Empire Picture?

[ajb]

Lets see what ya all got. . . Also how do I on a windows 7 pc get a picture of my empire, screen capture gets my desktop

[UnfortunateHam]

Use the Print Screen, sometimes called "prnt scr", key on your keyboard. If you don't have it, I would recommend FRAPS. Although the free version of FRAPS only does .bmp files, which are too big (in terms of bytes) to put on here, so you'll need something to convert them to .jpeg/.jpg or .png format. I think Windows Paint will do that, just find a way to "save as" one.

I'll do a session tonight and then post my empire tonight or tomorrow!

[ajb]

LOL by screen capture I meant print screen. . . it takes a picture of my desktop, not the actual game

[debux]

I guess I'll start by posting my picture, although it is rather outdated.

The mighty Ptolemaic Empire in 254 B.C! Be-hoooold!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Alright, it isn't that big, but I like taking my time, and enjoy the mod in the process, and so far I'm proud with what I've achieved. I've personally never understood the point of speed runs, unless you really don't like the game to the point that you just want to get over with it.

At this point, I was still struggling against the Allied Greek City states leaded by Syracuse: they had like 3-4 stacks around the whole Black Sea area, creating an empire that stretched from the Thracian border to Illyria, all the way up to the Scythian border, and then along the Black Sea coast all the way to border with the thriving Pontic Empire. It promised a lot of good fights (I'll get to that once I get a more recent screenshot). They share the south-western border with Macedon, that, judging by it's rapid growth (and information that is not revealed on the screenshot) it's going to take over a lot of Greece. Only Apollo will tell in the future if this becomes true

I'm happy with my empire. Having controlled all the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea gives me a lot of control in the area and money (grabbing Petra early on was, and still is, a huge boost). My phalangite armies are rocking this side of the known Earth so hard that they're giving me enough space to actually want to try all the AoR units found in the area! I even find time to recruit the famous Thracian and Galatian infantry all the way south in Memphis! I really like being given so much time and space to role-play, although not making the game too easy at the same time. The only annoying thing are the cursed Seleucids at the east, who are still mad at me for grabbing their western capital at Antioch. Their ever-increasing-in-quality armies always end up crashing against the spears and arrows of the Ptolemaic Reserve Army, while the Main Royal Army is quite tied down with the Ionian Conflict. However, things will sure speed up once Halicarnassus turns into an effective colony of the proud and strong Egyptian nation, as I'll be able to retrain my trusty phalangites with greater ease, easing the burden on the greek and asian auxiliaries I've been forced to adapt and integrate into my Royal Army.

Hopefully I'll be able to play a bit of my grand campaign this weekend (all the activity rising lately has got me pumped again, even convincing me to halt my somehow interesting Shimazu Campaign with Radious' Mods for S2TW (they really made me like the game again, after being completely turned off by the extreme death rates in vanilla, plus the fast "being rushed" feeling you get in the whole campaign (things go way to fast for my liking). I really hope the few EDU changes I've made don't conflict with my savegame! But I have a back-up in any case, and I'll have a separate save to see if my recent changes will affect the saves at all.

Post your pics too, peeps! You can always start up the game through steam, it's really easy to get screenshots from there (you can take as many as you want without having to Alt-Tab every time you take a pic).

[UnfortunateHam]

The latest news from my game as Rome:

I had conquered Pyrrhus' armies in southern Italy, but a Rebel Army showed up near Tarentum.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Unfortunately, I had to disband all my Heavy Cavalry and my other armies were not in the best shape. So I retrained what I could and faced the Rebels.

The results of the battle and my army afterwards:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

After that I decided to take Messana. It had quite a large army, though, so I decided to wait out the siege.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I also decided to attack Patavium with a newly recruited army consisting of two skirmishers and two Hastati. The rebels came out of their city to attack me, but I won in the end.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

However, the Rebel pirate fleets were blockading three of my ports, and trying to build and support a navy along with a large stack and a much smaller one was too much of a strain on my treasury. Where I had been making thousands before, now I was barely staying afloat.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If I may say so, I think navies are too expensive in this mod to buy and to upkeep. At least considering how many ships the AI builds and maintains, and how many pirate ships spawn. I mean, look at the second picture--all those blockading pirate fleets have three ships each, and I can barely maintain a single three-ship fleet, which, because pirate ships have more attack, immediately lose to the pirates.

Still, I manage to capture Messana, with not too many losses, leaving my Empire with two new cities at the end of this session: Patavium and Messana. Although those pirate ships are still blockading my ports and proving to be a huge money sink.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Overall, it's quite fun. I'm just getting frustrated by those pirates. I think I'll attack the city on the coast of Illyria next, it's not very well defended.

