Lugiones. 2.2r to 400 turns. 1-100. First impressions

[parthian8]

Lougiones….first 100 turns 2.2r


Playing the way I do, there’s not a lot to do in the first 100 turns of a Luigones campaign.
With a heavy balance of payment deficit on a fair-sized military, it was either conquer or disband, and you aren’t given armies to disband them.
So I took Lugidunum by assault after a two turn siege. I couldn’t afford to starve them out.
The unexpected, and unhistorical, rampart wall, I’ve rehearsed. I’m presuming it’s not what is eventually intended. But, it was a good fight. I decided to go weak against strong, giving my fairly moderate better troops a chance to win key local struggles, while tying up and mobbing the best of the defenders with what someone recently called “militia junk.” They knocked some fight out of them.
The Lugiones are culturally not much given to elites, and their armies reflect this. I like it.
Lugidunum appears to have a Gutone enclave in place. After 90-odd turns in charge, I am still occupying the place while I fix it up to pay its way. I imagine this might give me some Baltic-style skirmishers in time.
The Lugiones do two things, and do not neglect either. Livestock and endless war.
The endless war bit is missing.
I need to consolidate, I feel. I lost about a third of my units taking Lugidumun, and their numbers have been made good by the emerging house-followers of family guys.
This is where the raiding mechanism adds some interest and a few extra bucks. I haven’t quite worked out the bottom line. Two equally qualified guys, and one takes to it like shelling peas and the other seems unable to get a raid off the ground. This is how life is. I like it.
I wish you could raid all non-allies. It would add some fine judgements to how far you could push your luck when the neighbour becomes a proper faction.
I wish there were a greater number of small “rebel” stacks lurking in the trees, making it hard to make my writ run in my proto-kingdom and fight some skirmishes in the trees. It would add something to the “endless war” boast.
Because the early Lugione game is not one of grand conquest. It’s a very tough start, where survival itself is an achievement.
The next 100 turns should see the transition to various new aspects of the game. including the enclaves choices. Within a few turns the Boii and the Suebi are going to be strong enough to think about swallowing me. I’ll only survive by knowing my land and my people like the back of my hand.
I can’t help thinking, playing this campaign for the second time, that one of the places on the map that could take another faction is the Wend lands of Lithuania, the eastern Baltic and maybe Gothic “Prussia.” “Rebels” don’t trade amber.
Elsewhere, alliances are very thin on the ground. Rome/Carthage being particularly durable. The Romans have mopped up most of Cisalpine Gaul rather too soon, but have taken Tarentum. They are also besieging Dyrrachium, something I’ve never seen before. Carthage is begging entry to Messana at sword-point.
Watch this space.

[QuintusSertorius]

The CAI has had quite a few updates since you last played - thus the behaviour you're noticing like Rome invading Illyria. And less alliance-spam.

Really the only requirements for raiding are being a Family Member and sitting in a non-friendly tile for two consecutive turns.

Small Rebel stacks should show up via the bandit mechanic with some frequency.

Looking forward to seeing what you make of the nomadic enclaves when you can afford them. And how you adjust your battle tactics to accommodate horse archers.

[parthian8]

Once I have my amber, I'm heading from the Vistula, across the Moravian Gap to the Dneister and down to the Black Sea. That's when I'll need the horse archers.

[parthian8]

I love the raiding mechanism.

In the part of the world I live in, both halves of my family spent 400 years raiding each other. It wasn't for conquest, or religion, or great matters of state. It was because some reived cows, a bit of blackmail (we invented it) and a score settled via the odd murder kept everyone HAPPY. As kids, we instinctly fought over which village "owned" the tiny streams between us, armed to the teeth by our parents. I was quite happy to work out how to maximise the profits of raiding. Apart from walls, I like working stuff out by trial and error. Weird stuff A small stack has spawned. I hope there will be more. My lads have to know how to fight, because they can't buy superiority.

[Imperial Pudding Head]

That was some pretty solid narration. I don't know about you but I think Lougiones had an awful start as it is

You should try to get scurgum before the swebs get to it, it's part of the amber route, good income, easily defensible (at least from the west), and the only source for the baltics unique regional unit, the mekidraugai. Although I think they're only recruitable after thureos reform.

