A wee Selecuids campaign (H/H, BI, Zero trun)

[TTRouble]

I've just started a secondary Selecuid's campaign (they were with Macedon my favorite faction in RS1.6). First thoughts :

* Overall strategy - Priority to stabilse the 20+ regions , develop the economy and protect the existing cities from falling to Parthia, Ptolemy's, Armenia, Pergamon and Pontus before going onto the offensive.

* Economy - Vastly improved over 1.6 and more balanced. In 1.6 nearly every city,town apart from Selecuia and Antioch were at level 0, and even those two needed so many building upgrades too that making progress was always hard. Now its just right - Seleucia and Anithoch are reasonably developed (not as good as say Macedon's Pella) and all of the others are at a reasonable starting point.Anticoh is the real power house (currently at 50k a turn and 180% happiness)

What works for Macedon and the Greeks in kick starting their economies doesn't work with the Seleucids. Corruption is so high that it kills of whatever gains your making - by the 15th year into the campaign, corruption was eating upto appro 40k every turn and I was simply unable to reverse it. By year 20 - the economy was constantly in the negatives. I had to start again and work on a different strategy and so far its working - I'm into the 15th year and turning over a constant 20-35k per turn, although corruption is still in the 35K per turn. Compare that to Macedon where by year 50 of the campaign it was a mere 1k dinarii.

* Lands - I've only given up one territory and that was right on the border with Parthia. I did the same with 1.6, its just not possible to defend it in the early stages. I made up for it by capturing Cyprus and have not lost any of the others.

* Family and Generals Military/management skills and traits - The family members so far apart from Antiochus III is really not good, and I had thought Macedon's didn't start off too well. Most seem to be really corrupt with no management skills and many of them having the dishonest trait. I've had to recruit several generals and those are finally gaining are some decent management skills. All have the trait - not adoptable though. Any ideas why ? The general in Seleucia, after Antiochus has really helped in getting the costs on many of the building types down to a reasonable level and also recruiting.

* Military Campaign - So far its been easier than playing Macedon which has been a real surprise as I was expecting to be at war on multiple fronts from the 2nd turn. In 1.6, playing the Selecuids, you were at war with Pergamon, followed very quickly by the Ptolemy's, Parthia, Armenia and if you were really unlucky Pontus. Thats not been the case with RS2 and thats good. First tactical move was to defeat Ptolemy IV at Raphia and it was the first time I have ever used elephants in RTW/RS and I used them very carefully without too many losses. I'm just defending against the Ptolemys for now, although I captured Cyprus by year 5. I was surprised that Parthia waited until year 10 of the campaign before making moves against the cities in the far east. The first battle against them was the first that has made me think I should just turn tail and leave the battle, esp when you see the mass of horse archers and various heavy cavalry, esp the Saka Cataphrapcts approach at speed. Right now my tactics and unit types fighting them have been spot on but they have 7 full stacks against my 4, so things could go bad very quickly. I'm aslo wary of Pergamon, Armenia and Pontus (both of these are allies) - who at the moment are at war with Macedon, the rebels, Greeks and Ptolemy's etc and I have very little military strength north of Antioch.

Armies:

I've got one type of army thats now specific to go against the Parthians and thats a very mobile one and so far -6 battles has wiped out each of the Parthian armies that I've had to fight against. it doesn't have any cataphract heavy cav, other than the generals at the moment but that could well change Against the Ptolemy's I'm going to stick to my tried and tested formula but I may mix it a wee bit a couple of horse archer units. It would be nice to be able to recruit allied hoplites from Antioch or from the other city that the Seleucids control in Asia Minor.

AI: Its been very interesting fighting both the Ptolemy's and Parthia and the tactics that the AI has been using. Unit types I'd say the AI is picking too many levy pikemen for the Ptolemy's - theyre a lot better than I had imaged them to be taking quiet a time to break but I think theyres just 2-3 too many per army. In 1.6a , the Ptolemy's phalanax was always heavily Elite and Agema biased. Also, its usually choosing light cavalry mostly over heavy/medium Greek cavalry, so I've usually been at an advantage there. I've had a couple of Ptolemy generals suicide rush a phalanx but after the first losses back away but I'd still wish it would not do that. For the Parthian;s there armies have made me seriously think about unit types and the tactics to use against horse archers and massed heavy cavalry.

Crashes: Only one so far and that was consistently within one particular battle and about 3/4 of the way through.

Unit costs - Spotted that after building the 2nd level barracks that Companion Calvary are cheaper than the other Greek heavy cavalry units and also that the weapon type in the description is shown as light.

Rebels - Armoured Elephant unit had Selecuid shields. Also they seemed to be too easy to kill as well - just 2 units of peltasts and 3 Syrian archers and the entire unit was wiped out.

Thats all for now, I'll be putting up a thread in the proper location with screenshots as soon as I can.

Cheers

TTRouble