[Carados]

Looking like a nice little campaign there UnfortunateHam. I've noted your opinion on the power of rebel fleets and the expense of your own fleet. I'll have a go at making the rebels weaker so that it isn't so much of an auto-loss on your expensive fleets. That should help immensely, especially considering how common those rebel fleets can be.

Can you post a screenshot of what the Galatians are doing? In particular, Asia Minor.

[UnfortunateHam]

Yes, the fleets are a money sink. Usually the pirates move off after a while but they've been there a long time. It's kind of odd for them to stay blockading for so long.

[anandus]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"Pyrrhic victory - noun -
A victory achieved at too great a cost" ...
For the Romans, muhahaha.

[debux]

That was a fast conquest, I must say I'm guessing you're going to be stabilizing your empire later?

[Carados]

He's using the 3.5.x build

I'm doing an Epirus campaign myself at the moment. I'll get some pictures up later today. Rome still exists but they are no longer a power, still a threat, but nothing to worry about - which is why Pyrrhus has gone and personally taken the throne of Macedonia


Here we go. I decided to take the Romans out because they were attacking me a little too often. They had actually taken Corfinium from me, but I retaliated and took Capua in exchange. They then started to attack Croton and Tarentum from Rhegium so I thought enough was enough and recruited several mercenary units, defeated the armies, and took Rhegium. I defeated the rest of the Romans at Ancona and Arrimnium went rebel.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Whilst all this was going on, Pyrrhus sailed back over to Greece and took Pella from Melagros and then had his subordinate go attack Larissa with his army to take out Antigonus and his Macedonian army. Once these were taken care of it was just a matter of mopping up the last remnants whilst trying not to annoy the Greeks in general. Unfortunately, the Greek Cities have gotten far too big and are on my boarders so I couldn't risk taking out the Macedonians fully for several years just in case they attacked from Thrace. The Greeks decided to go to war against me, so I've been fending off what pitiful troops they send against me, though I am aware of larger armies further out that might get thrown at me once they've dealt with the Galatians. So I've been recruiting a very strong army in Greece to keep everything in check.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[UnfortunateHam]

Can you post a screenshot of what the Galatians are doing? In particular, Asia Minor.

Sure thing. For while, it looked like the Galatians might be unstoppable. They took Philippi and seemed on the verge of taking Maronia and Pella when suddenly--



Of course, I thought Macedon would get totally trashed, but then I toggled FoW off a couple times and look at this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So not only has Macedon somehow pulled off a naval invasion of Philippi without even touching Pella, but they are currently busy conquering the rest of southern Greece.



On top of this, Galatia lost Byzantion to the Greek Cities!



Talk about a surprise twist! Looks like Macedon was just a "sleeping giant" the entire time. Even so, Pella remains unconquered.

Some of the other factions have started doing better, as well. Pontus captured Trapezus and the Parthians captured the town of Atil to the south.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Meanwhile all I've done lately is capture Bononia form the Barbarians. Oh, and Messana has come under siege twice by Greek Armies from Syracuse. Which is too bad, because I wanted to ally with them against the Carthaginians.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And finally, the Seleucids and Ptolemaics keep fighting over Syria back and forth, although Seleucia had made some gains in Asia Minor.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/attac...1&d=1345424011

[Carados]

Victory!



Wait... something doesn't seem right there?

[debux]

That was fast conquering! No civilized greek like Phyrrus could have achieved such a feat!

On the more serious tone, that sure is a modern army (one phalangite?). A few interesting thing from AI expansion though in your screenie: Carthage and Celtiberia never fight each toher (that seems to be very common), Parthia gets pushed north (is there a way of extending their neutrality with the Seleucids?) while Baktria is able to expand quite well. A few odd things too: I thought the Lybian desert territory was unconquerable! How did the Ippidemios get there? And the Swebi sure have expanded quickly...

[Carados]

He obviously learnt the trade from the Illyrians then ;D


That army is modern. I had fully upgraded both Ambrakia and Pella (in terms of government), so I unlocked the Thorakitai. Pyrrhus strikes me as a kind of innovator. The howdah is attributed to him, he integrated various different fighting styles in his army, and he seems to have brought back shielded cavalry with him to Greece (he was supposedly carrying a shield at Sparta/Argos - one of the two). It makes perfect sense for Epirus to have a more modern style army whenever you use them. Of course, when the computer uses them it comes down to whether their innovations can overcome their immediate peril. If not, then nothing really changes - as per history.

Carthage and the Celtiberians have actually been fighting each other quite a bit
You can't see it from that screenshot, obviously, but Carthage had actually conquered Ilipa and advanced as far as Arse/Saguntum! The Celts in the north prevented further expansion for the Celtiberians, so they got into a tussle with Carthage as a result. Carthage has a *massive* army in Carthago Nova. Almost a full stack of hoplites, skirmishers and some elite scutarii infantry (a sign that the Carthaginian reform works!) - all shipped over from Carthage!!

I can't do much about Parthia and the Seleucids, except to try and get the other small powers to gang up on them more. The Seleucids are so large that it is difficult to get them to act consistently. A lot of luck is involved, if they recruit too many troops in a particular area, then they can easily steamroll a local faction. If those recruits are spread out, then the local factions can repel them. I'm hoping that a change to Asia Minor will mean the Galatians will cause early problems for them allowing the other factions to expand and develop.

The Libyan desert belongs to the 3rd super faction

The Suebi have expanded a bit. I gave them 10'000 gold to help them along. I gave gold to the Celts as well to help them, but they required a lot more later on. I need to make it easier for them. The Arverni hegemony apparently stretched all the way from the Atlantic to the Rhine during the 3rd century BC.

The Getae were interesting. They never attacked me once, despite sharing that border with me and despite never being allies. They expanded all the way to Noricum by themselves. The barbarian super faction also left me alone despite sharing the borders in Italy.


Some very interesting developments, I'm quite pleased how it turned out.


Oh by the way, the astute among you will realise that I generally stuck to conquering Greek cities rather than expanding elsewhere. This is for two reasons. 1) Greeks love to fight amongst themselves (why are they more civilised than Celts? Celts at least have ritual combat and don't involve thousands of other people!) and 2) they are easier to conquer because they are the same culture.

[ajb]

In every campaign I've played as Rome the Getae have never declared war on me regardless of being allies or not, I should add I usually have a large relativity undefended boarder with them.

[UnfortunateHam]

Welp, my saves folder just got completely erased somehow, so I won't be showing many more screens on here of my Roman game. Too bad, to, since I was just beginning to trash the Macedonians.

UPDATE: Oops. Looks like I was just running as administrator so I have everything back now.

[debux]

Alright, after weeks of not actually playing ExRM (due to other new games showing up or Cav charge testing), I finally got back to my Ptolemaic campaign. I guess I forgot how fun it actually was, I don't plan to let it go until I'm ready with my goals (conquering the western part of Alexander's Empire, stretching from Macedon to the western shores of the Persian Gulf (not going beyond the moutains that border the fertile crescent)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Ptolemaic Powerhouse... I couldn't make Alexandria fit inside, but at least I got the Lightower, my current capital (Gaza) and all the trade routes that flood the Eastern Mediterranean.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Western Front... the Seleucids keep churning out troops, and the fact that they're allied with almost all the powers that surround them, excepting for the decaying Parthians and the "passive" Ptolemaics noyl helps them to summon at least one army to my borders every one year. As a matter of fact, you can see their Generals assembling for next year's invasion.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The results of my conquest of Eastern Asia Minor. Most territories are in the process of being already integrated into the Ptolemaic state, closely administrated by the regional administrative capitals of Pergamon and Halicarnassus. Also, to further weaken the now pacific Allied Greek City States, I've established a beachhead in the northern side of the Sea of Marmara, to have access to the wide range of auxiliaries of thracian and greek origin that are available there (I know that they are also found on the southern coast of the Black Sea, but hey, it's useful to have those two fortress-cities that serve as buffers to my asian possessions and beachheads for future invasions)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The First Pontic-Armenian War. I can't recall but, I'm almost certain that Armenia has lost Satala so far, and the future doesn't look too bright for them, especially since Pontus has double the production that they have.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's also worth noting that the Sauromatae have already crossed the Caucasian Mountain ranges... this can't mean anything good for the sandwiched Armenians, although relations between both haven't been reported to be hostile.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Moving further along the Mediterranean coasts, our roman allies have effectively conquered the Mare Nostrum, definitively closing that front to allow them to focus completely on conquering the rest of their side of the Mediterranean. However, the Macedonian armies loom across the Adriatic Sea, promising no peaceful intentions towards the future roman possessions north to their capital.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

However, they seem rather confident, allowing one of their generals to go ahead and attempt the conquest of Massila. (Pretty Historical!)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Both Celtic major powers have stationed themselves in front of each other; however, they are too weak to attempt to even conquer any of their less powerful neighbors. The future of Gaul is uncertain, as the Roman incursion of the Greek-held territories there bring a new player to this side of the world, and nothing assures that the Celtiberian tribes will remain peaceful and dormant for ever...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Carthage seems to ahve also adopted a passive stance, not attemping any invasion in either Sicily, Sardina or Iberia. However, a whole stack is visible in their westernmost African possessions, just waiting for a competent and adventurous general to command them towards everlasting glory... (I'm seriously temped to use "move_character" to see what happens! Hopefully I can simulate the Second Punic Wars!)

