Remove ads

Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)

Reader mode
Deadly Snark said:
Reminder, he's an Athenian that helped Sparta almost destroy the Delian League while fucking a Spartan Queen. Then he was a greek who actively helped the Persians to utterly destroy Mainland Hellas with political meddling. And finally he became an Athenian General and almost destroyed the Peloponnesian League.

The man is not to be trusted, and you definitely do not want to give him time to set up roots.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Eh, I would like to point out that as I understand it he rarely if ever worked against the interests of the faction "employing" him and his switching sides was less active betrayal and more a result of "court" politics. And I can understand it if somebody isn't loyal to the city which exiled him/her (and probably acts against a lot of his allies) and goes to work for somebody who values his services more.
 
Cetashwayo said:
Most important, they were heirs to a naval tradition that was without fear, second only to Athenai's in its belief in its own ability that bordered on hubris. Even the designs of their ships confirmed this fact. Fast and manueverable, the Eretrian trireme gave up even more weight in favor of increased manueverability. Athenian observers sometimes compred them to hawks, fast-turning and vicious where the Athenian triremes were eagles, larger and slower but more powerful. So committed were the Eretrians to the art of ramming that they reduced the number of marines per ship, too, confident that their rams would be enough.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

...It is both immensely flattering and also sightly concerning that the Athenians have been interestingly observing our ship construction and naval tactics. :V
 
Spacegnom said:
Crossing the Adriatic and getting caught in a storm:

Fighting 6000 Liburni sailors on 80 ships:


Once again we see that Poseidon's storms are Eretria's greatest enemy at sea :V
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Storms are extremely dangerous. The romans lost 90,000 men in a single storm when their fleet was caught in it during the First Punic War. Yes, they lost (and it's mostly drowning, storms don't leave nearly as much men alive as coastal battles or land battles) more than the entire population of Eretria. A testament to both the scale of the Punic Wars and the terrifying cost storms can wreak.

Erandil said:
Eh, I would like to point out that as I understand it he rarely if ever worked against the interests of the faction "employing" him and his switching sides was less active betrayal and more a result of "court" politics. And I can understand it if somebody isn't loyal to the city which exiled him/her (and probably acts against a lot of his allies) and goes to work for somebody who values his services more.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Indeed. I don't think Alkibiades is really the betraying type. I'm not even sure if he's the tyrannical type (but then he's also a bit of a cipher). He's just very dangerous and very good at scheming. He seemed dedicated enough to whatever place would have him and was usually kicked out for political reasons, as you say. And in the end he did die in Athenai.
Adhoc vote count started by Admiral Skippy on Jun 17, 2019 at 5:55 PM, finished with 95 posts and 23 votes.
Click to expand...
 
Erandil said:
Eh, I would like to point out that as I understand it he rarely if ever worked against the interests of the faction "employing" him and his switching sides was less active betrayal and more a result of "court" politics. And I can understand it if somebody isn't loyal to the city which exiled him/her (and probably acts against a lot of his allies) and goes to work for somebody who values his services more.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The problem is that, even when he's working "for" a polity, he winds up fucking them over (often literally) and then immediately turns to work for their enemies out of spite when he's brought to task.

Fuck all of that with a 300' splintery wooden pole covered in napalm-shitting fire-ants armed with razor blades.
 
Cetashwayo said:
It's not really an active siege in the same way as you'd imagine it. They're merely despoiling the countryside and killing everyone outside the city walls, and then burning the fields. They have their own herds and can be supplied from Capua, so they don't really need Kymai's supplies, and can just starve the city out that way. Think about Athenai; it relied on Black sea grain to sustain it while the Spartans besieged outside the walls, but the Spartans didn't stay forever. Once Athenai's grain supply was gone and it had no navy, how could it supply itself?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes, that's kinda what I had imagined and "hoped" for because it means that we'd be able to inflict casualties on the Oscans without facing the full might of their army. They're such a big fan of raiding, why don't we give them a taste of their own medicine? We got a bunch of well-trained light cavalry and infantry that should be able to run rings around their forces, especially since the Oscans are occupying land that's relatively new to them.
Cetashwayo said:
And Kymai, unlike Athenai, can't continuously fund its grain trade forever unless the Eretrians do it for them. Which is a drain, but it's definitely an option. However, cities can often fall by night attacks, treachery, or undermining, which the Oscans have gotten good at. Scipio Africanus took the well-defended capital of Barkid Spain, Carthago Nova, merely by attacking a section of the walls that was not defended because it lay adjacent to a swamp.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And how exactly did they get good at that? Did they storm a lot of cities with stone walls before Kymai? (Genuinely asking, since I'm not aware)
 
Eyeballing the numbers it would take our full levy to be able to defeat the Campanians which is besides the point because we have no way to get our levy there.

