Pontus

[frogbeastegg]

This faction must be unlocked with game editing before you can play.

[Rosacrux redux]

Now, this is the faction for the control freak! A faction that has to be watched closely and managed carefully. Note that this game was played on Very Hard (strategic map) / Hard (battles).

Pontus is a funny case. They start off with only two cities/provinces, but a)there are easy pickings nearby (namely the three rebel cities to the west, in Asia Minor, and in reach there are two more, Halicarnassus and Byzantium, provided that the Greeks and Thracians don't get there first) and b) early on, your heavy and light pontic cavalry are extremely effective, if managed closely.

In the military side, Pontus seems like an extremely well balanced faction. They got very diverse early cavalry types (Pontic, heavy Pontic) and with the Kappadokian cav. they get a very effective shock cav too. They got very poor early infantry (hillmen and eastern inf.) and only vanilla archers, but later on the situation improves at least concerning the infantry (phalanx and bronze shields are as good as any Hellenic phalanx).

Allthough, the tactics I've found to be effective are typical hit-and-run ones, with the heavy infantry playing only a secondary role (I am in mid-game now and I've yet to bring to the field more than 5 heavy infs).

Since your archers aren't really hotshots (pun very much intended ~D ) and you need all the firepower you can get against the Seleucid and Egyptian juggernaughts, you absolutely have to get as many Cretan and Rhodian mercenaries as are available for recruitment. I can't stress out how important those misile mercs are for any effective battle tactics with the ultra-light armies this faction can field.

In battle the hit-and-run model is vital. The pontic and - especially - heavy pontic cavalry are very good skirmishers and the second can charge home with very good results against most oponents. Coupled with a few archers (especially mercs) most opponents won't even reach your ranks before they are shot to oblivion (a note: archery is waaaaay overpowered in this game. One has to tone down the killing rates, they are INSANE!!!).

In the early stages a fleet and mobile tactic like that should be enough (that is, to capture the three or four rebel settlements and fend off any early agresor - the Greeks, more likely, will attack very early).

Since Pontus is small-time initially, you have to put your diplomats to good use and ally with everyfriggingbody. It's mid game now and I am allied with Thrace, Armenia, the four Roman factions and the Britons. At one point I was allied with everybody save Greeks, Macedonians and Karthago. But the Seleucids, even though they had the Egyptians and the Parthians at their throat, attacked me pretty soon and I had to fight the battles of my life to manage and wear them down enough to get a ceasefire (taking cities by force with the kind of army you can field in the early-mid game is out of question and the Seleucids seem to have endless reserves of armies, despite fighting in three fronts so sieging-to-starvation might not be a good idea as well).

The ceasefire lasted only three years, but in the meantime I had build up my forces enough (and the Egyptians have weakened the Seleucids considerably) to make a drive for the S. main cities. Starved three of them to submission and managed, with a little Pharaonic help, to eliminate the big S.

Another note: In Hard and Very Hard, autoresolving battles is not an option. Even if you outnumber and outclass the oponent you'll either lose the battle or suffer extremely heavy casualties. So, on this campaign it's the first time I've played out ALL the battles myself in a TW game.

On the economy side, after you take and build up the rebel cities, you should fair pretty well, but the real cash will reek in after you got the Seleucid cities. They are the big milking Cow of the region ~D

Right now I had Egypt declare our alliance void in one turn and attack en masse in the next. The good thing is that I now have enough cash to bribe a few of their armies and save me a great deal of hassle. But since they are quite stronger than I, the battle won't be easy - the Egyptian Kindergartern of the Tuthmosis units are waaaaaaaaaaaaay overpowered... Those Steel-Skin axemen are tough buggers (they literally deflect arrows with their skin :dizzy2: ) and the hordes of chariot archers are an extreme threat. But we are moving on, got the first Egyptian city just before.

I'll keep you updated!

[kungfood]

i found thracian mercenaries to work pretty well, especially in the early game phase. great for quickly taking those rebel cities. even in the more advanced game i used to have at least one or two thracian merc units in my armies - mainly to secure the flanks or to outflank enemy phalanxes. other than that i concur with what rosacrux said: use your skirmishers.

[Furious Mental]

I think the guide should really mention Chariot Archers. Pontus' foot archers are pathetic but their Chariot Archers, while perhaps not up to Egypt's, are good, especially for a faction whose armies depend so heavily upon cavalry skirmishing.

[andrewt]

Looking from the stats, the riders of Pontic chariot archers have 1 more hit point and more defense skill than the Egyptian chariot archers. I have no idea how these help, however, from a gameplay perspective. I'm not sure when the riders or the horses get targeted. Furthermore, defense skill only affects melee. Egyptian chariots are disciplined and trained, however and costs almost half and have only 1 turn build time.

If denarii and build time isn't a problem, Pontic chariot archers are probably better. Otherwise, they are plain outclassed.

[Suppiluliumas]

In addition to thracian mercenaries, I found the valor ii barbarian warbands in galatia to be very usefull, particlarly early in the campaign.

[Argonaut]

well...

[Argonaut]

...let me see..

[Argonaut]

Playing very had/very hard. I easily crushed Greeks, Seleucids & Egypt, Armenians and Parthians will soon follow. Pontic heavy cav. is great unit,nice armour and so good for melee as well. The only enemy unit I had some problems were the elephants (wonder what would it be if they were armoured ones)but javelins eventually make them run amok. If not, I charge them sometimes.
My general strategy is to wear my opponents down. Have a cav army? Than lure the enemy in the open. Intercept small enemy groups, destroy them, go for another one.Lay siege to one city, relive force will come and in most cases you ll be able to catch them isolated and in the open. The town where they came from is now weak. No trust in your inf.? Than sap the walls and make room for your cav.(cause they CAN do melee). That s the way I see it.
I still haven't lost a battle (except those on the sea and I m not sure is lifting the siege a defeat?) but Romans are yet to come.

"Carpe diem!"

[CompanionUK]

Pontus is hard to use but in the hands of the right commander, a deadly force and has the potential to expand over vast area's. I'm not sure on the strategies and long term plans that everyone else has developed but what i did was simple:

1.) built up enough troop stregth that allowed me in the first few "years" of the game, to quickly strike against the Seleucids while they were weak, and take Tarsus, and then Antioch...in doing so i cut the Seleucid empire in two, isolating Sardis, and taking 2 out of 3 ports from them. This also helped me make money on my own, as Tarsus and Antioch have great economic potential...i quickly allied myself with the Greeks, and the Armenians.

2.) since the Egyptians are a bunch of KINESIOLOGY, they attacked Antioch, making a huge mistake. I soon after took Sidon, and invaded Salamis and took it from them as well, and have bribed much of their armies to disband or join me. During all of this, Armenia and Parthia invaded Seleucia and Hatra, meaning i wouldnt have to do it, but i also have cut those two off from access to the mediterranean, keeping them in check from gaining more greater financial wealth. All that is left of the Seleucids is Sardis and Demascus. I expect Demascus to fall to the Egyptians, even though they are weak, they have enough to take that from the Seleucids, and i will take Sardis for myself, whiping them off the map. I will then be left with 3 options of expansion: a.) continue to go south and over-run Egypt while she is still weak and trying to recover while protecting herself from 4 threats on her boarders, in doing so i give myself even greater financial power; b.) go after Armenia and Parthia, who are even more weak than Egypt, even combind, their stregth is very low, it wouldnt take long to over-run the both of them; c.) turn my attentions west and take over Sardis, Pergamum, and Nicomedia from the Greeks(as i hav ealready taken Halicanarssus from the Rebels)...doing so will allow me to take Byzantium if needed, but in doing so i will be exposes to roman advances, so right now i might just stop once i reach the Aegean. However, taking options b or c will allow egypt to use her economic might to rebuild, making my expansion plans in other directions harder, due to the fact that eventually the fighting between me and the Egyptians will inevitably resume.

As for the Pontic Army, i agree that computer resolving the battles, reguardless if i have greater numbers or quality, i will get my ass handed to me...the computer doesnt use the phalanx well and doesnt support it as needed im sure...the composition of each full army presently(as it is later in the game and i have essentially all my best units available) is as follows:

8 bronze shield phalanxes, 4 chariot archers, 4 scythed chariots, and 4 Cappadocian cavalry(note: until you can get the Cappadocian cavalry units, pontic heavy cavalry if used right is very effective, to support them, definitely recute any Sarmatian Cavalry mercinaries you can get your hands on, they can match up to any cavalry unit your enemies can field against you early on in the game)...even though i only have 4 untis of cavalry proper, my strategy is simple:

from the outset of the battle, i send my chariot archers to inflict as many casualties as i can, then save a little ammo, and regroup back at my lines...i then send my scythed chariots, reguardless of how many losses they take(as i can always retrain or build more) and enflict as many casualties on the enemy lines as they possibly can, hoping to break them up, after which i send in the Cappadocian's who can over-run mostly anything, using their strong charge and they heavy armour i can inflict higher casualties...after which, i either send the chariot archers to finsih them job and send the enemy into a head long retreat, or i send in my phalanxes, by then the enemy is weak, and is no match...90% of the time, it is a blood bath...

feel free to respond any of you, its awesome to find people who love this as much as i do, cheers

[CompanionUK]

before i continue, please note: these are steps that should be taken to establish Pontus as a regional powerhouse, after these steps, it is entirely up to you with what you think you should do, as i have not gotten insanely far with them yet, but it works, cause as i look at my map, its nothing but Pontus lol...however another note...not all of this will work 100%, more like 80%, because the game can be very random with its events and results, but here goes:

1. what is key to understand about this area of the world, is that it is plagued with conflict, and the two main powers at the start are Egypt and Seleucia. At the start, these two will go at it in a slug fest, and generally speaking the Seleucids(immediately at your southern boarder) will empty most if not all of their cities to counter Egypt, thus your first move, will be to get a sizable force and quickly take Tarsus, giving you access to the Mediterranean, without having to move your navy from the black sea through the Hellespont, and Aegean which always ends up blockaded by the greeks, thracians, and macedonians.

2. after you stregthen your forces and use the funds coming into Tarsus, quickly take the rebel lands to the west, before the greeks can, especially take Nicomedia, and Helicanarssus...after doing this, take Sardis from the Seleucids quickly, before they have a chance to build troops to withstand a seige from your troops

3. quickly ally yourself with Armenia(as a buffer from Parthia and Scythia), as they are too weak to attack you reguardless. Now you have a choice...you can either go to war with Greece, and take Pergamum, but have the Greek navy(which is always huge reguardless) on your ass the whole time, or you can move south, and get in the mix with the Seleucids further, seeing as their Capital(Antioch) is right next to Tarsus, and will probably be lightly defended.

4a. if you plan to go to war with Greece, and take Pergamum, thus pushing yourself to the edge of present day turkey and having control over that entire area, make sure you make preperations for an extended naval campaign against the Greeks, who have enormous wealth and will follow history to the letter and have a huge navy, but only enough troops in greece proper to defend themselves, because they are not expansionists.

4b. if you plan to go south and take Antioch, make sure you have the mobility and the troop strength to maintain it, guard it from a potential counter attack, and the pressure to either try to take Damascus from the Seleucids aswell, or just perform a holding action to protect Antioch...the benefits of Antioch is that it will bring you much wealth, and will allow you to create even better units...the downside of taking Antioch, is that the Egyptians ALWAYS try to take it for themselves and control the entire coast from Egypt proper, up to modern day southern turkey, giving them even more wealth...if you take Antioch, prepare for a lengthy, and costly war with Egypt...as they are the true power in the region for much of the game, due to wealth and population they can call on for a huge standing army

5. which ever path you take(a or b) always be aware of a growing threat from Parthia to the east...they never keep alliances, so making one with them will not stave off the inevitable war with them...the good thing about fighting them, reguardles of their great mobility, is there relatively small numbers...if you are not a good strategist, you can always simply overwhelm them with your eventual greater numbers...however, you, like all eastern factions, have very good cavalry that you can call upon(always buy Sarmatian Cavalry mercinaries where you see them, they are very good crack heavy cavalry, and if used right can win battles for you time and time again if you can get them in large numbers)

6. if you are good enough, and rid the east of Egypt, Parthia, and Armenia(after you turn on them), do not go north against the Scythes...leave them b e...they will never attack you, they never have the numbers to be a threat, and there is no economic gains by going north. Go south, but go through north africa, as you will gain more and more ports on the Mediterranean = more and more wealth coming into your coffers. Taking on the Romans in this game cannot be avoided obviously, in doing so, take on the Scipii in Africa first. Hopefully by now you have used much of your money to develope a sizable navy, but better to ge a huge navy, and you can cut them off and isolate them in Africa. Once all of N. Africa is yours, invade Spain, and take th eentire peninsula(note: the spanish have very hardy troops suited to the Spanish terrain...so defeating them requires large usage of your good cavalry, with missle support...chariots will not work here as it is too mountainous). Simultaniously as you invase Spain, invade Sicily, thus isolating the Romans to mainland Europe as far north as the north coast of france, as far south as the tip of the Italian boot and the Greek islands, and as far east as the Aegean, which by now, you should have solidified modern day turkey with quality troops, giving the romans little chance of success if they were to invade. I suggest, to really hit the romans hard, since there massive expansionist policies will have their legions stretched paper thin over great areas, to attack them from all sides: attack through spain into Gaul(by now they will have taken over Gallic lands), attack across the Aegean into Greece where the terrain suits your Phalanxes and your crack cavalry units, and from Sicily into mainland Italy. By now you should have the economic resources to fund this, and this will overwhelm the Romans as they cannot respond to every invasion, from all three sides. but please note, and this is vital; by now, the Marius reforms will have taken effect, and the legions will be at their best, it is absolutely vital, and no time more so than this, that you fight every battle against the romans...because no matter what numerical advantage you might have, if you sim the battles, you will be decimated everytime, because the computer doesnt use phalanxes in simed battles properly, and you will sustain drastic loses and great setbacks...to sim the battles, means your invasion will be short lived.

always feel free to respond, cheers

[CompanionUK]

order of battle:

Bronze shield pikeman x 8[p]
Cappadocian Cavalry x 4[c]
Chariot Archers x 4[a]
Scythed Chariots x 4[s]



Deployment:

...........ss ss...........
cc aa pppppppp aa cc



Suggested strategy:

if you're the attacker; simultaniously send your scythed chariots at the enemies center(if the center has pikeman or spearman, adjust trategy accordingly)...send your cappadocians and hit them in the flank hard with a hea dlong charge...with your chariot archers, set them up so that they can hit the rear of the army, to weaken any counter attack on your movements...if needs be...send your phalanxes after the enemy is broken up

[asearchforreason]

I agree with Companion. In the grand stratgey, you need to immediately go South for Selucia. In my Pontus game, I had a full stack Armenian army siege my capitol in the first few years. After destorying them, I immediately counterattacked and spent the beginning of the game destroying Armenia and hoping that by not attacking the Selucids, they would be able to put up a strong fight against Egypt. Well, I was very wrong and soon I had a powerful Egyptian force at my southern doorstep. After a long series of skirmishes and some large battles, I'm now finally just taking Antioch and Sidon from Egypt. The tactic I used and would definately recommend again to someone is to try to destroy Egypt economically while being somewhat defensive until you have a clear opening. I used a plague bearing spy and uber-powerful assassin to spread chaos and disease across Egypt. I've gotten a few of their provinces to revolt and their armies are busy taking the provinces back. Plauge and rebellion also seriously hinder the economic power of a city, and due to these tactics, I haven't seen the hordes of Egyptian armies that I usually do when playing in the East. I think the fact that Numidia is almost as strong as my own faction and is now knocking on Egypt's western border is only going to help me. So, go for Selucid lands first or the Egyptians will beat you to them. Also, I've found the Anatolian provinces that border the Aegean to make a good profit if you are able to trade with Macedonia and/or Greece.

[CompanionUK]

going after the Seleucid's off the bat is key for two reasons:
1. you get their lands that are wealthy and you get access to mediterranean trade
2. you stop the egyptians from expanding, becoming more wealthy, leading to them becoming more powerful, and thus even harder to defeat in the long run

however, i generally prefer to fight a multi-front war...makes expansion faster, and i have yet to lose a battle because i personally command all of them...presently, egypt is destroyed, armenia is destroyed, parthia is down to two provinces, both of which are about to be under siege, and the seleucids are down to nothing but Seleucia left, which i am also about to siege...im contemplating subduing the Scythes to the north, but that's a waist of manpower and resources cause i will gain nothing from a northern campaign...instead im going to head west and take out the numidians who are weak...good for me is that in my imperial campaign, the Scipii havent streatched farther than the city of Carthage and the one immediately to the south...only the Brutii have made significant progress against the Greeks, the rest of rome hasnt gained much, which makes my job all the more easier

cheers

[Shindogisan]

Hey do you think that we could get starting move guides put on here or if you guys know anywhere to get some of them?

[mikey2001]

I have been playing as Pontus recently and have found in an enjoyable experience. I now control most of modern day Turkey, except Byzantium (the Thracians took it before I had the chance) but have captured Antioch and Tarsus from the Selecuids. I have allied with the Armenias and the Greek Cities and I'm enjoying profitable trading routes between them! ~:)

My next objective is to finish of the Selecuids and attack the Egyptians, hopefully before they overrun my settlements.

[RollingWave]

I have yet to start a campaign with them... but...
When I played as the greeks and Selucides Pontus always have huge stacks runnign around asia minor pretty quickly... although much of it is eastern infantry, the sheer number still made it impossible to face them anywhere else except in ur town...

From what i can judge as long as Pontus stays peaceful with the Armenian and block Selucide reinforcements across the mountain pass, they are definately in the best position to unify Asia minor... along with the fact that they can build caravans, they should be really rich if they can take some good port towns... Armenia faces a 4 way war too so with some luck they should try to go after more easy pickings like the isolated Selucide towns...

Also.. hillmen aren't really worth it early on, they only have slightly better stats than Eastern infantry but comes in less number... rather just overwhelm ur oppenet with sheer number of eastern inf... (or at least tie them up ) later on when u have phalanx though hillman might be better for their more useful abilities in small numbers.

[orcorama]

I started a m/m pontus long campaign game.
20 years into it:
as far as I can tell egypt and the seleucids are down to 1 province each
armenia is fighting parthia but the greek cities has just attacked me.
i have about 30k in the bank
im not sure where to go next. i guess ill attack armenia and then parthia

[Craterus]

Are you talking about the PBM orcorama or have you made your own? Either way, you are doing well, good luck!

[Ziaelas]

I finished this campaign a while ago, best thing to do is ally with Seleucid Empire to defeat the egyptian onslaught, then betray them and kill them. Then, defeat the Armenians and the parthians, before moving on to the scythians, and finally down into Macedon and Greece. Campaign Complete!

[Craterus]

In the PBM, I allied with Greece, Macedon, Scythia, Armenia, Egypt, Seleucids, Thrace and Parthia. Lol, eventually, these factions clashed and I had to choose between them.. I took most of Asia Minor though in my 10-year reign.. (I was the first.. and I'm a slow starter)

[orcorama]

Are you talking about the PBM orcorama or have you made your own? Either way, you are doing well, good luck!

I started my own

btw: i thought maybe since im having problems with the patch i could upload my game. that way i could sort of have a turn in the game without having to wressle with the patch?
just an idea

[Craterus]

Have you tried to upload the file from the site, or will it not work on vanilla?

Pontus have some nice cav and scythed chariots are always a bonus as long as they don't run amok.. Unfortunately, I hate early Pontic Infantry (Eastern Infantry, Hillmen) ...

[katank]

Pontus is not meant for infantry addicts. Don't you only care about cav, Craterus? Their unique jav cav is pretty good. Also, chariot archers are cool and annoying to the enemy. Now, only if they weren't so expensive for Pontus...

[Craterus]

I know, but I'm trying to expand my skills and become a bit more experienced with infantry, it's ok though, I'm not going to play Pontus for a while, I'm interested in trying out other factions..

[cunobelinus]

pontus is a really fun faction but hard there cavalry are the only thing that is good about them there infrantry are the worst in the game .i took armeinia and a bit of parthia in my first 20 turns . i hit egypt and helped the secluid empire but eventually egypt forced me bk and i am not the greatest with cavalry and infrantry are so poor that i didnt really beat the egyptians but held them back.thats as far as i got !!!

[Craterus]

Pontus get pikemen later in the game and bronze shields, I think you would be pretty close to getting them 20 years in...

[Anselm]

The key to winning with Pontus is to obey the age old saying, and not know just how to fight but when to fight. Pontus is by far my favourite faction. They can attack as fast as you could ever wish, and fight just as hard. You've got infantry to win sieges and a cavalry selection to drool over. Really I'm forced to ask, what's not to like?

Campaign

Pontus actually start in a fairly cushtee place. There are a few important things that I have found that often save my skin in campaigns:

1) Don't take on the Seleucids unless you have help. Not necessarily allies, but make sure there's at least one other country at war with them before you attempt any attack of your own. The Seleucid Empire, even in the early stages, can churn out enough Militia hoplites to really strain what will be mostly cavalry armies for you this early on in the game. Remember: Seleucid provinces effectively surround your land. So don't attack unless you're really sure your strong enough.

2) Use your mountains! The mountains surrounding and occupying your lands are a gift from the gods. Use them to your full advantage, block all available passes with forts, keep watch towers wherever you can to monitor your borders. The watch towers especially can be invaluable, sometimes the rough terrain can force armies to take really long routes to cover small distances so any advanced warning you can get is essential. Also forts at bridges can help, as several Seleucid invasion paths require your bridges to get to your cities.

3) Trade as Pontus can really be wonderful if you put a bit of work in. It can be tricky to balance all of the costs at first, but whilst maintaining a sizeable land army, try to expand your navy simultaneously. Send your diplomats all around the black sea. Thrace will normally trade with you, Macedonia aren't too far and there are even a couple of Greek Cities which are within trade range if I remember correctly. At the same time, rebel provinces around the black sea can be taken, allowing for internal trade in your now growing nation.

All in all these should get you a fairly stable foundation to build your Empire upon. Starting by the black sea, once people decide to expand you're surrounded by other nations, so be decisive when you strike because little Pontus' economy can be easily strained fighting too many wars at once. If you can trap a last 2-3 Seleucid provinces where they'll not be much of a threat then they'll give you a nice cushion inbetween Pontus and the Egyptians. It should take the Egyptians a few turns to completely wipe out the last Seleucid forces, by which time you can prepare an attack to invade Egypt or just strengthen your new southern border.

Battle Map

On the battle map, Pontus can be nearly invincible. You have to look at Pontus with a completely different angle if you've just come from playing as Romans or any other nation with poweful, heavy infantry-reliant armies. You have to change all of your tactics.

