How Rome Conquered the Whole Freakin' World: an Absurdist AAR

[Reverend Joe]

Edit: I want to establish, at the very start, that this is a bizarre comedy AAR.

Okay, so I suddenly got the whim to do what has to be the strangest idea for an AAR ever. I want to see if, given the most optimal game conditions (Easy/Easy difficulty and Imperial reforms at the game start) and an infinite amount of resources (ten million mnai at the game start,) a player as bad as me can actually conquer the entire world as the Romani. Additional changes are reduced recruitment times (1 turn reduced to 0, 2 to 1 and 3 and 4 to 2) as well as Darth's formations mod to add more flavor to battles. To make some concession, I will bring about the March of Time reforms immediately as well, though this will be more to spice things up than anything else. And yes, this is a true absurdist AAR; so even if you haven't noticed by now, it isn't intended to me taken even remotely seriously.

Anyhoo, this has always been a point of interest for me: if it is at all possible to actually conquer the entire map. Of course under normal conditions this would be impossible for me, hence the absurd start conditions. But to be fair, I have only seen it done once; someone conquered the whole world as Makedonia back in 0.8x. Point is, I feel like having some weird fun, and if a few of you want to come along for the ride, then come on board. Don't expect this to be updated regularly, though, and don't be disappointed if I stop short; I have a summer class, after all, and I only have a cruddy 4-year-old laptop to play on, and besides, video games just don't hold my interest much anymore.

I will be back later with the first installment; just need to get the reforms set up, download Fraps or something and complete my first round of blitzing.

[Hax]

RJ!

RJ!

RJ!

Atta, man! Really looking forward to it!

[Chaotix]

Sounds fun. If you look on the 1.1 AI Progression thread, there was someone who conquered the world as Epeiros, and I think another person did it with Rome. The only province you can't take is the huge desert that encompasses both Arabia and Africa.

[Reverend Joe]

Okay, here's the deal: my computer is SO freakin' slow that this is just gonna take forever to do.





...But I'm gonna do it anyway. It'll just take a while.

Also, I decided to go with medium battle difficulty; easy just seemed like a step over the line, because it would turn my legionaries into cybernetic ninja supersoldiers. This way, there's at least a chance of a setback.

Be back in 15 minutes or so with the first update. I only got as far as Taras, so this is more of a trial run of writing an AAR.

[||Lz3||]

I think you can take sahara... as long as you dont touch any building there... , haven't tested it , this will be really interesting

[Swordmaster]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=267

[Reverend Joe]

Part 1: intro

Background Fiction (as if one was even remotely necessary...)

By 272 BC, the City-State of Rome held sway over most of the Italian Peninsula; yet the future of the Republic was far from certain. Gauls to the north still threatened the borders of the Republic, and the Mollossans under Pyrrhos held the south of Italy. Meanwhile, an entire legion had recently gone rogue, taking over the city of Rhegion and putting an ugly black mark on the honor of the Senate and People of Rome. If they couldn't control their own soldiers, why would they be able to control other peoples?

It was into this fray that a mysterious man entered the picture. He was soon revealed to be no ordinary man, for he proved to possess powers far beyond even the mighty Gods. Mars himself could not best him in mortal combat; Minerva's greatest strategies were no match for him. Even Jupiter's mighty thunderbolts were useless against him. Seeing his mighty power, the Romans immediately bowed down and forsook all other gods before him.

Under his leadership, Rome would rise to become a world-spanning power. He would lead Rome's new soldiers, personally equipped and trained by him, to faraway lands never dreamed of by civilized man. In time, he would come to dominate all of Europe and most of Asia and Africa.

His name was...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

HENRY KISSINGER!

...All right, enough of this shit.


The starting stats. Note battle time limit is turned off; this is mainly for the purpose of seige assaults. I don't like artificially losing (or winning, in the case of an AI assault) a seige battle just because the timer runs out.


The first Imperial legion, circa 272 BC...


...and the first test run.


It would have been a decent battle, but it turned into a confused mess because there was a giant forest covering most of the map, which the AI refused to leave. I decided not to show it because you couldn't see a damn thing.

Anyway, having worked the kinks out of the new legion, I marched over to Taras to make sure that the Epeirotes wouldn't cause any problems in the immediate future. Unfortunately, Fraps didn't take the battle deployment screen or the end results, so I'll just tell you that the garrison was somewhere over 600 men, no match for my 800+ heavy infantrymen.


Battle deployment. I always use 3 rams for maximum effectiveness in breaching the walls. Call it overkill if you will; I call it effective.


BLAMMO!

I'll never get used to that.


The fight for the gate got pretty vicious.


Things started to turn ugly when the Epeirote phalangites remembered they could form a pike phalanx and started shoving my men back out the door.