Unless anyone has a genius idea we probably need to focus on buying Kymai time for us to either think of a solution or build a coalition.

@Cetashwayo how much would it cost to fund Kymai's grain trade a year?
 
[X] [Colony] Issa. The outer island of the Adriatic Dodecanese has fewer Liburnians settled on it and is an excellent transit point for Eretrians crossing the Adriatic [-40 talents of grain and construction costs, 600 colonists found Issa, -100 pop from Eretria, 400 colonists found Pharos, -50 pop from Eretria].

The reason I'm swimming against the tide here is that we absolutely want to put a colony down at Salona in the near future, and once we do that Pharos immediately drops to second-best as a spot right along the coast. Issa, meanwhile, will remain useful much longer since it's basically in the middle of the Adriatic crossing between Eretria and the Dalmatian coast.

[X] [Lykai] Spread them out through the Epulian League and colonies [+100 settlers in each Epulian city including Ankon and the colony chosen to be the primary colony for Eretria in the Adriatic Dodecanese].

They aren't going to like us no matter what we do, so best to disperse them and make it harder for them to plot against us.

[X] [Kymai] We must save the city! [Begins the Kymai Rescue Quest Chain. -1 foreign mission for each Demos in the next election. Demes will put aside any complicated or military expeditions until the next election cycle].

Just out of curiosity, how many men are the Oscans likely to have guarding their flocks at any given point compared to the ones they have keeping the city locked down?

Because it occurs to me that as a bunch of pastoral nomads who've probably looted most of the local farmland already, they're going to have real trouble keeping themselves fed should anything happen to their goats and sheep.

And given that the various local tribes don't like each other much more than they like us, I bet you we can mitigate some of the risk of crossing through their territory by mustering up their own restless youth for a massive raid against the Oscans, with our own superior cavalry to both provide information on where to go for the easiest rustling opportunities and to harass any attempts by the Oscans to retrieve their livestock.
 
Versharl said:
And how exactly did they get good at that? Did they storm a lot of cities with stone walls before Kymai? (Genuinely asking, since I'm not aware)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Well I think it was mentioned that they sacked a few towns before Kymai.

Good siegecraft can honestly be as simple as crawling along your stomach around the walls for twelve hours, and seeing that their is a climbable tree growing next to one section because someone couldn't bring themselves to cut down their favourite fruit tree and made a generous donation to the city coffers. Which is to say, it is the kind of "simple" that actually takes an incredible amount of experience and subtle skill. But people can learn quickly in war, and for the Oscans this is an old generational game.
 
I would be wary of deploying cavalry on seaborne expeditions. Not only do horses not like being at sea in cramped holds on swaying decks, they take up a significant amount of limited space, and require a great deal of resources to feed, which also takes up space. This would vastly limit the total number of troops we could send on expedition, or the amount of grain in the shipment.
 
[X] [Lykai] Spread them out through the Epulian League and colonies [+100 settlers in each Epulian city including Ankon and the colony chosen to be the primary colony for Eretria in the Adriatic Dodecanese].
[X] [Kymai] We cannot risk such an expedition [-10 talents per turn until city falls or the siege is relieved by another power, Eretria will provide grain shipments to the city and ferry its people wherever they wish. Chance of picking up some of Kymai's citizens at random].
 
Versharl said:
And how exactly did they get good at that? Did they storm a lot of cities with stone walls before Kymai? (Genuinely asking, since I'm not aware)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Undermining isn't an uncommon tactic, it's just dangerous and if they know what you're doing it'll get caught. Usually the Oscans aren't dealing with larger city walls like Kymai's, but it seems to just be a matter of situational awareness; the Romans used slippery tactics like that during the siege of Veii, at least as described by Livy. Most city walls in this period aren't particularly amazingly strong, and the longer a siege goes on the easier it is to fall to "one weird trick", as they probe the defenses. If Eretria had committed to a siege of Taras they could explore such tactics eventually, but that'd be after a few years.

But it's a lot harder with someone like Taras where they've got walls on a very narrow peninsula. Less failure-points then, and a more easily defended wall. With Poseidonia the Oscans literally just exploited some civil strife, watched from afar, and then got some guys in during a night attack. The ensuing confusion can do half your job for you; I remember being shared stories by Sebsmith of cities where in the confusion of darkness people think that other citizens are the enemy and start stabbing each other.

Versharl said:
Yes, that's kinda what I had imagined and "hoped" for because it means that we'd be able to inflict casualties on the Oscans without facing the full might of their army. They're such a big fan of raiding, why don't we give them a taste of their own medicine? We got a bunch of well-trained light cavalry and infantry that should be able to run rings around their forces, especially since the Oscans are occupying land that's relatively new to them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm not sure how you'd get your guys over, though. Further, the Oscans aren't bad cavalrymen, and they're the best light infantry in Italy.

