In Search of Truth: A Hayasdan AAR

[BerkeleyBoi]

Prologue: My Father at Five

My father once told me the story of how we came to be allied with the kings of Hayasdan. It was a great story, one that would captivate my siblings and my own imagination for all of our childhood.

The Hayasdan king was a man named Samus. He was as big as a tree and rode on a two headed horse that shot fire out of one mouth and ice out of the other. The host numbered over six million, all clad in the finest gold armors and wielding weapons too large for any ordinary man to handle. King Samus was also a magician, summoning great beasts from the air to aid him in battle. The defenders of Trapezous were outnumbered ten thousand to one, but still they refused to surrender, brave Greeks they were.

The battle began with the dragons swooping down on us, scorching our homes as they searched for virgins to capture. Our brave defenders warded off the flames with their shields and returned with their own shots of flaming arrows. No one missed and each arrow found their mark. The great beasts fell and our city stood.

The Hayasdan king was furious and he sent forth great machines at our gates. They were horrendous things, made of children bones and imbued with dark magic. Yet we did not fear them. The great defenders burned forty of the dark machines, thus saving the souls of the children trapped within, but there were too many. At last our mighty walls fell and the enemy stormed our city.

The fighting was furious in the streets as the enemy swarmed in from all directions. Surrounded, the great Greek defenders, descendants of Achilles, trained to fight in Sparta, learned in the ways of Athens, veterans from the campaigns of Alexander, fought to the death. They took hundreds of the enemies with them before at last they fell. My father himself, though only five years old at the time, killed seventy of the king’s personal bodyguards himself with nothing but a rock and a blade of grass before he was captured.

The enemy, after suffering such horrendous losses, feared the men of Trapezous greatly. Yet, it was during that battle that they knew we were of better use to them as allies than enemies. The lives of the survivors were spared and were all granted great wealth. All the King of Hayasdan asked for was for us to forgive them for their transgression. After that, peace settled on our land once more.

I was ten years old when I began schooling. I learned many things, like letters and numbers. I also learned that my father was a big fat liar.

[Callicles]

Great beginning. Looking forward to this one: a Hellene in the army of the Hai... Perhaps Xenophon comes to mind?

[Reverend Joe]

Good start.

[Xehh II]

Good start

[Mouzafphaerre]

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You got the thing man!
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[BerkeleyBoi]

Thanks for the comments. I'm going for a lighter approach this time instead of the dark brooding death is right around the other corner mood in Spear and Shield. Just trying to diversify my writing style...

So yeah, I'll be playing as Hayasdan. The unit that will be followed around will be announced with the next update or so.

Settings:
MiniMe's unit mod
MAA's city mod
Playing on Barbarian Invasion basic with no shield wall, night battles, etc...
All the EB 1.0 fixes

VH/M
No banners or green arrows

House Rules:
Auto-Win only when odds are 2-1 in my favor except when fighting rebels


Alright, that's all I can think of for now... hope you enjoy!

[Treverer]

Good to see you writing a new AAR, dear sir!

Yours,
Treverer

[keravnos]

Surrounded, the great Greek defenders, descendants of Achilles, trained to fight in Sparta, learned in the ways of Athens, veterans from the campaigns of Alexander, fought to the death.

My father himself, though only five years old at the time, killed seventy of the king’s personal bodyguards himself with nothing but a rock and a blade of grass before he was captured.

I was ten years old when I began schooling. I learned many things, like letters and numbers. I also learned that my father was a big fat liar.

This here AAR, is an insta-classic.

[Poulp']

BerkeleyBoi,
your name is now synonymous to HQ AAR

bookmarked, and waiting patiently for next episode

[LorDBulA]

BerkeleyBoi , nice to see Hayasdan AAR.
I am around 210BC in my Hayasdan game so I look forward to see how You will do.

I really like the style of the prologue (mystifying the history ) but it was a bit overdone in my opinion.

Cant wait for next chapter.
Good luck.

[Justinian II]

This here AAR, is an insta-classic.

I agree.



Have a Balloon, BerkeleyBoi:

[BerkeleyBoi]

Campaign Notes:

Hayasdan has been very difficult, but I've been making a lot of progress I think. I've had huge income problems in the beginning, being over 10,000 in debt, but I was able to get out of that and the save money over 6 turns and build mines. Currently, I have no monetary problems.

Pontos has been a pain. They keep on harassing my western borders with medium sized armies which divert my attention away from the east, where I want to expand. I'm avoiding the south because I don't want to share a border with the Yellow Fever and share the same fate as my poor Saba in Sword and Spear.

In battles, I'm suffering huge losses each battle as I need to use my cheap spearmen to pin the enemy while my bodyguards smash their armies. I have become completely reliant on rear cavalry charges with the bodyguards, winning against up to 1:4 odds with those guys. I have been able to win almost every battle, but retraining my armies has depleted my capitals population down to 500 people. Pop growth also seems slower with MAA's citymod.

However, with all that said and done, I have been able to escape the initial problems and the Ptolemies have been helping me a bunch. They are keeping the Seleucids busy and I have stretches of 5-6 turns where I don't have to fight before suddenly the gray banners come out of nowhere and siege my cities. Even so, as I've said, I've been able to win the battles. I think I've finally reached the point where I can turn to the offensive. There might be more action coming soon...

...but I have a conference in Hong Kong this weekend so I won't be able to update until Monday. Sorry!

