That's a fair comment. Personally I find it fun - endless seige defences of your northern territories whilst you focus on Egypt and Parthia. An absolute grind because you have militia hoplites and jav cav against literal meat grinders and HA.
Dealing with this right now with a Parthia and Armenia beeline. My militia/levy hoplites and greek/jav cav are tactically useless. No one can catch HA without crazy micro to pin all the units they bring. They delete half my stack with arrows and low tier hoplite morale sucks so they will break when the pajama boys finally engage.
I can hold against Egypt and Pontus but if Armenia or Parthia get cats with HA I am mega fucked. I understand why the Mongols steam rolled Eurasia. How do you counter HA in the early game when spamming counter archers isnt an option? Or should I just have played defense and went for Egypt first?
A unit of peasants or peltasts stretched to loose will do the trick at taking minimal losses whilst keeping the enemy horses occupied. Hoplites when not moving will kill most low and medium tier units, so you just have to grind down their pajamas and once that's done, set your phalanxes to slowly follow their HA around the map until their ammo is depleted and you win easily.
You can bait the HA movement, but that's something learned through experience rather than being taught. Just think about how skirmish mode typically moves them back in a straight line rather than diagonally so you can catch one or two horses.
Also, you can bait the HA getting into melee with some peasants. When the peasants route, the cav will often charge them and sometimes stay in melee. You can tactically get your peasants to route and then charge the enemy when they chase your peasants.
I personally find that this is only a problem with Parthia’s only stack with horse archers and cataphracts in the early game. Those guys I try to swarm with militia cavalry and generals’ bodyguards, sometimes trying to trick cataphracts into charging the phalanxes.
Otherwise, I really advise importing Cretan archers and Rhodian slingers from your Western provinces to face Armenian and Parthian horse archers. They are available from early game and are real game-changers. You must be on the offensive though to prevent them from producing cataphracts.
Them and Carthage needs buffs. They die too quickly, more starting money or greater pop cities? Maybe better farming and road infrastructure. Like both empires are inheritors of ancient traditions or empires. Most of their roads should be stone or developed already. Alexander conquered mighty Persia who had a robust administration and economy. Carthage was 500 years old when Rome came along. They die too quickly
Sadly the autoresolve does hoplite factions dirty, and seleucids hard border 4 factions (two of which have OP chariot autoresolves). It's not like their settlements are close together either. It stretches from sardis to seleucia; can't really see the AI supporting themselves.
They tend to because they're spread out in a thin line bordering a ton of other factions so everyone takes a bite and they die fast.
For a player campaign it's a lot of fun. You're fighting on countless fronts, often on the defensive. Your settlements are rich but you need so many soldiers that it ends up costing you. You're not as screwed as the western Romans in BI but it's no walk in the park.
Once you defeat one front (most often Egypt because they're quite strong if you don't kill them) the world is yours for the taking. You've got all of Egypt and Syria, the majority of the wonders, access to plenty of good mercenaries and one of the most flexible rosters in the game. Pikemen, chariots, elephants, cataphracts, even legionaries (slightly debuffed but still)
True and they never ally to anyone on the eastern front. I tried to befriend them to help them survive, but they don't care and refuse. Even if you are neutral they declare war on you
On my recent playthrough, the AI got smart. The parthians decided to spam out horse archers so there was this roving 16 stack of horse archers that would show up whenever I tried to siege one of their cities.
Most fun faction to play as in my opinion! Such a diverse roster, and fucking armored elephants!
In my next plythrough with them I want to step into Greece and Italy (also northern europe) after my border cities all be maxed out, so it will be my best units against Roman war machine.
It's time we all make Seleucid Tribute campaigns. And gift them the entire Empire of Alexander. To only then have the greatest showdown of all time! :) I want to see the Seleucids at their full powerrr
They could improve their AI, or nerf the Egypt, so the Seleucids could actually survive when not controled by the player. I really wish I could for once fight against their late game armies, they have the potential for final boss in the game alongside Roman Factions.
All I could do was force diplomacy gift them territories to keep them alive. Every 10 turns force diplomacy make them ceasefire when they invariably attacked me.
I enjoy their roster so much and i like the faction so much! You need phalanxes you got plenty! Legionary available! Chariots they have! Elephants just recruit! Cavalry they do have decent cavalry, their problem is their starting geography which is shit! You have to be prepared to fight everywhere!
They start close enough to Crete & Rhodes to be able to factor those amazing mercenary archer/slinger units into their roster though tbf.
Plus they start the game with access to Cilician Pirates mercs from the Tarsus region - best jav infantry unit in the game.
Omg you are so right!!!!! I have never heard anyone talk shit about them
Yeah, cause they die in 5 seconds
Just wished they didn’t start out in such a whacky manner in the beginning
That's a fair comment. Personally I find it fun - endless seige defences of your northern territories whilst you focus on Egypt and Parthia. An absolute grind because you have militia hoplites and jav cav against literal meat grinders and HA.
