[RFC] Rome, the Conquering Empire



Olxmche is captured and conquered under the boot of the Imperial Legions. Knights and pikemen march throughout the Mayan city, their nation in flames and ash, and refugees fleeing into the countryside left and right, into the ancient jungles that have covered the isthmus for as long as anyone can remember. Tikal remains unbroken to the north of freshly conquered city, a beacon amongst the fires against Roman aggression and oppression as their hunger for imperialistic might swallows everything in their path on the march of supremacy. Fighting is still heavy in the newly conquered city, and the gutters run red with Roman and Mayan blood as assassinations and counterattacks start up, and revenge killings sweep the streets and leave behind gruesome reminders of what war brings to the cities.

General Marius Titus, a fierce and warlike general who was given a taste of warfare on the Ottoman front, has made his home in the port city, and is directing heavy operations against the Mayan armies. A brutal and sadistic man, Titus is infamous for the Olxmche massacre, rounding up every man over sixteen years of age and executing them to make an example and attempt to halt counterattacks. Needless to say, crime and assassinations under the Roman occupation have gone down and dropped almost thirty three percent in the first week since that occurred, followed by a twenty five percent drop the week after. Those that value their lives do well to try and avoid the fate of crucifying by the Roman overlords.

Meanwhile, in Tikal, the best Mayan general available to them is known only in Roman intelligence reports as "Black Ear", supposedly due to being injured horribly in a fire that claimed said body parts. Black Ear is perhaps the best Mayan counterpart to Titus, a vicious and bloody man well known for his constant demand of sacrifices to appease the Mayan gods, and being well versed in the spear, sword, and other such things that the Mayans have used as weaponry for years.

The storm is brewing on the front lines that will soon march North and South and clash with the forces before them.



At home, more construction is under way, this time for civilian buildings. Orders from the Emperor himself dictate that this campaign of expanding the infrastructure will only lead to Roman towns and cities growing ever larger across the face of Europa, and help the nation grow prouder and stronger. The Senate, however, fumes in silence against the Emperor; war losses are coming in, and the Vox Populi are less than pleased to hear the casualty figures of tens of thousands of Legionnaires of musketmen, knights, and pikemen laid low and killed by the wily Ottomans as they fight for every bloody square mile of Asia Minor territory. Internal dissent is starting to spark and grow bloodier and bloodier, as stabbings in cities along the coast of Greece, many of whom have people from said cities drafted into the armies, grow angry and upset with the reports of friends and family members and others killed on the front lines.

The Emperor's plans though are starting to take a toll on resources that are needed for war production; stone and other building materials such as lumber needed for temporary forts and camps to be established on the front lines are being depleted in many storehouses across the Empire at an alarming rate. With the lack of new troops being trained and Rome's armies being torn a bloody wound left and right, it's putting an already growing strain on the different Senatorial factions vying for power in the Roman Senate, as well as the Emperor's authority as well.



The construction of the grand Sistine Chapel in Rome only helps fan the flames. Demonstrations from veterans and their families in Greek cities is hot and furious, as they burn effigies of the Emperor himself and carry makeshift scourge whips to symbolize Roman troops whipped and forced to march against hopeless odds against the Ottoman menace. The Emperor, less than pleased by this, orders a mass crackdown on the protesters, leading to violent clashes between spearmen of the Roman 27'th Legion, and screaming women and men in Athens and Sparta. Ten days of the crackdown leaves three hundred and thirty nine protesters dead, as well as forty four Legionnaires. In order to exert more authority, the Emperor demands the Senate to declare emergency war powers for him in order to allow him greater reign over the Greek territories and strip them of influence and money in order to teach them a lesson, which only sows dissent in the Senate and brings open calls for an overthrow of the Emperor and the government he has created.



Ottoman macemen face an uphill battle against muskets at the Battle of Red Wheat, in which heavy artillery barrages from both sides mark the conflict as an Ottoman general personally leads his guardsmen against the fortification lines of the musketmen. The fighting is brutal and bloody, and often hand to hand when ammunition runs low on this area of the lines, as bloody maces covered in blood and brains swing to and fro and swords from the Roman sides slash and cut.



Longbows fare poorly against trained marksmen of the Legions, and despite their long range, the instantaneous effect of musket balls quickly silences most of the fire from the longbowmen. Bodies begin to stack up on both sides, forming grisly walls that are necessary to be used for cover from time to time, making a gruesome scene filled only with more carnage.



