The Seleucid Empire

[Dromikaites]

It is true the Seleucids have one of the most interesting choice of troops. But elephants, chariots, cataphracts, silver shield pikemen and silver shield legions are not really needed to win an imperial campaign, at least not on M/M. We might want to use these crack troops just for the fun of seeing them in action (being on the giving end of a chariot charge makes me feel good :-))

The Seleucids already have 3 very powerful "weapons" early in the game, before getting access to these super-units:

1. Money
The Seleucids make so much money than they can probably win the campaign without having to fight a single battle. For instance, Halicarnassus can be conquered by bribing the large rebel army outside its walls, which results in keeping the hoplite militia, then bribing the city garrison and moving the newly acquiered hoplites in the city, to prevent revolts. Sidon and Jerusalem fall in a similar way - bribe the rather large Egyptian armies in the area (get one family member in the process) and then bribe the garrisons and move some of our troops in. As a Romanian saying goes, "a golden borer makes holes in any city wall". The same with Pergamum, with the added benefit of keeping the hoplite militia and the family member. I think the ideal Seleucid invasion army is made of a general travelling together with a spy (for avoiding ambushes), an assasin (for added protection) and a diplomat. The diplomat bribes the garrison and the general occupies it with the mercenaries recruited on the spot. I'm currently sending such an army from Antiochia, to invade the British isles. I'll let you know if this really works. If it does, the Senate is in for a big surprise!

2. Temples of Hephestus
They improve the weapons and armor. Combining it with the blacksmit family of buildings results in having troops with extremly good stats very early in the game.

3. Militia cavalry and peltasts
Well, this is like playing a Numidian campaign, but with stronger units (due to the combination temple of Hephestus + blacksmith/armourer/foundry and slightly better stats of the militia cavalry).

The Numidians don't have the money to afford weapon&armour enhancing buildings early on and their starting cities grow too slow. The Seleucids don't have these problems. They control the Hanging Gardens, which means their farms produce lots of food, which helps population grow. They can further boost the population growth by enslaving. Asia Minor is full of cities close to each other, presenting the conqueror/slave trader with plenty of opportunities early on. Since they have the money needed to bribe other factions' family members, Seleucids can have a governor in each of their cities. This means slave convoys will travel to the remotest corner of the empire. And a horde of militia cavalry, crushing one enemy army after another can turn captains into generals as quickly as this happens in the Numidian games (where roughly 20% of the family members I have are brave captains who rose through the ranks).

[AntiochusIII]

Please note that bribing is no longer a logical option thanks to the sky high (too high ) bribing cost of Rome 1.2

Nonetheless, your money can be used well on mad building rush and mercenary rush.

Seleucids have access, or soon-to-have-access to the mercenary pools of Syria, Aegean, Thrace, Galatia, Armenia, Persia, Arabia, Cilicia, Egypt...

That means...

Seleucid early game possible access to mercenary units:
-tons of east infantry; Armenian, Syrian, Persian; meat shield, populater (very useful in Asia Minor 500 pop "cities" if you're ready to pay for it).
-barb inf; Galatia; a slightly better counterparts of east inf, with the same purpose - note that Galatian barb inf provides a good unit as it comes with 2 exp
-horse archers/camel archers; Armenian, Syrian, and Arabian; all for the Seleucid rain of death...on Ramses' chariots - note that a bug must be fixed if there will be horse archers in Armenia.
-arab cavalry; Syrian, Arabian; nice light cavalry.
-sarmatian cavalry; Armenian; superb heavy cavalry early game
-barbarian cavalry; Galatian; superb light cavalry - useful to add to the Greek-based merc army in the west.
-peltasts; Thracian, Aegean-ian, Syrian; multi-purpose skirmishers..flank guard, first line, reserve, etc.
-hoplite; Aegean, Thracian; you know what to do with the core of your line...
-cretan archers; Aegean; the finest archer unit available for Greeks and Easterners...
-thracian mercs; Thrace; deadly flanker - perfect for one-two hoplite-thracian
-bastarnae; Thrace; they're just the thracian elite...battles can be won by them.
-elephant mercs; Syria; rare, deadly, cool, superb, war-winning tanks of the ancient world.
-cilician pirates; Cilicia; with that horde formation, they are of little use... nice stats skirmisher though.
-libyan inf; Egypt, Syria?; light, swift, nice skirmishers. No peltasts' standing power but more agile and at least as deadly.
-illyrian; Thrace?; may be they're there or I'm confused, anyway, beefed up peltasts ready for service.
-rhodian slinger; Aegean; another fine ranged unit - they are better against chariot than cretans.

