Random Events:
The Mordvin army is reinforced by volunteers, including even those from comparatively recently-conquered lands (+10 thousands).
A schism has occured in the Elist faith, between the more "worldy", libertine, progressive and flexible majority (the "Modernists") and a reformist/reactionary minority (the "Fundamentalists"), who were rallied by Priest Hamilcar (what preached that the Lucan invasion was El's punishment for the sins of the Modernists and their followers).
Special Bonuses:
Guessing the Reference (that was easier than I thought, but I promised): Algonquia (+1 Education).
Most Stories: Nortugal (+1 Confidence).
Most Pleasant Surprise: Sri Dukunnugeya (+1 Efficiency).
Spotlight:
Phoenician War Escalates.
"They who are on top are open to attack from all approaches."
- old Lucan saying.
When in 432 AD the Lucans, with Dacoillyrian support, launched their campaign of conquest against Luca, they scarcely expected any real complications. They thought it to be a cakewalk, with the largest (diplomatical) problems coming after the swift victory is achieved. Clearly they had underestimated the state of Phoenician defenses, as well as their prey's diplomatic ingenuity that provided them with funding from Dukunnugeya, weapons from Khmeria and reinforcements from Parhae; and the consequence was the catastrophe at the Lucan siege camp outside of Byblos, in 436 AD, when the Lucan army was practically obliterated by the attackers. In the meantime, another Lucan army was mauled over in Egypt; and a fleet was crippled when it tried to advance beyond the recently-captured Sile Canal; and another army was outflanked and destroyed by the invading Parhaen hordes. Towards 440 AD reality already seemed a nightmarish worst-case scenario for the Lucans, and things were about to get worse.. But the Lucans didn't lose hope, perhaps because it was indeed too early to do so. They still had some cards left to play.
Somewhat ironically, the move that most clearly demonstrated the Lucan determination to fight on - and not just to fight on, but to fight on and win - was a strategic withdrawal from the gains in southern Phoenicia, the only real victory of the last five years. The area was not all that much imporant for the new plan, though; it became more of a distraction, and a one dangerous for Luca's troops. The Lucans didn't want to fight for every inch there; they had something better to do with their troops, so they sounded the retreat. Admittedly, the actual execution of this retreat was a bit troublesome, because the army was also ordered to burn the farmlands and salt the fields, which slowed it down somewhat. Meanwhile, realising that the Lucans were withdrawing, the Phoenicians hurried to pursue, but were delayed by the famine and the related streams of refugees, and by the time they caught up with the Lucans the latter had already reached their destination. Fortunately the Lucans simply fled towards the Sile Canal, and didn't seem to have any ambitions of moving anywhere else. Well, except for those who were already redeployed to Egypt...
The Egyptian situation quickly went out of hand - out of everybody's hands, in fact. In between renewed Berber raids, intrigues and conspiracies of pretty much everyone to any degree connected with and/or interested in the matters of state, constant assassination attempts, purges of the increasingly-paranoid Menes, shadowy deeds of spies of all the nations, the occasional rebellions by various social groups and the increasingly suspicious military and political maneuverings of the Nubians, it simply begun to disintegrate and rot with unprecedented rapidity. The final push was given by the Lucans when they launched a new campaign, quickly routing the Egyptian army (in the Second Battle of Abydos) and pushing back the Nubian one, which retreated southwards. As the Lucans advanced up the Nile, Egypt collapsed around them altogether after an abortive coup attempt and a more succesful last moment desperate assassination... slightly more succesful, because the assassin, one of Menes' generals involved in the aforementioned coup, was killed by the enraged guards. Egypt once again fell into chaos. The Nubians occupied the southern regions, various warlords ruled supreme in the centre, and the Lucan military rule was secure in the north. Yet the Lucans did not stop for a moment to admire the geopolitical scenery, and instead beat up the warlords, the Berbers and the Nubians, quickly occupying all the trully important parts of Egypt. They did fail to capture the Egyptian fleet, which disappeared into the oceans led by its opportunistic captains. Some of them seem to have resurfaced a year later with their ships in the employ of the young Tigrada League. At least two others were killed during a Dukunnugeyan "pirate sweep". Anyway, the point is that the Lucans conquered Egypt, for what that war-wrecked land was worth; it is unclear whether or not they will even try to keep it, though.
