[RS AAR] Rise of the Eastern Kingdom

[Selifator]

For a while now, Xavier Dragnesi and myself have noticed a decrease in activity in the RTW section as a whole and the AAR section in particular.
We discussed this, and attributed this due to a decrease of activity from the older/senior forumers.
While there are a number of good AAR's active, there are many more being cut off or abandoned.
So we decided to do a nice little project to entertain you all, and perhaps inspire some of you to start an AAR on your own.

We have decided to use the mod Roma Surrectum 1.5a, and we will be playing as the Armenians.
This won't be a standard AAR but a Role Playing AAR. The rules are as such:
- Difficulty will be Hard/Hard.
- The victory conditions will be those as given by the game.
- Each army must have a general leading it.
- All activity between generals, before, during and after the battles, will be in Role Playing. This also counts for diplomacy, battle descriptions from soldiers and important governamental events. All important events will be RP'd as well.
- All world updates, answering questions, and the like which doesn't relate to our RP will be done OOC (out of character).
- We will divide the generals and control those generals and all the children coming from them. How this will work in the game we don't know, but we think it's a nice idea.

These rules are prone to change or adaptition, since this kind of AAR will be a first for both of us.
So here's a bit of info on the both of us.
I am a member for almost a year now, and have played RTW on and off for 2 and a half years now. I am an active member, and an enthusiastic multiplayer fan. Since I was little, I have been fascinated by history, historical books, and historical games. I have started and abandoned two AAR's, but don't expect that to happen here. Also, after I have finished school I am going to study history at a university so everything I pick up here will be great.

Xavier got hooked into RTW when he first got it late last year, and since finding this forum in January of this year, has been almost constantly active especially on the RTW Discussion and Multiplayer stages. He is also a part of YATS RPG and TFT. He has a great interest in ancient history, especially books related to it. For multiplayer he has organised a number of tournaments and started the great King of the Hill tournament.

The both of us have experience with writing AAR's and are fans of role playing. So we are determined to make this a great, expansive and enjoyable AAR and one that will be played to the end. No matter what that end may be.
Xavier will make a intro into the campaign and we will begin the AAR in the next few days, and then we'll be off to glory or death. In the case of our soldiers this will be glory in death.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Hello everyone and welcome to the start of the AAR:
Rise of the Eastern Kingdom
by Selifator and Xavier Dragnesi

It is 280BC, and the Kingdom of Armenia has dwindled from a once strong and mighty empire down to a small land-locked nation that has no major significance in the present world. Worn down by war after war, rebellion after rebellion and disaster after disaster, the Kingdom of Armenia is now a shadow of it's former self. Knowing that this was the case, King Yervand and his sons, the last heirs of a long line of royalty, met together at the capital city of Armavir to discuss the future of the kingdom, and make plans to reconquer the lands that their ancestors once owned, and surpass them, if it was possible.

[Juvenal]

I applaud this initiative. You have made a good start and I am curious to see more of Roma Surrectum, a mod about which I have heard much praise but haven't got around to playing yet myself.

I am sure that in your capable hands this will become another fine AAR to add to the annals.

[Selifator]

Thanks for the compliments, we have alreayd encountered what I think will be the major problem: the amount of stuff we need to discuss...
It doesn't help that we live on different sides of the world, but this is negated by the fact that morning and evening are switched between us.
Still, we are both enthusiastic on this project and I think it's going to be great.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

The King and his sons sit down at a round table to discuss their plans.





King Yervand calls for watered wine to be brought, and some other eastern delicacies. While he is waiting, he talks to his two sons:
"So, my dear boys, I hope you have been well."

"Yes father," Samus replied, "well except the unsatiable will to see our kingdom rise up again in glory."

Yervand sighed. "Ah yes, that is true. However, we cannot fight another war with the forces and economy we have now. Aramu, do you have the army details?"

Aramu: Here they are -
Yervand's army:

Samus' army:

Aramu's army:

The Field Army:


Samus rises in anger and points at Aramu.
"Why does he get more troops than me? I have better commanding skills than he, my troops respect me more, and the gods are happy with me for my devoutness! This is outrageous!"

"The probable reason being that I am more highly educated and intelligent than you are. I deserve to get more troops." Aramu retorted.

As Samus starts to move forward, Yervand, sensing a turn for the worse in the proceedings, also stands up and bangs his fist on the table. The two sons freeze and look at their father. Old, hair greying, wrinkles multiplying, but still emanating that kingly feel of a great Armenian leader.
"Silence! You two are constantly squabbling amongst yourselves. Can't you just reach a compromise? How are we to build up our kingdom if we can't even keep control of our own internal relationships?!" He exclaims in fury.

Both sons quietly lower their heads in shame.

"That's better." Yervand sits down once more. "It seems to me, like I said before, that we are in no state to fight a war. Our armed forces altogether can only make up one army of reasonable standard, but that would leave the homeland undefended. And as you can see from this treasury report, any extensive spending would leave us bankrupt."



"Therefore, I propose a few years of peace so we can build up our economy. We shall send the diplomat Menua forward to gain trade rights and any other favourable agreements we can make with other nations around us to keep our borders secure while we slowly strengthen up. And then, when the economy is fully up and running, and we can field two whole armies, we shall march."

"Yes sir!" Both the princes saluted smartly.

"Now, you can return to your provinces and make sure our economy will be one of the most stable systems in the world." Yervand concluded.

The sons left the room. Yervand walked to the window and looked north to see the splendour of the Caucasian mountains. His hands behind his back, he exhales.

"The time of the Armenians has come again."

[Wanted]

great aar

[Selifator]

It has yet to begin. Xavier is currently playing the game, and I will begin next week.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

A Year Later
King Yervand is sitting at his desk slowly sipping a cup of cider when a knock comes from the door.
"Enter." Yervand says tonelessly.

A steward carrying a bundle of papers steps cautiously into the room and quietly places them on the desk next to the king, and bowing, exits the room and shutting the door with a small snap. Yervard takes one look at the bundle and sees the royal seal, meaning they were papers from his sons. Yervard immediately takes interest. Taking the first paper out of the scroll he begins to read.

Prince Samos to King Yervard, Hail!

Father, ever since our last meeting at Armavir, I have been striving to focus my war-oriented brain towards more economical and benefitial measures to build up our internal power before we expand outwards. This has not proved to be too difficult as I expected.

First of all, I did some building. To make our people happier and more religious, I decided to build a Shrine to Tharada, which both increases the power of law in the city and also makes the people more pleased. Next, I ordered some land clearance to be made, therefore making more space for further farming and building. It has made a boost to our economy.

Next, I sent Menua as you instructed to the west, where he successfully managed to negotiate an alliance, trade rights and military access to the Pontics, and also achieved trade rights with the Egyptians. Our trade routes should soon be flourishing with Pontic imports from the Hellespont and beyond, and Egyptian goods from the south.



The last I have to report to you on is the marriage of my young daughter to a youthful and promising young man by the name of Krateros.



The last I heard of him, he was travelling north to start the buildup of an army for the Armenian empire. I trust that he is doing well. Hopefully, you will hear more from my brother Aramu as he has the control over the espionage system.

May Vahagan be with you till we meet again

Samos

Yervand smiles. That was good news from his heir. It seemed like he had finally managed to learn how to balance his warlike nature with the other necessities of empire managing. Now he turned to the next scroll in the bundle.

Prince Aramu to King Yervand, Hail!

My dear father. All is going well on the western side of the empire. Like you have wished, I have done lots of economic and social work, building shrines, roads, markets and putting up the tax rate while still managing to keep the people happy enough. Yes, everything is in a relatively good state.

At the moment, our espionage isn't very strong. My spies have scouted north, and found that the only village that we even have just a chance of taking is Harmozica. All the others are strongly garrisoned. Journeying east, there wasn't much to find either. Journeying west, I found that many Pontic cities were ill-defended, but with an alliance there, we can't do much. The lands further west of Pontus does seem pretty easy prey as well, but it means our lands would then be split

Our treasury is flourishing. Even with the extensive work that we are doing in the empire, our money has continued to grow. Look at the projected totals for the next term, it's a very nice and steady growth that looks like continuing nicely onwards.


So, here is an up to date map of our current empire:


But that looks the same, perhaps even worse in terms of the income the settlements are producing, I hear you say. Well, my dear father, here is the secret that I am revealing to you right now....


A whole new army! Commanded by my new nephew-in-law Krateros, it consists of 17 other units in total, 14 of which have been recruited from our own barracks and stables, and 3 of the best mercenaries currently available. This army is now ready to strike wherever you wish, and I assure you, not much longer, we shall have a new additional city to our empire.

May the gods watch over you

Aramu

Yervand is astonished. An army of such nature already? His sons must have been a lot more capable than he had thought, he had underestimated them. And this new grandson-in-law... yes he did look promising. Probably a few years in the army will train him to be one of the empires leading commanders. He has many years left in him to become one. Yervand smiles happily.

Armenia is on the road to power, he thought.

[Lisa]

I love what I see, hope this would bring the attendance up!

[Aristarchus]

Except this is going to take you 200 years to write the story.

[Confederate Jeb]

OOC: You guys sure do have a lot of money. How much do the units cost in RS? :hmmm:

BTW, Great work. I'll be sure to visit this thread a lot.

[Selifator]

I love what I see, hope this would bring the attendance up!

Well, as soon as my pc is repaired I can start to play this at full graphics. And I'll probably join YATS as well, this AAR is based a bit on the roleplay of YATS.

Except this is going to take you 200 years to write the story.

We plan on trading the game around when each of us is done with our part. And we plan to do this continuesly and focus on it. This AAR is going to be the only thing of RTW that I'll do at the moment.

OOC: You guys sure do have a lot of money. How much do the units cost in RS? :hmmm:

BTW, Great work. I'll be sure to visit this thread a lot.

The units are a bit more costly I think, the buildings at least are more expensive. So we are going to need the money for the moment our war begins...

[Confederate Jeb]

OOC: Sorry to spam your thread, but you are using Fraps to do all this, correct?

[Xavier Dragnesi]

ooc: Yes of course.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

The Battle of Harmozica

My dear Grandfather King Yervard, Hail!

This is the first letter I have ever written to you. I haven't even yet met you. However, I must say that it is an immense pleasure for me to be part of your Armenian royal family, which I am sure is destined for greatness. Your sons and their wider families have received me with open arms, and I feel as though I have been part of this from the very start, not just part of the family as a result of marital relations. And as part of the family, I must do some family duties, and here, I now bring you a report on one of my recent successes for the good of the Armenian kingdom:

As you surely will know, I was left at the end of the last year with our kingdom's newest army ready to set off to capture some land for us at the first indication of possibility. Such a situation soon arose when a spy managed to sneak us a report saying he had infiltrated the Free People city of Harmozica in the north. I immediately proceeded to lay siege to it, as it didn't seem much of a challenge to fight.



After an impatient wait of over half a year, we finally managed to assemble together three battering rams. And on an early morning midway through the winter, we began the assault on the city.



Soon, the rams had taken down the walls, and units of my eastern infantry were streaming into the city under the shade of volley after volley of arrows sent into the enemy ranks by my units of horse archers. Piles of dead bodies were already strewn in the main street before my soldiers even got into the city. They met some weak resistance from a bunch of peltasts guarding the gateway.



Pressing forward into the city, my troops met harder resistance, this time in the form of the same troop type: more eastern infantry. My two units, already depleted from the peltast resistance and some enemy archer fire, had to be reinforced by the pike-wielding heavy eastern infantry to assist them in overcoming the enemy infantry. They continued advancing into the city.



By then, I was getting very annoyed by the enemy archers and horse archers, who had already decimated and routed one of my eastern infantry units. I ordered my cataphracts through another wall breach to the left and they swung around the edge of the city to appear on the other side of the city centre in the enemies rear. It wasn't until it was too late before they finally realised what had happened.



My cataphracts hit them with force from the back, sending archers flying and crushing enemy horse archers under their hooves. Though we lost a few cataphracts fighting some of their more hardy horse units who put up some fierce resistance, it was clear that all was lost for the enemy army.



Not long after, the general died, and the last few remaining men of the enemy army, squashed between the advancing spearmen and the armoured cataphracts, were quickly defeated and killed. The day was ours, a new settlement to be added to the Armenian kingdom. There was a price to be paid of course, and quite a few men had died for their country. Their valiant efforts will always be remembered.




The settlement's populace however, was not fully happy with our governership of them, so instead of just leaving it be, I enslaved most of them, and left a few so the settlement could grow again. Having felt the wrath of an Armenian noble, they obeyed, and accompanied with the looting, our treasury has flourished some more with the further income generated by the slave selling and trade.



That is all I have to say for now, dear grandfather. May the gods watch over you and keep you safe.

Krateros

ooc: Now I will be giving the save to Selifator, as my next week will be filled up mostly with exam revision and study. Time to see some of Seli's handiwork

[Selifator]

Ooc: Sorry for the absence people, my teachers were so gracious as to swamp me in unneccesary assignments which do not contribute to my education in any way, but are unfortunately neccesary to advance to the next year of my lovely little trash can. I mean, school of course, yeah school...
Well, I will unveil my master plan later today, but I can tell you that it contains plenty of bickering, mortar and bricks, the sloppy movement of troops and of course just the tiniest bit of utter carnage.
And we will conquer the world, I'm sure you know, but it's always fun to rub it in.

[Selifator]

A man was walking in the palace, wearing fine clothes and a golden crown, he could immediatly be recognized as King Yervand. The king was brooding on the state of the kingdom, since the situation was fragile at the moment.
His grandson Krateros, only just having reached an age where he could command an army, he had taken over a city to the north in a swift attack. Now Krateros was settling down, after he had enslaved the majority of the population. And already he had sent word of a new conquest, Garanza.



The city was heavily defended however, by large armies of cavalry and spearmen. And the Armenians had no force to match these people. They did have an abundance of gold, and men enough to train a powerfull force in little time. Also, Yervand knew that too much gold meant that the governors and local watchmen would be inclined to take some of it for their own. Soldiers would accept their pay and be done with it, and they could be sent into battle when becoming unruly...

So Yervard sent notice to his sons that they were to begin the construction of roads in Urmia and expand the administration in Van. He commanded the recruiters in Armavir to gather tribesmen, who were born as horse-riders, and he summoned one of his trusted officers to give him the rank of general.




Now, all that needed to be done was gather the troops when they were trained and then march to the north.

[Selifator]

The road to Van was quiet this day, there were only a few merchants and peasants moving through the gate and the guards could rest in the shade for the moment. Perser, Gate-Captain of the North Gate, saw a little cloud of dust on the road in the far distance. The cloud grew as it came closer and became the shape of a man on a horse. As the man came near Perser saw that the horse was exhausted and the man was slumped over the horse.
He ran towards the horse calling a couple of guards to his side. The man on the horse was a farmer, with a number of small wounds on his body.
Perser sent a messenger to the barracks to call for one of the priests, they were the only men to who knew how to heal a wounded man, and he sent a messenger to the ruler of the city, Aramu.
After the farmer had been tended to, he woke up. Aramu, having been warned of the incident, had come to the barracks to question the guards and the man.
Aramu went to the man and heard his message.
"My lord, I have grave news! I come from a village to the north, and we have been attacked by warriors under a blue banner. They slaughtered most of my people and took the others as slaves, my village elder sent me to warn you of their presence."

Aramu called immediatly for the Captain of the City, "Captain! Assemble what troops you can, leave only a small garrison. Send a message to my brother Samos in Urmia, he must send reinforcements, this incursion will end here."
"Yes my lord!", and the captain went out of the room to do as his lord had commanded.
Aramu turned to the farmer, "Rest now, I shall confront these beasts and cast them into the pits of the dead." He turned away to prepare himself and his men.

2 months later, the forces had gathered and scouts had located the location of the rebel camp. The rebels, in their arrogance, had chosen to stand and face the Armenian wrath instead of fleeing like the dogs they were.
Samos had eagerly sent his men to Aramu, his men as war-hungy as Samos himself, Aramu had to admit that they were the better part of his force. For all that he could bring himself was a group of hunting men, who were willing to participate in the hunt for vengeance.

He had sent word to the commanding officer of the Urmia force, Olganos, to meet him on the battlefield. They would gather and move towards the enemy there.



"My lord!" Aramu turned towards the man who had called out. "My lord, the men from Urmia are here."
"About time. The brigands are already lined up. And I do not like their archers and those horsemen."
"Samos has sent four warbands of spearmen to our aid."
Aramu considered this, they outnumbered the enemy with spears however, the enemy had the advantage of the archers and cavalry. Their only choice was to march forward and bring the battle to the enemy, he could see no other way.
"Messenger, tell Olganos to march his men to us. We bring the fight to the enemy!"
Cheers erupted among the men, however Aramu knew that battle would silence those cheers soon enough. It was the one lesson he had accepted from Samos, who had told him that though he loved battle, it was terrifying for men who were not used to it.

Dust was thrown in the air as the spearmen ran towards the prince. Aramu ordered all the men into the battle line. The spearmen would go forward while the javelin-throwers would harras, and hopefully kill, the enemy.

"Forward! Fear not the enemy, for they can only kill with fear in their hearts! Fear them not, for we fight for our countrymen and for vengeance! Victory is ours as long as we stay true to ourselves!", Aramu cried to his men. They roared their approval and bashed their spears to their shields. The army marched toward the enemy.




The brigands moved their small group of spearmen forward with their archers ready to launch their arrows at the Armenians. The Armenian peltasts ran ahead of the spearmen to launch their javelins at the enemy.
Arrows began to rain on the Armenians. Aramu knew that he must attack now if his men were to get into combat. The order was simple.
"Men of Armenia! Charge!", with this the entire army ran forward. Aramu ordered his bodyguard into the enemy archers.
"Lifeguards, into the archers! To victory and glory!", and they charged into the enemy with the brigand leader charging at them.




Aramu knew that he stood little chance against the overwhelming numbers of the cavalry and archers, not with his spearmen engaged against the enemy spearmen who were well-trained.
"Peltasts! Support us!", Aramu cried, "Lifeguard, break up and move out of the melee."
The elite cavalry moved away as swiftly as possible, with the enemy cavalry in pursuit. While they were able they would have to run down the archers in order to spare the spearmen from their arrows.



When the archers had been cut down, Aramu looked up, breathing heavily with exhaustion. His lifeguard had been decimated, many lost against the enemy cavalry but he knew that they could not spare a moment to rest.
"Lifeguard, this battle is ours! But we are not finished, the enemy is still holding our spears at bay and we must relieve them. Only then can we kill the leader and stop this incursion! Are you with me?!"
All of the lifeguards lifted their spears and roared their approval, and with that Aramu charged into the fray.
Picking up speed as the enemy cavalry was still pursuing them, the cavalry crashed into the phalanx. Panic spread through the enemy ranks, now broken from the force of the charge. The enemy routed and were cut down with ease.
"One last charge, one last blow to strike! Kill their leader!", Aramu screamed with his last strength. The spearmen charged with the last strength they had and overwhelmed the enemy.



"Victory! We are victorious!", the cries went up as the men, exhausted but thrilled nonetheless. Aramu basked in the rays of the sun, with a great feeling in his entire body, he knew that he had been victorious in his first battle.
The battle was won, though at a great cost of lives.

[xingjianma]

Looks good guys. I really like what you guys are doing. Makes me feel part of the story. Could do with some more screenshots though, feels like its a little lacking in details.

RS has 0 turn recruitment right? And I assume recruitment and upkeep costs are low seeing as how such a big army was raised in such a short time?

[Xavier Dragnesi]

I don't think the recruitment costs are that low. As for more pictures..... the detail of the AAR is in the writing. The pictures are just for enhancement. But thanks for your comments, we'll strive to work to those.