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What's this, then? I'm going to play Total War: Attila, a game by The Creative Assembly, and then I'm going to take the result of that game, plus ~audience participation~ and create a scenario in Crusader Kings 2, and then we'll carry on in Paradox games. I don't recognize any of those names you just said. Total Attila? CKdox? Tell me more about these 'video games' you kids are on about. The well-acclaimed Total War: Attila (or TWA for short) is a strategy game made by The Creative Assembly, a company that has been making the Total War series of games for fifteen years now. All Total War games combine two different modes into one game: there is a turn-based strategy mode, where you march armies across Europe and build up cities, and real-time tactical battles, which happen when two armies march into each other during the turn-based bit of the game. Attila is set during the Fall of Rome, when the Romans couldn't get their poo poo together and some dude named Attila caused a ruckus. In this game, you can play as the Romans, the Huns, the Persians, or one of the barbarian groups of peoples caught in the middle of all this, trying to carve out a little spot on the map for themselves. There's one big addition to Attila mechanics which is missing from previous games in the series, and that's fertility. Every province in the game has its own fertility rating, which effects how much food is available for wandering hordes in the area and how much money and food farms produce. Some events gradually reduce fertility in a province, and razing and wrecking poo poo also reduce fertility, meaning that the region produces less and feeds fewer people. How do you recover or increase fertility? You don't, not really, this is why migration is a thing. Crusader Kings 2 (or CK2 for short) is a grand strategy game wherein you play as a count, duke, king or emperor, and try to keep your dynasty alive through the Middle Ages. As opposed to other strategy games, you aren't playing as a nation, but rather a single family, so your goals and approaches tend to be a bit different from the more common National Struggle sort of thing many historical strategy games emphasize. If you check out the CK2 thread in the Games forum, you'll see a lot of discussion regarding patricide, fratricide, regicide, and general stabbing techniques. Sounds alright, so who are we going to play? We are going to be the Ostrogoths. The Ostrogoths were one of two major groups of Gothic peoples (the other being the Visigoths) who migrated into the mess that was Late Imperial Rome. In Attila, their specialty reflects their ultimate fate; in-game, normally there's a great amount of unrest when a Barbarian tribe takes over a Roman settlement, but the Ostrogoths are exempt from that, because historically they were huge Romanophile dweebs. The Ostrogoths get a further bonus reflecting their Romanophilia, as they can actually recruit Roman units from any settlement with intact Roman barracks. This is a good reference to their historical fate, as the Ostrogoths ended up ruling Italy for roughly 70 years, during which time they tried to maintain the old Imperial Roman bureaucracy, encouraged Roman culture, and tried to be as Roman as Goths could ever be. They reached that point in the early 6th century, though. Total War: Attila starts in 395 AD, when the Roman Emperor Theodosius died and the realm was split into a Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire for the final time. Roman lands are still intact, and the Ostrogoths and Visigoths are just migrating hordes, rather than the lords of vast, settled kingdoms. We're just north of where it says 'Eastern Roman Empire', on the lower Danube River. I don't recognize any of those names. What is this stuff? So we know about the Roman Empire, right? Started off as a Looks good and powerful and all that, right? But we all know it eventually fell and Europe isn't controlled by the Romans anymore. So what happened? There's still a fair bit of argument over exactly what caused what and where to pin the start of all the troubles, but the Third Century AD was terribly rough on the Roman Empire, and saw internal and external threats disrupt the status quo super-bad. Internally, there was a half-century-long period where the Roman army repeatedly overthrew emperors, and there were coups and counter-coups up the wazoo, so Imperial government was paralyzed with rapid changes in leadership and plagued with dissent. Externally, the Sassanids rose to power in Persia, to the east, and then started beating the snot out of Roman armies in the field. Some regions of the Roman Empire broke away in response to these internal and external stresses, and created the Gallic and Palmyrene Empires (centered in France and Syria, respectively). Things were not going well. In the 270s the central Roman government started to get its poo poo together, the coups stopped being so regular, the Sassanids were held off for a bit, and the breakaway empires were reconquered. Thoroughly disquieted by what had happened, however, the Roman Empire reacted by building up its military, decentralizing the state (initially the empire was divided into four bits, but this was later reworked into the Western and Eastern empires shown in the Attila map), reforming the organization of the armies, and basically putting the Imperial economy and bureaucracy into maximum overdrive to deal with internal troubles and the threat from the Persians. Given that the Roman Empire was already stretching itself to deal with troubles with Persia, when Germanic tribes began migrating towards and into the Roman Empire in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, everything started to unravel pretty quickly. Traditionally the end of the Western Roman Empire is placed at AD 476, when a Germanic leader, Odoacer, overthrew Emperor Romulus Augustulus and packed away his poo poo, but decades before that, large chunks of the Empire had been lost to various Germanic peoples; southern Gaul and much of Hispania was in the hands of the Visigoths, Vandals invaded Africa in 429 and took Carthage in 439, and the Roman Empire had just given up on Britain entirely in AD 410 and pulled out all their troops. By the time Romulus Augustulus was disthroned, the Western Roman Empire effectively controlled Italy, the Alps and a bit of the Balkans, and that was it. This was a high point for the WRE in the 400s The Eastern Roman Empire, meanwhile, didn't get hit with as many migrators, dealt with the groups that did show up, and then spent the next thousand years being the Byzantine Empire, until Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. Attila attempts to recreate this 5th-century disintegration of central Roman control by burdening both the Western and Eastern Roman Empire with high upkeep costs for their settlements (through expensive buildings), emphasizing the tricky nature of domestic politics, and making it easy for Roman revolters in, say, Gaul or Egypt, to pop up and have a go at running their own realms again, like the breakaway empires of the 3rd century but on a smaller scale. The fertility mechanics and the mere presence of the Huns, meanwhile, encourage various Germanic tribes to run to greener, less Hun-filled pastures, which coincidentally are all in Roman hands at game start. The Romans experience some sort of internal and external pressure on their vast empire, and we get something like the Germanic migrations of the 5th century. Prime material to recreate the fall of Rome! Good stuff! So what's our role in all this? The Goths in Italy, which is where our Ostrogoths historically ended up after killing that Odoacer dude mentioned earlier, got into a 19-year-long war with the Eastern Roman Empire, which ended up with the Goths and Italy so hosed up that some other German dudes called the Lombards were able to roll in, take over most of Italy and become modern Italians. In France, the Visigoths got their poo poo wrecked by some other other German dudes called Franks, who took over the region so hard that people just renamed all of Gaul after them. The Visigoths fared better in Spain, until Muslims invaded in the 8th century, conquered nearly the entire peninsula, and then slowly got pushed back by the remaining lords, and those Visigothic Christians eventually became Spaniards. So! Our mission is clear. We must be able to not just find some nice patch of land to settle on, but we must also secure our legacy, and make the world a little more Gothic. CONTENTS:
Chapter 2: Victories Chapter 3: Calamity Chapter 4: Never Despair Chapter 5: From Italy, to Gaul Chapter 6: On the Governance of the New Kingdom Chapter 7: Recovery Chapter 8: The Germanic War Chapter 9: The Deluge Chapter 10: Devastation Chapter 11: Gothia was not built in a day Chapter 12: Give peace in our time, O Lord Chapter 13: Christ in Britain Chapter 14: Triumph of the Huns Chapter 15: The End
