Wine and Women, a Thracian Campaign, write-up thread

[Caius]

Settlements, images and the history of this PBEM here.

[Orb]

Post reserved for Orbster's write-up.

Eleven thousand monkey slaves are sat at type-writers as I type this. Eventually they will produce an appropriate history.

[Severous]

Hi

Here is my write up. (Written prior to Orbs post)

Ten years into the game and Macedon lands are ours. 9 regions with a solid financial position. Nice one Orb. Unfortunately Scythian troops besiege two of our northern regions. Their horse archer armies are difficult to counter with infantry.

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The sally against the Scythians at Porrolissum was tough. A leader and cavalry acted as reinforcement’s. The five units fought valiantly. At one stage it was looking as though they would pull it off. Militia Hoplites formed a phalanx on the hill and backed with falxmen and peltasts they broke the assault.


As the routing Scythians tried to squeeze out through the gate they got stuck. Many died with Thracian steel and sprears in their backsides.


But I had forgotten the Scythian general. He charged in late when I was mopping up routers and was unstoppable. The final fighting force was the Scythian king and two bodyguards against one cavalry mercenary. I lost when I routed…even though the plaza was Thracian owned.

Not a good start. Lost a city and a general.
--

Soon had to defend another town. Against Dacia this time. Held out that time.

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Whilst northern lands were weak, gains in Greece were secure. Thracian armed forces on the offensive. War with Greek City states.


The outcome of this battle was a walk into Athens. Athens is rich and is the only city that can build archers. Pump out archers most turns.

--

A small encounter. Interesting. The general gains a chevron of experience without killing anyone. That’s unusual.

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Two kings fall in the same turn.

Greek King in a field near Corinth.


Scythian King defending his capital. Revenge for that loss at Porrolissum.

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Corinth. Haven't used a siege tower in months of game play. There will be no opposition yet nearly 30 men would be crammed into the tower before the bridge goes down and they surge onto the wall top.


Three units gaining experience without killing anyone?

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Sparta. Spy opens the gates. Spartans being killed by archery from the wall top and then by ready pikemen.

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War with Gaul. Aassault of Salona. General had to work hard as there is no other cavalry. That would be a feature of the march up the Adriatic…an infantry only army.

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In the east the Scythians attack again. 6 horse archers, 2 foot archers, 2 axemen. One of the toughest battles of my 5 year stint. Killed one unit of foot archers in the opening seconds of the sally. All my troops go outside the walls to fight. Use the hill for longer range.



Picked off the horse archers in ones and twos. Eventually they retreated and I was able to cut off the escape of their infantry.


Peasants were bait. Most of the Scythian horse archers were killed in melee combat when they charged peasants and were intercepted by my three cavalry units. 3 to 1 they didn’t last long.

--

Besieging Porrolissum some 30months after it was lost. The Scythian survivors from the previous battle came up to Porrolissum as a relief force trying to break the siege. A battle in the open against many archers and some dogs.

Thrace wins and killing the entire garrison means a walk in victory. Porrolissum is regained.
--

New problem. Brutii at Apollonia. They ship over troops from Italy. Reinforcements from Thermon are blocked by a second Brutii force. So Apollonian garrison sally forth without support.


The sally goes well. Whittles down the enemy without loss.


Six months later and they sally again. They need to break the Romans this turn otherwise the Romans may use their Ram and assault the walls. Another Draw and despite some casualties the Romans are now too weak to assault…I think.

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A captain led battle against rebels triggers a ‘Man of the hour’. That’s good as we lack generals in the north. Dacian spies have been making it hard to control Campus Lazyges. An assassin built in Sparta is on his way to thin out the diplomats and help kill the spy.

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Ashore in Turkey. First of many battles to come against Pontus. The Pontus captain dies with dignity.

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The Pontus King. I have a tremendous respect for this unit. Has a high missile and melee attack. Pikemen stood ready and endured the missiles. It will be their turn to deal death in a second. My cavalry is ordered to run in behind to seal the trap and cut off escape.


A forest of pikes as two units are stacked together. Can just see the king. That’s his leg sticking up from the bottom.

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Expecting a simple assault against Dacia. A surprise. Julii are allies of Dacia so will also fight in a rare three way faction battle.


