I am playing with the Egyptians and I find their chariot archers are some of the greatest units in the game. I've had armies of Romans, one after the other, beaten only by 5 or so Chariot units.

Only problem with Egyptians is they have weak spear infantry and the archers aren't that good (not bad neither, but not good).
The Greek are killing my chariots and the Seleucids are almost dead !!

I play the Seleucids (hardest/hardest)as my second campaign.
They have a very good economy and you need it i, because you will be pushed from both Parthia, Egypt, Armenia and Pontus. I found that focusing on winning a total victory against Egypt while taking the islands, the closest greek provinces and the rebel provinces near by was a good idea. Then you can defend agianst Parthia and Armenia until your roads are good enough to counter attack by moving into the mountains. Also make peace with Greece after pushing them off your main land. The Egyptian navy is weak, but they have lots of cavalry and thay are aggressive. I recommend getting some Creatan archers as soon as possible. they are very effective against most units.

The troops are many and good in this factions. Spears, cavalry and archers in a very nice combination and chariots and elephants later on. A few units of elephants and chariots can crush any Roman army :-)

After my victory against Egypt, Pontus, Armenia and Parthia, in that order, I advanced on three fronts. One army to win the north-east, one to move through Africa and one crossing to win Greece from the Brutii and defeat the Thrace. In Africa the main problem is the distance to your capital and slow movement of your armies.I recommend moving the capital to on of the islands in your position to calm things down. You will have plenty money all the time in this campaign, so there is no need to save money on building. Just keep building roads before anything else. Also using your fleet for troop transportworks great in Africa, but the Romans will try to stop this by attacking your fleet, so land your troops before it gets critical. After taking Carthage you will be attacked from the sea by the blue Romans for a while and will have to fight the Numidians at the same time. This might take a few years,beacuase they actually seem to go for your cities.

The Brutii are very strong in Greece and keep moving in troops. I have plauge in all greek cities and loos lots of troops each round, but I guess it will improve as soon as I have made all the hygenic buildings. As soon as the Brutii are weak enough I will move along the coast to Italy and go for Rome to finish the campaign. At the same time my forces moving from north east will join the forces moving up through Thrace and they will join to defeat the Scythians and attack the Darcians.

Egyptians have weak spear infantry and bad archers? They have some of the best archers in the game! Their standard bowmen have half as many men again as the usual archers, and the Pharaoh's Bowmen are extremely powerful. Their spear infantry also excels, and desert axemen are the perfect units for covering flanks. Combine this with decent cavalry and excellent chariots, and you have a very powerful faction.

The Seleucids rely heavily on phalanx troops and need to be built up very quickly so that you have soldiers of any use whatsoever (unless you really like having militia hoplite and levy pikeman armies). Once up and running, though, you'll have money pouring in and access to very good troops - including cataphracts and elephants.

The Pharao's Guards aren't good at all, they can't even stop half a unit of greek armored hoplites, both in formation, I always have to flank them with another unit of anything else before the armoured hoplites start losing.

The archers aren't that great compared to some other archers in the game and I didn't say they were bad.

"The Pharao's Guards aren't good at all, they can't even stop half a unit of greek armored hoplites, both in formation, I always have to flank them with another unit of anything else before the armoured hoplites start losing." (No, I still haven't figured out the quote thingy).

I have sicked two full-strength level 8 roman auxiliary archers on armored hoplites, and they kill about a fourth of them before getting into spear range. Suddenly, I want to play Egyptian...

