Pontic Campaign

[Sygrod]

Well, I thought I'd try my hand at sharing my progress in my Pontic Campaign.
I do not profess to be an expert or a stickler for historical fact as far as the campaign goes, and as has been mentioned often enough: History goes out the window after the first turn anyway.

First, I do have some "house rules":
1. I will NOT attack a friendly or neutral faction (This rule may go by the wayside late in the campaign if I need to actually win the campaign, but considering how aggressive the AI is, I do not think that will be a problem).
2. Any offers of peace from a warring faction will be cheerfully accepted - perhaps with some conditions thrown in.
3. Slugfest battles will be avoided as far as possible. I do not train units just to throw them away. My aim is to have units that are as elite as possible, experience wise.

Unit size is Huge and difficulty is M/M.

So, for those of you who may find this useful and entertaining, here it is.

272 BC. The entire army was thrown at Ankyra in order to take that city. Sinope was left alone, since it was allied with Koinon Hellenon (Rule 1). The gauls decided to sally out. 1347 against my 1676. Due to the nature of the initial units, this broke rule 3 and my army sustained 50% losses, but prevailed in the end. Fortunately, the gauls came out piecemeal, and I was able to inflict serious losses on them. When the 2 units of naked guys came out, I got my missile units, one eastern slinger and one eastern skirmishers to shower them with stones and javelines, thus bringing their numbers down considerably, before they made contact with my two phalanxes. I continually threw my generals and their guards at them. When a unit broke and ran for the centre of the town, I immediately sent 2 generals after them and managed to clear what was left in the town while the battle raged. Their general was killed and the units outside began to break, so I cut them down as they ran. Battle was over. BTW, my daughter calls the naked warriors "Snoppnissar", which any swedes reading this will enjoy. She's 5.

Well, with Ankyra in my grasp and no other enemies to tackle I set off building an economy. I found out from this forum that you can trade ancillaries between characters. Thus I proceeded to give the governors the best advisers and began to rake in the dough. A couple of rebellions started in the countryside and they had to be squashed, which gave my slingers another chevron.

In 257 BC, The seleukids decided to lay siege on Nikaia. There was no general present - just 3 units. After a short siege, it fell in their grubby hands, and I sent a spy in there. That brought the happiness from 30% to 0%.The town threw the seleukids out. 3 eleutheroi units outside town attacked the seleukids and defeated them, sending them back to Ipsos. Opportunity! I sent forth a small army of 572 men and laid siege on Nikaia. There was only a unit of Akontistai and one of Hoplitai Haploi for a total of 241 men. Next turn I assaulted the town and took it with only 9 casualties. The 3 unit eleutheroi army had moved to the North and remained there for quite a while until I had the means to crush it.

In 255 BC a general of mine was en route to Amaseia to upgrade the armour and weapons when a seleukid army attacked it. I managed to retreat beyond their reach. Rule 1 kicked in. Arche Seleukeia was about to loose Mazaka, Ipsos and Sardis. It was just a matter of time.

In 254 BC the offending seleukid army laid siege to Ankyra, but was repulsed with great loss. I proceeded to make a lightning strike at Mazaka with 1465 men against the garrison of 568.

[Treverer]

Subscribed ... and Good luck ! !

BTW: build your first mine in Nikaia, the income is twice compared to all other mines in Asia Minor (in case, you'd not know it).

And a question: in what way do you build the govs? E.g.: first gov4 or gov3, then gov2/gov1. No need to answer this right now, you can (if you desire) implement it into your AAR.

Yours, Treverer

[Landwalker]

Subscribed ... and Good luck ! !

BTW: build your first mine in Nikaia, the income is twice compared to all other mines in Asia Minor (in case, you'd not know it).

And a question: in what way do you build the govs? E.g.: first gov4 or gov3, then gov2/gov1. No need to answer this right now, you can (if you desire) implement it into your AAR.

Yours, Treverer

I learned from my own Pontos campaign not to build Type IV governments anywhere except in Ankyra until you get your economy off the ground. The wages of multiple client rulers can ruin a small faction like Pontos early on. Instead, I generally go with Type IIIs, because they're cheap and allow you to get some decent, or at least usable, native units, although admittedly once I had my economy up and going, most of my early-game Pontos armies consisted of mercenaries.

Cheers.

[Horst Nordfink]

I am currently running my own Pontic AAR, it would be nice to follow yours and compare where we differed.

