Guide
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Guide
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I played the Seleucids on medium, and in first two turns I built Traders and Mines. And I let the AI handle taxes, otherwise I controlled the rest. Wealth poured into my coffers, and I used money on Antioch, Seleucia and Sardis and made these my troop training cities, and some turns later I spent cash on "economy buildings". Egyptians attacked early, but I had a sizeable army to defend myself, and I hired mercenaries. I launched a quick attack on Sidon and though losing lots of men, I conquered it. The Egyptians sent an army to relive the siege, and the besieged army sallied forth.
Build Traders and mines and roads in the beginning, and you got enough cash to flow in for you to build better troop training facilities and hire mercenaries should the need arise.
Two more items.
Build forts in the mountain passes leading to Tarsus and Antioch to cover your back as you drive on the Nile. The Greeks or Pontus or both will come for you and you'll need time to gather a northern field army to repel them.
Also build an agora or whatever building that creates assassins when you get a chance. You want to kill off thoses diplomats that bribe your troops racing from one hot spot to another. And if they survive a high level killer can really come in handy.
Not having read all above I just want to add a few short tips...
Strike the Egyptian provinces Sidon and Jerusalem before you do anything else after that the Egyptians will be severly crippled...acomplishing this is easy your treasury will be overflowing in the begining and spend that money on basic troops and bribing. In my campaing I probably bought 75% of the egyptian army or more...
After egyptian crippling go on the defensive is my tip and take over Palmyra, Bostra, Petra och Dumatha one an all lightly defended...
Also try taking Harlicarnassos beneath your turkish province since it is a okey money producer and controlls a wonder. Also If you have it then none else have. A small force and a diplomat should have no problem to buy the defencive force and just move in...
I've had a nice easy game so far (med/med). I agree with the others that Egypt has to go - the sooner the better. This gave some hairy moments early on, and I actually lost Seleucus himself to an egyptian chariot archer charge. Halicarnassus is easily bribed early on too without creating an extra front to defend, since it's behind your lines.
Keep some diplomats on your borders to maintain the peace. Two of my family-members are from my allies Parthia and Armenia, I simply bribe anybody looking threatening. It's nice to be the richest faction on the board. This works nicely for rebels too. And remember some of the nicest mercs in the game can be bought around Tarsus (cretans and rhodeans).
My army and navy is quite small, but that makes no difference as long as I have 300k in the bank (at around 240 bc).
I've just built my first silver shield pikeman, and I'm completing the building for war-elefants atm. I'm looking forward to the silver shield legionnaires. The Seleucids have the most varied unit-roster of any faction.
Edit: It's tempting to build scythed chariots but I really wouldn't recommend it. They can and will run amok and rout quickly, and besides they are one of few units who cause casualties just by moving through a friendly unit! Even elephants just push people over.
Wanted too add a little more as my second campaign (v.hard/v.hard)with this exellent fraction (quickly becoming my fav) is going towards its conclusion.
On very hard chariots are death...beating them especially in cities will take 10 times their number in good troops if you do not have a lot of archers...so get archers if you want to fight the egyptians....
Also do not hord money...you can always earn more. Send hordes of diplomats over the map and if you have a strong fraction on one of your borders dont just bribe what seems treatning....bribe cities (when it will do good) small forces etc...(i usually spend all my surplus money on this) then give away cities which are hard to hold to your allies...also weakening the romans in this fashion can be very effective...
If your allies are in war with a nation you do not what to fight (THE ROMANS maybe) then support them with money...bribe their enemies...this is a very efficient way to hamper a specific nations progress. One I used on the greeks who where being overthrown by the brutii. In a few turns and about 100k later the greeks where repelling the brutii without my support and the brutii where had gone from most powerful to somewhere in the low bottom of the scale...roman power in the east was dead in its tracks...
I want to add my vote for the Seleucids as an extremely fun to play faction. Just finished my first S. campaign (medium, medium) and it was extremely enjoyable. The S. have an extremely varied troop roster and in the late stages of the games their armies are virtually unstopablle. You have to go there, though, and in order to do that you have to repel the early agressors (Egypt, Parthia and the Greek city states attacked me in the first 4 rounds). Did for some exciting fighting, but when the dust settled, the Parthians were reduced to one province, the Greeks were out of game (thanks to the Brutii in the west, while I snatched Anatolia and Rhodes) and the Egyptians went down the drain (after a number of extremely frustrating battles - frustrating not because they were tough but because I had to face the uber-annoying Pharaonic unit lineup :furious3: ).
The key to the early survival for the S. is money. They are the richest faction all around, so if you put this money to good use, they cannot be stopped. Just create a few (or more...) diplomats and start bribing everything that moves (in the early stages... later on you can bribe unmovable objects like... cities ~D too).
If you survive the early onslaught and manage to leash the Egyptians, you can't lose. The Romans shall start coming hard on you, but once you have the wealth of the Seleucids and the Ptolemeans (and the superb S. units) nothing can stop you.
I am starting a Greek campaign at Hard/Hard and I'll let you know about my progress in the relevant thread.
My campaign (hard/hard) has reached the mid-game. Egypt, Pontus, and Armenia have been absorbed and the Parthians banished to the steppes. Rhodes is still Greek but not for long.
After that it's Macedonia/Greece and on to the boot of Italy. I may wait a bit and beat down the Roman Navy while Macedonia expands into Thrace and away from the choice Greek cities but it should only be a matter of time and logistics.
To turn the guide around so to speak, my biggest error was the failure to put leaders in all three Egyptian cities asap. I exterminated my way down the Nile but left only one leader in Memphis as I turned back to deal with the Armenians and Pontus. I thought putting the people to the sword would give me plenty of time but very quickly these cities were over populated and rebellious. I should have either shuttled the one leader around or brought down other family from less important cities.
Other than some late night auto resolves things went well. If a knock-down drag-out bar fight can be said to go well.
Easy solution to the problem with to few leaders in egypt is buy the egyptian....
I have done so on medium and v.hard without problem...
The trick when playing as Seluc, is not to rely totaly on your own soldiers but save up some money, and hire a "MISTY LIGHTS 120 load" of mercs.
A good tactic with a combined force of seluc soldiers and merc is:
In center you place 4 pike units, behind them archers.
On each flank you place a bout 2-3 Eastern mercs. Now thats a good wall.
For cav i suggest Arabs and Beduins Camels, very effective when fighting in the desert atleast.
Anyway, dont underestimate the power of mercs. I hade about 2 full armies of only mercs that Totaly crushed both the Parthians and the Armenians while my own troops took care of the Pontus and holding back all the suciadal Egyptians.
:charge:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lazul
I have a very spiffing 20+ unit army of Mercenary Sythian Horse Archers and Sarmatian Mercenaries built eagerly over the years with which I have suitably punished the foolish agression from the Sythians {I took their Eastern City and was pleased to note it produces +3 experience troops ~:) } and will eventually conquer the steppes with such Mercenaries .
The Selucids have the greatest potential for power in the game ; they are like the Medieval Germans if they were based in the Middle East - Gothic Swiss Armoured Pike Pavise Arbalaster toting armies raised with near unlimited cashflow ~D
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! :dizzy2: 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 ~:cheers:
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?! :dizzy2:
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! ~D
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
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?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fridge
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 ~;)
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
It's not the battle difficulty that's a problem, it's the campaign! I tried a v.hard/v.hard game and within the first four turns the Pontics had bribed Tarsus (despite our 'alliance'), and the Egyptians, Parthians and Armenians had all declared war - the Greek cities weren't far behind...Quote:
Originally Posted by Es Arkajae
Tried again on hard campaign difficulty, and I'm still fighting a war on three fronts, and just waiting for the Pontics to come after Tarsus...
Alliances are only good for dragging other nations into your wars through sneaky actions in any case, like I said I have no idea what effect they actually have on the liklihood of ones enemies to attack but I'd wager its not much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fridge
But good point on the diplomats, that was something I didn't take into account when making my comment, the AI does indeed get more sneaky with agents on higher levels, something to look out for.
The answer though is speed, no matter how smart the enemy AI is it can still only produce one unit per city, per turn.
In fact the blitzkrieg tactics are so damned effective that I've stopped using them for some games, my enemies never even get to build their higher end units and the games end too quickly with too few battles. Takes alot of the fun out of it really. Something to take into account if you're in the game for lots of fun. ~:)
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. ~D
One little tip - and I expect this applies to any of the Greeks, or indeed, anyone with access to phalanxes (phalanges? never sure) - actually, scratch that, it's not a tip, it's a cheat.
But, if you're under siege in a town with wooden walls, and line deploy your phalanx/ges as close to the wall as you can get them (right click and drag), their spears go through the wall and actually engage the enemy troops manning the ram. You'll only kill them slowly, but the upshot is they never actually get to do any damage to your walls, and you don't take any casualties.
You've got to watch for the phalanx shuffle, I tend to arrange mine in a rank four deep with the right hand flank just in front of the spot they're going to ram, but you might need a couple of spares to fill the gap once your first phalanx has shuffled all the way over.
Yeah, it's a cheat. And yeah, I feel guilty, but well, y'know...
Do the Seleucids have the same culture as the Greeks, i.e. do the Greek cities' temples cause a culture penalty?
I think they're in the same lump. Or at least when I walked over that little Greek City in western Asia Minor (Pergamum) after it tried a Very Stupid Thing, namely sent an all-hoplite army against the pile of Cretans and Rhodesians I'd accumulated in Sardis, there wasn't the least bit of culture penalty visible.
Pikemen are without a doubt the best infrantry in the game. They will help by protecting prized missile units. In this topic I will give you a full lo-down on the greek based civilisations and all who use the pikemen.
Ok check this
.= Archers
-=Cavalry
|=Infrantry
|||| .... ||||
---- ----
This is almost what the default formation looks like when you first enter the game.
But here's one I suggest:
|| |||||| ||
---- .... ----
Now that is a good formation. The cavalry are far behind to counter flanks the pikemen on the sides are facing the flank and the archers are in a safe area. There you can advance in a in a orgonised way. Here's another good one:
||||||
---- || ....|| ----
Like that the army can pierce through the line and split them in to two!
Campaign Moves
Greek Cities: Conquer any rebel state near your territories. Then head up north for Macedon and elimnate them. Then go west taking over north Italy and head for Rome. In that time you can hit them before the Post Mairus starts.
Macedon: Do the same as greeks but the opposite.
Sellucids: This time do a double campaign, send one army east to aniahlate Parthia, send a second west for Turkey and the the other south for Egypt.
Egypt: This one is harder your squished in a narrow gap between Numidia and Sellucid Empire. Again do double campaign to capture the west. There is a small territory. Near you which links to the main coast capture that to head for Greece for a alliance, they will help you with the Sellucid kingdom and Pontus invasion.
I’ve been playing the Seleucids for some time now, and I’m now in a knock down drag out fight with the Romans – after defeating army after army in Greece, they’ve just now retaken Athens (Only because it was late at night, and I couldn’t be bothered doing another siege so auto-resolved!). My biggest problem is transport – the Romans with their Thracian allies (damn them!) completely dominate the sea, and even big fleets of quinqueremes are mobbed as soon as they get within sight of Italia or Siclilia..
I know if I can just get there, that they’ll have stripped Italia bare of armies, and go on conquering with my armoured elephants, silver shield legionaries and companion cavalry to my hearts content. I just can’t get there!! I can’t emphasise enough the importance of building up fleets…
I have however, taken most of the former Carthaginian holdings from the Romans, and even taken the closest city in Sicilia. I knew that the big cities in Sicilia would continue to pump out legionaries till even I broke…
I hate the Thracians. Ive been playing SE for a while and I have all of Eygpt and Persia....as I attack Spain (which took over Carthage, i have no idea how) i get attacked by the Thracians....4 HUGE ARMIES!!!!! They took everything from me....AHHH that makes me so mad, but then again...its awesome because the AI comes up with crazy surprises LOL
One tip as Seluicids.
If you don't have the money to hire loads of mercenaries in the early game (i didn't, i was too busy building on VH), then you can have real trouble keeping the wolves from the door with only Militia Hoplites and Cavalry, especially when you are struggling to get off the defensive (what with 5 factions attacking you at the same time n'all). However, you do get quite a few family members quite quickly, so instead of using them as governors, mass them all into your main army - in force they are much better than most of the opposition sieging all your towns. If used wisely, you shouldn't lose family members and they'll gain some good experience. Once start getting better troops (levy pikes etc..) you can start retiring them to your main cities.
T he hard part of a very hard campain mode playing the seleucid empire is the fact that you will never be at peace.
and also a key part of the campain is destroying Egypt as soon as possible, or else they will become 1 of the superpowers of the world.
I destroyed the egyptians in 10 years, which wasn't even that hard.
they just seem to never stop producing units !
but when you capture Alaxandria you should be fine, and well on the way.
It 's tempting to take those not to well protected rebel city;s but don't concentrate on your enemy's settlements, much more worth the effort.
also build up your forcess in seleucia, the Partians will attack so it's best to attack first ~:)
use your spy to navigate through partian territory, very usefull.
if you are having trouble with pontus or armenia ( which I had ) take over their core city's, helped me destroy pontus, while also creating a good front towards armenia ( whith those 2 settlements , north of tarsus , which are good troop producing settlements when developed ~:handball: )
Destroying Armenia isn.t a must, I let them sign a ceasefire when I destroyed pontus.
by that time, and well before that ,you will be makeing more money that you will be able to spend, The Seleucid empire will be making tons of denarii even in the beginning of the game.
At this time I'm preparing my troops and moving them to deliver a blow to the Brutii, at this time i'm still neutral with them but I will soon declare war, which they will probably lose :charge:
hope you find my ''advice'' helpfull
It is true that all the rebel provinces are tempting. I managed to stay out of war with all 5 neighbours and tooks Dumatha, Bostra, Palmyra, Ancyra and Halicarnasus in quick succession. Before I knew it, I had over extended my borders, stretched my armies and with not enough family members it was asking for trouble. While I was doing that, my neighbours were busy on the diplomatic front. Parthia and Egypt allied and Greece, Pontus and Armenia formed the Northern Alliance and all attacked me at the same turn. Greece besieged Sardis, Pontus - Tarsus and Ancyra, Hatra was attacked by Armenia. The Egyptians first attacked Damascus, but the next turn two more huge armies came and besieged Palmyra and Antioch. Parthia besieged Dumatha and Seulecia. Needless to say I lost.
