Part 1:
Just business, nothing personal
1st January 474 - 30th June 495
One bad side of this mod always pops up when you start a game as a tribe, you'll get more alliance messages spam than you could even think about. During January Nervii, Bellowaci and Parisii had allied me, it's fine with me to have some random gauls as allies because I won't help them and they won't help me as long as I'm on the wrong side of the canal.
Goals for this AAR:
* Own all provinces in Britannia and test the decision to form nation of Britannia
* Own enough provinces in Gallia and Germania to be able to stand against Rome in war which most likely will eventually come
Neither of my neighbors wanted to trade with me but luckily I found some Cantabri and Venetii from the other side of the canal to trade with me.Which is even better, we got all we needed, wood to Cantii which has cloth to make ship building faster and iron to Iceni so we can recruit heavy infantry.
Time to prepare for war before Catuvellauni does it.. Two archers and two heavy infantries and declaration of war. Casus belli for this war is them suffocating free trading in British isles and not trading with me, let's go teach them how it should be done!
15th October 474 AVC an assault to Catuvellauni was mobilized, 27th day Atrebates which was Catuvellauni's ally joins the party. Most excellent! I just need to take Catuvellauni out and go harass those gauls and I'll have a foothold in gallia..
Luckily my high-elder has high martial so I can name him to general, less worries for civil war. When the army finally had besieged Trinovantes at 30th January 475 AVC I Realized that 8 martial allows 'Retreat Is Dishonour' law and so we stormed the in without dishonoring ourselves and Trinovantes was down in 21 days. Gotta admit that I would have been a bit pissed if AI would have done same to me..
At the while I had forgotten Atrebates and they had marched their army to Cantii, my capital, and yeah.. Can't stop loving retreat is dishonour, Cantii fell in 88 days but luckily Atrebateans took some casualties.
A few battles were fought, Dumnonii sieged and siege was won. Yay, time to annex my pesky neighbour!
AAAAARGH! They were leader of the war against me and now I have to wait 5 years to invade Atrebates...
Suddenly Atrebates offers tribute, apparently (and hopefully) they're scared of me. I gladly accept as money is tight and I'm getting deficts about -0.3 every month. The problem for this is mercenary armies because I don't have manpower to keep up normal soldiers.
Quite a long time passed while waiting and nothing special happening, March 476 I hit 0 manpower first time and I have a feeling that we're about to stay on the bottom for a while. At the crossroads event fires and as character loyalties are nice I'll choose adapt or perish to gain +1 civilization to my capital and to get somewhere with research.
Spring 477 wasn't particularily special, preparations for war against Siluri were made but getting casus belli became pain in the ass and I ended up allying them as it was my mission. At the crossroads fires again and this time we honour ancestors, time to find some use for boosted army morale.
Around 479 I got the "We are broke" event and used the money to build two triremes, they'll hopefully prove their usefulness when I need to keep gauls out of my island.
484 was time to test them, truce with Atrebates was over and it's time to take lands instead of money. Atrebates fell in about 100 days and was annexed 15th January 485.
Here a bug note: When enemy army is retreating over a strait and you block it when they're on halfway over you'll get them to fight again but it shows you as attacker and you'll get the -2 crossing penalty. I love pyrrich victories...
Also something interesting that happened during the war, barbarian province Brigantes, which had barbarian power of 10 or 11, summoned 29 barbarian units after Silurians walked there. These guys are may end up being one hell of a problem..
And sure they were.. they came, saw and conquered, or to be more exact it was like came, raided and burned. There was no way to push them back with my army and none of my allies or neighbors were interested in helping. My plans of colonizing Brigantes took a little hit when I saw Iceni losing 19 civilization, TWICE.. 23rd November 486 they formed a client state of Triboci to Cantii and Iceni. Not good said Buite Duratid, not good at all I said..
Something funny and weird or buggy happened too. They were supposed to pay me monthly tribute of 92.14 gold (which sadly happened only once) and I got that amount when they formed the client state and I apparently "defeated them".
So status at 24th November 486: Stability -2, manpower 187, treasury 95, reputation 5,5
Army of 3 mercenary heavy infantries, one militia and one regular heavy infantry and Navy of 2 triremes.
I kept waiting and thinking about the situation for a moment, 24ht September 487 I decided that attack is the only way. Those 3 lovely letters.. DoW! As I expected, NONE of my allies were willing to join the war and I got a couple of nice casus bellies. I admit that the war sure didn't start like planned, Triboci had 12 000 men left of 29 units, can someone clear me why AI doesn't suffer attrition when it's standing 29 units on a province which has supply limit of 7..? Anyway, Triboci came, saw and conquered once again plus they managed to capture the general of the first army who also happened to be my High-Elder.. New guy rose to throne and gave +1 stability. My whole army was destroyed and they occupied Trinovantes and Dumnonii. For a moment I seriously feared being annexed but I remembered Aulerci and my navy. These barbarians will stay where they are while I build an army.
And really, look at that diplomat amount that is running to my borders.. Why don't you ally yourselves damnit?!?
fearless gallic warrior nations..??
As my manpower was under 1000 again (or still..) I needed to recruit mercenaries, unreliable as they reinforce slowly and extremely costy but only way. Thank god that I got that 90 gold from barbies a while back. Attacking over the canal would have been totally idiotic suicide and my rage level was rising as every single gallic nation was spamming me with alliances and none of them honored the call to arms. Bellowaci offers alliance.. Well, it's neighbour, it has 3 unit army and a nice province.. Okayh let's accept. Not a much of a surprise, they dishonour the call to arms and I Declare War on them 2nd January 490. Official annexation happened 6th April. Same happened with Aulerci a month later.
Now something semi-surprising: Siluri Declares war on me while Triboci occupies my both british provinces. That's LOW. And you're going to pay for it. Frustration and annoyance levels are getting pretty high as everyone are spamming alliances, monthly income is something like -2,5 gold. Stability is surprisingly 0 again and luckily no cascading alliances against me yet. I decided to do a little test, offer triboci 10 gold to end the war and those idiotic barbarians accepted it! Hooray.. Or not, I'm unable to get my army to britain if I don't move it in 3 pieces and Siluri is extremely eager to come and rape everything if I send 2 unit armies to face their 6 units and martial 10 general..
I decided to rage against Parisii but as I'm stupid I called Lingones to arms and of-god-damn-course they didn't move a finger before they had a chance to steal another from Parisii's provinces from right under my nose. Can I get a casus belli pl0z?? After forgetting that I've been occupying Parisii for about 16 months I noticed it and annexation called one more alliance spammer.
Around 494 I started collecting cascading alliance force to remove siluri from existence but as nobody else but me had triremes (or were willing to use them) I was in for a one-on-one battle. Luckily I had some overpaid mercenary cavalries and horse archers (what?? Haven't you heard of British horse archers??) who did nice job against Silurian heavy infantry and archers and I was soon ready to annex them. Revolts started rising in gaul, I had something near 18 000 revolting militia rampaging around and I was unable to do anything as I had to remove Siluri from existence..
And guess what, could there be any more appropriate way to end this update than this?? Everything has gone sour and NO I DIDN'T SAVE EVEN ONCE AFTER 487! 8 years lost.. Any suggestions how to continue? Should I play it again and this would be just alternative history?
Also believe or not even if the urge to bang my head trough the screen was absurd I didn't do it for the sake of this AAR.. :wacko: