Roma - Fledgling State to Mighty Empire

Hey following the collapse of my 1.0 Romani save I have decided to start a 1.1 AAR. Starting in 272 BC and I plan to play all the way down to 14 AD. (Hopefully this time I can manage it!)

Here are the house rules I have when I play :

- Destroy every building in a settlement when I take it over. This makes expansion much slower and the game lasts much longer and is more challenging.
- Stick roughly to historical expansion. Not exactly to the date though as this ruins the fun of the game IMO.
- I don't micromanage my generals with a set lifestyle for them or anything.

I have also changed the minimap so the Ptolemaioi are a golden colour as I find it hard to differentiate between them and the rebels once they are built up a bit.

POST ONE - THE BEGINNING

I know everyone hates the beginning with the whole expansion into Italy thing, so I won't go into lots of details. I besieged Taras and then assaulted, which resulted in a close battle for the city,

https://i280.photobucket.com/albums/...ickmoult/2.jpg

I am not a big fan of the Camillan troops, their morale isn't the best. Some of my Principes broke in this battle when the odds were even. The Epirots phalanxes were making short work of them.

https://i280.photobucket.com/albums/...ickmoult/3.jpg

So I sent my cavalry in to take charge their flanks repeatedly.

https://i280.photobucket.com/albums/...ickmoult/4.jpg

Which turned the battle into my favour and I captured the city.

https://i280.photobucket.com/albums/...ickmoult/5.jpg

Once Taras was in my hands I changed the name to Tarentum. I plan to do this with the settlements that have a different name under the Romans when I take them.

Thanks for reading.

looks good. Good luck and I hope you can get a Caesar like you did last time. Destroy every building? Does that cause alot of discontent?

Change names? How do you change settlement names?

Renaming the cities will interfer with the reforms...or am I wrong?

You know that means you will have to change the names in the script too, right?

Edit: sorry, third person to comment on that... :shame:

Yeah, it will interfere with reforms. You can just change the name back to the original once your reforms come around to build the new barracks. You might want to avoid changing names of cities that have hard-to-spell names or names with weird accents. Good luck with your new AAR!

I haven't edited any of the files, You can turn on change settlement names in the preferences file. Then click on the name in the settlement scroll. Will it still effect the reforms?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chirurgeon

looks good. Good luck and I hope you can get a Caesar like you did last time. Destroy every building? Does that cause alot of discontent?

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Yes, it certainly does later on when they are further away. But it is relatively simple to keep them under control with a governor.

Good luck with this, I will be starting a new Romani campaign 1.1 shortly, it will be interesting to have something to compare it to.

I enjoyed your last Romani AAR, good luck with this one.

ooh, if you play this til the end you may just take the King of AAR's title of MAA's civil war toting makedonian riot.
No offence to any other writers of course.

A bit early for that, don´t you think? I mean, he´s made 1 single chapter so far, MAA has done I think 52. But indeed, if he (or anyone for that matter) were to play an detailed AAR from 272 BC to 14 AD as any faction what so ever, I would be greatly impressed.

Good luck with the AAR and the name of this AAR is funny to:clown:

my last AAR went to 44 BC, but unfortunately got beaten by a CTD.

POST TWO - PORRECTIO

The expansion into the Italian peninsula is going well, I had changed the name of Taras to Tarentum, but I have since changed it back incase it messes up with the reforms.

https://img232.imageshack.us/img232/...2625092rx9.jpg

My next time in Italy is the traitors in Rhegion, they had a reasonably large amount of troops there, more than I did but I had slightly better quality troops so I managed to win and capture the city. I like the new options when taking over a city. Much better than the unrealistic exterminate option.

https://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6805/32088553aa1.jpg

The capture of the two new settlements gave my economy a much needed boost so I could afford some new troops for the invasion of Segesta.

https://img387.imageshack.us/img387/...7809320sh2.jpg

Which took place a couple of years later when I had trained another army of Camillan troops to besiege the city, the rebel army here had a unit of naked fanatics however with some competant cavalry so would pose a bigger threat. Fortunately for me however they had a lot of ligurian infantry which are pretty poor so I managed to break through them and surround the more competant troops.

https://img387.imageshack.us/img387/...0663477ww5.jpg

By 267 BC, I have sent diplomats around to gather map information and also for trade rights and alliances. You can see the change I made to the Ptolemaioi clearly now.

https://img380.imageshack.us/img380/...1512212ru2.jpg

Hope you enjoyed the update, the boring Rebel sieges should be over soon. :laugh4:

POST THREE - THE ROAD TO WAR

263 BC, I have continued the conquest of northern Italy by besieging Bononia, at the same time the Audei are begining to expand themselves. They have besieged Patavium, which will not be good for me if they take it as I will have more of a war on my hands when I come to attack the Audei for control of Cisalpine Gaul. I assualted Bononia the following turn and took the town.

https://img383.imageshack.us/img383/...4773808na3.jpg

The Audei assaulted Patavium shortly afterwards, but luckily for me they had lost the battle, whilst destroying half of the rebel stack there aswell, which meant that I leapt to the chance of taking the city before they recovered.

https://img237.imageshack.us/img237/...6643306kg6.jpg

I decided to starve the city out as I was sick of fighting seiges against the rebels. By 261 BC Patavium was mine.

https://img363.imageshack.us/img363/...9102284kt6.jpg

I spent the next two years building up the new land I had conquered, by 259 BC I was ready to invade Sicily. No doubt Kart-Hadast will declare war on we soon. As for Mediolanium I plan to attack it after I have Sicily and Corsica and Sardinia, I would take it sooner but I don't wan't to weaken the Audei before they expand into the rest of Gaul and let the Arverni destroy them. No doubt the upcoming war with Kart-Hadast will keep me occupied until then.

https://img178.imageshack.us/img178/...5254415eq6.jpg

cheers for reading.

