In-depth parthia campaign guide

This guide is supposed to help players to get to know this awesome faction. It is meant to cover all aspects of the gameplay with Parthia, from starting position to economics, the technology tree, their units, strategies, etc. As you might infer from the “in-depth” in the title; this guide IS long, so grab some snacks and plan in some time for the reading.

Who is this guy?

I started playing the Total War series back with the first Rome, where I was a huge fan of the Seleucids (and later in the expansion the Sassanid Persian) factions due to their focus on mobility and cavalry. I have invested more hours playing Medieval 2 than any other game in my life, since it was for years the only game I had on my PC. Back then my favourite factions were Russia, Poland, and, of course, the Turks. I beat those Mongols in their own game and pummelled them to death with armies containing 80 to 100% cavalry. At this point I have to mention the awesome Turkish chronicles, by Attila16 a veteran Total War player, which helped me out a lot. Check out his “Legendary difficulty roman campaign by Attila16 in Total War Rome 2”. Back on track, I was pretty upset with Empire and Napoleon, where cavalry lost a great deal of their standalone power, but learned to appreciate the value of artillery.

I am by no means a top-notch multiplayer guy. All advice are based on personal experience with the campaign (on medium, hard and very hard), and are just that; advice. You can follow them or create your own strategies based on them. English is also NOT my mother tongue, so I beg your pardon for the mistakes I might commit. That being said, let´s start with the guide :D

Why Parthia? Pros & Cons

Pros:
- Awesome cavalry
- Awesome archery
- Economic powerhouse
- Extremely powerful mid- to late-game
- Awesome chasing potential

Cons:
- Hard start. Really hard.
- Forget about trade early-game
- Sh***y early-game and garrison units
- Below average food producers
- Below average fleet

Parthias bonuses are as follows:
+ 1 exp. for archers
+ 10% wealth from commerce buildings
+ 25% servile unrest
-25% public order due to foreign cultures
+ 1 exp. for cavalry

The experience (from now on exp.) bonuses stack in case of horse archers. The 10% on commerce is huge. Read the economics section to know why ;) . The servile unrest debuff is pretty much irrelevant, since having slaves is a bad idea anyways, no matter what faction. The foreign cultures bonus is sweet, and allows your armies to fight sooner, rather than sitting on their hands waiting for people to calm the f**k down.

Initial Position

You start in Nisa (Parthia), with a lvl 1 town, a lvl 2 light stable and a free slot. Dahae is your “ally”, all the other people around would rather see you dead (which is why trade is not an option for a very long time). Prior to the Seleucid DLC, the client states NEVER revolved against the Seleucid. Really, never. If you messed with one of them, you had to fight all the way to the Mediterranean, slaughtering everyone in your path without catching breath.

Since the DLC came out, things are way easier. The satrapies not only declare independence from the Seleucids, they fight each other too, while their masters tends to get facerolled by Pontus, Egypt and even Cyprus. Just give them a bit of time. You will need a bit of time anyways, since your first step is betraying your only ally. Yes, you read right. Dahae is an extremely aggressive faction. In the first 2 turns they will be at war with chorasmii, bactria, masagetae and Santa (what? You don´t have the “northpole DLC”?). To put things worse, they usually (but always surprisingly) succeed to steamroll chorasmii and bactria in no time with their fullstack of steppe horse archers, leaving you with no real expansion option.
You can, and have to, beat dahae, chorasmii and bactria (read “Your early-game enemies” and “Military: army composition and tactics”), but make peace with masagetae ASAP. It´s just not worth the trouble that early. Their territories are far away, it´s another faction annoyingly spamming horse archers, but poor as the rats. So, even if you beat them, you will have won a single settlement with no strategic or economic value whatsoever. If you want to take over the whole province (Scitia) you will have to face yet 2 more of those nomadic factions and walk even further away to the north, where winter is coming. Just let them be until mid game. Let them fight each other and knock out the winner once you are ready.
Focus on conquering your surroundings. Transoxania and Bactria should be a priority (silk and gold) as early-game money makers. By the time you have secured these two and Chorasmia, the Seleucid satrapies should be at each other´s throats. If not, focus on securing Parthia with the advice from Karsh the Whisperer (The Noob´s guide to: taking a city without going into “All-out war”). Long story short, you use a spy and a champion, both of them specialising on authority to increase unrest and raise slave armies, which ideally should take over the settlements and allow you to jump in and take them. While the strategy ultimately works, it takes the hell of a lot of time to do so. And during that time your scarce funds get drained by the constant agent´s actions. To add on this, you have to specialize your agents in ways that are far less useful for their main purpose (read “Character and skills”), hampering them for the rest of their lives (literally). Furthermore, the creation of the slave army is no guarantee at all, because often they get beaten up by passing armies and you have to start over again. Still, it is better than facing 5 factions at once with just one or two armies.
Some final comment: I don´t know if CA did this on purpose, but there is a bit of a problem to move around. The city of Merv, and it´s territory (to your right – just there!), are always in your armies’ path (if you don´t want to take the long way up the road to Amul). That pisses off Aria. A lot.

