Pontos VH-VH

[Valerian Mengsk]

Before I do another portion of the guide I want to justify taking Ankyra first thing.
It mostly has to do with the unique troops the province offers which can give you the edge over Arche Seleukia and the Ptolemaoi early on.

Galatia is basically a portion of Gaul teleported over to the Anatolian Peninsula. It offers little cavalry, but instead gives you access to some superior melee units, that everyone else can only aquire through mercenaries.

LvL 1 Regional MIC gives you:

1. Celtic Levy Spearmen- I prefer these units to Hellenic Native Spearmen any day of the week and recommend keeping around 4-5 units (as your monetary situation permits) around for the first 20 years. Galatia is the only local province that can train these guys. Tactically use them in a light infantry role (killing skirmishers, assaulting gates, flank attacks, etc.) since they generally have the morale and stamina to keep going.

2. Galatian Shortswordsmen - I have mixed feelings about this unit, it looks decent on paper but their small shields and lack of armor tends to leave windrows of these guys on the battlefield. On the other hand, they have the morale and melee skill to match any none phalanx unit available (and phalanxes if they attack from the sides/behind) plus they throw spears before charging. Lastly, they are expensive early on at 1000 Minna a pop.

LvL 2 MIC gives you:

-Celtic Slingers: These guys are good, they are cheap, long-range, armor piercing, and have decent melee for ranged units. Always have at least 1-2 of them with any army, heck any garrison, or their Hellenic or Eastern equivalent. They will win battles for you by evening the odds.

-Celtic Spearmen: I like this unit, and find it far more useful than the Shortswordsmen though they appear to have similar stats. Thanks to the province all units are trained to 2 experience which gives them an edge over other units right off the bat, and since this unit is so similar to Hellenic Spearmen, but costs less and has 20 more men, I tend to use them more than the faction lvl3 MIC equivalent.

LvL 3 MIC gives you:

Celto-Hellenic Spearmen: Similar to Hellenic Spearmen in most ways, and in my mind just as inferior to Celtic Spearmen in practice *shrug*, this is an example of player preference really.

Celtic Archers: I must admit that I have yet to recruit any of these yet, probably because I tend to lean towards Bosphoran archers and slingers. But they appear to be a decent unit all around. When I use them some, I will probably edit this entry.

That's it on Galatia for now, I hope you understand a little why I feel this is an important starting conquest for Pontos.
Next update will deal with the guide. I promise

[Whatever Scortamareva]

Celtic Archers: I must admit that I have yet to recruit any of these yet, probably because I tend to lean towards Bosphoran archers and slingers. But they appear to be a decent unit all around. When I use them some, I will probably edit this entry.

It annoys me a little bit that these guys are only available on level 3.

Celtic archers outdo hellenic archers, yet with slingers and regional mercs you never really need them, and their limited use in melee isn't really required when you get up to this level MIC.

But ah well.

I understand your choice of Ankyra. It's also in a prime (for some) position in Asia Minor; though it doesnt have any coastal areas (does it have a port?), since its right in the middle it lets you pretty much control access through this area, and with the Seleukid starting settlement further in the west it can make a nice chokehold on them, if you have a decent garrison.

Can't wait to hear more!

[Valerian Mengsk]

Okay on to the actual guide again.
(Note: To anyone who wants more screen shots i can't provide them until I get to 249 BC-ish since I saved over an earlier one by accident so bear with me.)

Okay, if my memory serves it should be circa 266-7 BCE and after leaving a hollow mockery of Edessa behind your army should be hightailing it back to Mazaka.

Some of you might be asking why after taking Edessa the AI for Arche Seleukia doesn't just make a beeline for Antiocheia and I think I have an answer.

My army retreated North through the mountains where there is no road, and it is slow going, and apparently the AI thought I close enough to attack whatever army would siege Edessa so it just sat there instead, right outside until my army was 2 turns away. Meanwhile I had recruited a diplomat from Antiocheia (about all you can do there until builds an MIC) and used it to negotiate with the Ptolemaoi. I suggested an alliance but they ignored me. I have found that the Ptolemaoi are afraid of AS's shadow until around 250 BCE, so they will refuse to do anything that might draw AS's attention.

Now at this point there were 4 AS armies nearby: 2 were loitering near Edessa, 1 was sitting in the mountain pass to the East of Mazaka (which I had to bail my army out of by moving what units I had recruited in Amaseia and Mazaka over there to make it back off) and a forth moving towards Ankyra.

Now I sent that army north cause it was the best choice given my circumstances. You need to preserve as much of those MIC lvl 3 troops as possible early on. I couldn't return to Antiocheia because those 2 armies were blocking that road, but if they hadn't I would highly recommend going that way instead of north.

Anyway, the army besieging Ankyra was relatively small, so I just had to move the recombined forces East of Mazaka 2 turns West to somewhere close to Ankyra and that army should back off.

Alright, by now its 266-5 BCE and its time to mobilize for a new campaign. Rest your FMs for a turn (preferably winter) leave some slingers and melee units (4 tops including an FM) in Ankyra and Mazaka each and move everything else north to assault Sinope.

Other options include attacking Ipsos, but they will have a 10-11 unti FM lead army there by now, with more in Sardis to the SW, so you can do it if you are confident in winning large land battles with inferior Fms and units.

BTW I have not sent a FM down to Antiocheia since it was being largely ignored (the two armies by Edessa stayed in Edessa after capturing it )
But this may not be the case for anyone else so use what little income you have now to recruit there until Sinope is taken.

