This is an After Action Report of my game
Rome:Total War, Total Realism Mod, Faction Ptolemaic Empire
This is my first time playing non-roman faction so I tried it on medium difficulty level. It’s my first AAR so don’t expect perfect work. I’ll focus on imaginary political events and teritorial expansion. As I usually play auto-battles - there will be no (or rare) battle reports.
In the Philadelphos Ptolemy’s court, Eqyptian faction leader, a new adviser appeared - Casius Ignaceus - of whom we don’t know too much (except he was Roman). This may not seem an important event, but he gained king’s trust very quickly, so in 280 BC he became his most trusted friend. From that point Ptolemy’s policy has changed as he followed his advisers’ suggestions in almost every situation. We don’t know why it happend - maybe he has forseen the greatness of his empire if he did so, or he noticed that this wise man from distant Rome had some kind of sense of the way to follow. We don’t know. Anyway from this point the story begins.
At the beginning of 3rd century BC Egypt ruled very big territory (among others: Iudea, Cyprus, Eastern Crete, southern coast of Asia Minor and of course - the Egypt itself), but its economy wasn’t developed enough to face contemporary empires and survive a long war. They owned most of the eastern mediteraenian coast cities, but they had almost no ports and dockyards! Even Tyr - homeland of Phoenicians - the nation of sailors - had no possibility to trade
The king decided to heal it by establishing the biggest project of food production of the whole known world. He also started to build ports and roads in order to expand trade. It was some kind risky because country spending most of its money on farms and roads was vulnerable to quick attack of more military-focused enemy. But that time the biggest Egyptian enemy - the Seleucid Empire was also wrestling with weak economy and - what even more imporant - with his neighbours on the north.
Simultaneously, he sent all his army to the nearby rebel provinces like Arabia or territories of northern Africa to the west of Egypt, and tried to conquer Bostra to have a good base to the future conflict with Seleucid Empire. This wasn’t easy - all he had were the units normally defending the cities and no extra recruitment.
The same situation showed on Crete. The Greek city of Kydonia was a constant danger and local Egyptian general had no views on reinforcments from the mainland. But so did Greeks (though they had smaller distance to the main cities). More - they had the same amount of soldiers in garrison so the assault wasn’t an option. Egyptians took all their army from Hierapytna (leaving it “welcome” for the enemy) and set ambush in the halfway to Kydonia. Greeks got to the trap hoping to occupy the city not conquering it before. The short but bloody battle brought the Egyptians an advantage of circa 2-3 units in the whole conflict.
But the siege wasn’t so fortunate. After one tour of siege it came out that there’s another army of 3 units brought there by a ship. The enemy’s advantage was too big. Hiring 3 mercenaries units was too expensive and also impossible due to the lack of them in region. Captain decided to lift the siege and pull back halfway to Hierapytna. This time he didn’t set ambush because enemy wouldn’t be taken in twice the same way and would bring extra forces to be sure the battle is won.
Fortunately Greek captain tempted to catch fleeing enemy, and underestimated him. He brought no units from the city. By the time of battle it came out that Egyptians hired additional mercenary unit - the forces were equal, but Greeks were shocked finding enemy not as vulnerable as they thought it would be, and Egyptians were well-prepared and confident of having their genuine captain with them.
After that battle Kydonia was taken in one tour. After that conquest Greek Cities sent an emissary begging for peace, as they were in war with far more powerful Macedon. Faraoh agreed, because he had no profit in having bad relations with this faction any more, but Greeks (as the beaten ones) had to accept conditions - annexation of Byzantion. Soon after, the Egypt-Macedon alliance was announced to ensure that there will be no problem in the west during the war with Seleucids.
At this time the situation of Iudea, Phoenicia and cities of southern Asia Minor was not good. The worst was the situation of Mytilene (an island by Anatolian coast) and Maronia (and later Byzantion) situated on the European mainland near Bosphorus. Kingdoms of Armenia, Parthia and Bactria turned down the offer of alliance against Seleucids, but were in state of high rediness, predicting the coming war.