Session I: The Sons of Attila (Voting closed, Red wins) Session II: The Western Roman Separatists of Italy (Voting closed, YF-23 wins) Session III: The fate of the Western Roman Empire (Voting closed, Yellow wins) Session IV: دار الإسلام (Voting closed, Blue wins) Session V: Dragons, Eagles and the Matter of Britain (Voting closed, Yellow wins) Session VI: Tying Up Loose Ends (Voting closed, sheep-dodger wins)
Chapter 17: Beginning Again (769-774) Chapter 18: Too Much of a Good Thing (774-784) Chapter 19: Mistakes Were Made (784-792) Chapter 20: A Crippled Kingdom (792-798) Chapter 21: A Realm of Regents (798-812) Chapter 22: Earthly Motives (812-820) Chapter 23: Unorthodox Orthodoxy (820-837) Chapter 24: The Gabrielan Era (837-851) Chapter 25: Mo Money Mo Ambitions (851-869) Chapter 26: Shadows and Lights (869-889) Chapter 27: Romantic Notions (889-907) Chapter 28: Vita Amalrici (907-949) Chapter 29: Building Up & Falling Down (949-969) Chapter 30: The Black Reign (969-985) Chapter 31: Denied the Chance (985-1000) Chapter 32: The Ashen Ladder (1000-1019) Chapter 33: The Pontian Empire (1019-1039) Chapter 34: Patience Pays (1039-1091) Chapter 35: On the Cusp of the Crusades in 1091 (1091-1091) Chapter 36: Deus Vult (1091-1108) Chapter 37: Peter in Peril (1108-1146) Chapter 38: Falling Eagles (1146-1165) Chapter 39: The Descent (1165-1198) Chapter 40: The Devil You Know (1198-1241) Chapter 41: Romulan Reforms (1241-1304) Chapter 42: Waltharius Triarius Magnus (1304-1368) Chapter 43: Rebirth (1368-1402) Europa Universalis IV
Chapter 45: Half-Steps & Missteps (1402-1410) Chapter 46: Sibilla the Hungry (1410-1431) Chatper 47: A Gothic Rebirth (1431-1452) Chapter 48: A Terribly Tumultuous Time (1452-1475) Chapter 49: The Jezebel of Gothia (1475-1496) Chapter 50: The Gothic Reformation (1496-1514) Chapter 51: Consultation (1514-1527) Chapter 52: The Petrine Period (1527-1550) Chapter 53: The World of the Goths in 1550 (1550) Chapter 54: The Kind Wars (1550-1569) Chapter 55: New & Old Empires (1569-1581) Chapter 56: Frontier Wars (1581-1600) Chapter 57: A great day at the Gothic court! (1600-1624) Chapter 58: The Union of Rome (1624-1645) Chapter 59: Freedom (1645-1653) Chapter 60: Novus Ordo Gothorum (1653-1673) Chapter 61: The Gothic Idea (1673-1690) Chapter 62: Golden Notions (1690-1709) Chapter 63: New Horizons (1709-1731) Chapter 64: Halcyon Snapshots (1731-1759) Chapter 65: Raise The Banner High (1759-1775) Chapter 66: Possibly The Worst Deal In The History Of Deals, Maybe Ever (1775-1791) Chapter 67: Best Laid Plans (1791-1811) Chapter 68: Beware The Green-Eyed Monster (1811-1826) Chapter 69: Awaiting Revolution (1826-1836) Victoria 2
Chapter 71: The Strain (1836-1840) Chapter 72: Under Pressure (1840-1845) Chapter 73: Letting Off Steam (1845-1849) Chatper 74: Springtime (1849-1854) Chapter 75: Clear Signals (1854-1859) Chapter 76: Opening the Gates of Janus (1859-1861) Chapter 77: Closing the Gates of Janus (1861-1863) Chapter 78: Getting Back On Track (1863-1867) Chapter 79: Win Some, Lose Some (1867-1871) Chapter 80: Revenge (1871-1875) Chapter 81: The Lit Fuse (1875-1881) Chapter 82: Let's Wear Black (1881-1885) Chapter 83: The State of Anarchy (1885-1891) Chapter 84: The Watch on the Rhine (1891-1897) Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Jan 8, 2022 |
# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 22:43 |
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# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 22:15 |
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EXTRA STUFF The Prosopography of the Early Gothic World [dead link]
Kings of Gothia to AD 1000 Emperors of the Carthagennan Empire/Western Roman Empire to AD 1000 Here's a direct link to the Let's Wear Black scenario for Crusader Kings 2
Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Jan 8, 2022 |
# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 22:44 |
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Chapter 1: Origines Gothi Our story begins, as such stories do, with the campaign menu screen: Here is where we select who we're going to play, and read a bit of basic information about what's what. I've already selected the Ostrogoths, so we can see a bit about what's going on with them. You'll note that I have difficulty set to 'Normal', because I'm just that basic. The campaign screen tells us more than just how much I suck, though. It tells us that the start date is 395 AD, and that the Ostrogoth's faction leader at game start is a fellow named 'Vithericus'. I've looked up the name, and only found one mention of him in Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae, Book XXXI, 3, 3 (if you want to read some primary sources), wherein it's said that Vithericus' father fought the Huns in the mid-4th century, but lost repeatedly, and was eventually killed when Vithericus (or 'Viderichus' depending on what edition you read) was still a kid. So I guess our faction leader's already seen some poo poo and hates the Huns' guts like none other! Along with that bit of trauma, the screen also tells us that the Ostrogoths are Arian Christians. Arians were deemed heretics by mainstream Roman Christianity back in 325, so while we're civilized enough to be Christians, Romans still loathe us for not being exactly the same sort of Christians as themselves. Oh well! We'll beat their asses anyways. Lastly, the screen tells us two of the Ostrogoths' special traits; their cultural trait, which is shared with other Great Migrator nations, such as the Alans, Vandals and Visigoths, and their faction trait, which is only for the Ostrogoths and no one else. Those traits give us some handy bonuses: We get a burst of growth whenever we move, and we're Romanophile dweebs who like Romans and can use Roman military stuff if it hasn't been destroyed by the time we get our hands on it. That makes it easier for us to take over Roman territory, and gives us a greater range of options for troop recruitment, once we settle down. Have you been taking notes? Good! I expect a five-page report with citations in MLA format by next Tuesday. Now let's actually start the game. Wow! We only just began playing, and already the game is telling us "Haha, go on, just try to survive five years, chumps." I feel my confidence growing already! That mission message out of the way, it's time to look at the map proper. We begin with two hordes near Romula (now Dobrosloveni, Romania), in the land of the Gepids. The Gepids are our friends and allies, but they're also subjects of the Huns, who are our enemies, so if we stick around in Gepid lands then Hunnic armies will know where we are and will, in all likelihood, kill us dead. Fortunately, we know about a few places nearby where we can run. To our west lies Sirmium, an Illyrian town belonging to our other enemies, the Western Roman Empire. To our south lie the hordes of the Visigoths (also our allies) and the fertile Thracian lands of the Eastern Roman Empire, who we are not yet at war with just yet. We also have some domestic politics to keep an eye on. Historically, the Ostrogothic ruling dynasty was known as the Amalings or Amali, but in the game they're just 'The Ostrogoths' and that's it. Vithimiris, Vithericus, Widimir and Valdamera there are the only four historically-attested figures, and the Vitarit and Egica are, best I can tell, made up for the game. Whatever! That just means we have some extra members of the dynasty laying around in case Vithericus accidentally marches to his death. Despite this general period marking the beginning of what's commonly known as the 'Dark Ages', we still have technology to research! For us, we're going to beging with some civic research instead of military research. We're migrators on the move, and we're going to have to be able to feed ourselves. It's far more important that we can keep enough goats to keep our stomachs full than it is to have slightly sharper axes. Now for gameplay! We're going to extort our Visigothic allies a bit. We're at war with the Western Roman Empire and they're at war with the Eastern Roman Empire, but we're not at war with our allies' enemies. First thing we're going to do is offer to join their war against the ERE for a paltry 700... 700 money, I guess. They accept! More money is always good, but it's useful for us to be at war with the Eastern Roman Empire even if we don't get paid for it. With us now at war with the ERE, it's finally time to move some troops. Our western army nearest Romula, called 'The Grim Awakening', is sent to besiege the Eastern Roman walled town of Serdica. The Bear-Sons, led by King Vithericus, are sent eastward, with the goal to march on that unknown village which is presumably part of the ERE. And with that, we at last end our first turn. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Apr 26, 2015 |
# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 22:49 |
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Mr.Morgenstern posted:What?! We aren't going to play as Glorious Rome? Thread rated 1, pre-order canceled. And play as this chump? No thanks, Honorius can go stuff it.
