RBC3c - Ancient Mediterranean Mayhem - Roma

This game is one of four running on the Rise of Rome Conquest, seeking to experience each of the four playable civs and to compare their different situations.

Scenario: Rise of Rome
Civ: Roma
Difficulty: Deity
Goal: Domination Victory before time limit is reached

All exploits listed at RBCiv are off-limits. 10 turns per player at all times. 24/48 rule is in effect for "got it" message/playing turns, once everyone gets a copy of the expansion. Until then, we will be more flexible.

Roster:
Griselda
6thGenTexan
Belisar
Speaker
T_McC

I *think* everyone on our roster has Conquests, but please let us know if you're still waiting.

Here we our, snugly fit into our little boot:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc3c-start.jpg

I don't have any experience with this conquest, but it does look like we have a lot of "rising" to do! :hammer:

Things we have:
two sources of iron, one of horses
wines
bonus resources- silver and olive oil

Two volcanoes- one near Neapolis, the other near Messana. Are these things programmed to erupt at some point in this scenario? Isn't that the whole reason why they added those? Scary.

We're at war with Carthago, and hoping that they can't land an invasion force any better than regular AI can. Of course, galleys do now transport 4. Curraghs transport one.

Other than the island by Messana, I don't see any real motivation for continuing the war with Carthage. There looks to be a whole lot of Europe to conquer, and naturally we wouldn't be afraid of the unwashed masses up there, would we? I don't know if the screenshot shows the dark green border up there, but we certainly do have company. They need to be shown the greatness of the Roman empire, don't you think?

Hmm, the Goths get a 4-1-1 spearman. That should be interesting. We get the Legionary I, II, and III. They can all lay roads and build fortresses, and move at a rate of one. We can still make workers, though, which is a relief! We get one pop, two movement settlers (citizens), and can build 20 shield garrisons (1-3-1) in cities with iron.

That can all be a problem in Messana, which is guarded by two legions, and archer, and a galley. It has no harbor, so it has no resources at the moment. I'm not sure what all Carthage has over there, but Syracuse has a regular numidian showing.

Our military consists of one army, ONE worker :eek: , 6 archers, 8 garrisons, 4 galleys, 13 legionary I's, and 4 citizens. We're paying 19 gpt in unit support. We have nine cities, certainly the least of any of the "major" civs. Of course, the legionaries and garrisons look pretty darn good as UUs go.

We're in Oligarchy, which seems like a reasonable enough government for now. Poprushing, 2 MP, "nuisance" corruption. Monarchy has a cash rush, 3 MP, and "problematic" corruption. The Republic, in this scenario anyway, appears to be like Oligarchy except with cash rushing. None of the available governments have war weariness. I have no idea whether it would be worthwhile for us to go through an anarchy in a short game like this.

Hey, also we're militaristic, commercial, and industrious! [party] The bad news is, we don't start with a heck of a lot of land.

I can start us off and play 10, but it would be nice to hear a general consensus as far as there we'd like to go. I'm thinking, military push north into Europe, some sort of zone defense on the boot to guard against landings. Ditch the wonders and focus on military. I have no idea wtf to do about that island. :unsure: In general, though, maybe we should try to make peace with Carthage soonish, and come back to :hammer: them later? Even a military push towards Greece seems more doable than Carthage, though it would be nice to see how the Greece/Persia conflict seems to be going first.

Everything needs some good human MM help, naturally. We actually have a barracks, granary, marketplace, and walls in almost all of our cities, which is helpful. Only Messana has a temple, but we already know that AI Caesar never build culture, right? :lol:

Oh, we're actually tech leaders! We're up on the ones we can talk to by mathematics, and they have gold but no tech to sell. Persia has dyes for trade. There's also workers for sale. What was the ruling? One per civ? What do we, as a team, feel comfortable with? We only start with one worker, sheesh.

With 4 citizens and very little visible unclaimed land (and a short game) the idea of backfilling a bit sounds very appealing. I want to get this posted so we can get the ball rolling, but I'll see if I can dotmap a couple of new cities onto our boot without getting excessively dense.

Here's the start, in case you'd like to look around:
Roma! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc3c-romastart.zip)

Things are actually more cramped than I had thought, with those four citizens burning holes in my strategy. I think the only thing we should settle on our mainland would be this "blue dot" fishing village:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbp3c-startdot.jpg http://

That can pull in two fish, olive oil, and gold, and doesn't have to take tiles from our core if we don't let it. Will it be worth it considering how long it would take for a harbor? I don't know. The very least it can do is to increase our unit support.

The rest of the citizens might have to wait until we have a better idea what's to the north of us.

Oh, and I wanted to clarify- CAN we make peace with Carthage, or are we locked into war with them?

-Griselda

No you can't

I look forward to seeing this game (and all other versions of it), to get a feel of how it is played before doing anything to change it.

Good Luck

No time to get C&C Saturday, will hopefully get it tomorrow.

The north looks promosing for additionall cities.
I think we should try securing the Sizil. island quickly, then the other islands near our homelands, they should be reasonable productive.

Let's :hammer: some Carths. :D

I say we should keep the Temple of Artemis. That is a free temple in every city on the continent which would be helpful going for domination.
I agree with Belizar about taking the islands now.
I'll go with one worker purchase per civ.
Start the fishing village. There are a lot of hills around for it to be productive when it grows. The others should expand towards carthage in Spain. If we are locked in war with Carthage, we do not want the second front verses Greece any time soon.
Tech wise, aime for whatever will get the Legion III's.

I'm good to go any time.

6gntxn

Opened the save and took a few notes:

It seems we have to run a deficit or min. sci, as break even nets 40 turns for any available technology. I would think we would go Tactics 1st, then try to get to Republic. With <130 turns, we may only be able to get the Republic right before time runs out, unless we can trade for one of the other required technologies.

Padua seems our best chance at producing workers/settlers (I think it has access to 8 food bonuses).

We can meet the Celts right away. It is their city boundary peeking our from under the western fog. We should have many techs over them, and by checking diplomacy, we have a monopoly on Mathematics. (Which Gris already mentioned) That should allow us to at least partially solve our worker problem before we take a turn. I counted 4 workers and 1 luxury, plus cash available from the four civs we can have contact with before we have to move more than one unit. If we can get enough stuff, we may want to consider non-minimum research on Tactics, as getting Legion II's before Carthage gets their UU may be really advantageous.

In addition to the fishing village Gris mentioned, I noticed two other good sites. There is a wines/iron/wheat spot NW of Pisae, and a silver/iron/wheat spot NE of Padua.

Galleys can carry 4 units in this scenario (i.e. a full army). It seems our best strategy may be to form a 15 hp-legion army and take Sicily. Then we could either invade island-by-island, or I guess it is possible to settle/war our way through the northern barbarian tribes. I don't know whether this scenario will require fighting any of the other major civs besides Carthage, or if we will need to wipe Carthage out to achieve domination.

[Edit: An alternative to Tactics might be Construction, so we can build aqueducts. I'm not sure how many of our cities are on fresh water, so I'm not sure how critical this will be for reaching the population limit. Almost assuredly not as important as Tactics, but probably something we should put a premium on trading for when it becomes available.]

Just a note- I've got it, and have played about halfway. It took longer than I'd expected, especially with that first turn, so I should finish up and post tomorrow.

A few notes:

- We don't want any part of 3/3 hoplite until we're ready!
- Carthage has numidians already. I don't have the game open, but do they have another UU in this conquest?

Now, the Celts, on the other hand, we'll want to :hammer: before they get their UU!

-Griselda

@Gris - Carthage gets the War Elephant (4.2.2, +1 HP, no required resources) with Tactics.

I mentioned this in our own thread, but I don't think the Numidean Merc is a UU for Carthage.

PS - is posting minor rule points like this ok in the "other threads"? I was assuming yes since we can read one another's threads. Tell me if I shouldn't be doing it.

Originally posted by T_McC

It seems we have to run a deficit or min. sci, as break even nets 40 turns for any available technology. I would think we would go Tactics 1st, then try to get to Republic. With <130 turns, we may only be able to get the Republic right before time runs out, unless we can trade for one of the other required technologies.


This is likely a constant-war game, so unless Republic was changed in C&C or we get a huge number of lux-sources we will want to stay in Monarchy (or some equivalent gov.)
'Military' research is necessary (techs that are immediately usefull in a 130-turn domination run)

Originally posted by Belisar


This is likely a constant-war game, so unless Republic was changed in C&C or we get a huge number of lux-sources we will want to stay in Monarchy (or some equivalent gov.)
'Military' research is necessary (techs that are immediately usefull in a 130-turn domination run)

In this scenario, Republic does not generate war weariness. More importantly, Republic is the technology that enables Legion III's (and the now completely-broken-until-patched FP).

The uber-government in this scenario is Imperialism (Democracy without WW, with MP and town/city/metro unit support), but unless the AI all research different paths we probably can't reach it (nor will we likely want to go through the Anarchy period).

