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But never fear, for Cinna will try again. Despite the Optimates’ propaganda claims, let us be clear, a stalemate is merely a stepping stone on the road to victory.
A 'stalemate' in which your overall rate of casualties is 50 % higher than your opponents' and in which you lost 19 elements to his 6? That's one impressive stepping stone. Ahem. :p

I have no clue about the photos. Now, I could run 'em through Google's image search, but that rather defeats the point, so I'll desist. I will say it's probably one of those Italian movies from shortly after WWII that you appear to be fond of, for what it's worth. :)

PS: Doing a Google search for 'bloke with candlesticks black and white' yields lots of interesting pictures, but sadly not the one I was looking for. Since I've been reading about the discovery of Richard III in a parking lot today, I'll make a wild stab and suggest the picture is - nah, nevermind, looked up Laurence Olivier and he doesn't look a bit like that in R III.
 
July 86 - The final Populares rout

As you could have seen the previous turn, the Populares are in Roma, and after a first defeat, long for a revenge.

Unfortunately for them, being in Roma, I could recover my strength, and they could not. Thus, the second battle was a complete rout for them :

ThirdRoma_zps3e9a930b.jpg


With more than one legion destroyed, and countless "alii" forces anniliated, this Populares force - the most powerful they had - is not a threat any more.

Meanwhile, in Croton, the Populares fails their assault of the fort, despite equal losses on both sides.

BattleofCroton_zps4b4d939f.jpg


Here are where the battles happened :

DoubleBattle_zps039b5dfb.jpg


New turn, Sulla should land, sealing the Populares fate forever :

LandinginMetapontum_zps7f44f005.jpg


Meanwhile, I order my force in Roma, now secure after the Populares defeat, to follow-up and attack Pisae. The only reason to target Pisae was that it was the only level 1 fort in range with some interest, but little did I know that it would be the final crippling kick to the Populares...

PIsae_zpscba5334f.jpg



For everyone, this is the end of this war. Volunteers join my side in numbers.


SmartVol_zps59f4c05b.jpg



Meanwhile, far away in the East, the Pontics carry on being obnoxious...


Obnoxious_zpsb473cf26.jpg




August 86 - Sulla lands in Italy

In August 86, Pisae, where 2 Populares legions were in the making, is assaulted, and the legions anniliated.

FINALassault_zpscea62425.jpg



I had not seen those forces, nor did I suspect they were there ; but now they are destroyed - without those 2 legions the Populares will not be able to recover in Italy.



Meanwhile, Sulla lands in Italy.

FINALSulla_zps6a709cc8.jpg


With between 3 and 4 Populares legions destroyed, Spain lost, Sulla and 2 of his crack legions in Italy and the Alii wiped out, the Populares finally threw the towel, and Cinna committed suicide. That's the end of the game - we actually carried on a few turns "just to see", but really nothing happened except mop-up.


And this is how the Republic was saved by Sulla and his unbalanced forces.
 
Thanks for the AAR it has been very informative. Do you have any plans for a rematch with the more balanced scenario?

possibly, together with Stuyvesent we've just finished a 3 player RUS PBEM (no records were kept, but Narwhal's actions above may give you some idea of his approach) and are thinking of an AJE scenario for our next go - they seem a bit easier to balance for relative differences in player experience. Whether we can produce an AAR out of it is another question - could be fun but fairly demanding.

I'll not add much to Narwhal's last post. My second attack on Rome was out of desperation, remember I was on the edge of a global supply crisis and hoped I'd done enough damage to get lucky second time. In general that was a useful reminded that in the AGE engine, unless there is a really good reason, its never in your interests to continue a battle after defeat. The sort of time that can work is as in my PoN AAR when you lose a battle becuase 2 out of 3 columns did not engage.

I was exceptionally pleased with myself for retaking Croton so it was a real shock to then be squashed flat by Sulla. As Narwhal said we played on a little but the very best I could do was to delay the collapse of North Italy, equally the game had been released so investing a lot of time in a long drawn out end game was not much fun for either or us.

I won SP as Marius in 1.01. The solution I found was to escalate the war in N Africa - you could win fairly easily and harvest a lot of NM/VPs and EPs. Spain, I got lucky in that the revolt kicked off in Lisbon. I gathered all my scattered units in one coastal province, recruited about 3 new legions and was able to fight a successful defensive war. Against Sulla, the AI tends to break his army up so a very opportunistic strategy, plus a resolute defense of Rome, slowly ground his armies down. You'd be lucky to do that against a human player though. Now of course, with 3 people, the scope for an unofficial Populares-Mithradates pact opens up some interesting strategies, not least of committing a fair bit of the Italian forces to Greece and working in tandem.
 
Ouch. loki's defeat at Rome was like a headbutt and, if I may borrow a phrase from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, that thrashing of two forming legions in Pisae was really a 'kick in the fork'. A formidable combo to send any man reeling. I didn't have high hopes for loki's chances to begin with, but after those defeats it's clear that the Populares had no hope left whatsoever.

As always, thanks for playing and writing and congratulations to Narwhal. Yes, I know you have said the pre-release version overpowered the Optimates, but that doesn't take away from the fact that you played a very aggressive, taking-the-battle-to-the-enemy game that worked out very well for you.

How many turns (out of the maximum available for the scenario) did it take to get to this point of no return?
 
Old thread, but I was wondering if it was still possible to see the embedded screen shots. I assume the links may have rotted, but if it's possible it would make the AAR and discussion a whole lot easier to follow!
 
Old thread, but I was wondering if it was still possible to see the embedded screen shots. I assume the links may have rotted, but if it's possible it would make the AAR and discussion a whole lot easier to follow!

the problem is with photobucket, they effectively demanded everyone who used them in the past had to pay a lot to carry on having access to their images. So everything that was posted there is completely lost. Only solution is if the original author both has saved the original images on their hard-drive (I don't) and is prepared to actually go over all their old posts and create new links to a different image hosting site
 
Old thread, but I was wondering if it was still possible to see the embedded screen shots. I assume the links may have rotted, but if it's possible it would make the AAR and discussion a whole lot easier to follow!
I fixed the problem

the problem is with photobucket, they effectively demanded everyone who used them in the past had to pay a lot to carry on having access to their images. So everything that was posted there is completely lost. Only solution is if the original author both has saved the original images on their hard-drive (I don't) and is prepared to actually go over all their old posts and create new links to a different image hosting site
Hello Loki :)
 
Thank you Narwhal for taking care ofall the AAR visuals without which this would have been a no-read.

I learned a whole lot fom this AAR and managed to score a minor victory with my Populares. Considering to re-run the scenario now that I am far more competent then I was until towards the end of the campaign,aiming for a total victory.

I love this game. I wonder if AGEOD is making a new engine for fhese kinds of games? Anyone knows anything?