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# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 00:00 |
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Grizzwold posted:How far in Attila are you going to be going? I think the campaign by default goes to ~495, but I don't know if you'll be able to keep it interesting all the way there. Then again I never finished a campaign myself so I've got no idea how much the dropping fertility and Huns mess everything up. I'm not too worried about exactly when to end, because there's going to be a centuries long break between Attila and CK2 anyways, which'll be an excuse to swap around provinces, throw in the Avars, and so forth. I can move the start date for CK2 back a little bit too, but that's also a bit of a hassle. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Apr 26, 2015 |
# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 02:20 |
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Chapter 2: Victorias Turn 2 and suddenly most of Greece is revealed! Probably due to shared line of sight stuff from our Visigothic allies. At least it's clear now that our eastern army is marching towards Marcianopolis. First thing first, though! We have a siege to wrap up. The siege of Serdica is so one-sided that there really isn't much to show. The important thing is what happens after we win the siege: We got five options here for what we can do with the town. We can sack it, which means we ransack the place, take money, but leave it in control of whoever previously controlled it; we can liberate it, which means we create a friendly allied state, but get no money; we can loot & occupy, where we steal money but also take over the town, ending our migration; we can occupy, where we don't sack the place before taking it over, so locals don't hate us as much; or we can raze the settlement to the ground and leave it as burnt-out ruins. We liberate Serdica and hand it over to the new Dacian government. We don't want to settle down just yet, but we need a friendly spot to rest, away from the eyes of the Huns, and we got enough money at the moment, so liberation is a great way to score ourselves a safe spot and also deny a town to our enemies. It also may be a little confusing that there's a Dacia there when in the regional Attila map and the OP's AD 117 map shows Dacia to be centered up in Romania. See, the Romans lost that Dacia in the late 200s, and later established a new Diocese of Dacia on the other side of the Danube from where the old Dacia lay. They were really sore about withdrawing from Romania, I guess. With Serdica in friendly hands, our army there is free to move around some more. Trimontium is to the southeast, and apparently it produces gold! Hot drat, we're gonna sack the poo poo out of that. GOLD YES The garrison of Trimontium is surprisingly depleted, given that gold is produced there. What gives? Oh poo poo, it's already been sacked once, probably by our friends, the Visigoths. The red numbers shown by the potential loot value tell us that those aren't the full potential figures, but that they're what's left to steal after somebody else has recently run through. We won't get jack from this gold-producing town! But given time, it will recover and produce more gold for the Eastern Roman Empire. We can't allow that! So Trimontium is razed to the ground. We hold off on attacking Marcianople. We don't want the Ostrogothic hordes to become too far separated from each other. We tell it to march southwards a little, and then With a new turn, we see a weak Eastern Roman army is trying to march past us to the south, but they're within striking reach. Great! It's better to beat them up piecemeal than wait for them to swarm over you with the superior numbers of the empire backing them, so we swoop down to attack. They run towards Thessalonica, but we're still able to catch up before they reach its walls. Oh, let's fight this one out on the battlefield. The default setup that the game gives me isn't to my liking, so the units get rearranged at bit. The little arrow markers represent skirmishers (throwing javelins, I think), the bows are bowmen, the two-pointy-things marker is a spearmen unit, the sword is regular melee, and the horses are cavalry. I've switched it up, so there's three distinct columns, each headed by a skirmisher unit, then a bowmen unit (they'll stop and beging firing while everyone else marches past), then a spear and melee unit, and then cavalry on the flanks and the general in the center. Before rearranging units After rearranging units The Romans barely move until we're almost on top of them. The center column hits them first, while the right and left continue marching, intending to flank the Romans. It goes marvelously well. See that one Roman unit in the center of that last picture, the one with the red sword marker and star above it? The star indicates that that's the general's unit. Both our cavalry units are ordered to charge it near-simultaneously, and we send one of our skirmisher units to join in the fun, too. Mediocre graphics because I'm a scrub, yaaay yaaay The charge alone causes the Romans to begin breaking, and almost in the blink of an eye the battle's over. Woo! Now we get to decide what to do with those 81 captives we scored in our victory. We have three options: we can ransom & release captives, which gets us a little money but makes our army upset, we can take on warriors and see if any of our captives just want to defect to our side, and if they do they replenish some of our units' numbers, or we can kill captives and cackle in the bloodlust. We opt to take on warriors. The monetary gain is insignificant, and we've pissed off the Romans enough that further provocation is pointless, but it's always good to regain a bit of strength lost in battle. And with that, we just about wrap up things for 395. We've beaten the Eastern Roman Empire in sieges, and we've beaten them in the field. Things are looking up for the Ostrogoths!
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# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 16:31 |
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Brutus Salad posted:Just to be clear, and because I'm seeing alot of bold words at the end of this update, that last bit is a vote, yes? Hitlers Gay Secret posted:I don't think so, he says he chose to recruit the captives so I presume that was just to teach us our options when that happens. Mr.Morgenstern posted:I've always felt that burning provinces down was a dick move, especially after watching the Huns reduce everything north of the Alps to barren provinces. Generally speaking, most people are going to move as far away as possible from the ERE, so burning down the gold mine just means the Sassanids will have an easy time fighting the ERE, instead of giving you a serious concrete advantage. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Apr 27, 2015 |
# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 02:14 |
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Chapter 3: Calamitas High on the fumes of victory, we march on the Eastern Roman town of Thessalonica and lay siege to it, and march our other army to Scupi, which we easily sack. It seems like smooth sailing, but when the spring of 396 rolls around, we're in for a scare: The Huns have crossed the Danube and, unnervingly, they're ignoring Eastern Roman towns and seem to be making a beeline straight for us. Nope. Not dealing with that now. Numerically there's more of us than there are of them, but the Huns are seasoned veterans, and they're all on horseback. gently caress that, we're running. We're running so hard that we jump into boats. And yep, when the turn ends, the Huns keep running right past all the towns and straight towards us. Also apparently a mass of Eastern Roman armies were chasing us, too, but we couldn't spot them in the fog of war! gently caress! gently caress! gently caress! We manage to cross the Adriatic with our one remaining horde, hoping to put as much distance between ourselves and that slaughter, and land near Tarentum. We actually land close enough to Tarentum to end up in its 'zone of control', which is land around the city proper which the city garrison can easily reach from town. The only way we'll be able to get away from Tarentum and out of that zone is by wrecking Tarentum's garrison, so the one thing left to do is besiege the town: While we're waiting for our equipment to be ready to assault Tarentum, we get some good news from the east-- the Eastern Roman town of Scupi has erupted in revolt against the government in Constantinople, and will hopefully both divert any Eastern Roman efforts to persue us further, and will sap their treasury a bit. Maybe this means we'll finally get a break, and we won't have to- Huns. Huns in boats, chasing us across the Adriatic. Huns. Huns in boats, chasing us across the Adriatic, fighting alongside the Romans. Right. gently caress this, gently caress them, we're retreating. At this point it's all gone to poo poo so much that the Ostrogothic horde attacks and razes Neapolis out of sheer frustration, which, while cathartic, does nothing to help out our dwindling manpower issues. And when the next turn rolls around, who do we see? Why, it's our good friends, the single-minded Huns, who have chased us to the ruins of Neapolis! And, happily, it seems it's just the one horde of them, and not both. We have numerical superiority over them, we're the last horde of the Ostrogoths, there's only one thing to do. gently caress you, Huns! gently caress you, Huns! gently caress you, Huns! gently caress you, Huns! gently caress you, Huns!
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 20:52 |
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Freudian posted:What the gently caress did you do to piss off Attila that much?
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 21:22 |
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ZearothK posted:Look at the bright side, the rough start means you have a more interesting game ahead of you!
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 21:51 |
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Jimmy4400nav posted:So just double checking, the Neapolis we're sacking right now is the one in Italy right? The Romans named a few cities after that one.
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 21:57 |
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Mr.Morgenstern posted:I generally crop them to 1200 pixels across horizontally when it comes to maximum size. Jimmy4400nav posted:Nah, you're doing fine, just maybe once in a while take a zoomed out image of where we're at. Since we're migrating all across the world, that can help us get our bearings.