It will be interesting to see how the AI research in this scenario. IIRC there are about 15 techs available to research, but costs are so high a single civ can probably only do about 4-5 on their own. There will either be a lot of trading, or hardly any, depending on whether the AI stick to the unit-only techs or not. In particular for us, it would be real nice if some of the AI decided that Construction/Engineering was the research path of choice. We want both techs, but probably won't get the chance to research them.

Originally posted by T_McC
In this scenario, Republic does not generate war weariness. More importantly, Republic is the technology that enables Legion III's (and the now completely-broken-until-patched FP).

What`s 'broken' about the FP and is it only broken in this scenario, or is it broken in the epic game as well??:confused:

Originally posted by Matt_G


What`s 'broken' about the FP and is it only broken in this scenario, or is it broken in the epic game as well??:confused:

What is broken about the FP (and Secret Police HQ) is that building one will almost never reduce the total corruption in your empire. It will just switch around which cities have the low corruption. If I'm understanding the "fix" they put in for the Palace-Rank corruption bug, the cities around the FP can occupy only even slots for rank corruption (i.e. closest is rank 2, second closest rank 4, ... ) and the cities around the Palace get the odd slots. So when you build the FP, the 2nd closest city to your Palace goes from rank 2 to rank 3 (increased corruption). It is possible for some of your "core" cities to go [1/1] by building the FP. I know this is the case for the epic game, and I have to figure it will work the same in the scenarios.

As an example, pull up a standard game and check out corruption for a city 2nd ring to the palace. In my current epic game, these are 1/1's due to this bug. (I build only slightly tighter than OCP)

I may not have the details correct, but I have correctly described the effect. More information is
here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68415)

Thanks for the link T_McC. :)

Well, they have certainly screwed this up big time, haven`t they? :eek:
The cure is 50 times worse than the disease.
IMHO this is broken bad enough to warrant uninstalling C3C until it's fixed. Hopefully it will be fixed, but frankly, I`m not going to hold my breath.

Of course I will hold off on a final judgement, until I get further along in my first solo game which I started last night.
From the thread you linked to though, it sure doesn't sound good.

Sometimes I get the feeling they could screw up an anvil with a rubber hammer. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by T_McC
In this scenario, Republic does not generate war weariness. More importantly, Republic is the technology that enables Legion III's (and the now completely-broken-until-patched FP).


If the different advanced govs. that are available don't generate WW, we could accept one Anarchy to get the corresponding economical advantages.
That will depend on how quick a better gov. is available for us and how much better it is. If Monarchy is only a small improvement of our current situation (Olig. doesn't seem too bad) and something better (which might be Republic if it is freed from WW, can't say until tomorrow when I hopefully get the game)
is prospective, we might as well stay in our current gov.
Cash rushing would be an advantage, but I don't see us in a situation with a lot of spare money in the near future.


It will be interesting to see how the AI research in this scenario. IIRC there are about 15 techs available to research, but costs are so high a single civ can probably only do about 4-5 on their own. There will either be a lot of trading, or hardly any, depending on whether the AI stick to the unit-only techs or not.

Tech will be interesting, but not crucial.
The point is: Our legions get better but there is no dramatic difference between the different versions.
What's more important is their shield/stat ratio (what do we get for our shields, games like this scenario are more about production capability than tech-level. If a legion II is significantly cheaper than a legion III, one more point in the stats is likely not enough to compensate)
One important point that might influence our tech-choices: Are their any fast units (cavalry) available for us? These could be extremely useful, especially later in the game when we run for domination.

(0) 350 BC - Wow, the loopy MM and improvement decisions are overwhelming! It's one thing to go around and MM cities with tiles that have been improved in some sensible fashion. This is something different altogether. In general, there's a LOT of food available, but neither food nor shield tiles have been optimized. For cities on fresh water, there's happiness issues already (I started by setting it to 20% lux and firing the capitol's specialists). For cities without fresh water, there still aren't many good shield tiles available. Also, as I've mentioned before, we only have one worker.

I would like to go for the Temple of Artemis, but with the economy looking like it does, and Rome barely happy on 20% lux, we'll need a temple to even have a chance anyway. We go for the temple at a modest +4 food and 12 shields per turn.

The citizen in Neapolis is sent out towards that fishing village I'd mentioned before.

I also gather some legions towards Neapolis, bound for Sicily. I'm assuming regs are OK, since they'll promote inside armies now? In any case, we can't test this out if we don't try it, right?

I have no idea what's going to land when I hit next turn, although no danger is in sight. I pull some "homeland defense" units out of the cities, leaving garrisons inside. Extra units get sent north.

Oh, we'll need harbors to get materials to Sicily, and some worker farm for now. Canusium is a dry city with lots of food available, so that can be a worker farm. Ancona could use some coastal food, so that will make a harbor. Messana will also work on a harbor, of course.

I settle up north, although I don't see the exact cities that McC mentioned. I settle Aquileia at a river/wheat site to the NE, and Genua at a wines/wheat site on fresh water. I can't pull in iron or silver with either city, but of course we get closer, and in a game like this, perfect dotmapping may be less crucial.

Oh, and the new music gets my :thumbsup: .

I hate to sell a tech monopoly for cheap, and none of the civs have much to offer, other than workers. However, if the AI isn't able to do anything about the horrible starting deficit, it's quite possible that they'll have even less to offer for math next turn. So, I trade.

- Math to Persia for 80 gold, worker, dyes, and WM.
- Math to Macedon for worker, 100 gold, and WM.
- Math to Egypt for worker, 80 gold, and WM.

I think we all have the same map, actually, although as turns go by trading for map information will be much more important than at the same stage in a similar game, I think. We're now up currency, which makes sense because we have markets already. Let's hold onto currency for now.

Our new workers go to mine Roma's olive oil. That sounds very odd, doesn't it?

Pisae and Padua will also make workers for now. We could use them.

We start tactics at minimum science, because deficit still isn't much faster and we don't really have all that much gold just yet. That's 40 turns at +16 gpt.

OK, finally, it's time to hit next turn!

BT- One barb worker shows up out of the north, and it's my turn again.

(1) 345 BC - Our northern archers can go barb hunting. They can bust some fog while they're at it. We can build scouts, but not when we want to be at war with all of our neighbors. Suddenly, I miss the Chasqui! :lol:

We settle Confinium, that fishing village. Our legions take the road east, fogbusting. We contact the Celts. They're backwards- they lack masonry, iron working, and alphabet.

We create our legion army, and the galley sails south, with an empty galley for cover.

BT - Celts ask us to leave their territory. That's fine, but we'll be back. Canusium worker - worker.

(2) 340 BC - We know Scythia, or at least they know us. They're broke, and lack only writing. I want to know where the Scythians are without looking for a RL map! Perhaps I should know this, but I don't. I'm also curious about the Celtic lands, since they're our neighbors. Somehow, I neglected to trade maps last turn. To get the Celts' map, I can either trade them alphabet, which is not going to get them closer to Gallics, but is still a tech, or I could trade them contact with Carthage. If Carthage is in Spain, and is also a couple tiles south on an island, they're going to meet really soon, aren't they? They certainly can't ally against us without writing, and we wouldn't care if they did anyway I don't think. So, the Celts give me their world map and all their gold, and I tell them about Carthage.

Now that I can see their lands, I back the legions out. We should hit them soon, though. They have spearmen defenders.

I broker world maps around, and get almost 200 gold, plus 5 gpt from Egypt. BTW, iron doesn't seem to sell for much of anything in this game.

BT - Pisae worker - legion.

(3) 335 BC - Our archer attacks a barb warrior, and loses. Our army, plus an archer and a legion, move towards Syracuse. We don't attack, because we want to cross the river first. This river annoyed me to no end in the battle of Syracuse.

BT - Carthage moves an archer out of Marsala. Macedonia wants to "trade" world maps, especially if we throw in currency. No thanks. Padua worker - legion.

(4) 330 BC - We attack Syracuse with our army, win, and it's our golden age. Not much choice in timing there, really. Our army goes to 5/13 vs. their numidian, though. Good thing we crossed the river already! There's a spear on top at Syracuse, but my other two units need to cross the river.

Lux tax can go to 10%. In our golden age, tactics @ 90% can be complete in 14 turns @ -34 gpt. That's doable.

BT- The people want the heroic epic. Roma temple - Temple of Artemis. Canusium worker - worker.

(5) 325 BC - Clear a barb camp. Attack Syracuse's spear with a legion, and win, showing another vet spear. Attack with the army, win, and there's an archer left. Our archer attacks theirs, and we lose, redlining theirs. Now they have a healthy archer showing. Our wounded army has an attack left (yay multiple attacks) but I don't see any point in risking it, especially since we still couldn't take the city this turn.

There's 20 shields left on the harbor in Messana- time to whip! :whipped: The mainland one is also due in one, no whip required. We bust another barb camp.

Scythia is caught up in tech with us! Still, the other AI are offering everything they have for currency, so I hold it.

BT - Barb from the fog kills an archer. Neapolis legion - legion. Ancona harbor - legion. Croton garrison - worker. Messana harbor - garrison.

