Seleukid Pushover Problem

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

Well, I'm playing as the Ptolemaioi and I'm noticing a disturbing tendency of the Seleukids to go belly-up.

By the simple expedient of collecting the starting troops in Alexandreia and Memphis, training three Kleruchoi Phalangatai, 2 Thureophoroi, and hiring a Classical hoplite and a Cretan archer, I have steamrolled the Seleukids and hamstrung them by taking Antiocheia and Damaskos.

Will they organize effective resistance (i.e., something beyond halfhearted sendings of half-stacks of Persian crap-levies)?

Please, veterans of campaigns in the East, tell me. I don't wish to get immersed in a campaign that will result in easiness on the scale I'm experiencing now.

[Revan The Great]

Well, its not very likely. Part of it is the fact that in every game (literally) all of Seleucid's 'vassels' seem to break alliances after turn one, and soon enough they're all eating the Seleucids from every angle. I'm pretty sure the AI has a hard time prioritizing who to fight, plus the Ptolemies have an advantage at a straight shot to Antioch, which is the jugular of the Seleucie's.

[Marcion]

Yeah, I think they're trying waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hard to keep the east Asian territories, and neglecting the Levant (though historically the opposite was the case). I've seen them march giant stacks of good troops around east Iran while having sissy slap fights with the Ptolemies. I thought that was just the case when the player was Bactria or Parthia, but I guess it's true all the time.

[Companion Cavalry]

Once you have taken Damascus and Antioch, the Seleucids never recover. You should let them build up first so they are more of a challenge.

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

Mmmm...I mean, I guess they're technically trying to defeat the army of Philadelphos Ptolemaios, if "trying" is sending a half-stack of pandatapoi at me every two turns.
I'm just not seeing the Pezthetairoi or any other units worthy of the denomination "soldier".

[kdub22]

What difficulty are you playing it in?

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

M/M. The only difference I've noticed in EB at higher difficulties is that the AI gets yet more obstinate about accepting diplomatic proposals and such. I know for a fact that it won't actually improve their fighting-will; EB already has a money-script.

[Revan The Great]

That is correct Antiochos. Whenever I play a small faction I play it on Easy now, otherwise it'd be impossible to play as Pontos with the Seleucids hell-bent on sending stacks into your lands every few turns. God knows they still do it...just on Easy you might get a turn or two of respite after offering them peace.

An idea for the EB team: Make it so that the Seleucids either have protectorates over all of their allied states (Parthia, Bactria, Armenia, Pontus), or leave them just allied but don't have all of the smaller factions allied to one another. For whatever reason it seems that the Parthians attack on turn one, and all of the lesser factions decide to side with Parthia against the Seleucids for whatever reason. I would consider this a huge historical error - since in every game literally every game I've ever played Seleucid's lose all of their (B I T C H)-states after the first turn. Why even bother making them allied in the first place?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The combination of protectorates and the money script cause tons of problems. Plus, I don't think you can set factions as protectorates when the game starts.

If you want a challenge out of the Seleukids, don't attack them at the beginning of the game. Without Syria, the Seleukids will go under. Let them build up for a few years before you try to take them down.

[wudang_clown]

Whenever I play a small faction I play it on Easy now, otherwise it'd be impossible to play as Pontos with the Seleucids hell-bent on sending stacks into your lands every few turns. God knows they still do it...just on Easy you might get a turn or two of respite after offering them peace.

The same with Hayasdan. However M/H difficulty is playable in that case.

[Scutarii]

Let TSE alone for a bit while you consolidate and take some rebel settlements. If you go for them off the bat, off course they'll have trouble holding together an empire of their size...

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

Well, I'm under the impetus of an AAR (see my sig) I plan to do great things with Force Diplomacy and the Phoenicians.

