As the title implies, this is not a standard AAR but rather a recap and review of “The First Emperor” scenario. The scenario pits Republican Rome led by Consul Gaius Octavius (or Octavian or, later, Caesar Augustus) against the Roman Rebels led by Dictator Marcus Antonius and his erstwhile ally, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt.
I decided to see what I could do playing as the Egyptians.
THE PROTAGONISTS:
Republican Rome is huge! It contains the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, all of the Central and Western Med islands, the northern Balkans (Dalmatia, Scodra, Dardania, etc), Helvetia, all of Gaul, almost all of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa stretching from the Atlantic coast in the west all the way to Leptis Magna in the east (all of what once were Carthage and Numidia).
Rome has money, a strong economy, excellent research capabilities but not a lot of available manpower. She also has excellent leadership.
The Roman Rebels are smaller and more fragmented. Rebel territory initially consists of Macedonia, all of Greece, including Crete and Rhodes, most of Asia Minor and the Levant area stretching to Judea, which is an independent state.
The Rebels don’t have a lot of money. They do, however, possess decent manpower reserves but are hampered by a somewhat fragmented economy and trading setup. Their leadership is about average.
The Rebels also have several small allies including Judea, what’s left of the Seleucids, and a few others. They played no significant role that I could see.
Egypt is the smallest of the three protagonists, extending from Sinai in the east to Barca and Cyrenaica in the west. Egypt also holds Cyprus. The barbarian provinces of Corniclanum and Nassamones separate Egypt from Rome’s African holdings.
Egypt begins the game with a healthy treasury, strong manpower reserves, and a decent economy and trade setup. Once the game begins Egypt and the Rebels establish many mutually beneficial trade routes. At the start of this particular game Egypt was blessed with several outstanding commanders.
GOALS AND STRATEGY
As Queen Cleopatra’s military commander I decided that Egypt’s two basic goals would be to 1) survive, and 2) provide as much support to Marc Antony’s Rebels as possible.
Egypt begins the game with three armies of 25k+ each, and a fleet of 26 ships. They are all concentrated in and around Alexandria. The first question one faces is how best to use these forces to assist the Rebels. There are really only two plausible alternatives (a third, a direct invasion of Italy, I quickly discounted).
The first is to send as many troops as possible by sea to Greece where the Rebels are concentrated to attack north into Dalmatia and Scodra. Doing this would combine the forces of Cleopatra and Antony. It would also allow the Romans to concentrate everything they had right there. I decided that this option would be folly for Egypt. Even combined the Rebels and Egypt could not stand up to a Rome that could concentrate all of her strength in one area. An additional problem was that Egyptian forces in Greece would be entirely dependent upon the navy to bring in reinforcements. (Historically Antony and Cleopatra did combine forces and attack Octavian in Greece. They were soundly defeated at Actium and that spelled doom for them both.)
The second option was, to put it into modern terms, to open up a second front against the Romans. An attack from western Egypt into Roman held Africa would, I thought, force Octavian to divide his resources. Noting that Rome’s manpower level was low I thought that if Egypt could turn North Africa into a killing ground, Antony might have some success in Greece and the Balkans. Keeping goal #1 (survival) in mind, I didn’t want my queen to hitch all of Egypt’s wagons to Antony’s star. (If only Cleopatra had had me to advise her!)
THE GAME BEGINS
The scenario starts in 723 AVC. I loaded one army onto the ships and sent it to Barca. The other armies marched west along the coast and were later picked up and ferried to Barca in turn.
The Egyptians invaded Corniclanum, smashed the barbarians and started colonizing. The Romans were doing the same thing in Nassamones! The Egyptians attacked Leptis Magna, defeated a small Roman force and stormed the fort, just as the Romans finished colonizing Nassamones. So, we took Nassamones, too. Thank you very much! Throughout the remainder of the game we had to contend with the occasional barbarian outburst in those provinces.
I pushed the Egyptian armies westward into Oea and then Sabratha. Several large battles against Roman forces of 40k+ were fought. We won most of them and in one we completely annihilated a force of 35,000. I kept checking the Roman stats and their manpower was always 0. I thought my strategy might be working.
Antony’s Rebels were fighting equally huge battles in Greece and the Balkans. There were several battles pitting 70k+ Rebels against 70k+ Romans. The Rebels managed to take Scodra and attack Dalmatia. Roman losses were huge, but so were ours.
