Pontus Discussion
So, Ive searched the forums and found a few in the index talking about Pontus as a plausable choice before they were announced but nothing really was said about them after they were announced on the forums. So I decided to make this thread, I see tons of Greek City States discussion threads, and the Greeks, being a favorite to everyone including myself, deserve the discussion. However, The People of Pontus I beleive deserve some discussion too as they were a unique civilization since before Alexander and the Persians even touched them. Being founded long ago by the Hellenic (not Hellenistic) Greeks of Athens Sinope always sparked a bit of interest to me being in such a unique spot along the Black Sea. After being controled by both Persian and Hellenistic factors the Pontus we know in Rome spawned out of the confusion that was left after Alexander's death. These half Persian half Greek warriors gave the Romans one of the biggest fights in Roman history before becomming a part of the Roman Empire.
Now the questions I have I know will not be answered untill the game is out but lets speculate a bit.
1. Army Composition..... From the first Rome we had a great unique mix of Bronzeshield phalanx pikemen to the exotic Cappadocian cavalry to Scythed charriots and charriot archers. I assume the army will be something of the sort Cappadocians and Bonzeshields making up the majority of the elite while eastern hillmen and such being auxillery. Will Rome 2 Expand on Cappadocian cavalry? Will they have ranged cavalry or just heavy like in Rome 1? I always enjoyed mods that allowed Cappadocian cav to be recruited in both heavy meele and heavy ranged.(Perhaps a 3rd Cappadocian that throws javilins... since the heavy pontic cav throws javs, why does their elites not throw them as well... heavily armored javelin throwing cavalry seems very useful to me.)
Ive also played countless mods that allowed you to recruit Gallic troops from the middle of Turkey. Histories have recorded a Gallic tribe that came and settled there, their troops helped Mithridates VI fight agaisnt the Romans. Would be interesting to see some Gaul like troops being auxilery for Pontus.
I would like to see more then just "eastern Infantry" on the persian side of infantry for Pontus... They could have many different types of infantry holding the flanks (desert axemen maybe, I do not expect much, perhaps some good hillmen like unit that can act more as a skirmisher then a unit that instantly runs on being attacked. This could also play a role politically as Mithridates had to use Greek propaganda to keep the Western half of his empire in line and Persian propaganda to influence the eastern half. I know they will have a religion/culture factor at play, perhaps the more persian, the better persian units one can have, the more greek, the better greek units one can have. So you can recruit your high tier Cappadocians from the east and your high tier bonzeshields from say Pergamon or a city that is more greek culture.
I hear talk of Heros and historical figures... Of course we will see Hannibal if this is the case, but I would like to see Mithridates IV atleast. He was a crazy man (killing off his family) but was responsible for pushing the Roman's out of Asia minor (only to crumble at their counter attack) but still! he made a dent in the large empire that seemed unstoppable. It would be good to have a high ranked general like Mithridates to command my top army. (would also be interesting to re-create his empire using him, as Pontus before him was no empire, but just Sinope and the surrounding few cities.... Mithridates IV made an Empire that reached as far as the Bosperous kingdom to Asia Minor.
ONE more thing... Chariots... I love Chariots... Something that always brought me back to Rome was was Chariot and Elephant warfare.... the death of these two things made Medieval warfare that much less interesting. I enjoyed Pontus' chariot selection even moreso then the Ramsey age egyptians Ptolmey was for some reason controling in Rome 1.... However, their Chariots lacked one thing.... javilins.... why have a javilin reliant horse culture and no javelin throwing chariots)... if they had perhaps three units instead of just the 2 of chariots, the third being one that throws javelins, they could make a devistating force.
-- On to the culture and Empire maintence. Pontus had a hard time keeping the Persian and Greek populations friendly with eachother... simular to the same thing Ptolmey was going through however Ptolmey was obivously greek... Mithridates had an idenity crisis claiming to be both from Alexander's blood line and Darius'... I would like to see this played out (even though It seems like lots of mindless scripting) but perhaps having something where the amount of presence of one culture brings disorder to places where the other cultuer is dominate... For isntance... you march your large phalanx based army into a city near Armenia that has a large persian population... Well the Persians see these greeks wearing their Pontus banner and disorder happens in your city... Mithridates literally had to hide the greeks from the persians and the persians from the greeks (in a matter of speaking). Anyways I am done, IF this thread gets eaten up by the many threads about Sparta, Rome and Carthage, I understand... Pontus was always an underdog (having to use copy paste in order to make them playable in Rome 1) but they have always been one of my favorite factions due to their interesting history and culture.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by ptoss1
