Towards the Present We Go, Langobards AAR (The Steppe Wolf MOD)

Prologue - The Migration and the New Nation

We, the Lombards, once lived in the north. We were a peaceful tribe wishing to survive the long winters. We managed to do so for many years and our people were content. However, the gods were angered one day and we suffered their wrath. We simply couldn't get enough food to feed all of our people. With the shortage of food, conflict began rising within our tribe. The conflict split our tribe into three groups. While the other two groups fought for the scarce food, our great leader, his name long forgotten, led our group south in hope of finding new lands. There had been rumours that vast land awaited in the south and were up for grabs. Before we could reach there, we needed boats to carry our people across the dangerous seas. With our limited supplies, only half of our group managed to travel across the dangerous seas. Upon arriving to the shores, we found out we weren't alone. Apparently, there were other tribes wishing to establish a foothold here as well. These tribes arrived from the east and, some like us, also came from the north. KNowing that we had competition, our leader was quick to order us to find and occupy the best land possible. After months of searching, we found that we had to move further inland. Our numbers were few and we cannot win over tribes in coastal regions without heavy losses. Our great leader led us further inland until we found ourselves in a rich region. Our people were thrilled to get such great land and we thought that peace and prosperity awaits us. We settled and, for many years managed to live in coexistence with the other tribes for many years.

Those peaceful days soon disappeared as a new danger rose from the west. A group of people, calling their nation The Roman Empire, to the west of us began to expand rapidly. They seek new lands and wished to drive away people like us, whom they call barbarians. We weren't the only tribes facing this great threat. Other tribes in the area knew that The Roman Empire was a threat to all. Had all the tribes banded together, we would all be able to easily counter this threat. However, the tribes in the region didn't trust each other and the Romans used this flaw against us. The give generous gifts to a tribe to war against another tribe. When both tribes were weakened, they came in to finish the job. Whole tribes were wiped out and the Romans appeared to be unstoppable. Our leader knew that strength is survival and he led us to fight nearby tribes to form the nation, Langobards. We may have moved here but we haven't forgotten about our past. We have survived harsh winters and, surely, we would not lose against neighboring tribes. In merely two years, we went from controlling a small area to controlling one of the largest barbaric nations in the region. We knew our fight still haven't ended. To our west, the Roman Empire looked to wipe us out and take our land. Barbaric nations to our north, east and south looked to expand their own lands. We, surrounded by enemies, knew that our fight for survival won't be easy.We must not only use our strength but also our brains. Military and diplomacy will be our tools. We have migrated from our old home in search for a new one. Now that we found one, we weren't willing to give up without a fight.



Langobards is the pink nation surrounded by Rome, Suevi, Vandals and Teutons.

Gukpa said:

Good luck :]

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Dari L. Benetka said:

Will follow, I love the Steppe Wolf mod, hope it doesn't crush

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Thanks! I've managed to play through quite a bit. Only crash I got so far is when I open my ledger. Nothing game breaking yet but it's a pain finding which province doesn't have a building .

Chapter 1 - Entering the World Stage

Shortly after forming the Langobards, our great leader died from his illness. For many, they worried that the enemies will overrun us. We knew we needed a new leader. However, our former leader had no son. Therefore, we needed to pick a warrior who is best suited for the position. After one full day of meeting, we have decided on the next leader of our nation. Or rather, we will refer him as king. A foreign term that meant ruler by rights or birth. Our king, Gioachino I Soderini, was selected to lead our nation to greatness. There were a few elders within our nation that doubt the ability of our new king. However, he was the best option available to us at the time.



Our new king chose me to be his advisor. I prefer to keep my name a secret but you may refer to me as the Advisor. Agreeing to my suggestions, the king ruled our nation as many other nations in the region. Our main source of income, in the form of ducats, came from taxes. This new system was quite foreign to our people but we knew that, if we wish to thrive here, we must learn to adapt and grow. We met some resistance in our change of system but, with the majority backing us, we knew that the changes could take place. However, the death of our former leader and resistance to our new ways of life had brought about instability. We had to stabilize our nation if we wished to not be destroyed from the inside out.



Our government, a foreign term for a governing body of a nation, is Despotic Monarchy. While we had no clue what Despotic meant, we believed the system would suit us nonetheless. Please do not see us as the almighty power that governs the people. We were merely the chosen ones to answer directly to our gods who communicate with us in the form of spirits. With the rise of our new king, the spirits have spoken!



The wise Gods have given us great advice! In a world filled with enemies, an alliance would benefit us greatly. Our king agreed and instantly send a diplomat to Frisians. He knew that a lot of responsibilities now lie on his shoulders. The survival of his people depended on his every decision. Our king's second decision involved giving our people more freedom within our nation. Being brought up in an environment where everyone was equal, our king cannot bear to see unfair treatment of those below him. Unfortunately, not all in our nation shared his views and our nation became more unstable.



Soon, word has reached us that the Frisians agreed to our alliance. The Gods immediately gave us a new mission. Our neighbor, the Vandals, were embroiled in a war and they were vulnerable to an attack. Our king was hesitant about this. Our nation was still unstable and war could make matters much worse. Faced with a tough dilemma, our king told me that he would give us a response the next day.

Gukpa said:

In the future,convert to christianism

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Haha, let me survive first. Then we'll talk about such minor details.

Chapter 2 - Learning More About Our Cruel World

Our king didn't sleep for the whole night. He spent the entire night picking his decision. In the morning, he gave us the order to prepare for war. Our first war would throw our nation into instability but, knowing that our king had the interest of our nation as priority, we followed his orders.



Our spies estimated our enemy to have roughly 4000 men. While we did outnumber them at the start of the war, our king knew that we must recruit more soldiers if we hoped to win the war. Order was sent out to all provinces to send men to war. This was our first war. We didn't know what would be the outcome. Nor did we knew how terrible the conflict would get. With the survival of our nation in the balance, we didn't have time to hesitate. We had to use force to show that we were not a nation to be messed with. The Gods, having long foreseen this, told us to create an army for our nation.



We felt joy that the Gods were by our side. We have learned that angering the Gods only brought pain and suffering. However, the Gods are just and their followers are always rewarded. The moral of our people was high and many were eager for battle. Before our king could set out for battle, a stranger approached and handed him a document.



Within the documents, we found many maps. The maps allowed us to discover new lands. Unfortunately, the maps also revealed the true power of the Roman Empire.



Compared to the Romans, our nation was merely a tiny bug. We feared that, should this titan decided to attack us, we would not be able to put up any resistance. Luckily, our king was quick to recover his composure. He said to us:

"My great men! We are facing many enemies. Some of which we cannot hope to win against. At least, not yet. We will grow strong. Our nation will rise one day to take on the Roman Empire. Before we can accomplish that, we must first take down the Vandals. They are merely an obstacle in our path towards victory. We gather here because we have the same beliefs. We migrated from the north to search for a better home. We found it but nothing is free. We must fight for it. Are you with me? Are you prepared to fight for your home and for the future generations? Are ready to take down an enemy our Gods have picked for us?"

Just like that, our great king raised the moral of the soldiers. We felt victory was guaranteed. When I asked the king if we should ask the Frisians to help, he laughed and told me that we didn't need an ally to win against a weak enemy like the Vandals. Following that, he set out to face his enemies. Days after he left the capital, we received terrible news.

TheWolfe said:

Speaking of such minor details, is it possible for you to become Zoroastrian by any chance? Not for another couple hundred years admittedly, but it would certainly be interesting.

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I'll have to see. Since I'm new to this mod, I have no idea if a different religion give any extra bonus than the one listed (I believe, from what I played so far, my current religion is the reason why I get instant cores). I might hold a vote when I do get to the point of changing to those religions but, for now, I'll stay with what I have. The stab hits are painful .

