Chris's Ludicrous Migration

[Celtic_Punk]

do you have any factional troops left in your eastern empire? lol

[Chris_]

I have 1 unit of Scortamareva and 1 unit of Iovamann in Opiana. I plan to ship them across when I get to Spain. Kind of like a ceremonial thing.

[Chris_]

Thought I'd do another update, no maps for now as I'm not at home. I'll put some up when I get back.

I managed to fix the cloned Sabaen family member. I had to kill_character him. When he died, his clone apparently referred to one of my armies somewhere across the map. So, I moved that army into a city to get rid of it, saved the game, reloaded, and everything was fine again. Then I took Maryab. I'd already fought the battle for it 5 times by now.

Saba have moved across to southern Egypt, which I wasn't expecting. I don't mind though, Saba are pretty easy to beat. Most of their troops that they send at me are unarmoured, so they die easily. Also, their FM die so easily to my Arabim Slingers (basically all I can recruit in the area, bar some Ethiopian spearmen).

Pahlava are being irritating. Since they've been holed up in 2 provinces for about 20 years, they have a lot of family members lying around. At the minute, there is an army with 9 (!) Parthian Late Bodyguards which keeps attacking Susa. I can repel them, but I never seem to be able to kill an actual FM in the battle. Not sure what I'm going to do about them, 9 family members is too much. Maybe assassins, or just constant harassment.

I have taken another Saka province, and I'm moving to take another, but I'm trying to avoid enemy armies. They should be dead soon, since they don't seem to put up much resistance.

Elsewhere in the world, Sweboz have cut through the provinces Rome recently got back, and are now pretty big. Rome took Mediolanum finally, and the Casse started doing something, after a long time of sitting around. They have nearly united the whole of the British Isles, so they might be coming over to the mainland soon, which should make things more exciting.

The Great Ptolemaic Empire looks like its starting to crumble - they have lost ground in the west to the Getai, in the North to the Sauromatae, and I'm really being quite annoying out in the East. Plus, now that I've nearly secured Arabia, I plan to take the Sinai area and cut their lands in two. That should let me hold them off there, and move in to Egypt to take it.

Anyway, maps will be up later today.

Edit : Maps

Bigger than usual :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[rider]

That's a very nice place you've got up, congrats.

Are there actual chances of the Ptolemaics stopping you now?

Oh, and am I seeing it right that there are Saba provinces above Pontus Euxinus or is that some weird colours?

[bovi]

That would be Sauromatae, another steppe faction.

[rider]

And they are so alike in colour then for what reason? :P

But thanks...

I must note though, that they are different when looked up close. Only when I zoomed out did the colours seem similar. How are they on the ingame?

[Tellos Athenaios]

You'll see that the colour resolution of his maps (apart from the background) seem to be lower than that of the game -- possibly, Chris_ uses a GIF (or similar) overlay on top of a JPEG map?

[Chris_]

Hmm, it is a bit hard to tell the difference. I'll have a look to find out why.

Are there actual chances of the Ptolemaics stopping you now?

Not sure. They have enough troops on the border that I can't break through them, but they aren't being aggressive. Apparently Egypt is actually completely undefended, so they're going to lose that soon, once I've done with Saba, who are down to 2 settlements.

[Celtic_Punk]

bastard British have taken my homeland!!!

[satalexton]

u mean proto welsh, the english we see now are a mix of saxon and norman stock. what's left of the celtic romano-british stock were pushed to wales.

[Foot]

u mean proto welsh, the english we see now are a mix of saxon and norman stock. what's left of the celtic romano-british stock were pushed to wales.

Only culturally. There seems to have been heavy continuation of existing romano-british pops heavily into the Saxon period and even up to the Norman period. Just follow the farming practices. Recommend "Domesday Quest" for some light reading on the matter.

Foot

[satalexton]

ooo, i'll look onto that =] thx

[Majd il-Romani]

You inspired me to try the Qarthadastim in the Saka steppes on my next campaign.

[rider]

That's a short trip, provice-wise, isn't it?

[Celtic_Punk]

u mean proto welsh, the english we see now are a mix of saxon and norman stock. what's left of the celtic romano-british stock were pushed to wales.

British means someone who is from the island Britain. not someone who is from England, Cornwall, Wales, or Scotland.

[Chris_]

Haha, 2 week bump!