Your early-game enemies

I divide your early enemies into 3 main types: Nomadic, Bactrian and Persian.

The way I see it, the first ones are the most dangerous: the nomads will stackspam steppe horse archers like there is no tomorrow. Their steppe lancers (noble and armoured versions) do insane charge damage. They are a pain in the a** on the field, requiring tons of micro, and even if you beat them, you will have a lot of losses, so try to beat or weaken them on the campaign map. That is what STRATEGY is all about, the actions and manoeuvres you take before the battle begins. At the start you will have to face potentially two factions like this, Chorasmii and Dahae, and (if you follow my advice) later on all the other tribes, like Masagetae, Siraces and so on. The best thing is to position yourself on chokepoints and make them attack you, or even provoking them by getting into defensive stance in front of their faces. Use spies to poison their armies.
On the battlefield you should not face them without a full stack army, and as far as you can avoid it, not without artillery. Shoot down their general first to get the moral edge. Specially early-game every little moral hit is crucial, because they have, just like you, low-moral units. Mid- to late-game your units should have more moral than theirs and your armies should be more versatile too.

Bactria has his own set of units, with the Hellenic royal Cataphract (general unit) being your worst nightmare. They are better than your royal cataphracts, which is somewhat disturbing, and can singlehandedly change the battle. So watch out for these guys and try to snipe them with your artillery ASAP if you have it already. If not, read the description of eastern spearmen (“Military: Buildings and units”). They have Bactrian cavalry, which is a fancy name for below-average medium cav, (median cav is better) but they can still beat your parthian horse archers/skirmishers. The infantry is Hellenic with eastern spearmen and slingers to add a bid of colourful pyjamas into the mix. Nothing you couldn´t handle. Bactria has a strong starting position, but everybody wants their lands, so they tend to get beaten up pretty soon in an Asian version of the “Epirus- effect”, so you will only face them if you are really quick and aggressive early on (as you really should be).

Persian-type is actually not only Persia, but Drangiana, Sagartia, Aria, Arachosia, Parthava, Media and Media Atropantene too. They field Hellenic infantry; hillmen, eastern spearmen and slingers for the multi-culti flavour, median cav because... yolo, and, here it comes: Persian cav (either normally recruited or as mercenaries). These guys don´t seem to be that dangerous on the first glance, but they have more attack than median cav and a charge that would make cataphracts proud. If they reach you, you are in trouble. Finishing off these factions is what brings you to mid-game and quite an Empire, which means you have to face Persian cav with your early-game crap. The only thing to do is to snipe them with your artillery. In fact, if you can spare the money, buy some Persian cav mercenaries for your armies. They are awesome.

Economics

The 10% on commerce is a hint pointing us the direction. But looking at the initial position and the buildings Parthia has, you will notice how powerful it is: The provincial capital and minor settlements of Hellenics get a bonus on research rate, barbarians on the moral of their units. Parthia (the only playable “eastern” faction) has no added benefit. Instead, a small portion of the “subsistence” income is, instead labelled as “commerce”, thus making it susceptible to all commerce buffs, instead of just the “all buildings” buffs, which are way smaller. This is especially apparent on Silk settlements, which get an additional 50 gold bonus compared to other factions (for a total of 150 bucks on stage 1) all of which is doubled every time you upgrade, plus a 3% bonus on commerce which also gets doubled. And guess what? There are 2 such settlements right next to you, Susia (Parthia) and Bukhara (Transoxania). One more is in Edessa (Mesopotamia), which you will need to conquer pretty much anyways. Level 3 minor settlement trading ports and level 4 eastern markets provide bonuses to commerce with the “commercial stimulation” edict, and the spice trader –the main commerce building- buffs commerce always. The economic tree offers a total of +14% to commerce. All in one you can get easily more than +100% from commerce on specialized provinces :D

The second best route to money-making is culture. Parthia has lots of buildings with give culture income: the library line, the palace line, the wrestling line (all of them yellow- thus capital only), the windcatcher line (industrial- capital only), the well line (agricultural), and the tomb line (religious). With a total of 60% buff from technology it can build up really quickly, with the additional effect that they improve your agents (see “Characters and skills” section). Another nice thing about culture income is that all the buildings are food consuming, which is way easier to control than public order.
An additional route is the only industry building, the adobe maker line. You don´t get a lot of bonuses here, but the base income stacks really fast with the upgrades, and it does makes other buildings cheaper to build, so why not?

