NGL, I'm new to Rome 1, only recently got it, but knew to unlock factions via files, and... They're my only campaign right now, I own Russia and most of the Middle east, and my eastern infantry in my main army are so experienced that they're actually good... Oh and six horse archers
@@holysmokes6709 I was playing it just now, fought a Roman army, it was big and professional, mine had experience, two silver chevrons and a silver attack buff make horse archers(particularly the Persian ones I was using) Op, they melted Principes and Triarri ez
@@kairngodofbelligerence6163 take a single unit of horses ( as many single units as you have patience for and harass enemy units with it. Just retreat when you are out of ammo... Their forces will be devastated
@@joevenespineli6389 Cataphracts are easy to get and recruit. A half-stack Persian Cav + half-stack Catas with a War Elephant or two thrown in? Pure terror. Don't even need the Camel Catas. By the time you get them, you'll already own half the map!
@@nicsamazingpinballchannel7688 By late game maybe when you get a decent income and territory, that or I'm just real shit at the game if I can only afford to field such an army when I conquer the east.
@@hammer3721 Yep... just spam HA"s then PC's, build the cataphract tree, done. No need to mess with infantry whatsoever except for occasional mercs and town garrisons. Persian Cavalry in sufficient numbers can go toe-to-toe with any other horse archer unit. Even Armenia's cataphract HA's aren't as impervious as they seem, and they're slow as hell. Kind of a "worst of both worlds" unit neither optimal at skirmishing nor fighting. Even with a limited unit selection, Parthia is a lot of fun because no other HA faction has elite HA"s, cataphracts, and elephants in one single roster. Seleucia has catas and elephants, but no HA's and only average archers so it is forced to play a ground game. Armenia has the catas and HA"s but they are crappy ones - slow cataphract HA's instead of elephants... bad trade. Infantry is weak. Pontus has weaker catas (no AP) and no HA's. Good infantry though, if not Seleucia quality. Scythia has no catas, no elephants, weak infantry. It's all HA, all the time, with unfortunate Barbarian tech tree. Egypt could be strong with walls of spears and Pharaoh's Bowmen, but they won't do it. Easily crushed by HA spam. Nothing else left to oppose Parthia. :)
I saw the pajama man and thought this was a meme video. After watching and reading some of the comments I'm still not sure if it's a meme video or not.
When i play the Parthans i take only cavalry for the battles (Persan cavalry and cataprhacts) and one unit éléphants for the smals towns because the infantry is very bad il take just it for thé garnison in the city with archers, sorry for my english.
Seriously, no joke. Parthia is one of the "monster factions"... probably second only to Seleucia all things considered. Monster factions: Seleucia, Parthia, Egypt, Germania You got Persian Cavalry which can fight well and shoot long range missiles. Cataphracts with massive charge, huge armor, and AP maces. War elephants... nuff said. They are the ONLY faction with this triple punch offense. Just hire the footsoldier mercs you need and shoot/smash everything in your way. It's ridiculous how easy it is to dominate any faction. Rome, even at top tier, CANNOT STOP an elite Parthian army. Urbans? Ha! Cataphract charge + elephants = all dead. Persian Cavalry mops up the fleeing remainder... and they won't get far. Parthia was one of the easiest campaigns of all. Just stomps the absolute shite out of everyone. Easy peasy.
Parthia's civilization seems great, but the AI seldom thrives because AI only is autoresolve only and autoresolve favors heavy infantry... in other words... the Romans.
Parthia made all their uniforms pinky-purple and then someone informed them they ran out of money. That's why they don't have any armor on their infantry.
Really good video, BUT... Spain is more OP than Parthia! And I'll tell you why. At the beginning you start out with great generals and great garrisons in your settlements, you can use the whole garrison to unite the entire peninsula in less than 10 turns if you so choose! The Iberian peninsula has three mines in total (Osca, Carthago Nova and Asturica), and the few of the best units Scutaru-Naked Fanatics-Round&Long shield cavalry are cheap to maintain making Spain on par if not better than Parthia in terms of money! Many parts of Spain gives your armies an advantage when it comes to defence, it takes a few turns for an army to reach Asturica, armies have to go through mountains to get to Osca or Numantia, the only issue is the south and east coast where Carthage and the Romans can drop off their armies. But if you have a decent navy that should keep you relatively safe. Spain also has some of the best mercenaries in the game, you don't need to recruit any missile units while you have a steady supply of the far superior balaeric singers and before you can train Scutarii you can also hire Spanish mercenaries which are also cheap to maintain! As long as you avoid recruiting Town Militia-Iberian Infantry-Slingers-Skirmishers your armies should be good enough to defeat any enemy! Also, those poor units are really expensive to maintain so screw them! Another hidden op feature is the option to build 5 tiers of the temple of Epona, which will grant 5 xp points for your armies! So you have two OP options, to train Naked Fanatics-Bull warriors in your Barbaric minor cities or to train OP Long Shields and Scutarii in your captured huge cities! And... Bull warriors, nuff said. They are demi-gods!
