What is war good for.

[Coffee 54]

I think I'll share one of my favorite strategy game stories:

The Battle of Rome (Rome: Total War)

I was playing as House Scipii, walking a delicate balance between popularity with the people and the Senate at Rome. Building a trade empire across the mediterranean while simltaniously working to fulfill my responsiblities in completing missions issued by the Senate. It was going pretty well too, but all good things must come to an end.

My trade empire had become too vast, too rich, and too powerful. A new task was ordered by the Senate: My faction's leader, the character who built the empire, was order to commit suicide. Which, if you've ever played the game, if the order comes in, it has to be followed. With my greatest leader dead, control of the faction fell to the hands down worst general in the army. I don't think the man had a single virtue and a whole list of vices. My yearly income was cut by nearly 30%. House Scipii able survive this turn of events so I was of the opinion of just riding it out. It was at this time the Senate made it's fatal error. Since we were still a threat, they order my new fool king to commit suicide as well.

Now, you see, my first factional leader was no dummy. He(I) foresaw the potential for war with Rome and had left two, battle hardened, very large armies in the mountains in central Italy. My new, new faction leader, was the general in command of the larger of the two. These armies were only to be used as a last resort. But I got to thinking, if I was in charge of the single strongest force of arms on the peninsula. A force whose entire purpose was to bring Rome under Scipii control, would I just sit around and wait for my order to commit suicide to come in? Rome was mine inside of three years. The war with the Senate was brutal, but short.
The war with their allies, houses Julii and Brutii, well that's another story...

[Orwell]

I always went straight to RTR, then EB. The latter of which you should definitely try if nothing else. Maybe I'll give the original a go, since the faction leader of the Hellon, never mind the koinon part, is currently under siege in Asia minor, waiting for a sign from the tyrannical council to give their blessings on a call to reinforcements from their Rhodesian allies.

[Orwell]

Well, I've gotten to the first real, bitter, peace. Now I'm just suppressing Romanian, Greek, Byzantium, Bulgarian nationalists, and my own peasants who can whine a whole fucking lot, but god forbid they step up to save the day when we're in a total war.

The Ottomans in 1399 of October the 13th, probably a Friday, start out at war with the Timurid empire, a red death that is, essentially, greater Iran, controlling up to the Caucasus mountain's and east Iraq in the west, and up to Afghan/Pakistan in the east, plus traditional Iran. Being part of Asia, they of course have massive amounts of troops for the early game, totaling up to around 60k. They also have two small vassals along the southern coast of Turkey, who alone represent little trouble for even my starting army, a mere 3cav/5inf stack but are nothing compared to the typical 20k Timurid starts out with at my border. This being my fifth instance of trying the Ottomans, I came out rather lucky this time with great men of the court to help me out, two who reduced the vital costs of mercenaries, and another to give a acceptable manpower boost. I personally believe that it is these three men who have turned the tide of the Ottomans fate, as many times before failure has come knocking.

I immediately went for a all merc army in my Balkan holdings, while utilizing that mp boost to buffer up another standing army in the west alongside the single regiment of inf I had guarding my forces. This time I just let my forces go with their weaker form, instead of utilizing eastern knights and infantry, I went with the acceptable musellem cavalry and Baichi infantry. I also, instead of usually trying to bring my nation up to western standards as a long term gain, went short term and gave my army a good boost in Discipline, probably the other factor that decided many battles where I might have otherwise fallen. By not changing the troop formations and type, I kept the initial morale to build up, and after a quick couple extra troop reinforcement for my larger army, sieged the enemy on the Turkish coast.

Two days after the game started, Naples, as they always do, declared war on me and invaded Albania. This triggered a warning from Byzantium, who have holdings in the very tip of Greece, and of course the city of the world's desire. Also par for the course, Georgia gets into a war with Timur and thus provides a nice distraction that, hopefully, will cause them to leave me alone long enough to take out the minors and push for a white peace with them. Just as I finish half the siege of one of the minors, Byzantium declares war, and brings along Serbia and Wallachia. Now with Naples, and those three, we have the start of the First Coalition.