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 22:08 |
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Chapter 4: Nil Desperandum The Huns had tried to finish what they'd begun a generation earlier, when they had slain our king's father on the battlefield, but they failed. They had crossed a sea and chased us nearly to the gates of Rome, and they lost. The cost of victory is dear, however. Nearly half of the horde had died in that fight, and our future now look uncomfortably uncertain. Blood is on the minds of our people, but who wants another fight with the Huns? The Huns' old king, Uldin, is dead, and their new leader owes his ascension to the Goths' victory. Perhaps he would be amenable to a generous, gold-laden peace? Yes! But although peace with the Huns is good, total peace doesn't help us out. We still need money, and we're still on the move. The Ostrogothic horde is nearly at the gates of Rome already, so why not give that a shot? We have to wait a season before we can start, and when we do assault the Eternal City, we do it with the assistance of only four giant ladders on wheels. We'll be attacking the western walls, where the Tiber River runs through town. Two columns, both equipped with two ladders apiece, will approach separate wall sections, so that if one thrust fails there will still be second entry point to rush through. It goes wrong very quickly. Both of the ladder-towers of our left column catch on fire as they approach the walls, rendering them useless. The right column loses one ladder to fire, but the fourth ladder makes it, and a brutal fight breaks out between the Goths and Romans. The fight suddenly becomes more tense, as the fourth tower finally succumbs to continued fire from the Roman defensive towers. Our troops on the walls will get no reinforcements until the gates can be opened from the inside, while our remaining troops outside are subject to withering fire. However! The remainder of the battle turns out to be surprisingly short, as the Roman defences at the walls are the only troops present to defend the city. By the time the troops on the walls can open the city gates for the remainder of the Ostrogothic army, Rome's garrison is already dead. The year is 397, and the Ostrogoths have sacked Rome. Our basic manpower problem has not faded away, despite our victories! We are now in the heart of the Western Roman Empire, and we need a place to recuperate and rebuild, yet it is still too early to settle down permanently. We need an ally, and so we march south. If we can take Tarentum, we can likely 'liberate' a friendly Italian ally for ourselves, and camp outside the now-friendly walls of the city. It will take time to build the rams and ladders needed to take on the city walls like we did for Rome, though, so for now we wait. Our old friends, the Gepids, have decided they want a bit of warfare, and so they've declared war on some nomads called the Roxolani. We agree to join in, since the Gepids and the Roxolani are off in the Balkans and therefore none of what happens there will matter to us. Meanwhile, the siege of Tarentum continues apace, and the weak garrison folds laughably quick once we properly assault its walls. As expected, we're able to liberate 'Italia', and hand control over to a Roman pagan, one Anicius Helvetius Lupus, presumably of the senatorial Anicii family. With Tarentum friendly, we tell our horde to encamp, and take the time to finally look at a map and read some reports about what's going on elsewhere in the Year of Our Lord 398: To be completely honest, we don't know much about the world beyond whatever lands we ran through. Eastern Roman Macedonia is cut off by land from Constantinople, and Dardania has completely slipped out of its control. The Western Roman Balkans are doing little better; the frontier provinces of Pannonia have broken away into their own state of Illyria, while Vandals and Visigoths have wedged themselves between Illyria and the WRE to settle in parts of Dalmatia and Noricum! We know nothing of the situation in Africa, or the Western Roman Rhenish frontier, or the Eastern Roman Persian frontier. There's still woefully little of the world that we know anything about, and so we hire a dry, dour fellow named Gissur to become the eyes and ears for the Ostrogoths. While we're in a money-spending mood, King Vithericus is appointed to personally lead a new army, named 'The Bear-Sons' after the army that perished in Thessalonica. To double our future safety, we also engage in further negotiations with the Huns, seeking a non-aggression pact with them. With King Uldin dead and the war over, perhaps the best way to ensure that the Huns don't wage war against us again is to become their dearest friends. They accept! And so, with peace secured and a second army finally ready to be built, it is time to rest. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Apr 28, 2015 |
# ¿ Apr 28, 2015 20:00 |
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Hey, the Romans killed God's son and said that all the true believers were heretics. They're punks, nothing more. They totally deserved having their poo poo sacked.
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2015 21:18 |
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Chapter 5: Ex Italia, ad Galliam With time at last to rest we encamp near Tarentum, and begin recruiting and replenishing our armies. Even though we're mostly just recruiting spearmen, hurlers, the basics, these things take a while, and so we have time to research and explore a bit. Gissur, our scout, is sent north, to explore Italy and points westward. Closer by, our Italian hosts in Tarentum are starting to get unfortunate ideas, and are now demanding money of us. It's a small sum, and worth paying while we're still recovering, but Italia's future usefulness once we're out of the worst of it seems very small. And they aren't the only ones seeking to take advantage of us while we recover! Sources have notified us that some nobles have begun plotting against King Vithericus. We must act! We have a couple of options available to deal with the problem, and we pretty quickly opt to disrupt the plot. In these dire times, shedding the blood of our own people is worse than sin, and yet it seems foolish for us to directly approach them. It is best to simply disperse the plot and leave it at that. While we spend our time trying to keep our own bonds from fraying, other people are rapidly strengthening their own bonds with others. Another Roman pagan, this time in Thessalonica, has declared himself ruler of an independent Macedonia-- this time, the man is one Anicius Traianus Burrienus. Could the Anicii in Italia be expanding their domains? They're certainly feeling more ballsy, at least. Helvetius Lupus asks us for another payment. We're still rebuilding our forces near Tarentum, so we agree to this yet again, but for a man who only gained his position through the efforts of the Goths, Anicius Helvetius Lupus is really pushing his luck. In more ways than one! Italia's first army marches out from Tarentum the moment it's ready, crosses Campania and lays siege to Roma. Despite our objections to Italian monetary policy, this maneuver is impressive, and worth backing. We move an army to Roma to support Italia when they choose to assault the city walls. And, to show their thanks for our support, Italia asks for another payment. Ingrates! But we must remain calm, and remember the big picture. Italia gives us a rare opportunity to recover from our previous setbacks, and regardless of whatever they're squeezing out of us, they're costing the Western Roman Empire more. Oh for-! But patience! Italia at last assaults Roma's walls! aaand decides to merely sack the city, rather than occupy it for themselves. Oi. With that disappointment, the year AD 400 rolls around at last. We are told, for some unknown reason, that some Hun named Attila has just been born. Oh no, a baby! We have bigger, more immediate concerns to address. We've managed to survive to AD 400, but now we've been tasked with surviving again, this time for another twenty years. We've also been told that 'climate change' is beginning to make the north more inhospitable, but we're not convinced these aren't just lies told by effeminate Greek philosophers to trick us. We also still don't know much about the world outside of Italy and the Balkans. Macedonia now also sits among old Eastern Roman lands, but beyond that, very little has changed. We have, however, reached far enough north to encounter a Western Roman separatist faction, Gaul, which is delighted to encounter a horde ravaging Western Roman lands, so much so that they immediately offer us a non-aggression pact. We accept, of course. In fact, Gallia as a whole seems intriguing enough that we begin to move north. Both our hordes are ready and recovered, and so we sack Roma one more time for good measure, before moving further up the Italian peninsula. Like Roma, Ravenna and Fiorentia likewise melt before our heated attacks. At this point, Italia demands money from us yet again. This time, however, they offer something in return, and we're finally alerted to the fact that the Roxolanians, those nomads the Gepids back in Dacia sought to fight, have apparently crossed the Adriatic and are coming after us! We accept Italia's offer in the hope that they can slow down the Roxolani, and begin to consider our options. Options considered, we continue to head northwest. And again Italia asks for money. This time we've had enough, and tell them to gently caress off. They acquiesce, happily, although I doubt Italian troops will eagerly march to our aid in the future. With Roxolanians on our minds, we sack Segusio and finally cross the border into Gallia. Our first goal is to reach the two Gallic towns of Lugdunum and Vesontio, which are in the hands of Roman rebels. Hopefully there's still gold there to sack. But! While one of armies edges close to the walls of Vesontio, our sole army besieging Lugdunum is suddenly assaulted by the rebel Roman garrison. It's time for a fight! As was the case with the Battle of Neapolis against Uldin's Huns, we organize our force into three columns. Skirmishers in front, heavy melee in the back. Given our first sight of our opponents, however, our pre-battle preparations seem like they were almost a waste of time. Pictured: One third of the initial Roman army One of our spearmen sneezes, and that force is practically wiped out. The Roman reinforcements then arrive, though, and our men's laughter dies out quickly. Word passes through the ranks that the Romans have artillery with them. Worrisome stuff! But our Roman opponents spoil their advantage by sending their army piecemeal at us. Their cavalry charges far ahead of their infantry, and so only half their army engages our forces at one time, which makes it easier for us to repulse them. Then the other half of the Roman army advances, and is likewise pulverized. All that remains are the Roman onagers. We advance, and they run. Victory! But their artillery bloodied us badly, and even through they only ever engaged us at half-strength, it was a well-armored half-strength. Over 300 Ostrogoths perished in the fight. With the Lugdunum garrison repulsed, we march our other army onward to Vesontio, and commence a second siege. We also check our scouts' reports, however, and note that the Roxolani still chase us, and their main force is just a little to the south of our location. The army besieging Vesontio is too far away to return and reinforce the army outside Lugdunum immediately, but we need to bolster our defensive capabilities if we are to have any hope of holding off the Roxolani. There is one option available. Lugdunum stands before us, with food stores inside and walls protecting it. We assault the city, knock out the remains of its garrison, and choose to occupy instead of sack the city. The Roxolani then attack, but Lugdunum's walls prevent them from engaging our forces then and there, forcing them to spend time preparing for a siege and giving our relief army enough time to march south from Vesontio. Together, our armies outnumber the Roxolanians handily, and we soundly defeat the nomads. And, in the peace that follows the Roxolani retreat, we realize we've just ended our migration and settled in Gallia. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Aug 22, 2015 |
# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 01:40 |
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I also want to take this opportunity to showcase the horribly nerdy way I've been trying to keep track of characters. I'm probably doing it wrong, too.