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Good luck!
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[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Another nice update. What's he going to do now?
I recall the population drain in Armavir when I played Hayasdan. If you can afford it, build farms. They give both population growth and income. Also build health buildings, though the citymod does kind of make them less effective for huge population boosts.

[BerkeleyBoi]

Chapter Three: The Beginning and End of Peace

My mother aged forty years in the four years that I was gone. She was no longer the strong beautiful woman that stood up to my father even as he beat her or the wise mother who told me stories of Darius and Cyrus. She was bent and broken from her hard labor collecting night soil from the townsmen and carrying it far out into the fields for use as fertilizer.

I stopped my mother in the street as she carried the buckets of waste in each hand. She stared at me as if she did not know me before her mouth broke into a wide smile. She staggered towards me, her arms open as she reached to embrace me. Three wretched girls peered out from behind her, their eyes widened as they saw me. We left the night soil in the middle of the street and started a new life.

The new social standing that I gained through those six years of service had many benefits. I was given a patch of land in the outskirts of Trapezous that, though small, hilly, and poor, was more than my family ever had. At the age of sixteen, I began working the land by terracing the hills with my sisters, planting wheat interspersed with fruit trees to hold the soil. I became close friends with a neighboring farmer, an old Greek who traces his ancestors back to Korinth, and eventually married his daughter while one of my sisters married his son. I remember gazing out over my little piece of land, my young wife sitting next to me while my mother cradles my baby son in her arms, thinking that this was the life I was destined to live. But I guess it was naïve of me to think that such good things could last forever.

The lands of Hayasdan have expanded, but the number of people inhabiting its lands was small. Taxes were very high to support the richly ornamented bodyguards of governors and generals while the fertility of the land was low. There was little extra income to improve the sanitation of the cities and as result, disease and early death took the lives of many boys before they reached the age to serve in war.

The cities were being emptied of men. The fields were tended by children and the elderly while widows sat begging or selling themselves for an extra day of life. Even my once wealthy home was devastated. A series of attacks by the warriors of Pontus and an offensive campaign to take the town of Ani-Kamah had depleted the population to the point that daily life was barely functioning. Lives were now much more valuable. Reform was necessary.

The king first searched among his own people to replace the Kavakaza Sparabara.

The result was a spear unit of Hayasdan tribesmen called the Hai Nizagamartik.

The Siege of Ani-Kamah

The Attack on Karkathiokerta

However, they performed poorly in the siege of Ani-Kamah and even worse in the attack on Karkathiokerta. The King of Hayasdan needed infantry that could not only stand against the enemy, but survive to fight another day.

Eventually, he found his solution. And I was part of it.

[Hooahguy]

i like this, really nice writing and nice pictures!

[LorDBulA]

Great AAR. Keep up good work.

[Basileus Seleukeia]

Now the real fun begins^^
Clasical hoplites are just totally badass

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Nice update. Keep going!

[Wolfman]

Excellent Update! I hope you are enjoying one of my favourite factions?

[Mouzafphaerre]

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[gamegeek2]

This is ridiculously similar to what I intended to do, but I got some stuff dumped (phat TESTS etc.). I love playing as the 1-province factions.

[tapanojum]

As always, this is just simply great!

[Kuningaz]

Just perfect, as always.

[BerkeleyBoi]

Chapter Twelve – My Father at Fifty

The old man was brought to me before the battle began. He was found sneaking around the perimeter of our camp the night before and was to be executed as a spy before one of the Persians found, to my shame, that he resembled me.

He was a ragged, dirty old man nearly just skin and bones. His hair would have been white if it wasn’t for the dirt and his body was covered with old scars and bruises. For a while, we just sat there in silence broken only by the old man’s chewing of the bread and slurping of wine. Finally, he lifted up his head with tears in his eyes.

He said they were tears of joy, for he had not known that someone of his blood could grow to such greatness. He called himself a wretched, useless coward who could never accomplish anything in this life. He said that as he looked upon me, he saw everything that he wanted to be but couldn’t. He said that as the sun rose behind me, I had the look of Hercules.

Before he could finish the last sentence, I ran him through with my spear. He looked at me in shock before it turned into anger. He cursed me even as blood gurgled up his throat. He called me a traitor to my people even as his eyes rolled back into his head. He scratched at me even as he fell to the ground. When my comrades questioned my action, I told them he was not my father for he had died long ago in the defense of Trapezous.

Dust can be seen rising in the distance. My father was quickly forgotten, my spear was wiped clean, and we march off in unison to meet our enemy in the field of battle.

Before the image of my father completely faded from my mind, I could not help but think: Perhaps what I was seeking for all these years was not the truth. I did not want to know that my father was a coward, that I pissed on myself during my first battle, and that the fact that I'm still alive is entirely based on luck. No, I guess I was not searching for the truth. I was redefining it.

[Reality=Chaos]

Yaaaay. Two more updates of this awesome AAR. I liked the bit with his father. Maybe a bit short on Drama, but that suits the character of the protagonist just fine.

[BerkeleyBoi]

Well, to be honest I'm just rushing to finish this AAR so I can start playing EB 1.1.

So I think 2 chapters, maybe 3 left and I'll end it.

[Chaotix]

Yeah, it must be tough to write an AAR with the conditions you described... but you still manage to make it great! Good luck, and finish this AAR off with a bang!