The Serpent Shield (Getian AAR)

I am Zalmodegikos, leader of the Getic peoples in Getae proper and king at Buridava. I am sixty years old today, and as I look back on my life it seems I have been a poor chief. I rule but one province of the many Getic tribes, we are at war with the great might of Macedon though we share no border with them, my treasure chest is bleeding, and the barracks have burned down. It is time to make amends, and leave a sound kingdom for my son Oroles.

I have marshalled the army.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...etae_scope.gif

A Getae AAR
So, let’s have go at an AAR. I was tempted to play the Getae because it seems they have:
- A fairly balanced roster, including some unusual units, which could be fully rounded out by local conquests. It’s not that high-tech, but it’s good value. It’s described here.
- Room to expand, followed by challenging (Macedon, Rome) but not insane (Seleucia) natural enemies.
- A good variety of military opposition (Greek phalanxes, Roman heavy infantry, steppe heavy cavalry and horse archers).
- A potentially viable economy, with mines and land trade routes and a chunk of the Black Sea trade. It’s not like the Ptolemies, but they could earn enough to be proactive.

Objectives
I’ve never paid much attention to official victory conditions. I just do what I think is right for my people, and play until I think “I’ve got this one in the bag”. My goal for this campaign is to unite Thrace under the Getae and make them mighty and secure. That probably equates to:
- Conquering their region 1 and 2 provinces.
- Building a strong economy.
- Strength on the field and a sound strategic position with good borders.
- Peace with all, if necessary by conquest.

(House) Rules
- Very hard/medium, manage all settlements, large units, unlimited time.
- No reloads, except when I clicked wrong (I am prone to pathing foul-ups on the strategic map).
- Otherwise, it’s win or die. River battles are a fair reward for manoeuvring on the strategic map to earn them.


272BC, Spring, Buridava

There is a hole in my treasure chest, and money is pouring out. It’s pouring into the mouths of a dozen army units who’re standing around doing nothing. I have five thousand mnai and I’m losing three and a half per season. I have to either disband this army and leave this one province to Oroles, or conquer new lands before the moneylenders come knocking.

Well, there are rich mines to the north near Sarmiszegethusa in the mountain bastion of Getia Koile. I’ll take Oroles plus two thirds of the army and head north through the pass. The other third is with my younger son Dizo in Mikra Skythia to the east on the Black Sea shore. I have a spy there, one Diales, who seems quite talented. He says five units garrison Kallatis, so I’ve told Dizo to march on it.

I told the young spy to scout westwards between Getia and the Macedonian lands, and not to risk his neck since I can’t replace him. My court diplomat is Tarsa. He has achieved as little in life as me, and seems no smoother than the rug merchant in town, but I have no other diplomats so I send him south. I’m looking for a ceasefire with Macedon, trade with anyone he can find, and alliances with Macedon’s enemies (especially the Koinon Hellenion and the Kingdom of Epeiros).

Before leaving, I must order Buridava. The town is small and undeveloped and the people are not especially fertile. I’ve spent the rest of the treasure chest commissioning a palisade, roads, and hot vapour baths to attract more subjects. I need taxpayers and soldiers, and the chest would have been empty by autumn anyhow. I’ll leave a unit of light skirmishers to guard the place from thieves. They’re cheap, and don’t look much use in a real fight.

To war!

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/getae/target001.jpg

I’ve started many a faction in RTR and EB to find myself with units of javelin cavalry. I’ve never liked them: they’re rather expensive, they don’t carry enough ammo, and they can’t fight when they run out. I usually disband them, and maybe keep a couple as fast decoys and rout chasers who can also fire a few missiles. When I started up this EB campaign and saw that the family bodyguards were medium cavalry with a missile attack of 5, I felt a sinking feeling. It was Pontos all over again, with the deeply ordinary javelin cavalry bodyguards. Then I realised they’re horse archers… Oh man, this is going to be fun. I wonder if they’re the westernmost horse archers in EB?


272BC, Autumn, at Sarmiszegethusa

I reached Sarmiszegethusa in late summer and laid siege, then made the assault in autumn. It was straightforward, beating five garrison units with an army of ten including phalanxes and missile specialists. The archers and slingers advanced in loose order to neutralise the slingers inside, firing over the low palisade to either kill them or drive them away. It didn’t work out, they took shelter under the shadow of the palisade instead. But then the skirmishers moved in to pelt them with javelins as the ram hit the gate. I got skirmishers in to rush the slingers and a couple of light phalanxes to hold the entry, and then brought the army inside.

After that we gave the defenders a choice: charge our phalanxes to be pinned then flanked by our Drapani shock infantry with the murderous two-handed falx, or sit and take missile fire from all directions. It seems their opinions were divided, but neither approach met with success.

I have no money, though the debts are growing much slower with the income from the mines and the taxes from the new town. I hear Dizo has reached Kallatis and laid siege. The diplomat Tarsa may have little grace or influence, but he has a certain low cunning. He ignored all the great leaders and skilled negotiators of Macedon, and signed a ceasefire with a humble captain who was easily gulled. We have trade rights too. Tarsa didn’t show them our maps, but he has a travelled around to find their cities.

Diales the spy reports reasonable pickings to the south, and he has swung north past Singidunum to explore my western flank. The richer southern Eleutheroi would give me a land frontier with Macedon, so I’ll leave them alone for now. Instead I’m heading northeast to the pass out of Getia Koile. I’ll help Dizo at Kallatis if he needs it and march on Olbia in Skythia if he doesn’t.

