Playing the Pahlava

[Scamander]

I've given the Parthians a go twice. Each time my dept was massive. Is one supposed to disbanned all their forces early in the game so as not to lose money? Is there some other tact or is one forced to go into the hole if they want an army of any size? I disbanned all but a base force, but still was pulled into dept. Thanks

[Fondor_Yards]

Either that or start taking cities right away.

[John I Tzimisces]

Never played the pahlava, but since most factions have similar problems, here goes:
If you have ANY navy, disband it for now.
Cavalry upkeep is pretty high as well. Not saying disband them, I am saying bear it in mind.
Go for rebel towns. They are money makers in EB. ESPECIALLY in EB. Sack the ones you don't want, enslave the ones you do.

[LegionairosMatt]

Basically what Fondor_Yards said, first take one or two cities, then disband pretty much everything, then focus on economic buildings until you have enough income to support a few stacks

Hope this helps

[Scamander]

Thank for the replies gentlemen. I'll give it a go.

[Mujalumbo]

Yeah, the Pahlava have it tough at the start.

You really have to take your starting forces and quickly expand. Even if you disband and focus on economics, you'll have the Seleukids or Baktrians hordes come pouring over the borders very shortly. If you take that route, you'll eventually have to face stack after stack of enemy forces with little time in between to replenish your loses. I found it possible, but became Total-War'd out. Heh.

Take any rebel towns you can. Use your family member's bodyguards for heavy cav; it's cheap but you start pretty against the ropes and it works. It's really a race to get your MIC's to the point you can start cranking out the heavy kataphraktoi type units. Luckily, you have choice when it comes to your forces; you can recruit pantodapoi phalangities and do the pin 'n' flank thing, or you could go with archers and horse archers and just pull enemy forces apart while you strike in with your kataphraktoi.

It's tough in .74. But, I think once they get their charge values fixed, and the pure kataphraktoi maces start doing armour piercing damage, you'll have a right fearsome force. Once you get your footing, things look up; you belong to a faction that can build paved roads, is cavalry based, and whose family members can aquire the "Lives on the Move" trait. Getting around won't be a problem.

[Fondor_Yards]

Just a note, their maces are armour piercing. I can't wait for the charge vaules to be fixed too, so lancers with the kontos are as strong as they should be...

[Glaca(pl)]

playing them i use funny tactics- create spies and send them to the seleukids towns. when rebel take control of it, seleukids take hard battle- they have a lots of better units than me.. so i send there some of mine: general and nizag gund- and start a battle. but this is kind of bug because when we fight together as a allies i always takes a town.

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

I have played several campaigns as the pahlava and would see that the best course of action to take is to attack the seleucids in central asia and northern iran as soon as possible. Also you should spend all of your starting money at training troops.

[Artaserse]

from the military side, as you have built a noble champ in your towns, you can train that unit of Dahae Horse Archers (the blond hair guys), they are good as Pahlava Shivatir (even if a bit less effective in the melee), but they cost much lesser (about 450 of upkeep!), i found also Pantodapoi Phalangites are very usefull (and not expensive) for an "Hold and Strike" tactic, you can use that just to hold the enemy infantry, while your HArchers, or Heawy Cavalry, dodge the enemy and strike from the back...

from the mere economical side, i usually put the tax on "very hight" from the start, this is usefull to not allow your town grow too big too fast (so you haven't to set a big garrison, "less garrison"="less upkeep"="more money")

[Musopticon?]

Tax rate is tied to the amount of people in a town, so some growth is a good thing. 2 per cent is a good optimun for early and mid-game. After 12000 people, 0.5 is whole lot better. And your generals get nasty traits if you keep taxes on very high from the start. It's a good way to get out of dept though.

What I usually do is raise the taxes when I'm waging war, so I get little extra for mercenaries. I always have a stading army, no matter if it's historical or not, since RTW can't model army raising, levies and draft at all. In the early stages Pahlava were essentially a tribe of horsemen and the whole people would fight when foreign folks tried to invade, but instead of that you usually have some small garrisons and -50 000 debt until 200 bc.

[Artaserse]

you're right my friend, i think is just a matter of your preferred strategy, anyway i found that if you set taxes low from the start, the town grows too fast, and so it gain a lot of sqallor, so, after, when I decide to raise it, i just cant, cause the little faces turn red... while (in my way of play) if i set tax hight from the start, i find the town are very easy to control, they have less squallor, and never had rebellions (i have to upgrade the buildings in the meanwhile), im a sort of an Esarca of Costantinopolis, i love to squeeze out all the juice from my poor peasants... (but the tax are used also to give them services, im a "statalist" after all...)

[Musopticon?]

I remember that I had so much money in my Epeiros campaign after taking all of Greece except Thermon, that I just reverted all taxes to high or normal, because I had a bunch of large towns that made over 7000 surplus(after the 16000 army upkeep) every turn and almost no growth at all. It was insane and felt reallt different when you could train anything you wanted. In my Baktria game I had so little money, that each time I conquered a city I had to first exterminate it and then leave one of my units from the standing army to garrison it because I couldn't train anything ever. Suffice to say, Baktria didn't reallt expand after two cities, especially since I threw away half of my army at the start to avoid uge dept. Should've just kept them, at least I wouldn't have had an army later on.

[Artaserse]

well, i think it is a problem common to the eastern factions, while i too (with Koinon Hellenoi) have experienced a good amount of cash every turn... now fighting against epeiros and makedonia on the northern front (they are hard... )

[Musopticon?]

There should be some readjusted economical things for the easter factions in 0.8. As it is, they are hardly well off.

A lot of this is tied to the general overpoweredness of naval trade, which for example Pahlava has almost no access to, but maybe spice roads could be improved and enhanced.