Speaking of the swebs you should at least try to befriend either the swebs or the boii, they tend to go at each other often as long as you don't leave your towns too lightly defended.

Oh and watch out those small rebel stacks loves to hide in the bushes

[parthian8]

Thanks, IPH

I need the amber. But it’s a long way north.
I only have one army. If I lose it, it’s game over. Them’s the rules.
If I take it north right now, those two Veneti stacks out in the forest would be stupid not to attack my homelands.
As I am a few updates behind the eight ball, I’ve resolved to assume they will. The best realism we can bring to the game is to not make unrealistic decisions ourselves.
As a result, I procrastinated for 40 turns about how to govern Lugudunum, before deciding to make them allies, which gives me some heavier Celtic troops.
I can take Scurgum with my core Lugian troops. These heavier guys will stay behind to carouse boorishly and generally give off that “leave well alone” vibe to opportunist neighbours.
I fear an alliance with the Suebi would lay out a red carpet for them to take Scurgum before I’m ready, or get me into a war with the Boii, for which I’m not.
I plumped for a Sarmatian enclave in Kalisia, though I’m not taking horse archers into the trees.
It’s pointless killing those Veneti just now, even if I could. As long as they don’t attack me, my dark forest remains a no-go zone for everyone, and the devastation costs a fraction of what that deterrent would cost me.
It’s like Hamlet. Not much action…but the thinking is nerve-shredding.

[parthian8]

Lougiones, 2.2r. The next 60 turns.


At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking getting into wars would just be suicide.
But I survived.
The breakthrough point for the Lougiones comes when you take that third city, and as a third pick, Scurgum is a juicy plum.
Leaving my Boii retainers at Kalisia, with promises they wouldn’t touch a drop ’til I was back, I headed for the Baltic, looking out for AI Romans with their upside down compasses, and not finding any. They’ll be smashing those rebels in Rhegium about now. I thought.
At Scurgum, the Gutones had recruited one unit too many, which was standing outside the walls like a duck egg.
Of course their comrades rode to their aid. Of course they should have stayed inside. It was raining.
It was a thing of beauty to see AI medium cavalry wheel into an exposed flank, break, reform and charge again, several times. Lump in the throat stuff.
With the amber in the bag, it was time boom time. Now was the time to ally with the Suebians, who were soon at war with the Boii, who were already at war with the Getai.
The Getai had taken Descaims in a close run thing with the Boii. A nice new Baltic faction based somewhere near here would stop these two factions wandering all over the upper steppe with compasses they bought from the Romans.
This move threatened my heartlands, and it was then I was rewarded for tolerating the tribute and raiding of the tribes of the dark, eastern forests. These have served the nearest purpose I have ever seen in the game to independent lesser kings of shared blood and similar purpose.
I managed, by loitering in my corner, to avoid any real wars at all until far away Joli…th..th..the (?) rebelled in my favour at about 120 turns.
So unimpressed was I at this distant dump getting me into a war with the Getai, that I would have sold them immediately into slavery had there been a diplomat handy. With a Getai army bearing down on them. I left them to their fate.
They rebelled again three turns later, and adopting the motto “Don’t let the Bastarnos grind you down”, I fought the battle, heavily outnumbered.
It’s still less a thing of beauty to see heavy infantry still trying to chase down horse archers, running around like a wet hens. I won. Why don’t infantry fighting horse archers just stand still and form a line?
At this point I allied with the Boii, ending their war with the Suebians.
I haven’t needed enclaves, Sarmartian or Scythian, yet. I’ve got a good balance of troops and building options from adopting my conquests as allies.
In other news, the AS have lost most of their western empire, including their capital. They are doing well in Pakistan.
The squabbling Greeks states are a powerhouse of singular purpose……a kind of Orange Death, while Macedonia is the sick man of Europe.
Carthage is threatening Alexandria, but has left Sicily to the Greeks.
The Epirotes were exterminated 50 turns ago, but are now the richest faction. They may yet take Rhegium, as the Romans can’t seem to find it with those compasses.

