Iberia Rising: Cantabri 474 (EU: Rome)

[Izulde]

Excerpted from Iberia Rising: The Ancient Cantabri Kingdom

Poverty is the engine that drives men to the pursuit of wealth and greatness.

Insignificance is the force that propels nations to find relevancy and glory.

So it was with the small tribe known as the Cantabri, a Celt-Iberian tribe in the very north of the peninsula.


The Cantabri tribe's possessions in 474, highlighted in blue

And the man who first dreamt of power for his tribe was the most unlikely of would-be heroes...

[Groundhog]

Woo-hoo!

[Icy]

An EU III Rome dynasty and starting in Spain, can't miss this!

The Cantabros were a really tough tribe in Spain, watch out Rome, you will end trashed!

[Izulde]

Groundhog: Woo-hoo indeed.

Icy: I have a feeling it's going to be tough for me,though, as I'm in a very bad starting position. Barbarians (everything gray) are really nasty opponents in this game.

Not sure when the next update will be. I make it a policy of mine to always post updates first on the fora that I start a dynasty and the Paradox servers have been slammed -hard- with Rome's release.

Lot of Server Busy and Timed Out errors.

[Coffee Warlord]

Go Rome!

[Neon_Chaos]

Ugh. I am getting my ass kicked by EVERYONE AROUND ME as the Romans during the Phyrric Wars. How sad is that.

I need to work on my SKILLZ.

[Izulde]

Coffee Warlord: Pfft.

Neon Chaos: I believe it... I really do.

[Izulde]

The Cantabri were actually a confederation of 11 tribes, but these tribes were so small in population that it was only the conglomerate that made the Cantabri large enough to be considered a provincial authority.

At the time of the Phyrric War, the Chief of the tribe was a proud, arrogant 39 year-old hunchback by the name of Tautalus Culchid. Although his social graces were utterly absent, in a militaristic society such as the Cantabri, it was might that ruled the day and Tautalus was one of the fiercest warriors of the tribe upon his acension, in spite of his physical infirmity.


The Chief

With an army of 1,000 elite swordsmen and a small ship as their standing forces, the Cantabri were quite small in the large scheme of things, but they had a generations-long tradition of professional soldiers, veteran men who spent their whole lives in the tribal army, so that they were highly disciplined fellows.



Punicius Auarosid, of the fertile Auarosid clan, was appointed High Commander of the army not because of his military skill, which was quite considerable, but because he was the sort of man not to be noticed overly much even when he did perform great deeds and Tautalus, wary of healthier, more naturally talented men than he, sought to ensure that those who led the army in his name would never rise above him to challenge for rulership.

Realizing that his thousand elite swordsmen would not be enough in times of war, Tautalus met with mercaneries residing in the province and hired a band of slingers to support the swordsmen when the time was right.



A most fortunate offer came from the Lusitani tribe, a vast peoples who controlled the southeastern coastline of the peninsula shortly after Tautalus's coronation. An offer of alliance, one that was accepted gladly the Cantabri chieftan.



This uniting of tribes permitted Tautalus to spurn the next offer that came his way, a trade proposal from the neighbouring Vaccaei tribe. "Iron for grain is not acceptable", the Cantabri overlord roared when the envoy arrived. Left unsaid, but far more critical to the Cantabri tribe's long-range plans, was the realization that giving iron to Vaccaei would permit the Vaccaei to recruit their own elite swordsmen.



Such equality could not be countenanced and so, with conditions presently quite favorable, Tautalus declared war on the Vaccaei, hoping that his superior troops and the expected aid from Lusitani would be sufficient to destroy his rivals and make him equal to his allies.

Disaster struck when the populace of Cantabri angrily decried the surprise invasion and chaos reigned in the tribes. Worse yet, the Lusitani, seeing this disorder, refused to come to the aid of their allies.

Angered at this dishonor, Tautalus nonetheless ordered Punicius into Vaccaei with his 1,000 elite swordsmen and set into motion the summoning of more military units.

Punicius made some intial gains in Vaccaei after arriving in mid-February, but was soon overwhelmed by the sheer force of numbers, outstripped two to one in troop numbers.

