Ex Roma ad Stellas -- I:R to Stellaris Megacampaign, Part One

[RedTemplar]

Ex Roma ad Stellas

An Imperator: Rome - Stellaris Megacampaign
Part 1​

Introduction

Salve, friends!

Almost a year has passed since my German CK2 AAR crashed and burned due to a hard drive implosion, sending a great deal of hard work and writing up in smoke. That frustration experience led to a temporary bit of burnout, and I took a break from my writing for awhile. But, the Paradox megacampaign bug is always biting at me, and now, with the renaissance of Imperator: Rome blooming, it seems like a great time to jump back into the arena and attempt my most ambitious megacampaign yet -- as the title, "From Rome to the Stars" suggests, we will be going from I:R all the way to Stellaris in one grand campaign of gameplay and writing.

One of the most fun things about AAR campaigns, for me, has always been the exploration of how the world might turn out radically different if the historical events we take for granted happened differently. What if the Holy Roman Empire conquered all of Europe and the Holy Land? What if the Estonians remained pagan and dominated eastern Europe? What happens when fascist France kicks off World War 2? What if Basque nobles united Spain, Italy, and Anatolia? Every campaign allows for creativity in imagining a world very different from our own -- so what could be better than beginning at the earliest possible start, when even the Roman Empire stands open to change?

In our own timeline, Rome dominated the Mediterranean and build one of history's greatest empires spanning from Brittania to Iberia, Africa to the Middle East, Gaul to Greece. What if, in this case, Rome expands even further? What if it never expands beyond being a major regional power? What if the east and west never split? What if Carthage proves to be an ally and trade partner instead of a rival? When the AAR begins in Rome's infancy, almost anything can happen, and as we build from game to game, we will have the chance to build an entirely different world to explore.

This will be very different from my previous AARs, if only because it includes several new games. I have never done an I:R AAR before, and all of my previous campaigns have used CK2 and Victoria 2. This project, however, will flow from I:R --> CK3 --> EU4 --> Victoria 3 --> HoI4 --> Stellaris, marking the first time CK3 and V3 have ever been included in one of my projects. That means three new games to learn, and plenty of room for amateur mistakes to throw fun wrinkles into our journey!

We will begin in I:R playing as Rome itself. I know that it's more trendy to play other, smaller nations, but considering the entire history of this period is driven by Rome, why not place ourselves in the driver's seat and see what happens? If Rome survives, we may continue from that perspective, but it's entirely possible we will play as several other states as the game evolves. Given that I'm rather new to the game, I wouldn't be surprised if our Roman Empire ends up looking significantly different from history's, anyway!

Our initial game setup will be as follows:

Imperator: Rome 2.0.4
Imperator: Invictus
Timeline Extension for Invictus
TE: Crisis of the Third Century

While I will not cheat to give myself an advantage, I will make use of console commands and reloading as necessary to mitigate the inevitable jankiness and bugginess that comes with any grand strategy game -- unfortunate setbacks are fun, but game-breaking bugs are not. I'll keep it fair, but I'll also try to keep the game from breaking. Tag switching is also useful to analyze other nations, which helps with story-building.

Our approach to writing will incorporate a mixture of genres. I've found a lot of success writing in a history book format, but I often find myself wantingo to write deeper, character-driven narratives set in the world I'm building. I took that approach in my German AAR, though sometimes too much narrative makes the story progress too slowly. I:R is a game of nation building and map painting, but it also has the potential for some great intrigue and character writing. As such, I'll be writing in multiple formats, depending on what's happening in the world and how I feel most compelled to tell a story. This is a long project, so I'll try to keep the writing styles and perspectives varied enough to keep things interesting. The narrative will mostly be told from the Roman perspective, but as other nations rise and fall, I'll also cover those events in their own posts sometimes, as well.

I hope that many of my prior readers will enjoy coming along for this journey, and as my project passes through multiple games, I hope to make some new friends and fans, as well -- having friends along for the ride is what makes these projects fun! And of course, I have to give a shoutout to the great modders responsible for the string of converters that make these great projects possible, so thank you to everyone invovled in the various game-to-game converters for your service to our community!

Finally, I will point out that I am neither an advid Roman historian nor a Latin scholar, so I fully expect some inaccuracies and misstatements. If you're a subject matter expert, feel free to chime in, but part of the fun of building an alternate history AAR is that you don't need to have a full, in-depth knowledge of the vanilla history, just a desire to create something fun and (vaguely) historically plausible.

With that, I will end for now -- there's work to be done getting opening posts ready, but I wanted to get this introduction down to plant my flag in the ground, and invite you all to enjoy an alt-history journey through two thousand-plus years of alternate history!

 

[crisrko]

Subbed! I'm here for the long ride.

 

[Nikolai]

Subbed! I'm here for the long ride.

So am I!

 

[HistoryDude]

Another @RedTemplar megacampaign? And it starts in Imperator? Sign me up. There seems to be a lot of megacampaigns starting in I:R lately. I really need to get back to mine...

 

[RedTemplar]

Another @RedTemplar megacampaign? And it starts in Imperator? Sign me up. There seems to be a lot of megacampaigns starting in I:R lately. I really need to get back to mine...

Yeah, the revival of the game on YouTube seems to have sparked a lot of people to come back to the game -- I've been itching to start again for a bit now, and this seems like a great excuse to do it! I never got into I:R back in the day, but I'm loving it now as I'm doing some educational playthroughs,

 

[RedTemplar]

Chapter I - Italia Romana
450 AUC / 304 BC​

Introduction
According to its own internal mythology, Rome was founded on the Palatine Hill by Romulus in the 8th century BC, and it was ruled by a series of seven kings until 509 BC. The forceful overthrow of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus ended the era of the Roman Monarchy, and the subsequent election of Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus as the first Consuls marked the beginning of the age of the Roman Republic.

Quickly, the fledgling Republic came into contact with its neighbors, waging a long series of wars of expansion to spread Roman borders. Although they suffered some defeats, such as at the Battle of the Cremera in 477 BC and the historic sacking of Rome by the Sennonians in the early 4th century BC, the Romans rapidly rose to power in central Italy and became one of the most influential peoples in the region.

Less than a century after the sacking of Rome, the Republic held a strong position along the Mediterranean coastline in central-south Italy, having overcome the Etruscans and the Samnites in the Second Samnite War. But it was not enough for the Romans to be a regional power and the masters of the lands surrounding their Latin homeland -- they were prepared to carve a much bigger and brighter future for Rome, and the journey to that dominance began with the most pressing task at home: the conquest and domination of the Italian peninsula. Only when Italy was properly secured could the Republic prepare to spread its ambitions abroad, and so the task of the next generation of Roman leaders was to subdue each of Rome's neighbors in turn, uniting the peninsula under a single banner.

Ch. I.i: The Consulate of Publius Sempronius Sophus and Publius Sulpicius Saverrio - 304 BC - 299 BC
304 BC saw the Roman Republic fresh off the conclusion of the Second Samnite War, celebrating its victory over the Etruscans and the Samnites after more than 20 years of violent campaigning. The Republic had defeated two of its principal rivals, expanding its territory further south at their expense, and now stood poised for its incoming Consuls to guide its next steps on its rise to power in Italy.

The Consular Election of 304 BC saw the elevation of Publius Sempronius Sophus and Publius Sulpicius Saverrio to leadership in Rome. With a population high on victory and hungry for further conquests, the two Optimates were eager to point Rome's military might toward a new target -- the truces with Etruria and Samnium would not last forever, and it would be important for the Republic to expand its reach and grow its military and economic might ahead of an inevitable showdown with its largest and most powerful rivals. Much of the first year of their consulate was spent drumming up expansionist sentiment in the Senate and arguing over which of Rome's neighbors to target next.

