Could the seluckids be powerfull enough conqure the middle east and the greek main..

[Hamata]

Land? they had the most powerfull phalanx in the successor kingdoms and the had most of the middle eastern provences

[Moros]

Conquering all that would have been very difficult, but holding it and governing it...

[Stark]

Well, if we somehow eliminate Romans they could conquer Egypt, it was on the ropes from the times of Antiochus Megas. Asia Minor would have to be next if they want to hold Greece, which is in itself a very hard task. And if they somehow do that they have Antigonids waiting for them in mainland Greece.

I believe that could be done if they had some internal stability. It would probably be much easier to conquer something if almost every king didn't have to start his rule by putting out the rebellions started when the old king died.

And some stability would be needed to hold all of this for more than the life of the king that conquered it. But, that could be achieved somehow (Achemenids did it). Although that would require some best, best, best case scenario, with string of brilliant rulers and some deep reforms, coupled with some luck. In the end, near impossible task.

[TheLastDays]

The problem is, whenever one of the major successors (Makedonia, Seleukids, Ptollies) gained the upper hand, the other teamed up on them, resulting in the stalemate we see in the area during this period. If there were no Romans, the Makedonians would not have been weakened so much and I think the Seleukids wouldn't have risen to the strength to basically defeat Ptolemic Egypt, if Rome had not stepped in.

So, in a way the Romans were a prerequesite for the late Sleukids rise to dominance but then also the ultimate limiter of their power.

[Stark]

Good thinking, I've never thought of that.

[illyric]

I think that the Seleucid empire was far too big to be ruled easily. The big difference between the Roman and Seleucid empire was that the Romans added land to their empire piece by piece thus assimilating many nations into their culture (we have many examples such as Spain, France, Balkans etc). We can not say the same for the Seleucids. Their empire was inherited by Alexander the great who conquered it in less then 10 years thus giving it a short time to have a real functioning hierarchy. Riots and uprisings were settled down by the king himself and very often those who revolted were even given some gold. On the other hand the Romans gave little opportunity to the people who revolted, by burning down cities and entire regions (the Epirotes, Jews etc) thus giving a "good lesson" to them.

Speaking of the game, the Seleucids are in a good position and have strong armies. A good player typically will try to wipe out small kingdoms such as Armenia, Pontus first and then will attack major Empires such as the Ptolemys, Parthia or other Greeks . It is difficult to say how the AI will react in EBII being that it will work on MTWII bases. In EBI the Seleucid Empire behaved in a very historic way by giving a lot of land to their neighbors.