(6) 320 BC - At Syracuse, we have a 4/6 legion, and a 4/13 army. There's probably one spear and one archer in the city, because they sent one archer out towards Messana. We could probably take Syracuse this turn, but we could also very well lose it all trying. That could even leave Messana in danger from that lone archer. So, we attack the archer with the only unit in Messana - a legion. We win. Our units by Syracuse retreat to heal.

Nepolis swaps to heroic Epic. Padva to citizen. It's got a disgusting amount of food, and almost no shields. I'm seeing lots of spots to fill in Celtic lands, too.

BT - Persians want territory map for territory map, that's OK. They have so much land. Right now, we want to get stronger, but at some point, we may need to think about how to stop them from running away with this.

Canusium worker - worker.

(7) 315 BC - Whip a garrison in Messana. That will free up both legions. I fortify the army in Messana to heal, but move the two legions out. Lux goes back to 20%.

Persia will offer 57 gpt, 180 gold, and WM for currency. I take it. The other AI still look like they could pay more for it, so I dont sell to them.

BT - Pisae legion - legion. Tarentum legion - legion. Croton worker - garrison. Messana garrison - garrison. Confinium worker - rax(?). The Greeks have stolen our second fish there, and I'm not sure if a temple is worth it. I'm also not sure how likely our Artemis is going to be.

(8) 310 BC - Syracuse sends an archer out north. We attack the city with a legion, and win, revealing another spear. We attack with our 4/6 elite legion and win, popping a leader! Now, Syracuse has a galley showing as its best defender. I've seen this before in a game, a long time ago, but I don't understand it. I'm also wondering if it's because of the change in ship bombardment or something. In any case, I check in with our army- it's full again! I'd read about that, but still wasn't expecting it! I'm glad I retreated. We attack the archer, taking it to 12/13. Now, we have a choice:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc3cattackgalley.jpg

I haven't seen a combat calculator yet that will tell me whether I should attack a fortified galley from across a river! But, how can I resist? When we attack, we're actually fighting an archer. Was he hiding in the galley? We win, and our vet inside the army promoted to elite. So, our army is elite/reg/reg now. Will the top always promote first, or does it give the unit in the army that actually wins the chance to promote. Probably the latter, but it's worth paying attention to. Oh, and the galley is showing again on top at Syracuse, and I'm out of moves.

Neapolis to legionary, because the leader's coming home for the Heroic Epic. I'd made one double stack of galleys, but hadn't thought to make two. That's OK. We have one galley at Messana that can load the leader next turn, and one that can leave from Neapolis this turn, and provide cover once the leader's in the water. At some point I actually realize to bring that galley out of Croton to make the second double stack. That's almost done by the end of my turn- you'll see two empty galleys one tile away from one another, and the leader will be in the escorted boat.

The Celts have iron working now. :eek: They have two sources of iron in their borders, and neither are hooked up. Oh, and Macedon now has currency. Did they sell iron working to get the cash for currency? In any case, we sell currency to Egypt for 9 gpt, 95 gold, and WM.

BT - Padua citizen - citizen. Canusium worker - worker.

(9) 305 BC - Syracuse has a spear on top again. We attack with a legion and win, leaving an archer on top. We attack with the army, win, see the galley, and take the city. Finally!

Trajan departs for the mainland. We attack a barb, and lose an archer.

BT - Neapolis legionary - garrison. Ancona legionary - legionary. Messana borders expand. Genua garrison - rax.

(10) 300 BC - I hope I didn't delay too long in attacking the Celtics. I was watching some Greek units shuffle around on their mainland, and I didn't want ot leave us high and dry at home, especially when we were doing our initial worker push. I've gathered up a small stack of legions by the Celtic border. There's also a citizen, because I think we could settle at least two cities just north of the one that they have there. The sooner the better, but it's for the next leader to decide if we're ready or not.

I didn't build any temples or courthouses. If we get Artemis, we won't need temples. I'm also not sure that courthouses are worth it in this scenario. YMMV.

It's hard to believe we'll be almost halfway over when this comes back around! Good luck, team! :hammer:

One word of caution about the cities- I felt like I was reinventing the wheel every turn with my tile management. With such loopy improvements, limited workers, and a short game, many of the guildelines for city management need to be reconsidered. We don't have a lot of cities, so I was scrolling through each of them every turn, although admittedly I was much more careful the first 8 or so turns. This is a great opportunity to throw out preconceived notions about what is "the best" and make decisions based upon the current conditions. I'm not saying I made no mistakes here, because I'm sure I did, but I am asking people to look at this aspect closely rather than following their standard moves. Even deciding what tiles were the most important to improve was much more of a task than it usually is!

It probably goes without saying, but Canusium can build a worker every 2 with a little TLC. Once the second wheat gets irrigated, Tarentum *may* be able to have the grassland wheat to itself. If it can't, that's no biggie, because Tarentum really doesnt need food unless we can justify building aqueducts.

Oh, and we want bridges! Crossing rivers is awful!

-Griselda

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc3c-300bc.zip)

Griselda - just played
6thGenTexan - UP NOW
Belisar - on deck
Speaker
T_McC

Nice work in Sizil.
As in any game, MM in productive cities is a no-brainer and might be just a little more important in a short game like this one. Most of us will have to play only 20 turns, so this shouldn't be a big issue.
Those garrisons seem to be pretty useful units, helping our production capability. With improved legions and de-facto hoplites Rome seems to be nearly overpowered.

What are the Legion and garison's stats?

Great game so far, I'm enjoying reading these all (is there a Greek one, or just Persia, Rome, and Carthage?)

Greek one to start after Thanksgiving. We have interested parties, but some of us need to refrain from being in too many SGs over the holidays.... Expect to see turn 1 of RBC3d about Dec. 1.

Arathorn

I've got it. Time to make my mark on the Roman Empire.

6gntxn

Originally posted by Arathorn
Greek one to start after Thanksgiving. We have interested parties, but some of us need to refrain from being in too many SGs over the holidays.... Expect to see turn 1 of RBC3d about Dec. 1.

Arathorn

The real question is, will there be a RBC4a-r for the Senguku (sp?) scenario? :groucho:

If 6thGen hasn't played yet, I figure the team should weigh in a few ideas:

What should our fallback be if we don't get the Temple of Artemis? The Oracle? Hadrian's Wall would be a decent consolation prize, but will require us to acquire Construction prior to Artemis finishes. We could also use the GL for an army and have the Heroic Epic as a fallback.

This brings up what to research next. Military Training for Heavy Cavs seems logical, but starting on Construction is also a possibility (primarily to CYA with Artemis/Hadrians). We should be able to finish another tech before our GA ends.

Any thoughts on what the next leader should go to? Since the FP is broken, how about a mixed Legion/Pike army to pillage the snot out of the Carthaginian core? It may take us a while to get to North Africa, might as well destroy their economy in the meantime.

I got C&C :D

As I stated, Mil. techs should be our priority.
If Heavy Cav. is a fast offensive unit, I agree with T_McC, this one next.

With legions availabel, I see no reasons to use garrisons in armies, let's
use legions with the huge offensive capability.

I've had a chance to look at the game and have a few observations.

Our Legion is THE UNIT in this game. Imaging a guerilla with adn added attack and HP running around in the ancient age. Granted, four techs away and a cost of 90 shields, we will not be building many. What we will have is a lot of Legion I and II's to upgrade. All we need to do is keep them alive. The Heavy Calvary will be healpful in zone defense and to chase down retreating War Elephants.

I believe construction should be our next tech. Our victory condition is based on land and population. Getting the cities up to 12 will help in our victory condition and increased sheild production. Now that I'm writing, I cannot remember for sure but I think that Military Training is required for Carthage's War Elephants. I see no need to make it any cheaper for them to research.

On the wonder cascade, if it happens on my turns, I'll take what ever is available. I prefer the Oracle since it will benefit more than one city. Construction will not show up on my turns. Worst case is an overpriced Heroic Epic. There is an eleven turn differnece between the HE and the ToA.

Regarding the Greeks, leave them alone. At least leave them alone for now. They are locked in the war with the Persians who are leading in land and population. Anything to help them out would be good for us until we pass the Persians.

Since this is a short game, anthing to save a turn is helpful. At the start of my turns we have 10% lux tax with 3 specialists. One town needs the clown. The other two are taxmen. Changing these to scientists drop our "turns to tech" from 6 to 5. THis is something we all need to watch.

I will probably not play until Thursday afternoon. Ahy other thoughts?

6gntxn

On the subject of techs:

The War elephant is enabled by Tactics, so Carthage will have those soon. Construction may be a pressing need (we currently have 5 cities that need aqueducts, and 6 that don't), as we may have to build some Colosseums to keep up the happies. That also gets us within 1 tech of Engineering, which will be real nice with all the rivers on this map. My only concern is that we can probably trade Military Training for Construction, but I'm not sure the reverse is true. (I think that since all civs had the opportunity to research Construction from the first turn, at least one will have.) Either way it will work out fine, we need both techs and will get them both soon enough.

