Quote Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato View Post
The problem with exterminating is that it will take longer to replace the Seleucid governor's palace than it would normally do. This causes a culture penalty for you (lowering public order) that won't go away until the town expands in size and you replace the Seleucid building with your own palace. So I generally Occupy in Towns, Enslave in Large Towns, and Exterminate in Minor Cities and above.
Fair enough, but apart from Asaak everything in the immediate surrounding area has very low population. All the Seleukid ones do. So you exterminate, garrison with a single unit of archers (so you can get your main army and family member back out in the field ASAP) and move on to the next. The city has low taxes so it's gonna reach 2,000 population quickly anyway.

This is just the way I did it and had the most success. It may be doable if you simply occupy the cities, turn them in to alliance governments, recruit a puppet governor and move on. That may even be more realistic. Afterall, the Seleukid empire was basically just lots of different states subservient to the Seleukid king who had previously been subservient to the Persian great king. You could just roleplay that now they're subservient to you. Make them allies and move on.