Scipii in Egypt vh/vh

[Severous]

Hi

This campaign starts in 258BC. The Scipii have already relocated to Africa and taken the Nile Valley. Mark Anthony and Cleopatra perhaps have joined forces under the Roman Scipii banner? Two Egyptian regions remain.

This Vh/Vh campaign is on large unit scale. No mods. Vanilla RTW V1.5

I plan to play a long campaign and post a few pictures every now and then.


Constraints:

- Always follow senate missions

- Never attack another faction (unless senate mission) or already at war.

- Always offer peace after capturing a region

Im glad the Egyptian faction doesnt want to be friends. Will be nice to get rid of this threatening stack.


The Egyptian chariots are the main threat. Chariot Generals are both archers and melee cavalry that will own any cavalry it comes into contact with. We shot them to death.



Without archers the Egyptian chariots can be deadly. Lost more men here than in the bigger previous battle.

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In this shot we have already assaulted and captured the town plaza. Just mopping up the Egyptian reinforcements who cant get into their own city as ive captured all the gates. Pirates about to throw their harpoons.

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Soon after the Egyptians made a ceasefire. So I couldnt attack their last city - Sidon. Ive got an army in a fort nearby ready to go. Just need an excuse to go to war.

And the Senate obliges. My new mission...blockade Sidon. Yes.

A fleet can do it straight away. That puts us at war with Egypt.


...which is my excuse to assault Sidon. Five chariot generals. Interesting...


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Senate missions so far completed:
- Blockade Messana. Caused war with Greece but they immediately accepted a ceasefire.
- Capture Salamis (Cyprus). This continued war with Egypt and provided the harpoon throwing shot above.
- Blockade Rhodes. War with Greece again.
- Blockade Sidon. Allowed war again with Egypt.
- Capture Palmyra. Rebel owned. Thats my current mission.

Hope there are some RTW readers still here...

[mrdun]

Sure is. Is it common for The Senate to "accept" your relocation?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Is it common for The Senate to "accept" your relocation?

Yep, the senate don't complain and they usually adapt their missions to suit the new location if the player decides to take an unusual path.

BTW, good start Severous!

[mrdun]

Does the Senate not give you missions to take back the provinces you left? or do you give them away not have them captured?
Curiosity killed the cat.

[Severous]

Hello goldendunner

I downloaded this campaign with the Scipii already relocated to Egypt. Not sure how the player did it but I see SPQR has the old Scipii captial of Capua. Greece has Messena. So a mix of gifts and leaving them undefended was the way he got rid of the old regions?

The first senate mission, with 4 turns left, when I took the game was blockade Messena. Its miles away from any Scipii region. There was a lone boat near enough to do the blockade. But when the mission was assigned Scipii may have had regions nearby it Italy?

Since that initial mission every subsequent one has been close to me. All have been achieveable. It does seem to like Rhodes. After the capture of Palmyra I was again given missions to blockade Rhodes, and then a mission to capture it.
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This is my current mission. Capture Rhodes. Troops from Palmyra/Sidon are on ship and sail near Cyprus on their way westwards to Rhodes.



In that shot the governor of Salamis, dressed in green, has jumped onto the passing ship. He has been given four good retinue from the ageing faction leader. He leaves three retinue with the leader..as shown...two he already has...and the Egyptian turncoat is of no further use as Eqyptians are no more. The Governor will jump off the ship and walk back to Salamis. The ship will head west.

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@Omanes Alexandrapolites

In an earlier Brutii campaign I allowed regions to deliberately rebel. The senate gave me an additional mission to recapture them. At one time I had three missions of the go..a regular one, a recapture one, and a transgression on an ally one. No sign of that here...then Im not about to let any of these regions rebel.

[mrdun]

Hey not a bad start to an AAR, simple but not boring don't feel pressurised be me to keep writing, that way you will surely lose interest AND NOBODY WANTS THAT!

Thanks for the info.

[Severous]

A few more pictures as the campaign continues.

