Unicorn McGriddle
10-06-2005, 03:41 AM
Well, I'd like to think the answer to that question is SHIT YES. History, however, may ultimately prove otherwise. Here's how my initial attempts at the new campaign (very hard/very hard, of course) have gone:
1. Sarmatians. I think the fact that their women take part in battle is SEXY AS HELL. Although instead of "Virgin Archers" and "Virgin Cavalry" I'd prefer units composed of sluts. The obvious catch is that birth control hasn't been invented yet. But maybe they can take it up the ass or something. It's just not as cool when I picture them all as some kind of lame-ass Promise Keepers.
All that aside, Sarmatians start in the middle of nowhere. They worship Pai the sky god, which is funny enough that I have to wonder if it's historically accurate. They have a big province where the cities are far apart and there aren't many roads. I had barely begun scouting around and trying to make alliances when the Vandals roared in and sacked my only city. Whoops. I thought that was game over since I hadn't read the manual.
Instead, a huge fucking army under my command materialized. Quoth I, WTF. After a few double-takes at the appropriate reference materials, I realized what had happened, although I kind of skimmed and missed some other important information. This will become relevant later. Anyway, now I had a four-stack horde.
I cruised down to Constantinople and took it -- it had huge walls but only a couple of defenders. I still had my horde! I figured it was a bug -- aren't they supposed to disband? So I disbanded all my horde units.
Shortly thereafter, the Western Empire came a-knockin'. "This boat's a-rockin'!" I said frantically, but the smug Roman diplomat pointed out that I didn't even HAVE any boats. "You people are probably too backward to make them," he said. I told him his epidermis was showing and took another city in a frantic assault that cost me most of my remaining forces. "You fool," he replied, "that joke won't work on someone who SPEAKS LATIN."
Disclaimer: "This boat's a-rockin'" was suggested -- I think by someone on this board -- as a good name for a flagship in Pirates. In a similar spirit, I'd like to offer the name I always use to anyone who will take up its standard. That name is "La Fisteuse." Maybe it's just my imagination, but I like to think that merchants flee a little faster from me.
Anyway then the Romans marched up a huge army and besieged one of my two cities, and the Goths suddenly declared war and besieged the other, and I realized how hordes really work -- you gradually lose your "horde" forces as you take cities, but you don't lose them ALL until you take THREE cities. Whoops.
I started over.
2. Saxons. The tooltip promising "excellent close-combat troops" sounded good to me. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my tier one infantry choices were two different kinds of spearmen. I looked at their stats and resigned myself to the archer-and-spearwall tactics I'd used for the Oda Clan in Shogun (with Yari Ashigaru and Musket Ashigaru) and the Russians in Medieval (I slaughtered the Mongols with Arbalesters and Pikemen).
Having made this decision, I unwisely ignored it. While I levied a number of archers, I overall built my forces with an eye to close combat. I compared Levy Spearmen and Saxon Keels and eventually decided to mostly focus on Keels due to their higher stats. MISTAKE. Keels may have slightly higher stats, but there are fewer of them -- and Levy Spearmen get javelins. So that was stupid of me.
Saxon Keels did not exactly do much for me in combat, but I managed to get stuck in anyway, taking some rebel provinces and then tangling with the Franks. I allied with Burgundy and the Lombards. My relations with the Western Empire had their ups and downs -- they allied with me several times, but broke the alliance each time. Crazy civilized bastards. Eventually we managed to get to a more natural state of permanent war, possibly with the help of a marriage counselor.
I had taken several territories from the Romans, and sent the Franks packing to Illyria (I love how migration works; it's like re-emergence but much better), when I discovered I had a problem with seemingly baseless unrest in two of my western towns. I quickly realized that those Burgundy bastards were sending in spies to encourage rebellion. I'd lost my alliance with them when they attacked the Lombards -- something it didn't occur to me to worry about at the time because I was busy fighting off the Romans with hordes of cowardly spearmen and a scant handful of newly produced Chosen Axemen.