Skythia! It’s a name to conjure with. I heard tales of the old Skythians as a child at the bard’s knee. I expect we learned horse archery from the Skythians. I should love to conquer it; that would make something of my life. With any luck, it would also get me another place to recruit horse archers, which are not so easily raised in Thrace. And, hope of hopes, I might build heavy cavalry there one day. We Getai can raise fine light lancers, though I have none right now, but heavy lance cavalry would be an extra dimension to our warfare.

271BC, Thrace

Dizo took Kallatis well enough. He did better than me with half the troops – the Hellenes inside ran around like headless chickens instead of taking shelter from his slingers. He left a garrison and has come north to join me. I spent the year marching, and so did Dizo. We end the year just short of the Skythian border, and winter in our own lands with good supplies. I now have the whole host of Getia with me, barring three garrison units.

Tarsa exchanged trade rights with some minor leader of the Koinon and gave them our maps in exchange for an alliance, then went around locating their cities. Then he did the same in Epeiros. Diales has flitted past Singidunum, Ak-Ink, and Lucarottea on our western borders. None seem especially large, developed, fertile, or rich so they’re lesser priorities. They’re peopled by Celts, with some Gauls and Illyrians it seems. But he did spy mines off to the northwest in Lugouw. He’s coming east now, to check out the home of the Basternae – the other great warriors I yearn to conquer – and assist me by the Black Sea.

A diplomat came from the Romani. He was quite the smoothest, most mannered man I’ve ever met. My bard is a groaning bear beside him. It’s a good job I actually wanted to give him trade rights, because I doubt I could have refused otherwise. My own diplomat has explored Epeiros a little and moved to Italia to see whom we’re trading with. He reports huge armies of heavy troops all over the south; many bigger than my entire military appear to be just troop contingents going off to sieges. We’re well out of that. He saw the Romani besiege a town in northern Italia; they’re very organised and efficient. I must conquer a nation, and build it to stand against them all. Or Oroles must do it after me.

At the turn of the year I heard that the Romani, who are at war with Epeiros, have made an alliance with Macedon. This is not good news.

270BC, Winter

Oh, what a year.

In spring I crossed into Skythia. There was a substantial garrison in Olbia, nine units about half cavalry, and a field army of five more with horse archers and heavy cavalry patrolling to the west. It was clear that the recruiting should be good here, if I could take the town with my three chiefs and eleven other units (mainly light infantry). Obviously I wanted to avoid the field army and besiege the town, where my phalanxes would slaughter the cavalry in a street fight. So I feinted at the field army who withdrew in the face of twice their numbers, then dashed for the town and laid siege.

And I was outmanoeuvred! The field army, being pure cavalry, moved faster than I reckoned and hit me from behind. The mixed army came out of town to attack what was now my rear. I was looking at six or seven units of horse archers and two heavy cavalry, from two directions, and no streets to channel them and cover my flanks. I will admit I was tempted to withdraw. That way, I could probably fight the field army and come back later for the town. But I felt the blood pounding in my ears, and a wild savage excitement that has been missing these last twenty years. I could die of old age any day, and I would be lord of Skythia before it happens. So the battle lines were drawn. The numbers were about even, over nine hundred each; but to be an infantry army surrounded by horse archers is a nightmare.

But I did have certain advantages:
- Sheer numbers meant large formations. If I held a spread formation they would not have the range to shoot my units from both sides. I wasn’t surrounded; I just had a circular battlefront.
- With interior lines of communication I could switch units around faster – thus do phalanxes outmanoeuvre cavalry.
- The battlefield was a mix of grassland and light forest. Most of my infantry are experts in forests, and arrows don’t work so well there. Reserves stayed under the trees. So did surprises.
- Their two forces didn’t arrive quite simultaneously. I couldn’t defeat them in detail, but I did take the full brunt of one force before the other.
- I had my share of missiles too: three horse archer bodyguards, two units of foot archers, two of slingers, and a unit of javelin cavalry I’d forgotten.

And so to battle...

I put a ring of missiles around a backbone of phalanxes, all in loose formation. Their field army hit first. The horse archers sat, arrogant in tight order, while I shifted position and targets to catch them from flanks and launched cavalry feints to turn them around and shoot at their backs. I took substantial losses in the missile duel, but they took considerably more. The Skythian noble cavalry set its sights on my archers, but by the time their charge went home it met a phalanx who’d just run like Olympians and reformed as they skidded to a halt. The horses suffered horribly, and then the falx men were around and at their backs. The slaughter was good.

I will never use those cavalry so foolishly when they serve me.

Then the force from town arrived at my “rear”; it was half cavalry with spearmen, skirmishers and a phalanx making the rest. We repeated the missile duel for a while, though honours were now more even since they had the numbers. Then their infantry reached mine, and just at that moment their first horse archer group ran out of arrows and decided to charge. Things got very confused. Very confused indeed. It rained horses instead of arrows.

I’m not completely sure what happened in the next ten minutes. I flung units around, reinforcing my flanks and attacking theirs. In places there were so many dead I could not identify my troops to give orders – I have always had trouble seeing colours, and patterns of dead horses confuse my eyesight. My javelin cavalry just vanished: I had fifty at the start of the battle and none at the end, and I’ve absolutely no idea how they died. It was far too confused for useful archery from a distance, which was good because their new forces were the only ones with ammunition. But in the confusion I managed to control the one crucial thing: the intersection of phalanxes and cavalry. Their cavalry met the sharp end of my phalanxes, and their phalanx headed off into the distance pursuing a unit of my slingers who were out of bullets. I didn’t order that, the captain of the slingers did it himself. If I had a daughter, she’d be married to him by now and he’d be a chief.

