I know what you mean. The scythed chariots are awsome. I once defeated a 2450 army with 5 units of Scythed chariots alone! The fact that they panic infantry is excellent. Did I mention this was against spearmen (hillmen and eastern infantry)? True, I only killed half of them and got the rest to rout. But still, this is a great weapon. Plus, you can retrain them in virtually any city (since blacksmiths are available early to towns). I've even noticed that when enemy heavy cavalry flank it, almost none of the units die. The downside of using elephants is the huge upkeep and the fact that you can only retrain them in super advanced provinces that have elephants (meaning that once you start invading the northern, western and roman provinces, you will be stuck with small units as you cannot retrain them, can you?). Also, these are EXCELLENT for cutting down the post-marian romans because they don't have any spearmen (I think auxilia count as light infantry). I'm currently playing the Seleucid campaign and this is the first campaign that I have greatly enjoyed. I've nearly defeated Egypt (took alexandria, memphis and that southern province), nearly taken Pontus (beseiging capital, already defeated their huge army), and about to start attacking parthia. The only weakness that the Scythed chariots have is ranged weaponry. However, this won't be so much of a problem since you can just charge archers and peltasts. The only remaining weakness of the Seleucid empire is when they fight against chariot archers. This is all thanks to the Scythed Chariots.