Tips for Persians

Persians are, in my opinion, the most versatile civ.

The only overall tip for Persians that is different from other civs is to make use of paid labour from the War Academy.

Gold is gathered much more quickly and efficiently than food via caravans and paid labour really bolsters their economy due to how fast you can pump out villagers.

I'll go over the main army compositions and the best advisors for that particular composition.

Bowmen + Palintonon Comp

This is one of the best compositions for persians. Their bowmen take 1 population and have amazing range + dps. They are cheap and easy to mass and will shred practically everything.

Advisors for this comp.

Age 1 - Philon (This is standard for all comps)

Age 2 - Dumnorix/Perikles for better economic booms and easier early game. This can be replaced with Fletcher Gaiana in more slower paced legendaries where a fast boom is not as imperative. Gaiana sends their range into overdrive.

Age 3 - I personally prefer blacksmith Kosmas in conjunction with arrows of the ice king for a ton of snare. Onesiphorous is also fine. In quests where siege is not allowed, Sohrab is the go to for sure, i.e Marion/Asgard/Helheim etc.

Age 4 - Timo as you would expect for palintonons. If its a no siege secondary, then you can use Agamemnon for more damage on the bowmen.

Priest + Palintonon

The persians Magus is the best priest in the game due to the fastest rate of conversion. You can mass priests and have palintonons destroy buildings as all the enemy units get helplessly converted.

Advisors for this comp

Age 1 - Philon (This is standard for all comps)

Age 2 - Dumnorix/Perikles for better economic booms and easier early game. There's no need for any other advisors with this comp.

Age 3 - Mehrab has a lot of synergy with the magii and adds onto their conversion speed. Some people think it's overkill to use Mehrab but I prefer the super fast conversions. There's really no other strong contender.

Age 4 - Timo as you would expect for palintonons.

Immortals + Palintonon

Immortals are a very versatile unit. They're good into almost anything. The only downside of the immortals is the fact that they cost three different resources which requires often time extra villagers to support production. It requires putting a bit more effort into the economy unlike the usual, spam 50 caravans, then delete everything else way of playing.

Advisors for this comp

Age 1 - Philon (This is standard for all comps)

Age 2 - Dumnorix/Perikles for better economic booms and easier early game. There's no need for any other advisors with this comp.

Age 3 - Couple of different options here. Roham is my preferred option as it makes immortals train faster + have more health. You can also use Sophia for faster farming which in turn allows you to allocate fewer villagers to food, aka more population slots for military units. It's rare to use immortals to siege buildings, but if you do, then pamphilos would be the go to advisor.

Age 4 - Timo as you would expect for palintonons. If its an immortal only army, again, highly unusual, you can double down on infantry bonuses such as Theokoles for more health or again, agamemnon for health and damage.

War wagons + Palins

War wagons are a really fun unit and very effective especially against Greeks I find. You can easily do Paphos/soloi/cata etc with war wagons. Great, fun and underused unit. The big drawback of this unit is that in order to maximize their effectiveness and viability, you have to skip out on timo which is a huge trade off. This comp is best used in quests with sniping long ranged targets is not essential. Another limitation is ofc, the fact that it is a seige unit and as such cannot be used in a lot of legendaries due to the secondary objective restrictions.

Advisors for this comp

Age 1 - Philon (This is standard for all comps)

Age 2 - Dumnorix/Perikles for better economic booms and easier early game. There's no need for any other advisors with this comp

Age 3 - This can be Legia for faster seige training or onesiphoros.

Age 4 - Xerxes for the damage and movement speed boost to the wagons

All in all, the first two comps are the main and strongest comps for persians. There are other units as well although they are not as viable as the ones I listed i.e. massing cataphracts with Garshasp as 4th age advisor etc

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Really good stuff above from SAAD,

I'd only add cataphracts, can be definitely viable for Classic Leg's(marion etc), but for the tougher Celeste ones I'd generally go the bowman and palin, but if no siege optional, Cata might be viable, but as SAAD said, bowman with sohrab is very strong. But they do need somewhat expensive gear to be really efficient in dps/range. Whereas some epics on cata's can make them good enough for classic's easily.

 

Nice advice - I use Imortals and Cataphract combo too with the cata advisor

 

If siege is allowed: go with war waggons. Well equiped they have more than 250dps with around 30 range and 3 field area-damage. You don't need palins in my opinion. I use some sparaba for tanking in difficult athene legendaries if I solo.

 

Great reply, SAAD/Geese.

Cataphracts are a great option, too. I guess that's the beauty of the Persians--diversity!

On a side note, what are some good builds for immortals? Please visit my post "Persian Immortal Builds" to make suggestions and vote in a poll. Thanks, everyone!