Pontus

[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?

[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

[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 . 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 . 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 ). 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...

[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.

[Ludens]

Welcome to the Org, Tzar Dusan of Serbs .

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" 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!!!! i slaughtered armenia by turn 11 then focused on parthia and the selucid empire -slaughtered them- then 4 now they were the only hard part it took a while but i killed them... 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

[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?

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