Choose some of them and notice that an all-merc army can be balanced to the finest.

Pool provincial cities:
Syria - Antioch, Hatra, Seleucia, Damascus, Sidon, Jerusalem
Egypt - Alexandria, Memphis, Thebes
Arabia - Palmyra, Bostra, Petra, Dumatha?
Persia - Susa, Arsakia, Phraaspa?
Galatia - Ancyra
Cilicia - Tarsus, Salamis
Aegean - Sardis, Halicarnassus, Rhodes, Pergamum, Kydonia
Thrace - Nicomedia, Byzantium, Tylis, and another Thracian city on the border of Scythia
Armenia - Artaxarta, Sinope, Mazaka, Kotais

The steppes aren't far away either, just land on Chersonesus (Bosporus) and take it if the Scythian didn't. The various Greek pools on the Balkans are also pretty near, so as the Libyan pool.

So use your money on mercs!

[RollingWave]

My analysis on Selucid's enemies (really by the time you kill them you are invincible the rest aren't a problem at all)

Pathia: an overrated enemy, unless they kill the Armenian or make serious advance against you, they will be so dirt poor after a few turns they'll never be able to mount anything serious against you as long as you keep a realatively strong garrison in Selucia.

Armenia: they are richer than the Pathian so they will come after you, Hatra will face quiet a fight, but on the bright side, as long as you mass milita hoplits they'll have a very hard time winning in a seige unless they manage to obtain their lvl 3/4 infantreis, even worse if u manage to get a stone wall up.

Greeks: they are generally not a big threat, however they are also rich bastards so you'll be surprised what they can pop up with someimes (they can hire tons of merc and bang on you too.) on the bright side their lands are VERY worth taking. which includes the magical statue of Rhodes.

Egypt: your number 1 problem. they are rich, they are powerful, they have matching troops to ur own. and they will come after you ASAP. you will need to deal with them fast, it may be a good idea to seek diplomatic solutions such as protectrate to seek a fast end though.

Pontus: in many sense they may be a bigger threat then Egypt, they are in the best position to take Asia minor, and they directly threatening two of ur least developed but potentially richest cities (Sardis and Tarsus) the fast high moral javlin calvaries are also a major threat to ur crap armored phalanx and inferior javlin cav. They are also harder to take the fight to unlike Egypt.

[Aimar78]

I think the biggest problem in the early game is egypt, they are the only faction rich enough to keep sending a steady stream of armies, the other eastern factions can be dealt with rather easily.

Funny thing happened in my current seleucid game, in the first couple of turns i managed to get egypt to give Jeruselam to me in exchange for a map and some regular tribute, needless to say this weakened them considerably and have been easy to deal with, i took sidon as soon as they declared war and now they have to march all the way across the nile to get to me. :)

[iostream]

I didn't think so, but it is possible to take the city with the mausoleum wonder from the rebels on turn one with only your general and 2 units of milia hoplites against multiple higher quality enemy hoplites, cretan archers, rhodian slingers, and skirmishers.



