Quote Originally Posted by BerkeleyBoi
If you don't want to be cheap with forts and diplomat blocking, you can use horse-archers. The city north of your capital can recruit scythian horse archers after one or two levels of natives MIC. Four of those with a general or two is highly mobile and can wipe out Seleucid forces twice their size. Your infantry really stinks though, so assaulting stone walls is a big pain.
Yes the HA ruse is a bit less unpalatable. You can even post one at choke points and run away all battle for boring painless defense. Level 1 RMIC in Kotais or Mtskhthingy gets you juicy HA's and Skyth foot archers to boot.

My preference is to use the basic factional palate, so I'm fighting with a skinny army of 3 slings, 3 or 4 Armenian spears and as many generals as I can muster. Ah the joy of a catapharct charge on Huge.

I started as the Hai last night, and a decade or two in, and I've built up the FMIC to 4. Cata-HA's and Armenian non-imitation legionairres, yee haw! AS didn't attack until I had the 3 cities up, and they have probed with 3 and 5 unit stacks giving me cheap experience rather than worries. Now we're at peace again.

I have let myself have 4 of the Armenian sword inf and (suitably supported) they have chewed a hole through one or two stacks of Pontians: I find them very acceptable assault infantry but I'm keen to get Ankara for the nudist possibilities. I haven't the mnai to build a cataHA yet, so my generals all get silver chevrons for their 17th birthdays.