Julii reinforcements were killed in the open field before they could reach the Dacians. In the city the Dacians are about to die. General is again being given orders to cut off the escape. It wouldn’t work this time. Most of the Dacians ran back out of the trap without combat and my general had to withdraw back up the road.


But it ended well in the end. Here the multiple colours of the dead caught my eye. As a Thrace commander the number of blue dead is in pleasing proportion to the others.


And Segestica is ours.

--

End of part one of my write up.

[Severous]

Write up continued.

The following battles occurred over the end of my final turn. Three regions fell to Thrace over the AI turn of winter 256BC.

I had thought Vuk would have a busy time assaulting cities in the summer of 255BC. But that is not to be. Instead the cities fell as the AI sallied forth and lost leaving the city open for capture.
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Dacia. King goes down. Militia cavalry are fragile but in numbers and supported they are deadly. Thought that would be the end of Dacia. It wasn’t. There must be another Dacian region somewhere.

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War with Germany. 9 Spear war bands to fend off.


Had to run rings around the slow infantry. Didn’t want to control all my forces all of the time. So hid most in the forest. Three units move around looking for the best shots downhill into the Germans backs. Once the ammo runs out bring out a new fresh unit and send the other off to a far corner.


First German unit to break. Shows how the cavalry are positioned.


Saving ammo. Breaking the morale of a weakened German unit by surrounding it with high numbers of troops.


One sided despite the odds.


Nice collection of experience. Three units never came out of cover.

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Dacian sally.


Lost a few cavalry that time when the two Dacian leaders charged.

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Patavium.


Novice barbarian mercenaries are good against cavalry if fresh, war crying, and supported by a nearby 10* general.

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Part three of write up follows…showing position after 15 years.

[Severous]

Final part of my write up.

Position at the start of the summer of 255BC.


Patavium is in ruins. Its population was exterminated when it was captured. Provides a nice cash boost going into 255BC. Over €27k to spend.

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Plague broke out recently in Thessalonica….as usual. No family members were present and no units have moved in or out since. I hope it will die out very quickly.

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The strongest faction. Garrisons are as small as they can be….one peasant is all that garrisons our capital Bylazora. Most of our troops are out on campaign.

If that spy can open the gates of Vicus Marcomannii it can be ours this turn.
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Battles fought over the end of turn report trait and retinue gains in the end of turn message rather than icons falling down the left. Three Thracian generals earned command increases due to heroic victories.
On the map is our army in Turkey and its immediate threat, a big Pontus stack. Good luck. Vuk you will need it.

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Buildings. Running very high tax makes people unhappy. So temples are often needed. Cash flow was good enough to build all I wanted…but not enough to build unneeded buildings like barracks and walls.
One the map are two full Greek stacks guarding cities that could be our targets. Near Rhodes is a very good general on a ship. Find him a safe landing and hire mercenaries (there’s none left on Rhodes…ive tried there).

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Troop recruitment. Once the frontline is advancing quickly it’s almost pointless to build good troops in the central cities. Most of the time they are building peasants to move population around and provide cheap garrisons (freeing better troops to try and catch up to the frontline)
On the map Athens took a turn off building Archers to build a ship. To ferry the army in Athens to Turkey. I think that army is a good combination of pikes, mobility and archers that would be unstoppable under the command of the general on the boat near Rhodes.

Kydonia is building a port. It will generate a whopping 900+ per turn trade when complete (and that’s just in the Kydonia end of the routes). It’s important enough to have its own general, spy and a watchtower (on the mountain at the far end of the island)
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Diplomacy is not a strong suit. At war with all our neighbours.
On the map the units in the mountains have finally stamped out all the Brutii. But a spy reported on the Brutii ship at sea…it has an army on board. No doubt to threaten Apollonia again.

If we concentrate all those troops into Apollonia and build a ship in Thermon we might invade Italy? We don’t control the seas anywhere.
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Faction leader. He advanced alone into Italy leaving his slow moving infantry behind at the border. Hiring mercenaries he took Patavium as shown in a post above. His traits and retinue don’t add up to the command and influence he has. Those traits are not ones I’ve seen before. Especially on a non Roman. Most strange is the ‘faction heir’ trait yet as his unit card shows he is the ‘faction leader’.