[parthian8]

There was a time, in the time of the good old Rikos, where it seemed our future was secure.
We were rich, and peaceful. From settlements far away to the east, our brothers rose up to join our confederation.
But those times are gone, and famine is among us and many are looking to leave their homes and return to the old ways of living on the move.
Brutenis was leader of the Basternos. His followers helped conquer the north. But now they advance and thrive only in their numbers, honoured guests, but no more, at the top table. The Lugii lords are generous, but they have little to give.
So Brutenis and those who follow his star took leave of their role as guardians on the north and follow the rising sun and the great river to place they have heard their brothers live in bondage. All the families of the Basternos joined them. along with the ambitious and the hungry. Beyond the dark forest we found good pasture. But it was claimed.
Any road, enough of this.
The Basternos headed down the Dneister to Klepidava, where Brutenis fell in the very moment of his triumph. It’s certainly a land of opportunity, and the Black Sea is just one more push away. But the Basternos don’t have a leader among them. And this place is a low-tax fixer-upper with a population of 400, even with a gentle occupation.
Back in the heartlands, famine is a serious problem and population is falling. Trade isn’t food.
The population has grown with our wealth. But we don’t know how to feed ourselves. We’ve been too successful for our own good. We’ve been the richest faction, once or twice. But without food, it’s just coin.
The Rikos, who no-one respects, is centralising power. Allies become confederates. Garrisons make the food stretch further.
We have an existential crisis. We are a middling power, not to be trifled with. At 200 turns, we are getting by.
In other news.


Rome is almost dead. It can’t get north of the Alps, and it is squeezed in the south by Epirus, to the point it has no ambition there. Elsewhere, things ebb and flow, mainly due to the AI being happy to give up its homelands for just one more overreach miles form home.
The team needs to decide once and for all what their claim is.
Is their aim reasonable historicity, or is this a sandbox?
It can’t logically be both. I don’t mind which.
But stop claiming both. It’s at the root of all the criticism you get, and those who say you don’t want to hear critical feedback have a point. This isn’t the best balanced mod. It really does get lost in the details sometimes.
I’m a philosopher (honest) with an interest in history.
I wouldn’t claim to be anything so marvellous as a modder.

[parthian8]

250 turns.

The rises and falls in this game are just extraordinary. Macedonia, "the sick man of Europe" is now Lord of Athens, Corinth and Sparta. Rome has transformed itself from under siege in northern Italy, to master of the peninsular. Nabatea has pushed AS back to the Euphrates while the Ptolemies cling on, seemingly near death. The Pritanoi defy their "backwater" status by being second most successful faction. They are doomed, I guess.

The Lougiones have walked a diplomatic tightrope...a top-five enterprise and yet for a long time everyone's best friend. This has led to perhaps the most bland bunch of traits I've ever seen. The Lougiones themselves are calm but jealous, The Basternos, pragmatic and irreverent. Almost everyone is flaccid, despite herbalists doing a roaring trade. With so little going on, it's hard to get good traits or a good retinue. I haven't had a knight or a new senior nobleman since the first generation. I hoped the Amber Knights building would create a new generation of Wiswaldoi. But it was no more than interesting blurb. It's a forum really, with an imaginative name.
The Suebi and the Boii eventually went to war, and I got dragged in on the Boii side. The Suebi did invade and my unloved king led his troops to a fairly comprehensive victory, killing their seven or eight star king in the process. The charge of his retainers probably turned the battle. Puzzlingly, he got the Doubtful Courage Trait for his pains, probably pinned in him by the Fake News operation of his more influential brother-in-law. The poor fellow is now a puppet without the influence to run a city or an army. The Suebi retired to their fastnesses to lick their wounds, and only now, 10 years later, are massing on the borders again.
I've now bought just about everything there is to buy, and have invested heavily in trade. My trade income is 894....a third of what I make from farming and livestock and a fifth of what I rake in in taxes. The Amber Road is a big investment for not much at this stage.
I have just invested in the Scythian Enclave, but it's more because I felt obliged to try it. I was already able to recruit horse archers in Scurgum and there have always been lots of mercenaries for hire. I've used them more fighting the Getai out around Klepidava and Jukelitna. I've always hit and run raids to weaken approaching enemy stacks. This time I've found that when I've withdrawn in good order after emptying my quivers, my horse archers are MIA afterwards, though they took virtually zero casualties. Perhaps they just deserted. They didn't say.
The backbone of the Lougione army are the placeholder Lugian Bodyguard Infantry. They fight and die in the front line, and never take a step back. Extended families fighting shoulder to shoulder. It's the essence of their culture and style, so the horse archers and everything else is in a supporting role, in what are usually small armies bulked out by levies.
I was wondering what the advantages of confederation are. I eventually switched Lugidunum from ally to homeland. I lost my Boii heavy infantry and cavalry, thinking I'd get a fuller building tree. But I didn't.
If I played again I probably wouldn't be so suggestible in falling for the beautifully written blurb about things that, at this stage, seem to offer a bit of immersion but little in the way of actual benefits.

