[RTW AAR Vanilla] The Rise of Macedon [Updated 27/06/12]

[King of Thessaly]

This is my first go at an AAR so I welcome all feedback!


Mod: Vanilla
Faction: Macedon
Campaign Difficult: VH
Battle Difficulty: M
Cheats: None
Unit Scale: Huge
Campaign Length: Short





Characters (more will be added as I progress)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Antigonos-Our currrent faction leader

Gyras- Son of Antigonos, our current faction heir

Euenus-Son of Antigonos

Damasos-Son of Antigonos

Carpos of Pylos-Diplomat

Aegisthes of Larrisa

Chapters

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Prologue

The Rise of Macedon

Prologue

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The year is 270 BC and after the death of Alexander the Great his empire fell and his diadochi struggled for the empire but could only hold fragments of it. Ptolemy held Egypt, Lysimachus held Thrace, Antigonus held, Asia Minor and Syria, Seleucus held Persia and Cassander held Macedonia. Rather than unite, the diadochi were at war until 275 BC. Now the Macedonian people are weak in military, but are in a great position to attack the Greeks. Once they can secure the Balkan Peninsula, the Macedonians could become a threat to any other civilization and perhaps rule the known world...

Antigonos: My sons, I have called upon you today for an important reason. Our once great nation has fallen and we have been suffering from invasions on our borders. To the north the barbaric Dacians and Thracians have been burning and pillaging our villages, laying waste to the land and enslaving civilians of Macedon. This cannot be tolerated! To the west, the rising power of the Romans threatens to expand into the Greek world. Finally, to the South, the Greek city states have abandoned their independence and united as a nation inan attempt to wipe out our pround people. The Athenians value their independence and stay neutral to the situation. Damasos, my son, you are to govern the city of Corinth and recruit a garrison force to hold of any resistance by the Greeks until I can arrive.

Damasos: Father, you can trust me to hold off the Greeks until you arrive! I will make my way to Corinth right away.

Antigonos: Do not dissapoint me Damasos. Euenus I want you to travel to Blyzalora and recruit a force large enough to make an attack on the Thracians. Once I remove the Greek resistance from our lands I will send reinforcements to support your invasion. Hurry though my son, those barbarians could attack at any time!

Euenus: I will not fail you father!

Antigonos: Gyras, my son... If I am to fall at arms I wish for you to inherit the kingdom...

Gyras: But father, what about Euenus and Damasos?!?!

Antigonos: Gyras, I have chosen you because you are the most worthy heir I could think of. You have been blessed by gods and I know you will lead our empire to greatness!

Gyras: Thank you father! I will be the best king I can when it comes.

Antigonos: I know you will make me proud! Now to business... I wish for you to accompany me on the field when we besiege Athens. It stands neutral to our conflict and we can take it without waging war on anyone else. Their garrison looks weak, so it shouldn't be too difficult to take.

Gyras: I will go to Larrisa and get some of the garrison to accompany me.

Antigonos: Great! Meet me at the Attican border in 1 year. Don't worry about bringing a large force, I will assure you that I will bring the majority of troops. Farewell my son!

Gyras: Farewell Father!

Antigonos: Carpos! I almost forgot! I have a task for you.

Carpos of Pylos: What is it great king?

Antigonos: Carpos, you have been loyal to me for so many years. I want you to travel to the Greek city of Thermon. Do whatever you can to get an alliance with the Greeks.

Carpos of Pylos: But my king... Aren't you wishing to wage war with Greeks?

Antigonos: Ahh, yes I see your confusion Carpos. I want an alliance with the Greeks so they will least be expecting an attack from us. Before we attack we will break the alliance and attack them when they least expect it.

Carpos of Pylos: What a great strategy, my lord! I will not waste any time in reaching Thermon!

Antigonos: Great! I know have everyone with a task and now I must get ready for the march towards Athens. I just wish that our military was more stronger. We may not last long if we cannot get decent soldiers early on this war...

[Lord of Cats]

This is good! Since you are doing a story-oriented AAR (because you have characters and are going to develop them) this might be a bit challanging to write. I wish you good luck!

As for constructive criticism: maybe you want to describe where the king is adressing all his sons and servants. I'm assuming it's in the palace at Thessalonica, but describing the setting might be good for story telling.

As for the game: taking Athens and developing it up is a very good idea. Not sure about an alliance with the Greeks. They'll probably break it first before you do.

[King of Thessaly]

Thanks for the feedback. I might make it part narrative so that I can describe the setting and what is going on better without making the characters talking weird.

[Mithridates the Great]

Macedonians are Greek people...shoudn't be sound correctly to write the rest Greeks? and not "the Greeks"

[McScottish]

Macedonians are Greek people...shoudn't be sound correctly to write the rest Greeks? and not "the Greeks"

No...because Macedonians are not Greeks. Perhaps ethnically, but you need only pick up a history book to see just how Greek the Greek considered their northern neighbours.

[Mithridates the Great]

macedonians are greeks and i can discuss this for hours do you want to?
Ok first I start
All macedonians names are Greek ones
Alexander = άλεξ + ανήρ (Αλέξανδρος)
Phillip = Φίλος ίππου (Φίλιππος)

Macedonians worshiped the Greek Gods and are Greek Dorian tribes



Also their language is Greek as the coins have Greek letters on it


In addition to this there are many quotes from macedonian peope in ancient times or philosophers proove thos
"FOR US GREEKS WE SHOULD NOT BE SLAVES TO BARBARIANS!"

