We Three Kings - an MP AAR

[Enewald]

Wowz, this AAR surely is hilarious reading.
There's nothing better than multiplayer AARs.

I see BiB!
My eyes burn from that blue smurfish light!

[Jarkko Suvinen]

Most excellent read.

This thread needs more pictures though. I hope to create a gallery of the important characters ("important" = "egyptians mentioned in the AARs"). After all, there is nothing like connecting a face with a name. Or maybe I'll add the gallery to the next episode of the history, there are after all interstesting twists in the next two episodes.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Interesting varying perspectives. All equally valid, I'm sure.

You've got to be kidding.

Jarkko's perspective in MP AARs is very seldom valid for anything but provoking outraged responses from the other participants. This is just one of the things that makes playing with him such a joy.

[Jarkko Suvinen]

Jarkko's perspective in MP AARs is very seldom valid for anything but provoking outraged responses from the other participants.

True. Instead of going all emotional I stick to cold hard facts. It always is a dead sure way to drive some people nuts for some reason*. Then again, that is why it is fun to play with such people


*Let us take an example from this game. In AUC 585 the income of Numidia does according the cold hard facts (the ledger in the game) dwarf the *combined* income of Egypt and Pontus. Now let us hear from Peter why that is not true, and why all who believe 46 is more than 16+19 are simply out of their minds.

[Peter Ebbesen]

*Let us take an example from this game. In AUC 585 the income of Numidia does according the cold hard facts (the ledger in the game) dwarf the *combined* income of Egypt and Pontus. Now let us hear from Peter why that is not true, and why all who believe 46 is more than 16+19 are simply out of their minds.

Anybody who believes that 46 > 16+19 is clearly not out of their minds. Anybody who believes that my monthly income from 570-585 doubled and that I was thus raking in the money at 46/month (as you insisted at the time), is clearly out of their minds. As I said at the time:

* Yes, I know that you two "fair and balanced reporters" put it at the 46 income listed in the ledger for the past month leading to comments such as "Numidia's economy is stupendous and dwarfs both Egypt and Pontus combined." and "Numidia has by far the largest money income". To be fair, it is an obvious mistake to make (it is the number in the ledger) if one doesn't regularly check the ledger, but those 46 are because of a surprise +29.3 Tribute income earned in the month the game was saved that I have absolutely no idea where comes from (I have no states paying me tribute) and which, in the ledger of my income shows I have received exactly once (total Tribute income for Jan-Dec 585 being 29.3). Running the game in SP for a month I do not get the bonus in Jan 586 (but Pontus did gain 31 extra in Jan 586 and took its place at the top of the ledger). This is really weird. Do gifts show up as tribute? (Not that I can imagine any of you sending me gifts except by mistake). Does anything other that tribute via the tributary relationship show up as tribute?

If any of you can make a guess as to where that money comes from, I would be happy. I do wonder how on earth both of you could even for a moment believe 46 to be my true normal monthly income since my monthly income has been diminishing over the last 10 years or so from the high point of around 20.5-21 due to my gradual conversion of slaves (so many, many, slaves) to freemen and since it is more than the Seleucids and twice as much as either of you - there's simply no way in hell it is possible to (more than) double my income in 15 years from 18-19 to 46 when my only expansion was Carthage province in that time and I already had irrigation/mines built.

This foreshadows my next chapter, of course, but now that you brought up your own boneheaded inattention to simple mathematics and your steadfast pursual of the "cold hard facts" that suit your perception while ignoring those that do not (when even the most cursory mental activity would raise doubt about some of the facts you believe in), I guess I have to respond the same way as I did originally.


--- That said, I still do wonder where those occasional +X Tribute that last for one month comes from.

[Jarkko Suvinen]

Anybody who believes that my monthly income from 570-585 doubled and that I was thus raking in the money at 46/month (as you insisted at the time), is clearly out of their minds.

Now you all see what I have to live with, sigh... And once we get in these AAR's to evidence about the Egyptian cores in Asia Minor... I can assure you all *that* is a discussion which truly is a banana magnet!

[Stuyvesant]

I feel like I'm watching American TV pundits (the 'Fair and Balanced' approach - get a left-wing lunatic and a right-wing idiot and let them scream themselves hoarse), except that this is actually entertaining. And I don't have to watch the spittle fly.

And all it took was one little innocuous remark...

[Peter Ebbesen]

And all it took was one little innocuous remark...

This is actually fairly innocuous compared with what is to come; I can't wait to see how Jarkko and Wyvern are going to deal with the "Egyptian cores in Asia Minor, existence of" issue that Jarkko referred to above. We are still, in the narrative, a few sessions behind events in-game.

[Wyvern]

Anyone who checks the Syrian War starting scenario will note there are no Egyptian cores in Asian Minor. Nuff said

[Wyvern]

Here's an early treat - a map of how Pontus stood in 585 AUD. I'd meant to include it at the end of my last AAR. Notice that provocative little Egyptian enclave!

[Enewald]

Asia Minor must be ruled by asiaminorians. And shall not belong to a distant king that rules arbitrary from overseas.