But ultimately, outflanking maneuvers and Roman cannon fodder valor carried the fight. The Mollossan general turning tail certainly didn't help their situation, either.


The first men through the breach.. These guys deserve a medal or something; they took 60% casualties and didn't break. Now that's impressive. I let them rest outside the walls for the rest of the fight.


Follow up tactics were fairly standard: I held the breach with half the remaining infantry...


...and swung around a side street with the other half. As it turns out, I really should have gone all the way around the city and come from the other direction, as the pincer move was negated by the fact that the two streets met at the same corner.


The AI proved smart enough to try to outflank the legionaries holding the street. Unfortunately, it wasn't smart enough to realize that it would take more than eight peltasts to beat 300+ legionaries.


And predictably, as soon as they saw what the hell they were supposed to attack, they shat their pants and ran like hell.


And the pincer that didn't work. (Damn fraps, didn't take a much more panoramic shot I had.)


Despite the inneffectiveness of the pincer, Roman butcher tactics superiority of arms carried the day once again, and the defenders were broken before the city centre. Here you see the poor Mollossan in charge getting cut down.


Endgame! I was amazed at how fast Roman legionaries kill people. They just ate through this poor phalanx like a pack of hyenas going wild in a nursery.


This is one thing that bothers me about the city centre... I understand why it's there, but still, it means you end up with ridiculous stuff like this. That's one peltast, uselessly throwing sticks at my army, heedless of the sheer absurdity of his actions. The idiot must think he's in the movie 300.


...Because I had to, okay? Don't judge me.


I almost felt bad sending an entire cohort to kill one dude. But it still looked funny.


Aftermath. Fraps didn't take the victory screen, like I said; but the losses on my side were around 100 men to the entire Epeirote army.

Anyhow, now that I have Taras, and once I take Rhegion, I will have a decent auxiliary base from which to recruit some pretty good skirmishers, and (admittedly) mediocre cavalry and archers/slingers. (Can the Romans recruit Tarentine cavalry via the local MIC? That would be a big help.)

Up next: Dirty Barbarians and Dirtier Sicilians.

[Reverend Joe]

@Swordsmaster: maybe it wasn't clear by the first post, but this isn't supposed to be a serious AAR. Not by a long shot.

[Olaf The Great]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=267

That's saka :P

[Che Roriniho]

I want your babies.


One thing though, better unit quality. my eyes are bleeding, but I'm guessing it would be almost unplayable otherwise. Still, this has now gone on my list of very good AARs. The other on the list being SM's AS one.

Congratulatory Bloon:


(Also, here's one for Swordmaster, before I forget: )

[Swordmaster]

@Swordsmaster: maybe it wasn't clear by the first post, but this isn't supposed to be a serious AAR. Not by a long shot.

I never claimed it would be.

[d'Arthez]

I wonder how speedily this will be AAR will be.

In my uber blitz campaign with the Romans (without any cheats, or script alterations (barring renaming clients to make certain my leaders don't die when a puppet is spawned), I managed to conquer all of Europe west of the line between Olbia - Neirije - Sapmi), Africa West of Kyrenae, the Crimea peninsula, and half of Modern day Turkey) by 250 BC.


Still not finished with the campagin though.

[AlexanderSextus]

In my uber blitz campaign with the Romans (without any cheats, or script alterations (barring renaming clients to make certain my leaders don't die when a puppet is spawned), I managed to conquer all of Europe west of the line between Olbia - Neirije - Sapmi), Africa West of Kyrenae, the Crimea peninsula, and half of Modern day Turkey) by 250 BC.

[General Appo]

Ahem. About that sig picture AlexanderSextus, are you really a member of the Europa Babarorum team, because I believe those sigs are reserved for those people.

[Reverend Joe]

Thanks for the replies. I was worried that this would turn out to be really dumb, but I guess a few people, at least, thought it was funny.

I should have gone with Richard Nixon instead of Henry Kissinger, though.

Anyway, I got work to do, but I will resume playing tomorrow.

[Fondor_Yards]

You can take the desert province, just use the show_cursorstat cheat to find the coordinates next to the city *which is in the very bottom left* then use the move_character cheat to get an army down there. Don't bother trying to walk there, you can't get to the city it's impossible and even if you could, it takes like 80 turns. I did it once in .8 as Carthage, but getting it to work was such a pain in the ass, plus the province is a hole, so I haven't again.

And jesus d'Arthez that blitz would put the germans to shame.

[Swordmaster]

Thanks for the replies. I was worried that this would turn out to be really dumb, but I guess a few people, at least, thought it was funny.

Well, it's not bad at all. I liked those two last shots with the entire cohort coming for one guy. Keep up the overkill.

Plus, conquering Taras with Augustans must be a first.

[d'Arthez]

And jesus d'Arthez that blitz would put the germans to shame.

