Armenian Campaign Notes. 1

I have started a game as the Armenians. I got some quick income from a foray into the Crimea. I was setting up trade and made some good alliances. That’s when things got interesting. The Ponts and the Scythians made a sudden alliance which raised an eyebrow. The next turn a huge Pontic army enters my territory and simultaneously, a medium sized Scythian army shows up at Chersoneses. Hmm. I was forced to evacuate my Horse Archers and Peltasts and send them back home. The Pontic fleet ambushed them and laid siege to my Eastern city (?). My Crimean Army managed to land minus a few ships and I bypassed the besieging army and combined them with troops from my capitol. The result was a slaughter of the flower of the Pontic military as they were trapped between the skirmishers who were sallying from the city and a combined army of 8 family members, Horse Archers and my Cataphracts. I learned a good tactic which I applied in the next few turns. I retired my troops to the cities and hastily retrained. My family members Heavy Cavalry units regenerate on there own and seem to grow with retinue members (I could be wrong on this). I had a 1 turn respite before Scythia besieged the Crimea and a second huge Pontic army appeared up the coast highway. I let them siege again and repeated the sandwich resulting in the same slaughter of a slightly less lavishly equipped army. I hastily repeated my retraining once more just as a third half stack showed up. This time I was a little ticked and since I was a little more confident about my cavalry tactics I decided to view the coast road as MY bowling alley! I subsequently steamrolled over a dozen units in various sized stacks in detail until I rolled out on to the Central Turkish Valley where Sinope and Mazaka lay. As I entered the region it seemed that the Ponts had been very busy and my offensive was very timely. Sinope was at maximum troop capacity and smaller stacklets were scattered on the plain. I ran down each stacklet and then decided on Sinope just as the faction leader divided his army in half and came after me with scraps coming in from all sides. It was a rough battle, having troops coming from all directions but the superb independent skirmishing ability of Horse Archers allowed me to concentrate my family members and Cataphracts and isolate the Pontic cavalry into kill zones and then move on to isolate infantry units in detail. I was forced to hire Mercenary units for sapping and then Besieged Sinope. Sinope fell soon after a vain attempt by the garrison which had been robbed by the faction leaders attempt to trap my army. But Sinope was well worth the campaign as now I can build Cataphract Archers....Just as an Egyptian army appeared at my Southern pass fortlet.