By this time I had my merc army fully formed, and after spending my last ducats to find a general fit to lead them into Serbia, I began pushing them back and spiraling into massive debt. If my armies weren't quick and victorious, there was a real danger of collapse, both from bankrupty, and with my capital next to byzantine, they could easily siege and hold it long enough to shatter my country. I'm not sure if it was the general getting lucky, or the discipline and morale of my merc army, but that 10k troops took own a Wallachia/Serbian army that was double the size, and won. My first big break, since the second standing army I was recruiting would never make it past five regiments. While the merc's went to Serbia, I sent them back to the western front, using them to finish off the occupation of the second province of the first Turkish minor, sending off the larger first standing army to beat back the siege of central Turkey and into Dulkadir, the second minor. All this time I wasn't sure what Timur was doing, I guess they had a lot of revolts in Georgia.

Naples never got far, and thus decided to agree to my white peace offer, ending one less concern soon followed by another as I finished taking Kosovo and was finishing Serbia proper, giving me some much needed breathing room. Broke a few regiments off, and sent them to Morea in Greece to take one one Byzantium holding while I retook my capital before it capitulated and shattered the country. Haven't seen/heard of it happening yet, but I guess it gives everything anyone else have a core on to anyone else, which would leave me with about 3 provinces along the Aegean coast. By this time I'd manage to clean up Dulkadir, liberated Mus from them on the border of Syria today, and just as Timur was about to bring it's 24k stack on my war weary army of 5,000 troops, pretenders to their throne popped up and stalled them, and lead them to accept a white peace.

Now 1406, I raced my army ahead to Byzantine to finish the occupation of their territories, send Cav and inf separately to speed up the process, a foolish decision I would soon realize as the Byzantine's stopped a siege along the Black Sea to guard their homeland, and only in the nick of time did the infantry corps arrive to turn the battle and prevent the total annihilation of my first standing army, something I could have never recovered from in time. In a year I had cleaned up my Bulgarian holdings, had occupied all of Byzantium, and was finishing the siege of Wallachia, when I had that merc army just standing around. Deciding to make a quick gain, I saw Montenegro and Ragusa were just waiting for invasion, allied to each other only and with no guarantee, nor being part of the HRE, they were just waiting to be plucked. Which I immediately jumped on. A couple quick annexations, followed directly by taking part of Wallachia in southern Romania, then taking Morea from Byzantium, it was 1409 and the first Coalition was defeated, and peace was brought to a war weary people. Who were eager to revolt, and from war weariness my troops have SERIOUS morale problems. It's amazing they still stand at all. I disbanded the merc's, coalesce and balance my standing army so that one is a full division of 5 inf/cav each, a fair balance that still gives me siege power and yet I can match the cav heavy troops of Asia as well as encircle eastern european infantry, while the other is just sad remains yet to be rebuilt. A war weary and indebted nation settles down to reap the rewards of the valor of their generals and the discipline of the troops.



Only to be invaded a week by Hungary, Bosnia, Milan, The Teutonic Order on the Baltic, Transylvania, and some little German minor shit. Thank god the HRE didn't get involved or this might have ended in a far worse deal. A day later, Candor, a little bastard who holds the northern coast of Turkey, also invaded and thus began the second Coalition.

[Besides two people, maybe, anyone read this stuff?]

[Copycat_Revolver]

You know, you're part of the reason I have trouble remembering actual history.

[Orwell]

You know, you're part of the reason I have trouble remembering actual history.

Hey, don't blame me, I'd love a game featuring the family of the Hapsburg's, the Directory, Machiavellian Italy, The Great Game, the Red Revolution and all the good stuff that makes history way more interesting than nearly any piece of fiction. If it's any consolation, before 1821, I will make sure to conquer the Nevada province and raze it.

