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Mike6979

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Apr 15, 2008
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Hi, I want to expose more people to the goodness that is AGEOD so here goes...

I am playing in a 3 player game of Marius vs Sulla vs Mithradates. I am playing Sulla, who headed the Optimate faction at this time. For my money this civil war is far more interesting than the fairly boring war 40 years later between Caesar and Pompey. This civil war has it all, both Roman factions have brilliant generals, both have a chance to win and both have another opponent to watch out for.

I have to watch for our third player who is playing Mithradates, a semi Hellenized king in northern Anatolia. He has a huge army and a huge fleet. Most of the Greek states are throwing their lot in with him as they were sick of Rome. That didn't work out so well since Mithradates was a bit of a violent nut.

Dylan, who is playing Marius and the Populares faction has to protect Hispania from the tough Celtic Lusitanians. They are an AI faction but i think Dylan starts with virtually no forces in Hispania to stop them.

Michael
 
On to the first turn!

I only have a couple of units to move in Italy and Sulla's army (my main force by far) in Greece.
This scenario starts just as the Social War was ending. The Social war started when most of the Socci, Rome's Italian Alaes, revolted in the 90's Bce do to huge losses their populations were taking due to incompetent Roman Consuls acting as generals. At the tail end of this war Mithradates convinced many Greek states to join him which was a threat the Senate could not ignore so they sent an army under Sulla to stop Mithradates.

Marius, who had won his unprecedented 7 consulship, was extremely old and already had one or more strokes. This seemed to have deranged him some as he started killing off his senatorial opponents and he moved Cinna's (a Marius supporter, and co-Consul) army into Rome which was effectively a decleration of war on the Republic.

I am a fairly cautious player and the two stacks i have to move in Italy are small and weak, so i am moving them together to combine them and moving them to Northeastern Italy to join with Pompey Strabo's (Pompey Magnus' father) army. I cannot use Strabo's army yet as he was not sure if he wanted to get involved in this civil war, but his troops will defend his province, and thus my army if Marius moves troops there. This gives me time to figure out what to do in Italy and to watch and see if Dylan sends an army to Spain.

I will lose Rome on the second or third turn and there is nothing i can do about that. I will lose 25 morale points when i lose Rome, which is huge. It will push my morale down to about 60 and this is going to be my greatest challenge in the game. For every point your morale is below 100 you get a small battle penalty, 60 is insanely low. I actually do not know what to do about this problem.

There are two threats facing Sulla in the east, Mithradates is advancing towards Byzantium with a large army, and Athens, Thebes and Corinth have revolted under the tyrant Aristion if i remember correctly. I think i will move Sulla down to Athens quickly and stomp Aristion, as Athens is an objective city and i will gain some of my morale back if i take it. This risks Mithradates grabbing Thessalonica from me which would be a disaster. I am unsure what to do about this, i simply only have one army.

In this game there are world actions i can take like holding games or distributing bread, and there are province actions like building roads, sending merchants and..... cause dissent. i can plat cause dissent 5 times on the first turn at the cost of 3 EPs each. I have 25 EP at the start of the game, so i spend 15 points and cause some dissent.

I am playing all 5 of the dissents in Asia Minor to cause problems for Mithradates, this event lowers his support in a province and adds my support. This means that if he does not garrison the Greek cities in Asia Minor like Ephesus with Pontic troops instead of their native Greek troops these cities will defect to me. Boo Ya!

So there you go, my first turn. Hope i am not the most boring writer ever!

Michael
 
Sweet, another AJE AAR! I'm curious to see how different will be the game from Loki's and Narwhal's since you seem to have actually filled all 3 players slot.

A few screenshot wouldn't be frowned upon though.
 
Really liking the amount of AJE ARR's suddenly appearing, good luck.

Also as someone said a couple of screenshots is always welcome.
 
90484508.png


Turn 3 is finished, Sulla marched quickly to Thebes and took the city with essentially no casualties. Now he is like a sheep among wolves! Cinna in Italy is besieging Rome, so next turn i am sure to lose Rome.

Luculus arrived in Cyrene looking for a free Trireme and was told no thank you. Stupid Greeks. On to Alexandria.

I wish the game let me raise cavalry in Macedonia or Dalmatia, the lack of intelligence that Sulla is facing is going to be critical.
Oh, and Mithradates(Monte), bribed the Thrakian tribesmen to join him. Carp on a stick.
 
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Always happy to see more AGEOD AARs. :) I agree with Matnjord: it will be interesting to see how different the dynamics will be between your 3-player game and loki and Narwhal's 2-player game.

You did an effective job of painting Marius as a nutjob, plus you're the narrator, so I'm rooting for you. :)
 
I think the only chance for Mithridates is to split his armies into smaller armies - and then try to get past Sulla. Because fighting Sulla is madness! But when you manage to spread chaos Sulla will hopefully be too distracted to move into your Asia minor home provinces. And then there's two things that might happen
a) he spreads his armies trying to take the provinces back - try to form one huge army and defeat one of his smaller stacks (if it's only 2-3 legions you MIGHT have a chance in favourable conditions)
b) he keeps his one huge army intact and takes back province by province - he will only be able to take 1 province per round AFAIK, so you can take provinces faster than he can take back from you :p just.. avoid the actual army!
 
Okay, we ended this scenario as we feel that there are balancing problems. We hope they will be taken care of in the first patch.

