Epeirote, conqueror or conquered!

[Ragabash]

Hello dear readers, as I write this down I am playing new camaign with Epeirote. Campaign settings are VH/M, no load/saving for losses, Huge unit scale, No time limit, fair battles(let enemy have space to flank and such). I hope you forgive me, for my english as I might have done some typing errors along the way. Enjoy!!!

Its year 272 BC in spring. Pyrrhos, one of the greatest generals ever have gathered all troops from Epidamnos, including fearsome Indian Elephants. Leaving only small garrisson, he have started to begin march towards great Macedonian Empire.

Wars were not only about men power, as some might think. He is hoping that negotations with Koinon Hellenos will go well and both sides can do mutual agreement against common enemy, Macedonian.



Meanwhile Alexandros Aiakidos, have been ordered to conquer northen town of Dalminion . Pyrrhos have great hopes for this young general victory as Epeirote kindom is really need of new land to settle and taxes gathered to fund war against Macedonians.



In the southern Italy. Ptolemaios Aiakidos have ordered one of his trusted captains, Hippokrates to take rebel city of Rhegium. He decided to stay in the Taras himself keeping order and law right before he have recruited enough troops to garrison city. Making diplomat relations and allowing trade with Romani seems good idea, but also they might backstab at the critical poin if let too powerful.



Epeirots have quite diffucult situation. While Macedonian is main consern, Romani in northen Italy and in Sicily might cause problem there. While abandoning Italian settlements might be option they are huge income to Epeirots, and would sons of Achilles leave their lands without fight. Bah, I say!

[Reenk Roink]

Good to see another Epeirote story. Keep it up, and lets both give as much publicity to this fun faction .

[Barbarossa82]

Nice story, Ragabash!

Hope to see some battle screenshots when your inevitable confrontation with the Romans kicks off!

[Ragabash]

Joined by his son Helenos,Pyrrhos is now in a battle that can decide future of whole Epeirote. While taking most of troops from garrisons of cities, they are vurnable to Macedonian raiding and pillaging if he is defeated. Pyrrhos was a great general and he knew it. Only fool would turn out from battle when you can choose battlefield and you are not underpowered. Unfortunently it seemed that Macedonian war chiefs had paid to scouts for giving wrong information. Poor souls were executed publicly as a warning.



Pyrrhos started very bad position. Direct under hill everyway. He managed to pull his troops to same level before actual combat started. Solid formation of Phalanx's, skirmishers at right side of Phalanx's while using hammer and anvil tactic with elephants and cavarly gave Pyrrhos easy victory.



After defending succesfully against Macedonian captain Syros. Another force of Macedoninan attacked at him. He noticed that even more enemy troops were coming from southern Greece.



Now even harder conditions were in place. Straight up hill ahead and no way to get up in time if Macedonians play their cards right.



Again Pyrrhos superiority when commanding lead him to another victory. If it would have not been hes skill changing hes postion from underhill to more favorable place, using hammer and anvil tactic and elephants day could have been turned quite different.

Here is the end of battle as cavarly and elephants crushed enemy moral by charging in their week points.



And resolutions speak for Pyrrhos commanding skills.



One thing was sure, this was not what Pyrrhos were expecting. He was surprised that Macedonian decided to take very aggressive line in defending their borders.

Now, after two battles he is in hes way to Macedonian terrority, their riches, their lands and their women folks

Sorry for being able to upload more battle screenies, it seems that my computer had not registered some of my print screenshot pushes

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Gah. I got caught in that exact same location against a very large mak army - but I only had pyrrhos, 15 elephants, 2 beat up phalanx units, and half of a unit of illyrian infantry. The hill is enormous and in the bottom corner I tried to hold out. The battle ran the entire timer out - for some reason they didn't want to commmit their guys and lose that huge mountain top they were stationed on - so they sent out some archer and akontistai units first, and I used pyrrhos and the illyrians to rout them just barely. The whole army was coming down the hill when time ran out. I'll never get stuck in that place again - I'll tell you that!!

[Ragabash]

Pyrrhos was attacked once again by Macedonian general Koinos Saneus. They must be hoping he is capable enough to stop Pyrrhos march towards their capital Pella. Fools I say.



Indian elephants rushing towards enemy battleline causing havoc and terror at their poor souls.



Pyrrhos making final blow to enemylines. Again using anvil and hammer technique.



Again Pyrrhos prevails and takes victory.



PS. Tell your opinion should I be little less accurate on information and concentrate only "BIG" battles and events or continue as I have?

[Megalos]

Great story!

Keep them coming please.

