View Full Version : Seleucid help, ideas...
In my Sauromatae campaign the Seleucid have grown huge and every turn I get a stack or half a stack besieging some of my border provinces, for a few years I've gotten many heroic victories and destroyed their armies but they keep coming and growing bigger as they will son overwhelm the Ptolies and eliminate Baktria and Parhia.
This is how it looks:
https://img181.imageshack.us/img181/1088/seleukidhugeil1.jpg
In my previous campaigns (Casse and Romani) they always started strong but as Hayasdan, Parthia, Baktria and the Ptolemies allied they were devoured piece by piece by their combined effort, but since I played the Sarmatians Hayasdan and Parthia attacked me and I had to respond so the Seleucids grew this big...
I'm getting kind of tired of their phalanxes and feel like I'm in a stalemate because my economy is barely in the black and keeping my empire together because it's so big and with few cities that are far apart is really hard, I use a mobile capital but it's annoying.
Maybe there should be some more law bonuses from the government buildings because keeping a garrison of horse archers is costly.
Anyway anyone ever faced something similar, what can I do?
NeoSpartan
04-04-2007, 12:37
2 things:
1-ATTACK the Seleucid!
--Send raiding parties into thier lands, take over thier cities, kill everybody, and destroy everything, then move ur army to the NEXT city.
--Keep doing this to start bringing up ur econ back home.
--IF you find a few cities u like because they give you a TON-O-$ keep it.
--Remember, this WON'T Stop the Seleucids forever, it will give you an economic boost and a temporary break from stack after stack of phalanxes.
2-Play another faction that don't encouter phalanxes during their initial conquests so you get a feel of something different and don't become BORED. Then go back to ur Sauromatae campain.
I agree with NeoSpartan, you have to take the battle to them. If you're going to fight, you may as well do it on their turf. Put some cities to the sword and demolish all the buildings. It'll take the wind out of the Seleucids and make you lots of money. Don't try to hold them unless it's easy. But if the chance comes along to leave 15 men in a city, then feel free to tie up one of their big armies in a siege.
You're steppe riders. Raid, don't conquer.
You could also try training up some spies (keep going for missions with an 80-99% chance of success), then putting one or more in a Seleucid city with borderline public order. That might cause enough unrest to spark a rebellion. Do it far from your borders to draw them off. A lot of cities in the east will rebel to Bactria or Parthia, if they were the original owners.
Expert spies also help with the whole "sack a walled city using horse archers" thing.
Pelopidas
04-04-2007, 13:13
For what I seen, you can engage raids on very big Seleukids cities, like Ekbatana, Susa and Seleukeia itself...
If you can arrange the rebellion of Memphis ( as Alexandria isn't taken for now ) back to the Ptolies, it would be an incredible help ( it saved me in one of my own Sarmatian campaign )
Are the Makedonian and Koinon Hellenon at war with them ?
There's a few cities who could came back into KH hand by revolts, on the coastal shore.
As the others have said, you doesn't have to hold all your conquest for now, just making money.
For your garrisons units, create some pastoral regions, then, you have access to your foot units, Sarmatian / Skythian archers and spearmens, who cost a very little upkeep, letting your garrisoned horse archers free to join with the savage hord ^^
2 things:
1-ATTACK the Seleucid!
--Send raiding parties into thier lands, take over thier cities, kill everybody, and destroy everything, then move ur army to the NEXT city.
--Keep doing this to start bringing up ur econ back home.
--IF you find a few cities u like because they give you a TON-O-$ keep it.
--Remember, this WON'T Stop the Seleucids forever, it will give you an economic boost and a temporary break from stack after stack of phalanxes.
2-Play another faction that don't encouter phalanxes during their initial conquests so you get a feel of something different and don't become BORED. Then go back to ur Sauromatae campain.
Agreed but I'd leave the barracks in the cities you sack, in my Ptollie campaign I sacked a city and didn't leave the barracks causing the Reinforcement CTD so I had to process_cq some new barracks to stop the CTD.
antisocialmunky
04-04-2007, 15:02
You're in a position to cut the empire in half.
L.C.Cinna
04-04-2007, 15:25
I agree with what the others said, just go and destroy some of their towns. I don't know how highly developed your settlements are but while you are raiding their towns you might actually want to keep one or 2 which are in a good position strategically. What I mean is a town which has strong stonewalls and which the AS would choose to attack with all their troops instead of attacking 2 or 3 of your towns. Keep some horsearchers and slingers in the town and when they besiege you attack them every turn from the town with your archers, then retreat back to town and repeat. by the time they will assault the town they are already pretty weakened.
Have a mobile army of horsearchers and some infantry to raid their towns, burn them and move on and use your horsearchers to intercept all the small stacks they send to reinforce their troops so they can only bring already damaged units to besiege you while your on the way.
That's all you can really do until you are strong enough to attack them on several places at once.
Thanks for your advice.
I managed to use my spies in Halikarnos but it rebelled to the Eleutheroi not the KH, maybe because the KH have been kicked out of Greece by by the Maks?
The Ptolies seem to be bouncing back, and I plan to use some spies to turn some of the Seleucid cities there to them, I guess the attention I'm getting is helping them.
A weird thing when they asked to become protectorate, I usually asked for money and usually the next turn they'd besiege me and I'd keep the money but i asked for Trapezous and they gave it to me, Galatia and their western frontier looks ripe for plunder, they're putting heavy pressure in the east though in the ex-Parthian lands i now hold.
My problem is that my east is full of nomadic settlements, it seems the Parthians chose to be nomads so I can't get spearmen there and it's a very long walk from the western shore of the Caspian sea.
Their large number of settlements is really helping them shrug off any general killed in battle or assassinated they seem to be getting new ones every turn adoptions I guess.
And from looking at the graphs they seem to be flat broke for quite a while, and they are not producing any buildings, the Casse and Carthage are filthy rich, a bit surprised that the Casse get so rich in all the campaigns.
It's hard but fun...
Teleklos Archelaou
04-04-2007, 16:46
Your generals can campaign much more easily in foreign lands than theirs can, so go in and recruit some of their own weapons to use against them too - merc phalangites too. Hold them in place temporarily and then get your horse around to their backs and smashy-smashy.
Wolfshart
04-04-2007, 16:55
I have noticed in Romani Campaign that the Seleucids have grown rather fast and using the toggle_fow it looks like they have alot of armies running all over the place. It is 259BC and they have taken almost all of the holy land and most of Asia minor to the eastern board edge. They now have alot of land! Is it normal for them to expand so aggresively? I haven't even come into contact with them other then diplomacy so I don't know what triggered their boom. :dizzy2:
As I said they usually start strong but the Ptoli-Hai-Baktrian-Parthian alliance and even the Sab'yn or the Greeks will probably cut them down to a few provinces by 220 BC or so...
Enguerrand de Sarnéac
04-04-2007, 17:57
It is 259BC and they have taken almost all of the holy land
That'll have to wait for another 259 years :smile:
In my Hayasdan campaign (turned Kartli) the Ptolemaioi ran over all of Babylonia of old, and now the Seleukidoi -my allies- are reduced to some city-states around the Aegean, Persia, and some parts under the Caspian... And Arabia -I saw considerable Ptolemaioi forces go south through the desert but I suppose they can't find the capital city :smile:
Worse, I can't even find the capital anymore. The Baktrioi and the Ptolemaioi borders are touching.
Luckily, my Kaukasos is safe from any Sucessors' Wrath, and I have 'vassal kingdoms' in the Crimea, northern Asia Minor and Media-Elymais. It's so much fun if you conquer kingdoms that don't border with yours and put a family member on the throne:beam:
The polarisation is something like this: Baktria-Ptolemaioi-Sauromatae-Antigonids; (backed up with Baktria's protectorate Sakae, and Pahlava who are completely neutral BUT secretly supporting them) against Kartli (me!:2thumbsup: )-the sucessors of the Arche Seleukeia-Aegean League (KH)-Swēbôz-Aedui-Kart Hadast
Fondor_Yards
04-05-2007, 03:55
As I said they usually start strong but the Ptoli-Hai-Baktrian-Parthian alliance and even the Sab'yn or the Greeks will probably cut them down to a few provinces by 220 BC or so...
I wish that were so :surrender:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v195/FondorYards/picture051.jpg
The selecuids are really starting to scare the shit out of me. At first I wasn't worried, since Armenia had gotten really big *8 or so cities* so they should he held back a little longer. But now that the Seleucids have killed the Saka, Parthians, Pontus, and Bactria, and are well on their way to finishing the Saba, Ptolemaics, Macedonians, Greeks, and Armenians. So now I'm panicing, and sort of apointed myself leader of the Anti-Seleucid Alliance *even if I'm not allied to any of them techinly due to some conflicting alliances, we are all allied vs the seleucids. And to be fair, they attacked me first.* So I levied one army out of greece, which took 1 town but had to be shipped back after 3 battles. *One of their armies had 4 units of Thorakitai Argyraspidai with high silver or gold chevrons, 3 cataphracts, and a bunch of high exp Klerouchikoi Phalangitai, thank god I put the marian reforms early.
Since that army basicly got it's ass handed to it, I'm leving 2 more of Cohors Evocata with a healthy dose of art to go rampage in Egypt and hopefully win a couple of their towns back. I'm planning to make at least 1 more to send to save Armenia.
LordCurlyton
04-05-2007, 04:12
Wow, Fondor. I'd have to say you are pretty boned. I wouldn't even bother trying to save the other factions and just go on a massive pillage spree. Sned 3-4 stacks in and just loot and move on. That should give you the breathing room to start systematically taking towns and collapsing their economy totally before they rebuild back up to elite MICs.
If you can take all their Egyptian territories, you can just send like 3-4 armies to guard the Sinai while you conquer the rest of Europe and Africa to raise money. Same thing with Byzantion maybe?
Fondor, are you playing 0,81a? how did you get so much income?
Yout economy seems very strong in 210 in my roman campaign with 0.81 which lasted until 202 when it was ended by CTDs I conquered all of Iberia (with all its mines) plus most of Carthage's North African possessions, and Greece Thrace all the way to the Danube, but I was broke most of the time, I was building in every city and had to field big armies to fight Gauls and the Sweboz. But your income from cities in Italia is huge...
And I couldn't get more than 6-7000 out of Dalminion or Segestica, 28000 is just...????
Fondor_Yards
04-05-2007, 18:14
I raised the value of gold so that mines make what they should, and then either double that or raised it by 1.5 *not sure*. I just think their income is too low. As Carthage's mine description says, they were able to cause a depression in the middle east with Iberia's gold and silver since they could get so much..
antisocialmunky
04-05-2007, 21:43
Erg. In my Romani Game. Baktria, Seleukia, and Sweboz have utterly taken over the right and North chunk of the map, creating three massive empires and the year is only 230... I can only hope they don't all ally and declare war on me...
You're in a position to cut the empire in half.
When I did that, I just got attacked from two directions at once.
Wolfshart
04-06-2007, 16:47
Man now at 257 they have taken all but 2 citys in Asia Minor to the eastern board edge down to Arabia and all the "holy" land. One city away from Alexandria. Why do they expand so damn fast?
Why do they expand so damn fast?
I wonder if it's about money. In EB (or RTR) if you play them you're a bit cash-strapped because you've got lots of internal provinces and relatively few ports, plus you need to defend lots of land frontiers. But for the AI, on VH/M, money is not an issue. So they're a great big well-funded barracks for one of the best military machines in the game.
antisocialmunky
04-06-2007, 21:16
When I did that, I just got attacked from two directions at once.
Well, after you waste a few stacks, the East will be under-manned because their main production blocks are in the West. Then you can go that way and slaughter everything there and kill a good portion of their income from the script.
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.