Seleucid Empire

[Astaroth]

Does anyone else here enjoy playing as the Seleucids? Along with Rome they're probably my favorite faction. I like their diverse unit roster, the location of their empire and the historical connection to Alexander the Great.

When I saw the starting situation I decided to take out the Ptolemies first of all (playing on H/H, 0 turn recruitment btw). After winning Raphia easily (heroic victory - the whole enemy army, including the king, was killed) I kept destroying their armies, slowly advancing into Egypt. Eventually, I managed to conquer the whole area - excluding Cyrene, which was taken by the Greeks. My ten-star faction leader Antiochos III and the cataphract elephants turned out to be very useful.

Anyway, I'm currently focusing on the east, as Parthia has decided to attack me. I managed to take back the two cities they had conquered and pushed them into the desert. So far I've tried to face them with massed (Syrian) archers, some phalangites as a meatshield/anti-cav and a few units of heavy cavalry (mercenaries and my generals). This seems to work okay, the only problem is that foot archers are quite vulnerable and one of my armies was already destroyed when the Parthians managed to surround it. Therefore, I have now decided to fight fire with fire, built a mercenary place in Seleucia and trained a stack of Babylonian horse archers. Let's see how those'll do... What are your experiences when fighting Parthia?

Aside from Parthia my other neighbors (Pontus and Armenia) have been fairly quiet... then again, I haven't expanded north or into Asia Minor yet. That'll have to wait until Parthia is burned to the ground.

[Ferdiad]

I play as Parthia more often I haven't played them yet for some reason.

[Everto]

I too consider the Seleucid's the best faction in the game, eqaul perhaps only to Rome. On a side note, you should try out this mod, which not only aesthetically makes the seleucid army look better, but it also gives you Agema, heavy cavalry archers...they're sexy. Oh, and if you want awesome looking Seleucid Cataphracts...check these bad boys out in Intel's Texture Tweaks..

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now when it comes to the parthians...
You need armies of horse archers and heavy cavalry, end of story. The Armenians you can fight with a standard Army (although a bit more calvalry never hurts), but the Parthians are just a whole different ball game. The babylonian horse archers work very well, but as I said, you need to back them up with heavy cavalry, be they cataphracts or mercenaries. In my campaign I lost two full stacks to the Parthians, along with plenty of other casualties, seeing as I was at war on 5 fronts, which will happen to you soon with the Pergamese and Armenians. The thing is, you have to fight the Parthians with cavalry, foot archers and phalanxes are useless, get Machaimorai Epilektoi to engage their infantry, which are like peasants with pitchforks anyway...

Gook Luck mate, and +rep for being a seleucid supporter!

[General Brittanicus]

I would definitely reccomend fighting them with horse archer armies or alternatively training some kind of siege weapon unit that can knock down walls (Seleucids can train that kind of unit right?). THen all you need to do is avoid field battle with them, use your siege weapons to knock down walls and take towns without having to wait a few turns to build siege towers and whatnot. Horses can't climb walls and if you only fight sieges with them you should negate any advantages they have in the open field.

[Kelborn]

It's micromanagement hell, but you can defeat them with the artillery based strategy employed by Alexander himself against horse-archers from the steppes. Trapping their army is tricky business, and choosing the battlefield terrain is critical, yet you can decimate an entire stack if you trap it against a mountain or a split force and bombard them with massive amounts of field artillery.

[Astaroth]

I play as Parthia more often I haven't played them yet for some reason.

I like the Parthians, too, but I find them a bit boring due to their advantageous starting position (no neighbors aside from the Seleucids) and overpowered horse archers.

I too consider the Seleucid's the best faction in the game, eqaul perhaps only to Rome. On a side note, you should try out this mod, which not only aesthetically makes the seleucid army look better, but it also gives you Agema, heavy cavalry archers...they're sexy. Oh, and if you want awesome looking Seleucid Cataphracts...check these bad boys out in Intel's Texture Tweaks..

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Now when it comes to the parthians...
You need armies of horse archers and heavy cavalry, end of story. The Armenians you can fight with a standard Army (although a bit more calvalry never hurts), but the Parthians are just a whole different ball game. The babylonian horse archers work very well, but as I said, you need to back them up with heavy cavalry, be they cataphracts or mercenaries. In my campaign I lost two full stacks to the Parthians, along with plenty of other casualties, seeing as I was at war on 5 fronts, which will happen to you soon with the Pergamese and Armenians. The thing is, you have to fight the Parthians with cavalry, foot archers and phalanxes are useless, get Machaimorai Epilektoi to engage their infantry, which are like peasants with pitchforks anyway...

