Sons of Helios (DeI Rhodes AAR) (Update - 24th August, 2018 update)

[Paladin94610]

Sons of Helios


Chapter 1: The War of Two Islands
The island of Rhodes is a city-state of lucrative traders and proud sailors, and our vessels traveled far and wide, from the shores of Pontic Sea in the north and up the six cataracts of the Nile in the south. The Hellenic culture dominated its everyday life. In fact, the Rhodians maintained a strong Greek tradition while the Athenians and Spartans’ true Hellenic culture was fading away as the Macedonian way of life set into the lands of Attica and Peloponnese.

Our greatest competitor was the Cretans. A decade ago, King Cilix of Hierapytna, managed to unite the whole island of warring city-states under his rule and set about more ambitious military goals. And territorial conflicts between the two neighbors eventually broke into a war in 277BC. Archon (or chief magistrate) of Rhodes, Erasmos was a middle-aged statesman and skilled commander in his mid-thirties. He proposed that he lead the land armies of Rhodes to set foot on Crete and take the island. This plan was discredited for some time but eventually the Rhodian Boule agreed and gave Archon Erasmos, the authority to muster the citizen army.

There had been small naval conflicts from one island to another but the single momentous year was 273BC. After three years of aggression between Crete and Rhodes, Rhodian citizen army landed on the east side of Crete, on the foothills of Mt. Dicte.

Battle of Lyttos (273BC Summer)

Crete had been at war with the Seleucids for a long time and majority of its naval strength is along the coast of Levant where it raided lucrative trade routes between Seleucids and the western Mediterranean realms. Rhodians used this well-known fact to invade Crete. And as we had expected, the Cretans failed to reposition their fleet to deter a Rhodian landing. Unlike Rhodes, Crete is a larger island and subsequently held a large land army, which must be dealt with even after landing on the island safely. The Cretan army assembled near their capital, Hierapytna and marched northwest to confront the invaders.

Archon Erasmos’ citizen army is composed of ~19,400 men, of which 1,100 were cavalry and 5,280 were light infantry. The bulk of Rhodian army was made up by the heavily armed hoplite phalanxes. There were five citizen phalanxes, each 1,000 men strong. They were supported by two units of light hoplites and two units of levy swordsmen. The force included two phalanxes of poorly trained levy hoplites and one highly valued phalanx of picked hoplites. The citizen army was supported by 1,000 men strong citizen cavalry paid and equipped by merchant oligarchs and led by one of the oligarchs, Demosthenes. This added up the Rhodian army to an over 20,000 men strong host.



The Cretan army was commanded by Prince Solon, second son and heir apparent of Hierapytna. This force rather looked like a hastily assembled force of levies and mercenaries. Our sources indicated that There were 11,000 strong levy phalanx supported by 3,000 Peloponnese mercenary hoplites, of which 1,000 of them are light hoplites. Their killing power lay in the strength of famous Cretan archers, which numbered around 3,500 men. This infantry force is supported by a cavalry force in similar size to Erasmos’.


The belligerents met near the town of Lyttos, to the northwest of Mt.Dicte. Prince Solon placed his army at the foothills and therefore held a higher ground. Noting that Erasmos’ cavalry units were not present, probably scouting ahead and foraging supplies, he grasped this opportunity to crush the exhausted enemy and ordered a general advance. Prince Solon ordered his light cavalry to encircle the Rhodians.


While Cretan forces rolled down the hills steadily trying to maintain their cohesion, Archon Erasmos quickly organized his exhausted, yet highly motivated units into a battle line. He placed them in the famous oblique formation, with the picked hoplites taking the far left position, and troops are placed towards the left according to less and less experience and quality in an oblique fashion. Rhodian far right position is maintained by thinner battle lines made up of light hoplites, reinforced by swordsmen.


Just as the two giant phalanxes approach towards each other, Rhodian cavalry, led by Demosthenes, returned. He sent 500-men strong light horsemen, armed with javelins to harass the Cretan cavalry. It was customary for light cavalry to engage with each other in hoplite warfare and thus, Cretan light cavalry returned to their allied phalanx and attempted to drive away the Rhodians. Cretan light cavalry pursued the Rhodians, but they were ambushed by a battalion of Rhodian citizen cavalry and were ruthlessly slaughtered.


Cretan citizen cavalry came to the aid of their troubled allies who pushed back the Rhodian cavalry. But Rhodians maintained a high morale in the knowledge that they had their backs on the entire weight of the Rhodian cavalry which was still hidden behind the treeline to the north.


On the lower part of the hills, the two phalanxes settled their strength over a short stretch of even terrain. Prince Solon had his Cretan archers rained their entire quivers on the lighter part of Rhodian right flank. The volleys proved to be devastating against lightly armored Rhodians. But Erasmos responded with the famous Rhodian slingers. These slingshots negated any missile advantage the Cretans had, right away. The Cretan archers had to redeploy under cover of their heavier battalions and could not rain down as many arrows as before. The toe-to-toe struggle between the phalanxes was a different story. Troop quality played the most important factor. Rhodian picked hoplites were the first to meet the enemy and they withstood enemy’s push and charge. Throughout the battle, they broke one Cretan battalion after another.


Prince Solon had placed their Peloponnese veteran hoplites in the center which almost broke the Rhodian phalanx in half, if not for the quick response of light hoplite reserves Erasmos held in his right wing.


The rest of Rhodian mobile infantry engaged the Peloponese and Cretan hoplites from all four sides. Fiercely harassed by Rhodian light hoplites and swordsmen, Cretan phalanxes became distorted and conformed accordingly and were rendered unable to surround the Rhodian center.


Rhodian peltasts also singled out a few hoplite phalanxes and surrounded them. Running out of javelins, they used their Iphikratean spears to harass enemy tight formations from all directions.


All of these tactics gave time for our cavalry commander Demosthenes, organize an effective rear attack. His first action was to aid his first group of citizen cavalry, now overwhelmed and massacred by Cretans. Then his sent more cavalrymen to attack Cretan archers. Then he drove his elite lance cavalry into the rear ranks of Cretan phalanx. Except for a little resistance elsewhere, almost the entire Cretan army routed. And these resisting forces eventually surrendered after seeing that majority of their army had left them.


In the aftermath, we lost about 6,000 men. The Cretan army was decimated although Prince Solon escaped unscathed. This battle proved to be decisive considering that the Rhodians were able to take a foothold on the island and the fact that a number of Cretan cities on the eastern side of the island had already switched sides to Rhodians with the exception of Knossos. These new allies allowed Erasmos to recruit mercenary battalions of his own to replenish losses. The season ended with a victorious Rhodian siege of Knossos.

[isa0005]

Wonderful read, I love that you've scaled up the army sizes in you writing. The way you've grabbed those in game screen shots really aid that massive sense of scale I feel you're trying to convey, very well done!
I only have three criticisms.
1. Your use of past and present tense and your PoV gets a little muddled every now and then. Find which PoV and tense works best for you and stick with it
2. You use a few redundant words and phrases here and there. This slows down the pace of your writing. As a writer my self (I've done very little creative writing recently) I've often found that reading your work aloud helps with these problems!
3. I WANTED MORE!
Keep it up and best of luck in your future campaigns!

[Shield]

Instead of making a post, why not make a youtube video?

[Paladin94610]

Wonderful read, I love that you've scaled up the army sizes in you writing. The way you've grabbed those in game screen shots really aid that massive sense of scale I feel you're trying to convey, very well done!
I only have three criticisms.
1. Your use of past and present tense and your PoV gets a little muddled every now and then. Find which PoV and tense works best for you and stick with it
2. You use a few redundant words and phrases here and there. This slows down the pace of your writing. As a writer my self (I've done very little creative writing recently) I've often found that reading your work aloud helps with these problems!
3. I WANTED MORE!
Keep it up and best of luck in your future campaigns!

Thanks for the critics. The story is meant to use a third person narrative. About the tenses, I missed to correct those paragraphs. And I will try to get my writing as concise as possible.

[Alwyn]

Good AAR, your well-written reporting and great screenshots made the battle easy to follow. It sounds challenging to face the famous Cretan archers so early in the campaign, but at least Rhodes had their skilled slingers and made full use of their cavalry.

I wonder if you're planning to continue this - like isa0005, I'd like to know what happened next!

[Paladin94610]

Chapter 2: Annexation of Crete

In the following year, (i.e.,272BC) Erasmos resumed his campaign. He had lost most of his own citizen cavalrymen and about half strength of his two levy hoplites, and had substituted the loss with a 600 men strong battalion of mercenary Tarantine cavalry hailing from Melos and a company of mercenary Peloponnese light hoplites. Merchant oligarch, Demosthenes, with his financial support was able to sport even more mercenary soldiers. From Anatolia, he hired 2,000 strong battle-hardened Peloponnese armed in hoplite fashion and a company of Thracian peltasts. His cavalry battalions still had near full strength.




Battle of Hieraptyna (272 BC Winter)
When Demosthenes’ cavalry vanguard stumbled upon the Cretan army near the city of Hieraptyna, it was in the marching order towards a ridge, where they might be trying camp for the day. Prince Solon was in the vanguard with a thousand picked hoplites, and roughly a half-strength battalion of levy hoplites. He was separated from the main army by a mile. Demosthenes ordered the attack in an attempt to seize the prince. But the Rhodian cavalry could not arrive in time. The Prince put up a strong defensive position with his rear to the ridge’s cliffside. Demosthenes surrounded the prince from all three sides and assaulted the Cretan phalanx multiple times. But the Cretan phalanx was too disciplined to be broken easily. Soon the main army, led by the king himself, arrived and Demosthenes ordered a retreat as the Cretan archers started raining down arrows at our horsemen The Cretans fared better in this first skirmish, since they lost about a hundred or two, but we lost around 250 horsemen.


Our old reports described that the Cretan army had been severely depleted of its hoplites. King Cilix fielded 5,000 garrison spearmen and 5,500 levy hoplites in phalanx formation along with 2,000 mercenary Peloponnese hoplites and 2,000 shield bearers. However, the Cretans still boasted a large component of archers, with numbers as high as 8,000. These men were armed with shields and swords for close combat and had full quivers enough to loose their missiles all day long. This force might be the strongest archer regiment in the whole Aegean world and Erasmos knew for sure that it would prove to be his greatest threat.




Prince Solon reunited with the main army and assumed a battleline with the ridge to his right flank, and his father accordingly deployed his phalanxes leftwards from the ridge. Since Rhodians arrived and were in a better position to occupy the ridge, the Cretans did not attempt to take it.


Meanwhile the Rhodian cavalry regrouped behind the infantry as Erasmos ordered the entire forces to make a general advance.


King Cilix utilized his massive archery advantage as anticipated. Rhodian soldiers fell in several hundreds before clashing into the Cretan phalanx.




Prince Solon’s right wing was in a favorable situation and it was crucial in holding their less disciplined army for many hours. Although the Cretans pushed back the remainder of Rhodian center several times, Erasmos’ picked hoplites held the ground against the gnawing power of the Prince Solon’s right wing.


Cretan archers focused their shots upon our mobile infantrymen, who were routed after an hour of intense melee with the Cretan hoplites. The Cretans began to flood the gap in the left wing. But Erasmos sent a phalanx of mercenary Peloponnese hoplites to hold the gap. These fierce mercenaries proved to a valuable asset, and they held their position against an enemy force three times their size for as long as the battle waged on.


Erasmos wanted to end the battle as quickly as possible. He sent Demosthenes’ cavalry to encircle the enemy, while placing the slingers on the ridge to pour stones over the Cretans.


The Cretans even tried to assault the hills later in the battle, but they were routed and chased away by Rhodes’ peltasts and Tarantine squadrons. On the right wing, it did not take long for Rhodian cavalry reached the Cretan rear and started engaging their archers. Cretan archers were sturdy even in close combat. Cavalry on the Rhodian right wing was pinned down by the Cretan archers. Tarantines on the left wing however returned to the field and helped their allies on right wing. Only then the Cretan archer battalions were shattered.




The peltasts followed their mounted allies and surrounded the Cretan phalanx from behind and began to unload their missiles. And this moment was the death sentence for the Cretans. Thousands perished in the encirclement, including Prince Solon and their mercenary captain.


Cretans lost 20,000 men in this last conflict, while Rhodians fared much better with losses of 5,700 men. 2,500 Cretans captured in the aftermath, were sold into slavery.


Without an army, King Cilix lost all control of the island, except his city of Hierapytna, which the Rhodians continued to besiege for a week. He offered peace and abdication in the end. The Hierapytna’s ruling nobility was dissolved, and a puppet archon was appointed to each city state, and many of the Cretan pirate hideouts were also seized. City of Knossos remained under Rhodian control to oversee our influence on the island. So we could say that the island was effectively annexed at the end of the war.

[Alwyn]

An enjoyable battle, there were some tense moments when the Cretan archers were inflicting heavy losses and when the mercenary Peloponnese hoplites are holding off a force three times their size. The reach of Rhodes is impressive, I wonder if major powers in the region will start to feel threatened and attack Rhodes, or if they are distracted by events elsewhere.

[Darkan]

Well done so far, Rhodes is on the path of becoming much stronger in the Mediterranean. The photos are very good and you capture very interesting frames and events. Well done, keep it up!

[theSilentKiller]

I like your first two chapters! Your combination of sceenshots and writing give us a good impression what happens and scaling up the numbers make it more authentic. So far, everything has been going well - like Alwyn, I wonder if other powers take notice of Rhodes' sudden victories and gains.

[Paladin94610]

Thanks for your support guys! At this rate this tiny island should soon get on the stage of world politics. I'm waiting for the ancestral update to come out of beta, and also DeI to release a final compatibility patch before continuing the campaign.

[Paladin94610]

Chapter 3: Crawling Out from Sea

Rhodes emerged victorious thanks to its strong leadership and appropriate timing, which the Cretans obviously lacked. While Hierapytna was a powerful city-state, the island was not on their side, since it forcefully subdued its neighbors only recently. But it was a minor conflict in the scope of bigger politics. Egypt and Seleucids had been at war for a century and they vied for control of the Aegean. Egypt, in particular, won naval dominance in the region and made allies with the islands of Crete and Cyprus, represented by Hierapytna and Salamis respectively. So annexation of Crete meant that Rhodians indirectly declared war on Egypt too.

On the other hand, the standing navy of Crete, led by naval commander Pamphilos, was strong as ever. Based in a safe harbor in Cilicia he raided Seleucid ships along the coast of Levant and gained favor from the Egyptian king. Two years later, the king of Egypt gave him access to his docks in the city of Side, the capital of the Pamphylia region, which had been an Egyptian foothold in southern Anatolia. Our archon Erasmos sought to crush any hope that remained of the Cretans. Five years after the annexing Crete, the Rhodian army was once again in action, but this time, Erasmos gained approval of the Council for naval support. Carpophorus, the archon of Hellenic nobility, had influence in the council and despite having a Mysian ancestry, he was given command of the fleet. Once Rhodian forces finished preparing for the campaign, ships under command of Carpophorus, set sail for Pamphylia, guarding the army transports led by Erasmos.

Erasmos aimed to cut Egyptian foothold in Anatolia and to destroy the Hierapytna’s remaining fleet once and for all. Disembarking his army in Lycia, Erasmos took the Egyptian land forces by surprise who camped near the town of Xanthos. The Egyptians did not have time to save the town and supplies there were seized by Erasmos. As he headed northeast, into the hilly terrain, the Egyptians blocked passage which offered a skirmish.

The vanguard of the Rhodian army consisted of 3,000 hoplites, supported by 3,600 skirmishers. The Egyptian army was led by an elite phalangite battalion accompanied by two battalions of Greek and Egyptian swordsmen, flanked on each side by one battalion of Karian spearmen. They have a weak component of missile troops.


War in the Aegean had been the same hoplite warfare for half a millennium and the Rhodians were not used to fighting phalangites. These Royal phalangites wielded particularly long sarissae, with spearheads at every inch in front of the battleline. This group slowly isolated our leading hoplite phalanx and began the slaughter.


Our forces elsewhere were pinned down by either non-phalangite melee infantry or harassed by Egyptian skirmishers.


The lead phalanx could not stand the pressure of Egyptian phalangites and they regrouped behind the battleline. This maneuver freed up the Egyptian phalangites to take on the second Rhodian phalanx from their left flank, who had been valiantly holding out against fierce attacks from Egyptian swordsmen at the front.


If not for our lone peltast battalion on the left wing who decimated Egyptian right wing with their javelins and long spears, the battle was sure to be lost. This attack routed Egyptian left wing and the third Rhodian phalanx rushed to the center to hold the line, while the peltasts continued to hold at the right wing, while slowly sending men to help encircle the Egyptian phalanx


Rhodes’ lead phalanx held its ground against relentless attacks from all sides, until relieved by peltasts from Rhodian left wing. Soon all the flank components of Rhodian army descended upon the Egyptian phalanx, which was now isolated from all sides. By its very nature, Egyptian phalangites were also, vulnerable at it flanks and rear, exposed and exploited rigorously by Rhodian light infantry.


Seeing their lead battalion surrounded and slaughtered, the fellow Egyptian soldiers gave up the fight and retreated into the mountains. This fight drained Rhodian manpower severely as it costed us 3,300 lives. Egyptians lost 8,600 men though it was a small loss, considering the total size Egyptian forces elsewhere.

After the battle, Rhodians took every town and village in the mountains and dispersed the surviving enemy forces. For Erasmos, since he did not have enough men to make progress, he waited for reinforcements from Rhodes’ allies in the next two months, making ready to seize the city of Side. Meanwhile Carpophorus continued his journey along the coast and took the town of Attaleia and began preparations to attack Side by sea, once Erasmos attack by land.

For the record, Erasmos later admitted in his biography that he had been devastated by this particular skirmish and that he realized Rhodes’ army was obsolete against modern armament of mainland Greek states. Although Rhodians could boast their proud ships, there seemed to be no way to face against pikes with hoplites alone in land battles. And he thought it would be best to persuade the council to reform the army accordingly in the future campaigns.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

That sounds like a tough battle! I wonder if Rhodes will be able to modernise quickly enough.

[Alwyn]

I enjoyed this! I like the way that you show how the battle involves the connection between Rhodes and the conflict between the major powers in the region. The effects of the different weapons and tactics of the armies of Rhodes and Egypt on the ebb and flow of the battle come across well. The reflection of Erasmos on the battle is intriguing, you've got me interested in how he will reform the army and the difference his reforms will have.

[Paladin94610]

Battle of Side (267BC Summer)
Erasmos converged with Carpophorus’ fleet in the late spring of 267BC and they loaded the ships with necessary supplies. Two weeks later, they made a simultaneous attack on the town of Side, by both sea and land. Pamphilos’ Cretan navy sought to halt the Carpophorus’ fleet before attack the town while Erasmos stormed it. We shall look the land theater of the battle first.

The Rhodian army is composed as follows;

Composition of Rhodian Forces

1,000 Picked Hoplites;
5,000 Citizen Hoplites;
3,000 Swordsmen;
3,000 Cretan levies;
1,000 Light Hoplites;
1,000 Citizen Cavalry;
600 Skirmisher Cavalry;
3,500 Rhodian Slingers;
1,700 Ipocratean Peltasts

The Egyptian garrison was about 12,000 men strong; a well-mixed force of hoplites and archers.

The first clash occurred between an Egyptian sentry and Erasmos’ Cretan levies. The battle waged all the day and Rhodians won the outskirts of the town at the end of the day. Egyptian skirmishers covered their fellows' retreat. and our advance was halted.


On the second day, peltasts replaced Cretan levies. This attack was accompanied by a simultaneous assault on the north side of the city where the two phalanxes fought toe-to-toe.


The Rhodian hoplites steadily gave the ground until the Cretans committed as many men in the area exposing their flanks and rear. Then Erasmos ordered his slingers to hurl stones right into the exposed. Both skirmishes resulted in Rhodian victory, but Rhodians are unable to advance further and again the fighting ended.



On the third day similar engagement continued, but Erasmos personally led a citizen cavalry unit, which slipped between two phalanxes stationed on the beach. This unit rode into enemy campsite and turned north to charge at their rear. This attack tipped the balance of battle and Egyptian defenses were overrun and the town is captured.


As the land battle continued to rage in the second day, Carpophorus attempted to land his ships behind the enemy lines. This attempt was intercepted by Pamphilos’ fleet. The opposing fleets engaged each other just outside the harbor.


Pamphilos’ fleet had two squadrons of penteres and two squadrons of trieres; all armed to the teeth with heavy marines. On the Rhodian side, only the flagship’s squadron was composed of heavy ships. Instead they sported numerous light ships; three archer squadrons of pursuit trihemiolas and two slinger squadrons of raiding heimiolas.

Rhode’s lighter ships outmaneuvered heavier Cretan ships, pulling one ship after another out of the fray, which gave Carpophorus an opportunity to sink isolated and lumbering enemy vessels.His ligher ships rammed frequent and hard, and did little damage to Cretan ships, but repeated attacks wore down their hulls; until they cracked and wrecked. On the fourth day of battle, Pamphilos’ flagship was cornered and wrecked; with Pamphilos himself captured. Seeing their admiral captured, the remaining Cretan ships ran from the battle.

[Alwyn]

Great update, the way that you divide the battle into distinct land and sea areas and into the three days helps me to understand what's happening, along with your excellent map and screenshots! It sounds like the charge of the citizen cavalry was a turning point. Looking forward to more!