I loved your other rome AAR, and this one is already going pretty well. I like how you keep it simple and we just get to sit back and watch the natural-drama of EB unfold.

This is gonna be another exciting AAR, especially now that the preliminary conquering is almost done with.

If you get another CTD at 44bc im gonna die.
Keep up the good work!

I know that CTD was a real punch in the bollocks :embarassed:

POST FOUR - THE BATTLE FOR SICILIA

255 BC, My lands have expanded over 2 thirds of Sicily. With me owning Messana and Syrakousai, with the other side of the island still in Kart-Hadast's hands. The city had a reasonably small army so I decided to send the troops I had on Sicily there. Kart Hadast had-ended our alliance after I took Messana.

https://img405.imageshack.us/img405/...6202941zc9.jpg

However half way to the city a large stack from main land Africa arrived to meet my invasion. With two generals, both called Hamalcar.

https://img132.imageshack.us/img132/...5738393lq1.jpg

Once I loaded the battle up it was one of those annoying forest fights where you can't really keep up with what is happening very well.

https://img132.imageshack.us/img132/...1729540gi1.jpg

With the Camillan and the Polybian armies I usually line my triarii up in guard mode infront of the principes and the hastati. This is so I can hold the enemy line and give the second line time to throw their pilum and then either flank or support the triarii. The Kart-Hadastim flanked the triarii.

https://img212.imageshack.us/img212/...2666760sn4.jpg

The still charged the triarii though. My troops were slightly better quality but I was outnumbered so it was evenly balanced.

https://img177.imageshack.us/img177/...7644470ua7.jpg

After a while they engaged the rest of their troops, they concentrated on sending big chunks of troops into either side of my army to avoid getting tangled in my triarii.

https://img514.imageshack.us/img514/...8113722le8.jpg

You can see here the amount of troops they concentrated on one area.

https://img247.imageshack.us/img247/...5083085ev0.jpg

They sent one of their generals round my flank, which turned out to be a big mistake for them, as I managed to encircle him with my unengaged infantry and cavalry. Which resulted in the death of their main general.

https://img521.imageshack.us/img521/...2726784ko7.jpg

This caused a good chunk of their army to flee and also for the other Hamalcar to get killed.

https://img142.imageshack.us/img142/8963/10gz6.jpg

If they hadn't made the blunder of sending their general to a very risky position then they most probably would have one the battle with thier superior numbers as I was starting to get encircled.

https://img165.imageshack.us/img165/5539/11xm2.jpg

The survivors retreated to Lilibeo which I besieged the following turn with a general I sent over from Messana. The numbers are equal on both sides so the siege itself should be close. I plan to assault soon before more support from Africa arrives.

https://img175.imageshack.us/img175/4852/12sz9.jpg

Wow, that's a lot of heavies in your armies.

Are you using BI's executable? I notice that there are Sardinian infantry in Lilibeo, something the BI AI often did was ship them and Balaeric infantry across.

I'm really enjoying this AAR. You've set yourself a really epic task. I will be following this closely.

No im using rtw.exe for this one. I reinstalled the whole lot when I installed 1.1, but for some reason it still thinks bi is installed. So I cannot install it. Anybidy knwo how to sort this out?

POST FIVE - END OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR

Kart-Hadast is really on the back foot now for control of Sicilia, Corsim and Sardinia. I have landed and besieged Alalia and then I assaulted Lilibeo the next turn. What I have been surprised to see is that fact that they are using navies to transport troops around. I didn't think the AI ever did that on rtw.exe

As for the siege itself I had the advantage, with a general and stronger infantry.
The armies engaged just outside the gates of the city.

https://img131.imageshack.us/img131/...5175485rr2.jpg

They started to break after a few minutes of fighting with few casualties for me.

https://img403.imageshack.us/img403/...9372564sj1.jpg

Around half of their army remained, they retreated to the small alleyways near the centre of the town. This turned out to work a lot better for them as they were in a small place and couldn't be flanked.

https://img442.imageshack.us/img442/...0276449ue5.jpg

I still had much greater numbers, by this time it was nto a matter of whether or nit I would win, it was how many troops I would lose.

https://img508.imageshack.us/img508/...4526893ty6.jpg

It turned out to be 219 in the end.

https://img134.imageshack.us/img134/238/93485060rw7.jpg

252 BC, I have conquered the rest of the Kart-Hadasts territory in Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. This made them come to me begging for peace, again something I have rarely seen before, the AI usually holds a serious grudge to the grave.

https://img177.imageshack.us/img177/213/94263224tt8.jpg

The next year in 251 BC, I have decided it is time to build up an army capable of taking Mediolanium from the Audei and to defend it from their inevitable backlash.

https://img128.imageshack.us/img128/471/26716207sv9.jpg

neice begining..I like it. But why not use the skirmishers and accensi the romani have? I mean, they aren't the world's best, but they are actually very usseful in sieges. maybe that's why losses are high.

Get some Accensi with upgraded weapons and a little experience, and they become quite dangerous. Especially useful in sieges in thinning out their skirmishers and even heavies before you create a breach. Or better yet get some Gallic or Balaeric slingers.

hmm true, but I am not a big fan of missile troops and skirmishers. Especially horse archers. I much prefer to fight with lots of infantry and spearmen. It suits my style of play much better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thelord

No im using rtw.exe for this one. I reinstalled the whole lot when I installed 1.1, but for some reason it still thinks bi is installed. So I cannot install it. Anybidy knwo how to sort this out?

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Perhaps this would help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thelord

hmm true, but I am not a big fan of missile troops and skirmishers. Especially horse archers. I much prefer to fight with lots of infantry and spearmen. It suits my style of play much better.