Thanks to the truces that ended the Second Samnite War, expansion to the northwest and southeast were extremely limited by the wide borders of Etruria and Samnium. But in the northeast, the Italic states of Picentia, Umbria, and Sabinia had formed a defensive coalition to protect themselves against Roman aggression. In this alliance, the Senate saw the opportunity to subdue three neighboring states at once, and gave approval for a campaign against them.

In September of 303 BC, the Consuls gathered a force of 17,000 men and marched them northward, splitting the levy in two as they went. Publius Sempronius Sophus led his force into western Sabinia to capture Nequinium, while Publius Sulpicius Saverrio took his force to the northeast, laying siege to the Picentian stronghold at Aternum.

Saverrio's army led an extended siege of Aternum undisturbed, but Sophus was forced to abandon his march into Sabinia to respond to an Umbrian incursion into Peltuinum, which the enemies of Rome were able to briefly occupy. Sophus' men marched out to relieve Peltuinum and, joined by reinforcements from the Roman feudatories, clashed with Umbrian troops. The Umbrian soldiers were skilled, but their strategic leadership was lacking -- Sophus was able to thoroughly outmaneuver the Umbrians, despite fighting in a narrow pass, and routed them after several days of battle.

With the largest army of the confederation scattered, the alliance of Italic states was unable to fend off further Roman aggression. Aternum fell, opening the gateway to Umbria and eastern Sabinia, and before long, Roman troops had subdued the entire region. The surrender of the three Italic states was formally accepted on June 26 of 301 BC, concluding nearly two years of fighting with the conquest of all three Italic states.

But Sophus and Saverrio were not content to simply annex their Italic neighbors. In September of 300 BC, just one year after the campaign against the central Italic states had concluded, the Consuls initiated an attack on the Sennonians in Ariminum. Venextos Brennus, the leader of the tribe, could muster only 2,000 men to stand against the Roman levies, and was powerless to oppose sieges in Ancona and Sena. The Sennonian Gauls folded quickly under Roman aggression; but while victory seemed inevitable, it was not to be savored by Sophus and Saverrio. In October of 299 BC, their term ended with the election of 455 AUC, leaving their successors to claim the glory of final victory along the Adriatic coast.

Publius Cornelius Barbatus and Gaius Claudius Crassus would lead Rome for the next five years, and their goal would be to continue Rome's successes and exceed the conquests of their predecessors.

 

[RedTemplar]

And so we begin! Yes, the opening years of a campaign as Rome are a bit flat and predictable -- before we get to any of the -real- fun, we have to knock off our Italian neighbors and get the peninsula united. Considering Rome's strength, it shouldn't be too hard of a task, and before long the Romans will be bickering over who to conquer next.

At least in the beginning, covering the five-year terms of the consuls and their achievements is a simple storybook/history book format, and I can feel free to pepper in some narrative where interesting events occur. I suspect the form may shift a bit as Rome's identity develops and the world around her takes shape, but for now... We've got a peninsula to conquer!

 

[Killcrazy13]

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to see where this goes.

 

[RedTemplar]

Ch. I.ii: The Consulate of Publius Cornelius Barbatus and Gaius Claudius Crassus: 299 BC - 294 BC

The election of 299 BC was a wartime election, held as the levies of the Roman Republic were engaged against Gallic barbarians in the northern end of the peninsula. Publius Sempronius Sophus and Publius Sulpicius Saverrio had concluded their term by attacking the Sennonians, and when Publius Cornelius Barbatus and Gaius Claudius Crassus took office in October, the first order of business for the Optimate co-consuls was to wrap up the battle against the Sennonian's allies in Lingonia.

The Lingonians, for their part, did not fare any better than their allies to the south. While they did inflict a naval defeat on Rome's very small fleet, they were unable to halt or even slow the advance of Roman troops into Ravenna. The lands of both tribes were annexed in their entirety, extending Rome's borders north across the River Padus and to the border with Insubria.