I rallied my men continually. Their morale is good and they trust me a lot. So it was the Skythians who started to rout, here and there, and as they thinned I slowly put a proper line back together to fix their remaining units. A third of the falx men still lived, so they swung around this line and their blades drank well again. My chiefs charged their more stubborn units from behind. And we routed all of them, and there was a glorious pursuit, and good slaughter. Then the slingers led their phalanx back to my army to die.

I must apologise to the skirmishers whom I took so lightly earlier. They fought well, flowed swiftly to fill many a gap, killed plenty, and died less than some.

It was a heroic victory. We counted 827 of their bodies on the field, and 451 of ours. Now I am wintering in Olbia, which we took from a few dozen survivors after the battle. Between the (ahem) reduction in army expenses and the income from this fine new port, I am earning almost eighteen hundred mnai per season to tackle the debt of sixteen thousand. What next, I wonder, what next?

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/getae/olbia.jpg

Very good aar, :thumbsup:


Btw, yes those Komati Skirmishers are a very good unit.

I really love the Komataï...but I can't stand Dacian bodyguards units.

Good AAR, interesting...we shall see what will happen...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rilder

Very good aar, :thumbsup:

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Thanks. I realised I'd got the dates a bit wrong -- I missed a year spent marching -- and fixed it up from 271 onwards. Must pay more attention to my notes...

Getai are very strong once you manage to have available all the unit roaster. I once managed to defeat a strong Macedonian army in open plain field on hard difficulty level (custom battle) with disproportionate casualties.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pelopidas

but I can't stand Dacian bodyguards units.

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In what sense "can't stand"? You think they're no use? Or you think the bodyguard should be some other unit?

Or did they beat you up some time? ;)

[I "can't stand" Seleucids. Any Seleucids. All Seleucids. I can't stand them because I played Pontos, and spend a couple of decades taking Anatolia off high-tech sarissa pahalanxes run by psycopathic hegemonists. I still twitch at the thought.]

269BC, Spring, Olbia

This town is wealthy, and growing, and could be a lot wealthier. Also the Skythian Royal Tombs are here – it’s not quite the tomb of Megas Alexandros, but it’s a start. It’s essentially a Hellenic town, the people are not so used to our Getian ways or so happy to see us. It will need courting and more than a token garrison, if I’m not to have streets running with the blood of taxpayers.

Now that I have a port at Olbia, and in two years I’ll have started one at Kallatis, I need trading partners on the Black Sea and the Aegean. When my diplomat has finished his tour of Italia he can go look for them. I think his crucial diplomacy is done for now, I have my two alliances in the south and I can only hope nothing changes with Macedon or Rome for a long time.

Diales spies two cities on the peninsula to the east, Chersonesos and Pantikapaion. They have high walls of stone, which I’d heard of but I’ve never seen. They’re rich targets; but they also armies of fifteen to twenty units each, split between the garrison and the field. And they’re not at all Getian, so even if I had a hope of taking them they’d be hard to hold. I’ll leave them alone for now, and hope they leave me.

I have five or six hundred men with me. I have lost four or five hundred conquering Skythia and two or three hundred before that. I would like to take Gáwjám Bástárnõz, home of the famous warriors, which lies to the west. It holds eight or nine units; Diales says all but two are infantry, and the cavalry are just German light horse with javelins. And, wonder of wonders, it has no walls. There are none at all, not even a palisade. That opens some possibilities… No way could I storm it with the troops I can spare right now, but perhaps a missile army could lure them out and wear them down. It might take a few battles to kill enough for an assault to be viable, but it’s close enough to my borders to re-supply the army between raids. In theory it ought to be possible…

The Chersonesos field army is sitting on their border, pointed my way. Well, I can’t stare at it forever. I’m off to Gáwjám Bástárnõz, with Dizo and two hundred missile infantry. Oroles has a way with people, so he can govern Olbia and keep these Greeks quiet. The phalanxes and skirmishers can hold the town, or the river crossing.

266BC, Winter, Outside Gáwjám Bástárnõz

Well, some theory that proved to be. When I look back to what I wrote two or three years ago I can only laugh.

We marched to Gáwjám Bástárnõz. As Diales said, there were no walls and about ten units inside. So we rolled up, spread out to skirmish, and got ready to pull back the centre and invite their bolder men into a pocket of missile troops. And it went fine for a while, I think we killed a hundred and fifty me for the loss of a handful. Then we were out of ammunition and had to get our infantry out of the battle, and that didn’t work so well at all. They committed their cavalry, who are nothing special but more than a match for slingers, and we had no arrows or weight of horse to throw them back. By the time we were safe in the woods, I’d lost a hundred men. That was almost half my troops for a fifth of theirs.

This would not do.

I merged the survivors of the four infantry units. A full unit of archers went to the Olbia garrison, but the two smartest sergeants went back to Buridava to train new units when the time comes. The slingers I just sent back to their families. There were too few to be effective, and besides I did not want to face those men again.

That left me wondering what to do with Dizo and myself. It struck me that our horse archer bodyguards had managed both parts of “hit and run” without problems, and the Basternae had still not built a palisade. It’s not like we had any expenditure to oversee elsewhere, nor could we spare infantry for sieges on all those other towns with walls. We might as well stay here and keep raiding Gáwjám Bástárnõz. So we did, for two and half years. Every season except winter we would ride up, lure out the boldest troops (who usually had the least armour), and shoot them up from both sides. Then we’d ride off leaving about a hundred dead for little or no loss. I must have done this ten times, and this winter I feel the town is finally in my grasp. I will have it in spring, and I will be fulfilled.

