Pontus Campaign Help

[Dargaron]

A couple questions, one semi-campaign-specific, one more general:

1: Assuming no Hellenistic Colonies(yet), what should a Pontic army in the Chersonesos look like? So far, I've been importing four-six Galatianized Spearmen to act as line infantry, then using using various skirmishers on the wings (usually two Thureophoroi/Euzenoi on one flank, and two Komatai/Peltenai/Basternai on the other), four units of cavalry (usually two horse archers on one flank and two medium on another), and three Skuda Dunabarata for archery support.

Any advice for line infantry? I tried spamming Pontic Spearmen/Hoplitai/Hoplitai Haploi, but the Getai ate that alive. They even had a couple units of Voinoi, so that might've been literal!

2: The Philos ton Strategon and (later) Hypobasileia both give +Law/+Happy bonuses, but the descriptions indicate that they're dangerous in some way. Could a team member elaborate on this? I had a Philos ton Strategon in Khersonesos for about a generation, and nothing bad seemed to happen: am I just lucky, or is the "revolt" script not implemented yet? Does it give bad -loyalty traits?

EDIT: Had my second proper CTD...around year 199 B.C. The mod is a lot more stable than previous iterations.

[QuintusSertorius]

The Philos ton Strategon gives a -10% Happiness with +5% Law - net effect is -5% order, though if you already have other penalties, you won't notice it (because there's a floor at 0 you can't have a cumulative negative order). The Hypobasileia doesn't have any order penalties.

[Ivir Baggins]

A couple questions, one semi-campaign-specific, one more general:

1: Assuming no Hellenistic Colonies(yet), what should a Pontic army in the Chersonesos look like? So far, I've been importing four-six Galatianized Spearmen to act as line infantry, then using using various skirmishers on the wings (usually two Thureophoroi/Euzenoi on one flank, and two Komatai/Peltenai/Basternai on the other), four units of cavalry (usually two horse archers on one flank and two medium on another), and three Skuda Dunabarata for archery support.

Any advice for line infantry? I tried spamming Pontic Spearmen/Hoplitai/Hoplitai Haploi, but the Getai ate that alive. They even had a couple units of Voinoi, so that might've been literal!

2: The Philos ton Strategon and (later) Hypobasileia both give +Law/+Happy bonuses, but the descriptions indicate that they're dangerous in some way. Could a team member elaborate on this? I had a Philos ton Strategon in Khersonesos for about a generation, and nothing bad seemed to happen: am I just lucky, or is the "revolt" script not implemented yet? Does it give bad -loyalty traits?

EDIT: Had my second proper CTD...around year 199 B.C. The mod is a lot more stable than previous iterations.

Against the Getai, you'll need swordsmen of your own which you don't really *get* in the Chersonesos. I'd haul up some Galatians for that purposes; they're not too pricey and in a barb war will hold their own.

[Dargaron]

Against the Getai, you'll need swordsmen of your own which you don't really *get* in the Chersonesos. I'd haul up some Galatians for that purposes; they're not too pricey and in a barb war will hold their own.

Are swordsmen capable of holding the line against cavalry? The Getai army that thrashed those levies was maybe 40-50% cavalry, and I'm seeing 25%-35% cavalry in most of the other stacks roaming around. I'm not sure how much of an effect spears have vs. cavalry compared to swords: are swordsmen able to to the job?

But in other words, suck it up and keep importing line-holders until I can get a couple nice Hellenistic Colonies up there?

It's actually kind of funny: the Getai armies look like they should be crap (Getikoi Stratiotai notwithstanding), but they Will. Not. Route. Which is definitely intentional, given the whole Zalmoxis thing.

[QuintusSertorius]

Swordsmen are weak against cavalry - if they're deploying a lot of them, cavalry is your best bet. Plus if they have lots of cavalry, you can counter with your own (unless they're spamming horse archers).

[Epic28]

How exactly are the Pontic missions activated/achieved? Do you have to open up the game files to find the requirements for completing them?

[QuintusSertorius]

How exactly are the Pontic missions activated/achieved? Do you have to open up the game files to find the requirements for completing them?

The first one in the chain is triggered by the 11th unit you recruit. That kicks off the rest as you progress through them.

[Epic28]

The first one in the chain is triggered by the 11th unit you recruit. That kicks off the rest as you progress through them.

Ah very good, haven't seen anything still so I guess I haven't recruited 11 units yet, even 50 turns in. Not a surprise, all my money goes to establishing governments and replenishing my current units to pick off rebel armies.

Are there scripts in place to spawn rebels in a non roiting province? Noticed something last night where I was shuffling around troops in Ankyra and all of a sudden a rebel army appeared out of nowhere during the end turn and laid siege to poorly defended (public order around +80) Ankyra whilst the troops were in route from Amaseia.

I reloaded a save and decided not to return troops to Amaseia for retraining to see if the rebel army spawned again and it never appeared in the Ankyra province.

[QuintusSertorius]

Yes, there's the Troublesome Regions script, plus Galatia has it's own "Independence" script which also uses spawned Rebels.

It only spawns armies, how they behave after that is up to the CAI.

