Parthia (RTW Faction)

Parthia Faction Symbol.

Parthia are one of the playable factions in Rome: Total War. They can be played after successfully completing a campaign as a Roman faction or by simple modifications to the game files (more information on which can be found here).

Game Play

Parthia has nearby rebels to conquer and three immediate factions to contend with: Scythia, Armenia, and the Seleucid Empire.

Starting Position

Parthia Starting Position (Click to enlarge)

Parthia starts at the far eastern edge of the map in and around Asia Minor.

Their cities are:

• Arsakia: Parthian Capital; Region - Media

• Susa: Parthian City; Region - Elymais

• Campus Sakae: Parthian Large Town; Region - Tribus Sakae

Victory Conditions

• Long Campaign: Hold 50 provinces including Rome.
• Short Campaign: Hold 15 provinces and outlast or destroy Seleucid Empire and Armenia.

Units

Parthia General's Bodyguard.

• Infantry
  • Peasants
  • Eastern Infantry
  • Hillmen
• Cavalry
  • Horse Archers
  • Persian Cavalry (U)
  • Cataphracts
  • War Elephants (U)
  • Cataphract Camels (U)
• Missile
  • Slingers
  • Archers
  • Onagers
• Naval
  • Bireme
  • Trireme
  • Quinquireme
• Bodyguard
  • Armoured Eastern General
• Mercenary
  • Arab Cavalry
  • Bedouin Warriors
  • Bedouin Archers
• Local Mercenaries
  • Eastern Mercenaries
  • Sarmatian Mercenaries
  • Scythian Mercenaries
  • Mercenary Hoplites

Unique Units

Persian Cavalry: Can be recruited from Cavalry Stables. Persian cavalry are very useful, namely if they use cantribian circle. Cantabrian circle allows them to move while shooting, making them more effective versus foot archers as they take less hits.

Persian cavalry themselves have long range bows making them more dangerous than normal horse archers ,even if Persian cavalry lack mobility. They are far better protected than normal horse archers and have swords for melee.

War Elephants: Can be recruited from Elite Cavalry Stables. These troops provide your army with shockpower you can place these elefants behind eastern infantry(if facing romans the enemy roman player thinks eastern infantry? against my Urbans easy kills he charges his urbans in maybe he has only cohorts and cav no archers or onagers)

Now what you do now is send your elephants right through your own eastern infantry and into the Urban Cohort.

At the same time you smash the enemy cav with your own cav by attacking from all sides remember this:Battles are about Routing units you dont have to kill them 1 by 1 Kill them all once they are all runinng so that you dont lose troops durning the slow process of annahilating enemy army.

Cataphract Camels: Can be recruited from Royal Cavalry Stables. These units are simply cataphracts who have exchanged their horse mounts for camels. Camels scare horses, making them extremely effective in attacking and destroying enemy cavalry units, particularly slower heavy cavalry, as Cataphract camels still have the Armor-piercing mace attack, the alternate attack for Cataphracts. However, as camels are slower than horses and the extensive amount of armor on this unit makes it tire quite easily, most cavalry will be able to easily outmanuever this unit.

Eastern infantry:These infantry units can be recruited very early in the game and are extremely cheap, with 240 men on Huge unit size, making Eastern Infantry quite good infantry-of-the-line units early on in the game; however, they are very weak when compared to other factions' early-game infantry, and so should generally be used as a cheap cannon-fodder unit once cataphracts become available.

Archers: Mobile and has a decent punch; unarmoured, this unit is not the best but it is good enough as a missile unit if the enemy archers are eliminated early on in battle. These are the only long-range foot missiles that Parthia can recruit, and so unless horsearchers are used, Parthia is easily outclassed in missile duels between factions with better archers.

Onagers:This unit counters testudo very effectivly in campaign; flaming missiles are ideal aganst packed enemy units and very useful in forcing the enemy into all out attacks or making him or her thin out his or her line. However, by all accounts, artillery is very expensive and almost comletely useless in multiplayer, so it is advised to not get too used to using these units.

Cataphract:Cataphracts are the decisive arm in Parthia's arsenal; it is this one unit, coupled with horsearchers that makes Parthia so deadly in multiplayer as a skirmish army. Cataphracts are the most powerful heavy cavalry units in the game. To make full use of these units, use their unique alternate attack; an armor-piercing mace attack , used by pressing and holdind down the Alt key on your keyboard and right-clicking the enemy unit that you wish to use this attack on.

Cataphracts have so much armor that a shield is not needed to ward off missiles, and since they have a charge value of 9, they should be the main attack arm of your multiplayer and campaign armies. Note that cataphracts are more mobile than camels but do not scare horses.

Strategy Guides

Parthia Strategies at The Org

Faction Details

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Parthia Details (RTW Faction)

RTW Factions
Armenia | Britannia | Carthage | Dacia | Egypt | Gaul | Germania | Greek Cities | The House of Brutii | The House of Julii | The House of Scipii | Macedon | Numidia | Parthia | Pontus | Scythia | Seleucid Empire | Senate | Spain | Thrace | Rebels