Currently starting my first Selucid Campaign on H/H...

At start everyone except the Armenians allied with me... my starting leader died of natural causes in the first 3 turn (grrr why alwys happen to me??) and early on rebels poped up left and right... so was basically rebel hunting for a while...

Then I realize the obvious... Alliance aint worth a dime as Pontus Armenia and Egypt hit me all at once... I barely held off Pontus and Armenia with mercenary army (as they were hitting isolated and underdeveloped provinces) and build up a more reliable core army in Antioch to push against the Egyptian.

Somewhat to my luck, after sacking their first city then crushing the counterattack army, the Egyptians acturally agreed to became my protectrate if I give them that city back o_O!!!! obviously 1 city to keep my worest potential enemy off my back is good.

Then amazingly the Greeks hit me with a full stack o_O WTF, then I checked the faction and to even bigger surprise the Greeks are acturally the leading faction o_O, but thx to stupid AI seiging skill I acturally manage to held off the full stack with only 400 men. (the greek family member lead the charge... into 3 stack of hoplits in the city square... needless to say the rest didn't feel like fighting much after that..)

Now with my back secured I'm begining to move against Pontus, I got them down to 1 city now, if i can bring Asia minor under me quickly i should have little trouble in steam rolling those damn Armenians and Pathians (Amusingly Pathia have not attacked me yet.... though we are no longer allied as i broke off with them when they attacked Scythia)

Thoughts so far..... the AI's is retarded in seige assult.... i had one fight where the AI acturally did something smart... rushed my infantry as I tried to move my phalanx outside the walls with a huge number of eastern infantry and managed to overwhelm my phalanx... just when i thought the AI acturally did something I would do he then parked he's whole army outside my walls and let my towers and archers shoot them to hell -.-......

I still dont' get the hang of using scythed chariots.... they seem to run amok or die a lot easier than elephants while they also trample ur own guys easier (as they are faster) why is their defense so low that makes little sense when the rider appears to be fully armored...

Although Milita hoplite/Levy pike and greek archers aren't very spetacular, combined together they still make a extremely solid basic army.. getting archer in most city is a abosalute priority if ur going to survive the defensive phase (and to acturally have something to work with on offense... ur not going anywhere against horse archers without ur own archer however crappy they may be.