Chapter 0

Introduction


Hello friends! My name is Icarus and welcome to my first AAR! I'll start with some background: I'm pretty new to Total War (roughly 18 months) though have been playing other strategy games (primarily Paradox and Civilisation) for many years. One thing I've always enjoyed is sending my friends lengthy narrative updates on my campaigns. However, while they've always been supportive and feigned enjoyment, I've decided to stop bothering just them with my updates and to now bother you all. (Not to worry, I'll be bothering them as well.) I've always known about AARs, but for the past few years the community has seemed rather lifeless, so I never put much consideration into it. However, recently I thought about it again and I decided to check these forums, and it seems to me that, while somewhat inactive, there's a dedicated and consistent group here. So I've decided to try my hand at it! Following this post will be a mid-campaign AAR as Karl Franz. The first chapter will be a summary of the history of the Empire of Man up until this point. Will there ever be a Chapter 2? Not sure! I'd like to say yes as I really do enjoy writing these, but I can't make any promises. With that, I hope you enjoy!


Disclaimers:
  • I am new and therefore not very good at Total War games. I also prefer a more relaxed, slow paced feel out of my strategy games. On top of that, I make roleplay oriented choices more than gameplay oriented ones. That all said: I play on easy and still perform sub-optimally. As this won't be video playthrough that shouldn't get in the way too much, but if you notice any points where I lose a battle I should have won, or let another faction do something I shouldn't have, or anything like that. Please know that one of the above reasons is why and go easy on me!
  • I am running a handful of mods, almost all visual but a handful of gameplay ones. No new units or anything extreme like that, just some balancing tweaks.