Quote Originally Posted by bubbanator
Nice post.

About the comment about taking walls, try to avoid it. With the Selucids, you can make some sap points, send in your best phalanxes stacked on top of each other with archers behind them to pepper the enemy. After you have a foothold in the city, take your cats and just run over anyone in the streets. Try to avoid using seige towers unless you are sending a few groups of Royal Pikemen up (they have a very good secondary attack) otherwise, your phalanxes will get slaughtered by the Romans on the walls.
Thanks for the comments! That's right. There is no point in storming the walls with a phalanx faction - by the way, there were no royal pikes in the SE unit roster?! . No way you can slug it out with a legion.

Just finished the campaign as the seleucids; here are the latest news:
- I left Macedon alone and, like I said, tried to do some alliances with Rome's neighbours. Ended up allied with Macedon, Carthage, Gauls and Germans, gave them all my excess money (about 100k to each). At home, bribed some rebels that kept popping up. My bribing schemes in Armenia, Pontus an Numidia gave me a LOT of FM, so I ended up with 30+ FMs and babies, weddings and new suitors for the girls every single turn. Got a few decent general, which I used to replace my dead leaders and generals.
- Sued for peace with Parthia. They were confined to the Northeasternmost region in the map, and no menace to my power. On the sea, I had several huge fleets on the east, and began to send them to the central med,where the fate of the known world was to be decided.
- Rome finally declared war on me. The Scipii sent an army from Thapsus into my domains, but i soon bribed them and conquered Thapsus and Carthage. I did not attack in any of the instances. In Thapsus there was a huge battle, which my FL won heroically almost exclusively by a massive right flank maneuver by cavalry. The desperate AI even charged my phalanxes a few times, head on. In Carthage the same thing happened while i was laying siege, but this time it was a reinforced sally. They came from behind me with cavalry, but i got there on time and routed them with a trident attack (1 cav in front and one on each side). So, I managed to avoid the dreaded sieges. My cities were a bit underdeveloped, because I exterminated to speed things up. Revolt control was a real issue in the west. Peasants are no real solution, because you really need to pump out new units in the new cities, usually more developed (Carthage was my first city with silver shield leggionaires recruiting ability). Numidia would not make peace, so I invaded them to avoid getting those pesky petty invasions and sieges. One does get bored of bribing.
- On the other side of the med, things went well. After capturing Athens, the drive into Brutii territory was no walk in the park. The AI armies had a lot of skirmishers and missile infantry (up to 75% of at least 4 of the 5 stacks I faced in Appolonia and the other Adriatic city, so one has to move forward to avoid just standing there getting shot to hell (archer auxilia have a lot of ammo and get their kicks off targeting silver shield pikes! I lost half of my very first unit because of that, and there was nothing I could do before my flanking greek cavalry was in place). I also use 4-5 archer units, so their leggionaires are cut to half before even getting near; my learning of mil cav use also served me well, as one can use them first to skirmish and to charge afterwards :)
- Had 3 armies in greece. Two were supposed to conquer the adriatic and one to hop into Italy. They did. The first city I took from the Brutii only had wooden walls,so did my regular 3 rams assault. After the brunt of the Brutii had bitten the dust in the western Balkans, I got jammed with low public order and had to leave one army there. Another army was being built in the pelloponesus and Athens, rallied in thermon to help in the Italy invasion. I can't stress the importance of slaughtering everyone at this stage. Other than that, and you cannot keep going at all. Even doing that, i found myself too worried about low order to push forward, esp in the big ex-roman cities.
- In the east, some uneventful battles in the pontic/armenian campaign gave me complete control of that side of the black sea. Up north, bribed a scithyan city, just for kicks, and somehow managed to control it after a second bribe, because by then i had built some pikemen to calm the populace :)
- By now, I had cataphracts available, so I built a new army with a fresh leader and shipped it all the way to italy. The hop into sicily was very simple. I just approached and besieged, and then I would be attacked by a relieving force. Of course, I had to do some mop-up inside the walls, but the story ended with rebels in Lilibaeum.
