The Purpled Edge ~ Tyberius 2.2

[Durango]

I understand you Glenn. When you have games such as STW and MTW, you look at current games and just think
for yourself - "Hmmm... it's not worth it to get a new computer for this year, so maybe I'll wait until the next instead".

And before you know it, your rig is really old. Although I myself have at least upgraded to a point that MTW looks and
plays very well. The game runs great with a 512 Mb X1900XT with Omega 48.442 drivers, no crashes and reasonable
battle load times.

Continue the AAR! It's the writing that keeps me interested, anyway.

[PershsNhpios]

ROMA ANATOLIKA

O intrigued reader, you who read this many a time after it is passionately written, this which was written of determination formed in events of good fortune in the fate of the most magnificent empire to span both Asian and European worlds, I am overwhelmed with honourable delight to inform you that this account which I am obliged to write is composed in a hamlet of old south-eastern Boeotia where my grandmother was born, and which together with all of Greece now comprises our latest and most heartwarming reconquista - for we have expelled the heretic Italian from our homes and the last of those marauders have quit Epeiro and take their chances among the slavic barbarians. We have never been happier.

Prince Romanos, Brother to the Emperor Constantine XII, 1248 Ellada

1236 - 1248 μ.Χ.

To begin with less joyful events, I will make report of the movements which rapidly formed a very vast and threatening subjugation of many nations north of us, maneuvers made by the race of horsemen come from similar barren lands as the Goth, Hunnic, Onogur and various Slavic hordes before them. We learn that they are Mongol by name, but the empire is little interested in names or any kind of formal introduction to what must be a rogue wave upon the shore of our civilisation, which has seen and withstood many such dangers ere now.

In late 1235 they completely erased all trace of Turkish rule in the east - the last Sultan Murad I being executed like a prisoner. At the same time, masses of these warriors were reported to have marched over and taken all of Armenia, Levidia and the distant rich province of Muscovy.

5000 of them were now known to be coursing the old colonies in the north, not caring to install government but rather graze and take without trade the benefits of Trapizond and Sinope just as their horses did in the field.

A generation, that of my brother Constantine XII, had begun to die and we felt direly the loss of such great leadership as that seen in the persons of Romanos Angelos, a captain who had fought with the crusaders but rejected the idea of a Latin empire and returned the city to old Constantine XI, and Melissenos, a common soldier who had obtained through marriage and merit the Duchy of Rum and finally the government of Constantine's city and the Varangian captaincy after Cantacuzenos relinquished this.

The death of these men meant a great reduction in the experienced command of the two armies protecting our empire from the 5000 horsemen in the north, that of Melissenos, now passed to Monomachos in Anatolia, and that of Angelos, now given to Palailogos in Rum.

As quickly as practical, extraordinary fortifications were ordered constructed about Ankyra and several suitable sites in the western parts of Nikaia around old Pergamon and throughout Bithynia on what was now the border.
According to the threat of so many mounted men, Kontarioi were required from Duke Cantacuzenos, governor of Rum - a veteran of many Turkish skirmishes and now much advanced in years.
A second Varangian battalion was being formed in the Capitol, and many a plebeian within Nikaia was being introduced to a powerful weapon introduced by catholic adventurers - the arbalest - a heavy crossbow thought to be of great use against heavy horse.

In 1236 the French crusaded from Armenia down into Mesopotamia, finding the region deserted and razed to the ground. We confirmed an alliance with them, supportive of any injury they might bring against the aged Khalifah in Arabia, but to our ignorance my brother the Emperor had at this time already sent representatives to entreat the old fanatic about a lasting peace.

The crown prince, my nephew Michael, discarded the clothes of boyhood in 1237 and took his place beside his father in a position of command in the army in Nikaia.
A Khanate once hostile, the Cumanese, was reported to have lost Levidia after an inital counter attack and were now suffering from the invasion of the Hungarians in Moldavia, restricting them now to the Bosphoros. We were of course without ability to manage assistance, even if such would be afforded to pagans who had once schemed the sack of our Capitol.

1237 also saw the return of an army bearing the Crusader emblem to Antioch, and they were yielded the province without fight. The young king William in Kypros had been very successful in securing Syria and that important cornerstone of the Levantine realm.

Although divided in opinion about the ethical question of ceasing war against the heathens in the east, all were most appreciative of a ceasefire with the Ayyubids when Khalifah al Adil agreed in 1238, and my brother the Emperor is to be praised for ending this conflict and securing our flank as we faced the north.