Let me think what else has happened…

Oroles’ son Koson came of age. He’s a doer, not a thinker or a talker, so he rode out to join me. The lad can fight. Happy is the man who can shoot a hundred famous warriors every season, with a fine son and grandson for company!

My agents have been busy. The diplomat Tarsa explored Italia and Sicilia. The Romans have all Italia bar a town called Taras, held by Epeiros. He agreed trade rights with some unpronounceable merchants from Africa, which may be useful one day. Then he headed for Anatolia to loop around the Black Sea coast. I got trade rights with Pontos (two ports) and a race of heavily armoured mountain goats called the Hai who have taken Kotais. Olbia is now trading with Sinope. Most of the coast is held by no nation, so it’s not open for organized trade. Perhaps later…

He also made an alliance with the mighty Arche Seleukeia, which is allied with Macedon, which might make Macedon a little friendlier. He’s heading for the Sauromatae now, since it seems I share a short border with them at the far Skythian frontier.

Diales slunk off east, to go round the other way and collect information of direct military use.

About a year ago the money finally started flowing into my treasure chest instead of the moneylenders’. I can start building governments, and roads. Olbia I left to govern themselves in their own way for now. They understand cavalry recruitment better than us; once they’ve got that in hand Oroles may wish to integrate them more. The Getian provinces – Sarmiszegethusa and Kallatis – will have full Getian institutions. Things are now settled enough in Olbia for Oroles to leave if he drops the taxes, so he’s bringing me some infantry. The Chersonesos army has sat on its border this whole time, causing a little unrest in Olbia. Somebody will have to take that land one day, and better us than the Sauromatae or the bold King of Pontos.

I await Spring, when Gáwjám Bástárnõz should be mine.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/getae/world266d.jpg

I found myself wondering whether my strange serial horse archer raid on the Basternae was an exploit. It seems to me that it only worked because they had no walls, and that it would work in reality on a town with no walls. If there's anything dodgy about it, it's that the AI didn't build a palisade after the first few raids. But as the EB website says, I have brains and the AI has money. If I don't get to do serial raids on unwalled towns, they shouldn't get a garrison of nine units in a town that can support two or three.

265BC, First Day of Spring, Inside Gáwjám Bástárnõz

Dizo son of Zalmodegikos, to King Oroles near Olbia:

My father the king is dead. Long live King Oroles!

I would like to say that father died in battle, as we shot the last of the chieftain’s javelin cavalry then charged in to finish them. But it is not so, he died in the winter in his sickbed and your Koson barely survived the same illness. We took the town, my nephew and I, only a month after father died. I’ve had his body frozen in ice – we found a Skythian who knew how from their steppe tombs – and I’ll return it to the royal tombs at Buridava.

Your son is recovered.

I send you this our father’s journal, my king. It contains plans and insight that may interest you. Know that we have barely managed to quell unrest in the town with our small numbers. I was of a mind to put Gáwjám Bástárnõz to the sword in my grief, but our father wanted to build and recruit here. So, I can hold it but I will need to stay here for a few months.

I am at your command.

nice AAR.

By " can't stand " I mean that I think they stink, the Dacian bodyguards... :p
Perhaps they are just not in my way of arfare, I don't know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pelopidas

By " can't stand " I mean that I think they stink, the Dacian bodyguards... :p
Perhaps they are just not in my way of arfare, I don't know.

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Yea I generally hate horse archers in general, but when you Combine a Horse archer & General they are quite usefull allowing you to get some kills with your general without actually putting him in danger. :2thumbsup:

263BC, Summer, Naissos

I am Oroles son of Zalmodegikos, king now for two years and two seasons. Now that I have done some deeds worth telling, I will resume this tale. Learn it well, my bard.

My father died a raging, angry man. He felt the bloodlust and flew into battles, even after he himself had called them unwise. I like a good slaughter as much as the next man, but I master my temper better than my father.

My father achieved his greatest goal: he took us out of one tribe’s land, and made a nation. It is not yet mighty, but it was viable when he passed it to me and I have grown it.

In that spring when Gáwjám~Bástárnõz fell I took stock. Enemies were few – some bandits had appeared east of Buridava. Of the chiefs, I am the talker and my brother Dizo is the organiser. My son Koson is the gladiator. Dizo’s son Brasos, who came of age soon after, is a tough lad and canny with it. I wonder how he’ll turn out. None of us were tacticians like my father.

My course seemed clear: build the kingdom, and expand judiciously. I’m not messing with those stone-walled Crimean cities yet, nor am I going out onto the great steppe where the Sauromatae are masters of lands barely worth having. South are good lands and Getic peoples, but like my father I would rather avoid creating a border with Macedon for now. North and west are poorer lands, with non-Getic peoples, that will absorb gold and slow nurturing before they bring reward. But there was one southern province, Thraikia Hypertera ruled from Naissos, that I chose to conquer. Rich mines might be dug there, and it was far south as I could go without meeting Macedon.

It took almost a year to march the various troops across our new nation to Buridava, with no roads most of the way. More are being built now that we’ve established governments. In spring, the four chiefs assembled there to remember our father. There was some exchange of retinues, and then the four of us went out for a hunt. The bandits proved to be two bands of Celtic archers and some falx men. We feinted around, and kept the foot archers moving so we could shoot while they did not. They routed like rats before a dog, and two hundred brigands died for three of our men. My father would have enjoyed it.

