The Games Gods Play: A Macedonian AAR

[Qorten]

Good writing and good to see this is still alive.

 

[unmerged(109735)]

I'm liking this.

The episodic appearance of the gods -- nicely portrayed by you with tongue in cheek -- lends a nice light touch to what is otherwise a very realistic alternate history. I especially appreciate your unobtrusive sprinkling of the story with real, out of the way historical facts. Also, I like how tough Pontus has been on your Macedonia.

Now I'm only waiting for Rome to make an appearance on the Macedon side of the Adriatic...

 

[comagoosie]

The island of crete is one heck of a reward. Too bad that reward isn't still around. I'll gladly be the king of Crete

 

[RossN]

Overview of the Known World in 547 AVC

The Aegean

Despite her recent troubles Macedonia remains the local great power having colonised much of the barbarian north and absorbed both the smaller Greek city states and the kingdom of the Illyrians. Her bitter rival Pontus is a relative newcomer to Europe but has long been the dominant power in the Euxine Sea. The minor powers of Pergamon, Bithynia, Sparta and Epirus are officially independent but are in truth little more than vassals for either side in the struggle between king Xanthos and Nicocrates. Only the Bosporan Kingdom maintains a true degree of autonomy but remains a grudging junior party in an alliance with Pontus.

The two superpowers, the Seleucid Empire and Egypt seem little changed from sixty years previously, but the appearance of stability hides some serious tensions.

Asia

The great casualty of the rise of Pontus was Armenia. The Armenians chose the wrong side in the build up to the Seleucid Civil War and paid the price; now they languish under the rule of Nicocrates of Pontus and Theron of the Seleucids. Colchis and Iberia too have been swallowed up by their neighbours.

Yet if states have fallen they have also risen. The Nabatean kingdom of Babylon emerged during the tumultuous decades of the Seleucid Civil War and has survived into the reign of Theron the unifier. Whether the Seleucid king ponders restoring Babylon by force can only be guessed at. Then there is the matter of the city of Seleucia. In one of the oddest moves of the late war the old Seleucid capital fell into the hands of distant Pergamon and remains there to this his day. In a moment of weakness Theron had agreed to letting is allies keep it, but he would be less than human if he did not glance at the map and wonder at times.

Egypt is a dynamic power under her new king Zosimus Ptolemy. King Zosimus is the youngest of the major monarchs, rash and untested. Egypt has profited from the troubles that gripped the Seleucid's but with the final eclipse of the Seleucid rebels Theron is unlikely to let his greatest rival expand further. A future war between the two is a certainty.

Finally a minor new power has appeared far too the east. These Parthians are little known to the Hellenistic world but no one seriously expects a tribe of wandering horse nomads to concern the heirs of Alexander.

Italy, Sicily & North Africa

Megálē Hellás is no more. The once great Greek cities of Syracuse and Tarentum now belong to the barbarian Romans and Carthaginians. The former control all of Italy and have even advanced beyond the Alps into the lands of the Celts. The strongest of the Celtic tribes the Ausetani of Liguria are their vassals as are their neighbours the pragmatic Greeks of Massilia who have no wish to share the fate o e Southern Italian Greeks.

Of Carthage little else needs be said. She remains strong and rich and having brought all of Sicily under her aegis faces no serious rival at sea. The Mediterranean is not yet a Carthaginian lake, but it seems to be only a matter of time before it will be.

Iberia

Few in the eastern Mediterranean have even heard of the Nemetati or the Vaccaci, yet together these two control an area as large as Greater Macedonia, expanding at the expense of the minor tribes and even against Carthage. Their days of power may be numbered though - the rise of the Nemetati has recently brought them into contact with the Carthaginians and Romans, neither of whom desire the rise of a great power in Iberia.

Finally a lonely outcrop of civilisation: a small Greek colony clings to the Atlantic and pledges loyalty to Theron in far off Antioch, largely to scare off any threats from the greedy Vaccaci.

 

[RossN]

Enewald: Alas, Pontus is an amazingly tough opponent. Believe me white peace is a good result. o

Qorten: Thank you.

The_Guiscard: Glad you like it.

Luckily for me Rome is occupied with other affairs at the moment so Macedonia hopfly has a (badly needed) breathing space. Still I guess it is in the hands of the Immortals.

comagoosie: Heh. Perhaps a little generous but he is a very skilled general.

 

[Enewald]

So hitherto shall Macedonia expand`?

 

[unmerged(109735)]

Time to gobble up all those minors around Macedon, I'd say. Should Rome take either Epeiros or Sparta, Macedon is in for a world of woe.

And I do quite like how Carthage has consolidated herself.