Secretariat said:
...can we seize help protect Pithekousai?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Do you want to start a war with Rhegion? You were talking about building a coalition two pages ago :p

FriedIce said:
@Cetashwayo how much would it cost to fund Kymai's grain trade a year?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Something like 30 talents a turn, I'm gonna guess?
 
[X] [Colony] Pharos. The excellent natural harbor at Pharos would make it a fine place for a central Adriatic port, even if it has a larger indigenous population. [-40 talents of grain and construction costs, 600 colonists found Pharos, -100 pop from Eretria, 400 colonists found Issa, -50 pop from Eretria].
[X] [Lykai] Spread them out through the Epulian League and colonies [+100 settlers in each Epulian city including Ankon and the colony chosen to be the primary colony for Eretria in the Adriatic Dodecanese].
[X] [Kymai] We must save the city! [Begins the Kymai Rescue Quest Chain. -1 foreign mission for each Demos in the next election. Demes will put aside any complicated or military expeditions until the next election cycle].
 
The Sandman said:
Just out of curiosity, how many men are the Oscans likely to have guarding their flocks at any given point compared to the ones they have keeping the city locked down?

Because it occurs to me that as a bunch of pastoral nomads who've probably looted most of the local farmland already, they're going to have real trouble keeping themselves fed should anything happen to their goats and sheep.

And given that the various local tribes don't like each other much more than they like us, I bet you we can mitigate some of the risk of crossing through their territory by mustering up their own restless youth for a massive raid against the Oscans, with our own superior cavalry to both provide information on where to go for the easiest rustling opportunities and to harass any attempts by the Oscans to retrieve their livestock.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

My guy, do you think that there is a tracking device on their sheep??? They don't have their cattle in one giant herd for easy robbing.
 
Cetashwayo said:
You can definitely take only the rich but this may cause violence for obvious reasons in Kymai if they learn you're doing this. The 7,500 are those willing, which is a random strata of society. You can't make them citizens. You can't bribe the Oscans, though you could do other things to lengthen the evacuation period.

It's been a long time since Eretria settled Kymai, and it was a joint settlement. So in this case, they'd still be Metics, even if culturally close Metics, being Ionians with a similar dialect.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Cool, just trying to figure out the situation. So 7,500 is the maximum at most, regardless of evacuation length or ship quantity. And we need to convince Rhegion that it's totally cool we pick up 7.5K potential metics and bring them back over to the Adriatic, leaving them the ruins and spoils of the Oscan barbaroi. Which doesn't sound too bad.

Given that we've got 3 years to pull out 7,500 refugees, that's 2,500 per year or roughly ~200 a month. Which feels very feasible, numbers wise.
 
Droman said:
Cool, just trying to figure out the situation. So 7,500 is the maximum at most, regardless of evacuation length or ship quantity. And we need to convince Rhegion that it's totally cool we pick up 7.5K potential metics and bring them back over to the Adriatic, leaving them the ruins and spoils of the Oscan barbaroi. Which doesn't sound too bad.

Given that we've got 3 years to pull out 7,500 refugees, that's 2,500 per year or roughly ~200 a month. Which feels very feasible, numbers wise.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I might be willing to boost the number up but it'd require some specific decisions down the line.
 
Congratulations @Cetashwayo , I now have learned to fear the Alkibiades. Seriously, when I saw him :) at the advice of Obander to head on over to Selinous, I was wondering what the big deal about him was.

And then he made a detour through Sikel territory.

Which then made me go...


Leontios would have begged to learn from this guy.
 
Secretariat said:
I believe such a task is quite possible with the resources at hand. The Oscans have many weaknesses that we are well-positioned to exploit -- we alone among the Hellenes possess the allies and the skill to fight and defeat the Oscans, and relieve the siege of Kymai.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
"Too far away for our allies. Too many enemies already before the gates of Kymai. And our phalanx still has not been strengthened since Taras.

This is not feasible."

- Karenos the Hoplite
 
Cetashwayo said:
Do you want to start a war with Rhegion? You were talking about building a coalition two pages ago :p
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I am exploring all the options :V

...mostly because I don't feel like we've picked any firm sides in western Italy, and so we should talk through all our options to figure out what is most profitable short- and long-term. That may mean alliance with Rhegion; it may mean war with Rhegion; but we shouldn't make any of our choices half-informed.

alkibiades did nothing wrong
 
Cetashwayo said:
I might be willing to boost the number up but it'd require some specific decisions down the line.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Mm. Probably need to pick a demes with a ship-building mandate next election (Drakonia) or one that suggests to buy ships from our merchants (Antipatria) or one that suggests we levy barbaroi to help us build a bunch of new ships (Exoria).

Cetashwayo said:
My guy, do you think that there is a tracking device on their sheep??? They don't have their cattle in one giant herd for easy robbing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oscan herding technology is better than you know....
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top