I know I could have been more aggressive and expansionist and maybe got my tyres rubbered in quicker. But with a "nigh-on impossible" rating, I chose not to go looking for trouble.
There's a great little mixed culture faction in here. Not like anything else. I'd love to see some of the ideas joined up a bit more. With 150 turns to go, it's just a little bit less than the sum of its parts.

[parthian8]

At 300 turns, it’s not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.
Or maybe I was right first time.
I’ve held Lugidunum almost from the start. Scurgum in Pomerania became any ally 10 years into the game. Later still an AI rebellion (haven’t seen another of those in my part of the map) allowed me to set up a client kingdom at Jukalitna. With the Basternos seizing Klepidava, I then had a spreadeagled empire, with a hole full of villains in the middle.
My German lands are barely mutually supporting. Those of the east must fend for themselves. I could solve this by ejecting the Getai, a knife at my throat in Descaims and growing in numbers there. Only the free Wenedtoi of Luguwu and Aestuwu hold them in check. By necessity I treat these Wends as allies. They have more warriors than me.
So I was waiting for an opportunity. for one of my enemies to miss his step. Then fate took a hand. Plague struck Scurgum. It lasted a year. Many died in the town. The Sweboz sent a fleet along my coast. I tried to sink it, but I am sunk. Its a small army that lands in Aestwu. It is no more than a raid, and it retreats…across my lands ……pursued by a horde of angry Wendetoi, right to the Oder.
The logjam is broken, and I’m suddenly at war, everywhere.
By 300 turns, my homelands (Kalisia, Lugidunum and Scurgum)) are as developed as they ever will be. It barely supports a full army. When they unite (only by dint of the fact the AI never sends out pickets to prevent this happening) I find the Sweboz have gone strong against weak on ME. They mob my retainers in the centre, while their warlords strike at my flanks. I win because their left flank breaks moments before my left does. My contingent of horse archers is a liability in this battle…they cause barely a scratch to any shield-carrying unit unless deployed from the rear. But this is Ali-Frazier III, I don’t have the time to micro-manage them.
I have only been troubled by the one spawning band of bandits. But in Luguwa, Pomera and Aestuwa, it is the Wendtoi, Boudinai and Rukhasalantae who keep the factions from constant war with each other. Only in Alazonea do I clash with the Getai coming up from the Balkans. I really like this aspect of the game, and hope it isn’t toned down in favour of endless faction on faction action.


Elsewhere, the Ptolemies never seemed to get started, and are down to their last province. AS has Antioch back, is driving on Damascus, and is back in Asia Minor. Carthage has lost it’s Spanish empire but is strong in Africa, Macedonian has nearly killed Epirus. Rome gave up its Greek expedition as a bad job, and is back to terrorising Gauls in Tolosa. Perhaps a scripted attack on Spain would fare better? But, as they almost say around here, “You’ll Never See Roman in Madrid.” I have never, in all the time I’ve played EB (1 and 2) seen an AI Roman in Spain. Also, given the way the Pritanoi behave, why not just keep all their units and startpos, and call them the Belgae?


