A Seleucid Guide

[Grouchio]

Huzzah! Hizzah!

[Hanti]

About opening moves.

Playing Seleucids I would suggest fighting Ptolemy IV's army first. It can give you heroic victory, but mostly it will destroy their main battle units. Egyptians has lower income than Seleucids, so they cannot replenish their armies so soon.

I did it on M/M and after 6-8 battles with their family members (two pharaohs killed) I took 4 cities (Tanis, Memphis and two Sinai ones). All newer Egyptian armies are weaker than the first ones. I did recruit my army in Antioch - it's not so far away if you build roads on the coast.

No other wars were started - probably it's standard situation. No need to invest in eastern part of country - other than shrines (1k each) and slingers garrisons (150-180 upkeep cost). I will not suggest "Abandon East" strategy, but "Not invest in East" - besides happiness buildings.

I invested heavily in "tax" buildings in two richest cities - these brings me about 20k income a turn - even with many soldiers recruited.

If you can cripple Egypt during initial campaign (taking Sinai and Delta cities) then Seleucids would have much more chances to survive.

There is cheap way of recruiting your army: slingers/light infantry (Jerusalem) and Syrian archers/heavy cavalry (Antioch) will give you enough firepower to fight Egyptian units.

PS: I like your guide although I will suggest crippling Egypt fast.

[Strotha]

Now I have never played with the Seleucids in any RTW mod but after reading this thread I was feeling up to the challenge.

My first move was setting my capital to Babylon as suggested. This move works well because the overall happiness of my empire increased.

On my second turn I began building happiness buildings wherever I felt they were needed and roads wherever I could. I sent out my diplomat to get me trade rights with everyone he could.

I had moved my army to the vicinity of Ptolemy IV and on the beginning of turn two he attacked me. My campaign setting is on M/M and I treated the battle as any other.

Death!!!!!!!!!!!

Heroic Victory!

Meaningless battle statistics?

Anywho the purpose of this post is because after retraining I beat a path straight to Alexandria. I exterminated the population and used the denari to build economic buildings in a few key regions. However I have not been able to build a strong economy and muster up the garrison to keep the settlements. I lost my most northeastern settlement to Parthia and one of the settlements I had taken from the Ptolemies.

Now Im feeling like I should have just built the west as strong as possible forgetting about the east. Later on when I build momentum it will be easy to take those settlements back

[Tesla]

Nice guide, I'll be trying the seleucids after I finish my current campaign

[Drowsy]

Great guide! Starting playing a campaign after reading, those guys are pretty decent, for Greeks

Campaign so far:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

80% of my legions look like this, 20% of those have Kappadokes cohorts for fun. Currently 2/3 turns further and at war with Rome, who i bordered after annihilating the Sarmatian advance, which cost me the veterans from the Pontus/Pergamon wars. Also owning the Greek homeland after landing 4 legions on the Spartan coast and currently plowing my way trough Macedonia with them. Not sure what to do next, fight Rome or Sarmatia, but getting close to 85 regions so i better decide fast I thought Sarmatia would be harder but the Seleucids got a gazillion different horse archer and cataphracts mercs so i can basicly match their army composition.

All in all good fun!

[Rex Basiliscus]

Wow nice empire! +rep for you

I'd conquer all of Greece + the islands, then invade southern Italy and Sicily (to free the Italian Greeks from Roman rule ) and maybe the Balkans.

[Drowsy]

Wow nice empire! +rep for you

I'd conquer all of Greece + the islands, then invade southern Italy and Sicily (to free the Italian Greeks from Roman rule ) and maybe the Balkans.

Cheers m8! Greece is now mine When removing the Macedonians the Free Greeks launched an attack, i was going to spare them for sentimental reasons given my Seleucid origin but i guess they didn't feel the same way. I did present the Romans battle a few times, some won, some lost but i cannot touch their soil, giving that 99% of my campaigns so far i've played them it doesn't feel right Making my way across the Balkans at the moment with Sarmatian resistance virtually wiped out

[Snipe]

Nice empire Drowsy This guide has made me want to start a Seleucid campaign, just need to wait for the new patch.

Edit: +Rep to Rex for the guide

[DarthLazy]

@Drowsy; Unbreakable morale ftw?!?!

[Drowsy]

@Drowsy; Unbreakable morale ftw?!?!

Haha yeah, but mostly, it's cheap and simulating the Seleucid army adapting to Roman tactics and countering the Greek factions Phalax. It works all around but those compositions get destroyed versus a good late Roman or Sarmatian stack

[DarthLazy]

Which means good old levy phalangites get back in use against the afore mentioned factions

[Drowsy]

Which means good old levy phalangites get back in use against the afore mentioned factions

Yeah, vs the Romans i replace the 9 imitation cohorts with 9 Palmyrian cohorts, 2 cataphract units replace 2 archer units , vs Sarmatia 9 Babylonian archer cohorts. The rest stays the same I forgot to use a stack spam sub-mod so i might as well spam as many cheap stacks as i can

[Rex Basiliscus]

There will be two parts of this part, as there are many pics.

Part II: Stabilization

So after the first turn, it's time to put everything to work. Your profits are to be low, so don't rush into constructing any expensive buildings just yet.
I have skipped the second turn, as nothing important happened, besides some constructions of temples, Tribal Justice buildings. So this is turn 3.

