Arche Euxinai: A Pontic XC AAR

**Zarax** · April 08, 2009, 07:15 PM

This Pontus AAR will show some of the new XC features along with the senate mod.
XC has been slightly modded to allow senate missions for Pontus and their duration has been changed to represent the request of a campaign rather than a simple mission.

Prologue: The anatolian calduron.

It's been a hot summer for the small pontic Kingdom.
Pharnakes looked at his small army, consisting of the sons of local nobles along with their attached retinue augmented by some local levies.

"This will do little more than scare bandits away" he thought, yet he knew that it was the best that could be afforded by the limited royal finances.

After many years of saving his father Mitrhadates finally started an ambitious program to improve the kingdom's infrastructure hoping that it will help filling the coffers later.

Support from the great noble families was critical however, and the season was spent wating for their plan.
Many opportunities presented a resourceful ruler, as many as the people that filled Anatolia: greeks, persians from the armenian royal house, cappadocian nobles and the newly arrived galatian keltoi, reputed to be fierce warriors ready to fight for gold.

Along with opportunities threats were also present: to the south both the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires represented the largest heirs of Megas Alexandros and were very well capable of fielding impressive forces.
To the west a motley collection of greek kingdoms led by the rich city of Pergamum banded together for independence while east laid the kingdom of Armenia, another ambitious kingdom that hoped to restore the glory days of ancient Persia.

**Zarax** · April 08, 2009, 07:20 PM

Chapter 1: The first step

As winter approached the nobles finally proposed to take the offensive against the nearby greek city of Sesamus.
Blockading their trade was seen as the first step towards acquiring hegemony over them.

In order to ensure loyalty in the small army the nobles also assured their contribution to the royal coffers in case of success.

Pharnakes crossed the border, heading for their trade ports.

**Zarax** · April 08, 2009, 07:28 PM

Chapter 2: Sesamus

In the west it seemed that the Carthaginian thalassocratia went at odds with the growing Roman republic, started a conflict over mastery of western mediterranean.

Pharnakes reached his objective, while his spies started assessing the strenght of the petty kingdom.

**Zarax** · April 08, 2009, 07:47 PM

Chapter 3: A growing kingdom

As promised the nobles sent a relatively modest but still proportionally important contribution to the royal coffers.

Pharnakes moved in and his army encircles Sesamus in an attempt to force their small army to surrender.
Soon starvation forced them to a desperate sally to counter the larger besieging army.

The battle was short and losses modest, mostly among the levies.

The conquest of Sesamus was only the first step.

**Zarax** · April 08, 2009, 08:16 PM

Chapter 4: Stepping up the ladder

After quite a few years of peace and prosperity the affluent city of Nicomedia looked an appealing target for the enlarged army.
Still made mostly by levies its numbers grew after Sesamus as well as its training.
Once again, the nobles pledged their support.

Nicomedia was a bigger city and much better protected with stone walls.
Its garrison while still small had a sizeable number of galatian mercenaries, which would make scaling the walls a very costly proposal for the light pontic infantry

Trying to starve out the city was seen as a viable option, if only to reduce the numbers of the hardened celtic defenders.

**Scutarii** · April 08, 2009, 09:21 PM

Cool, another Senate AAR. Its good to showcase this stuff too, since its kind of hidden away in the Sub-mods section... BTW, is it possible to change the pop-ups from a Senate request, and its references to the 'empire'. Just nitpicking, though.

**Zarax** · April 09, 2009, 04:04 AM

That's under development, expect much cleaner texts for the next version.

**Zarax** · April 09, 2009, 04:39 AM

Chapter 5: Nicomedia

Conquering the eastern city was proving to be much harder than planned.
Rather than wait for starvation, the nicomedeans rallied all their troops for an immediate counterattack.
The following battle was won but with staggering losses, including the young general Spartikles.

Their hired mercenaries from Galatia proved to be devasting against the lightly armed levied infantry, and only when the nobles joined the fray the battle was finally turned into a victory.