My point with the mixed army was this: If the primary intent of the army was to pillage, hence being attacked rather than attacking, I wouldn't want to tie up more than 1 Legion in that role. Garrisons have the same defense as a Legion I, and are much cheaper to build. Disadvantage is that the army would have less hit points with vet Garrisons vs. vet Legion I's. Said army would still be effective attacking once a turn, as the Legion would get at least 5 (and maybe 6) hit points to work with. But the bottom line is that if we're going to form another army, might as well go bonk some heads with it, rather than tie up that many resources just to be spiteful to Carthage.

MM to shave a turn off a couple of items. Drop lux to 10% increase science and the three specialists will not speed up production if tax was at 20%.

295BC-1 Pisae Legion-->Legion Croton garrison-->harbor Aquileia garrison-->barrack Canusium worker every 2 turns. Build an army in Neapolis. I'll go with the 2 garrisons and a legionary to pillage North Africa. Hadrian shows up by killing an archer outside of Syracuse. Heads to Messana to form an army. I'll use this army to pillage and the one in Neopolis to conquer. Pick up another 37 with some map tranding.

IBT Macedonia builds the Mausoleum of Mausollos in Athens.

290BC-2 The Goths show up as the last civ.

IBT Egypt has joined Persia against Macedon.

285BC-3 Neapolis, Ancona Legion-->Legion Cansium worker. Capture Marsala and a worker.

IBT The Celts have joined Persia against Macedon. Goths have joined Egypt verses Macedon. The Colossus has been completed in the Macedonian city of Byzantium.

280BC-4 Padua citizen-->garrison Tarentum Legion-->Legion Croton garrison-->garrison garrison-->garrison Genua barrack-->garrison Confinium barrack-->worker Macedon now has Monarchy. We will trade Tactics next turn for it.

Persia and Carthage have joined forces against us. We have lost our Dyes. Scythia declares war on Macedon. Neopolis riots and I make sure no one else does.

275BC-5 Canusium's worker. Well, now everyone but Egypt has Tactics. I take ther 10GPT and 65g. Pick up another 221g selling maps. Construction in 17 turns at -6GPT. I'm not going to buy Monarchy for 1600g. We do not need it now and I do not think it is worth swiching to.

IBT The Macidonians build The Oracle in Miletus.

270BC-6 Padua garrison-->garrison Legion upgrades to II are 60g. I upgrade 3 this turn. Capture Aleria. Moving a citizen to get some spices from near the Celts.

265BC-7 Pisae Legion-->Legion Croton Legion-->garrison Canusium's worker. Aquileia barrack--Granary Confinium worker-->garrison Upgrade 7 Legions. Segusio founded to get us some spices. Unfortunately the road created did not cover the spices. Greece is holding Monarchy and Construction. Buy construction and WM for 420g. I get 145g back for map trades. Switch Ancona, Croton and Tarentum to Aqueducts. Pisae, Padua and Neapolis to Colosseums. Start working on Engineering thinking Macedon will go for Tactics. 25 Turns at -2GPT.

Messana riots. I looked at the faces wrong. The Macedonians complete the Great Lighthouse in Cyzicus.

260AD-8 Genua garrison-->granary Upgrdae 2 more Legions.

255BC-9 Ancona Aqueduct-->legion Canusium's worker.

250BC-10 Land an army in Africa. Capture Olbia. Upgrade another Legion.


Messed up Canusiums MM. It needs to work the 2 wheat and the forrest to get a worker/growth every 2 turns. Switch this back next turn. I landed the army near Leptis Magna to keep the Carthaginians to our west as we conquer. The pillage army is in the boat out of Marsala. It can land near Carthago and start working next turn. The third army just left Aleria and is heading south. It can attact Caralis or let the Legions in Olbia take care of that island. Our fourth galley is heading south to help ferry troops from Sicily to Africa.

The three Carthaginian galleys near Syracuse have been there a couple of turns.

I have Legions running a blockade near Genua. Carthage finally sent some troops towards us.

Five turns to The Temple of Aremis. Engineering in 18 at 50% @ +21GPT. Lux at 20% but our spices are getting to Italy through Celtic territory. If they get upity, we will take a happiness hit.

Carthage whipped the cities on Sicily so they are extra unhappy.

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc3c-250bc.zip)


6gntxn

Got it, seems we are making excellent progress.

Just in case Belisar hasn't played yet (and to keep this thread on the first page!) ...

Belisar is right, we are making terrific progress on the Mediterranean Islands. 6thGen left Carthage with only 1 city remaining, and a Legion Army in striking distance. Who's the next victim after that? It seems the Celts are the closest, and without Iron may not be that hard to smack around. They have at least 5 Iron sources in their territory, so our window may be fairly narrow until they get Gallics. Of course Legion II's are quite a bit tougher than Gallics anyway. Alternatively, we could sign an ROP with the Celts, and try to kick Carthage out of Spain.

[Edit: I didn't even note the Army already in Africa. I guess an ROP/MA (separately) with the Celts against Carthage may be a neat trick to activate Hannibal's dental plan]

If we wanted a couple of more easy settlements, there are two islands SE of Croton where we could settle on a hill and only require three units between them to run shore blockades. The two cities would overlap slightly, but after the 1st border expansion would have some good tiles. I can never figure out the flip formula, but there would only be 1 tile of overlap with a Macedonian city.

Final thought: If we do go to war with the Celts, it may be important to obtain Lutetia (and anything else they build in the British Isles) as part of the peace consession. The Isles would seem to be real easy pickings for relaxed settling to reach the Domination limits. Or is there someone else in this scenario?

I'm currently playing my last turns, but it takes longer than expected, so I'm taking a break for dinner, finishing later this evening.

Preturn: Croton swaped to courthouse, the city gets only 40% of it's shields and
the 6th citiz. is already a specialist.
We have 4 Gothic T-worriors (stats like longbows) near Aquileila, hopefully they don't try something stupid.
Our army is strong against their's but an additional front NE is not what we want.
However, if they enter our territory, we have the first shot and will be able to kill most of them.
I sign a ROP with Alex, the only civ that is not at war against him is Hanni, and I don't want them
to ally against us.
We should have enough money, so science up a notch, Eng. in 16 turns.

IT: Neapolis finishes Colloseum, starts legion.
Canusium worker, MM to get them in 2 turns.
I spot the first Carth. War Elephant, he is injured, interesting.
The Gothic stack moves east and the 3-unit Carth stack heads for Segusio, we have only 1 legion there.

245: Our army attacks Leptis, we defeat 2 defenders by losing only 2 HP.
We capture 2 new slaves at Olbia and land a 16! HP legion army near Caralis.
This is basically a Knight with 16 hitpoints, nice.
Personally, I think Genua should have been founded one tile SW on the wine-hill to better fit in
another city in northern Italy, but I will do this anyway, move settler in position.
I swap Segusio to walls due next turn. Founding at this lux site was a good move by 6thGen but
I think we will have to secure the area sooner or later by taking it to the Celts, only 110 turns
remaining. I do some exploring NE.
I add an archer to the garrison of Pisae, getting the specialist back to work.

IT: The Carths move two additional units near Massila, now they have 5 units (2 NuMes, 1 spear, 1 archer)
They also move an Elephant into Carthago.

240: Alex, the Goths and the Celts got Astronomy.
The Persians would talk, but Xerxes wants cash for peace, I'd say sweet dreams...
Tarentum finishes Aqueduct, start courthouse. Confinium garrison -> garrison.
Segusio walls -> rax
We begin pillaging near Carthago, first the cow tile, then I move on the Iron hill.
Hanni has swords fortified on some tiles, that's the main reason I would have prefered a higher
offensive capability for our army. With the 2-movement, they are simply huge.
We take Caralis from it's 2 spears and now we own all the islands, shouldn't the first Punic War now be over :lol:
We get a second spice source in the process.
The attack on Leptis kills another 2 defenders.
I found Mediolanum in northern Italy.

IT: I see a Carth Elephant army near Carthago, but it doesn't attack our pillaging army.
Carth and Egypt sign an alliance agaisnt us, Hanni declares on Alex.
The really bad news: Sparta completes The Temple of Artemis, beating us 2 turns. :(
Worse, Tyre completes Hadrians Wall in the same IT.
The Scythians establish an emb. in our capital.
Some resistance in Caralis ends, the city riots in the process.
The Carth. ships near Syracuse were not empty, they land 4 units near the town.

235: Swap Rome to HE, a 500-shield Epic.
We just got a excellent demonstration about the subtle differences between Deity and Demigod
difficult level, at Demigod we would have gotten the Temple.
I always thought that this level was completely redundant with its extra settler but it
seems that this 10% difference in cost factor is not negligible.

We finally capture Leptis from its last spear, getting 2 slaves.
Our army continues pillaging around Carthago, this extra-pillaging is nice.
I kill a sword and a NuMe at Syracuse, 2 archers left.
I buy Astronomy from the Scythias for 448 gold, this connects our new conquests in Africa with the mainland.
I get their WM in the process, there is a silk source east which would be nice.
Sell the new WM to Brennus for 108 cash and his WM, to Alex for 95 cash,
to the Goths for 23 cahs and their WM.
I also sign RoPs with the Scythias and the Goths as insurance, I want a city between their territory
and we need trading partners.
Xerxes still wants gold for peace and he just got Military Training.

