Seleucids tips and tricks?

[Haroun]

Hello, anyone who play tested the Seleucids during this patch got any tips to share? I've noticed that keeping the Empire together is extremely difficult (love it, but I'm wondering if it's feasible or we're doomed to repeat History)
There are two main difficulties: corruption eating up huge chunks of the royal treasury, which makes building infrastructure and maintaining ~~2 royal armies on the fields, on in the East and one in the West quasi impossible
and Bandits doomstacks devastating the countryside (and taking cities, I love that addition btw, makes the campaign so much more challenging and historically accurate) without being able to do much since there's not enough money to keep healthy garrisons, deal with roaming bandits, with scripted invasions (nomadic incursions in Parthia and Mesopotamia and tribal warfare in Asia Minor) AND fighting Egypt, the Nabatians and the Parthians at the same time, which creates this vicious cycle where more bandits=less income= less manpower= more bandits etc

[Shoebopp]

Historically the vast Seleucid Empire was held together only through the heroics of its Basileus such as the starting faction leader Antiochus I Soter. You have to either play shrewd and pull every trick in the book to keep your empire intact, or change history and abandon one theater of war to focus on stabilizing another. You've tried the historical route - would you be interested in the abandonment strategy?

You got two parts of your Empire to focus on: Anatolia/Syria, and the Iranian Plateau. Both have pros/cons and offer vastly different campaigns. I suggest you create a save file after you start a Seleucid campaign and put down the rebellion in Seleukia and defeat the Ptolemy army in Ptolemais Akko (disband the Indian Elephants after you win the battle. Trust me, you don't need those beasts of the East).

Anatolia/Syria - Smash and recoup EVERYTHING in all settlements east of Seleukia. This will net you a staggering 40k mnai. Have your starting diplomat board your ship and sail it to Ptolemais Akko. Buy Halicanarssos, Ephesos, and Side for 30k. Meanwhile aggregate your forces near Sardeis and besiege Pergamon, breaking your alliance in the process. Once you click End Turn the Pergamenes will try to relieve the siege. Win that battle. Also, the Ptolemiac armies that were expelled from the Anatolian settlements you bought will attempt to retreat back to Egypt by land. You don't have to worry about them threatening your new holdings, but you do have to eliminate the rebel army near Side. On turn 2, have Antiochus, fresh off his victory near Ptolemais Akko, besiege and take the city. Defeat the spawned reinforcement armies. While this is happening in the West, evacuate all your FMs and Generals from the East. Aggregate them into one stack of bodyguard units, and march them back to Syria. Your eastern settlements will revolt, but one day you will return... probably. Once your FM/General stack arrives, have them besiege and take Salamis. Once you're done, Southern Anatolia and Syria are firmly under your control! You can then suicide all your eastern FMs and Generals along with anyone else you want (preferably those with non-special bodyguards. For example, one of your FMs has a Lydian Lancers bodyguard unit instead of the usual Somatophylakes Strategou. That Lydian Lancers unit costs too much for that FM to just govern a settlement. Either use him in battle or suicide him). The preferred method of suicide is to board the victims onto a ship and have it lose battle after battle against the many Ptolemaic armadas in the eastern Mediterranean.

Pros:
You have a generous source of colonists from the Metropoleis in Pergamon and Antiochea, and the soon-to-be Metropoleis in Sardeis, Ephesos, and Salamis.
You have a vast source of Hellenistic troops
Your empire is rather dense and compact and easy to defend
Southern Anatolia and Syria are immensely rich regions

Cons:
The Pisidian Raids in Ipsos and Side are an extra source of rebel armies. They spawn pretty frequently, and will tie up military resources
Syria will be under attack from the Nabataeans whose horse-archer armies are a PITA to deal with

Iranian Plateau - Smash and destroy everything in every settlement West of Antiochea, and East of Hekatompylos. Evacuate everyone to the Iranean Plateau. Disband until you have a purely cavalry army - use this in combination with locally garrisoned infantry to defeat any brigands that pop up. Build mines ASAP.