Anyway, the Phoenicians decided not to attack the Sile Canal, as they weren't quite ready yet; plus it was all too well-defended. For now they were indeed content to sit on the defensive, with most of Phoenicia liberated. In a somewhat anticlimatic development, the Khmer superpower that had promised its intervention (due to the Lucan attack disrupting commerce; plus there was criticism of the Mediterranean Trade League, which the Khmers were wont to do every now and then anyway) has indeed intervenned... by landing in Eliat weeks after it was abandoned by the Lucans. Well, they also bombarded Sile a bit, but that's all so far. It seems likely that should this war continue the Khmers will play a more important part in it, though.
Another reason for the Phoenicians to sit on the defensive was that everything was going wrong further north, in Assyria, which was designated by Atal III as the singlemost important theatre for Luca at present. It didn't take much intelligence to guess that, really, because it was from Assyria that the Parhaens were threatening Luca itself. While one Parhaen army eliminated the remaining resistance behind its lines, another qucikly forced its way through a poorly-guarded sector of the wall and quickly attacked and captured Trapezus; admittedly, already there it ran into very serious resistance. Soon it all went south, just like a Lucan army that indeed went south to recapture the poorly-guarded city of Milid, just beyond the wall; it happened to be a vital part of the Parhaen supply route, so that route was now practically severed, and to make things even worse the next thing that army did was attack - with the help from another army that maneuvered in from the southwest - the second Parhaen army that was supposed to invade Anatolia as well (as to make it a two-pronged invasion). Outnumbered and outmatched, the Parhaens nevertheless resisted with fortitude, beating back several cavalry charges with some loss. Yet ultimately they were completely outmaneuvered as well, and the army annihilated. The northern army also didn't get too far, it was intercepted at Cotyora, and though it fought the levied Lucans (for that was their secret - the Lucans introduced a massive levy, a desperate measure that they have been saving for such a situation, and though it, in combination with other events, effecitvely gutted their economy, it also gave them a great big army to defend and counterattack with) to a halt, it itself was so weakened it soon had to fall back. Yet near the Wall it was intercepted by another Lucan army, flush from the Battle of Milid; caught between two jaws and in any case dreadfully undersupplied, the Parhaen army surrendered after a few more grinding skirmishes. That meant a total disaster for Shah Tirius, because his entire attack force was now eliminated. Only a few small isolated garrisons remained between the huge Lucan horde and Parhae's very heart. The Lucans themselves couldn't believe such luck, literally, and that was what saved Parhae, because while the Lucans were waiting for the Parhaen counterattack and cautiously asserting control over Assyria, the Parhaens frantically levied troops to defend everything that could be threatened.
The situation was such: Lucans were securing their gains and recovering from the fighting, Phoenicians were once more frantically preparing defenses in their north, and the Parhaens gathered up their regular forces to defend in Mesopotamia; they had to evacuate Caucasia ("southern Alania"), both because it was now untenable and because the Alans expressed their interest in the area in no uncertain terms, occupying it. After some initial clashes, both sides involved suddenly remembered they were allies and decided to stop hurting each other. So the Parhaens were now free to gather forces in Upper Ur and Babylonia, and even to raid and harass the advancing Lucan armies and their supply routes.