With the war of their predecessors now completed, Publius and Gaius could turn their attentions toward forging their own legacy of conquest. While the victories of the previous two Consuls had enlarged Rome's territory, the newly-elected Optimates wanted to set their sights on a much bigger target: Rome's ancient rivals, the Samnites. The truce between the two nations was set to expire in November of 298 -- so when the northern tribes surrendered just three months before the expiration of the truce, Rome's levies were ordered to immediately turn and march southward to the Samnite border.

Roman troops crossed into Samnium in February of 297 BC, and were met in battle by the combined forces of the Samnites and their allies in Lucania. These Italic states put up much stronger opposition than the northern barbarians, and their troops were able to delay Rome in several field battles while smaller forces liberated conquered territories in the north. However, in spite of their spirited resistance, the Samnites and Lucanians likewise ultimately fell to Roman aggression, and were both absorbed into the Republic in August of 296 BC, after a year and a half of fighting.

At this point, having conquered the Sennonians and the Lingonians in the north and the Samnites and Lucanians in the south in back-to-back campaigns, the Roman soldiers should have gone home to rest and enjoy the rewards of their victory. But in the waning months of the campaign in Lucania, critical news reached the consuls in the field: Etruria was embroiled in a bitter civil war.

The news of Etruria's division was a major development for Rome. The Etruscans were the only Italic people that the Roman senate were wary of, as it was the only state with an army large enough to pose a significant threat to the otherwise indomitable Roman army. Most senators had accepted the fact that Rome would have to conquer the rest of the peninsula before taking up arms against Etruria in an extended campaign, but that all changed when they learned of the rebellion led by the young upstart Elbio Vulturreno. The Etruscan loyalists, led by Laurentius Bernius Porcius, had largely beaten the rebels back by this point, but they had done so at a great cost of life. The Etruscan levies were severely depleted, and they had come to rely heavily on their barbarian allies in Ingaunia and Boi to help put down the last of the rebel forces.

So, while the Roman soldiers were eager to return home after fulfilling their duty fighting for several consecutive years, the opportunity to strike at Etruria in a moment of weakness was too good for the Senate to overlook. The army turned back northward, and the Senate authorized the funding to hire a large band of Etruscan mercenaries based in Pupluna to aid in the campaign. In February of 295 BC, Usele Ultimne's mercenaries advanced into southern Etruria while the Roman levies marched further north into Boi. The mercenary forces laid siege to the city of Vesnth, buying time for the Romans to march through Boi and prepare to attack Etruria from behind to crush the nation from two directions at once.

Only one major field battle took place during the invasion, and it occurred at Vicus Varianus in Boi-controled Aemilla. There, a force of some 8,000 Etruscian warriors -- a fraction of their army before the civil war -- clashed with a Roman force twice its size as they defended Boi's borders against incursion. Although the Etruscans were outnumbered two-to-one, they gave their Roman enemies 12 days of intense battle, killing several thousand Romans before they were finally routed. Though the cost of life was significant, this opened the northern front and allowed Rome to quickly occupy Boi in preparation for a march into Etruria through the mountain pass.

All the while, the mercenaries in the south captured Vesnth and proceeded to march unopposed through southern Etruria, rapidly occupying one province after another while the Romans were fighting to the north. One by one, the Etruscan strongholds fell to their march, heralding their inevitable defeat. Years earlier, the Etruscans had fielded one of the largest armies on the peninsula, able to match the Romans in size and strength. But, drained by the infighting of their civil war, they lacked the strengh to repel the Roman invasion.

When the two men's terms came to an end in 294 BC, all of Etruria was occupied save for Liguria to the far north. Publius Cornelius Barbatus and Gaius Claudius Crassus would be remembered as the men who led the march into Etruria, but the surrender of the Etruscans would have to be received by their successors.

