Parthian infantry... men at arms??

[meerkatology]

Anyone have success using these?

being a cav faction, parthia badly needs some infantry that can last a bit as a battle line to be your anvil.
in the late game they have the higher teir hoplites that look strong (haven't gotten there yet)
but early game, the only choices i see is the men at arms and persian hoplite

the men at arms just looks better overall with a whopping 80 armor and 25 ap, their melee stats a bit low but for a early game units its not too terrible...
however, their perfomance in actual battle just feels abysmal compared to what their stats should indicate.

they route very easily and generally dont even win against decent to good spearmen of the other eastern factions!
i thought it was the abundance of missiles softening them up from the other eastern factions so i checked their shield, they have 55 missle block which isn't bad either. (legions have 60 only)

am i missing something, do i need to stick with persian hoplites? they seem to have worse stats all around

[CEMN2017]

Are you playing on Hard battle difficulty? That and especially anything above will make peasants in pyjamas fighting with knife and spoon give warrior elites using the fanciest armor and gear a run for their money.

AFAIK the battle difficulty *only* affects stats, and not behavior in anyway, so Normal is recommended for proper balance.

[PietrolEremita]

That.

Also as an anvil the hoplites will perform better as they are more sturdy, but the men at arm's should do pretty good as well

[meerkatology]

That.

Also as an anvil the hoplites will perform better as they are more sturdy, but the men at arm's should do pretty good as well

Of course im on normal battle difficulty.

i realize hoplites are more sturdy but the issue with them is u need a large number of them to cover a solid line to not be surrounded but with parthia u want to still have a significant number of cav and ranged units since those ate ur strength

phalangites cover a much wider area per unit, i wish i could jave those ;0

[PietrolEremita]

You can leave small gaps (say 1/2 unit wide) between the hoplites and they will do just fine if your hammer doesn't take too long.

Also you need to decide what tactic you want to employ. If you want to hammer/anvil you need at least half your army to be the anvil. Otherwise go nomad style and build an all cav stack 75% horse archers 25% shock cav

[Rendon]

You don't really need an anvil as Parthia, the battle of Carrhae is actually a fairly reliable game-plan of how to succeed against Western armies. With a full stack of cavalry, you first dispatch the enemy cavalry and then their skirmishers. Once you've done that you can surround them with horse archers. Be sure to set them to skirmish on Cantabrian circle to minimize casualties from infantry javelins and the risk of losing track of a unit and it getting caught.

The line of enemy heavy infantry will disintegrate into individual blocks trying in futility to chase you down and all you need to do is maneuver your 3-5 shock cavalry into a semi circle around an isolated unit and destroy it. You can charge a unit with your Cataphracts to get it to face you and brace, then cancel the charge while a second unit follows through from the rear. Rinse and repeat until Crassus gives up.

[PietrolEremita]

This is what I do in my scythian campaign. Great fun and brutally effective. Heroic victories all the time.

There is a flip side though. Battles take forever, even when you have an easy one (say full stack of veteran heavy horse archers vs Garrison). You will get too many losses if you don't take the time to execute your battle plan... every time. So every single battle takes forever.
Also, you can't autoresolve anything, the ai loves to kill your elite cav even when facing spear levies.
Finally, if you are heavily outnumbered and/or the ai has a lot of fasts cav or good archers, you will take a ton of losses, no matter how elite your stack is or how good of a general you are

[Ptolemaios Soter]

Parthian Men-at-arms are some of the most powerful and cost effective early-game units available to any faction. The key is to focus your army on its strengths. Your cavalry archers and foot archers are phenomenal against lightly armored units. What you need is a small anvil and hammer to finish the slow, heavy units that the enemy has left when you run out of ammo. Usually, I find these are hoplites or other heavy spears without javelins, so they are almost no threat to cavalry. Use a few hoplites to hold them, and then your men-at-arms to flank and decimate. Just don't waste them on light units as their lower attack/defense stats and overall lower damage will hamper them. Similarly, don't let them get his by missiles, because why would you? You should have missile superiority in every battle.