It took me awhile to figure out two obvious things: phalanxes should be used for defence and pikemen for offence and never to put any spear/pike unit on the walls. With phalanxes defending a city is so easy. Just camp at the entraces to the city plaza (normally there are 2). I never lost a city even when outnumbered 1:3. I never even used legionaries, but those militia units were great some of them reached 2 or 3 silver chevrons which made them stronger than silver shields (much cheaper upkeep though). I took Armenia, Parthia, Pontus, Egypt and Greece. Had some loyalty problems with the scythian cities to the north. Also I hardly used elephants. And those chariots should not be used at all! They always run amok! For some reason they always choose to come back to my line and the general attracts them like a magnet. Lost 3 generals that way!
I concur, as long as you take some measure to make sure their moral don't go down too soon, milita hoplit is arguablly the best lvl 1 infantry around... and defending (or assaulting) a city street with phalanx is very good
Man, as the Selucids all i can say is, I love levy Pikes!!
Levy Pikemen have saved my butt many times. (especially during a city assault)
Plonk a Levy Phalanx in the street, suddently the entire army is held up! (with the exception of quality cavalry like Cataphracts, but you only need an extra unit behind the first to kepe the roadblock in place).
Currently starting my first Selucid Campaign on H/H...
At start everyone except the Armenians allied with me... my starting leader died of natural causes in the first 3 turn (grrr why alwys happen to me??) and early on rebels poped up left and right... so was basically rebel hunting for a while...
Then I realize the obvious... Alliance aint worth a dime as Pontus Armenia and Egypt hit me all at once... I barely held off Pontus and Armenia with mercenary army (as they were hitting isolated and underdeveloped provinces) and build up a more reliable core army in Antioch to push against the Egyptian.
Somewhat to my luck, after sacking their first city then crushing the counterattack army, the Egyptians acturally agreed to became my protectrate if I give them that city back o_O!!!! obviously 1 city to keep my worest potential enemy off my back is good.
Then amazingly the Greeks hit me with a full stack o_O WTF, then I checked the faction and to even bigger surprise the Greeks are acturally the leading faction o_O, but thx to stupid AI seiging skill I acturally manage to held off the full stack with only 400 men. (the greek family member lead the charge... into 3 stack of hoplits in the city square... needless to say the rest didn't feel like fighting much after that..)
Now with my back secured I'm begining to move against Pontus, I got them down to 1 city now, if i can bring Asia minor under me quickly i should have little trouble in steam rolling those damn Armenians and Pathians (Amusingly Pathia have not attacked me yet.... though we are no longer allied as i broke off with them when they attacked Scythia)
Thoughts so far..... the AI's is retarded in seige assult.... i had one fight where the AI acturally did something smart... rushed my infantry as I tried to move my phalanx outside the walls with a huge number of eastern infantry and managed to overwhelm my phalanx... just when i thought the AI acturally did something I would do he then parked he's whole army outside my walls and let my towers and archers shoot them to hell -.-......
I still dont' get the hang of using scythed chariots.... they seem to run amok or die a lot easier than elephants while they also trample ur own guys easier (as they are faster) why is their defense so low that makes little sense when the rider appears to be fully armored...
Although Milita hoplite/Levy pike and greek archers aren't very spetacular, combined together they still make a extremely solid basic army.. getting archer in most city is a abosalute priority if ur going to survive the defensive phase (and to acturally have something to work with on offense... ur not going anywhere against horse archers without ur own archer however crappy they may be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Emperor
Same thing goes for city assaults too. Just clog up a street or two with pikemen and nothing will stop you. The only problem here is that time constraints may require a more wasteful strategy.
Best use i've seen is killing off my own generals - rushed one out of a city to knock off some militia cav (what all chariots seem good at is killing cav) and watched helplessly as they routed came back to my town center and instantly ran amok killing both the generals I happened to have there.Quote:
Originally Posted by RollingWave
Lol same, i've had my own general died to amok scyth a few time...
But another funny as hell situation was why I besiged Ankora, Pontus had like 800 men, 2 scyth chariot, a general and afew Pontic light cav along with a load of eastern infantry and hill men... i immideatly send my 2 unit of archer along with 1 unit of merc bedoiun camel archer and pelted one scyth chairot with fire arrow... it ran amok after just 2 volly.. as the Pontic army tried to move from the walls back to the town center, it killed more than 60% of their army (the other chaiort unit ran amok too ) and their general.... that's gotta be one of the easiest seige i've ever done.
Do not underestimate those Selucid Scythed Chariots... In my Greek cities campaign I had a lot of trouble when a couple of Scythed Chariots got behind my defensive line and started carving up my missile troops and cavalry. (to make matters worse a unit of Elephants joined in as well)Quote:
I still dont' get the hang of using scythed chariots.... they seem to run amok or die a lot easier than elephants while they also trample ur own guys easier (as they are faster) why is their defense so low that makes little sense when the rider appears to be fully armored...
I was outnumbered 2 to 1 at the start of the battle anyway, and most of both selucid armies were comprised of Militia Hoplites. (compared to my armoured ones)
The first army was easily routed and driven from the field, but the second army arrived too quickly and before I could turn and face them two units of scythed chariots and one unit of elephants got behind my lines... They wiped out all my cav and missile troops and consigned my general to an early grave.
Fortunately they couldn't very well hit my armoured hoplites from the rear because the Ornagers were in the way (even if the crews did get massacred).
My veteran armoured Hoplites did carry the day when a couple of them turned and formed a second front against the enemy.
Needless to say I lost half my army, but when the dust settled I had slain over 2,000 men.
They might not be as powerful as Elephants, but they can sure cause some havoc when used right. Still it was a nice move by the AI.
After using them more, i realize their potential, they are faster than elephants and they will mow the enemy down much faster.. where elephants usually require u to have some calvary back up or a infantry wave support to make the charge really count, the chariots will often destroy the enemy all on it's own, however their tendency to run amok at the slightlest wind still make them quiet problematic... (though i guess due to their speed.. u should just simply put them even farther back in ur line and perform a wide angel flanking manuver.)
The best use of scythed chariots is as a mop up unit. Early in the game use them to mop up routers and as a flanking unit. Doing this I got a 7 man unit from no valor to v5 (silver 2) with only 2 deaths. (600+ kills as the army tried to sally)
mfberg
This is the best all-round army in the game, I think. Once you have reached the large city status in a city or two you will become unstoppable with the better armies you can produce. It is mostly a matter of lasting that long.