 

[RedTemplar]

We continue through the first couple posts of the inevitable spread of Rome across the peninsula, in preparation for turning the Roman machine outward on the rest of the world. But I definitely got a welcome surprise when Etruria got pulled into a civil war -- I was expecting them to be a tough "final boss" fight of this first process, but they were weakened to the point that it became a pretty easy steamroll. A few more conquests, and it won't be long before the debate of which neighbor to strike at first!

 

[Nikolai]

I hope you're better at the game than I, when I expand to the rest of the Italian peninsula and beyond, I keep getting uprisings and provinces slowly losing loyalty, with no way to fix it.

 

[RedTemplar]

I hope you're better at the game than I, when I expand to the rest of the Italian peninsula and beyond, I keep getting uprisings and provinces slowly losing loyalty, with no way to fix it.

I wouldn't count on it! I have basically zero experience with this game. I watched some tutorials/guides on Youtube and watched a couple of early campaign videos, but I can assure you I really have on idea what I'm doing here lol. The beginning is easy enough since most of Rome's neighbors are small and weak compared to them, but I have a feeling I'm going to be in for a rough ride once I finally get out into the big kid world and start facing off with the likes of Carthage and the Diadochi.

 

[Nikolai]

Make sure to get the legions up and running (IIRC you need at least one law change and some techs) and half the work is done.

 

[RedTemplar]

Make sure to get the legions up and running (IIRC you need at least one law change and some techs) and half the work is done.

Actually, I've read quite a few sources that say that Legions are actually a step down. They may be high quality, but they cost more and significantly reduce your levy size... I may end up putting legions off until later when my economy is a bit more robust. My initial tech choices have mostly tried to focus on getting the grand theater and trying to get some happiness / assimilation bonuses where I can.

 

[Killcrazy13]

Actually, I've read quite a few sources that say that Legions are actually a step down. They may be high quality, but they cost more and significantly reduce your levy size... I may end up putting legions off until later when my economy is a bit more robust. My initial tech choices have mostly tried to focus on getting the grand theater and trying to get some happiness / assimilation bonuses where I can.

Gameplay-wise, you can hold off on legions until the mid game where a customised force is great once you have a few military traditions optimising them. Levies are great when you stack enough experience decay reduction to allow you to collect large chunks of experience when you disband them. My thoughts are play what feels natural to you. Its hard to trip up with Rome so anything should work once your mission bonuses stack up.

Dont have much to add for the narrative as ubifying Italia is the standard bit. Looking forward to seeing where you go after that.

 

[RedTemplar]

Gameplay-wise, you can hold off on legions until the mid game where a customised force is great once you have a few military traditions optimising them. Levies are great when you stack enough experience decay reduction to allow you to collect large chunks of experience when you disband them. My thoughts are play what feels natural to you. Its hard to trip up with Rome so anything should work once your mission bonuses stack up.

Dont have much to add for the narrative as ubifying Italia is the standard bit. Looking forward to seeing where you go after that.

That seems to be the conventional wisdom that I've read -- legions are more for mid/late game. I can also see the value once you have a very wide empire -- trying to raise troops in Rome and march them all the way to Iberia or northern Gaul, or shipping them all on boats to Greece or Africa can really be a time sink, so I can see the virtue in having legions stationed abroad for faster response for wars.

And yes, not a whole lot on the narrative yet -- I really feel like the first few steps of unifying Italy is more like a glorified prologue than anything else. I'm also finding that the structure of posting per consul term is a little more restricting than I'd like, so I'll be shaking that formula up as the AAR goes on, as well. Got to get back into a writing groove and start identifying some of the stories I want to tell, but I'm looking forward to the game post-unification!

 

[HistoryDude]

The unification of Italia is proceeding well.

What's the lore reason why Consuls switched to five-year terms from one-year terms (the gameplay reason is that Paradox has five-year terms to make tracking rulers easier, but justifying it in universe could be fun)?

Is Pyrrhus doing anything yet?

 

[RedTemplar]

The unification of Italia is proceeding well.