Another town of the Ottoman Empire is captured, but at a tremendous cost; for a population center of only a few ten thousand or so, the Romans have lost almost an equal number of troops, nearing almost forty thousand, in the taking of the town. The Ottomans have not escaped unscathed, having lost nearly a hundred thousand in the process, and the Roman legions proceed to build huge funeral pyres to burn the bodies as a huge swarm of crows that has been following army tears the dead flesh from the bones as the fire crackles and hisses. Blood has soaked so well into the sand and much of the wood gathered for the pyres that it takes two days to start them with heavy kindling and watchful eyes, but finally the inky trails of oily smoke rope into the air to drift southward over the mountains.



A Roman caravel by the name of Silver's Dawn sails deeper into uncharted waters, searching for the fabled western passage to go into the East Asian sea. Spices and silks and gems from the east would do much to energize the Roman economy after the long conflict so far inflicted, as the economic strain is taking a toll as far west as Gaul and Germania, as well as eastern Rus.



The Roman Fifth Army settles onto a hilltop position overlooking Tikal as they begin a siege. Though the Mayans and Romans are easily matched in number, Tikal is heavily defended and fortified in preparation of the war (with partial thanks to Black Ear and his hordes of Mayan soldiers), and the Romans are less than eager to directly assail the city without the support of heavy artillery to soften up the garrison and the blockades around the settlement. Determined to either starve them out, or let the heat take a hold of much of their supplies, Titus is content to wait upon his hilltop while Rome considers resupplying him and his war in the west while trying to deal with the Ottomans in the East, no easy task by any means.



Eager to trade for the secrets that the Roman explorers have so far found, the queen of England is willing to trade her own secrets of the map in order to paint a new picture of the world. Rome is only too happy to succeed, in order to see if the Ottomans have oversea holdings not known about.




Join us next time on Rome: the Conquering Empire for more!
 
:clap: I wasn't expecting this to be updated! S&T has been more active lately, maybe this will turn into a full-scale revival to the good old days of 2011.
 
Yep. :)

This, Honor and Glory, and Hammer and Steel will be finished no matter what, because they need to be wrapped up to be quite frank.
 
Wow... fantastic chapter and great surprise updatingness.
 
Is there a reason you don't seem to believe in artillery? If rather than building 20 knights you built just 10 and 5 cannons you would have a much easier time of everything and cut down on all the wasted troops.
 
ace99 said:
Is there a reason you don't seem to believe in artillery? If rather than building 20 knights you built just 10 and 5 cannons you would have a much easier time of everything and cut down on all the wasted troops.
Click to expand...

RFC warfare is predicated on speed.
Siege units go directly against this doctrine.
They waste time bombarding and they often end up not doing that much suiciding anyway.
This is most relevant if you know how to maintain a tech lead in RFC/DoC though.
As well, there are a few critical eras that you should be waging war in, and medieval is the most difficult to manage properly.
 
I never go to war without siege and I've never had speed issues. Of course when I'm the Arabs and have Camel Archers or Mongols with Keshiks I leave it behind. But attacking the other European's there's really no reason not to use it.
 
ace99 said:
I never go to war without siege and I've never had speed issues. Of course when I'm the Arabs and have Camel Archers or Mongols with Keshiks I leave it behind. But attacking the other European's there's really no reason not to use it.
Click to expand...

Nay. As France, you can do perfectly fine with a Knights-only army composition.
The same applies for the most part to the Germans (in vanilla RFC).
If you don't beat the AI to Rome, they will snatch it from under you.
 
Tomorrow's Dawn said:
Nay. As France, you can do perfectly fine with a Knights-only army composition.
The same applies for the most part to the Germans (in vanilla RFC).
If you don't beat the AI to Rome, they will snatch it from under you.
Click to expand...

Oh sure I conquered all of Italy and Spain with no seige in my France game, but if I could afford the luxury of building 20 knights or whatever then I would make sure to have some seige before I attacked England or HRE.
 