All of this being said the key to economic success is to specialise. The global balance is kept by food and funds, whereas happiness/unrest plays an important role locally. The best way to deal with this is to have 2 main types of provinces: food producing and money producing. There is no doubt that bigger provinces are more profitable, because the more slots, the more buildings – the more money. Small, two-settlement provinces are more suited for food producing, since they won´t give you that much money in comparison, no matter how hard you try. Three-settlement provinces may be used for whatever you want/need.

Keep in mind that the Food-surplus-bonus caps at 20 food, for a total of +5 global province growth rate and +20% reinforcement rate. You want to have this bonus active at all times, so you need to be at around 50 to 80 food surplus to give you a good margin when going for the sweet cash. If you think that is excessive, think about the following: You decide that 3-settlement province is more suited to give you cash than food. It has two level 3 fisher ports, which you change to commercial ports while you laugh thinking about those benjamins. Next thing you know, you have lost 24 food. What happened? Well hun, the difference between producing 8 Food and consuming 4, is 12. That twice, makes 24 food you´ve lost with a single settlement. Crazy, huh? Upgrading settlements main chain buildings drains your food too. So don´t go all like “Yeah, lvl 3 settlement, give me that sweet money!” and upgrade all your settlements at once. A few turns later your Empire will be full of floating red skulls... Some upgrades are a must-have, like high level commercial ports, but they consume 10 food each. So if you want to upgrade all you got, the moment the technology makes it available: have that huge surplus.

That being said, Parthia is not very good at producing food. They do have farms, but they lack the “joker”-type religious building of other factions that gives them small bonuses to everything and a little food on top, so you have to reduce the food spent (in food-producing settlements) by keeping main chain buildings at lvl 1 (no food consumption), the skull-temple (tower of silence to be precise) at lvl 2 to counter unrest, plus farms. In the capitals you need the basic lvl 2 grain market, maybe even dedicate a capital slot to another farm. The rest of the slots may be spent either on happiness (but keep them on low level – avoid food consumption) or even on research (library). Carmania and Gedrosia are relatively close 2-settlement provinces with 1 port each (Oraea in Gedrosia has even a fishing main chain –which in fact should be upgraded), so they are excellent fishing port/food making spots.

For the money, there are a few key provinces in Asia: Parthia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Bithynia-Pontus. They all have at least one settlement with special commerce resources, and all except for Parthia have at least one port, which, in fact, counts as a free money-making building slot. Early you obviously don´t have access to all of these provinces, so you will have to use 3- and even 2-settlement provinces to get money (see the “initial position” section). But the moment you complete the conquest of these, by all means, click on that commercial stimulation edict and bring in a dignitary for maximum ownage. Think about happiness too. You want money producing cities to have 100% at all times, since it gives a boost to the taxes they pay.

Once you get a steady income of about 10.000 bucks per turn you will start to stockpile gold, because on a typical turn you usually spend less. Once you hit the 20.000/turn you will have tons of NAP petitioners, asking you to NOT kill them and simultaneously asking you for insane amounts of money, because they don´t want to be “slaves of envy”. Yeah... right.

Military: Buildings and units (I)

As always, specialization is the key to success. One, maximum two provinces dedicated to popping out soldiers is enough. Parthia needs to build a lot of buildings to develop a versatile military, which means it has to be a 4-settlement province. I usually take Parthia, since no ports mean it will stay behind the other economic powerhouses anyways.

Every settlement can recruit eastern spearmen and eastern slingers. Both have ridiculously low morale. Slingers do have a nice range, but the precision shot is way less useful for them than the fast reload other faction´s slingers have. They are ok for garrison armies (see “military: army composition and tactics”) but that´s it. Eastern spearmen SUCK HARD. They are some of the worst spearmen in the whole entire world featured in Rome 2: Total War. Still, you will have to use these guys in one way or another for a long time. It is their fault that the early game with Parthia is that hard, because you would like to use hammer and anvil tactics, but your anvil is composed of guys in pyjamas that tend to route the moment the enemy looks at them. They are good at soaking up damage from arrows and other flying stuff, protecting your valuable missile units by dying. They are good on suicidal missions too, like throwing themselves in the path of enemy generals and bury him under a pile of corpses

Their only non-sarcastic, non-entirely-suicidal good feature is the frenzied charge, which gives them a nice boost on charge speed, transforming them for a short time in Usain Bolt, thus allowing them to reach enemy cavalry. Be careful though, it works both ways. Enemy pyjama boys can do it too, so watch out for the green upward-pointed arrow over the unit, indicating a buff being activated.

