Completed Let's Play Europa Barbarorum (Arche Seleukeia)

[Ivar the Boner]

Update 6 - Let's wash our horses in Neilos.

Spoiler

While we were busy celebrating our conquest of Tarsos and Side we had small "persian uprising" near the heart of our empire. Eleutheroi attacked Charax catching us with our pants down. We will have to recruit some kind of small-ish Babylonian police force to keep this region in line.

Anatolia is free of Ptolmaioi presence, now we must continue our march south.

We shall march right into Ptolemaioi army and let them encircle us if they feel inclined to do so. We are Hellenes we were born without any fucks to give!

4068 Ptolemaioi vs 2270 Seleukoi? we got this shit (unless AI will be all "bork" again and we will have to attack).

Terrain is ok, those stones laying around are worrying me so we will deploy in "cleaner" place.

Here.

And here they are...

Codex is watching Sarpedon, don't fuck this up.

First Ptolemaioi skirmishers are approaching.

Peltastai get ready!

Pewoi Pewoi

Look at my Phalanx, ye mighty, and despair!

Wait for Peltastai to get behind our lines!

This first attack is just to annoy us until main Ptolemaioi force arrives.

We have to reorganize our left flank because Ptolemaioi outnumbers us badly and I'm afraid that they might encircle us.

We dealt with first suicide attack and now we must wait for enemy to engage our phalanx.

And here they are.

They even send their general charging, which is not as stupid as it sounds, in RTW heavy cav CAN break phalanx formation charging it from the front simply because it's heavier.

There is shitton of them but they concentrate their effort on our left flank.

We can either try to save our left flank or attack their left and hope we can break them faster.

And we are going to mess up their left because for some reason it's weaker (Wasn't left flank traditional "honorary" position for elite troops in greek armies?)

That's what I was afraid of, Ptolemaioi fucked up our center by charging it with heavy cav.

Now we must "collapse" our army on them.

Which we just did and encircled army that has two times as many soldiers. Hannibal ain't got shit on Sarpedon.

Then we smashed their lines from behind killing one of their generals.

Now we just keep charging their phalangitai with our cavalry completely ruining their day.

Main body of Ptolemaioi is routing but our left flank is still in deep shit.

We are sending survivors from center and right to help our encricled left flank.

Now they know how it feels to be raped from all sides.

Left flank is saved.

And main body of ptolemaioi phalanx regrouped, we have to prepare for another attack.

All Ptolemaioi generals are dead so egyptians pretty much rout on contact with our troops.

STAB STAB STAB

Yeah, you better fucking run.

And that's it, now our cav have to clean up this running mess.

Seleukeia strong!

And horse niggers are back. But this time we are prepared!

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Update 7 - Let's wash our horses in Neilos (And Happy Fun Times in Eastern Front).

Spoiler

We destroyed Ptolemaioi army last update but Sarpedon also lost many soldiers. He is too far from Antiocheia for us to send him any soldiers, he will have to rely on mercenaries.

Another desparate attempt to stop Sarpedon. This should be easy so just a short recap:

Our skirmishers got annihilated in last battle so we have to use our archers as "javelin catchers".

Battle is much smaller but plan stays the same, wait for enemy Phalangitai to engage ours, crush their one flank and then "collapse" our army on enemy survivors.

Plan worked but Ptolemaioi are extremely hard to brake because we failed to kill their general.

Sarpedon's army is getting thinner and it will be clusterfuck of random mercenaries before we reach Alexandria.

On the bright side, Ptolemaioi got only two things to defend alexandria with - Jack and Shit.

Another settlement got besieged by horse niggers, this time its Ubermanschen-Alexandria. I hope they will try to assault the walls and won't starve us to death.

Almost there...

Meanwhile, eastern front looks all scary again, Parthians are everywhere and we simply can't fight them in open field, we must hope they will try to attack our cities.

They decided to attack, but we are prepared this time!

Pahlavans are eager to take this city but our Glorious Captain Theodotos got a plan!

First, we will welcome them with Storm of Persian Arrows (tm)

Then they will have to go through our phalanx hidden between buildings to minimize damage done by their archers.

And finally, if all else fails, they will have to do it all over again but this time we have two phalanx formations!

What if they will try to go around us sir?

Shit, haven't thought about that...

It's too late to change our plan anyway!

Pepper those bastards with arrows!

Τὸ πλοῖόν μου τὸ μετεωριζόμενον ἐστι πλῆρες ἐγχελέων!

