The Non-History of Mauretania: A Europa Barbarorum AAR

[MisterFred]

[In the spirit of EB, I should probably note that I have only the most passing knowledge of ancient Mauretania, largely obtained from recreational reading of history tangentially related. You should assume that any and all cultural trappings, economic and strategic details, and basically anything at all in this AAR is based on pure fiction and the EB game I'm playing, and not derived from a study of Maure history and culture, Carthaginian history and culture, or any other such thing. Also please try to ignore the incredibly pale "Irish Maure" generals and governors.]

[The game itself, though, is pretty darn fun. Not being skilled at the noble art of modding, I declared independence by gifting Arse and Bocchoris to Koinon Hellenon to represent the Edetani-Greek coalition, and southern Ireland + the rest of the Lusotann cities to Casse. I chose the Casse because they're the one barbarian faction with which a war with Rome would probably follow a similar course as an AI Lusotann. I considered Saba, since they share a factional MIC with Lusotann, but I chose Casse for the culture similarity. Besides, the Casse share a regional MIC with the Lusotann, and I had a lvl 1 or 2 regional MIC in most of the Iberian cities (its faster to get to Iberi Milites than Luso. Light Spearmen and I wanted my cities to be able to recruit emergency line infantry, not just Ambushers, without investing real money), so the Casse should be able to recruit Iberian units. Similarly, I think KH starts with a regional MIC in Arsea. Lusotann peace with Rome and Carthage was easy, since both factions were already at peace with the Casse.]

[Since part of the fun of this AAR is the very real possibility of being crushed by Carthage, I've only used Add_Money for two purposes. First, I gave myself 40k gold - and then promptly passed 10k on to Koinon Hellenon to get them to take the Arsae territories, and 30k was shipped to the Casse to get them to accept the Lusotann cities (I don't have Force Diplomacy). Second, I'm using Add_Money in small amounts each turn, precisely 500 less than the amount paid out for general and agent salaries. The reason for this is it took me a little time to kill off the majority of my Iberian generals (this started the turn after I started the march east, for those of you with eagle eyes who are wondering why Siga is still trading with Mastia), and I had a number of diplomats on the ground to make the transactions happen that Mauretania wouldn't otherwise be paying for). In effect, my generals will actually be more expensive, since at this point in the campaign I'm paying unit upkeep on recruited generals rather than salaries for family members.]

[The end result is a lot like how many EB factions start out in 272. I have a few underdeveloped cities, a couple of significant armies on my borders, a respectable treasury (~9000 mnai), and I'm running a massive deficit.]