1) Infantry. Contrary to first appearances, Pontus does actually have infantry. Not good infantry, not at first anyway, but it is there so feel free to use it as garrison units and so on. A word of warning, don't use it on open battle fields. Unless you're pretty lucky, then your infantry suffer badly at the hands of almost everyone, stoping just short of peasants. The Seleucid phalanxes of Milita Hoplites will certainly eat them for breakfast. Its a cruel world, you know. Later on you can get some decent enough pike phalanxes, and these can be a good core for a defensive army and are absolutely invaluable for sieges; great for clearing streets and gateways when supported with cavalry. Your skirmishers aren't really any worse than any one else's but don't try them out against archers, the javelins just don't work.

2 Cavalry. Cavalry, cavalry, cavalry and yet more cavalry. They are the essence, the life of warfare with Pontus. You have at your command some of the most versatile and useful units in the entire game. Your cavalry as Pontus has two great advantages over most other nations. In combat the light Pontus cavalry are better than horse archers, yet still have the ranged attack from their javelins. The heavy cavalry is a force to be reckoned with in melee alone, but when you consider that they have javelins them selves then your armies cavalry doubles in worth; you have a melee assault force equal or probably greater than the enemy does, and they all double up as missile troops. You can't go wrong.

Tactics. With your cavalry, your tactics must be built around movement. Its an advantage your horsemen will have over the majority of enemies on the field. Against infantry use their footwork against them, especially phalanxes. Run close to them and dart away, force them to turn around and break out of phalanx , all the while your horsemen will be throwing javelins and constantly demoralising the infantry. When they start to tire (this should be long before your horsemen) attack them with pairs of units, get them to chase one unit and then charge them from the rear with another. Rinse and repeat. No more infantry.

Against cavalry, the story is similar. When they are stronger than your cavalry run and skirmish, drop the numbers before engaging and if they're heavy cavalry, chasing your light cavalry around will soon tire them out and cost them lots of men. Really the tactics are the same. Keep running and keep throwing, make sure your javelins do most of the work. After being shot up for 15 mins or so, a well placed charge will disrupt or route almost any unit in the game.

Hope its helpful to you all, I love this nation, they completely rock.

Anselm

So i'm an enthusiast. Shoot me ~D

[orcorama]

just a few notes regarding my experience:

1) I aggressively attacked the two rebel provinces next to my starting two provinces

2) I took tarsus and this was a very important base for lanching further attacks on the seleucids

3) I took antioch and the other seleucid province to the west

4) I allied with greek cities until they betrayed me but that was not til i was very powerful

5) I took sidon from egypt

6) I tricked the full stack out of jerusalem to attack my one unit blockade so I could bribe the captain led force

7) while i was battling around jerusalem I slipped a merc army led by a bribed family member in and using many spys captured memphis. this was the turning point in fighting Egypt after this they crumbled

8) i took alexandria and petra and the second last egyptian province.

9) I finally wiped egypt off the map took halicarnassus, and bribed the greek city in turkey so i fully control asia minor down the coast to egypt

10) now with egypt gone and the seleucids down to 1 province I dont know where to go. my armies are scattered but i do have a good sized calvery force on the border with numidia


numidia is off to fight scipii and lose but it leaves the way open for me to sweep acros the desert. parthia is rather weak other than 1 large army in armenian lands
im not at war with anyone. I have over 100k in the bank

as for the battle side:
other than sieges and the some in the very beginning i used purly calvery. they can travel further and they are excellent on the field. i took down countless units of militia hoplites from seleucids and greece. i love a mix of light calvery for speed and stamina and heavy calvery for power plus their javlins. I dont need any archers!
i have not upgraded beyond heavy calvery but i hear their capadocian calvery is really good
i have some 30+ provinces but im not sure where to go. I havnt met with rome yet but the brutii havnt even taken athens, corinth, or sparta or thermon and actually the greek cities own all these not macedon.
for some reason i hesitate from starting a war with armenia or parthia even though i probably could defeat them. maybe i hesitate from fighting the parthian/armenian calvery as i have mostly only fought infantry up to this point and as for the egyptian chariots i threw all the javlins i had at them and then charged with 3-5 units of calvery.

pontus has awome units and the potential to control all the middle east
by the time u reach my point in the campaign u will be vary powerful and advanced and will be able to defeat rome, macedon, greece, thrace, parthia, or whoever comes knocking or whoever you decide to invade

sorry for any spelling errors

[amazon77]

Well, i'm playing a pontus campaign for a couple of days myself on N/N mode.

On the world map, i attacked the 3 rebel regions, being Ancyra, Nicomedia and Halicarnassus, as they are easy to take. I was then going to take the Chersonesos town (Bosphorus region, modern day Crimea), but was attacked by the Sel's, so i got Sardis from them. Greeks also attacked me, i got Pergamum and landed an army in Rodes and layed siege, but they asked for a truce and i accepted (lol for the first time in my life, perhaps as i'm greek ~:) ). The macedonians had landed an army in asia minor and attacked me, but i killed them then as i made an alliance with scythes who were allied to them, we had a truce. Anyway now i've got all the Sel's regions (Seleucia town needs another turn to surrender as i siege the rebels - Selucid last king died and the city went rebel). I'm on a war with Egypt, sieging Bostra and have incaded and sieging Alexandria. In the next few turns i'll kill them off the map, they dont really have any armies left, just some scattered 3-4 unit armies. Unfortunately i haven't got Cyprus yet. It's my preference not to kill anyone in the captured cities (only did in Jerusalem and enslaved in another one but not Egyptian to boost my 2 starting Sinope and Mazzaka early on.), thus i usually stay in the city for 2-3 turns 'tll i built some peasents as guard. Armenia was killed (saddly i had to bribe a big army of them as they cought me off guard and were sieging Sinope :embarassed: ). The parthians also lost Arsakia and are going to loose Susa in a couple of turns.
I'm allied with all the romans, germans, numidians, scythians, spanish and thracians. The year is 245 summer, the bank is at 174338, earning about 10,000 a turn. My armies are mainly mercenaries, save from some phalanxes and of course l/h cav and scythed/archer chariots.
As far as battles, i never had a problem, i use some inf to hold them in place, while jav's pepper them and then cav charges. This works against Seleucids better, while vs Egyptians i use merc camels fighters against their axemen cav, this unit has a lot of troops and is quite dangerous, but the camels work wonders ~;) Furthermore all the egyptian units have a combat bonus in deserts, which makes them quite tough, along with their numbers. If you haven't tried berber camel fighters (not the archers, these i dont find as usefull), you should, they rout horses easily. Scythed char's are also good vs horses, just dont send them alone to receive the charge, they kill but also die. Use some heavy pontic cav instead and then strike with the scythed. Char archers seem fantastic, but i didnt have a lot of success with them, perhaps against heavier infantry (read: Romans later on). Another notice, all these lands are infested with excellent merc units, cretans+1, rhodians+1, barbs+2, sarmatians, thracians, bastarnae and hoplites, also peltasts and cilician pirates. Make good use of them and especially the cretans/rhodians try to exp them, as they are fantastic and become even more so.
Only bad thing, my navy is almost non existant, but i usually only build it later.
All in all, i feel Pontus is a fun faction to play, not overpowered yet not too hard as there are easy early pickings in the form of rebels, the Seleucids go down easily, the greek city of Pergamum is isolated, all the wonders except Zeus in Corinth is in your reach, armenia is the same little kingdom at the start, parthia is easy as well. The only real challenge are the Egyptians, but when you kill them, you probably have the best empire possible in any region of the map, especially if you include the macedon and greek lands later on.

[Ianofsmeg16]

I've yet to start as Pontus, but reading these posts my mouth is drooling over their cavalry. Whjat about the strategy of establishing a Black sea Empire, taking on Thrace, Armenia and the Crimean Rebels?

:charge: :duel: :duel: :charge:

[Craterus]

It's possible, of course. Their cavalry is not that great. I certainly prefer Scythian missile cav. Noble Men can fight as well, just like Pontic Heavy.

[pezhetairoi]

Pontics only get javelin cav which, in addition to inferior range, is also inferior in ammunition. Getting the Crimean province is important. Then you can draw on Scythian HA mercenaries from three different provinces in a four-turn recruitment tour and send them by ship to the main front. You could establish a conveyor system involving a six-bireme transport fleet that would also snatch naval superiority from any other faction you're at war with...

[katank]

Conveyor belt systems are certainly nice. The Scythian mercs aren't that many though. I find preserving them to be somewhat an issue. I personally mix the jav cav and the HA mercs.

Jav cav can take better care of themselves in melee. Also, if you turn off fire-at-will and hand target the javs, you get far better results. Always use them from behind the enemy shields for max damage.

Also, saving a jav for while they charge can enhance the charge in providing additional morale penalties upon the enemy.

[pezhetairoi]

But Scythians have the better advantage of more ammo, faster speed and nastier morale damage when taking infantry formations the likes of EI under fire. Also, you don't only get Scythian mercs, you get Sarmatians which are the best at the start in lieu if Pontic heavies and Cappadocians. And I've checked the mercenary regen text files; you get a potential maximum of 3 Scythians and 1 Sarmatian in Crimea and Scythia, and something to that effect in Maeotis. Enough to form your own Scythian army if you had the intention to do so. And besides, it's moddable, so you can up mercs in the game to make the conveyor system more viable, although that's vaguely like cheating :-)

[HarunTaiwan]

Hillmen are actually excellent when used as flankers. They are fast so that they can get into the flanks of the enemy. They pursue well. They get a bonus against cavalry, so they are nice to have one unit back in case the enemy cav get into your archers they will take those out.

I even had them doing well head to head with hastati.

Of course I was making them in Hercules temple with an armourer.

[pezhetairoi]

Well... I always used them as main line troops :-P Never thought of using them that way, and anyhow, I preferred using cavalry for flanking. Heh, heh.

[Watchman]

I've now played a Pontus campaign for a while, and it's quite interesting - Pontus is a sort of "bit of everything" faction. Pontic Cav are kinda like HA, but not. The infantry are an odd bunch, and in my experience almost unnecessary outside sieges until Phalanx Pikes turn up. The chariots are a mixed bag. Half the units have a basically Greek feel to them (and all the temples *are*), but the culture rates as Eastern in every respect (not that I'm complaining, that "secret police" line of building is useful). Just about all of their immediate neighbors fight in a bit different manner - Greeks and Seleucids have phalanxes and nondescript cavalry, Armenians have HAs and crap for infantry. The Galatean rebels provide further variation - not that FamiCav has any more trouble clearing out stacks of Naked Fanatics than Eastern Inf, it's just a nice break from the usual.

My experience goes roughly as follows. First of all, it is imperative to fortify and tower the passages to Armenia ASAP - odds are the buggers will be coming after you sooner rather than later, and peasants in forts blocking the paths seem to deter them quite long. While they were wondering at what to do about the matter I was profiting from the trade pact I had with them (they were the only guys nearby whe never accepted Alliance, though - go fig) and cheerfully took over Bithynia and Galatia, not in the least because I needed a bigger population base to absorb the army upkeed. Soon after I took Bithynia the "perfidious and effeminate Greeks" decided they didn't want to be my friends anymore, so I ate Phrygia from them to stop having to kill a bunch of MiliHops ever half dozen turns. They were probably busy with the Macedonians and Romans, as they were surprisingly willing to swallow ceasefire and trade pact.

The Seleucids never bothered me - no doubt busy with the Parthians and Egyptians - but I fortified the river crossings around Mazaka just in case - all those army stacks marching by made me a bit nervous.