A battle outside Rhodes. The enemy garrison acts as reinforcements and is also destroyed. Leaves the town empty and ready for Scipii to walk in unopposed. But first...I remove the governors from all other cities..except Sidon. So when I enslave Rhodes the 4000 slaves go to a city of my choice....Sidon.

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Seleucid have made an important strategic move. They attack me. Under my self imposed rules of engagement that allows me to fight them. First though I will have to save as many of these poor velites as possible.

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I snap up Seleucid Damascus. I then offer a ceasefire to which they say 'on yer bike' or words to that effect. The end of turn was very eventful.

- Seleucid besiege just captired Damascus
- The pirates in the small fort send frantic reports of multiple Seleucid stacks marching south from Antioch
- A good Scipio named candidate adopted. 3command, 1man, 1infl.
- Mission success blockading Pergamum gives special senate office favours
- New mission to blockade Antioch.
- Selucid spy killed in Palmyra
- Selucid spy evicted from Jerusalem (7 eye..causing massive unrest)
- Selucid spy evicted from Sidon
- Selucid spies (2 of them) evicted from Damascus
Dont think ive ever seen 5 enemy spies located in one turn before.

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A tip ive only recently learned is how to eliminate enemy agents. Surround them then send a unit into the agents location. With nowhere to move the enemy agent is killed. So I launch a massive manhunt. To eliminate the enemy agents. In particular this guy who has 7eyes so causes -35% to public order. I had previously had to lower taxes to keep Jerusalem from rioting. Three spies would be hunted down that turn..one other would get away.

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Nice assortment of Scipii troops beating off Selucid forces from a good defensive position. The enemy are all mobile. Quite unusual. Cavalry and chariots. No infantry. A salvo or two of fire arrows is heading towards the Scythed chariots.


With predictable results. They go amok and cut up two of the enemy cavalry units. They are in the distance being shadowed by camel archers. In the foreground the dogs bite on a stationary cavalry unit. I hadnt anticipated how well the dogs would work in this battle. I never released them..they self released when cavalry charged my main mass of infantry. The hounds chased the routing cavlary and would have played no further part in the battle. Except Camel archers had shot the last of the fleeing cav..so the dogs selected another target...those cavalry you see here.

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Next turn and its less eventful on the spy front...but the Selucid armies attack on a wide front. Two towns besieged and two others threatened.


And if that wasnt enough. Pontus attack on Rhodes. That was easy to counter. Here a Ballista crew have been ordered to leave their artillery and chase down tired Pontus routers. Im trying to gain experience.

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Gotta go fight some Selucid now....

[Severous]

A small update.

Forts. Defensive but used on the advance. As I push into enemy areas that have powerful forces I build fortifications. If I am besieged I have at least a turn to bring up additional forces. They also stop the enemy advancing to besiege my towns. Avoiding my own town being besieged will save enough money to pay for umpteen forts.

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Heroic. Didnt really expect this. OK so I had more men but numbers alone dont confer advantage. The enemy had been of higher quality and that had resulted in greater than normal casualties. Yet still a Heroic. Still..that was another Senate mission complete.

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Senate missions continue to draw me westwards. The main battles against Pontus about to occur. Two sally battles to fight. Flaming arrows are the principle weapon against Pontus (and Seleucid) forces that contain chariots.

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Ballistas are not decisive when they sally from a town/fort. They dont get many shots over the walls. Here Ive got a ballista in the town that is sallying, plus a ballista arriving in reinforcements. So I was looking forward to using the artillery outside the walls. Alas it wasnt to be. The corner where the artillery arrived had trees. They blocked the way. The crew had to run forward without their artillery.

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Another constraint I am imposing on my campaign. Not building any military buildings. For a long time that limited my archer and cavalry production to one city each. That makes it nice to capture advanced enemy cities..suddenly gain access to new units.

[uruk-hai]

nice aar.i love reading it.feels a bit like we are playing the campaign when reading it.keep up the good work.

[mrdun]

Really cool house rules

[Severous]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I had wondered if many RTW players remained on this forum. Seems mostly MTW2..more so than other 'RTW' forums I belong to.