SMASH!

Dafuq is taking them so long?

Bastards have Sarmatian mercenaries, those fuckers where white so I have to think about different racial slur for them.

Banner bearer defending mighty Captain Theodotos with his live.

And then I was liek, why my archers are dropping dead?

Shieeet.

Contact with our military machine forced Pahlavans to develop shields, in five minutes.

I send our reserves to deal with this "situation" in city center.

And they did fine, killing Pahlavan general (random captain).

And Pahlavans finally figured out that this is fucking retarded and are going home.

I hope Hellenes like horse meat. Poles frown upon eating horse meat as eating "trash food" (Horses were... not a rarity in Poland, to say the least).

And now it's Apameia's turn. I won't show you that because it will be exactly the same deal.

Basileukoi Seleukoi Armoikoi Randomoi Clusterfuckoi Merkenaroi reached Alexandria and we will have to take it next turn because Ptolemaioi managed to pull army from their asses.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

Moar!

Kill the Egyptian scum!

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Update 8 - Let's wash our horses in Neilos and Why There Should Be an End to the Fighting?

Spoiler

Sarpedon is right now sieging Alexandreia and east is sucessful at defending itself against Pahlava. It is Basileus will to put "kingdom" of Pontos back in line. They are rebels and will be treated as such, there will be no peace or "protectorate", Pontos shall be ours and Theodoros recieved strict orders to attack, beat and conquer Pontos... well the real reason is that our economy collapsed under weight of our phalanx, we need more shit... now. And don't you fucking laugh Armenia, you are next!

Ptolemaioi decided to break the siege of Alexandreia (Because that worked so well every fucking time they tried?).

Our mighty phalanx is greaty reduced in numbers and now we must rely on our mercenaries. But it's not that bad, we managed to recruit quite nice stuff. Cretan archers who are badass and can put up a fight in melee if need be, "reformed" hoplitai who are not really hoplitai since they are no longer are using hoplon and some Thracian skirmishers who are mix between skirmishers and shock infantry.

Men, fight well and be brave, we can seal the fate of Alexandreia on this field so fight well and remember that you are sons of Heracles and Achilles!

We can't be sons of Heracles and Achilles, sir! this is physically impossible

Shut the fuck up and do your job!

Ptolemaioi must be really desperate, they are sending niggers at us!

Open fire!

My archers decided to target Nubians and Ethiopians (I haven't told them to, I promise).

Peltastai prepare to throw javelins while my Pezhetairoi show how much they don't give a fuck by facing wrong direction.

Okay, Peltastait retreated behind our lines and our Phalangitai un-fucked their facing.

Pezhetairoi hold enemy general in one place and we prepare sneaky flanking manauver.

There might be ancestor of Spartakus somwhere among our Thracians mercs.

Ok, Ptolemaioi might be using niggers against civilized people (atrocity) but we have to give them one thing, their generals are fucking hard to break.

We ordered our Kretan Archers to join the fun.

And Ptolemaioi general died fighting like a real man.

And here goes relieve force, now we must prepare to deal with Alexandreia garrison.

Jesus christ, they were running all the way here and they will be exhausted before they reach us.

But that's their problem.

General of Alexandreia garrison have beastly amount of bodyguards, he must be a heir.

Ballsy heir, or just stupid.

And there goes their general (and their morale).

Galatians are not to be messed with, fortunately for us, they are dead tired.

We wait for enemy phalanx to engage ours...

And then we flank them.

I really like how those Thracians look, I might even keep them.

And there goes their galatians, their army, and their Alexandreia.

Only 12 survivors, Alexandreia is ours!

Cameraman decided to show me that Macedonians landed in anatolia so I don't know how happy (or unhappy) population of Alexandreia is, I will "occupy" it and hope it won't rebell.

Nope, they are not happy at all, we should have enslaved them (that makes people happy in this game, true story).

Good news is, we can retrain and recruit EVERYTHING here without any need of installing new government since Ptolemaioi are also sucessor state of Alexander's empire.

But we had to move our capital closer (to Damaskos) to keep population loyal.

 

[Storyfag]

Wouldn't Antiocheia be a more natural capital choice for the Seleukoi? Many of them, after all, were called Antiochos...

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

But it was. After a while.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Wouldn't Antiocheia be a more natural capital choice for the Seleukoi? Many of them, after all, were called Antiochos...

