Sea Movement and the Cimbri/Teutons Invasion

[cmacq]

As you may know I’m somewhat new to EB. Downloaded it late last month. I must say overall, EB is a vast improvement over TW-R. You’ve fixed all of the major inherent TW-R problems. Now, am I to understand that today, October12th, marks the introduction of a new (as I've read much improved) EB version? I’ve reviewed the changes and they're extremely well thought out. Great would be an understatement as I plan to download it soon.

Yet, I’ve two small additional questions?

(1) By the 4th BC sea movement within a 90 day period easily reached anywhere in the Mediterranean. In fact, this appears to be the sailing time for Greek merchantmen departing southern France for southwest Britain (please see Pytheas’ "Peri Tou Okeanou" [Latin font]).

I know all movement in the game has been abstracted and the basic maritime aspect comes from TW-R. Yet one can not traverse the Italian Peninsula in 90 days and it takes several years to cross the Mediterranean Basin? This seems a bit light? Rapid naval redeployment of their ground armies was critical to Roman expansion outside of and military maintenance within Italy (ie. Tolemon campaign, Punic campaigns, Cimbri/Teuton Invasion, Slave Wars, 1st century Civil Wars).

Has the EB design team considered increasing the per-turn range of some types of naval units? Also it seems that certain types of sea craft preformed well, as far as range was concerned, in one realm (general maritime region) but not in others. Finally, the end of the 1st question, have you considered giving loaded ground troops on ships the ablity to fight as marines to increase/enhance Roman naval attack strenght (see as this tipped the scale in the 1st Punic War)?

(2) I see you addressed a Swabian Military Reform and its association with the Cimbri/Teutons. As you may know one of the most significant events between the 2nd Punic War and the Civil Wars of the 1st century was the sudden appearance of Cimberi/Teutons late in the 2nd century on the north Euro. frontier. Because of the nature of their early history (Keltic capture of Rome, Hannibal’s Kelts, and reconquest of the north Italian Kelts) this event scared the holy be-Jesus out of the Romans (ie. terror cimbricus).

Forced by the devastation of their homeland due to one or more North Sea quakes and associated tsunami (see Strabo), the Cimberi/Teutoni invasion was finally halted by Marius in southern France and later northern Italy (yes Sulla is given credit here). This Cimberi/Teutoni invasion of more than a half million people resulted in the direct ruin of the northern Iberian, Gallic, and Boii (Kelto-germanic confederation) economies and politics; opened the door for Swabian dominance in Germany (and forced the mid 1st century Usipeti/Tencterian invasion of 450,000 people) and later attempted expansion in Gaul, and the outright destruction of several very large Roman armies.

Their final defeat also catapulted the career of Marius into the upper troposphere (helped Sulla as well), and flooded the Italian markets with many hundreds of thousands of slaves, which in turn contributed to the early 1st century Italian slave revolts and all that associated with the increased status of the Roman rich (cheap labor, lower costs, richer, bigger estates, fewer small farms, more landless young Latin men; better trained and larger permanent armies) and accelerated the end of the Republic. If Marius was not as capable as he was, Rome may never have become a world-class empire?

This event may be similar to the hordes demonstrated in TW-BI. I see you have inserted a simlar change called the Yuezhi Invasion. Has the EB design team considered including the sudden appearance of a Cimberi/Teutoni or so-named Eleutheroi horde in Denmark sometime in the late 2nd century?

If the EB team has already considered a naval movement change and a Cimbric Event please disregard.