Seleucid Campaign: Resources, money and logistical problems

[Agrippa19]

First run through of my Seleucid campaign and I've started to notice some problems with my ability to upgrade my armour in the Eastern and nortern empire specifically Asaak (formerly Parthia's) down to the Indian Ocean and the my northermost reaches below the Armenian mountains where the their capital city Van still stands. I've decided that the city Ardela*? below Armenia's borders should be a fortified settlement but after upgrading the foundry and building weapons import and army supplies my armies still cannot be reequipped with better armour and weapons, which is driving me crazy as with the amount of full blown Armenian invasions I often resort to autoresolving some battles where my poorly armed forces get slaughtered logistically these soldiers are at least 2-3 turns one way to either Antioch or Seleucia who have access to higher tier armour upgrades. Don't get me wrong I love the might the Armenians are showing in this campaign but I'm growing frustrated by not understanding why I can't transform Ardela ( again that name may be a bit off) into a military fortress where I can can supply top quality arms and armour. Have I just made a poor decision in choosing this settlement or have I missed something? I thought weapons import would allow me to keep buildinh higher tier foundries.

Same problem for Asaak. I choose here as it blocks the mountain pass and overlooks the river flowing into the Caspian sea so was an ideal location to keep watch over the battered Parthians, the Armenians are heading Eastwards also into those cities where the Governor gets the 'Satrap of Media' ancillary (that city is also fortified but cannot upgrade the foundry) and there is a completely impractical distance between here and Seleucia to rearm troops so I was hoping these cities could supply themselves.

As for money I'm well aware of the homeland bonus/treasury system and the further from home the less profitable cities become but this never truly became a money nightmare in my roman campaigns. My empire stretches from the old Ptolymic Empire whos territories in Egypt are now all mine, the old independant cities of Petra, Bostra & Palmyra,my original settlements and the Parthian lands to Asaak. Pretty big at about 40 regions but my Eastern settlements seem to be utterly useless are rolling out cash. Trade on the silk route and Indian sea trade I thought would be a cash cow but nothing seems to be coming from there. Yes mining seems to prospering in and around charax but I was hoping for a bigger trade profit. Trade, temple, glass making, and farming construction don't seem to give any benefits on the borders of my empire now and while my budget off says I still have 90,000 still to spend before going in the red I'm left with less than 20,000 in hard cash at the end of each turn to actually spend. In the future by expanding further I'm afraid I'm going to cave at some point as I'm already struggling now!

So really are the mechanics of the Selecuid campiagn much different from the Roman campiagn? As I believed after 90% of RS2/3 experience as Rome I believed I had this mod sussed out but during this campaign I feel a bit flusterred as to why I feel like such a rookie!

Bonus question: are the Seleucids at a disadvantage when autoresolving? My roman legions often take relatively minor casualties but my elite Seleucids ( silver upgraded silver shield foot cataphracts, foot companion phalanx, leopard skin cavalry and elephants) take a severe pounding against Armenia's kappodicia, hillmen and few azat cavalry and infantry, regularly 30-50% casualties while my poorly armed units that theoretically would be very good when upgraded get decimated?

[Alavaria]

Bonus question: are the Seleucids at a disadvantage when autoresolving? My roman legions often take relatively minor casualties but my elite Seleucids ( silver upgraded silver shield foot cataphracts, foot companion phalanx, leopard skin cavalry and elephants) take a severe pounding against Armenia's kappodicia, hillmen and few azat cavalry and infantry, regularly 30-50% casualties while my poorly armed units that theoretically would be very good when upgraded get decimated?

Romans are super units. I don't think the upgrades count that much in autoresolve. Also, horse units which are smaller are also a good bit weaker in autoresolve.

Autoresolve really likes full-sized units of heavy infantry.

