That's odd...all the friends i talk to who have EB have concurred with my situation-grey death all around, all the time. It's weird to hear how so many people have it the other way around (but also pleasing, because it gives me hope for playing an eastern faction). So far, what has been said here is true for my previous games; Baktria/Pahlava chunks away at AS, then get annihlated by the counter attack. This time, there was no counter attack, if maybe a tiny one. Based on what you are all saying, I believe it was Pontus who struck the death blow by taking Antioch (out of nowhere....Pontus usually can barely hold its own in Anatolia, let alone go on the offensive), and from there everyone else just pounced. But mesopotamia wasn't taken until the last five years or so, and the Seleukids have been dying out for probably over thirty now. So i really think it depends mostly on Antioch, and if Mesopotamia is taken, they have no hope of recovery (no more elite units). I just thought it was significant that for once i wasn't experiencing neither grey nor yellow death.