He is in for an interesting time. Let’s hope his infantry can reach Patavium to support him.

Thanks for allowing me to participate and to the forum for providing this facility. Special thanks to econ21 for supporting us.

Very good luck Vuk.

Cheers

[Vuk]

I planned to write a very nice long detailed write-up, but as I have been kept very busy by real life I will have to just make it short. I have hit some pretty hard times and taken another job, so I'm planning on wrapping up most of my internet business. I will be releasing a very rough prebeta version of RTE today or tomorrow and finishing my writeups. I will still check these forums when I get the chance though.
Sorry to go on, in short:

Took Rome, destroyed Bruttii, almost Jullii, made war and took two provinces from Germania, preparing to attack last of Scipiis holdings by sea. Took all but one province from Scythia, made war with Egypt, Got butt whooped by Pontus at first, but am now on the offencive.
In short:

VENI, VIDI, NATES CALCE CONCIDI


(I wish I did that well in my Parthia campaign. lol)

[Severous]

Hi

I am going to finish this campaign. Ive invested too much time of my time in it to allow it to slip away. It will be a useful time filler in between the turns of the various other games im involved with.

Only 7 more regions.


Rhodes would be nice. Need more income as stacked troops all over the place are costing the Thracian treasury a tidy sum. Lots of weak Thracian hoplites are nearby. Should be interesting.

[Severous]

Been playing this today. Made some headway.

I took over part way through a turn. All the interesting battles had been fought. There was a little money in the treasury and some building queues were long.

I had a fine time cancelling some builds, setting up others and generally getting the empire organised along my lines. Takes a while to do this with 43 cities.

Over the end of my first turn back on this campaign the Thracians recruited:
30 Peasants
3 Archers
2 Militia Cavalry
2 Spy
1 Quinquimeme
Thats 38 units from 43 regions.

This city has been missing its governors building for a while. Its grown big on low tax and was threatening to riot even on low tax.

So riot was encouraged. Very high tax and garrison withdrawn. Lost 146 people in rthe riot but gained 536 cash through increased tax. No property damage to repair was lucky. Will have to get it under control this turn to avoid a rebellion.
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This siege was started by the previous player of this swap game. All I needed to do was assault with the rams now available.

Julii faction are destroyed. 6 regions to go.
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Joy. Two powerful ships can take on that weak Scipii troop transport.

Bother. It lost 7 men and rowed away. Go figure.
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Messana. Again its due to the previous player that there was an army available. Sailed it up to the island and landed. Brought more men across the toe of Italy to create the army mix I preffered.


I overlooked the fact that an inferiour army will retreat from the battlefield. Thats what happened here and there was nothing I could do to stop the garrison going back into Messana.

Goes to show that despite all the infantry being hidden the AI knew the odds were against it and still retreated. Had it not known about the hidden infantry it would surely have stayed to fight.

Messana fell same turn anyway. A spy opened the gates. A simple assault with wall top running captured the town with modest losses.

5 Regions to go
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[Severous]

In Germany I take an aggressive line. Troops were stripped from our towns and marched forward towards German capital Damme. They spend the winter in a fort on the border. In striking distance of Damme in a summer campaign.

And here they go. All the cavalry I could muster. All the archers I could muster.

Spotted no archers..? There are few archers in the whole of the Thracian empire (and none near here) so instead took all our skirmishers. I wanted missiles to kill those German spear warbands.

Ran into position on a hill. Higher ground to face the German army. It also meant the Germans had further to march.

Here the Thracian cavalry are in action harrassing the approaching enemy. First kills were screeching women. Easy target. Always sad to remove those attractive yet morale effecting sirens. Had to be done.
Then the weak militia cavalry unit deliberately charged the dog handlers. This was to prompt release of the dangerous war hounds. Militia cavalry runs the hounds around the battlefield. Surprisingly the warhounds gave up the chase and left the battlefield. It was much later, in the far corner, and after the handlers had been all killed. Not seen that happen before.
Finally in that shot its the German general. He is chasing cavalry. Leading him towards our lines and away from German spears.

The first army was destroyed for few casualties. Massed on a hill and rested its a good defensive position. Here come the second more powerful German army.


As before. Screeching women become the first easy target. These heavy cavalry with good charge killed many upon impact.


