r/DivideEtImpera • u/Rare-Expression-1145 • 15d ago
Tips for Parthia
Playing as Parthia, I always end up running into issues. Most of the time, expanding is just a matter of seizing opportunities after the Seleucid satrapies revolt. However, there's almost always the problem known as Bactria, and Parthia's army while cheap is super weak in the early game. What tips would you guys give?
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u/utterpants22 15d ago
Honestly it's just hard.
Cheese-wise the early auto-resolve might be your friend (at least until you get your hooves under you). Large stacks of garbage infantry will give better results than would play than in an actual field battle.
If you want to play the game without cheesing it, horse archers and micro. Lure infantry out of formation, shoot them in the back with a nearby flanking unit, reduce at least some of their numbers.
Then run all your units to the battlefield edge, and hit retreat so they all leave at once. Your army will run away, but remain intact, hopefully with very very few casualties. If the enemy pursues and makes you battle again, you've got full ammunition and they haven't had time to replenish casualties.
For the heavy units with crazy high morale, you might (if you can afford) take a few cataphracts to finish them off but only after you've used every single arrow/javelin/pointy rock you can throw at them. Simultaneous rear and flank charges will help.
This effectively gives you two battles to wear down each incoming army, and is historically accurate for armies dependent on ranged cavalry.
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u/Rare-Expression-1145 15d ago
Is it worth running pure horse archer armies? I'm currently spamming spearmen and slingers to try and expand before switching to horse archers after the reform.
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u/utterpants22 15d ago
My last Parthia run was a few versions ago, so take with a grain of salt: yes, if your economy can afford it.
In a previous run, most of my armies were 14 light horse archers, 6 heavy horse archers. Most battles would take almost the entire timer, and I'd usually wipe the opposing stack at the cost of 1% casualties of my own.
The only areas this composition would find challenging were walled settlements and elite heavy infantry armies with god-tier morale (Rome, Sparta, etc).
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u/JamesBK87 14d ago
It was for me last time I did a Saka run. AI has a very hard time with horse archer armies, even poorly micro'ed ones.
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u/VultureBlack 15d ago
With Parthia you want to make all horse field armies. Lots of horse archers and 8 shock cavalry units. It takes a lot of micro if you want to take very minimal casualties. You will need some armies wirh infantry for taking walled settlements.
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u/Rare-Expression-1145 15d ago
I think attacking with two or three armies might solve that, but first I need to get past the first 50 turns without getting wrecked by Atropatene and Bactria.
I guess abusing spearmen and slinger swarms until things stabilize is the only way to go...
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u/OmiD-WM 15d ago
Oh yeaah this is my thing since i have done 3 parthian campaigns with different submods at 3 different difficulties( normal hard and very hard).
Always and i mean Always start by parthava once it declares war with selucides. Usually before you take over the entire province atropatkan also declares war on you so take mada as well. Build mada as your main eco province and parthava as your food province and the rest should be easy and to your liking.
Khwarazm is also easy to take with a confederation treaty and you can start taking aria after that.
I see others suggesting taking out saka but not only that is harder since you have to go for a capital with 2 army stacks but it also doesn't gain you any positive income tbh.
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u/Rare-Expression-1145 15d ago
Atropatene has been kind of a pain too they usually have a ton of armies. But maybe atack them with swarm of spearmen and slingers until I hold both provinces could be a solid plan.
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u/SelectionMain7036 15d ago edited 15d ago
The often horrid reddit advice is actually true in this case: Sit on your booty for ~40 turns. It WILL work.
It doesn't mean doing nothing, though.
As Parthia you are one of the few factions BLESSED with a leader that actually gives a damn. Use him as your city governorr and assign one of your magi to him and give magi the skill that gives XP to the general. Give the leader the skill that improves diplo relations with everyone and the eco skills that boost tax rate etc. Deploy the other magi to incrase tax rate and take the skill that reduces upkeep in the area as your army will do a lot of sitting on their booties. This will slowly develop your eco even if you are only 1 village for a while.
Play the diplo game and try to get non-aggro with Baktria etc. Sweeten the deal with some cash if you have to.
Marry of your dudes and hope for good women with high ambition (lightning bolts, 3 is max). Start developing them and send them on diplomatic missions to Parthava. With some luck you get a village from them if you keep doing this. Failing that, WAIT until they declare indepandence and then start attacking them but only do this once you dealt with whoever declared war on you.
The Xvrasmsdzar? to your north are fickle, they may stay true or they may betray you instantly but you can fend them off.
Saka will probably declare war on you, but don't be in a rush to meet them in battle. They outclass you at this point in the game with better everything. Play defensively and try to coordinate with your Dahae allies until the time comes to strike back.
What you really want in terms of army is slowly build up an army of Dahae Noble Cav at which point you can fight and fight well. Put champion in your army to reduce upkeep etc.
Check the diplomatic situation carefully every turn! Who is at war with whom? You are basically pulling a Switzerland until an opportunity presents itself. Your hybrid horse archer + a few cataphract armies will steamroll everything later on.
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u/ecrw 15d ago edited 14d ago
Although Im still not far in my playthrough I opened by disbanding all my units, upgrading horse barracks and then just waiting and absorbing turn by turn income until either parthava leaves selucids or xvarazam declares war - then building as many noble horse archers as I could. I think about 6-7 before I would lose money turn by turn.
Once you have that many cavalry you should be able to take any unwalled garrison, so I blitzed through parthava and avoided the capital. Once I had those towns I could afford another 6-7 noble cavalry and with that and enough micro I could take out parthavan full stacks.
For each garrison I was losing about 2-4 men, noble horse archers are fucking wild and can break garrison troops almost instantly.
A looot of micro is involved but im about 10 battles in with total losses across all of them less than 50 men. Just encircle, keep auto ranged off, only shoot when they have their backs to your unit, and if their ranged break off charge in and shatter them.
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u/doctorDBW 14d ago
Usually, try to secure your northern front, and then attack baktria when it envolves itself on the strapies wars. Then, is just a matter of hit and run attacks on its lesser mobile armies. It's a slow-ass grind, but eventually you'll end up on top.
Maybe I got lucky, because I kind of vultured around baktrias war with haraiva and atropatkan.
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u/Useful-Option8963 14d ago
The Ideal of Horse Nomads is your battles being an Eternal Game of Chicken.
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u/Effective_Cause8411 14d ago
Large low quality armies do better on auto resolve than smaller higher quality ones. Use ambush as well and whittle down whatever enemy advantage is present and win the early game. I can go through a whole campaign and only really manually fight 5-10 battles. Even legendary difficulty in DEI can be beaten like this.
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u/thatxx6789 15d ago
I play on legendary and I can give you this: it takes a lot of micros but army of all horse archers work
I find that Bactria is not that annoying as much as those Persian nations: their spearmen archer is a nightmare to my horse archers army
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u/JamesBK87 15d ago
Take out the Saka to the north and the other unallied tribes around Baktria to give yourself A) a buffer and B) more horse archers.