Tomorrow's Dawn said:
RFC warfare is predicated on speed.
Siege units go directly against this doctrine.
They waste time bombarding and they often end up not doing that much suiciding anyway.
This is most relevant if you know how to maintain a tech lead in RFC/DoC though.
As well, there are a few critical eras that you should be waging war in, and medieval is the most difficult to manage properly.
Click to expand...
Compared to RL...RFC comes close i say...it brings up the problem though that guess what the teeth and claws of an army are: artillery. they caused more deaths in the WW2 in direct battle than pretty much all others.
cant argue on speed being important. mobility equals easier time out-maneuvering equals better positions equals more won battles equals quicker rate of advancement...just don't go too quick. go too quick and defender units cant get to newly taken cities quickly enough. blitzkrieg is a good strategy...if you have room to do it and aren't too fast for your infantry and logistical network.
 
ace99 said:
Is there a reason you don't seem to believe in artillery? If rather than building 20 knights you built just 10 and 5 cannons you would have a much easier time of everything and cut down on all the wasted troops.
Click to expand...

I do believe heavily in artillery and typically throw about two dozen units of them into my stacks of doom in the late game, it's just that they are a lot squishier in the earlier eras and not very resilient, with a smaller chance to escape it seems. Plus, until you start getting into the Medieval era, they aren't really needed as it's cheaper to just throw lots of swords and axes at them until they die.
 


A lone Roman caraval travels through the West Indies, seeking a way to the Chinese and Indian trade hubs of the far Orient. Rumors abound of demons and monsters, vicious people who devour flesh and blood, and many more things of the sort living in the unexplored landmasses that the Caraval is encountering on it's wild journey to the west. Hurricanes and tempests sweep forward some days and almost swallow the entire ship as it braves its way through the unexplored and uncharted seas and oceans, carving it's way forward in hopes of finding riches, glory, and honor for Roma. And far away, the distant drums of war are beating in the Nova Roma conquests in the central Americas...



Lord McCauley has completed his list and judgement of civilizations from all around the world. The British man has judged the Roman Empire as the most powerful and glorious of them all, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea, and with it's far flung and powerful colonies abroad. Trailing is a country and civilization that the Roman dominion knows nothing about, followed by the Kievan Rus Empire, the cold and dark cossack men who prowl on the steppes and plains of their domain and sweep into Eastern Europa whenever they deign it necessary for war, plunder and to complete a vicious cycle that the Romans also inflict upon them as well. Trailing them are the other unknown civilizations of the world, followed by the two Roman protectorates of Aethiopia and Gauletia, proving that Roman supremacy knows no bounds in this world, and that all will be forced to bend the knee before the Imperial might.

Years ago, the Ottoman Sultanate and the Arabian Caliphate may have been higher upon the list, but it seems their sun has crested and set beneath the waves of history, leaving them broken and bloodied as they are currently. Recover for the Ottomans will not be happening, with the war front expanding as they are ground under the mass of bodies forced into the meat grinder against them, and the Arabians penned up in their peninsula with no place to go.




Trade deals in cash needed to fund the Roman war machine are shown with the provinces in Africa; such petty bits and peaces of technology and philosophy are nothing to the Romans at this point, leaving them open to be sold to the highest bidder in order to foster more cash in order to balance the banks and budges of the Empire. The costly policy of Panem est circuses and providing guns, bullets, and artillery as well as training for the new Roman legions is proving to be a heavy strain upon the entire country, leaving it relatively week and indebted to the merchant kings and princes of Venice and Etrusca.



Knights of the Legions begin their attack upon the Mayan stronghold shown here. The battle is thick and bloody, with the knights of Rome cutting down any who happen to get in there way and flee from battle, including but not limited to civilians, the enemy, and even broken forces of their own army who are attempting a vicious retreat. The heavy, plate and mail armor of the knights present at the battle is highly resistant to the makeshift spears and weapons that the Mayans attempt to use to try and stop the attacking cavalry thundering out of the hills to fling themselves into their city. Flames and blood fill the houses and gutters respectively as the death of the Mayan kingdom begins; but before that happens, more than a few Roman legions will perish in their assaults.



As the battle for the Mayan kingdom goes down, the Aztec Alliance led by their warrior king Montezuma the Fourth arrive on the scene, asking the Romans if they would prefer peace or war. Rome cannot open a fourth theater of war at the moment, and is ready and eager to agree to a peace with the savages of the Central Americas, if only to give them a vestige of reprieve. Azteca and Roma sign a non aggression pact, promising to be peaceful to one another, but neither trusts the other completely; Rome believes that one day the Aztecs may be on the side that the Mayas are on now, opposing Roman conquest and expansion. The Aztecs believe (and rightfully so, if what we've seen is the pattern) that they will be the next on the chopping block of nations slated to be executed by Imperial swords. Time will tell of what happens between the two.



