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But how long can one man live? :p

The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule.

:p
The lion is coming.
 
Hell yeah! The old Lion rises once more! I must say, the Gabriel-Nikephoros scene was quite epic! Gabriel and Co. will have to move fast if they want to take the City, and, more importantly, keep the City, for a threat obviously looms from the East. Arghun is presently otherwise occupied with other Mongols, but that won't last. While I'd love to see Gabriel taking the throne in Constantinople, I really can't see the Persian plans succeeding long-term, with the Mongols moving on his back sooner or later.

Though, Arghun seems to be only interested in a portion of Persian lands as additional legitimacy for his claim on the throne of the Great Khan. Perhaps his foray into Persia could amount to only a few battles/skirmishes, with a quick peace? Of course, such an arrangement would certainly mean the seceding of Persian border regions to the Mongol claimant. That would certainly create an interesting situation with the politikoi, who, IIRC, have lands there as payment for service in one of the wars?
 
I'm torn between wishing Altani "good luck" and hoping she runs into unexpected resistance. I'm rooting for the central Empire, but I don't want to see Roman Persia destroyed either.
 
Come on guys, have you even MET Nikephoros? You know Nikephoros isn't going to leave his back unguarded, he's left some troops there, enough to hold the mongols until the situation can be assessed and dealt with properly in the event of an invasion.

If he has managed to get 200,000 troops, he could leave somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 there, and still have a very sizable force, which could be enough to beat back Andronikos, since they have many troops tied down in Spain, and guard duty in Cherson and Azov against the Danes.

It seems as though Egypt might be somehow disloyal or rebellious, we heard some unkind words about the Egyptian despotes a few updates back, I believe. If Egypt merely refuses to mobilize for either Gabriel or Andronikos, that deprives Andronikos of a LOT of troops and the ability to pincer the invaders from the south and north at once and cut them off hopefully. If Egypt actually helps Gabriel, we're probably adding 100,000 more troops to that 100,000-150,000 from Persia, That would outnumber Andronikos' armies in the field 2:1 most likely, when you consider the 75,000+ tied down in Spain, and the 35,000+ in the north, Gabriel would be at a serious advantage unless Andronikos can manage to coerce every Dynatoi he's still got to mobilize troops in defense.

Even then Andronikos would not have an advantage by much, I don't think. However if Egypt stays loyal, and sends those 100,000 to fight Gabriel's 150,000, Andronikos should have at LEAST 150,000 troops I would think in the Anatolian, Balkan, and Levant areas, as well as the Caucasus, and that'd be enough to have a decent advantage for Andronikos. So I feel like Egypt could be the major deciding factor in this war, if Persia has wooed Egypt to them, we could see serious problems, (Could have been so simple as promise of the title of Rigas/Sebastokrator ton Aegyptos or whatever the proper greek is, similar to Konstantinos' title change.) but if
the Egyptians just stay neutral, we're seeing a pretty even battlefield, probably dependent on the skill of the commanders and the troop quality more than sheer amounts of men thrown at the other armies.

And if Egypt helps Andronikos, we could see a large pincer maneuver of some sort, with a near 2:1 numerical advantage, cutting off their supplies and defeating the Persians in good order, OR we could see some sort of disaster wherein the "Lion" proves his worth as a commander yet again, and decimates the forces of his young cousin, regardless of numbers.

However at some point sheer numbers will probably always win a fight, if you've got twice as many dudes, your enemy can only attack half of your men, while you can attack each of their men with two men. Even a GOOD fighter is going to be pretty hard pressed to fight two guys at once and come out alive on the battlefield, fighting isn't exactly like in the video games, if a guy gets to your side and pokes your abdomen/back/anywhere organs are with a spear while you're defending against another guy, you don't have enough hitpoints for two more hits or whatever, you leak your guts everywhere and that's the end for you. It's too bad really, if Gabriel's men had ten hitpoints each, they'd win for sure, it'd be like having over a million soldiers :rofl:
 
However at some point sheer numbers will probably always win a fight, if you've got twice as many dudes, your enemy can only attack half of your men, while you can attack each of their men with two men. Even a GOOD fighter is going to be pretty hard pressed to fight two guys at once and come out alive on the battlefield, fighting isn't exactly like in the video games, if a guy gets to your side and pokes your abdomen/back/anywhere organs are with a spear while you're defending against another guy, you don't have enough hitpoints for two more hits or whatever, you leak your guts everywhere and that's the end for you. It's too bad really, if Gabriel's men had ten hitpoints each, they'd win for sure, it'd be like having over a million soldiers :rofl:

So like Mount and Blade, more or less, but with more guts? :D

Also, Gabriel and co. probably DO have many HP. It's even the case in Total War. :p
 
I have two reactions to this, one slightly better thought out than the other:

1) Romano-Persian-Mongol rematch in a few years. BRING IT!

2) Everyone's gotten greedy. Romano-Persia wants to rule the entirety of Romanion, Romanion refuses to countenance an independent Spain (even if that means repeated and bloody campaign to subdue it against endless rebellions--the same role first played by the similarly inclined Italy), the Stortmark Danes are prepared to do just about anything to get Azov, even though Rome could still blockade it or launch "pirates" against it pretty much at will, and Arghun wants to rebuild the vast Mongol Empire of Ghengis. In most of these cases, everyone would be better off if they consolidated what they already had...but everyone clamors for more instead.
 
The Roman characters just don't think about what's good for Romanion anymore, they only think about themselves and how they can get more out of Romanion.
 
So glad you got this up. Loved, loved, loved the scene with Altani. I can't help but love her for some unfathomable reason. Maybe it's because she's a woman in power? ;)
 
Imagine how cool a complete realism mod for M&B would be. Gore and guts flying everywhere!

And what are you trying to say?! Life isn't exactly like games?! REALLY?!

m&b is pretty cool. .

Also, I'm trying to say that while the quality of the troops fielded DOES matter, (And Andronikos probably has the better troops, having the Imperial Tagmata, while Persia has Thomas' rag-tag warbands from the hills, along with whatever Nikephoros himself can send, but being less wealthy I doubt his tagmata are as good as Andronikos'.) at the end of the day, if Nikephoros could manage to gain a large numeric advantage, chances are he will win, fighting styles being relatively similar, and with slightly less trained troops, and assuming Andronikos isn't a very brilliant commander.

I was tying that in with the fact that Egypt seems to be the lynchpin of this particular conflict, and what they decide to do will probably be the deciding factor, if they commit their troops to Nikephoros, Nikephoros has a large enough numeric advantage that even if his troops were quite inferior to Andronikos' troops, he still has a better chance of winning. Training is helpful, but two on one, nobody is going to last more than a few minutes if they have to continuously fight more than just one person, and especially if those two people are both more agile than you, wearing lighter armor and fighting with lighter weaponry, it'd be pretty hard to prevent yourself from being attacked on two sides in an open field.

Of course, this Egypt thing is just my theory, I see Egypt as being able to gain some leverage from this war, and only a very foolish Egyptian ruler would neglect to see this, so if the Egyptian Despotes unsuccessfully tries to blackmail/force Andronikos into some sort of deal, and Gabriel agrees to make the deal or at least bargain with him, then it might just be Andronikos' undoing.
 
Excellent work, BT! Both vignettes were masterfully done. I thought Gabriel's scene was especially poetic.

Methinks Gabriel's political resurrection and Altani's submission are going to have enormous, long-term ramifications on both Romanion itself and the greater world as a whole.
 
I think Safiya wins hands down, although that girl whose picture was taken from the Tudors(don't remember which that was right now), would be a worthy competitor.