The best thing about these stories is seeing how people implement a bit of role play whilst playing.

Role playing makes the game so much better in my opinion, and thanks to EB and the new traits system, it's made so much easier.

[Ragabash]

Spring 271 BC

Dalminion siege proved to be at point where they were going to attack siegers. This battle was going to be first change for this young and proud general to show what he is made. Alexandros and hes enemy, fiersome Illyrian general Caenatis were going to fight with even armies.



Illyrian rebels launched surprise attack at me. For a while I was afraid that they were going to crush my lines. It was only a nightmare luckily. Since Illyrians are not highly known by their morale to fight. they ran away from me like old ladies after getting their leader.



It seems Pyrrhos have made good job with educating hes sons with commanding armies.



Dalmion captured at last. It was time to show these people and other rebels near, that they don't want to be in Epeirote's way. Mass murder, raping and pillaging took place. This was experience that Alexandros won't forget never. It had been even rumored he can't sleep at nights cause ghosts of mass murdered ones haunt him in hes dreams.

[Ragabash]

271 BC Spring.

Macedonians have sended more troops to stop Pyrrhos, they have fought hard and with courage but they have caused only minimal damage luckily. Now only small army of Macedonians stand on my way to Pella.

In Italian peninsula Captain Hippokrates was ready to engade forces of Rhegium. Everything seemed to go as planned.



My forces started to push enemies hard. It seemed to go fine in this point with not really worries. Captain Hippokrates was doing good job.



Until! I should have known that captain Hippokrates, as being only Illyrian pirate would rn away immediatly when hes life was in danger. So he fled from enmies at the heart of battle taking much of other troops with him. This caused mass panic and in a moment all my troops were being chased down.





Now Romans are wondering north of Taras, who might know they could backstab us now that our army is weak in Italy at the moment. We will see soon how all this will end. Great failure from captain Hippokratus, great failure indeed.

[pezhetairoi]

War is fickle in fortunes... who's to know what happens next? Defend Tarentum! Jewel of the Greek west, and a major trading city. Defend it if you can! It's time for Ptolemaios to show some backbone and do some fighting himself :)

[Ragabash]

271 BC Winter.

Romani havent used my weak point at Italian peninsula to their benefit yet. Still their troops near Taras are making Ptolemaios very nervous, not only Italian land is in danger, also hes life can be.

In Greece everything is going smoothly.After countlest of victories way to Macedonian capital had been opened and now it was time to siege them. Due Epeirote was short of cash. Over 20000 in fact. Pyrrhos decided to disable elephants from his army. Not easy decision, but for sure needed one.

While sieging Pella Pyrrhos was exptecting to starve some of Macdonian troop before marching towards gate. Macedonians knew only way to fight was to push siegers away and so they made surprise attack to Pyrrhos troops. Now Pyrrhos should fight against experienced Macedonian royal body gueards and their elite soldiers compared to Pyrrhos troops. What would happen now that Pyrrhos elephants were no more.



Macedonian king making charge at my troops. Their experience and armored elite troops caused a lot damage to my first line.



Even more Macedonian general bodyguards charged at my lines. Soon I found that my troops were losing. It was time for Pyrrhos to gather hes bodyguards and charge towards enemy.



Battle was bitter and long. Pella's people were quickly enslaved by their new masters. Many of Pyrrhos troops had been killed and now more than ever Eperiotes was in real danger. Even if Pyrrhos was victorius he had so few troops that it was becomming real danger to whole Epeirote as finacial situation seemed really bad also.





Was Pyrrhos conquest for Pella took all power from Epeirote and drawn their homeland to be invaded my foreign people. Future will tell. But now Pyrrhos enjoys hes victory from over proud Macedonians.



PS. Tell your opinion should i continue for giving small detail information or focus more on big events. Ehmmm what I mean do you get bored to read all useless stuff I write down

[pezhetairoi]

well I suppose the decision is yours to make, this is your history that you're making after all...

I'd say you have to go for a balance, don't leave out the small stuff completely? As long as you don't go too far and tell us what buildings you are building in every city, that should be fine. Oh, recruitment of stronger units are major events and should be reported, though. For example, in your case, if you were to raise a unit of Agema Chaonion-I think I would also want to know how they perform in every engagement they are in...

[Ragabash]

Pezhetoroi thanks for feedback. Don't know why but also writing this stuff down makes game much more enjoyable for me too.