(Kallisthenes 1.15.1-4)

"...and she was not there forever, but after the cataclysm of Defkalion, which occurred in the Hellenic area, in fact, in the ancient Hellas, which was around Dodoni, and it changed many times the flow of Acheloos river. In that area live the Selloi and the ones that were once called Graecoi and are now called Hellenes..."

(Aristotelis Meteorologika, I, 14)

"The Hellenic race has never, since its first origin, changed its speech. This at least seems evident to me. It was a branch of the PELASGIC (Pelasgians the Early Hellenes)

(Herodotus 1.57)

"In this period, sixty-five years before the founding of Rome, Carthage was established by the Tyrian Elissa, by some authors called Dido. About this time also Caranus, a man of royal race, eleventh in descent from Hercules, set out from Argos and seized the kingship of Macedonia. From him Alexander the Great was descended in the seventeenth generation, and could boast that, on his mothers side, he was descended from Achilles, and, on his fathers side, from Hercules."

Velleius Paterculus, Book I

"There was a PERSISTENT, WELL ATTESTED tradition in antiquity that told of a group of Greeks from Argos-descendants of Temenus, kinsman of Heracles-who came to Macedonia and established their rule over the Makedones, unifying them and providing a royal house. "

[E Borza (1990) In The Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon pg. 80.]

"... not much need to be said about the Greekness of ancient Macedonia: it is undeniable."

Ian Worthington, English historian and archaeologist:

("Philip II of Macedon", Yale University, 2008)

W. J. Woodhouse, Australian historian: "This was Macedonia in the strict sense, the land where settled immigrants of Greek stock later to be called Macedonians." ("The tutorial history of Greece, to 323 B.C", p.216, University Tutorial Press)

Ulrich Wilcken, German historian: "Macedonians were a Greek race and akin to the Dorians." ("Alexander the Great", p. 22)

Francois Chamoux, French historian: "Such a glorious ancestry was in the eyes of Greeks the hallmark of the Greek persona of the king of Macedon, who could, on the other hand, rely on fidelity of the people from which he had sprung. The Greek cities did not feel that they were allying with a barbarian, since for generations the Macedonian dynasty had been allowed, as Greeks, to take part in the Olympic Games." ("Hellenistic Civilization", Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2002, p.8, 9

ANCIENT MACEDONIANS WERE GREEKS OF THE DORIAN TRIBE LIKE THE SPARTANS. ATHENIANS WERE GREEKS OF THE IONIAN TRIBE. DORIANS AND IONIANS WERE MOST OF THE TIME RIVALS & THAT IS WHY MACEDONIANS AND SPARTANS HAD WARS AGAINST ATHENIANS!

"Philip was born a Greek of the most aristocratic, indeed of divine, descent Philip was both a Greek and a Macedonian, even as Demosthenes was a Greek and an Athenian. The Macedonians over whom Philip was to rule were an outlying family member of the Greek-speaking peoples. "

Nicholas G. L. Hammond, Philip of Macedon Duckworth Publishing, February 1998

David George Hogarth, English archaeologist and scholar:

"From Alexander I, who rode to the Athenian pickets the night before Plataea and proclaimed himself to the generals their friend and a Greek, down to Amyntas, father of Philip, who joined forces with Lacedaemon in 382, the kings of Macedon bid for Greek support by being more Greek than the Greeks."

("Philip and Alexander of Macedon", pp.9-10)

"Now you fear punishment and beg for your lives, so I will let you free, if not for any other reason so that you can see the difference between a GREEK KING and a barbarian tyrant, so do not expect to suffer any harm from me. A king does not kill messengers."

(ALEXANDER THE GREAT...As quoted in the Historia Alexandri Magni of Pseudo-Kallisthenes, 1.37.9-13)

"General Paulus of Rome surrounded by the ten Commissioners took his official seat surrounded by the whole crowds of Macedonians...Paulus announced in Latin the decisions of the Senate, as well as his own, made by the advice of his council. This announcement was translated into Greek and repeated by Gnaeus Octavius the Praetor-for he too was present."

(T. Livius,XLV)


I personnaly don't trust this site but take a look on it too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(Greece)

[McScottish]

I'd rather not discuss this for hours, or even at all, but shall leave you to your views. If you believe they were/are Greeks, then they were/are, I doubt anything I say would change that. It is a debate that had raged for some time amongst people far more academic than myself.

[Lord of Cats]

I think we should just leave this thread for the story and comments on the story. If you want a history debate the best place to discuss it would be at the Vestigia Vetustatis (history forum). That being said, when is the next update King of Thessaly?

[Mithridates the Great]

I'd rather not discuss this for hours, or even at all, but shall leave you to your views. If you believe they were/are Greeks, then they were/are, I doubt anything I say would change that. It is a debate that had raged for some time amongst people far more academic than myself.

Well...I have proofs,argument and you have nothing at all...it is not about people far more academic than me and you it is about my history

and if you want academic people I can raise them too




ooook....discussion is over if you didn't want to continue just not start it
thanks

[King of Thessaly]

Please keep the whole "Macedon is Greek" to another thread before this one becomes a flame war. Up tomorrow

[heir of parthians]

Well...I have proofs,argument and you have nothing at all...it is not about people far more academic than me and you it is about my history

and if you want academic people I can raise them too




ooook....discussion is over if you didn't want to continue just not start it
thanks

I am from GR and i support that macedonians were greeks but this is only an aar it is not the right place.

[heir of parthians]

I am from GR and i support that macedonians were greeks but this is only an aar it is not the right place.

for the current subject