It's not impossible.

I won it on H, you just got to micro manage your units (testudo when shot at, out of testudo when charged) and use the pause option alot.

Use your cav and general to chase away the pesky horse archers. Be careful so you don't chase them around the map though, just enough them so they retreat. Wait till the kathapracts charge and when your cohorts have absorbed the charge, send in your general and cav in from behind to finish the katas off. Once the katas are taken out, mop up the rest and enjoy your victory.

You can also try to retreat to the hill and fend them off there.

Yeah do as Centy says. Even if you fail, don't worry. Because every Roman defeat in that battle is historically correct.

[This message has been edited by el_bandito (edited 11-07-2005 @ 01:27 AM).]

First time I played it I got slaughtered.

Second time I played it I said to myself "Screw the horse archers!", turned off testudo and turned on fire at will. Turns out the Persian Cavalry are in range of your pila and a few of them routed pretty fast.

Then I just moved the rear infantry into a better position to counter the incoming charge and simply did my best at managing my troops. I suppose I used the pause a lot. In the end I won and it was sweet indeed.

There had been much discussion of this in the archives..

It's the very first battle I fought, and won, on Rome Total War. It's actually quite easy. Just put your men into tetsudo when the horse archers shoot and take them out when the cataphracts charge. It will eventually wear down the enemy enough for your cavalry to beat them.

I won it purely by accident first time round. After managing to destroy the catas, I loist all my cavalry, then just stayed in Testudo until they ran out of arrows. Then a lot of dead horse archers.

actually yea, I was in testudo, and I went to go microwave some enchiladas, came back, all the arrows from the enemy archer calv were gone and they were beginning to charge. wierd, but it worked, killed all the horse archers.... still lost tho...*cry

I have tried this travesty of a battle a dozen times on medium and lost every damn time. I even lose on easy when I tried that in desperation. I can ace every battle in the historical battle mod without breaking a sweat, but Carrhae gets me every time.

Yeah, my boys are in testudo and out seconds before impact. Yeah, they chuck a double rain of pila death. Yeah, cavalry is clearing the horse archers in a circle. Yeah, I micro like nobody's business and calculate my every move, being careful not to repeat my previous blunders.

So the cataphracts make impact, and my infantry gangbangs them. If I let my cavalry join the fray, horse archers ram in from every side and it becomes a rout-fest. If I let the cavalry beat up the closest horse archers, the cataphracts lay waste to my infantry. I've tried to hold back any infantry I could spare, but they are soon engaged with horse archers anyway - and losing since the horse archers simply gang up on their sorry asses. I've tried to funnel the cataphracts so that they are completely surrounded from 3 sides, to no avail. I've tried to split up my infantry 50/50, same result.

Usually I manage to smash up the cataphracts, but then my army looks like it just came out of a trashcompactor and that's when the enemy generals join the fun along with the remaining two horse archers or so.

Easy my ass. I would KILL for a replay.

[This message has been edited by TheQueenMother (edited 11-22-2005 @ 04:32 AM).]

Even when you have the fundamentals down right, this battle depends largely on luck. Killing their general early is the key to winning the battle.

Quote:

It IS easy. Start with letting your roman cav start chasing the horse archer unit behind you, they will catch up with them soon. Then wait until the catrapatch (sp?) charge and then go out of testeudo, the cattas will charge your front units, so you rush around them with the infantry in the second line, and charge from the rear/flank. When the enemy generals charge, order all your troops (exept the roman cav that still should be chasing some horse archers) to charge the generals. When the enemy catas and general are dead/routing, go in testeudo and charge the enemy horse archers with your cavalry (they are faster than the enemy). You could also circle around the enemy so that they are between your cav and infantry before charging so that they have to choose between getting killed by your inf or your cav, but that is not neccecery. A third option is to just wait in testeudo until the archers run out of ammo and charge.

And sbout the replay, noone can give you one sonce it's impossible to save historical battle replays.

Steace,
Thank you for your suggestions.

Quoted from "You":

Been doing that all along. As far as I remember, my general heads directly to the rear, and the other cavalry goes south-west or thereabouts.

