The Seleucid Empire

[frogbeastegg]

Guide

[kataphraktoi]

As the Seleucids you are precariously placed in the middle of potential factions who are enemies; specifically:

- Armenian
- Parthia
- Ptolemiads
- Greek city states
- Pontus

From the start you might find its gonna be intense. It certainly kept me occupied for 5 days playing till 3am since Friday.

There are two weapons at your disposal to survive and conquer your enemies:

- Obviously your army
- Wealth

Situated along valuable trade routes, wealth pours into Seleucid coffers like streams of gold, but be warned - wealth makes for unwarranted attention at the same to your neighbours.

Recommended composition of early Seleucid armies:
5-6 militia hoplite/phalanx or levy pikemen infantry units to form a wall of steel.
4 - 6 militia cavalry/light cavalry to harass and protect flanks
4-5 units of archers
2-3 units of peltasts

Until you are able to train scythed chariots or elephants to protect your flanks this is possibly the best defense for your flanks. In battles against the AI, the AI always tried to smashed into rear with its cavalry. So a combination of javelin and arrows to ward them off will protect your phalanx from nasty surprises.

This combination helped me in the earlier stages of the campaign since the enemies you will be facing mainly consist of medium-infantry with nimble javelin cavalry and a few units fo archers.

Since its most likely that you'll be fighting on all fronts you'll need to fight when necessary and bribe when necessary. Bribing is expensive, but it will save your men from overstretching themselves fighting everyone! With wealthy provinces, bribing is a luxury. It is also a great way to ward of large armies sieging your cities, it will take 6 turns or so for your enemy to rebuild that army - good breathing space to build your own.

Provinces that need to be given constant attention are:
Syria (Antioch) - capital and vulnerable to sudden thrusts from the Ptolemids
Ciliicia (Tarsus) - link between Sardis and Antioch, vital to trade and strategic province to cut off invading armies towards Antioch.
Assyria (Hatra) - links west with east halves of empire and vulnerable to Armenian incursions.

Priority must be given to conquering Egypt, once you sow the Ptolemids up, you can concentrate on the northern frontier with peace of mind. Add to that, Egypt is naturally wealthy and well defended by distance from Carthage.
Be careful, you may catch the plague as my soldiers did - plus they spread the plague to other areas of my empire.

Chariot archers will be a headache against your flanks.

Parthia will be the second major enemy after the Ptolemids, their easy access to Babylonia (Seluecia) will prove to be an annoyance almost every year. To incapacitate them, simply drive straight to their heartland in Media and capture their capital of Arsakia. It will cripple them and isolate their provinces from each other.

Bribing their armies early will bring you Cataphracts, a good decisive arm in the earlier period of the campaign. They rely mainly on masses of medium infantry with horse archers and archers.

As for Pontus and Armenia, they rely on masses of eastern infantry and hillmen with a smattering of javelin cavalry, archers and the odd horse archer or two.

Greek city states rely heavily on armoured hoplites, a combination of your onw pikemen/archers and light cavalry to attack from rear will take care of them.

If your gonna build a fleet, build fast and focus on it or don't build at all. I lost so many ships because everyone ganged up on me and smashed my navy to pieces.
If possible conquer Cyprus early, it is rich, wealthy and superbly placed to build ships and trade. If you are going to build a navy, better to train them within close proximity to each other - namely in the province sof Cilicia, Syria and if possible - after capturing the provinces of Cyprus and Phoenicia - train naval fleets there. Concentrating in that region will allow you to raise a sizeable fleet fast.

In my campaign, I did the usual thing and built a few early economic structures in all provinces before deciding which ones to focus my economic activity on. Syria, Coele Syria and Assyria will be the economic powerhouses of your empire earlier on. Give particular economic attention to them because they will pay for your bribes!

They will be a few brigand, bandit armies in your provinces - defeat them early to gain command bonsuses for your commanders. Good way to practice and gain experience for your future conquering generals.

[Chimpyang]

One thing about the Egyptians - They have lots of Archers, so be prepared, you wont have anything in their range so either bring lots of Militia Cavalry and be prepared to lose quite a few men + horses along the way, or bribe a few archers of your own.

