Campaign idea with the Iberians – looking for feedback and editor tips

[lilypoppy]

I'm working on a 3-scenario campaign with the Iberians. Little known and a story to highlight I think it could be fun and original.

 

 

The Fire of Freedom or (The Eagle's Shadow)

 

You play as Viriatus, a Lusitanian chief fighting against Rome.

 

Scenarios :

 

i. Unite the tribes – build your base, defend, convince villages to join

 

ii. Ambush a Roman supply column in the mountains

 

iii. Final siege – hold your fortress against Roman waves

 

I'm still learning the Atlas editor so if anyone has tips or knows good tutorials, I'd appreciate it.

 

Any feedback or suggestions!

 

Thanks

 

[ShadowOfHassen]

4 hours ago, lilypoppy said:

I'm working on a 3-scenario campaign with the Iberians. Little known and a story to highlight I think it could be fun and original.

 

 

The Fire of Freedom or (The Eagle's Shadow)

 

You play as Viriatus, a Lusitanian chief fighting against Rome.

 

Scenarios :

 

i. Unite the tribes – build your base, defend, convince villages to join

 

ii. Ambush a Roman supply column in the mountains

 

iii. Final siege – hold your fortress against Roman waves

 

I'm still learning the Atlas editor so if anyone has tips or knows good tutorials, I'd appreciate it.

 

Any feedback or suggestions!

 

Thanks

 

That sounds like an amazing idea, i don't know how many good atlas tutorials there are, but there are quite a few experienced mapmakers on the forums, I'm sure some of them can give you pointers.

[Thalatta]

9 hours ago, lilypoppy said:

Little known and a story to highlight

My recommendation would then be to try to make it historically accurate. You can check Appian in https://www.livius.org/sources/content/appian/appian-the-spanish-wars, where Viriathus' story covers from §60 to §75. I can help you with the distillation and writing of information if you need that. You could for example paraphrase Livy (who didn't write a lot about him) by stating somewhere "From shepherd to hunter, from hunter to bandit, from bandit to leader".

[lilypoppy]

10 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

That sounds like an amazing idea, i don't know how many good atlas tutorials there are, but there are quite a few experienced mapmakers on the forums, I'm sure some of them can give you pointers.

Thanks!  @ShadowOfHassen If you have 2-3 sources handy, that would be a great start.

Appreciate it!

[lilypoppy]

@Thalatta  I really like the resource. I find it a bit hard to read and fully understand, but here's my Scenario 1 based on the first chapters.

SCENARIO 1 – UNITE THE TRIBES

(Inspired by Appian, §61-62)

Element	Detail
Objective	Rally the Lusitanian tribes to build an army.
Context	After Galba's massacre, 10,000 survivors are in hiding. You must convince them to follow you.
Hero	Viriathus (leader).
Potential Allies	Belli, Titthi, Vettones (Celtiberian tribes).
Enemy	Gaius Vetilius (Roman general) – 10,000 legionaries.
Historical inspiration	Viriathus saved his surrounded army by a ruse : he scattered his troops and harassed the Romans with swift cavalry.
0 A.D. mechanics	Build your base, defend against Roman attacks, send emissaries (or troops) to convince nearby villages to join you.
Victory condition	Gather at least 4 allies on 6  and repel Vetilius' army.

---

 

[Thalatta]

@lilypoppy, I'm not sure what's going on with that writing format, but it took me a lot of time to try to edit a quote, just to lose everything like 3 times just by doing CTRL+Z on text that wasn't even in the quote. Also, I wonder if you are tagging incorrectly, since I saw your post by chance, it doesn't appear in my notifications, and also I didn't see it under Unread Content, which is even weirder...

Anyway, regarding potential allies, the source states that the Romans hired the Celtiberians (Belli and Titthi) against the Lusitanians, even after the death of Gaius Vetilius. It's later on that Viriathus detached them "from their allegiance to the Romans". I'd say first read all that's said there about Viriathus, and then think about how you want to organise the whole campaign. I wonder if you really have to limit yourself to just 3 scenarios.

