Help: Early Seleucid Campaign

I started a campaign as the Seleucids recently, and I'm only about 10 years into the campaign. I'm finding it nearly impossible to hold onto the lands to the north of my empire (Antiochea-Margiane, Sogdiane, Dayuan, Aria).

Not only is there minimal military infrastructure up here to levy troops, but the enemy cavalry seem like gods. :( Especially the Saka Raka / Pahlava generals -- they can decimate half my levy phalanx head on! And when I fight on the plains (not a city siege), they will always win or take down a good number of my troops unless I have phalanxes.

How do I deal with archer cavalry? In previous campaigns as the Koinon Hellenon, I could just blast them with ranged -- but these cavalry seem to wreck my archers faster than I can shoot them down. Needless to say, having infantry chase them around doesn't work either. I've conceded to using phalanx units as shields until they run out of arrows (and are forced to engage me).

I'm looking for any advice (military or logistical).

Common advice would be: let those settlements fall. They are very hard to hang onto and don't give you much. If you are still allied to Baktria, you could give them a town or two so they have to deal with the steppe invaders for you.

I withdrew from sogdiana( i think it is called anyway) and just held antiochea margiane to stop any baktrian or saka advances. I just held Pahlava back in northern Iran after they took Hycarnia( i think its called),later you can reconquer everything in the north with money from the west.
Then with your east secure Ptolemaoi (especially in southern Asia minor) and Asia Minor are easy pickings as far as i was concerned. A half to 3/4 full garrison in Mazaka usally deterred pontus in my campaign. I also focused on economic building and amalgamated most of my garrisons into several field armies. This is on Hard campaign difficulty.
There are ofcourse still some challenges but on the whole i was secure.
Hire horse archers and skirmishers. Horse archers counter horse archers and skirmishers attract horse archer charges...When they charge you can then catch them with loads of light infantry. Just what i have found to be effective money wise..saves up my good units.

Hope this is what your looking for.

Absolutely. Thanks for the advice, both of you.

I'm feeling sort of stupid for pumping so much money into my front up there (more than 50% of my early income is going up there to sustain the constant recruitment of levy troops).

Your ideas definitely make sense -- capitalize on those fat cities in Egypt and Greece before turning to face the nomads. :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by MarcusAureliusAntoninus

Common advice would be: let those settlements fall. They are very hard to hang onto and don't give you much. If you are still allied to Baktria, you could give them a town or two so they have to deal with the steppe invaders for you.

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As a Seleukid addict, I totally and completely agree.

When you will be sit on mountains of gold, train a godly army and wipe out that steppe rabble... If it's not enough... well, keep on sending stacks.

I usually care little about my cavalry, they are usually better than you in this no matter what.
Instead, train hordes of your fine heavily armoured spearmen/pikemen, and swarms of archers/slingers to deal with HA; it's better you recruit eastern rabble for ranged, because the overpowered enemy HA will cause a lot of casualties before they die even if you use against them the most armored archers you have, and you'll need to replenish your ranged forces a lot. good luck in enforcing the will of the basileus!:2thumbsup:

What should i do since i was able to have peace with the ptolies at first turn? after a little while i have reinforced all my eastern settlements and am at war only with saka and pahlava. can't attack (or would rather not) and can (with difficulty) only defend.

@ Cyrus: Depends what difficulty you are on, but,
Option A - Start again and don't get peace with Ptolies (they're scum anyway) and follow MAA and Kozak13's advice.
Option B - More settlements doesn't always mean good. I would do a mass withdrawal out of difficult-to-hold and economically poor regions in the North, set up a temporary Eleutheroi barrier. Granted they'll probably be gobbled quite quickly, but they may take out a few stacks since they have walls etc. Also, then it will be the horsemen who are over-extended and experiencing the inevitable supply problem. Then, come down hard on people like Hay and Pontus, steal their money women, children and building supplies. Once Anatolia is secure and your economy working use cash to fund future wars. The Ptolies will probably attack you soon anyway.
Option C - Sell all northern provinces to the horsemen and Baktria in equally and equally strategically challenging parts. Then lurk some armies around Ptolie territory and soon the yellow death should come knocking.
Option D - Forget the east and north, retake Makedonia and Greece.
Option E - Concentrate all your forces on taking the Arabian peninsula. Pointless, but could be interesting.
Option F - (Least recommended) Disband any expensive, pretty units and fight a defensive guerilla war from mountain-sides. Hope that the tide turns.

Either way, more is definately not always better.