How to win a battle with....Parthians

[Marcus Scaurus]

I find the Parthians one of the coolest factions to play with in RTR. They have the best bodyguard, their horse archers are uncatchable and their infantry....sucks :wink: So I decided to write a little article on Parthia.

Training & Recruitment: building an army
Although you won't be positioned near poor cities in the beginning, you can get short of money pretty fast with Parthia. You have only two cities, so you can only have about two third stack in the beginning. So you have to make sure you don't waste money on useless units and such.

Cataphracts and Bodyguards
The first thing you have to do is to disband the cataphracts. Yes, I love them but they suck your money away. They cost about 500 denarii upkeep each turn, PER UNIT! Three units of HAs cost the same, but are far more effective if you use them wisely. Why do you recruit and pay upkeep for cataphracts you get for free as your general's bodyguard? Cataphracts are a pain in the ass for every enemy cavalry and infantry: they're nearly unbeatable, and they shoot arrows too. Because they don't die very quick, they'll gain experience far more easy than other bodyguards. I've had a 10-star Macedonian general who fought every major battle in 30 years, but his bodyguards only had 1 silver chevron. My current 7-star general, 33 years old, already has two golden chevrons. The combination of experience and armour makes your general almost invincible. So you can use them to flank the best Seleucid phalanx, to fight the Bactrian hetaroi or even those Seleucid swordmen (with the annoying Greek name). They're slow but so what, every cavalry was in antiquity.

Horse Archers
Everyone of us had nightmares of those uncatchable Scythian horse archers. A pain in the ass, especially if you're playing a phalanx/infantry based unit. The best solution is to hire them, but mercenaries are quite expensive too. The RTR system allows you to train them, but that's not possible with every faction (as far as I know). Parthia has them too. These guys are very fast, but unarmoured, thus vulnerable for archers. Archers/slingers are the greatest enemies of the HAs. In real life, it was almost impossible for foot archers to hit the fast moving HAs, but in RTW they're almost superhuman and they can outrange you HAs easily. The best solution is to pick off enemy units that are out of range of their archers, or to stay on the higher ground. If you have to exterminate those archers, bring your general forward. The enemy archers will shower him, but his armour will save him. After a few minutes they're out of ammo and you can sweep them away with arrows.

Eastern Infantry
To be honest, the Parthian infantry sucks. They're the weakest infantry in RTW, but I always use them for digging and taking the ladders to the wall. They're just cannonfodder, to spare your more experienced troops. NEVER send them on the walls to fight superior troops. Also quite useful as garrison. Never rely on them as your main infantry.

Archers
With cataphracts and HAs one of the strongest units in RTW. A combination of HAs and archers can make the sky black of arrows, just like at Thermopylae. Back then, the Spartans refused to die but in RTW the enemy will get decimated before they reach your pikes. Phalanx is hard to kill if they face your archers, but try using your horse archers. Protect your archers, they are weak and get run down pretty quickly by enemy cavalry.

Auxilia & Mercenaries
An important rule in RTW is: what you don't have by yourself, you can hire. Macedonians hire HAs. Parthians hire phalanx guys to pin those delta-Seleucids. Persian Phalanx Pikemen are quite cheap, and they can put up quite a fight. Also useful as garrison. These guys are easy to hire, but also to recruit: with auxilia phase 3 they're yours. Do not field an army without these guys if you don't wanna have your archers slaughtered.

Parthia has archers enough, but not slingers. You can recruit slingers, but it's far better to hire them: they come with one silver chevron experience. The advantage of slingers is that the little stones aren't effected by bad weather. They're not really important, but some variation is always good.

Conquering your way into Bactria, you can also hire elephants. Do never do this. They cost loads of money (1000 denarii each turn), and they die pretty quickly if you fight the Indians (who use many archers). Realise that you can field six groups of HAs with the same money.