Also, the Vettones are pre-Celtic, like the Lusitanians (both were usually allies), thus not Celtiberians (although some claim otherwise, but doesn't seem the main view). All of them appear in this map (these things might not appear on ancient sources, you have to read modern texts also):

 

EDIT: that map represents the situation 150 years before Viriathus, but 100 years later (200 BC) the situation was still quite similar:

 

Edited Friday at 12:10 by Thalatta

[Perzival12]

On 19/8/2026 at 3:55 PM, lilypoppy said:

I'm still learning the Atlas editor so if anyone has tips or knows good tutorials, I'd appreciate it.

 

Any feedback or suggestions!

 

Thanks

 

Lilly poppy, I’m not too skilled at the map editor, but I do have a handful of trigger scripts that I can post that might help you out.

[lilypoppy]

@Perzival12  Yes, thank you. What kind of script are you talking about? Triggers?

[lilypoppy]

@Thalatta 

My health (two brain tumors) and vision issues make reading hard. My biggest struggle is understanding the story and connecting facts. So I need a very simple story.

[Thalatta]

47 minutes ago, lilypoppy said:

@Thalatta 

My health (two brain tumors) and vision issues make reading hard. My biggest struggle is understanding the story and connecting facts. So I need a very simple story.

I see, no worries, when I have some time this week I'll go through the text (and some other sources) and summarise the story. From there one might have to simplify things (omit and only mention some battles, etc, not to be too repetitive) and divide things in thematic scenarios. From there you can take and modify what you want.

[lilypoppy]

@Thalatta     

Thank you for taking the time  I wasn't expecting this, and I really appreciate it. No rush at all.

I already have the source material, so if you can complete the first scenario table, that'd be a great start to build ! 

[Perzival12]

On 23/08/2026 at 8:12 AM, lilypoppy said:

@Perzival12  Yes, thank you. What kind of script are you talking about? Triggers?

Yeah, a trigger scripts for things like spawning units at trigger points, on death triggers, etc.

[Thalatta]

@lilypoppy, this was actually harder than I thought because there are some issues with Appian's account. I ended up using another version that made more sense, for then to realise it was "forced" to make more sense by transcribers. In any case, I'm using it, and will explain things at the end (referred with *, ** and ***) of the following summary (hidden for those who just want to skip it):

Spoiler

Summary of Appian (information from other sources in italics):

§60) After much fighting between the Lusitanians (and Vettones) against the Romans (and their allies), Roman commander Servius Galba tells the Lusitanians to meet on a field to discuss the renewal of a peace treaty. After disarming them, the Romans massacre the Lusitanians (150 BC), "avenging treachery with treachery". Viriathus is one of the few who escapes. Galba was rich, greedy, hated and a rascal, he "distributed a little of the plunder to the army and a little to his friends and kept the rest himself".

§61) The Lusitanians invade Turditania (148 BC), and Gaius Vetilius is sent from Rome to stop them. With his 10000 men he corners the Lusitanians, who look for an agreement, but Viriathus tells them not to trust the Romans, that they could escape instead if they obeyed him.

§62) Viriathus is made leader of the Lusitanians. He orders the army to retreat by different routes towards Tribola, and stays with 1000 skirmishing cavalry to harass the Romans, while also slowly retreating.

§63) Near Tribola, Vetilius and his army are ambushed, and he is killed along with 4000 men (Battle of Tribola, 147 BC). The remaining 6000 retreat to Carpessus, and from there they send 5000 men from the Belli and Titthi tribes against Viriathus, who kills them all.