By 1239 we were attempting to bring as many men together against the northern borders as possible, and this amounted to 2200 under my brothers Alexius, Andronicus and Ioannos with the Emperor, his son Michael and myself in Nikaia, 1800 under Palailogos, now General of Byzantion in Rum, and 1300 under Monomachos now Governor of the Capitol in Anatolia.
Many ships were also being set upon the sea and manned, that we might not experience any further embarrassment at the hands of Crusaders or Muslims alike.

Following this however, information regarding our apparent Venetian allies led to a difference in plans. The old Doge, Giovanni, had died some years ago and his son Enrico II had ascended. This monarch had shown nothing but aggression and distaste towards our empire and had contributed by his actions to much tension in Samothrakia, where Italian and our own troops bordered each other and spied for weaknesses.

In a decision more foolish and spiteful than considered appropriate by any other head of state in Europe or Asia, this Vátrakhos had carried out an interview with the chieftains of those Skythians which ran amok in the north and had promised assistance and succour to their armies in the event of an attack on our empire.

Such dangerous insult could not be managed without consequence, and all of authority were equally determined that any previous leniency toward the heretic and ere 1242 ignored subjugation of Ellada and Kriti by the Venetian colonists should be renounced and a removal of Italian presence from our borderes and seas be effected immediately.

Our new navy increased their presence about Kriti and Peloponnesos, and the city, Rhodos, Nikaia, Anatolia and Kilikia all contributed to a levy of infantry trained in the old manner, which would be a necessary force should an invading army find the forts in Kriti manned.

I was chosen as it happened to command the group moving against the isle, being the youngest of the brothers, but not so young as Michael, and also that Monomachos and Palailogos should not be removed from their important posts.

I had no previous military experience besides the ceremonial, and was pleased by the intelligence that no more than a complementary royal guard accompanied the Prince Giovanni, brother to the Doge, in his command in Kriti.

The infantry levies were not quite prepared by 1243, but as I showed confidence for the following year, the Emperor ordered an attack by our galleys on those of the Venetians moored in the bay about Kandia in 1243, another small force seen around Khios and also a less able fleet which patrolled actively about sandy Pylos and Korkyra.

When we left for Kriti, the infantry and a train of engines remnant from Angelos' gathered, the Emperor was beset with emissaries reporting the withdrawal of all our western allies from obligation with us in view of our offensives against the Venetian Doge. Only the Serbian and Bulgarian Tsars, the Kaledonian king and the Grand Prince of Kiev remained loyal.

Kriti 1244

Before a sizeable attendance of the local population and the entire disembarked army, a violent encounter occurred twixt my companions and those of the Prince. Both of us being brothers and loyal patriots to our respective rulers, the fight was very brutal and neither yielded any ground. I was several times in great peril and the vicious event did not cease until the last of the Italian nobility, unhorsed and blinded by all manner of produce of the battlefield, fell exhausted under the weight of many Kataphraktoi crushing him from all directions. I was not at all proud of such a spectacle, and I ensured some time was taken with respecting the casualties of this fight correctly.

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The isle and her many military facilities were all taken intact, and we were quite elated with such a relatively clean conquest until messengers from Archos Monomachos requesting the embarkment of two of the five battalions of infantry I had in order to assist in the repelling of rogue crusaders from Antioch.

Before the men could be confusedly prepared however we received more informed news that the event was not the result of undisciplined raiders moving too far north of Antioch, but that a sponsored invasion had been ordered by King William I to take Kilikia in support of his ally the Venetian Doge Enrico II.

No troops being present there, the small garrison was besieged in the citadel, but Monomachos reckoned upon a show of force from Anatolia causing the crusader army to retreat. Only this would mean a great weakness opened up in the face of the northern threat.

I was ordered to maintain what infantry I had and be prepared by 1246 for an invasion of Greece, which was to be supported by cavalry from the Capitol and further levies of infantry from Nikaia and Anatolia.

This caused no small amount of excitement in the army, which had not expected such an order, which we were all too zealous to obey. Many of us would be returning home and in the style of saviours.

In 1246, the shores of Peloponnesos and Attika had been secured but continued naval skirmishes throughout the Aigaian sea meant we could expect no immediate support from Nikaia, although we could freely expect support from Kriti and Kilikia beyond, from which route we began the reconquest of the homeland.

