Freedom Under the Kings of Syracuse (Chap 32)

[Alavaria]

Freedom Under the Kings of Syracuse

Syracuse:
Your king's hoplites are the most blinged out around
You feel better about running into pila with only your shirt and a flimsy shield

Campaign: Hard
Battle: Very Hard
Recruitment: 1-turn (now "more realistic" than 0-turn)

Primary Goals: Defend against Carthage & Liberate occupied Italy
Secondary Goal: Defend or Liberate the entire world

Plan:

• Liberate Sicily from Roman occupation
• Prepare to raise multiple legions for purely peaceful purposes
• Preplanned defensive action against Carthago
• E-day: Liberation forces land on the Italian coast
• Liberate Italy from Roman occupation
• Liberate the entire world

Note: This is somewhat experimental, I have been warned that the massive Roman revenge stacks and other such factors will lead to failure.
So there you have it, look forward to the "conquering historically" loss of Surakousai to Romans. (heh)

Note2: Probably going to be focusing more on the strategic aspect, though battles will give the best pictures =D
I'll explain some of the more campaign-y parts when there's something cool to look at on the map.

Quick Links to posts:

• Chap 0: Operation Sicilian Freedom
• Chap 1: For a Free Sicily
• Chap 2: True Roman Corpses
• Chap 3: Seeing The Dusk
• Chap 4: A Smoking Firepot
• Chap 5: Freedom... Isn't Free
• Chap 6: Facts On The Ground
• Chap 7: An Inside Job
• Chap 8: No One Locks Shields Anymore
• Chap 9: At The Gates, In The Square
• Chap 10: Never Negotiate With Terrorists
• Chap 11: Fortress Sicily
• Chap 12: The Roman Invasion: Inferno Onagers Loaded
• Chap 13: Unlucky Romans
• Chap 14: Shock and Awe
• Chap 15: Legio I
• Chap 16: Ticket For Two To The South
• Chap 17: Anti-Climactic Buildup Battle
• Chap 18: Jericho
• Chap 19: No Stranger To The Deaths Of Cities
• Chap 20: Activated My Trap
• Chap 21: Who Let The Dogs Out
• Chap 22: Compromise In The Face Of Annihilation
• Chap 23: No Retreat
• Chap 24: Where Do Romans Come From?
• Chap 25: Cannae Defending Champions
• Chap 26: Back Door
• Chap 27: Divine Mandate
• Chap 28: No Recognition
• Chap 29: No Survivors
• Chap 30: Friendship
• Chap 31: Friendship. What is it good for?
• Chap 32: A New Alliance

[Alavaria]

Chapter 0: Operation Sicilian Freedom


Hieronymus: Hannibal has arrived in Italy, and even now is advancing towards Roma.
Hieronymus: The Romans are in total panic, and will be gathering all their forces to stop Hannibal.

Hieronymus: They'll probably kill him, but that isn't our battle.
Hieronymus: Even so, the time to strike is now!



Hieronymus: We have Archimedes' Large Lithobolos, but no stone-throwing slingers.
Hieronymus: Looking at it realistically, Surakousai is a Huge City, and we are known for making great use of levies, but...
Hieronymus: In fact, our truly awesome city can only train 160 slingers in 6 months time.
Hieronymus: Let's find some random skirmishers-for-hire wandering about beautiful Sicily.

[While not particularly great in 0-turn, on 1-turn mercenaries can be helpful as you are at least initially restricted in the number of units you have.
Additionally, the AI hires these, so preventing that is a small bonus.]



Hieronymus: Slingers, report to the Surakousai barracks immediately!
Hieronymus: After you've trained up from no experience to become experience 4 veterans (which takes 6 months) we will attack!

(6 months later)

Hieronymus: Death to all Romans!
Royal Hoplites: No peace with Romans, only war!

Hieronymus: It took us 6 months, but we've trained our mercenaries, recruited some more slingers and are ready.
Hieronymus: The Romans have pulled a lot of their western forces onto their ships, doubtless for a trip back to Italy.

Hieronymus: We strike now!

[Zarcas]

Shouldn't this be in an AAR sub-forum?

Btw, good luck with your campaign. I just started one with Massalia, and it is frustrating to be a one-region state, with Rome and Carthage wanting your bones while you recruit one unit per turn and thrive for manpower.