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# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 01:44 |
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dublish posted:I was just wondering at what point settling becomes a better option than migrating. Grizzwold posted:Why was their diplomacy text acting like they were giving you money?
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# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 02:25 |
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Mr.Morgenstern posted:You can only get higher tier units after you've settled and it's the key to creating an empire, but generally most people will migrate for a while and save up money (somewhere in the 50-100k cash range), as settling down is quite expensive. Iberia is considered a good place to settle down, due to being far away from most of the conflicts that happen in the world.
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# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 02:42 |
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Preid posted:Great stuff so far, I'm quite intruded by your twist on the classic paradox mega campaign. I hope you don't mind me asking, but is there any particular malus associated with packing your bags and moving to greener pastures, and if not then would you mind elaborating on why you've chosen to make your stand here? I'm also happy to take the opportunity to kill France in the cradle.
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# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 13:24 |
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Chapter 6: De Administrando Regno Novo We have occupied Lugdunum, Caput Galliae, the capital of the Gauls. Though it was an act of necessity, we've now got a home for ourselves at last, and we're content to settle in. Roman Gaul is rapidly falling apart, so we're in a prime place for expansion! If we can knock the Franks out of Gaul, that is. We've also landed in a modestly decent spot for us, both for agricultural and religious reasons. Lugdunum has fairly average fertility. It's also almost equally Latin and Arian Christian, with nearly a third of the province being some form of pagan or another. In such a religiously varied region, we can hopefully make a secure home for Arianism. As for Lugdunum itself? Despite our choice to peacefully occupy the city, its buildings did suffer a little damage. Moreover, they're all Roman buildings, most of which we can't use that well. There is a still-standing rally field, which, if repaired, we can use to recruit our own Being landed now, we can also begin concerning ourselves with the administration of territories. King Vithericus' brother, Geilamir, isn't doing anything at the moment, but he's a fairly loyal man and we want our ruling family to hold onto as much power as possible, so we appoint Geilamir governor of Lugdunensis. With an appointed governor, we can issue edicts, and choose from a couple of options regarding province growth, taxation, or conversion to Arianism. But we also have more immediate concerns to address. Lugdunum is a great city, but it doesn't produce much food, and we currently control no other towns and no farmlands at all. The people are starving! The easiest and first thing we do is choose to build a farmstead where that Roman forum once stood. It's far more important to not starve to death than it is to maintain Roman architecture. For a longer-term solution to the starvation problem, we march one army back up to Vesontio and commence besieging the city once more, while the other leaves Lugdunum to seize the unfortified town of Octodurum. The more territory we control, the more places we can farm, and the more food we can produce. The royal treasury is also a concern. We did not arrive in Lugdunum with much money, and the city is draining our coffers further. While working on taxation and improving our industry helps, we can also reach out to our new neighbors and see if we can work out trade deals with them. Trade will bring more money to us both, and may help establish positive relations as well. It turns out that both the Alamanni and Suebi to our east are positively ecstatic to deal with us, and agree to military deals alongside our trade offers. What good fortune! The Gauls, sensing our solidifying position, take the initiative and offer us a deal. How can we refuse? All told, the trade agreements help us solve our financial problems. We'd started off fairly badly in the red, but those deals, combined with repair work and the expansion of our territory into Maxima Sequanorum, mean that our deficit disappears over the course of a season. And our building program pays off, too! By the end of 404, our food shortage ends and any sign of famine cannot be found. Our progress does not go unnoticed! The Roman breakaway state of Hispania, centered in Corduba and surrounded by Western Roman lands, has taken note of our growth, and... declares war on us. How charming. Still, to reach us, they'd have to cross the Western Roman territories in Spain and then... hey, what's that dark green in western Gaul? Ebdanians? Ebdanians? Roman Gaul really has fallen apart quickly. And that's not the only thing changing, either! The Visigoths have converted from Germanic Paganism to Latin Christianity. We're Arians! Sure, we've been hoping for a while that they'd see the light, but why did they have to convert to the Romans' sort of Christianity? Pfah! We know who our true friends are, anyways. It's during this time of growth and recovery for us that the Roxolani decide to attack again. Before they can hit one of our cities, however, we decide to strike them. Our initial position is halfway up a hill in a forested, snow-covered area. We decide to shift our troops uphill, and to reorganize them in the usual three-column manner. At the commencement of battle, we're not actually sure where to go. There's no Roxolani to be found! The trees in front of us may be blocking our line of sight, but who knows for sure? We proceed ahead slowly. Ah, found them! They were hiding in a second row of trees, behind the first set. Our men charge ahead quickly to engage the Roxolani at close quarters, before their cavalry can really start running around and being a nuiscance. We outnumber them and we've caught them at close quarters. They crumble quickly, and the battle draws to a close. While we are good at fighting a battle quickly, we are lackluster when it comes to saving our mens' lives. Nevertheless, a victory is a victory, and the point of this battle was to rough up the Roxolani and encourage them to leave, not a desperate do-or-die battle for survival, so we can afford the bloodshed. Our nomadic nemeses have been defeated yet again, our realm has trebled in size, and our financial and nutritional crises have been resolved. This is the way to administer a new kingdom!
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# ¿ May 1, 2015 03:12 |
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I liked "Gaulths", personally.
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# ¿ May 1, 2015 03:52 |
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Chapter 7: Recuperatio (Winter 404 - Fall 409) Having defeated our dear foes, the Roxolani, a second time, we choose to opt for peace. Even though we bested the Roxolanians in the field of battle, they still insist upon exacting payments from us. We're far more keen to gain peace from these nomads than we are to continue waging war against a people who have nothing we can conquer, and so we assent to their terms. Shortly thereafter, we recieve an emmisary from our notional friend, Italia. They've noticed that we're at peace with the Roxolani while they are at war, and were wondering if we'd be so kind as to join them in battle against the Roxolanians? Naturally, we tell them to gently caress off. That Helvetius Lupus fellow isn't the brightest Roman, is he? A lot of Romans don't seem that bright, come to think of it. While we're still fuming over the Italian request, we recieve word during the summer of 405 that our erstwhile ally, Dacia, has failed to maintain its own independence, and has been reconquered by the Eastern Roman Empire. They helped sap the Eastern Romans' strength when we needed them weakened, but now we're far enough removed from Eastern Roman lands that their revival does not concern us. One faction that does interest us are the Visigoths. Even though they have joined Latin, not Arian, Christendom, they are still our brothers, and we are interested in their survival and welfare. We'd be happy to help them out and give them our support, if we could just find them. Where are the Visigoths now, anyways? Our brief excitement at the prospect of a Visigothic Egypt in 406 fades after they are soundly defeated by a roving Eastern Roman army later that same year, alas. One last faction of interest to us are the Franks. Unlike the Visigoths, who we like and are far away, the Franks are close by. Very close by. In fact, most of Gaul that doesn't belong to us belongs to the Franks! They control a strip of territory along our western border, from Lugdunensis south to Narbonensis. No one German should have all that power, especially if he isn't an Ostrogoth! It's about time we consider building up our armed forces a bit. Actually, yes, building up our armies would be a very good idea, given the way things are going. Over the course of 407 and 408, we recieve several distressing messages regarding the fate of various peoples. Although some of these peoples, such as the Magyars, are insignificant easterners and probably would never have amounted to much anyways, we get one horrendous shock in 409 with news regarding the Visigoths in Egypt. Requiescat in pace. With these alarms urging us on, we decide to act. We establish a third army, initially based in Lugdunum. The city is home to the only Roman military building in our realm, and we begin churning men through it as best we can. King Vithericus is so enthusiastic about the project, he assumes command of the fresh unit, and proudly dubs it 'The Gothic Legion'. The main line is comprised of Legio soldiers, men trained in the same manner as Rome's legions. Backing them up are Comitatensis spearmen, likewise trained in Roman methods, alongside traditional Germanic crossbowmen and cavalry units. The Gothic Legion's mere maintenance puts a horrendous burden on the kingdom's revenues, but King Vithericus is quite happy with it, and keen to see it used. With half a mind on the growing power of the Franks in Gaul, and half a mind on seeing the Gothic Legion in action, war is declared on the Franks during the spring of 409. The Legion marches from Lugdunum south to the Frankish-controlled city of Aquae Sextiae, in Provincia, and begins to lay siege. A second army is sent west and north out of Lugdunum, aiming to disrupt Frankish operations in Aquitania and hopefully encourage the Franks to not send all their troops against the Legion in the south. The plan does not go off smoothly. Our scouts hadn't noticed a Frankish army near Aquae Sextiae when the Gothic Legion started the siege, and now we're outnumbered. Running