Black Sea Serenade

I took my own suggestion of an Armenian migration campaign. I’ve thought about it on several occasions but never actually tried one. There were several unexpected difficulties and several other problems I hadn’t considered.

First problem is the distances involved….should have seen that one. It’s a very long way from Tanais and Chersonesos to the Balkans…took several years just to get there by foot. I probably could have retained my single bireme a bit longer to get there quicker, but money was tight.

Speaking of money….it’s much more difficult to get the economy going for several reasons: from Anatolia during my “normal” campaign, the ports I’m trading with belong to Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace, who all build at least shipwrights to handle two trade routes, and a few dockyards to handle three. And then there’s trade with Scythia at Tanais and Cheresonesos. Going the migration route leaves me with only Pontus for sea trade and they are very slow at building anything bigger than a port.

And controlling the grain-driven population growth was more difficult than I expected in Tanais and Cheresonesos. I hadn’t considered the culture penalty, so I had to spend build time on law and order buildings instead of economics. This also put me behind in barracks construction, so I had to fight the Thracian falxmen and phalanx with horse archers instead of cataphract archers. The up side to that was that battles were much more difficult…you cannot let horse archers get into melee with either of those units or they are dead, unlike the cats which can switch to melee where necessary.

The AI was actually smart in having Thrace, Dacia, and Scythia form an alliance against me, so I had no land trade in any direction.

Things began to get a bit easier (read as more money in the coffers) after Campus Getae and Tylis fell and that got the attention of the Brutii, who were also allied to Thrace (I really, really wish assassins were available much sooner to get rid of pesky diplomats). By this time I had one full cataphract army and working on a second, but plowing through stack after stack of Romans is just as boring here as in the desert.

To make a long story short, it took some amount of killing to get rid of the boys in green (at least on land) and the back-stabbing Greeks from all of Greece. After that, it was just a matter of cranking out cat armies. I eliminated the Brutii just for spite, but having played vanilla RTW for so long I didn’t have the patience to slog my way up the Italian boot to Rome….so finis.

All-in-all, a fun campaign but not one I will probably repeat. By going my normal way through Pontus, Seleucia, and the Greeks in Pergamum, I can be in Greece much sooner and land with several experienced cataphract spearheads followed quickly occupation armies.

One last note…the merc pool for this campaign is not anything Armenia needs. Scythian Horse Archers, Sarmatian Heavy Cavalry, Hoplites, and Bastarnae are rather redundant. I miss my Cretan Archers!

The following are some snapshot funnies from the campaign…enjoy.

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_01.jpg
“The Pharaoh is not going to be pleased that we cannot seem to find those damn Armenians.”

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_02.jpg
“Are you sure these Amazons are worth all the trouble?”

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_03.jpg
“But they told us the Pyramids were around here somewhere…”

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_04.jpg
Something about the name Kudurmabug [check the name of the featured general in the Cat Power topic]

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_05.jpg
Seamasters are a dime-a-dozen in this game….

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_06.jpg
“Someone should execute the city manager for this…” [no port]

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_07.jpg
Spartan: “Come ashore and fight like men, you Roman dogs!”

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_08.jpg
The Moors really don’t like Romans…[keep checking the date]

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_09.jpg
The Big E running amok…..

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_10.jpg
The original six horse archer units that left Artaxarta at the beginning….

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_11.jpg
Did I mention that the Moors really don’t like Romans?

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_12.jpg
“Huh? Where’d they come from?” [quite nice to have two generals with the Logistics trait combined with the Drillmaster + Quartermaster + Intrepid Explorer ancillaries…]

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_13.jpg
Must be something in the river water…

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_14.jpg
“God I hate peasants…” [the penalty for getting caught with the daughter of the Pharaoh’s chief consul…miles from the nearest Egyptian settlement]

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_15.jpg
The Scipii should really just leave these guys alone…..

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_17.jpg
Spartacus Lives!

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_18.jpg
If the Scipii had any brains, they’d hire these guys to do their fighting for them….

Interesting. I would try a migratin campaign with Germania. I'd try to take a major recruitment center and just pump out fullstacks of Berzerkers for the hell of it. Apart from Rome, Carthage and Sparta, which are the other good recruitment cities early on? Either 3 will be hard to take with Germania early on. Especially Rome.

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Apart from Rome, Carthage and Sparta, which are the other good recruitment cities early on?

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Depends on how soon you want to confront the Romans. Patavium and Mediolanium have high population growth and puts you in the Julii's face quickly. OTOH, Corduba would soon make you into an Iberian power....

Putting a bit more thought into this I might try a Germania migration to the Balkans. Rich cities, opting out of the whole barbarian warfare scene, and a refreshing change for my favorite barbarian faction:shrug:

This sounds interesting. I'm back from vacation today, I think I'll give a laid back vh/vh Germania campaign a try. Migrate to one rich region, get the best recruitment center there and start churning out Berzerkergang. Spartans? Roman toy soldiers? They will all fall before the might of Berzerkerspamkrieg! :laugh4:

Writing a new post so people see there's activity in the thread.

So, I tried to migrate to Greece with the Germans last night. All went relatively well, apart from the fact that I recruited a fullstack and four other units total, and those put me 60k denarii in debt by the time I got to Athens.

I originally thought to go trough Macedon and their nice starting settlements, but on VH/VH Macedon spams so many quality stacks that I'd get shredded in two turns. Instead, since the Greek Cities are relatively weak on the mainland, I decided to take Athens and Sparta. Athens fell easily enough, and I tip-toed around the Macedonian legions. Even the Brutii asked for alliance with me, which was awesome. However, for some reason, the Macedonians did not attack Antigones's fullstack. I took Sparta in autoresolve, because otherwise those Spartan hoplites would have done me in with their uber morale and VH bonuses.

However, the Spartan King and his relatively strong stack came around and besieged Athens, and I could not relieve the siege because Corinth and the MKD armies around it did not allow me to go trough.

I'll try to migrate in an are that is not a giant clusterfudge of units and towns next time (and not be so greedy - trying to claim Greece with Germany's starting units)

Not exactly Zerkerkreig but this army isn't so shabby:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...rdman/WR04.jpg

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60k denarii in debt by the time I got to Athens.

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The economy is very difficult to get off the ground, for sure. I'm only playing on H/H so I can't imagine having to do it on VH/VH....

Some interesting things to note in that screenie is the Parthians going nuts in the Middle East, and Seleucia actually holding their own against the Big E (in fact going on the offensive and sieging Jerusalem and Sidon at one point...).

The biggest winners from not having Germania in their traditional homelands are the Gauls and Britannia, obviously, and this has made the Julii inactive for the last 30 yrs (probably waiting for Uncle Marius to show up, I guess:shrug:)

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trying to claim Greece with Germany's starting units

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I started with Dacian and Thracian territories. Big enough towns to get what I wanted, and not such a big culture penalty. I took the Scythian capital because they kept lining troops up on my border in preparation for an attack:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...rdman/WR02.jpg