Quote:

At least you understand that much.

Quote:

Try giving your archers +3 weapons and +3 armour, and if you have leftover money, increase their experience as well. That should put them on equal grounds with Archers Auxillia.

Quote:

If the Silver Shields aren't flanked and didn't take 50% casualties from pila, they should win. Once they get flanked, however, even by peasants, it's over.

Quote:

Use the archers as mentioned above, then use Scythed chariots combined with cataphracts.

Alternatively you can try eliminating his archers advantage by completely ditching both archers and onagers and rush him.

Is this Custom Battle/MP or Campaign?

Quote:

Online obviously.

Hm...must've missed that.

Two possible options with the Seleukids:

1. Hit him frontaly with SSP and flank with Cataphacts/Chariots. Obviously you need to win the cavalry battle with enough left for flanking. Since the pikemen are relatively slow, that is quite tough. If you wait for him, his archers will take a heavy toll on your pikemen. Add the pila volley and that could be bad.

2. Rush him with SSL and Catas/Chariots. Try to create a superiority on one of the flanks, while making sure your center and the other flank hold. Use the local superiority to create a unit by unit rout.

P.S. A crazy idea. One, who does not wish to be named, experimented with 8 units of upgraded Greek cavalry. May be that could work.

Quote:

Try to create a superiority on one of the flanks, while making sure your center and the other flank hold. Use the local superiority to create a unit by unit rout.

The best advice yet, and I couldn't have put it better myself.

Also, ditching the archers and spending your money on more cavalry is a better choice because you just have to win the cavalry duel so you can outmanuever your opponents.

Catas: 980
Praets: 940

Not much of a difference. I often find that 6 catas can beat my 8 p. cav into the ground, so try taking the initiative and closing ground quickly so the archers don't get many shots in. SSP are not brilliant, but they will hold an urban cohort from the front. I wouldn't bother with SSI.

Try a rush army with 6-8 catas and a lot of pikemen, and mix some pikes with your cav.

In my experience Firefox is good with this sort of setup (although not neccessarily with seleucids) so try looking through the replays or playing him.

thanks for the replies.
I note that Praetorian cavalry are quite strong at combat, even with the AP attack, they are hard to take down unless I have the same number or more cataphracts. Infantry support works well though, I should definitely use that more often. However I find SSL much better for this purpose since they are faster (I do use SSP with phalanx to run but they are harder to position and once in battle they tend to stick to one spot, even with guard mode off).

If I can take care of their cavalry it's usually gg, since even urbans can't stand flanking from 3+ units of cataphracts on one spot. If they are really good and take some urbans to rush my cataphracts, then my infantry and archers would have the advantage.

Greek cavalry also had some success with taking out their archers, they move fast and are strong enough to quickly rout the archers. But some players leave some protection for the archers, which could create a small problem but not much since that gives me more advantage on the infantry frontlines.

Ill study some of my replays to find out more. Thanks for the response and feel free to add more advices.

What if you'd try to have it like:
.....................................SSI
..........SSI...SSI....SSI......CHAR..............ELE
CAV.CAV...SSP.SSP.SSP.SSP.SSP.CAV.CAV.CHAR......... ELE

And then have SSI attack the forecoming archers or cavalry whilst you flank the cavalry with chariots and elephants by the sides as about (Roman enemy)

coming like this

..............URB.URB.URB
........AA.AA.AA.AA.AA.AA.AA
PCAV.PCAV.URB.URB.URB.URB.URB.PCAV.PCAV

and then let it come to you, while in shorter range (I assume you can estimate the range of AA and then you hit the enemy as):

....................URB.URB.URB..........................ELE
..................AA.AA.AA.AA.AA.AA.AA...................ELE
........PCAV.PCAV.URB.URB.URB.URB.URB.PCAV.PCAV.....CHAR.CHAR

........SSI.SSI........................SSI.SSI......CAV.CAV
CAV.CAV...........SSP.SSP.SSP.SSP

and elephants chariots should crush the left flank whilst then stormming on urbans/aa and crushing them.. i think 2 SSI and 2 CATAs can rout 2 or 3 P CAV...

try this in single player..

[This message has been edited by Livonian (edited 07-15-2005 @ 03:53 PM).]

Catas can beat a greater number of P.cav, trust me.

Now if they divide their cavalry into two groups, they are much easier to deal with because SSL can protect the flanks with relative integrity. (I suppose SSI means SSlegionaires too.)
I gave up using chariots because they rout so easily to archers and artillery, even in loose formation they die very fast and they devastate my troops. Elephants work a little better, but they are very expensive.

I guess I should get more cataphracts.

Should i give up archers and replace them with greek cavalry? My archers can't compete with AA and they do little damage to Urbans anyway. Greek cavalry could not only chase down their archers and they can work as backup cavalry in case my cataphracts take heavy losses.

Does the presence of a general boost morale? I use non-armored generals btw, less costly.

I also know that the right flank is more vulnerable than the left flank, so I place my cavalry on the left flank (the enemy's right), and the majority of my SSL on my right to protect my SSP.

