The books are: “The Falls of Rome: Crises, Resilience, and Resurgence in Late Antiquity” by Michele Salzman and “The Politics of Roman Memory: From the Fall of the Western Empire to the Age of Justinian” by Marion Kruse.
You can also just start with the episodes where Kaldellis interviews them – it’s a good, quick intro to the subjects.
Other good recent books on late antiquity include: “The Final Pagan Generation” by Edward J. Watts and “Through the Eye of a Needle” by the legendary Peter Brown, the dean of late antique studies. I’m also a big fan of “Staying Roman” by Jonathan Connant – this is less late antiquity writ large, but a more specific focus on Roman identity in Africa after the fall of the empire.
There’s so much more though – journal articles constantly being written, new books being published all the time, etc. These are just four that I’ve read and really enjoyed.
Well, it looks like Dashingdon is coming down, unfortunately. In anticipation of this, I’ve set up a new demo on COG Demos, which will be updated from here out. I’m keeping up the old version until the site shuts down as I know people have saved games.
Please let me know if there are any issues with the new site and updated demo.
The site as a whole stopped being maintained months ago, it was announced back when that happened, it was only a matter of time until the whole thing would be finally shut down.
I haven’t tried a full allying with the senate route yet, mostly because I couldn’t stand the senators, and the fact their demands are fundamentally at the expense of imperial power which the MC directly rely on for power. Thus I don’t yet have insight on the situation of the barbarian auxiliary revolt.
Analyzing the case of the senate conspiracy, it is clear we are in a similar situation to Actium. The pretender has seemingly secured Greece and Egypt, along with the Navy. Iblin’s fifth column will try to work with the populist mob to undermine our rule of the capital, likely hoping for the impending blockade and subsequent famine to further radicalize the mob to their side.
For our victory Iblin’s head must hang upon the gate by whatever means necessary upon the opening salvo. I assume our potential long partnership with Cato will pay off tremendously in this regard, provided we can finally divorce the senate with the populists. Concerning the senate, I am certain though bribery, diplomacy or blackmail, we can paralyze democracy, thus either forcing a schism within the rebels, or proving imperial rule to be the way forward for functional civilization.
We have secured Gaul and the northern frontier through Julia’s veterans and the auxiliaries, and with enough legion favor, we should be able to secure the allegiance of the eastern legions to flank the pretender in Egypt (it is in their own interest to secure the bread basket for themselves) while we march for Greece to defeat the pretender in open battle. Finish the battle quick (with single dual if possible) and we should still be in relative good shape to face the horde.
Wondering if a good enough spymaster can slip our own assassin behind the back of Leta and Victoria.
Anyway, am I missing anything of note in regard to this game plan?
Love the intrigue, and the characters come across so well! I noticed a coding error that you may already know about but I thought I’d share just in case:
Spoilers
After the empress’s poisoning, I was prompted to respond to her request for support. Clicking the top option causes an error message to pop up saying an achievement wasnt marked as such earlier in the game’s code.
Unfortunately this appears to be an issue with the COG Demos site rather than of my code, it’s been reported as such. I’ll see how I can get this fixed.
EDIT: It looks like you might need to clean your cookies and cache on COG Demos in order to fix this.
Save you game when it pops up, restart the game then load the save you should be able to keep going. Sadly it’s a bug with achievements that most games on the new demo place has
The legions in Attika and Seyet appear to be split in loyalty or entirely in opposition hands. Even Octavian did not manage to wrest Egypt away from Antony and Cleopatra directly, as far as I’m aware. My preferred strategy would be to separate Attika and Seyet by seizing the Inner Sea and slashing their communication lines, but unlike Octavian, it is unlikely we have numerical naval superiority.
So if that would not be possible, instead I would ensure the loyalty of Cyrenaica and Africa Proconsularis, hemming in Iblin from the West. If we can ensure the support of Midyan or the near Eastern provinces such Syria, we can further put pressure on Iblin from the East. In the real war, Cyrenaica but not Africa Proconsularis was under the authority of Antony. Midyan’s equivalents were also his. That may not be true in this case.
I would prefer a diplomatic solution, but with the loyalty of Hevernica, Ezperia, and Iudia, and with high legion favor and foederati support we likely significantly outnumber Victoria’s land forces. At this point, if conflict is unavoidable, we should march into Attika (Octavian sailed instead, but he had a navy) and take the province in pitched battle.
This is where the choice to destabilize Seyet will come back to bite us, I feel. A destabilized Seyet will likely revolt against us in the Senate alliance pathway or be resistant to our efforts at diplomacy and require extensive subjugation if allied with the foederati.
As for that Senate alliance pathway, if the above scenario with the foederati is reminiscent of Actium, the reverse reminds me of Odoacer and the barbarian sack of Rome from the north.
Relevant to this, I decided that it was in fact time to get to work putting a map properly to paper. I already had notes regarding all of these, but I’ve already worked on the basic sketch a good deal. I should have it done this week.
Though, to put it plainly, I suck at drawing. I’ve always been a writer, not much of an artist or graphic designer. So, no, it won’t be a great map, but hopefully it’ll provide a visual aid to act as companion for the continent spanning events of the story.
If it helps, @Azan, and for anyone else interested in war-planning or general strategizing, there’s an excellent online interactive map on the Roman world and its travel times and costs run by Stanford.
If that doesnt work you need to make a save immediately then i think restart and then load that save should work i recall correctly. That will get you pass achievement errors