Then we took the infantry to Naissos, which is another town with no walls. Well, either my father was a far better general than me or there is something in the water at Naissos. We shot all our missiles, with quite good angles and many kills. The phalanxes went into a street with safe flanks, and a mixture of cavalry and skirmishers killed and broke them. I could not make sense of it. They did not fight as long or skillfully for me as they would have for my father. I have yet to earn their trust.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...os_failure.jpg
Just before a shock defeat

So I was left with no melee troops and no ammunition. We withdrew, I called up more infantry – we are recruiting our first troops since this journal began at Buridava and Sarmiszegethusa – and I spent two seasons raiding the town with our bodyguards.

It was a bitter spring. My son Koson feinted at some falx man in the square to turn their backs to my bow, and he feinted too close. He is buried in the town, I have named Dizo’s son Brasos as my heir.

In summer the infantry came up and we took the weakened defenders of Naissos.

Now I think I will turn north, to take the lands along our western border. My father ignored them since they were poor and needed investments we could not make, but there is money now. And they are close to Sarmiszegethusa, which provides our best infantry for now.

It has not all been marching and war. Now there’s gold and proper government I have ordered basic improvements: walls where needed, then roads for strategic movement, then various improvements to attract citizens and keep them healthy. The days when single cities of the Romani or Macedon outnumber our whole nation must end. And you need people if you’re to recruit troops. Which reminds me: soon I must choose between Sarmiszegethusa and Buridava as our troop town. One has a start on the buildings, the other has the faster-growing population. I will ask Dizo, he’s clever about this sort of thing.

I was glad Tarsa could arrange an alliance with the Sauromatae. They’d be a hard group to conquer, and make poor provinces if I did. It’s better to ally with them, at least in my lifetime. We also had a visit from a diplomat of Baktria, which is beyond the people who are beyond the sea that is beyond the Hai who are beyond the Black Sea. I’m surprised he wasn’t old and grey. His nation makes a blue blob far off on the right of our map.

Diales the spy has gone northwest, for a better look at the mines of Carrodunum, and discovered a people called the Sweboz just beyond them. They are a small nation rather than a big tribe and so a threat of sorts, but far off. I’ll keep my eye on them for now.

262BC, Winter, Singidunum

In spring I raised a very capable captain called Kallindrones to be chief of Naissos and left for Singidunum. I besieged it with a token force. The chief came out to crush us, and would surely have done so if we fought as he expected. But we just fired all our arrows then slunk off like foxes, while two hundred of his men fed the ravens. My time in Skythia has taught me some tricks… We stormed it properly in autumn when the infantry arrived. It was easier with the defenders weakened.

This is my first non-Getic province (Skythia could have been integrated but I chose not to). Here it is all Celts, but their way of government will be fine if they clear things with me. It’s only a minor place, I mostly conquered it to build a road.

As I drank from the old chief’s skull, I heard there were bandits north of Olbia and more near Gáwjám~Bástárnõz. I’d just spent a year marching away from there… I had the soothsayer whipped. I sent Dizo. Olbia can build some horse archers (my first) and Dizo will lead them then govern for me.

As for governing, my days of leading the whole host and all the chiefs in war together are over. The nation is too big now; we need a separate northern army and governors. I should put in cheap garrisons, keep some standing cavalry that can move around fast, and keep some coin in hand for mercenaries.

Tarsa met a diplomat of the Lusotana in the wilds of the German lands. They exchanged trade rights, and maps. That must have been a laugh. Tarsa bought the Sweboz maps without showing ours. The have two provinces and their armies face west, so I’m not worried about them.

261BC, Winter, Western Scorcouw Winter Camp

The bandits are all dead. Dizo holds Olbia for me. Brasos has a knack for recruiting so he’s in Sarmiszegethusa.

The Romani besieged Patavium this year. They failed, but they’re creeping this way. Soon I will have a border with them if I like it or not. I had best choose it myself. So I will take Segestica and Dalminion, on the coast to the west. They are not the most impressive towns, but they have narrow passes to north and south that can be blocked by forts. And I could build mines in either. And they are both coastal, with a port in Segestica. Dalminion will also give me a border with Epeiros, but they are my allies and they are very busy fighting Roma and Macedon so I’ll take that risk.

We started on the mines in Naissos; they will pay for the conquest and I have been gathering troops here to invade in spring

My agents have been in Gaul. The Romani have just made a pact with the Averni, and I immediately allied with their enemies the Aedui who seem stronger. I am pleased to hear that the Romani armies in northern Italia are heading west.

Hard power blocks are forming, with overlapping alliances. One is Roma, Macedon, those merchants from Africa, and the Averni. The other is the Getae, Epeiros, the Koinon, and now the Aedui. There will be a storm soon.

Around now, I noticed Oroles had the "Gloomy" trait. The timing was to prove impeccable...

260BC, Summer, North of Dalminion

The Romani took Mediolanum, and moved away to war with the Gauls.

The City Barracks are ready at Sarmiszegethusa. We can build phalanxes again. Every town in the kingdom is building something; we have that much gold now.

I go to besiege Dalminion. Kallindrones is with me; the army is still mostly missile troops, but it’s bigger than it has been. Perhaps I can take the town in less than a year this time.

