Pontus is genuinely one of the worst Total War Campaigns I've ever played.

[Chicken Jockey]

Most people would argue that Parthia or Numidia are the most troublesome campaigns in RTW, but those are difficult by design. Pontus is just annoying and horribly unfun.

Your starting settlements are garbage with a bad economy. Your starting units are also below average, with your best being Pontic Heavy Cavalry. This wouldn't be a problem if missile cav could actually skirmish as intended, but they don't. They'll get unnecessarily close to enemies before engaging, and then not run away when charged, leading to casualties you did not need to suffer, simply due to god awful pathfinding.

The Seleucids and Armenians, two of the most garbage factions in the whole game, that in any other campaign will be eaten up in 3 turns, manage to somehow be economic and military powerhouses on a Pontus campaign, leading to them building doom stack after doomstack of armies, regardless of their ability to afford or produce such armies. You will be required to play a boring defensive war for a million turns, destroying their siege equipment with ranged units, because their AI is stupid an always brings too many cavalry and not enough infantry. This might sound good at first, but after the 15th ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ attack on your captial by armenia that you can't F**cking autoresolve, it makes you want to shut off the game. You will be forced to spend money on mercenaries for most of the early game until you get phalanx pikemen, that for some reason have less men than the other factions. So your economy will never ever mange to get off the ground until your conquered all of anatolia and moved into greece, which is easier said than done, when the 430th Armenian horse cav army with one eastern infantry is sieging your captial again.

Genuinely a Sh**t garbage campaign.

[wujdionizy]

Anatolia has good natural borders. You got 3 wonders within reach. Halicarnasus region has best mercs in a game. Your mid - late army rocks, with cappadocian cav and phalanxes you got some best hammer and anvil out there. I always focus on taking western Anatolia first.
I agree their early game units are meh, but at least they got chariots, they can crush everything.

[wujdionizy]

Plus Pergammon has super quick pop growth, you can quickly train elites there, if you take it with mercs.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Selucids are a wrecking ball when under player control. They're damn near op. and have a very flexible troop roster. They used to have THE hardest start to a campaign in the game until the rebalances ruined them. The remaster has since made them even more OP under player control because of all the balance changes. Alas, under AI control, they are always among the first, if not the first to die.

As for Pontus, they weren't intended to be playable to begin with. But they used to be real powerhouses and mop up the Selucids under AI control, then they'd battle it out with Egypt and the outcomes were never always the same. There was one time I played as Brutii and they allied with Egypt. God that one was a slog. They'd normally always stay somewhere around Asia minor though and the nearby islands of Rhodes and Cyprus.

Remaster base game also broke missile cav too. They don't break and run when they should. Niether do the foot archers or skirms. They're always a little to late and suffer harshly for it compared to original.

I always used to love the Germania campaign because they'd start in that sweet spot where by the time you reach the western border of the Alps, the Romans were just breaking out with the reforms. Made for some glorious battles.

Most players tackle the originally unplayable campaigns because they want the additional challenge. If you don't want it then stick to your lane, noob :3 Don't ask, I chose this.

[wujdionizy]

"Eastern border of the Everest mountains"?

You mean you always invade Bactria and India with the Germans? :)

But jokes aside, another thing helping small factions, like Armenia or Pontus, is that the new pop system drains your cities much less.

As about Seleucids, I even seen them survive in vanilla remastered, without my help. it never happened in OG Rome.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by wujdionizy:

"Eastern border of the Everest mountains"?

You mean you always invade Bactria and India with the Germans? :)

But jokes aside, another thing helping small factions, like Armenia or Pontus, is that the new pop system drains your cities much less.

As about Seleucids, I even seen them survive in vanilla remastered, without my help. it never happened in OG Rome.

LOL, my bad. I meant the Alps T.T and on the western side. I may or may not have been a little drunk at the time <.<

Meh, I can't get used to the whole pop recruitment thing the way the remaster does it. Makes controlling settlement growth impossible. I like the original games method better.

I saw the Selucids Break out and take Pontus, Armenia and gotten half way to Alexandria by turn 100-ish, but it only happened once and I think I was playing as one of the barbarian factions. either the Britons or the Gauls. Every other time they were glory stomped though T.T I was so surprised when I saw the news scrolls drop in I sent five spies to see what the hell was goin' on. Selucids had most if not all of Asia and Asia minor. They even knocked on Sythia's door. I wish I recorded it. And this was once out of what must have been hundreds of games and various factions.

