[Multi AAR] History of men

[tuore]

Can't you stop the Ptolemaioi with add_money ptolemaioi, -40000? To make them go bankrupt? At least it slowers them down.

[Fixiwee]

Yeah that's what I am actually doing. The rest... well you find out in the next update.

[Fixiwee]

Ugh. For some reasons Fraps did not take any screenshots while playing. That's silly.

Well the damage is minimal though. The screens missing are only from the peacetime period, where actually nothing at all was happening. Nevertheless, the next update will be a very short one without any screenshots. I'll have to rely on my memory about what happened.

edit: oddly enough, fraps did take screenshots of baldur's gate today. Anyone encouncered a RTW specific problem with FRAPS yet?

[SonOfAlexander]

Soz I can't help, I don't use fraps
Nice change of sig!

[Fixiwee]

Transcript of the college presentation during the lecture „The Roman Republic“ in 2003, University of Minnesota, USA

[Trevor Adams speaking]:
Dear colleges, dear professor, my presentation today is about the Roman peacetime period between 246 BC and 220 BC. In this presentation I will tell you about the events during this particular period and what actually lead to the series of devastating wars in 220 BC. First of all, 246 BC marks the beginning of a peacetime era for Rome. The first Punic war was over; Rome had endured many decades of war and thus tired of fighting. But the victory over the Carthaginians also brought new land, or provinces, which were governed by senators. That meant new taxes and trading posts for the growing “Roman Empire”. This era was also called the small golden age, since there was little foreign threat and Rome became a rich through trade.

But the peacetime period was not uneventful, there were even small wars which make the term “peacetime period” sound rather absurd. But nevertheless the conflicts were quite small compared to the first Punic war.

Well, the Romans made new allies in southern France and Spain. In those areas independent Greek colonies existed that were harassed by Gauls and Celtic tribes. The Romans allied themselves with the two major Greek cities Massalia, modern day Marseille and Empuries or also called Emporion. The deal was that the Romans sent troops for security while the Greek cities had to trade heavily with Rome. De jure those cities remained independent, but in reality the cities slowly became a part of Rome. Oh I forgot to mention, that deal was made around 235 BC. Well anyway…

Another important event happened in 238 BC, when the Carthaginian mercenary general Hipposander revolted in Sardinia, which was nominally under the rule of Carthage. Some Roman traders were killed in that revolt and Rome was quick to dispatch troops to Sardinia and killing Hipposander. Carthage feared another war with Rome and did not demand the control back over Sardinia. But this lead to much mischief with the Carthaginians and more and more people demanded revenge, which would eventually lead to another war with Rome in 220 BC.

In 225 BC the Boii Celts, situated in the Po valley in Italy, attacked the kingdom of Illyria and envoys came to Rome begging for help. The Romans had not much love for those Celts and agreed to snet assistance. The disciplined Roman army had no trouble defeating the small Celtic amry in modern day Slovenia and they placed the king Deutemirus back to power. There was no formal treaty, but the Romans were now “friends” – or amici as the Romans would say – with the Kingdom with Illyria. The link was a moral one, which arose from the “beneficium” of their liberation. They had to show Rome practical gratitude, while Rome was morally engaged to maintain their liberty.

The year 220 BC saw an end to the Roman peacetime period. Reason for this was a treaty made in 222 BC with the kingdom of Macedon. A year later the Epirotes, an old enemy of Rome, started a war with Macedon and the Romans decided to step in and solve the situation. But this, I think, is already the topic of the presentation next week by my college Mary.
My conclusion of this so called peacetime period is that it was a period of increasing wealth and expansion for the Romans. Rome was now a major player in the Mediterranean Sea and solved a few crises with military might. Thank you.

[The Professor speaking]:
Thank you mister Adams. Good presentation with many important details. One major flaw though, you could have used more maps for clarification. I think not everyone in this room knows exactly where the Illyrian kingdom was situated.

