Parthian Tactics is a technology in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors available at the Archery Range upon reaching the Imperial Age. Once researched, it improves mounted archers (except Genitour), melee Ratha and Arambai, increasing their armor by +1/+2 and giving them an attack bonus of +2 against Spearmen.
Availability chart[]
Available | Unavailable |
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Tactics[]
The availability of Parthian Tactics is an indicator of prominent Cavalry Archers. Parthian Tactics is situationally better than Ring Archer Armor since it provides +2 attack vs Spearmen. Since both these technologies provide armor to a ranged mobile unit, they are not the priority. As with the case of ranged units, range, attack (both the raw damage and the rate of fire), and speed are the top priorities. The Imperial Age upgrades sorted by priority are:
- Bracer
- Heavy Cavalry Archer
- Chemistry
- Parthian Tactics
- Ring Archer Armor
However, out of the thirteen civilizations that have access to the technology, only the following five can fully upgrade them, having access to Thumb Ring, Bloodlines, Ring Archer Armor, Husbandry, and Bracer:
It should be noted that, from the civilizations with Parthian Tactics:
- The Bulgarians, Huns, and Mongols only lack the Ring Archer Armor upgrade, hence are perfectly usable. For Bulgarians, their Cavalry Archers are the only solution countering heavy infantry, since they cannot upgrade their foot archers to Crossbowmen. Mongols mostly use their unique unit, the Mangudai, instead of their Cavalry Archers.
- The Cumans lack Bracer (Cumans' lack of Husbandry is fully covered by their civilization bonus), which can be a deal breaker. Due to having Kipchaks as their unique unit, the Cumans may not use their Cavalry Archers very often, even with Steppe Husbandry.
- The Persians may research Parthian Tactics in the Castle Age, giving their Cavalry Archers a decisive advantage in the mid game. However, they lose their edge in the Imperial Age, where their lack of Bracer hurts them significantly, and a switch to Kamandaran Crossbowmen may be considered.
- The Khmer notably lack Thumb Ring, which makes their Cavalry Archers inaccurate (Heavy Cavalry Archers have a base accuracy of just 80%) and not a great choice of army composition. Prior to update 93001, Heavy Cavalry Archers had a base accuracy of only 50%, making them an even worse choice of army composition.
- The Burmese have the worst Heavy Cavalry Archers (despite having Parthian Tactics), due to lacking Thumb Ring, Leather Archer Armor, and Ring Archer Armor. As a result, researching it is mostly for the sake of the Arambai, which suffers from lacking archer armor upgrades as well.
- The Japanese, Magyars, Tatars, and Turks can fully upgrade their Cavalry Archers, and have a unique technology or bonus that benefits their combat strength.
- The Saracens have fully upgraded Heavy Cavalry Archers, but they do not benefit from any bonuses or unique technologies.
- The Bengalis do not have the Cavalry Archer line despite having Parthian Tactics. Instead, it applies to their Elephant Archers and Rathas, neither of which suffer much from the loss of Thumb Ring, due to higher base accuracy and Paiks, which provides a slightly faster attack rate boost.
- The Georgian Cavalry Archers are suboptimal, as they lack Ring Archer Armor and Thumb Ring. However, they are affected by several Georgian unique bonuses, including cavalry hit point regeneration, reduced incoming damage from elevation, and Aznauri Cavalry, making them a worthwhile investment for their late-game cavalry deathball.
Affected units[]
All units listed below benefit from Parthian Tactics. The units and effects are mentioned below.
Unit | Armor increase | Spearman attack increase |
---|---|---|
Genitour - Elite Genitour | 0/0 | 0 |
All other mounted archer units | +1/+2 | +2 |
Melee Ratha - Melee Elite Ratha | +1/+2 | +2 |
Arambai - Elite Arambai | +1/+2 | +2 |
The Conquistador and the Arambai are classified as "Conquistador" and not "Cavalry Archer". They are unaffected by Parthian Tactics by class definition. However, the Arambai receives a boost from the upgrade by specifically applying the effects. Genitours, despite being Cavalry Archers, are specifically excluded by having penalties equal to the bonuses.
Civilization bonuses[]
Team bonuses[]
- Britons: Researching Parthian Tactics is 10% faster.
- Portuguese: Researching Parthian Tactics is 25% faster.
Changelog[]
The Conquerors[]
- On release, Parthian Tactics does not give an attack bonus. With patch 1.0b, the attack bonus was added to the technology. The attack bonus was +4 for the Cavalry Archer line and +2 for unique mounted archers. In Full Tech Tree mode, War Wagons do not benefit from the attack bonus.
Rise of the Rajas[]
- Parthian Tactics does not benefit Arambai.
Lords of the West[]
- With update 50292, the internal implementation of Parthian Tactics is made cleaner and simpler. As a side effect, applicable Heroes benefit from it.
Dynasties of India[]
- Hindustanis: Do not inherit Parthian Tactics from the Indian technology tree.
- With update 73855, Parthian Tactics has been reorganized, giving +1/+2 armor and +2 attack bonus against the Spearman armor class to all mounted archers (Genitour line and Genitour-type heroes are excluded) regardless of the unit's elite or upgrade status, and also benefiting Arambai. In Full Tech Tree mode, it benefits War Wagons as well.
The Mountain Royals[]
- Persians: With update 95810, Parthian Tactics is available in the Castle Age.
Trivia[]
- Only fourteen different civilizations can research Parthian Tactics, making it the most exclusive of all technologies.
- Most nomadic civilizations or civilizations that originated from nomadic tribes can access Parthian Tactics, with the exception of the Berbers.
- The Parthians, the eponymous people for this technology, appear as an enemy faction in the campaign scenario Ransom at Ctesiphon in Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome, and are a recurring enemy in the Trajan campaign.
- During the beta for the Defintive Edition, Lithuanians had access to Parthian Tactics, making it available to all of the The Last Khans civilizations at the time.
- None of the eight civilizations in The African Kingdoms, Lords of the West, and Dawn of the Dukes have access to Parthian Tactics.
- Prior to The Forgotten, the Japanese were the only civilization that could research Parthian Tactics, but not Bloodlines. Since The Forgotten, all civilizations that have access to Parthian Tactics can research Bloodlines.
- Between updates 61321 and 73855, Parthian Tactics gave only +2 anti-Spearman attack to Elephant Archers despite them not being unique anymore.
- Despite their historical reputation for mounted archery, the Berbers, Byzantines, Slavs, Armenians, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Koreans do not have access to Parthian Tactics.
- The lack of Parthian Tactics in the tech tree does not necessarily mean the civilizations did not have a tradition of mounted archery. Some civilization lack Parthian Tactics to balance their unique units (i.e. the Berbers' Camel Archer and the Koreans' War Wagon) or for gameplay balance reasons.
History[]
“ | The horse archers of Parthia, now part of modern Iran, were renowned for their ability to shoot arrows at pursuers, whether the archers were in real or feigned retreat. Being able to shoot at enemies while withdrawing was very irritating to the enemy, especially when pursuers were too slow to close the gap. Although the Parthians were an ancient people, their tactics were adopted by later civilizations that employed horse archers and their name remained attached to the maneuver. The phrase "parthian shot" has come to mean any comment made while exiting a discussion. | ” |
—The Conquerors manual |