So yeah... I just wanted to show how my campaign is going, aside from what I considered that were the main events that were happening in the known world. Right now, I'm about to invade Pontus (to give Armenia a better chance of survival, and also to see what regional units I could recruit there ), and also about to fight a fullstack of Seleucid, half of it being compromised of Generals, that most have the "Hale and Hearty" trait (those guys don't seem to be mortal! Seriously, I had to battle 4 of them in a battle, and I could kill a single one, even if I chased one for a third of the map with my four cavalry units! Is it possible to make that trait to happen less often?)

[GraaEminense]

While his father and brother began public works for the benefits of the Celtiberian people, Prince Caraunios marched against the barbarians. Thanks to skilled agents, Obila fell easily to his men. Remaining with a personal guard to police the liberated people of Obila, the Prince sent his brother to attack Ulisaypo.

His agents did not let him down. Within a few months, the Celtiberian Empire had reached the Atlantic coast and the trade rolled in. Wallowing in riches and plunder, the Celtiberians prepared to bide their time and build their provinces.

But wait! The spies reported that Katuba was weak, and the liberated peoples Obila and Ulisaypo threw in their lot with the conquerors and required only a few overseers to keep loyal. The army marched on Katuba.

It was a trap! A rebel army lay in ambush, but was repelled without significant losses. The army marched on, confidently. Another army appeared from the forests, twice the size of the previous one. The Celtiberians withdrew, but could not outdistance their enemies. A huge bloodbath ensued, the first real battle of Iberia. The grind was long, but the Celtiberians emerged victorious though crippled. Another victory like this would see them undone. They marched on to Katuba, which fell easily enough and willingly joined the Empire.

Spurred on by conquest, the army pushed towards Caesada. Another rebel ambush, another bloodbath and another Pyrrhic victory. If there was anyone around to take advantage, the fledgling Celtiberian Empire would be just another footnote in history -but there was none.

While the standards of living soared all over the Empire, Caesada and Arse fell easily and joined their conquerors without complaint. The idiot nephew Ambon was sent to the army in the hopes that he would become a man or die. The money kept rolling in, and Celtiberian tribesmen were able to live lives of leisure while mercenaries flocked to the banners for the promise of plunder. Osca and Carthago Nova was besieged into submission. Was there no one to challenge the rising Empire?

The Carthaginians cowered in their colonies, the Barbarians had grudgingly accepted a shameful peace and the horse-peoples trembled as the armies gathered to push them beyond the Pyrenees. Soon, the Avernii and the Phoenicians too would feel the wrath of the Celtiberians!

(Now, if only I could find my screenshots...)

[ajb]

While his father and brother began public works for the benefits of the Celtiberian people, Prince Caraunios marched against the barbarians. Thanks to skilled agents, Obila fell easily to his men. Remaining with a personal guard to police the liberated people of Obila, the Prince sent his brother to attack Ulisaypo.

His agents did not let him down. Within a few months, the Celtiberian Empire had reached the Atlantic coast and the trade rolled in. Wallowing in riches and plunder, the Celtiberians prepared to bide their time and build their provinces.

But wait! The spies reported that Katuba was weak, and the liberated peoples Obila and Ulisaypo threw in their lot with the conquerors and required only a few overseers to keep loyal. The army marched on Katuba.

It was a trap! A rebel army lay in ambush, but was repelled without significant losses. The army marched on, confidently. Another army appeared from the forests, twice the size of the previous one. The Celtiberians withdrew, but could not outdistance their enemies. A huge bloodbath ensued, the first real battle of Iberia. The grind was long, but the Celtiberians emerged victorious though crippled. Another victory like this would see them undone. They marched on to Katuba, which fell easily enough and willingly joined the Empire.

Spurred on by conquest, the army pushed towards Caesada. Another rebel ambush, another bloodbath and another Pyrrhic victory. If there was anyone around to take advantage, the fledgling Celtiberian Empire would be just another footnote in history -but there was none.

While the standards of living soared all over the Empire, Caesada and Arse fell easily and joined their conquerors without complaint. The idiot nephew Ambon was sent to the army in the hopes that he would become a man or die. The money kept rolling in, and Celtiberian tribesmen were able to live lives of leisure while mercenaries flocked to the banners for the promise of plunder. Osca and Carthago Nova was besieged into submission. Was there no one to challenge the rising Empire?

The Carthaginians cowered in their colonies, the Barbarians had grudgingly accepted a shameful peace and the horse-peoples trembled as the armies gathered to push them beyond the Pyrenees. Soon, the Avernii and the Phoenicians too would feel the wrath of the Celtiberians!

(Now, if only I could find my screenshots...)

Would love to see how that looks