[Orwell]

Been playing EUIII again, this time as Muscovy. Slow expansion, made my way down towards the Caucus', and formed the motherland around 1580. A rather boring game this time around in relation to previous ones, until 1610. On march 14, I began the Crimean war about 140 years, and it was one of the bloodiest battles ever to grace the earth. You look at China, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and nobody fielded troops enough to mount to the casualties this battle created. There won't be another conflict like this for 100 years or so.

Lined up around Armenia to the Black Sea, I stood on the border of the Ottomans ready to defeat, what I thought, would be a relatively simple mopping up operation. I had isolated the Golden Horde to one province, with a Corps standing by to take care of them, as well as two Corps ready to take on Crimea, in their capital and a province to the NE of them. The Ottomans also control a fair share of the coast of West North Africa, and I had my century old navy bring over a Corps to take Oran, which holds a valuable Center of Trade as well as nice resources. Overall, before any conflict started, I had about 70k troops on the front lines, all 10k units, and two corps guarding both Siberia, and the Swedish-Russian-Polish border. On the note of troops, I would think powerful artillery would HELP a battle, but I've repeated found in putting down rebellions that they are absolutely worthless. I don't know if they'll ever become useful, but a 3cav/4inf mix will defeat 12k of rebels, while a 3/4/2art mix will almost always fail.

War declared, troops amassed, I charged into enemy territory, with fair successes in the back enemy provinces of the Golden Horde and Crimean lands, but the Ottomans had amassed their own armies at the border.... which numbered no less than 50k per stack, with 3 provinces each containing their own stack. Thankfully I was the richest nation on the planet and had, if unintentionally, amassed a enormous fortune for the war - which would end in debt worth a decade of the next richest countries income. I've slowly been modernizing Russia, changing it's outdated ideas, at enormous stability cost, abolishing Serfdom, and tossing the aristocracy on it's ass outside the palace gates in favor of capitalism. Under this wonderful despotism, mercs cost literally one ducat. They won all my old wars for me, you just sent waves upon waves until the enemy succumbed. There was no thought to it, just raise another mass. And because they were serfs, they cost hardly anything in upkeep either. Now, NOW! they cost 41 ducats a unit. Not awful, but certainly more than I expected to pay. Cavalry was 70 or so. Two waves of mass merc recruitment saw me with another 48k on the front line, and while I did whittle down their numbers, I was pushed back repeatedly.

Meanwhile, I had successfully seized the rich center of trade in Africa, and was slowly pushing my way into the interior. However, because it was a mere corps in the hot African sun, they made heroic pushes against enemies, but could never capture territory. The cat-and-mouse game of chasing their weak units all over Africa came to an end, and I retreated back to my little coastal province I had captured and defended it. I had thought to bring back reinforcements, so I hired one of my finest Admirals from the Navy College, put him at the helm of the expedition back to the homeland to bring reinforcements. (what reinforcements?! They're all dead in the mountains) While a noble cause for which this admiral fought elegantly, capturing many ships along the way, the Ottomans held the passage to the black sea with force far outnumbering anything I had started with or captured, never mind the fact that all these ships were a century old. He did make it through, and arrived safely in the Crimean port of Kaffa, another center of trade port. During his voyage, I had conducted many spy operations against the Ottomans, as they did against me. While they tried to disrupt my government, create rebellions, I turned their war council into a puppet of mine. Killing morale, their research into new techniques and technology, causing mass desertion in their reserves, this move, while costly on the international scene if I was caught, went without a hitch, and I believe was of great assistance to the war effort. i continued morale tactics, as well as attempting to incite troop desertion, but I don't know if the latter ever worked.