As for money I'm well aware of the homeland bonus/treasury system and the further from home the less profitable cities become but this never truly became a money nightmare in my roman campaigns. My empire stretches from the old Ptolymic Empire whos territories in Egypt are now all mine, the old independant cities of Petra, Bostra & Palmyra,my original settlements and the Parthian lands to Asaak. Pretty big at about 40 regions but my Eastern settlements seem to be utterly useless are rolling out cash. Trade on the silk route and Indian sea trade I thought would be a cash cow but nothing seems to be coming from there. Yes mining seems to prospering in and around charax but I was hoping for a bigger trade profit. Trade, temple, glass making, and farming construction don't seem to give any benefits on the borders of my empire now

Well unlike with Italy as Rome you don't get the +100 tax income bonus thing, that's not surprising.

Especially if you are some distance away (which is true out east) then when you have a fairly pointless tradeoff between +tax and "-tax for + law" due to corruption, etc etc.

while my budget off says I still have 90,000 still to spend before going in the red I'm left with less than 20,000 in hard cash at the end of each turn to actually spend. In the future by expanding further I'm afraid I'm going to cave at some point as I'm already struggling now!

Well what do you mean, you press End Turn with 100 cash and only have 20100 cash when your next turn starts?

Are you holding a lot of cash right now? Because the script will magically eat cash if you are holding a lot (80k at End Turn, 200k at start of turn)

[dvk901]

There are several issues at play here regarding the ability to upgrade units. First, the blacksmith buildings all require this:

weapons_metals_import or resource iron or resource copper or resource tin or resource lead

If you don't have one of them, you can't build them. However, I have noticed that occasionally RTW will just ignore these clearly coded conditions and not allow you to build the tree no matter what. I have theorized that it could be a metal resource not working properly, but there are other buildings that have done this as well...even though all the conditions say you should be able to build the particular building. So it may be that this 'bug' is the cause of your problem here.

The next issue is that each campaign is configured to make that campaign harder for the player, and in this case, all non-player units automatically get big upgrades in their barracks. So you will face upgraded units right off the bat....it's meant to be that way because the player, afterall, has all the advantages anyway.

As far as money goes...yes, the script will axe anything over a certain amount, but also, the economics of RS2\3 is and can be a bit confusing because of the heavy use of tax bonuses and penalties, and the sparse use of trade bonuses. The result is that sometimes you will see that you have XXX amount of money in your treasury, and you think: I have a lot to spend. So you cue up buildings, units, etc and then next turn you have nothing or a deficit! That's because 'profit' in RS2\3 is 'misreported', shall we say. When you look in the 'Financial' section, the numbers may tell you you are going to have 'X' amount of cash coming in....but what RTW can't report is that you will have 'x' amount of TAXES being chewed up and taken out of your profit. RTW just wasn't written with that kind of economics in mind.

The end result is a rough but necessary control of income to keep players from swimming in money. So keep less than 40000 in your treasury at an end turn, but don't spend everything...because tax penalties will kill you.

As for why the Seleucid campaign is different from the Roman one....well, there are numerous reasons why every campaign is going to play differently than the Roman one. What resources that faction's regions have, what buildings they start with, what was set in place to control the player's income, whether you use Governors in cities (and you must, or there is a 50% tax penalty), the surrounding regions you conquer (whether they are wealthy or just a hole you throw money in), and....this is a big one....the size and distances involved spanning the particular 'empire' the faction starts with. The Roman campaign and faction starts with a rather 'compressed' amount of regions that are close together (which reduces the distance from capital penalty), increases happiness, pop. grow, etc. Whereas, Seleucid has a vast sprawling empire that is much less friendly to the player.

[Alavaria]

Oh yeah, so for the Seleucids, the biggest thing you can do for yourself is make sure you have no corruption in Antiochea and Seleucia, and put in a governor. Ideally you want Very High taxes on these (x1.5 multiplier from Normal) as well as a Regional Governor general (x1.6 multiplier). These combine for a x2.4 multiplier. However, governors get a special trait from Very High taxes, so each settlement needs to have two governors who will swap out so they can cool down in a nearby settlement at High taxes.