I've never typed up formations before but I'll try:

Here's what I usually do:

-------------Arch Arch Arch--------
Cat-Cat-Cat-SSL-SSP-SSP-SSP-SSL-SSL
-----------------General- Art (if allowed) Char/Ele if allowed

As you can see my right flank is a lot smaller than my left flank, I count on destroying their right first before they can destroy mine. Usually my right holds firm with the SSL nad archer support (they move behind the SSP during battle obviously). But why I lose so much is that my cavalry often gets routed for some reason by Praetorians. Very frustrating. The AA are not that big of a problem themselves, it's just that they hinder the use of chariots and elephants making my cavalry even more jeopardized.

[This message has been edited by LostWraith (edited 07-15-2005 @ 06:16 PM).]

You may try to use your archers to engage the AA and also to soak up the pila from the Urbans. If you can pull this one, the your SSl and SSP may stand a chance.

Another possibility, if you use Greek Cavalry/archers is to put them on the path of the charging Praetorians. If you can stop them for a second and then charge with your Catas, you may get a better result.

Upgraded Seleucid archers can compete with AA.

Maybe I should get some peasants and let them be the urban fodder.
how do I quote?

and what should I do if the AA are also upgraded? Do most people upgrade their AAs?

Upgraded archers cost more money. My idea was to use vanila archers as distraction/pila fodder. If the AA engage - your pikemen won't take losses. Then use the archers to charge the Urbans ahead of the pikemen, to soak up the pila or at least reduce the damage.

but if the archers go into the urbans, couldn't the roman player just retarget and the pila will fly right over my archer's heads and hit my SSP?
Pila has a quite high trajectory, can the archers really stop them?

If he retargets, chances are that his legions will smash into the pikes if he is not very careful. In fact, that can happen even if he is careful.

Actually, if SSI(infantry) is more cheaper than SSL (legionaries) then why not to buy them to charge cavalry... to stop cavalry and then if you have cavalry on one flank then 5 to 6 cata units can successfully defeat with two/hree SSI's praetorian cavalry units.

And you may have the special/elite units such as elephants/chariots attack the other flank what was aswell attacked by SSI's. And then move in with SSP what form the center.

Or have peasants/guards as a fodder against cavalry. in short range of Urbans, just make the phalangites stop and wait until it advances to you. Then you should be already be able to attack with the units that were left of the Praetor Cavalry.

Quote:

All this was rendered utterly useless to even the most stupid player by the last line.

Not that it was useful anyway.

Quote:

The [q][/q] tags. If you want to say who it came from, [q=Ohmu][/q].

What are silver shield infantry? I've never heard of them.

Silver Shield Pikemen. Most people refer to Silver Shield Legions as legionairres.

I find that sticking a couple of units of elephants on the flanks along with a couple of units of scythed chariots along with about 4 units of cataphracts helps to win the cavalry battle and then you can launch devastating flank charges.

yes, just remeber to use their maces in hand to hand combat

try to get between 6-8 units of catas, so u can win the cav battle, but if they have more cav then you, then suport your cav with your leigionares, and put your ss pikes in rows 5 deep, and no gaps between them, and in a U, with the enemy coming from down below, but with a larger front, and less units on the sides, and 1 in the back to either reinforce weak spots, or protect a flank.

then smash the urbs from the back with the catas.

I play as the Greek States and I am just about to launch a massive front against the whole of Rome. I threw them off the Coasts of western greece and macedon and now have two generals marching north to attack from the top to the south, while at the boot across the water i have a great fleet with 4 generals fully equipped ready to go, i plan to send three armies to rome by ship and use a lesser army to take sicily and stir some trouble down there witht eh scipii. As a Greek player i think i have the biggest disadvantage against rome with little to no maneuverability and a weakness for ranged attack. But the trick for a greek player is to as i have been doing it, send the skirmishers up front and focus on one flank with skirmishers and charge in wen ur done with firing and have like acouple phalanx come up tosupport them to purposely create a gap in ur flank so wen the advancing phalanx gets flanked u can flank them with heavy cav or more phalanx. On the other flank i usually put the majority of the cav except for maybe 2 units. Ive fought rome twice in my campaign and have won both times facing even numberd armies. My invasion of Rome is prolly unnoticed by the brutii and i will burn tehre capitol and kill the inhabitants as well as destroy the buildings in the towns to get money and then i will drive to rome itself and prolly leave it for the gauls to finish them off..........anyone have any other ideas for my campaign on rome id like to hear it.....

The quickest way is to cross to the South - straight for the Brutii cities and work your way from there. Rich cities, good money and easy training retraining. From there North to Rome or West to Sicily.

Quote:

If he has 6 AAs, then there's absolutely no way the Eles and Chariots can make it that far around the flank. lol. Don't get Eles or Chariots unless some freak reason you're sure he's not getting missiles.

I think a better generic setup is something like this:

.....................A....A....A...A
[CAT][CAT][CAT].[|||||||||||||||||||Phalanx||||||||||||||].[SSL]
[CAT][CAT][CAT]...........[Onager]

Onagers are useful against tightly packed Roman formations. However, what is very powerful is to just have eight units of cataphracts and crush the Roman cavalry and then bombard the urbans with cavalry archer fire so that they go into testudo formation and then charge in the cataphracts remembering to use the maces.