How close to a realistic Seleukid army would this be?

[SwissBarbar]

Whats the difference between VH/H and VH/h ?

@ Dayve: I find it very suspenseful the way you play your campaign, I do it almost the same way, just playing another faction and that my 2 main armies still are fullstacks.

So in my KH-Campaign (meanwhile late):

Royal Army (Europe)

1x FM (Faction Leader or Faction heir, if both are too old another son or grandson of the FL)
(core)
4x Koinon Hellenon Phalangitai
(heavy infantery)
2x Thorakitai Hoplitai
2x Thureophoroi
(light supportive infantery)
4x Sphendonetai Rhodioi
3x Peltastai
(cavallery)
4x Hippeis Xystophoroi



Royal Army (Mikra Asia)

1x FM (Satrap of Mikra Asia or one of his Aids)
(core)
4x Koinon Hellenon Phalangitai
(heavy infantery)
2x Katpatuka Zanteush
2x Thureophoroi
(light supportive infantery)
4x Sphendonetai Rhodioi
3x Peltastai
(cavallery)
4x Hippeis Xystophoroi



Standard Army

1x FM (must have served in another Standard Army for at least 5 years or 5 battles)
1x FM (second in command)
1x FM (third in command)
(core)
2x Koinon Hellenon Phalangitai
(heavy infantery)
2x Thureophoroi
(light infantery)
2x Ekdromoi Hoplitai or Hoplitai Haploi
(light supportive infantery)
2x Peltastai
2x Sphendonetai
(cavallery)
1x Hippeis
1x Hippakontistai


The Main armies are for emergency cases. I recommend you the same. I also am getting closer to pahlava, the late Hay heavy cavallery was a challenge alredy, but they had not so many horse archers, so its going to get even harder. 1 tip: good slingers are excellent against heavy cavallery and FM, no other unit has killed more enemy FM than my Rhodian Slingers. I also intend to create Asian Standard Armies with many archers instead of the light infantery and the light supportive infantery to fight Pahlava, it seems to be the only way.

[Dayve]

Your armies are too powerful for my tastes, with all that elite infantry and so many slingers it's almost cheating against an AI that doesn't know how to react when faced with 4 units of slingers. What i mean is, slingers are supposed to cause heavy casualties BUT compell the enemy to fight, and once the fight starts they have to stop firing otherwise they kill their own guys too.

The AI doesn't know that. If you're the attacking army, they will simply stand idly and let you destroy them with slingers, so with those 4 units of slingers you could have an army of akontistai and levy hoplites and still win because the enemy would be weakened so bad by the slingers.

So... i only use 1 against western armies, at most.

But then east is different. In the east factions settle wars with arrows instead of swords, so it's an entirely different ballgame.

[SwissBarbar]

well its the royal armies, who are supposed to be elite and who are only used in emergency cases, as i wrote. The Standard armies use max. 2 Slinger units as you see.

[The Persian Cataphract]

Fuzzy rule of thumb for infantry - cavalry distribution of the ancient Iranian empires: For every five infantry, add one horseman. From there, for every three to ten horsemen, add a knight. You therefore get a range of fifteen to fifty infantry for every knight you field. Food-for-thought, especially if you know how your economy looks like and what types of troops are available to you.

[Atraphoenix]

To be honest, i'm clueless as to how to fight the Pahlava. I've been attacking them in towns where their horses don't have the mobility of a field battle, and then defending towns. I've been waging war in city streets rather than out in the open, because i know if i go out in the open i'll be quickly annihlated and lose some very important eastern provinces which generate a lot of income for me.

You answer yourself :-)

and one more thing, use your elites as soon as possible I have no idea but I can only kill an elite AS Phalanx around %10 but can easily kill medium ones while playing with pahlava.

I think while they are in phalanx mode they have a defence bonus against arrow attacks.

[NeoSpartan]

Whats the difference between VH/H and VH/h ?

.

Not pressing "Shift" and "h" at the same time.

[abou]

How the Seleukids and Parthians fought each other is, to be honest, unknown. We don't really have much on the record. We know that when Antiochos III, IV, and VII began their campaigns they were successful - about all we have info on is the Elburz crossing by Antiochos III, IIRC. The evidence for Antiochos IV is murky. Antiochos VII, however, didn't play it as smart as he should have and wintered in freshly conquered territory with his army split into smaller contingents. The sources may be biased, but apparently his military behaved badly pissing off the locals so that when the Parthians did come back they were easily able to isolate groups by ambush in Media. Parthians played smarter, not harder.

So it seems that when the Seleukids got their act together and made a serious attempt to push the Parthians back, they could; the problem was in keeping that land afterward. Of course, it doesn't help when your satraps declare independence all the time and you have infighting between the royal family.

