Parthia

**Vequor** · April 02, 2008, 06:57 PM

Ok, I've tried playing as Parthia a few times now, but I always get backstabbed by either the Seleucids or the Bactrians, as they seem to be the only places I can expand to easily I always seem to end up in the war between them and whoevers side I pick backstabs me. Maybe I should use the no landblocks mod?

Anyway, basically they always gang up on me, occasionally along with the Armenians, and I always go done under. I'm wondering if anyone has any tips/strategies for succeeding as the Parthians. Only submod that I'm using that I know of is the 4tpy one.

**carthagetotalwar** · April 02, 2008, 08:25 PM

When I'm Parthia, I always attack Seleucids almost right away. Disband everything but a couple infantry, set taxes on very high, build nothing but horse archers, exterminate everything you capture to fund horse archers

**Vequor** · April 02, 2008, 10:49 PM

Sounds good, but then how to deal with Bactria? Whenever I start a war with Seleucid they leap all over me.

**carthagetotalwar** · April 03, 2008, 01:00 AM

I should have clarified. I'll just jot down what I do in all of my Parthia campaigns.

I disband all infantry and cataphracts except for like two units of cyrtian spearmen each in my cities. I set taxes on very high. I queue up as many horse archers as I can after getting paved roads for both cities.

I take Hecatympylos as quick as possible. It's a fairly profitable city due to its mines.

Usually after this the Seleucids will blockade my port, initiating war. If they don't, I slash-and-burn the two cities southwest and south to Parthian lands; I exterminate, leave one token infantry, sell everything I can, and set taxes on very high. What I'm trying to do is get these cities to revolt.

Usually around this time, Bactria comes trotting around.

By now you should be able to afford two armies of 10-12 horse archer units.

What you are going to want to do is use one army to destroy enemy armies approaching your lands, while the other one consolidates and conquers the other.

Obviously, it's more advisable to hold off Seleucids while conquering Bactria, which falls rather quickly. If you're going to be conquering the Seleucid empire, it is going to take the entirety of the game.

Kill everything Bactrian that you see. After you defeat a couple of their field armies, they can really only field Indian infantry after you take out Merv, Songaila, Alexandria Herat etc. Keep exterminating; you need more horse-archer armies.

You can send any additional horse-archer armies recruited to help the destruction of Bactria, but once they are severely hamstringed, you should make a beeline for Babylon.

The Seleucid empire is surrounded by enemies. Once you take Babylon, they're going to start falling apart. Not quickly, mind you, but enough so that the Ptolemies and the Seleucids will be on parity.

**Mikail Mengsk** · April 03, 2008, 05:42 AM

But isn't a bit annoying to play only with horse archers??? :hmmm:

**AqD** · April 03, 2008, 05:49 AM

You would need to focus more on strategy rather than battle tactics, i.e. predict what enemies would do, attack their defenseless cities, and intercept small enemy armies before they can assemble.
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**Korlon** · April 03, 2008, 07:29 AM

Horse archer only stacks are great, especially in the east where the infantry you usually see are poorly armored. Hit and run tactics are necessary there. If you run out of arrows, you can just withdraw from the battlefield while the enemy has already lost a majority of their army.

The way to not get backstabbed is to backstab them yourself! Pre-emptive strike if you will. And it's probably best to build some watchtowers if you can afford them, or at least a whole lot of spies.

**Mikail Mengsk** · April 04, 2008, 05:47 AM

Originally Posted by Korlon

Horse archer only stacks are great, especially in the east where the infantry you usually see are poorly armored. Hit and run tactics are necessary there. If you run out of arrows, you can just withdraw from the battlefield while the enemy has already lost a majority of their army.

Sorry Korlon, i'm not judging this tactic (sounds a devastating one, killing entire armies with very little casualties), but I think RTR is a great game because of the different tactics that could be used too. Using ONLY horse archers put a severe limit on this game, and also (i think) to the fun: no infantry brawls, no cavalry epic charges... only arrows and hit and run :hmmm:.

