Present for ya'll...(Albion AAR)

[General_Zavier]

Hey, I downloaded EoD about a month or so ago and whatnot and its a really great mod, best I've played in my opinion.

Anyway, I decided that since this was such a good mod I would do an AAR for the mod. Unfortunatly for you, I started it on another site. However I figured that the people that have played and like this mod the most are probably on this site. Therefore, I decided to A) Give you a link to the AAR and B) Post a few interesting battles I've had up here.

Part A)

Here you go, a link to the AAR

Part B)

Arthur leads his Great Army and attacks the French city of Bourges.


Arthur, Lancelot and another group of knights start at a different gate than the rest of the army.


My sappers take down the wall.


Meanwhile, my King’s Axemen take the gatehouse in front of Arthur.


They then proceed to temporarily take the town square. However, the sight of those spears sends them running in the opposite direction.


Oh boy, I didn’t plan this very well, did I?


Meanwhile inside the city…

Its quite the sacrifice, but I have to hold those spearmen somehow, so it’s the job of the Grandmaster Squires. Meanwhile Arthur and Lancelot sneak up from behind.


I send my infantry and archers through the hole in the wall the sappers made. They move up the street. I wouldn’t want to walk into that, would you?


My archers take out their infantry, leaving their town square wide open to my infantry.


While they’re busy taking the town square, Arthur battles it up with the French cavalry and reinforcing family member.


The captain is the first to fall.


Their reinforcing family member goes down soon after.


It is a literal horse graveyard.


I end the battle when given the option.


Easy victory. I was a little worried during that pitched cavalry battle that Arthur might fall, but he made it out alright.


I enslave.


Arthur must have been pretty close to dying if he got this retinue member.


Next year I get this message after some of my ports are blockaded.


So, they want war do they? I’ll show them a war. As soon as I’m done with France.

Speaking of France, they attack my besieging army. With their king nonetheless.


Here’s my two man unit. They must be pretty good friends.


I attack one of the reinforcing armies (the one from the city) first.


It was an easy battle as my infantry was superior. I just missed a few of the routers.


Meanwhile, my general that I had sent to deal with their king had won. His men celebrate the slaying of the enemy king.



The third army was all infantry and no match for my archers.


Victory.


I capture the town too, and enslave.


That’s it so far. Although the French are falling like flies, southern France is nothing but a bunch of huge French strongholds. And as soon as France is gone, I’m gonna have Spain breathing down my neck too. Meanwhile to the east the Satanae seem to be winning their war with the Nation of Islam. And to top it all off, the Germans are at war with me too.

And there you go, the most interesting post so far. If you liked it, have no fear, more battles are on the way (although they might be a tad far in between) and its just going to get more exciting from here.

Hope you all enjoy this mod as much as I do, and I hope you read/enjoy the full AAR, I sure am enjoying making it.

[makanyane]

very nice AAR, thanks for posting parts here as well

I especially like the spooky co-incidence with file name bit, just because we had quite a few of those too !

lovely to see the mod being talked about on other forums too....

[Halie Satanus]

Very cool. Word of advice, think hard on trying to take Athens, the Satanae may have let it slip into pagan control but they'll get rather annoyed if you land on their patch.

[General_Zavier]

Wow. I get a stickied thread? I feel so honored.

[Halie Satanus]

If we had twenty AAR's then no it wouldn't be a sticky, we have two..

[makanyane]

Ah but we do have quality over quantity

Have started putting useful links on EoD wiki page, nudge me if I miss any

[General_Zavier]

Well, I promised an update if I get any more good battles. I just put this up a few minutes ago at RTWH, but its a good one so I'll put it up here too.

And I need some advice.

Okay, here goes.

Geraint the Lily-Livered gets in a fight with Vidal the Spaniard, and its two almost full stack armies against each other. They have no missile troops though, and I have onagers and six units of archers.


I line up facing them with infantry in front, then onagers, and then archers in the back and cavalry on the flanks.


However, they decided to run into the trees and try to flank me with their whole army. I just shift my army back and rotate it 90 degrees as they finally come at me head on.


I charge their cavalry on their left flank with my cavalry.


After beating the cavalry on their left flank, I take on their right flank.


Due to fire from my archers and onagers and attacks from my infantry and cavalry (so, pretty much everything I have) their entire army begins to rout/try to retreat off the battlefield.


I give chase with my cavalry. Here we see a unit of their militia spears getting cut down by my general. When his unit crashed into the infantry they had 83 men left. This picture is taken about three seconds after he hit the back of the unit.


Here you can see all the dead. Most were killed by archers while they were routing.


Here we have the one unit that got away. (Their general got away a little earlier.)


Victory statistics.


Unfortunatly because it was the Spanish that attacked me, I am no longer allies with the papal seal and the Satanae. Athens is looking like a better and better target each day.