Whilst women died so did peltasts. The German cavalry caught an exposed Thracian unit. Decimated it. Next up was a German general chasing Thracians. He was shot.


And soon after was surrounded and killed. Heavy cav again charging in. The Thracian general was in the thick of it. So the charge was not a moment too soon.


Pumped up with warcries the Thracians flank and rear attack a brave German unit.


Having given the chasing dogs the slip the 4 exhausted survivors from the militia cavalry unit chase routers. Only 4 men killing lots of routers = experience.


Heroic Victory, Famous battle marker and capture of Damme. The German faction is much weaker.


4 more regions to go

[Severous]

The final update for a few days.

The battle for Rhodes. Thracians Vs Greeks.


On the first turn a ship from Sparta had put in at Athens. Loaded with troops. Next turn it sails to here. It acts as a stepping stone for more troops from Halicarnassus to cross to Rhodes. Once ashore the Greek army attacks it. An open field battle where the hoplite advantage of the Greeks is reduced.

The sloping battlefield favoured the Greeks. Thracians just off boats were downhill no matter where they deployed. So they initially mass on a flank and race for the high ground. The Greeks, caught on the hop, are well out of position. They turn as one in a column to try and head us off from the high ground.


Militia cavalry harrass and stop the Greek column. Distracted it. This allows the tired Thracian infantry to gain the high ground. The tables were turned on the Greeks.


The Greek cavalry has gone. One in a cavalry melee, one shot to death, and one in a combo of the two.


As the hoplites come together our peltast gets behind and charges. Instant rout of these Greeks.


And again the Peltasts cause a rout by charge from behind.


Several Greek hoplites close our line together. Poking of each other goes on for a few seconds longer this time. But not long as the Thracian general is coming in from the far flank to rear charge the stubborn Greek units that havnt already routed.


Thats a disadvantage of fighting near the red line. Too many Greeks survived. They didnt have far to rout.


Greek faction destroyed. Rhodes captured. The Wonder is ours. No its not. Rebls have sprung up and captured the vacant city. :(


Still 4 regions to go.
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That summer saw fewer new units created than last winter:
14 Peasants
3 Archers
1 Militia Cavalry
1 Bireme
2 Spy

Funds remain both plentyful yet tight. We can do all the eseentials but cannot build everywhere before cash runs out. Theres a lot of infrastructure I want but cant afford. Mercenary hires at the front are first spending priority.
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Thats as far as I got today. One and a bit turns played. More follows later in the week.

[Severous]

The campaign is complete. The final write up.

The final turn was about which four regions to capture.

Scipii held Syracuse with two units. Its main army had been destroyed at Messana last turn. Ladders got us in. The two Roman units waiting huddled in the plaza. A few arrows from the Cretans encouraged them to charge out.



3 Regions to go
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Rammed the gates at Batavodurum. Javlins and arrows confused the German spearband. The phalanx split up into separated men. Our mercenaries rushed in and taunted them before engaging in hand to hand. When the general charges in against sword fighting germans it was soon all over.



2 Regions to go
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Rhodes had been taken over by rebels snatching it from us as the Greek faction was destroyed. So we took it back. Straightforward assault shooting from behind a phalanx. One mistake was to charge the Thracian general through a ready Thracian phalanx. Lost my own general in that move.

We got the rebel general easily enough.


1 Region to go
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This is it. Massila.



The last general a Thracian will kill in this campaign


Shoot.


Victory.

Walking tall.


And so ends a PBM campaign that for so long remained undone. It needed less than 2 full turns to complete.

Econ21...PBM thread to be updated please. Now where is the Perthia PBM...

[roan254]

What an intriguing mix—wine, women, and a Thracian campaign! It’s fascinating how history, strategy, and culture intertwine in games like this. Speaking of cultural journeys, if you're looking to pair your next session with some great wines, Harbor View Wines harborviewwines.com offers a fantastic selection to explore. Whether you're diving deep into history or relaxing after a game, a good bottle of wine can elevate the experience! Cheers!

[Noble Wrath]

I have to agree, wine and strategy games should actually go hand in hand. Brought out of those classic Ancient vibes is compelling Thracian campaigns. I’m glad you like the wine recommendation! I definitely want to remember to set the mood for the next time I fire up a campaign. Good gaming, and good wine!