No-one I can think of is counted out. While my own story is one of steady upward progress, elsewhere the balance of power shifts, sometime quite sharply, but never permanently . This is so very, very far from the blocky swathes of five or six colours at 300 turns we’ve seen in the past that you simply have to admire the progress that has been made and hope will not be massively rethought.
The end of the beginning. Never in EB history has that seemed like a more exciting time.

[QuintusSertorius]

That's good to hear that 300 turns in, the game hasn't moved into a foregone conclusion that one of the super-factions will win.

[parthian8]

Quintus,


It is much more than that.
Neither as the player, nor looking at the faction progression, is there any of the old sense of “well, it will be just more of this to the end now” that made one want to start a new campaign.
I suspect it’s partly something to do with the changes to AI money supply, but battles really mean something in this game. The losing faction does need to lick its wounds and is vulnerable to a counter punch. Playing last night, the Sweboz decided to wipe out the Wendetoi stack blocking the river crossing near the mouth of the Oder. The losses it took doing that weakened its attack on Scurgum, and it lost that stack to me. With no Wendetoi stack to worry about, the Boii took the opportunity to sweep into Germany. It was an object lesson in the benefits of patience and of not killing off everything that’s not the same colour as you.
The spamming of armies is not there. Nor have I seen any evidence of the old problem of factions going passive, or going passive while massing huge stacks it doesn’t use. Everywhere, borders expand and shrink and expand again.
So far I’ve stuck to first impressions, and some of those are slight, but when conclusions are drawn, there’s a lot that has changed for the better.
This is now a mature game of 300 turns. It’s matured into something with stories still to tell.

[parthian8]

Lougiones 1-400 (m/m) Turn 350 (Summer 186BC)

At my last report I was worried I hadn’t been aggressive enough. I’ve let rebels on my lands survive for as long as they don’t attack my cities.
I’m thankful now I never went so far as to take the final city from a faction.
This is because the fifth most militarily powerful faction at 350 turns has been wiped out three times since my last report in 300. It rather reminds me of those football managers who, despite a trail of failures and sackings in their wake, continue to amass a fortune in severance payments. So it’s kind of taken some of the shine off my own puny achievements. As well as making me slightly question the point of going on.

But there is much more, that can be reported as improved.

With Aestuwa and Merimekhe now under my control, I have seven provinces and enough money to develop them. They are vast tracts of nothingness, and if you centre on where their borders meet with Wenetwa, there isn’t a single settlement to be seen on the map.

My war with the Sweboz centred on their efforts to take Scurgum. There was no spamming of Sweboz armies. I got three full-stack incursions over about 100 turns. It ended when they accepted a ceasefire and trade right at about turn 330. They accepted this despite considering the offer “very demanding” and without the use of Forced Diplomacy. The Getai narrowly refused to make peace at about the same time.
This does not mean these factions have fallen into passivity. The Getai have attacked me around Klepidava on occasion, but have been very active against other neighbours, and their life-or-death struggle is with the Boii. The Sweboz are also very active fighting the Boii and the Pritanoi.
The Pritanoi are expansionist, and have easily the most numerous and active fleets in the game. I don’t mind them being in northern Spain and Brittany, as my northern English DNA is shared by people living in those places today.
I do agree with others that there are too many provinces in the British Isles, and these have been entirely uncontested by other factions in this game or in any version of EB2 I’ve ever played.
They have most of Gaul and a good chunk of Spain.

Much of the Lougione culture and traits system is fairly thin. There’s not a lot to make of the different tribal groups or their effect on gameplay, as there is with the steppes nomads. Their structure is almost bereft of titles, offices and stipends. We have a basic school in Klepidava, but its produced two Logographos in 200 turns. A couple of guys in the German Wars got the mercenary captain.
If there’s any stuff that needs writing up to help flesh out these less fashionable factions, I’d be happy to help.
In terms of the enclaves, I built the Sarmatian one in Scurgum and the Scythian one in Kalisia, where I have made more use of the foot archers.

