The War Council is hereby convened - Invasion: Britannia

**Dooz** · May 25, 2020, 05:55 AM

Originally Posted by Rad

This happens mid game on island regions. I saw it on Crete and Britain.

There's still stack spam? How bad does it get, hopefully not to this level.

Originally Posted by Satapatiš

Truly, the Hellenic world will never be safe until something is done about this looming barbarian menace.

Kindly extending all the benefits of the properly civilized andrapodismos over those misty islands is in order.

Indeed, my learned friend. Your wise counsel we will endeavor to heed.

**Dooz** · May 25, 2020, 06:26 AM

Year One: Footholds and Baby Steps (Part 2)

You can always find men chaffing under the status quo. These men we gathered and set upon their own.
Those who survived would rule as the new status quo. Serving the ultimate status quo.
The Antigonid Empire.

Spoiler for Early Autumn, 79 B.C.:

But they were betraying a proud and powerful kingdom, these tribes of long forgotten preeminence, in their jealous grasp at power once more. The Pritanoi united the islands under their rule some two centuries ago in establishing their kingdom. So strong would they become that raids on the mainland turned into full scale invasions and a continental presence for nearly one hundred years. At its height, the King of the Pritanoi controlled about as much land in northwestern europe as the size of Albion itself. But after seemingly endless wars with neighboring tribes and rising powers in their own rights, the Pritanoi were pushed back into the sea and confined to the islands ever since.

Spoiler for "Pritanoi on the mainland:

The Oracles have spoken. Our attacks will land with Autumn showers. It couldn't come soon enough for the men that have been encamped laying siege for six to nine months with rationing now being enforced. The personal Oracle to Eumenes Olizonios, Commander of the Third Army besieging Alauna, conveys the vision just as the first drops of rain fall to his face. Olizonios sends his runner to deliver the message to the Fourth and Fifth armies further north. The southern armies are cut off by land and word will have to eventually reach them by sea.

The order is for all imperial armies to return to their nearby support fleets for rest and resupply, leaving their fortifications and siege equipment behind. Each Hellenic warrior is a precious resource in this epic war of attrition, not to be expended lightly. Instead, local warlords and their followers, with adventuring sellsword Celtic mercenaries from along the eastern coast, strike bargains with our negotiators to storm the strongholds, kill everyone who resists and capture the rest for handing over to our returning armies as slaves. With the Empire's backing, these minor strongmen will rule as kings of what's left, no longer beholden to the one King of the Pritanoi. May the irony be lost on these savages long enough for our forces to stabilize the region.

So begin the assaults, near simultaneously. Field Army commanders remain to oversee operations, but none of them will leave the eerie mists of the northern wilds the same. Some question the wisdom of using foreign fighters to do our conquering. Did this betray the Oracles' vision? Did it betray our own sense of strength? These arguments would be better served by the scholars and speakers back home, however quite a few of our Field Army commanders are scholarly men themselves, known for public speaking and persuasive advocacy. There is a real question of whether any number of them will prove too smart for themselves and do something everyone will regret. A number of the Emperor's spies embedded with the armies to keep an eye on them did not survive the journey from the Peleponnese, and it was never entirely clear whether the storms were truly responsible for their demise. (see: @Razor)

----------

Zoilos Idomeneus is the Field Commander in Kaledonia. Idomeneus served as the youngest general in the Carthaginian War when he led a freshly recruited reinforcing army towards the end of the campaign. His key contribution was wiping out the last roaming nobles of the Nabatu horde in the Fall of 90 B.C. An excellent leader of men and a learned student of warfare, Idomeneus is one of the more loyal generals in the Emperor's service and much of our success in the northern front will depend on his Fourth Army heavy corps. Now, however, the task is to lead enemy against enemy and watch the slaughter.

Spoiler for Battle of Dunopalator:

Eumenes Olizonios is the Field Commander in Legambrion, and a renowned victor from the Carthaginian War. As a young general nearly two decades ago leading the light corps in support of a heavier army, Olizonios campaigned and conquered in Sicily and across the northern coast of Afrika, winning many battles including a Heroic victory to his name. There, he would form close bonds with locals in various capacities and earn a reputation for being too welcoming to foreigners, casting doubts and sowing suspicions ever since about his loyalty and conviction to do what must be done in the name of Hellenism. However, as one of the most able and experienced commanders available to the Empire in this war, Olizonios has been given command of the Third Army heavy corps. Now while his army resupplies offshore, Olizonios will tend to his duties as overseer of the first steps of regime change.

Spoiler for Battle of Alauna:

Akylos Myrkinios is the Field Commander in Iuerion, and the only heavy corps commander not to have fought in the Carthaginian War. He nevertheless served the Empire in a military capacity from a young age, before during and after the war, fighting and putting down rebellions around the Euxenios, from Thrakia to the Caucuses. And he will remind you of it as a proud veteran, and as a politician who petitioned Emperor Perigenes personally for this command. Commander of the Fifth Army heavy corps, Myrkinios also happens to be one of those who disagree with the strategy of pulling back our besieging armies as courting disaster in the face of the Oracles' message. His deeply held convictions leave little room for the nuances of interpretation, but the will of the Emperor leaves little room for that to matter. Goidelic tribes are let loose with a savage bloodlust against their Pritanoi oppressors. Little can be done to contain the carnage.