Once I finish that campaign, I will upload a series of savegames from it. Now if only I could find time to play consistently ...

I figured they are not really that interesting for faction progression. As you can imagine it is an extremely time consuming thing to perma-blitz on such a large scale.

I think such campaigns, while not necessarilly historically accurate, are a good test of player's skills nonetheless. And with the script as it is, I actually had to face quite balanced and strong armies of the Makedones, Lusotannan and the Seleukids thus far.

But, it is not about me, but about RJ's AAR. Which undoubtedly will be very interesting.

What are you planning to do, after you have secured the Italian peninsula, RJ?

[Reverend Joe]

Yeah, crazy-ass blitzing is hard... even the Germans needed to give their soldiers assloads of amphetamines to pull it off. And I don't feel like picking up a speed habit just for the sake of an AAR.

After Italia, I think I'll go for Spain's mines and auxiliaries and the rich recruitment pool of Gaul. Past that though, I'm not sure; I'm thinking either Greece or Karthadasht. Either way, I'm thinking of giving my future enemies an assload of money, and along with 0 turn recruitment, that should ensure that the campaign will not be a complete cakewalk; at the least, there will be some interesting battles along the path of the Kissinger-fuelled Roman bulldozer.

Edit: oh, yeah -- about the unit quality, I think I will pause and turn it up for the few close-in shots I will take, but I'll also try to keep it zoomed out so that nobody's eyes suffer from chronic bleeding.

[AlexanderSextus]

Ahem. About that sig picture AlexanderSextus, are you really a member of the Europa Babarorum team, because I believe those sigs are reserved for those people.

i kinda figured that out when foot pm'ed me about that, soi i changed it



Looky!

[Spizania]

This is really funny, keep up the good work
And im sending an expedition down there as AS in 1.1, which is going to start as an AAR mid-game, because I dont want to start again, now ive stablisised it for the moment. The IC characters in game will believe hes dead when hes gone for 20 years, with an all cavalry force

[d'Arthez]

I thought you had given yourself 10 million Mnai at the start?

Don't ignore Segestica and Dalminion. With two level 2 mines they will provide you with about 7500 Mnai per turn.
Money should be a far less pressing issue then, so focus on the good recruitment spots.

Spain is a bit tricky. You will get high distance to Rome penalties of about 50-80%, depending on the province. Even Gawjam-Kimbroz should net you only 60% if I recall correctly, but then we are already talking about Denmark. Or are you allowing to move capitals as well?

Am a bit worried about the assloads of money to AI factions. They might start spamming fullstack after full stack, which will severely impact on the campaign.

[Reverend Joe]

Yeah, I gave myself an assload of money, but I'm gonna try to make that a one-time thing, which means I'll need more money eventually. I may actually take/give most of it away once I have a stable economy.

...Maybe.

And the culture penalty is my primary reason for playing the Campaign on easy level. Or does that not affect unrest penalties?

[d'Arthez]

From what I can gather difficulty makes no difference on distance to capital penalties, whether you are playing on Easy or Very Hard. You do get additional trade income on Easy though.

[Subedei]

I think it is fun every now and then to give oneself a lot of Mnai & play the Rockefeller-Rambo style.

Nice AAR !!! Not yet as obscure as I imagined when I read the title/ author's name, but I am sure it will be getting there.

Good luck to you Rev.

[Reverend Joe]

Well, I just found out I will be getting a new computer (still a laptop, but a modern one) sometime during the tax-free days in August, so I'm gonna put this on hold and restart it on the new computer. Hope you don't mind.

Anyway, EB really wasn't keeping my interest, what with the painfully slow load times on my computer (it takes 10-15 minutes just to load the game!)

[Maion Maroneios]

I could take on your petty Augustan legion with my full-strength Successor army anytime!!! Whahahahaha!! Just kidding, they look really cool btw.

[Reverend Joe]

Actually, you could. In their prime condition, and led by a good general, the Alexandrian army could easily have beaten the best legions Rome had to offer. The legions depended on their ability to mount a frontal assault, and with a solid line of pikes the main body of infantry would be neutralized; any outflanking efforts could be held off by the Hypaspistai and there's no way even the best Roman cavalry could stand up to the Hetairoi. So yeah, in a pitch battle the Rommans would be dead meat.

[ezekiel2517]

Actually, you could. In their prime condition, and led by a good general, the Alexandrian army could easily have beaten the best legions Rome had to offer. The legions depended on their ability to mount a frontal assault, and with a solid line of pikes the main body of infantry would be neutralized; any outflanking efforts could be held off by the Hypaspistai and there's no way even the best Roman cavalry could stand up to the Hetairoi. So yeah, in a pitch battle the Rommans would be dead meat.

they could break their spears, and never mind the pilum