Fast Cavalry

Its virtually impossible to kill cav. archers unless you hit them from two sides. Granted, the computer may be stupid enough to do otherwise and drive them into your forces, but theoretically. Otherwise, its relatively easy to kill foot ranged units with a cav....a good charge of 2 divisions should rout them instantly.

Well it seems you have quite a situation on your hands. Parthia roams around in the desert waiting to attack you when you are weak, Egypt continues to send out thousands of troops to halt your advance into their lands, Pontus is trying to take your western settlements, and Armenia is harrassing you with small units of soldiers. You my friend are surrounded by enimies and that is what will make this hard for you.

based on what your telling me it seems that the future battle scenes will be somewhere in modern day Turkey and near the Nile.

What I think you should do is stop taking the offense on everyone. Time ot focus on what you have now. Take you armies and spread them across several of the hot spots on the map. Build up garrisons in the towns that are in the hot spots so that you can eventually take away your outside armies. Build more military buildings in some of your more secure towns and begin gathering your soldiers for a push south. Egypt seems to be your biggest threat right now so I suggest dealing with them first.

Right now you have them in a panic. They are spitting out untrained and unexperianced troops like crazy. Your advanced armies should be able to eventually overwhelm these attacks and start to push farther into their homelands. Take all of Nile and halt there. Do not go further. Secure the southern region by building things that will help your economy and happiness levels. Once they are quite secure Take your armies east and destroy the roaming Partians.

After your southern campaign is done you should being preparing for a Northern capaign into Pontus held lands.

Defeat archers with cavalry. Trap them in corners of the map and slaughter them.

I took your advice into consideration, Gothren. I'm doing pretty well.

I also found another excellent solution: mercenaries. None of my units are very competent, and the Seleucids always make lots of money. So, by hiring Cretans and Rhodians, I cover my missile troop area. Arab/Bedouin cavalry, with elephants and chariots, are my cavalry. And mercenary hoplites are stronger than militia hoplites and levy pikemen, and they will serve me well, and it won't be long before I get to make phalanx pikemen. My armies are actually strong now.

I see you have a h7ll of problem so let me help you out. Parthias archer crzy. Id advise you to make a ceasefire with parthia before it gets ugly.As for the question. Rely on cavalry to take care of those missle units.

Regarding your problem with cav archers there is only one solution I think. You need archers and high ground, if avaible, and then you need light cavalry. The enemy cav. archers will circle you and fire at your troops which is quite all right because you archers hit the too. At some point he will get close and after circling your troops his men will be tired, now you send forth your light cav and watch them ride down his archer cavalry.

Because his cav archers are "tired" or "very tired" you will have no problem riding him down with fresh cavalry troops. In this case cavalry archers will do fine, as they can shoot at the fleeing cavalry as they prepare to engage in close combat.

I have experienced that this strategy is the most effective. You will simply loose way too many men by trapping their cavalry in one side of the map.

Also, based on another thread I saw, I think maybe wardogs do well against horse archers? They can't be attacked, and they will stay there until either they or their target is down. Shame that the Greeks can't make wardogs....

I just used my Cretans to bring down the horse archers.

Anyway, my situation is pretty secure now. Parthia has been swept aside, I am striking Armenia's unguarded east flank, taking Phraaspa. I have a 3/4 stack army invading Pontus, and just took their southern city, and am advancing on their capital. As for my south, I took Palmyra, Petra, Bostra, Sidon, Jerusalem, and Salamis. I also captured Memphis--a major blow to Egypt's power and pride. They damn well deserved it.

*snickers* Good for you! Can you post a screenshot? I love watching Egypt get pwned!

lol, unfortunately, I already wiped out Egypt, so I can't show a pic of them getting pwned. I'm also close to killing Armenia (they have 1 province left) and Pontus (with 2 provinces). Parthia is no threat, their only remaining territory is the one in the far north, and it is currently being attacked by the Scythians.

When you play with the Seleucids, the trick is: Quickly attack the Egyptians and drive them back to Sina and then attack and wipe out the Parthians. In the start they only have Eastern Infantry which is useless against the phalanx. Then things become easy.

The East is just a cauldron of warfare. Just wait until macedon and Rome get interested....