Arche Seleukeia - A Guide by/with Hax

[satalexton]

Seconded. Hai has good potential: Sturdy Medium infantry, excellent archers, wonderous cavalry.

p.s. In the east, persian hoplitai are the next best thing after smoked cheese.

[Cute Wolf]

Seconded. Hai has good potential: Sturdy Medium infantry, excellent archers, wonderous cavalry.

p.s. In the east, persian hoplitai are the next best thing after smoked cheese.

When I Play Hayasdan, my game usually developed into Kavakaza Sparabara line guarding line of archers behind, let the enemies charge my men, and I win..... Kardaka are somewhat just for guarding flanks

ADD: And the Royal army only consist of cavalry =p

[seienchin]

I usually dont bother with my cities on the boarders in the beginning and disband most of my troops to get way more than 10.000+ every round and than humiliate the ptollis by taking everything except egypt from them. Than I conquer minor asia and cyprus. Having sea trade makes minor asia extrem rich. Just have trading agreements with Macedonia, epeirus or whoever the heck is in charge of greece. Having so much money and provinces makes the AS game a little bit too easy for my taste.
Esspecially with the considerate Alex.exe Ki you are never endangered.

[Vasiliyi]

I love AS, nice work Hax. One thing I might add for the Rp-ers out there. There is a single unit of Dahae riders in one of your Steppe provinces. (Sorry I forgot which one).. I personally, have that unit travel all the way to Antiochea to serve under Theodorus Syriakos (who also travels to Antiochea). Ive fought countless battles with them now and they still havent had a casualty.

Who knows, maybe ill disband them when Theodorus dies of old age.

[gamegeek2]

One thing you really need to have a good grasp of is the stacks you need to tackle the Pahlava. This is a good basic, early game "anti-pahlava" army

1x FM
3x Persian Archers/Heavy PA/Horse archers
2x Eastern Slingers
2-3x Pantodapoi Phalangitai
1-2x Thureophoroi/Peltastai

You need the large amount of missile units. The slingers are easy to understand, as they're an excellent weapon against FMs and Dahae Nobles. The Persian Archers tackle their horse archers and the various lightly armoured infantry they'll doubtless deploy.

Thureophoroi are preferable to Peltastai, as they have spears, but both are good infantry with some armor to stop arrows, and can stand against FMs and Dahae Nobles, and perform the role of a flexible force that can rush in and save your other units if they're in trouble, as well as flank enemies well.

The Phalangitai are pretty basic stuff - try to get them in a fight with cavalry, and don't be afraid to use them as axemen against Nobles and Cataphracts; AP axes are amasing.

Also, don't be afraid to raid Nisa and/or Khiva even if you can't hold on to it - pillaging their Courts and Camps will not only give you money, it cuts off their recruitment.

[vartan]

Seconded. Hai has good potential: Sturdy Medium infantry, excellent archers, wonderous cavalry.

p.s. In the east, persian hoplitai are the next best thing after smoked cheese.

The problem is the medium inf are low in numbers, archers aren't as armoured as their Syrian and Bosphoran counterparts, and the fact that Persian Hoplites are pretty useless, for they've poor morale, stamina, and their swords suck. I've experienced they even lose to missile fire so easily.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I'm having fun with my M/M Arche Seleukia campaign. I'm fighting every battle manually, plus micromanaging my huge empire, so I'm still at only 264 BC, but it's all good fun!

I've spent nearly all my money on town building thus far. I try to have something building in every settlement all the time. So my army is still very weak, composed of mainly cheap units like native spearmen, archers, and slingers. However, despite that, I've managed to hold Antiocheia-Margiane (just) and have actually retaken Hekatompylos and Asaak(!) after Pahlava took them early on due to their nearly-invincible FM's. I made peace with the Ptolemies first thing and they haven't been a problem since, being too busy fighting Elutheroi on their borders.

[Fluvius Camillus]

I'm having fun with my M/M Arche Seleukia campaign. I'm fighting every battle manually, plus micromanaging my huge empire, so I'm still at only 264 BC, but it's all good fun!

I've spent nearly all my money on town building thus far. I try to have something building in every settlement all the time. So my army is still very weak, composed of mainly cheap units like native spearmen, archers, and slingers. However, despite that, I've managed to hold Antiocheia-Margiane (just) and have actually retaken Hekatompylos and Asaak(!) after Pahlava took them early on due to their nearly-invincible FM's. I made peace with the Ptolemies first thing and they haven't been a problem since, being too busy fighting Elutheroi on their borders.

I always try that too!

I am around 248ish, I can finally afford that for about 3 years. I have 3 half stack- like armies who fight, and of course some garissons at the borders.

I also do every battle myself, stupid outresolve always screws up, which I cannot afford.

Im making preparations for the Cata reforms, where I have to lose...

~Fluvius

[Hax]

Yes, that is something I try to do as well. Especially when you have your first mines built in the eastern provinces, you will find that suddenly, you will have enough money to start developing your cities and soon, even Gabai will be more artistic and prominent than Athenai or Alexandreia ;D

[WinsingtonIII]

The problem is the medium inf are low in numbers, archers aren't as armoured as their Syrian and Bosphoran counterparts, and the fact that Persian Hoplites are pretty useless, for they've poor morale, stamina, and their swords suck. I've experienced they even lose to missile fire so easily.