You play Parthia when your Total War balls drop. Full stacks filled with horse archers. They gain XP like crazy because they dont die and kill a lot of shit from a distance and can just run over running enemies. You play them when you realize that: enemy units dont get shield defense benefit other than from the front and left and that the units that get surrounded rout really, really easily. Egypt/Seleucids/Pontus keep sending deathstacks that obliterate infantry with phalanx spears and spammy chariots. Horse archers hardcounter both.
Top-tier Persian Cavalry at that, which is easy to recruit anywhere. They fight well, decent armor, and have long distance arrows too. Can obliterate regular HA"s. Scythia has no defense against a PC + Cata stack... just charge with catas and rain down supporting fire behind them. All dead. Just keep the catas away from those head hunting maidens! I loved playing Parthia. They are HELLACIOUSLY strong... just ram down everything and shoot anyone who flees. Even max-tier Marian Rome has no chance. None.
This feels really weird seeing Rome getting destroyed by the Gauls in the begging and Greece absolutely going ham the map looked foreign to me to be honest
CA didn't do parthia justice, i mean historically speaking they were the only factions that could go toe to toe with the romans, before facing parthia rome just waltzed through any land she deemed worthy. you might be quick to point out that germans managed to defeat romans too, but rome avenged itself in less than 8 years at idistaviso they just stopped cause they didn't want germania it wasn't worth it, parthia on the other hand even tried to invade asia minor, syria and coele-syria, they failed but mark antony attempted to retaliate by invading parthian lands also failed in a disaster he lost 30 thousand men and all his exprience and military knowledge only helped him to organise a retreat and prevent the full annihilation of his army, even further in time romans tried to invade parthia but all of them ended in stalemate, it is unfair and historically inaccurate to depict parthia this weak. for those who are interested in the historical content do give a search about war 161-168, trajan's campaign and caracalla's campaign, you'll see a back and forth fight over lands in mesopotamia and armenia with neither side managing to keep the lands in dispute.
i agree that parthia was a great adversary (actually the region as a whole, sassanids, uyyamids, ottomans aso), but i disagree bout the germanic part. they conquered part of it (along the danube-rhein) and would have loved to conquere the rest (germany had great forests, and the empire was always short on lumber, they highly valued amber and had a fascination with blond people). the cost was just not worth it (just like parthia, germany was difficult to conquer, no roads, swampy, big forrests), while you got a gigantic empire to protect and could get all you need from it through trade. similiar story with great britain. why wouldnt they want the whole island and ireland, but it was much easier to play the tribes against each other. unlike a unified parthia those regions posed no real threat, so why would you spend so much ressources if they get what they need anyways and have much bigger fish to fry.
@@maxmustermann369well, rome tried to conquer parthian lands multiple times, they even managed to gain victories but they were always nullified later years, the whole war between them was a back and forth struggle, sometimes roman won sometimes parthians
I remember playign a campaign where my armies were 100% composed of cataphracts and mounted archers. I bribed enemy generals all the way from Syria to Spain
Usually Its Egypt that wipes out the eastern factions but you do see some crazy shit sometimes from the AI. Like getting the option to become nuetral with the rebels faction. The Senate conquering things. That happened once. They took sardinia and all the places the Julii take. Or some how the Selucids survive the onslaught and beat Egypt parthia Armenia etc
@@jorgeserna8411 I did a scipii campaign a few weeks ago and they took gaul and spain Julii took germania. Somehow late late into the game. The spanish faction was still around and was able to take like half of spain from the britons lol
The one thing that is never talked about is how freaking hard it is initially. Tax isnt helpful, you get placed into debt too quickly. Aside from that, horse archer OP
They remind me Timurids from Medieval II. A distant power far in the East, with war elephants, heavy cavalry and perfect horse archers. They really can conquer the World!
Could you make another AI only campaign for Medieval 2, where it’s only the Mongols and Timurids both spawning at turn 1? Or if you already made, just point me to it’s direction!