[nhartwell]

Interestingly enough if you play EB on the Alexander engine they seem to put up more of a fight. In vanilla EB (playing as Rome)the Ptolemaic Empire had reached about as far as Heacatompylos by 200 B.C. and the Seleucids were being pressured by Baktria and Parthia from the north and east and were on the verge of annihilation. When I started to play EB on Alex, first as Baktria, the Seleucids kept hold of their territories to a great extent and quite happily fended of myself, Parthia, Pontos and the Ptolomies. Playing now as Rome, they have eliminated Pontos, pushed the Ptolomies out of judea and into Egypt with the help of the Saba and are slowly winning a war with Parthia as well as holding of the Saka-Rauka. If your looking for a challenge give EB on the Alex engine a try, the Seleucids appear to be able to micro-manage their empire much better from my experience.

[RedGuard]

Im playing as rome at thier historical pace and have long been allied with pontus. KH was steamrolling everybody and had expanded as far north as chersonesos. I waited till around 200 bc, with spain, gaul and africa in my possesions before invading greece. since koinon hellinon was spread out so far i easily captured all of greece in about 20 turns and turned my attention to asia. I saw the exact opposite of what you were describing as seleucids being steamrolled. I admit every now and then i use the FOW cheat just so i can get a idea of where the ai is at. around 200 bc the selucids had taken anatloia except for ankyra still held by a skeleton crew of pontus and had seleucids had taken alexandreia and parationion and were about to take kyrene. in the east parthia was falling like a stack of cards to a ten star general leading the full stack seleucid army and meanwhile the partians were also being attacked to the east by the saka who had taken marakanda and antiochiea-margaine. Baktria seemed to be the only ones putting up a fight to AS.

I as the romans declared war on the sleucids and helped pontus take back atolia before dealing with them. once i took antiocheia the sleucids were relentless at sending armies at me mind you none of them wre made up of crap units. All had silver shields, medium phalanxs and native phalanxs with able commanders. So my point is while playing as the romans or any other historical enemies of the AS wait a while before attacking. The game is alot more fun this way believe me.

[DraeKlae]

On my current historically accurate Romani game, the Seleukids seem to abandon Antiocheia and Damascus to the Ptollies and go for total Anatolia domination and send their troops all across their empire just to get smacked by the Pahlavans . Pontus and Hayasdan just seem to be ignored. Then they usually leave their north-eastern most provinces, Marakanda and Alexandreia-Eschate, to rebel. At least they don't try to grab Arabia or something .

[charles the hammer]

my experience is that the gray death dont really fall in my campaigns. i also noticed with the bi exe the parthians do a little better but not much. and i play pontos on h/m and i dont find it impossible. i find that taking masaka and asking for peace will bring peace until you expand to far west. (I had nine years of peace until i captured Ankrya.) and ive united all of asia minor.

[Roloc]

In my campaigns, it's 50 50 between the seleukids and the ptolemaioi.

[abou]

The Seleukid pushover has been something I've been working to correct since I've joined the team. Originally, in the first releases (0.7x) it was always the Ptolemaioi that would dominate. In the next version (0.8x) we reduced some recruitment for the Ptolemaioi and the Seleukids were the unstoppable ones. Then we made some further changes and then the Ptolemaioi were unstoppable again.

At that point, I sat down and went through both factions and looked at starting positions to try and balance things (such as putting paved roads in provinces where the Persian Royal Road was). This got us closer to a 50:50 result, but not perfect. Since we've ended development for EB1 other than bugfixes, this is the situation that will remain. However, if all goes according to plan, the Seleukids in EB2 will be much different; rebuilt from the ground up.

[Primative1]

Playing Rome.

In previous versions Yellow would always dominate very early - with 1.2 I am finding that they are closely balanced. Yellow have just moved ahead slightly around 220.

I'm sure I can correct that if it becomes a trend.

[0N3]

nah, Egypt is easy as long as carthage doesnt come with full stacks from the back... i just train lots of jews^^ and shut their acess to the sea , then take over asia minor and then its a cakewalk... in my games the selucids only enemy is me though