There was a pre-existent Gutones Tribe building with some blurb in Kalisia and a similar Wandaloz one in Scurgum. I have no idea what these do, and whether or not these are part of the enclaves system, as nothing explains what they are or their role, and it hasn’t become more apparent in 350 turns of gameplay.

There has been no spamming of armies. No factions have become inert and none have built up huge collections of stacks they don’t use. There has been no spamming of assassins. The diplomacy system has been rational. Every time I’ve had a notification of a change of diplomatic attitude towards me, I have understood the reason and the reason has come out of things that occurred gameplay. The game has been very stable.

[QuintusSertorius]

I suspect it's your presence in the north that's changing Sweboz behaviour, because in the current CAI we often (though not always) see them turn their sights on Britain once they've consolidated a stable base in Germania.

Yes, the trait system for the barbarian factions is less well-developed; there's an awful lot of partially-implemented stuff in the EDCT (copied over from EB1). As with all things traits, we just don't have the focused manpower in that area to carry out the large-scale changes needed to make these things work. There's a number of us who can do bits and pieces (I implemented the "anti-trait" triggers for most of the common pairings of antagonistic traits, for example), but those who know it the best haven't got much time right now.

Sounds like a big improvement on 2.2b with stable, but still variable.

[parthian8]

Apart from AI faction progression I imagine there's not going to be a lot new to report if I go the extra 40 turns to 400.
I think this game would quite suit players who don't like public order issues with uppity and ungrateful Greeks, traits reliant on patient and attentive progress through the political system and all that kind of stuff.
If only you could give them a few Spartan Hoplites........
I'm off to try somewhere out east now, where I don't have to look at Romans, Epirotes or Bwitons.

[parthian8]

Lougiones m/m Turn 350-400

Final thoughts

After this game I confess myself a fan of the Lougiones. This has been my second long campaign with them since they were introduced.

If a Europe of the Barbarians has a point, it is surely about those less attested peoples who shaped the future of the world without ever becoming great empires.

The problem is that the first draft of history was done by the great empires, and it was they who attested to who was a major and who was a minor player. The Lougiones are one of those peoples subject to only fleeting and sometimes muddled references by the writers of late antiquity.

And this is a problem, even for a mod with such breathtaking ambition as EB2. The Lougiones are late-comers. They are under-developed. They are the poor savages living in the trees.

How does a conquest game portray a people that built no cities, wanted no cities, had no central authority, no bureaucracy, and not even something recognisable as an aristocracy; who’s lives are scattered, migrational, built on subsistance farming and herds, and for whom a substantial part of their economy was raiding to enable a trade in slaves?

Its good to see the work has begun. Central Poland can’t be Athens in trousers.

The northern map, somewhere between Britain and the Tian Shan needs another faction like this, in my view. It’s a balance of power issue as well as a question of giving the player enough to think about. The wandering stacks play a vital role in reflecting the truth that the region was not entirely unpopulated. I see the stacks as independent peoples, and only the pop-ups as bandits. Anyone killing them off to earn a few bonus traits for FMs is doing nothing for the longevity of their game.

The question is, I guess, where do our historians look for a faction that is suitably well attested? And attested by who?

The game remained rock stable to the end. Not a single CTD. Loading times were very good.

The biggest improvement was that changes to the money script seem to have got it spectacularly right. The early mid game is no longer a constant slog of “new season, new stack”.
The battles were big and decisive. They had strategic value and massively increased the players’ ability to play a strategic game.

Congratulations to the team. It really is a wonder that they remain committed to creating the game world they envisaged and bringing it ever closer to reality.

[QuintusSertorius]

Thanks for persevering with that game, it isn't often we get quality feedback on such a long run. I'm particularly impressed that you didn't have any CTDs; what platform and format of M2TW are you playing on? I would assume a PC running the Gold/DVD and not Steam?

[parthian8]

It's running on Steam, which is installed in my Games folder on a bog-standard performance PC.
If anyone wants to play EB2 and can't lay their hands on a MTW2 DVD quickly enough, all I can say is that I've had zero problems running EB2 on Steam. Just follow the instructions, and don't put it in programme files.