Maybe there could be another way to use Parthian's, instead of producing only horse archers, couln't it? I will have a big interest hearing it, i'm thinking about playing a campaign with this faction after the Carthaginians

**phoebusapollon** · April 12, 2008, 09:09 AM

Originally Posted by Mikail Mengsk

Maybe there could be another way to use Parthian's, instead of producing only horse archers, couln't it? I will have a big interest hearing it, i'm thinking about playing a campaign with this faction after the Carthaginians

there is a way with parthians without just using horse archers - against the seleucids - they usually have massive phalanx armies - so i used armies with persian sparabara/cyrtian swordsmen and javelineers -

advance your army toward the phalanx line - but then do not engage the phalanx - instead use the superior speed of your light infantry to draw the phalanx forward -

get your javelineers around to the back of the phalanx - you can usually reduce a phalanx unit like hell when you get your javelineers around the back -

needless to say - you need some cavalry around to protect your javelineers from enemy cavalry - seluecids tend not to have too much cavalry so this is usually not a problem - some archers to kill off any enemy javelineers is also useful -

i used to have parthian armies made up of about 8-9 sparabara/cyrtian swordsmen, two archers, three or four javelineers and three or four cavalry - worked beautifully all the time -

**Mikail Mengsk** · April 12, 2008, 09:14 AM

Thanks for the tips

**AqD** · April 12, 2008, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by phoebusapollon

there is a way with parthians without just using horse archers - against the seleucids - they usually have massive phalanx armies - so i used armies with persian sparabara/cyrtian swordsmen and javelineers -

advance your army toward the phalanx line - but then do not engage the phalanx - instead use the superior speed of your light infantry to draw the phalanx forward -

get your javelineers around to the back of the phalanx - you can usually reduce a phalanx unit like hell when you get your javelineers around the back

But how do you control that, if both sides are full stack armies? You'd have to manually direct some 10+ units in order for them not to engage and get pwned by phalanx, and it'd not be easy for your javelineers to hack their back, because there would always be several reserve enemy units in the flanks and rear.....
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**Vequor** · April 03, 2008, 02:16 PM

Sounds like it should work, but I'm not quite sure what you mean by sell everything you can in those 2 cities. I'm also not quite sure what the benefit of revolting in those 2 cities are. Keep in mind I'm not questioning your strategy, I just don't entirely understand it.

Also, something that I usually do is I recruit a few assassins and have them sabatoge enemy cities to keep them busy while my armies are elsewhere. Would that work with this strategy?

**Korlon** · April 03, 2008, 04:22 PM

Sabotaging cities would probably not do anything other than depleting their treasury a little. And by selling, he means to demolish all of the buildings of a particular city, making you some money.

**Vequor** · April 03, 2008, 05:21 PM

I see. And getting the cities to revolt is to create a bit of a wall between you and Seleucid then?

**AqD** · April 04, 2008, 02:53 AM

Not if they're rebels (AI has no hesitate to attack them), but if it's taken by some faction that isn't enemy to Seleucid.
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**AqD** · April 04, 2008, 10:50 AM

You could try Armenians. They have all of the good units - heavy infantry (hoplite), legionaries, cataphracts, and horse archers.
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**beatoangelico** · April 04, 2008, 11:10 AM

parthians at the game start are still nomads, and steppe nomads did use only horse archers with limited heavy cavalry and sometimes light infantry support

**Vequor** · April 04, 2008, 12:31 PM

Indeed. Something else about the arrows they used, along with those of many others in the east, is that they were armor-piercing. (Not sure rtr has this though)

Btw, I was wondering, do the Parthians have reforms, and if so, how do you get them?

**AqD** · April 04, 2008, 09:07 PM

Giving them armour-piercing would be very weird in RTW, because those real "armour-piercing" arrows can easily pentrate most shields as well - but ap arrows without higher attack just cannot do

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**Vectis** · April 05, 2008, 11:03 AM

Your quite right that the horse archers of this period did have armour piercing capabilities, which was why they were such a threat. If you want it to be more historically realistic you could always find their unit in the data file and change it to make their primary weapon armour piercing.
Also playing with horse archers does provide a great game. I had some fantastic battles against the Macedonians with only horse archers. When they ran out of arrows then I would isolate individual units of macedonian spearmen, set up a couple of units as horse archers as bait, whilst 3 units charged into the back of them. As they turned, the bait units charged. They soon routed.
It is quite a challenge using horse archers in the later game when most units have full stacks of heavy infantry, and they require their own specialised tactics.