Put your capital between Antiochea and Seleucia, that should make it easy to get no corruption without losing income on +law buildings.

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For all the other settlements, just make sure they have no corruption and try to push them to Very High taxes.

You can survive pretty well doing this everywhere, then start experimenting. The +tax income buildings... if you are going to be within <40% "distance from capital" or so, then go ahead. Otherwise generally ignoring it is a pretty good idea. There's also the Break Squalor Cap trick, which Scythian areas, but really areas with plenty of Grain can do.

However, conquering is definitely a great way to get more income, and you gotta conquer the world so might as well get yourself some Stone Throwing Siege Ballista and get to it. Depopulate everywhere.

[Ovidius Empiricus]

First run through of my Seleucid campaign and I've started to notice some problems with my ability to upgrade my armour in the Eastern and nortern empire specifically Asaak (formerly Parthia's) down to the Indian Ocean and the my northermost reaches below the Armenian mountains where the their capital city Van still stands. I've decided that the city Ardela*? below Armenia's borders should be a fortified settlement but after upgrading the foundry and building weapons import and army supplies my armies still cannot be reequipped with better armour and weapons, which is driving me crazy as with the amount of full blown Armenian invasions I often resort to autoresolving some battles where my poorly armed forces get slaughtered logistically these soldiers are at least 2-3 turns one way to either Antioch or Seleucia who have access to higher tier armour upgrades. Don't get me wrong I love the might the Armenians are showing in this campaign but I'm growing frustrated by not understanding why I can't transform Ardela ( again that name may be a bit off) into a military fortress where I can can supply top quality arms and armour. Have I just made a poor decision in choosing this settlement or have I missed something? I thought weapons import would allow me to keep buildinh higher tier foundries.

Same problem for Asaak. I choose here as it blocks the mountain pass and overlooks the river flowing into the Caspian sea so was an ideal location to keep watch over the battered Parthians, the Armenians are heading Eastwards also into those cities where the Governor gets the 'Satrap of Media' ancillary (that city is also fortified but cannot upgrade the foundry) and there is a completely impractical distance between here and Seleucia to rearm troops so I was hoping these cities could supply themselves.

It's Arbela, by the way. Certain regions can't have the pantheons which allow top-quality "gold" armor, although you should be able to make "silver" level without those temples. This is a fairly small difference, so if you've already committed a lot of time/money to make certain places recruitment-focused, I wouldn't worry about it too much, even if they're not ideal in that sense. You could send that city's recruits off to another which will upgrade them to gold armor, but that takes more time/money and it defeats the purpose of picking a region that's closer to your current borders. Eventually, your borders will move as you grow, so at least this wouldn't be a permanent issue for you.

I'd be more concerned if I chose a region that can't access a certain mercenary unit -- Hyrcanian slingers are better than Greek ones, for instance, so I'd pick a region like Zadracarta to be a recruitment center for them. Their archers aren't shabby either, and it's a very long way to Antioch to recruit/retrain my best Syrian archers. Of course, it'll be supplying pikes and cavalry and so forth for that whole area, not only slingers or archers. But if I'm going to pick a region to help me secure that entire part of the map, the mercs are a very important factor, maybe even more so than whether it has weapons metals. Not everything the mercs offer is a good deal (they can keep their Median spearmen and such), but they can certainly be better than your levies in a lot of cases, sometimes even better than your faction's more elite units (at least for certain specialized purposes). You can plan ahead (and be certain about what you're getting) if look at the roster for the merc building, so be sure to do that before you go on a big spending spree anywhere.

