RPing the Seleucid Empire.

Hi ya'll. I just got back into playing EB for the first time in an year and I decided to play with the Seleucid, because I think they're in great position to be very very fun to rp with. The problem is that I'm having a had time finding any AAR or any guide-lines to work on them.

One can easily read some superficial information about them online and such but they don't help in knowing what the Seleucids would have thought about, say, dealing with steppe barbarians or whether to just conquer the Greek peninsula/allying with all of them to create a balanced peace/turning them all into protectorates and vice versa.

So, I would be grateful if people knowledgeable with the Seleucids could help me out here.

I don't think I need help keeping the empire together or anything. Given that I'm playing on M/M (VH/M is boring and I like slow games, though I'm not sure whether H/M is better than M/M) and kicking the Ptolemaioi in Asia Minor and maintaining a strong army further east to ensure the Pahlava/Baktria doesn't decide to do anything funny besides absorbing the regions that rebelled earlier.

So, to possibly help out starting this thread up, currently the Makedonians are getting their asses kicked by the Epirotes and the KH. The Epirotes took Pella and the KH took one of the Makedon lower regions. I would personally love to go help the Makedonians out, being that they're allies and all, but I doubt I can provide another full-stack army to deal with the 2-3 full-stacks that the Epirotes and the KH are spawning. Would it be acceptable for a Seleucid king to quickly settle the war with the Ptolemaioi for a sake of convenience, possibly paying some money and returning a region that I took from them, so that he can do everything he can to save the Makedonians from getting wiped out?

Your last question. Yes, definately. Wars were declared and settled by both sides throughout their history. Marriages were arranged and land was conceded.

Not too sure about helping the allies and such. I would think that any good strong selecuid king that had a political reason to land an army in macedonia would have done so and then not left. If you are using force diplomacy I think it would make some sense to take at least one coastal makedon city for your own (under type 4 gov of course...) for their protection, maybe the island? Then any land that you take from the KH or Epirotes would be force diplomacied over to the Makedons.

I'm not really a specialist on them though. Maybe someone else can help you?

I'm playing the Seleucids at the moment, on H/M difficulty and Huge unit size.

I've only got to 265 BC so far. I've bumped all taxes as high as possible and am concentrating on developing my towns as the number one priority. I used Force Diplomacy to give two towns in the north-east to Bactria - this enabled me to make peace with the Saka and get them off my back, and also keeps Bactria too busy fighting Saka (on my behalf) to go after me. Two towns given up, to neutralise two separate threats to my eastern empire. A bargain!

I'm recruiting as little as possible from my towns. I only recruit the cheapest units: archers and slingers mainly, a few more pantodapoi spearmen to shield them, and basic skirmishers for arrow fodder. I've made good use of my starting forces to deal with the constant plague of small-scale rebellions.

For the main task of fighting the Ptolemies and Pahlava, I rely on hiring mercenaries. I have two full stacks of them, one in the west, one in the east. The Seleucids rule a vast empire, and having so much territory means there are literally loads of mercenaries available - Greek phalangites, heavy skirmishers, and medium and light cavalry, Persian archers and archer-spearmen, Gallic (Galatian) swordsmen and light cavalry, even Arachosian, Dahae and Indo-Iranian cavalry. These mercenaries are expensive to hire, but have affordable upkeep. And hiring mercenaries means I'm not depleting my cities of population and thereby reducing my tax income, very important on Huge unit size.

I've done well so far, managed to retake Asaak from the Pahlava, and drive the Ptolemies from southern Anatolia and Palestine. Not bad considering I'm not recruiting any elite units.

My Macedonian allies aren't doing well, they've lost Corinth and Pella, but I don't really care. Pontos and Hayasdan aren't doing anything much.

My worst moments so far have been two defeats in the field against Pahlava and Ptolemies, which I've avenged - and worst of all, my initial faction leader Antiochus I was killed fighting the Eleutheroi Galatians at Ankyra, in a cavalry clash with their general. I still won the battle and took Ankyra- but had to abandon it so that it rebelled to the Arveni.

Like you I play either on H/M or M/M because I dislike fighting 1-2 fullstacks every turn. The problem then (after almost a decade of stabilizing your economy and improving your infrastructure) is how you restrain yourself from steamrolling everyone.

That is especially true with Arche Seleukeia since you start the game as the most powerful state. So in my game as AS I took into account some historical facts:

a) Most of the major wars of the kings of AS were waged in the Levant or in Asia Minor (or at least the better documented ones...) It seems that they were never able to dominate those areas, since from what I know they never fully subdued the Galatians and they eventually lost Asia Minor to the Pergamon-Roman alliance. Also although they managed to expel the Ptolemaioi even from Ioudaia, the area was rebellious and the threat of the Ptolemaioi was never neutralized. So gameplay-wise I forgot about conquering those provinces. I allowed my foes to develop and to become a thorn at my side as they were in real history.