During this early phase I mostly split my building queues between everything money-related and everything troop-related - particularly temples of Hercules and enough stables and barracks to be able to start producing Phalanx Pikes and Pontic Heavies, as having to rely on Pontic Lights and Hillmen felt like standing on a rather shaky set of clay legs. Sinope actually grows big enough pretty soon, so as long as you keep building in pace you'll be feeling a fair bit more secure in time. Towns not meant to serve as troop production centres (at least as of yet) got farms and temples of Aphrodite instead - especially the teensy-weensy backwoods of Ancyra can really do with the growth boost. I also made a point of having at least one temple of Zeus around, as the priests give useful bonuses and it's easy enough to pass them on to others.

A few word on the Hercules temples, though. Useful as they are, characters meant to actually lead armies on the field shouldn't hang out too long in cities that have them. "Bloody" is an useful trait, and the basic "Anger" doesn't matter much - but the higher levels of those chains, especially of the former which starts giving hefty morale penalties to troops, can be quite troublesome for field generals. A point should be made of giving commanders a Priest of Zeus though; +2 Command on the attack is nothing to scoff at.

On the plus side the temples of Hercules also seem to encourage the developement of the "active" line of traits (which makes buildings cheaper), and gives nothing that hurts Management so at least I ended up bluntly dividing my family members into two groups - governors who can go as stark raving Hercules-mad as they want because it doesn't hurt their main job one bit, and commanders who only visit the settlements with those temples if absolutely necessary and do all the real fighting. Asia Minor is such a small place, even with the dirt roads Pontus is stuck with, that initially only one or two commanders are needed, although this changes one the Armenians go hostile.

The Armenians are a bit annoying to fight against - there's some obvious issues in engaging HAs with phalanxes and javelin cav (not counting all the merc HAs you're supposed to hire ASAP), and all the more so when they throw the Cata version in. Their infantry just plain sucks - Hercules-boosted Pontic Heavy can often crush both Hillmen and Easterns without overmuch casualties even on a frontal charge, and Heavy Spearmen can't hold a candle to Phalanx Pikes; if flanks aren't a concern, the longer spear wins.

Scythed Chariots proved to be if not exactly cheap then at least easily retrainable counter - send them after the HAs and the buggers won't be a bother while you shred the rest of the stack, and even Cataphracts die fast enough if you throw them that way. Scythes are actually about the only troops I consider genuinely expendable - if you've got a Doctor or Surgeon along, enough casualties are usually recovered from completely demolished units to keep them retrainable and using them effectively all but requires death-or-glory suicide charges anyway (although preferably with Pontic Heavies right behind). Cataphracts proved to be of surprisingly little concern; fully buffed Pontic Heavies can take them out easily enough if there's at least two against one, and there always tend to be more Heavies than Catas anyway. Even the upgrade cata-generals die surprisingly fast in the crush.

I never tried to use the Pontic Chariots as HA counters, though. Dunno if I should've, but I always felt they take too much casualties in the firefight given the high building reqs for retraining. A few make useful support troops though, overpriced poor HA clones that they may be (they're not even Fast like the Egyptian ones).

The little batch of woods across the river east of Sinope incidentally turned out to be a neat place to ambush advancing Armenians in, when they try that route. The river crossing works too, as it goes a long way to stripping the HAs from their mobility advantage.

In any case the Armenians proved to be little more than a constant irritation easily containable in the Anatolian mountain passes, save of course it constantly occupied one decent commander and a stack of troops, although I first needed to knock their puny excuse of a navy to the bottom of the Black Sea and put the port of Kotais under blockade out of sheer spite. That aside I was making a good profit from a beautiful net of sea trade routes all over said pond, save the Scythians were proving thoroughly incapable of taking over Chersonesos from the rebels there.

Around this time I started noticing the odd Egyptian remnant stack wandering around the cilician mountain passage, and sending a spy to check things out revealed the Egyptians were already as north as Tarsus - presumably via amphibious assault, as Antioch was still in Seleucid hands. The fighting around the city seemed rather complicated with many small stacks of remnants, and the odd pile of Cilician Pirate bandits pitching in, but in any case I decided the writing was on the wall and the Seleucids on the ropes. So I fortified the pass to Tarsus and took it over when it was back in Seleucid hands. They seemed to have a ceasefire with the Egyptians at the time or somethings, as they were able to spare a fairly substantial relief force during the siege. Scythed Chariots proved to die quite fast on pikes, though. Levy Pikemen put up more of a fight until my cavalry wings were done with theirs and rolled up their flanks - even high-end phalanxes seem to shatter pretty easily before a flank cavalry charge, I've noticed. Naturally I also took Sardis so as to have no pesky loose ends around, and also because Aegean trade is profitable. The rebels in Halicarnassus were still there, so that was next up in the interests of consistency (and because Aegean trade is profitable, and I had a trade pact going with the Egyptians too). KREEESHUN ARSHERS also make thmselves quite useful in the otherwise rather archer-poor Pontic military.

The Seleucids still held out in Antioch and Hatra, and I actually fully expected the Egyptians to finish them. They didn't though. They were apparently taking over Seleucia and butting heads with the Parthians. I fortified the teensy-weensy pass between Antioch and Tarsus and for a while the "Southern Army" (as I'd dubbed it) pretty much ran between that fort and the passages into Cappadocia which the Armenians were constantly venturing into - this was actually a bit troublesome as Tarsus was a puny little village and the nearest retraining facilities were in Mazaka, so some troop rotation was required to keep them in strenght. Around this time I'd gotten my FamiCav upgrade (Perganum gre big enough and I made it the capital), and the old man (who was born a four-star Military Genius) in charge of this army was now surrounded by a hundred three-gold-chevron hardcases who regularly pretty much wiped out half the enemy army by themselves. Those Cappadocian Bodyguards are pretty tough.

The diplomat I'd forgotten to hang out in Greece as a sort of resident emissary showed me the Romans were giving the Greeks and Macedonians a beating - interestingly it looked like peninsula was getting split horizontally in the middle between the Brutii and the Scipii, the former taking Epirus and Thessaly and the latter everything south of that. The Macedonians actually held out for fairly long, until the Thracians decided to play scavenger and invaded Byzantium - that seemed to break their back. Apparently the Thracians rather overextended themselves, or perhaps got into a scuffle with the Brutii, as the Dacians overran them soon after and for a while they and the Brutii took turns besieging, occasionally taking, and failing to hold Byzantium which always revolted.

I figured I wanted to get a share too, so I took the scary old commander who'd spent the last half decades or so killing rebels and bandits in western Asia Minor (three gold chevrons here too), gave him an army mostly made up of Merc Hops, Thracian Mercs from Bithynia, some KREESHUN ARSHERSH plus a couple of Pontic Lights mostly for pursuit duties, and shipped the whole merry bunch over to Rhodos. For some reason most of the Greek troops on the island were in a big stack right next to the city, which held about two MiliHops and one Peltast. Right after I'd laid siege to the city this stack tried to pull a relief, got duly massacred (Hoplite vs Merc Hoplite is a pretty even match - until the Thracians get involved from the sides...) and the Greek Cities died out with the capture of Rhodos.

I was, of course, a happy camper - you don't need to be a rocket scientist or Alan Greenspan to figure out what that whopping 40% sea trade boost does to your budget. So I fixed the place up, built my own temples, trained a bunch of peasants to pick up the local drunks, and boarded to scary old general and his mercs on a ship - Byzantium was still rebel, and I figured I might as well take that one too.

The next turn there was a full Scipii stack laying siege to Rhodos. The old general and his ships made an about-face and the Scipii were duly driven into the sea - even Praetorians don't do too well against hoplites when they have a pile of howling Thracians on their arses, it seems. For the next several years this was repeated at least twice until I managed to build enough ships to keep the Blue Pox That Are The Scipii on their side of the Aegean, and grinned evilly the whole time as I trained a whole bunch of seriously buffed Cappadocians in Sinope (although just in case all the cities of western Asia Minor received stone walls ASAP). Let's see your Legionary Cavalry handle those critters...

Then I remembered I had no spare Pikemen around - all were preoccupied with Armenians and the Seleucids. So I trained those, too. Phalanx Pikes though. Bronze Shields are neat, but hideously expensive (upkeep about double that of the Phalanxes, although they *do* also have half again as many men) and I suspect retraining would be too problematic. Moreover, their shield bonus is actually worse than that of the Phalanx Pikes and seeing as how neighter defense skill nor the light armour of the phalangited is terribly useful against pila... And tried to save enough money every turn (more difficult than it might sound like, as my trade across the Aegean was now shot and those high-end building most cities had graduated to cost a lot) to recruit enough KREESHUN ARSHERSH to not have to worry about Archer Auxilias.

And then I started noticing most of my family members were getting worrisomely gray, the few who weren't were Hercules-crazed loons their own troops would flee from and the next generation wasn't yet in double-digit ages... As suddenly being left without a good general when fighting the Romans across the Aegean didn't sound like a very brilliant plan I set down to wait for some promising young fellow to make into a new warleader of the Western Army through the time-honored practice of bandit hunting. Although I was getting kinda worried the old guys would die off and take all their useful advisors with them...

Gave me time to thoroughly wrest sea control from the Scipii though and blockade all the Roman ports in the Aegean, though. And very possibly make a bit of a strategic mistake in going and taking over Antioch from the Seleucids on the grounds that if I didn't the Egyptians would and I'd far rather go to war with the big, strategically useful and quite rich city on my side from the word go.

Apparently my stack of troops wasn't nearly as impressive as the one the Seleucids had guarding their last bastion (they even had those first-level elephants in there), because that word came about two turns afterwards.

*Now* I understand why people keep damning the Egyptians to the lowest pits of Hell. Not only are their armies rather annoying, there's apparently no end to them. The Eastern Army by necessity turned casualty minimization (primarily achieved through heroics of the sixty-something superhero general and his merry, endlessly regenerating bodyguards) into a bit of an art form as Antioch rather unhelpfully had all troop buildings except the archery line exactly one step too low (the archery line, in turn, was up to the Catapult Range already meaning I couldn't "overwrite" it to lessen the culture penalty...) for my needs, and the nearest retraining station was still in Mazaka. I hadn't exterminated the city either (in the hopes of getting it to Huge size fast, to have a really solid forward base against the Egyptians), so given the huge culture penalty all that kept it from rebelling was the immense prestige of the old war hero who by this point went by the sobriquet Conqueror. Which also meant he had to be back in the city every turn.

Anyway, the Egyptian armies are a pain for two connected reasons - Pharaoh's Bowmen and chariots. Either of the two is easy enough to deal with - pikes trample over chariots with little difficulty, while cavalry can run rings around the usually all too few Eqyptian phalanxes and rip their achers apart. If both are present, though, it gets tricky as I'd really rather not have my Phalanx Pikes shot full of Pharaonic arrows while closing in, and chariots are plain too dangerous to horses for the usual cavalry assault to work. As an intermediary measure I trined two sets of Onagers in Antioch - outrange that, you damn archers. But since if nothing else the Egyptians get Heavy Onagers (with even longer range) and I don't that's not going to work for too long, and I'm not actually sure if it's actually worthwhile even now. Skirmishers make a halfway decent job as chariot hunters, but their moreale is too brittle and they're too vulnerable to arrows for that to be relied on. I've been thinking if I should just build a bunch of Scythed Chariots and introduce the Egyptian sunday drivers to some real road rage...