Levy camp line: It gives you access to eastern javelin, which do insane amounts of damage, but are somewhat limited by their range. I usually favour range and ammo over damage (archers do have the precision shot to boost their damage), but if you like javelins, you will like these guys. Be careful though, archer-specific bonuses don´t apply to them.

The camp divides into two branches, infantry tent and noble´s quarters. While the first one can be built straight away, the second one needs the development of the initial military technology. Infantry tent gives a really huge bonus to the conscription edict on level 4 (-12% recruitment cost and +2 recruitment capacity), but on the downside, the units are total crap. Hillmen (on lvl 2) die if you look at them with a bit of anger, and the parthian foot archers (lvl 3), while having the best base damage of all your archer options, lack the whistling and heavy shot. Level 4 don´t add new units.

The noble´s quarters will give you access to Persian light archers. Decent foot archers, with the usual low morale of skirmishers, but with that sweet whistling shoot. For those of you who don´t know what this is: it is a shoot type (not a cooldown ability) which you can activate to lower the morale of all units in the trajectory of the shot. Your units are affected too, so deactivate it once your archers retreat behind the melee infantry. You will see red arrows pointing downwards over the units affected, plus a red circle on their banners, indicating a debuff. Level 3 gives you access to elite Persian archers, with a bit more morale and better melee stats because they carry lances instead of little butter-knives. I´m not sure if they give any bonus against cavalry (would appreciate more info on this), they seem to get raped even by light cavalry just as good as the light version. All other stats are on pair with the light guys, so there is no big reason to substitute. (Note: that is NOT true anymore. As I was about to post this guide, patch 1.7 came out. Now elite Persian archers have access to “Heavy Shot”, increasing their damage output. Yeah!)

Now the reason to take the noble´s path: parthian swordsmen. Also available at level 3, these guys are no praetorian guard, but they are above average sword infantry with good stats and a base morale of 60, which is far better than the base 25 of eastern spearmen. And far better than most of the melee infantry you will encounter on Asia. You can rely on these guys for holding the centre without routing at the first sight of blood. They have the whip and shieldwall abilities, increasing their versatility. Long story short: they are by far your best melee infantry, and you will use them until the end of your campaign. Level 4 quarters don’t add new units, and the bonus is ridiculous, so level 3 is just fine, consuming only 4 food in trade for good archers and infantry.

Military: Buildings and units (II)

Animal Breeder line: Access to mounted skirmishers. That is javelin armed light cavalry. I usually keep 2 of these on my armies to route lonely skirmishers and chase down routers. Keep them out of the main action though; they fall like flies at the slightest touch.

Now this divides into three, animal breeder, light and heavy stables. Ignore the animal breeder until you have the technology to recruit elephants (that is late-game), camels are a waste of money. Both versions, the mounted archers and the lancers, have sh***y stats. Even with the “scare horses” passive, they are just so dam bad... ignore them. Seriously, I mean it. Indian war elephants on the other hand are REALLY cool and can turn the battle in your favour with one charge. Activate trample and just watch little men fly high :D . Keep them out of javelins reach. On the downside, elephants SUCK on autoresolve.

Really, I don´t know why CA do this. I don´t know how the calculations are made, but while you hardly ever lose an elephant, the autoresolve seem to send them alone against the entire enemy army. Next thing you know, your 3-silver chevron elephant unit card is marked on red after a battle with some nameless slaves fielding eastern spearmen and hillmen; battle which you don´t bother to quick save because, hell, it´s just pyjama boys and victims. Infinite rage like the guy here on the right... Keep an eye on them, would you?

Light stables. Level 2 add median cav and parthian horse archers. The first ones are average medium melee cav, your early game hammer to smack your enemies from behind. Parthian horse archers are as fragile as horse skirmishers, but they have more range, especially since the Nomadic tribes DLC (range increased from 110 to 125). This DLC (and the associated patch for those who haven´t the DLC) also adds the heavy shot. You trade range and accuracy for about 25% bonus on damage (which stacks with the precise shot buff :D). Nice when chasing or sniping down medium- to heavy cav. Horse archers have low morale, so don’t ever engage in a shooting contest with enemy archers if you can avoid it. They will take heavy casualties and eventually flee. There is no point in building the light stables further than level 2. The reason is that level 4 don´t add any new unit and only a crapy conscription edict-bonus (-4% unit cost... yippee!?). Level 3 does add the noble blood cav, but they have only 6 points more attack damage than median cav. That´s it. The encyclopaedia description states that they are proficient with bows, but, in fact, these guys left their bows at home, which makes them rather redundant.