[Chicken Jockey]

Originally posted by Jambie Lionheart:

Originally posted by wujdionizy:

"Eastern border of the Everest mountains"?

You mean you always invade Bactria and India with the Germans? :)

But jokes aside, another thing helping small factions, like Armenia or Pontus, is that the new pop system drains your cities much less.

As about Seleucids, I even seen them survive in vanilla remastered, without my help. it never happened in OG Rome.

LOL, my bad. I meant the Alps T.T and on the western side. I may or may not have been a little drunk at the time <.<

Meh, I can't get used to the whole pop recruitment thing the way the remaster does it. Makes controlling settlement growth impossible. I like the original games method better.

I saw the Selucids Break out and take Pontus, Armenia and gotten half way to Alexandria by turn 100-ish, but it only happened once and I think I was playing as one of the barbarian factions. either the Britons or the Gauls. Every other time they were glory stomped though T.T I was so surprised when I saw the news scrolls drop in I sent five spies to see what the hell was goin' on. Selucids had most if not all of Asia and Asia minor. They even knocked on Sythia's door. I wish I recorded it. And this was once out of what must have been hundreds of games and various factions.

I found that rushing Tarsus and then Antioch was the way to go. Then take Anycra before moving into the rest of the western anatolia where the wonders are. Armenia still tried taking Sinope 900 times, but failed to bring enough infantry to have a proper siege. Now I'm in the "spam phalanx pikemen in antioch and withstand a million sieges from egypt, while conquering greece and rome" phase of the game, and it's admittedly putting me to sleep

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by Ewoks on Crack:

Originally posted by Jambie Lionheart:

LOL, my bad. I meant the Alps T.T and on the western side. I may or may not have been a little drunk at the time <.<

Meh, I can't get used to the whole pop recruitment thing the way the remaster does it. Makes controlling settlement growth impossible. I like the original games method better.

I saw the Selucids Break out and take Pontus, Armenia and gotten half way to Alexandria by turn 100-ish, but it only happened once and I think I was playing as one of the barbarian factions. either the Britons or the Gauls. Every other time they were glory stomped though T.T I was so surprised when I saw the news scrolls drop in I sent five spies to see what the hell was goin' on. Selucids had most if not all of Asia and Asia minor. They even knocked on Sythia's door. I wish I recorded it. And this was once out of what must have been hundreds of games and various factions.

I found that rushing Tarsus and then Antioch was the way to go. Then take Anycra before moving into the rest of the western anatolia where the wonders are. Armenia still tried taking Sinope 900 times, but failed to bring enough infantry to have a proper siege. Now I'm in the "spam phalanx pikemen in antioch and withstand a million sieges from egypt, while conquering greece and rome" phase of the game, and it's admittedly putting me to sleep

Hide behind the walls less, it gets more fun after that :)

[Doobious Maximus]

I could feel the rage. Hopefully you can pull through.

[wujdionizy]

"I found that rushing Tarsus and then Antioch was the way to go. Then take Anycra before moving into the rest of the western anatolia where the wonders are. Armenia still tried taking Sinope 900 times, but failed to bring enough infantry to have a proper siege. Now I'm in the "spam phalanx pikemen in antioch and withstand a million sieges from egypt, while conquering greece and rome" phase of the game, and it's admittedly putting me to sleep".

I always crush Egypt first. Securing the East is easier for me than conquering West. Also, coming West means opening many new frontiers. Playing this game for ages, I think that two best strategies is, primo, reducing number of war fronts, secundo , avoiding the situation that you just described. Don't let them swarm you with armies, AI cheats and Egypt has too much of resources, population and money.

Instead of defending against Egypt, send a fleet and army with a siege equipment to Alexandria, ravage their homeland, get Jerusalem and Sidon and voila, n o w you can conquer the world. Be like general Sherman in Georgia, loot and exterminate their heartland and don't play their game. Fight field battles only when necessary.

[ik vind geschiedenis leuk]

I play on easy and mainly pontus on vanilla, but I just move for ancyra and nicomedia with part of my army, sometimes also byzantium or pergamon if I want to have a stronger presence in the west, in the meantime my other army sails to chersonnesus and prepares to have a chariot industry in close overseas cities to hold of scythia (scythed chariots are good against horse archers). then I start expanding through macedon, or maybe seleucids or armenia. tip: pontic heavy cavalry kills elephants 1:1 and war elephants 1;3 or something. your fleet is strong so just sink the romans, they won't be able to march against you unless they go through gaul and dacia, even if you are really close in greece