Questions about Seleucids

[Titus Livius]

I've decided to begin a Seleucid campaign and need some advice from all you eastern Greeks out there. It seems like right at the beginning of the campaign, everyone wants nothing more than to go to war with you, no matter if you've just made an alliance. The sprawling lands you start out with are incredibly difficult to defend against rebels, much less a bunch of hostile neighbors. How should I proceed?

[Azi Tohak]

Well, last time I played with them, I kept a nice diplomat out east to bribe the crap out of the Parthians. A little combined arms force at Hatra should be enough to deal with those lousy Armenians.

But Egypt...ahh Egypt...You will have to play well to beat them.

But also, check out the guides section of these wonderful forums. THAT is a great resources.

Azi

[Atreides]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=36850&page=1

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[Magraev]

They are actually harder after the 1.2 patch since bribing has become so much more expensive.

I reccomend targeting the egyptians first. Once you eliminate them you're in good shape, but until then you have enemies on all sides (Parthia, Armenia and Pontus especially). Try to make peace constantly, but keep large garrisons in most locations.

Buy cretan archers in asia minor, fight in the cities to maximize the benefit of your phalanx units, get some trade going and eliminate egypt before they steamroller you.

[Kraxis]

No, I usually rush to take Susa.
There are a number of reasons why this is better than any other target.
Firstly Susa is pretty much alone out there, when you take it the Parthians have to march a long way to get to you, so you won't get trade disrupted as much. Secondly you eliminate an early threat of horse archers, that is vital as you have neither archers or cavalry in any sort of effective way. Thirdly it is a rich city, and again its remoteness will help you a long way towards safety.

I usually also take Palmyrra early to get another buffer against the Egyptians, also it is nice to have it should they take Damascus. Halicarnassus is not a bad try, but bring lots of ranged troops as you will be facing Cretans, and they rip your Militia Hoplites to pieces. Consider it a bonus objective.
After that I usually take to the field against the Egyptians and try to beat them there (but leave enough at home to defend in a siege should my armies get crushed).

At that time the Armenians should be gunning for Hatra, should be no problem for you if you have rushed in some Militia Cavalry.

Pontus would likely also be attacking you, but you have this nice defendable mountainpass so again you should be able to keep a defence while you deal with the Egyptians.

Onece you have taken Sardis and Jerusalem it is time to deal with the others, preferably Pontus, who would most likely have expanded most (Ancyra if you have not taken it and Nicomedia). The Greeks might be trying to attack you but ignore them for the moment and deal with Pontus. After that take Pergamum from them and you will have no problem.

[HarunTaiwan]

Building forts in some of the mountain passes and manning them with peasants can slow don't the Pontics and probably the others as well.

[Productivity]

Try and encourage the northern nations (Armenia, Pontus + Parthia) to fight amongst each other. A few bribes can do it, and it will leave you to concentrate on the egyptians.

You need a decent spy network to do it though, basicalyl you have to make sure one nation never becomes strong enough to dominate those three, or weak enough to get eliminated.

[Romeus Petrus]

Last I played SE was on 1.1, and it was the most fun I had with the game so far. I went for Egypt from the start. They will be your toughest opponent through out the game so it is always good to get rid of them ASAP. Once you're done with the Egyptians, you should consolidate your position in asia minor, you're unstoppable.

[SpencerH]

