Rise of Iberia - Field of Glory: Empires

[Groundhog]

For those who have never heard of Field of Glory, my first exposure to it was Field of Glory II, which I picked up about a year ago and go through repeated intense spurts of playing, before putting it aside for a few months. It's a grid-based historical warfare game with more in common with a tabletop wargame than something like Total War - I only found out recently that it actually is a tabletop game, adapted to a PC game. The AI is pretty reasonable and it has random result-driven campaigns between the battles (basically a choose your own adventure type screen that sometimes gives you options, sometimes not) that adds a lot of replay-ability, although there is no true campaign mode ala Total War.

Well, at least, so I thought. Thanks to Steam's recommendations I discovered FoG: Empires, which is the developer's attempt at that campaign mode. The feature I was most intrigued by however was the ability to fight the battles using the FoG:2 engine. 15 minutes into the game so far, I will say that although this is not implemented very seamlessly - you need to exit out of Empires, launch FoG:2, load the battle, play it, exit, launch Empires, then load the battle results - it does automate enough of it with menu prompts etc that it's not too painful either. I guess it depends on how many battles I end up facing.

For my first play-through I thought it might be fun to chronicle it here. Battles aside, I have no idea what I am doing however, so it might end up being a short dynasty.

You are given the choice of three different starting points, one being a DLC expansion focused on Cyrus the Great that I don't have, the main "grand campaign" mode which starts in 310 BC with the Alexander the Great successor kingdoms still duking it out and trouble brewing between Rome and Carthage, or a scenario focused specifically on the Phyrric wars that begins in 281. I opted for the grand campaign in 310 BC.

There is an absolute wealth of factions to choose from divided into 3 categories - the big players (Rome, Successors, Carthage, etc), a couple of dozen mid-tier factions that control a few provinces, and then a myriad of small factions.

I opted for Iberii, the largest of the Iberian factions in what is today Spain, in the mid-tier faction category. Located (in)conveniently between the easiest land route between Carthage and Rome, I've always found them interesting. In real life they end up dominated by Carthage and Rome in turn, and it's quite likely at least the former ends up happening here also!

[Groundhog]

The Iberii Nation - 310 BC



The Iberii are a warlike people, with the Iberic Tradition giving a general boost to heavy infantry (cheaper). They are also rebellious in nature, which seems like a dangerous triad (to my ruler!).

We are not particular well drilled however, and our current ruler, 61 year old Vagodonnaegus, is well liked by the general populace but not particular skilled in either the art of war or diplomacy. Not exactly the type that would attract the other Hispanic tribes of Iberia to flock to his banner against the Carthage threat to the south.

[Groundhog]

Turn 6: 305 BC



The lay of the relevant land (at this stage). Our North African neighbours have spread their tendrils into Iberia. My Iberii nation made a move on an independent tribe to the west in Vetonia, invading with our 2.5k strong army and making short order of the 440 warriors who marched out to meet us. It was a complete massacre, with our infantry and light cavalry able to fully encircle the heavily outnumbered Celts and defeat them in short order, claiming the left-most province in the image above. My goal is to try and unite as much of Iberia as I can under my banner before Carthage turns her attention to us. This victory puts us in border-contact with the 3 main immediate threats in our vicinity - the three Hispanic tribes of Saguntum, Celtiberi, and Lusitani - as well as of course Carthage.

Domestically we also made some improvements to our existing provinces. We produce a decent amount of metal and horses at this stage, but built a religious building in our capital of Baecula to try and improve our poor loyalty, and a farm, furnace, and a crafter's district because ... well, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm hoping these will pay off also.

[Groundhog]

Turn 7: 304 BC

Looking to swallow up some more of the independent Hispanic tribes, I march my army south into Anas. The tribal Hispanics are again heavily outnumbered and it doesn't seem worth the hassle of using the FoG:2 battle engine for this fight, so I use the FoG:E battle engine instead for the first time. It's interesting - sort of a quick-sim battle on a small grid. As expected, we win easily, and Iberii adds another province, although once again bordering Carthage. It seems like Carthage may have taken note of what is going on as well, as they move a small force into the province of Baetis on my border.