Heavy stables: level 2 gives you access to armoured horse archers. This guys´ job is to outshoot enemy light horse archers. They have more armour, health and morale, which give them the edge. Don´t overreach though. They win 1 vs 1, but loose 2 vs 1. Nice fact, being stated as medium cav, they benefit from both light AND heavy cav bonuses.

But the real candy comes with level 3. CATAPHRACTS B***H!!! Let´s start with the archer version (Noble Horse Archer). They take the armoured horse archer philosophy to a whole new level. These guys can soak up tons of damage. They shoot faster than any other horse archer you had before, and with chevrons, the right traditions and technology, they can reach easily 13-14 shots per minute. That is HUGE. They also stack a lot of damage, surpassing the 40s with precision and heavy shot. Having that much armour also comes in handy when it comes to melee. Don´t get me wrong here, you still shouldn´t charge more than light infantry, but if the enemy does reach you, they can hold themselves in an improvised anvil until another unit can charge from behind. They are slower than most cavalry, that is why I always keep horse skirmishers to chase down enemy cav, but they can outrun infantry. While the battle takes place, try not to run everywhere. Learn when exactly running is necessary, because being that tanky causes fatigue. This takes us to the Eastern cataphracts. They can have an elephant-like impact with their charge. Walk to a nice flanking position and charge (activate trample seconds before the impact). They are shock cav, so don´t let them just in melee, circle out, regroup and charge again. On a typical battle there is no need for more than 2 or 3 charges. They can charge eastern spearmen frontally and win with very few losses, but don´t try that with better quality spearmen (like hoplites). They are still cavalry. They chew up swordsmen from any angle, but aim always for the morale impact of the backdoor-charge.
Level 4 Heavy stables are just the cherry on top. Royal cataphracts have the same use as the eastern version, but they do everything better. Really, once you have charged with cataphracts, you won´t want to charge with anything else in your life... that is true love ;)

Quartermaster: better weapons and armour comes in handy, but what we really want is to go for the craftsman’s quarters. Eastern ballista and scorpions baby! Personally, I favour the normal sized ballista over the giant version, because it can move, which makes it more versatile. There are few things more frustrating than deploying your giant guns and then realize enemy reinforcements are coming from an unexpected direction and NOT in your arc of fire. Anyways, both versions have the precise shot ability, which helps a LOT against enemy walls, towers and gates. You should get them ASAP; because they help you take out the most dangerous enemy units way before they actually get dangerous. Scorpions are a matter of personal preference. They do a lot of damage and have a pretty decent range, but have low ammo and cannot target buildings. I usually prefer an archer unit over a scorpion unit. Onagers (level 3 quarters) are even better than ballista... when they hit. Longer range, more damage, same precision shot (which, ironically, don´t improve accuracy), plus, some poisoned shots before a hammer an anvil tactic makes things flow like ocean :D

Miscellaneous: Parthia has no ways of further boosting their already strong cavalry with buildings, which I find disrespectful. Nomadic tribes, and even the Averni and Macedon, may improve the speed of their horses. Macedon may build training fields, and Nomads have bonuses from various religious buildings. Parthia has nothing of this. On the other hand they got lvl 3 weapons and armour from the same building, which is really nice. Royal cataphracts with 20% more armour and weapon damage...

Military: Army composition and tactics (I)

Now we have gone through the units in the previous section, but what should an army look like? Early-game you have two mutually exclusive options:
- Nomadic style: stackspam parthian horse archers. Mix in 3 to 4 Median cavalry. Choose the generals bodyguard you like. This is pretty effective, especially on autoresolve, and you can start recruiting the moment you start the campaign; but it lacks the versatility to take city capitals with some guaranty of success. It is also quite a gamble with other, “real” nomads, because they have the cantabrian circle ability (making them harder to hit), and you don’t.
- Infantry balance: recruit 3 Median cavalry on turn 1. Research organised supply. Turn the free building slot into a nomad camp. On turn 2 destroy the stables. Get some pyjama boys. On turn 3 build infantry tent and go for the noble´s quarters. Get some more pyjama boys. Once it is finished start popping out Persian light archers. 6 to 8 should get the job done. As you see, it takes a while to get the ball rolling, which could lead eventually to your allies getting too powerful (read “initial position”). The good thing here is that you get protected foot archers, which can and will outshoot enemy horse archers. Your general should have the Noble Horse Archers bodyguard. Keep him behind the eastern spearmen so they hang in that bit longer while the archers do the killing. You are better taking capitals too, and open the way for parthian swordsmen, which you will need anyways.