There is a perfect spot in Middle Egypt where you can draw the Egyptian armies towards you across a bridge. This is what i did on my short campaign.


1. I dragged all my troops and started seiging the closest Egyptian City. They put up some resistance but i polished them off quickly, In my other provinces I started training Militia Pikemen where i could and peasents where I couldn't.

2. I went straight for Jerusalem, bringing up my peasents behind me as garrison. Taking Jerusalem quickly is essential as the Egyptians have no city (to my knowledge) that is close to it.

3. By now you should have sustained quite abit of damage, rest for a short time but be ready to press on, your troops from otehr proinces shouldn't be far behind you. Trek through to middle Egypt. The aim here is to cause attrition damage to the Egyptian armies by fighting lots of battle against their small armies. All this time you should be slowly building up a force to support this.

4. Build a couple of ships to help your armies cut a corner (well sort of) and when you're done building up another medium-ish force send it off to support the first one. When you merge them togeather try and siege Alexandria. Watch out for the Egyptian Navy though, they are quite strong for such a early time.

5. The Pontians and the Armenians should be making moveds now. This is where you slow them down by offering peasent armies to block their path. You should have enough men to break any of their sieges. I had the Armenians try to capture the same city 5 times, each time failing completley.

6. When you have broken Alexandria try and finish off the Egyptian quickly so you can concentrate on the other Factions. But by now you should ahve quite a income from which to base your attacks from.

That all worked for me in a medium/medium game.

[lars573]

Also as the Seleucids you should capture the rebel town just to your south in western asia minor as it has a wonder. And the proximity to one of your cities means bribery is a good alternative to a siege, as you can march a group of militia hoplites into the town in one turn after you buy it. I believe that the Seleucids get access to the hephestus temple line as well. This temple gives armour/weapon and troop experience bonuses, you should build this temple in any city you want to use as a military production city. Also move to occupy Palmyra ASAP as it gives ready access to your heart lands. Not to mention that it's one more province that the egyptians won't have. Take Pheonetia and Judea as quickly as possible they are both potential money makers, but do take cyprus first. Another thing you have to be aware of is that the Egyptians move to take the 2 arabian desert provinces early on, in the frist 30 turns at least. This ins't so much a problem as it is a pain in the ass because the arab cities are not overly wealth and have slow population growth but it means that a trickle of troops coming in to harass your cities. My advise sack them, that is conquer, exterminate the populace, destroy every building your can, turn the taxes to very high and leave.

[DojoRat]

The Seleucid do have it tough. To add to the above I like to hire Mercs for the initial push into Egypt. I leave the Eastern Inf (or whatever they're called)alone but hire camel units and Greeks when I can. I keep a diplomat around Babylon and bribe any small group of Parthians I see. It might cost more over time but if they show up with a large army led by a faction leader, money won't help you. I also make lots of diplomats to spread all over the world selling alliances, trade rights, maps, etc, to keep the cash flowing.

[Death or Glory]

You may be surrounded, but you can lessen the burden by sending your diplomat up in norther Asia Minor to contact Pontus as soon as possible. They will accept an alliance no problem, and give you their world map to boot. That gives you free reign from Antioch all the way to Byzantium (the Greeks cannot put up much of a fight).

I've never tried allying with Armenia or Parthia, since their incursions into my empire have been half-hearted at best, so I've never seen them as much of a threat.

And Egypt should be your first target, as others have stated. You don't want them to become the superpower they become if you play as one of the Roman houses and aren't around to keep them in check.

[Tritio]

I started a short campaign recently, and finished it (one of the few that I did), here are my observations.

Finances

The biggest earners in the world are the Greeks, Egyptians, aaaaand... the Seleucids. Here, your cash flow is great, you'd probably start off with ~10k, and when focusing on economic development and expansion (building farms, ports, traders in your cities and nipping rebel provinces) you can probably net in ~20k profit, even with big armies composed of mercenaries. However, one thing prevents you from exploiting your wealth fully...