(Addendum, I found it very useful to construct roads on turn 1 in Amaseia, it helps speed up the Sinope, Ankyra, Mazaka campaigns and reinforcing afterwords)

Now for Sinope, I found that I only needed 9-10 units (some understrength) to take this city, it isn't the most challenging one in Anatolia.
I tend to build 2-3 battering rams in 1 turn and attack right away to prevent morale drops thanks to FMs. I won't say much about the actual battle, Sinope doesn't have any high-end units, and if you can manage to kill their FM in the streets ahead of time, it helps.

(Note: Konion Hellene (sp?) will declare war on you for attacking Sinope, but they never do anything about it, in fact they asked for peace not 6 years later)

Also if you get the faction quest to aid Chernoses on the northern shores of the Black Sea I can not help you. You do not have a navy at this point to send an army over and the land trip will take years . In my campaign the Sauromatea took one look at the 10+ garrison and the stone walls and went searching for greener pastures.

Now that you have taken Sinope your financial situation should be stable, if not healthy. Leave an FM there if you want, but don't worry about a garrison, Arche Seleukia never showed any interest in the place for me.

I should now be 264 BCE and you should have started being assaulted by 6-8 ish armies by AS in Ankyra, and Mazaka. Keep your army centralized and praise the Gods for retraining.

This first wave of attacks will last for the next year or two. Do your best to keep your army intact and slowly build up for assaulting Ipsos.

If you went for Ipsos and Sardis early on I suggest you focus in the West for the first 10 years by capturing Halikarnassos to the South and Bithynia to the North while keeping an army in Mazaka to fend off assaults from the East. Take Pergamon only if you want to face Macedon, its their favorite chew toy.

When I began campaigning for Ipsos they had a Stone wall up and a decent garrison, luckily there was also an army outside nearby that I savaged ahead of time, when I besieged Ipsos soon after that beaten up army of 300 or so survivors attacked me again and I was able to kill Ipsos' garrison out in the field.

Now all that is left is Sardis, which also has a stone wall and a FM with a 13 unit army. It was now circa 261-2 BCE and my army was chewed to pieces and Mazaka and now Antiocheia was coming under attack frequently. Macedon was busy losing 10-11 unit armies every year to Pergamon, mostly due to this Eleutheroi spawned army of 14+ units that killed everything in its path.

Soon after I took Sardis and Ptolemaoi diplomat demanded that I become a protectorate. Now this is up to the player, but I took the offer since it meant more money and foced peace with AS, since the Ptolemaoi had made peace with them after an AS army from Sardis had been wiped out by a 13-14 Ptolemaic stack based in Side to its South East.

I used this temporary breather (cause it will be temporary, Arche Seleukia has a looong memory) get trade rights from AS, reinforce Antiocheia with Bosphoran archers and Cappadoccian Axemen (which are a wonderful fighter for combat on city walls and hill fighting!) and finally stop a Seleukid navy from blockading Antiocheia.

Around 260 BC AS attacked me again, which I can not figure out how to prevent. And the Ptolemaoi cancel their alliance with me, and then send a little 3 unit army to siege Ipsos which also had only 3 units but my main army wasright there. By that time the large stack in Side had been moved or killed off (I can't remember) so I left a small force in Ipsos to play shadow puppets with the now 15 unit stack in Sardis (which had medium phalanx in it by then, which are hard as heck to kill) and I sieged Side and took it soon after.

Oh, if Side is too tough the Ptolemaoi usually leave only a token garrison in the larger Tarsos by Antiocheia. Because I can assure you that the Ptolemaoi will attack you somewhere, most likely with underwhelming numbers.

Anyway, I took Side, but soon had to leave it with a small garrison to fight AS forces which had bypassed Mazaka (they do that ) in order to reinforce Sardis, and to fight scattered Ptolemaic forces causing general havoc.

Which caused Side to fall to a medium-sized army from Tarsos (by this point Antiocheia had a regular garrison of 8 units+ a family member, so it was to powerful. Unfortunately that army could not move because the pop had grown to around 15k and happiness was always 70-75%)

By 258 BC things had returned to normal and I took Side and then Tarsos in rapid succession, ending the Ptolemaic hindrance. Then a lucky break came around 255 BCE when most of the AS army in Sardis suddenly marched South to siege Halikarnassos which led to my sieging it with my main army and fighting its army in the field when the AS army turned back to fight me. I was able to win a costly victory and seize Sardis, ending the threat in the West.

You should keep in mind that Mazaka and Antiocheia will be attacked every year or so while this is happening. Also, every time I captured a Ptolemaic city they would order me to become a protectorate, which I did to get temporary trade bonuses until they attacked me again. Also when I attacked Sardis I was a protectorate of the Ptolemaoi at the time and for once they sided with me and declared war on AS. Apparently Ptolemaic diplomatic AI prefers to side with the aggressor.

What about Makedonia you ask? Well it was bust getting its butt kicked in Greece by the Hellenes to worry about me, in fact they have been down to 2 cities for the since 258-7 BCE. As for Epiros, it has 4-5 cities and is mainly preoccupied with Konion Hellene to the south. And yes, the Getai are slowly expanding in a competitor free area.

That's it for now.

[Valerian Mengsk]

To address your question, Whatever, Ankyra can build a river port and its upgrades, but that is it. And I do like its placement just to the North of the main road through Anatolia, its makes raids simpler.