InvisibleSandwi said:

The way I see it, you have two options - either go historical and wait for new migrations of steppe peoples like the Huns to displace your barbarian friends into Roman lands, or work towards conquering them all and creating a unified nation of barbarians. From then on, I wouldn't know, because I've never played Steppe Wolf. Still, anything that triples (nearly quadruples) the span of the game is probably going to be a significant investment of time, so I hope you stick with this. I think this is the first Steppe Wolf AAR I've seen on the forums, so I'm interested to see how it changes things.

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I play this game to avoid historical. Plus, I'm a barbaric nation and I don't want to be displaced. As for sticking around, that is quite likely. Since it's my first time with the mod, I will be curious about what will take place later on. I got some surprises already and I hope there will be more. There are two reasons that could stop me from playing: 1. The game crashes and I cannot fix it. 2. I'm the most dominant power in the whole world with no one to challenge me and rest of the game becomes too repetitive.

Dari L. Benetka said:

Based on my experience with Steppe Wolf, when you play from 11 AD people such as the Huns or later the Mongols won't come. I've played a few hands-off games just to see how things would have gone, and Rome survived well and prosperous till the XV century and beyond. Few nations pop up (generally Bulgaria is among them), so actually the empire loses provinces but certainly remains the true power in the world, due to its tech bonuses. Plus, at a certain point Rome will convert to Catholicism and it'll become impossible for 'old' nations (such as Gauls... etc) to form or be released as sovereign countries.

I think that the best strategy is to form a strong barbarian union and then invade Rome in the early stages of the game. But that's only my opinion, you play the game, you decide the rules

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If I, say, defeated Rome, wouldn't there be no one else that can defeat me? Maybe, if possible, I'll let them thrive and finish the AAR with a showdown against them.

Tudyboss said:

AFAIK, the end date for this mod is 2100, so you have 2089 years to conquer the world. I wish you the best of luck, good sir

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I'll see. World conquests can get quite boring near the end. Plus, I have an unfair advantage with the time I have to finish a WC .

With the news of the Frisians betrayal reaching us, our new king decided to march his troops to meet the traitors. He knew that he cannot win a two front war and thus must eliminate one enemy first. He chose the Frisians to teach them a proper lesson. Therefore, our king, after leaving our city for merely a week, needed to return to focus his troops in the north. However, there was still good news when he arrived. It would seem that our king now had a daughter. When our king left, his wife was already pregnant. With the urgency of the war, he was unable to stay and see the birth of his daughter. The Gods, however, had other plans when the Frisians betrayed us. The king returned in time to see his daughter being given birth.


Our king was thrilled by the birth of his daughter. The only regret he had was that he cannot stay longer with his newborn daughter. He had his duties to protect his people and that included his daughter. Luckily, the elders in our nation see this as a good omen. A child born in the times of war meant that the child will lead the nation to greatness. Before our king left for the north, he assigned me to be the guardian of his daughter. He believed that I was capable of bringing his daughter to be a strong queen. I was honoured by his request and prayed to the Gods for success.


The birth of the future queen not only brought joy to the king but also to the entire nation. She was viewed as a gift from the Gods when our nation was in times of trouble. Our nation became more stable as the people saw that the Gods were still favoured us. However, we all knew that we still had a war to fight. A war that must be won to ensure the survival of our nation.

A year later, we received great news from the king. After a few key battles, our army was victorious in repelling the Frisians and they paid for their betrayal. We expanded our borders further north and, with the traitors out of the war, we can now focus on the Vandals whom the Gods ordered us to destroy.


The people in our newly conquered lands believed the same Gods as us. Our Gods have always favoured those who were strong and despised those who were weak. With our victory over the Frisians, those people saw our king as their rightful ruler. They only wished to follow the strong.

Our king only had to deal with the Vandals. The morale of his soldiers were high and the expansion made us stronger. The enemy has already begun sieges and has succeeded in occupying a few of our provinces. However, they had yet to engage in real battles. The first major engagement occurred in Erfurt.


The enemy had 6000 men led by their ruler, Burkhard. Our 13 thousand men, despite being leaderless, were eager for battle. The Vandals were foolish to charge our army head on. They had the false belief that our soldiers were exhausted from rushing from the north to Erfurt. They soon learned that our men cannot be defeated so easily. After a week of engagement, Burkhard led roughly 300 survivors to a retreat while our army, still 10 thousand strong, pursued them. While Burkhard was pursued, our king was in an engagement himself.