Your true offensive capabilities come with Cataphracts. They are fully worth the expense & the wait to produce them. All other units from this point on are merely supporting troops. Give them all the experience & armor upgrades you can get & they will truly amaze you. Six to ten Cats are the core to a truly war winning army, just use them in mass. Group them in twos threes or more and attack spears from two directions. Even in city combat they will overpower any adversary with a massed charge of several units. They seldom rout & with eight or more & a few oagers you can take almost any city. A couple or three Armored Elephants are expellant fire support but not front line units so save them for the flanks & rear, especially in cities.
In a Seleucid army about half should be Cats. Infantry is there to protect the Onagers for assaulting cities with stone walls. War Elephants or Armored Elephants are there for braking walls & for fire support. They will shoot over walls while breaking them in fact, but if you find you are loosing Elephants you are using them wrong. A temple of Hephaestus in Antioch is also a good thing as it will give you a nice experaince & armor upgrade for these troops.
I have not played this faction sense the 1.2 patch so I don’t know what may have changed but I know that it is now too expensive to bribe units except in an emergency. I also think that that change has wrongfully changed some things which were common place in ancient wars. Bribes I think should also bring on more of the troops of exotic types into your army….but that belongs elsewhere. LOL
Well I finished it, after conquring Asia minor and then destroying Armenia and pushing Pathia to the other side of the Caspian, I took out Thrace and got the Macedonians to be my protectrate as they were besieged by the Romans. Scythia made a half arse attempt to attack me then also became my protectrate, I pushed the Bruttis out of Solona and Apollonia and then landed another army on Italy to take their home town in quick succesion, then I gave the 2 balkan city to the Macedonians letting them deal with the remaining former brutti rebels wondering around there while I sailed my army to reinforce Italy. and also making landings on Africa and Sicily to take undefended or almost undefended towns. the push north towards Rome was not hard as the Romans wasted their army, the Senate army faced me outside of Rome, but decided to retreat when I already closed on them, need less to say my elephant/catapracts/general/companion/chariots ran most of their infantry down. and Rome fell in a seige that followed, game over. (I had all my borders at home under my protectrate LOL)
Thoughts... pikeman have a lot of problems.... they behave in phalanx even more poorly than normal hoplits / sacred band / egyptian etc...) and their offense capability is very unnoticable when they die so quick..... any time I had serious enemy charging against me my pikeman took rather excess casulties while the kill score is not particularly impressive :/ i think the high men number acturally cause them to function even more oddly in phalanx and thus cuase them to do poorly in general... not to meantion their non existance melee capability means when they go out of phalanx they die even faster (unlike say.. spartan or scared band... they still pretty good even when not fighitng with phalanx working)
With pikes, you really have to do stacking cheese and put something like 4 units inside each other in long thin lines.
This makes the pike forest impenetrable. It's truly cheesy but effective. They rarely break. 3 silvershields inside each other cannot be broken even by urban cohorts.
Here's my take on the early game as Seleucids, based on my ongoing campaign on H/H difficulty:
Parthia can be neutralized suprisingly easy early on. You must keep an eye on Susa, the Parthian city east of Seleucia. Try to infiltrate it with your spy. They start out with an army in there, but often this army will move out to patrol/attack rebels etc. When you see them move, take your troops from Seleucia and move them near the province border, so that they can reach Susa (or retreat back to Seleucia) in 1 turn. If the Parthian army moves far enough that it can't reach Susa in 1 turn, attack the town! If you're lucky, your spy will open the gates and you can assault immediatly. If not, then you'll have 1 turn to build a ram and still can assault before their army gets to the rescue. Note that while the city will be underdefended, it might still have family members in it so be prepared for a tough fight.
You will then have to deal with the parthian starting army as it will attack you probably the next turn. It should be much easier to take them on the city streets when you're defending though, than it would be out in the desert. This early war with Parthia is a bold move and not without considerable risk, but if you manage to take Susa and beat their starting army, it will pay off. In my game which is now past the early stages, I did this pre-emptive strike against the Parthians and haven't heard a thing about them ever since, although we've been formally at war the whole time. They just never recovered from the loss of Susa enough to bolster a competent attack force.
Building stone walls should be a very high priority to most of your nothern and eastern settlements. Although your phalanx units should be kept on the street level, simply having the walls will greatly weaken a besieging army's ability to use missile fire against you. They'd need to either move inside your walls through gates or holes (easy to counter with phalanx) or get some foot archers on top of the walls (you should be able to stop them with mercenary infantry or even hoplites). When protected from missile fire and flanking, pikemen in phalanx formation will be nigh invincible.
You should hire plenty of mercenaries. The best types to hire are missile troops, since the Seleucids don't have any good long range missile units of their own. Cretan archers (available in your starting province Ionia), Bedouin archers (lots of your provinces, like Syria and Babylonia) and Scythian mercenaries (hire them in Cappadocia, the Pontus province right to the north of Cilicia & Assyria, you'll need to move a family member to the border) are very useful additions to the Seleucid's pikemen & cavalry heavy army. Another benefit to mercenaries is that you can raise a large army quickly, which will be needed to handle the greatest problem of early Seleucid games: Egypt.
You will want to take an aggressive stance on Egyptians, don't shy from attacking Sidon and Jerusalem as soon as you're able. But don't stop to catch your breath for long. When I took those cities, the Egyptians started throwing stack after stack of chariots, bowmen, spearmen and desert cavalry at me. So I did the "Scipio thing" and took the fight to their heartlands; I loaded a full stack army to my ships and set sails toward the river Nile. I found that of the 3 big cities there, only Alexandria was properly garrisoned. Thebes only had a family member and 1 unit of slingers, while Memphis had only a family member! So after I stormed Alexandria, the entire river Nile fell to me in a quick succession. This finally brought an end to the Egyptian's ability to muster massive armies quickly, but they were still a threat, so I sent multiple armies to take all of their remaining settlements.
What followed was lots of manouvering around the strategy map. Their strong armies would attack my invading armies, but I kept retreating and outright refused to give them fight in the desert. I had multiple armies approaching their towns from different directions, and while one of my armies was chased by the egyptian full stack, another one would attack the town and take it. They would then try to retake their cities but I was able to defend them as their chariots lost most of their mobility in the streets. In one of these many siege battles they had many bowmen and skirmishers, but used them to handle the battering rams, so I sent my militia cavalry out through side gates and charged the bowmen when they were packed into nice squares and busy operating the rams. I lost some militia cavalry to their chariots but eliminated so many bowmen and skirmishers that it was worth it. Without their missile troops they were helpless against my pikemen in the streets.
Eventually they lost every last one of their cities and were done as a faction. Now some decades later, there's still an old rebel general wandering the desert who is a very bitter man ~D
So the key to victory for me was to outmanouvre the enemy on the strategy map, always fight in cities and fight defensively when ever possible. I decided to be defensive against Pontus and Armenia, letting them attack Sardis, Tarsus and Hatra, always sallying out the first turn and driving them away. That way I didn't lose income to sieges and more importantly, my mercenary units didn't suffer from the reduction that sieges cause. The way to beat a sally battle against these factions was to put Cretan archer on my walls, sending skirmishing cavalry out through side gates and harass the enemy to chase them to the range of the cretans (or even better, all the way to the range of my wall towers). Eventually they'd got enough of it and begun to retreat at which point all of my cavalry led by my generals would sally out and kill as many of them as possible. The first stacks they sent were tough to beat, but after that they started using increasing numbers of eastern infantry so things became rather easy to me. They kept on sending a new force almost every turn, so they started running out of money and their populations started to suffer.