As for money I'm well aware of the homeland bonus/treasury system and the further from home the less profitable cities become but this never truly became a money nightmare in my roman campaigns. My empire stretches from the old Ptolymic Empire whos territories in Egypt are now all mine, the old independant cities of Petra, Bostra & Palmyra,my original settlements and the Parthian lands to Asaak. Pretty big at about 40 regions but my Eastern settlements seem to be utterly useless are rolling out cash. Trade on the silk route and Indian sea trade I thought would be a cash cow but nothing seems to be coming from there. Yes mining seems to prospering in and around charax but I was hoping for a bigger trade profit. Trade, temple, glass making, and farming construction don't seem to give any benefits on the borders of my empire now and while my budget off says I still have 90,000 still to spend before going in the red I'm left with less than 20,000 in hard cash at the end of each turn to actually spend. In the future by expanding further I'm afraid I'm going to cave at some point as I'm already struggling now!

So really are the mechanics of the Selecuid campiagn much different from the Roman campiagn? As I believed after 90% of RS2/3 experience as Rome I believed I had this mod sussed out but during this campaign I feel a bit flusterred as to why I feel like such a rookie!

The Seleucids are in a pretty tricky situation at first. You may think you're in good shape, because you have such a large empire compared to anybody else, in a nice corner that's fairly easy to defend compared to Italy (if that's what you're used to), as well as a decent amount of money flowing in. (Make sure you put any excess into your building queue, projects which you might cancel when the time comes, if need be. Just don't leave a bunch of cash sitting in your treasury at the end of the turn.)

But you do have a big problem with corruption, so law temples need to go everywhere very soon (except maybe some central regions near your capital, which at first ought to be Seleucia or possibly Opis). Plus, many cities will grow very quickly if you let them, because you have good farms and grain supplies in a lot of places, so public order can also be out of control due to squalor, even if not much money is lost to corruption. The AI certainly isn't good at handling it, because the AI Seleucids always seem to have rebels in Persia, along with Parthians (sometimes Armenians) eventually swooping in to take over everything else.

If you have taken the Ptolemies out of the picture, you want to expand into (mostly-Greek) Anatolia. Really, you want the whole Greek world, all of Alexander's old empire, to be your top priority. Don't worry at first about cleaning up whatever small remnants there might be of Armenia or Parthia. That will come in time. The Greeks need to be on your side, so to speak, which really means their current learders are all your enemies. But treat them nicely once you have them -- lots of aqueducts and temples and markets and so on -- because they will make mountains of gold for you if you do. You need a decent navy, because everybody will want to harrass you at every port. Anyway, Pergamon, Pontus, Macedon, Sparta, and the GCS will have to go. Any other faction, like Dacia or Scythia, which gets in the way of you and Athens needs to be repelled, but it's not a great idea to spread yourself too thin, by actually conquering distant places like that too soon.

Once you have most of Anatolia, it will be fairly smooth sailing, so you can take Greece proper relatively easily. The Romans need to be dealt with, but you have a fantastically diverse army that can run circles around them, pepper them with all sorts of missiles, stomp on them with elephants, etc. Eventually, you should have developed in the East (which you shouldn't focus on too much generally) enough that it can take care of itself, so you can eliminate the rest of the Parthians and Armenians. That area is reasonably profitable if you build it up, but it's not nearly as strategically important as the fight against Pontus and Pergamon. Really, you have to bring a very big fight to your Western front, for as long as you play that campaign, against that big mess of Greek/Roman/Barbarian factions in the center. If you can defend and maintain your borders in the East (and prevent the people there from rioting, it hardly needs to be said) a handful of enemy settlements in Parthia or wherever isn't going to send much trouble your way.

Bonus question: are the Seleucids at a disadvantage when autoresolving? My roman legions often take relatively minor casualties but my elite Seleucids ( silver upgraded silver shield foot cataphracts, foot companion phalanx, leopard skin cavalry and elephants) take a severe pounding against Armenia's kappodicia, hillmen and few azat cavalry and infantry, regularly 30-50% casualties while my poorly armed units that theoretically would be very good when upgraded get decimated?

