Sing, o goddess, the anger of Achilles and the ambition of Schliemann
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Troy a brand new strategy game which dives into the legendary conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenae in Greece
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a thousand ships sail into the wine dark sea
They are headed for Troy across the Aegean and up the coast of the Dardanelles for 10 years
They will encamp there sieging the great city never winning, but never being driven back to the sea
Even their landing was filled with tragedy for the first to set foot onto trojan soil was fated to be the first to die
None would even get off their ships until Odysseus leapt from the decks
Only to land on his shield and let the man who followed him be cut down
For nine years, while Troy itself stood impregnable, the mightiest of the Greeks,
Achilles, laid waste to the countryside seizing town after town, island after island,
looting any place not guarded by Troy's high walls, and the plunder of Achilles was not limited to gold and silver or
Wine and fine cloth. No. Captives as slaves or ransom were also one of the spoils of war
But Achilles' very victories proved his downfall and were a point of strife for all of the greeks
For among his captives was the beautiful Briseis and, over her, he and Agamemnon, commander of the greek forces, squabbled
In a petulant rage Achilles said that he and his men would no longer fight for the Greeks
So they sat in their tents as a great battle ensued
At first the Greeks gained ground pushing the Trojans almost to the walls of their city
But then the Trojans rallied and forced the Greeks back and back
eventually
They were on the point of overrunning the greek camp
Of burning the boats that were the only way the Greeks had to ever get back home
The Greeks begged Achilles to rejoin the battle but he, still enraged, refused
So Patroclus, the young comrade and partner of Achilles, donned Achilles' armor and strode into battle himself
All the world thought he was the mighty Achilles and the Trojans fell back
But even as the greek forces charged the very walls of Troy they were struck with yet another tragedy, for Patroclus himself was slain
Achilles now bursting with rage, rage of which even today we sing, took up a new set of arms
Arms forged by the very gods themselves and he became an avatar of slaughter. The Trojans fled to their city
But their prince was caught outside the great walls
His name is Hector and, covered in the gore of his fallen foes, Achilles has trapped him. Hector flings his spear
But it lodges in Achilles' shield and he just shrugs it off
So the last prince of Troy offers up one final prayer and draws his sword
And now death, grim death is looming up beside me no longer far away
No way to escape it now
Well, let me die but not without struggle not without glory
No, but in some great clash of arms that even men to come will hear of throughout the ages
He charges
The fight is fierce
But brief. He falls before Achilles who ties him to his chariot and drags the body before the trojan walls
But Achilles' glory will be brief as well for though he killed many more of the defenders of Troy
He was at last slain when an arrow pierced his heel and so the battle was at a standstill
Until at last the evercrafty Odysseus offered up a plan
It was a desperate gambit, but it had been 10 years and the men longed for home
So he offered them one final chance at victory
They would build a great horse of wood and leave it for the Trojans as a surrender offering
And then burn their camp and set off for home
but this would be no true surrender for their ships would wait at a nearby island and
Inside the horse would hide a small group of hand-picked men
Once the Trojans had brought the horse inside their walls
At midnight the men would slip out of the horse's belly and fling open the gates as their fleet returned with Greeks
Desperate for one final conquest. And it worked. The Trojans saw the burning camp and brought the horse into their city
they spent the last night in a great celebration and revel but when midnight came the Greeks were upon them and at last
Troy fell. Of course that's all just a myth. Or so we thought until
1871
A remote site in Anatolia, an eccentric German is fixated with the idea of finding Troy
His name is Heinrich Schliemann. And there's really no other way to put this he's the wildest sort of character. During the Crimean War
He cornered the market on saltpeter and made a literal killing. He had purchased land in Indiana for three months
Just so he could claim to live there to make it easier for him to divorce his wife
During the California gold rush he set up a bank that bought gold
Then when the Rothschilds mentioned that all of his gold deliveries were a little short
He said "oh well i'm feeling a wee bit ill" and then legged it back to europe
He published a "first-hand" account of the San Francisco fire while he was in Sacramento
And he said he acquired U.S citizenship the day California became a state, though he was actually in St.
Petersburg at the time. Most importantly though
He was rich enough to retire at 36 and was also fascinated by the stories of ancient Greece
He had read as a boy. Now. How obsessed are we talking here? Well, let's just say he named his kids Andromache and Agamemnon
Oh, yeah
He was that type of guy. So off he went to Anatolia where Troy was vaguely believed to have been
And then he started to dig. Where? Well, to understand that, you have to understand one of the great leaps forward in archaeology
Somewhere between the late 18th and early 19th century
Someone got around to asking why are there all these little weird hills in Greece and the Middle East?