When you seige the city on turn one, the rebels will sally forth immediately to crush your pathetic force. They almost certainly would defeat you in an open field, but in this case because they are sallying from a city you have the advantage - if you move fast.
When battle begins, immediately rush all your troops up to the gate, leaving a little space between the gate and your units to allow the enemy to come out one unit at a time. One unit of enemy skirmishers should be in the process of getting out of the gate when your general arrives at a gallop, so immediately rush and route it with your bodyguards before it can form up. Then set one unit of hoplites directly facing the gate, and the other on it's flank but turned inwards towards to gate to form half a cup. That way any unit coming out from the gate will have to face one solid line of spears in front and another on its flank. Place your general to the other side of the cup thus completing the encirclement of the gate. Now the fun part begins - the enemy will stream its units out one after the other, which you can then engage with your hoplites and a little while later charge into the back with your general to route them. Rinse and repeat, and the city is yours!

However, if you are tardy in the begining and allow 2 or more enemy units to form outside the gate, defeat is almost certain as your troops are of lower quality and greatly outnumbered.

[Catullus]

Right - finished it on H/H and truly knackered in work today!

The Cyprus story is a fine tale of the AI being stupid (or possibly being a very brave and smart gambler)

Act 1 Western Asia secured with big army in Sardis to counter invasions. Slogging up through Pontus. Containing Armenia and Parthia. Loads of trade; loads of dosh.

Meanwhile real fun is going on in Egypt - Alexandria taken and spending ages manoeuvering against their field army - everyone in and out of armed camps etc.

To pile the pressure on, I go for Cyprus. Spy first followed by good sized expeditionary force of mixed inf and peltasts. Somehow spy misses (or AI lands by ship?) a vast army of cav which slams into my beachhead and basically throws it back into the sea...not happy and too many troops committed in northern battles to get another invasion force together any time soon.

Act 2 Siege at Memphis. Egyptian counter attack. Win v cool defensive battle in woods and Memphis falls, shortly followed by Thebes*.

Which just leaves Cyprus to finish off the Egyptians and win. I pretty much have control of the eastern Med by now and the army on Cyprus (as reported by the Spy) has apparently thinned out - presumably because the Egyptians are now seriously short of readies and the computer is cutting back (is this right? does the computer start cutting units if the moolah runs out? Or does it run up overdrafts?).

However, I'm still heavily committed to the North, especially after a very bloody and close (and lucky) win to finish off Pontus, so another invasion is several turns off while I build up or concentrate enough troops. Not least getting a decent general back there for a triumphant last victory (and not one of the beardless princelings hanging around Antioch and the "home counties").

In the meantime, just for the hell of it since I've got a fleet hanging about, I blockade Salamis port.

At the opening of the next turn an Egyptian bireme has turned up off Salamis, and I duly send part of the blockading fleet around to wallop it. On arrival, however, it appears the whole remaining Salamis army is loaded on this one crappy bireme which is duly sent to the bottom in a 3 ship skirmish. End of game...


Now, I would read this in one of 2 ways: either the AI is very, very stupid to concentrate all its remaining forces on one ship with a fleet nearby, OR it has depths of cunning and boldness which are quite scary....

Why, you ask? Because it may have taken the pretty complex strategic decision that Salamis was now indefensible and the only way to stay in the game was to load the remaining army onto a ship and try to grab a new base. A desperate gamble, certainly, but one that you can imagine a human opponent trying as a last throw of the dice. I would have expected the AI to sit there stupidly and wait for the inevitable.

Any other instances of alarming cleverness by the AI? - or did it just do something random and stupid?




*Taking Thebes I finally found a use for those bloody scythed chariots - when attacking a city without walls, stick the nasty dangerous buggers round the opposite side of the city and have them launch an opening strike as you advance the main force from the front. The chariots get miles into the rear of the enemy in the centre of town before they (spectacularly) lose the plot. Within a few seconds most are profoundly dead, taking dozens of enemies with them. If any of the loonies do survive they seem to rout back the way they came - ie away from your own army thereby avoiding the usual "blue on blue" carnage when you use the damned things.

Better tip: don't build them in the first place....

[Catullus]

ok got the lot on h/h - parthians back behind caspian; armenia and pontus dead; greeks gone and i picked up rhodes in the wreckage;150k in the bank, ss pikemen queing up to do africa and could probably bash anyone now - any suggestions on who to play next ??