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Thread: Secleucid Empire Strategy Guide

  1. #1

    Default Secleucid Empire Strategy Guide

    The Secleucids are one of my favorite factions. They are also one of the game's most challenging. I'll do my best tobegin outlining strategu for them below- epect this guide to be completed over several weeks or months, much like my Roman Economic Strategy guide was...

  2. #2

    Default Re: Secleucid Empire Strategy Guide

    The early game for the Secleucids is a bit of a shock... Surrounded on every side by hostile neighbors who you will likely soon end up at war with, outnumbered, and with a relatively poor early economy due to your tiny population and poorly-developed markets (the game devs made SERIOUS mistakes in setting up the map here- the Secleucid Empire historically inherited some of the wealthiest and most populous cities in the Middle East. Secluecia in particular is underpopulated- it is essentially a re-named Babylon, one of the largest and most populous cities in the ancient world...) simply surviving the early game can be a challenge, even for the most skilled of players... The Secleucids are arguably the hardest "civilized" faction (Roman, Greek, Egyptian, or Eastern factions are those considered civilized- including the Parthians) though not nearly on the level of the Western Roman Empire in Barb Invasion.

    So, your first order of business needs to be to gain a short-term advantage of some sort and leveraging that into quickly crushing your main opponents (the Egyptians, Parthians, and Pontics/Armenians). Playing defensively is simply not a viable strategy when you are so heavily outnumbered- it's a great way to end up dead in the long-run...

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    The way I recommend doing this is to ignore your economy except building a few Roads (necessary for quick movement of armies) early on and instead churn out as large an army as possible and QUICKLY use it on your foes to take key cities. Also don't forget to save some money to hire mercenaries- your early unit roster stinks, and a few Mercenary Hoplites will go a LONG way towards giving your army some backbone (deploy them where the fighting will be hardest to avoid routs) whereas mercenary ranged units can go a long way towards helping preserve your army strength over long campaigns (losing too many soldiers will not only force you to halt your advance and lose the initiative- it will also cripple your midgame economy from all the recruitment).

    Your population is very limited early on, so, especially when playing on the largest unit size setting (which I highly recommend as it not only makes for the most realistic army sizes- large armies of peasants and militia as garrisons are also eventually the ONLY way you will be able to cost-effectively maintain order in large, distant cities like Carthage as the Secleucids, and larger unit suzes allow you to pack more men into a garrison for the same upkeep cost...) you will want to keep your casaulties as low as possible, recruit mercenaries liberally, and recruit units that are as effective as possibe on a man-for-man basis...
    Last edited by James_Northstar; September 13, 2016 at 03:36 PM.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Secleucid Empire Strategy Guide

    So, what units to recruit on the beginning?

    I strongly recommend Militia Hoplites and Militia Cavalry. Don't bother going for Levy Pikemen or Greek Cavalry in the very beginning- not only will this force you to delay your invasions while you build the necessary infrastructure (you want to lay seige to Sidon, Pergammon, and Susa as soon as possible- not only do a portion of the men in a beseiged army desert every turn they remain cut off from fresh food and supplies, enemy factions also can't recruit in a city while it is under seige, presumably due to lack of access to the imperial treasury to hire new soldiers... Thus, beseiging an enemy city is often worthwhile even if you will be forced to retreat after a couple turns rather than take the city, as it helps you get ahead in the recruitment race and hurts the enemy economy...) these units are also much more likely to suffer heavy losses even in a victorious battle- the pikemen due to their smaller shields and inferior individual stats (which also make a unit of Levy Pikemen easier to break from the front or left flank than Hoplites- as morale losses are partly due to people getting killed), the Greek Cav because they engage in melee rather than ranged combat...

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