Yeah! Finally!
Pontus is one of the first Pagan Greek Gods representing their Mother Gaia (Earth). Ouranos of the sky (German:Skyler, Latin: Uranus), Mountains of the earth (Greek: Vouno), and Pontus of the sea were the 3 original children of Gaia and Tartaros (a horrifying region below the Earth). They later had children with Gaia like Aphrodite, the Titans, Humanity, and the Gorgons (including Medusa). The only things that did not stem from their family was the lineage from Choas, gloom and doom are actually his children.
Euxine Pontus was the name of the Black Sea before modern times. Euxine, although, does not mean Black, it actually steams from the idea of hospitable or welcoming/calm.
The history of the Pontic peoples steam directly from the Cappadocians. This mixes their culture with Hittites, the Armenians of lower Armenia, the Persians, and the Ionic Greek colonies of Sinope, Samsoun, and Trapezos. Their identy like most countries of that time was diverse. The Greek culture had measurable diversity, the Pontic culture had an identifiable diversity, but the Colchis were a band of tribes dependent on their unity to ward off foreign invaders. Mithradates' royal line came from the Persians in the region known as Cappadocia. Infact, Pontus was primarily known as Cappadocia Pontiki. Some of the great conquests were looked down upon because the protector Rome was busy fighting in other regions.
Pontus allied with Sinope later conquering Colchis. Then an alliance with Phrygia was acheived, which paved the way for the featured leaderhead, Mithradates VI to take Micra Asia (Asia Minor). Even though the Romans subdued the Pontic and confined them to Galatia and Cappadocia, Pontus Proper was a difficult land to keep under control. During the Byzantine Empire, they enjoyed the same autonomous freedom that they had under Persia. They almost succeeded in restoring Constantinople after the Frank-Latins destroyed the capital in the 4th Crusade. In their historical capital, the Empire of Trapezond bordered the Empire of Nicaea (Nike or Victory). Nicaea temporarily restored Constantinople allowing it with the help of the Genoans promising to weaken the Genoan arch-rival Venice. The Venetian quarter was burned strengthing Genoan influence in the Aegean and Constantinople. The Empire of Nicaea allied with the Bulgarians to gain influence in Thessalonica; but it was the Despot of Epirus that gained the territory, thus leaving the Byzantine world into three major Empires. Pontus, Nicaea and Thessalonica remained as the Greek Empires. Eventually, this fractured unity fell victim to the Turks, when the King of Hadrianople recruited the Turks to seige Constantinople thus inviting the Turks into Europe. The Turkish successes were unstoppable conquering all of Byzantine Rome.
In Ottoman times, the Pontic peoples were under Turkish administration. The only free Greek nation in the Ottoman Empire were the Maniots. Never conquered until the introduction of capitalism, the Maniots too were surrounded by a mountainous region. The Pontics had this advantage too. They kept their own language, which is an alternate and considered a mountainous accent of Ancient Greek, and traditions. They were considered a warrior-like people who marched a shook in their dance. They showed a civil and organized way in their traditions, but their traditions at the same time were aggressively warrior-like and mountain like.
During the Great War, the allies saw that in many regions Turks were the minority. This was the same with Micra Asia, Pontus, Armenia, Cilicia, and Assyria. Their alliance would allow them independence, which was a step up from second class citizen under Ottoman rule. Their alliance with Britain cost them their lives. While the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides were in full swing, it was obvious then that Mr. Venizelos and Mr. Lloyd George had miscalculated the attempts to free the Pontic Greeks. An administration was formed in Trapezos, which led to the Ottoman Turkish minister of war Ismail Enver declaring in October 1915 that he wanted to "solve the Greek problem during the war... in the same way he believe[d] he solved the Armenian problem." The loss of human life among the Pontian Greeks, since the Great War (World War I) until March of 1924, can be estimated at 353,238, as a result of murders, hangings, and from hunger, disease, death marches and other hardships."
British analysts declared it was the Greek landings that created the Turkish Nationalist Movement led by Mustafa Kemal and it is almost certain that if the Greeks had never landed at Smyrna, the consequent atrocities on the Turkish side would not have occurred. Ironically it was the British and French nations that coordinated the invasion of Anatolia. With battleships formed around the quay at Smyrna and Italian troops in Attalea (Turkish: Antalya), suddenly Bristish foreign policy shifted. Resulting in the massacres at Phocaea, Pergamon, and Smyrna. The allied forced watched as they filmed the butchering of Greeks by Turkish horsemen. The sea filled with 200,000 refugees clinging onto the ships of the allied forces. Their fate was certain. The Pontic annihilation included stories of people being packed into storages and stabbed or shot at. In an attempt to rid the Pontic Greek population, who were often untouched while Armenian bodies were taken onto ships and dumped into the Pontic Sea, the Pontic Greeks were stuffed into trains heading towards Greece. The trains stopped half way forcing the survivors to march the rest of the way on foot.
The formation of the Republic of Turkey formally ended the quasi administration in Trapezos, whom had been executed for treason against the state. Although much of the region speaks Turkish today the seem to have kept the Pontic traditional dance and lifestyle. In some areas, small villages are survivors that still speak the ancient Pontic language. The Pontic diaspora are largely consentrated in Greek Macedonia and Crete. Other countries with Pontic Greeks from largest to smallest include: the United States (Conneticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio), the Ukraine, Germany, Australia, Georgia, Kazakistan, Canada (Ontario), Uzbekistan, Syria, Armenia, and Cyprus.
I have to say after playing the test versions and the final version this civ is pretty cool!