IT: My RoP strategy seems not to work or Hanni simply payed enough as he signs the Scythias against us.
Now this is getting ugly, numerous fronts. I don't even think about taking it to the Celts right now.
The 2 archers impale themselves on Syracuse.
Their army 'Hannibal' moves towards Leptis, 12 HP strong, containing 2 Elephants and a sword.

230: We have a legion army in Leptis, let's use it. We kill 'Hannibal' without problems, defense 2
is just not enough for our legions, 7 of 15 HP left. (One of the legions in the army promotes)
Our 3rd army arrives near Carthago, the pillaging continues and their capital is no disconnected
from their road network.
Near Segusio, the Carths have now 8 units but we have plenty of legions in the region,
we kill a NuMe and an archer that are within reach and get one more elite legion.
I found Silk City, avery additional lux is important.


IT: We lose a legion to a Carth Elephant in Northern Italy coming out of Celtic terrain.
Our GA ends and Marsalia riots, I scroll the city screens and prevent riots in 3 small towns.
An Elephant pillages the road near Leptis and their offensive stack moves next to Segusio.

225: Since our GA ended, Eng, is due in 15 turns.
I kill a sword and 2 Elephants near Carthago this turn.
The walls in Segusio are finished, move a second legion into the town.
I send some of our legions on the islands towards the Carth. mainland, will arrive next turn.
One army is healing in Leptis.
Swap production in 2 cities with 10+ or 15+ spt to horsemen for heavy cav upgrade.

IT: Most of the action takes place in Northern Italy.
A NuMe pillages the road to Segusio, 1 archer and 5 swords attack the city.
We have 2 legions fortified behind walls, on a hill, all attackers are killed and
both legions promote to elite.
Near Genua, 2 Elephants retreat redlined from our legions fortified on hills.
The Carths land 2 swords and a NuMe on Korsika near Olbia, I should have left more units on the island.

220: I kill the NuMe near Olbia, getting an elite legion.
Our army at Leptis kills 1 Elephant and 1 sword near the town, a 2nd sword remains.
Our armies and 1 additional legion take Carthago from its 4 defenders (spears), meaning we
got it 75 years earlier than our historical predecessors :D we get 2 slaves.
We start an expeditionary force (1 newly built settler, 1 legion, 1 garrison) heading
for the African dyes.

IT: The 2 swords impale themselves at our elite legion in Olbia.
An Elephant attack at Segusio ends with a dead Elephant, 3 more move within range.
They also move a lot of units near Carthago, but don't attack our 2 armies in and near the city.
The Celts and the Macedons sign a peace treaty.
Some resistance i Lepris ends and the city riots in the process.
The Carths have Heavy Cav, move 2 of them near Carthago.

215: Dyes Expedition continues, 3 turns until our 4th lux is secured.
I kill 2 Elephants and 1 Heavy Cav near Carthago, no promotions and 10 visible
Carth units left in the region.
Our legions re-connect the road to Segusio.
Kill two Elephants near the city.
Alex just got Literature.

IT: An Elephant attacks our 8HP garrison army in Carthago and dies.
1 Elephant and 1 Heavy cav die attacking a legion on a hill near the city, the second
Heavy cav kills our legion, our first casualty in Northern Africa.
A Carth stack moves towards Carthago, additional units pillage their former
improvements near the city.
An elite legion near Segusio is attacked by a sword and we get GL Maximus. :D
Our expedition force spots 4 Persian galleys heading our way.
Aleria finishes rax, starts additional garrisons, Croton finishes courthouse, starts horse


210: After the GA ends, I had to mine an irrigated tile but now I have Canusium back to
a worker every other turn.
The Persians would sign a peace treaty and give us Military Training for 840 gold, they just got Siege Craft too.
Kill 4 units near Carthago with legions and armies.
Maximus builds an army in Segusio.

IT: Two swords impale themselves on units fortified near Carthago.

205: Kill only 2 Carth units this turn near Carthago, most of our units are healing.
Send reinforcements from the mainland, will arrive next turn.
It seems the Caths are now mainly sending swords after I killed a lot of Elephants and a few Cavs.
Egypt and Scynthia still won't talk.
I whip walll in Carthago, there are numerous units heading our way.

IT: 3 Carth swords impale themselves against our army in Carthago.
New Elephants and Cavs move near the city.
I watch someone (maybe Alex, they have the most supply galleys near Carthago) fighting Hanni.

200: I finally get Croton to 10 spt.
Kill 2 Elephants with our legion army near Carthago, send reinforcements towards Carthago.
I left most of the units unmoved to allow some positioning.
Our northern army has still a slot left.

Our legions and armies are really powerful, kill-ratio was something like 1:10
I began producing horsemen for upgrading to Heavy Cav, these units will be extremely useful if covered by
legion armies. (I suggest using legions for armies to get those 2nd movement point)
Hanni still has a healthy production capability as he is sending a stream of units against Carthago.
If Leptis is reinforced the local army can be freed for offensive actions.
Egypt finally signs a peace treaty, allowing our dyes expedition to be completed next turn.
The Scynthians don't want talk right now.
I suggest making peace with Perisa, they finally made it near our coast with 4 galleys but will leave it
to the next leader to decide on that.
On tech, I think we only need Military Training, then maybe Republic will be best.
No new Carth units in Northern Italy except a spear in the last 2 turns, so after we get Heavy Cav
it's maybe time to hit the Celts.

Good luck
Belisar

SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3c-200BC.zip)

The current situation in Northern Africa
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/hanni01.gif

Looks like I'm up. Got it. Should play later today.

You have exposed an enemy spy! He's from evil Carthage!

"You filthy Romans! Just because your Legionaries are way overpowered (and have silly numbers attached to them, too!) doesn't mean you're allowed to take our capital! Leave our lands immediately, or Italy will suffer the consequence of your arrogance!". Foaming at the mouth, he shows you a map of a beachhead in southern Italy full of Carthaginian war elephants, fire catapults and Numidian mercenaries.

You wonder what madness this man suffers from - his mind seems to be from another world.

"Fools! You will die a horrible argl grmpf..." His screams subside as he is gagged and then dragged away to be thrown into one of your newly built colisseums.

(:goodjob: )

Excellent progress Belisar. :goodjob:

Who needs to pillage when you can capture? :lol:

Looked at the save and had a couple of thoughts:

We are currently building a road SE of Leptis Magna (to pull in Ivory), but the Ivory is outside our cultural borders. Maybe we want to make that a colony instead. We may also be running into a weird bug where silks display as Ivory on the city screen. Check a city before you build the colony, is shows we have Ivory but not Silks. Check F2 and our Silks are displayed. I think this was reported in the bugs forum, but I'm not sure if it is at all important.
The fix is here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68696)

Also just noticed that Ivory is a strategic resource, not a luxury in this scenario.

We don't have an embassy with the Celts. Might be a good idea to get one, so we can ROP to more easily attack the Carthaginian holdings in Spain. Also, the Celts have a worker for sale.

Also noticed that the Carth capital moved almost all the way to Gibraltar, so we shouldn't have much in the way of flip risks for the cities east of Cirta.

Nora would be an interesting target, as I believe it is build upon the only source of Spices for Carthage.

Lastly, maybe we want to start settling a line of cities along the road to our silk source, so we aren't at risk of losing the lux through a weedy AI MA.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask for a swap or skip (which I feel bad doing, since this is such a short game). I was expecting to be able to play tonight, but I had to finish a paper last minute and tomorrow I am driving 8 hours home for Thanksgiving. I will have time to play over the long weekend, so move me accordingly, or don't. Your call Gris.

I'll take the save and play today. (Since I would be up with either a swap or skip of Speaker)

Gris can figure out the next step (since she'd be up with a skip) after I post my turns.

Sorry for my absence here, but I have been sick. The good news, I'm back, and should have some days off this week too! :)

When I had the game, I'd thought it was set up nicely for a quick bite out of the Celts. I guess that got the big veto stamp! In any case, it seems like that's a front we're glad not to have at the moment with the other wars going on, so it's probably for the best.

I am concerned about leaving them around, though. Our legions are so slow, and more so across enemy territory. Even if we have a ROP with the Celts, their settlement and road system won't give us a lot of speed. To win in Spain, I think we're going to need to conquer and settle our way to it. We may not be ready now, but let's keep it in mind.

I guess I shouldn't have tried to squeeze in that temple first in Rome. :( I wasn't sure that our economy could handle wonder building without it.

I don't know if the gpt bug has been mentioned yet in this thread, but let's try to avoid making any gpt deals if at all possible (of course, if everyone's at war with us, that's moot!).

Griselda
6thGenTexan
Belisar - just played
Speaker - ON DECK
T_McC - UP NOW

I'd rather not do skips in such a short game, so hopefully Speaker can find some time to play after T_McC

-Griselda

Originally posted by Griselda

When I had the game, I'd thought it was set up nicely for a quick bite out of the Celts.