Gook Luck mate, and +rep for being a seleucid supporter!

I think foot archers aren't that bad - as long as you can cover them properly with phalangites they will destroy horse archers nicely. The only problems are their lack of maneuverability (which is quite annoying) and their vulnerability to Parthia's cataphracts... I think you could probably cost effectively wear down the Parthians with just foot archers, phalanx units and some heavy cavalry, but executing that strategy is quite a pain.

Anyway, as for having multiple fronts: so far I haven't expanded anywhere but in Parthia and Egypt (including Cyprus) to avoid conflicts with Armenia, Pontus and Pergamon. I'm allied with Armenia and haven't crossed the Taurus mountains (the ones to the north-west of Cilicia) yet. Do you think they will attack me soon anyway? Because if they don't I will focus on them after Parthia is destroyed. As long as I only have one front to deal with it should be no problem I believe... From previous Seleucid campaigns (such as in RS 1.5) I know that this is crucial.

I would definitely reccomend fighting them with horse archer armies or alternatively training some kind of siege weapon unit that can knock down walls (Seleucids can train that kind of unit right?). THen all you need to do is avoid field battle with them, use your siege weapons to knock down walls and take towns without having to wait a few turns to build siege towers and whatnot. Horses can't climb walls and if you only fight sieges with them you should negate any advantages they have in the open field.

That's also a good idea, and probably more historical than countering them with your own massed horse archers. Then again, I don't particularly like siege warfare. I think after my first 100 or so siege battles in RTW/M2TW/and their respective mods I've auto-resolved 90% of my siege battles (both when attacking and defending).

It's micromanagement hell, but you can defeat them with the artillery based strategy employed by Alexander himself against horse-archers from the steppes. Trapping their army is tricky business, and choosing the battlefield terrain is critical, yet you can decimate an entire stack if you trap it against a mountain or a split force and bombard them with massive amounts of field artillery.

I think that would be quite an interesting strategy. The only problems are that a) siege engines take a lot of time to train (I believe they are all 1 turn rather than 0, right?) and b) that they slow down armies, which makes getting them to the battlefields in the east a pain. Also, I fear that horse archers might slaughter the artillery crews fairly quickly. I know that I for my part never had a problem facing the AI's siege weapons with horse archers (then again, HAs are overpowered anyway, especially in the player's hands...).

[Everto]

Do you think they will attack me soon anyway?

HAHAHAHAHA...YES
Whenever I play the Seleucids my campaign goes like this..

War w/ Egypt for first 30 turns...all other borders silent.
Alexandria falls, soon follows the rest of the Nile...
About 5 turns of peace and prosperity, I'm arguably undefeatable...ARGUABLY, no direct threat.

THEN...
Pergamese Attack Tarsus...no idea how they always manage to bee-line through Anatolia straight to me, bastards.
2 turns later, Parthia and Armenia Declare War, 1 turn later, 4 Armenian Stacks are strolling through my lands, 3 of my cities are besieged by Parthia, 3 Pergamese stacks arrive around Tarsus...

All of this in one turn. I have that save game somewhere, kept it to remind me that it can always be worse ... So in essence, yes, the Armenians will fight you, they're nakharars are the spawn of satan btw so be prepared, they're like cocaine infused uruk-kai or something. U'll need a well rounded army for the Armenians, as for the Parthains, u don't necessarily need large amounts of cavalry archers, but you do need large amounts of cavalry, cuz from my experience, the only way to fight those buggers is with a front long charge of my massive force of Cavalry Archers...its epic.

[ethan340]

I would definitely reccomend fighting them with horse archer armies or alternatively training some kind of siege weapon unit that can knock down walls (Seleucids can train that kind of unit right?). THen all you need to do is avoid field battle with them, use your siege weapons to knock down walls and take towns without having to wait a few turns to build siege towers and whatnot. Horses can't climb walls and if you only fight sieges with them you should negate any advantages they have in the open field.

exactly my strategy. i often dont even need horse archers

[Mulattothrasher]

TBH, when I play as the Seleucids, who I believe are the best faction due to the variety of troop types, I abandon all of the eastern provinces as far as Charax, Seleucia, Babylon, etc... those I keep since the mountain range is right there allowing for incredible defense again Parthia when they eventually reach those mountains (it takes a long, long time since they seem to want to hang out in their own areas). Also, there are richer provinces to be had in the west for me to want to conquer. The capitol city bonus works better in the west since there are more cities closer together.

The other strategy is to go for Parthia immediately, and use delaying actions again Ptolemy IV - maybe allowing him to reach as far as Damaskos. Taking out Parthia asap and retaining those eastern cities allows a whole slew of HA and foot archer troops that can be recruited and sent west for action.

