1st All Britannia Challenge Cup

[Franconicus]

All right, we started. Please post all news hear.

Just to remind you. These are the rules.

1st All Britannia Challenge Cup

Rules:
1. You play RTW patched or unpatched without mod
2. You play very hard/medium/huge
3. You play Brittania
4. You do not bribe
5. You fight all battles by yourself
6. You do not besiege or attack any settlement held by Gauls, that is not one of the objectives
7. You play straight on. Do not load an old stand.
8. You do not use unfair tricks in your battles
9. You count your losses as well as the losses of your enemies (w/o sea battles)
10. You report frequently about your progress

You can restart the game, but you have to start from the very beginning!
Your game is over as soon as you hold all objectives.
Everyone can join the cup.
There will be a starting date (maybe 15th of June). Everybody plays one year (two turns) per day. Everybody who restarts has to catch up asap.

Objectives:
Conquer and keep
- all inhabited islands (Britannia, Hibernia, Palma, Caralis, Sicily, Crete, Rhodes, Salamis)
- Jerusalem and Damascus

Valuation:
1. You get 1,000 points for each objective (10,000 in total)
2. You get minus 500 points for each year you are playing
3. You get 1,000 points if you have the best kills/losses ratio in the end
4. You get 1,000 points if you have lowest loss count
5. You get 1,000 points for highest kill count
6. You get extra 1,000 if you also take Chersanesos
7. You get 3,000 if you also take Themiskyra

The winner is the commander with most points. He is allowed to use the title BRITANNICUS under his name.

[Franconicus]

We started on Saturday with year 270. So now 269 should be over. Here is my status:

I put my leader's army into the boat and drove it westwards along the Gaulish coast. My Cynfawr and Prasutagus armies went to Londonium. My diplomat went to Trier and Alesia. He made trade agreements, map change and alliance with both, Germania and Gauls. Then he moved south.

While my leader is shipping to Iberia, my main army is ready to get shipped.
Even though I could not kill any enemies I am very hopeful.

[vale]

hehehhe got your title :)

[IliaDN]

I will dalay my start to an end of the week and then play all turns I suppose in one day.

[Franconicus]

Do I have to fight this war all by myself?

My leaders army landed near Asturica in 267. In the same yaer Belenus landed neat Tara and the Gauls allied with Germania.

[Viking]

OK, I`ll start again today.

When I last played Belenus was on his way to Batavadorum with Prasutagus to reinforce him, and Barrivendos on his way to Trier.
Cynfawr is also on his way to leave Britannia.

You`re obviously playing another strategy than me, and I have a bad feeling about what I`m doing.

[Franconicus]

I am not so sure if my plan works. Problem will be Gauls. I cannot attack them from the north. If I also manage to take Spain then there will be no danger for them, only from the west. So I am trying to ally with Germania and maybe with Rome. I do not know wath to do with Carthage. Try to make them attack Gaul or erase them? But first I will take Spain!

What is your strategy. Are you going through Germania?

[Viking]

Yes, that was the original plan, but suddenly I began thinking of economy so I might alter those plans.

I wouldn`t trust Carthage to attack Gaul, and remember that the load savegame bug is eating up this game, unfortunately.

I`ll play some more soon.

[orcorama]

i have been very busy these last few days but will start today or tomarrow

[Franconicus]

266 b.c.
First time I fight with Brittanians. Belenus attacks Tara. He has three warbands, one slinger and light chariots. Two warbands brake the walls and fight two rebellian warbands. slingers and l.c. support this with arrow fire. Soon the enemy runs. My warbands chase them to the market place. There are druids and the enemy gathers for nes resistance. My warbands stop immidiately and route. They have no courage at all. Cowards. I place slingers behind the druids. That reduces them but does not bring me much closer to victory. I attack with my chief and my last warband. My chariots are hard to control. They drive everywhere. Also the warband. It takes ages until they decide to go where I want them to be. In the end I win (lost: 409, kills: 677). But the reslt is quiet disappointing.
Due to this results I retarted to attack Asturica. The enemy is at least equal. He has 100 heavy cav. And I do not trust my warbands. So siege is going on.
My Cynfawr/Prasutagus army lands in Spain too.

Germania and Gaul canceled their alliance. Gauls break peace and lay siege on my town on the mainland. My diplomat makes peace with Spain. This brings me 3,000 denarii.

265 b.c. - sommer:
Gauls are mad. They ask me to become prot. I accept for 5,100 denarii. However, they brake peace the very next turn. I buy mercs for Barrivendos (warband, javelin, slingers). I besiege the two Spanish towns in the west.I will attack next turn.

Fleet: I have two ships in Spain and two near Tara. I guess I am strong enough now to clear the sea from Gaulish ships.
Gauls and Scippii have an alliance now.

