Parthia Campaign - Building an Army vs Building a Bankroll

**Blom89** · March 13, 2011, 03:48 AM

I started a campaign as Parthia, figured it would be a nice challenge. I've conquered parts of Scythia, parts of Armenia and have even gotten into a few skirmishes with Egypt over a rebel town to the south. So far the town has exchanged hands a total of 4 times, with myself and Egypt constantly taking the town from one another. I know I've stretched myself thin militarily and Egypt's military is something that should not be ****ed with. There axemen are tearing apart my eastern infantry, and there Nile Spearman are a walking nightmare. I never bothered creating hillmen units because they didn't seem like they would fair any better. And I was unable to develop the barracks any farther due to low finances.

I believe my biggest mistake was conquering cities to soon and not building a treasury first. On top of that I never upgraded my Barracks or stables any further than a Militia Barracks or a regular stable in almost all my settlements, which left me unable to develop the heavily armored calvary and nothing stronger than eastern infantry, simply due to money restrictions and the enormous fortune I was already spending on my army.

I would send 1000-1200 man army's made up of mostly eastern infantry and then get slaughtered by 2 units of Egyptian axe men. It was becoming a joke.

I was walking all over Scythia and Armenia like a bully in a school yard, but I can't seem to push into Egypt successfully. I allied myself with the Seleucid's thinking they would help take on Egypt and even sent a diplomat to demand that they attack Egypt, but had no luck.

On top of that, Parthia's isolation from the rest of the world is making travel a very time consuming and tedious thing. Having to drag an army across the map in 8+ turns just to find the closest settlement is becoming incredibly frustrating.

I really don't wanna give up.

Also, how might I deal with Squalor? I see no way to build sewers.

**Hopit** · March 13, 2011, 05:00 AM

you're doing something wrong if you don't use horse archers... use infantry only in sieges
also, conquer seleucids or pontus, leave russia alone

**Macedon1an** · March 13, 2011, 08:12 AM

You should conquer the Seleucid Empire and Asia Minor... those regions are real money-makers...
Make a web of diplomats, and when you see a big Egyptian army just bribe it...
Don't bother using infantry as Parthia.. you're strength is in cavalry... spam horse-archers and when you can Cataphracts... if you really want infantry hire hoplite mercs...

**Plant** · March 13, 2011, 09:45 AM

There is no reason why you cannot do both. Conquering cities quickly is the best route to gaining enough money to conquer cities. if it is a large city, just make sure to raze the city so the problem of a high population causing riots is deferred to later on. It seems that you have declared wars on several factions. If you want to conquer Egypt, it is best that you concentrate most of your armies on Egypt. I do not know what is 1000-2000 men means. Use 20 unit armies and use your general units carefully as cavalry. Ideally, as parthia, you would want at least half of your army to be cavalry of any sort. You are playing against the AI, you should overwhelmingly crush any equal army, even if you face three in a row.

Why do you see squalor as a problem?
Squalor is the method in which the game designers place a level where the re is a population cap.
Squalor is matched towards the level of population, so squalor is only a problem if you are trying to increase the population.
Normally, when squalor becomes a "problem", you do not want the population to increase, because at that level of population, you cannot garrison any more soldiers to keep more order. Squalor is not a problem, unless for some reason you simply want to have a higher population beyond that what what the game designers wanted.
So I have to ask, why do you want to decrease squalor? If you want a higher population, build farms. If you want a higher income, build markets, caravan trade routes, roads and ports.
For the purpose of keeping a city from rioting, sqaulor helps you; just ignore everybody else who tell you otherwise.

**xjlxking** · March 14, 2011, 10:23 AM

Honestly, Parthia has by far one of the easiest campaigns. Just steam roll everything with Horse Archer. Once you run out of ammo, retreat, and repeat. The damage they do in one hp system is by far the greatest from all other factions. You have literraly nothing to worry about. Only in sieges do you use infantry. Still, in sieges, just seige the settlement, and don't attack. Let them come, while they are coming out of the fotress position you archers to shoot at sight. Again, it's a steamroll.

Just Three small objective you have.
-Spam Horse Archers
-When taking a settlement,exterminate and pillage. Gather the loot.
-To hold the settlement, use infantry as garrison and have diplomats handy.

Honestly, I destroyed everything with Parthia. I had like 15 stacks of army who did not stop to rest. We only stopped when we got to Egypt and Greece (Now Macedonia). Only then, after I didn't really have any more town to pillage and loot did I start running into money problems. Tho, I did keep two stacks of armies around my empire dealing with rebels and revolts(if any did come).

Go by the Persia Path. Stop where Scythia is, don't conquer them. Make an alliance with them. Conquer the persian world, then go to Asia minor and Egypt. After, take Greece. The hardest part to me was the Romans, who were allied with Egyptians and attack me together in Greece and Egypt. Still, eventually, they lost to the shoot and retreat method.

**Desmon Stellberg** · November 13, 2011, 12:59 AM

Since this post seems appropriate, I'm not gonna start a new one.

I'm a great fan of the Parthians. I've play with them more than once and I was able by the past (not without difficulty) to achieve victory. But now... I truly need advice.

I'm still at the beginning of the game (Very Hard, Very Hard), my second faction leader isn't dead yet to give you an idea. After about 100 turns or so, I possessed Selucia, Susa, Arsakia, Phraaspa ans Kotais, wich is not much I admit but the reason is quite simple.

Since the start of the game about the turn 15, Egypt declare war and since then, I never have one freaking year of peace!

The Egypt wasn't a surprise, I knew there's nothing to do with them so I was preparing myself to the invasion. The war go on for a few years and I killed every army thay send, childplay... But instead of pushing to their territory I keep my ground, waiting for the Seleucid to be weakened so that I could capture Selucia without problem.

The egyptians, although I killed more than 15 full army of them never accept a truce, since there was only them it was stable.

But the parthians doesn't have a strong economy, and to unkeep a full army of Horse archers it requires everything from your treasure, you don't make a lot of profit, but you're able to devellop your contry slowly. It's so costly you can't have more than 12 or 15 regiment of Horse archers, and all of them make your only (but almost unbeatable army).

The Seleucid Wiped out, there was only the Armenians, the Pontus, and the Egyptians left. After 50 turns of war, Egypt don't want to hear anything about a truce, and to my dismay, Armenia decide to attack me as well. Problem is, I've only one army... So with everything I can manage to gather I burst the garrison od Seleucia to the limit of my capacity while I sent my horse archers stop the armenians.

During that period I crush perhaps 10 army of Armenia and 5 or so of Egypt, every turn I harass them with my best diplomat to make them stop the war. At least one of them!! I only get no for answer. I manage to take Artaxarta and Kotais after much difficulty because to save my province in the south I needed money so I didn't have the choice but to disband some of my regiments of Horse archers(7 or so).

Now, after 30 turn of harsh conflict, I manage to keep both at bay with my men at Selucia while I get the profit of the armenians cities. But the war isn't over, I must keep an eye on Harta, the last city of Armenia because it's still able to send groups of ennemy to make my life impossible.

And NOW! The freaking Pontus joined the game! capturing Artaxarta and Kotais in 4 turns because they send 3 full army to Armenia.

With all of this, I'm in war for nearly 100 turns without a truce, my treasure is almost empty, in war against everyone near me (save the Scythians fortunately!), my diplomat bribed so I can't harass them to stop and none of them contact me diplmatically since Armenia declare war 30 turns or so ago.

Any suggestions.... I'm far from being a noob and now I'm resourceless. The only thing I can think of is having a peace with at least one, or two of the three factions so I can concentrate my force on one of my ennemy. But I don't know what could make them accept a truce, they're not intimidated one bit (even after I destroyed more army than I can recall) and I don't have a lot to bargain with because their war are ruining me. Do you have a clue to make the factions accept it.

Help!!!

**Vindictus** · November 13, 2011, 11:46 AM

Weird, I get filthy rich as Parthians. VH VH. I find just having 5 HAs in each army is fine enough. One for Seleucid Expansion and one for Armenia/Pontus. After conquering large-towns (MUST be large-towns), just retrain them. Exterminate, and repeat the process. Have one general in each army. You should have started by taking the nearest Seleucid settlement. Then moved west to the second closest one. At the same time conquered the closest Armenian settlement. Expand at a relatively same pace until you reach Alexandria. Don't hit Alexandria yet. Declare war on Pontus and send eight HA's to take their two major towns. Then sweep down and take the adjacent city near Alexandria. Hit Alexandria and exterminate. Retrain your HA's right away.