No matter which style you choose, NEVER go out without a full-stack army. Other factions have decent early-game units, where you can rely on quality instead of numbers. You don´t. You also will rely heavily on arrow fire to do the killing (not only early, mid- to late-game too), which leads us to the first tactic:
#Focus fire: 6 units firing at will to the closet enemy unit do some damage. 6 units firing at the same enemy unit destroys it with 1 or 2 volleys. Choose the next enemy unit and repeat. This requires some micro and protecting the firing guys, but it has a really good chance to kill (not just route) the enemy in relatively short time. Javelins suck doing this because of the low range and ammo. They always end up being caught or just standing useless after firing the few sticks they had. Archers and slingers are better suited for this.
(Note: As I was about to post this guide, patch 1.7 came out. Now all foot archers you have access to, have their range increased to 150!!! This gives them even more killing potential, but I haven´t try out yet the real impact, the news are too fresh :D)

Early to mid-game
Now you have parthian swordsmen. 4 units of them accompanied by 2 units of eastern spearmen as meat shields should make a good anvil. 4 persian archers (either elite or light is up to you) and 2 ballistae to do the killing. Bring in 3 to 4 armoured horse archers to harass one flank and 1 or 2 horse skirmishers OR parthian horse archers to chase down routers. The general should be royal Cataphract, accompanied by 2 median cav or mercenary Persian cav as the anvil.
As far as tactics, I won´t explain the hammer and anvil, because all of you know it, I´m sure. But here comes the really intuitive
#Artillery sniping: Use your ballistae to strike down the most dangerous units before they reach you. Aim for the cavalry first, starting with the general if he is mounted. If he is on foot ignore him until the cav is down. The thing here is not only to kill dangerous units, but to prevent the enemies own flanking and counter-flanking manoeuvres. Ballistae are the best suited to do the job, even when onagers are available later on, due to their high accuracy.

Mid-game
For your army, mid-game starts when you get cataphracts. Substitute armoured horse archers for Noble horse archers, median/Persian cav for eastern cataphracts. The rest remains the same, so do the tactics.

Late-game
This will only happen if you go for the military victory (or if you took it really easy). Economic or cultural victory may be achieved before having the late-game units. Substitute eastern for royal cataphracts and the pyjama boys for Indian war elephants. That somewhat reduces the strength of the anvil, but the hammer... oh boy, what a hammer! Miley Cyrus would freak out! Besides, by now every non-substituted unit should be gold chevron, they can take it. Noble horse archers should harass the flanks and have a crazy reload rate, given the right traditions and technologies.
Which lead us to the traditions we should pick on the way to world conquering:

Military: Army composition and tactics (II)

I don´t like to specialize a single army on certain duties like defend or taking cities. I like to be versatile with every army I send out to conquer, so that they might work alone if needed. That being said, a good strategy is to boost the strengths of the units composing that army. In Parthia´s case that means focus on archery and, later, heavy armour. It turns out there are just the right traditions, namely “accomplished archers”, available right at start (boost to missile damage –up to +15%; and shots per minute –up to +8%), and “Immortals”, available at army level 4 (boost to melee defence skill, attack skill and shots per minute for all heavy infantry and cavalry).
You also have access to the “light cavalry masters” traditions, with heavy boosts for light cav, such as run speed, shots per minute and missile damage, but I think it doesn´t pay off in the long term, because the army composition tends to get heavier.

On the general traditions, available to other factions too, the best ones are “Grand camp following”, boosting morale and lowering upkeep and recruitment costs; and, even better, “unrelenting force”, improving slightly morale and really heavily charge bonus and campaign movement speed. What more do you want?