Population

With the exception of your capital, Antioch, most of your other provinces do not hit the 'safe' 6k population limit anytime soon, even with slave influx from your conquests. Why 6k? because at that point, assuming 1.5% pop growth, you will have a growth rate of 90 per turn. Just enough to keep hiring the smaller units, like your militia hoplites, but not enough for levy pikemen (120 men on large unit sizes). Yes, your growth rate is often higher than 1.5%, but precision aside, most of your provinces only have 1-2k pop. These are your 'lower level cities', and you will accumulate plenty of these as you conquer rebel cities. Firstly, they cannot be developed very far (mostly you'd have to wait some time before you can even build a port!), and you can't use your fabulous piles of gold to raise troops from them.

The solution: development and slavery

With your cash flow, you will be able to build structures in your cities every turn, hire units from your bigger cities, and still have leftovers. So, in the beginning, focus on farms and trading buildings! (Trading buildings, such as market, trader, give 0.5% pop growth) I remember that the first structures I constructed in my first turn were all farms, where they could be built.
Second, slavery, keep enslaving captured enemy cities! You badly need the population, and while I couldn't bother to manage my governers (to control which cities got the slaves), it still helped me immensely.
I remember Bostra (the western edge of Arabia) was a tiny city with under 1k pop, I left a governer there and forgot about him, and as I conquered the Egyptian cities, Bostra grew to a large town of ~5k pop! I had to handle much unrest along the way, but it was interesting to watch...

HOWEVER...
The way to transform your money into military might is through:

Mercenaries!!!

Although some players have expressed their view that they seldom use mercs, I consider them vital in my playstyle. Especially vital as the Seleucids! Firstly, because of the aforementioned pop shortage, raising native armies would grind your cities down into the sands. Mercs allow convenient conversion of cash into men, and men back into cash (not so quickly, but through upkeep reduction) as you see fit. The mercs you get are not bad too. Around the eastern mediterannean, Numidian mercs, Eastern infantry (horrible... they flee at the sight of their shadows), Libyan mercs, etc. While these may not sound great, your real merc hiring grounds are in Asia Minor! There, you can get the best of the best: Cretans, Rhodians, Merc Hoplites, and Peltasts. And they often spawn 4 at a time. Which makes control of Asia Minor vital to you... There are 2 rebel provinces there, make it a priority to get them! They are much better than those desert provinces in the wastes. Through my mad conquests (I am highly expansionist), I grew to love mercs, Often, the bulk of my army would consist of them.

Remember, the Might of the Seleucids, their diverse and powerful units, only come in the late game.

Egyptians

As I was playing the short campaign, my objectives were to bust these guys out of the game. Their weaknesses:

Provinces

They start with 5. Although all are capable of building good units, and they have good growth, and pop to start with, Sidon and Jerusalem can easily be taken early, leaving them with their core production cities on the Nile. The trick to killing the Egyptians is to do it Early !!! The moment your Empire learns to walk, start shoving your mercs into their face!

Then, their weakness becomes evident: They are unable to express their wealth. Why? They only have 3 cities, thus their max production is 3 units/turn. Mercs? Yes, but they only appear so often. When you reign from Asia Minor to the Wastes of Arabia (or just Bostra), your recruiting grounds would be far greater then them, and your cities will be so much further and safer from your battleground, usually between Bostra and the Nile (and the narrow strip of land there).
Even if you are unable to raise troops and get them to the fight (it's a long walk), you, as a player, can still express your wealth better through bribery! Bribe anything that moves, and caries a yellow flag. You might consider bribing things that can't move, and flies a yellow flag too. Bribe their diplomats to ensure they can't be counterbribed. In this way, even if they hire mercs, it's no problem, mercs are cheap, and so are their troops!
I bribed everything that bothered me as the Seleucids, rebels, rivals (to stop the Armenians/ Pontics/Parthians from attacking me), and later I bribed the 2 rebel towns in Asia Minor too! Needen't bother to go through the trouble of a fight, then.
Cheers for bribery! I absolutely love it. Makes me feel like a rich bugger

Other nations

Pah, they are easily settled down with a lump of gold. Whenever you see a large army flying foreign colours, just send a diplomat there to settle them down. If there are family members, just try anyway, since your rivals (Armenians/Pontics/Parthians) are fairly small, losing a family member would set them back some. You'd be surprised at the price people ask for to settle down as farmers...

