Pontos Campain: How to deal with Ptolemaioi, Greek and AS???

[woerm]

Hi,

I need a little bit help in my Pontos campain. I have nearly captuered what is Turkey today. In the West i hold Byzantion where the Greeks having Getai as protectorate are constanly attacking me. In the East there is AS and in South-East the Ptolemaioi are starting attacks from Antiochia. I also hold the 2 provinces on the peninsula in the north of the black sea. The 3 are my only enemies.

I am trying to save money all the time to build all my mines to maximum.

With this 3 superpowers constantly attacking me i can only defend my land now for a lot of terms. What should i do to deal with them? Which one attack first?

Thank You.

(and sorry for my bad english)

[Ca Putt]

Although I'm not quite sure where it'd be best to start as both directions have their merit and result in a larger border I have one Tip for you that applies to both situations:

Amphibic RAID!!!!

get a small fleet a medium sized army and attack their training centers when their armies are marching for your borders, this will give you some time (now they will spam Cheap units instead) and money to support expansionist plans.

Always destroy government and Barracks,
wonders If you play that way
and everything else if you don't plan on capturing the settlement the next ten(random number) years.

The ptollies and the Greeks will suffer quite a bit from these actions, sadly the Selucids take some more commitment to cripple.

[woerm]

Amphibic RAID!!!!

nice idea...thanks...i will try

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Taking Byzantion REALLY pisses off the Koinon Hellenon - they'll stop at nothing to take it off you.

If you've expelled AS from Anatolia, and they've lost Antioch, you might want to try making peace with them - letting a border province go rebel or giving it to Armenia, so you don't border AS anymore, will help with this. Fighting both AS and Ptolemies at the same time is not a good idea. Best to fight one at a time, if possible while they are also fighting each other.

[woerm]

If you've expelled AS from Anatolia, and they've lost Antioch, you might want to try making peace with them - letting a border province go rebel or giving it to Armenia, so you don't border AS anymore, will help with this.

Did this, worked...
I have also stopped Ptolemeis attack me from Antiocia by placing two forts in Antiocia...for about 5 turns they seem to be confused and stopped attacking.
Now im trying to invade Greece from Crete and Byzanthium same time. Attack from Byzanthium first to ditract their armies away from south greece. Which Cities are most important for them? Should i try to hold them or just raide and then get away with ships?

Next thing: How can i provoke war between Ptoleis and AS? They have been neutral to each other all the time...

[EB rocks]

Woerm i don't know if this will work for you but capture one of the ptolemais settlements preferebly alexandreia and give it to the AS.

[SwebozGaztiz]

Well what can i recommend you to do, is to take the western expansion easy since u are dealing with 2 of the most annoying factions in the whole game, the ptollies and arche seleukeia. Last time I had a Pontos campaign, I waited until the AS was pushed away from Babylonia before I moved in to the Balkans. The reason I say this is because u don't want to have a collection of enemies hitting u from all directions specially when u are playing Pontos. Try to take the AS big cities at least this will prevent them from spamming pezetarois and silver shield phalangites, and other elite units. After taking these cities from them most of the stacks that will be sent at u will be a collection of eastern rabble and basic phalanxes, which to be honest with u is nothing to be scared of and u can drive them out from ur lands easily. About the Ptolies, those bastards are a really stubborn, u should do as that guy said and take their recruitment centers which are Memphis, and Alexandria, but before u do that u have to analyze if u want to keep them or just destroy them and give it back to them or keep them, because as soon as u invade their main land it would look as if u hitted a bee's nest and swarms of small, medium and full stacks will start to come from everywhere. But patience is the key when handling the AS and Ptolies, in my previous experience I have taken this factions one step at a time and it worked, well i usually like to take it easy in my campaigns and enjoy the game as it is so its up to u. This is my advice hope it helps!

[Kralizec]

Get Antioch. Assuming that you have the town directly east of your starting position (I forgot the name) you have an easily defendable eastern border. Antioch is also a source of excellent Helenic troops, so make sure you build a type 3 government there. You can also put some troops on the bridges near Antioch for easy defensive battles.

Otherwise, just build stone walls on all your frontier towns and put some slingers and Caucasian archers on top of them. Some peltasts or other light troops wouldn't hurt either. That way you have a cheap garrison that can effectively repel just about any besieging force. Just sally every turn, clobber them with stones and arrows, retreat behind your walls and repeat. In the rare case that they actually last long enough to assault your wals, light them up with your archers. You will rarely lose a city this way.

Occasionally, send out raiding stacks to capture enemy cities and trash them for gold. Then gift those cities to neutral factions; Saba and Hayasdan are ideal. In the case of Hayasdan, be advised that the city may rebel back and provoke a war with AS or Ptolemaioi that they can't survive.