the parthian question

[phoebusapollon]

if there are any experienced parthian players out there some tips would be appreciated -

there are a couple of specific hassles with this faction

1. my leaders dont gain influence very quickly
- with the roman faction, i would just send them to a city with a lot of minor temples and in no time they would get three or four priests in their retinue and a decent influence rating - but the dumb monotheistic parthians only ever seem to get a priest to ahura mazda - this is making maintaining public order in my cities a bit difficult -

2. im getting very little trade income
- i have conquered the whole of persia but this is giving me very little sea trade - i only have a few ports on the gulf and they dont even have any trade routes because the whole of arabia is either rebel or seleucid (and im fighting them of course) - have to maintain four armies (two against the seleucids and one each to keep armenia and bactria in check) and i have very little money left for construction -

any ideas would be appreciated

[AqD]

The trade for parthians is just wrong because silk road, which is supposed to bring huge amount of money, is almost useless in RTR. So you have to rely on ports for trade income.

I think your situation is very bad because you're bordering with 3 factions - in my previous parthian (vanilla RTR PE, VH/M) I focus on bactrian first while keeping peace with the seleucid. The seleucid army would leave you alone because most of them are in the western parts; I ignored them even if they blockaded my port. You can expand fast by taking their light-garrisoned cities - but after taking those cities you get much bigger problem than before.

I'd suggest you to keep away from seleucids if possible - just leave them to the armenians. Focus on bactrians first: all their cities are poor and under-developed, and tend to have low public order, but since you're still weak you cannot afford to fight on 2 sides.

BTW in my campaign I used only HAs, no cataphract or any infantry, to save money. Bactrians should not be hard since they have very little cataphracts (if any) and lack good missile units.
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MastersPassion live

[phoebusapollon]

so do you have an army made up entirely of horse archers then? no infantry at all?

i didnt want to focus on the bactrians because in my first experience with RTR i played bactria - my first step was to wipe out the parthians, but then the seleucids came at me with stack after stack and i couldnt hold out because my parthian towns were unable to recruit troops -

so this time i was allied with bactria and we both took the seleucids out of persia - but then the buggers stabbed me in the back and got me in a two front war

yeah the silk road thing is useless - it isnt really improving my trade income by a lot - so now im relying on attacking bactrian towns and razing them to the ground to finance the development of my own cities

[SuleymanGroznii]

I'd suggest you to keep away from seleucids if possible - just leave them to the armenians. Focus on bactrians first: all their cities are poor and under-developed, and tend to have low public order, but since you're still weak you cannot afford to fight on 2 sides.

BTW in my campaign I used only HAs, no cataphract or any infantry, to save money. Bactrians should not be hard since they have very little cataphracts (if any) and lack good missile units.

Regarding staying away from the Seleucids for as long as possible, I second that notion. Ally with Armenia and Bactria ASAP, even though the Bactrians will always stab you in the back. The problem with Seleucia is that they might decide, out of the blue AND while they're at war with Greece, the Ptolemies, or both, that they're going to attack you too. So be prepared. Make sure each city you have @ the beginning is ready for the next city level (make markets and bazaars), has royal barracks, and has stables.

THEN start redecorating the city with the other stuff if you can . Recruit Horse Archers and Archers and gradually get rid of the more expensive units and units that give you less bang for the buck (i.e. I think the Persian Phalanxes have much better stats than the Cyrtian Spearmen and E. Mercenaries, but are stronger or cheaper than both) that you start out with as garrisons, like the Eastern Mercenaries. Think about cost/soldier when making up your garrisons, as well as how many soldiers you need around to maintain order with whatever taxation you're using, and always have at least 2 HA units ready in a garrison (for rebels, etc), as they're fairly cheap for cavalry.

I agree with keeping a mostly HA army, at least in the beginning. My last campaign I disbanded my kataphract unit after a few battles, because it was just too much money, AND because I had enough faction members to use for the same purpose-and they're much better than a green unit of kataphracts (or at least they seem to be). keeping your offensive armies all cavalry also gives you the Ghengis Khan mobility, which is quite the advantage against Phalanxes/heavy infantry.

Regarding building up retinue/attributes, governing cities or just hanging out in cities with academies and temples will take care of that. Regarding both their bodyguard's experience and their own command levels, use them as your kataphracts. They can handle it I had gold chevrons with a lot of family members within 10 turns of a war by using two for each army, along with 4 or more horse archers, and maybe some regular archers. Charge like you mean it (y'know, shift+right click at weak enemy units, especially missiles, whenever you can, and hit the strong units from rear or the flanks whenever you can. Whoever acts as general will get attributes like crazy, both will get experience, and the size of your bodyguard will grow as well. By the time you can build an elite cavalry stable, it'll feel like Christmas.