Now, generally you don´t need that many field armies. What I mean by “field army” is the ones you use to conquer new territories and slaughter the enemy. They should be full stack armies whenever possible, and thus, drain your money. The other type of Army I use is the “Garrison army”. Vanilla pyjama boys and slingers can do the job, in low numbers even. These armies in fact should not enter real combat, just exist. They serve to multiple purposes, the most important ones:
- Political pits: You know those guys who are technically part of your faction, but you hate them nearly as much as your enemies? That´s right, I´m talking about the guys from “other families”. You cannot avoid giving them commanding positions, because the game balances out the number of options it gives to you when choosing a general for your armies. That means if all your armies have a guy from your family on charge, and one of them dies, the chances that you might select another guy of your family are really slim – to non-existent. Thus you end up having beloved armies under the command of hated generals. Not cool. Avoid this by giving commanding positions with no real command for your political enemies. They hardly ever will pass the point of a 2-star general, keeping their gravitas in check. You´re welcome ;)

- Keeping your people happy: Sometimes money-producing cities are a pain in the a**. They just don´t understand that you need the money and get all grumpy even with happiness enhancing muay-thay fights every day. We want them to be happy, so we use low-upkeep units to beat up unhappy people. Minimum input, maximal output. Smart, right?

- Keeping soon-to-be happy people at check: We all know this; you just conquered a province capturing simultaneously 2 settlements. We have huge unrest, but want to move on and conquer more. Call in the Garrison armies to “control” unrest

I usually use 1/3 of the allowed armies in the Imperium rank as field armies, and the rest as Garrison armies (I call them Garrison cu**s 1, 2, 3 and so on, to not confuse them with the REAL warriors). This also allows you to have a champion in each field army (see “characters and skills”).

Military: fleets

I have to honestly admit that I skipped the whole saltwater part. You can conquer the world just fine with no fleets whatsoever; you are Parthia, not Cartage. By the time you reach the Mediterranean you still have more options on land than across the sea. Besides, I have taken a look on the ships Parthia builds and the people on them. Pyjamas, hillmen... If you are still interested on naval warfare, seienchin88 has a really good guide (Naval Battle Guide + info) on general naval battles.

Characters and skills

#Generals: The best battle skills comes with the zeal tree, the best campaign skills with the strategy (cunning) tree and every once in a while it pays off to train a general in command, namely when you plan on raising a new field army (you have to plan quite a few turns in advance), due to the deftly bonuses for recruiting new units. What I like to make is train my field generals in cunning. More campaign movement and NIGHT BATTLES? Shut up and take my money! They are also more protected against this fu****g spies. And I cannot stress enough the usefulness of night battles. Well played it allows you to partially engage multiple armies one by one without relying on spies to poison reinforcements.
For Parthia zeal generals are also a good choice. “Soldier” and “offence” boost charge damage, shots per minute and attack skill, “dread” reduces the enemies’ morale. What better for Parthia´s archery focus and hammer and anvil tactics?
For retinue I usually go for moral boosting or authority boosting ones.

#Champions: I absolutely love these guys. Every field army should have one training your units. As the champion progresses, he gives the general an increasing boost in zeal, thus improving his bodyguard unit (royal cataphracts buffed with 30% more attack? Yeahh...) and allowing him to use zeal abilities, the most important one for hammer and anvil would be “war cry”. Reducing the moral of the unit you are about to charge from behind even more... so sweet. Having champions always within the army allows more versatility. Your spy is somewhere else and there is this dignitary trying to make people Hellenic? Pop out the champ and cut his throat. Your spy is somewhere else and you suddenly encounter two enemy armies? Pop out your champ and assault that patrol. But the main focus here should be the training of the lads, so go for the “warfare” only 1 level to get to “militancy”.
Keep this in mind when you recruit them, take the ones with boost their military training capabilities or the “quartermaster” trait, which reduces the upkeep and recruitment costs. Level up “champion” and “militancy”. Party hard.
The tomb line (Religious) give champions bonus exp when recruited, starting at level 2 (+1 exp), +2 on level 3, and +3 on level 4 (capital only).

#Spies: their main goal should be scouting ahead of field armies and poisoning enemy armies. Especially important when you are facing more than one stack, since the poisoned unit just stand and watch their comrades die while they ♥♥♥♥ their souls out of their bodies. Gross. Use them as much as you can against nomadic armies, to soften them up and get that much needed edge. If you are not using them, activate the passive skill (intelligence or counter-intelligence) so they still get exp while standing there. Go for the “mass poisoning” skill via “furtiveness”
The windcatcher line (industrial) give spies bonus exp when recruited, starting at level 3 (shabestan) for +2 exp, and +3 exp on level 4 (which I don´t recommend, due to the unrest not being countered anymore by the sanitation effect).