Thankfully I'd finally had enough of the next generation mature to start training the future leader of the invasion of Greece, and send another promising lad to take over the job (and ancillaries) of the old hero in Antioch. I'd also gone and taken over Kotais in the meantime, more to get the trade money than anything else, and then proceeded to Chersonesos which the Scythians still hadn't taken. That army had had to beat feet back to Kotais pretty fast and when I noticed the Egyptians seemed to be pushin into Armenian territory from the south (the Parthians were already out in the steppes) I figured I might as well take over the big cities of the Caucasus before them.

That's the current situation in the 200s BC. The nasty army to take on the Romans on the Balkans and Greece has been assembled and is ready to go, and I'm gathering another which I intend to ship over the Med into the Nile Valley and give the Egyptians something to think about. The Romans have several rather large and strong stacks and good generals in Greece, but my spes tell me they're been maneuvering so oddly as of late I wouldn't be surprises if they go into civil war soon (the Scipii are probably getting strong enough to trigger it) - perhaps I can persuade the Dacians to give them something else to worry about too... The Armenian capital at Artaxarta fell to my Northern army only last turn - the few relief attempts were so feeble they're probably on their last legs. The Egyptian armies swarming around Antioch don't exactly seem to be diminishing in number in spite of having tended to die at the rate of about two per three turns, but at least I think I'm done with most of their silver-chevron veterans and I've pretty much owned the immediate seaspace (one of the veteran Aegean fleets sailed over and wiped the slate clean). Overall it's been quite interesting thus far and hasn't been getting stale yet; given that I'm now going to take on the Romans too on the field I'm looking forward to some pretty interesting matches. The Brutii even have gladiators in their stacks...

[Goalie]

Pontus is a pretty solid faction and one of the better eastern factions. They have solid phalanxes, pretty darn good calavry, especially Cappadocians, and you can always hire Cretan Archers. They can be a powerful force early on and into the middle of the game. However, when the Seluecids get elephants, and the Greeks and Romans come it can get difficult.

[Diurpaneus]

If you use pontus phalanxes as backbone of your army (minimum 8 units) and at least 4 units of cappadocian cavalry,2-3 units of chariots and the remaining archers....I think will you manage to resist against the roman and egyptian invasions:trytofly:

[Craterus]

I'm into a pretty nice Pontus campaign. It's on Mundus Magnus, so there's loads of territories for me to take (The Seleucids own ~25 at the start of the campaign).

I started by heading straight for the Armenians, my long-term plan was to expand west but I didn't want them attacking my homeland whilst I was concentrating on Asia Minor. I took them out as fast as possible; the battle against all their generals and horse archers was scary, but I managed to get through it relatively unscathed. The siege of their only city was pretty easy because it was ungarrisoned (their final stand used all of their troops, bar some peasants).

After taking out Armenia, I moved my grand army back to Asia Minor and attacked the heavily defended barbarian settlement. On Mundus Magnus, it is defended by a garrison of upgraded naked fanatics, upgraded archers, a good general and some upgraded warbands.

There is also a field army full of upgraded troops and a formidable general. I attacked the city when the field army moved towards Nicomedia. Obviously they saw the attack and came back for me when I sieged the city. They attacked, but I retreated, not willing to risk taking on two armies (garrison & field). The field army attacked me near the mountains north of Ancyra. I defeated the field army in a really cool battle - one of my most memorable, definitely (I'll post some screenshots later). It was completely even (numbers-wise).

For this battle, my army was comprised of:

2 Generals Bodyguard, 6 or 7 Pontic Light Cav, 1 Barb Cav, 4 Scythed Chariots, 1 Eastern Infantry, 1 Merc Hoplites 2 Barbarian Inf Mercenaries.

I lined the infantry up, and placed my generals behindn the infantry line. I also kept 2 units of Pontic Light Cav behind the lines, in case they broke against the well-equipped Nakeds.

I placed most of my other cavalry on the right flank. On the left flank, and at the highest point of my hill, I put my scythed chariots and some cav.

The rebels advanced towards my line, and with little trouble to my chariots (the key to my plan). I had to send the cavalry on that flank to deal with the barbarian cavalry who were looking to take them out. And as the barbarians got close to my line, I sent the scythed chariots thundering down the hill into the side of their lines. They cut through the unarmoured barbarians like a hot knife through butter. I used my cavalry to cut into the other flank, and from there that battle was won.

The battle ended up as a heroic victory (screenshots will prove) and I was pretty pleased with how the battle went - exactly to plan. My infantry, as customary in my battles, did not see any action.

I'll now attempt to carve my own slice of the HUGE Seleucid Empire. The Ptolemies are looking strong, and they'll be my next foe.

[Guyus Germanicus]

[QUOTE=amazon77]Well, i'm playing a pontus campaign for a couple of days myself on N/N mode.

I'm reading amazon77's remarks on his Pontus campaign, impressed as "Gehenna" with his bankroll. And, !!!, he's playing in N/N mode. Gosh, it seems like everyone that posts in the Guild is working in Hard or Very Hard. Here I am, a newbie, working my way through my first long campaign in E/Eeeeeeaasy mode. I'm in Pontus myself right now as an adversary (Julii). I didn't go there of my own accord. I'm minding my own business, being a good Roman, slaughtering Gauls and eyeing lustily the Britannica provinces in France proper, when the Senate keeps giving me assignments that take me East. Mind you, I'm trying to make an alliance & get trade agreements with Macedonia and Thrace, and they keep giving me the cold shoulder treatment. Finally the Brutii, having pretty much finished up with the Greek states, make their move on Macedonia, and the Senate orders me to take a Macedonian settlement to help them. Eventually, I end up taking Thessalonica before the Brutii - so the Senate orders me to blockade Nicomedia (Pontic). So, to give me some geopolitical leverage and position my armies for future operations, I make a big "mistake?" and have my best eastern general take the rebel city of Byzantium. The Senate then orders me to take Nicomedia, then Sardis. My good general dies after taking Nicomedia, and I'm having this major reallocation of resources fighting off some really large, nasty stacks of Pontic "legions" when Thrace finally gives me the promised alliance and trade agreement I wanted . . . then, promptly attacks me. (And you thought the treachery only showed up in the very hard games, eh, Guyus). So, my 69 year old faction leader, who I posted in Thessalonica to help manage that economy to abundance, was forced to take the field against Thrace. I was merciless with the Thracian cities. I slaughtered the inhabitants after taking them and just raked in the modest cash somes from my cat to keep my Pontic legions fighting. Mind you, going east was not my idea. I grabbed one Dacian province through negotiation after menacing them with two huge armies I had built up from Gaul and northern Italy and got them to cease fire. But the Senate and the Brutii kept pushing the issue with them. So, I'm back at war with Dacia. My poor faction leader is now in his 70's, and by hook or by crook, I'm going to try to get him back to Thessalonica for a modest retirement before he croaks. The natives in Thessalonica are restless and I'm about to draft the entire population into the legions if they don't quiet down. The Pontic campaign is surviving on Greek mercs and three solid generals. (I love this game.) Long post, sorry about that. :)

[Ludens]

Welcome to the Org, Guyus Germanicus ~:wave: . It's good to hear you are enjoying the game. If I may offer some advice: don't bother with diplomacy apart from trade agreements. The A.I. doesn't either. Just follow the Senate's instructions (and have a look at the senate tab to see which other factions the senate likes or dislikes) and mind your own business. BTW it need not necessarily be a bad thing that you are going east. There is far more money to be made around the Mediterrenean than in the north.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Welcome to the Org, Guyus Germanicus ~:wave: . It's good to hear you are enjoying the game. If I may offer some advice: don't bother with diplomacy apart from trade agreements. The A.I. doesn't either. Just follow the Senate's instructions (and have a look at the senate tab to see which other factions the senate likes or dislikes) and mind your own business. BTW it need not necessarily be a bad thing that you are going east. There is far more money to be made around the Mediterrenean than in the north.
Many thanks, Ludens. Many of the Guild members have mentioned in their posts about the cash cows of the Greek city states. I have, indeed, noticed that my total income started really jumping up after I took Thessalonica and my first Pontic cities. (Sardis was a big bonus because one of the Wonders was there.) I did have some success in the early game "extorting" a little money thru diplomacy from the Greeks for cease fire agreements while they were fighting off the Brutii and Macedonians. But once they were down to one or two cities, they (the AI) apparently didn't have any spare cash left to pay me off and still fight the Brutii, so they wouldn't "give" anymore. To me the beauty of this game is the way it hits you on so many levels. You have global political strategy, local (Rome) political strategy, military strategy - both campaign level and tactical, psychological/relational elements with your family members, spying, diplomacy (limited though it may be) and economic empire building. And, I can practice my battle handling technique designing custom battles to learn how to use specific pieces better, and see what their effects are. For example, an ongoing subject of conversation in the Guild has been about the effectiveness of war dogs. I set up a scenario where I had a Roman army facing off on a Gallic army of four warrior bands and one cavalry unit. I sent one unit a piece of Equites and war dogs off on each of their flanks. When my Principes started marching toward the Gauls, they reacted by sending one unit a piece off to my left and right in the direction of my Equite/dog flanking positions. I released the dogs and they positively demolished the Gauls. So the dogs can be very effective in certain circumstances. Amazingly so, in this case. My infantry never had to get into the fight. I would probably have had no casualties at all in my test battle accept that I'm repeatedly making the mistake of sending Equites into an enemy unit that is being bombarded with javelins by my Velites. Friendly fire casualties. I'll learn. Thanks for the feedback.

[Kaidonni]

Doing a Pontus 1.3 H/H campaign right now (well, not this instant to be exact :laugh4:). The year is 258BC, Winter. I have Pontus, Cappadocia, Galatia, Ionia, Phrygia, Bithynia, Lycia and Rhodos - all in order.

I started by sending most of my troops under Pharnaces to conquer Galatia. I used my diplomats, training extra ones where necessary, to sell map information, get map information and broker trade rights and alliances. SELLING MAP INFORMATION IS IMPERATIVE! It gets you a nice amount of money to spend on mercs, etc. I conquered Ancyra in 269BC, Winter. At one point, around 266BC/265BC, my income was just about to go negative...then, I conquered Ionia 265BC Winter, and ended a 2-turn war with Seleucia - and got a nifty 10,000 denarii (large undisclosed sum passed under table is the watchword). 264BC I attacked Pergamum in Phrygia and assaulted after 1 turn, then got a ceasefire with Greece. 263BC/262BC came the turn of Nicomedia in Bithynia. 261BC saw Harlicarnassus fall to me. 258BC was the second Pontus-Greek Cities war, which also lasted 2 turns, with me capturing Rhodes on the island of Rhodos.

For some reason, just blocking the bridges by Mazaka and Sinope deterred the Armenians from attacking. Not to mention these two armies are my police armies (well, a unit of Sarmatians at the Sinope bridge, and my main police army at the Mazaka bridge). I have left Cilicia for now. Egypt doesn't seem interested in the Seleucids there - but they seem to POSSIBLY have their eyes on Hatra in Assyria (the Armenians are attacking the settlement...hmm, perhaps Egypt and Armenia can enter a war, get pre-occupied...then BAM).

I intend to co-ordinate a conquest of Antioch and Salamis from Egypt. I will try to build two full-stack armies consisting of Phalanx Pikemen and a good range of cavalry, and attack the settlements simultaneously, possibly taking Tarsus in Cilicia first. I will basically blitz the Egyptians. Key to that is also preparing Peasant armies to garrison the cities so one can move on.