On the front lines, the Golden Horde was annexed into the motherland, while Crimea was controlled in entirely, forced to cede all but their capital, and became a puppet government of the Russian Empire. On the Ottoman front, the bloodbath of Russian and foreign troops eventually congregated into two Fronts, each 200 units large, with 30k actual troops in the northern Front, and about 10k in the southern Front. Seeing this rather pathetic mess, and recognizing the fact that, while they may have lost actual manpower, unit weight, how many regiments you have, also plays a role, and this could prove as dangerous as sheer numbers alone. Thus, I instigated a mass levy, of 80,000 troops, half cavalry and half infantry. Placing my Monarch, Vassily the Ninth, at the front of this great Army about to save the Third Rome, I had him lead the troops from Moscow to Armenia.

...

This was a huge mistake, as the lands couldn't support such numbers, and by the time they arrived at the front, they were no more than 10k men and losing more every day. The War Score was good, in the 30's out of 100, but the situation looked like it could easily be reversed, as that last manpower draw was the final straw to pull. By now I had 5,000 in debt, one last loan awaiting for me, the interest rates were so high that it sapped everything I could mint, and got in taxes, and more mercenaries were so expensive it would take months to buy a single infantry regiment, let alone a cavalry one or even an Corps. However, the second wave never came. I had forced over half their remaining forces by sheer unit weight alone into Georgia, where they would not, or could not, escape and attack my rear. Thus, with excellent generals leading each stack, I eventually recaptured Russian lands, and started pushing into Asia Minor. Nary a soldier was to be seen for the entire region of Turkey. It is only once I reached the Aegean coast that resistance was met. The navy that had sent all but one ship of mine to the bottom of the Sea of Marmara was guarding the strait, with their final stand army of about twelve thousand troops making sallies into Bursa. I disbanded one of the 200k stacks, built up gold reserves, and levied a final 40k man mass to go through Moldavia and siege Thrace itself to hopefully end this dreadful, bloody war.

You may have guessed what happened to that unit, especially as it passed through foreign lands and arrived as nothing more than a small group of Cavalry. Crimea had revolted from my control, and just as my new army passed by the province, I sent them to siege, and defeated yet another contender in this war. By this time, Hungary and Bosnia declared war on the Ottomans, and they eventually ceded to my demands of a route from the Caucus to the actual Mediterranean Sea. I don't know how I managed to get off so easy in the end, for much of the war they looked prepared to rout me and take the Caucus region. I can only hope my spy operations prevented the second wave, and even 4 years after the war, you can still see the devastation to their military prowess that I have wrought upon them. They were once the mightiest military power on earth, with troops in excess of 50k besides everyone else, and quality to match those fine infantry.

With this victory I can now set sail to dominate the African coast, and I now preemptively surround the northern border of the Mamluks, where I am giving serious consideration to the liberation of Judea. I am also working on forging claims that I should rightfully hold Rome, not the Pope, which I expect success on in the next decade or so. My other viable option is to go to Stockholm, uniting with my single province in Scandinavia as well as taking their valuable Center of Trade.

Whatever path I take, I've got at least 20 years of consolidation and stability issues to take care of. I've left in my wake over half a million soldiers dead on my side alone, and I estimate about 400,000 overall dead for the three Islamic states who failed to defend their homes. Two states were annexed, my debt exceeds that of a decades worth of income for the second richest state in the world, Great Britain and I now control a monopoly on the worlds copper. Overall, a good morning.


If I learned to be more creative in my writing, I bet somebody would read this shit.

[Niotex]

Technical Progress.

Economy, as clearly its whats keeping the US up atm =|

[Brad]

absolutely nothing

I suppose I was foolish to open this thread with the intention of making this joke first... though I would've been like

ABsolutely NOTHING!

(say it again WAAAOOH!)

[Fall_Child42]

absolutely nothing

I suppose I was foolish to open this thread with the intention of making this joke first... though I would've been like

ABsolutely NOTHING!

(say it again WAAAOOH!)

It's not WAAAOOH

It's Y'all

[Kristyrat]

absolutely nothing

I suppose I was foolish to open this thread with the intention of making this joke first... though I would've been like

ABsolutely NOTHING!

(say it again WAAAOOH!)

It's not WAAAOOH

It's Y'all

GOOD GOD, YOU ALL.