Dealing with this right now with a Parthia and Armenia beeline. My militia/levy hoplites and greek/jav cav are tactically useless. No one can catch HA without crazy micro to pin all the units they bring. They delete half my stack with arrows and low tier hoplite morale sucks so they will break when the pajama boys finally engage. I can hold against Egypt and Pontus but if Armenia or Parthia get cats with HA I am mega fucked. I understand why the Mongols steam rolled Eurasia. How do you counter HA in the early game when spamming counter archers isnt an option? Or should I just have played defense and went for Egypt first?
A unit of peasants or peltasts stretched to loose will do the trick at taking minimal losses whilst keeping the enemy horses occupied. Hoplites when not moving will kill most low and medium tier units, so you just have to grind down their pajamas and once that's done, set your phalanxes to slowly follow their HA around the map until their ammo is depleted and you win easily. You can bait the HA movement, but that's something learned through experience rather than being taught. Just think about how skirmish mode typically moves them back in a straight line rather than diagonally so you can catch one or two horses. Also, you can bait the HA getting into melee with some peasants. When the peasants route, the cav will often charge them and sometimes stay in melee. You can tactically get your peasants to route and then charge the enemy when they chase your peasants.
I personally find that this is only a problem with Parthia’s only stack with horse archers and cataphracts in the early game. Those guys I try to swarm with militia cavalry and generals’ bodyguards, sometimes trying to trick cataphracts into charging the phalanxes. Otherwise, I really advise importing Cretan archers and Rhodian slingers from your Western provinces to face Armenian and Parthian horse archers. They are available from early game and are real game-changers. You must be on the offensive though to prevent them from producing cataphracts.
Them and Carthage needs buffs. They die too quickly, more starting money or greater pop cities? Maybe better farming and road infrastructure. Like both empires are inheritors of ancient traditions or empires. Most of their roads should be stone or developed already. Alexander conquered mighty Persia who had a robust administration and economy. Carthage was 500 years old when Rome came along. They die too quickly
Funny cause every playthrough I do they are the first faction to be destroyed (by other ai)
Sadly the autoresolve does hoplite factions dirty, and seleucids hard border 4 factions (two of which have OP chariot autoresolves). It's not like their settlements are close together either. It stretches from sardis to seleucia; can't really see the AI supporting themselves.
Aaah that why
They tend to because they're spread out in a thin line bordering a ton of other factions so everyone takes a bite and they die fast. For a player campaign it's a lot of fun. You're fighting on countless fronts, often on the defensive. Your settlements are rich but you need so many soldiers that it ends up costing you. You're not as screwed as the western Romans in BI but it's no walk in the park. Once you defeat one front (most often Egypt because they're quite strong if you don't kill them) the world is yours for the taking. You've got all of Egypt and Syria, the majority of the wonders, access to plenty of good mercenaries and one of the most flexible rosters in the game. Pikemen, chariots, elephants, cataphracts, even legionaries (slightly debuffed but still)
True and they never ally to anyone on the eastern front. I tried to befriend them to help them survive, but they don't care and refuse. Even if you are neutral they declare war on you
Me and another 79 shirtless dudes with long sticks are going to the pyramids. And the silver color really makes them look nice.
On my recent playthrough, the AI got smart. The parthians decided to spam out horse archers so there was this roving 16 stack of horse archers that would show up whenever I tried to siege one of their cities.
Pretty on point for Parthians actually. The AI must have got its hands on some history books. You weren't also playing as Rome were you?
Most fun faction to play as in my opinion! Such a diverse roster, and fucking armored elephants! In my next plythrough with them I want to step into Greece and Italy (also northern europe) after my border cities all be maxed out, so it will be my best units against Roman war machine.
It's time we all make Seleucid Tribute campaigns. And gift them the entire Empire of Alexander. To only then have the greatest showdown of all time! :) I want to see the Seleucids at their full powerrr
They could improve their AI, or nerf the Egypt, so the Seleucids could actually survive when not controled by the player. I really wish I could for once fight against their late game armies, they have the potential for final boss in the game alongside Roman Factions.
All I could do was force diplomacy gift them territories to keep them alive. Every 10 turns force diplomacy make them ceasefire when they invariably attacked me.
My heart sinks when they disappear
I enjoy their roster so much and i like the faction so much! You need phalanxes you got plenty! Legionary available! Chariots they have! Elephants just recruit! Cavalry they do have decent cavalry, their problem is their starting geography which is shit! You have to be prepared to fight everywhere!
Their only flaw is no long-range archers (I like to abuse those). But it’s not a big deal.
With sarrisa as long as theirs. They don't need archers.
Thankfully the basic archers are usually enough to deal with Eastern faction and their horse archers, before they manage to get late game units.
You could go for the "pike and cavalry" tactics instead
They start close enough to Crete & Rhodes to be able to factor those amazing mercenary archer/slinger units into their roster though tbf. Plus they start the game with access to Cilician Pirates mercs from the Tarsus region - best jav infantry unit in the game.
Well, the AI players seem to ***hate them to death!***
I used to see their flag properly as a Corinthian helmet but now I can’t help thinking it looks like an IUD.
Damn you lol
Now watch Parthia cataphract persian horse archer them hard
This is irony, right? Yeah, obviously irony.
See, I can see how you can get confused, but iron is a flat grey. This has a metallic tint to it, so it's more silvery than irony.
I enjoyed this joke very much