3rd History of Faerlon the Fine

[pavelk]

Will you try to recover? These things happened like that and were similarly devastating.

[Blathergut]

Oh, I will, oh evil one who designed that plague. Pox be upon you!

[pavelk]

Oh, I will, oh evil one who designed that plague. Pox be upon you!

You can seek comfort in the fact that usually plague spread across the borders so also your neighbours are probably affected.

[Blathergut]

By 805 BCE the plague had destroyed most of the Faerlonian homeland cities.

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The southwestern city of Flaviobriga, from the very first days of establishing control over the encroaching Ardiaei, seem to have survived with a few hardy souls. The rest are gone. Most of the northern and eastern heartland cities are gone. We shall work at rebuilding. The original goal was to rebuild the armies, but that will have to wait. Gold is scarce and there are many mines and such in the former Dacian lands that need repair. We offered the Dacians peace so that they could keep their one remaining city but the killed our envoys and sent the heads back to us. So we have ordered the last remaining full-strengthed units to march on their city.

New Goals:

1. Rebuild the populations of the original cities. (Pavel: If a city has a philosophy school [req. pop. 3+] but drops below the 3, is the philosophy school lost?)

[pavelk]

If a city has a philosophy school [req. pop. 3+] but drops below the 3, is the philosophy school lost?

No, at least it is not scripted this way now.

[Blathergut]

802 BCE

The Dacians are finally defeated. No doubt they will raise their heads somewhere. We would like to keep our armies in their cities, but we will bring them back to Faerlon for rest and refit and then send them out from there. That may not be the wisest choice, but nonetheless it shall be so.

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[Blathergut]

Still 802 BCE

Auzia is ours again, thanks to influence spending (Remember ol' Whateverhisnamewas who would rather stick money in a pocket than swords in bodies?). But most of the surrounding lands remained under the influence of the Ardiaei.

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[Blathergut]

801 BCE

The Demon continues to grow!

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And, to make matters worse, the Dacians rise up and take control of 4 cities plus resources. [Check out the losses in the top left.]

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[Blathergut]

[To the great god Pavel: Was this in part due to the fact that I didn't have any troops in those cities? Or would it have happened anyway?]

[Blathergut]

[Well, our plan to refit and heal everyone back at the capital is a flop. The two cities can't keep their population up (set at maximum incentive) to refit the units.]

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We also realized that the blacksmith that is located northwest of Faerlon (hoplite on top of it) has not been connected by road this whole time. There is a little bit of one in the corner, connecting two tiles with roads. So this whole time the mines have not been benefiting from the blacksmith. We just built the road in that tile. I never said I was good at this!!!!

[pavelk]

But most of the surrounding lands remained under the influence of the Ardiaei.

I will try to have a look at that. I have it in my TODO list but there is unfortunately few more important this to finish first.

Was this in part due to the fact that I didn't have any troops in those cities? Or would it have happened anyway?

Absolutely. The fact that you dont have garrison units in cities which are either not happy or they are being influenced by other players play crucial role in that. It might still happen that unit can actually also join the other side but it is very rare and usually garisson units prevent the city to join the enemy.
There is number of things you can do about it - you can keep garisson units in cities or you can build civil service and obedience improvements to mitigate the chances of this happening or you can build amphitheatres which make people generally more happy which also decreases the chances of this happening.
You can also lower the factors which actually lead to these revolts like:

• extend the borders - once city is further from the border, it fears less the enemies and the nearness to borders in general.
• sign peace with your neighbours - people will stop worrying about being attacked by them.
• Increase generale morale (but the only way is to actually wait:))

[Blathergut]

780 BCE

The Reconquest of the Dacian lands is done. Military units are in each city, so hopefully we have no more problems there.

We are bringing in 6 gold a turn by trading with the big 3 powers in the world. Hopefully we can build settlers and start developing the areas that don't have cities. Despite our size, we are half of the enemy in population, economy, and military power.

The likely target is Massilia, but it is stretched so long and far, it puts us in between the two juggernauts. I still think the long term goal needs to be attacking the Ardiaei. We would use influence on some of their cities but that also takes gold.

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[Blathergut]

770 BCE Update

Things have been peaceful. We even signed a Brothers-in-Arms treaty with the Ardiaei, to be certain of tranquility with them.

However, we thought, well, okay, they'd like us to declare war on Bospran lands, we can do that. Grab a bit more territory (the pink bits scattered on the map). But by the time we get there, Ardiaei troops are already gobbling it up! Curse them!!!!

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We will continue with our city building program, only waiting for gold to accumulate every couple turns. Turn them all economic and then see if we can deal the Ardiaei a blow.

[Blathergut]

4 years later...

The Ardiaei gobble up Massilia ina federation and their empire now encompasses most of the known world!

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[Blathergut]

760 BCE

Antigonid troops are starting to gobble up the northern Ardiaei lands. This forces our hand I think. We will try to nab as many of the Ardiaei cities as we can. Hopefully their response from the south will not be overwhelming!

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[Blathergut]

Overwhelmed by the Ardiaei horror 350 years after the founding of Faerlon the Fine.

-northern invasion of Ardiaei lands went well, but the troops became exhausted after taking half the northern Ardiaei lands; no further progress + no gold to change production of cities to be able to heal units

-invaded from the south by overwhelming numbers; direct assault launched at the capital w insufficient troops to repel the attacks

The Ardiaei horde was just too large at that point to try and hold them back. We might at some point go back in time and see if history can be written differently.

[Blathergut]

*bumps* this to the top shamelessly

[Cablenexus]

This is a great thread and you did a wonderful AAR.

I bump it as well

[gwgardner]

put a link to it on the steam forum

[76mm]

Nice AAR, thanks.

Did you suffer any other random catastrophes other than plague (earthquake, famine, floods, etc.)?