As the expenditure for the farms started to pay for itself Pharaoh decided to start recruitment in Iudea and Phoenicia and send three of his sons to the front. They hired some mercenaries units and alongside with the ones gathered from the nearby garrisons - they formed an army, which stroke Seleucid Empire. The enemy wasn’t expecting attack and Egyptians, after breaking the first resistance, were moving forward till their army was big enough to fight. They established the front in Antioch, Seleucia Pieria and Nicopolis.
In 269 BC faction leader Philadelphos Ptolemy died in his villa in Alexandria. His son Arihideaos Ptolemy has become new Pharaoh, and continued his father’s policy. The first act of his was making Paleapaphos in Cyprus a new capital to better manage growing empire.
People of Alexandria in grief after Philadelphos’ death, furious for taking the capital form them, and fearing that this is a sign that this new empire wasn’t Egyptian any more, revolted. They killed all aristocrats and members of local government as they said they were “slaves of Greeks”. The Republic of Alexandria couldn’t be beaten quickly because all armies were engaged in Anatolia and any garrison movements would provoke more revolts in main Egypt.
By this time African provinces were all conquered and its conqueror with his army was transported to the Asia Minor coast. With forces consisting only of garrisons of local towns (one unit per town - smaller garrisons would provoke riots) and small reinforcement form Africa, Egypt decided to strike Smyrna - Seleucid town separating Mytilene and Halicarnasus. The resistance in whole Asia Minor campaign was far bigger than in Middle East.
Additional forces from Cyprus came to support the main forces - they sieged mountain citadel Adana trying to close main Seleucid forces in a trap and cut off the reinforcements trail just until they’re defeated. Unfortunately they failed and had to pull back to the city of Side. Because of that defeat, Seleucids managed to bring some reinforcements and Egyptian forces on the west were forced to stay in Sardis waiting for support.
This time Egyptian diplomat managed to set temporary alliance with Pontus, but new allies refused joining the war actively. The status quo on the paeninsula couldn’t be preserved, because all forces wanted to expand there nand didn’t want to resign. Pontus focused on conquering local rebel cities - doubling its territory and growing in power.
Fortunately, the new economy of the Empire started to show on - the Egyptians now had enough money to hire some mercenaries and start recruitment on Cyprus and Rhodes. After few years of preparation - they could attack Seleucids. This time the manoeuvre of cutting off main Seleucid forces finished succesfully. Egyptian army from Sardis defeated main Seleucid forces in Pessinus, and assaulted Prusa with almost no resistance.
This time joined garrisons of Maronia, Smyrna and Mytilene sieged Pergamon, but were forced to lift it.
At that time forces in Middle East made an expedition to Tarsus and sieged it. The Anatolian joined forces managed to assault Pergamon and directed to Abydos - the last Seleucid city in Anatolia, located by Bosphorus. The army was mainly 15-20 man units, very tired of long campaign. In total they counted 800 men. the garrison of Abydos was only of 200 men - the assault was a matter of time. The Eusebeia had surrendered itself without fight. Conquest of Tarsus and Abydos were the only obstacles to the triumph of Pharaoh’s army and the end of both Anatolian and Middle East campaigns.
[To describe the real situation on the map I use toggle_fow cheat - but I avoid checking my enemies' armies' positions].
The
Greeks forestalled Romans in conquering Corfinium and expanded in
Italia (trying to conquer Rhegium as well), but exposing the main
regions in Greece to the Kingdom of Macedon. Romans were probably
preparing for the big bitzkrieg-like attack. They conquered Corfinium, Tarentum, Croton and Macedonians defeated garrisons of Sparta Athens and other Greek cities. Soon, Illyrians occupied Apollonia, so Greeks were left with Thermon and Syracuse.
Carthage is still busy with
conquering West-north Africa regions, but having problems with Iberians
trying to get their coast cities back. Illyrians had a trip north
resulting in occupying Panonia. So did Macedonians - they started war
with Thrace and are still moving forward dividing Thracian territory in half. There’s little chance they’ll go further as Sarmatians have expanded almost to the Baltic sea.
Seleucids have alliance with Armenia, Parthia and Bactria and are probably preparing counter-attack for Ptolemaics.