260BC, Autumn, Dalminion

The chief came out with four units of Illyrian spearmen, and I earned a strange victory. We darted around the field, and wiped out one of their spear bands with flanking fire while a second chased Kallindrones. The skirmishers fought a weakened third band, and I chased routers from the fourth in through the gates. I put them under hoof, then made the town secure. And so it is mine. Kallindrones has gone to build forts on the border with Epeiros. We’ll leave token garrisons to slow anyone who comes that way, so we can organize against them.

I go north, to collect men for Segestica. The first phalanxes are ready.

260BC, Winter, Dalmatia Winter Camp

I married one of the women to Duda, an influential man who is respected amongst the traders and can fight well enough for decency’s sake. He will make a good governor somewhere.

My agents are back from watching the Gauls, I sent them to see what has changed in Italia and the south.

259BC, Winter, Dalmatia, Northern Border

It has been a troubling year.

In spring Tarsa saw huge Romani armies and an army from their African allies besieging my Epeirote allies in Taras. In summer Diales saw that Macedon rules Sparta and has Athens under siege. But that is nothing, for in the last month he saw them besieging Sardika in Dardonia. That is my southern buffer state. If they take it, we’ll have a border. The Koinon is crumbling, the pressure on Epeiros must be massive, and I know where Macedon will point their pikes after that.

The mines are now working at Naissos, which is the next place north after Sardika. I must defend it. I had sent Duda to Skythia, thinking he might start work on the conquest of Chersonesos to the east, but I’ve ordered him back to Naissos with every horse archer available.

I feel thunder, yet the sky is clear.

I need some good news.

258BC, Spring, Siege of Segestica

I knew this day would come. I’ve known it would come for years. I knew the very day it would be. And yet it is still awful news. My son Rhemaxos has come of age, and the gods curse him! For he was returned by Zalmoxis.

I was honoured when our people chose him to deliver their message to Zalmoxis. Yet the gods rejected him, his impalement failed and he still lives. Now no man will trust him, no soldier will follow him without despair.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/getae/rhemaxos.jpg

What to do? I can only think to keep him with me, keep his mouth shut, and use him and his men as horse archers. Though if I die in battle and he is left in command, it may be the end of the Getae. But what else is there to do?

We have besieged the town, and I can finally use the sort of siege army my father had – phalanxes and shock infantry, plus missile support. Hopefully the men will forget Rhemaxos now they are busy.

Duda found bandits northwest of Kallatis. They’ve been there for ages, it seems. We need watchtowers. He is killing them a hundred for one, but they reappear out of thin air whenever he goes for more arrows. Dizo is turning out Skythian horse archers as fast as he can in Olbia, so Duda can kill these bandits for good and move on to defend Naissos from Macedon.

258BC, Summer, Segestica

This siege assault was like the old days. They had three bands of Illyrian spearmen, two of Celto-Helenic, and archers. We had three light phalanxes, a band of falx men, archers, slingers, and our bodyguards. Our missiles drove them from the palisade and killed all their archers so they could not burn the ram. The ram broke the wall, and I put phalanxes in. The phalanxes held their counterattack, while the falx men went around to slaughter it. Then we drove to the square and ground down their last stand. It was not a clever or tricky attack, but it was unlikely to fail.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...ca_revenge.jpg
The rebuilt phalanxes get some payback.

Segestica is mine, and Kallindrones has gone to build a fort on the strip of coast the Romani would have to pass. This town is poorly connected to our heartlands; I should really conquer the two provinces to the northeast to improve the roads. But I must build a strong garrison here and then get to Naissos. The Macedonian siege failed, or their troops were needed more elsewhere. Tarsa says there are twenty-one units in Pella, so I expect they’ll try again. I am flinging troop orders around like I’m threshing grain.

If I were my father, I would take Sardika myself. If we must have a border with Macedon, then let it be in the mountain pass south of Sardika and not the plane to the north.

But the gods have not been with me this year.

nice

Great AAR...keep on rockin.

258BC, Winter, Marching to Naissos

How strange. The Romans broke their alliance with the Africans, fought a battle, and immediately agreed a ceasefire.

Troops converge on Naissos. Duda has exterminated the bandits and brings three units of horse archers. Infantry shift all across the south. My chiefs ride hard with their bodyguards. There are around forty units of Macedon on the road between Demetrias and Pella. Their diplomats come north, passing by our towns.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/..._segestica.jpg

257BC, Summer, Outside Sardika

I am speechless. An army of Epeiros came from nowhere and drove the Macedonians away from Sardika. I sent gallopers to my troops converging on Naissos, and had them converge on Sardika instead. We are building the ram.

257BC, Autumn, Inside Sardika

We stormed this place in a hail of arrows. Seven units of mounted or foot archers made things easy for the three bands of melee infantry. We lost four men. I have had a fort built at the border in the south end of the pass. The garrison is more than token, to encourage Macedon to keep the ceasefire. There is another fort behind it, to delay them should they start a war and take the first.

If I must have Macedon for neighbours, this is a good way to do it. Perhaps I was too gloomy.

257BC, Autumn, Dashing for Segestica

The gods have abandoned me!

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...stica_fort.jpg

uh-oh.

Houston, we have a problem.

Not only are the Romani besieging my fort west of Segestica, but the game keeps crashing at the next end of turn. I can't get into winter 257BC. The AI faction goes Epeiros-Eleutheroi-Epeiros, and then it's a CTD.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Morte66

Houston, we have a problem.

Not only are the Romani besieging my fort west of Segestica, but the game keeps crashing at the next end of turn. I can't get into winter 257BC. The AI faction goes Epeiros-Eleutheroi-Epeiros, and then it's a CTD.