doesn't help. poo poo. Time for a battle! And thank god for southern Gaul's geography. Our starting position is halfway up an incredibly steep hill. We opt to position our troops further up, near the crest. We want the enemy marching as far as possible, as uphill as much of the time as possible. They outnumber us, but if we can get them tired before any blood is even drawn, then hopefully our high-quality legio troops will be able to wallop them. Despite our commanding position, we see nothing at battle's start. It takes a fair chunk of time before we spot any of our Frankish enemy's troops at all, but eventually a few units appear far off in the distance, somewhat off our right flank. The full Frankish army reveals itself, and all we can really do is stand and wait. Our gambit to stand and wait for them to reach us seems to pay off. By the time Frankish troops manage to get within reach of our line, they're already crossed more than half the map, climbing uphill the entire way. Our crossbowmen have been subjecting them to withering fire during that time, as well. The Franks' troops begin to crack almost immediately. And the cracks in the Frankish army cascade at a marvelous rate! Each Frankish unit that flees allows some of our men to turn into a flanking maneuver against other Frankish units already engaged in battle, and each Frankish unit that flees makes the other Frankish units more skittish and prone to flight themselves. The Frankish line begins to break from these pressures, and we're able to split the enemy army into two bite-sized pieces. The Franks' rout is nearly complete when we finally spot the enemy's general- he had never engaged in the fight at all, and had stood far back from the front lines throughout the battle. Coward! Our victory over the Franks is complete! The Gothic Legion, outnumbered, handily defeated a larger Frankish army, and did it so thoroughly that songs will be sung of this day for generations to come! And with that matter out of the way, we resume our siege of Aqua Sextiae. Their garrison was depleted in the earlier fight, and so a direct assault on the walls is easy. Upon capturing the city, despite the gold and blood spilled, we opt not to permanently occupy the town, as then the Legion would be tied down with pacification duties when there's still so many Franks left out there to pacify. We choose instead to liberate Septimania from the Franks' clutches. Even though we haven't actually conquered Gaul yet, with Frankish power seemingly broken, who else is there in Gallia to stop us in the Year of Our Lord 409?
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# ¿ May 2, 2015 04:24 |
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I've also updated the prosopography up to chapter 7 here, if anyone's interested. Is anyone interested? I could just slap a link to it up in the OP or the second post or something and then shut up about it.
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# ¿ May 2, 2015 04:32 |
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Mr.Morgenstern posted:Who on earth is ruling Italy? Some Roman splinter group?
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# ¿ May 2, 2015 04:41 |
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Preid posted:Also, I've not played any TW games since Rome 1, do they still put a little map marker down for heroic victory's along with the date and combatants? NewMars posted:Aww. There goes something interesting. I'm really sad that this isn't going completely off the rails history wise, though killing off the franks is sure to make things interesting. Who are those two groups in southern Britain? I'm kind of hoping the Jutes get kicked out by Britain. If the British actually hold a lot of ground at game's end, it'd be very tempting to make Britain dominated by Brithenig rather than Welsh. NewMars posted:That actually reminds me, there's no bulgaria in attila for some reason but a big empty spot where they should be. Pretty much the only empty space on the map, in fact. Does... does this mean that there is no great old bulgaria? Did it perhaps ascend to a better, more bulgarian game? (such as steppe wolfe)
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# ¿ May 2, 2015 13:34 |
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GunnerJ posted:How does this work? Do they eventually take over the "real" WRE title, form their own breakaway state (seems like they could have done this already), or will there eventually be a "South Central Roman Empire" and a "Really Western Roman Empire"? I'm kind of hoping they or Italia survive. I've already whipped up Vulgar Italo-Latin, Gallo-Latin, Hispano-Latin, Britto-Latin/Brithenig and African-Latin cultures in anticipation of any Roman revolters surviving, and it'd be nice if at least one of those cultures actually was useful for the CK2 conversion.
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# ¿ May 2, 2015 16:19 |
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Gnooble posted:Wouldn't a Roman Separatist or Italia faction in Italy just be regular Latin? Or maybe straight Italian. e: As it's currently shaped up, it's mostly just Latin names with classic '-us' and '-ius' endings changed to Italian-like '-o' and '-io'. Not that hard to make. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 16:41 on May 2, 2015 |
# ¿ May 2, 2015 16:35 |
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You can play much further than 465. I'm probably going to aim for 469 though, just to have a clean 300 years to CK2.
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# ¿ May 3, 2015 00:44 |
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PBJ posted:So I have to ask, why is the faction symbol for the Ostrogoths a women's bow brooch? I'm assuming that even with the lack of physical resources relating to national/tribal symbols, CA could've come up with something more interesting to represent them with. At least the Visigoths' could be seen on some representations of their armor (perhaps an early interpretation of the later Norse raven banners). but a black cross on a gold field is a rather dull thing for a kingdom, so that'll still probably be changed later on.
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# ¿ May 3, 2015 14:57 |
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Chapter 8: Bellum Germanicum (Spring 410 - Summer 415) Frankish power in Gaul may have been broken, but peace did not come over the land after their defeat near Aqua Sextiae. The Franks had fostered a friendship with the Alamans before war had begun, and with their armies scattered and smothered, it was time for the Alamanni to do the heavy lifting against us. The first fight in this Alemannic stage of the war occurs near Octodurum, in the Alps. Never mind that we're slightly outnumbered! We set our army up in the good ol' three-column formation, and fight our fight. It's a foggy day for a battle, and our enemy nearly sneaks around our right flank before they're noticed. Our army wheels to face them, charges, and then the melee just turns all efforts at maintain formation into nonsense. The Alamanni army fragments, we focus on the units that waver, and the rest of the army breaks. We have the Alamans on the run, but at this point our good Hunnic allies ask us to join another one of their wars. The terrifying run from the Danube to Gaul happened only ten years prior; the Huns scare us. We'll accept any call to war they ask for, because we really do not want to get on the Huns' bad side again. Before we move against the Marcomans, we choose to wrap up our small war with the Alamanni. Having bested their greatest army rather handily, we march two armies to the Alamans' capital, Uburzis, besiege and capture the settlement. Occupying the settlement would mean devoting one of our precious armies to garrison duty, and would just be a big pain to deal with. We instead choose to subjugate the Alamans, forcing them to become a tributary state of ours. Shoot, as long as we're going down this all-Hun-all-the-time route, we might as well squeeze some extra profit and protection out of this, right? Pre-empting the Huns for once, it's time we offer to join them in a war, but for a price this time around. We get money and a Hunnic bride for King Vithericus' heir, Widimir. In exchange, we declare war on some tribe on the other side of Europe. That's the ticket! Wars against the Germanic tribes seem to be the way to go, actually. The Western Roman Empire doesn't control any of the Italian Peninsula proper anymore, and its capital is in Corsica. Northern Italy is either in the hands of Germanics or the Western Roman Separatists. This is prime territory for expansion! Mediolanum's an easy pick for us. The Marcomans control the city, but their garrison is pretty lovely and there's no roving Marcomannic armies in sight, so we capture the former Western Roman capital over the winter of 411, and celebrate the acquisition of our first bit of Italian real estate. Having won our first bit of Italy, the Western Roman Separatists declare war on us. We call upon our allies to come to our aid, and all of them answer the call-- except for Italia. Bastards. That act of backstabbing is followed up by a second act, as the Alamans decide to break their tributary status with us and wage war once again. Two Alamannic armies sweep through the territories of the Suebi- who seem to be likely supporters of the Germanic alliance angled against us- and drive back our armies to Lugdunum. Our forces are now split between a garrison in Mediolanum, and weakened armies recuperating near the walls of Lugdunum. The Alamans, happily, decided that the Alps were a fine place to stay, and just camped in the middle of the mountains over the winter of 412, during which time we rallied our spread-out forces and found the Alamans putzing around southeast of Vesontio. This time, we outnumber the Alamans and defeat their combined armies again. One of the Alamans' allies, the Thuringians, try to distract us with a raid into Turonum, but to hell with that, we march one army back and beat their butts, too. gently caress 'em. Thrashing the Alamans again isn't enough to dissuade other people from declaring war on us too. The Marcomans, probably still sore from their own sound beating in the field, convince the Suebi to join their war against us. Oh well, the Suebians have a town in northern Italy, between Mediolanum and Lugdunum. Time to score another settlement for ourselves! Another loving faction takes this moment to declare war on us-- this time, it's Gaul who declares war, and promptly razes our northern town of Turonum. Well they can gently caress right off! Our celebrated Gothic legion marches north, avoids the Gaulish army, and pretty easily seizes the Gaul's lightly-defended capital (and sole settlement) of Rotomagus. The Gaulish army resettled in the ruins of Turonum while we took Rotomagus, though, and it takes another campaign season for us to march south and retake that city from Gallic hands. It is the summer of 415, our realm stretches from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and you know what? These wars are starting to get a little tiring.