We begin construction of a palisade to improve the defense of Anas due to its proximity to Carthage, and a shrine to the goddess Epona in the province of Vetonia that adds experience to any cavalry I produce. I then I march my army west to conquer Cunei.

[Groundhog]

303 BC - The Battle of Cunei

The Cunei natives will not be a complete pushover, although we have a big advantage in both troop quality and quantity. The maps are randomly generated based on the location of the battle, and we find ourselves forming up on a hill overlooking the Cunei down on a plain. It's blind deployment every battle.

I position my medium infantry on the right flank because of the patches of rough terrain (the arid/rocky patches in the image below) - heavy infantry (which make up the left of my battle line) need to stay in close order to be effective, and rough terrain causes them to become disordered and significantly less effective, while medium infantry are able to move through it and fight in it with no penalty. I positon my slingers to the front of my battle line, and light cavalry skirmishers on the right flank to soften up the enemy before the medium infantry make it into melee.


The tall flags represent units with a general attached, which gives them combat and morale bonuses. I spread them around pretty typically to buff the middle and flanks of our line.

The Cunei have 3 units of urban militia on their right flank, some lower quality medium infantry in the middle, then 3 warbands on the left flank, 2 with generals. The warbands are not heavy infantry but just listed as loose-order 'warriors', which I assume means they won't be impeded by the rough terrain.


"Do you poorly armed and trained rabble want to live forever?!" lies the Cunei general.

The Cunei get first turn and make no move, waiting for us to advance down from the hills and fight on level ground. They have no range or skirmish troops however which is a huge disadvantage, so I send all my light infantry and cavalry forward to harass them, while moving my infantry up to hug the hill nearest the enemy and see if we can't lure them to fight us at an even greater disadvantage uphill.


My light infantry and light javelin cavalry harass the Cunei as my infantry take up position on the edge of the hills

We mercilessly pepper the stronger general-led infantry blocks, managing to disrupt the warband on the flank with my javelin cavalry - a disrupted unit fights with reduced capacity and is closer to breaking - but the Cunei won't budge from the plain. We advance our infantry down from the hills to meet them, and at this the Cunei finally move, charging at my light infantry and light cavalry who mostly retreat away to safety. A few slingers are stuck in engagement zones but manage to flee through our ranks when charged, and my light cavalry whip back around to continue to harass the Cunei as we make our advance.


Lay down your arms, tribes of Cunei, we come bearing liberty and civilization!

Our lines crash together, and as expected the heavy infantry on our left flank smash through the Cunei militia, causing one unit to rout, which disrupts the surrounding miltia units. The Cunei's middle general-led unit of medium infantry fares better, pushing my middle infantry back, and on my right flank things are more even at the moment but I am sending medium infantry around on the flank to bring this to a hopefully swift conclusion.


The Cunei militia buckles under pressure.

...turns out no flanking is needed, during the Cunei's turn their right flank collapses completely and flees the battlefield, causing the entire force to rout for a very one-sided victory to the Iberii!

[Groundhog]

Turn 9: 302 BC
We form the province of Baetis which in my limited understanding reduces the amount of decadence we accrue when we expand. Decadence is an attempt to model the negative effects of growth. We construct an anchorage in our newly-captured province of Cunei, which is basically the lowest level dock you can build. It provides some small income, but also adds Siege Resist: 1. Because it takes a single turn to move an army between a region, I'm guessing Siege Resist is how many turns a province can hold out before being captured. Palisades offer 1 turn, city walls 2. Assuming this is correct, I'm spread a little thin here, and if Carthage hit my eastern provinces, I wouldn't make it in time. I send my army back into my capital and start raising more troops to act as a defense force. I don't have a handle on upkeep yet, so we'll have to see if I can afford two standing forces.

Turn 10: 301 BC
Lusitani, the Hispanic clan to the North-West of us, send a raiding party into Cunei as my army leaves the territory. How rude. They are beaten back by the provincial defenses, however I decide to delay our journey back to the capital and instead declare war on Lusitani. As they are not a tribal faction, we must proceed with the formality of declaring war before we just send in the soldiers. Pfft, all this red tape... I had no real intention of looking their way at this point, but they forced my hand. We also build a stable in Baecula (our capital) to allow us to build more cavalry types, a monument in Dianum (our eastern province), and a fishery in Anas.

Turn 11: 300 BC
Welp. Carthage declared war on us well, apparently they were allied with Lusitani. I probably should have checked that before brashly declaring war. Oh well. Lusitani have 3 provinces and few soldiers - I would roll over them I suspect. Not wanting to miss out on all the fun, the Celtiberi also declare war on us after having prepared in secret. Oh dear. The wheels might come off on this dynasty even quicker than I'd feared. I send my army into Lusitani anyway. Within a few years we should have a reasonably sized 2nd standing army in our capital ready to receive whichever enemy marches on us first. Lusitani move their small standing army out of the province, leaving just a bare-bones defense force. I autosim rather than fight it in FoG:2 as it will be a cakewalk, and the autosim proves that well enough - an easy victory, and another province gained.

Turn 12: 299 BC
We plunder some gold from the takeover Lusitania (Lusitani's capital), and our mediocre ruler's health degrades to 'average'. Lusitani do not seem willing to negotiate a peace with us at this stage. I was wrong about the size of the Lusitani military - there is a fog of war involved, and the actually have a few standing armies. They have a sizable force in Astura province to the North-East, which has now become their base of power since we took their capital. It's a mostly medium infantry and light cavalry/infantry force. It would be a close fight. The province they are situated in is forested, which would hinder their light cavalry, however it would do the same to mine while also hindering my heavy infantry. Odds are not great, but I decide to roll the dice. This should be a decisive battle in the war, and with 3 enemies on my border I feel like I need to try and take one out of the picture ASAP. On a less interesting note, we build a blacksmith in one of our provinces to add a little more cash flow and increase our metal output. I plan on a lot of heavy infantry in my armies, and metal is a key requirement.

[Groundhog]

299 BC - The Battle of Astura

As we move into Astura, the Lusitani send in another 5 units to support their forces - I'm not sure what they are yet. This gives them a heavy advantage in troops. To make matters worse, as we emerge from a forest the Lusitani have picked an excellent spot to deploy... As we deploy we can't see the Lusitani positions or troops yet, but I set my heavy infantry up away from the rough terrain, and lump all my range and skirmish cavalry up to the front. Assuming the Lusitani sit on their hill and don't move down to engage us, I will hope we can harass them with our ranged attacks enough to draw them down the hillside, but I doubt they'll bite. I wouldn't. We also put 2 generals in among our medium infantry because it's likely they'll need to do more than their fair share of the heavy lifting if we have any chance at victory.


Mountains covering one flank, elevation, rough terrain to hinder my heavy infantry, and a numerical advantage... all things considered, this couldn't start much worse for us.

Once we have deployed, I'm surprised to see not only the makeup of the Lusitani force, but that they are charging towards us, clearly confident due to how much we are outnumbered. They have some skirmishes and ranged troops, as well as some heavy infantry matched up on the same side as mine - avoiding the rought terrain also. My plan is to let them advance, try to have our slingers and the Lusitani javelin skirmishers cancel each other out, while my left-side skirmish cavalry attempt to disrupt the Lusitani heavy infantry. We have no superiority as far as troop quality goes, unlike our other battles to this point, and being heavily outnumbered I'd say we are very long odds here.


The Lusitani elect to advance from their superior position, confident of victory.

Our ranged and cavalry skirmishers move up and pepper the Lusitani with attacks, while additional units of medium infantry are revealed at the rear of the Lusitani advance. Great.