My core Parthia build is:
6 light HAs
2 heavy/hybrid HAs (could be the excellent medium jav cav, cataphract HAs, or other)
2 shock cataphracts
2 men-at-arms (despite the small number, these guys are critical)
2 hoplites (or AOR heavy spears, phalangites, or other phalanx)
6 Mardian or Elite Persian Foot Archers (the latter have spears, and so are awesome on the flanks - charge them into engaged enemy cav and watch them rack up kills)

The purpose of the light HAs is to tire out and/or kill enemy cav, and to harass and draw out the enemy formation. The heavy HAs deal the final blow to any enemy cav that makes it close to your infantry line. All HAs then circle around the back and fire into the flanks/rear of the enemy infantry and/or charges isolated enemy missile units. Your archers fire into oncoming enemy infantry (if you can angle them to hit the right side or partial rear, you get bonus points). Your spears catch the few enemy units that make it to your infantry line. Men-at-arms circle and charge their rears. In a tough fight, your men-at-arm might need to frontally charge heavy enemy units - that's OK, they'll do fine. Then let your cataphracts do what they do best - ideally working in as a pair as Rendon says. I can usually defeat 2 enemy stacks simultaneously with a single army 100-200 casualties.

[meerkatology]

as some have mentioned an all cav army takes forever to fight every battle , even easy ones.
they also suck at sieges. u need at least some decent infantry to seige even if ur gonna do most of the killing by shooting from outside.

the all horse army might work well against the likes of greek/rome but the initial factions ur fighting with the exception of bactria all have a load of range/spearmen.
the persian sparabara .. some lol heavy spearmen that doubles as archers

light HAs will get destroyed by enemy range. if u base ur army on heavy HAs , its too expensive and u dont have enough t1 pop for that anyway

as far as leaving gaps in hoplites, i haven't tried this but i dont forsee it being a good option though, esp with weaker ones like parthias

light HA's like dahae riders are very cheap and cost efficient but at some point they lose efffectiveness in unit for unit because of very low AP against higher stuff. if u have to win 1 stack vs 1 stack, they just dont cut it. the ideal would be to have a full group of those cheap HA's as fast reinforcments to another stack if u have enough generals to go around, which u dont

[PietrolEremita]

Sparabaras and other foot archers are a pain, but if you have 5-6 heavy ha in your army, they take care of them pretty well. Also, if you get rid of enemy cab right away (easy, as they charge you), it is not hard to circle around the enemy formation, break it up and find a way to charge the archers.

Sieges are actually a non-issue since with ha armies you go around cities smashing all the enemies stacks first, then take minor cities, then siege walked cities when the enemy has no army left. Then you bring an expendable foot army slowly there to die on the walls and take the city.

Shooting in the back means that even the crappiest ha can kill the heaviest unit in the game, the only limit is how much micro you are willing to put in. Also, on normal, once you kill the general, even the elite phalanxes run when charges by 10 ha from all directions + your general

[Oliver27]

You want an easy to make, cheap and extremely powerful Parthian army?

8 Dahae Riders
8 Slingers
1 Dahae Nobles
1 Any Archers (for min/maxing, unhistorical morale reducing flame arrows)

With a good combat general, this stack can take much stronger single stacks with ease, while taking virtually no casualties if you are dilligent.

You will probably want to switch to more balanced compositions with hoplites if you need to take on more than one stack, I find Parthia does best fighting single stacks, when you can skirmish and easily retreat if you run out of arrows, don't worry that it says 'lost battle' at the end, when you have 12 casualties and the enemy lost 2k. You can anyway get a ton of general experience from easy heroic victories with this army, providing you engage when conditions are right. Some trees on the battlefield are useful for hiding your force during starting skirmishing, but too many tress will be bad for this army, reducing accuracy, and making your cav less effective. Hilly terrain is good for slingers, so fight on your home turf and you should do well.

Parthian Men at Arms are the axemen yeah? They can be ok in larger, 2-3 stack armies, useful if a couple can charge the enemy's rear at a critical moment.

also 1 trash spear unit, that makes 20 units with general

[Plush_Salmon]

Sparabaras and other foot archers are a pain, but if you have 5-6 heavy ha in your army, they take care of them pretty well. Also, if you get rid of enemy cab right away (easy, as they charge you), it is not hard to circle around the enemy formation, break it up and find a way to charge the archers.

But why??? Since pretty much any campaign in that region turns into a groundhog day , where you kill Bactria - the wealthiest/with weakest army composition. You then gain acsess to superb 4th class 300-strong shock infantry - a natural counter to archer spearmen, which are traditionally relativly weak in melee. You even get high morale skirmisher fodder (bactrian javelinmen, in the same province) to absorb archer fire for safe escort of your shock troops into melee range. It's so much more efficient than latting your HHA get shot, even whilst using the circle.

You want an easy to make, cheap and extremely powerful Parthian army?

8 Dahae Riders
8 Slingers
1 Dahae Nobles
1 Any Archers (for min/maxing, unhistorical morale reducing flame arrows)

Can You please specify the details of battle tactics with this composition?

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

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