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I likes my infantry too (have never used horse archers), but lights are every bit as necessary as line/heavies. Plus they're great for chasing down routers. I often have my skirmishers empty their stores, then hide behind the main line where they can turn flanker or chaser, depending on how the battle is going.

POST SIX - THE GAME GETS GOING

With all of the nearby rebel towns taken, the game was starting to liven up. I decided it was time to take Mediolanium around 250 BC, the Audei took most of their troops off to Gaul to fight their constant wars with the Arverni, leaving the city in the hands of around 600 men. A situation which I leapt upon. They sallied forth with a small reinforcing army, leading to a relatively easy battle.

https://img137.imageshack.us/img137/...1574717bj6.jpg

Manius Cornelius Blasio was my faction heir so I wanted to give him some valuable fighting experience as it helps for the senatorial traits.

https://img91.imageshack.us/img91/2513/31685764cw2.jpg

Once I had the settlement, I decided to play down the years till the Polybian reforms and not to start any more wars until then.

https://img91.imageshack.us/img91/5240/16402610ro1.jpg

Unfortunately for me however I didn't have a choice when the green giant that is Epiros kept invading Patavium, it appears they have most of Greece and Illyria by now and are sending progressively tougher armies my way.

I have managed to marry one of my generals daughters to Caius Junius Brutus, hopefully this will remain a line in my family for the rest of the game as it will be cool to have a Marcus Junius Brutus later on.

The reforms may be in but I slowly need to upgrade all of my barracks before I can train the new units all over Italy. At the moment only 1 or 2 towns can train them.

https://img181.imageshack.us/img181/...0146396cq0.jpg

This will be the last battle in which the Camillan troops fight on their own, slowly the Polybian troops will take over with the Camillans becoming less and less common. The positioning of the Epirot army here is either an AI masterstroke (as if!) or a good luck. The fact that they had the trees behind them meant that I couldn't use my cavalry to full effect as the trees would mess up their charge and be less powerful, so I kept my cavalry in reserve to guard my own flank.

https://img293.imageshack.us/img293/...0129939aj2.jpg

thankfully the men of Camillus did me proud, they held their ground mostly and won a very close battle, it looked as if I had lost at one point when a good amount of my army broke. But the braver ones fought out what turned out to be the toughest battle of this save so far.

https://img293.imageshack.us/img293/...3910367uc5.jpg

nice update Lord. You look like you have your hands full with Epirus. Ive never seen them do much more than take the Dalmation coast.

Bloody hell, look at Epeiros!

I have exams coming up (A levels) so I will unfortunatley have to spend less time on EB, I will still be playing it, but just less.

POST SEVEN - EPIROT WAR 242-234 BC

The Epirots were really starting to get on my nerves, sending a stack every other turn to Patavium and they had also started blockading my ports in Italy, which was beginning to do my economy a lot of damage as I was training armies and fleets round the clock to hold off their continuos invasions.

When the war began I mostly had Camillan units, with the Polybians just starting to come through. As it progressed however my barracks were upgraded one by one which led to a newly recruited Polybian army being trained the central Italian cities. Led by two young generals from Rome, I planned to sail across to the Epirots capital at Ambrakia and sack as many settlements as possible, to weaken them and hopefully stop them from attacking me.

Fortunately central Greece was lightly defended with the bulk of the enemy troops up north fighting either me or the Getai, if the other greek states had any sense they would invade but they seem to be busy enough fighting Pontos and Arche Seleucia in the East. I managed to sack 3 settlements in Central Greece then abandoned them to whoever they woudl rebel too, which mostly turned out to be the Koinon Hellenon.

I decided that I would take two towns and keep them aswell in Illyria, Segestica and Dalminion. All of my raiding had caused the Epirots to send what seemed like every army they possessed towards me however, resulting in several large battles for control of Illyria.

https://img301.imageshack.us/img301/...8077664am1.jpg

Many of the enemy units were either Levies or Mercenaries which both gave me an advantage and also showed that Epirus was struggling in the war.

https://img134.imageshack.us/img134/...0660759wp4.jpg

This war was important as I did not want a huge superpower next door to me and I especially didn't want half of the other Hellenic factions wiped out. (by someone other than me:laugh4: )

https://img113.imageshack.us/img113/...6949364pa2.jpg

This was one of those battles which is very difficult to keep things in order and is generally much easier to just charge your units in all over the place. The number of phalanxes incoming was slightly unsettling however. Fortunately I had a lot of cavalry to counter them.

https://img234.imageshack.us/img234/...4202240kx8.jpg

Which is why I deliberately kept my cavalry out of combat until they arrived. Once engaged they made the difference for me, without them I most likely would have lost.

https://img73.imageshack.us/img73/3359/44185290oa0.jpg

At the end of the battle the number of dead was over 2000.

https://img291.imageshack.us/img291/...8604673yf2.jpg

This battle was decisive in the Epirot war.

https://img301.imageshack.us/img301/...1222662xm6.jpg

Soon after that battle in 234 BC, I recieved a plea for a ceasefire from Epirus. Bringing the war that had lasted 8 years to an end. I had clearly dealt them a heavy blow as they lost several cities to Rome, the Koinon Hellenon and Macedon, as well as their capital being sacked along with several other major cities.

https://img168.imageshack.us/img168/...5663276tv7.jpg

I was now free to begin my invasion if the Balearic Isles and western Iberia, I had sent an expedition a few years ago but it was unfortunately sunk by pirates. Killing a 18 year old family member in the process.

very good story!!

argh I have encountered another game breaker, I installed bi and Alex to try and get EB working on alex.exe, but now for some strange reason when I load my rtw.exe save (still on the unmodded 1.1 with no changes) it just loads back to the main menu. Anyone have any ideas whats wrong with it? All I have odn eis install bi and alex which are in different folders to EB...