Spoiler for Battle of Isamnion:

By the time the order to attack had reached Iuerion, a sizeable Pritanoi force had crossed the channel and was threatening the besieging Fifth Army's flank. The light corps, headed by Iordanes Singios, had been dispatched by Field Cmdr. Myrkinios some weeks earlier to head them off with orders to hold until receiving word that Isamnion had fallen. Singios is the youngest commander in this campaign, and the son of a general who fought in the Iberian theater of the Carthaginian War (now semi-retired in the Bosphorus). He will be the first to lead one of our Hellenic corps in open battle against a fully fledged Pritanoi army.

Spoiler for Army Group V - Light Corps. (1st battle):

Once the dust has settled and the rest of our northern armies have resupplied, all corps disembark for what will now be the long run. Our northern line is established, with the perimeter drawn along choke points limiting any potential Pritanoi attacks to two armies at a time where possible. Also considered are the types of territory being left open for encroaching armies to occupy so as to be more amenable to our attack, though our northernmost positions are necessarily in the unfriendly terrain of woodlands and hills. Nevertheless, the strategy now is to fortify positions, invite enemy attacks or otherwise dissuade them from advancing past our lines as our authority is established, and find openings for counterattacks against isolated elements. With the proverbial hammer in the north taking shape, the anvil in the south must now carve out a space for itself in order for the two-pronged envelopment and destruction of all the Pritanoi to begin in earnest.

Spoiler for Heading into Mid-Autumn, 79 B.C.:

**Rad** · May 25, 2020, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by Dooz

There's still stack spam? How bad does it get, hopefully not to this level.

Not sure. I'd have to check if I have saved images.

Edit: The images bellow are from 2016, so they're not from the current version. I do remember facing the Grey Death in the current version, though.

Edit2: Just checked some conversations from 2019 - stack spam is still a thing.

**Satapatiš** · May 25, 2020, 10:49 AM

Yeah, they do. Just not on the old scale. Ptolemaic hordes can be running across the Salamis, for an example.

**Dooz** · June 24, 2021, 02:16 PM

Okay, so maybe going for a detailed AAR-style report of every battle of an 80-battle campaign was biting off a bit more than I could chew. I'd still love to share at least some sort of overview level report of army movements and major battles at some point, as it was the most fun I've had as an overall Total War experience, but in the meantime here are my notes logging all the battles and statistics. The formatting is partly due to these being from my phone notes app and trying to make stuff fit, hope it makes some sense.

Spoiler for Pritanoi campaign:

When it was all said and done, the conquering armies reached home port in the Spring of 72 B.C., exactly 200 years after the start of the campaign. The perfect conclusion to a memorable, years-long EBII campaign, right? So why do I have this in my notes app....

Spoiler for Pergamon campaign:

**Roma_Victrix** · June 25, 2021, 11:16 PM

Again, your obsession with enslaving/slaughtering every city is rather...disturbing... (also slightly counterproductive to your economy and having to rebuild) but aside from that cool screenshots and campaign story! Following your conquest of the British Isles, your planned invasion of the Pergamum Empire looks like it'll be an ancient slugfest akin to the tragic yet epic fight between the Hitler's Nazi German Third Reich and Stalin's Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Should be a lot of carnage and mayhem considering how you give no quarter and enslave both military captives and the majority of civilian populations in sacked cities. It would definitely be an ancient equivalent of World War II, although not a complete genocide since you explained it yourself that you install allied local elites backed up by indigenous mercenaries willing to join your cause for coinage.

**Dooz** · June 26, 2021, 01:25 PM

Half the world is under Imperial control, any slight non-optimization of the economy is negligible. And as compared to the benefit of not having to more heavily garrison the newly conquered and heavily depopulated territories, or having to retake them after rebellion, it may well be a net economic benefit. Especially when there are 85 other stacks to fight, I don't want my armies distracted and moving backward, only forward. Plus this invasion wasn't about the economy, it was about Hellenization and a campaign-long roleplay objective which was set up from the initial starting position and recent history of the Maks, i.e., wiping out all barbarian threats (and all barbarians are threats). Evil Empire gotta Evil Empire.

That said, not sure how I'd handle conquering fellow greek cities. I know they sacked and enslaved each other historically, and Alexander did worse than that. I'm sure a sufficient roleplay justification will present itself for whatever ends need to be met if the means are necessary. I do need a constant supply of slaves to keep the whole machine running as relatively recent land and military reforms turned farmers into professional soldiers in permanently standing armies, and all that's left to plow the fields is forced labor. Supplying and feeding over 500,000 troops for the Great War won't do itself.

**QuintusSertorius** · June 26, 2021, 02:01 PM

Sacking and enslaving by Greeks on other Greeks was rare - which was why everyone was so shocked by Alexander's treatment of the Thebans.