Two words to keep in mind for this report: Unintended Consequences

Originally posted by Griselda
In any case, it seems like that's a front we're glad not to have at the moment with the other wars going on, so it's probably for the best.

Be careful what you wish for ....

And now on with the show :rolleyes:

RBC3c

200 BC (0)
Diplomacy check: We are at war with Scythia and Persia in addition to Carthage. Scythia won't talk, but Persia will. Pay Darius 120 gold to end this charade. We aren't close to attacking him, and I don't want to deal with anything he lands. Monarchy is at 4th (at least) and Seige Craft at 3rd. Will want to get Monarchy for Engineering, if at all possible. We need this tech to reach Republic. Only Persia (and Carthage) have Military Training. At least establishes easy trade strategy if we can get there.

Think about buying Celt worker, but I vaguely recall some sort of Gentleman's Agreement not to buy multiple workers from any of the AI, and I'm nearly positive we already have a Celt working the fields. :confused:

And in a bit of foreshadowing, consider whether it would be a good idea to MA with Celts against Carthage. Decide not to in case next leader would like to attack Brennus.

The Best Laid Plans
I'd like to focus our military activity on North Africa, and not divide troops to attack Spain. We can play defense on the northern front, and I'd like to settle Northeast (at least once the Scythians will talk), so that our route to the silks only goes through our territory. Swap Neapolis to Citizen, Padua to Garrison to form first settler pair. Swap 14 spt Ancona to a Legion II (instead of a 42 shield horse). Swap Croton to Garrison, intending to use this to free-up Legion at Caralis for North African duty. Swap Pisae to worker, with growth in 1 and an icky 13 spt.

Goals for turn: Get good value to Engineering in trade. Hold NW front steady. Settle 2-3 new cities in the NE. Capture 2-3 cities in former Carthaginian core.

Build colony on Ivory near Leptis Magna. Start moving a horse and Legion II towards Silk City. Leave NW army in place, to keep the Celts from getting any funny ideas. [cue dramatic music :eek:]

Nice touch Belisar, leaving the galleys out in the water so I can find them. Have to remember that for the end of my turn.

Press return ...

Carthage and Celts sign MA against us. :aargh:

So much for my plans.

Three Carthage units die at Carthago. Only noticed Celt movement was a dinky boat.

195 BC (1)
Kill Carthage spear. Reverse some troops towards the Celt lands. Move army to spice city. When it is properly garrisoned, I'll smack down the Celts with the army. Move loose Legions towards Celt city that interrupts our road network. Found Dyes Town on top of Dyes. Pay Scythians 60 gold for peace. Note a Gallic Sword wandering around the East. Think about MA with Goths to give Celts something to think about.

IT - Two more Carthaginian units die at Carthago. And Brennus has been a very bad boy. :satan: Celts sign MA with Macedon against Scythia, Goths, and ... Carthage! Why do I think there is something broken in this scenario.

190 BC (2)
Shuffle units to repel Celt attack on Mediolanum. Kill Gallic in E with Legion/Horse combo. Kill Jumbo with S Army.

IT - Persia allies with Carthage against Celts

185 BC (3)
Lose a Garrison to Gallic Sword, shuffle units to prevent second attack losing city. Scratch another Carthage unit near Carthago. Hannibal seems to have noticed Leptis Magna. Adjust science to get Engineering in 4 turns. (Still not out there with anyone we're not at war with.)

IT - Macedon and Celts sign MA against us. Welcome to the three-front war. :cringe:

Many cities start to riot, use scroll-ahead to adjust. This was a theme this round, as our lux routes kept getting formed and broken.

180 BC (4)
Capture Celt city of Masillia. Have a sneaky idea and set Masillia to Citizen (boy, is that whip going to hurt!). [later, I just changed to walls rather than the -3 pop citizen whip]

This Re-establishes our trade routes. Put everybody back to work.

Engineering still due in 3. Hope to get Macedon and the Celts off of our backs before the end of my turn. New strategy is to really hurt Celts and bring them to the table (pay for peace). Peace with Macedon could then include a tech swap. Start building Horses instead of workers out of Canusium.

Carthage seems to have run out of units, so move offensive Army next to Nora (along with two Legion II), score one army victory. Defensive army covering workers on hill adjacent to Carthago. Only 1 War elephant can attack next turn, across a river against a Legion II fortified behind walls.

With Macedon at war with us, the sea is dangerous. (I think they have 6 bazillion galleys, and boy is it exciting to watch them move every turn.) Will try to get one shipment of Garrisons to Leptis Magna, then wait for peace to really begin ferrying troops to Africa. In meantime, hurt the Celts.

IT - Elephant retreats from Carthago. Greeks land Hoplite pair next to Caralis. I have no idea where the Celts are going. They seem to be retreating from our cities.

175 BC (5)
Walls in Caralis complete. Capture Nora, gain 147 gold, and I think cut Carthage off from Spices. Kill three Carthaginian units near Carthago. Donk another Celt unit. I'll let the Hoplites try a go on offense against Legion II's. Behind walls or fortified on a hill, their choice. Make about 100 gold trading the WM around.

IT - Celts and Carthage fight in the East. Both Hoplites die on our Legion II. Celts land an archer near Olbia.

170 BC (6)
Kill Celt archer. Nothing else of note.

IT - Carthage loses a sword and jumbo to us. See them fighting with Celts and Macedon. Carthage lands two heavy cav (separately) on our islands.

165 BC (7)
Engineering comes in. Engineering to Persia for Military Training + 210 gold. Military Training to Egypt for Monarchy + 156 gold + WM. WM + 90 gold to Scythia for WM. WM to Persia (who has Republic) for 20 gold. 20 gold from Goths for WM. Upgrade 4 Horses to Heavy Cav. Research set for Republic (30 turns @ -8 gpt). Dismiss both Carthaginian Heavy Cavs.

IT - Carthage lands Heavy Cav + Jumbo next to Olbia. Then Macedon lands a Hoplite there.

160 BC (8)
Chase jumbo from Olbia. Kill spear at Agedincum. Move citizen into position to found city that secures our road network in Celt territory. Celts will talk, but I'm going to wait until Agedincum falls. Then Macedon should talk, and we'll be the only ones they know with Engineering.

IT - Lose a Garrison and a Legion II on the Hill outside of Carthago. Sound the retreat for the Armies in Carthage.

All three units threatening Olbia die. There had been a trickle of units from Carthage the last few turns, but all of a sudden they come up with 4 Heavy Cav outside of Carthago. Retreat the defensive army. Macedon lands another Hoplite next to Caralis.

155 BC (9)
Re-position troops in Africa. Defensive Army to Carthage, Offensive Army to Nora. I had visions of taking one more city before my turn ends, but what are you gonna do?

Our two Heavy Cav kill their two heavy Cav at Carthago. Threat averted. Kill three spears at Agedincum and burn the city. Brennus will pay us for peace, not sure I want to take it. Macedon won't talk. The Celts are losing against Carthage, as the grey borders are creeping out of Spain.

Kill Hoplite harassing Caralis. Take peace with the Celts. I want to be out of the war with Macedon ASAP (so the seas will be safer), and breaking the MA is a good start. Plus, our Celtic conquests give us a clean shot into Spain and the northern Carthage holdings. Peace + 140 gold from the Celts. Macedon still won't talk to us. Sell WM to Celts for 20 gold + TM. (Other, subtle reason for peace: The boot has been almost fully improved, so our workers will be heading to the front lines.)

IT - No attacks. Our Ivory colony may get pillaged (heh, until our army squashes the invader.) The Greeks are advancing a mini-SOD up the east coast of the Mediterranean. It'll be three turns until they reach us.

150 BC (10)
Whack said invader. Build Ariminium (NE) in strong defensive position (on hill, attacks must come from across river.) This gives us a three-city western front where the army can cover all three cities. Load Elite* Legion II into the Western army, now has 18 HP.

I leave all (but one) galleys with movement. They are all in coastal cities, and should be active when the game opens. There is a citizen/garrsion pair NE of Aquileia (NE). I had intended to a city 1 NE of the fortified Legion, but the next leader can choose what to do with it. I figure most any city we found from here on out is going to be hopelessly corrupt, so first priorities are food and defensibility, with production potential not being of much relevance.

End Notes
Well, I had a plan, but a potential 3-front war put the boots to that. Anyway, captured two cities and founded one. If I kept track correctly, our kill ratio was 35:4. But it still feels like nothing got accomplished.

It looks like we will be playing defense in old Carthage for a little while longer. Just when I thought they were gassed, they came up with a bunch of Heavy Cavs. We're now in a good position to take their Spanish holdings, as they are still fighting the Celts. (Heh, I think Carthage will attack anything before our Legions!) The unintended consequence of getting the Celts to declare war on us was to force us (me) to put all of our new Legions up towards the Celt territory. Well, we now can cross rivers, and don't have to go through anyone else's territory to hit Spanish Carthage. We have a [i]lot of firepower available on that front. The Celts can wait, as I don't think they get any unit better than the Gallic sword. Spears really don't hold up well to Legion armies.

Macedon still won't talk. They probably should sometime soon, but bear in mind that they do have a stack approaching our eastern holdings. Should be two turns before they are in our territory.