And I will attempt to investigate that conveyor belt system for Scythian HA mercs! Scythia has failed to take the Bosphoran peninsula, so that means more fun for me. And in that case, with nice merc HA armies, I can easily slaughter Egypt and Armenia. Perhaps I could take Armenia first...then hit Egypt with a massive offensive...:idea2:

[Tzar Dusan of Serbs]

First i must apologize to everyone who want to read this because my english is a bit rogh,i'm only 17years old and I am a real fanatic of RTW.

First i want to say that i played my campaign on vh/vh.IN the start I advise to every one to take care off rebel city on the west coast of asia minor,than to prepare for war against armenia.I find that if war I give them to much space they become real pain in the ass,because of their horse archers(I hate them)!!!!So i atack them early on and i bribe every army i could.I take both of their cities and than built fortres in the frontier with Pathria.Ofcourse i send all of my diplomats to sell trade rights as high as they can(this is extremly usefull).I never go in the alliance with Egypt becouse they are real back stabbing faction.I help the seleucids in their war with Egypt so I dont have to worry about hordes of Egyptians armies on my frontier.Also I build fortres in every mountain pases in asia minor.Interestly even with one unit of pesants in my fort,Egyptian never tried to take it from me.After few turns Greeks atacked me in Nicomedia,it wasn't a problem becuse their hoplites are to slowe for pontus cavalry,after two battles in open field I siege and sucessfully take greeke city(Pergamum).Than I conqure Halicarnasus,this was vital because Greeks have very strong fleet and I do not build ships so with Halicarnasus I can do a sneak Atack to Rodes and take colosus.After that I go with my small fleet and take Salamis from Egyptians.
Then I build up my amries and go into open war with egyptiens also with army of merceneries I took Sardis from my formel allyies seleucids.

This is for now,what do you think about my strategie??

I'm very happy if I help someone,please respond

[Kaidonni]

Funny...in 1.3, H/H, just placing an army, even one unit, on the bridges by Sinope and Mazaka discouraged the Armenians from attempting to start a war with me. So far so good. :sweatdrop:

[Ludens]

Welcome to the Org, Tzar Dusan of Serbs ~:wave: .

Your strategy sounds interesting. I agree that Armenia must go, but then I would focus on the coastal cities, as they bring in cash. I would also prioritize war with the Egyptians over war with the Seleucids. The Seleucids tend to get wiped out anyway and the Egyptians pose a far bigger threat. Ally with the weak against the strong; the Seleucids may seems strong, but their strenght is divided over many borders. Also, Egypt is a very big prize: if you can weaken them by wiping out their veteran troops and then launch an amphibious invasion, you may get some of the richests provinces of the map.

[Tzar Dusan of Serbs]

Well I agreed with you Ludens,but I like to help Seleucids becouse I don't want Egypt on my border early in the game,I find them very anoying couse sometimes I thout that they have unlimited full stack armies.So I like to Help Seleucids to hold off Egypt in Tarsus,Pergamum,Sardis and Halicarnasus are my main objective in early game(of course after destroying Armenia).I find that merceneries in that area are very profitable becouse once I established my empire in the east I like to take Athens.Athens is very rich city and if you have 2cretan archers in garrison you can broke every siege atempt.I find that AI is very sttupid when they lay a siege,becouse when I sally for meet them they just wait and let me shoot them with my createn Archers drom my stone walls.Athens and later Corinth is so easy to defend.I know That Egypt is very rich,but my Strategy is always fast and furious atack by beseging their best cities and destroy their greatest army when they come to help besegied city.In War with Egypt I didn't find that is possible so it's really war of nutrition and I don't like it.So I Take their city of Salamis and than build two Armies,one to send straight Egypt and one to Send In Byblos,so I thoght(and of course I succed at this atempt)to cut off Egypt Armies from their mainland.This is very good for later sneak atack on Memfis if you take it,Egypt will colapse becouse of piramids....

i will say more some other time

[Tellos Athenaios]

I have tried Pontus for a while now, not yet completed the objectives but that's from now on only a poorly defended Rome to take.

First of all I've seen that pretty generally an army of 4 units of Pontic Heavy Cavalry, 4 units of Chariot Archers, 2 units of Cappadocian Lancers, 4 units of any phalanx unit, 4 units of Pontic Spearmen, and 2 units of Onagers is almost an unstoppable threat to any infantry based enemy. Deployment is really simple: two or three lines - the first or two lines being the infantry the 3rd being the missile troops, Cappadocians on the flanks and you're ready for combat. Let the enemy come to you, your infantry and missile troops are especially useful in defensive battles - if the enemy is reluctant the onagers and skirmishers can use the battle as target practice. The result is the same. Early on you won't have access to any of these units, but mercenaries, a few cheap units of your own and good tactics will do.

You basically fight this way: onagers firing at will - till the enemy gets to near to your precious units, chariot archers and pontic heavy cavalry the same (beware of placing them in the firing zone of the onagers), infantry sitting around playing an entirely diffrent game until the others are finished firing. When you've run out of missiles, you have two options either (if the enemy is about to give up) send in your Cappadocians, or use the classic hammer and anvil tactics. Battles tend to last long this way, but you will get to see how to use specific weaknesses of your enemies.

Playing as Pontus requires diplomacy. I decide to ally myself with any faction anywhere ASAP, except for Armenia. I took the rebel cities in Asia Minor, decided to mop up the Armenians in Kotais (mines + black sea province), and built a few ships to gain Chersonesos and Byzantium. The way to victory was clear: no wars to the south (wait till time and continuous warfare among the larger empires to the south has it's full effect), and whenever one of your allies declares war on another turn against the on bordering you (if both border you turn against the weaker of the two). Basically, it's about 2 dogs figthing for a bone leaving it unattended so a third dog can walk away with it. (You being the third one, of course.)

After a while some of your settelments will reach a decent size and from now on: victory is your's as long as you don't mess up with your battle tactics.

Or at least - that's the way it turned out in my campaign.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You've hit on an important theme. Pontic troop quality in the early game is horrid -- and your economy won't produce enough funds to allow for the mercs you'll want.

With developing cities, however, you get a surprisingly flexible army and are well positioned to supplement it with excellent mercs including MercH, Cretans, Rhodians, & Scythians without too much trouble.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I agree - early on you need to focus on both smashing the Armenians (war is inevitable, and the sooner the better) and settling in Asia Minor, and building your economy ASAP.

My solutions are try not to give anything for free - the more you can get the better, and get trade agreements with anyone.

Therefore: spam diplomats, and other agents. Practising your agents in infiltrating any settlement, or killing diplomats is a good thing too - you will need them in wartime. If you're done with your diplomats you could use them as targets too (personally never did that, but it's possible).

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

In vanilla, the first step is to take Nicomedia. It will give you a decent extra supply of money to attack the armenians. When you attack Armenia, take Colchis. Build forts in the mountain passes to avoid beeing attacked later by Scythians.Dont campaign and occupy Campus_Allani, is really worthless....

Take than Artaxarta, and finish off the Armenians. You should go then to attack the Parthians, if you want, but theyr cityes are quite poor... not worht the cost... raze them to the ground and retreat.In vannila map the Caspian Sea trade is practically usseles , anyway... instead, move your attention in the west, and take Pergamum and Byzantium . This 2 town, together whith Nicomedia, will bring you a HUGE INCOME if you get trade rights whith the Greeks and the Macedonians, and the emerging Brutti.

If Hallicarnassus is rebel, take it. It will need to be developed, but it can make tons of money.

Meanwhile, block all the passes in Cappadoccia to the south of Mazaka whith forts. In vannila, forget about Seleucids...the Egyptians grow to be VERY STRONG in most of the games.

Create a expeditionary force in Sinope, ship it to Crimeea and take the town overthere. It will help you develop a true sea trade, transforming the Black Sea into a sort of Pontic "mare nostrum" ~D Take Thrace... It is quite week at this moment.Get trade rights whith Dacia, or if you want and feel strong enough, take Dacia (Porolissum has some gold mines...).

Now, you have enough money to think of invading the southern Balkans. At this time, probably the romans are very strong. Macedon and Greeks , after fighting so much eachother and the romans, will not be such a difficult problem. Always fight battles against them personally... phalanx pikeman or bronzshields in the centre, backed by peltasts, cavalry on the flanks... sarmatians are more than usefull, as well as scythians, buy them from Crimeea... It should be easy to rout the romans, even the post-marian ones.

To kill Egypt, simply send some troops "behind the front", via ships, to Alexandria... take it, raze it to the ground, exterminate, etc, hire any mercernaryes do the same for Memphis and Thebes, and Egyptians will be half way defeated.

Succes, and have fun !

[pockettank]

PONUT IS THE EASIEST CAMPGAIN EVER!!!! :furious3: i slaughtered armenia by turn 11 then focused on parthia and the selucid empire -slaughtered them- then 4 :egypt: now they were the only hard part it took a while but i killed them... :laugh4: then i crossed africa and killed charthage then sailed to italy killed all three familys and the senate victory rome was a push over unlike egypt :inquisitive:

[detroitmechworks]

Okay, just finished my first Full Campaign with Pontus.

Here's my take.

IMHO, Pontic Light Cav is one of the best Router chasers in the game. Keeping them in reserve, then charging them after a router is great already, but they'll use their Javelins as well. This mops up those routers FAST, which is good for pontus, since they can easily rout one or two units, but the whole army's tough.

Bronze shields are decent, and they stood up to pretty much everything, with the exception of Praetorian Cohorts and Urban Cohorts.

I picked a fight early with the Selucids, which unfortunately brought me far too quickly into a protracted war with Egypt, which took half the campaign. Against Egypt, Chariot archers are your best friend. Good mobility, and in an emergency, you can charge them in to give that last little nudge into a rout. (I like the fact that they scare just as well as the Scythed...)

Cretan Archers are a MUST Recruit. Save em up, and they'll save yer ass when you're up against rome in the end-game. If you get lucky, (Like I did) and wait to take Greece, you can get them up to level three weapons if they've fully upgraded a temple of Artemis.

Tactics that seem to work well on rome are strongpont with your phalanxes, and use chariot archers/ HA's on the flanks. If you've got Onager's so much the better. I find that with Pontus you want to use similar tactics to Greece, but with more empasis on pure MOBILITY. (Since your phalanxes don't have the staying power of Greece, you want to stay on the offensive when it gets down to it.)

I managed to stay friends with rome RIght up to the point when there was only me, the Germans, and Britannia left. (I killed Egypt, the Selucids, Armenia, Parthia, and Scythia. The romans took care of everybody else.)
If you do that tactic, you'll be up against the Brutii. I found a good place to make your stand is near Campus Scythii. There's LOTS of open terrain, which gives you good maneuvering room. I killed almost all of the Roman forces there, and then just amphibious assaulted Greece and rome for the win. Whoot!

Overall, I'd say they're a fun faction to play, just because they have no major UBER units. However, they're flexible, and with some good merc recruitment, you can build them into a decent force.

One last note. I found that Pontus Heavy Cavalry was useful throughout the game. The combination of decent hitting power and minor standoff ability served me well, especially in support of Phalanxes.

[Rotc_Railey15]

Playing on Battle:Hard Campaign:Medium
I just started playing as Pontus today. The first city I captured was Nicomedia. The Greeks have built up an army but didnt use it against me instead Ancyra. Ancyra should be weakened now so ill attack it with fewer causualties.

Whoever gave the advice to attack Tarsus, thank you! They were completely unprepared for the attack. They actually sallied out at me with some reinforcements and I defeated them badly. suffer out of around 780 men, around 300. Tarsus is REALLY a money pot. Im starting to get more money.

Armenia is no longer my ally although their paying me 950 for 5 turns for attacking seleucia. So now im going to build some better stables to get heavy cav. and better infantry barracks if im going to fight the Seleucids and maybe even Greeks!