Did you get EB working with Alex.exe?So yes, you maybe forgot to make it back for Rometw.exe

No I havnt changed any files or anything, All I did was installed bi and alex but before I changed anything I realised that my save would no longer work.

This happened to me a long while ago when I was still playing Vanilla RTW. The only way I could fix it was by copying my save files to a backup folder and then un- and re-installing RTW. You may have to do the same. Everything worked fine after the reinstall, including my old saves.

Yep, when I switched to BI, and back to RTW again, the only thing that worked was a clean uninstall-reinstall. It's safer that way anyway.

:no: I guess I will do it if I get a chance tomorrow.

cheers for the help.

ive totaly reinstalled rtw +eb, still not working. I guess I will start again and play down to 232 BC and continue from there. Thank god it happened early on.

This AAR is likely to return in a couple of weeks.

Before you do that, what I always do when starting again after a reinstallation is make sure I start a new campaign (just start it and activate the script, then quit the game and restart) before trying to load an old save.

I just tried at and it still wont work. I have the worst luck in the world....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thelord

I just tried at and it still wont work. I have the worst luck in the world....

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Damn. Well you're more than welcome to use my savegame at 250BC if you like, which will give you a head start.

I'm very grateful Quintus, but I cant stand huge unit size with sieges. I will just auto resolve the first few battles or starve the rebels out which should take around 20 odd years so I don't really mind.

My new campaign is under way, I have found out how to import the textures from the Roma Surrectum campaign map to the EB campaign map after some problems at first (the map was bright pink at one stage). I got it working in the end however. Here's a picture :

https://img244.imageshack.us/img244/...7328349hn0.jpg

Holy Fecal matter batman that map looks so real. It has such an organic feel to it!!

haha yeh, it was worth the 30 mins it took for me to get it working. :laugh4:

I've had a few hours to play down the turns in the last couple of days, so I'm down to 242 BC, so I should be able to continue this AAR much sooner than expected as I only have 10 years left before I am back to where I was. Only this time with the improvements of the new campaign map textures I put in and the Alex.exe

Thanks for sticking with this long enough for me to get back on track.

um I have a question , are you playing on VH-M difficulty? cause I started mine with H-M but it looks like I'm the only faction moving on... all the others seem to just sit there, and your campaing seems interesting :2thumbsup:


great AAR btw

I play on h/m, the ai gets a shed load of bonuses on vh. It also takes a while for the ai to get going and start expanding into rebel territory.

Can't wait till this aar is back! I've enjoyed it so far and I have to say I love reading roman aar's, although I have read a quite a few other good ones. Great aar! Hurry back!

POST EIGHT - THE BALEARIC ISLES

Seems as its been a while since my last post and this is a new campaign game, I thought I would update everyone on the situation in this new game. I have made it as accurate to my previous game as possible without cheating and I control exactly the same land at the same year as before. Which is All of Italy, Cisalpine Gaul, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and Ilyyria.

In Gaul the Audei seem to have the upper hand at the moment as they are taking the rebel settlements whilst the Arverni seem content to do nothing. In the east the AS seems to be doing remarkably good for a change, they have most the coast of the holy land and also took Salamis, they have the Ptolemaioi pretty much boxed up in Egypt, further east and the Pahlava are expanding well into AS territory however and Baktria and Saka Rauka are expanding. Most of the other factions are just slowly expanding into rebel territories before they will start fighting each other (or me)

It is 232 BC, I have decided it is time to begin my expansion further ashore, in particular on the east of Iberia, hopefully before the Karthadastim take it. Before I do that however I need a base to retreat too if things go badly and also one to supply it with quicker reinforcements than it would take to ship Italian troops across. The Balearic Isles are a perfect choice for this purpose so I trained a tough stack in Italy and sent them across the Ocean to take the town, which I doubted would be very heavily defended.

https://img230.imageshack.us/img230/...8630649kp3.jpg

Upon arriving on the Island in the winter on 232 BC, I discovered that I was right and only one unit was guarding the town, there was however two Karthadastim fleets nearby so I had to sink them in order to prevent reinforcements from Iberia or Africa, luckily I had trained the best ships available to me in Capua.

https://img49.imageshack.us/img49/5192/67820309iq1.jpg

The following turn I took the Isles. I now plan to spend several years building it up to a level upon which it can supply both ships and troops for my invasion of Arse.

https://img237.imageshack.us/img237/...6405732rw9.jpg

Very interesting progression thus far with your expansion - I've never had much success with military expansion in the Balaerics, and the Recruitment Viewer doesn't indicate there are many options there (Celtic Lesser King with a level 5 Native MIC and otherwise post-Marian units, but nothing else), so while it provides a good naval power location, I don't think you'll find it helps you much in building up troops for your Iberian campaign (other than possibly some mercenary slingers?)
With your eastern front calm for the moment, do you plan to withdraw the bulk of that Army to Italy to retrain (and provide a home defense force, just in case the Aedui get aggressive?)? It doesn't appear you have much in the way of garrisons for Italy at the moment?
Good luck!

Yes I usually have a competent army in Italy to defend from invaders or rebels, I am currently retraining most of my troops however because of the reforms.

Bochorris doesn't offer very many levy troops but it is still a shelter and a good supply of ships and also is a good trading outpost once it is built up.

[QUOTE=thelord]I have found out how to import the textures from the Roma Surrectum campaign map to the EB

Where/How did you find out? I love the look of those textures and i'd like to do the same thing. Is there a thread somewhere explaining how? If not could you start one please, that'd be really cool.