Anyway, I've been a bit busy at work so I haven't had a chance to post an update on the campaign. Here's how it looks at 96 BC. Made the map a bit smaller because I got annoyed scrolling around it :D

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Saba died. I was besieging their last settlement, and their last family member attacked and died, which saved me another city battle (this was at Petra). I left Petra to the Ptolies in order to tie up a stack which was hanging around. I didn't want it interfering with my force that was going to take one of the Egyptian cities.

Rome has been busy. Between the last update and now, they have conquered Spain, lost Spain, conquered Spain again, lost it again and have now taken Gaul. Now they are trying to (surprise) conquer Spain.

I got rid of Saka, but Chighu keeps revolting so I'm just leaving it for now. It's hardly strategically important. Same goes for Tamane, down in Saba-land. The population grows too fast, and I end up fighting Apeleutheroi stacks every couple of years.

Yes, the Phalavans are still alive, hanging around with their enormous family. Since they don't actually do a lot, apart from walk to Susa, get some arrows shot at them, then go back to Ekbatana, I have decided to let them live for now.

In the never ending war against the Ptolies, I have just taken Egypt, which is good, as it cuts them off from their western African provinces. I have Babylon too, and I'm waiting for the right time to take Seleucia. Troop quality of the Ptolies is definitely on the up, as I'm seeing more and more Kleruchon Agema. Also, they are using more up market arrow fodder now. I hardly ever see Pantodapoi anymore, but I do see a lot of Caucasian/Pontic/Thracian Spearmen.

Hopefully now that I have Alexandria and the surrounding area, I can use it as a base to take more land, and some of the islands, which should speed things up.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Wow. The most amazing and unusual AAR-ish thread I have followed.

Are the Carthaginian settlements in Iberia still rebelling or have they stopped?

Has the scripted Casse invasion somewhere in Northwest Europe yet begun?

What kind of units are you using?

BTW, in my opinion, it would be splendid if you switched to a smaller map size. All of the extra detail is nice, but not necessary. It is very hard to see overall picture of the start map situation when you can view only about 15% of the map at a single time. Just a suggestion.

[Beefy187]

Good to see the Romans finally kicking some asses

This is excellent Chris. Keep up the good work

[Chris_]

Are the Carthaginian settlements in Iberia still rebelling or have they stopped?

Has the scripted Casse invasion somewhere in Northwest Europe yet begun?

What kind of units are you using?

Everyone seems pretty happy in Iberia at the minute. I'm guessing either the population is so low it can't revolt, or they forgot that 180 years ago they used to be Lusotana. Probably the first one, since culture penalties never seem to go away.

Not sure about the Casse invasion, it might have happened already. Maybe they can put some of that money they put into training stacks into buying a boat, and liven things up in northern Europe.

As for the units, It really depends where I am, and what I can get. In Egypt, I'm finding a lot of use for Machimoi, backed up (well, followed) by Pantadapoi. I did get some nice mercenaries from around Alexandria, like some Classical/Celto-Hellenic Hoplites, which is about the heaviest infantry I've had all game.

In the north I'm using mostly horse archer/skirmisher armies, and around Susa I use Thanvare Parsig, Hyrkanian hillmen, Hoplita Haploi and whatever cavalry I can get my hands on.

BTW, in my opinion, it would be splendid if you switched to a smaller map size. All of the extra detail is nice, but not necessary. It is very hard to see overall picture of the start map situation when you can view only about 15% of the map at a single time. Just a suggestion.

Done that. They were a bit big. Was annoying me too

[Aemilius Paulus]

Those are all of the units you're using?!?! Wow, you must be a pretty good RTW/EB player to win with that rabble.

What is your seasonal income?

[Chris_]

Those are all of the units you're using?!?! Wow, you must be a pretty good RTW/EB player to win with that rabble.

What is your seasonal income?

Those are my base units for an army, it's not all I use. Otherwise, I'd probably be a bit dead.

Seasonal income isn't really that impressive, around 10000. Never was that good at getting money. I also have to maintain big garrisons in some cities because the population just won't stop growing, which drains my treasury. I do get big lumps of cash when I take a city, and sometimes rely on this.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Have you or would you consider posting your save game online so other people could try it? I'm sure there would be quite a bit of downloads, me being one of the people downloading it!

[flamingcookbook]

Chris, what can i say buddy, 10/10 for originality.

P.S. How's the social life?