b) From what I gather, the Seleucid Kings were not in full control of their eastern provinces. Persian nationalism was a destabilizing factor (maybe even more than the nomad threat). I recall that although some parts of the zoroastrian priesthood were loyal to the macedonian monarch (we could even say they were bribed), there were many conservative and radical elements especially in the provinces of Drangiane etc who thought of the western conquerors as agents of Ahriman (the zoroastrian devil) sent to punish them for their sins. The personal ambitions of satraps like Diodotos of Baktria, or Molon of Media were another centrifugal force. It is not coincidence that many times the Kings did not visit their eastern satrapies. They campaigned in them. Sometimes they were even killed in such campaigns.
How do you translate these internal frictions in game? It's difficult though there are signs that the almighty EB team will improve this part in EB2. Some solutions: Let Alexandreia Eschate and Marakanda rebel. Do not have many forces stationed in you eastern borders. Remember: greek settlers are scarce there (apart from Baktria which is out of your reach) so recruiting lots of klerouchoi phalangitai from said regions is ahistorical. Local forces are readily available but are unreliable (and yes pandodapoi phalangitai are local forces). In fact if you cannot hold a province except by relying on indigenous forces, the honest thing to do is to let it go rebel (adding tens of thousands of population via cheat works wonders). Mercenaries? Well they were used historically but a mercenary-heavy force is often more unreliable than the locals. I prefer reinforcing my eastern front with expeditions from the mainland, every 5-10 years or so, led by the King or his Heir.
All in all be prepared to loose much land in the east. In my game I let most of Persia rebel at some point, gave some provinces to the Ptolemaioi to simulate rebellious Satraps being supported by my arch-enemies and let the Pahlava forge a mighty kingdom at my expense, while donating money to my enemies and using the create unit cheat to help them. That was until Alkimos Syriakos the Majestic reclaimed the lost lands, crushed the Parthian horselords, re-established alliances with the local nobles, gave special privileges to the persian clergy and created the Temple Guard of Persepolis, manned by fearsome young persian warrior priests. He also reformed the government system by appointing two different commanders in each satrapy: the stategos with military duties answering directly to him and the dioiketes with civil powers, who was held in check by a 15 member council of the most influential greek and local nobles.

c) the hellenistic history is a history of political intrigue, of poisoning and knives in the back. Make sure not to miss that. In about 100 years I had staged 2 massive civil wars, each time my empire cut in two. Brother against brother and son against father. The Ptolemaioi are a superb shadow faction for that reason.

You realize that with such pace I played an epic game and around 150 bc I had less provinces that the ones I started with. In the meanwhile I sent expeditions to the Krimaian Bosporus, to Egypt, to Greece, even one to south Italy, trying to help my allies and hinder my enemies. Good times...

unfortunately if you want to RP with Seleucids you have no option other than FD or cheating.
for example for parthian rebellion
:
add_population Hekatompylos 10000
then take your garrison back to to the mountains then it rebels soon parthia will grab it.
in fact as I like fighting AS instead of ruling her I can say that conquering AS land much more easier than to rule her.

Ty for all the responses, especially Noble Wrath with his long and detailed one =D

I have no problem with using FD or cheating, so long as the game becomes more enjoyable.

I wanna play the Seleucids precisely because they're so big. I mean, you have most of the east already conquered. If I can't keep my hand on those lands then it's easy to rp that the king failed, etc. There's an easy rationale in why a future king would launch a costly expedition to retake those lands, vice versa. In addition, I would imagine that the Seleucids would have a vested interest in the Greek peninsula and Asia Minor, giving me a place where I can spend a large part of my time in.

I actually have several questions in regards to manipulating the game to make it more challenging.

First is spawning armies. How would I go about doing that? I would imagine that I'd have to mess around with one of the files, but is it save-game compatible?

Another is creating a civil war. I know that the most preferable way to do this is to just manipulate one of the existing factions, but is it possible to have certain fm's and entire cities rebel, then spawn a couple armies for them, vice versa?

Again, thanks all for the responses =D

As for your first question, I suspect you can create an army out of thin air by writing a script. I don't know how to do it though, so I used a trick. Whenever a small rebel army spawned in my lands, I "preserved" them. That is I teleported them to a safe location (Krete for example) for future use. When I deemed the time for a rebellion was ripe, I teleported them back and I added new units to the existing army. The way to do that is explained here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ht=create+unit
There remains a problem: rebel armies are quite passive so you need to attack them. To account for their passivity you can impose a time limit on yourself: if the rebellion is not eliminated in X turns the province is lost (add_population cheat). Obviously units can be added in a rebel settlement although they will most probably remain there and of course all of the above can be used for other factions than the Eleutheroi.

About shadow factions, IIRC it is possible at the start of a new campaign to eliminate one AI controlled faction, then use the faction slot to create a faction identical to yours. Then maybe using a script you can have them emerge if certain conditions are fulfilled. But you understand that this requires much work and you need to have modding DNA (something like a geek X-man). For us common mortals force diplomacy is our best option ;-)

Ty for that link, that'll be very useful =D At the very least it'll allow me to create some form of opposition at random intervals.

And, ya, shadow factions are too much work for those who don't know how to mod =D