Vaccaei then launched a counteroffensive and were beaten back by Audax Audaxid, who gained some small measure of popularity for defending the Cantabri homeland.

Alas, the next incursion into Vaccaei, the turning point in the war, failed, as not even Audax, the new hero, could solve the numbers problem. The Vaccaei had put all their efforts into fast recruitment and mobilization of their troops and it proved the decisive advantage in this conflict.



Vaccaei refused to accept the hasty white peace offered them and by the winter, they overran Cantabri and annexed it into their domain.

Thus, did Tatulus pay for his rashness and cost his tribe its autonomy, rendering the entire Cantabri confederacy into Vaccaei slavedom.

***End Dynasty***

Sorry about the shortness, but hopefully you guys learned something from my play.

[Coffee Warlord]

Heh!

[Neon_Chaos]

Well.

There you go.

[sabotai]

I suspect trying to play is one of the one or two province nations in EU:Rome is going to be much harder than the previous games. I tried as Sparta, and it did not go well.

[Coffee Warlord]

Hell, I tried as Rome last night, and it did not go well.

[Izulde]

Coffee Warlord: Heh, indeed.

Neon Chaos: Ayup.

sabotai: Yeah, it's not like starting as some poor arsed count somewhere. I mean hell, even the independent and very sucky County of Sligo on CK (imo one of the absolute worst starting points in the game), is an easier go.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Hell, I tried as Rome last night, and it did not go well.

Yeah, it sounds like the Phyrric War is a lot tougher for Rome than a lot of people figured it'd be.

[Coffee Warlord]

Actually, I got my ass kicked by fucking barbarians 2 years in. Right after a peace treaty with Greece, 17 stacks of barbarians came in and demolished me.

[Peregrine]

Interesting choice - from the title I thought you were playing the nation of Iberia, which is east of the Black Sea and looks like a pretty interesting country also.

[Celeval]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Excerpted from Iberia Rising: The Ancient Cantabri Kingdom

Excerpted from? How much more could there have been? :-D

[Izulde]

Coffee Warlord: Yeah, the barbarians are brutal, which pisses me off somewhat to be honest. I feel like more of the map should be playable.

Peregrine: Nope, though somebody on the Paradox forums does have a Pontus AAR going.

Celeval: Ouch. Well-played.

[Neon_Chaos]

After playing through several times, I am extremely disappointed with the game.

It feels like EUIII-lite combined with CK-lite. The EUIII features are not in-depth enough to really engage me during the game, while the CK features are not implemented in-depth enough to make you feel like each character is relevant in the game.

Actually, this is the way I felt about Crown of the North, which I thought played too much like EU2-lite.

That's bad. Very bad.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

After playing through several times, I am extremely disappointed with the game.

It feels like EUIII-lite combined with CK-lite. The EUIII features are not in-depth enough to really engage me during the game, while the CK features are not implemented in-depth enough to make you feel like each character is relevant in the game.

Actually, this is the way I felt about Crown of the North, which I thought played too much like EU2-lite.

That's bad. Very bad.

I don't mind terribly an EU3-lite, but the CK-lite is disappointing, especially when marriages are just automatically assigned, at least in the very short game I played.

I'm still horked about the low number of playable factions, too. But maybe things will improve with patches and mods.

[Neon_Chaos]

Originally Posted by Izulde

I don't mind terribly an EU3-lite, but the CK-lite is disappointing, especially when marriages are just automatically assigned, at least in the very short game I played.

I'm still horked about the low number of playable factions, too. But maybe things will improve with patches and mods.

The game actually plays more like Risk than EU or CK.

Yikes.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Coffee Warlord: Yeah, the barbarians are brutal, which pisses me off somewhat to be honest. I feel like more of the map should be playable.

Yeah, I got into a new Rome game last night. And the Barbarians are just ridiculous. I'm sorry, when my TOTAL forcelimit (18) as Rome is lower than the number of Barbarians I've seen come in one stack (the record I've seen is 21, though that wound up being some 32,000 troops since there were more coming at me), something is not right.