Our king found an isolated, leaderless Vandal army and ordered his men battle. Unlike the army led by Burkhard, this army was much more disciplined and used the terrain to their full advantage. Despite winning the battle, the casualty was rather high. However, our troops were still determined to win this war and, under the order of our great king, pursued the enemy. While there were plenty of bloodshed in the front lines, our people continued to be productive. The war raised the demand for food and our people at home were working hard to feed the soldiers. At the same time, this resulted in higher taxes and ensure that our nation can support a larger army.


When victory seemed imminent, the Vandals were able to bring in another nation into the war. Now, time was against us as we needed to destroy the Vandal army before Burgundy's reinforcements arrive.


Unlike the Frisians, Burgundy is stronger and had fresh troops. The longer this war last, the more we are at a disadvantage. The Vandals, upon hearing about reinforcements, began to attack back. Without giving them a chance to strike back, our king ordered an army to attack Weimar. We soon showed them that we can win despite being outnumbered.


This small victory may not have been much but it definitely helped our nation. The soldiers were more confident and even the people back home felt that God favoured us greatly. Thus, our nation became even more stable.


Our king wasn't slacking off either. He led his troops to fight many small battles and, in Halle and Dessau, he wiped out two very depleted armies.


Many more small battles were fought and won. However, winning battles doesn't necessarily means winning the war. The Burgundy troops were able to arrive and we seemed outnumbered. Our king was decisive to make a peace deal with the Vandals before he lost his advantage in the war. After a short meeting with the Vandal ruler, a peace deal was agreed on.


While we did not gain too much from the war, we did managed to shift the odds in our direction. Our king vowed to make the Vandals give up more next time they are at war. Luckily, he kept a cool head and chose to leave with little gain rather than with big losses.

Following the less than ideal peace treaty with the Vandals, our king began focusing on the nation itself. Much of our nation is still very much unstable and the recent war didn't help much.


We have grown larger but we still had much work to do. Our border with Rome still remained our main worry. Luckily, the Romans are fighting another war and are currently too busy to bother with us. We must use this time wisely. With little manpower remaining and the nation largely unstable, our king decided that peace is needed for our nation to recover.

When we were still in our homeland, water was the staple drink. However, we learned of wine when we migrated to the new lands. At first, we were cautious about this new drink. As time went by, our people began to love it. We soon learned that many of our provinces were capable of producing grapes to make wine. Seeing the potential of this drink, our king invested heavily. Soon, his investments paid off as we were able to produce top class vintage. Unfortunately, we were unable to produce enough to earn any extra income. The good news was that our people are happy and our nation takes another step towards stable.


While the people were happy, I knew that our king wasn't. He was angered by the betrayal of the Frisians. In our old homeland, betrayal was unheard of. It saddened him that the people in these new lands can be so degrading. However, he knew that he still needed allies. Even if he cannot trust them to assist him in times of war, he could at least use it to deter enemies. He knew that the Romans would never ally themselves against the likes of us. Frisians, Burgundy and Vandals were naturally out of the question. Suevi and the coastal nations weren't worthwhile and the Macromanni were too arrogant of a nation. That left him the Goth which he had doubts. The Goths were arguably the strongest Barbaric nation and chances were that they wouldn't bother with us like Rome. I managed to persuade our king to give it a try. A refusal would mean that we will one day we'll meet on the battlefield. An acceptance would mean long last friendship and a better chance of survival against the Romans. The Gods have blessed us as we heard back from the Goth.

Maximus_96 said:

I've always loved this mod and its predecessors so I'll be following. Are you trying for the whole 2000 years?

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Thanks for following! I'll try to last until 2010. My main goal is to avoid conflict with Rome and have a final showdown with them in the 20th century. Currently, securing enough land so Rome fears me is my goal . To do that, I need to unite the Germanic people.