Pontic Campaign

[Sygrod]

"Where do you need them? Respond to this and your location should be clear."

Where do I need them? Anywhere I have a strong defensive position with lots of enemy activity. The 3spans are very useful in forts, since the enemy will be within range. A unit of these guys will inflict horrendous casualties. When aimed at a middle rank of three, at least 80% of each salvo strikes home. They are fantastic for taking out archer units without loss. Once I can recruit them I'll recruit at least 3. In a former baktrian campaign they acquitted themselves famously and tilted the battle in my favour before it even started. I'd take out a particularly unpleasant enemy unit before they had a chance to do anything. They are useless in garrisons with stone walls, so the trick is to deploy them with one defensive unit outside town. Preferably where an enemy army will not attack. To route an army laying siege to the city, they are then brought up beside and outside the city walls, with their protection.

I will deal with the Hai if and when they become active. I have spies out their way and will spot any threat early enough to counter it.

[Sygrod]

Well, the *&$%$ Game crashed as I was about to capture Side. GRRRRRRRRR
Time to write an update.

The seleucids tried to be smart this time. They laid siege to a fort east of Edessa and Edessa proper. I had moved out almost all my slingers to the fort from Edessa. Force composition was not good at all. What to do... I sent forth 2 generals, the Scythians, a nwely recruited Hippakontistai and a slinger unit from Karkathiokerta. and attacked the force laying siege to the fort. THe 5 slinger units in the fort became reinforcements. The enemy had 3 phalanxes, two of which were Argyraspidai - elite phalanx. They also sported a reduced Thorakitai and the remnants of an earlier army. There was a lot of dancing around, trying to stay out of reach and sling stones into the backs of the enemy. It worked. My 976 men, though rated much lower than the enemy saw to it that of the 744 attackers, only 18 got away to only 10 own casualties.
The slingers raced to Edessa and, followed by the two non-general cav units helped to lift that siege. They didn't even have to do anything. The enemy cowards fled.

Tarsos. My 1111 men had little problem vanquishing the 735 man strong garrison. 4 slinger units provided entertainment for the 2 ptolemaic Thureophoroi units and the Caucasian Hillmen. Once the gate defenders had been removed, the Chalkaspidai were sent in. They took a bit of a beating when blocking a street by the square. In the end, my cavalry convinced the enemy peltasts that it was time to pack it in and take a dirt nap.

Next turn, all seleucid units near Edessa had retreated, but a confident detachment of 3 ptolemaic Jewish spearmen units came by. So I sent out a bunch of guys to greet them - with stones and arrows. They didn't like that. The army routed and vanished.

Take Side: I found 2 excellent points to scale the walls with ladders and sent in my slingers and eastern skirmishers, who took as many towers as possible and let the ptolemaic phalanx "walk in the shade" (of arrows). I had just finished this lot with my slinger unit and... CTD. [Sigh!]

I've got to get Tarsos under control (they are upset that I took their city) so that I can take Antiocheia and get access to military docks to build a small fleet so that I can take Cyprus. That's my plan. I am also building an army in a fort defending the pass east of Amaseia. This army is meant to pay Ani-Kamah a visit once it is ready.

[Sygrod]

I managed a few rounds before the CTD struck again.

Side was taken. The walls were not defended and I had just to climb the walls in appropriate places. The phalanx defending the front gate decided to leave after it was hit with arrows from a tower. I moved my Eastern skirmishers from the right entry point all the way to the left entry point, gaining control over the entire front wall. The wayward phalanx was for some reason sent to guard the left gate, where a unit of Galatian short swordsmen were holding short. Between my slinger unit and the Caucasian archers on the wall there, the unit was destroyed. I marched up my phalanx to a position just short of the square and brought my slingers up. A dozen bodyguards were slain, before the general charged headlong into my waiting phalanx. Things were going well until the horses began to come around the side. I sent forth two of my three generals, tilting the odds heavily in my favour. The enemy general was ultimately slain after reducing my phalanx by about 80 men. Only an enemy phalanx remained. I positioned a missile unit at every corner and sent a general onto the square. The phalanx began to chase him, and I switched my missile units to hit the phalanx in the back as they were led around the square like lost puppies. To the last man. My losses were 90 men in total to their 552.

Cheap units were recruited after and during these conquests to provide garrisons so that the better units could be freed up to be sent to Antiocheia, were I will end my expansion in the Middle East. Cyprus is my final target, before I start to look at expansion in other directions.

My army build-up east of Amaseia is almost done. I just want 2 more units, before entering the valley. Ani-Kamah will be a good natural brick wall for the Hai to try to overcome. I will make sure that the units in there can repulse any army that tries to lay siege.

It is now 236 BC, and a sizable army has cut Edessa from the rest of the world. I tried to sally, but as I was just decimating the last unit after most of the enemy had fled with great loss, the cheating AI decided to CTD. Now I have to fight the battle all over again, after rebooting the machine. GRRRR again.

[Treverer]

Why do you have these CTDs? Try reducing the graphics quality and turn off the music. So far, I've had three CTDs with 1.0, all but the second due to own fault.

[Sygrod]

Most likely memory problems. A Ctrl+Alt+Del reveals a number of programs running in the background. I try to turn some of them off for EB, but I believe that there are memory fragments left that screw things up. I've only got 1.5 Gig (only... heh. That was excellent two years ago) memory and 4 Gig left on C:
A clean start usually works for EB and it can then run all day with no problems.

[Sygrod]

So I had a chance to run almost 3 seasons. The battle to repulse the ptolemaic siege on Edessa went well. Very well, in fact.

