I know it may sound strange but after having Rome: Total War for so long I am only just now beginning to do the historical battles. So far i have found most of them reasonably easy. Battles like Gergovia and Cynoscephalae required two attempts. However, once I got Caesar's legions to face outward immediately, Vercingetorix was easily defeated. With Flaminius, once I got the right split of forces to fend off the two pronged attack, I could use my elephants and Flaminius himself to divide and conquer the phalanx

However now I have reached Carrhae... the situation you are put in is dire to say the least. Crassus's cavalry has been all but annihilated and his 8 legionnary cohorts are in testudo formation to survive the close range fire from the Parthian horse archers but there are 4 units of Parthian cataphracts charging your formation and will rip the testudoes apart if you allow them to hit. With only two units of cavalry, including Crassus himself, you have to get rid of the horse archers and survive the cataphract charge at the same time. I have tried several different approaches so far but am unable to win. At one stage I though I had done it as most of the horse archers were routing only for my tattered formation to be blitzed by a second Parthian force of cavalry...

Has anyone got any ideas on how to win Carrhae?