On our left flank one unit of light cavalry makes it to the Lusitani line to harass their heavy infantry block with general, but a Lusitani slinger unit blocks the other unit.

We don't manage to achieve much with our ranged attacks, as the Lusitani advance. We are in particular danger on our left flank with the general-led block of heavy infantry extended out beside my line of infantry. I try something a little sneaky and bait a light cavalry unit in front of it, hoping the unit attempts to charge it. I rotate our unit of heavy infantry on our left flank to face to the left, hoping they can smash the Lusitani general in its flank if they take the bait.


Hailmary play - if the Lusitani take the bait and expose their flank it's the only thing that might possibly save our left flank.

It doesn't work - the unit switches targets once our light cavalry unit retreats and hit our unit of the flank instead, but it could have gone worse. The enemy has a bit of a gap in the middle of its line as it sent some infantry chasing my skirmishes, so we decide to try and quickly push for some advantage by sending a unit of heavy infantry into the enemy's medium infantry on our right flank. Otherwise, the Lusitani have done a great job matching up my strongest units with their own. We charge in with most of our units and manage to disrupt a medium infantry unit in the middle, while the Lusitani do the same to a unit of our heavy infantry on our left flank. Most of the odds of the matchups are either 50/50 or slight advantage to the Lusitani, so we are going to need some luck.


We clash with the initial wave of Lusitani and it's pretty even so far, we are hoping the heavy infantry unit we have sent towards the right flank can give us an advantage next turn.

We don't have much luck in combat with a handful of our units becoming disrupted. We do manage to route two units, with our middle heavy infantry thoroughly routing the medium infantry it was up against and then pursing up the battlefield into another unit of infantry. The flanking maneuver on the right side works well as we route a unit, but with the amount of disrupted infantry we have it does not look good for us, the Lusitani can replace the units we've routed as they still have a heavy numerical advantage.


We have some success in the combats in green, but some heavy losses in the red combats.

We have one unit rout on our left flank, and Phobos the god of fear makes an appearance, with my 2 remaining units also deciding to turn and run - a disaster, 43% of our army has now routed, compared with 9% for the Lusitani - it is a massacre! Victory is declared for the Lusitani.


Our left flank collapses, and the Lusitani declare victory.

[Groundhog]

Turn 13: 298 BC

Well, I'd say we learnt a few valuable lessons there. First - proper nations are a lot tougher than tribes, and fog of war is a thing. Our survivors retreat back to Lusitania. We also get word that Saguntum has now declared war on us, putting us in actual conflict with every neighbour! This should end well! We recruit a few units of medium infantry to the surviving 5 units in Lusitania - unfortunately we completely lost 2 units of heavy infantry in the defeat, and with the tenuous control we have over Lusitania, it would take 16 years to recruit just a single one in this province. We now have an 8-strong force in our own capital, and within a few more turns I should have enough to move on Saguntum. I'm hoping Carthage ignores us for the moment.

Alas, Lusitana looks to push their advantage and invades Lusitania. Off to battle we go!

[Groundhog]

298 BC - The Battle of Lusitania

Fighting on our "home turf" (the Lusitani would disagree!), we secure what should be a better battleground for us. We position our troops at the base of a steep hill. Normally fighting from elevation is an advantage, however these steep hills disorder even medium infantry. We then put our light cav in a position to protect our heavy infantry's flank, and put a unit of militia behind our medium infantry on the right side to protect their flank if needed. Without seeing the enemy as yet it seems like this should be a more fair fight than the last.


We setup in a position hopeful that the Lusitani will advance on us.

After deploying, the Lusitani forces are revealed to us. They have 6 ranged light infantry units which is a lot, and just 4 blocks of medium infantry (that we can see, at least). On paper this gives us a reasonable advantage. We both pass 2 turns without moving however - the Lusitani see the advantage that we have with the terrain and are content to have us march to them. I love the AI in this game.