[Ferdiad]

Yup HA are soo OP , I only have three armies to the seleucids dozens and Im beating them senseless.

[Astaroth]

Hmm I tried my massed horse archers against Parthia's troops now. I'm not sure if I should be happy or not tbh. I mean, I did win the battle (the odds were slightly against me) and killed 95% of their army including their king, a ten star general. However, in the process I lost about 60% of my force...usually, I tend to win battles with as little as 10-20% losses so this seems to be quite a lot. Not sure if going HAs is my best bet against Parthia after all. Because when it comes to HA battles you can't really do much in terms of micromanagement (aside from putting them in a loose formation) so you will lose a lot of units if your opponent has many archers as well.

[Everto]

Epic seleucid gangbang=Fun

No...not fun...more like a lot of dead Parthians, Pergamese, Armenians Pontians and Egyptians...a lot of dead

Hmm I tried my massed horse archers against Parthia's troops now. I'm not sure if I should be happy or not tbh. I mean, I did win the battle (the odds were slightly against me) and killed 95% of their army including their king, a ten star general. However, in the process I lost about 60% of my force...usually, I tend to win battles with as little as 10-20% losses so this seems to be quite a lot. Not sure if going HAs is my best bet against Parthia after all. Because when it comes to HA battles you can't really do much in terms of micromanagement (aside from putting them in a loose formation) so you will lose a lot of units if your opponent has many archers as well.

Well the odds were against you, you should have Babylonian Horse Archers, Heitorai, Cataphracts and heavy cavalry... You will probably loose more units in these confrontations because it's not much of a tactical engagement...just charge those bastards and kill em all.

[Ferdiad]

Use long range archers and slingers.

[Lord Lancelot]

I play Selucids. But i think it is too easy for them, to first with Antiochus III Army destroy Ptolemey V and then collect other army from Syrian cities and conquer all Egypt. After that is no problem to conquer Anatolia and Parthia.

[Everto]

I play Selucids. But i think it is too easy for them, to first with Antiochus III Army destroy Ptolemey V and then collect other army from Syrian cities and conquer all Egypt. After that is no problem to conquer Anatolia and Parthia.

What difficulty are you playing at? Because when it's at hard the 'neighbors' get a little frisky and invade you...AT THE SAME TIME.

[Gaius Julius Cæsar Augustus]

I play Selucids. But i think it is too easy for them, to first with Antiochus III Army destroy Ptolemey V and then collect other army from Syrian cities and conquer all Egypt. After that is no problem to conquer Anatolia and Parthia.

Historically speaking, who won the battle between Antiochus III and Ptolemy V?

[Mulattothrasher]

Historically speaking, who won the battle between Antiochus III and Ptolemy V?

Ptolemy IV defeated Antiochos III at Raphia in 217 B.C., bringing a generation of Ptolemaic hegemony in the region of Judea, Lebanon/Coele Syria.

About 17 years later the Seleucid armies returned. Against Scopas of Aetolia, the general of a young Ptolemy V, Antiochos III got his revenge at Panion in c. 200 B.C. and used cataphracts to achieve victory, winning back the regions lost at Raphia.

A big 'what-if' scenario would have been if Ptolemy IV pressed his victory at Raphia and marched his armies into Seleucid Syria and Antioch.

[Ferdiad]

Ptolemy IV defeated Antiochos III at Raphia in 217 B.C., bringing a generation of Ptolemaic hegemony in the region of Judea, Lebanon/Coele Syria.

About 17 years later the Seleucid armies returned. Against Scopas of Aetolia, the general of a young Ptolemy V, Antiochos III got his revenge at Panion in c. 200 B.C. and used cataphracts to achieve victory, winning back the regions lost at Raphia.

A big 'what-if' scenario would have been if Ptolemy IV pressed his victory at Raphia and marched his armies into Seleucid Syria and Antioch.

Why did Ptolemy IV win?

[Chinaski]

If I remember correctly my Polybius, Antiochus led a cavalry charge on Ptolemy left flank (both general were facing) and successfully pushed the Egyptian cavalry. Antiochus decided to pursue the routing cavalry far away, thinking he had already won the battle. But Ptolemy managed to leave his routing left flank, he regrouped at the center and led his phalanx against the Seleucid phalanx. He outnumbered them and won.

Antiochus went too far away and realized too late that he had made a mistake. If he had been a good RSII player, he would have charged with its cavalry in the back of the Egyptian phalanx

[Ferdiad]

With the Egyptian conquests you will probaly be rolling in money.