Ellada 1246

A similarly destructive skirmish awaited us before Larisa, where Prince Orso, son of the Doge, demanded battle with but a handful of able bodyguards, and as the army surrounded and cheered on the gory spectacle, I with the companion Kataphraktoi was forced to destroy all of them in what seemed like cold blood.

But we were home.
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Under the merry circumstances I allowed leave to many a fellow to seek out the future of his past, and meanwhile attempted to gain an understanding of the affairs in the homeland which had been subjugated before heretic and barbarian law for so long. With reinforcements of horse and foot, it was clear we were to remain and make a stronghold in Europa beside the Capitol in order to prevent any further insult to our ancestry.

An exemplary reason of this was presented in the Fifth Crusade, led by the Englishman Sir Howard Greystroke and sponsored by the English king, which demanded route through our empire to Edessa. Should the Mongol armies have not been so numerous in the north, I have little doubt that our Emperor would have marched west of the Hellespont immediately and set about destroying that rabble, but with our backs turned and threatened by these 1946 men, we allowed them to pass. Desperate, godless men - thieves glad of an excuse to indulge in what is not theirs.

As Monomachos continued the march on the heels of the retreating crusaders into Antioch, it was learned that our old enemy, Khalifah al Adil I, had died at the age of 68 and his son al Adil II had ascended.

The first action surprisingly of this Khalifah was to ask alliance of our empire. The mistake of allying with the Arab was still fresh in the minds of men from the reign of old Constantine XI my father and the father of our current Emperor. Yet we are nowadays threatened more by the crusading heretic and the northern migrations than our more traditional enemy. As I have written, a generation has near passed, and with it the enmities of those men must also if we are to continue successfully.

Such arguments as this, which I strongly support as the young brother of the Emperor, were forwarded to Constantine XII and to his credit and in his fifty-fourth year of life, he who spent much of it fighting the Arab agreed to ally with this old foe against the more present threats of the Mongol, the Venetian and the crusader of all nationalities.

In 1247 it was decided that Monomachos would take the old Imperial army with him to Kypros and try there to put an end to the dynasty which was now causing such belligerence as to warrant such rashness as an alliance with the heathen. King William I and his brothers John and David would be captured or killed and the isle returned to the control of the empire after such a long lease. Unfortunately the navy had not yet gained full control over the Aigaian and mercenary battalions of billmen and similar troops suited to storming fortifications were forced to march to the port in Anatolia with the newly recruited engineers.
Awaiting these, Monomachos continued intimidating and denying access to the crusaders in the south.

While such political upheaval continued in Asia, we in Thessalia were informed of a counter invasion led by the Doge Enrico II himself which had landed in Epeiro, similar in numbers to our own, with the intention of giving battle.

Ellada 1248

The engagement met at last in Akarnania, with our cavalry reporting the enemy presence sufficiently early to select a suitable piece of ground to receive them upon, and to place the engines we had with us to some effect, creating a position of very good vantage dominated by the bombards and mortars.

The Doge wasted no time in advancing immediately amongst the many ranks of his men in order to reach our line swiftly, which consisted only of our several infantry battalions eight men deep, supported on the left by a regiment of lancers from the Capitol and to the right by myself and the companions.

It was when the Venetian army had ascended the rise before them and entered the level plain towards our infantry, that it became obvious how inferior the force was to our own. Militia trained in the use of the crossbow and arbalest constituted the majority of the men present on Venezia's behalf, and very few professional infantry could be found amongst their number.

As this deficiency was noted, two of the bombards exploded upon the hillock and many of the engineer were killed. I ordered the artillery to cease all fire and for the infantry to advance steadily in line towards the enemy.

I was determined that so vulnerable a force would be reliant on the passiveness of their target to have any success, and therefore convinced that a show of aggression would force them to melée or flight, with no chance of an exchange of missiles.

This proved successful in the extreme, as the Doge forcing many of the uncertain Italian troops to fight in close quarters with our infantry, and many besides fleeing out to a safer range, in a poor show for the Venetians it began to look as though our broad line of footmen was simply sweeping all the invaders easily out towards the sea.
And with very few exceptions, I am somewhat disappointed to say that this was the case.



The few halberdiers and men-at-arms which represented the true enemy infantry were quickly surrounded with their Doge as the lancers pursued hundreds of the militia retreating before our show of force down the slope again. Even as the infantry had taken their first paces forward, the battle had been decided.



Doge Enrico II was cut off by the infantry, deserted by his entire army and ending his life in a disgrace suited very much to the great folly which he displayed in all decisions of his state.