Autoresolving is not something I ever do. Couldn't say what different factions may experience with it. Probably best to fight nearly all of your battles, except maybe against a few tiny stacks now and then, which might be too tedious or time-consuming to do it yourself.

[Agrippa19]

Sorry was away for a few days so I couldn't reply

Well what do you mean, you press End Turn with 100 cash and only have 20100 cash when your next turn starts?

Haven't had my laptop closeby so haven't played in a few days ('ll clarify when I get a chance) but a rough example would be I would have 40000 in the bank at end turn, but my bank sheet says I still got 90,000 to spend befoe going in the red. Theoretically this should leave me with 130000 by start of next turn but I also find this tends not to be the case.
Also Alavaria do you mind explaining the '+tax' & '-tax'? is this a governor related issue? I'm finding that my recruited Seleucid governors are god awful compared to the roman recruited ones. Progress into my campaign has seen this issue being addressed by the mass construction of scriptoriums throughout the empire but it's still an issue ensuring every city in the east is governed appropriately. The royal family isn't reproducing quick enough and the recruited governors are in the majority poor quality.
I also made Alexandria as my capital (for roleplay) as my heir became the Archon of Egypt/ seemed to be the sort that would like pharaoh status and I thought Alexandria was the most impressive city in the Empire. Does this have a negative tax or functional role on my campaign with regard to it not being a 'homeland' or treasury settlement?


@DVK. I have ensured that Arbela (thanks for clarifying Ovidius) has a weapons metals import but still no option to upgrade the foundry. It's a large city and i'm trying to restrict as many cities as I can from becoming huge if possible as I believe this reduces taxes?
Another question, is there any section in the city scroll such as the trade tab that details which resouces are being traded out and which are being traded in? I see where it describes what resources are being traded with each city but not specifically if these resources are coming from the city or to the city.

And yes the distance from the capital I feel is a much more pressing issue in the Seleucid campiagn. I have roughly 40 settlements which on the map makes my empire look huge but if this had been a roman campiagn it would look less immense due to the compactness of settlements around the Mediterranean.

@Ovidius with regard to law temples I had decided to go with trade and tax temples as I thought this would boost my income but would law bonus's with tax penalties result in less corruption=more money?
As for my next move: Anatolia is still relatively divided; the remnants of the Ptolymic dynasty have a kingdom around the Halicarnauss area that is holding up well/ Pergamon are strong in western Asia minor, The greek Bythinians are robust and allied to the Crimean Greeks fighting a growing Pontus who are engaged in a two front war with Armenia on the other side. The Armenians are becoming far too strong so I think I'll have to regroup my armies that took huge casualties fighting back the Armenian invasion (through autoresolve, it was late and I just wanted the Armenians out) and invade the mountainous armenian lands. That'll probably mean Pontus will capitalise and become the next superpower in Turkey but still by the time Armenia are gone the Seleucids will be too strong to stand up against.

[Alavaria]

Haven't had my laptop closeby so haven't played in a few days ('ll clarify when I get a chance) but a rough example would be I would have 40000 in the bank at end turn, but my bank sheet says I still got 90,000 to spend befoe going in the red. Theoretically this should leave me with 130000 by start of next turn but I also find this tends not to be the case.

Tell me the difference between your Cash when Pressing end turn and the Projected Treasury Total from your finance/budget screen.



You see here I have 1420 cash and it projects 28750.

Also Alavaria do you mind explaining the '+tax' & '-tax'? is this a governor related issue?

No, I'm talking about building bonuses. Governors are... not particularly great due to the cost of wages+bodyguard unit upkeep. (They do, however, make magnificant if "expensive" heavy cavalry).

I'm finding that my recruited Seleucid governors are god awful compared to the roman recruited ones.

Yes. Romans are special and get these special traits by just doing nothing but sitting in settlements. So yeah.