§64) Viriathus raids Carpetania (146 BC). The Romans sent Gaius Plautius with 10000 infantry and 1300 cavalry. Viriathus again retreats, and Plautius sends 4000 to pursue. Viriathus defeats them, crosses the river Tagus and camps on a mountain. Plautius and the rest of his army attack him, and the Romans are defeated again. Viriathus keeps raiding (Appian doesn't mention other two commanders here*).

§65) Rome sends Fabius Maximus Aemilianus (145 BC), who ends with 15000 infantry and 2000 cavalry. While this (mostly inexperienced) army gains discipline, Maximus travels to Gades in order to sacrifice to Hercules. Viriathus then harasses their wood-cutters and defeats Maximus' lieutenant. Maximus returns, but doesn't offer battle to Viriathus, instead he keeps training the army, and harasses Viriathus. When winter ends, Maximus attacks Viriathus and the Romans win (144 BC), making him "the second Roman general to put him to flight" (Appian never mentions the first, apparently he didn’t know about it, while Cicero states that Gaius Laelius defeated Viriathus in 145/4 BC, but some are sceptical about this). Maximus winters in Corduba. The link I sent ends here, but the source I'm now using places here the end of §68 (**): Maximus returns to Rome, and is succeeded by Quintus Pompeius Aulus.

§66) Viriathus convinces the Arevaci, Titthi, and Belli, very warlike, to stop being Roman allies and fight them instead (143 BC, starting the sometimes called Numantine Ware, or Third Celtiberian War, explained after §76, ending in 133 BC and running in parallel to the Lusitanian War that is the focus right now). "Quintius, another Roman general" (**), first won some engagements against Viriathus, but then lost another, after which "Quintius" couldn't do much against Viriathus raiding Itucca and the Bastitani.

§67) Fabius Maximus Servilianus (adopted brother or son of Aemilianus***) succeeds "Quintius", having 18000 infantry and 1600 cavalry. While moving towards Itucca, Viriathus attacks him with 6000 men, but achieves nothing. Ten elephants and 300 cavalry from the Numidians reinforce the Romans. Then Viriathus' army flees during a battle (142 BC), but in the retreat, he rallies his men and turns against the disorderly pursuing Romans, driving them back to their camp while killing 3000 of them. Viriathus continues his harassment with "light-armed troops and his swift horses to annoy the enemy", until Servilianus retreats to Itucca.

§68) Viriathus returns to Lusitania, being low on provisions. Servilianus attacks Baeturia, the Cunaei, and then Lusitania. Curius and Apuleius (maybe Lusitanian captains) attack the Romans with 10000 men and capture "some booty", but Curius is killed. Servilianus recovers the booty and takes three towns, while plundering others and taking 10000 prisoners, beheading 500 and selling the rest to slavery. A captain called Connoba surrenders to Servilianus, who spares him but cuts the hands of all his men.

§69) Servilianus stops at Erisana, which Viriathus then enters by night. At sunrise, Viriathus launches a surprise attack against the Romans working on the trenches, and then the rest of the army, driving them against some cliffs. Instead of killing them, Viriathus obtained a peace treaty from them, ratified later by the Roman people.

§70) Quintus Servilius Caepio succeeds his brother Servilianus (***), and complains about the treaty (141 BC). The Roman Senate then authorises him to annoy Viriathus, which restarts the war (140 BC). Caepio takes Arsa, and Viriathus retreats while destroying everything. Caepio reaches Viriathus in Carpetania, where Viriathus avoids battle and hides. Caepio then destroyed the fields of the Vettones and the Callaici.

§71) In parallel, guerilla groups ravaged Lusitania, I think mostly occupied by the Romans by then, who sent (138 BC) Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus (Appian incorrectly says Sextus Junius Brutus). Not wanting to chase them around, Brutus turns against their towns. He demands hostages from those who surrender (137 BC).

§72) Brutus becomes the first Roman to cross the river Lethe (Lethe was the name of a river in the Underworld, thus the soldiers didn’t want to cross it, until Brutus crossed it himself carrying the standard), crosses the Nimis and attacks the Bracaris, whose women also fight, and many times prefer killing themselves and their children instead of captivity.