Meanwhile the Alans were free to help Onoghuria help Cernorus in its endeavour to help the rebels in "Old Slavenia". As for the rebels, they were rebelling in protest against the Dacoillyrian dispersive resettlement programme, that was to destroy the East Slavs as an ethnic majority in any part of the empire. This rebellion was a really big one, because it was well-prepared; the Cernorusians, and possibly the Onoghurians as well, had clearly been helping it well before it actually commenced. But the Dacoillyrian army sent to put it down was also very big and very scary. Although the Cernorusians did use that army's overstretchment (trying to cover the entire northern border probably wasn't a very good idea when your enemy can just attack at one point in full force and then pick off your other forces one by one, now having also gained the ability to outflank them) to quickly advance into western Slavania and to link up with the main rebel forces, the Dacoillyrian fleet in the Dnieper (which wasn't too large, but on the other hand it had strategically-positioned Juggernauts) made things rather difficult, especially when it utterly thwarted a Cernorusian riverine offensive that was supposed to capture Tripolye (as in, both the boats and the men sank). Meanwhile, the Onoghurians and the Alans overran the resistance in Lucan Bosporan (why not attack it while we're at it?), and now set out with their fleet to asset control over the Black Sea. By then a truce with Parhae has been negotiated, and so the improvised Parhaen Black Sea Fleet joined the Onoghuro-Alan one. The tiny and careless local Lucan fleet was destroyed with ease; the Coalition of the Righteous (as the anti-Dacoillyro-Lucan alliance came to be known) fleet proceede to blockade the Bosphorus and land an army in northeastern Thrace. While the Dacoillyrians scrambled to contain it (in that they succeeded, but in nothing beyond that), the joined fleet also answered the Slavanian call and invaded the Dnieper, eliminating the cumbersome Dacoillyrian flotilla ship by ship with some help from the Onoghurets artillery. By then the Dacoillyrian forces were outmaneuvered, isolated and defeated in detail in several other battles all over Old Slavania, including those fought with the Bulghars who invaded from the east. The Onoghurets troopers were then used to crack open the last few Dacoillyrian strongholds, although there were heavycasualties involved here. For now the final segment of this confusing war was the ill-coordinated, but also ill-countered transcarpathian invasion of Dacia Proper, althought here pretty fierce popular resistance was encountered. The trade centre of Nistrastatuza was burned down by its citizens lest it and its riches fall into enemy hands, for instance. Rather more sensible resistance was however offered by the levies in the central parts of Dacia, which had staved the enemy advance and won time for Dacoillyria to get its act together. When it does - if it does - things are likely to get even more complicated.
As for the Parhaens, in the end they conceded Mesopotamia to the Lucans, and instead concentrated their forces in northern Parhae Proper, beating back a Lucan invasion there and harassing their retreating army in the mountains, causing heavy casualties with some help from the supply and weather problems. That was certainly a morale-booster, and the Parhaens also exploited the victory by recapturing parts of the undergarrisoned eastern Assyria. The situation remains grim, but not all that hopeless. Meanwhile, the Phoenicians rest and recover, and look warily at the Lucan-occupied territories around them, and at the sea as well. A blow could come from anywhere, though for these five years real fighting has been almost completely avoided (a true miracle, that).
It would seem that this war, too, is only beginning, although it has raged for over a decade now. And though its outcome already seemed to have been decided - when the Lucans first attacked, for instance, and Phoenicia looked doomed for sure, or when the Lucan army at Byblos was slaughtered whilst the Parhaens marched to the Anatolian wall, and it already seemed that Luca which withstood Mermerus Midylos[3] and Razh Viyatri[4] will fall to Shah Tirius and King Jerubalis V - it yet appears that here, as in the Atlantic, all will remain in a balance of blood and gore for quite a while. Such are the wars of this age.
NPC Diplo:
From: Punic-Iberian Rebels
To: Nortugal
We request your military assistance.
OOC:
[1] "Keezonosenica" is the native name for the New World's northern continent, at least as used in the east.
[2] Kalpa=OTL Gibraltar itself, and the city there.
[3] Do we know him?
[4] See [3].
So, ThomAnder, should I make Nevasanghism your state religion then?
Apologies about poor quality (and possible misunderstandments in the military sphere, although technically you people too could've been more helpful; many of the order sets I got were vague and/or seemed incomplete: for instance, emu could've at least given me some sort of a general strategic guideline, and andis-1's orders also had a few confusing moments), wasn't feeling too well (why does that always happen to me on Wednesday?).
Should look like this:
