Little guide for Armenia
I wanted some real challenge, playing armenia VH/H in Darthmod and to make a small guide that'll prove usefull... If I succed as I'm writing it as I play. Sorry for my mistakes, english isn't my main language ^^.
The begining :
Playing armenia is like playing the 300 spartans at thermophile, you're surounded by Pontus at the west, Pathia est, Seleucids south and Scythians north. You have some quite good ressources and a potentialy powerfull army if you can survive and affort it. But first the main objective is to survive heh...
The campaign map :
Keep an eye on your borders.
Your land is moutainous and it's your main advantage to defend it if you manage it well. First of all you need to watch were your ennemies are comming and estimate how many turns they'll be there ect... so build watch towers at strategic points of your montainous land. Now you've your watch and you'll see the ennemy comming few turns before they reach you land giving you the time to gather your forces to the attacked point. Your strating spy is usefull to for this duty.
Enconomy : need of balance
At start you've a quite good economy but if you get the taxes to the maximum your cites your popultation will begin to decrease... lit it be for few years and try first to build roads and ports then you must be able to recruit horse archers and basic spear infantry everywere they'll be your main force for the start. Then when you're okey with this you can start to build some markets and enchance your economy, avoid buying expensive buildings except the stables and barracks.
Fighting and strategic moves
You'll have to divide your forces, a defensive army divided in two betwen Kotais and Artaxtara first to not concentrate your forces and to maitain order in your cities, dividing into two assure you'll have at least one mobile force if one of your cities is undersiege and one city where your harassers can retreat and recover thier loses.
- The harassing force, an army composed only by horse archers and a general. Their main duty if to haras the ennemy and kill much as possible to weaken them before they reach your mainland and the retreat. When you haras the ennemy your main target would be ennemy cavalry and archers.
- In your normal armies for defense and attack sould be composed by a heart of infantry (spears mainly missiles are optional) with horse archers.
Defense... defense... but the best defense is attack !
You've four neigbours, Pontus will not move at you in the first years if you are lucky and their cites are quite far and close to each other. Same for seleucid. You can beat the scytians but... is it realy good to travel so far for some poor settlements ? I don't think so. So your last choice is Parthia, they have a city near oriental border very close to pharaaspa, they'll quickly come to attack you. If you manage to do it first with a good attacking army leaving some defenses in you mainland you'll be able to rush them as their city has no wall and secure your west, and they'll have to cross the mountain to the south to eventualy take thier revenge, and that plan can be disturbed by the Seleucids if they break thier alliance.
Your bosphorian city : You'll surely lose it to the sarmatians, but you battle well you've be able to keep it as I've done, try to build a stable there as quickly as possible if you succed in defending it so you'll be able to recover your loses and build a better force there to keep this city that can make you earn a nice pack of money, if you manage a trade pact with thrace and greece :original: .
The battlefield :
Very important part, a good disciple of the dark force never fails there... never !first step is to use the terrain well and make your horse archers the lords of the field. Armenia is a hilly and moutainous land, excellent for ambushing tactics and very bad for the seleucid and pontic phalanxes, use it well with your infantry and horse archers and prove that phalanx power died with Alexander.
Stay alert : when you play horse archers it's in a way harder than an ordinary battle, because your forces are often more dispatched among the field to don't hesitate to often hit "p" for a better micro managment of each horse archer unit. If you aren't alert you can lose entire units of horse archers who've reached the map border and being blocked and killed by ennemy cavalry.
Speamen and infantry :
Deploy or move your infantry on hills and let the ennemy tire to reach them, use them as a wall and a screen for your retreating horse archers. Use them also to destroy tired units by surounding them when your horse archers have done thier job and are out of ammo.
Horse archers :
Your main power, thier only weakness is to being blocked on the corner of the map or between ennemy units and of course when they're out of ammo. Deploy them hiden in forest to set a nice trap for the ennemy cavalry.
- Autofire : You sould cut it in big and long battles to keep your ammos, firing infantry from the front is a total waste. Use it only if your cavalry is escaping other cavalry.
- Main objective : Cutting the ennemy legs and head, kill thier cavalry by diverting it from thier main force, suround it form everyside with 3-4 units of horse archers if you can, or better... I call this "the mongol trap" (beaucause the first time I used it was to win thier historic campain in MTW) just let them run after your horse archers and grab them in the forest where your spearmen are hiden and watch
- Second : Cut thier arms, now the cavalry is gone concentrate in killing every unit that is still able to kill your horse archers, foot archers and peltast, try to divert them from the main core and charge them with your general or heavy cavarly if you have it, with the general dead they'll flee quickly. Or you can kill them using the cantabrian circle they'll lose a lot of missiles in the center of your circle.
- Third : Finish them ! The easiest part try to suround the remaining infantry with your horse archers (2 units), they'll move to attack one, the horse archers who're facing the ennemy never shot, those from the back does and kill quickly a lot of them, if they're fleeding I suggest to put autofire on and move toward them, your horse archer will follow them and keep firing them in the back.
- Ennemy horse archers : surely your worst problem, use the same thing as with the ordinary cavalry but use the cantabrian circle to attack, but There is an other tactic...
- The "Armenian charge" That's how I call it, "The armenian charge" very risky but deadly in horse archers vs horse archers combat if well managed. The purpose is to make your horse archers charging the ennemy horse archers with autofire on and rout them quickly. It also works with weakened units but it's up to you to chose the right moment. If you fail you'll lose a lot of men, but succeding in it will allow you to destroy ennemy horse archers quickly with less loses. Charge horse archer units who are standing, if the begin to flee they'll fire at your charging guys and this is not good a at all as you surely guess. Using this charge as a faint and retreat can be nice too.
I'll write more soon as I've time to advance I hope this can be usefull for anybody.
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, enjoyed reading it very much, esp the strategy of cutting their legs, head and arms, lol that's funny 