What's the lore reason why Consuls switched to five-year terms from one-year terms (the gameplay reason is that Paradox has five-year terms to make tracking rulers easier, but justifying it in universe could be fun)?

Is Pyrrhus doing anything yet?

Yes, Etruria’s downfall was a welcome surprise! As for the term length, I hadn’t quite thought about that issue. Actually, I was considering taking the law to expand the terms to ten years to minimize the mid-war Consul changes. I don’t see any particular negatives gameplay-wise for doing so.

Where Pyrrhus is concerned, he is actually just about to make an appearance in the next post!

 

[RedTemplar]

Ch. I.iii: The Consulate of Appius Claudius Caecus and Lucius Cornelius Violens: 294 - 289 BC

Appius Claudius Caecus and Lucius Cornelius Violens were elected Consuls just as the campaign against Etruria was nearing its conclusion. A civil war instigated by Elbio Vulturreno had severely depleted the strength of the Etruscan army, leaving the country vulnerable to Roman invasion. Instead of the long, arduous, and grueling campaign that many Romans had anticipated would be needed to subdue the Etruscans, the war was a relatively easy one with only one significant field battle. Aided by a troop of Etruscan mercenaries, the war-weary Roman soldiers crushed the Etruscans and their tribal allies, finally forcing their enemies to negotiate a surrender in July of 293.

The Etruscans were forced to surrender all of their territory on the Italian mainland to Roman rule, leaving them with only a string of settlements along the Corsican coast, centered around the city at Alalia. The lands of the Boi were completely annexed into the republic, though Ingaunia escaped without losing any land. This gave the Romans total control of the Italian peninsula from the Insubrian border in the north and down to Magna Graecia as far as Apulia. With more land coming under Roman control, and the feudatories gradually becoming integrated into the Republic, Rome had risen to become, without any question, the most dominant power in the Italian peninsula.

But that status had come as the result of a period of rapid expansion -- within the span of a decade, Rome had grown from a regional power centered around the province of Latium to a sprawling regional powerhouse that occupied most of Italy. The Republic had been at war for most of that decade, and the soldiers that conquered Etruria had fought through three back-to-back campaigns. Dozens of territories and scores of new people had been added to Rome -- the Republic's population had more than doubled in the span of a decade -- and the process of integrating, pacifying, and organizing all of these new conquests was proving to be a difficult one. And so, much to the surprise of many in the Senate and in the Republic as a whole, Appius and Lucius declared no new wars during their term.

Instead, they chose to focus on the process of reorganizing and strengthening the Republic. No small sum of money was invested into the newly conquered Roman provinces, especially in the construction of theaters and other cultural hubs focused on the cultural assimilation of non-Romans. Gradually, over time, the disparate groups of Umbrians, Samnites, Lucanians, and others would come to share common experiences, practices, and traditions, leading to a more unified Republic.

But when it came to how to handle the great influx of Etruscans, the Senate was more divided.

As a result of the conquest of all of mainland Etruria, Etruscans now surpassed Romans as the most populous cultural group within the Republic. Unlike their other Italic neighbors, the Etruscans had built a large state that was wealthy enough and militarily resilient enough to pose a threat to Rome. Now that most of the Etruscans were Roman subjects, more than a few senators suggested extending the privilege of full citizenship to their former archrivals. The Etruscans, they argued, were not a lesser people, but worthy equals of the Romans, with whom they could build an even more powerful republic through cooperation. By welcoming the Etruscans into full participation in Roman society -- including, most importantly, serving in the army -- this faction of senators believed that Rome could leverage more power in the region than any of their neighbors could hope to stand up to.

Others, particularly the more cautious and self-serving Optimates, bristled at the idea of extending citizenship to anyone who was not thoroughly Roman by birth and culture. This, they feared, would dilute the privileges and influence of true Romans, leaving room for the Etruscans to overturn the Republic from within after they attained too much power. But in spite of the protests from the Optimates, the Boni and the Populares were together able to win the day, granting citizenship to the Etruscans and integrating them into the Roman army, which could now field nearly double the number of fighting men thanks to the inclusion of Etruscan warriors. With this swelling army, the Republic would be positioned well for its coming conflicts.