The Seleucids are good, but you must quickly consolidate your power by improving your economy and military at once. Their units get amazing later on, but early on they completely suck. Plus you often have LOTS of enemies, but most of your borders are very defendable. If you take Cyprus early, you have a great naval base from where you can protect your heartland. Your northern borders are safe because there's plenty of mountain passes to defend against the Parthians, Pontic Empire, Armenians, and Greeks. The southern border is a lot more open, but there's plenty of vast expanses of desert though, which armies seem to move extremely slowly through. You can also launch a two pronged attack on Egypt using your navy, conquering the Pharoh's Lighthouse, then establishing Alexandria as a base, holding off all attacks and moving on to take the Pyramids effectively ridding them of all their wonders. The Seleucids by the way have amazing access to all the wonders. They start off with the Hanging Gardens. They can quickly capture the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus and the Collosus of Rhodes, and after beating Egypt they'll get the Pharoh's Lighthouse and the Pyramids.

lol, egyptian archer is the best u can get for the money u pay. with nearly the same stats as forest warband and yet alot cheaper. not to mention their hand to hand combat is nearly as good as principes. play more mp before making comments.

how ever they got real crap hoplites for early stage.both pharao's guard and desert infantry require high tech.

sleucia does has some great cities with good income, but u get dragged in to multi front war almost instantly, parthian armenia, pontus, macedon, greek, and egypt all like some bites in ur lovely land.

their early hoplites are alot better, with long spears. able to get elephants is also great bonus. how ever, they got no decent archers, all u can do is hire some cretan's.

Greek campain is pretty decent in my opinion, I tried the romans for a while, but It got pretty boring after a while. The senate are fools:/ I didnt feel like I missed anything at all when playing another faction. And after trying both gaul and Carthage, I gotta say Greeks kick ass. I discovered early that a good portion of troops had to go into greece itself just to keep the fragile peace with macedonia.. until I could actually dispose of em, after that. I went to work on Italy really, Taking out Most of Brutii and Scpii in one go, I never gave up a single settelment, so Scpii never really got any new land, their jumping point from sicilly became mine pretty quick. And for some reason Julii never got to work on Gaul either, and they were actually pretty strong and became a threat once I got Italy. But the backside is that I never got to challenge Egypt, I had enough with the romans for starters, but Egypt grows big terribly quick.

Rome is fun to conquer btw, I was alil dissapointed that they were pretty weak, both in manpower and defence strutures. But it might have been cause I was pretty quick to get into Italy with a large enough army to get a foothold.

Hoplites really are a amazing unit too, flanked or not, they wave their spears around once you click a unit in a diffrent angle and just wipe the area around clean.
I have yet to figure out a good way to beat superior infantery on walls though, not that Ive lost a wall fight yet. But I won alot more and greater victories with cohort, is there any units that can push ladders down? Spearmen should be ideal for that right??

The Greek family members were very fertile too for some reason, might be luck though, I dont know.

I'm thinking that the Macedonian Campaign is too easy. My economy won't stop growing and I can't contain myself. I'm just expanding everywhere because I can. I control the Temple of Zeus, the Temple of Artemis, the Collosus of Rhodes, and the Mausoleum, and I have possesion of Pro-Pontis meaning I have all of the Black Sea - Mediterranian trade with the Scythians, Armenians, Pontus, and Gaul as allies, Rome, Dacia, and Thrace as pathetic enemies, whom I'm obliterating in every battle, and Greece(all they have left is some property in Asia Minor), Egypt, and Carthage as trading partners. Ussually everyone just attacks me as soon as I meet them. I don't know why the computer's being so friendly towards me. Mabye it's because I'm enourmously wealthy, give out huge handouts (I'm trying to give away money to keep my budget under 50,000), and offer all my allies promises that I keep. So far I haven't declared war on anyone but the Brutii and the Seleucids(my ally Pontus was at war with them), neither of whom I wasn't allied with. Greece, Thrace, and Dacia all declared war on me, and I proceeded to rape them for it. Esspecially Dacia who totally backstabbed me.

Haha, i'm in my Macedonian Campaign too, I totally raped the Greeks, The Tracins, Pontas, Sycthians, Egyptains, Brutii, Julii, and the Senate. i have 3 armies in Italy to mope up, 2 in Asia Minor VS the Armenia, 2 armies in Egypt for moping up.

My treasury was over 200,000 by 280 B.C. i just can't stop growing!!!!!!!!!