The Pharaohs Return: An Alexandrian AAR

Enewald: That’s the idea.
morningSIDEr: Poor rulers indeed…

Thanks for the responses!

The Pharaohs Return: An Alexandrian AAR
Chapter Eight: The Boy who Would be Emperor

Makarios’ proclamation sent waves of outrage through the Byzantine Empire and many demanded immediate action to deal with the pretender. However, the Byzantine Emperor was ailing and not willing to go to war without hearing out the boy first. The Alexandrian Emperor explained that he wasn’t trying to usurp the position of Roman Emperor, but was instead creating a new title based on the Ptolemaic Empire and ancient Egyptian Empire before that. This apparently sated the Emperor, and he agreed to maintain peace as long as Makarios did not make a grab for his title or enter the Byzantine sphere of influence.



Makarios kept to his word as spoken. Italy technically wasn’t within Constaninople’s sphere even though it still laid claim to parts of it. He wanted to gain influence within Europe itself and interfering with the divided city states was the easiest way forward although they relied a lot on luck.



He also put a lot of money and diplomatic effort into gaining closer relations with Portugal. After much hassling, his distant cousin, their king, agreed to sign an alliance.



Immediately Alexandria was drawn into Portugal’s North African adventures, although this particular war was almost at its conclusion and Makarios saw fit to only send token support before it concluded.



He had far more important aims, the first being concluding what his father had started and securing Alexandria’s dominance over Armenia. Georgia came to their ally’s aid, but caught up as they were in a conflict with the Timurids they were unable to provide any support.



The full strength of the Army of Alexandria crossed into Armenia and easily tore through the defending armies and garrisons. Constant battle with the Timurids had depleted both the spirit and treasury of the kingdom and so morale was at an all-time low.



The contested region of Mus as taken, and Armenia brought under Alexandrian protection.



It was definitely needed, as Timur’s hordes continued to nip and bite at the civilised nations of the regions. Nonetheless, Makarios dismissed the idea of sending an expeditionary force as he had far more important matters to be focusing on. Georgia appeared to have the situation under control anyway.



As he continued to politic in Europe and plan his grand design for the Empire, Makarios ignored the complaints of the serfs. When the issue of the recently imported printing press came up, he took the simplest option to deal with heretical literature by banning the printing of all literature except the Bible in Greek. This had the natural effect of angering Muslims, but on top of that the lack of a provision for Latin Bibles angered the many Catholics who were supposed to have semi-equal rights within in the Empire.



His latest plan was a glorious one in his mind. Portugal was involved in a war with the Papal States as a result of them supporting opposing sides in a war in Scandinavia. With this justification he would march on Rome and crush the Catholics in an outstanding display of Orthodox might. An immediate expansion of the fleet was ordered to secure sea passage to Italy.



That was the plan at least. As it happened, the Emperor tripped and fell out a window in the palace before the fleet could be finished and the armies loaded. A few fingers were pointed, but in the end no one could find any proof implicating the Muslims, the Catholic nobles or the Byzantines. He died before reaching his twentieth birthday with very few of his dreams realised. Nonetheless, he would be remembered as the first ruler of Alexandria to take the country into European politics properly.

(Only four years with him? And his heir is only three at this time? Seriously? Seriously?! The game really likes to mess with planned storylines. I did decide to let events in the game drive the plot though so this won’t be reloaded.)



Makarios was widely regarded as a powermonger, and his death did much to improve Alexandria’s relations with the surrounding countries.



With the planned invasion of Rome called off, the army was sent to assist the Armenians in holding off the Timurids. They were able to march to the Gulf before the horsemen agreed to withdraw. With that region quiet, there was nothing for Alexandrians to do except sit and wait and see whether the next Emperor would be able to live up to the title.

The year is now 1482.

To be continued…

FFFFFFFFFF-

Stupid Photobucket. I never had problems with the bandwidth limit in previous AARs...

Alright, I have an update ready but it'll take a while to figure out what to do with the images so please be patient.

Argh…imageshack’s interface is terrible compared to photobucket but it’ll have to do for now. If anyone has any ideas about a better hosting site I’d be happy to hear them.

The Pharaohs Return: An Alexandrian AAR
Chapter Nine: Dark at the End of the Tunnel



Even though the plans to march on Europe were over for the time being, expansion into the sparsely populated southern lands remained on the table. Having learnt from past mistakes, the military brutally put down any attempt by the locals to force out Greek settlers.



This was aided by monetary infusions from a variety of sources. While many had opposed the Emperor’s plans, they were not eager to see the Empire fall apart so soon after forming. The money also went to funding continued construction efforts throughout the cities of Egypt and the Levant.



Missionary efforts also went on, culminating in the official declaration of Mecca as an Orthodox city. The Arabian Peninsula was steadily moving away from its heathenism, although not everybody was happy about that.



Makarios’ intention to humiliate the Pope did not go entirely unfulfilled. The tribes of Fez, having risen to prominence in North Africa in recent years, dramatically defeated the Papal Expedition in North Africa and liberated Tunisia from his control.



Not soon after, North Africa was aflame again as both Portugal and Fez raced for dominance over the remains of Morocco. The Alexandrian rulers did not consider the war any of their business and would have provided merely token support if it wasn’t for Syria and Oman joining the opposite side of the war.



Syria was eager to regain control of its coastal lands and marched directly into them, only to be met by the Army of Alexandria. However, despite being outnumbered the Syrian ruler was able to inflict massive casualties on the Alexandrian forces before needing to withdraw. Years of fighting the Timurids had toughened both his skills and armies immensely, and while it wasn’t quite enough to overcome superior numbers it was a very close-run fight.



Each battle with the Syrians depleted Alexandrian forces enough for them to make very little headway into their opponent’s territory. Luckily, the regents received a message from the African nation apparently leading the war effort requesting an end to hostilities. They gladly accepted it and began to discuss what to do about the incredibly Pyrrhic victories the army had suffered.



The Byzantine cavalry was studied to learn new ways to match the horsemen of the east, while even more focus was placed on drilling and grounds in which to house this training were constructed.



They were even willing to offer up concessions to the Timurids when they returned to pillage border regions of Armenia to buy time for the reforms to take effect.



Events continued apace in the world at large, even if Alexandria was stuck looking inwards. France had suffered a series of crippling defeats that ultimately resulted in their king being declared a heretic and excommunicated. With England and Burgundy closing around them, the kingdom seemed in grave danger of being wiped out completely.



To the south, Ethiopia suffered a surprising defeat at the hands of Mutapa and was forced to withdraw from some of their recent gains.



Finally, the Makarios’ son came of age. However despite being named after the founder of the nation, Ptolemy II had neither that man’s nor his father’s skills. With the Emperor having great ambitions but none of the acumen to back it up, the direction of the Empire was very suddenly in doubt.

The year is now 1490.

To be continued…

Thanks for all the responses.

I've decided to put the AAR on hold for a while, partly because of the image issue but also because as I mentioned before I don't have as much time to play EU3 these days. It should get going again in a few weeks, hopefully after Photobucket resets the bandwidth limit. It turns out that switching from .jpg to .png more than tripled the size of my images, which probably explains why it went over the limit so easily. It's a shame to have to drop the quality again, but I'll go back to that once I get started again and there hopefully should be no more problems.