Arche Seleukeia starts the game with capital in Antiocheia but we had to move it so Seleukeia to "balance" our taxes. I tried to make Antiocheia our capital again but unfortunately Alexandreia still had revolt risk and we had to move it to Damaskos. I'm 90% sure that we will be under siege next turn so last thing I wanted was losing soldiers in revolt so we had to make Damaskos our capital, which is really bad choice becuse it's not really in the center of our "empire".

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Oh and our Macedonian "allies" landing in Asia Minor are also worrying me, contrary to popular believe you can keep your allies "loyal" in RTW by sending them gifts every turn, but I did not expect Pontos to be so calm and I never send Macedonians any gifts and I'm pretty sure they will attack us. Especially since AI "judge" your power by faction rating, and according to that we are barely more powerful than Rome and equals to Carthage so I don't think Macedonian will be very afraid.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Update 9 - Mountains of Kappadokia

Spoiler

Macedonian expedition in asia minor is too small to take Pergamon but just the right size to siege Sardis, coincidence? I don't think so but there is not much we can do about it. We will send few soldiers from Ipsos to Sardis to strengthen our garrison.

Because one does not simply disobey will of Basileus and Theodoros recieved orders to put down Pontic king, not to deal with Macedonians.

Ptolemaioi besieged Alexandreia but we managed to retrain some of our soldiers.

Pahlava is back. I think Apameia garrison can deal with it unless Parthians will try to starve us to death.

Still no idea with Macedonians wants here, we moved soldiers from Sardis back to Ipsos just in case.

Now we have to take Mazaka and then quickly continue our march towards Amaseia.

No point in showing you whole siege, we took the city and lost around 200 men doing it.

Mazaka is quite happy because it is our former territory (with level 3 government already in place).

Info about place we just captured, I hope you can read it from my screenshots.

I will write it down because Codex made screenshots quite small.


Message Received
Theodoros Syriakos

The land of Kappadokia and most recently its chief city of Mazaka is now under the control of your soldiers. Our geographer in the region has prepared a report on it to inform you better of the area (Strabo 121):
Kappadokia is a country of many parts. The inhabitants do speak the same language generally. It lies in the "isthmus" between the Euxeinos and the coast of Kilikia. It was divided into satrapies by the Persioi at the time it was taken over by the Makedones; the Makedones allowed one part of the country to change to kingdoms instead of satrapies (that of Pontic Kappadokia), but not the other. Melitene is a region in its lands and produces not only olive oil but also Monarite wine, that rivals the Hellenic wines. Parts of the land to the south are broad hollowed plains that produce everything but evergreen trees, and it is surrounded by mountains on all sides, sometimes with deep and narrow valleys. Mazaka is the metropolis of the people, and is also called Eusebeia, It is situated below the Argaios, the highest mountain of all, whose summit never fails to have snow upon it; and those who asced it (there are very few) say thatin clear weather borth seas, borth the Pontos and the Issian Sea are visible from it. Now in general Mazaka is not naturally a suitable place for founding a city, and it is even without walls for a long time. Further, the districts around it are utterly barren and untilled, although they are level, but they are rocky and sandy underneath. Volcanic plains and firepits are found not too much further on . So you see the necessities of life must be brought from a distance. But the Argaios has forests all around and timber is close at hand and cold water underground. In some places the ground is marshy and flames rise from it at night. The people acquainted with the country can work it for timber, but it is perilous for others, and especially for cattle, whichfall into the hidden firepits. But the king preferred this place because of all places in the country this was the nearest to the center of the region and did contain timber and stone. But in other parts of the region there is excellent country, not only in respect to fruits but also for grain and all kinds of cattle. Komana is in the northeast of the province, and it is a populous city and notable emproion for the people from Armenia. At times of the "exoduses" of the goddess, people assemble there from everywhere, from borth the cities and the country, men and women, to attend the festival. And the inhabitants live in luxury, and all their property is planted in vines; and there is a multitude of women who make profits from their own bodies, most of which is then dedicated to the godddess, for in a way the city is a lesser Korinthos, for there too, on account of the multitude of courtesans, who were sacred to Aphrodite, outsiders resorted in great numbers and kept holiday. And the merchants and soldiers who went there squandered all their money, so that the following proverb arose in reference to them: "Not for every man is the voyage to Korinthos."

Now we leave Mazaka and push right into Amaseia. Mazaka is at 60% loyalty and we started to recruit small garrison there so it should not rebell.

