As I've seen so many of you go through the effort of presenting us your fine game experiences, which I read with delight when I'm not playing, here's mine:

This is my war
This is my battle-field.
Where fire crossing water...


Playing as Sauromatae.

We Sauromatae have it very hard. Large area to cover, constant rebel uprisings that defy the king's rule and no mentionable source of income. Trade is poor, fertility is poor, resources are scarce. Basically we live off the livestock we herd. But we're brave. And noone can match our skill with the bow on horseback.

In the first few turns I've built merely one horse archer unit, a few buildings, then assembled my few, but fierce armies and marched west to secure more pastures for our herds. The army upkeep was extremely high and in two turns I was in deficit, that just kept growing till I was so deep in red, I never thought I'd get out. But troops were faithful and in following turns we stormed Gelonius and Tanais and beseiged the Hellenic Olbia. Noone could withstand the might of our onslaught and we drowned them in a rain of arrows. We left none alive.

I sent diplomats and spies to explore the world and make useful contacts. Soon I allied with the Getai and started paying them a little tribute as sign of good will. Our diplomat went the the great city of Rome and allied with their growing empire and offered them tribute as well, while others went to Greece, Persia, Africa. All called us friends and we sold them maps of our travels. 1000-2000 mnai from each major kingdom every now and then helped bring our budget in balance. Trade with Pontus and the Seleucid Persians commenced from our newly captured provinces by the Black Sea and we were finally making a profit. Occasional large donations from our friends Romans (gifts from 9000 to 30000 mnai) allowed us to invest in the infrastructure of our growing settlements.

The Hellenic cities on the Crimean penninsula were a disgrace on our sacred soil too long. We beseiged Chersoneos and after two and a half years of starvation the city surrendered to us. We were merciful and spared the lives of the survivors and merely enslaved them, but up to this day they're hostile to us and we need to maintain a strong garrison in the city to keep them from rebelling. Maybe they should have been killed. We just began a siege of Pantikapaion when word came that a large Greek army was marching towards Olbia from Kallatis. Either they came at the plight of their Crimean Hellenic brethren, or they were merely greedy for our pastures...

We had built a small northern army in the meanwhile that took Gava-Thissakata and Gava-Yugra (which added a welcome financial boost in a shape of a mine) and already started a march eastwards to expand further, but we recalled their orders and called them on a long march west to come aid in the defense against the Greek invasion. We abandoned the siege of Pantikapaion and rode west to meet the Greek host. Choroatos, son of old Babai, governor of Olbia, bravely defied the Greeks with a warband of 100 horsemen blocking a river passage, where the Greeks first openly attacked him. His men fought fiercely, inflicted casualities on the Greeks, then retreated. They repeated the same several times, thus weakening and delaying them until relief came. When it came, just the night before the battle, the Greeks were reinforced by several companies of treacherous Skythian horse archers, our cousins, who fight like us, and it was them who inflicted some casualities on our army, but were in the end like the Greeks trampled under the hooves of our horses, while we took the head of a Greek prince.

Our people cried for revenge for this invasion, so we marched south on Kallatis and besieged it. Greeks sent a relief force, and the city garrison sallied and our riders were attacked from two directions. But with speed and maneouver they again destroyed both (approx. half-stack) hoplite armies in one heroic battle and then entered Kallatis unopposed. Men were put to the sword, women to our warriors' tents, loot was plentiful and the temples to their foul gods were burned. But their foul gods in the meanwhile brought a terrible plague onto our city of Olbia which decimated its population and garrison and alas even claimed the life of brave young Choroatos, and as reinforcements could not be sent to Kallatis to hold it against a possible Greek counterattack, we abandoned the city, loaded up wagons with plunder and retreated north. We had given Kallatis to our allies the Getai to keep our border secure from the Greeks, paid 5000 mnai to Epiros to wage war with Greeks (and they took some land from them and settled their allies Gauls on it), and we forced Greeks to accept a ceasfire, paying 30000 mnai in war reparations. This war ended well.

The army in the west then marched north and subdued the woodsmen of Gawjam-Bastarnoz and Gordu-Neuriji, adding their lands and peoples to ours, while the north-eastern army that reached Black sea by now, reinforced by troops from Chersoneos resumed the siege of Pantikapaion, which also surrendered in 2 years.

We had also made allies of Seleucid Persians, though we do not trust them, but we trusted the Haikakan Armenians even less, and sure enough another war broke out as Armenians were spotted advancing north from their mountains into our steppes. The army that took Pantikapaion was sent east and twice we fought Haikakan on the open plains south of Uspe and twice we sent the heads of their princes to their father, though their armoured cavalry was a hard trial for our horsemen. We then counterattacked and took Kotais, claiming it for our own.

Now we stand here, still at war with Haikakan, with the sea of greedy Persians south of us, just waiting to sever our fragile alliance when they're done crushing the Greeks, as they have already done to Makedonians and Pontus. We offered coffers of gold to the Baktrians to wage war on Seleukeia, but they're too afraid, while the Egyptians seem to weak to wage anything but a defensive war. Romans still supply us with gold, which is good, but with only two proper armies of brave steppe horsemen (and several small garrisons of local footmen city garrisons to prevent rebellions), we're in no position to tackle the might of the treacherous Persians.

The omens are unclear and whether the gods will be on our side in the upcoming events is yet to be seen...