Ive extended my house rules. In summary they are now:
1) Obey Senate missions immediately.
2) Must never attack Neutral or Allied factions (except for Senate missions)
3) Must never eliminate another faction nor enter its last region (except senate mission)
4) Must offer ceasefire after capturing a region (with offer of cash and trade)
5) Build no military buildings
6) Never exterminate a captured city population

A small update.

Every AAR has its gotcha. The felling of an enemy general. Heres mine.
A Seleucid goes down amid flying dust from fleeing hooves and a sandstorm. Equites are my favourite Roman troops.


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Here my rules of engagement have a complex result. Ive been ordered out of Macedon Corinth....yet I went there to assist an ally.


Macedon is my Ally. They are down to one region. Easy meat except I cannot attack them due to alliance and it would destroy them. So unless I gain a senate mission I cannot attack them.

Thrace is a powerhouse in this campaign. Im neutral. So cannot attack them.

Greeks. Sparta was captured from them recently on a Senate mission. Immediately afterwards my diplomat made peace with Greece. The large Greek stack near Sparta is now neutral. So I cannot attack them either. Im expecting them to try and regain Sparta.

Ive sent a modest force from Sparta to stand next to Corinth. They should get drawn into any conflict at Corinth. That also weakens Sparta encouraging attack by Greece. Who knows whats going to pan out here. Its been stable for one turn.
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Lost my first Senate mission. I needed to blockade Thermon in western Greece. But Brutii captured Thermon before my ship could get there. That cancelled the blockade mission.
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Hey. Every cloud has a silver lining. My next mission after failed Thermon was capture of Hatra. Thats the last region of Seleucid. Sweet. Means I no longer have to stand guard on my borders next to Hatra and be unable to attack.



Eliminating Seleucid turns a reasonable stack of Seleucid forces into rebels. I can attack them OK.
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Currently running a cash surplus of €120,000. I invest it into lots of buildings each turn. Fill up build queues for more than half my cities. Means I dont have more than €50,000 at the start of any turn. So maximizes trait gains and avoids corrupting governors.

Sev

[uruk-hai]

love that pic of that enemy general dieing.i gress the senate don't want you to help your ally lol.nice arr.remember to show your enemys the power of rome!

[Severous]

Hi.

Few more pictures.

The complex situation at Corinth his kicked off. Thrace attack my Macedon Ally. That drew me into war against Thrace. Under my house rules I can now fight Thrace and capture one of their regions..then I have to offer peace again.

Here we go at Corinth. Ive cut and pasted each army onto this screen.


The AI attacker is Thrace. They attack the east wall along its whole length. They start at all angles. Not neat at all. The AI defender is Macedon. I am the dark blue reinforcements coming in on the western edge.


Tally ho!. Braving tower fire my horsemen arrive after a long run around the town. They smash up the weaker units and avoid the tough ones.


We Scipii rule the open area. But Thrace now has four falxmen units up on the walls. Macedon archers are not good wall fighters.


Once Thrace comes down off the walls my slingers get up on them and fire down. Archers help guard the plaza and come to greet the Thracians. Wont be long now. Thrace had been weakened by missiles and killed by Macedon cavalry and phalanxs.


Macedon took the brunt of the fighting and killed more than me. Im happy with that. Both factions weakened.


Now at war with Thrace. So can fight them for more territories. Soon after they came to me with peace offerings. I asked for Athens in exchange for trade, 738cash (its all I had) and ceasefire. They accepted.
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Pontus. Down to two regions and under attack. Both Pontus stacks are bigger than mine and the garrison has three chariots that I would prefer to fight in the town than in the open.


A lone dog unit has besieged the town . It proves the two spies have failed to open the gates. So no assault of the town is possible this turn.

The rest of my stack, shown, will now attack the other Pontus army that is outside town.

The town garrison cannot join in as reinforcements as my dog siege has trapped them in town. That evens the odds on the slider and with cavalry and missile superiority this would be an easy fight. After that fight outside town Ancra is sieged properly with my main army. Got some pictures of that assault...tommorrow.

Sev

[Severous]

A few more pictures from yesterdays playing.