Now Sarpedon Nikesas Alexandreias (I have no bloody idea what those titles we got for capturing Alexandria means but I will use them anyway!), Satrap of Aigyptos (this title I gave him myself because I'm a title-whore) have to break the siege of Alexandreia, and I also won't show you this battle because it's time to make some progress.

I said I won't show you this battle but I think that something is terribly wrong here.

When your garrison tries to break the siege enemy army will move back to get out of range of your towers. Well, here they can't do that because centering on this map is all fucking wrong.

Ptolemaioi got decimated by my towers while we move our soldiers out of the city.

And then enemy phalanx fight in "loose" formation because they are constantly being shot by my towers.

Complete rape, for all the wrong reasons.

Saddest part is that they had pretty good army here.

We saved Alexandreia but we can't afford to recruit garrison so we can't leave yet because Alexandreia will rebell if left alone.

Besieged again, this time from not "broken" side but I think I will be able to beat them and recruit small garrison because we have some money now.

I decided against attacking Pontos forces and put Theodoros near mountains in hope that Pontos will attack us and we will have terrain advantage.

Ok, it's time to break the siege again.

That's how it should look like last time.

Well... pretty bad performance on my part but shit happens. Siege is lifted and I think we will be able to retrain most of our soldiers next turn.

Now it's time to end this turn and see if Pontos will attack Theodoros.

Oh, Parthians first I guess.

Even more cheese than last time, you know how it's going to end.

Yup.

And that's what I was hoping for, we can crush Pontics here.

Sweet baby jesus on fire! just look at this hill!

How fun storming that!

Peltastai open fire!

Right flank watch out for flankers. Rest of you PREPARE!

LOWER THE PIKES!

Prodromoi follow me, time to do some hammerin'!

Pontic reinforcements arrived but but their WHOLE first army broke and got completely destroyed by Prodromoi butt-charge.

Now we will wait for rest of Pontics to organize.

Form the phalanx and march!

And now it's the time for another Prodromoi butt-charge.

Mass rout like I never saw before. Now we just have to clean this mess up.

RAPE.

Now we surround Amaseia (it only have one unit as garrison, probably family member or even king).

In south Sarpedon managed to replenish his forces and leave small garrison in Alexandria. Now he siege Memphis.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Shit's going good. Egypt is basically a license to print shekels, game will become a lot easier on the financial side.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Shit's going good. Egypt is basically a license to print shekels, game will become a lot easier on the financial side.

It's going pretty great in the west, much better than I expected. East is in deep troubles though, we even have random Pahlavan stacks near Seleukeia. Well, I can cheese city defenses with stuffing streets with phalanx formations but, sooner or later, we will have to take battle to Pahlavans and I'm not very happy about prospect of fighting horse archers army.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Oh and guise, what do you think about this "medium" battle difficulty? because EB in theory gives AI higher morale on field (by giving them better generals) but it only means that they will be raped longer, but still raped. If you are not really interested in watching me destroying stacks of 5 thousands Pontics we can restart on VH/VH as Arverni and get raped by romans or something*

*I'm shitposting in my own LP to move to another page and stop Storyfag's laptop from exploding.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

EB on hard/very hard becomes simply tedious. You will still win, just grind a lot more.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

Stay on medium.

Also, bump!

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Ok, we are staying on VH/Medium. I will probably change my mind about battles being too easy when we will finally fight Pahlava for real (but that's for later, first we need to take care of Ptolemaioi and Armenia).

 

[Storyfag]

*I'm shitposting in my own LP to move to another page and stop Storyfag's laptop from exploding.

The concern is appreciated, but that's not an issue during the weekends (or evenings, for that matter). It's my workplace laptop that's shit. I have a half-decent rig at home.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Update 10 - Down the Neilos.

Spoiler

They are feeding their horses way to close to heart of our empire for comfrot, I think that Armenia/Hayasdan can wait and we will have to deal with Parthians after we are done with Ptolemaioi (Pontos are pretty much dead already).

Ptolemaioi are trying to break the siege of Memphis. Well, they are only going to speed it up.

Standard deployment, long line of phalangitai, archers in the back and skirmishers in the front.

First wave of Ptolemaioi and Memphis out there in the distance.

Usually AI tries to join armies before attacking but not this time.

Our phalanx got charged from the flank by egyptian native spearmen but our Celto-Hellenic mercenary hoplitai are covering them so they should be fine.