I've found that the Georgian Medium Infantry may even be a better choice than the Armenian Medium Infantry. They have slightly lower stats, but they make up for it with higher numbers. The main problem with both units I think is that sword units like them simply aren't very effective in the east. They can't hold off cavalry, and they can't go head to head with phalanxes very well, meaning their main use is as flankers against phalanxes. But, since you're playing as the Hai, your cavalry perform this job much more effectively, so in the end, they just end up being underwhelming, which is really too bad. I guess if your enemies are fielding lots of Theurophoroi, Thorakitai, or Hoplitai they could be an effective counter to those units, but I've found that the AS tends to go very phalanx heavy in its infantry selection. The ironic thing is that the enemies that these units would actually be good against (the Romani and the Western "Barbarians") are enemies that you probably will not run into very much in the average Hai campaign (if you are only trying to achieve your victory conditions that is).

As for Persian Hoplites, they are so disappointing it's unreal. If you want an armored eastern spear unit, the Babylonian Heavy Spearmen are actually better than them (higher defense and an armor piercing mace as a secondary instead of a low-lethality sword) and can be trained without going through reforms. Of course Babylonian Spears have a very small AOR, but they are pretty widely available as mercs.

Sorry for the somewhat OT post, in regards to the actual thread, this is a really great guide, Hax. I've started an AS campaign because of it and I have to say there's something about it that I haven't really experienced playing EB before. I think it's the novelty of having this huge empire, but since it's at the beginning of the game, it isn't secure (as opposed to late game huge empires where you have so much money and troops that you really don't have to worry about much). Actually losing provinces and knowing that it's going to be years before you can retake them is a very refreshing feeling.

[Poulp']

Georgian Inf. are a niche; I found them essential when you need to storm walls. I used 2 units in my army which took Susa, Gadia and Persepolis and they cleaned up the walls efficiently. I still have 97 of them waiting in Persepolis.
Then, they are good to flank Native Spearmen or other spear units my FM (Hay) shouldn't charge. They did a good job pinning phalanxes but I won't rate their pinning abilities because I used anything and everything to pin them down and let heavy cavalry do its job. (half strength green slingers unit? Go!)

Overall, I'd say they should be used where your FM can't. On the walls or in the streets, anywhere you can't get a good charge.

Persian Hoplites are a disappointment. Native phalanxes do a better job at holding the line and are available sooner and if you need something in the assault department, you can just click on the "mercenary" button.

[WinsingtonIII]

Georgian Inf. are a niche; I found them essential when you need to storm walls. I used 2 units in my army which took Susa, Gadia and Persepolis and they cleaned up the walls efficiently. I still have 97 of them waiting in Persepolis.
Then, they are good to flank Native Spearmen or other spear units my FM (Hay) shouldn't charge. They did a good job pinning phalanxes but I won't rate their pinning abilities because I used anything and everything to pin them down and let heavy cavalry do its job. (half strength green slingers unit? Go!)

Overall, I'd say they should be used where your FM can't. On the walls or in the streets, anywhere you can't get a good charge.

The thing is, to me that isn't enough of a reason to pay for them and import them to armies that are not in the Caucusus. You can accomplish the same thing with Eastern Axemen (the AP secondary helps a lot) if you have to and they are much more widely available. You'll certainly take higher casualties because they are poorly armored, but those casualties are very easy to replace pretty much anywhere from Eastern Anatolia over to Baktria instead of only in the Caucusus. On walls and in streets I can see the advantage of the Medium Infantry, because they have better staying power due to more armor/morale. However, when used as flankers I would choose the Eastern Axemen because staying power does not matter as much and AP axes are a much more effective flanking weapon against phalanxes then a short sword. Hyrkanian Hillmen are an even better alternative due to their very high morale. They do have a small AOR, but they are widely available as mercs, so, as you said, when you need an assault unit you are far better served to hire some of them than to recruit and ship out the Georgian/Armenian Mediums.

I wish the Armenian/Georgian Medium Infantry were better, because I do like the idea of using them, but considering their relatively scarce availability in comparison to alternatives that perform some roles better than them and other roles worse (but still sufficiently to be used), they just don't make much sense to me from a campaign perspective. Which is really unfortunate, because in terms of historical accuracy I should be using them and they also have pretty sweet skins.

[gamegeek2]

Short swords as a whole are quite underpowered in EB - AtB intends to remedy this, and give them a decent edge against spear units.

[vartan]

WinsingtonIII, congrats on making Georgian and Armenian mediums sound like a complete waste of money and time. But really, good job. You succeeded. The thing is mate, it's not true. They don't actually suck as badly as you mentioned. Every unit has its use, and has a proper way of usage. I take Georgians and Armenians any day over eastern axemen. The swordsmen prove to be more useful in the long run.

[WinsingtonIII]

Oh I don't think they suck (that's reserved for Persian Hoplites), I just have always found other units that have pulled off what I would have done with them. Maybe not as well, but sufficiently enough for me to be satisfied with the result. I would use them in multiplayer/custom battle, and I do use them in campaign when I'm close enough to the Caucusus, I'm just not big on carting them over to attack Hektampylos when I have Hyrkanian Hillmen right there.

It may just be a matter of perception. I've always found the various Celtic short sword units to be rather decent, when they are clearly worse than Georgian or Armenian Medium Infantry. I think it may be because the Celtic short swords look like they are going to be terrible, and then they don't do half bad, so I'm like "oh look at that, that wasn't terrible at all, good for you." But the Medium Infantry look so cool, so I'm like "this is gonna be awesome," and then they do a pretty good job and I'm like "well that wasn't as awesome as I hoped." So I'm disappointed when I probably shouldn't be. I think it's the same phenomenon that we see when people complain that Hypastistai are underwhelming. It's not that they're bad units, they're just not as good as I was hoping. Does that make any sense?