Second rebellion; had 120, lost 80 provinces

[Mirni]

I finaly deal with 2rebelion must use add_money 40000 to kill them finaly think will play normal then come 3rebelion and take half of my empire to hard for me btw i play easy/easy

[tungri_centurio]

yea i lost my motivation to deal with the 3 rebellion to,im playing capaign with pergamon now,nice faction to play with

[Paladin247]

The bleeping Roman Rebels are back!

As above, I had left Sarmisegetusa in their hands as too far outside our limes to be bothered with. Then shortly after we put the rebellion down, Armenia attacked in Egypt and Byzantion after they had destroyed Pergamon. As feared, Armenia used our pre-occupation with the rebellion to become a fearsome opponent. Their infantry are on a par with legionaries and their cataphract cavalry are better than ours unless we recruit our own. In any case we have our hands full of Armenians on the eastern fringes of the empire; have killed more than 100,000 so far. The Greeks, Cimbri and Boii attack the Rhine/Danube limes more or less regularly, but are merely annoying.

We've recruited the three legions in Egypt, IIIrd Cyrenaica, Xth Fretensis & XXIInd Deiotariana who have quickly become veteran in numerous battles w/ Armenians. In compensation, have been forced financially to decommission VIth Victrix, XXth Valeria Victrix and XXIInd Primigenia. The war has moved too far from their logistic bases for them to be useful and money is surprisingly tight, running a balance of about 8K denari with income at 20K per GT.

Armenia currently has five full stacks across the straits from Byzantion and is conducting amphibious assaults with two each GT vs. Byzantion and Lysmachia. These battles cause a lot of casualties even when you win which we've been doing, but the condition became so precarious that we pulled the Praetorian legion out of Italy to reinforce the three depleted legions around Byzantion.

We've started the legions in Egypt north up the Levant in hopes of relieving the pressure on the Byzantion/Lysmachia front.

It was at this point that a near full stack Roman Rebel army appeared outside Rome and next GT another south of Arminium. There's nothing in Italy save light garrison troops. IInd Augusta is tearing down from their post on the Rhine limes to deal with these intrusions, but where are they coming from? They certainly haven't been recruited and road marched from Sarmisegetusa.

So it appears the rebels can still spawn armies so long as they possess a settlement even after the long respite; it's been more than 20 GT since we last saw a rebel field army. Thus we're going to have to figure a way to take Sarmisegetusa which has a full stack garrison including four alae of cataphracts, ugh!

Plus I wish I'd left them in some settlement that was easier to spell.

[tungri_centurio]

seems like you having fun with your campaign

[High Fist]

Sounds frustrating as ****.

[Paladin247]

Actually, as Tungri observed, it's been fun except for these rebels reappearing out of deep space.

I've been away so haven't played since the last post.

Attached screenie is the current situation around Byzantion. The Armenians keep duplicating the positions shown. Their army on our side will always be augmented for battles by the lead army on the other side of the strait so we're always fighting two of theirs. This results in steep casualties. I always lead w/ the IVth Flavia Felix who can be re-trained just up the coast in Odesses. Out of sight to the southwest is the Praetorian legion guarding a land bridge so the Armenians don't cross there and get in our rear.

We have pretty much whipped what we can see of their forces in Egypt except for a full stack garrisoning Tanis which we will beseige with a legion and bypass with four others going north up the Levant. This may relieve the pressure at Byzantion as we take the Armenian coastal cities.

I have to think some more about how to take Sarmi-whatever. It's a job for more than one legion because the Macedonians could attack our besiegers rear if they're so inclined. Fighting thus with a full stack of heavy Armenians to our front and another of Macedonians to our rear wouldn't be pretty.

The two rebel armies in Italy haven't besieged anywhere; they're just milling about. Good thing; I never repaired any of the walls there from the rebellion and don't want to spend the money in any case. IInd Augusta should be able to handle them in sequence.

[Paladin247]

Cimbri and Boii have been destroyed and replaced by Free Peoples. We may now push into Germany; haven't decided.

Rebel armies in Italy have been destroyed and no others have spawned.

Armenians across from Byzantion look to be thinning out. Armies are now much smaller and less well equipped.

It's a different story down in the Sinai, about six large well equipped armies to our front. We have about the same, six legions with a lot of veterans. Still Armenian infantry are on a par with legionaries, well armed and armored and their cav is better, a lot better. Our legions around Byzantion have recruited their own cataphract alae, but nowhere to get those in Egypt. What this reduces to tactically is that the normal pin with infantry and attack flank and rear with cavalry doesn't work on them as well as others because if they protect their flanks with cav, it blunts our cavalry's ability to out flank them. Our artillery is often the decider here with concentrated fire on their cataphract alae before they charge. What works best is gang tackling them with two legions if they mal deploy to allow us that advantage. Even then casualty rates are fearsome so intention is to stay in the Sinai close to the Egyptian bases until we bleed them out.

Main reason I wanted to post tho is what happened after we bit the bullet and took Sarmi-whatever with the Ist Adiutrix and XXIst Rapax. Ist Adiutrix was under AI control and got wrinkled up. Rebel garrison was over two thousand with the above mentioned four cataphract alae. Ist Adiutrix lost two complete cohorts in street fighting and got bled in the others which is understandable before XXIst could get in and take the rebels in their rear. They also lost all their four gold chevron artillery batteries. I don't know how that happens in a seige; I was watching their side of the battle on the plot screen and the rebels never sortied any units so that's not it.

The thing that happened thereafter is puzzling. We had been struggling financially, running almost no balance and taking in just enuf, ~20K, to retrain units. As above, I had to decomm three legions to get that. Then immediately after the fall of this last rebel settlement, we got rich, but the taxes from Sarmi amount to about 5K so that doesnt account for the increase. It was a Roman province so there were no enemy structures to destroy and profit from. Then within only a few turns, we're pulling in 40-50K in revenue and now have a balance of 170K.

So is there some script or such that penalizes Rome financially so long as the rebellion is active, i.e., so long as the rebels hold so much as one province?

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Two questions - for you have gone a long way......

- How many settlements now? You've taken more of Germany, of course, than historical, which means you don't have to go as far East to get to 130 - but I'm wondering if you'll come up against the 100AD/853AUC limit (that I think is still there)?

- Second is a logistic one - you send legions 'back' to re-train - could you not simply send new cohorts forward? Thus it would take less time overall....

[Paladin247]

Lord Tedric, good to hear from you again as always.

I've extended the end year to 1066 and so if I've done that correctly, I'm not worried about the artificial end year of 853. As stated above, I don't like artificial end rules. My last campaign which ended around this game year or so, was remarkably like this one toward the end except that Parhians rather than Armenians were the bitter enders. Having faced both, the Armenians seem worse despite the very troublesome Parthian archer cav which eventually we learned to deal with via our own foot archers and the use of testudo for the legionaries. Why has this one lasted longer? The last was on M/M and this is on H/M. Plus in this one, I tried to maintain the historical limes and not go offensive except to deal w/ the Armenians. This eats GTs; a lot of the time nothing happens or you fight a bridge battle on the limes, realistic, but game turn consuming.

In this way, we would have left the Cimbri alone if they had left us alone, but they didn't and in one of these limes battles we killed their king.

We now have just short of 120 settlements, but I don't care about the artificial game win criteria. I'm not quiting until I see the end of the Greeks and Armenians and the Parthians if they be beyond. No sign of that tho.

As to recruiting legionaries rather than retraining same, I've never done that. For one thing, given all the combat of this two and a half century campaign, I've got a lot of veteran silver and in a few cases gold chevron cohorts. Recruiting rookies hasn't made sense to me game-wise and as has been stated often in these forums, you form an attachment to the legions that have been your elite units and there's a great reluctance to dilute their integrity.

One of the benefits of this seems to be that the Armenian spawned armies, numerous tho they be, are poorly trained lately, most have a few level three cohorts but most are level one recruits. Problem is there's lots of them; my normal legion consists of ~2800 (huge unit size) and their average army is 3400-4100. Like I said, don't take two of these on with one legion.

[Larkin]

I've extended the end year to 1066 and so if I've done that correctly, I'm not worried about the artificial end year of 853; as stated above, I don't like artificial end rules. My last campaign which ended around this game year or so

Brilliant thread Paladin, I +repped an earlier post for it and have thoroughly enjoyed reading your experience. I have a question about the quoted section however - I'm a long way through a Greek 2.5 campaign of my own, and if I change the end date from 853 to 1000+ like you have, will it take effect, or will it only work for a new game? Will it mess up my game if I change it now? Forgive me, but I'm not used to changing the descr_strat.

Thanks.

[High Fist]

Interesting. What kind of trouble have the Greeks been giving you? And are there problems with squalor? Now that you are so far into the game I imagine the population levels are very high.

[Paladin247]

High Fist, the Greeks were a real pain in my last campaign, also as Rome, because I went into Spain and Gaul first and allowed Greece to become a powerhouse. Eventually we prevailed, but it was bloody. This time, I took Greece's holdings in the Peloponnese as soon as I eliminated Carthage. This appeared to take them by surprise. Even tho I only used one legion to do it because all those cities were so sparsely garrisoned. However, they never came down with a field army to contest us. Eventually, they were reduced to their provinces north of Macedonia and the Black Sea when we established our limes along the Danube. From that point on they only attacked us in one location repeatedly, at the bridgehead north of Tyras garrisoned by Vth Macedonica which as a result is now comprised of mostly level seven cohorts. Since Greece is my longest standing foe, they've lost 465,061, 100K more than Armenia whom we only started fighting after the rebellion. I've found battles against Greece to be less tense than Armenia mostly because they have less effective cavalry and tend to bunch their spearman formations into very vulnerable artillery targets which onagers throwing fireballs just tear to pieces.

As to squalor, not seeing any. I like to think it's because I always build sanitary and health facilities out to the top end as soon as they're available. Have also found that building temples to Apollo out to the second level helps as well.

Larkin, thanks for your comments and rep. If you change the end date mid-game it should have no effect on your game. Make sure you have a good save beforehand that you can go back to just in case, but as I remember, the first time I did it was in the middle of my last campaign with no ill effects.

[High Fist]

Since Greece is my longest standing foe, they've lost 465,061, 100K more than Armenia...

Half a million?!

I have to keep records from now on.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

............... and tend to bunch their spearman formations into very vulnerable artillery targets which onagers throwing fireballs just tear to pieces...........

You use Onagers in field battles? I'd hoped the terrain restrictions would cut down on that. I don't believe there's a single source that mentions them ever being used in the field, even ballistas are hardly ever mentioned.

Understood about changing the end date, although the current end is supposed to represent 'reality' (minus a few years) and thus is practicably part of the challenge.

I have always wondered (never having truly knowing the mechanics), but assumed that 're-training' would also balance the Exp/Chevrons just like adding in replacements - but perhaps this is indeed why I rarely get Silver Chevrons (apart from a few select units). Sending replacements (also reasonably realistic) is, however, lots easier. Throughout my games I tend to have a cycle of units transiting Roma (Main factory and thus temple upgrades) and then heading to the front(s).

[Paladin247]

Half a million?!

I have to keep records from now on.

It's fun; score sheet is on the previous page.

[Paladin247]

The 2nd Batle of Cremona:

"The troops of Vitellius had collected their artillery on the raised causeway, where there was a free and open space for the discharge of the missiles, which at first had been scattered at random, and had struck against the trees without injury to the enemy. An engine of remarkable size, belonging to the 15th legion, was crushing the hostile ranks with huge stones, and would have spread destruction far and wide, had not two soldiers ventured on a deed of surpassing bravery. Disguising themselves with shields snatched from the midst of the carnage, they cut the ropes and springs of the engine. They were instantly slain, and their names have consequently been lost; but the fact is undoubted."
Tacitus: History: Book 3 [20]

Sounds like an onager battery to me.

http://www.unrv.com/military/artillery.php

Note the part that says, "It could also be loaded with the equivalent mass of smaller stones or fiery pitch to use against enemy troops"

But fundamentally, I don't care and don't have enormous time to research this. I can tell you that I've been in a multitude of battles where the enemy had onagers and enthusiastically used them on my infantry. I will continue to do likewise.

I've had very few problems with terrain and deploying artillery. Seems to me, the Romans, ingenious engineers as they were, would have been able to assemble onagers pretty routinely anywhere and would have carried same in pieces just so they could do so.

If you retrain a single gold chevron unit which has let's say 68 legionaries therein, you will lose a chevron or maybe two in the process down to level six or seven. This is still hugely preferrable to recruiting raw troops who will show up with one or two bronze chevrons at levels two or three.

[tungri_centurio]

i use onagers to in field battles,they used them also in real life mainly for causing havoc amongst their enemys
its the same as a modern army that has tanks and attack helicopters and dont use them to support their infantry

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Paladin',

Then I stand corrected and I apologise - I missed that one. I do, however, find it awfully gamey I'm afraid. Given all the battles the Romans fought, I remain fairly confident that artillery (normally sighted on the camp defences certainly) was not regularly used in field battles.

When it comes to the 'raising' new units vs training - I don't mean to use those new units, but use them to bring the original cohorts back to strength. I just wonder whether continually re-training as opposed to reinforcing works 'better'?

[Sertorio]

I do believe retraining works better, however for someone who wants to play historical, reinforcing would be the normal way at least while on campaign. But retraining tends to give you more chevrons. That and a few autoresolve battles.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

I do believe retraining works better, however for someone who wants to play historical, reinforcing would be the normal way at least while on campaign. But retraining tends to give you more chevrons. That and a few autoresolve battles.

Now that (bolded) I have noticed - except I don't auto-resolve any. Obviously loving my troops too much doesn't gain them the same experience(s).