[Coinneach]

Disappointed at the lack of a Celt to sack Rome, but loving this AAR nonetheless

[Jarkko Suvinen]

Oh, Peter Ebbesen
have you us forsaken?
Through heaven and hell
with a whip and bell
I shout, and summon thee
to this thread to come and see;
there is an AAR missing
don't you hear the crowd hissing?

[Stuyvesant]

Oh, Peter Ebbesen
have you us forsaken?
Through heaven and hell
with a whip and bell
I shout, and summon thee
to this thread to come and see;
there is an AAR missing
don't you hear the crowd hissing?

Very poetic - though surely no-one in their right mind would ever dare hiss at the mighty Professor?

That said, I was hoping for more updates...

[Peter Ebbesen]

Oh, Jarkko the Bold,
hear it foretold,
That though the heavens may cry,
and beached whales may die,
as times go by,
and Egyptians fry,
from friction as they fly,
there's one thing that does not command me,
one invocation that does not touch me,
one summons that does not reach me,
and that's a Finnish one. Kneel, peasant.

[Wyvern]

How about if we sacrifice a gnome?

[Jarkko Suvinen]

That said, I was hoping for more updates...

There is more updates queued up, but we've agreed to post them in synch. And currently one of us is out of synch, looking for his lost muse

[Enewald]

Hey, Finland is lacking peasants. Don't mock the few ones that we still have!

[Peter Ebbesen]

Blasted Numidia: 570-584
- Suffering from Global Warming -

During the last years of the reign of the great king Masinissa, the king ever felt the smothering heat of his realm more painfully year by year. It was said, and as is often the case in these sort of things, it is not clear who actually said it, yet everyone knew that it was said by somebody and careful observation supported it, that the country had begun overheating at the end of 572, shortly after the annexation of Carthage.

Some blamed it on the High Priest of Carthage, the preeminent priest of the Carthaginian pantheon, for being a bad loser when the king tossed him into the sacred fires while dedicating his victory to Lord Cool, others blamed global warming.

Whatever may be the case, with the king pushing on his mid-fifties, he became interested in cooler horizons, places where, perhaps, one could live in a reasonable temperature while enjoying a glass of wine without listening to the whining clergy or suffering the heat of blasted Numidia, as he had taken to curse his land.

Say Hispania. A nice piece of real estate just past the sea, overrun, occupied, and colonised by the Republic of Rome over the last many years, the Rome that insisted on their superiority of culture and language who kept going around naming everything as if anybody had asked their opinion about it.

Sending envoys north to scout the world, he began careful planning on War Plan Olive while building up the army, navy, and infrastructure. In the latter he was greatly helped by the Carthaginian genius Baalhanno Eshbaalid (6/3/11), who was appointed Vizier.

Originally planned for the late 570'ies, the premature demise of his heir Micipsa in a friendly stab incident with his second son Gulussa in 573 caused the king to focus on domestic security for a while leaving Operation Olive on standby. His new heir was Micipsa's first son, a boy four years of age named Djedhor, and Masinissa began working hard on create an environment in which young Djedhor could take the throne with some sort of security should he inherit before he was of age. He assigned his eminent treasurer, Peneus Naravid, to train Djedhor in political matters and stand ready to serve as regent, should the worst happen.

Great Masinissa, conqueror of Carthage, never got to see War Plan Olive unfold. While hunting with the court one day in 581, he accidentally fell from his horse, was trampled and gored by a boar, and shot through the forehead thrice. His oldest living son, Gulussa, who was present at the hunt, ruled it a regrettable accident.

At only 12 years of age, Djedhor Massinisid took the throne and Numidia wept for the loss of Masinissa, who lived for 65 years, gave good government, and, with the exception of a few Carthaginian rebels, was loved by everyone.

In his thirteenth year of age, King Djedhor, ably assisted by his clever regent, sent a fleet of 17 triremes east to “see what's going on over there – I hear that the Seleucids are fighting again!” - and forgot about them. The entire fleet managed to sink in the Eastern Mediterranean, not a single captain being capable of bringing in his ship for repairs or supplies without orders, highlighting certain deficiencies in the naval leadership.

In his fourteenth year of age, he stumbled across the plans for War Plan Olive and began studying hard. The return of barbarian invaders on the southern border caused inconvenience and his popularity plummeted, but nothing that lavish bribes could not handle. Djedhor was paying hand over fist, eagerly awaiting the year he could take a consort for the purpose of raising his nobles' loyalty and his own spirits.

In his fifteenth year of age, he got bored with the intricacies of his Grandfather's War Plan Olive and instigated what would come to be described as “That Incident Past The Sea”.


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Sorry, everybody. It is just too hot to think here. It may not officially be a heatwave in Denmark, but it is very, very, hot where I am sitting. On the positive side, this should mark the last installment on my part without any pictures as I had, by the third session, remembered how to take screenshots in EU:Rome.

[Stuyvesant]

...the premature demise of his heir Micipsa in a friendly stab incident with his second son Gulussa in 573...

Is that 'friendly stab' as the equivalent of modern-day 'friendly fire', or do you intend to convey that the stabbing happened in an atmosphere of friendly camaraderie?

I realize that this is utterly irrelevant to the greater narrative, but linguistics do matter...