Pontos or Epeiros

[Pied Piper]

I am trying to decide which to play as... "the kingdom by the sea" (Pontos) or those "Sons of Achilles" (Epeiros). Help me decide, please?

[d'Arthez]

Unless you have experience and patience enough for Pontos I must recommend Epeiros.

[Pied Piper]

Unless you have experience and patience enough for Pontos I must recommend Epeiros.

I know what you mean, and I do. I have played around with both of them before. The thing with Pontos is that at least I "might" have a shot at slowing the silver death before it gets out of hand whereas with Epeiros (like my Roman, Carthage, KH, Casse campaigns) it will be much harder by the time I reach them. I refuse to play the Maks... for some reason I detest them. I never played the Ptolemaioi either, but would like to play a smaller kingdom this go round. And I do have a tendency to play the western side of things more, which is why I am eyeing Pontos.

Heart wants me to play Epeiros and head wants me to play Pontos. I am truly torn.

[d'Arthez]

At least with Epeiros you will have developed more substantially when you do take on the Arche. With Pontos you will be scraping for Sinope, Nikaia and Byzantion - and hope the 4 of them combined make you enough money.With Epeiros the Arche will be a tad less frustrating.

Recruitment could be a serious issue, especially on Huge - your cities may run out of citizens if you are not careful.

Would you be using a money script, to reduce the out of control income of the AI factions? If so Pontos may well survive.

[Khazar_Dahvos]

I have to say go with pontos because there is nothing like in the first 3 years to send an army of 2-3 units of pikemen and 3 units of slingers through the mountains and attack the gray death up and down the assyrian plains to the tigris and euphrates river basin sacking every city because you have 3 spies following you and opening the gates to the cities on that turn. This guerrilla tactic cripples the selucids for a while and gives you a lot of cash when you destroy all their buildings(expecialy the barracks because they cant recruit their top tier units in those cities because you distroyed them). This helps you boost your economy and help build your mines.

[noosh]

Can Pontos recruit horse archers? Because without them, just going mano a mano against AS will be pretty painful...in my game as Hayasdan I only survived the first 20 years or so because of the Horse. But once I sacked Antioche, Selucia and Ebatros?? things seemed to have evened out. No more bulletproof elite phalanax or those legionaire types and Hayasdan overflows with cash every sack.

[Ravenic]

I played a really fun campaign as Pontos, I ended up controling most of the provinces bordering the Black Sea (exceptions were Tylis, and Armenia's Kotais, the first because it wasn't easy to reach by boat, and the latter because of an alliance) along with all of Asia minor, bordering Antioch.

As such, I rivaled Seleucids in everything but population and sheer military manpower, though man for man my armies were ten times as good. I really learned to respect the Pandodapoi Phalangite as they became my line infantry in the absence of Pezhetairoi.

All in all, Pontos is a great campaign, and a good challenge for any player if the Seleucids get mad at you early on. Epiros, I find much too easy. Mostly because you can blitz Makedonia out of Pella and Demetrias in the first two turns, and the Romanoi can't offer any large-scale resistance past massed Rorarii, Accensi, and Mercenaries' until much later in the game.

[Khazar_Dahvos]

you have to strike them first in the first 4 years else they will attack you and you will lose the hai, parthian, bactrian alliance.

[Ravenic]

I tried to keep them as my best buddies for as long as possible. All hell broke loose in Asia Minor though, and I was prepared so I quickly secured Ipsos, Ankyra, Sardis, and anything else AS had, pushing their frontier to Antioch, which conviently bordered Ptolemaic Tarsos, meaning they had trouble even getting to me. It allowed me to take the remaining rebel towns like Haliknarnassos, Pergamon, etc. at a leisurely pace

The key really is securing Asia Minor, getting Egypt in your pocket, and then expanding around the Black Sea was relatively safe and profitable.

[CutLunch]

You could play Epeiros now and Pontus when the next release (and fancy new general) arrives.

[AntiochusIII]

I don't know, Pontos doesn't feel...complete?...to me. Their upper-tier unit roster is currently quite lacking IMO. Better wait for the next version for more units or for EB to axe the Imperial Roman units to give more spots for Pontos. [/runs like hell ]

Personally I'd go with Epeiros -- and instead of blitzing play slow. Uncle Pyrrhos Needs You!

[The Errant]

Go for Pontos. The Epirotes are a lot of fun, but the Pontics are more challenging. Especially since they have such a limited unit roster. Not to mention a pretty useless generals bodyguard.