The Lusitani appear very unbalanced, assuming they have no hidden units - lots of shooters, not much infantry.

We decide to march on the Lusitani rather than hit end turn 23 times. The lake that lies between our lines is going to be a pain as it breaks our formation and means it will take some time for my heavy infantry to move up the field, so I'll need to slow my medium infantry's advance to stay aligned. The Lusitani continue to hold and wait for us. I worry that they may move on our medium infantry while our heavy infantry is stuck on the left and effectively out of the fight.


The Lusitani sit back and wait for our awkward, slow advance.

The Lusitani reveal another unit of javelin troops who, along with their light cavalry on our left flank, advance on our light cavalry. I don't really mind, and we chase the other skirmishers off with our heavy infantry as we continue our advance. The Lusitani skirmishes start peppering both my heavy infantry and medium infantry trying to disorder them, but the attacks are spread out and I'm hopeful I can advance in time and engage the infantry before that happens. The Lusitani medium infantry finally begin to advance. Our heavy infantry chase off a unit of skirmishes and then crash into the general-led block of Lusitani medium infantry while the rest of our infantry move into position. We have a great chance at flanking our enemy on the right.


We are positioned well for taking the right flank.

The Lusitani try to seize the initiative by charging their troops in. Only the general-led Lusitani block is a good chance of winning their combat against my heavy infantry, but I have a couple of good opportunities to flank and hopefully rout away the right and left flanks of the Lusitani.


Green squares are where I'm hoping I'll outflank my opponent. Red square is the most dangerous combat we're in versus a strong general-led squad. We'll hope we can take them from their flank and turn odds back in our favour.

The outflanking maneuver works a treat on the right and we rout both Lusitani infantry blocks, while also disrupting the unit on their left flank. They are winning the battle in the middle, but we should be able to hit their unit from the side next turn. We march our poor militia unit up towards the Lusitani skirmishers to draw their fire away from our better units - Iberii thanks you for your sacrifices!


Not looking good for the Lusitani as we take the right flank.

The flanking maneuver works to perfection and we rout both remaining infantry blocks from the battle! It looked like we'd need to take another unit out of action to hit the required rout rate differential to claim victory, but our infantry block in the middle rallies from their disrupted state and that's enough to clinch it. Victory!

[Groundhog]

Turn 14 - 297 BC

Here's were things sit currently:

[Groundhog]

Turn 14 - 297 BC

It's tempting to send my newly created 8 man unit into Saguntum after they declared war on us, but I feel I need to deal with the Lusitani first. We have a cavalry unit that will be ready following this turn, so once that's done we will march this army up in Lusitania, merge it with our surviving troops there and attempt to take the fight to the Lusitani again.

Turn 15 - 296 BC

Our ruler's health is downgraded to poor. Hopefully his successor is better equipped for the situation we find ourselves in. The Lusitani boost their military in the adjacent province to Lusitania with another squad of slingers. As mentioned above, our 9-unit strong force departs our capital for Lusitania - it will take 2 turns/years, leaving us in a vulnerable position if Saguntum and/or Carthage make a move on our home provinces. We construct a palisade in Cunei, bordering Lusitania.

The Lusitani however decide to try their hand at an invasion again - our units have not fully healed at this point, and although I expect another unbalanced/skirmish-heavy force from the Lusitani, with our depleted units it should be a close battle.

[Groundhog]

296 BC - The 2nd Battle of Lusitania

The site of battle is maybe not as perfect as last time we clashed in Lusitania. We have water on our left flank which should help protect my heavy infantry's flanks, but the forested area in front of where we setup our medium infantry will be troublesome if the Lusitania choose to engage us there - medium infantry are disordered in forests.


Not many changes to how we deployed in the last battle.

Once deployed, the Lusitani infantry are behind the hill, so we can't yet see where they are positioned. They elect not to move their first turn, so it appears that once again they will make us come to them. We will advance as fast as possible to attempt to get beyond the forest with our medium infantry before the Lusitani make their move.