Anyway, while you settle the Egyptians, keep your back clear with Alliances. Gift "Attack faction: Rebels" to them several times (you'd have plenty of opportunities), and they'll likely settle down. Once, myself being allied with all 3 neighbours (no, the Egyptians are not my neighbours), Parthia decided to betray me, and seiged my eastern city. Foolishly, they allied themselves to the Armenians on the same turn. They reverted back to neutral on that turn, their army lifting the seige. The next turn, my diplomat arrived, and no more army. A few turns later, they accepted an alliance again! With two way military access! What was their king smoking?!

Anyway, just suppress their ambitions with lots of bribery. If they only have tiny armies, then they won't attack you. Simple.



So, anyway, those are my observations, although they turned out a lot longer than I expected, I hope they were helpful!

[SwordsMaster]

just an observation:
Eastern mercs being as bad as they are, thy bring humangous numbers (120?)
SO.....use them to absorb charges. Chariots, elephants (if you are ever to face them), heavy cavalry, etc.... Besides, they are good to pin troops for your pikes/hoplites because they are slow.

Just my 2 cent

[Fridge]

I'm also loving the Seleucids, though on v.hard (battle) and hard (campaign), it's a struggle, and I'm on to my third attempt...

But one thing I found out is that though the S. have great units, it takes ages to get your cities up to the point where they can recruit them - except scythed chariots, which only needs a blacksmith, and as they don't take many men (60, compared to 160 for pikemen etc), they don't hurt city expansion too much.

Now they're useless in cities, and a liability in alarge battle as they'll run amok easily (especially on the higher difficulty level) and, if they get in amongst your lines, can do more damage to your own army than just about anything the enemy can throw at you.

However... I had an army of about 6 or 7 scythed chariots, with a general to keep at the back to stop them routing, and just sent them out in to the field to mop up any small armies wandering around my lands, and nothing could stand in their way. Just send them all into the attack straight away and they'll wipe out pretty much anything. They absolutely trerrify enemy units, causing much routing, they're not very vulnerable to missile fire, and they're very quick. Also, if they rout, they tend to run amok and carry on killing the enemy (you don't have any infantry or cav units for them to hurt).

Not so good on spearman - which is a problem in that area, but can often beat a phalanx just by scaring them, they're very spread out so tend to surround anyone they attack in a whirlwind of scythed death. Mmmm....

And, and this is pretty obvious, but recruit every unit of cretan archers you can find in Asia Minor - they are awesome (they start with a missile attack of 10 compared ot 7 for normal archers), and I love the accent of the bloke who says 'Cereashan arshers' every time you select them...

Oh, and a quick question - someone mentioned above that bribing the Parthians means you get to keep their cataphracts. Now, I know that you get to keep units if you can build that unit yourself, but does that apply if you can potentially build the unit but not actually build them, ie, could the Seleucids bribe cataphracts even if they haven't yet built the buildings that can make them?

[Rosacrux redux]

Oh, and a quick question - someone mentioned above that bribing the Parthians means you get to keep their cataphracts. Now, I know that you get to keep units if you can build that unit yourself, but does that apply if you can potentially build the unit but not actually build them, ie, could the Seleucids bribe cataphracts even if they haven't yet built the buildings that can make them?

Absolutely yes. In both my succesful Seleucids campaings (first on M/M second on VH/VH) I bribed the starting Parthian cataphracts to join me and they joined alright. Seems that the potential is that counts, not the actual ability

[Es Arkajae]

The Seleucids are very easy (on medium difficulty anyway, 'hard' difficulty just adds stats to enemy units afterall), I reccommend making alliances with all your neighbours Greece, Pontus, Armenia, and Parthia make one with Egypt too if you like but they'll almost certainly break it a few turns later in any case.

I'm not sure about exactly what effect an alliance has and how less likely it makes a nation to attack one but I know that I was not attacked by my other neighbours until I already had the Egyptians on the ropes which was a real benefit. Out of my other neighbours the only one that gave me any real trouble was Pontus.

