Eternal Egypt: 616-633
- The Reign of Ptolemy VI Psherenptah -
After the death of Ptolemy V Egypt was for a short while in a hereditary crisis. According to the Agnastic succession law in effect the next pharaoh should have been the former pharao's oldest son, Amyrteos. However, even though Amyrteos had publically the support of all court-members, he was lacking the support of the Ptolemy family. Amyrteos insisted on himself to be crowned as the pharaoh immediatly, but he was forced to enact a month long mourning time, and the crowning of the pharaoh would take place after that.
Egypt was thus formally without a pharaoh, altough Amyrteos still held the role of the regent. Then the will of the old pharaoh was found. The authenticity of the will has been in later years disputed, and it was at the time disputed by Amyrteos. In the will the old pharaoh stated that the Agnastic succession law should be intepreted so that Psherenptah, the oldest son of Amyrteos, becomes the pharaoh.
Amyrteos found no support anywhere. Not amongst the nobles, not amongst the common people, and definitively not amongst the Ptolemy family. As the final humiliation, he was forced to crown his own son as the pharaoh (Amyrteos being the regent). After the crowning Amyrteos was named the governor of Cyrenaica, where he survived an assassination attempt. After the failed assassination Amyrteos escaped to Numidia where he swore allegiance to the king of Numidia. Amyrteos would never again step back on Egyptian soil, but he did serve loyally and with success in Numidia.
Ptolemy VI Psherenpath became the pharaoh at the age of 30 in AUC 616
Pharaoh Ptolemy VI Psherenpath was one of the great pharaohs of Egypt. His reign lasted for 17 years, during which time many new innovations, especially for military, were taken into use. New armour types were developed to allow better movement while giving better protection to their wearer.
Ptolemy was initially seen as an abrasive pharaoh, but later on he became first and most know for his sense of justice. He personally settled many quarrels, and his just rulings became the model for later generations. Ptolemy was also an able navy commander, and his disciplined leading manner saw many victories against the pirates roaming the Mediterranean. Ptolemy was also eager to hunt pirates on shore too, destroying many known pirate bases (especially the ones in Rhodes).
Armour and weapons were upgraded for the front line troopers. The army also went through some tactical changes. The old phalanx system was abandoned, and the much more flexible maniples system was put into practise. It took a few years to fully train the Egyptian armies to the new system, and if Egypt had been in war during this time, a crisis would have been at hand. As it was, the Egyptian troops became stronger than ever, with superior weapons and armour and using superior tactics on the battle-fields.
The ever on-going civil war in Seleucids was a constant concern to Egypt in this period. Egypt sent more peace-keeepers to the border provinces inside Seleucid empire to prevent the unrest spreading inside the borders of Egypt. Phoenicia and its surroundings were officially merged into Egypt.
With the well known ship-building experience of the Phoenician wharfs and the technological advances of Egypt, several inventive ways for naval warfare were experimented and taken into stardard procedures. Egypt became the true naval hegemony in the east. All the new ships built for the navy were of quadriremes (except the few humongous hexaremes attached to each squadron as flag-ships and catapult platforms) instead of the traditional triremes and quinqueremes, as the new tactical doctrine required the ships to be easy to manouver so that the marines would be able to rapdily board hostile vessels. The double-rowers on each oar in quadriremes allowed the vessels to manouver nimbly and great speed when closing in (altough in prolonged battles the rowers would certainly have been exhausted sooner than in the traditional triremes).
A model of an Egyptian quadrireme
In an attempt to improve relations with Numidia (with whome Egypt had had cold relationships for decades) and to stop the rampart pirate problem, Egypt sank the fleet of Rhodes and erected a permanent fortification for Egyptian anti-pirate garrison on the island. The fleet of Rhodes had several times caused massive losses to Numidia, and the seamanship of Rhodes had been a constant thorn in the back of Numidia. After Egypt removed the threat of fleets of Rhodes, the scattered Numidian boats were much safer, not only because of the anti-Numidian governement was removed, but also because many pirates lost their bases.
In north the Empire of Pontus grew fast. Pontus waged war after war, annexing smaller nations and destroying large nations. Pontus became the only power around the Black Sea, as it annexed all of the Caucasian and Balkan (minus the Rome held and supported areas in Greece).
Internally Egypt was more united than ever. The population and the nobles were very content with their pharaoh. Egyptian culture and religion were spreading at never before seen speed. The only problem was that the pharaoh got no sons at all, altough he did raise his nephews as they were his own sons.
In AUC 632 pharaoh Ptolemy VI Psherenptah died. His reign is memorised as a time of peace and prosperity. The wealth Egypt gathered during his rule would be the basis on which the future of Egypt was very strongly built.
The world in 632
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NB: This AAR has one or two bugs.
1) The Agnastic succession law does not appear to work exactly correctly, or at least it does not work as I presume it should be working (so this may or may not be a bug; as it may be just a fault of my understanding instead). It is my understanding the oldest son always becomes the next king unless he is dead, in which case the oldest son of this dead son becomes the king instead. In this particular case I was happy though, as I got a way better pharaoh than I should (or rather, what I thought I would get) have got 
2) Maniples, and I guess other such manpower pool affecting game-effects, resets manpower generation. No manpower is generated at all. Nil, zil, nada. Manpower starts to regenerate normally after next rehost, in this particular case I lost several years of manpower (first it took a while to notice the lack of manpower, then I thought I have horrible attrition losses somewhere, then it still took a while until one of us suggested a rehost to see if that fixes the problem), in all some 200k men. Which is perhaps the main reason for the ultra-peacefull session
