Decisions, Decisions, Decisions..

[AspisPhalanx90]

So based on the polling earlier, i decided to recreate the Byzantine Empire territory as the Seleucids. After a couple trials (and failures at that) to find the best way to expand, im at a loss. In each game i defeated the Ptolemaic army at Raphia and pushed into the nile delta with Antiochus, but as soon as i get the damned egyptians fighting for Alexandria, i get attacked by the Parthians and soon after Pergamon. Financially ive been able to support a single-front war with the Ptolemies..but i just cant seem to scrape up the cash needed to continue the fight anymore.

So my questions are these:

Is the east worth holding onto financially?
should my next try defend against the Ptolemies at Jerusalem and force my way through to pergamon? or Parthia?
Do i leave my eastern holdings and push into Egypt, thus leaving my lands up to the Tigris and Euphrates to the Parthians?

Militarily, a single stack based on the Raphia composition utterly annihaltes opposing armies with ease, provided i dont have any Elephant mishaps. So as long as my cavalry and elephant numbers stay up, i suffer barely any phalangite casualties and the rest are mercenary infantry so i dont need to worry about recruiting more

What do i do?!!!?!

[magraev]

I suggest holding on to your eastern possesions as long as you can, but don't spend a dime on them and tax them as much as you can. Just hold on to Susa and Ecbatana and you'll do fine. In some of the smaller settlements it can pay of to put a couple of phalangites in a town without walls - they can kill an impressive amount of Partians.

You can stabilize your southern front with taking Alexandria - that pretty much takes the fight out of the ptolies. Don't rest untill you at least have Alexandria (and maybe Memphis too). Then you can look elswhere - maybe to Anatolia, the east or to the rest of Egypt, but try getting Palmyra and the other arabian cities too to establish a coherent strong empire in the syria/mesopotamia/levant area.

Just my 5 cents, and the Seleucids are very hard to play.

[Feldmarschal Rommel]

I am just now playing the Seleucids and it is the year 553 and I have all of Egypt Anatolia Syria and Mesopotamia and prepering to reclaim the East.I suggest something quite opposite,Istarted with abandonig the East all the way to Ecbatana and Susa and pulled all the garisons from abandond cities into these two and if you recruit a couple of extra units you can have an potent defense.On the western front I decided to change the history by defeating the Ptolies at Raphia I suceeded but I decided not to invade Egypt but to fortifie myself at Hierosolyma and pull Antiochus to Antioch.There i retraind and strenghted the army(I suggest you replace those katoikoi with proper pezhetairoi they are much more efective)and went into Anatolia I captured it all exept Pontos in 10 years in the meantime I trained another army to help me crush the Pergamites.
After that i concetrated my eforts upon Egypt and took it suprisingly quickly.Now as i said am preparing to again invade the east and armenia and the parthians still didnt atacked me.

I think this is one of the better stratigies you dont have to folow it but it has served me well

EDIT:Oh and I forgot the East is not worth keeping financialy I could sustain two armies without Anatolia and after abandoning the east.With Anatolia you can keep 4 or 5

[Drowsy]

So based on the polling earlier, i decided to recreate the Byzantine Empire territory as the Seleucids. After a couple trials (and failures at that) to find the best way to expand, im at a loss. In each game i defeated the Ptolemaic army at Raphia and pushed into the nile delta with Antiochus, but as soon as i get the damned egyptians fighting for Alexandria, i get attacked by the Parthians and soon after Pergamon. Financially ive been able to support a single-front war with the Ptolemies..but i just cant seem to scrape up the cash needed to continue the fight anymore.

So my questions are these:

Is the east worth holding onto financially?
should my next try defend against the Ptolemies at Jerusalem and force my way through to pergamon? or Parthia?
Do i leave my eastern holdings and push into Egypt, thus leaving my lands up to the Tigris and Euphrates to the Parthians?

Militarily, a single stack based on the Raphia composition utterly annihaltes opposing armies with ease, provided i dont have any Elephant mishaps. So as long as my cavalry and elephant numbers stay up, i suffer barely any phalangite casualties and the rest are mercenary infantry so i dont need to worry about recruiting more

What do i do?!!!?!

Check out the Seleucids guide on the forum. Basically i don't fight the battle and play defensively while fixing/managing my economy for a good long while. I keep everything, while defending the border with Parthia forcing them into conflict with Armenia (hopefully). If u get a chance to work on your economy solely for lets say 30 turns your unstoppable, doesn't matter which direction you go, it will die.

[AspisPhalanx90]

short, sweet and to the point...thank you drowsy. I completely forgot about trying to get Armenia to fight Parthia, such faith i have in RTW diplomacy lol. If i can get armenia to quarrel with Parthia, that should free up some stacks that they send at me and change direction to armenia. Its just so tricky predicting when theyll hit. they declare war with besieging the outlying cities of mine, but sometimes a full stack will pop up out of the Zargos and besiege seleucia or somewheres around there.

Parthia must die...or at least find someone else to fight