In my game I own the entire south-eastern corner of the map, from river Nile to Susa to Pergamum and have taken Rhodes, Kydonia, Sparta and Corinth. Pontus and Armenia are still attacking me almost every turn with about as much success as every turn before. I wanted to teach Pontics a lesson so I sent a small army to attack Nicomedia while it was left undefended. The town only had wooden walls and small population so I didn't even try to keep it, instead I gave it as a gift to Thrace. Now the Pontics lost a settlement and can't get it back without starting a war with Thrace ~:cool: I am in no hurry to end this admittedly tiresome war (unless they come begging for peace, and beg properly) for I am now having much more fun with my invasion army in Greece, the situation there has turned into a huge confusing Romans vs Macedon vs Greeks vs Seleucids struggle, with two Roman factions involved.
i found secluid quite hard because they are surrounded try and make as many allies as possible and try and build traders roads and ports in ever town or city
.dont attack people till you think ur strong enough block egypts path by armys and make forts round there entrances to ur provinces .egypt are not easy to beat but as secluid empior has the best of all troops u have a big chance dont go fro greece or parthia to begin with make allies with them always arminea are week if u hit them early so u can go for them i have won a short campaign with these but have not yet completed a long campaign .have fun. :duel: ~:)
Okay, I went back & played them again. I won’t discuss the strategy of when to take what but I will say that no one has a chance against these guys. The Cats are the most devastating units in the game. They can take on almost anything & very seldom brake. Armor upgrades do play a role in it all but they are crushing to just about anything. You just have to use them in mass. In the game last night I was sending 4 untried Cataphracts to reinforce a city threatened by the Romans. During the AIs turn I was attacked three times. Now there were only four units with no experience and only the first armor & weapons upgrades game play was M/M. The first army was just short of 800 men vs. my 209, I destroyed it totally & lost 13 men. The second army was over 850 with a family member in command. I let them chase me around until I got a good shot at the general, when I did I took it even though I got a couple of the formations pined for a time. After killing him the rest broke easy enough but I lost quite a few horsemen, around 70 I think. Then to my horror I was attacked again by a stack of around 590 with a strong general. I put the remaining force in kind of a box formation & charged, because of his Onagers… I cut through the Roman infantry & engaged their general. Needless to say he died & everyone was disheartened. I ran around the field braking any remaining units & moping up. When it was all over I still had 104 men left. They had only gained 5 chevrons between them all. Each had one & one had two. The second battle I did end when the enemy was all in retreat & didn’t peruse the last man, but just the same those 200 Cataphracts had defeated 10 times their number with about 50% losses.
I have watched a couple of times in horror when I saw them accidentally charge into the front of pikes & hoplites but the spear units brake like any other unit so long as there is a second Cataphract behind the first. My battle formations with them are usually an inverted wedge or a deep narrow formation abreast. If they are too spread out they loose their momentum quickly. With 8 or more units of them & 2 or 3 Onagers there is not a city that can’t be felled but as the Onagers are so slow, when ever I can, I assault a unit outside the city to draw the garrison in and then totally annulate the entire force, there by giving me the city anyway. I have not seen that the Camel Cataphracts are any better than the horsemen (Parthian) but if cost is the issue & you can build them, then Companion Cavalry makes an excellent second rank where they don’t take as many casualties. Elephants are nice toys and my help in taking town with wooden walls but generally much too expensive. Only one or two are necessary. I have taken cities outnumbered three to one with just the Onagers & Cats. If the garrison isn’t large enough, don’t worry, I sack all roman cities anyway just to quell rebellious tendencies.
Happy hunting! ~:cheers:
Oh, well they will brake if left to stand against spears so keep them moving ~D
My Asia Minor now has the richest collection of bone idle peasants "dispersed to the fields" thanks to my willingness to bribe rather than battle (especially on hard/hard at 3 in the morning). I'd quite like these lazy bastards to fight for me instead.
Now, I understand that if you bribe a unit you can't build (or can never build in the future) then it disperses rather than joins. But this doesn't seem to work with the Pontic or Armenian troops which seem pretty similar to the Seleuicid lot (presumably the Egyptians and their various weird troops are a lost cause?) Any ideas? Does one "un-buildable" unit in the stack stop you bribing any of it to come over to you?
no catallus, it happens that you can sometimes bribe let's say 3 troops ( total of 7troops in the stack you wish to bribe ) and 4 will join your stack, if you can train them, that is.
(M/M) The Seleucids have an very interesting line of Pro’s and cones.
Strong (pro);
- They are very, very rich.
- Wonder o Wonders (you start with 2, expansion with two others is very soon possible, the other 3 are aviable in the midgame).
- A strong start, mid en end game army.
- Your main foe’s have very vulnerable armies in the starting phase (except Egypt).
- Mercenaries. Since you fight in such a wide area you can use PLENTY of them and a quick war with descent/excellent units. Those units are also very adapted to the local warfare.
Weak (poor)
- 5 Enemies in the long run. Likely you will engage them early on.
- Egypt. Egypt is very rich, good one of the best armies, and no foe but you…..
- Your empire is not really ‘one’ you got 4 area’s that you should protect.
I said that you got 4 area’s. These are:
- West: Sardis.
- Central: Tarsu, Antioch and Damascus.
- North: Hatra
- East: Selucia
You have In each era likely an ‘own’ enemy:
West: Geek city states and likely Pontus.
Central: Egypt (and maybe Pontus).
North: Armenia
East: Parthia
Your main strategy consist of:
- Build, build build. Since you got a lot of money. Concentrate on the empire’s main things and their strategic area. Build a lot of troops and military.
- Make friends (alliance), generate time until the attack.
- Mercenaries. Money is your friend so use the troops for expansion and fighting.
- Strike hard, leave the fallen. This sometimes annoying quote of the game is in this game very very true. I other words: strike the main cities if possible.
- General: YOU SHOULD play al your battles yourself. Until you come into a face where you’re the grand superpower.
The 5 surrounding fractions al ask for an specific army strategy:
- Greek city states should be counter with the mercs. The great Cresian archers and … slingers. The merc hoplite is awesome in the starting stage.
- Pontus. Your normal army is fine.
- Parthia. Slingers/Peltasts/Bowman. Lots of cav or better chariots. And of course pikes to hold the line. Parthia units are not really impressive when they have to break any line on offence.
- Armenia. Normal army is fine here. Only cav (especially the desert merc cav) is very useful here.
- Egypte. Very very annoying faction. They got very strong armies so bring the best. Against chariots use a combo of shooting/throwing and peltasts and pike’s. The Peltasts got a bonus against those annoying chariots.
Well, what did I do (en recommend you!)
Initial fase. Build. In the WEST take the rebel settlement Halicarnassus ASP. Use mercs (the great available mercs here) for this. After this expansion retain ect. I shipped my troops (bought more mercs) to Rodus. After capturering Rodus send your troops ASP to Pergamum. Well if you succeed the 3 very hard battles you made an great Eastern empire. The Greek city states will be lost likely or are stuck in Sparta. While you have no less than 3 wonders. And more over 3 very rich cities and one rich city.