While the French are down on the ground, they aren’t out yet. The Germans seem to have settled down a little bit to the east too, probably preoccupied with the Satanae.

However, the Spanish and the Satanae are up and kicking, and they’re kicking hard at that!


Arthur lays siege to Marselha. Although he could attack this turn thanks to my three spies opening the gates, he chooses to build some siege equipment first.


Here the French attack Arthur. As you can see, they are vastly outnumbered. The computer seems to be getting a bit desperate. And look at that, their king leads the city garrison into battle. My he looks young, probably because I killed all of his uncles and great uncles along with his father and grandfather.


The first army comes from across the bridge. I have deployed my phalanxes in a V shape at the mouth of the bridge, and they all died almost instantly without me losing any men. The second army, the garrison of Marselha, led by the French king, approaches from the top of a hill. Here we see the king’s bodyguard charge my infantry. Looks like that guy got a little bit ahead of the group.


Trusting my archers to hold off the enemy infantry with ease, I throw everything I’ve got at the enemy king, and he goes down.


His bodyguard fight to the death, which comes rather quickly for them. Meanwhile their infantry all starts routing.

I had sent a unit of cavalry up here to take care of any routers so none make it back to the city. Their routing infantry gets a little scared of the site they see.


Look! A French and British sandwich!


Victory.


I exterminate the city in desperate need of cash.


I’m pretty sure I already have a family member by this name, but hey, I’ll take another.


After capturing the town and exterminating, I get these messages:


I thought this picture was kinda funny. Its like the de-evolution of man.


Here’s a faction ranking graph. The Satanae are really dominating out east. Shambala is doing pretty good too, they’re about even with Spain. Islam seems to be falling a bit due to war with the Satanae. This is starting to get interesting.


Well that’s it for now, hope you enjoyed reading it. After Arthur takes the rest of the French cities, he’s either going to head east to deal with the Satanae, or he’s going to go south to Rome.

In this mod, Rome (The papal seal) Is more like the SPQR faction of RTW. They have 3 or 4 full stack elite armies, but are confined to the area around Rome. It is at this point that I ask for advice from people. Should I go after Rome now? Or should I wait?

Here’s a nice list:

Reasons to take Rome:

- Important city for trade
- Part of victory condition
- Italy is a great staging ground for invasions of Greece
- By Kydonia, so Arthur can link up with some powerful crusader units.
- Huge city, lots of population to enslave or exterminate

Reasons not to take Rome right now:

- Heavily guarded
- I will probably need more than Arthur’s one stack
- It will leave Arthur’s army very weak, and the Satanae are moving around huge armies just to the north
- Huge city, far from capital, potential for lots of unrest
- One less faction meaning less money from possible trading

[makanyane]

It's looking like you're having fun

Reasons not to take Rome right now:

- Heavily guarded
- I will probably need more than Arthur’s one stack

erm yes, the guardians of Rome are a little on the tough side, think 2/3 x numbers advantage needed, and your high level troops only, combined with a little attrition to wear them down...

Early in game you can be sneaky and capture adjoining Italian cities and bypass Rome whilst the Papal Seal are still passive. That gives you some profitable cities and better base close-by to rebuild and reinforce from, looks like Satanae might have got to some of those first though (?)

[General_Zavier]

Here's my most recent update, it had the largest battle so far in it.

Alright, time for another update for you guys, and this one is gonna be a big one.

Here one of my armies of the west attacks a Spanish army in southern France.




I didn't get the victory shot, buy I didn't lose many men at all. Here's another battle that Arthur got into in Venetia. The enemy army was made up entirely of Carreau Axemen (medium to light infantry). The only units I used in this battle were my elbows, onagers, and generals.




Quite a few were killed that day.




Nike.




Here is a picture of the battle stats screen. Each unit of archers killed about one and a half units of axemen.




The war mentioned in my last update was shortlived.




The satanists offer me peace. I offer them my terms as well, but they decline.







Tor gets stuck in southern Spain, so he has to fight his way through.




He manages to do so quite well.




Crossing the world again, In northeast Italy, Arthur is attacked once again by the Satanae, but this is a truly massive force. This will be the largest battle in the campaign so far.




The enemy's reinforcements are delayed, as are mine. However, I get lucky and have a nice deployment place on top of the hill. This will be a very red day.




My archers and onagers open fire, and my knights charge downhill at the heathens.




There is a massive clash. I kinda forgot to take pictures at this point, but with my cavalry and infantry charging at them downhill, most of them started routing or died very soon.




Now that I've killed enough of them, the second army comes out to play.




My reinforcements come out too, but they can't do much because I already have 20 units in my army.




Arthur takes care of the last of the first army, and then we redeploy facing the second army.




The second army approaches, so I attack with missiles and charge my cavalry at them downhill. Rinse and repeat.




This time my infantry gets a turn to play because all my cavalry are exhausted and my infantry is still fresh.