So, considering we don't have much info, how did the Seleukids do it? My guess is the cavalry contingent of the Seleukids was big enough and quick enough to keep the Parthians worried about fighting a stand-up battle or getting caught in an attempt at a hit-and-run . From there, it would just be a matter of sticking to broken or rolling terrain where you can nullify the Parthian horse advantage and moving quickly enough to bottle-up the Parthians in their cities under siege. It's hard to conceptualize it since in RTW we can only represent so many cities on a map, but sieges small and large happened all the time and it's clear that the Seleukids were pretty damn good at it... as long as you wouldn't mind a city getting torn up in the fighting a la Sardeis or Tyre.

[Conqueror]

Good luck getting that to work when sticking to max 10 units/army though

[Dayve]

Good luck getting that to work when sticking to max 10 units/army though

It's easy, in the west. Western factions (excluding Rome) throw out 20 unit stacks all the time, but only very rarely do they seem to put decent troops in them. Ptolemaioi, for example, just attacked me with a full stack. 6 units of pantodapoi phalanxes, some peltastai mercenaries and the rest, i shit you not, was akontistai. Around 13 units of Akontistai.

Even when they get their Galatians and elite phalanxes the armies are still going to have tiny numbers of them and huge numbers of levies and light troops. In my last campaign as Carthage i steamrolled them around 230BC with an army of light and medium troops at best. They only ever put a few elite troops in a stack and fill the rest up with crap. Everyone else is the same, excluding Rome. Their armies are nothing but extraordinarii and samnite infantry.

So yeah, 10 units a stack is just fine for me on VH/M.

In the east, it's going to be bad, but that's my goal. I'm sick of winning campaigns and steamrolling everything. I want to slowly lose ground to the Pahlavs, make a little progress then get thrown back. I want the eastern half of my empire to be a constant concern and problem, i want some realism, i want to lose damnit.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Ok, I don't have the epxertise to make a definite comment on this; but I'd have thought the Seleukids would've used Iranian troops? Medean Cavalry, Archers...

[Watchman]

Certainly one would assume Seleukid armies dealing with the annoying horsemen of the Inner Asian plains made like most largely infantry-based armies have done in such situations - took along buttloads of missile troops and cavalry of their own, and used their superior heavy infantry as a solid base for those to operate around. (Seemed to work well enough in the Romans' later, post-Carrhae, wars with the Parthians anyway...) Both of the former should've been readily available from the native populations and military traditions of the eastern provinces after all, and not in the least as those have had lenghty practice in fending off nomadic raiders...

To be honest, i'm clueless as to how to fight the Pahlava. I've been attacking them in towns where their horses don't have the mobility of a field battle, and then defending towns. I've been waging war in city streets rather than out in the open, because i know if i go out in the open i'll be quickly annihlated and lose some very important eastern provinces which generate a lot of income for me.

Heh, you've actually been making exactly the correct conclusions, young padawan. That's ever been the strategy combatants strong in infantry have adopted against opponents markedly superior in cavalry and mobility; for example, when the Swedes warred with the Poles in the early 1600s their field armies had a bad habit of getting pulverized by the formidable and numerous Polish cavalry - so they preferred to make the war one of sieges, where their much more infantry-heavy armies had an advantage.
It is, after all, by controlling the cities and fortresses that you actually rule a territory.

[LordCurlyton]

@ Dayve: I wish I had that sort of AI armies at times (not really). Apparently you don't get the Roman full stack of PE + EE + Triarii or full stacks consisting of 8 phalanxes of which 6 are elite and two are standard + Galatians + Heavy cav. Or (as AS against Pahlava) an army which had 10 Dahae Nobles + 6 Parhian Catas + 4 FMs (early variety). That army hurt. A LOT! Especially since all 4 FMs were 8-10 command + triple silver and above experience. I just spammed and auto calc-ed my way to victory. Lost something on the order of 4-5 full stacks of phalanxes + archers to do it but when you have a whole empire to spawn from it can be done.
But if you've been getting the sort of stacks thrown your way that you say you have I don't blame you on restricting yourself. I'd want a challenge as well.
Maybe its BI, but it seems my computer loves to throw elite stacks at me, and since I like to economize my armies, it tends to provide a challenge.

[XrexXxarX]

hahahah i feel you're pain man i really do xD

[Andy1984]

I mostly try not to fight them. Putting archers (and if I'm really pressed even slingers) on stone walls should do the trick. Other than that: maybe consider using phalangites where you only need them (like one unit of pantodapoi in each frequently besieged city). Parthian spearmen and even massed pantodapoi should hold your line. If they don't, so be it. You'll lose several cities from the start onwards, and armies like the one you're experiencing might cost you another, but once you have a solid line of stone-walled-cities, you should be capable to hold your ground. Launch counteroffensives wherever Parthia seems weaker.

[Megas Methuselah]

hahahah i feel you're pain man i really do xD

The thread was a year old. Thanks, buddy, thanks a lot.

I'm such a hypocrite.