Centre. Build to your own mind. Make sure you can build Elephants ASP. Troop building is a property. War with the strong Egyptians is coming your way. When you see the Egyptians attempting to attack you: STRIKE first. E.G. take Sidon. This will hurt their ability to make war strongly, afterwards on to Jerusalem.
North. Minimize your attention to Hatra. Build strongly but this settlement is here to ‘hold’ the line. The Armenians are going to attack here. Lucky there lack numerous and good troops.
East. Try to take the Dumatha rebel town with mainly mercs, in this avoiding that it becomes a Parthia settlement, maximize growth here. The annoying Parhians are heading your way. Buid lots of chariots and any unit that can shoot/throw or sling. Make sure you win the defence game first and strike to their city Susa. This will cripple their economy. When secured here you can attack Arsakia and finaly Phraaspa. Also build some ships here and take Salamis (on Cyprus) and later Kydonia (on Crete).
So this is initial. Your mid game Probably consist of:
WEST a grand fight with Pontus (which will be heading your way likely) You should take the former rebel town’s (Ancyra and Nicomedia) and then finishing their core cities.
North. Your battling still the annoying Armenians. You could finish them with an large strike.
East. Your bussy capering the two towns. If possible finish the Parthia’s of. Still this isn’t obligated.
So after finishing (most) of your enemies. You should have killed Pontus, Armenia and Egypte. Likely the greek city states are gone and Parthia also. You now own (circa) 25 very very rich provinces and SIX wonders. Go trough Africa to Carthage and send an and fleet with army to Sicilia to make war and cripple the Brutti. Taking Greece or Italy head on depends on the situation. Remember to win the game is to take (also) Rome , some war with the Roman empire is necessary.
Ps1: Fleets Should be used intensely or be saved to the end game. I disreccomend focussing on them since you have to use every starting province intensively keeping the enemy of bay.
Ps2: Don’t let the Armenians, Pontus and Parthia life too long. Their techtree is a later stage of the game very good.
Ps3: Forget bribing as an good way to win the game when your playing with 1.2. Only when your reach about 18-25 provinces your rich enough to use this. And only in a way that helps a little.
It is true the Seleucids have one of the most interesting choice of troops. But elephants, chariots, cataphracts, silver shield pikemen and silver shield legions are not really needed to win an imperial campaign, at least not on M/M. We might want to use these crack troops just for the fun of seeing them in action (being on the giving end of a chariot charge makes me feel good :-))
The Seleucids already have 3 very powerful "weapons" early in the game, before getting access to these super-units:
1. Money
The Seleucids make so much money than they can probably win the campaign without having to fight a single battle. For instance, Halicarnassus can be conquered by bribing the large rebel army outside its walls, which results in keeping the hoplite militia, then bribing the city garrison and moving the newly acquiered hoplites in the city, to prevent revolts. Sidon and Jerusalem fall in a similar way - bribe the rather large Egyptian armies in the area (get one family member in the process) and then bribe the garrisons and move some of our troops in. As a Romanian saying goes, "a golden borer makes holes in any city wall". The same with Pergamum, with the added benefit of keeping the hoplite militia and the family member. I think the ideal Seleucid invasion army is made of a general travelling together with a spy (for avoiding ambushes), an assasin (for added protection) and a diplomat. The diplomat bribes the garrison and the general occupies it with the mercenaries recruited on the spot. I'm currently sending such an army from Antiochia, to invade the British isles. I'll let you know if this really works. If it does, the Senate is in for a big surprise!
2. Temples of Hephestus
They improve the weapons and armor. Combining it with the blacksmit family of buildings results in having troops with extremly good stats very early in the game.
3. Militia cavalry and peltasts
Well, this is like playing a Numidian campaign, but with stronger units (due to the combination temple of Hephestus + blacksmith/armourer/foundry and slightly better stats of the militia cavalry).
The Numidians don't have the money to afford weapon&armour enhancing buildings early on and their starting cities grow too slow. The Seleucids don't have these problems. They control the Hanging Gardens, which means their farms produce lots of food, which helps population grow. They can further boost the population growth by enslaving. Asia Minor is full of cities close to each other, presenting the conqueror/slave trader with plenty of opportunities early on. Since they have the money needed to bribe other factions' family members, Seleucids can have a governor in each of their cities. This means slave convoys will travel to the remotest corner of the empire. And a horde of militia cavalry, crushing one enemy army after another can turn captains into generals as quickly as this happens in the Numidian games (where roughly 20% of the family members I have are brave captains who rose through the ranks).
Please note that bribing is no longer a logical option thanks to the sky high (too high :dizzy2: ) bribing cost of Rome 1.2
Nonetheless, your money can be used well on mad building rush and mercenary rush.
Seleucids have access, or soon-to-have-access to the mercenary pools of Syria, Aegean, Thrace, Galatia, Armenia, Persia, Arabia, Cilicia, Egypt...
That means...
Seleucid early game possible access to mercenary units:
-tons of east infantry; Armenian, Syrian, Persian; meat shield, populater (very useful in Asia Minor 500 pop "cities" if you're ready to pay for it).
-barb inf; Galatia; a slightly better counterparts of east inf, with the same purpose - note that Galatian barb inf provides a good unit as it comes with 2 exp
-horse archers/camel archers; Armenian, Syrian, and Arabian; all for the Seleucid rain of death...on Ramses' chariots - note that a bug must be fixed if there will be horse archers in Armenia.
-arab cavalry; Syrian, Arabian; nice light cavalry.
-sarmatian cavalry; Armenian; superb heavy cavalry early game
-barbarian cavalry; Galatian; superb light cavalry - useful to add to the Greek-based merc army in the west.
-peltasts; Thracian, Aegean-ian, Syrian; multi-purpose skirmishers..flank guard, first line, reserve, etc.
-hoplite; Aegean, Thracian; you know what to do with the core of your line...
-cretan archers; Aegean; the finest archer unit available for Greeks and Easterners...
-thracian mercs; Thrace; deadly flanker - perfect for one-two hoplite-thracian
-bastarnae; Thrace; they're just the thracian elite...battles can be won by them.
-elephant mercs; Syria; rare, deadly, cool, superb, war-winning tanks of the ancient world.
-cilician pirates; Cilicia; with that horde formation, they are of little use... nice stats skirmisher though.
-libyan inf; Egypt, Syria?; light, swift, nice skirmishers. No peltasts' standing power but more agile and at least as deadly.
-illyrian; Thrace?; may be they're there or I'm confused, anyway, beefed up peltasts ready for service.
-rhodian slinger; Aegean; another fine ranged unit - they are better against chariot than cretans.
Choose some of them and notice that an all-merc army can be balanced to the finest.
Pool provincial cities:
Syria - Antioch, Hatra, Seleucia, Damascus, Sidon, Jerusalem
Egypt - Alexandria, Memphis, Thebes
Arabia - Palmyra, Bostra, Petra, Dumatha?