Even so with the galatian, scythian and eastern auxilary units they become a powerhouse. Besides with just the mining income from Asia Minor alone, you will be beating the rest of the world in no time.

Oh. And Grab Ani-Kamah early. Install a level 3 gov and build your Regional MIC up to level 4. That should give you some nasty HA to teach those arrogant Seleukids a lesson.

[Tellos Athenaios]

If you'd want excitement - Pontos. I'd try Pontos.

[Elminster12]

Nothing quite like trying to figure out what to do when the grey death sends the stack of elites your way
That was fun, by the way. The trick is getting off the ground with Pontos, but their recruitment did improve a patch ago, IIRC.

[Musopticon?]

Chalkaspidai and Kuarothoroi are pretty awesome. Also, the whole Iranian-Euxinian-Galatian-Skythian mix is a powerful and interesting combination. I don't think there's a faction just like them anywhere else in the map. Maybe Qarthadastim is near there with sheer versatility and original mix of units (African-Punic-Italic-Ibero-Celtic anyone?), which is funny since IIRC Pontus is using Carthages faction slot. Pontus also has a very unique situation, they're perhaps the most cornered of all the factions initially under Seleucia's heel, but still once the Black Sea opens to them, possibilities are nearly limitless. It's not unheard of that a player has successfully taken e.g Getai homelands with their incredible mines and stood ground on the massive Arche offence. It's a challenging and in the long run an incredibly satisfying faction.

That said, Epirus is still more finished and now that the Italic recruitment problems are somewhat over with, it's well worth playing. Especially if you don't get cheesy like me and blitz Macedonia. Instead, take Megale Hellas and bask in the sheer coolness of taking Sicilia and making Rome and outpost again.

Me? I'm trying to gather enough courage to take on the Brythonic Eleutheroi and eagerly wait what the next patch brings for Pontus, my favorite faction.

[overmind2000]

You should play Epeiros, if only for the fun of sacking the Macedonian Royal Tombs and enslaving the Romans

[Ravenic]

Not to mention a pretty useless generals bodyguard

I've never seen why they're so useless, they have three or four Javelins each to toss into the backs of units to make up for charge deficency. I also have heroic stories from my Pontos (and Hayasadan, to a lesser extent) where the general bodyguards have turned battle after battle through sheer will, fighting like normal infantry amongst the ranks, and barely pulling through with like three men and the general left. Always fun.

Granted, they aren't nearly as God-like as the Hetairoi bodyguards of the Successor States, more commonly known as the Somaphytales Strategou, or something like that.

For ease on the battlefield, since neither the rank and file, nor the general staff can ever quite pronounce the Somaphytales Strategou, i've ordered the men to simply caution each other that "The Battering Ram" is coming.

[Musopticon?]

Somatophylakes Strategou.

Hah, straight from memory.

[Ravenic]

Eh, I was close.

I never call them...that...anyway, I always say "General's Bodyguard", "Hetairoi", or "The Battering Ram".

[Musopticon?]

It's nothing, e.g I can't ever remember the Roman units by name, for the life of me.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Remember that those pontic bodyguards change in the new build. Plus they get some other decent regionals around the black sea that aren't in there now. And more stuff is in various stages of completion for them.

[Musopticon?]

I have to thank the team for Chalkaspidai et al however.

I remember whining about Pontus lacking heavy infantry options around 0.74 and now they have them. I'm glad.

So, thanks a lot.

[Ravenic]

What exactly is Pontus getting in the next build? Are you at liberty to disclose it? =O

I always remember thinking that the southern Black Sea was a bit light in unique units.

[Pied Piper]

Well, in a close vote, Epeiros wins out. Achilles will be proud.

[CrownOfSwords]

Epeiros has far better units and starting position. I dont know why you all fear AS so much ive played many campaigns and only about half the time they come out on top, usually they get overrun by either bactria or parthia and ptolemics

[Bactron]

Try Epeiros now. Pontos is going to be juiced up a lot in the next release. There is going to be wonderfull new general and family bodyguards for them and some new units. And even some new building. So I think that it is clever to wait on Pontic major upgrades (and that is exactly what I am doing)

[Musopticon?]

That's what I'm doing as well. And you are probably going to be in a whole different campaign as well, if the devs rebalance things in the East again and powerfocus shifts a bit, maybe the AS are agressive in different places or such.

Then again, now that Bactria is actually a powerhouse, instead of the pushover in 0.74(sorry, but they were, it was actually easy to stomp them as Pahlava), the Seleucid hordes are often concentrated there and, more importantly, away from Pontos anyway.