Conquering your way north, you will be able to hire HAs and heavy cavalry. Don't hire the former, because they're expensive and you already have them. Sarmatian heavy cavalry is quite useful. I don't use cataphracts, but the general and his bodyguards can't do the job on their own in a great battle. Sarmatian heavy cav is quite fast (in comparison with cataphracts), and can be used for many things: ambushing, flanking, chasing, frontal, etc.

There are many other mercs and auxilia troops you will encounter on your path to victory, and I can't name them all. Make sure you don't pay too much for them or hire useless units that don't fit into your army.

Composition
I've made some nice Paint artwork to let you see the perfect Parthian army.

(the HAs are position more forward)

I'll do the second part tomorrow. Hope you like it.

[Gunno_Desk]

Cool; i think with this i'll play my first campaige as an eastern faction

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

good work, needs to be stickied (thanks Asterix)

[Marcus Scaurus]

Thanks, Tac and Gunno. I'm gonna make a second part tomorrow, I'm a bit busy today.

[guyyug]

gd i want more because im plannin to do a parthian campagain after may campagain as rome almost done that

[StreeT_GueRRila]

You should add some info on how to manage Parthian Economy not just units.

[guyyug]

You should add some info on how to manage Parthian Economy not just units.

for all we know he could put it in the 2nd part

[Marcus Scaurus]

Sorry guys, I just did something really stupid. I was quite bored with my Parthian campaign (you know, became too strong) and I started a new one, just to see if a eight family members army could capture Seleucia. So I wanted to save my game, and instead of clicking on 'Parthia2' I clicked on 'Parthia'. Stupid, stupid, stupid. My savegame is gone. This week I'll start a new campaign, because I can't write with no campaign to make screenshots, etc.

[Shadows]

Parthia has great potential to be a poweful force in the right hands. Whenever i play as parthia i use only use archers and catapharacts. I bring along just enough infantry to carry seige weapons and to settle the conquered towns. Omly problem with this strategy is that street fighting can be deadly when the enemy have anti-cavelry units. Try to stick to the open plains and slaughter them from a distance. Its almost unfair when your out on the plains woth HA's.

[Banrai]

I am currently playing Parthia in SPQR. It is rare that there is anything but Horse Archers in my stacks.
Although more than 12 units means losing more HA's to friendly fire than from enemy damage.
My generals are all relegated to administrative duty.

HA's can take up to 150% of the number of HA units in the stack. (4 HA's can usually defeat 6 of anything)
The trick is to fire into the flanks, especially if there are phalanx troops squared off against the HA's.
It does take a lot of clicking and dragging and clicking some more, and timing becomes crucial.
I kept trying to integrate Cataphracts - and even Cataphract Archers, but they are slow, and sometimes I forget to move them away from the heat until it is smashing time.

Sieging is possibly exploiting, though. The reason I feel that way is that I can sometimes camp around the city, draw out and defeat the defenders, yet still not enter the city. When the battle timer expires, it is ruled a draw, but my troops move into town, as there are no defenders left. I have mixed feelings about this - maybe the citizens open the gates and surrender?

All in all, it is an absolute blast. I have put the stake in the heart of Egypt, Scythia, Pontus (5 turns, massive siege of all Pontus at once after they jumped a General that was commuting to work), Selucid Empire, and next up is the Macedon(ian?)s.

I estimate a loss of 5% of the enemy losses, average. It will be interesting to see if I can crack Roman armor and tactics. Two turns ago, the Brutii laid siege to my most recent acquisition, and now the Senate and the factions are now at war with my humble empire.

I have not played Parthia in Vanilla, so I can't say if these tactics would hold true.

[Marcus Scaurus]

My generals are all relegated to administrative duty.

That's a shame. Parthian generals have the best bodyguards ingame: usually you have to pay very much for cataphract but the bodyguards doesn't cost you anything at all, and you don't have to retrain them! They gain experience much faster than other bodyguards do. Non-cataphract bodyguards are vulnerable and die pretty quickly, making it very hard to gain experience. Parthian bodyguards gain golden chevrons pretty easily, making them an elite cavalry unit that defeats twice as much hetaroi.