[Dargaron]

IIRC, the Galatia script is in for two reasons: first, to represent the Galatian activities in Asia Minor without making them a full faction, and second, for the benefit of Pergamon; the Pergamene reforms require fighting multiple stacks of Galatians in order to cement their legitimacy as Basileus, as happened historically.

[Epic28]

Poor Pergamon still cant successfully siege Nikaia in my game. 50 turns in and only one settlement, I'm beginning to push West in my game now that I've secured an alliance with the Seleucids and unfortunately for them, I may have to claim the settlement for myself. It may provoke a war with them sharing a border...

[Dargaron]

In that case, the heirs of Attalos are clearly unworthy to call themselves Basileus. You may...remove them at your discretion.

...Although I find that I'm able to have borders with AI factions without necessarily having them declare war: so far, only Hayasdan has declared war on me in 200+ turns. I think that if the AI is already at war with someone who you're not allied with, they are a bit more hesitant to attack: I had an alliance with the Sauromatae at the time, and Hayasdan was at war with them. But the Seleukids/Pergamon were at war with one another and other factions, and they mostly kept their fighting to themselves.

I'm actually kind of surprised how resilient Pergamon can be: with a bit of help from me (clearing the field of Seleukid armies so that I could snipe Mazaka), they successfully kicked the Seleukids out of Anatolia as far as Tarsos, and have been holding that frontier for maybe thirty(?) years now: even after Makedonia sniped Pergamon proper! The Seleukids occasionally take Side back, but they're usually driven off by a Pergamene full stack.

[Epic28]

Same scenario for me. Hayasdan is the only faction I share borders with and thats only been the case for 15 turns or so, our relations are poor but still no war. In fact no one has declared war on me at this point and I requested peace from the Ptolemaics within the first 5 turns to get some precious money.

My reputation is reliable currently, not sure if thats a factor.

[QuintusSertorius]

Don't forget that the human player being in the region affects the AI decisionmaking. Not just because you steal things they'd like to have taken, either.

[Dargaron]

So, regarding army composition:

1: I know you're supposed to limit elite recruitment, and only use them in FH/FL stacks. What about edge cases like Thorakitai and Peltastai Logades?

-1.1:So far, I haven't actually recruited any Thorakitai from my Patris, but they look kinda sweet: just have to find a battlefield role for them that isn't running around with the Thureophoroi. Might use them to replace one Galatianized Spearmen unit.

-1.2: I've been using the Peltastai Logades to stiffen my Thureophoroi since campaign start (since I didn't have any factional elites yet), but would two units in a stack be too much? Just a note: I use unit-types in increments of at least two so that I can group them for ease of use. I generally use a paired set of one Peltastai Logades and one Thureophoroi, with other skirmishing/shock dudes on the other flank (like nekkid Galatians).

2: Any tips for increasing loyalty? My standard approach is to throw all of my FMs into Amasia, and dole them out to cities as they need governors: all of them are hovering around loyalty 1-4, except for the FH, who is at 7+. Thus far, I've lost three or four Full Stacks over the course of the game (so, about one every 20 years), although the real kicker was when my last Kianos decided to go rogue while ferrying Hoplitai Haploi around. Now I'm ruled by a Kappadox (sadface).

2.5: On a sidenote: for some reason, I couldn't bribe that Kianos guy. I sent a diplomat, and was ready to bite the bullet and use FD, but the bribe option didn't even pop up. Are you unable to bribe your own rebellious FMs?

3: A funny sidenote: hordes are acting really weird. The Lugiones horded and disappeared out of my line-of-sight. MANY turns later, I hear that they've found a new homeland...in Bastetania. So, now you have central european proto-balts vs. the overly-large Kingdom of Numidia in Spain. Meanwhile, the Nabata got stomped early by Seleukids, but they slipped into Upper Egypt/Nubia and have started eating the Ptolemies from the south while the Seleukids eat them from the north. I expect the two to meet at Memphis like that Lady-and-the-Tramp spaghetti scene.

[QuintusSertorius]

Note that Thorakitai are neither elites nor nobles. They're the late (partial) replacement for Hoplitai, coming from that same class of men.

[Sudden Death]

Pontus is certainly a difficult campaign. What would you guys say are the top three most difficult campaigns on VH/VH?

[QuintusSertorius]

Pontus is certainly a difficult campaign. What would you guys say are the top three most difficult campaigns on VH/VH?

No, Saka, Numidia and either Sweboz/Lugiones are harder.

Pontos is in a rich location with access to good and varied units.

[Sudden Death]

No, Saka, Numidia and either Sweboz/Lugiones are harder.

Pontos is in a rich location with access to good and varied units.

Thanks for the info.

I didn't claim Pontus was the hardest or is in the top three, so I don't understand why you replied as if I did.

[QuintusSertorius]

Thanks for the info.

I didn't claim Pontus was the hardest or is in the top three, so I don't understand why you replied as if I did.

The way you'd structured the sentence to follow on from talking about the difficulty of the Pontos campaign implied you were saying it's one of the difficult ones.

In any case, as I said in the other thread, I don't recommend VH battle difficulty on any campaign.