At the beginning lets take a look at construction and recruitment messages:

Spoiler for Construction report: 

Spoiler for Recruitment report: 

All is going according to plan - our generals/governors are being recruited and where there is need, the temples and happiness/law buildings are being constructed. By this time, my income is already around 30k. So you see how governors help in improving it. Even if they aren't very good.

Now what?
I'll start at my capital - Babylon, where Alexander is already the new governor. I'll build an academy here. Alexander atm hasn't got much administrative traits which help you run the city easier and more profitable.

Spoiler for Babylon: 

I don't have much money to spend, so I gotta spend it wisely. Lets see how's the happiness throughout the empire.

Spoiler for Public Order: 

Persepolis and Tarsos are the only bad ones. So, I'll start with those two.
Since Persepolis doesn't have a governor (I moved Alexander to Babylon), I'm gonna need to recruit one there. I'll have to upgrade my barracks first, which will take my two turns and not so much money, which is great at the moment. In Tarsos I'll build Wells.
Wells are one of the best things you can construct if you have problems with public order. They are more expensive than temples or Tribal Justice building, but offer you more happines bonus than those two combined (well, not sure about that ).

Spoiler for Persepolis: 

EDIT: sry, I started construction a turn before...

Spoiler for Tarsos: 

Then, I move to Ierosolyma. I said what my priorities are this early into the game, so I'll first spend my income according to them. And one of my priorities was to make Ierosolyma into an untakeable defense line against Ptolemies. Since the city already has Stone walls, the only thing missing are some more units. I'll recruit slingers, peltasts and thureophoroi (and a general to govern the city). I find thureophoroi a good unit to defend your walls, since they often decimate the attacker with their javelins even before they start climbing their ladders and when they climb on the walls themselves, thureophoroi are a good match for anybody.
Slingers and peltast are an obvious choice. I want to do as much damage possible to the besieging force before they reach the walls. I concentrate on their elite units and take them out.

Spoiler for Ierosolyma: 

Now to the East. I'll build walls in Apamea. There's a Barbarian army just outside the city and I'm not gonna wait for their attack while my city is unguarded. First I'll build walls (which I'll need in the future anyway) and then I'll go out and meet them.

Spoiler for Apamea: 

I still got 18k minai left (I like to call it minai when playing a Greek faction ). I could use it on other minor cities, but I won't. For now, they are not in danger of any kind and their public order is good. So I'll invest some money into economy.
I'll build all the "money" temples (Demeter, Hermes and Hades) in both Seleucia and Antiocheia. If those two are my main income source, I might as well invest in them. The construction of these would take three turns, which would gain me some time to spend money on other things and other cities where it is needed for roads, barracks, walls etc.

Spoiler for Seleucia: 

Spoiler for Antiocheia: 

You may notice that I put Demetrius in charge of Antiocheia. I switched places with the recruited general and sent the latter to Tarsos. The change actually surprised me! Tarsos was now OK in terms of PO, but Antiocheia was worse than before I sent Demetrius to govern Antiocheia because of his two managment scrolls... but hey, now Tarsos was better and that was fine by me. To better the situation in Antiocheia I put Temple of Ares into the construction queue. And since Tarsos was now good, I changed the construction of wells to roads (happiness to economy - still keeping to my priorities).

Spoiler for Tarsos: 

I have some money left, so I'll retrain the units in Antiocheia (+ the navy).

Spoiler for Retraining: 

I'm not sure, but I think I also recruited a unit of Greek Tarantine cavalry in Ierosolyma (didn't take a picture...).

Now, with my money spent, I move to my agents and field armies. I'll send my scout to Antiocheia in order for him to acquire some traits through academy. I'll send my diplomat to Anatolia (Asia Minor) to engage with as many factions I can in order to arrange some trade agreements or possibly alliances. Targets here are Rebels, Pergamon and Greeks. Then I'll move to Macedon, Sparta, Scythia and Dacia etc
Now that Ierosolyma will be defended the next turn, I'll move with my faction leader toward Antiocheia (where my navy is located) and from there invade Cyprus.

Spoiler for Diplomat: 

Spoiler for Antiochus: 

In the next turn I'll construct wherever possible and take over any Ptolemaic region north of Raphia. But all of that in the following part...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope that every spoiler works as it should and the pics are showing. I took so many pics in the next turn, I'll just say what I did and where, opposed to the picture details of this part. I think you will understand and it will be a lot easier for me

[C-Rob]

very nice, man.

Getting some syrian archers into Ierosolyma is fun too. Flaming missiles to attack towers- makes sense to me.

[Rex Basiliscus]

Yes archers would help alot. Damn, how did I forget about the unit in Antiocheia?? I'll send them to Ierosolyma as soon as I'll continue to play this campaign...
I used to think that archers' flamming ammo increases the chance to burn the towers, but I've been trying this for so long, I think it doesn't help at all... I mean I waste ammo and contribute nothing (to my knowledge)... I believe only your wall towers can destroy a siege device.
Archers are good though for decimating more units even farther away.

[C-Rob]

You are probably right. Custom battle just now: The tower that WASN'T getting shot by my archers caught fire. it was 4 towers and 3 didn't burn and the only oen that did had flaming wall missiles and the archers never fired on it.

[Grouchio]

You know you can change the names of settlements, right?

[Rex Basiliscus]

Ofc I know. Why?

[Grouchio]

You could rename Ierosolyma, Jerusalem. Or Pafos to Salamis. Or Antiocheia to Antioch. Stuff like that. I did that in my campaigns.

[Rex Basiliscus]

I tend to leave them as they are, as I am a big grecofil