The Seleucid Empire

[derF]

My (hard) guide notes on the Seleucid Empire:

The Seleucids are in the unfortunate position of being surrounded by factions that for some reason despise you. Soon enough, within approximately 10 turns i was at war with the Armenians, Egyptians, Parthians and Greeks. Theyre attacks were totally unprovoked.

However, i was able to fend them off.

The Seleucids have a pretty strong economy and cheap troops to start off with, so my solution for survival was creating lots of troops to fend of the enemies on all sides of my borders. Howvwer at this point, i was not able to push forward and counter attack. For that, i would need a stronger economy.

So i started the slow process of developing my economy to support offensive armies and this eventually happened after 7 turns. Whats more, the generals that were preoccupied with defending were now military geniouses with 8 stars.

The Egyptians proved the toughest problem mainly because of their chariots and strong economy. Nonetheless i was able to drive south and capture Jerusalem because of my far superior battle tactics.

The Armenians at first proved a tough cookie because they had cataphracts, and i only had Militia Hoplites to deal with them. However, the Amrnians soon sought to peace because they realised they could not conquer me. Preoccupied in other fronts, i put the idea of crushing the Armenian infidels to the back of my mind.

Pontus, sneakily attacked me in Turkey, where i had no troops at the time. I had to quickly build a reactive army and drive them away. They were not easy to deal with.

The Greeks were the latest faction to bakc-stab me. Again, this happened in Turkey with my Turkish army already occupied in crushing Pontus, so i had to create a new army. I made it in time to relieve the city that the greeks were besieging and crushed them.

Now, the main problem is resupply. The economy is pretty strong at the moment, but the problems are retraining my over stretcched and exhausted armies so that they can continue to push as effectively as before. Economical hardship at the beginning of the campaign had caused he Seleucid ecomomy to become largely centralised.

As a result, i was soon having big casualties in battles because there was no supply to a demand of a new soldier type: The Archer.

The Seleucids are not able to create good archers in the game, so the best source is from Cretan Archer mercenaries in Turkey. These are very effective archers, but they lack in availablility.

Try not to over-push your armies and frontiers. The fact that you are surrounded by enemies means that you need to take a cautious and slow advance. Take a good close look at the enemy units you are up against and try to flex your tactics toward beating them as badly as possible. Keeping populations happy is not a big problem at the start. Howveer, i exterminated a few cities because of the extent of treachery that was happening. Soon, thanks to the high number of troops being recruited, the population of the cities will fall, and you will need to resort to slavery to find the troops to recruit for your army.

The ideal early battle winning tactic is to have about 10 units of levy pikemen, stretched nice and wide with 6 pikes thick, 2 general units to pack a good punch, 4 archers of any kind (because youre desperate), 2 sythed chariots, 1 greek cavilry and 1 elephant.

[DS_Legionary]

My game as the Selcucids, I tried a completely different tactic. I retreated back into Asia Minor, and let all my other provinces rebel or be captured. This kept me from being in a war on all fronts, to having a war with only Pontus on one front. This makes it much easier and Asia Minor, once built up a little, is extremely profitable. Then slowly make your way towards Armenia and Egypt simultaneously. Armenia is usually a pushover as they have few troops, and Egypt really wasn't what I was expecting either, even though they had time to build up. All the Chariots they sent against me were completely massacred by my units of Levy Pikemen with no losses most times, and if there were losses, it was very few. The archers weren't much of a problem either, as once the Chariots were gone my Cavalry could rein free making Egypt pretty much a pushover. Parthia is the faction I had the hardest time with. Those Horse Archers gave me hell, but I eventuall conquered Parthia, and after that I went on to Greece and Africa. By then noone could match my strength and I didn't have to fight battles, and just auto-resolved. It's basically just a race to see how fast you can beat the game by then.

[Craterus]

Nice tactic, I never abandon provinces though, I just fight on.

Alternatively, you could try and build an army from Sardis that could take Asia Minor. Make sure you get Rhodes, that wonder gets you lots of money.

[katank]

Really depends. I find it possible to use Sardis garrison to take Halicarnassus right away.

Then, you build from those two locations to slowly take Pergamum and Rhodes.

Plenty of phalanxes can kill Pontus.

Beauty of this is simultaneous war against Egypt, the main threat.

I've only kept defensive against Parthia but you could do after Susa right away if feeling really adventurous.

[Marquis of Roland]

Sequence of events in my early game:

1. Made alliances with all neighbors
2. 2 turns later Egypt attacks with full stacks(2-3) under Kiya
3. 1 turn later Parthians raid around Seleucia with small bands of cataphracts and eastern infantry.
4. next turn greece starts to bribe cities in Asia Minor. I bribe back.
5. Same turn Armenia sends full stack of hillmen and eastern infantry to siege Hatra.
6. next turn Pontus attacks Tarsus with full stack under 4 star general.
7. Same turn Parthia combines small armies to a half-stack of cataphracts, HA, and eastern infantry and siege Seleucia.
8. next turn greeks lands a half stack of hoplites near Antioch.

If you can just get past these couple of turns alright you're set to systematically wipe out all your neighbors, because by this time if you don't have at least three reliable field armies, you're dead. You could do with two but you will lose 2 or more cities.

Tried to rush the egys but was stopped in Jerusalem, too much rebellion and those damn egyptians send at least one full stack every other turn.

Small bands of egyptians coming out of bostra harass your rear to no end.

It wouldn't hurt to save up to bribe back things, if you don't have 1.2 I guess...

[pezhetairoi]

I hold with retreating into Asia Minor. It's naturally defensive, and you get the advantage of having plenty of units available within that small area, enough to make a full stack that you can concentrate on one objective. Good tactics.

[Tigranes]

I just started the S.E. I'm not finding them hard, really (except against Parthian missile cavalry). I took Jeruselem, Sidon, and another Egyptian town, while Parthia took Herat from me. I took that back, and reduced the armies of Parthia greatly.

Against the Egyptians, I have a very easy go of it, most battles never losing more than five percent of my army, with them losing almost all of theirs. I'm allied with Scythia and Pontus right now,though I may extend an offer towards Armenia.

My only really hard enemies, so far, are the Parthians. They overwhelm me with cataphracts, though they aren't much problem (how do cataphracts run faster than podromoia?). The real problem are their missile cavalry, which cut through my infantry like butter. Meh, but they'll be gone soon, anyway. Then, Africa will open up fully, me not having to worry much about my rear.