Thanks...Oh and an excellent AAR :yes:

I found out on the .net forums in the sub mods section, I won't start a thread here as I don't want to take credit for someone elses work but I will post how to do it in this thread:

Make sure you back up the files before switching them.

1) Install Roma Surrectum - be careful as it breaks rtw and is not compatible with other mods, what I did was copy all of the vanilla rtw folders and files into a new section and installed Roma Surrectum there so it did not affect EB.

2) Go to RS/Data and copy descr_aerial_map_ground_types.txt

3) Paste it into EB/Data

4) Go to RS/Data/terrain/aerial_map/ground_types and copy every file in there.

5) Delete every file in EB/Data/terrain/aerial_map/ground_types and paste the copied RS files in.

6) Open up the RS descr_aerial_map_ground_types.txt in the EB data folder and infront of every word with .tga on the end paste this in front of it : ../../../../eb/data/terrain/aerial_map/ground_types/ in front of every tga file name in descr_aerial_map_ground_types.txt. Note Do not fill in your drive or the exact direction in ../../../../ because it makes the map right pink!

Hope that works for you.

Thanks for the quick response. I'll try this out as soon as I can. Seems worth it I was really impressed with those textures.

Thanks again. :verycool:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Timidus

Very interesting progression thus far with your expansion - I've never had much success with military expansion in the Balaerics, and the Recruitment Viewer doesn't indicate there are many options there (Celtic Lesser King with a level 5 Native MIC and otherwise post-Marian units, but nothing else), so while it provides a good naval power location, I don't think you'll find it helps you much in building up troops for your Iberian campaign (other than possibly some mercenary slingers?)
With your eastern front calm for the moment, do you plan to withdraw the bulk of that Army to Italy to retrain (and provide a home defense force, just in case the Aedui get aggressive?)? It doesn't appear you have much in the way of garrisons for Italy at the moment?
Good luck!

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In fairness you don't really need the Balearics from a military perspective; the AI will rarely invade it so it's more about the big boost it gives to your economy. Whatever mercs there are is more than enough garrison-wise. Same goes for Sardinia, which only has it's native troops and mercenary slingers.

There's no need to withdraw armies to Italy if you replace reinforcements by merging detachments. Ship them out and have them sitting in nearby settlements ready to be deployed when you've fought a few battles.

QS - I know it's not historically accurate to do it this way (bringing units back to Italy to 'retrain'), and that your suggestion of bringing new replcements from Italy to "the front" to merge into existing units is the way it was done most likely, but in the "game" world don't you lose experience levels by merging units?

I'm not sure, doesn't bother me to tell you the truth. :beam:


POST NINE - FIRST MACEDONIAN WAR

After my blitzing of the Epirots the Macedonians took most of central Greece pushing them to the north. Unfortunately for me however their expansion didn't end there, they decided to was time to invade Dalminion (wow that was familiar:laugh4: ) Also the first faction was destroyed this turn, the Seleucid's are an eastern superpower and have wiped out Pontos, I don't mind as I would like to fight the AS in the future as I never have before.

https://img524.imageshack.us/img524/...3764805ov8.jpg

You can just see Macedon's invasion in this picture, fortunately the forts I built held out long enough for me to ship some troops out from Italy to meet the invasion. Once they arrived however the Macedonians decided to withdraw most of their troops to Epidamnos, I did manage to besiege a small force in one of my forts which they captured.

https://img507.imageshack.us/img507/...8045970ts1.jpg

Once I had taken the fort back I sent the stack down to Epidamnos to besiege it and hopefully sack it to teach them a lesson.

https://img507.imageshack.us/img507/...6731864tx6.jpg

However before I could assault a reinforcing army attacked me, the winner of this battle would get the city.

https://img507.imageshack.us/img507/...5098886ok6.jpg

The two armies attempted to attack me on both flanks at the same time, I had a good amount of cavalry, spearmen and infantry, which was bound to give me an advantage.

https://img118.imageshack.us/img118/...6289127iy7.jpg

I like the look of the Hyspaspists, their shield design ion particular looks brilliant, they have my principes a tough fight aswell.

https://img118.imageshack.us/img118/...7371350xy5.jpg

A good portion of one of the armies was of local levies, which are no match for trained Roman principes.

https://img381.imageshack.us/img381/...3644877xn3.jpg

After a long battle which involved chasing a lot of skirmishers I managed to win.

https://img107.imageshack.us/img107/...6409563ad5.jpg

This victory gave me control of Epidamnos, which I sacked straight away, enslaving the population and destroying every building. Another Macedonian stack was sent at me as I withdrawed to Illyria, which I again defeated. The Greek States will never defeat me in battle when they only send local troops and light phalanxes with only 1 or 2 competant units.

https://img354.imageshack.us/img354/...5062166jd2.jpg

By 226 BC I sent a diplomat to Macedon and secured a ceasefire, ending the 5 year long war, there was no clear winner really as no permanent gain in territory occurred for either side and both sides lost considerable amounts of cash and troops.

In the East the AS seems to be getting stronger and stronger, as they have no wiped out the Hayasdan as well! I think I will have to send a diplomat out there to find out exactly what is going on.

https://img179.imageshack.us/img179/866/10km7.jpg

What a surprise it would be if you sent a diplomat and found out it was actually the Yellow Death who had eaten up the Seleucids along with Pontos and Hayasdan... actually, I wouldn't be surprised :sweatdrop: ... and regarding QuintusSertorius's comment about the Balearic Isles never being invaded, there was a point in my 1.0 campaign where I was suffering near-yearly invasions of the Isles by Kart-Hadast... strange...:juggle2:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Timidus

QS - I know it's not historically accurate to do it this way (bringing units back to Italy to 'retrain'), and that your suggestion of bringing new replcements from Italy to "the front" to merge into existing units is the way it was done most likely, but in the "game" world don't you lose experience levels by merging units?