THey were lined up outside the west gate. I placed 4 slinger units and a unit of Caucasian archers to the right of the gate, inside the wooden walls. My two phalanxes, the Galatian heavy spearmen, the general and the Eastern skirmishers were lined up inside the gate and the Scythian horse archers and the Skirmish cavalry were placed behind the northern gate. As expected, the ptolemaic army drew off to the northeast, receiving a thorough pelting from the missile units. The cavalry was sent out and headed for a place behind the final ptolemaic line. The all units except the missile trops were sent out after the ptolemies. The two phalanxes were drawn up in a line 5 men deep with the skirmishers behind. The general went to the far left. The galatians came up and took position behind the phalanxes. Then my main effort arrived: my missile troops. They showered the enemy line where it would do most damage.

The ptolemies tried to counter charge, but as they got closer, my missile units were drawn back, causing the enemies to return to their lines, at which point they received concentrated missiles and suffered heavily. When the enemy line finaly broke, I sent eveything forward. the cavalry massacred the borken units. The general charged and caused more units to route. The last unit to be destroyed was the phalanx, whichgtried to escape to the Northeast.
Of my initial 1647 men, only 34 were killed. of the initial 1754 ptolemies, only 178 got away and scattered after the battle. HEROIC VICTORY.
The following season, I finally decided to advance on Antiocheia. I had enough units to keep Tarsos and Side under control. A strong detachment of seleukids arrived south of Edessa and I was unable to guess its intentions, so I dared not send a large army from Edessa. On top of that, the seleukids had sent a strong army into Antiocheia. It was not going to be a walkover.
After my turn, the seleukids decided to lay siege to my small fort east of Edessa. Not a good idea. When it was my turn again, I sent a small detachment from karkathiokerta and with 165+199 men, I sallied against the 420 strong enemy. They were cut down to the last man, thanks in due to the 30 chariots. This gave me the confidence to send forth a strong force to the bridge SW of Edessa to be forwarded to Antiocheia, which I finally laid siege to, building 2 sap points and two towers.

[Sygrod]

Antiocheia

The siege had taken its toll on the garrison, and I wanted to have crushing superiority before assaulting. Besides, it took 2 seasons to build the siege equipment.

I lined up a main effort and a secondary effort. My Chalkaspidai carried one tower and the Thureophoroi had the other on the far right. My first move was to get the tower to the wall, but not against the wall as quickly as possible to use the destructive missile power. The units behind and on the wall were seriously depleted by this shower from Hell. Then I sent the tower against the wall - I had to start somewhere and there were Toxotai just where the tower was. I decided that I needed some more firepower and sent my other tower over to deliver death, but the Thureophoroi were pelted by slingers that I had missed. Finally on the wall, I had to slug it out with a unit of Hellenic Royal Guards that had arrived. It was a hard fight. The Chalkaspidai were taking heavy losses and were getting very tired, while the Guards were still fresh.
I sent in a unit of Pantodapoi Phalangitai to help and these finished off the Toxotai, but were greeted by a unit of spearmen. I sent in another unit of Pant. Phalangitai to assist, but too late. They first unit had been destroyed. Finally, the enemy units on the wall had been broken and swept off. I sent the Thureophoroi over the wall on the far right, followed by Heavy Persian Archers and slingers. These got rid of the units ion the ground behind the wall and advanced to the gate. I was not interested in sending in any units through the gate, because there was an ugly formation of Elite Phalangites there. I could not inflict enough casualties from the wall above, so a unit of slingers went down on the ground on each side and pelted the phalanx from behind as it triad to attack the unit that was throwing rocks. This phalanx finally broke and was cut down on its way to the square. Meanwhile, the two enemy generals were moving. I had them placed under a murderous barrage, followed by my 3 generals charging in and finishing them off. Now, there was only one enemy elite phalanx left on the square. I placed my missile troops around the square and sent in a general for the phalanx to chase. As the phalanx turned its back to some missile units, it received a relentless pelting and finally was whittled down to the last man. Victory.
Antiocheia finally gave me the ability to build ships, and I started with the cheapest variety.
The Ptolemies thought they were going to take Edessa. Wrong. Their 1792 strong army of 90% melee units were no match for my 2193 Man mostly missile units. They left 1006 men behind to my 20.
234 it was time to take Ani-Kamah. It took a bit of effort and manoeuvering, but the city was taken with 252 casualties to their 1209. I did not destroy the local government and was able to recruit all sorts of new exciting units, including horse archers. I also recruited a merc eastern general and he has the funny moniker of "interloper", but the city is still happy enough that it doesn't make any difference.
My new fleet allowed me to send 3 units over to Cyprus, where the ptolemies had two units of Peltastai and a unit of Thureophoroi. They attacked when I laid siege to Salamis. The first unit of Peltastai was the main effort and the other two units were way behind. I sent the fist unit off after inflicting massive casualties. The other army took a bit longer, as I had only one slinger unit and it had to concentrate on the Thurephoroi. The final result was that 1/3 of my detachment had been killed, but the enemy units were destroyed, thus placing Salamis under my control. Now, I started to attack the ptolemaic fleets around, which were blockading my ports. There is still a strong Seleukid Penteconterai that I am not confident enough to tackle, but its time will come. The next 6 battles were to repulse armies laying siege to either Karkathiokerta, Edessa, the fort east of Edessa and Antiocheia, two resulting in Heroic victories and adding a couple of neat ancillaries for a local general.

The line from Antiocheia to Karkathiokerta via Edessa is firmly under my control. Units are added and enemies vanquished. Armies are now arriving that have few chevrons and are at full strength, since their more veteran armies have been destroyed.

EDIT: My edits are just fixing spelling... :)