Arche Seleukia difficulty level?

[Dragannia]

Hey guys,

I've been playing EB on and off for a years now. My old rig couldn't really handle the increased memory usage but my new machine blitzes through EB. I've always loved the Seleukids on account of their merge of Persian and western military. I'm a fair bit along now, I've just taken Zadraka and Asaak back from the Parthians, conquered most of Anatolia and just took Sidon and Salamis from the Ptolemies.

I'm not exactly sure I'm playing optimally however. A lot of my conquests, particularly in the east, are done with mercenary armies - in fact my entire front against the Parthians essentially consists of mercenaries and bodyguard troops. Is it better to train up my own guys from the region? Also, I've been playing on Very Hard battles and Medium campaign settings (I read the recommended wrong), so I've been having a great deal of trouble when I play the battles myself. Is it better to reset and run on VH/M? I hear from some posters that VH for campaign is too much - the enemy attacks on multiple fronts much too aggressively and it's not as fun. Thoughts?

[Teucer]

If you play on VH campaign, be prepared to face the same mercenary armies you now use to such effect. The AI will get LOADS of extra cash and use it to buy up most or all of the merc pool. Also, I believe the eleutheroi will actually go on the offensive on VH. I personally prefer H or M if I'm doing a lot of roleplaying.

[Andy1984]

Great to see another Seleucid-lover. Your conquests seem logic and well-thought to me. I too try to expand against the Ptolemeans before really pulling off the offensive in the east. Taking Salamis, Sidon, Tarsos and Hierosolyma is vital in doing so. I guess you shouldn't worry about that part being suboptimal.

About the battles in the east. They're bloody and always will be. I favour parthian spearmen (second level regional barracks), pantodapoi phalangitai (second level factional barracks) and persian archers/eastern slingers (first or second tier regional barracks). You can add some native cavalry if you want to, but it doesn't seem vital to me. Numbers are what wins your game. Numbers and an endless supply of expendable soldiers. Therefore it is often a good idea to start building out health infrastructure so as to boost the demographic growth in all these minor towns. I personally dislike mercenaries, as they're expensive, impossible to retrain and somehow boring. But to each his own.

About the campaign settings: you're doing remarkably well against the Pahlava, given you've already reconquered Zadrakata and Asaak. In my own campaign I'm close to wiping out the Ptolemeans at a moment where the Pahlava are (strongly) in control of at least eight provinces of mine. Therefore if you're enjoying the game, why reset? It's not that you're going to run into a faction that's harder to beat than the Pahlava. Everyone has his own preferred difficulty-settings. I prefer VH/VH, and even then one can prevent wars with Pontos and Hayasdan by defending your bordering provinces. The AI won't attack you (not even on VH) if you have a sufficient garrisson.

[gamegeek2]

Disagree - I try to kill off the Parthians as quick as possible before they start pumping cataphracts with their extra money (on VH). It's possible to do this with a good combination of Pantodapoi Phalangitai, Archers, Slingers, and FMs. Mercenary Thureophoroi and Peltastai are also invaluable as troops with actual armour.

Holding off the Ptolemies is easy enough - taking out Pahlava is hard when their armies are full of cataphracts. Do regular raids against Nisa and Khiva to take them, even if for a short time. Destroy their unit-recruiting infrastructure - it gets you money to fund more troops and mines, and sets them back a significant amount.

[Dragannia]

I don't really know how to defend myself against cataphracts. They charge headfirst into a phalanx and then proceed to butcher it, or take so many casaulties it's a rather Phyrric victory for me.

I'm also somewhat of a newbie, so can someone explain to me what the difference between trade increase and increase in tradeable goods is? And what are the trade route scouts for? And how does public health bonuses affect population and such? Does law and order affect pop growth? Some of my cities are really stagnating (in terms of population growth) and I've exhausted all the +pop growth buildings but I have an inkling the the health bonuses and such also affect it?

Also, the reason I was considering on a restart is that I'm afraid later on it would become too easy for me. From what I've read, after Ptolemaoi and Pahlava there isn't much to stop me.

[J.R.M]

Hello and welcome. Yes, public health afects pop grouth (increase it), also remember that law bonuses nulifies corruption and increase order (as far as i remember). I believe there is actually no difference between "trade increase and increase in tradeable goods". Trade route scouts are the first step to begin a trade route and later a large trade route ( the last 2 gives you an increase in tradeable goods). Hope you have fun.

[Andy1984]

About cataphracts charging headlong into your pikemen: as soon as they charged into it, it often pays to break up your phalanx since your pantodapoi phalangitai have armor-piercing axes. Don't bother fielding any other pike-unit in the east (no klerouchoi and definitly no mercenary pezhetaroi). If you can, you should bring in some other unit as well, like parthian spearmen to support the phalanx that is attacked by the cataphracts. If no parthian spearmen are around, go for anything with spears (even standard pantodapoi), or your general's bodyguard. This way the cataphracts are fighting against both spearmen and armor-piercing units while you might be sufficiently numerous to 'distraught' them. It's normal and understandable if they take many casualties, but since they're an elite unit I would mostly just accept it. After all, your elite units should be dealing out many casualties as well.