- The siege of Rome was a very fun and eventful battle. With some 1000 men, I faced one full stack of SPQR forces and an attacking small Jullii cavalry force. The Julii were easy, but those SPQR archers and skirmishers took their toll. I ended up with some 5 or 6 flank cavalry charges by 2 Cataphracts and 3 militia/greek cavalry, as my last resource after my own archers and skirmishers had run out of ammo. My infantry lines were somewhat disorganized after the brunt of the roman infantry and cavalry attacked (that's where all the ammo went...). They just kept going until there were only 5-10 men left in a cohort! o_O Pulled myself together, got the skirmishers into the sap points, sent the remaining cavalry directly to the city center, destroying the remains of some 10 roman units, and then successfully held the plaza with the cav against some stray cavalry. Rome was MINE! Mwaahahah! Note: do not attack sallying armies until they are out the towers' range. Even if you are outnumbered,as I was, it's easier to take them out with a solid line, ranged infantry (as many as possible) and strong glorious death-defying scary flank and rear cavalry charges.
- By now, this was getting boring. To wrap things up, i'll just tell you about my final battle, against the Jullii. AGAIN, while I was sieging Arretium, I was attacked by a ridiculous relieving force. I guess the AI intended to make to full-stack army in the city count. I guess you all noticed this, but it really is incredibly strange how the AI spams the armies with light auxiliae and archer auxiliae. So, this time I got a VERY nice spot between two woods. Streched my silver shield and phalanx pikemen from one to other. Hid my 2 silver chevroned 2 mil cav in the woods on the right, 3 Greek cav in the left woods. 3 units of peltasts in front of the lines, 2 cretan archer behind, together with the general and 2 onagers. Trashed the arrow-fodder relieving force (auxilia and light auxilia) with missiles and an all out charge from my left flank cavalry (AH! No one expects the Greek cavalry. Our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and Fear! LOL) THEN the main force attacked through the right -hand woods. Again, most of my losses were archer-related, because somehow thoses guys can jus park in the woods and shoot through all the branches and leaves (ridiculous, really). Anyway, I used my mil cav hidden there to ambush the 4 or 5 early legionary cohorts (they were early in the attack ;) When they got to the open space, they were all in a bundle on top of each other, so I opened missile fire again. I could see that more or less all the onager boulders would smash right into the middle of the *ahem* formation, and they would just stand there. Ordered the phalnxes forward a little, to lock them. My right consisted now in a sucessful cav charge that instantly disrupted those annoying archer. Suddenly, all those leggionaires (cut down to some 30 men each) turn left, facing that part of the battle, so i just charged my 3 greeks cav and depleted skirmishers into them from behind, instarouting them with barely any losses when they turned, THEN got hit again from behind by my glorious mil cav.
-My overall conclusion: i used to my best abilities some tactics from the ancient greeks and macedonians that have been discussed in the relevant threads. Kept an intact reinforced wall of spears as long as i could. I always had one unit in reserve to use in tight situations. Hired a lot of mercs to make up for unbalances and to adapt to the region i was invading. I used skirmishers in front of the hoplites, to help softening the enemy, retreating to a more or less safe side position to form a kind of \____/ (they would be the \ / and the phalanxes the _ _ ) and charging the enemy from behind when they make contact with the spears. Cav is all important. The hammer to solve most battles with. Archers are essential for extra range. Elephants are great against Roman legions and basically any heavy infantry, provided you use more than one unit so that they will divide enemy arrow fire. Chariots... good for cleaning up, but I'm still NOT convinced of its worth. Too small units, too quick to rout, and not as effective as, say, 2 units of greek or mil cav, for that matter. Reminds me of Egyptian chariots in Civ3 - while being OK as early cav unit, they are just not effective enough to make a difference against good defence. Running amok makes them a plain liability in decisive battles. Cataphracts are simply fabulous, the tanks of ancient times, great to explore those flanks and cracks in the enemy lines. Unfortunately, I did not get around to use my silver shield leggionaires or companion cavalry in campaign. Tried them in a custom battle and they seemed at least as good as roman legionnaires and heavy cavalry
This was by far my favourite campaign yet. Thanks for your comments