Poke them!

Then we move our cavalry around to get behing enemy lines to butt-charge them.

Like so.

Ptolemaioi general is complete crap this time so they break quite quickly.

First wave is dealt with and now we wait for the rest to arrive.

First wave regrouped but whatever.

Second army arrived and pleasantries are over. We are going to charge them while they are facing wrong direction.

poke poke!

And then this whole "collapsing on enemy" thingy I usually do (But it works better with non-phalanx army).

Then some butt-charging and it's pretty much over.

Glorious hellenic military machine again proved it's superiority over... well, other hellenic military machine but nowhere near as glorious.

Sarpedon didn't get any cool new title for conquering Memphis, that's too bad because I love titles (especialy in language I don't understand).

At least he's Warmonger now.

Now Theodoros will have to deal with Pontic family member defending Amaseia, I will actually auto-resolve it...

Hey, it's allright. I would probably tried to be all fucking crafty and lose 3 times as many men.

Occupy, we need money and population=taxes and taxes=money. And they are pretty happy anyway.

Fuck me, We fought 3 or 4 big battles with this guy and took 4 cities and didn't get shit for it. Now we auto-resolve one battle and BAM! 'Good Tactician'.

More neat details for which we love EB but I was kinda ignoring them in this LP, and I'm very sorry for that.

And I decided to start recruiting army which will fight Parthians because to be honest Hayasdan is just chilling so we can ignore them for now.

Apameia is besieged again.

This is really getting out of hand.

Unfortunately Theodoros cannot continue his offensive because Arche Seleukeia can't wage war in winter (I think that only Sweboz and Suromatae can).

And now Ekbatana is under siege and you know what is right next to Ekbatana? Fucking Seleukeia.

Winter don't affect Aigyptos so Sarpedon can continue to "liberate" his satrapy.

And Theodoros is now only one season away from Ankyra, last bastion of Pontos.

Ok, Ptolemioi try to stop our march again.

Another standard deployment.

And I forgot that they attacked us from two sides.

We have to quickly turn around and deal with bigger force first.

I got my retarded ass surrounded but I think we have enough men to split our army in two.

We will send this lads to stop Ptolemaioi phalanx while rest is dealing with clusterfuck of spearmen and skirmishers.

Northern side is doing great thanks to cavalry support.

Meanwhile south is engaging enemy phalanx.

Our Pezhetairoi vs their Klerouchoi. No contest really.

And they fight uphill.

And to make this fight even less fair we send some Prodromoi to join the fun.

They had some native spearmen in reserve but they are leaving the field after Klerouchoi got crushed.

Sarpedon's army is so experienced that it can fight surrounded, upside down, uphill, farting "Amazing Grace" and still win.

Ok, I can defend Apameia but I have my doubts about Ekbatana.

Theodoros reached Ankyra and we will asault it next turn because I want to be done with Pontos and concentrate on Pahlava (Our economy died again after we started recruiting another army).

There are some Ptolemaioi behind us but we left small garrison in Alexandreia and Memphis so I hope they will be able to hold on.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

I'd say abandon the east, focus on getting Asia Minor and Egypt quick, then turn back and slap those Andhairas with a companion train.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

I'd say abandon the east, focus on getting Asia Minor and Egypt quick, then turn back and slap those Andhairas with a companion train.

I will have to look into our auxiliary troop roster more closely because I don't want my shiny Prodromoi* to be shot down by horse archers. Maybe we would be able to make some mixed stack of hellenic Phalangitai and Persian skirmishers cav to deal with Andhairas because I don't want to abandon east (we have shitton of mines there).

*We can forget about Cataphracts because I won't be able to pull off Seleucid reform.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

What is the Seleucid reform?

 

[Whitewolf]

IIRC You should lose a few battle against Phalavan armies that have cataphracts for triggering the reform or cheat to get the reforms, you can give 2 of your FMs the necessary trait via console and you'll get your reforms after 5 years.
Type for example: give_trait "Theodoros Syriakos" ImpressedByCats and give_trait "Alexandros Syriakos" ImpressedByCats.

P.S. Good LP I will follow it.

 

[Storyfag]

Loot some cities to give your crumbling economy a temporary boost. The southern Ptolemaioi cities are much less hellenized, so are fair game for this practice.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

What is the Seleucid reform?