---

That's interesting. Have you tried ending the turn without the background script on? Sometimes it helps.

Love your AAR btw. Now go kick some upstart roman butt.

The Improved Rebel City CTD fix took care of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Morte66

The gods have abandoned me!

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...stica_fort.jpg

---

gotta love those "Oh-sh$t" moments.:beam:

Oroles has now gone from "Gloomy" to "Morose".

257BC, Winter, Some Mountain Pass In Illyria

We are at war, for the first since old Tarsa made the ceasefire with Macedon fifteen years ago. The Romans demanded a protectorate. I could see my chiefs wanted to send the diplomat back one limb at a time, but I wonder how long we can last?

I had best not show fear, or I’ll be taken ill after drinking my mead – terminally ill.

I am sending out orders before we march. We will build a local government in Sardika like in Olbia, mostly because it’s quick and lets us get started on the roads. If I felt like planning years ahead, I’d wonder about recruiting pikemen there one day – it’s almost in Pella.

I have abandoned the three forts on the border with Epeiros and sent the men north. Perhaps that alliance will hold, who knows. Kallindrones holds Segestica with a couple of units, and there are eighteen men in that fort on the border. Happy are eighteen wives and sweethearts, or twenty-five wives and sweethearts if I know my men, for the Romani who besieged them have vanished in the night. I must have the Aedui to thank.

256BC, Spring, On The March

A new army of Romani came back and besieged the western fort.

In the south, Rhemaxos has hired three mercenary phalanxes, much heavier than ours, for the border fort beyond Sardika. Brasos in Sarmiszegethusa is recruiting archers for it. It is starting to look formidable; the vast Macedonian armies march past on the road and cause no trouble. Where are they marching? I fear Tylis. That will give them mines and leave my eastern border open.

Kallindrones has built a tower on the peninsula to watch the Romani, and Diales went into their camp disguised as a slave trader for a look. There are fourteen units, all are full strength, and they reckon their general is something special.

My units close on Segestica, along bad winding roads.

256BC, Summer, Segestica

I have joined Kallindrones in Segestica, and we have four units with seven more due by autumn. At least we won’t be defeated in detail. The Romani besieging the fort appear simple: they have spent an extra season building more rams, in case two are not enough against eighteen men without a missile weapon between them.

Diales has snuck into Patavium. It’s a good place to watch troop movements, and the people are Gauls or Celts who were conquered a few years ago. They have no love for Roma. Perhaps he can stir them up. On that basis, I will recruit a couple of extra spies and train them up.

Dropping OOC: At the next end of turn the Romans besieged my western fort and took it from the 18 men. Then the game crashed. I reloaded, repeated the end of turn, and they wandered off. So the story will continue with the fort intact. I'd still have had my army consolidated and rested before they got to Segestica, but we might have been looking at a different opening phase for the war.

256BC, Autumn, Segestica

The Romani are gone again. The Aedui have retaken Mediolanum, which probably explains. There is rioting in Patavium. Diales is doing his work, but he probably needs a little help. I have my army together now.

256BC, Winter, Getian-Roman Border

The new spy found Macedonians in Tylis. Kallatis is wide open, take that and they’ll be eating our guts. So I’m throwing the dice. We mass to invade Italia. Patavium is almost empty of garrison, and there’s not much in the next two towns. If I can rip the guts out of the Romani before Macedon heads north, the Getae may survive.

The Romani have Mediolanum again.

255BC, Spring, Outside Patavium

We’re outside Patavium, and of course there’s a big Roman army here now. It’s the same lot who attacked our little fort, but they’re covered in Gallic teeth marks and looking a lot fewer.

The mines are working at Dalminion, and they’re started digging more at Segestica. We could prosper, if we survive this next few years.

The Romani are coming.

255BC, Spring, Patavium

It is fifteen years since the Getae fought a full-scale battle of field armies, when my father broke the Skythians. Since then it’s been all sieges and a few bandit hunts. So I felt a little clumsy. And it rained on our bowstrings, which were half the army. But we got through, it went roughly as I wanted.

Our three phalanxes made a line, foot archers behind them, slingers left and falx men right. The horse archers took the wings. Everybody started in loose order except the phalanxes, because the Romani carried many javelins. They closed up when necessary. The Romani attacked piecemeal, and we more or less managed to take their attacks on the phalanxes while the slingers went wide and the horse archers went behind. There was a bad moment when Kallindrones chased some routers into a banquet of the Celtic Spear Levy’s Guild, and another bad moment when their tricky light cavalry got amongst our slingers. We need some cavalry who can stand and fight…

But we coped. We came to the field with seven hundred men each. They killed forty-five and we killed five or six hundred. Then we attacked Patavium, and Diales opened the gates for us. We shot up a mercenary pike phalanx in the square.

I have no particular plan in Italia. I will strike where I get the chance and try to destroy their ability to make war. The odds are poor, but it seems best. I am almost two years from Sarmiszegethusa now; few reinforcements will come. I wonder if there are mercenaries to be had? I must not get bogged down in garrison and government, better to break their backs and leave something for Epeiros to fight.

255BC, Autumn, Patavium

We destroyed a mighty army, or I should say Kallindrones destroyed it because my judgement failed, but we’re back in Patavium.