[orcorama]

i played 3 years yesterday 1 for the weekend, 1 for monday, and 1 for yesterday
if i need to play more than 1 today please let me know

i took my faction heir's army along with my faction leaders army down to spain
i gifted samarobriva to the germans
maybe now i wont go to war with the guals immediately
i am allied with the germans and will ally with gaul next turn
i will land right by the spainish capitol and siege it with most of my forces depending upon garrison strength
if it is weakly garrisoned i will take the rest of my troops to attack the city south of their capitol, forgot the name.

i am sieging tara it will fall eventually
will post as to progress later

[Viking]

265 BC:

Provinces conquered:Trier, Batavadorum, Bordesholm, Damme and Mogontiacum.
Battles fought: 10

The germans now only have Vicus Marcomannii or something like that left. So my next moves now is too attack the eastern rebel provinces and then Dacia.

As for Tara I`ll use Calpornus, Spain I`ve got no plans for yet.

It should be something like 265/264 BC today orcorama.

[orcorama]

sorry all
i have compuuter troubles so i wont be able to play
ill try to catch up when i get my problem resolved

[Franconicus]

265 winter:
Took Asturica and Scallabis without problems. Fill my armies again.
264
Belenus lands in Gaulö and fights a battle against Gauls (50/724). Then shipped to Spain.
263
Peace treaty with Spain (5000dinarii), I am allied with Carthage.
262
Spain attacks Carthage. They have a pretty 7* commander. I push two armies towards Osca. Fight Gauls on the way. A Gaulish army is heading for Asturia. Hope Belenus comes in time!
Sambr. is lost. Well it lasted 8 years and I did not invest a single penny!
Main problem now is money. I have minus 4500. Cannot repair my ships. Got to take Osca soon or I will have to fire my mercs.
Current killing level is 3.65

[Viking]

264:
Togodumnus the Dumnoii repels an ambush in Locus Gothi and kills 308 germanics while he only loose 117 men.
Togodumnus wins yet another battle against the germanics and now marches against their capital and last stand.

263:
Sennanius fails in his attempt to take Vicus Gothi and looses 446 men.
Calpornus besieges Tara.

262, summer:
The Gauls breaks the alliance and besieges Trier.
Togodumnus T. kills himself in a disasterous siege battle and looses 864 men while he only manage to kill 22 bodyguards(that will be replenished within the next turn ).

So it has been a bad time lately but I hope to recover the situation soon.

[Franconicus]

It's really challenging! I understand now why there are only the two of us!

I blitzed over Spain and took Osca and Carthage Nova. Now I can pay my credits. However, Spain did not collapse. No idea where they have their base.
I got three armies in Spain - in Osca, Carthage Nova and one to secure my western provinces. Each one has about 900 men. They are quiet expierenced now. However, I do not have the money to refill them. There is an army coming from Gaul. They have 2,000 and are heading for Osca. Spain has one big army (2,000) one 7* general and some smaler units. In the west I fight against smal Gaulish armies and rebels. Killing ration is still 3.5.
Do not know how I will stop the Gauls and Spanish.

[orcorama]

they probably have tingi
in one of my games they took that
check who there at war with and that would give you a clue as to who they attack to get a province
today ill try to catch up

how far do i need to be? 260?

[Franconicus]

Orcorama,

do not hurry. I am not sure if I can stand that fight or have to start again.

You may be right about Tingi. Still wondering how they can afford that big army.

Last night I sallied at Orca and attacked the Gaulish army that had 3 times my size. They had warbands, javelins and barb cav + some swords and druids. I had 2 warbands, 0.5 worriors, 1 druid, one slinger and three FMs. I sent 2 of my my FMs through the sidegate and attacked the enemies flank. My infantry engaged them, too. My chariots killed their cav and broke through their infantry lines. One warband from the centre turned to the flank to face my two FMs. That was the chance to attack their centre. My third FM hit their javs and cut their line in two. That was the decision. In total I killed 1,700 enemies, seven times more than I lost. However, two FMs died in this battle.
After this heroic victory my third FM is now an expert.
I have to retrain my army as fast as possible. Spain is collecting at Carthage Nova. And my garrison there is far to weak to stand.
My leader is moving from west to east. He is droving a Gaulish army.