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Depends how big your losses are, but often you do.

I don't mind, personally, it's not like the legions of old were permanent standing forces anyway. Even though veterans were often mobilised repeatedly, there wasn't much by way of knowledge transfer, only long service together would turn them into an efficient force.

Back in terms of gameplay, it makes battles a little harder by not slowly being able to build up stacks of many-chevron-ed veterans. Plus it does allow your armies to venture much further from home without having to worry about how you're going to ship an entire army from an active front home.

Only problem being that you'll have to send your reinforcements well protected or you risk losing them, do you really want to send a whole army everytime you want to reinforce old troops. Actually yes, this would be my preferred way of doing it. If you can afford to have that number of men running around. Still less risk of losing a newly conquered province if you had to send your men home to retrain.

Send them by ship; you don't need a whole army, just a unit for each set depleted. I usually only send replacements for the Roman core, replacing the allied bits with local troops. In Spain I'm slowly replacing the Bruttians and Samnites with Spanish troops, for example.

Why wouldn't you be able to afford it? In my game I've got three full stacks active, plus reinforcements even after losing several provinces (including one homeland, core one in Capua).

POST TEN - ARSE & THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR

221 BC, Arse is still controlled by rebels, so I decided that I should expand there sooner rather than later, as it would not start any wars and I could build up on the peninsula before I had to fight any major wars over there. Also I sent a diplomat to the AS to see how much land they controlled, and they are absolutely huge! I'm actually quite glad at this as I am sick of fighting the Ptolemaioi.

https://img399.imageshack.us/img399/381/57901019ya1.jpg

Once I had taken the city I decided to build it up for a while before starting any trouble with the Lusotanians and Carthaginians. However my arrival on the Iberian Peninsula aroused a lot of suspision amongst them and they sent an army each several years after I took they city. Luckily I had sent 2 legions over for the invasion with a 3rd on the way.

https://img300.imageshack.us/img300/...8237717sv1.jpg

Thankfully it didn't come to having to defend Arse from the other occupants of Iberia, they seemed to be heading for Emporion to the north. However since my arrival Kart-Hadast kept making demands of money and territory of me with threats of war. I kept deciding to call their bluffs and they didn't act on their threats, however I was sending more troops over to begin the second punic war and take Mastia.

https://img504.imageshack.us/img504/...0651982nt2.jpg

Once my latest legion arrived in the region, under the command of a young aristocrat from Roma, I decided to declare war of Kart-Hadast. They had two very large armies in the area so things were reasonably balanced.

https://img393.imageshack.us/img393/...9709454yu4.jpg

It was the classic scenario of numbers vs skilled troops. The fact that the first army charged without waiting for the 2000 odd troops behind them was idiotic though.

https://img161.imageshack.us/img161/207/91215377av2.jpg

If my army has some triarii in it then I place them infront of 2 lines of infantry units, I put them in guard mode which makes them extremely tough, almost like a phalanx.

https://img383.imageshack.us/img383/...3093436wt3.jpg

As the battle goes on however, I have to engage the supporting infantry to defend the flanks or to attack the enemies rear.

https://img119.imageshack.us/img119/...7084902wo4.jpg

After a while the 1st army pulled back to join the second one, so I advanced forward to face the remainder of the Carthaginian force.

https://img376.imageshack.us/img376/...5419789dz8.jpg

They were split up all over the place and the rest of the battle was merely mopping up the remainder of the enemy force, I lost just over 600 troops in the battle, compared to 2000 for Kart-Hadast. A Crushing defeat which earned me a famous battle site on the map and also the opportunity to march south to Mastia.

https://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8931/11lf9.jpg

Very cool that you destroyed the two carthaginian army's and it truly was a crushing defeat for them.

POST ELEVEN - BATTLE FOR MASTIA

Shortly after the outbreak of the second punic war in Iberia, I sent a stack with a promising 19 year old general in charge south to begin to apply pressure of the Karthadastim by Mastia, which the AI has for some reason made their capital, even though it is towards the edge of the area they control and not in the middle like it usually is. Anyway they had another stack inside the city with some capable troops in, I am particularly impressed with the Iberian Heavy infantry who managed to chop a big chunk out of some principes in a previous battle. I hope to inflict as much damage on them before/in case the elite phalanxes turn up.

My army came into contact with Bisaltes, the Carthaginian faction leader. Alongside his army of over 1500 men. My army had just under 1400 so again things were balanced. Bisaltes also had 8 command stars compared to my junior generals 1. However mine had a perfect record so far. With one battle fought and one heroic victory. His name is Publius Sergius Paulus.

https://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2830/29335680ux8.jpg

The battle was generally one of those that I really enjoy, with little or no skirmishers or horse archers, it was basically one huge infantry clash of around 3000 soldiers with several cavalry units supporting. The Carthaginians had the advantage here however with two family members with around 100 of their extremely tough bodyguards.

https://img87.imageshack.us/img87/4161/41707627pt2.jpg

The reinforcing Carthaginian general died fairly early on in the battle, however Bisaltes was proving much stronger and more reluctant to perform the suicidal attack on the front of my entire army that the AI so loves to perform and effectively lose the battle for itself.

https://img139.imageshack.us/img139/477/75865969lq0.jpg

You can see here how long the infantry had been engaged with the amount of fallen soldiers on the ground beneath the still fighting troops. The Carthaginian troops here are the Iberian Heavy infantry as well which also helps explain why they held for so long, eventually however they broke when there was too few surviving to pose much of a threat. Bisaltes himself escaped sadly, having withdrawn to Mastia. Which I was now able to besiege following this victory.

https://img139.imageshack.us/img139/...5430752bd8.jpg

Before I could assault the city however, a last ditch attempt to force me to withdraw to Arse was launched. It was a pretty feeble attempt which merely enabled me to capture the city quicker as Bisaltes was captured and executed in this battle, and the final resistance in Mastia was destroyed.

https://img139.imageshack.us/img139/...4061953xd8.jpg

In a few years time I plan to attempt to take Gader and force the Karthadastim off of the Iberian Peninsula. In the meantime however I need to build up my latest conquests so that they can supply me with local levies in order to bolster my fastly depleting ranks.

https://img367.imageshack.us/img367/...3101461xo0.jpg

Nice start to the second punic war. What's with that Iberian army in your territory? Surely Roman law cannot tolerate such a force foraging for food and harrying the locals in her lands. :)

Nice work. Hopefully you won´t ever have to worry about the Seleukids, the Pahlava might just eat them up before that.