I sent in an assassin and killed some of the spies, but not all of them. Then a couple of Burgundy diplomats started trying to bribe my garrisons. When my assassin -- may the gods piss in his post-mortem oatmeal -- bungled his job and got killed trying to off one of the diplomats, it was open war.
A reappraisal of the Burgundy situation was pretty ugly. They had conquered most of Lombardy when I wasn't looking, along with some steppe provinces. I hastily diverted the only army I could spare, planning on taking their near cities and then maybe plea-bargaining them into a protectorate. Thankfully the tide from Rome slackened. Unfortunately I couldn't exploit that.
The Burgundy war was an extremely vicious mess of sieges and counter-sieges and doomed sallies. I had no idea how to turn the Saxon selection of units to my advantage, so I wasn't doing too well. I took two of their three near cities, and was preparing to nail the third when the goths -- with whom I'd had an alliance -- attacked without warning. (The Goths and Vandals had taken advantage of my weakening the Romans to settle down in their territories to the west.)
I rushed up an army to siege the next Burgundy city, intending to conclude a swift, brutal peace in the aftermath. (At that point I would have gobbled up the prosperous and useful half of their domains.) They counterattacked. I deployed my troops thoughtlessly -- right in the corner their siege-breaking army was attacking from. It was a disaster.
Under other circumstances I would have played on, trying to recover. But DAMN I was fed up with the Saxons. Excellent in close combat my ass. Time for something a little more... civilized.
3. The Sassanids. Yeah, I know Zoroastrianism is the shitty basis of the world's worst modern religions, but apparently that's the price I have to pay to play something civilized that doesn't start with like 20+ provinces. The Sassanids start with five. I streamlined my economy, grabbed a small coastal rebel town, and marched on the Eastern Empire immediately, emphasizing Clibinarii and Horse Archers on the attack and Desert Archers and Stone Walls when defending. And some Levy Spearmen, though they felt like a ripoff because they didn't have javelins. I guess the Saxons weren't ALL bad. It's nice to finally have generals who don't have zero stars/zero management though.
So far I've taken Antioch and Tarsus, and won several major battles against the hapless Byzantines. How many more armies can they afford to throw into my meatgrinder made of camels and tin-plated horsemen? I guess I'll find out -- this campaign remains in progress.
1. Sarmatians. I think the fact that their women take part in battle is SEXY AS HELL. Although instead of "Virgin Archers" and "Virgin Cavalry" I'd prefer units composed of sluts. The obvious catch is that birth control hasn't been invented yet. But maybe they can take it up the ass or something. It's just not as cool when I picture them all as some kind of lame-ass Promise Keepers.
All that aside, Sarmatians start in the middle of nowhere. They worship Pai the sky god, which is funny enough that I have to wonder if it's historically accurate. They have a big province where the cities are far apart and there aren't many roads. I had barely begun scouting around and trying to make alliances when the Vandals roared in and sacked my only city. Whoops. I thought that was game over since I hadn't read the manual.
Instead, a huge fucking army under my command materialized. Quoth I, WTF. After a few double-takes at the appropriate reference materials, I realized what had happened, although I kind of skimmed and missed some other important information. This will become relevant later. Anyway, now I had a four-stack horde.
I cruised down to Constantinople and took it -- it had huge walls but only a couple of defenders. I still had my horde! I figured it was a bug -- aren't they supposed to disband? So I disbanded all my horde units.
Shortly thereafter, the Western Empire came a-knockin'. "This boat's a-rockin'!" I said frantically, but the smug Roman diplomat pointed out that I didn't even HAVE any boats. "You people are probably too backward to make them," he said. I told him his epidermis was showing and took another city in a frantic assault that cost me most of my remaining forces. "You fool," he replied, "that joke won't work on someone who SPEAKS LATIN."
Disclaimer: "This boat's a-rockin'" was suggested -- I think by someone on this board -- as a good name for a flagship in Pirates. In a similar spirit, I'd like to offer the name I always use to anyone who will take up its standard. That name is "La Fisteuse." Maybe it's just my imagination, but I like to think that merchants flee a little faster from me.