Your issue with the campaign was expanding too slowly. It's okay if you go into debt just a little. You need all your taxes on VH, and focus on farms. All though Persia has some poor farming soil, the adjacent Seleucid city nearby at the start has VERY fertile soil. That will be your basis of economy once you take that wonder.

What Alexandria is taken, you do not need to worry about your western part of the top empire. (Greeks). Greeks are too focused fighting their own battle. Seleucids are crumbling, and Egypt should not have declared war on you yet. Your initial starting provinces are much too far away. Now expand south and have a total of 11-15 HA's plus 2 General bodyguards. Also, have 1-2 Eastern Infantry as a line to HOLD. Hit Egypt's closest southern settlement then take Jerusalem, remembering to replenish after every strike. Build a fort with a General and go back up to Damascus. Egypt probably retaliated to hit Jerusalem, but a fort was in the way. Take Damascus and swiftly come back to destroy opposition. The southern map is falling to you already.

**ccgr1121** · November 19, 2011, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Gaius Caesar

Weird, I get filthy rich as Parthians. VH VH. I find just having 5 HAs in each army is fine enough. One for Seleucid Expansion and one for Armenia/Pontus. After conquering large-towns (MUST be large-towns), just retrain them. Exterminate, and repeat the process. Have one general in each army. You should have started by taking the nearest Seleucid settlement. Then moved west to the second closest one. At the same time conquered the closest Armenian settlement. Expand at a relatively same pace until you reach Alexandria. Don't hit Alexandria yet. Declare war on Pontus and send eight HA's to take their two major towns. Then sweep down and take the adjacent city near Alexandria. Hit Alexandria and exterminate. Retrain your HA's right away.

Your issue with the campaign was expanding too slowly. It's okay if you go into debt just a little. You need all your taxes on VH, and focus on farms. All though Persia has some poor farming soil, the adjacent Seleucid city nearby at the start has VERY fertile soil. That will be your basis of economy once you take that wonder.

What Alexandria is taken, you do not need to worry about your western part of the top empire. (Greeks). Greeks are too focused fighting their own battle. Seleucids are crumbling, and Egypt should not have declared war on you yet. Your initial starting provinces are much too far away. Now expand south and have a total of 11-15 HA's plus 2 General bodyguards. Also, have 1-2 Eastern Infantry as a line to HOLD. Hit Egypt's closest southern settlement then take Jerusalem, remembering to replenish after every strike. Build a fort with a General and go back up to Damascus. Egypt probably retaliated to hit Jerusalem, but a fort was in the way. Take Damascus and swiftly come back to destroy opposition. The southern map is falling to you already.

Forgive me, but when you say Alexandria I assume you mean Antioch? Otherwise your post makes absolutely no sense

**AngelDeath** · November 16, 2011, 04:59 AM

everytime i played as seleucid , armenia , pontus , parthians , i noticed one thing . Egyptians seem strong at the beginning , but after u taken jerusalem from them they will be weak . Than alexandia, memphis , and another city is easy pickings .

Being partians is the hardest of all when u go up agaisnt egyptians , their desert cavalry easily massacre ur HA and general and infantry . Dont forget desert cavalry has 160 men in each regiment while normal cavalry has only 108 , desert cavalry has armor piercing and they move fast .

**Vindictus** · November 16, 2011, 05:47 PM

Arrows are renowned at slaughtering horses. If you have enough HA's, desert cavalry won't be a difficulty. Your general should be able to hold out as well against their cavalry. Egypt starts strong, that is all.

**AngelDeath** · November 17, 2011, 07:43 AM

if one on one HA will fail agaist desert cav...

**Vindictus** · November 17, 2011, 09:22 PM

Play strategically then. HA's will decimate everything as long as their foes don't reach them. You can't expect HA's to hold out on their own unless they're in mass numbers. You need to have some kind of infantry holding the line. Persia's Eastern Infantry are notorious for the numbers. Just put them in front of your HA's and you already have the game won.

It's like saying 2 group of Phalanx Pikemen, 1 militia hoplite, and 1 group of Militia Cav will lose to 3500 Egyptian Numidan Spearmen, Javelinmen, and General.

Just to tell you, it was winnable. And I managed to get 3250 kills out of it. Many things are possible in RTW.