Seleucid Empire tips?

[kostas84]

I have been playing as the Seleucids lately and i have been pushing back the Ptolemies taking their lands, but im losing lots of land in the north from the Baktrians, Parthians and Pontus, and soon Armenia.

I am thinking of re-starting, so i need some tips on how to control that huge amount of land and prevent loss of territory as i slowly build up my army.

[m_takeda]

I have been playing as the Seleucids lately and i have been pushing back the Ptolemies taking their lands, but im losing lots of land in the north from the Baktrians, Parthians and Pontus, and soon Armenia.

I am thinking of re-starting, so i need some tips on how to control that huge amount of land and prevent loss of territory as i slowly build up my army.

I'm not sure this is the best desicion, but is works - you leave the small and poor north-eastern villages and conquer for example Egypt and Asia Minor, which are rich regions. Then, if you insist, take back the eastern towns - maybe they will be already cities

[magraev]

This is also my usual strategy. I drop most of the eastern cities and go for knocking out 1) The ptolemies, 2) Pontus, 3) Armenia. Concentrate on one enemy at the time, it doesn't matter much if you lose 1 or 2 cities before you can bring a major army forward. Just dont lose your core cities (Antioch, Seleucia, Susa, Ekbatana are the most important in my mind).

Against pesky horse archers - defend in cities - don't build walls - much better to make them assault you if you have a few phalanxes in the town. Use plenty of high-quality archers yourself. Autoresolve...

[GoldShield Guard]

From my point of view, autoresolving against horse archers, is like cheating the game. If you do not want to cheat, like me, here is what I did in my TSE campaign: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...65#post6404065

Copy/paste from that post:

"This is my current Seleucian Campaign. It is the most exciting campaign I have ever played in RTW, vanilla and mods!

Settings: H/H, Land bridges ON, Reduced bonuses ON, Fatigue ON, XGM original movement.

It was my first try with TSE, so I didn’t know what I would face. The general strategy primarily was to blitz Ptolemies, and to hold on as much more time as I could the east front. Bactria and Parthia were allies, so I was expecting a difficult time over there, but not really what I finally dealt with! My decision was to keep at any cost the four towns that are in a short distance each other, meaning Apamea, Zadracarta, Hecatompylos and Asaak. My thought was that because they are situated near each other, it would be easy to replenish my losses from the forthcoming battles. Also I didn’t want to let the fight come at Ecvatana and Susa. Especially it was totally unacceptable to lost Ecvatana, because it is the source of my salvation, the Median Cavalry. So, although the forth mentioned four towns did not bring any profit, I decided to spend there every bit of money I had at my disposal.

So in the fist turn I took all my units and took Salamis, which didn’t had any wall protection, and then in the same turn moved towards Sidon. I continued to advance towards Ptolemies turn after turn.

At the same time Bactrians attacked me, and I lost the three most eastern towns, Merv, Phra and Neh. About that time I had moved at Hecatompylos one General, and I found out with pleasance that there were mercenaries Horse Archers at that area! So I started to recruit them, once in a while, wherever they were available.

I was expecting Bactrians to attack to one of the four towns, especially Hecatompylos. But instead of it, Parthians attacked from the north to Asaak! So my hardest ever war started there, with many battles and heavy losses every time, but I managed to never lose a battle. This was done thanks to mercenary Horse Archers, the river and the two bridges, that divide the four towns from the Parthian Lands. So I managed, defending, to kill the two or three stacks of Horde Horse Archers and Heavy Cavalry. Then the situation turned out to be more controllable.

At about the same time that Parthians attacked for the first time, I noticed with my spies a Bactrian stack to head south, a movement I didn’t expect at all. At the same time also Indie Greeks attacked me at Minor Asia! It was totally undefended, because all my money went to the east front, so I couldn’t do anything and I lost Ephesus.

That was the most crucial point of my campaign. If I lost any major battle with Parthians, my east front would be totally undefended to them, my southeast front was also totally undefended to Bactrians, and Minor Asia was totally undefended to Indie Greeks. But I didn’t loss, I kept the east front, and at the same time I managed to take Alexandria from Ptolemies! So with that money (extermination of course) I recruited half stack in Antiocheia and send them to defend Minor Asia, and another half stack in Istakr and send them to defend Gabae or Harmozia from Bactrians. They were there just in time. Indie Greeks were ready to take Sardis, but they didn’t, and Bactrians took Harmozia, only to lose it again at the next turn. I afforded to recruit mercenary war elephants over there, which turn the tide from that point against Bactrians.

After that point, the situation was controllable. Very slowly I proceeded to Parthian lands and regain from Bactria the lost towns. After an epic battle outside Bactria, I took it, and I was able to recruit the finest Horse Archers, the Bactrians. It was the key point against Parthians, because now I had units that could beat them more easily, with less losses.

At the contrary, Indie Greeks in Minor Asia collapsed easily, in very few turns, thanks to mercenary Hoplites and Cretan Archers I found there. Then Pontus and Armenia attacked me, but I manage to hold the first easily, and the second with more difficulty, due to Kardakes Spearmen they had (I had only levy phalangites that time).

From a strategy point, I left Byzantium untouched to Indie Greeks, because I wanted them as a buffer against Macedons, who had eliminated GCS and proceeded to Thracian Lands, who were my allies. I waited a long time, until I eliminated Ptolemies in Africa, then Eastern Kingdoms in Africa and India. I didn’t want to attack to them, but then Saba, my other allies, attacked to them, took Bostra and they were ready to attack Palmyra, which I couldn’t permit, because it would be a future threat to my heart lands, so I took the initiative and attack Palmyra first.

When I finished with Eastern Kingdoms, it was time for the main Greece. I attacked with two stacks in the south Greece, which was totally undefended, and blitz Macedons until Pella. The disappointing point was that although Macedons had army barracks almost in every city, which permitted me to recruit the ultimate cavalry unit, Cataphracts, they didn’t have any elite units, only levies and thyreos, very few Hoplites and Phalangites. So conquering Macedon was really easy.

I also attacked Indie Greeks in west Greece, and kept the two northern Armenian cities as a buffer against Scythia, until now, that I decided to eliminate them also. Finally, I felt it was time to get rid of Saba and have only the west fronts, so I cancelled the alliance and attacked them at the current turn."

As you can read, you need very careful thinking and movements, you need to exploit the terrain in your favor, you need to be very careful on how to spend every last denarii.

Hope I helped!!

[Scutarii]

I usually slowly cede ground in the east (let them attack you and just cause as many casualties as possible). Train cheap troops out there, cannon fodder, and concentrate on knocking out Egypt, Asia Minor, and later Armenia.