HELP ! ! Seleucid Empire Army Composition

[Nerfect]

can you guys give me a tip for a seleucid army composition against roman/greek/macedonian/egyptian enemies? and some ingame battle tactics how to use it properly, im really new to seleucid and roma surrectum. LOL

sorry for my bad english ( not my native language )

[romanius24]

Well i played Macedon which is similar.

My standard armies had 6 phalangites(sometimes 8), 4 heavy infantry(or 2 and 8 phalanx) for the flanks, 1 general and 3 heavy cavalry units.
My armies were made of 14 units and i had 6 slots empty for mercenaries or other units which would give an army its "personality".
Some armies would have extra infantry or cavalry while others had catapults for sieges depending on what enemy i was facing.
Every army had the same units at its core but they were all unique.

[tungri_centurio]

welcome than to this awesome mod.
im currently fighting seleucid with the romans.ill post a picture of the army's the AI uses against me.
they are pretty epic( but it's late game so can't help you with starting army's).and i never played seleucids myself


this are the most common army's they send after me,only the armoured elephant luckely is no so common common,the pezhetairoi phalangites are the AI main line.
these army's give me a great challenge and cause mass casualties in my named and numberd legions.
hope it helped you a bit.have fun

[Nerfect]

Thanks a lot guys

Keep the suggestions coming

[Ovidius Empiricus]

Seleucids have a very interesting, very big variety of troops. I like to have something fairly "realistic" and challenging when I play, so I try not to use too many really powerful units in an army. It also depends on the region, since some units are better in the deserts, some are better in forests, some are better against infantry, some are better against cavalry, and so forth. So, for example, the armies I use to fight Rome will be different from those fighting Parthia. The nice thing is that you can usually find appropriate troops in the mercenary barracks in that general area, so you're not just stuck with your "original" faction-specific units anyway.

Here is a very good army for me, with a little bit of everything. Other armies won't be so great, but this one is completely safe for the King to command and do whatever he wants, because there's almost no way to lose with such a fantastic line-up. Winning with this will feed his ego, no doubt about it. But really, this is overkill, 99% of the time:

- 1 General
- 1 Heavy Cavalry (Hetairoi or Cataphracts)
- 2 Horse archers (Aspidophoroi usually. Babylonians are better, but they're more expensive and not as easy to recruit.)
- 1 Cataphract Elephants
- 1 Scythed Chariots
- 1 Stone-throwers
- 2 Syrian Archers (Hyrkanians are more convenient in the East)
- 1 Slingers (Greek slingers are the worst -- you'll probably need some near the beginning of the campaign, but eventually I avoid using them. Rhodians, Judeans and Hyrkanians are better, depending on the area. And of course Balearic slingers are the best in the game, if you ever move into Carthage's territory)
- 1 Argyraspides phalangites
- 3 Pezheterairoi phalangites
- 1 Hypaspistai
- 1 Thorikitai Argyraspides
- 2 Thorikitai
- 2 Machairophoroi

Pin most of the enemy infantry down with the Pezhetairoi (they can spread out fairly wide and hold a big part of the line). Let your Thorikitai and Machairophoroi fire into their sides from the left and hold that side. Your Argyraspides and Hypaspistai probably won't even be necessary. They can just relax in the back and make everybody else feel good; or, if some enemy cavalry try to come around your right flank to harass your archers or something, they'll take care of that. Meanwhile, your elephants, chariots, cavalry and slingers can make their way around the left and hit the infantry hard in the back (or they'll completely annihilate the enemy cavalry, if the archers/stone-throwers aren't doing the job). Unless the enemy is also full of elite units, they will rout in no time at all.

More generally, I try to split the infantry up into pikemen/spearmen (best for fighting cavalry) and machairophoroi or other sword-users (for infantry). Thraikan pezoi are a great substitute for machairophoroi, once you control parts of Anatolia. In the East, Persian takabara are too weak to hold the line, but they're great as a sort of offensive "shock" troop in a flanking maneuver or something (similar to Thraiken Rhomphaiphoroi, except they have a lot of ammo to use up first). To save money and make it a little more interesting, you can take some of the elites out, switch to more "standard" infantry and include a couple of skirmishers, like Greek Heavy Peltasts for example. With factions in the East, the enemy often has some pretty tricky armies, like half of the stack is heavy missile cavalry and cataphracts, with some archers and a bunch of phalanxes. In that sort of situation, one or two more foot archers would be really useful. Let them unload for a while before you try to pin them down in melee. Otherwise, I would usually aim for an army composition like this (with at most only a few "elite" units that have "inspire" or "frighten" traits):

- 2 Heavy Cavalry (including general)
- 2 Missile Cavalry (still prefer heavier armor for them, and cavalry bowmen instead of javelin-throwers)
- 2 Archers
- 1 Slinger
- 2 Heavy Peltasts
- 4 pikemen
- 2-4 other spearmen (thorikitai, thureophoroi, judean infantry, etc.)
- 3-5 swordsmen (machairophoroi, pezoi, takabara, etc.)