Persia - Susa, Arsakia, Phraaspa?
Galatia - Ancyra
Cilicia - Tarsus, Salamis
Aegean - Sardis, Halicarnassus, Rhodes, Pergamum, Kydonia
Thrace - Nicomedia, Byzantium, Tylis, and another Thracian city on the border of Scythia
Armenia - Artaxarta, Sinope, Mazaka, Kotais
The steppes aren't far away either, just land on Chersonesus (Bosporus) and take it if the Scythian didn't. The various Greek pools on the Balkans are also pretty near, so as the Libyan pool.
So use your money on mercs!
My analysis on Selucid's enemies (really by the time you kill them you are invincible the rest aren't a problem at all)
Pathia: an overrated enemy, unless they kill the Armenian or make serious advance against you, they will be so dirt poor after a few turns they'll never be able to mount anything serious against you as long as you keep a realatively strong garrison in Selucia.
Armenia: they are richer than the Pathian so they will come after you, Hatra will face quiet a fight, but on the bright side, as long as you mass milita hoplits they'll have a very hard time winning in a seige unless they manage to obtain their lvl 3/4 infantreis, even worse if u manage to get a stone wall up.
Greeks: they are generally not a big threat, however they are also rich bastards so you'll be surprised what they can pop up with someimes (they can hire tons of merc and bang on you too.) on the bright side their lands are VERY worth taking. which includes the magical statue of Rhodes.
Egypt: your number 1 problem. they are rich, they are powerful, they have matching troops to ur own. and they will come after you ASAP. you will need to deal with them fast, it may be a good idea to seek diplomatic solutions such as protectrate to seek a fast end though.
Pontus: in many sense they may be a bigger threat then Egypt, they are in the best position to take Asia minor, and they directly threatening two of ur least developed but potentially richest cities (Sardis and Tarsus) the fast high moral javlin calvaries are also a major threat to ur crap armored phalanx and inferior javlin cav. They are also harder to take the fight to unlike Egypt.
I think the biggest problem in the early game is egypt, they are the only faction rich enough to keep sending a steady stream of armies, the other eastern factions can be dealt with rather easily.
Funny thing happened in my current seleucid game, in the first couple of turns i managed to get egypt to give Jeruselam to me in exchange for a map and some regular tribute, needless to say this weakened them considerably and have been easy to deal with, i took sidon as soon as they declared war and now they have to march all the way across the nile to get to me. :)
I didn't think so, but it is possible to take the city with the mausoleum wonder from the rebels on turn one with only your general and 2 units of milia hoplites against multiple higher quality enemy hoplites, cretan archers, rhodian slingers, and skirmishers.
http://img104.echo.cx/img104/1736/00027fo.th.jpg
When you seige the city on turn one, the rebels will sally forth immediately to crush your pathetic force. They almost certainly would defeat you in an open field, but in this case because they are sallying from a city you have the advantage - if you move fast.
When battle begins, immediately rush all your troops up to the gate, leaving a little space between the gate and your units to allow the enemy to come out one unit at a time. One unit of enemy skirmishers should be in the process of getting out of the gate when your general arrives at a gallop, so immediately rush and route it with your bodyguards before it can form up. Then set one unit of hoplites directly facing the gate, and the other on it's flank but turned inwards towards to gate to form half a cup. That way any unit coming out from the gate will have to face one solid line of spears in front and another on its flank. Place your general to the other side of the cup thus completing the encirclement of the gate. Now the fun part begins - the enemy will stream its units out one after the other, which you can then engage with your hoplites and a little while later charge into the back with your general to route them. Rinse and repeat, and the city is yours!
However, if you are tardy in the begining and allow 2 or more enemy units to form outside the gate, defeat is almost certain as your troops are of lower quality and greatly outnumbered.
Right - finished it on H/H and truly knackered in work today!
The Cyprus story is a fine tale of the AI being stupid (or possibly being a very brave and smart gambler)
Act 1 Western Asia secured with big army in Sardis to counter invasions. Slogging up through Pontus. Containing Armenia and Parthia. Loads of trade; loads of dosh.
Meanwhile real fun is going on in Egypt - Alexandria taken and spending ages manoeuvering against their field army - everyone in and out of armed camps etc.
To pile the pressure on, I go for Cyprus. Spy first followed by good sized expeditionary force of mixed inf and peltasts. Somehow spy misses (or AI lands by ship?) a vast army of cav which slams into my beachhead and basically throws it back into the sea...not happy and too many troops committed in northern battles to get another invasion force together any time soon.
Act 2 Siege at Memphis. Egyptian counter attack. Win v cool defensive battle in woods and Memphis falls, shortly followed by Thebes*.
Which just leaves Cyprus to finish off the Egyptians and win. I pretty much have control of the eastern Med by now and the army on Cyprus (as reported by the Spy) has apparently thinned out - presumably because the Egyptians are now seriously short of readies and the computer is cutting back (is this right? does the computer start cutting units if the moolah runs out? Or does it run up overdrafts?).
However, I'm still heavily committed to the North, especially after a very bloody and close (and lucky) win to finish off Pontus, so another invasion is several turns off while I build up or concentrate enough troops. Not least getting a decent general back there for a triumphant last victory (and not one of the beardless princelings hanging around Antioch and the "home counties").
In the meantime, just for the hell of it since I've got a fleet hanging about, I blockade Salamis port.
At the opening of the next turn an Egyptian bireme has turned up off Salamis, and I duly send part of the blockading fleet around to wallop it. On arrival, however, it appears the whole remaining Salamis army is loaded on this one crappy bireme which is duly sent to the bottom in a 3 ship skirmish. End of game...
Now, I would read this in one of 2 ways: either the AI is very, very stupid to concentrate all its remaining forces on one ship with a fleet nearby, OR it has depths of cunning and boldness which are quite scary....
Why, you ask? Because it may have taken the pretty complex strategic decision that Salamis was now indefensible and the only way to stay in the game was to load the remaining army onto a ship and try to grab a new base. A desperate gamble, certainly, but one that you can imagine a human opponent trying as a last throw of the dice. I would have expected the AI to sit there stupidly and wait for the inevitable.
Any other instances of alarming cleverness by the AI? - or did it just do something random and stupid?
*Taking Thebes I finally found a use for those bloody scythed chariots - when attacking a city without walls, stick the nasty dangerous buggers round the opposite side of the city and have them launch an opening strike as you advance the main force from the front. The chariots get miles into the rear of the enemy in the centre of town before they (spectacularly) lose the plot. Within a few seconds most are profoundly dead, taking dozens of enemies with them. If any of the loonies do survive they seem to rout back the way they came - ie away from your own army thereby avoiding the usual "blue on blue" carnage when you use the damned things.
Better tip: don't build them in the first place....
:duel: ok got the lot on h/h - parthians back behind caspian; armenia and pontus dead; greeks gone and i picked up rhodes in the wreckage;150k in the bank, ss pikemen queing up to do africa and could probably bash anyone now - any suggestions on who to play next ??
Egypt are quite fun..
Or Britannia?
Or another challenge is the Gaul.. or Numidia.
