Total War: Peleset

Total War: Peleset
Name:	Peleset
From Game:	Total War: Pharaoh
Culture:	Sea Peoples
Playable:	Yes

The Peleset are one of the playable factions in Total War Pharaoh, led by Walwetes.

Walwetes, leader of the Peleset

Overview

Walwetes leads a migratory band of the Sea Peoples, the Peleset. The Peleset have well-armoured swordsmen and axe warriors, and have a unique chariot, Oxen Carts. The Peleset faction can acquire resources through raiding, looting and razing cities, however the Peleset are looking to find a new home.

The Peleset have two faction rosters - settled (units they can recruit in settlements) and horde (units they can recruit in their horde armies). While both rosters include good-quality melee infantry as well as some skirmishers, the horde roster only include regular archers, while the settled roster includes elite archers with composite bows.

Starting Position

Walwetes and his Peleset raiders begin in southern Canaan. As a migratory faction, they have no settlements initially and their starting army is a horde (a mobile settlement, which can construct buildings and recruit units when in encamped stance). After defeating the army which starts next to you on the campaign map, you can start raiding nearby lands and look for a place to settle - or continue wandering.

As long as you remain a horde faction (with no fixed settlements), you are likely to need to raid and occasionally raze settlements to get the resources you need. Raiding provides a modest amount of resources (which is likely to increase over time), and incurs a diplomatic penalty with the faction owning the region. Razing settlements provide more resources, but is likely to lead to declarations of war from most (if not all) of the factions nearby.

Strategies for the Peleset

In the early campaign, Walwetes can just about generate enough resources to survive by winning battles and raiding. Razing settlements is lucrative but tends to lead to declarations of war from most (if not all) factions nearby - so Walwetes may prefer to keep moving after razing settlements, to avoid being attacked by more enemies than he can handle. If Walwetes travels a considerable distance from the settlements he razed before finding a place to occupy and settle, this can reduce the risk of being overrun by attacks from several enemies at once.

A veteran Total War player, Welsh Dragon, explained the difference between the Sherden (the other playable Sea Peoples faction) and the Peleset like this:

"Sherden are the rampaging marauders, the "monsters under the bed" if you will, and so they get a bumper roster of Horde units to strike fear across the map. This arguably makes them a stronger horde, but it comes at the expense of having a Settled roster, so if they choose to settle, they have to rely on the natives to make up their non-Horde armies.

Peleset on the other hand are the refugees just seeking a new homeland, the ones who raid not because they want to but because they have to. Their roster is split between Horde and Settled units, so they don't have quite as strong a range of Horde units in exchange for having their own roster of Settled units too. You can choose to stay as a Horde, but it's not where their strength lies.''

If you settle as the Walwetes, it may be tempting to occupy settlements on the edge of the campaign map. For example you could travel north from your starting position, through Canaan into Anatolia - you could settle there, or travel westward to the north-west corner of Anatolia. This can work well - however, invading marauders can spawn on the edge of the map, so (as your territory expands) you may need to keep one or two armies near the edge of the map.

At least on lower difficulty settings, another advantage of razing a few settlements (causing several factions to declare war) and travelling a long distance, is that eventually those factions may offer resources in exchange for a peace treaty. This suggests that the Peleset could adopt a strategy similar to the Danes in 10th and 11th century Saxon England - to alternate between waging war, and being paid to return to peace.

The Peleset have a unique outpost, a tribal village. This provides an extra recruitment slot, bonues to happiness, influence and good production, and a +20% chance of ambushes succeeding. If the Peleset settle in a well-chosen location, ambushes can be a useful way to defend your regions. As your generals level up, they can choose titles. Generals with the Expert Tracker title gaim a bonus to their ambush chance, and an additional +2% ambush chance for every Peleset tribal village in your faction - if you have a large kingdom with a lot of tribal villages, the ambush chance for a Peleset general who is an Expert Tracker can reach 100%.

Walwetes has an unusual ability - when facing a battle, he can challenge the enemy general to single combat. The losing general's army retreats (as if they had fought the battle and lost). This can be a useful ability to fall back on, if Walwetes encounters an army of much higher-quality units. Other Peleset generals who choose the Champion in Single Combat title when they level up acquire this ability as well.

Maintaining public order can become more difficult in the late campaign, because horde armies with a large suplus of labourers reduce public order. If you have several horde armies in a province, for example in encampment stance (adding horde buildings or recruiting units) this can cause a substantial drop in public order. Building Peleset tribal villages or dispersing your armies across different provinces can help. Alternatively, you could send your horde armies into the lands of another faction, to reduce their public order instead!