Help on Seleucids

[SteffanGlaze]

Hi

Wondering if anyone uses the Seleucid Empire as their normal nation, and if so can I have some tips about playing as them. Also, as a great help, could you post formations/armies that you use as a standard.

Thanks a lot!

[Last Roman]

are you playing vanilla RTW or a mod?

If you are playing a mod (namely RTR) disband all heavy cavalry and navy. Concentrate on building roads and markets. Those will help you bring in a good amount of cash. Once you have a decent amount in the treasury, start building up a military and use it against Egypt. The conquest of Egypt will bring in huge profits. Then start building up ports and a bigger military. If Parthia is causing trouble conquer them and then aim for Pontus (they should have a good sized treasury by this point in time)

[Sétanta]

Hi

Wondering if anyone uses the Seleucid Empire as their normal nation, and if so can I have some tips about playing as them. Also, as a great help, could you post formations/armies that you use as a standard.

Thanks a lot!

build up your economy and prepare for a slugfest with the egyptians
also try and take halicarnassus right away.
ally with everybody you can...but be ready for them to attack you at any minute
even if the egyptians haven't attacked you yet have one main field army north of antioch that you can use to drive off invaders. keep militia hoplites back from the walls during sieges. plug the streets near the square with them
soon you will start to be able to go on the offensive and take the egyptians by the throat as they have exhausted their treasury. when this happens wipe them out.
then re-build your military (disbanding what you need disbanded) and prepare to annhiliate the Parthians, Pontics, Armenians etc.
the key is to fight only one front at a time
elephants work wonders against the lightly armoured eastern factions...use them.

soon you will control the East, Egypt, Turkey and its time to attack greece.
i usually send one army against Byzantium and work my way down and onother army to Sicily to keep the Romans (who usually control greece) busy.
use Silver Shield Legionaires, onagers and cataraphracts
they pwn

[ComradeKilroy]

(assuming you're not playing RTR)
*Build an army and move on the Egyptians.
*Ignore the Parthians, they'll come close, but they won't attack you.
*Make sure you're watching the Pontians, cuz they'll try to hit you in the North and the Asia Minor
*get archers and decent cavalry quick because levy pikemen and militia hoplites don't last long against enemy archers
*If you have the money bribe any parthian cataphracts.
*get war elephants ASAP

[SteffanGlaze]

Hi

Im using vanilla v1.5

How should my main armies look?

[Sétanta]

Hi

Im using vanilla v1.5

How should my main armies look?

well it depends on the stage in the campaign

outfit your early armies with the best phalanx units you can get, archers and any special units you can train (chariots, elephants etc.)

middle stage should be
-Silver Shield Pikemen
-Archers
-War Elephants
-One Chariot for hunting down routing units
-Two Calvary
-and 1 general

Lake Army (fighting romans)
-Silver Shield Legionaries
-Archers
-Armoured Elephants
-Two Companion
-One Catarphract
-General

i personally don't use siege equipment like onagers or balistas but you may want to use some

[SteffanGlaze]

So when fighting romans, I shouldn't use pikemen? Are legionnaires better than silver shield pikemen?

[Sétanta]

So when fighting romans, I shouldn't use pikemen? Are legionnaires better than silver shield pikemen?

well they are really slow, and the romans will just flank you.

and besides the legionnaires are the best infantry unit you can recruit
oh and ignore MasterAdnin...he's weird

[MasterAdnin]

Legionaries are better due to the fact they are easier to move around and can flank the enemy easier. Welcome to TWC !! YAY WE GOT A NEW MEMBER!!!

MasterAdnin

[Last Roman]

thats a pretty good setup there, but be sure you have money in the bank, that army, especially if you have a lot of them, is gonna be real expensive

[Rhah]

sorry to hijack, but how do you get to play as the Seleucid's in normal RTW? They've been "faction destroyed" quite a times in my current install of RTW, but i cant select them. (also having the same problem with Macedon)
I always thought that once a faction was destroyed, they could be chosen for a campaign (only the playable factions obviously)
Does the player have to destroy them personally?

[guyyug]

u just need to complete a campgain or u can go to descer_strat file and put everything in playable expect rebals and delete the armys in unlockables and unplayable expect slaves. u can make a back up file in case. also if u play the sneate sont click on the sneate bit which all roman factions get

[Sétanta]

sorry to hijack, but how do you get to play as the Seleucid's in normal RTW? They've been "faction destroyed" quite a times in my current install of RTW, but i cant select them. (also having the same problem with Macedon)
I always thought that once a faction was destroyed, they could be chosen for a campaign (only the playable factions obviously)
Does the player have to destroy them personally?

you have to beat the game as the romans to unlock them or do a little bit of easy modding

[Marcus Scaurus]

you have to beat the game as the romans to unlock them or do a little bit of easy modding

You should be able to play with the Seleukids and a few other factions after destroying one of them.

[Rhah]

So i have to personally defeat them? thats weird, because at the moment, my playable factions are Romans, Gaul, Britannia, Germania,and Carthage.
I've defeated all of them, but i never came into contact with Carthage. They were destroyed by the Scipii though.

[minotaur]

Late Seleycid army:
8 silver-shields (P)
4 legionaires (L)
4 cataphract / or companion (C)
2 elephant (36 not the 12) (E)
1 onager / or heavy onager (O)
1 General (G)

E C C L P P P P P P P P L C C E
L O L
G

[Darth Wong]

I've successfully defeated Egypt using armies composed largely of levee pikemen with archer and cavalry support. The levee pikeman is not a great soldier, but he's not a bad one, and you can build large hordes of cheap levee pikemen at virtually any city. The thing about phalanx combat is that it's good to have really high quality phalanxes but it's better to have a very wide battle line which is difficult to flank, and unless you have unlimited money and time to build up your armies before going on the offensive, those levee pikemen are going to make up a substantial fraction of your fighting forces during the critical early going (in the late game, it's just a matter of being patient and working your way through enemy territory, because actual defeat is exceedingly unlikely).

[S.W.A.T]

Prepare for endless stacks of romans from all three factions.

When I played the Seluecides, I owned the whole East. But the endless fighting of the Bruiti in Greece, Scipii in africa was a pain.

[Siddyus]

May I also suggest that if ever the egyptians, parthians, and pontus outnumber you 10 to 1(probably about 10 yrs after the campaign started). The best way to defend your settlements is by amassing about 10 units of Scythe Chariots and also use automate battle sequence. You will notice that even a 3000+ egyptian army will be defeated by a mere 1000 chariots(it worked for me. lol). Anyway, if ever you've lost most of your settlements... the best way to survive for more than 30+ years is by inhabiting the island west of Rhodes. I found it as the least visited island during my exile when was defeated by the combined armies of the armenians, egyptians, pontus and parthians.

[Darth Wong]

Kydonia's the name of that island, and it's situated on an excellent trade route. I always take it as soon as possible. But it takes a long time and a lot of money to build up 10 units of Scythe Chariots, and Seleucid chariots are easily panicked.

No, the best way to defend cities is to use levee pikemen to clog up the best approach to the city square. There's a particular formation using two units of levee pikemen that I've found highly effective in that situation; basically, it involves putting your pikemen into an "L"-shaped formation, where one side of the "L" faces the enemy and the other side of the "L" (protected by the corner of a building) hems in the enemy from the side as he pushes against the first side of the "L". The AI always runs right into this trap and gets massacred as I start to push from the flank.