This will be my last big battle without post Marius Reform troops. Assault of Ancyra.


My heavy infantry is in town yet out of the way of my missile fire. Im trying to amok the three chariots but killing many others in the process. Chariots pose no threat to the two phalanx units stacked on top of each other and presenting dense array of spears to the enemy.


Archers have amoked a chariot. Time for them to kill a few of their own troops.


Pleased with the ballistas. They dont normally get many kills.

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Sally at Athens. The besiegers predictably run to the corner. That leaves the slower onagers behind and easy meat for the sallying cavalry to kill.

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My assault on Larrissa fails. A defeat. I was gob smacked. The battle ended after my artillery had fired its last shot. I had blasted open the gate. I was all set to fire arrows at defenders when the game seemed to decide I had no way into the city.

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Deploying against a big Thrace force that outnumbers and outguns me.

Hid my troops in grass. They had a downhill clear field of fire. All that remained was to lure exhausted enemy onto my hidden troops. You cant hide phalanx troops until you take them out of phalanx mode.

Lost 1 man to friendly fire. Gained a famous battle marker.
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Excellent. A Senate mission so an excuse to again war with Thrace. Another town assault with an ally. Unlike Corinth where we defended, this time we attack. I lead the attack so capture will go to Scipii not Brutii.


The result was not a foregone conclusion. Like Larrissa it could have failed when the artillery ammo ran out. But ive learnt from Larrissa and found another way into town.

Rhodian slingers killed most and was my only unit to suffer significant losses.
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My campaign continues with both Macedon and Pointus as enemies and down to one region each. My rules mean I must not eliminate them. So I defend against them until given a senate mission to take their last town. Now thats an idea....or I could help another faction destroy them. Best go and talk to Brutii I think......

Sev

[uruk-hai]

man that must suck loseing a battle becurse the the game thinks you have no way in,when the gate is open.ballistas i had no idea they could be that good at killing the enemys men.

[Severous]

Hello uruk-hai

Yes it sucked. ...gob smacked was my expression.

If I had captured the gatehouse before the artillery ran out of ammo...would that have meant the siege could continue? I didnt risk that at Thessolonica. Indeed the asssault of Thessolonica would make a challenging little battle to drive home the point about assault with limited artillery. Ive got the save if anyone wants the challenge.


One picture from my campaign. Thrace decline my ceasefire offering. I tried as I am bound to do under my campaign house rules. Its good they declined...I can now attack another region.



Going to be a delay of a few days before another update. Im in the hot seat on a succession campaign on another forum..that has to come first. I will be back here next week.

Sev

[Severous]

This unmoddified RTW V1.5 Scipii campaign continues.

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Using artillery to kill an enemy phalanx guarding a gate.

What do you find best...boulders or fire? Fire goes all over the place due to low accuracy...but massive damage if it hits. Boulders cause only one or two deaths yet they also often hit the gate posts/miss.

Wardogs did very well against this missile cavalry. By not approaching the square with any regular units the defenders just stood there. Dogs munched through most of the cav unit and were seen here sorting out the last few.

Strangely both dogs and horses stood there for ages without casualties on either side.
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Unintentionally I break my campaign rules. I should not destroy an enemy factions last region unless on a senate mission. Yet here as Thrace 2nd last city falls I killed the last remaining Thrace generals. So the faction is destroyed and the other Thrace city goes rebel.

In order to sort of comply with my house rules I will not attack that ex Thracian city to my north. I will treat that as the last Thracian city and leave it alone until ordered by senate mission.
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'Chance for Power'.

Message occured at end of turn. 29 regions at the time (its 30 now in this screenshot). Senate rating was 7 and People rating 7. Its people rating at 7 that triggers Chance for Power. Need to move my capital..Sidon, Antioch or Cyprus? Sidon I think for now.

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Fog of War. Theres something wrong here.

Scythia are not my allies. Diplomacy screen shows that..yet that Scythian town is showing as allied.

What has happened is the region has changed ownership under cover of fog of war. A faction that is my ally now controls the region. The display tells me its allied but not who. My guess its Dacia that now owns it but havnt ruled out Germany as a possible.