Fog of war obscures the location of the Lusitani infantry. It seems they may have done a better job preparing for this showdown than the last... or maybe not.

As we move across the hill the Lusitani's positions are revealed to us, and ... well, it's a whole lot of slingers and light cavalry, and just one unit of infantry. This is a strange matchup, the likes of which you would never see in a FoG: 2 battle. We are much stronger in melee, but the skirmishers ability to evade charges combined with all the forest might make things dicey. As we approach the forest the Lusitani send their skirmishers up close. Now the fun begins...


We move to the right to try and lineup with the advancing Lusitani skirmishers. One Lusitani medium infantry unit lays way back in their deployment zone.

We charge into their skirmishers, and manage to catch one unit of javelinmen with two units of medium infantry. The rest of the enemy successful engage, and we are now a bit spread out, but our goal now is to pursue and either chase them off the field or engage. We manage to route the javelinmen unit we caught up to, and chase a slinger and light cavalry unit off the field - we have now routed 15% of the Lusitani. We continue to chase down the other skirmishers, and catch another unit of javelinmen.


We rout and chase a few Lusitani troops off the field, while engaging another unit in melee as it attempted to evade.

A Lusitani slinger unit makes an odd decision to charge our slingers, allowing us to counter charge with medium infantry. We rout the other javelinmen unit which we caught last turn, and chase some light cavalry off the field. 26% of Lusitani units routed now, we need 14% more to win. One of the light cavalry units we chased off the field returns, so we try and scare him off again. Things are looking good, but the Lusitani are doing a good job at harassing our infantry also. We don't manage to engage any more units, but we push forward enough to chase over 40% of the Lusitani from the field, without ever having engaged their one unit of medium infantry. The Lusitani do annoyingly manage to route a unit of my slingers on their final turn, but it's a victory for the Iberii all the same - a fairly bloodless one at that.

[Groundhog]

Turn 16 - 295 BC
Forgot to mention that we took a flyer last turn and offered a white peace with Saguntum with no concessions on either side. It was rejected. We also gain an aging token, which after a bit of reading seems to mean that we are in danger of backwards progression - ie. going more tribal, rather than civilized and progressive. I guess all this tribal warfare will do that to you. Our new force is still a year away from re-supplying our soldiers in Lusitania - next turn we will look to push back into Lusitania and end one of our 3 ongoing wars. We also look to start building another force in our capital - again, no idea how upkeep is going to impact us, but it looks like it will take around 4 years to complete our 11 unit force.

Turn 17 - 294 BC
We get another aging token. Boo. Harsh weather affects all of Iberia, and it appears a blizzard has hit the adjacent Lusitani province hard, which means I can't march my troops in there this turn. I reinforce my standing army in Lusitania, and send two medium infantry units back to my capital. This gives me a 14-unit strong force to pursue the battle with Lusitania. We also hear that a new pirate fleet is active in the Mediterranean, and that a poor crop yield is expected in one of our territories. Carthage have positioned a 2-unit strong force on our border. Nothing too be overly concerned about, but I expect it to grow. Saguntum however decide that, with my army to the North-West, what better time to invade. They send an 8-unit strong Greek-style hoplite army into my province of Oretania, with only provincial militia to defend. I auto-sim as it is a hopeless battle and lose.

Turn 18 - 293 BC
At the perfect moment we learn what upkeep is. We can't afford to train more troops, and some desert as we can't afford to pay them. Traitors. We split our 14-unit army in Lusitania, sending 6 units back to our capital to hopefully give Saguntum some pause before they invade another province. We send the remaining 8 unit army in Lusitania to push further into Lusitani territory and see if we can't settle for peace with another victory. They have few troops in the province as we move our forces, but they may bolster with reinforcements before battle begins.