The Selucids were my first big campaign (and the only one I bothered to finish I think). Since I play defensively, I initially only took the rebel-held cities and allied with pontus. Once everyone else was at war with me, I focussed on taking the 3 middle-eastern Egyptian cities with considerable merc help. Once the Egyptians accepted peace, I focussed on the northern empires and eliminated them. After that the game was essentially over.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I recommend training a large army (with chariots among other things) to put in your easternmost province to scare the parthians not to attack you early. Your strengths as seleucids lie in your extremely good income so make sure to use bribery and mercs if necessary. As soon as you've started getting levy pikemen you'll stand a chance against Egypt. Make sure you kill them quickly, and leave some smaller forces to guard the area north of Antioch (and the Armenians can be dangerous too). Hire many cretan archers, try to conquer Halicarnassus as fast as possible, and block strategic river crossings in that area. Holding as much as possible of your starting provinces is really useful, but if necessary you might have to consider giving up some of them. My advice in that case is to give up the easternmost provinces. When Egypt is down, you only need a half stack of troops in the nile area to guard the south, then it's time to concentrate on the north. Once you get your first phalanx pikemen, 5-10 units of greek cavalry and 1 or 2 elephant units, things will start getting quite simpler. Armenia and parthia is not a problem if you have plenty of cretan archers (unless you let Armenia live long enough to get cathapracts or cathapract archers or let Parthia live long enough to get plenty of cathapracts). After Asia minor and the Nile area have been secured I doubt there's much left to worry about. I'd go conquer the last Parthian settlement to the north and then the scythians, while attacking Greece (perhaps Athen or Sparta as first targets) to the south. With a good foothold in the Greece-Macedon area the road to Rome is open... Especially if you keep advancing through the technology tree so that you get those silver shield pikemen and legionaries as well as the better elephants (war elephants are usually as good as armored eles) and the cathapracts and companions. Just look at what armies you can create then: 8 silver shield pikemen, 2 silver shield legionaries, 4 cretan archers, 4 cathapracts, 2 companions...

[Count Belisarius]

The Seleucids were by far my favorite faction to play before I made the switch to R:TR. They are fantastically rich, their force mix is the best in the game, and they are surrounded by enemies. It's GREAT, but not so hard as to be impossible! In R:TR, they are a much more difficult faction to play (less money, weaker starting army, and a MUCH stronger Parthian enemy).

Anyhow, I recommend consolidating your starting army and immediately going onto the offensive against Egypt. In R:TW, the sooner you get rid of them, the better, and they will ALWAYS attack you. Always. Take the fight to them, and don't stop until they have been exterminated. If you don't take Egypt down first, they will attack you with wave upon wave of HUGE armies. The Egyptian people multiply like locusts, and you will get swamped if you give them enough time.

Punching out the Egyptians will take a while, so you should make nicey-nicey with your other neighbors in the meantime. Or bribe them, whichever. Just make sure that you build up your garrisons in Seleucia, Antioch (you can use this garrison to defend the capital against Pontus, defend Hatra if the Armenians get frisky, reinforce your offensive into Egypt, or if things are going well snap up a rebel province or two), and Asia Minor while you are on the offensive in Palestine. Be sure to handle Pontus carefully because your Asia Minor province is out there hanging in the wind all by itself with no infrastructure to build an army.

Once you have crushed Egypt (don't forget to take Cyprus), your southern and western flanks should be secure. The desert will defend you to some extent. Even if it doesn't, the Numidians usually aren't strong enough to make TOO much trouble, and the Carthaginians inevitably are busy with Rome and/or the Spanish and/or the Greeks and/or the Numidians.

Garrisoning Egypt is a pain, the cities revolt constantly, and sometimes I would just let them revolt and keep a major army or two in the area to make sure Numidia and Carthage kept their hands to themselves.

Now, you can take any remaining rebel provinces in the area and pick off your northern neighbors one at a time. I usually would go after Pontus first, mainly because they seem to be the most credible threat. The Armenians and Parthians are just too poor to field more than one or two major armies. Just make sure to bring plenty of archers and light cavalry to deal with annoying horse archers.

Next, you can go whatever direction you want. I usually would land in Rhodes just to get the Wonder, which set off a war with the Greeks. To that end, I would have already taken Crete, using it as a springboard into southern Greece. Or, you could go across the Bosporus to Byzantium. I would recommend against going north. The mountain passes into Scythian territory are very defensible for you, and I have almost never had trouble with the Scythians unless I was instigating it. Plus, there's NOTHING up there that you need. Lots of empty space and wasted time for an infantry-based army.

Alternatively, you could go across the desert to Carthage. It's an attractive option, but you run the risk of getting all the way to Carthage . . . only to find out that the city has fallen to the Romans. And Rome is just too far away from your borders at this point to make war with them practicable.