I also made Alexandria as my capital (for roleplay) as my heir became the Archon of Egypt/ seemed to be the sort that would like pharaoh status and I thought Alexandria was the most impressive city in the Empire. Does this have a negative tax or functional role on my campaign with regard to it not being a 'homeland' or treasury settlement?

The most important part of capital is the "distance to capital" other settlements have for being far from the capital. This reduses public order and causes corruption if Law < Distance to Capital (for corrpution, this is tracked above 80%, but the public order penalty caps at 80%).

If you look under the bottom value for Expenditure (in my image it is 906) that number usually is about all due to corruption.

Check Seleucia and see how much corruption it has. Or perhaps one of your really far east settlements...

[dvk901]

.........................Yes. Romans are special and get these special traits by just doing nothing but sitting in settlements. So yeah....

LOL.....well, after sticking my nose back on straight after having it slapped to the side of my face, yeah, probably so, but not because we just wanted to make the Romans better. The Romans have an incredibly extensive and complicated leadership and bonus system that I have always had a hard time wrapping my brain around. It was written by 'Calvin', who died before he finished it, and between Tone and I we did our best to put it in place and make it work. The Greek leadership system, however, was provided by a couple Greek and Macedonian historians who gave me some graphs and charts and information that took me well over a month to put into some trait 'form' that would work in RTW. I was pretty proud of myself that I could even do it, because at first I thought "OMG, this is going to be impossible!" What they did NOT provide, however (at least not in full) was what bonuses should be given for various traits. So I had to make all that up on the fly, and, well, there you are. Guess I didn't do as good a job as Calvin had. The truth is, though, that the Greek leadership system is very heavily 'military', with a less extensive treatment of the 'public' or domestic side of things, whereas the Roman one is heavy in both. That's likely why the Seleucid Governor compared to the Roman one is going to be a loser. It wasn't intentional, it just worked out that way.

I have promised, though, that I would at some point do some more work on the Seleucid Empire, so it's good you report these things in this thread. Keep them coming.

@Agrippa19: I checked both EDB and descr_regions.txt to make sure that the proper hidden resources are present (weapons_import) in that region, and everything is as it should be. So I think this is definitely the RTW bug causing that.

[Alavaria]

To me honest when I sat down to check all these "client network" "estates" and "(various roman political offices)" traits, my reaction on putting together the triggers to find out what progresses them was to giggle because I hadn't actually ever looked at them.

Before that I just assumed it was the really complicated system that was previewed in the preview made years back (also by Calvin)

[Ovidius Empiricus]

@Ovidius with regard to law temples I had decided to go with trade and tax temples as I thought this would boost my income but would law bonus's with tax penalties result in less corruption=more money?

You want to have all of those temples eventually.

I'm not sure what exactly you're asking. By "tax penalties" do you mean lower tax rates or the maintenance cost of the law temple (which I think is described as "penalty")? First, you do want to aim for High taxes -- not Very High (not for more than a couple of turns, if it's ever necessary) because it affects your governors negatively. Which is negative.

Law reduces corruption, and corruption is profit you don't make. If you kept the law bonus constant and just ignore it for a moment (at zero percent or whatever it may be in a given city), you'll get more money with higher tax rates than with lower tax rates. Some percentage of your income will be eaten up by corruption. Maybe it's a slightly higher percentage when there's more income, not a flat rate -- I honestly don't know -- but the point is that you'll always get more profits from higher tax rates.

With some law bonus, the public is happier (same positive public order effect as "happiness," health, games/races, and so forth), so that you'd able to increase taxes to Medium or High without causing riots.

Riots are bad. You get no money at all from cities you don't control, and you may have to spend a lot of money on an army that could've gone somewhere else just to take that pitiful mess of a province back. Or, if you try to solve it militarily but with a bit more foresight, you still don't need a big expensive garrison sitting way over there in Persia, with nothing to do but keep your population from rebelling. That's got to be the textbook place where economic and cultural development does it way better (and faster and permanently) and where it has to come first. That means you have to build stuff (not recruit stuff) to fix the problem.