Goods from Gauletia pour in through way of the Roman trade routes snaking from the Mali nation to the ports in Iberia and in Italia itself. Silver traded for mass amounts of gems, ivory, and cotton supplement the coffers of the Roman Empire, and the pockets of the corrupt Roman officials and the Emperor of Rome himself while the Senate grumbles quietly to itself. No love is had between the merchant princes, the Emperor, the Senate, and the army under the control of the generals, as all are vying for more power for their branch of control within the Empire, leading to bloody conspiracies rife with assassinations that spiderweb their way across the years and decades.



Longbows, the weapon of yesterday, are destroyed by the tools of tomorrow that are the muskets of Rome. The city is on the brink of being captured, and yet the Mayans fight for every square inch of ground that they can try to retain.



The Emperor, growing displeased with the lack of progress in the siege of Tikal, orders troops to be deployed near the Aztec/Mayan border, in order to take the Mayan city located there before going on the March to Tikal. Made up of knights, muskets, and cannon artillery, they are ready and willing to use any advantage able to be abused by them in the taking of the city in order to create glory and valor for the Empire. Already, retreats by the Mayan forces back into their city as they slash and burn anything they can't take with them that they are forced to leave behind, have complicated the advance, as well as guerrilla warfare between the two sides that will leave entire army units, however small, dead in the jungle warfare.



Shown here are the comparisons of Roma to the other nations around the world, showcasing the might of the Vox Populi against all others. Rome ranks first in many categories, except for life expectancy and approval rating. Though to be frank, the life expectancy is primarily due to people dying in the war and complaining how they took a cannonball to the gut and they only have a few more minutes to live. That and the fact that no other nation seems to like Roma due to some good old fashioned conquest that is necessary to keep the entire Empire alive on the spoils of war.



An overview of the current situation so far transpiring in the Central Americas. As you can see here, only four Mayan cities remain free of Imperial control, with two Roman Army groups (Panckow and Rhineland) preparing for their respective assaults. World's are about to collide, and when they do, nothing will be safe.
 
While the war continued in the central Americas, the strain of a triple war at home (against the Russians, the Turks, and the Mayans) began to be felt. Conscriptions were often and seldom selected the difference between a forty two year old man and a sixteen year old boy, as both would be drafted into the legions and trained brutally in the the hopes that the tide in Asia Minor could be turned away from the see-sawing conflict that it had occupied for so long, and switch in favor the Roman Army. The war against Russia, while quiet, was sure to be a vicious one; the summers that Russia had during those years were brutal in terms of weather, and the winters in contrast were as horrible as if divine judgement was wreaking havoc, halting any skirmishes that the Roman Army and the militias and legions would have done normally. The Emperor was more than happy however to let the Russians try to skirmish the border cities and towns and weaken themselves while Asia Minor was subjugated by Roman authority.



As seen here, sea battles between the Romans and the Turks became common, with fisheries raided and boats captured or set fire to, with a take no prisoners attitude from the Turks and a unmerciful retribution stance from the Romans. This in itself would lead to many problems, as the Greek peninsula (seen here in this illustration) depended upon it's fisheries for a large amount of the food supply, having to subsist on sheep and grapes from the hills when that was not an option. Mutters and rumors of civil war began to stir amongst the subjugated Greeks, and crackdowns and food shortages increased exponentially from zero to at least one crackdown or food riot every week it seemed. At the end of the war, the total number of citizens dead in the Greek peninsula from the crackdowns and the food shortages would be estimated at fifty five thousand, but some scholars believe that the numbers are even higher, reaching a massive one hundred thousand people in both the cities and the countryside itself.



Faoshaug the Deceiver shows up in Rome for the first time; this man, considered one of the greatest espionage masters of the time, was a unremarkable fellow in most ways, but deadly and cunning when it came to the art of spying and espionage itself and was extremely brutal in clearing his missions out at the time. During the interim years of the war between the Turks, Faoshaug was sent on thirty five major missions, including Operation Black Lotus which led to the assassination of three Turkish generals and the death of a Turkish admiral. Faoshaug was well known in Turkey by that time by his nickname, the Red Lion, and was forced to stop his activities in Turkey (unwillingly) and instead established a school for future spies and espionage masters to train and pledge their service to the Roman Empire.