Ionia is capable of defending itself (with a general to hire mercs), you needn't even bother building too many military buildings there as long as you have money you can bribe enemy armies or hire mercenaries in the area which can give you units as varied as barbarian cavalry, Thracian mercenaries, Cretan archers, mercenary hoplites and Rhodian slingers, i.e. all you need for a good combined arms army. Cilicia is easily protected by building a fortress blocking the pass and sticking some militia there, the computer AI is seemingly loathe to attack forts and does so only rarely I've seen and if he does a diplomat will usually take care of the problem. You may want to hire some Cretan archers and then send them to Antioch to join the army you will inevitably be sending to conquer Egypt, they will come in especially useful in sieges of non-stone walled cities where they can clear the enemy out of the way of breaches by shooting over the wall.

Chariots are indeed a pain in the arse but nothing that a good phalanx even of levy pikemen can't fix if they meet them head on and you should only have to face an Egyptian army in the field a few times at most, the rest of the time it will be in sieges where the enemy can't get behind you.

Levy pikemen will be your main troops for the conquest of Asia, build around six or even eight of them for each army (if you can get better pikemen then great, but levy pikemen will do just remember that they're very vulnerable to missile fire), add a couple units of militia cavalry, add a couple units of Rhodian slingers or Cretan archers and at least one unit of elephants (to use as a battering ram on wooden walls/gates without having to wait to build equipment). Add also some fodder troops such as a couple of militia hoplite units or some of the otherwise useless Eastern infantry mercs for ...well ...fodder which you will occasionaly find useful.

With these armies you will quickly conquer all of Asia.

First step is Sidon and Jersusalem, you should take these places as soon as war is declared even if the army I mentioned above isn't ready, use militia hoplites and whatever you have at hand including mercs if neccessary, bribe any enemy you can, bribing a leaderless enemy army can strangely save you a lot of money ultimately but more importantly time.

The idea is to blitzkrieg your way through enemy cities, when you conquer a city (especially an Egyptian one) exterminate its population, if the temple there maintains happiness better than one of yours would then leave it for now, you can tear it down and put up your own a bit later when you have a few units of militia hoplites in the city and your army is already gone on to the next city or two.

Once you conquer a city (always assaulting on the first turn with your elephants if the walls are wooden), go to the retrain section and 'top up' as many troops as you can in one turn replacing your losses and maybe adding some better troops in one turn if the infrastructure allows for it. If your losses aren't that bad and you still have some good movement points left then then don't even wait for that, buy some local mercs to leave behind or leave behind your remaining fodder troops or one unit of your regular troops that you can probably do without to join you later to keep the city behind you pacified and then move on. Each turn you save means an extra unit that an enemy city can't produce.

I built four armies over time in my conquest of Asia, only two of which got much use, one for Egypt, two for the north, and one for the East (which I only used to conquer Susa)


You border provinces should be Libya and Cyrenaica (the Numidians will attack you so do it first) with your by now likely outdated Egypt army parked in a fort on the border with Tripolitania in case the Scipii who will most likely own it try anything funny, your only other land border should be with Scythia in the north where four well placed border forts with four militia units can seal it.

The Parthians will probably still exist in Tribus Sakae which will be annoying as you will probably have to build a strong Caspian navy to get to the bastards if you can't get an access agreement with the Scythians but if you can land one of your original armies there and sack and leave the city all the more kudos to you in getting rid of a minor annoyance.

You should own Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete so by this point you will have enough provinces so that a war against the Roman factions will take you over the fifty province requirement. So sit back and build up your navy and three or four or more Uber Armies of Doom with the better units you will now have at your disposal and when you're ready strike at the Romans (and probably the Macedonians).

I would strongly reccommend loading your armies onto fleets and then simultaneously landing them where you want them to go overseas in the same turn, before you declare war on the Romans, this avoids the embarrassing problem of having an enemy fleet intercept yours and prevent a landing..

In the tradition of blitzkrieg the first thing the Romans should know about war with you is when your armies all come knocking at the gates of Lepcis Magna, Tarentum, Syracuse and whatever most important city they have in Greece all in the same turn.

Well thats enough of me probably talking out of my arse for now, hope it helps, certainly did my false sense of modesty no harm:p

[Maltz]

I only played the Selucid for 3 turns, just offering a small tip.

I already grabbed the Egyptian town Sidon & the Parthia town (Susa?) just adjacent to the hanging garden.