The Venetian militia, many captured, many dead, fled in ranks down towards Aetolia and others directly for the sea, all the while giving token resistance in support of their routing comrades.



The victory was so easily gained, I felt it was not at all comparable with the great achievements of Angelos and Melissenos, our Emperors and the many commanders preceding me. More casualties had been sustained by the artillery than the infantry.
And yet this was unimportant, so long as Ellada remained above the tarnishing influence of foreign invasion and ruin under my defence.



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Now we are returned to affairs of government in the province, and a similar situation of defensive tension controls the actions of the Emperor my brother and our governors everywhere, for a disrupted trade and the ubiquitous threat of invasion has strangled our growth, the only outlet for our aggression being the intended campaign to Kypros to subvert the Crusader king.

And we will place all of our aggression in that attempt, be assured, and when a fist is again freed by fortune, it will be felt upon the cheek of every offender in turn, and slowly the empire will reestablish herself again as she has always existed, her subjects and provinces waiting patiently under foreign and barbaric rule for us to return to them.

My brother and Emperor Constantine XII has brought us still closer to this renaissance, and I am confident that in the service of my nephew the empire will see even more of the old glory return, and a feeling of that old civilisation which some name classic, but which lies hidden under the modern veil waiting to be revealed by the righteous practice and example of a Roman.

Prince Romanos, Brother to the Emperor Constantine XII, 1248 Ellada

[gollum]

Epic as usual.

The Doge: a real vatrachos (=frog) indeed. When you mention the "city", meaning Constantinople, you can say it also as the Polis - sounds more Byzantine that way.

Are the xbows/arbs in Tyberious costing very little to maintain? Can't remember. In vanilla they are the cheapest (22flrns in default unit settings, compare with UMs that cost 30flrns in default) hence the AI spams them in droves and gives these very easy battles, as teh enemy practically lacks a melee component. This is all the more so, as in vanilla AI factions can train both the pavise and the unpavise variety and teh AI goes even more nuts in spamming xbows/arbs as they the count as two "different" units for him, making high/late battles very easy.

[PershsNhpios]

Polis noted, thank you Gollum - when I referred to it as the city I was hearkening back to the Roman Republic when Roma was ever known as 'Urbs'.

Don't quote me, but I believe even Arbalesters are something like 37 florins in maintenance. Very cheap. I am looking forward to a solution to this in your mod as I generally expect Italian factions to arm themselves with nothing other than missile units (But this is spoiling the AAR!).

[gollum]

The solution is to increase the maintenance costs. You can do that in your own Tyberious- just put the arbs/xbows costing about 50 flrns maintenance on default unit settings (about 100flrns in huge). That should solve your problem and vastly improve the battles you are having.

[PershsNhpios]

Thank you kind friend, I will do just that! If I can do this through the CRUSADER_PROD file for units, would you be able to recommend a suitable maintenance cost for all units? If this would work with Tyb2.2, and if it would not destroy this campaign?

[gollum]

No, i can't as they (unit prices/maint costs) are very relative to each other, relative to unit stats, and to unit building requirements. However all i can tell you is that - assuming the arbs/xbows are the cheapest infantry to maintain as in vanilla - just fixing teh arbs/xbows will go a long way towards solving your problem. Tyberious is XL, and XL follows teh vanilla format in many ways, and i think training/maintenance costs are more or less equivalent or even same, hence why the xbows/arbs are still small maintenance.

I can't remember by heart how much is the maintenance number you need to insert in the unit_prod to make them 50 approx florins at default, but it should be easy to find with 1 or 2 max tries.

[gollum]

Ok, 7 in the maintenance value col in the unit-Prod file should give 52flrns for default size settings, and 8 in the maint. value col should give iirc 60flrns for default size settings. Use the 7 for xbows and teh 8for arbs and you are set to go.

If you introduce it from the middle of the campaign it won't make as much an impact as if it was from the very beginning; most likely now the AI factions have built their core stacks as its more than 40 turns into the camp. But it eventually will.

[gollum]

Changing the value from the middle of the campaign is, as far as i know completely feasible and harmless, and you should have no problems. In any case, save the original file somewhere before you mod it, and, i reccomend you mod the unit_prod file manually (don't use the editor).

[PershsNhpios]

Thank you very much Gollum, I will do that now. I welcome any similar suggestions from you and always enjoy experiencing your pool of knowledge.

[gollum]

At your services noble Main Hall poet

[Durango]

Glenn = Shakespeare. Just sayin'...