Most regretful thing about my turn was no GL on about 6-8 elite victories. Would have been nice to have a 4th army to deploy east of our core.

On a completely different note: I'm not sure the Macedon-Persia front has moved the entire game? Unless Miletus was originally Greek?

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3c-150_BC.zip)

First, a picture of our NW front. Note the wide-open roads to Spain.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Rome_NW2.JPG

Now the situation in N. Africa. Not much different than when I got the game, as I pushed our production North. Still don't have enough units in Leptis Magna to allow our army to attack.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Rome_N_Africa_2.JPG

Just a few more notes/thoughts for the next player.

We are probably not running at the proper level of science funding. I just set it for break-even. I did not revolt to Monarchy, nor do I think we should. I think in this scenario that Monarchy and Oligarchy have the same MP and unit support, but Monarchy allows cash-rushing. Since we will have Republic in 30 turns or less, I feel we should hold off revolting until then. After Republic we can run all cash, and it will be much easier to generate Citizens out of corrupt cities than with pop-rushing. [Everytime a corrupt city grows, we'll be able to get a Citizen for ~100 gold]

The 30 turn run-up to Republic should also coincide nicely with the lifespan of Spanish Carthage. Even though we could have banged the Celts around a lot more, I made peace with them so we could use their units against Carthage. With the AI targeting, I suspect the Carthaginians will send every turns production in Spain chasing Gallic Swords since they are much softer targets than Legions. This seemed like a golden opportunity to hit Spanish Carthage. There will be a bit of a lag at first, since we have to run units out of our core, but once we start hitting cities it should go pretty quick.

Next player should also look for whip opportunities (maybe Dyes City harbor?), as I didn't whip anything on my turns. The city MM has gotten easier, as we are now using almost every land tile in the boot. I didn't try to make any stacked galley runs for Leptis Magna, as both Carthage and Macedon were also running stacks (of about 4 each).

Don't know how much longer until Carthage is gassed. Hopefully they are in Republic, and will soon run out of money to rush things. [I kind of suspect that the lag at the end of Belisar's turn and the beginning of mine may have been an Anarchy period of a Gov't change for Carthage.]

I think we have to plan to be at war with most people most of the time. The ping-pong of alliances is starting to get dizzying. So if the gpt bug wasn't incentive enough, I think we should try to get cash for anything we sell, and not plan on getting luxuries from anyone else.

Good turns, we are making progress.
With the AI in pop-rush govs at the beginning of the scenario, they had lots of money so multiple alliances are one consequence.
I wouldn't worry too much about it, as long as everyone is fighting everyone else and our legions are probably the best units in the game for an AW situation where you have to kill lots of units on defense.
Now that we have Havy Cav our offensive actions will be much faster.
One thing: Do we want peace with the Celts? If our forces are concentrated
north why not taking them out? Remenber, only 90 turns left for domination.
Will have to look at the save.

Originally posted by Belisar
Good turns, we are making progress.
One thing: Do we want peace with the Celts? If our forces are concentrated
north why not taking them out? Remenber, only 90 turns left for domination.


Heh, we have peace with the Celts. I made peace on my last turn, hoping that would get Macedon to talk to us before any of their units could reach our eastern cities. I really didn't want us to have to defend on three fronts. (And I want all of Macedon's efforts to be against Persia. As I said, I don't think that front has moved much). I think there are still three turns until any Macedonian forces can attack us via roads, so we can probably get out of this war before it starts.

The other reason I made peace with the Celts is that this is the perfect opportunity to take out Carthage in Spain. If the Celts were at peace with Carthage, I would have gladly ripped up the Celtic lands. But in this case we have 1/2 of Carthage's empire fighting a one-front war against two opponents. Those Gallic Swords are going to be real useful to soak up anything that Carthage produces each turn. [Carthage never used a Heavy Cav against any of our cities in the North, even when they had the chance. They always chased the Gallics around.] So they blow all of their production on the Celts, and we get all the cities.

If/when we conquer Spain, the Celts will get caught in a vise between units coming N out of Italy and E out of Spain. So take out our blood enemy and start to reduce the size of the front.

Another subtle benefit to sweeping Spain before coming for the Celts, it will enable us to settle the rest of Spain behind the front. Settlers from other lands will have to go through our offensive lines to reach the open land.

So sorry to have tied the next two players' hands by making peace. :blush:

But I actually think this plan will work. We have to attack Spanish Carthage anyway, so now seems like the best time. The only way it would be more favorable is if we could get multiple armies to the front. But the next leader is soon to come, we have enough elites.
____________

@Speaker (or whoever is next) - The lux tax is 10% too high. Dropping to 10% only creates a couple of additional specialists, so is well worth it.

May want to consider swapping Croton to an aqueduct. After capturing the Celt city (?) corruption increased in Croton, so it is now making 9 spt, rather than 10. Allowing it to grow should get the 10th shield back. (Can't test this at size 6) I think the same thing happened at Pisae (went from 18 spt to 17 spt).

I have workers chopping the forest SE of Pisae. They should probably stop, as we don't need that tile cleared for food flexibility.

Originally posted by T_McC

So sorry to have tied the next two players' hands by making peace.


Playing styles differ and concentrating on Hanni is certainly no mistake.
My own considerations were: In this scenario, multiple declarations of war and multiple MAs seem to happen that often that a peace treaty is by no means an insurance policy on a certain front.
Because of this, we will have to guard our northern front with enough troops to be prepeared against sneak attacks from the Celts and other civs and (this is only a maybe) we might as well use this troops to take them out.
Of course you need less troops for a (possible) defensive was than for offensice actions, so your decisions are well considered too.

btw, I'm glad there are no knights in this scenario, just had to drop temporarly from LOTR11 because of version problems.

Hey Belisar,

Why don't you try loading Arathorn's recently posted save to see if that will work for you?

JMB

TMcC,

I sent you a private message. Not sure if you check for them (I tend not to myself).

(appologies for the temporary thread-jack)

Originally posted by Greebley
TMcC,

I sent you a private message. Not sure if you check for them (I tend not to myself).

(appologies for the temporary thread-jack)

Heh, my fans. :blush:

@Belisar Check this Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68226)

It is a solution to the "knightdeath.wav" error.

Long story short, it seems you need to have installed the Civ3 1.29f patch for Conquests to install properly.

Now for something on-topic ... :jump:

A couple of more thoughts for the next player:

I screwed up the MM of Ancona. It grew, and 17 spt is kind of awkward.

Carthage is in a Republic. So hopefully they're blowing through their cash quickly. I think that last spurt of Heavy Cavs on my turn was rushed after the gov't change.

We have an 18 hp Legion II army and 8 other Legion II's on the NW front. I figure once we can get 6 garrisons (2 per city) and two heavy cavs to that front, the Celts couldn't possibly accomplish anything with a sneak attack. Then the Legion forces can be turned loose on Spain. I think these are enough units to wipe out Spanish Carthage. It's a bit of a walk, but once you hit the first city they'll all fall in turn. You could even start some of the Legions walking before the replacement garrisons arrive, figuring the army can catch up later.

This is a different kind of game. Almost all of our cities are on one front or another, so I felt I had to defend everything. This made it hard to try to push forward on any single front. Also, the way the unit stats fall, it is definitely better to be on offense than defense. [Side note: I can't see any Ivory source for Carthage, so the best defensive unit they can build is a spear. Spear vs. Legion ... Ouch for them!]

I will be able to play tomorrow. If someone wants to jump in and play today, that's fine. Otherwise, I've got it. Thanks for the swap.

Turns are done. Will post the recap tomorrow morning when I wake up.

IT- Some minor MM changes and a few building changes but overall looks pretty good. Drop luxury tax to 10% and raise science. Found Veii in intended spot in the northeast. Send force over to Vesontio in France to take out Carthaginian iron, which should halt their Heavy Cavalry building or hurt their trade rep. Oh, on second thought they have more iron in Spain, but we need to start sending troops that way anyways.

Legionary II takes out two Heavy Cavalry on defense near Vesontio and promotes. Macedon sure has a lot of galleys. Accept peace with Macedon for 110 gold and sign them to an alliace with Carthage for 45 gold. This will lock them into war awhile and make sure they won't come back against us.

145BC (1): Kill 2 spears and an Elephant with no losses at Vesontio. Whip barracks in Massilia. Army in eastern Africa slaughters spearman. Whip walls in Nora.

IT- Lose 1 heavy cavalry to counter attack. Celts and Scythia sign peace.

140BC (2): Kill two heavy cavalry and lose one legion. Lose a legion to a spear. ugh.

IT- Lose another legion to a cavalry. I'm sorry I'm playing sloppily here.

135BC (3): Kill 2 Heavy Cavalry. 18 hp army is now healed and ready to destroy Vesontio.

IT- Kill Heavy Cav with Legion near Vesontio. Elephant dies to Legion army in Nora. Elephant kills Legion near Vesontio. Athens builds the Great Library.

