Pontos: How to Keep the Nasty Seleukids from Pushing You Into the Sea

[Elminster12]

Is it bad that I can't sleep and am thus posting on the EB forum? Yes? Whatever....anyways, this is meant to be a discussion topic about surviving and growing with Pontos, which given their expanding unit roster, is much more feasible and sustainable than before. For a long time, I tried being peaceful with the Seleukids, but that is at best a dodgy proposition on medium, let alone very hard. The size of Pontos's armies as well as its inherent vulnerability means it must expand a lot at the beginning and quickly, lest it is consumed by the Seleukids. So I think I'll get the ball rolling by setting forward some salient points...

1)Mazaka: As counter-intuitive as it may seem, Mazaka is the key to survival. As long as the Seleukids hold it, Amaseia is a mere turn away from being besieged, possibly without warning, a crippling vulnerability as Amaseia has some of your best recruitment, especially early. Mazaka also happens to be defensible. The Ptolies will take kindly to you attacking the Seleukids, and thus the Seleukids must come from Karkathiokerta, a multi-turn march that you can catch far in advance. It is also only accessible via a pair of river crossings a turn away from the city, making it very defensible.

2)The Ptolemaioi: Your fortunes rise and fall with them. As long as they stalemate the Seleukids, they cannot spare much to attack you. If they get steamrolled and you're still sitting on your starting cities, you're screwed, plain and simple. You absolutely need to conquer Ipsos and Sardis(minimum) before either side gains enough of an advantage that they can spare significent force to crush you.

3)Sinope and Trapezous: Should be your goals along with Mazaka in your initial expansion. Sinope will supplement your army with greek hoplites, sponge up your military upkeep(I built a level 3 government here), and bring in a lot of trade income. Trapezous will generate income thanks to its mine. Why not Nikaia? It does have a mine, but it also is vulnerable to attack. The idea is to FORCE the Seleukids to attack you near Mazaka and you can hardly afford to split your forces to begin with either. Nikaia is also a fair distance from the rest of your cities...

4)Armenia: Court Hayasdan aggressively. Most likely they won't do much, but that's fine. As long as they leave you in peace, they're doing fine. If only they would build goddamned ports in Kotais and Tanais

5)Hellas: Keep yourself acquainted with the situation here, as this is where your richest trade income comes from. Align yourself with the ascendant power primarily, but don't necessarily ignore the others. Hellas is far away and busy consuming itself...you needn't worry stepping on any toes and trafficking with all sides.

6)Other: The Sauromatae can best help you by occupying Armenia and NOT pestering the Pahlava so they pester the Seleukids. Baktria has a bad habit of getting bogged down with the Saka Rauka and shouldn't be expected to divert much attention. You should consider Temples of Mithra in Amaseia and Mazaka....it offers farming and morale bonuses, perfect for the pair of cities you can expect to furnish most of your troops...

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

Nice walkthrough. The military of Pontos is light and very mobile so you can inflictconsiderable damage on AS armies with little cost.

[Orb]

Yep, that's basically what I was doing before my computer died.

Also, if you take Mazaka, you keep all the allies. If they attack you, you lose all the allies.

RTW diplomacy, eh :D

[Chuffy]

I always like to take Trapezous early on, just for the fact the Hai seem to like it aswell and you really cant afford to have them getting too powerful. When the AS do decide to kick your arse you need as many coastal settlements as possible and you really dont want their smaller allies being too powerful either. Spies are also very useful, send loads down to southern Asia Minor, Antioch and Damaskos, just to cause unrest and to force the Seleukid's to garrison these places pretty heavily.

Also, I bloody love Pontos, easily my favorite faction.

[Khazar_Dahvos]

I agree on that last statment chuffy.

[Elminster12]

Anyone have suggestions for later on in the campaign? I'm the builder-type, so I tend not to move fast, and this seems to be my undoing. The Seleukids simply wear me down ~235 or so. That's around when I lose Ani-Kamah. I think it's a bad sign if they capture it, as it exposes three of your cities and you don't reasonably have enough income to maintain a large enough army to successfully defend all of them, so you're forced into taking it which bogs you down further. So...when do you need to get moving by? I'm guessing in the 250's, saving money big for mines and then sinking your economy to get after Nikaia, Ipsos, and Sardis. I think you'd be much safer once that's complete(throw in Ankyra, now that I think of it...mines+Gauls= ). Then you'd have an economy vibrant enough and a base secure enough to withstand the Seleukid assault while still taking out Pergamon(and eventually backstabbing the Ptolies or Armenians...whichever strikes your fancy.)