[neofrage]

Nice job man! I am waiting for some more fun And will you continue with sparta also?

[Alavaria]

Btw, good luck with your campaign. I just started one with Massalia, and it is frustrating to be a one-region state, with Rome and Carthage wanting your bones while you recruit one unit per turn and thrive for manpower.

I will soon demonstrate, but in 1-turn, it is feasible to ramp up production capability until you can out-produce the AI

I have a plan:

Spoiler for While legion too originally meant levy army: 

Nice job man! I am waiting for some more fun And will you continue with sparta also?

These are linked. Actually, if you read both, it's the case that Hieronomus and Agesipolis are friends, haha. Rather than 100% handwaving the ridiculousness of the way I handle RTW campaign model, there's reasons why Sparta started using tons and tons of helot soldiers to make massive armies.

The reverse ... yeah there's something there too

[neofrage]

I love you (hint: I hope you are tall slim blond girl haha)

[Warkry777]

Hello there

Nice start for your subject, but i'd have a question which i think will bring me all the wrath and critics from the cummunity : How do you manage to play 1-turn Cyracuse? Where do you choose this option?

[Zarcas]

Well, I'm pretty up because i cannot seem to recruit thureos with Massalia (the regular greek ones, not the sycilian ones), even if barracks say i should. But i'm doing the same as you do, pick mercenaries, fight those pesky romans.

For some reason they had 3 stacks in Emporiae @ turn 6. This romans are a plague, and i'm slowly running out of infantry. Currently raiding into Mediolanon just to recruit the insubres around and draw legions to the snow bonus of my salues/helvetii/insubres/celtic. I look less greek-y every day it passes, and more celtic. I can currently field an operative army, but I'm carefully picking my fights so I can slaughter 5:1 or more, otherwise i won't be able to switch into the backfoot when Arvernii, Carthage and Gallaeci decide they hate me. The latter are already allied, and the gaul should run out of rebels to maul in 5-10 turns.

Already wiped 5 stacks of angry Polybians so far, but their manpower is absurd. If i cannot solve this issue, i'll end up with full akonkistai stacks, skirmishing my way to better barracks in my other settlements.


PS 1: I play on H/H, with an auto-imposed "No Retrain" rule.
PS 2 : Out of curiosity..where are you from? The avatar looks like Kingdom of León.

[Alavaria]

Nice start for your subject, but i'd have a question which i think will bring me all the wrath and critics from the cummunity : How do you manage to play 1-turn Cyracuse? Where do you choose this option?

What you do is go into data\_Important_Stuff\Syracuse_Alternate_Files\1_turn

Then copy the EDB and EDU into the data folder in your Play_Syracuse\data folder. Then select Syracuse as per normal.

The EDB is bugged, your treasury bonus assigned to the settlement of Massilla, I describe the issue/fix

This romans are a plague, and i'm slowly running out of infantry. Currently raiding into Mediolanon just to recruit the insubres around

....

Already wiped 5 stacks of angry Polybians so far, but their manpower is absurd. If i cannot solve this issue, i'll end up with full akonkistai stacks, skirmishing my way to better barracks in my other settlements.

Is this the standard 0-turn?

[Zarcas]

I'm playing Massalia, not Syracuse, so it's 1-turn default.

Was talking about similarities in the fact you start with only one recruiting post, and have to fight mainly romans.

[Alavaria]

You have to game the system. 1-turn is "1 unit per turn per settlement" so you need to take multiple settlements, hold them and also (for Sicily and the villages in north Italy) get some population into them...

For example, Sicily has 4 settlements in it, and three have very little population, it has to be fixed, using another RTW mechanic for population...


Huh, Massalia has the Thureophoroi as a Tier1 barracks unit, that's nice. Syracuse has it at Tier2, which is annoying since building the Tier1 barracks is 3 turns, but building the Tier2 is another 6 turns...

[Zarcas]

You have to game the system. 1-turn is "1 unit per turn per settlement" so you need to take multiple settlements, hold them and also (for Sicily and the villages in north Italy) get some population into them... For example, Sicily has 4 settlements in it, and three have very little population, it has to be fixed, using another RTW mechanic for population... Huh, Massalia has the Thureophoroi as a Tier1 barracks unit, that's nice. Syracuse has it at Tier2, which is annoying since building the Tier1 barracks is 3 turns, but building the Tier2 is another 6 turns...