I was wondering how did you add that nice looking skin onto the world map =3
I want something like that too.

He told me how to do it on the second page of this thread near the bottom.

Unless you mean something else

Yes I explained how to several pages back, about the Iberian army Africanvs, I am allied to them so I can allow it, also I don't really fancy a three way war being started. :juggle2:

I'm surprised you make do with so few skirmishers, who do you use to kill routing troops? Do you have to pretty immediately attack in every battle to get to grips with the enemy?

Cavalry to kill routing troops, my infantrys pila more than make up for the skirmishers.

how did u make the map fully visible

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thelord

Cavalry to kill routing troops, my infantrys pila more than make up for the skirmishers.

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Your infantry have two; most skirmisher have three or four times as many javelins (even if not AP ones). They're not fast either and your cavalry can't be everywhere.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thelord

Yes I explained how to several pages back, about the Iberian army Africanvs, I am allied to them so I can allow it, also I don't really fancy a three way war being started. :juggle2:

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Ah I see, alright then. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cameron

how did u make the map fully visible

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In campaign press ~ to bring up rome shell, then type toggle_fow and hit enter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

Your infantry have two; most skirmisher have three or four times as many javelins (even if not AP ones). They're not fast either and your cavalry can't be everywhere.

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True, but they do more than enough IMO. I would rather have 2 extra infantry units than two skirmishers who are next to useless in combat.

As for cavalry, 3 units including the generals bodyguard can usually kill most of a routing army.

POST TWELVE - SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR

203 BC, the republic is growing more and more powerful with the recent conquest of the eastern coast of Iberia, I did plan to take Gader as soon as possible however the Lusotanians beat me too it and took it first. I do not plan to start a war with them just yet, otherwise I will be drawn into two different wars on two fronts, as the Macedonians had just declared war on me again.

The have been expanding at a alarming rate recently, which was surprising as Epiros was the toughest faction in Greece until recently, however they never really recovered from my sacking of several of their major cities which opened the door for the Macedonians. They didn't seem content with kicking Epiros out of Greece however as they pursued them alongside the coast of the black sea and eventually destroyed them.

https://img529.imageshack.us/img529/...1020460eu3.jpg

Their destruction of Epiros didn't seem to satisfy their lust for conquest however as they began a mass invasion of Dalminion straight away. The first Macedonian war was ended rather quickly as they were much weaker, but now they are much stronger and something told me that this would not be a war that would be ended quickly.

https://img176.imageshack.us/img176/201/20879016rv3.jpg

Dalminion was overun, there was no chance I could win the battles their as I was vastly outnumbered, so I decided to land an army from Italy next to Epidamnos and besiege it in the hope that it would draw away the armies in Dalminion. It worked, but my army now had to face off against 2000 Macedonian troops.

https://img176.imageshack.us/img176/...4048003jj4.jpg

Unfortunately for Macedon however, it was another pathetic army of levies and it was easily beaten.

https://img371.imageshack.us/img371/...9821428ej7.jpg

Following that victory however, Macedon began to throw its full strength at me, with large stacks pouring into my lands, I had besieged Epidamnos the previous turn but before I could assault, a reinforcing army turned up to challenge me. This army possessed better quality troops, but I had the numerical advantage, so I managed to rout the enemy army and capture the city.

https://img369.imageshack.us/img369/...0169983tc5.jpg

But still that was not the end of it, by 202 BC, 6 land battles had been fought over Epidamnos, which left me in command of the city, but Macedon would not relent in sending its stacks of progressively stronger troops, coupled with the fact that I was fast running out of troops meant that I was beginning to feel the strain.

https://img257.imageshack.us/img257/...5780196th6.jpg

I was forced to keep up constant recruitment in every Italian city south of Bononia to supply me with enough troops to continue to batter back the invading Macedonians. I was finally seeing some close battles which are so much more fun than the routs I had previously been experiencing. Some of the battles were large 4000 men clashed, while others were smaller skirmishers when reinforcements arrived on the coast and were challenged before they could join up with the bulk of my forces.

https://img170.imageshack.us/img170/...8754287fo4.jpg

I was still having success in the war, though I did lose Dalminion for a period of a year at one point.

https://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9577/16082240vq1.jpg

By 201 BC, they showed no signs of giving in and I was still being besieged every other turn by a fresh stack, it became clear that I would have to counter attack Macedon to get anywhere in this war.

https://img176.imageshack.us/img176/121/59424522nr0.jpg

Epidamnos was besieged several times, but this was the first time that it had ended up with Macedon assaulting, as my reinforcements usually forced them back, however I had ran out of troops to send over for the time being and had to depend on the army I already in the city to defend it. You can see here the amount of pila that my infantry threw into the gateway as they poured in.

https://img517.imageshack.us/img517/6076/10it0.jpg

Perhaps they would have been better off splitting their force up and attacking me from different angles, but they chose to concentrate all their force at one gateway, which ended up with a very long battle which ended up with a bloodbath at the gateway. It is nearly impossible to win a siege against a large amount of defenders this way, and that was proved again today.