[Hound of Ulster]

Right now I am at war with the Seluecids and Armenia, and in a long term alliance with Bactria (it's about 208 B.C). I have only lost about six or seven battles against the Seleucids and hold Susa in addition to half of Armenia and all of Northern Iran. I'm only one major victory away from taking all of Mesopatmia.

I've been successful so far by entering an alliance with Bactria, and using all cavalry formations against both Armenia and the Seluecids (who managed to take Egypt from the Ptolemies, a former ally).

My tactics are fairly straightfoward, but devastating. I tell my horse archers to attack each phalanx formation, then concentrate fire as the phalanxes wither. Meanwhile, I group my general and the cataphracts and ride around the battlefield, allowing the cataphracts to expend thier arrows firing at targets of oppurtunity. This negates the problem of my cataphracts charging automatically after using up thier ammo. Once the horse archers expend thier arrows, I group all of the cavalry together and charge each damaged phalanx in turn. The sheer weight of horse flesh usually breaks even elite imitation legioniares and general's cavalry. Having all cavalry forces means greater manoverability in both the battle map and campaign map, and the Selucids have no counter to the endless manuvering of the horse archer when they are in the firing circle. Just be careful not to let your horse archers get caught by the phalanxes when they charge.

One by-product of these tactics is that your generals will gain traits at a very fast rate, as every single victory is a Heroic victory because of the larger size of the Seluecid armies.

[AqD]

Yeah because HAs are cheap and barely need to be replenished. When the enemy is too strong, I'd just make frontal attack (i.e. no encirclement to reduce casuality) and retreat - repeat 2 or 3 times to weaken them before a real engagement, when their armies are at least outnumbered by my HAs.

Without infantry you cannot take assault on cities and thus force you to expand slower. But otherwise it should quiet work well since you're playing vanilla RTR and no 0-turn recruitment, so after 4-5 decisive battles AI factions would usually have no more troops left, and then you can split the army to besiege all their cities at once.

BTW I don't think parthians have any heavy infantry at all, so what are you using in your campaign?
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Avandia Lawsuit

[phoebusapollon]

Yeah because HAs are cheap and barely need to be replenished. When the enemy is too strong, I'd just make frontal attack (i.e. no encirclement to reduce casuality) and retreat - repeat 2 or 3 times to weaken them before a real engagement, when their armies are at least outnumbered by my HAs.

Without infantry you cannot take assault on cities and thus force you to expand slower. But otherwise it should quiet work well since you're playing vanilla RTR and no 0-turn recruitment, so after 4-5 decisive battles AI factions would usually have no more troops left

BTW I don't think parthians have any heavy infantry at all, so what are you using in your campaign?

so do your horse archers actually win against enemy infantry? i have never really tried to use them in a melee against heavy infantry but am a bit wary about engaging seleucid phalangites (esp. the chrysaspides!)

i have won quite a lot of battles against the seleucids but they seem to have enormous resources because they just keep fielding a new army every couple of turns - no dent in their finances at all because when i check the graph their finances are actually increasing (must be all that sea trade in the aegean - i think they are trading with the macedonians)

and yeah heavy infantry is a problem - the only option i have is the persian phalangites - but they get creamed by the seleucid phalanx anyway - but now im fighting in mesopotamia so i cant recruit them there -

my battles involve a lot of retreating and running away from the enemy - usually i try to get a couple of archer units around their back -

[Quinn Inuit]

You know, one could probably script a Silk Road, maybe give a faction X gold per turn per province if certain provinces are controlled, with increases based on certain buildings being present.

[AqD]

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[Brusilov]

Yeah, for a complete victory 1 on 1 you have to encircle the enemy, using tight formation, and get as close to the enemy as possible (that means high casuality and friendly fire). It's also easy to lose the control of your troops once the encirclement is broken. But when you have equal or higher numbers (of solders, not of units), you can always win.

The problem against seleucid is not pike's heavy armour, but hypasists' fast speed and javelins. It's most difficult to fight against heavy armoured javelin/pila-thrown infantry, because you have to keep your units moving all the time, while getting them close to the enemy, otherwise the arrows would be totally useless.

A new tactic I used is to fight the same army by at least 2 battles instead of 1. First you make one or two big, tight squares, turn off skirmisher mode, and run it from the front of the enemy to their right flank, and to the rear, then retreat. The massive arrows from right side are usually enough to destroy their light units immediately, including the hypasists, and maybe cavalry too (ex: hetairoi). And then in next turn, when they have only the heavy & slow pikes, you can easily encircle and destroy them. Charging may also be used when the enemy is shaken or weavering - just be careful about the friendly fire.

And yeah, the seleucid have virtually unlimited money, like all other big factions - because units are produced too slowly in RTR . That's why you should never try to confront their armies - it'd cost a lot and if you win you just make seleucid an easy target for other factions.

Hmmm but how much money would be fair for that?

I'm giving large trade bonus for silk now, but it doesn't seem to have much effect...

If you post back within a short period please use the multi quote function.

[AqD]

Yeah, for a complete victory 1 on 1 you have to encircle the enemy, using tight formation, and get as close to the enemy as possible (that means high casuality and friendly fire). It's also easy to lose the control of your troops once the encirclement is broken. But when you have equal or higher numbers (of solders, not of units), you can always win.

The problem against seleucid is not pike's heavy armour, but hypasists' medium armour, fast speed and javelins. It's most difficult to fight against armoured javelin-thrown infantry, because you have to keep your units on the move all the time, while getting them close to the enemy, otherwise the arrows would be totally useless.

A new tactic I used is to fight the same army by at least 2 battles instead of 1. First you make one or two big, tight squares, turn off skirmisher mode, and run it from the front of the enemy to their right flank, and to the rear, then retreat. The massive arrows from right side are usually enough to destroy their light units immediately, including the hypasists, and maybe cavalry too (ex: hetairoi). And then in next turn, when they have only the heavy & slow pikes, you can easily encircle and destroy them. Charging may also be used when the enemy is shaken or weavering - just be careful about the friendly fire.

And yeah, the seleucid have virtually unlimited money, like all other big factions - because units are produced too slowly in RTR . That's why you should never try to confront their armies - it'd cost a lot and if you win you just make seleucid an easy target for other factions.

You know, one could probably script a Silk Road, maybe give a faction X gold per turn per province if certain provinces are controlled, with increases based on certain buildings being present.

Hmmm but how much money would be fair for that?

I'm giving large trade bonus for silk now, but it doesn't seem to have much effect...
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Prilosec settlements

[phoebusapollon]

And yeah, the seleucid have virtually unlimited money, like all other big factions - because units are produced too slowly in RTR . That's why you should never try to confront their armies - it'd cost a lot and if you win you just make seleucid an easy target for other factions.

thanks aqd - im taking your suggestions on board and increasing the HA component of my armies - but im still keeping the infantry - dont like the idea of all cavalry armies -

and tell me about their unlimited resources - stack after stack, and the swine have just killed off my favourite general...

[AqD]

Heh, I actually think full-cavalry armies is one of parthian's advantage, because you can always move armies faster on campaign map, though it comes with great cost - that you cannot pin the enemy to one place.

BTW you should not use generals if you may retreat during a battle - it could get him bad traits And generals are not really helpful in an army of full HAs & skirmishers, since the morale boost is almost useless for them.
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[phoebusapollon]

hmm - yeah i hadnt thought about that extra movement bit - that would be quite an advantage -

dont know - i just like having my infantry - the tactics im using now are to get my archers and javelineers around the back of the seleucid phalanx - the infantry standing in front means they have to keep facing them and that way i can let loose on the back of the phalanx -

its a problem when there are too many phalanxes though - right now i have a stack of twenty phalanxes besieging my fort and im afraid to engage it in battle

[AqD]

That's where your HAs can be very useful - bring up 10-15 units, encircle them, rain down the arrows, and retreat. They'd all die after a few turns!
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MommaHotties live

[hisslord]

I'm currently playing RTR Platinum as Parthia and I was waiting for a good thread about this faction to jump in. It seems your strategy resembles mine. Although I seem to have been forced into war with the Seleucid Empire very early on like on turn 12.

- I went south early on and took all the Seleucid's central towns: Seleucia, Susa and Babylonia for the gardens. I made Babylonia my capital thinking it would be a good central position for my planned expansion to the Mediterranean. My policy so far is enslaving everyone and where population is concerned I have had only one rebellion in Phrasna (Atropatene) which was ended by moving troops back in and exterminating the population. I had some problems in my original towns but not since I built aqueducts and secret police HQs.

- The Bactrians were aggressive from the start. They sent stack after stack to take Chakdara and Saramana, my two starting cities, so eventually I sent a single general with some spearmen, missile cavalry and merc units around their main force to raid the main Bactrian cities. These regions are too far off for me to garrison them and watch them rebel so like you I sacked Merv, Sogdiana, and Alexandria and even made it to Dehri, destroying all destroyable buildings before my exhausted general made a final stand. That was actually very enjoyable and Bactria has not yet recovered from that blow.

- I used this extra money and hiatus from the Bactrians to end the Armenian treat which had started sending stacks against me and refused to ceasefire. I eventually destroyed them with Cyrthian spears and swords and a few good horse archers but failed to hold my Black Sea possessions because Pontus immediately turned aggressive on me so I withdrew back.