§73) Many towns constantly surrender and rebel, in particular Talabriga, until Brutus orders their inhabitants to vacate it, and although expecting the worst, he only reproaches them, and takes their horses, provisions, public money, and other general resources. Appian mentions all these guerillas happened in parallel and in emulation to Viriathus.

§74) Back with Viriathus, he sends his most trusted friends Audax, Ditaleco, and Minurus to Caepio to negotiate terms of peace (140 BC), who bribes them to assassinate Viriathus, which they did by stabbing him in the throat (139 BC) while he sleeps with his armour on, which he did to be prepared for every emergency. The murderers escape to Caepio, who refers them to Rome when they demand their pay (a legend says he told them "Rome doesn't pay traitors" and executed them).

§75) Viriathus' body is burned in a huge pyre, among other customs Appian describes. It's stated that he was a great commander, first in facing danger, and just when dividing loot, even when others would tell him he deserved more. Thus, in eight years of war, "in an army composed of various tribes, there never was any sedition, and the soldiers were always obedient and ready for danger". Tantalus is then made general, moves against Saguntum (which has nothing to do with New Carthage, another mistake from Appian), but Caepio repels and chases him. Exhausted, Tantalus surrenders to Caepio on condition that they be treated as subjects. Caepio takes from them all their arms and gives them sufficient land, ending the war.

 

*Brennan in his paper Notes on Praetors in Spain in the Mid-Second Century B.C. says that from "Florus, Orosius and the De Viris Illustribus" we know that at after this point "the Romans sent Claudius Unimanus against Viriathus with a large force; the now-predictable disaster ensued, with a loss of the standards and fasces. Viriathus next defeated C. Nigidius", and that Appian's silence on this can be understood by his geographical arrangement of history. It's said that Nigidius could have also been Maximus' lieutenant mentioned in §65.

**Brennan explains this mess a bit. Apparently, some transcribers moved a couple of sentences from §68 to §65 thinking that "Quintius" should be Quintus (as I also initially did, for which I changed sources), but the phrase "another Roman general" is then really problematic. Brennan thinks Quintus left command in 143 BC, and "Quintius" is indeed someone else, "Crispinus or Flamininus". As long as the game doesn't enter into such details, it doesn't really matter.

***Appian says Servilianus is a brother of Aemilianus and of a "Caepio". When trying to find who this Caepio exactly is (complicated by the fact that, in Roman families, first sons are often called like their father), I found that some say Servilianus was the adopted son of Aemilianus, citing for example The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, which states "Q. Fabius" "Maximus, with the agnomen Servilianus, was adopted from the gens Servilia, by Fabius Aemilianus. He was uterine brother of" Gnaeus "Servilius Caepio, consul in B.C. 141". Meanwhile, The Cambridge Ancient History states "Fabius Servilianus", "brother by adoption of Fabius Aemilianus". Oxford Academic states "adopted by a son or grandson of Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus", but checking the Fabrii Maximi family tree this seems to be an independent problem (an unknown Fabius Maximus in between). I think the tree seems to show that it's not clear if Servilianus was adopted by Q. Fabius Maximus Aemilianus or by his adoptive father, Q. Fabius Maximus. If needed, I'd just state that it was his adoptive brother, given also that they were made consuls around the same time (hinting at their age, maybe).