On a tactical level, I almost never build the higher-end Seleucid infantry. They look cool, and they're effective as hell, but the difficulty in retraining them slows down your operational tempo, which is unacceptable to me. I do the bulk of my fighting with Levy Pikemen or (maybe) Phalanx Pikemen, while having my "fun" with cataphracts and elephants.

Good luck!

[Rodion Romanovich]

On a tactical level, I almost never build the higher-end Seleucid infantry. They look cool, and they're effective as hell, but the difficulty in retraining them slows down your operational tempo, which is unacceptable to me. I do the bulk of my fighting with Levy Pikemen or (maybe) Phalanx Pikemen, while having my "fun" with cataphracts and elephants.

I agree to that, to some extent. But usually if you build those high-end units they don't take many losses either so there's not much replacing needed to be done. When going into barbarian territory it's especially useful to bring older units, but when going for greece and rome, the cities there already have buildings that allow instant retraining. I kept some levy pikemen for my war with Scythia and later Dacia, Germania and Thrace even when most of my southern armies were silver shield pikemen and phalanx pikemen. I must say the phalanx pikemen are really unnecessary to replace with silver shields, because phalanx pikemen have a pretty good morale already. Still, I can't resist it just in order to get some variation and the the pleasure of seeing those guys in action...

[Titus Livius]

Thanks for all the great tips. You guys rock.

[Divinus Arma]

Killer faction. Probably one of the most fun to play because of all the uberpowerful units: Cataphracts, silver shields, chariots AND elephants?! Talk about power! The best part is how hard the game actually is with these guys.

I guess they also have roman type legions, but I never played long enough to get them. I usually got fed up with egypt kicking my butt and having enemies from every direction! That said, I'll probably go back to playing them now that I read some of the comments above.

Has anyone actually seen the roman type legions used by seleucia?

[Kraxis]

Sure, they are just dark haired legionary cohorts. The same troops. Couple them with the Silver Shields and you have an infantry line that is near unbeatable by even the strongest Roman army.

[tibilicus]

Silver sheild legionairs are great for pluging those gaps that your pikemen leave

[SpencerH]

Silver sheild legionairs are great for pluging those gaps that your pikemen leave

And for defending walls

[RollingWave]

Focus ur priorities, don't try to go on the offensive against everyone at once.

here's a hint, the AI's are retarded at seige assults, particularly AI eastern factions. just stick 6 units of milita hoplits and u'll never lose a city unless they field a whole damn army of cats.

Attack first where you have both the resource and being worth while, that ususally means getting Egypt first. the Pathians will bankrupt themself if they don't sack ur city soon and so will the Armenian to a lesser degree, Pontus and Egypt will be ur real problem

[Kraxis]

Focus ur priorities, don't try to go on the offensive against everyone at once.

here's a hint, the AI's are retarded at seige assults, particularly AI eastern factions. just stick 6 units of milita hoplits and u'll never lose a city unless they field a whole damn army of cats.

Attack first where you have both the resource and being worth while, that ususally means getting Egypt first. the Pathians will bankrupt themself if they don't sack ur city soon and so will the Armenian to a lesser degree, Pontus and Egypt will be ur real problem

I don't agree, the Parthians can become a nasty opponent if you leave them be. What I have experienced with them if I let them run the show in the east (me being defensive) then they will soak up Phraaspa (sp?) and Dumatha (though hardly a great city) and will possibly even give the Armenians a good kicking, making Seleucia a much less needed city. Susa itself can be a major cashcow to them. And I find that the Parthians tend to try to starve garrisons more than others, and beating them with militia hoplites in the field is nigh impossible. So you need the mercs, but not oddly do the Parthians often soak up all the mercs, including those you need.
Meanwhile the Egyptians are much more inclined to take the city shortly after the siege is begun, so often you can even send forces to help. Much easier to kick them out in a siegebattle or in a sally.

I stiall say: Take Susa and Palmyrra early, then close off Pontus (the nice little pass), then take Salamis and Halicarnassus (if possible). After that take the war to Egypt.