You can hold your army in Selucia for the first turn, train a diplomat there, then on the 2nd turn sending the diplomat out to bribe whatever that comes out of the Parthia town, then the town is left defenseless.

Now is the time to send out your governer. He has some movement retinue so he can siege the Parthia town in the same turn he departs from Selucia. Great stuff! So I could take the town on turn 3.

Egyptians will also send out captain lead armies available for bribe. Selucid is so rich, so you can probably bribe them all in no time. (I haven't really played it so I am just guessing.)

Then with your starting army and mercenaries, perhaps you can quickly conquer a series of Egyptian towns there. After playing all the poor clans of Numida, Dacia and Spanish I found Selucid such a huge blessing.

[derF]

My (hard) guide notes on the Seleucid Empire:

The Seleucids are in the unfortunate position of being surrounded by factions that for some reason despise you. Soon enough, within approximately 10 turns i was at war with the Armenians, Egyptians, Parthians and Greeks. Theyre attacks were totally unprovoked.

However, i was able to fend them off.

The Seleucids have a pretty strong economy and cheap troops to start off with, so my solution for survival was creating lots of troops to fend of the enemies on all sides of my borders. Howvwer at this point, i was not able to push forward and counter attack. For that, i would need a stronger economy.

So i started the slow process of developing my economy to support offensive armies and this eventually happened after 7 turns. Whats more, the generals that were preoccupied with defending were now military geniouses with 8 stars.

The Egyptians proved the toughest problem mainly because of their chariots and strong economy. Nonetheless i was able to drive south and capture Jerusalem because of my far superior battle tactics.

The Armenians at first proved a tough cookie because they had cataphracts, and i only had Militia Hoplites to deal with them. However, the Amrnians soon sought to peace because they realised they could not conquer me. Preoccupied in other fronts, i put the idea of crushing the Armenian infidels to the back of my mind.

Pontus, sneakily attacked me in Turkey, where i had no troops at the time. I had to quickly build a reactive army and drive them away. They were not easy to deal with.

The Greeks were the latest faction to bakc-stab me. Again, this happened in Turkey with my Turkish army already occupied in crushing Pontus, so i had to create a new army. I made it in time to relieve the city that the greeks were besieging and crushed them.

Now, the main problem is resupply. The economy is pretty strong at the moment, but the problems are retraining my over stretcched and exhausted armies so that they can continue to push as effectively as before. Economical hardship at the beginning of the campaign had caused he Seleucid ecomomy to become largely centralised.

As a result, i was soon having big casualties in battles because there was no supply to a demand of a new soldier type: The Archer.

The Seleucids are not able to create good archers in the game, so the best source is from Cretan Archer mercenaries in Turkey. These are very effective archers, but they lack in availablility.

Try not to over-push your armies and frontiers. The fact that you are surrounded by enemies means that you need to take a cautious and slow advance. Take a good close look at the enemy units you are up against and try to flex your tactics toward beating them as badly as possible. Keeping populations happy is not a big problem at the start. Howveer, i exterminated a few cities because of the extent of treachery that was happening. Soon, thanks to the high number of troops being recruited, the population of the cities will fall, and you will need to resort to slavery to find the troops to recruit for your army.

The ideal early battle winning tactic is to have about 10 units of levy pikemen, stretched nice and wide with 6 pikes thick, 2 general units to pack a good punch, 4 archers of any kind (because youre desperate), 2 sythed chariots, 1 greek cavilry and 1 elephant.

[DS_Legionary]

My game as the Selcucids, I tried a completely different tactic. I retreated back into Asia Minor, and let all my other provinces rebel or be captured. This kept me from being in a war on all fronts, to having a war with only Pontus on one front. This makes it much easier and Asia Minor, once built up a little, is extremely profitable. Then slowly make your way towards Armenia and Egypt simultaneously. Armenia is usually a pushover as they have few troops, and Egypt really wasn't what I was expecting either, even though they had time to build up. All the Chariots they sent against me were completely massacred by my units of Levy Pikemen with no losses most times, and if there were losses, it was very few. The archers weren't much of a problem either, as once the Chariots were gone my Cavalry could rein free making Egypt pretty much a pushover. Parthia is the faction I had the hardest time with. Those Horse Archers gave me hell, but I eventuall conquered Parthia, and after that I went on to Greece and Africa. By then noone could match my strength and I didn't have to fight battles, and just auto-resolved. It's basically just a race to see how fast you can beat the game by then.