Then realized the reason was that they were actually the ruins of ancient cities
Now today we call these "tells" and they're basically made by human beings living on a spot for hundreds or thousands of years
human garbage especially mud bricks
slowly raised the surface level of an area
And couple that with the fact that many of these early settlements were built on small rises for defensive purposes anyway
And these mounds turned out to be a great indicator of where an ancient city might be along with its treasure
And because people liked treasure so much they started digging up these weird hills and thus archaeology was born
Okay, I kid, but really it's not that far off
Especially in Schliemann's case. So, armed with only vague hints from ancient stories and some academic conjecture,
He started digging up basically every hill he could find in the region. But no luck.
Then he ran into an Englishman named Frank Calvert and Frank was pretty sure he knew where Troy was because he had bought it
Yeah, it was on his estate
Unfortunately though, he wasn't rich and really didn't have the money to excavate it himself
So he and Schliemann came to a deal. He would let Schliemann dig on his land
So long as Schliemann cut him in on the finds
So Schliemann hired a hundred or so local laborers, broke out the pickaxes and shovels and went to town on a mound called Hisarlik
At first nothing, but then slowly ruins started to emerge. Was this it? Was this Troy? It just might be
but then a twist. As the workers continued to dig they found a second city below the ruins of the first
Ancient site built on ancient site. This must be a pretty important location
It's gotta be Troy. Schliemann knew he'd found it, but it must be at the bottom
Troy had been one of the oldest cities after all so logically it would be buried all the way down
Put down them shovels boys. It's time for the dynamite. We're doing archaeology
Yep, in his excitement Schliemann used the time-honored archaeological method of blowing the living daylight out of the site with TNT
In fact one archaeologist would later say he did more damage to Troy than the Greeks ever could
But he did get there, finally, to one of the lowest levels and there glinting in the ground was something gold
He dismissed the workers and brought over his wife then they carefully,
meticulously excavated this part themselves and wrapped in her shawl
They carried away Priam's treasures, the artifacts of the last Trojan king, or, you know,
At least that's what Schliemann told the press. His wife had actually been around a thousand miles away in Athens
But blowing up all those layers had been worth it. He'd indisputably found Troy there on the lowest level of the Hisarlik mound
except
Troy was actually five levels up. The artifacts
he found were actually about a thousand years too old and he'd blown right through the Homeric Troy trying to get to them
But hey, all that press did get the ottoman government to pull his permits,
Sue him for the gold and create an international dispute which lasts all the way to today
due to Schliemann promptly smuggling the gold out of the country because...
of course he did! For all that though most modern scholars now seem to agree that he, or rather Frank Calvert, got the location
right and there on level six or seven lies the site of the real Troy.
So does that mean the stories of the Trojan War are true? Not by a long shot
But there probably was a historical war fought somewhere in there. Did it include a thousand ships? Seems unlikely
Did it have gods flying around and big fake horses to end the thing? probably not
But Troy probably did exist and probably was really razed to the ground
So with all that in mind
What would that war really have looked like? Well join us in a few weeks as we delve into how Bronze Age war really worked
And the sometimes hilarious errors that Homer made in describing it
I'm not gonna lie
I've been incredibly psyched about A Total War Saga Troy since it was first announced and with this being the first time the award-winning series
Is set in the bronze age Mediterranean exploring all 10 years of the Trojan War from the perspectives of the Trojans and the Greeks
i'm
pretty much over Olympus that they're sponsoring this episode. Not only is the gameplay a blend of grand turn-based empire management and
Spectacular real-time battles, but also, a little like this episode,
it fuses the history of the war with exciting new takes on the mythology of the period. S'up Minotaur?
Plus with a huge campaign map spanning 200 settlements and eight playable heroes
Including hector and achilles playing this game might even make zeus jealous and he was there
But most mind-blowing of all you can get A Total War Saga Troy
Absolutely free on the day of its release august 13th, 2020 via the link below
Of course
if you're watching this before then you can always use the link to add the game to your wish list and
You'll be on the battlefield before you know it
Well, hello there Ahmed Ziad Turk, Alicia Bramble, Casey Muscha, Dominic Valenciana, Gunnar Clovis, Kyle Murgatroyd and Orels1
Thanks so much for being legendary patrons
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