**Dooz** · June 26, 2021, 06:26 PM

Where did they get all their slaves? I thought they mostly fought each other, not a lot of big wars against foreign cultures

**QuintusSertorius** · June 26, 2021, 06:39 PM

Originally Posted by Dooz

Where did they get all their slaves? I thought they mostly fought each other, not a lot of big wars against foreign cultures

Wars with other cultures (the Makedonians fought Illyrians and Thracians fairly constantly, for example) and piracy were major sources of slaves. Individuals and families being sold into slavery through debt was another one.

Entire cities all at once was the exception, not the rule.

**Dooz** · June 26, 2021, 07:04 PM

I was thinking of the southern greeks, seemed like such a common and widespread practice I figured they had to be taking each other after conflicts. Maybe there was just a whole lotta debt and piracy.

In any case, these are petty concerns for the likes of a god emperor, eastern greeks will be deemed barbarians and not true greeks if need be.

**Roma_Victrix** · June 27, 2021, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

Wars with other cultures (the Makedonians fought Illyrians and Thracians fairly constantly, for example) and piracy were major sources of slaves. Individuals and families being sold into slavery through debt was another one.

Entire cities all at once was the exception, not the rule.

Exactly. Even when Alexander's troops allegedly drunkenly burned down Persepolis, he publicly regretted the action afterwards. For that matter he didn't just flatten every city and enslave every Persian he could get his hands on, considering how he took three Iranian brides and urged his officers to also marry local women at the Susa Weddings. I know that Dooz wants to play the way he wants, but it's just ahistorical (and a bit self-defeating financially) to trash every settlement you conquer. The middle "sack" option gets you more immediate money anyway and usually does the trick in terms of tamping down unrest.

Settlements with insane amounts of undue unrest should certainly be enslaved, though, since the game is clearly designed with certain settlements that go ballistic if you just occupy them. Game punishes you if you don't have decent infrastructure built there. Even worse if it only has a mediocre governor.

**Dooz** · June 27, 2021, 03:09 PM

Not sure where you get the idea I enslaved every city I came across (unless you're also counting the middle sack option in your analysis, in which case I did for most of it outside greek lands). I hadn't enslaved any until maybe 20 years before the Pritanoi campaign when the kingdom was reorganized into an empire (roleplay + land and military reforms). The first war that option was ever used was in the previous war against Carthage, and only against settlements that were blue or red happiness after capture. Maybe 3 or 4 there spread across Iberia and Afrika, then all 7 in Albion. So let's say up to 10-12 out of, Idunno, 100 others conquered? I'm practically Mother Theresa over here.

And like I explained, at this point nothing I do is hurting me economically. I spent 180 years with low taxes, building up infrastructure and gaining new lands before kicking off the reforms and last two wars with large standing armies (used to disband after campaigns). Though I don't try to maximize income anyway, I put people in charge for roleplay reasons, often they are bad at their jobs and lose me lots of money.

And yes, I don't play these games to redo history. There are documentaries for that. I'm in the alternative history camp of total war gaming, within the bounds of reason and historical setup to some degree. It doesn't strike me as insane that some god emperor would decide to mass enslave and murder as many people as he could. It's happened. People can be pretty evil.

**Draken2007** · June 29, 2021, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by Dooz

Not sure where you get the idea I enslaved every city I came across (unless you're also counting the middle sack option in your analysis, in which case I did for most of it outside greek lands). I hadn't enslaved any until maybe 20 years before the Pritanoi campaign when the kingdom was reorganized into an empire (roleplay + land and military reforms). The first war that option was ever used was in the previous war against Carthage, and only against settlements that were blue or red happiness after capture. Maybe 3 or 4 there spread across Iberia and Afrika, then all 7 in Albion. So let's say up to 10-12 out of, Idunno, 100 others conquered? I'm practically Mother Theresa over here.

And like I explained, at this point nothing I do is hurting me economically. I spent 180 years with low taxes, building up infrastructure and gaining new lands before kicking off the reforms and last two wars with large standing armies (used to disband after campaigns). Though I don't try to maximize income anyway, I put people in charge for roleplay reasons, often they are bad at their jobs and lose me lots of money.

And yes, I don't play these games to redo history. There are documentaries for that. I'm in the alternative history camp of total war gaming, within the bounds of reason and historical setup to some degree. It doesn't strike me as insane that some god emperor would decide to mass enslave and murder as many people as he could. It's happened. People can be pretty evil.

Dude, you're fine. I have no idea why people are getting so sensitive. I've played games where the whole point is just to slaughter innocent people(Party Hard), or even GTA where I pick a truck a drive over everyone at the beach because it's hilarious. It's a game, nothing matters and you can do whatever. I'm also in the alternative history camp, that's the whole reason to play these type of games for me.

Btw, cool campaign, loved that invasion.

**Dooz** · June 29, 2021, 12:58 PM

I didn't take it as necessarily sensitivity to the idea of enslavement, but more to a perceived lack of historicity. But that line was crossed long ago when I took the first territory that Makedonia never actually took, and forget about the phalanxes going into Albion lol.

To me the idea of recreating historically accurate borders will get boring after the first time, because if every single campaign is going to follow the exact same preordained route every time... Well it's just not for me, but I don't begrudge anyone for having fun that way.

Glad you liked the invasion