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# ¿ May 5, 2015 02:55 |
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There may be some fudging involved.
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# ¿ May 5, 2015 03:17 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:What a clusterfuck. I haven't played TW since Empire, how come they kept adding more and more people to the wars?
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# ¿ May 5, 2015 04:39 |
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Chapter 9: Diluvium (Fall 415 - Spring 420) Our spiral into constant war with everyone in the name of appeasing the Huns continues, as their king asks us to join them in a war against the Venedians. Some money is offered to sweeten the deal- even those nomads are noticing that we're getting tired of all this war- and we accept, in the name of eternal friendship. God, we're at war with a lot of people. And more are keen to dogpile on us! gently caress. Jesus Christ, they're even coming back from the dead to kill us. The Gallic problem alone is easy enough to tackle, at least. Their new capital is Augusta Treverorum, which is right on our border. A quick assault, and the city is ours and Gaul is dead again. This lull in the incessant warfare is also a prime opportunity to sting the Western Roman Separatists. From Mediolanum we do a quick march south and sack Verona, the Separatists' capital. Hopefully that'll teach the Romans to not mess with us. Of course, with our troops marching east and south to war on the Germans and the Romans, the Venedians take the opportunity to attack us from the north, in boats. The Venedi are off in Sarmatia or Poland or thereabouts! They sailed across the Baltic and North Seas just to start sacking Gaul. After wrecking our port town of Rotomagus, the Venedian army continues south, and sacks Turonum. Aw, hell, this means we got another enemy absolutely fixated on killing us, doesn't it? Worryingly, our good ally, Septimania, has lost its sole settlement to the Western Roman Separatists. There's still a Septimanian army on the march, but now we have no one watching our southern border. Plus, now the Separatists control most of Italy and are now expanding into southern Gaul! God, it's like watching the birth of the Roman Empire repeat itself. At least a few of our far-flung enemies have begun to sue for peace, even as our immediate neighbors become more hostile. Illyria hasn't attacked us once, but we've been at war for a while, and now they're offering us gold to end a war neither of us have fought. The Burgundians join in the peace-making fun shortly thereafter. We will have peace in our time! And we'll do it by force of arms, if need be! The raiding Venedian army is finally caught between the two burning towns of Rotomagus and Turonum, and we pulverize them twice over, just to make sure they have no army that can harm us. With our troops now in the north, our enemies take the opportunity to punch us in the south. The Western Roman Separatists have laid siege to Mediolanum! Even though our Septimanian allies have resettled in Vienna, they're no longer the threat to the Separatists they once were, and our lands in northern Italy start to seem a little vulnerable. The advent of 418 introduces us to a new fellow-- there's a new king of the Huns, named Attila! He asks us nicely if we'd be so kind as to join the Huns in war against some obscure tribe called the Sclaveni. As is usual with our Hunnic policy, we oblige. Of course, what we'd really like is for that Attila fellow to move against the Western Romans to our south, but until that happens we'll just have to make do with what we got. The first order of business is that ongoing siege of Mediolanum that the Separatists are carrying on with. When two of our armies finally reach the edges of Liguria and are spotted by the Romans, they lift the siege and scatter immediately. Maybe the Romans will be pushovers in the future, who knows? We take the moment to also besiege and sack Separatist-held Aquae Sextiae, just to sting the Romans further and score us some much-needed gold. But naturally, we can never have a moment of fun and ease. The moment the Separatists back off from Mediolanum, the Germanic Suebi sweep in to lay siege to the place themselves. We also get hit twice in Segusio, first by Italia, and then the Separatists. Adding insult to injury, the Separatists sweep westwards again, and finally obliterate our dear ally Septimania once and for all. The Italian army follows the Separatists' action in reverse, sweeping eastwards from Segusio, sacking Octodurum and driving the Suebians away from Mediolanum just so they can sieze the city for themselves. The Italian garrison at Mediolanum is of a laughable size, and we're able to retake the city quickly, killing our one-time ally and longtime irritant, Anicius Helvetius Lupus, ruler of Italia, along the way. But by this point much of northern Italy is a smouldering ruin, and the constant warfare is not making things better. The Suebians decide, after our recapture of Mediolanum, that enough is enough, and they manage to capture the city from us and promptly raze it to the ground. Completing the loss, Italia surprises us with another army, and takes Segusio, only to quickly lose it themselves to some local rebels. For a moment it seemed like Gothic Italy could be saved, but now Mediolanum is ashes and Segusio is in enemy hands. Our one friend, our one ally, our one hope left is that very friendly Hun named Attila.
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# ¿ May 8, 2015 03:35 |
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Also! Little state of the world map for 420 (), with faction icons removed and labels very lazily slapped on: No, I don't know what's up with Judea either.
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# ¿ May 8, 2015 03:52 |
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loquacius posted:At what point do the Western Roman Separatists get their own name?
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# ¿ May 8, 2015 15:53 |
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Chapter 10: Devastatio (Spring 420 - Spring 424) The advent of 420 begins with the information that Attila has been crowned King of the Huns. That's funny, because he's been king for over a year already! We're also told that we've done a good job just surviving as far as we have, and that we should keep on trying for another twelve years or so. Quite a challenge! Hopefully our good friend Attila will help us out if things get tricky. Speaking of which, if we're going to stick with this pro-Hun policy, we've got to make sure the Huns keep liking us. To that end, we marry one of King Vithericus' daughters, Princess Guilia-runa, to King Attila. Family bonds will keep our alliance strong! The Huns get into the groove of things and even start offering marriages to us, too! Yeah, I think we're going to have a great relationship here on out. Much better than screaming away from them in terror while being chased across half the Roman Empire. We may just need that Hunnic backup, too. The Quadians, settled down in Venetia, have managed to convince the Anteans, a people who've managed to taken part of Aquitania from the Irish, to join them in war against us. Defending our eastern frontier has been a headache already, and now we have a western front opening up in this war. Oh boy! In mid-421, we get a new neighbor to the east, which might help staunch the flow of invaders from that direction, maybe. Gaul has appeared for a third time, this time emerging in Argentoratum, a town previously held by the Langobards. Although Argentoratum is part of the province of Maxima Sequanorum, and thus it'd actually be pretty easy to stabilize control of the town if we seized it. We opt not to attack Gaul, however, as these wars are getting pretty tiring as it is. Because yeah, there's a lot of wars going on. The Anteans are quite keen to beat the poo poo out of us, and pretty quickly march out of Burdigala to start sacking our own towns. We really need to march an army out that way to turn them back, but our armies are still pretty small, and we're basically doing a giant juggling act involving Gothic armies and threats to the Gothic realm. Thankfully, one concern is amicably dealt with, as the Franks finally offer their own peace terms. And not a moment too soon! We need to get an army out toward Turonum as quick as possible, before the Anteans do another- aw goddratit. The Anteans razed our town of Rotomagus, the shits. What's more, the razing of Rotomagus is enough to prompt the local populace of Lugdunensis to revolt! Not that it'll be an immediate problem or anthOH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD Goddamned local rebels managed to seize Turonum! The town's garrison hadn't yet recovered from the Antean sack, and our own troops are still trying to get over to that side of Gaul. Not that they actually have far to march, at this point. A large Gothic force was on the way to Turonum when the rebels seized it, and now it's pretty easy to roll over the small rebel force that remains in the town. The realm is saved! And hell, why not go one further? While there's a lull in the eastern fighting, we send King Vithericus himself to attack the Antean capital of Burgidala. The Antean army is still ravaging our Gallic territories elsewhere, but to hell with all that, we're going to rip their heart out. In compensation for the loss of Rotomagus, we seize Burdigala and claim it for ourselves. gently caress you, Anteans! Of course, that means there's now a wandering horde of Anteans in our realm. This is somewhat worrying, but at least they aren't Huns. We're able to pin one army down just north of Lugdunum, and have at them. The classic three-column organization is the easiest thing to do for this battle, and it's what we start with, but shortly after the battle starts, reinforcements join us, and form a fourth column on our right. When the two armies meet, both stand firm for a few minutes. The Antean center is the first to buckle under the pressure, and eventually flees, allowing our center to split and attack the right and left flanks of the remaining Antean forces. The collapse of the center and the flanking attacks cause the remnants of the enemy's army to fold quickly, and we're able to review our handiwork. A job well done, it seems! The second Antean army likewise cracks when finally attacked by Goths directly. And with that, our Antean issue is resolved. Also the Geats died too. RIP.