I didn't get a picture in time, but this was taken just after their general fell. They couldn't take it and started retreating.




The rest was pretty much just chasing routers. These guys are getting up there, and are starting to get pretty scary. SubRosa's HAs may have gold experience, but they don't have a missile attack of 17.




This is where the first army struggled up the hill. They got close, but didn't quite reach the top before falling.




Here's where the second army struggled up the hill. They did make it to the top, but it was a smaller hill and there was more of them.




As the Romans say, cadavera vero innumera. My first heroic victory, and I get a historic battle marker.




Jumping back to Spain, Elyan, who leads the siege of Lledia, is attacked by a tiny spanish army, but it draws the reinforcements from the town onto the field. He is my one general who has failed before, and he will have a chance to redeem himself in this battle.




It was raining quite heavily, and my archers were slightly impaired.




The reinforcements showed up right away this time.




My archers and Illumnati Knights take care of the first army.




The enemy general fell, and all the enemy fell began routing. Many were slain that day. Mostly enemies though.




Nike.




I've destroyed the garrison, and exterminate Lledia. My foothold in Spain is in place.




After many, many years, my Crusader army from Kydonia is complete and they go off crusading at the soft underbelly of the Satanae.




My spies notice several large Spanish armies over by Rome. Hopefully they will weaken the Romans before I get around to conquoring them.




That's all for now

[General_Zavier]

Well, I totally forgot to post this, but I finished my campaign last Saturday, so I figured that I'd put the final update here. The entire is at RTWH and can be found in my signature.

Here it is, the End of the End [whisper]of Days[/whisper].

But before I successfully finish my first complete AAR, there is still a few matters to be wrapped up.

Here it is. The final battle. If I destroy the garrison of Rome here I can march into Rome unopposed without even worrying about that last full Roman stack.


Here is the small army that I attacked.


And here is the garrison of Rome, out as reinforcements.


Their army chaoticly charges at me. Normally I would try to whittle them down a lot more with my archers and knights before I let my infantry engage, but I figure, what the heck, last battle.


The line is holding, albeit barely.


After awhile the battle breaks up into four smaller fights. I have superiority in two of the four smaller fights, am evenly matched in one, and am totally overwhelmed in the 4th one. If you look at the notices at the side of the battle, you can see that two of their generals have died.


Three down in this picture, with one more to go in a matter of seconds.


Final family member dead! Now I just have to mop up some troops and march into Rome.


A massive battle, but we managed to hold the line and destroy the Papal army.


Here are some shots I took of all the dead people.






A heroic victory! What a way to end a campaign!


Nike! (One last time!)


And now for some statistics.

Forty-two years. Eighty-four turns. Forty regions, and two hundred and four battles.

Overall Ranking: I’ve pretty much been in a straight line up for this one.


(Side Note: Where it says “Faction Leader”: Arthur only recently acquired that name of “Arthur the Butcher”)

Military Ranking: Hmm… That’s strange I defiantly remember being above the Satanae earlier in the campaign…


Production Ranking: Nothing out of the ordinary here.


Territorial Ranking: Just as expected. If things continue on their current course, the territory number of the Satanae and Shambala should cross around turn 100.


Financial Ranking: Wow, very nearly a straight line up.


Population Ranking: As expected.


Here are some screens with fog of war disabled.

All that remains of Germany. I’m surprised they didn’t push further east.


The northern Balkens. Still in Satanae hands, but it looks like it could fall with one or two good stacks.


Anatolia. Other than the old Satanae Capital, it remains firmly in Satanae hands.


All that remains of the nation of Islam. They seemed to be holding out against the Satanae pretty well for a while, but I guess they died out in the end.


Northwest Africa. Firmly in Spanish hands.


The lands of Shambala. I don’t know what they’ve been doing the past couple decades, but they haven’t expanded at all and aren’t at war with the Satanae.


The middle east. In Satanae hands as well.


And finally, the only remaining pagan territories in the world. From owning every territory except like 20 at the beginning, they sure have died out quickly. Oh well. Make way for progress!


And that concludes my AAR as the Kingdom of Albion in the End of Days mod. Thank you all for your support and comments, I’ve had a lot of fun working on this AAR. Its been frustrating at times, its been annoying at times, but its also been hugely entertaining as well.

However, even though my campaign is completed, don’t worry, there will be another AAR coming from me again soon… very soon. Its an idea I’ve had for a little while and I’m looking forward to trying it out.

EDIT: Oh yeah, that "campaign idea," If you liked this campaign, you'll love my next one. I started a new AAR (Once again at RTWH) and its a tad ambitious to say the least. A link to it can be found here.

Feel free to leave comments here or there about this campaign or my next one. Its been a real treat playing this mod, and EODII is just as good, if not better. Thank you to Mak and Halie for bringing us End of Days.