[Rotc_Railey15]

Ive got a question: What is the best tactic for seiges? Eastern infantry arent expected to fight for long against Hoplites. But in Urban warfare, how can you effectively use your cavalry?

[Quintus.JC]

One starting the first time with Pontus, i didn't the sensible thing, allied myself with Armenia and went west, capturing Ancyra and Nicomedia, when i was heading for Halicacuness Armenia backstabbed me and captured Sinope and Mazaka, first campaign ended in utter failure, the second time i decide to try a different approch.
This time I headed east into Armenia, they weren completely caught by surprise. after destroying Armenia and capturing 3 settlement i was in contact with Parthia, first i was tempted to attack, but then relised that no way my force would beat Parthian Cataphracts. I turned back and taken the rest of Aisa Minors. The Greeks put up a good fight, but were no match for my mobile cavalry. The Selucid was hot in war with Egypt. now with Cappadocian cavalry I headed towards Parthia. after taking Artaxrta and Susa I came into a face off with the mighty Egypt. The Seleucid only had Sardis left, which was then taken by me. 238 B.C. The two powers are about to clash. Egypt is richer and stronger. it's gonna take somthing to beat them. but by than I had two full-stacks armies ( I try to keep less army to decrease upkeep ). lead by exprinenced generals. my army composed of
9 units of Phalanx pikemen
2 units of Cappadocian cavalry
2 units of Pontic heavy cavalry
4 units of Pontic light cavalry ( highly exprinenced )
1 unit of Cretean archer mecenary
2 Generals

2 full-stack egyptian armies are heading for Mazaka, the struggle for Asia lies in the next decisive battle. a win could grant my way to Antioch, a defeat could dent my whole campaign....... I'll see my result tomorrow

[Quintus.JC]

Pontic Campaign completed, Egypt utterly destroyed, Balkans was next. Then came the Roman Legions. Cappadocian Cavalry is the exact equal to Cataphracts and could do massive damage. with my mighty army, Rome didn't stand a chance.

[mrdun]

I've yet to start as Pontus, but reading these posts my mouth is drooling over their cavalry. Whjat about the strategy of establishing a Black sea Empire, taking on Thrace, Armenia and the Crimean Rebels?

:charge: :duel: :duel: :charge:

That tends to leave you surrounded by jealous factions wanting your money :rtwno:

[Quintus.JC]

Always found Armenia and Egypt to be evil and backstabing, especially Egypt, apart from playing as Egypt i hated them every time when playing as someone else. They were even troublesome on my very first campaign-The Julii.

[Paradox]

Always found Armenia and Egypt to be evil and backstabing, especially Egypt, apart from playing as Egypt i hated them every time when playing as someone else. They were even troublesome on my very first campaign-The Julii.
Yes, I hate it that they often become your final opposing power in the Julii campaign, I don't know how they manage against Parthia and Armenia.

[Quintus.JC]

don't know how Egypt do it, when not interfeared by humans Egypt always end up as the strongest faction in the game.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Lots of elite units and CHARIOTS!

Chariots are mega-killers in auto-calc battles and while the Pontics have some, the Eggies have them in almost every half-stack+ force.

Scythe Chariots get a high score in auto-calc and a multiplier against cavalry -- hence problems for Parthia and Armenia. Neither gets a lot of good infantry, so they have trouble taking Eggie cities once they're dealing with stone walls.

Egypt also gets bonuses on auto calc for both Pharoah guards (morale) and bowmen (morale AND long range). Whereas no Pontic, Parthian, or Armenian foot troops get auto calc bonuses and they rarely hire the few Cretans they come across. So the AI eggies get to shoot at the Pontics with impunity for a while or shoot and fade away (Ch-archer) and then de-leg all the cataphracts in the scrum.

The only computer opponent who can reliably attack egypt is the Selkies. Unfortunately, since the others gang up on them, an AI selkie faction rarely survives long enough (at least with any big cities) to field a force that can face off against a developed and well-funded Egypt. A roman AI faction will hold its own against Egypt -- pila are a good counter to chariots -- but with lots of casualties. Rarely can they advance far or well against them.

[Quintus.JC]

on my current Julii campaign the Scipii had taken all of Anatolia and is fighting Egypt right now, as usual Egypt is the strongest in the East but the Scipii seems to be doing pretty well. I myself is expanding interest in the Iberian region. This is an expremental campaign which i wish to see what the Senate would do if an other Roman faction apart from the player itself became strong enough to challenge the Senate.

[mrdun]

Would it order the Roman Families to attack you? How many are left, just Scipii?

[Quintus.JC]

205BC.
The Brutii got just about all of Eastern Europe, They destroyed Dacia, Macedon and even Scythia (with the help of Parthia). must of their troop is currently stationed in modern Ukraine. The Scipii is currently the strongest Roman Faction, They have Sicly, Sparta, Corinth, Anthens plus all of the Asian Minor. They are currently in a long term war with Egypt, and they're winning. The Seleucid are destroyed. The Parthian have been pushed north of the Caspian sea. While Carthage remains. Germania is destroyed by Briton, who is now the dominate power in northern Europe. While my faction the Julii have all of Gaul and Northern Italy. I am into a lenghy conflict with Spain. I'm by far the richest faction in the game and is waiting for either the Brutii or the Scipii to turn on the Senate.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I never had much respect for Pontus when playing as another faction.......except those damn Pontic HC. Spear-chucking S.O.B.'s always took some chasing to take down........but eventually.........................

Sooooooo........I figured I'd try them out myself..........

At the beginning I nearly restarted the camp several times but I'd always give it one or two turns more.......ehhhhhh let's give it a couple more turns.........and then it finally turned into the full 50+ Rome version....

But jeeez, what a shaky start. The S got completely wiped out in less than 15 yrs. Never seen them go down that fast before. Damascus, Antioch, and Tarsus were in Egyptian hands in less than ten years, and it's only a short hop over the mts. to Pontus, so I knew I was in trouble:help:

Armenia had come sniffing around Sinope by turn three with a near-full stack, but couldn't decide whether to challenge me on the bridge. After reversing course several times, they finally drank enough of whatever Armenians drink to get their courage up and attacked. War was on.

Next turn came a dbl-whammy with Parthia & Armenia calling an alliance, as well as Egypt and Parthia, and all three ganging up on Selucia. With only three cities to my name, Sinope, Mazaka, and Ancyra (the Greeks got to Nicomedia before I could get there) and all just getting underway, I figured I was toast.

And sure enough, one turn after Tarsus fell, the first big stack of :egypt: came over the mountain pass headed for Mazaka. Of course they have to force a bridge, as well, and for several turns one big stack after another was repelled and two :egypt: faction heirs were sent to see Osiris. But there was no way I could afford a war of attrition against the riches of the Nile and in fact, my coffers were under 1000 denari several times (which was what brought me close to restarting).

So........I decided to hold Egypt at the "Two Bridges" as long as I could, and knock out Armenia before they recovered from their trouncing (after that initial onslaught, they had sent several small scouting parties, but nothing resembling an invasion force). I went to direct assault on turn two for both Armenian cities, as I needed the income quickly, and :egypt: was being relentless as usual. Finis for Armenia.

Then the Greeks decided to come calling with a near full stack of mixed Hoplites-Armored Hoplites, but they just wandered around near Ancyra and decided Sinope looked easier. Rather than wait for the inevitable, I pre-empted them and attacked before they could siege. Hit-and-run tactics with Pontic HC (gotta love 'em!) a half dozen archers, and the balance of E. Inf. finally took them out. My spies had showed me that Greece had less than a dozen units in all of Anatolia, and seeing as how the coffers were getting low again (:furious3: Egyptians), I decided to take the rest.

Nicomedia fell to direct assault, and Pergamum & Sardis (which the Greeeks had taken from Selucia) were besieged. After the fall of both, Halicarnassus was taken and things started to look up.

But :egypt: decided on an all out offensive and sent stacks against both bridges near Mazaka and one was headed towards Ancyra with the faction leader. Three heroic victories later, Egypt's offensive was broken, although the cost was high (at least proportionately). Once again, Pontic cavalry both light and heavy, saved the day. Rather than wait for :egypt: to regroup and send it's endless stacks, I took the offensive with what I could muster and headed for Tarsus.

Then, a full-stack of Selucian hoplites led by a faction member appeared out of nowhere, so I garnered an alliance with them, and granted them military access as they seemed reluctant to move anywhere. That prompted them to head for Antioch and in one of the few useful alliance battles I've had, several :egypt: stacks got decimated (including yet another faction heir:dizzy2: ) before Parthia captured Selucia (the Selucids last) and what was left of them went rebel.

The distraction was enough, however, to allow me to take a lightly held Antioch and Damascus, and my clandestine war against the remainder of :egypt: Middle East holdings was taking effect.......Jerusalem, Sidon, AND Petra went rebel, but by the time :egypt: had taken the time to raise armies to recapture them, they were too late. All three fell to the Pontus blue and now the Ptolemics were on the defensive. I kept the pressure on and had enough money coming in to launch an offensive against the Parthians before they did so against me.

Once the Parthians were eliminated, I could devout full attention to Egypt, and before long, the Pontic flag was flying over all three Nile Delta cities as well as Cyprus.

With all of the Middle East and Asia Minor as Pontic Blue, it was now time to consider taking on the Romans.....and lo-and-behold, just at that moment a Scipii army ventured out of Siwa and headed for Memphis. I figured they weren't coming for a social call so it was time to teach the Romans a thing or two about desert warfare (interesting how a large influx of denari can make one a tad bit cocky:laugh4: ).

With a large contingent of Arab Cav (one of my favorite units....no fuss, no cutesy tactics of trying to circle behind a unit before a cav charge, just like STW Yari........head straight and true and "wipe them out!"), a merc elephant unit, Cappadocians, and "Creshan Arshers", one 'famous battle' marker after another was left in the sands from Siwa to Cyrenicia....and this against post-Marius units:beam:

Roman cav are no match for Cappadocians, Archer Auxilla no match for gold chevron "Creshan Arshers" and Pontic HC run circles around cohorts, while Scythed Chariots dart in and tear them apart.

It didn't take long to set sights on the Brutii who were over-running Greece and Macedon. Once a large Temple of Artemis was secured, my elite Pontic HC started to achieve god-like proportions, and my "Creshans" appreciated a quick visit as well.

Currently, the Brutii have been evicted from all of Greece and Macedon, and Pontic Blue rules the waves from the Black Sea to Sicily and is pressing into the Western Med. Once the sea-lanes are cleared of Roman 'scum', the invasion of Italy will commence...........


.......and to think I almost reloaded waaaaaay back when:laugh4:

[Quintus.JC]

When I was playing as the Seleucids Pontus was my only friend whist everyone else ganged up on me. so i liked them naturally, they also have a well balanced army. In my exprience Armenia will have to be destroyed first before taking Asia Minors. once Pontus holds Asian minors and Armenia they'd probaly be in a battle for supremacy against Egypt. after Egypt is the later stage of the campaign which shouldn't be much of a problem.

[Quirinus]

Lots of elite units and CHARIOTS!
Not to mention a bunch of starting cities with insane population growth, incredible trade, and grain exports! With all the advantages Egypt gets, it's almost unfair. Egypt is tough to fight in the early-game as a neighbour, but an absolute b*tch to unseat once they've consolidated their hold on the East.