#Dignitaries: the main goal of these guys is to further enhance your economy by sitting in money making provinces with their “civil administration” skill active. The best ones are those who enhance the commercial stimulation edict. While spies and champions hardly ever get to level up their innate skill, dignitaries have the best skill for their job (“politics”) as soon as level 3 which allows them to boost theirs. The second task in importance is their role propagating your culture, which will be much needed. To the north everything is nomadic, Bactrian initial regions are Hellenic, Seleucids initial regions are Hellenic too, Arabia is nomadic.
The Palace-line (city centre, thus, capital-only), give dignitaries bonus exp when recruited, starting at level 2 (+1 exp), +2 on level 3, and +3 on level 4.

Technology

#Military: “Organised supply” opens the three military trees and allows the construction of noble quarter´s (Persian light archers!).

Under Management there are 2 really important technologies: “ammunition supply chain”, giving your units +50% ammo AND allowing the construction of level 3 barracks to pop out parthian swordsmen. It is a good thing to have really soon, for the much needed anvil. The other one is “elephant training”, which gives you a few nice army upkeep and recruitment reduction and +1 recruitment slot (quite handy). Furthermore, it gives (finally) access to Indian war elephants (more precisely, level 3 animal trader). It´s the last tech in the tree, so late game stuff.

Under Tactics, all the non-naval techs are quite good, with nice bonuses to missile damage, shots per minute, charge damage, attack... the usual stuff. As for the important buildings unlocked, obviously an important one is “Kataphractoi”, which grants you the ability to build level 3 heavy stables and thus cataphracts. Totally game-changing, but don´t rush it. You need a good economy to recruit and support cataphracts. The next one is “nisean horse breeders” (one of the two last techs), with huge bonuses and unlocking of the royal cataphracts. Late game.

Under Siege there is one tech with you cannot ignore, “pre-siege battering ram”. It gives you access to the craftsman’s quarters, thus, ballista. You can win the campaign without ever building a single onager, elephant or royal cataphract, but without artillery at all... troubling. Skip the rest in favour of other trees.
#Civil: “Social organisation” opens the civil trees and allows the construction of farms.

Under Economy “Crop rotation” is important to build level 3 farms (a must have), and really all the trade-boosting branch is needed for the buildings unlocked. Get those benjamins!

Under the Construction tree there is one must-have tech, “Quanat”. That is, level 3 settlement main chain (both capital and minor) and adobe maker. All the other stuff is not really urgent.

Finally, the Philosophy tree. “Formal government” gives you access to dignitaries. Now, other factions normally receive little, but increasingly higher corruption reduction on the lover branch. Parthia does not. I guess to represent eastern decadence or something. Only the last one (“Cultural assimilation”) gives a big -30% corruption reduction. By the time you get it, you will be needing it badly. The whole tree itself gives small bonuses to corruption reduction having the upper and lower branch investigated, so if you want a strong economy you have to invest a lot of research here, not only in the economy tree. Another option is to keep your empire relatively small until you have savings, then expand and accept the relative reduction in funds/turn due to corruption.

The End

And so the guide ends. If you made it through the whole guide, congratulations and thanks! I hope it wasn´t that hard to read (even if it was long), and you learned something new. I will be happy if I encouraged you to try out this faction. Feel free to comment any constructive criticism, feel free to ask questions if something were not clear enough.

Rate if you liked it and have a nice day :D

[THe Black Frank White]

Great guide but still sh**y start with Partia. For me, makes it more interesting, but its hard in the begining

[Mg^_^]

Great guide, even if it's outdated. Thanks a lot, I shall go Parthia next campaign. Also, had a good laughs and reading it, was pretty enjoyable. Thanks

[Inverse Effect]

This guide doesn't help, i get raped by turn 10 by everyone with the radious mod installed. Musr have tried for like five hours and i can never make it past turn 10 each time.

[Skux Deluxe]

did u know that for some reson if u capture a hoplite barrices u can can get elephants so early in the game

[GatoVolador]

Thank you all for the comments and ratings folks! Just remember that I wrote this guide back when patch 7 came out, and have not updated it ever since. I think a lot of the concepts are still valid, but the specifics might be a bit different now ;)
Cheers

[velvetcrabman]

Great guide, personally I attempt to NAP the whole south in an Seluicid alliance then hook up over the top to gain a Black Sea port. With the trade now coming in a steady breaking of diplomacy one faction at a time in the south allows a slow takeover whilst the push for Antioch/Alexandia begins to enable the forming of a power block.

[Dusk]

very helpful to those interested in playing a parthia campaign for the first time. thx

[Admiral Fish]

Lovin' this guide man! I hope you can do more guides on how to do other factions.

[Surg3on]

Great guide. Really well done.

[Zapp Brannigan]

Great guide. Really well done.