[pezhetairoi]

Trust me, I know how it feels. I still have twelve notebooks full of my campaign details from cherry vanilla. Not only every single movement of every single army, but i even went down to the detail of recording down every building and unit I commissioned, turn by turn, and also the battles and the statistics of kills and combatants engaged. I felt a sense of some permanent achievement when I did that. It's the memories and the sense that you're setting them down for the future, for when you look back :)

[Ragabash]

Trust me, I know how it feels. I still have twelve notebooks full of my campaign details from cherry vanilla. Not only every single movement of every single army, but i even went down to the detail of recording down every building and unit I commissioned, turn by turn, and also the battles and the statistics of kills and combatants engaged. I felt a sense of some permanent achievement when I did that. It's the memories and the sense that you're setting them down for the future, for when you look back :)

Hmmm... maybe you should share them with us ? Or have you done that already?

[Malrubius]

Ehmmm what I mean do you get bored to read all useless stuff I write down

So far, so good. You've got a pretty good balance, I think. Not boring to me, not boring at all.

[Reverend Joe]

Trust me, I know how it feels. I still have twelve notebooks full of my campaign details from cherry vanilla. Not only every single movement of every single army, but i even went down to the detail of recording down every building and unit I commissioned, turn by turn, and also the battles and the statistics of kills and combatants engaged. I felt a sense of some permanent achievement when I did that. It's the memories and the sense that you're setting them down for the future, for when you look back :)

Conquerors love records.

Ragabash- this is a damn good story, worthy of a mead hall. The battle screenshots are quite impressive. Just be sure to always learn from your mistakes. And keep it up with the deatils!

[Ragabash]

Thanks for all support. I will not be able to continue this in about a week. So continue will come later.

Just be patient... I would love to see your campaign stories here. Even if they were from other mods or from vanilla.

[AntiochusIII]

Just be patient... I would love to see your campaign stories here. Even if they were from other mods or from vanilla.

We have the Mead Hall and the Throne Room for that.

My God, look at the possibilities of an Epeirote faction! Lovely, lovely indeed.

Excellent story, by the way.

*waits patiently for the patch before downloading*

[pezhetairoi]

Hmmm... maybe you should share them with us ? Or have you done that already?

Look ouut for my Getai campaign record, coming soon... As soon as I figure out how to upload my pictures... o_O

[Dooz]

Ragabash, I noticed you said at some point the Print Screen button didn't register for some shots so you missed out on them. If you're using the default Print Screen button and copy+pasting to paint and whatnot, there is a much more useful tool out there for you.

www.fraps.com

You should definately give that a look. Make everything a whole lot easier and efficient for you. There is also a multiple image resizer out there, of which I forgot the name at the moment. If you want it let me know, I'll dig it up.



pezhetairoi, to upload images, just use www.imageshack.us

[Ragabash]

After conquering Pella from Macedonians only Pyrrhos could do was what would happen to Epeirote now, after most of its troops being lost during war campaign against Macedonians. Now Pyrrhos just waited to pay depts to hes army. One that Pyrrhos knew was that without coins going to soldiers pocket he would lose support of them soon.

Everything went as Pyrrhos was excepting, if you don't count one time when Macedonian scout army was almost able to sneak past my main troops, what were situated to Pella, into our beloved capital Ambrakia. Luckily Pyrrhos and his son were patrolling near by area and stopped enemies ever reaching Ambrakias "golden" gates.

He was amazed how indepence city state of Thermon was able to defend their beloved city Thermon. They had been able to defend against Koinon Hellenos after one battle to another. One thing would be sure. If Pyrrhos would ever conquer Thermon it would not be easy.

In year 268 BC Epeirote's economy was doing fine again and depts to army were paid.. Pyrrhos knew that he should attack at Macedonians now when they were still suffering from loosing their capital Pella few years ago. So he recruited few troops from Pella and hired few Mercenaries to start second invasion against Macedonians. This time to southern city Demetria .



Pyrrhos took all hes armies from Pella to march towards Demetria. Leaving Pella unprotected it would be conquered easily if Getai from north or Macedonian rebels would decide so. Pyrrhos was not only brilliant strategist he was also risktaker, but calcutative one.



Year 166 BC, at spring. Pyrrhos started to siege Demetria with his troops. Pyrrhos had won many great victories for Epeirote, in fact Pyrrhos as being brilliant commander had expanded Epeirote's terrority much and made Macedonian resistance nullified.

Soon they decided to stop siege to make full assault to Pyrrhos troops. This was complete surprise to Pyrrhos. As he was expecting to get more reinforcments from local mercenaries.



My first priority was to use near by hill to my advance. I decided to move all my troops to defend this hill. The hill that would be remembered as great battle of great Pyrrhos and struggling Macedonians.