You can bet that they will be increasingly upset in your Eastern provinces, if you do nothing but build tax/trade/mines/caravans/etc. That doesn't solve your problem. You do need money, but it's to pay for things like these construction projects, not just to have money or just to pay soldiers. In the East, they're really not all that fond of this whole "Greeks are the ruling class, and you have to do everything our way" thing that your empire is all about. If you're in a Greek area, they do tend to like that well enough, so appeasing them takes a bit less work, but not in the East. Your cities' happiness icons ought to be green, not red or blue or yellow or any other color. You could try to satisfy the people with only happiness temples/wells/hospitals. Those cost you something to maintain just like law temples do, so it's not like there's a way around that. And you'd still be losing money to corruption in cities that are distant from the capital, if you don't do something about it by building law temples.*


Note that these kinds of choices also affect how your governors progress with traits and ancillaries. The mod's got a very complicated system which is hard to summarize. But the most general thing to say about it is that you want a well-run, efficient, happy city with a variety of buildings, so your governors won't degenerate into a bunch of worthless scumbags. Their management rating, along with their traits/ancillaries that can also provide bonuses to taxes, trade, law, health, etc., is much more important than what you'll be paying in maintenance for a well-developed city. You don't want to just look at the negative numbers, which say it's a "penalty" or whatever, because that really doesn't give you the whole picture.

*EDIT: I should add that I've been saying "law temples" but academies provide a small law bonus too. Often times, you don't need to upgrade to a pantheon to get what you need. Anyway, every city, whether or not it has a corruption or public order problem, should have an academy or better. There are quite a few very nice ancillaries that require at least an academy, if not a scriptorium or ludus magnus. Lots of historical figures require this (which may only be available during a specific range of turns in the campaign, a few of them fairly early), but also some of the more generic ones that many generals/governors might get. The same goes for law temples or most other buildings (the traits/ancillaries tend to amplify what the building does), which is why I said you want diversity. There just isn't any single, simple thing which will do it all for you. I'd say this is especially important for Greek factions, although Rome benefits a great deal from it too -- understandably and like DVK said, Rome has been given a special amount of attention in Roma Surrectum, so while playing a Greek faction you may need to be even more vigilant about it to do just as well.

As for my next move: Anatolia is still relatively divided; the remnants of the Ptolymic dynasty have a kingdom around the Halicarnauss area that is holding up well/ Pergamon are strong in western Asia minor, The greek Bythinians are robust and allied to the Crimean Greeks fighting a growing Pontus who are engaged in a two front war with Armenia on the other side. The Armenians are becoming far too strong so I think I'll have to regroup my armies that took huge casualties fighting back the Armenian invasion (through autoresolve, it was late and I just wanted the Armenians out) and invade the mountainous armenian lands. That'll probably mean Pontus will capitalise and become the next superpower in Turkey but still by the time Armenia are gone the Seleucids will be too strong to stand up against.

Pontus can be very dangerous, if you let it grow too much. In my Seleucid/Pergamon/Armenia campaigns, I'm usually on the ball with them; but when I'm playing Rome or somewhere else, they usually grow quite a bit. I've seen it make a real mess of Anatolia, Armenia, around the Crimean and all over Sarmatian territory for that matter. At least they usually hit a roadblock once they meet the Macedonians or the Dacians, because the AI is never good about sending reinforcements to really distant places that need the extra help. Anyway, they have a nice roster and will be a big pain to deal with, probably worse than Armenia. If you're set on attacking Armenia first (since I guess right now you share a border with them and not with Pontus), you might consider taking Armenia's Eastern regions first, so Pontus will be busy with them for a while. It can help to have some additional regions near Parthia too, so you can quickly recruit some more units in the area if they become a problem. However, usually, my Eastern armies were recruited in Seleucia and Bablyon for a while at the beginning, until I could make a good recruiting center at or near Hyrcania.