A seleucid doubt

[Zarax]

Been playing a great campaign with seleucid on XGM until marius reforms kicked in...
Needless to say, facing stack after stack of praetorians and urbans is starting to take a toll on my army, forcing me to increase cavalry recuiting to make up for their superior infantry and logistic (I can't field as many legions as them due to XGM AOR limitations)...

Here comes my doubt: what should I use, companion cavalry or cataphracts?

[Tabell]

cataphracts

[Imperator of Rome]

Cataphracts if you are aiming to keep your horsemen alive,companion for flanking behind etc

[Captain_Paulentineous]

Cataphracts if you wabt them to live. I find companions are better for weaker infantry and flank and rear charges, mostly because they have lower armor than Cataphracts.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Cataphracts can break trough most enemy infantry easily. Besides if you have Temples of Hephaestos they will be even more powerful. Use silver shield pikemen to engage the enemy spearmen and infantry, charge from the rear with your heavy cavalry and use the cataphracts against the roman general. They are simply devastating. Alternatively you can charge straight ahead if the enemy is only up to a legionary cohort. I've never tested a cataphract charge against a praetorian or urban cohort, but you will most likely suffer heavy casualties. Auxilia spearmen can kill a cataphract unit so never try to charge them from the front.

[Shadows]

Yeah, the cataphracts work, but how about using cavalry archers? roman soldiers can't catch them and once you have used up all their arrows you can charge them into what is hopefully a weakened and demoralized force, which may rout quite easily then, allowing you to chase them off the map killing them at your discretion.

[Virgil]

yeah - i am in agreement with shadows here. Get cataphracts but also bring a lot of horse archers with you, they tire adn distract the enemy and a nigh uncatchable. And their cheap so they are an all around good investment.

[Zarax]

Thanks for the answers.
My main problem is that I can't train horse archers as seleucids so that I can either have (next to useless) militia cavalry or bedouin camel archers at best.
The problem is that the AI is smart enough to bring a pretty balanced army and use it well (BI AI) so that I'm forced to use more tactics than this...

Right now my army looks like that:

SL= silver shield legion*
EL= XGM seleucid version of early legions
Ga= Gastraphetes (very strong archers)
Ca/Co = Cataphracts or companions*
Gc = general
Bm = Bedouin mercs
Ph = phalangites (the medium ones, it's the best unit i can recruit in one turn but gets creamed post marius)
AE= armoured elephants
*= limited recruitment by AOR

Ga Ga SLSLSL ELELELELELEL SLSL Ca/Co Ca/Co Ca/co
AE Bm Gc Ca/Co Ca/Co

Reserves: PhPhPhPhPhPhPh GaGa ELEL

What I usually face is a mix of legions, urbans, praetorians supported by some auxilia and legionary/pretorian cav with some numidians in africa (romans can train numidian mercs there) with numbers between 2:1 and 3:1 in their favour depending on my distance from my main cities (war in africa = long supply lines), which means i get a good victory followed by a phyrric one as my reserves gets wasted very quick...

Strategically I'm very slowly pushing the scipii out of africa but also getting ready to disaster in anatolia as the brutii are opening a second front there that I can supply only with medium quality troops as the elites are busy elsewhere...

Right now companions are my main cav force as they seems to fare better against the post marian roman cav and are usually able to catch the pesky numidians which are unusually effecive against my katanks...

All in all a very fun but tiring campaign with XGM-BI, which I'm going to win only if I can push the scipii out of africe before my anatolian front collapses...

[Imperator of Rome]

In my selecuid camp i used all companions and ...the scippii never got over my border or near a town....once.Got tired of the campaign and quit though.I used silver shield,companions,archers,in one army legionarries in anothher

[Zarax]

In my selecuid camp i used all companions and ...the scippii never got over my border or near a town....once.Got tired of the campaign and quit though.I used silver shield,companions,archers,in one army legionarries in anothher

Try using the BI exe, your campaign will give you some extra challenge...

[Shadows]

Since you cant recruit horse archers, use militia cavalry,or how about merc horse archers? Militia cavalry has skirmish and a ranged attack, they may not be as effective, but the ycan wear down infantry without being caught,unless they get sandwiched or something. With your militia cavalry placethem way infront of your main army with only some heavy cavalry to fend off the enemy cavalry. If they can cause casualties and then retreat behind your lines great, if not use them to pull infantry units out of line and charge home you troops into the hole left behind. And as for your anatoia front, try to make them come to you. Pick your battlefield in yor favor, or retreat behind yor city walls and build tons of archers to destroy their seige engines. When the beseige and attack, destroy their seige weapons and you will also cause substantial casualties, hopefully without suffering any your self.

[invictus]

Zarax how does one simply use the Bi.exe without playing BI? -Leon

[Zarax]

Zarax how does one simply use the Bi.exe without playing BI? -Leon

just add -mod: to your BI shortcut and it will work fine

[invictus]

What you mean? I open up the properties, under target i add " -mod", thats all? How does the game know to target regular RTW then? Thanks though, ill try that -Leon

[Zarax]

-mod: tells the bi exe to point to the main data folder, works like a charm