[Groundhog]

293 BC - The 2nd Battle of Asturia

We find ourselves deploying on a narrow battlefield, thanks to the mountains. Without a good idea of what the enemy is fielding (although they did reinforce themselves at the end of the turn before our invasion), I put the majority of heavy infantry on our left flank supported by some medium infantry, and vice versa on the other flank. We also have melee cavalry for the first time this battle, which I stack on the left flank. There is an open plain where the enemy will deploy so I will be hoping we outnumber them and can spread out and look to flank them once we pass the mountains.


The narrow deployment zone and mountain range to the right make deployment a bit tricky.

The Lusitani deployment is revealed, and they reinforced with some warbands, which will be a bit trick. We far outnumber them based on what we can see (they may have other units behind the hills) however. The elect not to move and will likely wait for us to get to the bottom of the hills they are partially deployed on to try take the height advantage. We will try and spread out and hit them from the flanks.


Fog of war aside, we seem to have an advantage in numbers, but the Lusitani have a defensible position on the hills.

We sound our light cavalry forward to try and scout near where the Lustiani have their light infantry, but we don't see any more units in hiding so far. We continue to advance forward, with our cavalry on the left flank moving wider. Our slingers and light cavalry hurl abuse and objects each other while the rest of the Lusitani force sit back and await our infantry advance.


Our skirmishers engage each other while our infantry advance.

The Lusitani charge into and rout a unit of my slingers, while I disorder a unit of their javelinmen. My cavalry continue to fan out to the left to give my medium infantry on that flank space to join our main advancing line. The Lusitani decide now is the time to advance on us. We wait one square back from the hill to see if they'll come engage us on level ground, while our light cavalry chases off the other unit of javelinmen. We also march our cavalry on the left flank well forward and away from the enemy, looking to turn them around and hit their flank if they don't make a move to counter us they, which they do by turning the warband unit on their right-most flank to face the cavalry. I'm more than OK with this as it further reduces their line.


[i]Our cavalry heads out to flank the enemy, who turn their right-most flank to face it, as our lines move towards each other.

We check the odds and decide to charge at even the Lusitani on the hillside. It mostly works out OK for us, but our left flank does not look great as the Lusitani warbands dish out more than they get and fragment one of our heavy infantry blocks and disrupt another. We move our medium infantry up to flank and force the Lusitani to make a decision on whether to worry about our 2 cavalry units or the medium infantry moving to flank. On the right side things go well and we push back and disrupt two of the weak Lusitani units and also look to make a flanking action against their general-led unit.


Battle is fairly even with the Lusitani having success on our left flank, while we do well on the left, however we have some flanking opportunities presenting themselves.

We lose our disrupted heavy infantry unit on the left to a rout, but we hit their flank with our medium infantry and rout their warband in return. The Lusitani turn the warband around that was watching our cavalry and we position our cavalry to hit its flank next turn. The ensuing melees are fairly balanced, we managed to flank the general-led unit of Lusitani on our left and disrupt it, and then rout it. Things are beginning to turn dour for the Lusitani. We kill their main general, rout their other general-led unit, and it's now a massacre.


A whole lot of yellow flags, and not much blue as the Iberii earn a fairly easy victory.

[Groundhog]

Turn 19 - 292 BC
With our victory over the Lusitani it seems they are wiped off the map. I thought they had another province but either that wasn't the case or the Celtiberi took it off their hands. We plunder what loot the Lusitani have and it's enough to pay my military this turn. I disband a handful of troops hoping to bring our spending down so we aren't losing money every turn, while also sending troops in to reclaim our province that Saguntum took off our hands - they sent their troops back to their capital.

Turn 20 - 291 BC
Saguntum offer terms as we re-take our province - stand down 90% of our military for peace. It's tempting, but with Carthage and Celtiberi still not our friends, we say no. We do stand down the 5 units we sent to reclaim our territory though. Lack of food in the province we took from the Lusitani leads to famine - we bring the troops back to Lusitania. The independent tribes surrounding the former Lusitani provinces raise small numbers of troops, but alone they are not strong enough to cause us any real worry. Our leader's health deteriorates to very poor.