[orcorama]

ok
i finished thorugh to 260 winter BC
i kept my battle stats and my kill average is about 2.0
i took tara in a heroic destruction of the rebels there. they left the city and i destroyed them in the field also destroying the reinforcement from the city so i could just walk in

i attacked asturica and catured it. WOW that was the closest battle i have ever fought. i had two rams.
i atacked the wall in two spots i usually attack the wall when i can because my men seem to go through the wall better than the gate
they had two units of scutarii i drove their forces away from the wall with my light chariots but as soon as i was trough they charged me
my warbands of course lost but gave fought just long enough for me to pepper the enemy with arrowsi barely beat them back
they took heavy losses and routed back to the town square. i lost a warband
in the process. i hate getting chariots through walls! GRR! they are so dumb oh well i eventually got them through and won but i took 500 casualties only killing about 700+

I then attacked scallibus and took it easily since the comuter seems to only leave their faction leader there.
the julii got osca.
i captured carthago nova taking tremendous losses but i eliminated spain

not being able to take gaulish cities is a pain especially since on very hard the gauls havnt attaked the julii and they are turning oyut boatloads of warbands. i can beat them with chariots but i dont have enough chariots to deafeat them all. i am going to try and clear out some of gaulsish armies
then i will build up a fleet and jump to palma and then sardinia
hopefully the julii are too busy fighting in spain they havent taken sardinia yet but i dought it
i will then be at war with gaul, carthage, all the romans whcih will be a major pain. then i will attack greece in rhodes and then egypt

unless i have like 10:1 odds i am going to lose all sea battles so i have to try and jump from one iskand to teh next

[Franconicus]

WELCOME;ORCORAMA,

great news.

I just started a new approach. This time I send all troops in one boat to Spain to have them all together. I ignored Ireland in the beginning. I tried to get a better cashflow by reducing my peasants in Britannia and having less boats and mercs.

I land in Spain and devide my army in two groups. First takes Asturica without problems. Second one heads south, beats a Spanish army and attacks Scallabis. Heavy fighting here. The defenders are all cav. The king and his brother, some round shields and wardogs. I have 3 warbans, 1 slinger, 2 light car. and two FMs. I brake the wall and gate. At the gate the dogs attack my band and causes some trouble. Then the two FMs attack, at each hole one. My warbands get in deep trouble and my FMs engage. My light cars and slingers fight the dogs. Enemy seems to be better at both holes. So I take all my charriots and focus on the King. The rest of my warband and my slingers try to stop the other as long as possible. It works. Their king dies, the enemy routes. Last fight with round shield at the centre - Scallabis is mine. In the same year I take Tara and loose Samarobriva.

Now I am marching with my two divisions through Gaulish Spain. I will kill as many Gauls as I can. Then I will eliminate the Spanish. It is 264 right now.

[Franconicus]

Hey IliaDN,

did you finally end your weekend session?

[Franconicus]

I am going to play over the weekend. I will try to get the Gaulish town in Spain without attacking or besieging it I am wondering if this works!

[IliaDN]

Hey IliaDN,

did you finally end your weekend session?

Sorry for letting you down , but I won't be able to play this campaign , partially because of the exam session.

[Franconicus]

Sorry for letting you down , but I won't be able to play this campaign , partially because of the exam session.

You are doing your exams and Pez is on holidays.
When will you guys finally start to work?

[Viking]

To make things worse am I burnt out on RTW, so I`m afraid I won`t be playing barbs for awhile(need elephants to spice things up).

[Muska Burnt]

that seems to hard for me ill just try it on my own since ill probaly take longer at the end ill say how many turns

[orcorama]

ive been out of town the last couple days but i am still going to play this campaign through and try to beat you. all in friendly competitien of course no hard feelings over who wins and if i lose
ill play the next 3-5 years today or tomarrow and update you'all on my progress

[Franconicus]

Here is what I did over the weekend. I let my two armies in Spain march side by side to Numantia. I let only one army stand before the town hoping the enemy would attack. It worked. He attacked with 1250 (garrison + field army)against 500. I won. However, 30 enemies managed to retreat and so I could not take Numatia
So I took my two armies and started what is called now the march through Celtiberia. I fought 4 battles against the Gauls and killed 5129. This stopped their activities in Spain for a while
In those battles I lost 488 men. So I killed more than 10 times as many Gauls. However, my armies were tires and needed to be filled again. I attacked Osca and took it in 259. Then I marched south and took the last Spanish town (256). No Spain is done. These 6 battles were much harder. I killed 3750 Spanish and lost 2892. Looks like I am not very good in attacking towns.

Now I am building Spain as my base camp (feels like Hannibal). Then I will start to continue. I finished the first phase of the game, but I am too slow.

[orcorama]

same here about being slow
maybe i will restart and blitz through gaul breaking their armies and then take one spanish town to retrain and then finish off spain
i need to not lose so many men so i can build up a fleet and not just constantly refill my armies
i landed an army to the far north and i plan to march down to thrace and take that to be a base for attacking jerusalem, damascus, and cyprus and rhodes adn crete

[orcorama]

sorry to do this but...
bump