[The Celt]

Wow your going fast! In my Pontic campaign the AS attacked the moment I took Trapazous.(sp?) Which I met with a lighting quick takeover of their Anatolian lands.
My advice though, if you haven't already, be sure to take Trapazous and Ani-Kami(sp?) ASAP. Because once you have built those towns up economically they will rake in a whole lotta dough for you later.(You also don't want the Hai getting a hold of them either. )

[Sygrod]

As soon as the AS attacked, I switched my resources to building units. Not that it was a great strain on the economy - I had just not recruited a whole lot of units up to that point. The main effort went to recruiting Eastern Slingers, Pantodapoi Phalangitai and then some miscellaneous units, such as Eastern Skirmishers, etc to replace better units in garrisons. Mazaka was not threatened, so I switched some units to Ankyra and built up an army there. When it was big enough, I sent it to Ipsos. A small AS detachment came within range and was destroyed. I don't believe in long sieges, so on turn 3 of the siege, I attacked, but only after receiving some reinforcements.
Ipsos had a general and some average units as a garrison. The assault went quite well. My army of 1696 men acquitted themselves well against their 978.
It was a bit of a tricky battle, though. My army consisted of 2 Generals, 2 Pantodapoi Phalangitai, 1 Merc Kludduon, One Merc Southern Gallic Swordsmen, 4 units of Eastern slingers and 1 unit of Iaosatae. Since the defenders were lined up behind the gate facing the main assault, I split my army in two and lined them up against the side gates. The enemy had of course the general, 3 units of Pantodapoi Phalangitai, one of Klerouchoi Phalangitai and one of Akontistai. I broke the gates simultaneously. The one on the left was defended by a Phalanx, and I pelted it with stones. The Akontistai showed up and were likewise decimated. I then sent in one phalanx , followed by a general, and between the two gave the defenders a good licking. I tried to send a couple of units around the front, but a phalanx came marching that way and I had to slug it out with it for quite a while with my now tired units. Meanwhile on the other side, My units began to enter, but an enemy phalanx came marching from the town square. Quite a few stones later, it was sufficiently battered that I sent in my melee units, which still suffered at the pikes. Progress was slow and there was a great deal of hand to hand stuff. Finally the enemy general charged, but I had blocked his way with a phalanx. They retreated to the square with only a handful of horses. The remaining Klerouchoi Phalanx on the square was going to be a bit of a challenge. I attacked it from both sides with 2 phalanxes. While it marched to meet one, I had slingers hit it in the back. The garrison was wiped out to the last man. I had suffered 487 casualties, mostly mercenaries, and half a phalanx.

Ipsos was in Pontic hands. Sardis next. It had 2 generals, several phalanxes and some Akontistai. The battle was less of a challenge, but my 1533 man army suffered 431 casualties nonetheless against their 1230.

Sardis was now also Pontic, and AS had lost their provinces in the immediate neighbourhood.The year was 252 BC and I could now concentrate on removing the local rebels. Overwhelming superiority decided these battles. Between 252 BC and 245 BC four such rebellions were squashed. AS were very quiet during that period. I guess that their armies in the region had been wiped out and they were sending armies from the East and recruiting new units.

Well, 244 BC, an AS army finally came to lay siege on Mazaka. This time they brought 1865 men - a more than capable army. Unfortunately, i had had time to build my forces and had crammed Mazaka with units to my liking. There were scads of slingers and 3 units of Caucasian Archers, along with Cappadocian Cavalry and phalanxes. I also had no less than 3 generals present. The As army decided to relocate immediately and I had them thoroughly pelted with stones while they regrouped. I threw my cavalry out and made attempts to clobber their 3 missile units. Cavalry works well against them. Unfortunately, as soon as one unit tore into a AS missile unit, a melee unit or a general counter attacked. One of their generals chased after one of mine and they went all around the city. Some bodyguards were cut down by the small towers, but the real nasty surprise came when my general and his entourage rode through a deployed pontic phalanx. That general didn't survive the ordeal. Meanwhile one of my generals and the Cappadocian cavalry had destroyed a unit of Eastern Skirmishers and decimated a unit of Eastern Slingers, both of which were leaving the battle. I withdrew these two cavalry units some distance from the seleukids to recover from exhaustion.

I sent my three phalanxes out and formed a line. I then sent out my sligers and began to pelt the enemy line. As soon as a seleukid missile unit advanced, I threw my generals at it, hacked a few of them down and retreated back to my line with the enemy general following. His unit was soon rendered irrelevant by means of stones and pikes. Finally, the enemy army had had enough and took to the forest. They were followed by showers of stones and cavalry charges on hapless Akontistai. The seiege was lifted. My army lost 154 men against their 1418. That's the kind of losses I like to see.

No sooner had that army been driven off than another appeared. I sent an army of mostly missile units forth to the ford south of Mazaka and waited. The army was 2942 men strong. The pitiful seleukid army that tried to come across was only 1532. While they arranged themselves to cross, Their army was cut to ribbons. It was like watching machine gun fire on advancing soldiers in WWI. Two AS generals fell. I still had to send a phalanx across and slug it out after running out of ammo. The skirmish was over quickly and the AS retreated. They had lost 1177 men against my 60.

Besides the obvious fighting and capture of cities, I had produced a number of spies and had managed successfully to get Side to rebel against their Ptolemaic masters. The city was soon in ptolemaic hands again, but the excercise was still satisfying.