[Craterus]

Nice tactic, I never abandon provinces though, I just fight on.

Alternatively, you could try and build an army from Sardis that could take Asia Minor. Make sure you get Rhodes, that wonder gets you lots of money.

[katank]

Really depends. I find it possible to use Sardis garrison to take Halicarnassus right away.

Then, you build from those two locations to slowly take Pergamum and Rhodes.

Plenty of phalanxes can kill Pontus.

Beauty of this is simultaneous war against Egypt, the main threat.

I've only kept defensive against Parthia but you could do after Susa right away if feeling really adventurous.

[Marquis of Roland]

Sequence of events in my early game:

1. Made alliances with all neighbors
2. 2 turns later Egypt attacks with full stacks(2-3) under Kiya
3. 1 turn later Parthians raid around Seleucia with small bands of cataphracts and eastern infantry.
4. next turn greece starts to bribe cities in Asia Minor. I bribe back.
5. Same turn Armenia sends full stack of hillmen and eastern infantry to siege Hatra.
6. next turn Pontus attacks Tarsus with full stack under 4 star general.
7. Same turn Parthia combines small armies to a half-stack of cataphracts, HA, and eastern infantry and siege Seleucia.
8. next turn greeks lands a half stack of hoplites near Antioch.

If you can just get past these couple of turns alright you're set to systematically wipe out all your neighbors, because by this time if you don't have at least three reliable field armies, you're dead. You could do with two but you will lose 2 or more cities.

Tried to rush the egys but was stopped in Jerusalem, too much rebellion and those damn egyptians send at least one full stack every other turn.

Small bands of egyptians coming out of bostra harass your rear to no end.

It wouldn't hurt to save up to bribe back things, if you don't have 1.2 I guess...

[Legend5000]

The Seleucids may look like they have it tough in the beginning, but if you know what you're doing, this campaign is pretty easy. It's because they have two major advantages:

- A great starting location with lots of wonders and money-making provinces
- A supremely powerful and diverse army including Pikemen, Legionnaries, Cataphracts, and Elephants + powerful mercenaries close by (Cretan Archers, Sarmatian Mercenaries, Bedouin Archers)

You should first ally with Greece, Pontus, and Armenia (and get map information from them. Then, you should take those rebel provinces close by. Thirdly, you should attack Egypt, and QUICK!!! (Egypt has wonderful moneymaking provinces and if you let it expand, it will be virtually unbeatable later) Luckily, there are some bridges you can guard there where you can massacre them. After they're weakened a bit, you can then take those provinces (don't forget the island). Afterwards, Parthia and Greece will likely try to invade, but compared to Egypt, they're a walk in the park (however, be wary of letting Greece become too strong because Armoured Hoplites can be a pain). You should also bribe the Parthian army with the Cataphracts (he he, I love using the enemy's own units against them!). Take care of them, and then invade Pontus and Armenia. If possible, try to siege both of Armenia's provinces in one turn to neutralise Armenia quickly.

After that, the campaign is a walk in the park! You're rich and have enough money to bribe people left and right! You can now do what you want. Do you want to invade Scythia, or take over the Balkans? It's up to you!

[Taurus1]

Very nice strategy Legend5000, I forgot to put in the info about the decent array of mercenaries you can recruit. Good call.

[pezhetairoi]

It's a nice strategy, but it's the micromanagement of the war in Egypt that will take up most of your time. The campaign may actually stretch on longer than it appears unless you manage to attract all armies to your bridge, which does not appear likely.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I personally think this faction is the easiest to play. It has the best unit variety (in my mind) and the amount of money and cities you start with are good. I

[Craterus]

Unfortunately, you could be enemies with (from the start):

Egypt, Pontus, Armenia, Parthia and the Greeks.

Of course, once you're on your way, and have eliminated some of the above factions, then the campaign becomes a cakewalk, but most campaigns do after 30 provinces.