Sobh, Asr, Shab - In The Morning/ Evening/ At Night - a Rise of Persia, Persia AAR

[waveman]

Sobh, Asr, Shab - In The Morning/ Evening/ At Night

Hello again, I'm probably shooting myself in the foot to spite my other foot or something, but here we go: I'd like to start another AAR!

I will then have three projects to be working on: The Fields of Aquitania (come summer, or two weeks), For Honor of For Glory? (summer, or perhaps an update before then), and this. My reason being that I enjoyed writing about the Sassanids for Attila, but just couldn't get immersed in the game well enough (probably due to vassal stack-spam). And so here I am, writing about a mod for Rome Total War BI: Rise of Persia. Fittingly, I shall be writing about just that: the rise (or early fall) of Parsa. It'll be RTW, but I'm toying with the idea of using Attila and Rome II for the pictures.

I'm going to fight all of the major battles, and as in other projects will cheat a bit if it furthers the story - to save struggling factions for example, or to save myself from insanity, or to get to a point where a crash occurred.

For simplicity's sake years are going to be listed as BC, because otherwise I think it's a little too complicated and I'd need some arbitrary reference point as a start date.

Army strengths will be reported as 10x what they are in game for large armies and 5x for smaller ones, with casualties being multiplied by about half that amount.

[waveman]

Reserved for stuff

[waveman]

I. ​Introduction

Of course we had heard of him. Oaxythres. Favored soldier of Kurus, known to those in the West as Cyrus and to us as Kurus the Rebel. This Oaxythres of the Maraphii, reputed to be a doughty warrior, had saved Kurus' life, riding amidst a storm of Median darts and hungry, thrusting spears to save his king, slaying five Medes in his endeavors.


While Kurus himself and his son Kambujiya were devoting themselves to the westward expansion of rebellios Parsa, Oaxythres was sent east, and while those of the West may not have heard his name - we, of the East, most certainly have. And no doubt some of you in the West will at some point as well.
Aspadana - a great and beautiful city, standing proudly in the eastern Zargros Mountains just before they begin to ease into the desert basins of Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut - was far too close to Parsa to escape her expansion. As Kyrus and Kambujiya made plans to usurp his grandfather on the Mediean throne, Oaxythres was dipatched east and north, given a few thousands of warriors and the hand of Kyrus' own daughter Atossa, and sent to meet en route with more men dipatched from Kambujiya's levies. This was in the Second Year of Rebellion (557 BC), and he struck in the depths of winter. Thus the mountain men could not be called to arms in defense of Aspadana, and so it was that 4300 stood against some seventeen thousands.


Or not entirely. Hate me if you will stranger, but you who were not there cannot know entirely of these affairs. For why was it that Hyapastes who was sent to rebuke and even subdue Kyrus himself joined the enemy? It was to the west that all attentions were focused, to the wealth of Babylon and of Mada, built on the ruins of Assyria, trading with Kemet's Pharoahs of the Nile Delta, warring with the ancient kingdom of Lydia. Persis was forgotten, and yet so too was Aspadana.
In autumn of this second year, I rode out to Oaxythres, and I was not alone. Some thousand men set out to swell his ranks, for all generals seek to grow their hosts as they march on the enemy. Two hundred horse, many hundreds of spear-,bow-, and axe-men. We were malcontents, younger sons, men who wished the best for Aspadana, and we were all exiles, thrown out by our families and neighbors who were frightened of turning their backs on the far way king of Mada.
And why should they not have thought so? The Parsan Uprising was in its infancy and we were to face but a sixteen-year-old boy. Our elders disregarded Oaxythres as Kyrus himself disregarded Aspadana, allowing his son to focus on shifting men - the currency of war - ever westward, but for those who were dispatched with the young commander.


One thousand sons of Aspadana waited for Oaxythres in the high grass, waited in the rolling plains that surged playfully around our fair home. Entire families had joined our exodus. For myself: I had left behind a girl set to be my wife, a fair creature whose children - had they been mine - were near guaranteed a seat on the city's council. Once Ladeh's father learned of my intentions, communications were immediately cut off to send a clear message to myself and my family, and my father Varshab, of the Panthialaei, was furious at them and me.


There was little ceremony as we were inducted into Oaxythres' host, for if the Medes and the Prasans are distant cousins, then the people of Aspadana and Persis are very close cousins and may even have more in common with their southern neighbors than their distant king. Many among my tribe, the Panthialaei, and indeed many others, had whispered of joining the Parsan rebellion, and when my friend Khosroh had stated his intent to do so, I joined him. So four of us rode out of Aspadana to the growing column of men treking towards the enemy.


I will not dwell on the attack no Aspadana, in which over a thousand of my people fell, mostly on the defenders' side. Suffice to say that we led Oaxythres' men on the secret paths that we knew of, to the low points of the walls. But I will say that as blood ran down the iron scales of my cuirass, soaked from my friend Amash, that we of Aspadana who scaled her walls helped to save many of her people, curbing the slaughter that might have been. The wounded would be given time to recover, the few fires could easily be contained and the damage repaired.


Those of us among the nobility who had fought for Oaxythres were found wives from high families of Parsa, and so it was that I married Yalda. A month of preparations, a month with her. Then I volunteered to march East to patrol the border. It would be a year and some before I saw Oaxythres again, and indeed even beautiful Aspadana.

[Johnadiw26]

A story from the rise of Persian timeframe viewpoint, hmm definitely subscribe

Sent from my Smartfren Andromax AD688G using Tapatalk

[Alwyn]

Great start, I look forward to more!

[waveman]

Part II. Mirshikar - Hunter



Relief - Persian Horse on Patrol

IIA.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The fort did not have a name, not really. We called it mauza which meant place or village, for it was a village of men and it became our world.

We of the horse arrived first of course. Three hundred cavalrymen and near a thousand mounts and servants besides. We scoured the area, routing out the few bandits in that dry, barren land, and waited for the rest of our forces to arrive. This fort was to ward off and delay any Median advance through the desert and to defy frustrate the predations of the eastern nomads.

When at last the dirt-kickers arrived the construction of the fort commenced. Eight hundred of them swarmed about the place, kicking up intolerable clouds of dust as they began erecting first walls, then barracks and stables.

Khosroh spat disdainfully at that: "It is the horse," he sneered, "that is truly important. The stables should have been built first." It was a sentiment that we all shared for the three hundred horsemen who would call this desolate fort home were its life blood. We rode day-in and day-out, from dawn to dusk and through the night, and oh! but there was so much joy in the freedom we found. We had signed away two years of luxurious living in Aspadana for a life on the edge of civilization, but the gentle whispers of the desert and the seductive caresses of her winds made the choice well worth it, even without giving consideration to the part we played in Oaxythres' plans, and through him in Great Kyrus' own plans. When we rode out at dawn it was to the endless open desert, and as we returned - that night, a fortnight later - it was towards the welcome sight of our distant mountains; never did we feel as though Aspadana had left us. It was no wonder at all to me that our force of horse grew to six hundreds at times while the infantry dwindled to a mere for hundreds - neither in terms of logistics nor men's hearts.

Save for the Companions the infantry of both Pars and Media were of varying and generally low quality. The craftsmen and hillmen provided quality spearmen, axemen and archers, and their ranks were swelled by local levies. The nobility provided the cavalry, subsidized by state treasuries when on campaign or various postings but otherwise paid for through our own incomes. This was the price we paid for our privilege.

But this posting was not all serenity and ease. On my eleventh patrol the call was raised: horsemen! For three days we trailed these men across the open desert, and it was by now obvious that they could not be called friend. Even through a sandstorm that had us all hunched low over our mounts and whipped the coarse sand into a frenzy did we continue our dogged persuit.

So lost was I that Elosh grabbed my horses bridle. "Salar!" he cried, straining to make his baritone heard over the wind, "the captain has ordered us to stop!" I nodded my thanks. "He says we are to get some rest: he's going to talk to the Others," he continued, jerking his head at the vague forms we had been following, who curiously had also halted.



It was to be a fight. Our foes had grown tired of leading us across the desert and so turned to face us and give battle. We dismounted atop adjacent ridges, and when the sandstorm had abated somewhat, took to horse once again. There were around seventy men in our party, sixty in theirs. "Good, then, eh?" I murmured to Khosroh at my left. "Nice to have a fight out here," and he shuddered. "Better than scrambling like a rabble in the streets," laughed Elosh from my right, and that extracted a wan smile from Khosroh's thin lips and eased the frown line above his thick brows. I fixed a scarf over my mouth and nose to protect myself from the sand - and to wipe the sweat from my palms, that I could better grasp my spear.


As one both sides kicked their mounts forward, down the slopes, screaming our war-cries. I bellowed with them, hoping that Ahura Mazda might see and favor me even through the swirling sand, and then we were crashing among the enemy. I felt a jarring blow on my wicker shield and was nearly unhorsed when my horse shouldered another aside sending it and it's rider screaming into the sand. I felt a cascade of warm blood, thickened by the sand, and was soon warding off spear thrusts and praying the iron scales of my armor held true. I lashed out with my spear but that rider was soon past me, and I could hear Elosh bellowing somewhere behind me, and the sharp nasal cries of our captain.


I lashed out with spear over my shield and it was wrenched from my grasp. I kicked my horse forward, struggling to draw my sword, and then suddenly I was out of the knot of struggling beasts and the cacophony of battle was all behind me.

I whipped my mount about, only to see three enemy riders charging at me! I braced myself for their attack, but the first merely dashed by me, whipping his horse furiously. I was stunned, and so I could do nothing as the other two did just the same.

Just like that the skirmish was over. But we were blooded.

A score or so of the enemy escaped our clutches; another two dozen surrendered, though most of them could not have ridden away due to their injuries. The remainder were dead or dying, and we suffered ten dead ourselves. Elosh had been shot by arrows - twice - and yet still had continued to fight, and many other men were wounded as well.



But we were victorious. Gasping for breath, quaking with relief, but victorious nonetheless. We gathered our dead and wounded, rounded up our prisoners and riderless horses, and rode away. I dismounted briefly to retrieve my spear from a man whose vacant eyes gazed quizzically at me, turning to look me fully in the face as I jerked the blade free from his body. I mounted as fast as I could after that, though the others found a certain humor in the situation that escaped me.

Thanks Alwyn, Johnadiw, hope you both enjoy!

[Johnadiw26]

well written and good pic you made my friend.. and my favorite pic scene is when Elosh had been shot by arrow -twice, i have seen the horror, angry expression from Elosh
i cant ask anymore,,very entertaining my friend
well done, sangat bagus !

[waveman]

Thank you very much Johnadiw26!

Edit just to say: the opening years are going to be rather quiet for Salar and Oaxythres, thus the time skips, but I think that this background info is important...

Next update will be today or tomorrow

[waveman]

IIB.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We returned to the fort and tended to our wounded. The return journey must have been agonizing for them, and we lost another man and three of our prisoners en route. Elosh had to be lashed to his saddle: his arms were lame but he refused any assistance. So began the next portion of our lives in which we tempered the very mettle of our souls. Our bodies and hearts grew hard and sinewy, tanned by hardship and the unrelenting sun. We welcomed it all: to fight directly under the austere gaze of Ahura Mazda, and to excel and succeed at our posting. There was no other way for we needed to prove to our families and tribes that our choices in supporting Persis had been right, and to prove to our Persian cousins that we were every inch the warriors they were.


Silk shirts and jackets that were easily permeable to the blessed winds and yet still entrapped the stinging barbs of our foes replaced the opulent, luxurious garments that we had worn in Aspadana. Servants were directed to the horses first and foremost and as they saw to the dressing down of our mounts upon our return, so did we see to ourselves. On the occasions that they accompanied us on the march and even at the Fort Mauza as the year wore on we shared our simple meals with them, Persian, Aspadanan Mede, servant and horse.


Occasionally a patrol would disappear into the desert, swallowed by the sands, never to be seen again. We mourned them quietly, as we mourned all our fallen comrades, confident that they would have acquitted themselves as men and that they must surely have found passage to paradise, and Emar would often climb to the walls of the fort and coax haunting melodies from a flute he'd taken from a dead Skyth. Still more often they returned with glorious red badges of victory, having consigned yet more desert vagabonds to ignominious deaths upon the sands of the desert , and on these and other happy occasions Emar, with Elosh and often others accompanying him on improvised drums, would stir us into an ecstatic frenzy as the sun set and we danced to match the twisting flames of our campfires.


After a year and a half at Mauza, nineteen months of scouring the deserts and skirmishes with the Skudata and Balkh, whose light raiders we swept aside with ease if we caught them and whose barbaric nobles fight like metal- clad daemons and fixed devilish horns to their mounts, we were recalled westward. Three hundred of us were to return to Aspadana, and the four hundred infantry were again being entirely rotated.


Of our four hundred replacements easily three quarters were untried youths who quailed under our harsh gazes even though at twenty I was younger than a fair few of them. And how we laughed as Emar tossed a bag of skulls into their midst! And when big Elosh rode past just after, bare- chested to reveal his scars, so bright against his dark skin, and how I myself enjoyed their pallid faces and the hidden laughter of my comrades when I rode past wearing an ornate Balkh war-mask that transformed my face to a cold, fearsome hawk, Khosroh riding just behind me with horns lashed to his horse's head just as the fearsome Skyths were wont to do.


They were softer men, sent to the desert as ordered, as was their duty. They could not match the passion of the first sons of Aspadana to come out here, eager to redeem ourselves our to prove ourselves, nor the implacable Persian riders we bade farewell to. None of us in our posting had sent for word of home; none of us had received word from home, yet we still received provisions and equipment, even replacement mounts on occasion.


The ride west was uneventful, but gods above and daemons below how I missed the colour green, the soft touch it lends the mountains and the softer feel of it underfoot. We rode, fought mock battles and chased each other for weeks through the hills for we were required to escort the infantry, and while these pursuits were fun they served to hone our senses further. I have no defense for the hawking we did but that if nothing else my desert posting taught me that if one has the time, the means, and the opportunity to seize upon whatever endeavor he is embarking upon he should do so - and always, always have a weapon close at hand.


Then we reached Aspadana, that mountain paradise, my home.


**************************** ************ ********* ******

We formed an orderly column as we approached the city, our heads, banners and glittering spearheads held high, each of us kitted out in our most glorious war raiment - bright silks, polished armor, horses groomed till they glistened regally as the wind tossed at their manes despite the trepidation we felt at returning, at last, to our homes.


For their turn the people of Aspadana welcomed us warmly. Boys and girls wove through the horses and men once we had stopped, and we were presented with fruits and generous portions of wine. Even the infantry was party to some of these attentions. It seemed the city had forgiven us.

[Justinian Australis]

I'll be following this. Haven't seen a AAR here about Persia before, unless I am mistaken. Nice writing and nice screenies as well. Any chance at some point of having a campaign pic? Rise of Persia is one mod I've not played...may need to check it out now..

[waveman]

Thanks, and I'll get a campaign screen up shortly, it's been slipping my mind. Nothing significant has happened campaign-wise yet, but that will be changing shortly

I'd certainly recommend the mod. It's quite interesting, and while I've always played before as a Greek state I'm quite enjoying my first play through as Persia. The differences between the strenghts of various factions is quite interesting as well, and the fact that only some factons recruit through area of recruitment


CAMPAIGN MAPS, 554 BC (current year)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pars

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mauza is the fort in the top right corner; the others have names too that will be explained later

Susim was seized in 557 BC, from rebels, Aspadana in 556 from the Medes

More artsy map

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The world as it is, 554 BC (actually a spoiler)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Purple: Parsa; Blue: Babylonia (Bab-Ilu); Greem: Medes (Mada)
Light Blue: Lydia; White: Ionian Greeks; Even Lighter Blue: Thrakians (Bessoi)
Black: Makedon; Blue (can't be seen): Athenoi; Red: Sparte
Orange: Taras; Pinkish Red: Illyrians (Artoriati) Yellow: Skythians (Skudata)
Brown: Balkh Teal: Indians (Maghada) Orange, Arabia: Saba
Pale Yellow: Egypt (Kemet) Green: Kyrene (Greeks) Red: Kush

Forgot the darker orange at top right: Sauka

*Most of these names are correct, Skudata/Sauka might not be. But hey, they're just steppe barbarians, right?

[Alwyn]

I'm enjoying this! I agree with Johnadiw26, I like the picture where Elosh is shot with arrows and the way you include this in the story. The maps are helpful and your artsy map is well done.

[McScottish]

I'll be following this. Haven't seen a AAR here about Persia before, unless I am mistaken. Nice writing and nice screenies as well. Any chance at some point of having a campaign pic? Rise of Persia is one mod I've not played...may need to check it out now..

*COUGH*I did one...*COUGH*


Excellent work thus far, waveman, and I expect to see a lot more.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Brilliant stuff, as always, waveman. You choose your pictures really carefully to go with your story, and that makes a real difference - and, as other people have said, letting the pictures dictate some of the elements of the story is a nice touch, too.

[waveman]

IIC

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Or perhaps they simply did not recognize us. My father's gaze slid blankly over my face, and by their frowns I judged that the same had happened to many others. We were not given time to dwell on this however as we were swept away to the palace, home to kings and now Median and Persian governors. Oaxythres himself greeted us, and he had not changed. He had the same curly black hair, the same olive skin, smooth but for a few scars, and the same bright, alert eyes, though they were shadowed in a way that I did not remember from our few brief encounters before.


He greeted us grandly and enthusiastically, welcoming us home as if he hailed from Aspadana himself. "Aspadana's Faithful," he called us, true sons of Persis. "And look," he cried, gesturing grandly at the banquet room and the city bustling beyond its Windows, "look at how our fair city prospers! Look at the wealth and joy you have brought to your people! No longer is fair Aspadana ignored, left to crumble at the edge of an empire. Now she flourishes and shines with life! " I felt a smile then wrest its way onto my face and a few furtive glances revealed similar expressions on my friend's faces; Oaxythres' enthusiasm was maddeningly infectious.


"We hold this celebration for you, my brothers! As a way for your city and your people to welcome you home, to embrace you and to show you that their anger has been forgotten. As a way to thank you for your protection of the East, to ease the minds of all our people and the mind of Great Kyrus himself! We thank you, men of the Panthialaei; you, men of the Vazdafelaei; you, men of...." and Oaxythres listed every tribe of Aspadana and the surrounding regions, whether they had sent one man or fifty to swell his ranks. My own chest and Khosroh's swelled with pride when he called the Panthialaei, and when Oaxythres named the Iuvaneai - of whom Elam was the only man present - I swore I saw tears leaking into the big man's beard.


"...and you, men of Pars, all of us now brothers! " Oaxythres finished, and we raised our goblets and drank to that sentiment. Oaxythres regaled us with the tale of the long match to Susim under Kyrus and how he saved the king's life, riding before a chariot and then diving from his horse into a knot of enemy footmen, lashing out with his spear in one hand and kopis sword in the other.


As we ate he made his way around the tables, talking to each man, asking his experiences and about his scars, his brothers, his tribe's history - I can only imagine that he wished never again to hear of the Vazdafelaei, a tribe with some fifty men present, a sentiment we of the Panthialaei shared - and in Elosh's case, whether it was true he had fought on and then ridden for days without help after being shot twice. When the big man was, for once, quiet, the rest of our party clamored to verify it.


I looked around the banquet room at men who had half expected to be turned away from the gates of our home and in their eyes I saw fiery admiration and love for this young commander, who at only nineteen had won our admiration, respect, and loyalty. I made eye contact with Khosroh and saw the same reflected in his eyes. Oaxythres was genuine too - once he and several others had convinced Elam to produce his flute, I saw the same calm, yearning expression on his face that could be seen on the faces of all those who had listened the same fluid melodies under the blanket of stars out in the desert.


That is how we came to be not Aspadana's Faithful, but Oaxythres' Faithful.

[waveman]

Thank you all for your comments, I'm looking forward to continuing this!

[Johnadiw26]

Thank you all for your comments, I'm looking forward to continuing this!

Home sweet home,it is nice to come home again. ah a lovely update, waveman

Sent from my Smartfren Andromax AD688G using Tapatalk

[Alwyn]

Oaxythres is an impressive young commander, he sounds like someone who will inspire his men to heroic deeds. Good update!