 

Sources:

-Roman History, by Appian: https://archive.org/details/appiansromanhist01appi/page/228/mode/2up, https://www.livius.org/sources/content/appian/appian-the-spanish-wars/appian-the-spanish-wars-12

-De Officiis, by Cicero: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cicero/de_Officiis/2A*.html

-Notes on Praetors in Spain in the Mid-Second Century B.C., by T. C. Brennan: https://scholarship.libraries.rutgers.edu/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/Notes-on-Praetors-in-Spain-in/991031550017504646/filesAndLinks?index=0

-Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology Vol 2, by W. Smith: https://archive.org/details/DictionaryOfGreekAndRomanBiographyAndMythology/Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology - Vol 2/page/994/mode/2up

The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 8: https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-8/page/133/mode/2up

Oxford Academic: https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/61673/chapter-abstract/548936323?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Brill's New Pauly Online (Fabrii Maximi family tree):

 

Sadly, after I wrote everything down, I came across Wars of the Romans in Iberia, by J. S. Richardson, with commentary included, but I don't want to reread and rewrite everything again.

 

For my campaign proposal, first of all, I don't really know what can be actually done regarding certain triggers, hopefully things can somehow work as I state (and I've seen in other games), otherwise modifications will be needed.

Campaign title: you used Fire of Freedom, which sounds a bit weird to me. I guess it takes from Polybius' "Fiery War" term regarding these and related events. Burning Heart could be another name, hinting to Braveheart (a barely similar story), and it's a song by the band Survivor (Viriathus survived the massacre, just to have some obscure connections I guess). I arranged all in four scenarios:

 

Scenario 1, The Blood of Lusitania (based on §60, §61, §62 and §63)

Introduction: mention of the ongoing war, Viriathus made leader after saying they should escape the Roman army instead of seeking talks, or they could be massacred again.

Setup: one starts with no resources, with a CC on one extreme, and on the other extreme an army with skirmishing cavalry close to a Roman army and settlements, with Belli and Titthi armies standing by (if Carpessus is Tartessus, the armies should start in the lower left, and the player CC in the upper right).

Objective: distract the Roman army with skirmishing cavalry while the rest reach for the CC. After a certain time, supposedly after the first Roman wave is repelled, the armies of the Belli and Titthi should attack, and killing all of their troops wins the scenario.

 

Scenario 2, The Fire of Carpetania (based on §64, §65 and §66)

Introduction: mention about raiding and expecting different Roman armies to be sent, while planning to convince the Arevaci, Titthi, and Belli to join the cause.

Setup: one starts with an army without builders, and no resources.

Objective: certain amount of loot, treasures, tribute, and similar, as to be obtained, ideally making conquering not the way to go. At some point in time or progress, more and more Romans come into play (they should be unstoppable), and the option to somehow convince the Roman allies to join appears. The scenario is won when convincing a certain number of them.

 

Scenario 3, The Wrath of Hispania (based on §67, §68 and §69)

Introduction: mention the defeat against Aemilianus, along with the expansion of the war in other regions, and that after a few engagements, Servilianus has been sent with elephants from the Numidians and is seemingly defeating Viriathus in a battle.

Setup: one starts with neither buildings nor resources, just with an army being attacked by a much larger Roman army (with elephants from Africa), and the Lusitanians having then to retreat, and plenty of passive units around become the player's when approaching them (or similar, to represent rallying of fleeing units).

Objective: turn the tide of the battle by finding these "capturable" units fast. Capture buildings to start gathering resources. Certain Roman CC must be captured to win the scenario.

 

Scenario 4, The Ashes of Betrayal (based on §70, and the rest)

Introduction: mention that with the last victory Viriathus obtained a peace treaty, but that Caepio is not happy about it and convinces the Roman Senate to reignite hostilities.

Setup: besides a certain amount of Gaia dropsites, I think the rest could be normal. The Vettones and Callaici could also be present to distract the Romans, which should start with advantage.

Objective: destroy the Gaia dropsites before a certain amount of them is captured by the enemy.

 

Ending: mention the ignited guerrillas, and Viriathus wanting peace but betrayed and killed, the new leader Tantalus trying but surrendering to the Romans, with the Lusitanians obtaining lands to live the peace, ending the war. This would be similar to the endings of movies like The Last of the Mohicans or The Last Samurai, not a victory in a way, but a story of resistance.

Edited 17 hours ago by Thalatta