Parthian Tactics

Parthian Tactics
Availability
Introduced in	The Conquerors
Civilization	See table
Age	Imperial Age
Research
Researched at	Archery Range
Food	200
Gold	250
Research time	65 seconds
Effect
Mounted archer armor +1/+2 and +2 or +4 attack against Pikemen

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, increasing their armor by +1/+2 and (except in the unpatched release) giving them an attack bonus of +2 or +4 against Pikemen.

The availability of Parthian Tactics is an indicator of prominent Cavalry Archers. However, of the thirteen civilizations that have access to the technology, only the following six can fully upgrade them (hence have access to Thumb Ring, Bloodlines, Ring Archer Armor, Husbandry, Chemistry, and Bracer):

• Indians
• Japanese
• Magyars
• Saracens
• Tatars
• Turks

Technology availability

Available	Unavailable
Bulgarians Burmese Cumans Huns Indians Japanese Khmer Magyars Mongols Persians Saracens Tatars Turks	Aztecs Berbers Britons Byzantines Celts Chinese Ethiopians Franks Goths Incas Italians Koreans Lithuanians Malay Malians Mayans Portuguese Slavs Spanish Teutons Vietnamese Vikings

Affected units

All units listed below benefit from Parthian Tactics. The Camel Archer (denoted with a *) does profit from the armor and attack increase Parthian Tactics grants, but the Berbers do not get Parthian Tactics. Hence, this is only relevant in games with Full Tech Tree checked.

Archer unit	Armor increase	Spearman attack increase
Cavalry Archer	+1/+2	+4
Heavy Cavalry Archer	+1/+2	+4
Mangudai	+1/+2	+2
Elite Mangudai	+1/+2	+2
Elephant Archer	+1/+2	+2
Elite Elephant Archer	+1/+2	+2
Camel Archer*	+1/+2	+2
Elite Camel Archer*	+1/+2	+2
Kipchak	+1/+2	+2
Elite Kipchak	+1/+2	+2

Parthian Tactics affects specific units and not a unit branch like most other technologies. Since the Conquistador and Arambai are classified as "Conquistador" and not "cavalry archer", they are unaffected by Parthian Tactics. Also, neither Genitours nor any heroes are affected by it.

Civilization bonuses

• Tatars: Parthian Tactics is free.

Team bonuses

• A team containing Britons: Researching Parthian Tactics is 20% faster.

Changelog

The Conquerors

• On release, Parthian Tactics does not give an attack bonus. With patch 1.0, the attack bonus was added to the technology.

Trivia

• Only thirteen different civilizations can research Parthian Tactics, making it the most exclusive of all technologies.
• 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.
• During the beta, Lithuanians had access to Parthian Tactics.

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