SCENARIO: Middle East in the Reign of Heraclius

[Calgacus II]

The Cross, the Fire and the Prophet – The War of the three Gods

This scenario is about a great war of three Gods, set at the death of Antiquity. Two great states, Rome and Persia, with two great faiths, Christianity and Zoroastrianism locked horns for control of the Middle East in the early 7th century AD. After the death of Maurice, who was deposed by the vicious Phocas, Khurso II declared war on Rome, because of personal connections to this emperor: Khusro wanted to avenge his "father", the man who'd put him on the throne. Even though Phocas was deposed by Heraclius, the war still went on.


Some people see this war as just another Romano-Persian conflict. It isn't. It was a holy war, fought partly for religious ideology. The stakes were life or death for Rome. The Persians occupied Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The Avars and Persians closed in and besieged Constantinople. Rome was really on the point of extinction. It never was so threatened until the 15th century.

But the city held, and meanwhile Heraclius, the golden haired, golden beared blue-eyed Roman emperor went into Lazica and the area of the Christian Caucasus, raised an army of devout volunteer Armenians and Caucasians, invaded and destroyed the Persian holy sites of Azerbajan, defeated several large Persian armies and marched on the capital. Persia surrendered, even though the army of Shahrvaraz was in Syria still undefeated.

However, but a few years later, a third and new religion and people entered the war-weary scene. The Arabs, doubtlessly inspired by their prophet, attacked Rome and Persia simultaneously, conquering the latter utterly and much of the former. This scenario is designed to be a rough simulation of these events!

Three of the greatest generals in history feature in the scenario: Heraclius himself, Shahrvaraz and Khalid ibn al-Walid. There are many others too.

It is recommended that you play as either the Romans, the Persians or the Umma. If you play as the Avars, Turks or anyone else, the script may not make sense, and you are unlikely to win the scenario.


Units, cities, buildings and wonders are placed according to strategic purposes. You can win by conquest, domination (90% territory, 80% pop) and by victory points. You should play as either the Romans, the Sasanians or the Umma. It lasts 112 turns, representing the period 610 - 641 (the reign of Heraclius).

INSTALLATION:

Extract both part one and part two into the Conquests Scenarios folder!

C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Conquests\Scenarios

It should be just as simple as that!

[Calgacus II]

(Version 2)

DOWNLOAD PART ONE - 2.9 MB

DOWNLOAD PART TWO - 2.9 MB


NOTE: You must download BOTH parts









[NB: that readme is merely reserving the attachment! ]

[Calgacus II]

Yoda Power – for the map; I'll hope he'll forgive my editing of it for gaming reasons!

Kryten, utahjazz, Ekmek, Jimmyh, Lab Monkey, JimmyH, Nahuixtelotzin - units

- I hope I've remembered all those whose work I used; just tell me (and forgive me ) if I haven't!

[Calgacus II]

The Virgin defends the Holy City of Constantinople against the godless Avars!



Greek Fire defends the city against the vile Persian!



The glorious, and noble Augustus of the Romans, Heraclius, campaigns in the Caucasus:



The heretical Ishmaelites have captured the True Cross in Jerusalem:

[Calgacus II]

Here's a screenshot of the Scenario's civ selection screen:

[Calgacus II]

Here's a screenshot starting as the Romans:

[Calgacus II]

Here is a screenshot taking as I was starting a game as the Moslems:

[Plotinus]

This looks fabulous! Good to see this great period of Byzantine history becoming a scenario, especially with the focus on the glory and the tragedy of mighty Heraclius. I'll certainly be having a go at this when time permits.

[vmxa1]

Nice job, but that is some ugly start location.

[barrybeal]

I am unable to play this under Conquests 1.22 - I get a unable to find

Art/Units/Amenian/../Swordsman/SwordsmanFortify.wav error message - that doesn't make sense - I have Conquests on Drive G: and not C: but it does like the amenian.ini is not pointing to the /art/units/swordsman directory but the format looks okay

might be a bug with Conquests 1.22 - a few other scenarios seem to work fine.

Has anyone else duplicated this error ?

[Plotinus]

Yes, I'm getting the same problem. I have 1.22 as well. Help!

[vmxa1]

I just looked at the screens and an 8 man army, yikes.

[rc51]

I just rolled back to version 1.00 and it still won't load. I get the same error message as above. The scenario seems to be missing some files. Also, it needs to go into the Conquests\Conquests folder, not the Conquests\Scenario folder or it won't find the scenario, unless I haven't figured something out correctly. This looks like a scenario I would really like to play. I hope this can be resolved.

[Plotinus]

Aha - just checked out CFC, and Calgacus has addressed this issue on the thread there where he has also posted this scenario. I haven't had a chance to download the "patch" yet but hopefully that will work.

[Plotinus]

Here we go - the link is http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=80721

Download the "Armenian swordsman fix", and copy the files into the Armenian swordsman folder in the scenario's folder. It works fine now for me.