If you happen to have slingers in your army, use them to take out some cataphracts when they're still far removed from your line.

[Dragannia]

Ach. It's past 253 BC and I'm trying to get the cataphract reforms. Is there minimum size of the army that has to lose? And is it possible to withdraw after losing a portion of your armies to minimise loss, or must it be a true defeat? And can the battle be automated?

[Andy1984]

I'm not sure about the automated battles. It's quite fun having your soldiers butchered, so I never auto_lossed my battles. But you'll have to retreat since your family member needs to survive the battle in order to gain the trait.

kind regards,

Andy

[Dragannia]

Ah okay. Still, is there a minimum size to the army that has to lose? Because if there isn't I could send a tiny army to be sacrificed.

[Ludens]

Yes, I think it was at least 1000 men on each side, with 10% of the enemy army being cavalry (the trait and script engines cannot tell the different types of cavalry, so it's assumed that a 10% cavalry army contains some). Your general has to lose a significant part of his bodyguard as well.

[Dragannia]

A THOUSAND wow. Pahlava rarely ever brings that many, especially since I've taken most of their cities now. What other nations are there that can muster such high numbers of cavalry and use cataphracts?

[Andy1984]

There are other factions that can give you the traits: the Sakae, Baktria and Hayasdan. Just for the record, there need not be cataphracts in the army you are fighting. Just 10% cavalry will do. Finding an army with considerably more than 1000 soldiers may be hard if you're not playing on huge unit settings. Other than that, make sure your army is stronger than that of your opponent. Hint: leave the mercenary pools to the AI. You won't get the trait if you lost a battle in which you weren't stronger than your opponent.

[Dragannia]

Ack. I've actually given up on that campaign. When I hit the 30k per turn mark I found the game slowed down and I REALLY wanted cataphracts (just not Seleukia without it!). I've begun another Arche Seleukia campaign wtih VH campaign setting and Medium battles, and Huge unit size. My god I'm getting raped every turn. It's about 20 turns in and I've lost most of my eastern provinces to Saka, Pahlava and the Eleutheroi. They're just so damn aggressive and their cavalry archers completely annhilate me.

[MerlinusCDXX]

give_trait "Caracter Name" ImpressedByCats, then wait 20 turns and you get Kataphraktoi and the TAB (Super Armored Thorakitai Royal Guard)

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Ack. I've actually given up on that campaign. When I hit the 30k per turn mark I found the game slowed down and I REALLY wanted cataphracts (just not Seleukia without it!). I've begun another Arche Seleukia campaign wtih VH campaign setting and Medium battles, and Huge unit size. My god I'm getting raped every turn. It's about 20 turns in and I've lost most of my eastern provinces to Saka, Pahlava and the Eleutheroi. They're just so damn aggressive and their cavalry archers completely annhilate me.

Well, that's actually very historical. Seleukia really did get 'raped' between 272 BCE and 222 BCE. Then Antiochus III the Great arrived, reformed his army, and conquered nearly all of the lost AS territory back again.

EB is meant to be historical, so an AS campaign is about going through a very tough time in the first few decades of the campaign while you concentrate on building up your economy and fighting a delaying action against the invaders, and then gloriously recovering all the lost provinces later. It's about losing part of a great empire, and then getting it back and more besides.

If you just want a quick win campaign with lots of blitzing and winning everything from start to finish, AS is not the best faction to play. Try the Ptolemies instead.

[Dragannia]

I'm actually enjoying the challenge. The ridiculously aggressive AI is keeping me on my toes, but I've managed to hold on to all the eastern provinces except Zadrakata and Asaak. Mercenaries really helped me, and I've won a couple of key battles against Pahlava and Saka. The AI seem really poor at sieges against high level walls, though. They keep mass charging the gateway. If I have 3 phalanxes (forming a box) at the gate, it's virtually guaranteed they'll never break past it.

[Dragannia]

I'm at around 240BC and I'm enjoying myself a great deal. The AI in battles sometimes, however, is really easy. I've destroyed 3 Pontic armies, each about triple my size with my army of Hetaroi and mercenary cavalry (3000 vs my barely 1000). Almost annhilated the Pahlava I'm still also trying to get the cataphract reforms - question, can you get them from Saka Rauka?

EDIT: Ha! Sab'yn attempted to take one of my newly conquered towns with a full stack army. Over 3000 light infantry, against my royal guard consisting of barely 500 troops, none of them at full strength. The closest was my Argyraspide phalanx, and I had a half strength Klerouchoi Phalangitai and a barely 30 strong Pezhetairoi. Supplementing them was a single squad of Thorakitai and a squad of Hypaspistai. I set the Argyraspide and the two non-phalanx units to defend one alley and the understrength mediums to defend the other towards my centre. Over three thousand Arabian infantry threw themselves at the two points. My Argyraspide and elite spearmen annihilated one stream and I immediately switched them to the other, where my medium phalanxes were holding surprisingly well, taking far less casaulties than my Argyraspide. I actually won by time out, but by then I was taking virtually no casaulties and would have eventually carried on to victory. It wasn't much of a battle, virtually no interaction from me, but it was epic. I love EB.