Oh, I've always been a 1-turn player, even to the point of taking several years to build the numbered legions as i didn't want to mix them up. The problem I had was with the EDU, as with T2 barracks in my conquered settlements I could only recruit slingers and those akontistai (light skirmishers), which I cannot use to hold a line against polybians. It was getting absurdly difficult, as i had to recruit mercenary insubres, arevacii and such to hold my line...and AOR mercenaries were running short. Bear in mind your thureos have better offensive stats for said inconvenience. Still, I'm surprised with the access Massalia has to swordmen in the form of axemen, salues, helvetii and such. But I'd rather stop kidnapping your thread. How are sieges going? It's one of the parts of the game i hate the most, but you certainly need it to take over Sicily in a good timespan.

[Alavaria]

Syracuse Levy Theurophoroi have worse stats than Thureophoroi, also more expensive to recruit and upkeep. Thureophoroi are a unit shared by many factions...

If you mean they have slightly higher melee attack, that doesn't help them, their defense being so much lower means anyone can kill them very fast. They also don't get spear bonuses that would help them fight horse.

The only thing they're better at/for is that they have 6 javelins instead of 2 and aren't pre-charge units.


What happens story-wise, is that supposedly people get levied and when you get promoted, you go from:
Levy Thureophoroi -> Thureophoroi OR Hoplite -> Royal Hoplite

Not unlike Hastatii, Principes, Triarii, there's only one unit of Royal Hoplites ever, but perhaps 4 units each of the different Theurophoroi units

Like the Romans, eventually the levied and standard thureophoroi are going to be in a somewhat homogenous cohort. (IE: phase out the levy in favor of the tier2). But still, on the frontier, logistics will probably favor using the levy version in some cases *shrug*

How are sieges going? It's one of the parts of the game i hate the most, but you certainly need it to take over Sicily in a good timespan.

AI is terrible at siege defense, once you learn the quirks you will easily get 10:1 kill/deaths on Romans, and your deaths will be the lightest Tier1 unit you can spam from everywhere.

It's certainly the case you have to kill factions by siege assault... mostly.

[Stath's]

[Zarcas]

AI is terrible at siege defense, once you learn the quirks you will easily get 10:1 kill/deaths on Romans, and your deaths will be the lightest Tier1 unit you can spam from everywhere.

It's certainly the case you have to kill factions by siege assault... mostly.

That's when you actually field enough men to put yourself in an offensive position...I'm executing some kind of roleplaying raid deep into the enemy lines. It's being extremely fun so far, let's see if i can post it in the "Your empire pics here".

[Alavaria]

That's when you actually field enough men to put yourself in an offensive position...I'm executing some kind of roleplaying raid deep into the enemy lines. It's being extremely fun so far, let's see if i can post it in the "Your empire pics here".

You'll see what exactly I take with me to invade Italy with

[High Fist]

Looking forward to this. :

[Alavaria]

Chapter 1: For a Free Sicily

Hieronymos: Men, I hope you are ready... for victory!
Hieronymos: Advance!


The Syracusean forces quickly rushed in through a breach in the wall, aiming to cut off the Roman reinforcements by gaining control of the gates. Hieronymos' plan was to block the Romans as they entered through the same breach, and kill them in the press.

The plan didn't go quite as he had intended.

While the hoplites of Syracuse were approaching the gate, Roman cavalry burst through, however for whatever reason they did not stop or otherwise attempt to secure the gate.

In fact, many of the Roman equites were thrust off their mounts as they rushed for the city center.

While the Roman general realized something was amiss and turned back, his equites apparently did not.

By the time he had returned to the gate, Syracusean forces had already barricaded it, preventing entry to his infantry.

And that wasn't the only thing that went wrong for him...

Soldiers: The Royal Hoplites have arrived! *cheering*
Hieronymos: Take out that Roman!

[_Tartaros_]

great update!
i love to see the actual tactics in battle

[Dramatic Cat]

Keep it up bro.
Try not to abuse slingers tho, IMO they're pretty game-breaking.