Do pontus! ^_^ Let's see how you rule the world with EI :-P
Pontus has nice jav cav in the Pontic cav and Pontic heavy cav line. They also have access to chariots.
Gaul is more fun as you can play around with quickly sacking Rome and also getting forester warbands which are the best missile units around. Fully upgraded from Abnoda temple, weaponsmith, and getting 3xp from Epona temples, they have something like 22 missile attack which can bring down anything. They also can expand fast into Iberia the same time as you attack Rome.
Numidia is best for the blitz fanatic. You must rush to quickly take Carthage and fortify it before the Romans land. You also would want to rush out fom Siwa and take Thebes before it has walls up. Grabbing that helps to cripple the Egyptians and gives you an archer factory.
Pontus has chariots? o_O never knew that. Numidia...a strange place. But well, this is the seleucid thread, so let's leave off this discussion or bring it to the colosseum, eh? :)
Pontus=easy as pie, nice bronze shields, chariot archers, scythed chariots, cappadocian cavalry (like Cataphracts) and good archers.
Seleucid Empire=If you can survive the first onslaught, build up Antioch and Seleucia, and start churning out enormous units. If you can, take Parthia and Armenia while they are weak, Pontus too. Then you can focus your entire military might on Egypt, and you should win. Egypt assassinated my 10 star commander, so I assassinated the assassin, then killed their faction leader and faction heir (in battle at Thebes) then finished them for good.
I found Selucicia rather easy when i played them. Smashed the Delta in about 10/15 years and after that it was plain sailing.
Easy, yes. But so funny with cataphracts, legionares and elephants that can be trained all over the world! ~D
Actually TSE is so funny that it might be the second campaign I conclude in the five months I`ve played RTW.
I don't think that waiting for Eggy to grow while you smash your other neighbors is a good idea.
I siege Sidon the very first turn with cav and queue a ram, then follow up with inf to assault. I also move from Damascus towards Jerusalem. You also move the garrison from Sardis to siege Halicarnassus. You can take the rebels when they sally if you use a phalanx box to lock in the gate.
Second turn, I assault Sidon and exterminate. The 2 bowmen and 3 spearmen should have move from Jerusalem towards Sidon. Smash those 4 with your faction leader's army that just captured Sidon, leaving behind a token garrison. Siege Jerusalem. Also queue a bireme to capture Salamis quickly.
By the third turn, you will have taken 3 of the Eggy cities before their reinforcements ever arrive from the Delta.
They would send full stackers at you but those are weakened and you can use the sea lanes to amphibious drop into Alexandria with their armies counter marching on land in vain.
Can't do amphibious on Egypt, they sent a full stack fleet at me on turn 5!
Wow, your rush fast, Katank. Ever kick back and "farm" better quality AI full stacks for fun?
Oh yeah, full stacks so too much on huge, that pisses me off.
What are your opinion of levy pikes, I've heard solid ratings for them but I found that they break rather easily. ~:confused:
I don't really rate levies but they can save you in a crisis (early game) .
Talking about levies, when I played Macedon, which also has levy pikes, they served my purposes well enough. They rarely broke, often because they had no time to break before I scored victory, and often because of the stupid AI, which much prefers to frontal-charge them. Levy pikes were my backbone for nearly forty turns, actually, and when I ended the campaign due to burnout in the 60th turn standard phalanx pikes only made up about 10% of my total infantry force. Levy pikes are pretty solid, but it your cavalry lets them down, they will let you down.
As with the Marquis of Roland, I am in awe at the speed of katank's katank. I rarely go that quickly at the start unless I'm Julii.
Amphibious is quite possible on Egypt. You have to produce quickly biremes in Antioch. Do need to drop the Salamis garrison before their fleet arrives. This, as you are aware, needs to take place in a very short time frame.
They then tend to clump fleets around Salamis.
Build a port in Jerusalem and wait there. When their navies are far, you can go fairly far. The second turn of sailing allows you to land in the Delta.
I've tried to farm enemies before. They still disappoint. Personally, I have a vendetta against the Eggy since they produce hordes and hordes of their ridiculously overpowered and ahistoric units.
They are too much of a threat to Seleucids to farm em. I'd rather use full Seleucid roster to have nice fight with post marian romans.
As for levy pikes, they are quite solid. As with all phalanxes, shield their flanks and then they are good.
Try putting one unit inside each other makes em practically unbreakable. Remember to stretch them out 2 deep and then stack so you have both 3 units' worth of glittering pike points at each location but also a long frontage to prevent wrap around.
Unfortunately, they aren't that much use early on while fighting the Eggy.
The Eggy forces are fast and mobile. I find pumping out some militia cav to be the best option. Making a few levies is useful but definitely for sieges against Eggy and not field battles where you would rather use your cav to smash and run.
BTW, when I blitz through, I don't have much time to deploy a sizeable levy pike force even against the Eggy. The threat is Kiya's army which is a full stack with the 2 nasty chariot archers.
Getting em to counter march in the stretch between the Suez location and Jerusalem is fun when you do an amphibious drop and sack Alexandria.
...Kiya? Who's Kiya? Heh, amphibious on Alexandria is for some strange reason the first thing that pops into any first-time anti-Egypt player. I wonder why. :-) So you're saying you'll rush into Egypt with horsemen and let your pikemen follow if they can run fast enough?
Kiya is the Egyptian general who starts with an army outide the delta.
He was my best faction leader ever, EVER!! At least 10 star command (the most possible to show) 6 management and at least 10 influence. Conqueror of all Asia!! He went on to be 89 too and died in Rhodes.
Want to have an ...awesome faction leader? Play as the greeks and don't conquer Sicily too fast to have some nice battles. After it's conquered, finally build some trade upgrades in Syracuse and the other cities....let him walk around a little to be in town upon completion....and the only flaw he had was that he had only 9 management instead of 10. Sadly, he was assassinated by the Carthagians but still....his memory remains....Quote:
Originally Posted by Craterus
Sounds good, I would have sent him away from Sicily and off to some major battlefronts, you could do with a commander like that leading your army to victory.
Me, I would've had him landing in Africa the turn after I conquered Lilybaeum and turn White Africa into Cream Yellow Africa. Such a wonderful general is too good to be worth leaving in a city. But of course, this comes from the guy who left his Scythian king and army in Campus Getae for seven (7) turns. While the Thracian front stood still.
Best late Seleucid order of battle:
1 General's unit
1 companion cavalry
2 cataphracts
4 cataphract elephants
6 silver shield pikemen
4 silver shield legions
2 cretan archers
= massive, steamrolling lawnmower
Fighting the Brutii with this army is fun, since Romans are infantry-heavy. Plus Brutii have lots of money, so there's no end to the amount of men you can kill (and gain lots and lots of experience, since most of their units are good morale and won't just run off somewhere at the first sign of trouble).
I say bring on a 20-unit army of urban cohorts, I want to test this army on THAT.
...that may not be a good idea. somehow I have this feeling it's not going to be a good idea. urban cohorts don't break until they're down to 2 men, you know that don't you?
Yup! It'll be fun! ~:cheers:
I've broken an Urban Cohort at 33 men left, but they were the last unit left so that might have been the reason.