HA's can take up to 150% of the number of HA units in the stack. (4 HA's can usually defeat 6 of anything)
The trick is to fire into the flanks, especially if there are phalanx troops squared off against the HA's.
It does take a lot of clicking and dragging and clicking some more, and timing becomes crucial.
I kept trying to integrate Cataphracts - and even Cataphract Archers, but they are slow, and sometimes I forget to move them away from the heat until it is smashing time.

It's best to work in pairs. One unit of HA shoots the enemy unit from the flanks or back. Use the other unit as a bait, so the enemy won't face/chase you. Battles with HA are sometimes very long and annoying, it can take up to an hour to kill those armoured phalanx. Cataphract archers are quite useless: they miss the very heavy armor of the cataphracts and the speed of horse archers.

[vikingsiddhu]

What about how to defeat Parthians?

[Marcus Scaurus]

What about how to defeat Parthians?

Archers. Lots of archers. In real life, it was nearly impossible for foot archers to hit the fast horse archers. Archers needed a large, slow moving target, especially at large distances. In RTW, the archers can hit a Ferrari driving at full speed, and they are perfect against horse archers, mainly because they outrange them. When you're playing with a horse archers faction yourself, I still say it's better to fight the Parthian HAs with your own slingers and archers. Eastern factions have good archers and slingers, so that should be no problem. When you're playing with the Seleucids, I advise you to hire Cyrtian/Rhodian slingers and Cretan archers, and be sure you have lots of them, so that every HA unit that comes nearby gets annihilated by a bombardment of stones and arrows.

Even with six or seven archer/slinger units, you will lose quite a lot of men to the Parthian HAs because your archers can't annihilate four groups of HAs in one minute. So try to use phalanx troops as a bait for the HAs, or your cataphract/hetaroi bodyguard.

Cataphract are very hard to fight in RTR, but remember that they're not invincible. After finishing off the HAs, bombard them with missile fire and try to use light cavalry as a bait. Using your light cavalry, try to make them charge into your phalanx. They will hold out quite long because they're armoured like tanks, so that should give you enough time to bring other infantry (preferably infantry with the 'Bonus fighting cavalry') or heavy cavalry behind the cataphracts. Wait until the cataphracts are tired and shaken/wavering, before attack them from behind. You'll lose about thirty men depending on experience of the cataphract, but they'll break after some time.

[hellheaven1987]

Archers. Lots of archers. In real life, it was nearly impossible for foot archers to hit the fast horse archers. Archers needed a large, slow moving target, especially at large distances. In RTW, the archers can hit a Ferrari driving at full speed, and they are perfect against horse archers, mainly because they outrange them. When you're playing with a horse archers faction yourself, I still say it's better to fight the Parthian HAs with your own slingers and archers. Eastern factions have good archers and slingers, so that should be no problem. When you're playing with the Seleucids, I advise you to hire Cyrtian/Rhodian slingers and Cretan archers, and be sure you have lots of them, so that every HA unit that comes nearby gets annihilated by a bombardment of stones and arrows.

Even with six or seven archer/slinger units, you will lose quite a lot of men to the Parthian HAs because your archers can't annihilate four groups of HAs in one minute. So try to use phalanx troops as a bait for the HAs, or your cataphract/hetaroi bodyguard.

Cataphract are very hard to fight in RTR, but remember that they're not invincible. After finishing off the HAs, bombard them with missile fire and try to use light cavalry as a bait. Using your light cavalry, try to make them charge into your phalanx. They will hold out quite long because they're armoured like tanks, so that should give you enough time to bring other infantry (preferably infantry with the 'Bonus fighting cavalry') or heavy cavalry behind the cataphracts. Wait until the cataphracts are tired and shaken/wavering, before attack them from behind. You'll lose about thirty men depending on experience of the cataphract, but they'll break after some time.

I don't want to doubt about it but are you sure archer can counter HA? I use HA to counter the archers simply just use charge and it work very well!