https://img169.imageshack.us/img169/1092/11rj5.jpg

With their constant invasions that were repeatedly beaten back, Macedon had fallen into the trap of over extending themselves, they had used up most of their troops in attacking me. Before they could retrain their armies and try again I had to move south and try and take Ambrakia, the former capital of Epiros.

https://img171.imageshack.us/img171/2685/12fg7.jpg

The city was defended by a small but elite force of Macedonian homeland troops, who put up a very good fight in what turned out to be a hard fought battle for the city, but it was not enough and Roma was victorious once again.

https://img120.imageshack.us/img120/7951/13go5.jpg

This added Ambrakia to the lands I now controlled, Patavium had revolted several turns previously but I took it back relatively easily.

https://img255.imageshack.us/img255/4091/14zl7.jpg

As a result of the defence of western Greece, my general who had won many battles against Macedon, was awarded a triumph, becoming the 3rd general of this campaign to receive one and also the youngest, at only 19 (previous victors were the general who led the first punic war and the conqueror of eastern Iberia) so I sent him back to Roma to celebrate. I plan to leave him there for a while and gain some management experience. His replacement in Greece is a young 16 year old with a lot of potential, he may well be my future reformer if things go well, he certainly has some of the required traits already.
He fought his first battle against Macedon near Thermon on a very hilly battlefield with eagles flying above the armies whilst they clashed.

https://img240.imageshack.us/img240/5518/15jg3.jpg

POST THIRTEEN - IBERIAN EXPANSION

191 BC. Following the second punic war I have decided it is time to begin my mass expansion into Iberia, the Lusotani have began invading Southern Gaul with some success which shows that they are increasing in strength, it also means that the bulk of their forces are in Gaul so the time was right for me to strike their cities in southern Iberia.

https://img390.imageshack.us/img390/945/18118660xy1.jpg

The Second Macedonian war cost me nearly 500000 mnai and it pushed my troops to breaking point with the sheer amount of troops coming in. So I had to sue for peace whilst I fight in Iberia, which would be otherwise impossible. It however forced me to pay regular tribute to Macedon of 5000 mnai per turn so they do not start attacking me again.

https://img507.imageshack.us/img507/...7476848kh4.jpg

Once I had begun the war, I managed to take the southern city of Baikor before Lusotana could start recalling their troops in Gaul to deal with my invasion. Unfortunately they soon starting coming south and by 188 BC it was clear that I had one hell of a fight on my hands.

https://img390.imageshack.us/img390/...3836822gd2.jpg

I had two very young but talented generals in Iberia, the rest of my family members there are governors. So I split my forces into two sections, in the south my potential reformer would lead his army to besiege and take Iberian cities, whilst in the North my other army also led by a potential reformer would have to defend the land from the mass of enemy troops moving south to try and defend from my sieges and also to stop any armies trying to invade land that was already mine.

https://img507.imageshack.us/img507/...7353058jn0.jpg

There were many land battles between the two armies, both victories and defeats. I had to move newly recruited local levies to the depleted armies quite often as the Italian troops were whittled down, but often they were ambushed before they could join the main forces and defeated.

In 187 BC, I besieged the Iberian capital Sucum-Murgi, and assaulted the turn afterwards with 3 sap points constructed.

https://img390.imageshack.us/img390/...8670236cj5.jpg

I employed a tactic I often use in assaulted stone-walled cities, which involves using 3 sap points, I prefer sap points to ladders, towers or rams because ladders and towers often receive huge casualties against strong defenders and if the ram breachers the gates the boiling oil causes huge damage.

https://img381.imageshack.us/img381/...8058464px9.jpg

Once the 3 sap points have been used, I use around half of my infantry to attack each of the 3 points, I don't engage all of them as it would tire the entire army out and also the towers and defenders missiles would cause more damage.

https://img180.imageshack.us/img180/...6700880fx7.jpg

The theory is that the defenders have to stretch their defences and also if at one of the points the defenders rout, my surviving troops can then go and flank the enemy at the other sap points.

https://img180.imageshack.us/img180/...0330961lg5.jpg

The Lusotani possess some very tough infantry, that in some cases is superior to the Polybian roman troops, at one of the sap points this was shown with my troops taking much more casualties.

https://img520.imageshack.us/img520/...7577264gl2.jpg

Fortunately at one of the sap points the defenders were less able, which caused them to rout and I could then begin to flank.

https://img383.imageshack.us/img383/7010/10uk4.jpg

This contrasted with one of the other sap points, where my troops were clearly beaten and fled.

https://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2966/11vl3.jpg

Once they got wind of my flanking troops they had to engage the remainder of their own troops.

https://img380.imageshack.us/img380/2503/12vu9.jpg

Once the walls and surrounding area has been cleared, it means that I can send forward the second half of my infantry to assault the centre of the settlement.

https://img380.imageshack.us/img380/9394/13dj1.jpg

Once the fight for the centre begins, I move my cavalry around the defenders and then charge their flanks.

https://img380.imageshack.us/img380/1476/14ci7.jpg

The city was finally mine after a long battle, there was a large amount of Roman casualties, which unfortunately is unavoidable in a siege against tough defenders.

https://img380.imageshack.us/img380/8584/15ci0.jpg

By 186 BC, the war was still going on more than ever, all of Lusotani's strength was now focused upon me, I desperately need to ship some more Italian troops out to Iberia before I am overun by the Lusotani. In the meantime I have to rely on mercenaries and local levies to uphold my war effort. I have besieged the former Carthaginian city Gader in the hope of keeping the enemy stacks away from my cities.

https://img387.imageshack.us/img387/7453/16le7.jpg