As there seemed to be no shortage of Roman troops in North Africa I started wondering where all these guys came from. I sent some ships into the western Med to the coast of Iberia. What I saw was a Roman superhighway from Gaul to Gibraltar along the Iberian coast. The Romans were pouring troops down this road, crossing into Africa at Tingis and then marching east to fight the Egyptians. It was quite impressive to see. I tried to interdict the crossing but it wasn’t easy. The closest Egyptian base was in Sabratha. Even after the Rebels managed to take the Balearic Islands it is hard to station triremes for any substantial period of time to block the crossing. Attrition is brutal and I lost too many ships in the effort. I briefly toyed with the idea of sending a force by sea to attack Rusadir or Tingis to choke off the flow of troops from Iberia, but the Egyptian forces were so engaged in the Sabratha area that I didn’t have a lot of troops to spare. Finally, I decided to let the Romans come, thinking that if we kill them in Africa, Antony won’t have to kill them in Greece.
It should be noted at this point that the Roman navy was, essentially, a non-factor in the game. They had some ships floating around and when I saw them I attacked and destroyed them. I never saw any Roman troops delivered by sea, nor did I see the Roman navy attempt to blockade any ports.
The Rebel navy, however, was very active. They were everywhere and delivered troops to attack and seize Malta and the Balearic Islands.
The Egyptian navy ruled the Eastern Med and successfully transported troops from staging areas in Alexandria, Cyrene and Barca to the battle areas further west. The Egyptian armies fighting in Sabratha and Cinithii and Thapsus would not have been able to sustain these operations without naval transport of reinforcements.
The campaign in North Africa eerily resembled the German/British battles 2,000 years later. The battles were fierce and intense, ranging from Corniclanum in the east to Thapsus in the west. Huge, decisive battles were fought between these two bookends.
After 5 years (728) I was convinced that we were hurting the Romans. Their manpower was always 0. The Roman Rebels had had some success in the Balkans, taking Scodra, Dalmatia and Ditones and defeating several large Roman armies. Their fortunes, like ours, however, went back and forth. I could tell because one month I would be trading with Scodra, then, three months later, no trade.
Then came Thapsus. An Egyptian army under the best commander available (Martial 9 + energetic+victorious+tactician, etc) had just taken Thapsus. I was reinforcing and replenishing this army of 65 units (about 50,000) when I noticed a Roman force heading to Thapsus from Theveste. Imagine my surprise when I looked at this army and saw that it had 137 units! That’s right. 137. No typo. At the same time Antony’s Rebels were fighting an army of 80+. Where were all these guys coming from????
Then, suddenly, I realized what the Romans were doing. They had 0 manpower but they had money. They were buying mercenaries. Lots and lots and lots of mercenaries. Mercenaries don’t count against manpower for start up, only for replenishment. For that first battle, if you can keep them free from attrition, mercenaries are almost a freebee (except that they cost more to raise). Rome was offsetting its manpower deficit by using its financial power to raise mercenary armies. I thought that was quite ingenious for an oft maligned AI.
To be sure I saved the game at that point and checked the file. Sure enough, in that 137 unit army bearing down on Thapsus were 64 mercenary units. Almost 50% and almost all of those were heavy infantry. WOW.
So, once this behemoth hit I immediately ordered retreat. We lost a few, but not much. Certainly the losses were far less than what they would have been had we stood and fought. The Romans retook Thapsus.
I had been staging another Egyptian army in Sabratha, so I combined it with the army that had retreated from Thapsus, thus giving me a force of nearly 90,000. It was still well short of the Roman force but I decided to attack any way.
Then the Romans did me a favor. They left about 50 units in Thapsus and sent the rest to Carthage and then west. I guess they were going to recross into Iberia and make the long march to Italy. I don’t know. The Egyptians hit the 50 depleted units in Thapsus and smashed them. The other force turned around and came back and we smashed that one, too. Defeat in detail! Napoleon would be proud.
During this period I was spammed by the Romans with White Peace Offers. I rejected them. The best warscore I had was 20%. The Romans refused to give up one single province. Not even Nassamones.
By 731 there was no end in sight after eight years of war. The Egyptians held 5 Roman provinces in Africa, and the Rebels held 4 in the Balkans plus Malta and the Balearics. Given the size of Rome 11 provinces didn’t mean much.
I was contemplating further strategy when the game ended in an abrupt and anti-climatic fashion. The player receives a short note saying that the conflict has ended, an era has passed and that an earth-changing message is coming from the Levant, an obvious reference to the Birth of Christ.
RECAP
After eight years of war against the might of Rome, Antony and Cleopatra were still standing. So, I considered that a victory. Egypt had forced Rome to divert significant resources away from fighting the Rebels. This allowed the Rebels to consolidate what they had and make some gains. No Roman ever set foot on an Egyptian province throughout the entire game. I viewed that as a victory also.
