Persia is major non-playable faction featured in Rome: Total War: Alexander. Persia controls nearly all of the campaign map and is the main opposition to Macedon, the sole playable faction in the expansion.
Tactics[]
Despite not being playable outside of skirmish or multiplayer, Persia is the dominant power at the start of Alexander. They control nearly all of the map and field many massive armies and fleets. However, they are mostly locked to Asia Minor and the Near East, and will very rarely naval invade Greece or anything further than Byzantium. While at war with Macedon and all the other factions, they will not actually come into contact with Macedon until they take Byzantium and get onto Asia Minor. Their early game will consist of pacifying their bordering barbarians, namely Dahae and Scythia to a lesser extent until Alexander shows up.
Ambushing or engaging smaller Persian armies is the best tactic for whittling down their armies, as taking out the smaller stacks will prevent them from either merging into one larger army or reinforcing a different army further away in the fog of war. Until a large army has been built up and enough settlements captured or developed enough to field a large army, the large Persian armies should be left alone, or at least dealt with in a siege battle where the Persians can be peppered from defending walls and towers or get cut down in choke points such as the gatehouses or on the walls. The Persians have some good units, such as Immortals and Persian Infantry, while their War Elephants can cause a lot of damage on an open battlefield, as can their chariots strangely enough.
Pacifying Asia Minor and Aegyptus will cut off Persia from the Mediterranean, securing the whole coastline and allowing for a single fleet to kill off any remaining Persian boats floating around. After this, the navy can be disbanded to save on upkeep that could go towards land units. From here, containing the barbarians is important if Persia has not already done it as that will secure the Macedonian flanks and allow all possible resources to be pushed into Persia itself. Taking the capital and pushing through the Near East to Mesopotamia and taking Babylon will be a large boon to Alexander and take the most wealthy and populated cities of Persia from them. Not only is this a major victory point to the campaign, it also cuts off Persia from their largest manpower pool, as this area is the historical heart of the empire and so is the main resource hub for money and manpower. From here, it will be very difficult for Persia to recover.
The latter part of the campaign will be taking the few remaining isolated settlements of the empire from Persia. These settlements are not as wealthy or manpower rich as Mesopotamia so the size of the Persian armies will dwindle as they run out of money and new bodies to recruit. The remaining barbarians not killed by Persia may make a reappearance as they push out into the now poorly defended Persian settlements, so dealing with them is a detour Alexander will have to take if he wants to secure his borders. The push into Parthia will be relatively less painful than the pushes into Aegyptus and Mesopotamia as the Persian resistance will have crumbled. Clearing up the remaining settlements will be far easier and before long the Persian Empire will be just a memory.
Though Persia is normally unplayable, through editing with campaign files, it is possible to play as Persia. Here, you have a great starting position, with the large armies and fleets now at your disposal. However, Persia immediately suffers from incredible debt, due to the upkeep of the armies and fleets.
Units[]
- Peasants
- Hillmen
- Kardakes
- Persian Peltast
- Mardian Archer
- Barcanian Horsemen
- Hyrcanian Cavalry
- Heavy Bactrian Cavalry
- Eastern General
- Mercenary General's Bodyguard
- War Elephants
- Scythian Mounted Archers
- Persian General's Bodyguard
- Persian Infantry
- Phrygian Mercenary Infantry
- Immortals
- Persian Slingers
- Persian Scythed Chariots
- Syrian Cavalry
Gallery[]