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# ¿ May 12, 2015 02:22 |
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Also, here's a political map as of Spring 424 without cheesy text labels: and with cheesy text labels:
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# ¿ May 12, 2015 02:24 |
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Hey, if Britain survives in its strong state and if Gaul stays where it is, maybe I can include both Brithenig and Jovian as cultures in CK2.Mr.Morgenstern posted:What religion are the WRS, anyway? Hellenic or Latin Christian?
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# ¿ May 12, 2015 02:52 |
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Maybe use Mithras for Britain, if they remain a major pagan power until the end of the game? otoh that's more work for me. Probably going to just end up integrating some Paradoxian's enhanced Zoroastrian and Hellenic Paganism mods, and then build more on top of that, since it seems likely that both religions are going to be more dominant here (even after maybe fudging a bit of Christianization over the 300-year jump), so that'll be fun times getting that all to work proper. It's very tempting to brush over religious differences and switch some places over to different faiths, though. Diplomacy outside of a religious group is a lot more limited, and if Europe is too religiously fragmented, then there won't be many other realms for us to play diplomacy with. Kinfolk910 posted:What are the bonus objectives actually? Raserys posted:Gotcha covered. At least at a base level, I pretty much stole the names from the IB wiki, so alter as you like. You know, assuming they survive. I tried making up a bunch of cultures before starting the LP, in the hope that some potential outcomes could actually be anticipated and I could just plop in some ready-made stuff without having to spend extra time between Attila and CK2. Some of them will probably end up being used, but plenty of others won't.
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# ¿ May 12, 2015 11:48 |
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# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 22:15 |
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Chapter 11: Gothia die uno non aedificata est (Summer 424 - Fall 432) Our capture of Burdigala and loss of Rotomagus has made our borders digustingly ugly. Fixing this is a top priority! Just look at that, ffs. The Western Roman Separatists apparently have a solution to that problem, which probably involves just taking Burdigala from us. They attempt to attack us from the southeast, but King Vithericus' army is nearby and intercepts the Romans before they can attack our city. A river separates our army from the Roman army, and it's not all that clear which ford will be the one that we end up crossing. We set ourselves up to rush across the southeastern ford, while our enemy foolishly decided to split its forces evenly between the two river crossings. Happily, this means we're only fighting half of the enemy's army at a time. Marching off to battle Our army in this fight is King Vithericus' own Gothic Legion, so our army fields a great number of Roman Legio units. The Western Roman Separatists, by contrast, have employed some mercenaries from beyond the Rhine in their army. This leads to the bizarre situation of Gothic Roman legionaries fighting Roman Germanic pikemen. Our Roman troops attack the Romans' German pikes But it also means we have superior troops and more men engaged in the fight, so the southern half of the Roman army folds pretty easily to our forces. With half their army gone, the remnant of the Roman forces is shaken before we make contact with them. Compounding their weakness, they divide their forces again, making it laughably easy to mop up what remains of their army. With the Western Roman Separatists repulsed, we chose to simply rebuild and recuperate for the time being, and watch the world go by. Our first bit of news comes in the spring of 427, when we are informed that the Vandals in Sicily have been outright destroyed. A Roman revolt has overthrown them, establishing a regime led by local rebels, unaffiliated with Italia, the Western Roman Empire or the Separatists. With the nascent Vandalian state destroyed, nearly all of Italy is now all in Roman hands of some sort or another. Rebels control Sicily, and the Western Roman Separatists and Italia control nearly the entire remainder of Italy, with the exception of Quadian-controlled Aquileia. By Spring 428, we have managed to save enough- and haven't been threatened with attack, happily- that we are able to rebuild for once. General Mundus is ordered to march his army to the ruins of Avaricum, and once there is instructed to resettle the area. This costs us a pretty penny and reduces the strength of General Mundus' army, but it's well worth it for two reasons: Firstly, Avaricum is the location of a gold mine, so we should be able to recover the cost of reconstruction fairly quickly. Secondly, it makes our borders far more pretty. Our realm as it now stands, circa AD 428 It's at this point that we notice that we're not the only ones who've been resettling provinces. The British have moved in on Rotomagus while we focused on Avaricum, so now we share a land border with pagan Romano-British who hate us because of our culture, our religion and our power. This is surely the start of a beautiful friendship. Of course, upon resettling Avaricum we essentially start with nothing in the province. All its old buildings are useless rubble, more or less, and its our responsibility to pay for all the rebuilding efforts. The first thing to be done is to rebuild Avaricum's administrative heart, and for that we need to build a torp, what the Saxons would call a thorpe and the West Germanics a dorp or dorf, in the middle of the ruined city. Simply building that is going to take us the rest of the year! While we wait for construction of the torp to be completed, we're informed that the Garamantians have been destroyed by the Roman revolter-state of Africa. This is shocking news, as we'd been led to believe that the Garamantians were an immensely wealthy and powerful people. While the cause of the Garamantine defeat is confounding, at least the reason for the African attack on their lands is understandable enough- we'd also been told that Garamantine lands were lush and bountiful, and their capital, Gamara, was home to a vast multitude of people. Obviously anyone would want such rich lands! Or, it turns out, maybe Garamantia really wasn't that rich and fertile. Perhaps the people who told us of Garamantine power were slightly confused? Come the winter of 429, work on the torp has completed, and we're able to work on the next stretch of ruins in Avaricum. We opt to simply demolish these ruins, as we have two main priorities for the town at this point and two points in town where we could plop specialized buildings. We know we want that precious gold, so one of the ruin locations is going to be the location of a gold mine. There's also a matter of food- while our realm overall has a food surplus, Aquitania is producing very little to eat, and we don't want a local famine on our hands, so the other Roman ruins in Avaricum are going to be cleared away for some farmland. We clear away one set of ruins We begin the construction of farmland due to food shortage concerns, and order the demolition of the other ruins in town Gold mines completed! Yesss. During this time, we're notified of one other major development on the world stage- similar to the fate of the Vandals, a revolt has erupted in Jute-held Londinium, leaving the Jutes with only a single settlement back in their own Jute-land. This leaves Britain solely in the hands of Romans, with Roman rebels holding Londinium and the Romano-British realm in control of nearly everything in the British Isles except for Londinium itself. This is looking like it's shaking up to be a very Roman world, despite the collapse of the Western and Eastern empires themselves. The Romano-British revival is compounded a year later, when we receive word of a special peace treaty... The Britons and Saxons are now friends. This Roman upswing seems to upset some of our Germanic neighbors. The Franks, who are now settled in Narbo, convert from their paganism to Latin Christianity, presumably as a means of befriending the Western Roman Separatists to their east and Western Roman Empire proper to their southwest. Others, who do not change with the times, appear to be suffering immensely. Like the Vandals and Jutes, the destructors of the Langobards appear to be local Roman rebels, who managed to kill the Langobard king and seize their capital, destroying the kingdom's internal structure and causing their demise. Their destruction is an opportunity for us to expand deeper in Belgica, however, and we take the opportunity to besiege ex-Langobard Durocortorum ourselves. It is a tumultuous time. Upstart Germanic kings are being overthrown, but the old Roman Empire isn't reviving. Instead, local Roman magnates are seizing control of provinces and establishing little Roman realms- call them Romaniolas, maybe- across the remains of Europe. We're going to have work hard to keep our land of Goths, our Gothia, alive in this tumultuous world! The world as we know it, circa Autumn 432.
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# ¿ May 19, 2015 01:04 |