The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Senate

So I go to bed Sunday night with a major headache and a runny nose, and wake up Monday certifiably sick. On the one hand, I'm sick. On the other hand, it's a good opportunity to play some RTW.

Because you see, the Spanish were being dicks. They're like my best trade partners the entire game. It's going great. I'm slaughtering Germans left, right, center, you name it. And then the Spanish decide "Oh ho! We shall seige Numantia for two turns then retreat!"

What?

"Yeah, you heard us! We're going to seige Numantia for two turns, then retreat!"

Well, ok.

"It's a great plan! You Romans will fear us!"

Not really. In fact, let me move up these enormous armies to crush you.

"Well, uh, crap."

So to make a long story short, Spain ends up having a bad day. A really bad day, actually. But, meanwhile, my cities are being most non-triumphant about the whole thing, and decide to rebel a lot, which coincides with both the death of my awesome 7 management faction leader, the death of everybody in the Spanish faction leader's entire family, the death of Spain, and the acension of my best general to faction leader. Unfortunately, my awesome 7 star general had a whole 2 management, so everybody revolted and I had to kill them.

Fortunately, he died 6-7 turns later, leaving one Caius Julius Caesar to be the head of the Julii family. THIS rather fortunate event coincided with the plebs in Rome deciding I really was just about that cool, and inviting me to march on Rome. So I marched on Rome with, yes, Caius Julius Caesar and my really awesome best army.

So I'm like "Well, the Senate only has pre-Marian reform troops, so how hard can it be?" And the whole thing starts well enough - My onagers and archers obliterate a good 30% of his guys before I even walk in the gate, although they also kind of obliterated a certain Forum. Oops. But then, well, all my infantry ran in, and realized that highly experienced troops are badass. And died. So I sent another army, which did the same thing. And another army, which finally did the job, leaving me with an entire army of nothing but archers and seige equipment running around led by an awesome supergeneral.

Meanwhile, my backup armies (this is about where I become real happy I had the foresight to preposition a few legions in Italy for this) decided to take Capua. Never mind that Capua had twice as many Scipii in it as I had my troops. You see, unlike some other Romans, _I_ can use the archer. Also the onager. And the whole 800 Scipii vs 400 Julii fight in front of Capua works out about like this conversation between Whir and myself:

Whir: Mmm, Romans.

Me: Crunchy, with a chewy inside. Taste good cooked in boiling pitch.

Whir: I prefer oil.

Me: Oil works too.

Because, well, my onagers were obliterating entire cohorts of Scipii. And the ones that got past that, got shot with arrows. A few made it past THAT, and got nailed by pila. A bare few made it to hand to hand range, and realized that post-Marian legionary cohorts really are better than hastati and principes. And other than my cav riding down a lot of guys, that was pretty much that.

So, yeah. Makes me kind of pity the enormous Scipii army that thinks it's going to attack my gigantic and awesome garrison in Carthage next turn.

Posted by Dwip at October 19, 2004 7:09 PM