- I'm working towards wresting the Levant regions, Antiochus, Nicopolis, Damascus and Palmyra from the Seleucid but they seem to be hanging on to those very tight. One effective strategy I found was sending assassins against the numerous family members the Seleucids are able to field to at least take out the generals.

I got a couple of questions:

1) I'm allied with Egypt who is at war with them but they don't seem to be doing much in terms of attacking. My plan is to take all the Levant, take adavantage of sea trade and make a bottleneck near Tarsus to hold the Seleucids in Asia Minor (Turkey) while I finish taking their asian possessions, Persis and the Arabian peninsula. Should I pay Egypt to attack the Seleucids more actively or what?

2) You mentioned armies of horse archers only. I had not thought of that instead using the old pinning the phalanx while the generals charges behind. Would it be an effective strategy to leave one full stack of missile cavalry (no general) in the center of my area of activity to harass Seleucid stacks on the campaign map while I send spies and small forces led by a general to take cities fast (hoping for open gates etc)?

3) When I took Colchis I noticed that the Phase III Parthian Auxillia was already built there. wtf? I was able to higher great units unfortunately I was not able to hold it. Is that a bug in RTR Platinum or something?

[AqD]

1) I'm allied with Egypt who is at war with them but they don't seem to be doing much in terms of attacking. My plan is to take all the Levant, take adavantage of sea trade and make a bottleneck near Tarsus to hold the Seleucids in Asia Minor (Turkey) while I finish taking their asian possessions, Persis and the Arabian peninsula. Should I pay Egypt to attack the Seleucids more actively or what?

Are they fighting other factions? Their armies would certainly boost if you give a large amount of money (+10k), but you must be careful not to share border with them - money can't keep their loyality.

2) You mentioned armies of horse archers only. I had not thought of that instead using the old pinning the phalanx while the generals charges behind. Would it be an effective strategy to leave one full stack of missile cavalry (no general) in the center of my area of activity to harass Seleucid stacks on the campaign map while I send spies and small forces led by a general to take cities fast (hoping for open gates etc)?

Yes, and it's best if you besiege multiple cities at once, even if each of these small stacks are not strong enough to launch an assault - in doing so seleucid's capability to produce troops from that area would be destroyed immediately.

3) When I took Colchis I noticed that the Phase III Parthian Auxillia was already built there. wtf? I was able to higher great units unfortunately I was not able to hold it. Is that a bug in RTR Platinum or something?

hmm that's weird because there is no such building according to descr_strat.txt.....
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PinkPegasus

[phoebusapollon]

i actually found a parthian royal barracks in one town in persia (not sure which one) when i took it - not sure why - also i found auxilia II in one indian town ( i took it from the bactrians and let it rebel - its too far away from my capital and i hear that there are lots of public order prblems with the indian cities

i dont use full stacks of horse archers myself - i like balanced armies - my usual strategy is to move my infantry up close to the seleucid phalanx then when they start moving towrds me i withdraw to make them break formation - and in the meantime send my archers and skirmishers around their back to pick them off - the fact that they dont use cavalry means my skirmishers can walk around their flanks with impunity - when they have elephants this is a problem but i have managed to deal with their elephants with flaming arrows so far -

as for egypt - im allied with them too - they still hold the southern levant but they are getting creamed by the seleucids - im letting the seleucids roll them back slowly and taking towns in their rear in the meantime -

[phoebusapollon]

i just dont like the idea of having all cavalry armies - i mean is this historical at all - were there such armies ever -

i have been using persian sparabara for my infantry - what i do is march right up to the seleucid phalanx and then press the retreat button - then my sparabara start moving back and the phalangites chase after them - after a while the phalanxes get separated and the sparabara can pick them off one by one (and in the meantime my archers and peltasts just have a field day firing at them from the rear -

so far it has worked well - i only keep a couple of cataphract units in each army cause they are so darn expensive (and take three bloody turns to build)

[AqD]

i just dont like the idea of having all cavalry armies - i mean is this historical at all - were there such armies ever -

Historically there are a lot of cavalry-only armies in eastern world, where heavy infantry is never the strong point, and their elite units are usually cavalry and cavalry-only. Parthians, Xiongnu (not later Huns), Arabians etc. Even ancient chinese, who were always regarded as having mass infantry, used armies consisted of only cavalry and mounted infantry in several battles in Tang, when they were very rich and had access to nearly unlimited horses (one million state-owned horses in early days).

It's not entirely historical in RTR because the game engine cannot make mounted infantry (move mounted and fight unmounted). I think that if parthians were to deploy any infantry, they would probably equip all of them with horses so they can move together with HAs.
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