Playing a Pahlava campaign with the latest version. Have a few queries / issues / complaints-
1) Empire currently covers most of the historical Parthian area but I have a total of 2 'Royal Satrapies', out of about 25 provinces - Ekbatana and Persepolis. These are the only two provinces where I can recruit cataphracts, at an incredibly slow rate. Also only a handful of the other provinces are 'satrapy' level government, most are 'border march'. For example Hecatompylos has the 'border march' government, yet it was the capital! Rationale behind this? Any way I can check the government hidden resources?
2) I can't recruit any horse archers post reform anywhere except on the steppes, where I presume other factions can do the same. I thought they were supposed to be a key element in Parthian armies?
3) The 'Persian heavy spearmen' seem worse than the 'Iranian spearmen' they replace post-reform. They have lower attack, lower defense, lower unit size, and are a tiny bit cheaper. They have 'hardy' while the pre-reform unit doesn't but with the superior numbers and stats it seems like a downgrade. 'Our infantry is really bad, I propose we replace them with worse infantry'.
4) From the 'Partho-Hellenic' satrapies I can recruit thureophoroi, at a rate of one per 25 turns... They also have a max of one. So I need to check all these cities to recruit them on time so I don't waste my 1/25th of a thureophoroi per turn which is the only decent unit provided by this government, unless I want hoplites in my Parthian army (same rate).
Now I understand that there has been a rethink on troop availability of EB2 and a move away from faction-specific troops and that's fine, but playing Pahlava now I feel I might as well be playing any other faction, since the troops I'm using are all regional. I have a single type of unit unavailable to other factions - Parthian cataphracts, but these are only recruitable in two cities seemingly chosen at random. I don't feel I have any 'core' territory, fighting style, or units at all. Seems kind of boring to me and difficult to see how it's historically accurate.
Thoughts? Something I am doing wrong / missing? Thanks!