we're making our own history here - hell, we can build Gaulic empire and conquer Carthage with Arverni, or Rome with Macedon. I'm just trying to stress that with right reforms and a good leadership Persians could have restored their empire. From what I know, one Atropatean king was once also sitting on Parthian throne so I guess that everything's possible here.
My suggestions for the Persians are nothing ground-breaking as I don't want to make them OP but any means. I just would love to see their strong points be a bit more notable in the fight.
1) make their Persian archers a bit more expensive and equip them with better bows to further stress ancient tradition of archery in these parts.
2) make their high tier axemen, spearmen and archers a 2nd class citizen, not 1st class as it is. Restrain 1st class population usage only to elite lancers, heavy javcav and spear/bow satrap guards. 6 noble class units is a lot IMO.
4) maybe add reform for them to make those transitions smoother and to upgrade elite sparabara (regular spear/bow inf) upgrade from medium inf to heavy? So that player doesn't have to rely only on hoplites when fighting enemy inf. Just a thought.
What do you guys think? I would love to hear your ideas and hope that devs will see this
Great work with the game DeI team!
Cheers,
Nordling