Pros:
Half a dozen of the Iranian Plateau have mines that generate 2k in mining income fully upgraded

Cons:
Nomadic raids from the Parthians and Arabians will keep you busy
The Iranian Plateau is too vast to defend effectively
You will be beset by the Parthians, Baktrians, Taksashilans, Nabataeans, and Ptolemies
Your source of colonists will disappear if you lost Antiochea
Far fewer hellenistic troops

As for general gameplay tips, you'd want to build Temples of Law everywhere to reduce corruption. Appoint FMs with loyalty between 2 and 4 to the royal court - their loyalty is low enough to benefit from the potential +3 loyalty once the royal court trait fully progresses, but not too low as to rebel, abuse their Satrap positions, or gain the Royal Spy trait. Everyone else gets the suicide boat. You should also suicide your starting faction heir, Seleukos. His biography trait even states that he was historically executed by his father. In any case his low and deteriorating loyalty necessitates his disappearance. The up-and-coming Antiochus is a much better candidate anyways.

[Alexandros Megas]

I would try to keep the empire, trying to avoid the loss of provinces.

In order of it, I build mines in the first turn in Persis. I use the syrian army under the Basileus to conquer Phoenicia. The eastern army under the heir is used to clean the empire of brigants and Eleutheroi. The third army is in Anatolia, and there is used a strategy of Blitz in order to expel the Ptolemaioi from Anatolia.

I always advance a little in my games but the start of them is always like this. After the war with Egypt I always look for the richest provinces. Keep always an eye on tour economy!!

[Alexandros Megas]

P.S. try to build mines and roads ASAP. The main roads are in Seleukeia and Damaskos. The mines would be in that order: Persepolis, Sousa. Try to keep Just one front in war, expelling quickly the Ptolemaioi from Anatolia and from Asia. If you would open a second war after Ptolemaioi choose Hayastan, for 2 reasons: their domains are too close to your core provinces (Syria and Mesopotamia) and because the mines in Armavir are extremely rich. I did study the resources map before the campaign in order to know which are tje Best provinces.

[realm56]

P.S. try to build mines and roads ASAP. The main roads are in Seleukeia and Damaskos. The mines would be in that order: Persepolis, Sousa. Try to keep Just one front in war, expelling quickly the Ptolemaioi from Anatolia and from Asia. If you would open a second war after Ptolemaioi choose Hayastan, for 2 reasons: their domains are too close to your core provinces (Syria and Mesopotamia) and because the mines in Armavir are extremely rich. I did study the resources map before the campaign in order to know which are tje Best provinces.

- When I complied my guide on the AS (On the faction difficulty trend), Hayastan was quite passive and can potentially be funneled north into the steppe if the right alliances are made.
- Other locations that can yield rich mines include Hekatompylos ,Zadrakata, Aspadana, Ipsos and Sardis, but leave those for later as corruption will eat up most of that income until you can impose more bonuses that come from Law (Law reduces corruption).

I would try to keep the empire, trying to avoid the loss of provinces.

In order of it, I build mines in the first turn in Persis. I use the syrian army under the Basileus to conquer Phoenicia. The eastern army under the heir is used to clean the empire of brigants and Eleutheroi. The third army is in Anatolia, and there is used a strategy of Blitz in order to expel the Ptolemaioi from Anatolia.


I always advance a little in my games but the start of them is always like this. After the war with Egypt I always look for the richest provinces. Keep always an eye on tour economy!!

-Losing provinces is never good...
-Be careful when dealing with Phoenicia, The Ptolemies will send army after army to take it back. The eastern army under the heir can also be used to deal with the Parthians if they decide to try anything (They will head south rather quickly...). Regarding Anatolia, leaving Pergamon alone is a viable option if you manage to gain ground on other fronts. Backstabbing Pergamon will hit your rep pretty hard and make it more likely for neutral factions to go to war with you (Especially Hayastan if you did not ally with them within the first couple of turns for your campaign) so I don't recommend it for quite a while.
- Always go for Salamis! it will make operations in Syria and Phoenicia more difficult for the Ptolemies and it is also rich.

For further details,

Click here to go to my guide

[Hellenikon]

I almost never abandon settlements, only sell or exchange them for alliances or other settlements. One move I usually do as AS is to ally with Pahlava by giving them the far eastern settlements that are not worth the investment to defend. This stops the periodical raids from nomads in the area, and Pahlava is a dangerous but good ally to have.