The nature of civil war in EU Rome is such that one side has to totally wipe out the other. Given the enormous size of Rome in this scenario, it is virtually impossible for the Rebels to achieve victory. The most they can hope for is stalemate.
WalterS
I decided to see what I could do playing as the Egyptians.
THE PROTAGONISTS:
Republican Rome is huge! It contains the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, all of the Central and Western Med islands, the northern Balkans (Dalmatia, Scodra, Dardania, etc), Helvetia, all of Gaul, almost all of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa stretching from the Atlantic coast in the west all the way to Leptis Magna in the east (all of what once were Carthage and Numidia).
Rome has money, a strong economy, excellent research capabilities but not a lot of available manpower. She also has excellent leadership.
The Roman Rebels are smaller and more fragmented. Rebel territory initially consists of Macedonia, all of Greece, including Crete and Rhodes, most of Asia Minor and the Levant area stretching to Judea, which is an independent state.
The Rebels don’t have a lot of money. They do, however, possess decent manpower reserves but are hampered by a somewhat fragmented economy and trading setup. Their leadership is about average.
The Rebels also have several small allies including Judea, what’s left of the Seleucids, and a few others. They played no significant role that I could see.
Egypt is the smallest of the three protagonists, extending from Sinai in the east to Barca and Cyrenaica in the west. Egypt also holds Cyprus. The barbarian provinces of Corniclanum and Nassamones separate Egypt from Rome’s African holdings.
Egypt begins the game with a healthy treasury, strong manpower reserves, and a decent economy and trade setup. Once the game begins Egypt and the Rebels establish many mutually beneficial trade routes. At the start of this particular game Egypt was blessed with several outstanding commanders.
GOALS AND STRATEGY
As Queen Cleopatra’s military commander I decided that Egypt’s two basic goals would be to 1) survive, and 2) provide as much support to Marc Antony’s Rebels as possible.
Egypt begins the game with three armies of 25k+ each, and a fleet of 26 ships. They are all concentrated in and around Alexandria. The first question one faces is how best to use these forces to assist the Rebels. There are really only two plausible alternatives (a third, a direct invasion of Italy, I quickly discounted).
The first is to send as many troops as possible by sea to Greece where the Rebels are concentrated to attack north into Dalmatia and Scodra. Doing this would combine the forces of Cleopatra and Antony. It would also allow the Romans to concentrate everything they had right there. I decided that this option would be folly for Egypt. Even combined the Rebels and Egypt could not stand up to a Rome that could concentrate all of her strength in one area. An additional problem was that Egyptian forces in Greece would be entirely dependent upon the navy to bring in reinforcements. (Historically Antony and Cleopatra did combine forces and attack Octavian in Greece. They were soundly defeated at Actium and that spelled doom for them both.)
The second option was, to put it into modern terms, to open up a second front against the Romans. An attack from western Egypt into Roman held Africa would, I thought, force Octavian to divide his resources. Noting that Rome’s manpower level was low I thought that if Egypt could turn North Africa into a killing ground, Antony might have some success in Greece and the Balkans. Keeping goal #1 (survival) in mind, I didn’t want my queen to hitch all of Egypt’s wagons to Antony’s star. (If only Cleopatra had had me to advise her!)
THE GAME BEGINS
The scenario starts in 723 AVC. I loaded one army onto the ships and sent it to Barca. The other armies marched west along the coast and were later picked up and ferried to Barca in turn.
The Egyptians invaded Corniclanum, smashed the barbarians and started colonizing. The Romans were doing the same thing in Nassamones! The Egyptians attacked Leptis Magna, defeated a small Roman force and stormed the fort, just as the Romans finished colonizing Nassamones. So, we took Nassamones, too. Thank you very much! Throughout the remainder of the game we had to contend with the occasional barbarian outburst in those provinces.
I pushed the Egyptian armies westward into Oea and then Sabratha. Several large battles against Roman forces of 40k+ were fought. We won most of them and in one we completely annihilated a force of 35,000. I kept checking the Roman stats and their manpower was always 0. I thought my strategy might be working.
Antony’s Rebels were fighting equally huge battles in Greece and the Balkans. There were several battles pitting 70k+ Rebels against 70k+ Romans. The Rebels managed to take Scodra and attack Dalmatia. Roman losses were huge, but so were ours.