At the end of summer, I decided to move an army to the river west of town. It’s very defensible, and from there they threatened multiple targets. But I had to stay in Patavium, since my name – I am famous for some reason – keeps down unrest. So I sent Kallindrones to lead them. He is a clever man, and sure of himself, but this was his first time as commander. Just as he was ready to pounce on Mediolanum a huge army of Romani appeared out of a northern pass to attack me in Patavium.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...avium1oppo.jpg

I had no idea they were up there. They must have gone to attack one of the mountain tribes. So Kallindrones swung back to their north. He hired three units of Gallic light lancers at ruinous expense, since there would be plenty of backs to charge if our phalanxes could fix their infantry. And he reeled in a band of our horse archers who were arriving late from home. Then he waited for a break in the snow and laid into the Romani, as I came out from town behind them with my small force.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...m1generals.jpg

Kallindrones built a solid centre of phalanxes with his archers and slingers close by, and kept back one of the lancer troops to charge whatever came around their flanks. Wide on each wing he spread lancers and horse archers. As usual, we would try to form a bag around our enemies. This is what the Skythians did to us fifteen years ago, but my father turned it back on them because he had so many foot archers and slingers and he moved them with purpose. These Romani had javelins, and not so many of those if the new spy was right.

But there were a lot of Romani, all fresh, many of them heavier troops like their “Principes” and “Triarii”, with armour that stops arrows. They could have us, and I knew it. When their big line of infantry came rolling over the snow, twice as wide as Kallindrones’, they needed only to pin the phalanxes and wrap around them. Then we’d be down to light horse, and there just weren’t enough arrows to shoot them all. Since we were defending a town for a change we needed to actually win, not just survive.

They threw their chance away. Kallindrones feinted left to pull in their far side then feinted right to do it again, and now they were a block instead of a line. Meanwhile some of his wide horse drew their reserve away to play cat and mouse. Seven heavy infantry units hit our three phalanxes, but they hit the front. Mostly the Romani stumbled around in the snow and got in each other’s way. I think less than a quarter were fighting at any time. The phalanxes held them in the centre – every day I give thanks for real phalanxes, not just spearmen – and the cavalry chewed their backs. Eventually falx men from town got at their backs and butchered them. There were heads and limbs all over the ground, and one dandy left the field wearing Romani guts as a necklace. Then most of them broke, and we hunted them down, and we broke the others and murdered them all.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...avium1rout.jpg

Few Romani made it off the field, and I heard the survivors deserted rather than returning to barracks.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...vium1score.jpg

Once more their cavalry mauled our slingers, and once more we had nothing that could catch their cavalry then stand and fight them. I could do with more slingers here, because the Romani have armour much better than the tribes we’ve filled with arrows, but I need some heavy cavalry to team with them.

So, what do you guys think I should do in Italy? Raid, conquer, or hold my very defensible border at Patavium? Remember, reinforcements are two years away.

The obsessive and plain weird amongst you may have noticed that I labelled the last entry as "winter" because there was snow on the ground, but it was actually autumn so I had to edit it. Now very weird stuff is happening in my game, with snow around Roma in autumn that vanishes and reappears as I scroll etc. I'm getting lots of CTDs, despite applying the fixes. I think I may have "map corruption in my save" or whatever it's called. So I don't know how much longer this AAR will last. Well, I'll try to disembowl some more Romani before the end...

255BC, Late Winter, Patavium, Alone

The Macedonian army in Tylis moved out. Tarsa followed it southwest, and saw it move up the pass southeast of Sardika – not the one without fort, the next to the east. With a hard march in the snow, they could just about reach Sardika this season, though without time to build siege works. The fort garrison would get back to town in time, if it came to that. Then they stood on the border facing our land, as if they were waiting. Then something shocking happened: their diplomat came up to town, bold as a fighting cock, and demanded two hundred and thirty mnai not to attack! And the governor was Rhemaxos, he who was spurned by Zalmoxis, trusted by no man and quietly ignored by most. He paid – I can only guess at how his mind works after that terrible blow to his soul – and their army marched off towards Epeiros.

Now I sit here in the hall at Patavium, with my mead and my dogs, and I am all alone. Kallindrones is gone west with the armies, all of them save my bodyguard, and he will sit on a strategic ford and challenge the Romani to take it back. I’ve no doubt he’ll kill whoever comes, then take Mediolanum or Bononia or some other Gallic town where the people hate us less than they hate the Romani. And one day when the Getae and the Epeirotes are done feasting on Roma, Mediolanum will be our regional capital and a strategic fortress by the passes, to keep the Gauls beyond the Alps.

Or else the sarissae of Macedon will spit us first.

But I won’t see that. For there is poison in my mead, and cramps in my belly, and I have spared the chiefs the shame of putting it there. I spied archers coming from Segestica this morning, they can hold the town until Brasos is crowned and comes west. The Getae may conquer or die; they are skilled in war and well placed amongst terrible enemies. They will do it better without a doomed king.


Isn’t he a miserable sod?

Well, that wraps it up. The crashes and so on were getting too much, and I need to start a new game.

The Getae are pretty good fun – decent military, viable economy, exciting location. I think the next level of MICs would have seen troops that kick them up a gear: Getian medium phalanxes and Scythian heavy cavalry. Balanced Gallic sword and shield infantry would be useful too, or Samnites. They might even turn out pike phalanxes in Macedonia (Sardika is a Mac region 1 city). With an army like that and the five or so mines I had in the works, plus a population that’s gone right up since the game started, they would have been a real power who could give anyone a fight. If they’d made it through the next twenty years their biggest problem would be the lack of paved roads.

Well, time to play something a bit different.

Sad you have to stop here...hope your next AAR will be as good as this one was.