Anyway then the Romans marched up a huge army and besieged one of my two cities, and the Goths suddenly declared war and besieged the other, and I realized how hordes really work -- you gradually lose your "horde" forces as you take cities, but you don't lose them ALL until you take THREE cities. Whoops.
I started over.
2. Saxons. The tooltip promising "excellent close-combat troops" sounded good to me. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my tier one infantry choices were two different kinds of spearmen. I looked at their stats and resigned myself to the archer-and-spearwall tactics I'd used for the Oda Clan in Shogun (with Yari Ashigaru and Musket Ashigaru) and the Russians in Medieval (I slaughtered the Mongols with Arbalesters and Pikemen).
Having made this decision, I unwisely ignored it. While I levied a number of archers, I overall built my forces with an eye to close combat. I compared Levy Spearmen and Saxon Keels and eventually decided to mostly focus on Keels due to their higher stats. MISTAKE. Keels may have slightly higher stats, but there are fewer of them -- and Levy Spearmen get javelins. So that was stupid of me.
Saxon Keels did not exactly do much for me in combat, but I managed to get stuck in anyway, taking some rebel provinces and then tangling with the Franks. I allied with Burgundy and the Lombards. My relations with the Western Empire had their ups and downs -- they allied with me several times, but broke the alliance each time. Crazy civilized bastards. Eventually we managed to get to a more natural state of permanent war, possibly with the help of a marriage counselor.
I had taken several territories from the Romans, and sent the Franks packing to Illyria (I love how migration works; it's like re-emergence but much better), when I discovered I had a problem with seemingly baseless unrest in two of my western towns. I quickly realized that those Burgundy bastards were sending in spies to encourage rebellion. I'd lost my alliance with them when they attacked the Lombards -- something it didn't occur to me to worry about at the time because I was busy fighting off the Romans with hordes of cowardly spearmen and a scant handful of newly produced Chosen Axemen.
I sent in an assassin and killed some of the spies, but not all of them. Then a couple of Burgundy diplomats started trying to bribe my garrisons. When my assassin -- may the gods piss in his post-mortem oatmeal -- bungled his job and got killed trying to off one of the diplomats, it was open war.
A reappraisal of the Burgundy situation was pretty ugly. They had conquered most of Lombardy when I wasn't looking, along with some steppe provinces. I hastily diverted the only army I could spare, planning on taking their near cities and then maybe plea-bargaining them into a protectorate. Thankfully the tide from Rome slackened. Unfortunately I couldn't exploit that.
The Burgundy war was an extremely vicious mess of sieges and counter-sieges and doomed sallies. I had no idea how to turn the Saxon selection of units to my advantage, so I wasn't doing too well. I took two of their three near cities, and was preparing to nail the third when the goths -- with whom I'd had an alliance -- attacked without warning. (The Goths and Vandals had taken advantage of my weakening the Romans to settle down in their territories to the west.)
I rushed up an army to siege the next Burgundy city, intending to conclude a swift, brutal peace in the aftermath. (At that point I would have gobbled up the prosperous and useful half of their domains.) They counterattacked. I deployed my troops thoughtlessly -- right in the corner their siege-breaking army was attacking from. It was a disaster.
Under other circumstances I would have played on, trying to recover. But DAMN I was fed up with the Saxons. Excellent in close combat my ass. Time for something a little more... civilized.
3. The Sassanids. Yeah, I know Zoroastrianism is the shitty basis of the world's worst modern religions, but apparently that's the price I have to pay to play something civilized that doesn't start with like 20+ provinces. The Sassanids start with five. I streamlined my economy, grabbed a small coastal rebel town, and marched on the Eastern Empire immediately, emphasizing Clibinarii and Horse Archers on the attack and Desert Archers and Stone Walls when defending. And some Levy Spearmen, though they felt like a ripoff because they didn't have javelins. I guess the Saxons weren't ALL bad. It's nice to finally have generals who don't have zero stars/zero management though.
So far I've taken Antioch and Tarsus, and won several major battles against the hapless Byzantines. How many more armies can they afford to throw into my meatgrinder made of camels and tin-plated horsemen? I guess I'll find out -- this campaign remains in progress.