Stack after unending stack full of skirmishers and cheap hoplites backed up by chariots! It's a nightmare.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

It's those type of nightmares that keep me addicted to RTW.:wry:

[ReluctantSamurai]

When I play as the Selucids, Pontus has always been hostile:dizzy2:

Anyway....game-set-match.......Rome was squashed beneath the hooves of my cavalry and stomped by my elephants:2thumbsup:

I'd have to say that the Pontics match up vs. cohorts as well or better than any faction I've played including the Selucids. The Pontic HC seem to have a slightly longer range to their javelins than the cohorts so I could keep on their fringe peppering them and wearing them down. The instant I saw the "tired" condition, cohorts got a taste of scythed chariots followed quickly by Cappadocians, or sometimes the reverse....Cappadocians to break the line followed by chariots for the rout.

I didn't use the Bronze Shields for my phalanx as I couldn't really see any benefit for the added expense and time to train them. The regular phalanx with armour upgrades held their own quite well. Didn't go for the Chariot Archers, either, even though they are such a pain-in-the-arse when fighting Egypt. Just doesn't fit my style of fighting.

Made liberal use of Thracian mercs for the first time, though. I paired them with scythed chariots (man those Thracians can run without getting tired:dizzy2: ) and had them crash a line right after the chariots tore through them. Never seen cohorts run so fast in my life:laugh4:

All-in-all, probably the most fun I've had playing a campaign....very touch -and-go at the start but it was all over but the cryin' once Greece and Thessaly were conquered (and Rome did most of the crying:laugh4: ).

Maybe Thrace next........didn't someone mention a mod to Thracian cavalry a while back, in addition to several other historical changes?

[Punicus]

Currently playing as Pontus and really enjoying and getting to use more javelin cavalry. Pontic Light Cavalry can even fare pretty well in hand-to-hand as well.

I've got all of Asia Minor, looking to get Rhodes, have an alliance with the Seleucids who are afraid of me (I went to war with them to capture their settlement in Asia Minor - Sardis is it? Anyway, they immediately asked for a ceasefire after I took it from them and I sucked Hatra out of them too!) so I doubt they will attack me. I currently have a large stack coming down on Egyptian lands. I have caught them in a state of only moderate expansion; they've gone up to Sidon which is where I met them for war.

It's funny, everyone seems afraid of me. I had like five factions come up and ask for an alliance, trade rights, and offering map information. No one has attacked me yet, I've always been the aggressor. The difficulty is H/VH, so I'm pretty surprised. From here I hope to take over Egypt and with a great financial situation, I'll make my journey to Greece with Scythed Chariots, Cappadocians (if I can get them), Pontic Heavy Cavalry, and Phalanx Pikemen.

[ReluctantSamurai]

"Pontic Light Cavalry can even fare pretty well in hand-to-hand as well."

Yes, with +2 armour upgrade from a foundry, these guys can hold their own against just about anybody after they run out of javelins. When you get to Thessaly and can capture a Macedonian Large Temple of Artemis, then you've really got it made:2thumbsup: Just check that missile attack stat:dizzy2:

"It's funny, everyone seems afraid of me. I had like five factions come up and ask for an alliance, trade rights, and offering map information. No one has attacked me yet, I've always been the aggressor."

Hehehe....you must have the favor of the gods (or else the AI just plain likes you:laugh4: ) 'cuz my camp was exactly the opposite.....fighting the Armenians, Egyptians, and Greeks at the same time, and then Parthia, and NOBODY wanted an alliance (except Selucia when it was on the ropes).

I found tha a great combo, once you get to Greece and the Romans, is Thracian mercs following the scythed chariots (I never used the archer type). The chariots don't really kill a lot of troops (except cav, which they tear apart), but they are excellent line-busters that set the stage for a full-tilt-boogie Thracian charge which I've had rout Urban cohorts on occasion:scared: Chariots followed by Cappadocians is also an almost guaranteed line-buster. Nothing more satisfying than seeing all those ordered cohort formations all broken up and fleeing for the border......"run for the hills!!!" "Too late, boys.":laugh4:

I had 3, three gold chevron Cappadocians. Yikes.....what steamrollers!:dizzy2: With a total defense of over 30 (including foundry upgrade) cohorts could barely scratch them, and they laughed off archer-fire....I even left one in range of archer auxilla during a bridge defense just to see how much damage the Cappadocians would get........for about two minutes of constant shooting, an archer auxilla knocked off exactly.........two horsemen:beam:

Again, certainly the most fun I've had playing a camp..........mostly because the match-up vs. the infantry-heavy Romans is sooooo in your favor, and their cavalry (even Praetorian cavalry) just can't match yours.

[The Wandering Scholar]

How do you get Cappadocian Cav?

[Punicus]

The highest tier stable for Pontus has Cappadocians, I believe.

Thanks ReluctantSamurai, I'm going to try that Scythed Chariot + Cappadocian tactic you used. Good advice man. Glad to hear you had fun with this campaign, looks like I'm in for a good one.

[The Wandering Scholar]

The highest tier stable for Pontus has Cappadocians, I believe.

Thanks, in all settlements or just Cappadocia?


like I'm in for a good one.


yes, pontus is fun.

[Punicus]

All settlements. And no problem. ~:)

[ReluctantSamurai]

Two things about chariots that I've noticed:

1. To reduce the chances of them "running amok" (nothing worse than having them, or elephants, running your own troops over:no: ) train your chariots at a city where you have a Temple of Hercules (preferably an Awesome version which gets your chariots +3 exp.).

2. Don't order them to attack a unit directly, but choose a point on the other side of the enemy you want to attack. Then have them charge to that point. Otherwise they'll wheel around the first unit when you really want them to tear through as many units as possible. This preps the cavalry charge that follows....you want all those infantry units out of tight formation.

(BTW, get in close with the camera view when the Cappadocians hit:2thumbsup: It's pretty cool to see bodies flying ten feet in the air:laugh4: )

My std. tactic was to have a screen of Pontic HC out front to harass an oncoming army (and if challenged by a general or Roman HC, suck them in towards your Cappadocians and then countercharge.......bye-bye Roman cavalry:dizzy2: ) and fall back towards your main army (chucking javelins the whole time, of course:laugh4: ).

I kept 4-5 Phalanx Pikemen, backed by "Creshan's", to hold the center, and the Cappadocians (and Sarmatian Cavalry mercs.....great charge bonus!) with a single scythed chariot behind them out to each flank. It's a pretty flexible formation, IMHO, because the AI generally deploys its' cav to the flanks, as well, and your chariots will tear them up if they charge. If they don't, then wait until your "Creshans" have eliminated the opposing archers....(I had four 3gold-chevron Creshans with a missle attk. of 22 after a visit to a Large Temple of Artemis + foundry upgrade) and worked over the cohorts a bit.

Then......call off the archers (you will do serious damage to your own if you don't) and charge your chariots in from the flanks (I would usually pick an intersecting point just to the rear of the enemy formations...often just behind the opposing general if he hasn't gotten involved in combat yet) and then "loose the dogs" after them.

I added icing on the cake when it came to combat in Italy because I moved my two elephant mercs from Africa there, and they had full armour upgrades and were 3silver chevron each. I doubt you will find anything but an all Urban-X army that can withstand such an onslaught, and even then I would make sure by having several merc Bastarnae ready to charge wavering units. On med/med, there wasn't much left standing that wasn't "running for the hills":laugh4:

Yep......isn't anything more satisfying than methodically picking apart a cohort army at your leisure, after playing factions that can't wield such firepower.

[Punicus]

Well said. With the Pontics great mix of mounted troops and chariots, as well as phalanxes, fighting the Romans should never be a problem using the tactics you've mentioned. For added annoying-ness for the Egyptians, I like to hire mounted archer mercenaries when possible, so I don't even have to use my javelins on their chariots!

[Quirinus]

Can Pontus build paved roads? What about the Pantheon/Temple City or whatever it's called?

[ReluctantSamurai]

Can Pontus build paved roads?

No.


What about the Pantheon/Temple City or whatever it's called?

My mistake, earlier. Pontus can only achieve lvl 4 temples. But the largest Temple of Hercules they can build nets you the +3 exp.

Playing as Thrace right now, and their temples have to be THE most useless temples I've seen for any faction yet..........

Build the Dionysis temple and you end up with a bunch of drunks and womanizers......build the Ares temple and all that gets you is +4 morale. Someone really dropped the ball on that one, AFAIAC..........:thumbsdown:

[Kekvit Irae]

Questions and answers not pertaining to the guides at hand are best left elsewhere. Specifically, here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=32

[Zasz1234]

In the midst of a Pontus campaign. Really eveything said here is good. I am currently in the slugfest with Egypt. I have them holed up in Sidon with Tarsus and Antioch finally being able to produce their own reinforcements.

In the mean time I built up an army from Sinope and Mazaka and put them on a ship with a bunch of spies and assassins. They are heading out for a nice Egyptian vacation. The plan is to pillage the countryside of the delta and exterminate the cities and all the buildings in them and let them rebel. Even if the Egyptian recapture them the cities will be useless for a while. This should ease pressure in the Levant and let finish up taking their cities there. Next would be a stop at Crete on the way home, then maybe take Rhodes.

I have all of Asia Minor. Oddly it seems, the Armenians have been faithful allies. They and the Parthians. Seleucids are on the ropes with only two or three provinces left. I am currently building up the Western cities to build up another army to use against the Egyptians, or if that stabalizes then head off to the Greek mainland and take on the Macedonians. It seems the Romans are silent. I haven't done much intel though since I have had my hands full wiht S, E, and the Greeks.

[Ajax]

My advice: First off, don't get into too many squabbles with different factions right away. It's quite simple to do thanks to the mix of factions in the Middle East area (Armenia, Selucids, Egypt, Greeks, Parthia). Take the rebel cities first, then pick which faction to wage war on. Greece's one city is easy picking since they won't usually attempt to retake it. Armenia sends in (mostly) rag-tag forces through the mountain passages so watch your back. Maybe concentrate on taking all of Asia Minor first. The Selucid Empire isn't too hard to take on, especially if you can build up a few units of pikemen...which will massacre the militia hoplites. Egypt gets to be a pretty big boy if it isn't held in check, so they can put up a better fight than the other factions around you. I like to sail down to their three big cities in the South and decimate them from there. They usually leave it fairly unprotected! Once you have the Middle East, have fun, because you are well on your way. Just watch out for the Romans, who will have gotten quite strong by the time you start to really expand. Also beware of Scythians coming down from the North with their mobs upon mobs of HA's. Have fun!

[Khan]

Armenia are very interested in Hatra, use this to your advantage. When Armenia send off nearly a full stack of units to take Hatra and declare war on the Seleucids pounce for the Armenian lands. Once you are at war with Armenia you may be able to get an alliance with the Seleucids who are generally reliable, they will be pleased for the friends. Ancyra should be easy to take, and also mop up any Rebel settlements in Asia Minor. This should bring you lots of trade and money. As said earlier take out Pergamum and send over a diplomat to try obtain a ceasefire, the Greeks should pay for it though.

This leaves you with a strong foundation, from here you can attack the Parthians if they have not attacked you already and solidify your alliance with the Seleucids. A periodic raid on Egypt should weaken them if you target their core cities and also enrich your coffers. Either way in the east the power balance should be held by you then Egypt and Seleucids engaged in a bitter war. Of course, this being RTW the alliance will not last forever with the Seleucids but by this time you should be in a position to take them on.

Elsewhere the greeks, Macedonians and the Romans should be having their own power struggle for the med with the Romans normally coming out on top. Enter Pontus vs Rome, let battle commence! :fight: