Evolution from SPQR to M2:TW
Okay forgive me for I have sinned, I've been playing M2 more than SPQR... I know...
But still I came up with a pretty decent transition and would like to give to you, the evolution of the Spanish Empire. Primarily dealing with the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and the Holy Land.
Without further adu... here we go.
(Its here, because this is where my Favorite audience is.)
Throughout all the hard, long-fought years; he has always liked Iberia. The gentle rolling plains, the majestic peaks to the North-East, the beaches, the narrow straight to North Africa that Legio Ferrata crossed to take the fight to Carthage. The memories flooded his mind as the cannon foundry poured the bronze into the molds. Screaming hordes of Macedonian pikes pouring out of the forest to smash into the battered II Legion. The heady glory as the last outpost of the Greek City-States came tumbling down in fire and blood. The bitter marches through southern Gaul, they called it France now. Finally the fight with the Carthaginian army in Iberia, the elephants mauling 1st and 2nd Army, the reserves pouring forth from Narbo Martius just in time to turn the tide of the campaign, Iberia was his. North Africa was his. And then in that instant of glory it was all gone. The Praetorians in Rome rebelled, The army fought the horrible civil war, depleting the ranks just enough for the Goth invasion to sack Gaul. Iberia was cut off, Macedonian and Greek conscripts poured in and pushed them back, while the remainder of the Legions retook Rome. The Germanic tribes were beaten, Rome controlled, the Legions reconstituted for his final conquest. And isle in the mists filled with the deadliest warriors. Even the Goths wouldn't go there.
20 Iron-clad Legions, 30,000 steel-eyed veterans backed by some 30,000 Auxilia and the largest fleet ever assembled landed ashore.
Twelve years later he had wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.
An enemy he hadn't seen, however was brewing in the far east, a place he had never gone. Religion, one thing Marcus was little equipped to deal with took Rome by storm. And soon he himself, Marcus the demi-god Son of Mars was expelled by the Christians from the Rome he had built.
With his few follower he had fled to Iberia, he liked it there, and soon the Visigoths, Goths, and more, many many more took vengeance for him. This time there would be no veterans fresh from conquest to save the decadent Romans, they fell, they perished. The stone roads disappeared over time, the aqueducts faltered and perished. The great Colliseum was empty.
The world was gone, save himself, and the small empire he rebuilt in Iberia.
It took years, hundreds of years to repair the damage done, but soon he had a Champion to his cause, a man who declared himself King of the Spaniards.
Soon Marcus changed his name, becoming an Angel of Death to the Christians. Those who fought him in the early years soon found their tactical, logistical, and physical superior. The Franks, Portugeuse, Moors, Milanese, and even English soon discovered that any armed excersion into Spanish lands meant certain death.
Spain expanded, retaking the Iberian Peninsula and this time, Marcus forged a close relationship with Religion, made all the easier by the greed of the Pope.
Until the Crusade.
With mailed knights, and hardy Sergeants Marcus himself journeyed to Jerusalem and within 6 months completed what Armies of Crusaders had failed to do.
Soon Acre, Allepo, Antioch fell to his army, and his influence spread.
Years ticked by, falling off of the calendars as the cities and citadels sprung up.
He left Spain in the trusted hands of the line of Kings, and worked to build a new Rome in the east.
New tactics, new weapons, new theories.
Soon the new tactics were proven against Egypt, the new weapons perfected against the Turks, and new theories smashed to oblivion by 30,000 Mongolians. Allepo, Antioch, and Jerusalem fell in a 15 year campaign of horror.
Acre held.
From Acre Marcus was able to rebuild his armies, developing better strategies and soon the Mongolians were on the defensive.
In 3 quick battles the Khan was captured and executed, his forces thrown into disarray. But after a small breath of relief for his fledgeling Empire, Marcus saw the rise of a new Khan, bringing new and devastating weaponry.
The Armies that had defeated the Mongols were routed by the Timurids.
Until again, only Acre was left standing amid a sea of swarming Elephants and Horses.
The siege lasted two years, with 4 major assaults managing to breach the outer wall, even the secondary wall, but the last major assault was halted at the tertiary wall, the 7 surviving Chivalric Knights cheered as the last Timurid fell dead, an eerie silence developed over the Citadel, thousands upon thousands of bodies littered the fighting retreat up to the smashed gates of the Keep, dead and dying were everywhere.
Four years later with reinforcements from Spain, Marcus turned the East into a charnel house. Timurid Armies fell to his newest advancement, what would become known as Pike and Musket warfare, cannonade felled Timurid Elephants from hundreds of yards away while their heavy Cavalry were found useless against the line of well trained pikes. When they held back, Marcus advanced similar to the Macedonian battle lines he had broken 1200 years before.
In thirty years time, Marcus, the Demi-God son of Mars, turned Angelus Mortis, conquered the Eastern peoples. And without further use of the 'Pope', his vengeance was wrought upon the Christians who had destroyed his Roman Empire. Spanish Armies swept through France, England, the laughably ill-named Holy Roman Empire, Marcus showed them what a true Roman was, as their women and children were hauled east to the slave markets. By the year 1500, Europe was once again ruled from Rome, by a Roman, who, in true Roman Fashion, sought a new World to Conquer. . .
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