Graphs show me Scythia has four regions so it must own another one to make up its four.

A new senate mission clears out all doubt. Dacia own Campus Scythia. My ally Dacia. But not for long. My main rule in this campaign is follow senate missions.

I wont attack the rebel Campus Getae as thats taking the place of the last Thrace region. Indeed looking at my rules now I remembered I shouldnt even tresspass on its lands...oh well...

Nor should I attack its troops. But they are rebel scum....not a proper faction...and I am on a mission that forces me through their lands.

I took this picture to show a unit scattered widely. There are two rebel units. But one of them has a bunch of its men separated and in the foreground whilst the rest are distant from camera. The split had occurred as its spearmen charged after my cavalry. Most of the unit stopped charging but some carried on after my horse.

Those split units can be a pain to kill with cavalry/infantry. Your troops target the 'centre' of the unit which lies between the two groups of separate men. They end up killing neither group. Archers ok though..proved that here...some shoot at each group.
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Ive not built many (any?) of these before. Only Scipii can do this with a special temple of Neptune.


Next...War with Dacia for a few years.

Later...When the senate missions start going sour I will refine my house rules. I wont suicide my leader nor will I make peace with Romans due to the ceasefire bug during civil war. I will think of something else to delay my extermination of Romans. Perhaps only take one region from them after they have attacked me somewhere.

[Severous]

Hi

A small update. Not a great deal happening as my house rules are slowing my progress, as intended.

Here a rare assassination mission is ordered by the Senate. An Armenian region is soon without a governor. Also occuring here is single region Macedon faction besiege Sparta. A sally will remove the threat. Hopefully the Senate will soon order me to capture the last regions of Macedon, Pontus and Thrace.


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Bother. This mission will seriously slow me down. Gaining protectorates is really hard. Ive offerred 30K cash plus 10k per turn for 100 years. No joy. I may fail this mission.


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An unusual event. A spy, alone in the countryside, catches the plague.

No towns or units in the area have plague. I dont know how he caught it. Not seen a spontaneuos outbreak like this before. Would be a shame if plague breaks out in neighbouring faction towns. The spy had better go warn them.

[Severous]

This is a tip I learnt a few days ago on this forum.

Recruit units that take two turns in just one turn.

Combine enough ancillaries together to make 50% reduction in training costs and it not only reduces cost but also time. I speculate that if you had units that took 30 turns to build that you would see reductions in training time even with 10% training ancillaries.


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Strategically the campaign has gone on hold for 5 years. I cannot win my current mission of make the last Pontus region a protectorate. I am at war with no one.

The only action has been with plague infested spies and mopping up a few rebels...well quite a lot of rebels.

AI Rebel militia cavalry usually plays quite well. But not here. Seemed to be following and targeting my retreating unit and overlooks line of hoplites in the way. A dramatic jump will not save horse nor rider. But it looks good.

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Lots of camel recruits in the deserts of Arabia and the middle east. Camels have a morale effect on horses. Thats seldom been decisive. Camels are often targetted by AI cavalary that knows it can catch them. Here its my horse cavalry running down AI camels.

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Strategically the five years of relative peace has allowed
- both Maceodon and Pontus to build reasonable armies
- Armenia has gained an edge over Perthia
- Scythia is making inroads into Dacia.
- Britannia is destroying Germany.
- Carthage is beating Numidia.
- Julii has destroyed Gaul.
- Brutii went to war with Britannia...ive sent an agent to take a look at that unusual match up

Hopefully the senate wont punish me too much for not completing the Pontic protectorate mission. I want a new mission to go capture something. Something Dacian or Scythian perhaps.

Sev

[Incontineta Buttox]

Hi Severous.

I am enjoying your latest AAR, as always. I like the house rules. They appear to allow the AI factions the chance to axpand and become powerful.

Would be interested to see you do a Carthage AAR in some form or other next time out.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

You must have modded this game. There's no other way to start out in egypt. I like it, never the less.

[Ferret]

read the intro