We restarted the Year of 4 Emperors scenario. This starts in 68CE, after Nero commits suicide and Galba, an elderly Roman noble was chosen as emperor. The praetorian guard, like most guards, was more trouble by far than they were worth, expected a donation upon the accession of a new emperor. Galba was stunned by how bankrupt the empire was post Nero so he refused this donation. A Roman named Otho was a child hood friend of Nero, and a darn good hairdresser supposedly, convinced the Praetorians to kill Galba and give the throne to Otho.

So, yeah, i am playing Otho. I am an idiot. I have almost no army and only control Italy and Spain. But, i do make lots of money off of Italy and i have a good part of the navy.

I am facing off against Dylan playing Vitellius, a fat Roman senator who was in charge of the Rhine legions and got his men to proclaim him emperor, with the British legions joining him,
and against Monte who is playing Vespasian a middle class hay seed from Italia who was one of the few generals Nero trusted. Vespasian had been sent to defeat the Jewish revolt just before Nero killed himself. The governor of Syria province convinced Vespasian to become emperor after Galba was killed.

Vitellius will face a large scale Batavii, German, and Gallic revolt largely due to Nero.
Vespasian has to face a large Jewish revolt due to Nero, and possibly the Parthians will attack Rome's eastern provinces as well. Nero was beyond an idiot in case you were wondering.

So, i have one legion on the Danube immediately north of the Alpes. I have 2 legions and the Praetorians in Rome and i can raise gladiators as a 'legion' but it costs me national morale as they were slaves. I have nothing in Spain. Nada.

What do i do?

To be continued,
Or,
Will Otho's fierce hair shave Vitellius and scalp Vespasian?
 
Turn 1 December 68CE. Rome. Otho, expecting everyone to fall over themselves declaring undying loyalty to him, is surprised when messengers show up saying that Vitellius plans to kill, cook and eat him.
Vespasian just plans to tax me out of existence.

This turn saw very little activity as snow, and storms at sea limit my activity. I have one legion in Alpes region which i leave there due to weather. I march Otho and three legions north from Rome to enter Cisalpine Gaul. I have the option to raise a legion of gladiators but it costs me five national morale, so i choose not to do this at the moment as i need 110 morale to convince the Pannonia and Dalmatia legions to join me.

I do send assassins and agents to Africa to kill the governor Macer, and convince the officials that I am the legitimate emperor. I know my opponents will be doing the same thing though, so my fingers are crossed.

I start building a couple of auxillia infantry units and 1 cavalry and 1 sagitarii (archers) in Italy and Dalmatia.
 
Well, your thread title is no longer accurate, but this sounds like an interesting match-up. :)

Vespasian just plans to tax me out of existence.

Ah, the benefits of a classical education. :) Pecunia non olet - you have to admire a man who can think up a way of taxing human excretia.

Just based on history (and your descriptions: Vespasian - General; Vitellius - fat senator) I'm gonna predict the graver threat will come from the East. I eagerly await being proven a complete ignorant idiot. ;)
 
Turn 2, January 69Ce. Macer in Africa was assassinated but Vespasian's agents convinced the Roman officials in Africa to support him. What am i paying these people for?
If this was Crusader Kings: Rome i would be developing a new trait; wroth.
Vitellius and I start discussing the future with Vespasian controlling Africa and we come to verbal agreement to fight Vespasian first. I think that fighting amongst ourselves is simply going to weaken us while Vespasian stomps the Jews and gets the Roman shipping magnates in Egypt in line.

So, with at least a pretense of an alliance I march Otho and 3 legions towards Sicily with a goal of taking Africa. I have to have the grain from Africa and it is 2 legions i can stomp of Vespasian. This may be the only opportunity to fight a battle against a weaker force for me all game.
I don't actually trust Vitellius much, he may attack me anyway just to grab Rome... I have more to gain from an alliance than he does.

Anyway, I build an auxillia infantry in Noreia, Croatia today, I may use this to harass Vespasians towns in Moesia and down in Macedonia. I raised a cavalry auxillia in Hispania possibly to harass Vitellius' towns in Gaul.
My legion in the Alpes was hit and 50% killed by Vitellius in the winter, so i retreated the remnants along the Danube.
 
you are brave taking Otho ... as you say he really was just an accident waiting to be crushed between two stronger rivals

do you want me to retitle the AAR for you ... and if so, pm me with your desired title - I'll also shift this in the AAR library
 
Because this is a set your orders, then everyone's orders are resolved at once kind of game Vitellius ordered the move against my Alpes legion on turn 1, we did not talk alliance until turn 2 when Africa joined Vespasian.

Turn 3, February and turn 4 March 69CE. Not much happening, the Alpes legion has joined up with several auxillia along the Danube, i will march all of them down to Noreia.
Otho is still heading towards Sicily since so far Vitellius has not attacked me in Italy. I sailed my fleets to Sicily and was caught in the worst storm i have ever seen in this game. My fault, i knew the weather was not great but i really need to take Africa province.

Taxes are collected in March so i will have some money to play with soon. I have very few engagement points to play with, and some people may question this usage but i started two subversion attempts in Carthage and Utica. This costs 3Ep per attempt and can give me +25% loyalty in each region and take that much away from Vespasian. I like this event, a disloyal province can revolt from it's owner if not occupied with military units, and when i control the province i can only recruit if i have better than 50% loyalty.

I also spent engagement points recruiting one German cavalry. Hopefully he will be worth buying.

Otho has a tough time but believe it or not he has a chance of winning, and i probably have more experience than my opponents in AGEOD games, so i took the weak faction.
 

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