[Fixiwee]

As stated before, this update is short because I lost the pictures and notes the period. Also I tried to write as someone would speak, I hope it's not a pain to read.

[SonOfAlexander]

Good update, but still no pics...

[Fixiwee]

Yeah that update was from the no picture crash.

The next update (which I am already writing) has pics again.

[sinner]

nice update

[Fixiwee]

“Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos”
- Polybius

Second war with Epirus 220 BC - 214 BC

The Roman Empire, by Wolfgang Schreier, Bonn 2003

Once the Romans left Polyanthes Aiakides, the king of Epirus, to do as he pleases, he immediately began preparing for a new offensive against Macedon. In late 219 BC he attacked and beat Antigonus Amynous once again in 218 BC at the battle of Berora much to the displeasure of the Romans. In the same year the Senators of Rome agreed to attack Polyanthes once again and a year later a Roman legion embarked over the sea to Epirus.


The map shows the world in 220 BC and the Roman camapigns in Epirus. Note that the Romans only campaigned in the Epirus homeland.

Polyanthes had reinforced Epirus since he knew that the Romans might eventually attack, so in 217 BC it came to the battle of Epidamnos under the Roman consul L. Aurelius Cotta. Though the Romans suffered notable casualties the maniple system proved to be flexible enough to overcome the Greek phalanx.


Roman Hastati outflanking a Phalanx, due to their better mobility.

At the same time the war with Carthage in Spain was making hardly any progress for the Romans until 217 BC Cn. Aurelius Cotta, the brother of the victor at Epidamnos seized the Carthaginian city of Arsé. Lucius Cotta was assassinated in the same year, while Cnaeus died of natural causes a year later. The war in Spain stalled again.

A history of Rome, by Prof Alfred Kennard, 2002 New York

In the year 216 BC the Romans won the important sea battle of Thiro against the Carthaginians, securing sea superiority in northern Mediterranean Sea. The battle actually consisted of three separate sea engagements in over two weeks. The Carthaginians tried to flank the Roman fleet with faster ships, but the Roman tactic of boarding enemy ships with ground troops proved to be superior. In total the Romans lost 45 ships, while the Carthaginians lost about 90 ships. This victory secured the vital sea trade and transportation of troops to Spain.


This map shows a reconstruction of the Battle of Thiro. 1) The Roman fleet under Admiral Decimus Papirus Turdus gets attacked near the port of Thiro by the Carthaginian Admiral Bodinelquart. After his defeat Bodinelquart retreats and regroups to the west. A few days later Turdus gets attacked at 2) again by Admiral Tabnit with the main fleet, but this battle is indecissive. The Romans move further west where Tabnit atacks with his mainfleet at 3) again.Bodinelquart regrouped at 4) and moved to the battle trying to flank the Romans. Though the Romans suffer signifianct casualties, they are able to rout the enemy fleet.

Meanwhile the tide seemed to turn for the kingdom of Epirus. The assassinated Roman Consul Lucius Aurelius Cotta was replaced by the new consul Cnaeus Pomponius Titus. Apollodoros Aiakides, the brother of the King of Epirus Polyanthes Aiakides, destroyed a Roman army in the battle of Toryne. Unfortunately only fragments of the historical sources concerning this battle survived but it is clear that poor Roman leadership lead to the loss of 15.000 Roman lives.
This defeat led to a change in the Roman military system. Soldiers were now divided into the three existing military groups (Hastati, Principes, Triari) by age and experience rather then by wealth. While not a revolutionary reform, this change was an important step to ensure the necessary military strength needed to fight in foreign regions like Greece and Spain.

With the defeat at Toryne the Romans were caught off guard. But the RomanRepublic had access to a vast amount of military manpower and a year later another Roman legion landed at the shores of Epirus.



It is said that the Aiakides brothers had a dispute over the war with the Romans since the kinghimself, unlike his brother, had not yet won a single battle against them though he had beaten the Macedons time after time. King Polyanthes Aiakides feared loosing support to his brother who had smashed the Romans last year. So he decided for a swift and quick attack against the Roman legion under the command of Consul Publius Claudius Nero while they were still on the shore. As we have seen before the Romans lacked experienced and talented leaders during this period. Polyanthes moved with his troops against the Roman encampment where it came to the battle of Cassope in 215 BC


Battle of Cassope 215 BC - A battle with poor leadership for the Romans


Greek cavalry trying to punch through the Roman lines.


The Romans had the high ground and the numbers to hold the line. Without outflanking this formation the Epirotes are not able to break through the enemy.

Polyanthes was one of the best military leaders of his times and his troops where experienced, but the Romans had the high ground and more troops. During the battle Polyanthes was killed trying to manoeuvre his troops around the Roman flank. With his demise the troops where unable to complete the manoeuvre, thus the Romans remained in advantage over the Epriotes and eventually won the battle. The Romans lost about 5.000 soldiers, while Polyanthes lost his own life and 15.000 soldiers. According to Silanos the victory at the battle of Cassope was a surprise to the Romans, since they did not believe they could win the war against Polyanthes in a single battle.




Despite the dangerous situation, the royal guard fought the Romans bitterly to the last men - a fact that the Romans were proud to defeat such a tough enemy.

With the destruction of the Epirote army the Romans quickly moved to the city of Epidamos where Apollodros Aiakades held out. In the same year the consular army stormed the city and took Apollodros prisoner.
The following year, 214 BC Polyanthes son, Xanthippos Aiakades, now legitimate heir to the throne, met with the Romans to discuss the term of peace. With the whole of Epirus in the hand of the Romans, the king being dead and his brother being shipped to Rome in chains Xanthippos did not have any trumps to come to reasonable terms with the Romans. Xanthippos went to exile to the Seleucid Empire to the east. Epirus became Roman province and the Macedon King Antigonus III was restored in Greece. Apollodros Aiakades, the victor over the Romans in the battle of Toryne, was publicly executed during the triumph of Publius Claudius Nero.

It can be questioned why the Romans bothered so much with Epirus in the first place. Land hunger and military expansion cannot be the reason, since they did not try to gain any land when they first landed in Epirus in 220 BC. If we are to believe Fabius, the Romans felt a moral obligation to help the Macedons since the Romans allied themselves with them. From their perspective Polyanthes was a problem that was troubling the Roman-Macedon agreement and they just wanted to solve this problem and goy away again. Since Polyanthes did not stand to his word and attacked the Macedons again he had to be removed completely. To ensure further aggression from the king Romans dissolved the throne and made it Epirus into a province so that no one else could take control over Epirus again. From the view of the Romans they were just making sure that peace would endure.
From the view of the Greeks the Romans were now a power factor bigger then themselves which could not be ignored any more.

But with the second Punic war still going on in Spain, peace in reality was a far goal for the Romans in 214 BC.

[sinner]

great update, the naval battle was a nice touch....

[Fixiwee]

Gonna take my time to respond to the feedback.

great update, the naval battle was a nice touch....

Thank you. I try to keep an eye on naval battles, since they were quite important in antiquity, unlike medieval ages.

A very interesting AAR keep up the good work, I will keep an eye on this AAR. +REP

Thank you. Hope you like the next updates too.

A very interesting AAR keep up the good work, I will keep an eye on this AAR. +REP

Thank you too.

Brilliant comeback! I reckon that's the best update yet! Keep that going!

Lots of pics, but not JUST pics... great pics, very well taken... You had those hisotry bits but you didn't turn it into a lecture... it was easy to read / on the eye, it had action in the battles... and you covered a good sized and familiar patch of history!
rep, rep, rep, rep!!!

Hehe. Thank you.
I thought that the first part of the update is quite weak since there is so much more I could add. Like for example the Cotta brothers are just mentioned that they got killed. There is so much possibility but I am not able to cover everything
As for the pictures, yeah I am kind of proud of my pictures, since I do like the way it represents the action. There is some kind of motion in every picture which make it more "alive". I think the pictures are one of my strongest parts. That being said, I think I still have a lot to improve. My characters are very shallow and my grammar/spelling is the biggest enemy.

But I aim to develope my AAR even further. I want to add "fake" literature short stories. Not just sources, but also prosa work that describe the history with more tension. Eg todays Robert Harris with his "historic" novels.

[Doctor]

A very interesting AAR keep up the good work, I will keep an eye on this AAR. +REP

[Biggles]

Great work mate, you keep me interested at least!

[SonOfAlexander]

Brilliant comeback! I reckon that's the best update yet! Keep that going!

Lots of pics, but not JUST pics... great pics, very well taken... You had those hisotry bits but you didn't turn it into a lecture... it was easy to read / on the eye, it had action in the battles... and you covered a good sized and familiar patch of history!
rep, rep, rep, rep!!!

[Kallum]

excellent update!!!!

[Fixiwee]

I am currently writing the next update, though I can't say if I'll be ready to post something this week.

Since some people have pointed out that my updates switch in tension, I decided that I will work more on that. This means my updates will end at some point of climax, like interessting tense battles or the outcome of a war.

Besides that, the second Punic war turned out to be interessting, and the climactic decisive battle at the end of the war is quite the epic clash of Titans, so stay tuned.

[dmesa]

This is a very nice AAR, i like the real history that int involved here...this is very nice to learn some things...thanks for the effort +rep!

[Fixiwee]

A rey muerto, rey puesto
-Spanish proverb

The Iberians

Transcript of the college class lecture „The RomanRepublic“ in 2003, University of Minnesota, USA

[Prof. Saramotti speaking]:
Good day everyone to today’s class. Let me start right away with an announcement that Professor Marshal from Chicago will hold a special presentation about King Cambyses conquest of Anatolia and the impact to the Greek world. It’s certainly something you shouldn’t miss. Oh yes, the presentation itself is next Thursday at Coffman’s.
Alright, today’s topic is the second Punic war. As we look at the second Punic war and we notice something interesting: During the first ten years of the war hardly anything happened. We have already seen that an important war for the Romans started the same way… Right, the first Punic war. But we have to be more specific, because the first ten years of the war a man called Tiberius Cornelius Scipio Asina, the son of Lucius Cornelius Scipio who already fought in the first Punic war, conquered great parts of the Spanish coast up to Mastia in the south. From 220 BC to 210 BC most battles were just small skirmishes. The situation seemed to change in 210 BC when the Carthaginians under the military commander Mytonnes Neperis allied themselves with the strong Celtic tribe called Carpetani under the King Mutorke Carmocoi. This alliance with the Carpetani seemed to shift the balance for the Carthaginians. Hence Scipio Asina retreated back to Arsé in the north. The Roman Senate realized that Spain was now the battleground where the war with Carthage had to be fought and sent more troops to aid Scipio Asina
[Student asking]: Under what authority was Scipio in Spain for such a long time?
[Prof. Saramotti speaking]: Very good question. Scipio Asina became consul in - I think - 218 BC and went to Spain fighting Carthage like his father did. Once he finished his consulship he stayed there as a pro-consul. So he had complete command or “Imperium” over the troops there without actually being a consul. We will talk about this in more detail when we come to his son who was the first to bend the rules in that sense.
Anyway. In 209 BC it came to the first battle on a larger scale, the so called Battle of Ildum. But let’s take a break first.
[…]


The Roman Empire, by Wolfgang Schreier, Bonn 2003

The battle of Ildum in 209 BC marked the escalation of the second Punic war. Compared to the later battles it was still a small military clash, but it was an important one because the Romans won the battle and gained the initiative again. The Senate in Rome was also noticing Scipio Asinas effort in fighting the Carthaginians in mostly unknown lands.


Roman Hastati throwing spears at the aproaching enemy.


The Carthaginian army consited of numerous ethnic groups so that the Romans had to fight off different fighting techniques.


Though relying on mercanaries the Carthaginians also had their own elite troops. Here elite Hoplites fight against te Romans. These troops were a tough opponent for the Scipio.


Fabius mentioned the use of five African war elephants in the battle, but they did not have any major impact on the battle.


Far more important was the Roman cavallry which was used as shook troops to break and route the enemy army.

Scipio Asina knew how to use his victory and pushed with the rest of his troops including Celt Iberians auxiliary to the south where he captured the city Mastia including the general he defeated at Ildum - Mytonnes Nepheris.
His pro-consulship ran out that year and he returned to Rome celebrating a triumph. Scipio Asina remained with the Senate but did not run for Consul anymore.



In the same year consul Titus Fabius Maximus won the battle of Segestia against the Ligures under the king Cador in North Italy. Now all of Italy was in control of Rome and this victory lead to the creation of a new province in North Italy called Gallia Cisalpina, which means “Gaul on this side of the Alps”.

The following years Carthage retreated to the southwest of Spain and reorganized their troops. The Romans had won a battle, but the war was not decided yet. Meanwhile the Carpentani tribe was keeping the Romans busy and small battles with some 5000 to 8.000 troops on both sides occurred every year. The situation seemed to change when a 26 year old Roman legate called Spurius Cornelius Sulla serving under pro-praetor Decimus Tullius Mes faced King Mutorke Carmocoi in battle.


Fabius - Ab Urbe Condita
(written at about 50 BC)

Book XIV

(4) In the winter of the year 550 ab urbe condita [204 BC] the Carpentani attacked roman lands in Spain under their King Mutorke Carmocoi. But before I will retell the story of the battle at Etovissa, I want to talk about both leaders.
Mutorke Carmocoi was a proud barbarian king of old age. He was loved by his people, he was a brave warrior, but also a brilliant leader. Among his people, it is said that he was the best hunter and no one could match his skills with the bow. Another legend says that since his birth Mutorke Carmocoi has never cried out of pain or fear. These kind of legends always surround famous leaders, nevertheless one thing can be said for sure; he was one of a proud barbarian king.
Spurius Cornelius Sulla came to Spain with the new pro-praetor Decimus Tullius Mes to Spain and. He served as a military tribune, queastor and military legate under his patron. Decimus Tullius Mes was not much of a fighter and let Sulla in command against the Iberians, despite Sulla being only in his 20ies. Sulla was born and educated in Rome, he was a smart man interested in politics and philosophy. He was a brilliant orator and many disputes were decided by his cunning and striking words. Nevertheless he was still young and inexperienced and of both Sulla was inferior to Carmocoi.







A history of Rome, by Prof Alfred Kennard, 2002 New York

The battle of Etovissa in 204 was one of the largest during the Roman-Iberian wars. While the Carthaginians were still reforming their army, the Carpentani were keeping the Romans busy.
Both armies were equal in numbers and strength. Fabius account on the leaders and the battle itself is difficult to examine, since it is filled with stereotypical views about the educated dynamic Roman general fighting the brave and strong yet uncivilized Barbarian.


The Iberians were renown fighters. Here an elite cavallry band gathers for battle.


A Roman manipel charging a small hill while being harrased with spears by the enemy.


The wise use of cavallry as a flanking unit won Sulla the advantage over the Iberian king.


Roman cavallry trampeling the fleeing enemy to death. It was not a habit to take prisoners.



In the end, the 26 year old Sulla won by using his cavalry to encircle the enemy and crushing the Carpentani completely. That the king Carmocoi was slain in battle added much prestige to Sullas name. It is no surprise that his career got a boost: the following year he was already elected as Curulian Aedile. Nevertheless the war was far from over, the Iberians and the Carthaginians were still strong enemies, but for now Rome had won the initiative.

[Biggles]

One question: These battles, are they in campaign mode or did ya use custom battles?