Baktria vs Pahlava

[blackmage62]

Okay, so I think I may have just totally lost my Baktria campaign.

I was allied with Pahlava against AS, but they betrayed me. In one final giant battle outside their capital, I was subject to a desert battle with my phalanxes versus about 500 armored cataphracts of various quality. How do I even deal with an opponent I can't catch? Eventually they charged my lines, and most of the horses died, but not before I only had one phalanx with enough units to be considered "fighting strength", and they broke when the remaining horses charged them head on all at once.

If Pahlava can wreck phalanxes and are unable to be caught by anything that can actually fight them, how do I beat them?

[The Kybrothilian]

Use something that can wreck them, and which they can't catch. That being skirmisher cavalry. You can recruit Dahae, Arachosian and Hellenic skirmisher cavalry in Bactria. They are fast, have a bundle of javelins, and a secondary AP weapon.

Try to have at least two units of skirmisher cavalry targeting one unit of cataphracts. One of them leads the pursuing enemy around, while the other moves behind them, lobbing javelins to the backs of the enemy cavalry. Once you've run out of javelins, have one of your cavalry to charge them in close combat, and once they turn to face your chargers, have the other uni charge them as well.The enemy cataphracts will then be chopped to pieces with AP attacks.

[Slaists]

Use something that can wreck them, and which they can't catch. That being skirmisher cavalry. You can recruit Dahae, Arachosian and Hellenic skirmisher cavalry in Bactria. They are fast, have a bundle of javelins, and a secondary AP weapon.

Try to have at least two units of skirmisher cavalry targeting one unit of cataphracts. One of them leads the pursuing enemy around, while the other moves behind them, lobbing javelins to the backs of the enemy cavalry. Once you've run out of javelins, have one of your cavalry to charge them in close combat, and once they turn to face your chargers, have the other uni charge them as well.The enemy cataphracts will then be chopped to pieces with AP attacks.

It all depends on the campaign/battle difficulty. On medium battle difficulty, the built-in unit balance would work out (horses usually cannot beat phalanx straight on). On hard/very hard battle difficulty the unit balance is thrown out of the window and horses CAN beat phalanxes in a straight charge. So, on those difficulties the suggested missile approach probably is the only way to survive. Unfortunately, that's the same for most VH battles: a heavy tilt towards missiles (which basically negates the +7 attack bonus that the AI units get).

As to campaign difficulty: on VH, playing with the low province count factions surrounded by powerful enemies can be a huge pain in the neck at the start of the campaign. The problem is that the AI has all the cash it can throw into [hiring city pools AND merc pools] stacks to send at the human player while the smaller human factions are deep in the debt (cannot hire anything) at the start of the campaigns. The human faction economic misery goes on until the human player raids some AI's cities. While factions like Epeiros have juicy looting targets near-by, Bactria and some others do not. So, surviving that AI stack initial onslaught can be a tough challenge.

Playing on lower campaign difficulty is an options, but then the game becomes ridiculously easy some 20 turns into the campaign...

[blackmage62]

Use something that can wreck them, and which they can't catch. That being skirmisher cavalry. You can recruit Dahae, Arachosian and Hellenic skirmisher cavalry in Bactria. They are fast, have a bundle of javelins, and a secondary AP weapon.

Try to have at least two units of skirmisher cavalry targeting one unit of cataphracts. One of them leads the pursuing enemy around, while the other moves behind them, lobbing javelins to the backs of the enemy cavalry. Once you've run out of javelins, have one of your cavalry to charge them in close combat, and once they turn to face your chargers, have the other uni charge them as well.The enemy cataphracts will then be chopped to pieces with AP attacks.

Oh gosh, I totally discounted skirmisher cavalry as being too light. That's a good idea. The actual archer types are certainly too light to hurt those heavy cavalry, so I assumed the ones using javelins would be as well. Slingers are also a good idea. Restarting the campaign on M/M to see how it goes this time.

[FrisianDude]

Also, slingers. Lots of slingers.

[seleucid empire]

Okay, so I think I may have just totally lost my Baktria campaign.

I was allied with Pahlava against AS, but they betrayed me. In one final giant battle outside their capital, I was subject to a desert battle with my phalanxes versus about 500 armored cataphracts of various quality. How do I even deal with an opponent I can't catch? Eventually they charged my lines, and most of the horses died, but not before I only had one phalanx with enough units to be considered "fighting strength", and they broke when the remaining horses charged them head on all at once.

If Pahlava can wreck phalanxes and are unable to be caught by anything that can actually fight them, how do I beat them?

What I usually do when facing cats or heavy nomad horsearchers is avoid standard formations with the phalanxes

so maybe try set them in an oblique shape like the battle of Leuctra or V shape or something. Straight lines tend to get hammered when the enemy brings like 3 units of cats

also what unit size are you on?

[blackmage62]

I'm playing on Huge size, on M/M.

(On a related question, are Phalanxes considered totally impervious to any form of arrow fire in this game? In the early game, I am hard-pressed to recruit a lot of heavy units, so I would normally skirmish the hell out of enemy armies, but that doesn't work with Phalanxes...)

[The Kybrothilian]

You have to attack their unprotected side and rear. The shields of the phalangites pretty much make them impervious to ranged attacks from the front.

[blackmage62]

Disregard that, I was able to inflict about half casualties on a medium Phalanx unit with two units of Dahae riders and some Eastern Skirmishers before sending in some Thureoporoi and charging them from behind with the riders. They broke immediately.

I guess my problem is dealing with them on a large scale, if they had a full line of phalanxes and I only had a few, or even worse, none of my own.

[Slaists]

Disregard that, I was able to inflict about half casualties on a medium Phalanx unit with two units of Dahae riders and some Eastern Skirmishers before sending in some Thureoporoi and charging them from behind with the riders. They broke immediately.

I guess my problem is dealing with them on a large scale, if they had a full line of phalanxes and I only had a few, or even worse, none of my own.

The AI is highly unlikely to present an unbroken line of anything to you... As a routine, the AI throws its phalanxes into attack (and defense) piecemeal. The only mod where I've seen the AI maintain some sort of line with phalanxes is in RTR [that's part of the reason why I like RTR battles better than EB], but even there it often fails to do that. Usually there the best success the AI has is with defensive lines.

As to standalone AI phalanx units: the easiest way to beat them is to lure them into attacking some high defense unit [the heavier, the better] of yours. Once engaged, order your unit to stand ground with guard mode enabled [do not march into the phalanx unit, just let your unit touch the very tips of the AI's spears]. The AI tends to stand with their attacking phalanx and just poke not doing much of a damage [in order to do damage they should be marching THROUGH your unit while poking; they rarely do that]. Wait until the AI phalanx is somewhat tired: then charge them in the rear (with basically anything). Works like a charm.

If you have spare missiles, throw some into the rear of the phalanx, but wait until the phalanx is tired - that gives an even bigger morale drop. Don't use missiles to try to kill the phalanx, use them to sway the morale even more before charging into their rear.