After enemy and I had used all missiles they charged with their troops to my battlelines.



They just kept on coming with their more experienced and equipped forces.



From the left wing Pyrrhos and his son were able to cut near by javelineers. This caused some panic among Macedonians, still their elite forces were fightning and Pyrrhos was losing, even if Pyrrhos phalanx's were dformed uphill Macedonian troops were pushing towards my lines while enemy skirmishers keeping my general busy. This disabled my use of hammer of anvil tactic. It all changed after all enemy skirmishers paniced leaving my general able to do tactic mentioned before.



After that everything was quick and less painful. Soon I found myself in the center of enemy city celebrating victory.



Now that Macedonians military forces have been crushed, Epeirotes started to get pretty good situation in Greece. Soon it would be seen would Koinon Hellenos or perhaps even Rome would be next to fall hands of Pyrrhos. Or would Pyrrhos desire to rule all Greece and even more be fatal and cause Epeirote fall to enemy hands.

[UglyandHasty]

Keep them coming Ragabash !

[Masy]

Excellent tale Ragabash, you have inspired me to start an Epeiros campaign!

[Ragabash]

264 BC. After conquering Demetras Pyrrhos attention moved away from Greece. Syracuse was a rich city in sicily that could offer strategic advantage against Romani if war would break.

One season after Pyrrhos set to conquer Syracuse one of hes sons, Ptomelaios was chosen to compete at Olympics second time. Last time he had no vicory, perhaps this time?



Not only lost the olympics this time, Ptomelaios had made himself and whole Epeirote to shame and look fool. Luckily Pyrrhos was sailing at this time so he didn't hear this to happen while sealing near from Taras to Syracuse. Pyrrhos if who would not like to see free people to laugh at Epeiros, certainly not to someone who is blood related. Next time Ptomelaios should win, otherwise his heritage of crown would grow not so sure anymore.



After landing on Sicily he quickly hired some mercenaries and started to siege this heavily protected city.



262 BC, finally forces of Syracuse decided to stop siege. This would be easy battle. Pyrrhos was intellegent enough not to rush towards Syracuse walls with his badly armored troops.



Pyrrhos easily crushed starved and diseased men who had no really desire to fight. Syracuse was once again under rule of hellenic power.





Syracuse folks were enslaved and carried to Taras and Dalminion.

Syracusian slaves at Dalminion growed angry and bitter to their new masters quickly and so riots began. After bitter civil resolts, governor Aloxandros had no other choice but to grant Syracusian slaves freedom and same rights as any land owner. This was something that Pyrrhos or any of hes sons would not like to see happen in the future.



Now Pyrrhos was sailing back to Greece for more. After taking Syracuse Pyrrhos should be aware of mighty Carthaginian empire. They want their own piece of Sicily, and would start war against Pyrrhos if felt endangered.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Poor Ptolemaios. I think he's getting to old for this. I doubt he'll be ready to compete again at age 37 if he hasn't won yet. At least it wasn't a spectacular embarassment - just a somewhat poor showing.

[Ragabash]

Poor Ptolemaios. I think he's getting to old for this. I doubt he'll be ready to compete again at age 37 if he hasn't won yet. At least it wasn't a spectacular embarassment - just a somewhat poor showing.

Compared to what Pyrrhos and Helenos have archieved he have totally lost his face. Heck, even Alexandros have had his triumhs, conquering Dalminion and handling Syracusian slave riots.

Ptolemaios have only worked with his body without any succes. Heck, he was even too frighten to lead army against puny town state, Rhegium. He sent one of his captain who even didn't had skill to conquer town. One thing is for sure. If upcoming war against Romani doesn't go too well Ptolemaic will be ripped of his right to thorne pretty soon.

"Hehe, thanks for feedback to all, You dont know how much fun I have while I write this stuff down"

BTW. Hellenic cultures cities really need population boost as AI (and myself also) tends to use all population really soon and after low populations they are not much to fight anymore

[Ragabash]

Now it happened... CTD That I have not been able to pass yet. It might be that this is end of this campaign then. I will try again, but not today, have tried too many solutions, none worked.

If I cannot pass the bug, you can imagine this storie as story of Pyrrhos rather than Epeirotes. New Epeirote campaign storie will come after the patch.

Well thanks for all feedback and spur. I have had much fun playing this campaign. If you want I can throw new storie of Pyrrhos after patch.

Thanks to all of your visit here. I hope you enjoyed your ride with Pyrrhos and hes friends.

Bows and drinks to all mighty Pyrrhos.

[RandyKapp]

This makes me want to play EB =P