With the clatter of dozens of cannons firing shells into the breech, Tikal's defenses are wrecked, destroyed and leveled before the Roman army. The assault on the city is fast and vicious, the Mayans barely able to hold what is left of the gates and the narrow alleyways and the streets of the city. Roman heavy cavalry is sent in to overrun them, with some of the heaviest and thickest plate armor known to man and swords sharp enough to slice through most cloth and boiled leather armor. Civilians and soldiers break and begin to flee from the encroaching Roman army, but many are chased and run down by the mounted soldiers and killed. Many of the Roman soldiers, who have lost allies and friends in the campaign and now stand alone with mercenary soldiers sent to supplement their respective units in the legions, are unwilling or unable to give mercy to any soldier or Mayan civilian and citizen that is in front of them. Before the day is even done, thousands more are dead, and not just from the battle. Tikal is captured, and the capital of the Mayan populace falls to Rome.



With Tikal fallen, the remnants of the Mayan military force have fallen back to one last city on the slopes of the Central American hills; a river to their southeast, they are protected from the forces of Tikal, who would certainly face a heavy slaughter if they were to cross the wide and rushing river, but a Roman force perches on the hills above and is already engaging the city in a life or death struggle for the final stronghold. Without enough time to shore up defensive bulwarks around the city, the cannons have already gone to work and bombarded the soldiers camped inside of the urban area, dealing a large amount of damage to them before the fight even begins. With barely five thousand troops against Rome's thirty thousand, it seems that the Mayans were resigned to fight to the death inside of the city as seen from the texts of The Last Days: An Account of the Fall of the Mayan Empire.



The heavy cavalry advances first and hits the longbowmen position in the Mayan lines, decimating them viciously. A unit of spears from the Mayan side attempts to encircle the heavy Roman cavalry and rout them where they stand, but the musketmen of the Roman side engage them and force them back with heavy losses; another unit of heavy cavalry smashes into the lines of the longbowmen again, decimating even more and breaking the Mayan army's resolve to fight; fleeing soldiers spread out everywhere, heading deeper into the city or into the jungle itself to escape the Roman army as it marches proudly into the city. A quick ship is sent back to Rome bearing great tidings; Oaxaca has fallen, the Mayan Empire is dead, peace at last on the isthmus of the New World.



Except, not really. One truly final Mayan city remains, further onto the Yucatan Peninsula, also known as the Fist of Jupiter to the Romans. The Roman army at Tikal advances out of the city and engages in a siege with the enemy in an attempt to break them down first through starvation and isolation, but the Mayans in this area have prepared well for that. Stockpiles for food can last them and their garrison for a year or two at the worst while the Romans grow hungry on strained supply lines from the homeland due to logistics in the jungle ridden New World being snarled by the strange roads the Mayans made, which makes wagons bearing arms, food, and medical supplies hard to move from Tikal to the front lines. Instead of waiting out a protracted siege, the decision is made and the Roman heavy cavalry charges again into the breech in order to route archers guarding the city in an attempt to crack the last bastion of the Mayan nation.



The battle is brutal and sees heavy losses on both sides; the Mayans, numbering fifteen thousand, are slaughtered to a man defending the city, while the Romans and their mercenary comrades numbering one hundred thousand soldiers lose a tenth of their number in the decimation. While no unit is totally destroyed, it's still a vicious and bloody affair that leaves many wounded and many dying on the field of battle before it is all said and done. Chichen Itza has fallen, and now the Mayan empire has collapsed with the foundation of the Nova Roma territory in the New World. With this, exportation of goods from the new world including dyes and sugars begin in earnest as the trade begins to flow between the New World, and the Old World.



With this good bit of news, the Turkish front rallies and pulls of its stagnant ways; Roman soldiers move slowly through the Turkish territory in an attempt to kill off the empire now in its death struggle, but it is extremely tough going through the hills and valleys of Asia Minor. A large force of Roman soldiers wait at the small city of Samsun, ready to advance south or east in order to force the death struggle of the Turkish kingdom to accelerate and possibly destroy it's entire empire in the process. Cannons are loaded and ready to go, muskets are primed and ammo is plentiful, and the pikes and spears stand steadfast to lead the way into the heartland of the Turkish empire for the death blow that will end yet another nation on the Earth under the boots of the Roman Empire.



Unfortunately this is all for now; stay tuned next time for the curtain call of the Turkish Empire.
 
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