[Haroun]

What I would usually try to do at the start is destroy every eastern garrison building in all cities because all they do is make the cities harder to hold because of the happiness malus and negative cultural conversion, I try to never abandon any region unless it rebelled or got conquered (what king of King rase his own cities and leave his people to rot )
Then i'd take Seleukos, the heir, to smash the doomstack to the east of Seleukeia, I try to fight it on the field to minimize casualties, meanwhile I'd make a doomstack in Anatolia with all the troops in that region and try to blitz the Egyptians out of Kyria and Lydia, usually it works, but the fights are hard and a lot of (often irrepleacable) men die
On the Syrian front, I start building fortifications in Tarsos so I can build a colony of Makedonians the next time I got colonists( I've noticed that its impossible to hold that town with building a hellenistic miltiary colony, a big garison and an EXPERIENCED spy, otherwise it's doomed to keep rebelling over and over)
I'd start building Mines in Sousa (now I know Persepolis is better, so i'll switch to that instead, then Sousa) while disbanding most of the garisons in the east (focusing on the cavalry and the hoplites because they're a huge money drain), i'll stack units in the town west of Hekatompylos that always get besieged by a huge rebel army after like 10 or 15 turns)
I start building an academy in Seleukeia and start sending Alexandros and his brother (forgot his name) towards Babylonia to get an education otherwise they become useless or rebel pretty quickly, while switching the governors of Seleukeia and Babylonia (i've noticed Chaldeos always becomes a hypercorrupt and disloyal satrap no matter what I do, while Seleukeias is the opposite)
I group up all the generals who aren't important and give their anxilleries to useful people like Seleukos or somebody else, then get them killed (otherwise, i've noticed my royal line dies after Antiochus Theos gets married and has children, all the other of royal blood then stop having children alltogether and the children of Seleukos or Antiochus II never get marriage proposals, I don't like doing that but its the only way to keep the line of Seleukos I going)
I usually cant capture Palestine because of the script that pops two doomstacks to try to retake it, so I leave it alone until the late 250s usually when I can take them on and focus on building infrastructure, I also always lower the taxes so my family members get the upright tax collector trait (it does hurt the economy in the begining but I feel like in the long run its better, what do y'all think?)
I also buldoze all and every temple and only build temple of Zeus to fight the corruption
I also take Salamis very early because its rich and undefended
Things start to go downhill when the Nabateans join and start besieging Damascus and Antiochea and I have to keep an army in the area at all times, while the Parthians move south with their huge armies
One other big problem is that only they can make Palmyra useful and turn it into a town, so I usually leave it to them hoping they turn it into one so I can take it from them, otherwise its impossible to hold without an allied goverment and that needs a recruited general and my family line can't afford that because even though they're not technically in the family tree, they do count as FMs for the game so I get less children

I'm going to take some of these advices on this thread to improve my play and see where it goes, I'm also checking Realm's guide right now

[eyelurker]

One other big problem is that only they can make Palmyra useful and turn it into a town, so I usually leave it to them hoping they turn it into one so I can take it from them

Ai don't convert camp into town unfortunately.

I still would take them and turn it into allied government (without recruiting allied general) because it's location is crossroad between seleukia and antiochea.

[Alexandros Megas]

- When I complied my guide on the AS (On the faction difficulty trend), Hayastan was quite passive and can potentially be funneled north into the steppe if the right alliances are made.
- Other locations that can yield rich mines include Hekatompylos ,Zadrakata, Aspadana, Ipsos and Sardis, but leave those for later as corruption will eat up most of that income until you can impose more bonuses that come from Law (Law reduces corruption).

When I wrote before, I hadn't read yet your guide. That's really awesome! I am agree about build Law infrastructure before the mines. About the expansion into Hayastan, that's for an económical reason (their mines in specific) instead into Pergamon or Baktria.

-Losing provinces is never good...
-Be careful when dealing with Phoenicia, The Ptolemies will send army after army to take it back. The eastern army under the heir can also be used to deal with the Parthians if they decide to try anything (They will head south rather quickly...). Regarding Anatolia, leaving Pergamon alone is a viable option if you manage to gain ground on other fronts. Backstabbing Pergamon will hit your rep pretty hard and make it more likely for neutral factions to go to war with you (Especially Hayastan if you did not ally with them within the first couple of turns for your campaign) so I don't recommend it for quite a while.

My expansion in Anatolia is always in the southern flank, expelling the Ptolemaioi from it. I let the northern side to Pergamon. The Diadokhos is sent to the East to attack rebels armies.


- Always go for Salamis! it will make operations in Syria and Phoenicia more difficult for the Ptolemies and it is also rich.