Of course, sometimes you might want more cavalry or more archers or something like that, but I try to keep it pretty balanced most of the time. Slingers are so powerful that one is enough as far as I'm concerned. Also, having more pikemen never seems that useful to me -- maybe it isn't realistic to have so few of them, but I like that other units are more versatile, so I tend to limit it to that.

[Nerfect]

Seleucids have a very interesting, very big variety of troops. I like to have something fairly "realistic" and challenging when I play, so I try not to use too many really powerful units in an army. It also depends on the region, since some units are better in the deserts, some are better in forests, some are better against infantry, some are better against cavalry, and so forth. So, for example, the armies I use to fight Rome will be different from those fighting Parthia. The nice thing is that you can usually find appropriate troops in the mercenary barracks in that general area, so you're not just stuck with your "original" faction-specific units anyway.

Here is a very good army for me, with a little bit of everything. Other armies won't be so great, but this one is completely safe for the King to command and do whatever he wants, because there's almost no way to lose with such a fantastic line-up. Winning with this will feed his ego, no doubt about it. But really, this is overkill, 99% of the time:

- 1 General
- 1 Heavy Cavalry (Hetairoi or Cataphracts)
- 2 Horse archers (Aspidophoroi usually. Babylonians are better, but they're more expensive and not as easy to recruit.)
- 1 Cataphract Elephants
- 1 Scythed Chariots
- 1 Stone-throwers
- 2 Syrian Archers (Hyrkanians are more convenient in the East)
- 1 Slingers (Greek slingers are the worst -- you'll probably need some near the beginning of the campaign, but eventually I avoid using them. Rhodians, Judeans and Hyrkanians are better, depending on the area. And of course Balearic slingers are the best in the game, if you ever move into Carthage's territory)
- 1 Argyraspides phalangites
- 3 Pezheterairoi phalangites
- 1 Hypaspistai
- 1 Thorikitai Argyraspides
- 2 Thorikitai
- 2 Machairophoroi

Pin most of the enemy infantry down with the Pezhetairoi (they can spread out fairly wide and hold a big part of the line). Let your Thorikitai and Machairophoroi fire into their sides from the left and hold that side. Your Argyraspides and Hypaspistai probably won't even be necessary. They can just relax in the back and make everybody else feel good; or, if some enemy cavalry try to come around your right flank to harass your archers or something, they'll take care of that. Meanwhile, your elephants, chariots, cavalry and slingers can make their way around the left and hit the infantry hard in the back (or they'll completely annihilate the enemy cavalry, if the archers/stone-throwers aren't doing the job). Unless the enemy is also full of elite units, they will rout in no time at all.

More generally, I try to split the infantry up into pikemen/spearmen (best for fighting cavalry) and machairophoroi or other sword-users (for infantry). Thraikan pezoi are a great substitute for machairophoroi, once you control parts of Anatolia. In the East, Persian takabara are too weak to hold the line, but they're great as a sort of offensive "shock" troop in a flanking maneuver or something (similar to Thraiken Rhomphaiphoroi, except they have a lot of ammo to use up first). To save money and make it a little more interesting, you can take some of the elites out, switch to more "standard" infantry and include a couple of skirmishers, like Greek Heavy Peltasts for example. With factions in the East, the enemy often has some pretty tricky armies, like half of the stack is heavy missile cavalry and cataphracts, with some archers and a bunch of phalanxes. In that sort of situation, one or two more foot archers would be really useful. Let them unload for a while before you try to pin them down in melee. Otherwise, I would usually aim for an army composition like this (with at most only a few "elite" units that have "inspire" or "frighten" traits):

- 2 Heavy Cavalry (including general)
- 2 Missile Cavalry (still prefer heavier armor for them, and cavalry bowmen instead of javelin-throwers)
- 2 Archers
- 1 Slinger
- 2 Heavy Peltasts
- 4 pikemen
- 2-4 other spearmen (thorikitai, thureophoroi, judean infantry, etc.)
- 3-5 swordsmen (machairophoroi, pezoi, takabara, etc.)

Of course, sometimes you might want more cavalry or more archers or something like that, but I try to keep it pretty balanced most of the time. Slingers are so powerful that one is enough as far as I'm concerned. Also, having more pikemen never seems that useful to me -- maybe it isn't realistic to have so few of them, but I like that other units are more versatile, so I tend to limit it to that.

Thank you for your detailed answer bro.