As there seemed to be no shortage of Roman troops in North Africa I started wondering where all these guys came from. I sent some ships into the western Med to the coast of Iberia. What I saw was a Roman superhighway from Gaul to Gibraltar along the Iberian coast. The Romans were pouring troops down this road, crossing into Africa at Tingis and then marching east to fight the Egyptians. It was quite impressive to see. I tried to interdict the crossing but it wasn’t easy. The closest Egyptian base was in Sabratha. Even after the Rebels managed to take the Balearic Islands it is hard to station triremes for any substantial period of time to block the crossing. Attrition is brutal and I lost too many ships in the effort. I briefly toyed with the idea of sending a force by sea to attack Rusadir or Tingis to choke off the flow of troops from Iberia, but the Egyptian forces were so engaged in the Sabratha area that I didn’t have a lot of troops to spare. Finally, I decided to let the Romans come, thinking that if we kill them in Africa, Antony won’t have to kill them in Greece.
It should be noted at this point that the Roman navy was, essentially, a non-factor in the game. They had some ships floating around and when I saw them I attacked and destroyed them. I never saw any Roman troops delivered by sea, nor did I see the Roman navy attempt to blockade any ports.
The Rebel navy, however, was very active. They were everywhere and delivered troops to attack and seize Malta and the Balearic Islands.
The Egyptian navy ruled the Eastern Med and successfully transported troops from staging areas in Alexandria, Cyrene and Barca to the battle areas further west. The Egyptian armies fighting in Sabratha and Cinithii and Thapsus would not have been able to sustain these operations without naval transport of reinforcements.
The campaign in North Africa eerily resembled the German/British battles 2,000 years later. The battles were fierce and intense, ranging from Corniclanum in the east to Thapsus in the west. Huge, decisive battles were fought between these two bookends.
After 5 years (728) I was convinced that we were hurting the Romans. Their manpower was always 0. The Roman Rebels had had some success in the Balkans, taking Scodra, Dalmatia and Ditones and defeating several large Roman armies. Their fortunes, like ours, however, went back and forth. I could tell because one month I would be trading with Scodra, then, three months later, no trade.
Then came Thapsus. An Egyptian army under the best commander available (Martial 9 + energetic+victorious+tactician, etc) had just taken Thapsus. I was reinforcing and replenishing this army of 65 units (about 50,000) when I noticed a Roman force heading to Thapsus from Theveste. Imagine my surprise when I looked at this army and saw that it had 137 units! That’s right. 137. No typo. At the same time Antony’s Rebels were fighting an army of 80+. Where were all these guys coming from????
Then, suddenly, I realized what the Romans were doing. They had 0 manpower but they had money. They were buying mercenaries. Lots and lots and lots of mercenaries. Mercenaries don’t count against manpower for start up, only for replenishment. For that first battle, if you can keep them free from attrition, mercenaries are almost a freebee (except that they cost more to raise). Rome was offsetting its manpower deficit by using its financial power to raise mercenary armies. I thought that was quite ingenious for an oft maligned AI.
To be sure I saved the game at that point and checked the file. Sure enough, in that 137 unit army bearing down on Thapsus were 64 mercenary units. Almost 50% and almost all of those were heavy infantry. WOW.
So, once this behemoth hit I immediately ordered retreat. We lost a few, but not much. Certainly the losses were far less than what they would have been had we stood and fought. The Romans retook Thapsus.
I had been staging another Egyptian army in Sabratha, so I combined it with the army that had retreated from Thapsus, thus giving me a force of nearly 90,000. It was still well short of the Roman force but I decided to attack any way.
Then the Romans did me a favor. They left about 50 units in Thapsus and sent the rest to Carthage and then west. I guess they were going to recross into Iberia and make the long march to Italy. I don’t know. The Egyptians hit the 50 depleted units in Thapsus and smashed them. The other force turned around and came back and we smashed that one, too. Defeat in detail! Napoleon would be proud.
During this period I was spammed by the Romans with White Peace Offers. I rejected them. The best warscore I had was 20%. The Romans refused to give up one single province. Not even Nassamones.
By 731 there was no end in sight after eight years of war. The Egyptians held 5 Roman provinces in Africa, and the Rebels held 4 in the Balkans plus Malta and the Balearics. Given the size of Rome 11 provinces didn’t mean much.
I was contemplating further strategy when the game ended in an abrupt and anti-climatic fashion. The player receives a short note saying that the conflict has ended, an era has passed and that an earth-changing message is coming from the Levant, an obvious reference to the Birth of Christ.
RECAP
After eight years of war against the might of Rome, Antony and Cleopatra were still standing. So, I considered that a victory. Egypt had forced Rome to divert significant resources away from fighting the Rebels. This allowed the Rebels to consolidate what they had and make some gains. No Roman ever set foot on an Egyptian province throughout the entire game. I viewed that as a victory also.
The nature of civil war in EU Rome is such that one side has to totally wipe out the other. Given the enormous size of Rome in this scenario, it is virtually impossible for the Rebels to achieve victory. The most they can hope for is stalemate.
WalterS