Quoted from "You":

Been doing that too. My cavalry is usually still engaged in melee with the horse archer or moved on to the one to the north-west in front of the charging cataphracts, and my general is either doing a hammer-and-anvil on the cataphracts, or chasing away the horse archer on the right before engaging the enemy general cataphract.

Quoted from "You":

Problem is they are still trying to finish off the cataphracts when this happens. I can keep my general in reserve to engage the enemy generals, but then his horse archers join as well.

Quoted from "You":

At this point either my men are routed, and my calvary are on the breaking point, or I'm facing them with what looks like a couple of battered housewives and a drunken mule.

Quoted from "You":

The former has merits and I'm gonna try that later, the latter has proven again and again to be suicidal; if I go in testudo I get charged, if I enter melee I get peppered and rout after a few seconds because they don't have any meat left on their bones at this point. *sigh*

Quoted from "You":

Daaamn, you're right. There is fraps, though...

I managed to fight off everything they cam at me until I had (altogether) 2 men from my genral unit and 50 leigonarys. They had 25 horse archers. I perched on the top of the hill to the right of teh start, trying to lure them up so I could finish tehm. When I charge, they skirmish, If I attack with my genral it would be suicideal, If I stayed on the hill, They'd just shoot me to death and by the time the'd run out of arrows I'd be bored and would have logged back to my cathage campain. So I quit. A moral victary??

Quote:

Quote:

Do you send out your general to chase the horse archers? You should not do that, you need to keep him close to your inf to give them better and the enemy lower morale.
About the inf being busy when the generals charge, the most important thing is to kill the generals, then you can much easier rout the cattas. If there still is a big number of cattas left on the flanks, let a few cohorts stay and (as few as possible) and charge with the rest. If the remaining cattas are more to the middle, just let all the inf charge, and then the ones on the flanks will meet the cattas while trying to charge the generals, and will then engage them. About the horse archers charging in, I can't say much about that since it has never happened to me.

Quote:

Thats why you must take out the enemy generals as soon as possible and keep your own general close by.

Steace,

Quoted from "You":

Damn, that's a good point. I'm gonna test it out the minute I get home from work.

Quoted from "You":

So I should keep a few infantry in reserve instead of engaging the cataphracts, and then gang up on the incoming generals with the free infantry + my own general?

Quoted from "You":

In other words, just charge with anything even remotely available, correct?

Quoted from "You":

That's what I don't understand. All my games have been pingpong sessions between cataphracts and horse archers, and it's devastating. Strange, that. It sounds like your men are killing much faster than mine. What do you feed them?

Of course with the general at their backs they should kill faster indeed. Well, we shall see what happens tonight!

Quote:

No, send all your inf in to engage the cattas, what I meant was that when the generals charge in, the most important thing is to kill them off, and therefor you charge in with all that doesn't absolutely HAVE to stay and keep the cattas from attacking your rear/flank.

Quote:

Yes, exept for the roman cav if they are too far away hunting cav archers.

Okay, thanks to these instructions and tips I can now beat it consistently on Easy. The general really did make a difference.

On Medium it's business as usual. Horse archers go into melee the split second they spot a chance. I'm gonna try to keep the general out of melee with the cataphracts and counter charge the horse archers instead.

Look, this is pretty simple... First, you do what you've been doing (screw the testudo) then, if you haven't already, bunch your troops... you probably wan't to charge the cataphracts. I've noticied if you charge them at the same time their charge bonus is lessened. Then, after you've scared away enough of the horse archers, send your cav around and trap that cataphracts.

Well, I see that folks here have obviously overlooked something that can really make a difference.

Not only will you have to abandon testudo - loose formation for your legionaries is the key.

First they will not be so sweet a target to Horse Archers (note that they have pretty good armour anyway) - but impact that the cataphracts' charge will have will be significantly smaller - which allows them to be conveniently bound and slaughtered among your loose ranks :P

I got it on third time I tried and kicked that Parthian ass on medium - though not much was left of my proud army...:/

Well ive beaten it like 5 times but it took me a couple to do i have rec and screenies but dont know how to send i also think that it is a hard battle to do i played it on vh

[This message has been edited by RomE (edited 12-01-2005 @ 05:55 PM).]