Hello everyone.
I hope you can finally enjoy the first days of spring and the warm sun outside.
I will continue our campaign playing Hellas in the Age of Alexander scenario and I would be happy if you join me on my expedition.
It is already the ninth episode and we start again this Wednesday at 9PM CEST (12PM PDT - 8PM BST) time.
The last episode was really interesting and quite surprising at the same time.
On the Persian front, we finally resumed our advance after a Persian counterattack that stopped our progress.
We besieged Gordion and even though the siege was broken by Persian cavalry, we were eventually able to conquer the city and hold it.
We also took the cities Pessinus and Amastris on the coast of the Black Sea but the latter conquest was a mistake. The battlefront was severely weakened as a result. Although it was guarded by our best hoplite unit, it was extremely damaged from the previous turns and this proved to be fatal - our beloved Antimachos army was entirely destroyed. This was without any exaggeration the biggest loss from the start of the game.
Despite some partial successes, the whole advance stopped again and turned into a stalemate. The Persians brought several fresh units to the front including Kardakes which exhausted our armies and we had to stop all planned operations.
The Persian economy started growing considerably and the whole campaign might now turn to war of attrition which would not be in our favor. That's one of the reasons for transforming Anatolia into a regular part of the republic by building the economic infrastructure with a new blacksmith and number of city facilities.
The biggest surprise and disappointment was the planned conquest of Sparta or what remains from their holdings. They hold only two islands. One of them being Crete and that was our first target. We disembarked and were able to conquer half of the island. Nevertheless, the stronghold on the island was not only well fortified but three melee units were hiding inside which was totally unexpected. After several unsuccessful attempts to conquer the city, the army morale of the Spartan units started to grow considerably and they made a number of counterattacks. They destroyed two of our hoplite armies, considerably damaged another one and if we didn't have an axemen fortified on a position, we would have had to abandon Crete altogether.
We didn't give up though and started to prepare for a longer conflict. We founded a new town called Itanos on our side of the island and improved it immediately with a stockade. We sent General Kios to Crete to improve the morale of our units. We had to transport a hoplite unit (initially a planned reinforcement for Anatolia) to Crete to be able to hold the town. So far, we have lost two experienced units without achieving any tangible results.
In the rear, all seems to go well.
Particularly big changes are taking place in Italy, where we recently established a federation with the Romans and started building up the economy.
We built new cities around the Alps, a new blacksmith in the Po valley and we improved a number of cities by building new facilities. Our Sage Seleucus founded a philosophy school in Sipontum.
We focus our efforts on the former Roman army; we try to upgrade all the milites units to principes in the hope that the stronger units will be able to secure the northern border and slowly advance further.
We finally met the Illyrians from the Italian side at the city of Tergeste, where we both tried to assert control. Tergeste however is a tough nut to crack. Taking over the city will be one of the goals of the next episode.
Illyria proposed a confederation to us and it seemed a rational decision. We share a very long border in the south and east and now also in the west. They probably know that we are much stronger and should we go to war, we would be pulling the longer straw.
Nevertheless, we rejected the offer for now because it would considerably worsen our relationships with other factions. We hope that they will come back with an offer of federation, and we will be able to accept it this time.
Apart from Italy, we keep improving our economy on the mainland. Blacksmiths are being improved; in Korinth, our capital, Sage Bion built a philosophy school.
On the other hand, war with Persia (and now also with Sparta) and the military reforms in Italy are getting quite expensive. Our gold reserves went down about 90% which means we will not be able to recruit new units anymore.
Our economy desperately needs more slaves. We try to cover this demand by trading but it is too slow. We hope that more slaves could be obtained from the independent cities in the north of Italy and in (hopefully) newly conquered cities in Persia.
Carthago is quite idle but that is in our favor. We have sent a newly hired emissary Brygos to Carthago to keep the good relationships.
Events are taking an interesting course on Corsica. Kanelae, a Persian stronghold on the island, is slowly taking control of the island from Carthage, its city Alia being surrounded. It could be used as a pretext for a military expedition, an ideal task for the new Roman principes!
The goals of the next episode are quite clear. We shall defeat Spartans for good, take over Corsica and the independent city of Tergeste. If there are no unexpected surprises on the Persian front, we will try to push forward but I am a bit skeptical that any significant progress can be made, at least for now.
As always, Pavel will be happy to answer your questions during the stream so please join in Wednesday 20th on our Twitch channel.
See you there!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
P.S. Here is the episode in case you missed it.