Ch. I.iv: The Consulate of Gaius Fabius Licinus and Gnaeus Fabius: 289 - 284 BC

For the next several years, Rome enjoyed a period of peace. The economy grew, the Republic stabilized, and the process of integrating the Roman feudatories continued. But even as a break from war refreshed the Roman Republic, the Senate was still busy planning the next conquest on the journey to the total dominance of the Italian peninsula. With all of Rome's northern rivals subdued, it was time to turn toward the last bastions in the south, and to make plans to invade what remained of the independent states in Magna Graecia. A number of wealthy city-states dotted the region, as well as the larger states of Bruttia and Messapia. Plans were laid for an invasion directed southward into Bruttia, and when Gaius Fabius Licinus and Gnaeus Fabius took office in 289 BC, they began to put that plan into action. War was declared on Bruttia in 287 BC, but not long after that war began, an unexpected intervention changed the face of the war quickly.

Pyrrhos I Aiakid had been installed as King of Epirus in his early teenage years, but was deposed in favor of Neoptolemos III during the reign of Sophus and Saverrio. After several years in exile, he returned to the Epirote throne and began to make a play for influence in southern Italy, annexing Apulia and declaring most of the Greek city-states in the south to be under his protection. So, when Rome moved against Bruttia and their Italiotian allies in Thuria, Pyrrhos responded by declaring war on Rome.

But while Pyrrhos had conquered Apulia and staked his claim to land in southern Italy, he had no meaningful forces stationed there. His declaration of war did nothing to slow the Roman advance in Italy, and only led to a swift occupation of Apulia by Roman soldiers. Bruttia gave up land both to Rome and to Hipponion, which was waging its own war at the time, and soon all enemy territory in Italy had been occupied. It would have been entirely possible to force Pyrrhos into surrender at that moment, compelling him to give up his presence in Italy, but Gaius and Gnaeus were not content to let the war end there.

At the Consuls' direction, Rome had been working on building up a proper navy after its meager fleet suffered a humiliating defeat against both barbarian and pirate fleets alike years earlier. In the summer of 286, that navy ferried 11,000 Roman soldiers across the Adriatic to Lissos, where they occupied land outside of Italy for the first time in Roman history. Pyrrhos mustered his men to rush to defend his homeland, but he found himself unable to keep pace with the reinforcements Rome was poised to bring in. Ultimately, he had no choice but to negotiate with the Romans for a peaceful surrender in order to buy himself time to regroup.

Pyrrhos' defeat proved to be a humiliating one. Not only did he have to surrender the land he'd only recently conquered in Italy, but he was also forced to concede parts of his own homeland in Illyria Graeca to the Romans, giving them their first foothold outside of the Italian peninsula. In this victory, Rome took its first steps toward establishing itself as a contender on the international stage, forcing its neighbors to see the Republic as more than a simple local power in Italy. The capture of Greek land and the expulsion of Pyrrhos' men from Apulia set the eyes of the Greek world on Rome, and spurred thoughts of Greek conquest in the Roman mind. Pyrrhos had fled home to nurse his wounds, but his conflict with Rome was far from over.

 

[RedTemplar]

And with this, we have -almost- reached the end of what we can consider a 'prologue' of the campaign. Italy is almost united, and we've even taken a small step into Greece with the defeat of Epirus. We have a little land yet to conquer in southern Italy, but the completion of that first mission tree is right around the corner!

From there, in addition to changing up my writing approach a bit, focusing more on story-based posts than just making incremental updates at each consular term, it will also be time to start considering where Rome will want to strike outside Italian borders in earnest for the first time... I think it's at that point that the storytelling potential really opens up, so along with a brief synopsis of the state of the world, we'll get to start telling some more exciting and in-depth stories on the international stage!