I am agree. Salamis is a key point for trade and algo for its mines.

For further details,

[eyelurker]

Honsstly once you consolidate asia minor, Antiochea are a better capital due to insane trade and great mining income as well as being center of recruitment since hellas anatolia in addition of standard greek colony unit also give you phalanx and kretan unit(coast anatolia syria only)

The local unit are somewhat lackluster for Seleucid though except for galatia,armenia,judea garrison and persian cataphract

[realm56]

Honsstly once you consolidate asia minor, Antiochea are a better capital due to insane trade and great mining income as well as being center of recruitment since hellas anatolia in addition of standard greek colony unit also give you phalanx and kretan unit(coast anatolia syria only)

The local unit are somewhat lackluster for Seleucid though except for galatia,armenia,judea garrison and persian cataphract

I would advise against moving the capital from Seleukia to Antiochea as the PO in the eastern satrapies will become more difficult to maintain, you will still make good money once the mining and trading infrastructure in your empire has been built.

[Haroun]

Ai don't convert camp into town unfortunately.

I still would take them and turn it into allied government (without recruiting allied general) because it's location is crossroad between seleukia and antiochea.

Shame, the region is doomed to stay underdeveloped forever then

[eyelurker]

I would advise against moving the capital from Seleukia to Antiochea as the PO in the eastern satrapies will become more difficult to maintain, you will still make good money once the mining and trading infrastructure in your empire has been built.

Yeah somewhat but the corruption in western province are more significant than in eastern province especially because western province are more developed than eastern at start.

Also many western province are more rebellious modifier than the east like Akko, Ancyra, Tarsos and Side all of which become a lot more managable and more profitable if the capital are in Antioch

[realm56]

Yeah somewhat but the corruption in western province are more significant than in eastern province especially because western province are more developed than eastern at start.

Also many western province are more rebellious modifier than the east like Akko, Ancyra, Tarsos and Side all of which become a lot more managable and more profitable if the capital are in Antioch

Ah yes, Stasis with that -20% Law penalty, you have a point there, but that is somewhat counteracted by the relatively high % Hellenistic Polities culture present in your western satrapies. But PO wise, I usually find the east more problematic.

[Haroun]

Ah yes, Stasis with that -20% Law penalty, you have a point there, but that is somewhat counteracted by the relatively high % Hellenistic Polities culture present in your western satrapies. But PO wise, I usually find the east more problematic.

Does the Hellenic Autonomous goverment counter Statis or that is only for KH?

[realm56]

Does the Hellenic Autonomous goverment counter Statis or that is only for KH?

Stasis can only be negated in the top tier post-reform KH governments (Sympoliteia Hellenon and Polis tou ton Hellenon Koinou).

[Haroun]

Stasis can only be negated in the top tier post-reform KH governments (Sympoliteia Hellenon and Polis tou ton Hellenon Koinou).

What should I

[Haroun]

Oups sorry about that

What should I build as goverments in Ephesos and Halikarnassos after capture as the Seleucids?

[realm56]

Aim for Epistateia epi Hellenas in Ephesos (Can build hyperchia here but Epistateia epi Hellenas is preferred for superior infrastructure options (Especially top level Hellenistic military colonies)) and Satrapeia tes Arches Seleukeias in Haalikarnassos (This is a satrapy province)

[sftonix]

1) mines mines and mines ( eastwards, plenty of cash )...did i say mines yet?

2) stabilize borders, expecially those on northeast regions: pahlavians, indians, and lesser bros baktrians could be a big wild card at any time.

3) According to 2) make a LOT of alliances ( do a wise use of tributes ).

4) rush IMMEDIATELY on whatever is "yellow" on the map: first of all wipe the egyptians out of mikrasia's regions and salamis, then go to akka ---> use the elephant unit in the first turn. Once you got rid of that ptolemaic army in syria, disband it ( if the indian tanks are still alive, they are too expensive to mantain at the beginning of campaign ).

Accomplish these 4 steps as quickly as you can. And do the cleanest job possible.

If you get them, once you have built some mines ( expecially those incoming +1000 each turn ), your empire should be set on "fire" and you can call it a day. After this point ( 5-15 years should do the job ) you can start a second phase, completing the ptolemaic conquest and, at the same time, cleaning the empire out of rebel armies ( i strongly suggest this move because those annoying dudes spread off the map could snatch lots of money by "devastation" device ).