There are ways to reform your faction armies in Europa Barbarorum but you have to meet certain criteria. And criteria for our reforms (which gives us Cataphracts) are quite tricky:

-At least year 253BC
-Two different generals must loose a large battle (including a loss to the general's bodyguard) against a faction that uses cataphracts (Pahlav, Armenia, Baktria).

IIRC You should lose a few battle against Phalavan armies that have cataphracts for triggering the reform or cheat to get the reforms, you can give 2 of your FMs the necessary trait via console and you'll get your reforms after 5 years.
Type for example: give_trait "Theodoros Syriakos" ImpressedByCats and give_trait "Alexandros Syriakos" ImpressedByCats.

P.S. Good LP I will follow it.

Oh, So our generals can survive battle with cataphracts to get this reform? Well, that changes thing a bit because I thought we have two lose two armies and two generals to have it. Thanks, we actually may have "tanks of ancient world" in this LP!

Loot some cities to give your crumbling economy a temporary boost. The southern Ptolemaioi cities are much less hellenized, so are fair game for this practice.

I spared Alexandria and Memphis to have large recruiting centers in the south. But you are right, we will enslave the crap out of other Ptolemaioi cities.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Update 11 - Drums of Gaugamela (It's a bad plan that cannot be changed)

Spoiler

Royal Palace
Seleukeia:

... That's only a raiding party.

Raiding party of 5 thousand men! Ekbatana will not withstand such attack!

Then what should we do? Sarpedon is in Memphis and Theodoros somwhere in anatolia!

We need another army.

We can bearly afford to maintain armies we already have.

Higher the taxes then.

They are already too high and people are rebelling, remember what happened in Charax?

Key to the empire lies in Babylonia and Babylon itself is in danger. We will recruit another army.

But...

We will recruit another army even if we will have to sell Alexandros sarcophagus to finance it. We will have another army and I will lead it personally.

That's impo...

Basileus has spoken!

I'm serious about selling this empty sarcophagus to finance soldiers to fight Andhaira.

Fortunately Parthians decided to attack Ekbatana with only one stack.

But we have a problem here. City center is open so we can't block roads to it with phalangitai.

We will have to defend the walls.

If we just managed to burn down this one ram, we would be golden.

Nope, it's not going to happen.

Yeah, they managed to squize through and are flanking our phalanx.

I brought General Companions into the fray to occasionaly poke few guys.

Holy crap Andhairas broke!

We are going to make sure this side will not regroup and then charge the other guys from behind.

Because our phalangitai in the east are not having good time.

Andhaira saw that one coming and tries to intercept us with their heavy cavalry.

Our companions are getting their asses kicked.

I told phalangitai from the west to drop their sarissa and just charge hoping that shock will break parthian infantry.

Then we had to save our general by telling companions to fall back into the city.

We had to form phalanx again because another wave is coming.

Andhairas are tired and their morale is getting too low.

But their heavy cavalry received better trainning.

Not good enough to charge through wall of pikes though.

We were lucky that they attacked with only one stack (and really shitty stack to be honest).

But they will be back, oh they will.

They are already back, at least in Apameia.

Aaand I left one Ptolemaioi town west of Alexandreia alone hoping it won't be a problem. But they managed to pull army from their asses again. Well, shit I'm not going to bring Sarpedon back so we have to hope that Alexandreia garrison will be able to deal with it.

Sarpedon is busy sieging Diospolis-Megale anyway.

Basileus gathered few phalangitai and some ragtag of skirmishers/archers and begun his march to Ekbatana hoping to gain more soldiers on the way.

I said we will assault Ankyra but I don't think its worth it really. It is too much of a shithole to lose soldiers taking it. We will starve the garrison.

Ptolemaioi decided to assault Alexandreia. You bastards may have nicked Megas Alexandros body but we will keep his sarcophagus!

They are attacking from two sides so we have to abandon the walls and make our stand in the center of city.

Main road is blocked and we leave one unit of phalanx in reserve to deal with unexpected flanking manauvers.

Ha! our towers destroyed their ram and they will have to climb the ladders.

Welcome to Alexandreia city center motherfuckers!

Poke poke poke

I told you we can count on our garrisons!

And Andhairas were at it again in Apameia. This time they used their cavalry so we suffered heavy losses.

And body stealers are sieging Alexandreia again. We didn't have a chance to even replenish our garrison there but I think we still got this.

 

[Storyfag]

FFS, leave that sarcophagus alone. Just loot Diospolis. Or even Ankyra!