130BC (4): At 31spt, Roma builds a Heavy Cavalry every other turn. Unfortunately 35spt does not seem possible at size 12. Kill two spears in Vesontio and capture the city. Kill an Elephant and Cavalry and both Legions promote to elite. More and more troops flood into the west.

IT- 2 Cavalry are skewered in Carthago and 2 Cavalry die in Nora. Scythia and Celts sign an MA against Carthage. Persia demands Spices and I cave. No need to open another front, even if they can't logistically throw anything at us.

125BC (5): Drop off 4 more Legion IIs at Carthago. Get updated maps and net around 150 gold. Carthage has 2 more sources of iron that I can see, one in Spain and the other next to Cirta, the city next to Nora.

IT- 2 elephants are slaughtered at Nora. Macedon offers alliance vs. Egypt but I turn it down. Single Cavalry lands next to Caralis. Elephant walks out of Burdigala.

120BC (6): Kill 2 spears and a Cavalry in Burdigla and capture the city. Kill the Cavalry near Caralis and our Cavalry upgrades to elite.

IT- Goths and Scythia sign MA vs. Carthage and Macedon.

115BC (7): Army is now strong compared to everyone but Persia, who is average. We have 49 garrisons, 9 cavalry, 7 legion Is, and 26 legion IIs.

IT- Kill 1 Elephant and 1 Cavalry at Nora. Carthage drops off 3 Cavalry near Caralis. Egypt offers MA vs. Macedon but I decline.

110BC (8): 3 Cavalry are dispatched no problem near Caralis. Unload 2 Legion IIs and 2 Cavalry in Carthago. Kill 2 spears trying to destroy our Ivory. Kill elephant on route to Spanish Carthage. Kill a Cavalry in the Pyranees.

IT- Lose Cavalry to an elephant. Kill 3 elephants in Nora. Carthage drops off 3 Cavalry near Caralis.

105BC (9): Kill 3 cavalry near Caralis.

IT- Kill 1 elephant at Carthago and 1 at Nora.

100BC (10): Misclicked on a cavalry near Neapolis, so I apologize when it moves one tile on goto next turn. Shuffling some troops from Carthago to the less-defended Nora. They will get there next turn. No attacks this turn, mostly getting troops in position.

Conclusion- The seas are not too safe at the moment around Carthage, as they have a couple big stacks of galleys moving around. Just realized I left a hurt legion II unprotected in Spain and he will likely be attacked by a cavalry in the interturn. There are also 2 Cavalry looking to take back Vesontio, but it should hold out until reinforcements can arrive. That will leave 5 legion IIs and a legion II army. We are going to want to pop out a bunch of catapults before we get Siege Craft, to use in the assault on African Carthage. We are 4 turns away from legion IIIs. I shudder to think what we are going to do to the Celts with those. The Celts have a bunch of (crappy) troops in the west, so we may want to make sure that area is protected. I have been shuttling troops from the mainland through Messana and Marala and down to Carthago. That route seems pretty safe right now. There are a bunch of galleys running past Caralis, so I recommend leaving 3-4 offensive units on that island for protection. Western, mostly corrupt cities are building citizens to improve tile count. I have left movement on the galleys. Total unit count on my turns (I may have counted 3 extra Cavalry as killed. I got a bit confused while counting):

Killed--47
Cavalry- 21
Spear- 9
Elephant- 17

Died--5
Legion- 3
Cavalry- 2

47:5 is a 9.4:1 ratio. Not bad without catapult support. That ratio will absolutely go down, however, as we start attacking NuMe in cities on hills. Let's get some 'pults!

I don't know if we want to switch governments at all, but take a look at imperialism down the road. I would probably do it in an SP game.

Kill Carthage! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3c-100_BC.zip)

That means we're 50 turns in! :hammer:

I'm not sure about government swap when we're almost at the halfway point. Thoughts?

-Griselda

Nice progress Speaker.
With Heavy Cav and legion armies I don't think that we need pults.
Does Hanni has an additional Ivory source?
I captured the visible one during my turns at Leptis, so we will face only the few remaining NuMes he had at the beginning from the scenario.

On gov. changing: If we nix research after Legion III our income will be quiet high and we might want to rush troops, so a switch is probably necessary,
just my thoughts

We absolutely want to do a gov't swap, as Republic in this scenario is Oligarchy (Our current gov) with a trade bonus. No reduction in MPs, no WW. We have to build a lot of Citizens, and this will be much less painful with cash-rush than with whipping. I also agree with Belisar that Republic is the last tech we need. A minimal science run on Imperialism might be prudent, but research could essentially be off after Republic.

I am away from my Civ computer this weekend, and can't open the save, but I have to figure Carthage is on the run. In the last twenty turns Hanni has lost at least 70 troops just against us, not to mention anything he's lost in his other wars. I wouldn't be surprised if Carthage was gassed on Gris' turn. (They have to run out of money sometime, as what they're spending is getting killed each turn.) I certainly wouldn't object to waiting until Carthage is finished to change gov't.

Once we cut off those two final iron sources (which will be in the next 10-15 turns), Carthage will fall quickly.

(0) 100 BC - Set priorities for the round. We're 4 turns from Republic. Although Imperialism looks nice, we don't even have literature yet, so it would take a lot of time to get there. Time is something we don't have. So, I plan on revolting to republic as soon as possible. That means I won't have reinforcements to send to the front for most of my turns, so I don't plan on making major military gains.

Shipping looks to be a disaster. With enemy boats everywhere, and no safe landings, we're risking too much and taking too much time moving units around. Let's see if I can accomplish something there.

Oh, and cut off Carthage's iron, if possible.

I don't do much. I wake 2 garrisons in Sicily that can go over to Africa. I also move an empty galley to cover a full one, and swap some island cities to galley. I swap some cities around- if they can build a heavy cav in less turns than a legion 2, they build cavs. If the legion would take the same amount of turns, they build legions. Most cities are doing this, but there's a few that aren't which I swap.

BT - Kill one unit, and retreat one on defense at Vesantio. A cav kills a garrison at Lilibeo. Padua citizen - citizen. Canusium garrison - garrison. Confinium garrison - garrison (it can build garrisons in 2, but needs every-turn MM). Mediolanum citizen - citizen.

(1) 95 BC - Kill wounded cav at Carthago. Attack Lilibeo. We attack with an army and win, then attack with a Legion II, win, and the city is ours. We also kill a numidian that was left out.

Our newly produced citizens will go south to make dock cities.

Nora to worker, which is the most boneheaded move I made all round. [pimp] It won't grow in time to make the worker, but I didn't realize that in time. I finally end up using some legions to connect Nora, and lose a couple of turns of production (just 1 spt) waiting for it to grow. Ugh, sorry.

At this point, I'm still attacking stuff that comes into the Nora area, because the war elephants and heavy cavs are so much higher on offense. I eventually figure out that it's almost never worth it, because even an exposed Legion II will be killed by cavs popping out from the fog when I do this. By the end of the round, I'm letting them attack, or at least move in closer, and I'm only attacking if I have a cav that can get back to safety. Once there's barracks in the cities, we won't really care too much if they attack, as long as they can't take the city on their turn.

I think we have enough units there to take Cirta, even with anarchy coming, so that's what I set out to do. At least that would take care of one of their irons.

Whip a barracks in Veii.

BT - Celtic SOD to Gergovia. I think they're after Carthage, though. They seem to be throwing everything they have after 1 elephant. Roma cav - cav. Neapolis legion 2 - leg 2. Acona cav - cav. Veii rax - garrison.

(2) 90 BC - Our southern army gets to Cirta's iron. Antium founded to our east, by the iron. Daouble-whip Carthago temple. We don't have many more whippings left, and it was at exactly 40 shields. Fire scientists, who can't help us save money or get the republic in less than 2.

BT - The Celts finally kill their elephant. Carthago temple - garrison. Canusium garrison - cav. Genua citizen - citizen. Confinuim garrison - garrison.

(3) 85 BC - Found "Ferry Dock" on the SW Mainland. Guess what that city's job is? We pillage Carthage's iron. Maybe their other one will move, you never know. We hire just enough scientists to go to 40% and still get republic in 1. It seems like a great time to broker world maps, since we're only in 1 war, and I'd like to see the world myself. So, we net some gold doing that.

BT - Carthage pops out of the fog and destroys our ivory colony. Shoot. That hadn't even been on my radar screen down there. Carthage and Scythia make peace. There's a lot of Goths moving around, but I think they're going to Macedonia or Persia. Republic comes in, and we revolt. This causes mass rioting, but I can fix it this turn, of course.

(4) 80 BC - Five more turns left of anarchy! :ack: Our second ferry dock, Pompeii, is founded by Aleria. Egypt lacks republic. Hmm. They'll give siege engineering, literature, incense, and some change for it. All the other AI have it, so why not? The extra lux is the most helpful. I didn't build any artillery, mostly because our offense is so effective already, but at least we have options now.

(5) 75 BC - Flames are doused throughout the land, and there is much rejoicing.

(6) 70 BC - Found Ravenna out west. Kill some heavy cavs by Lilibea. Wines to Scythia for 170 gold.

BT - Scythia must not have wanted that gold. They ally with Carthage against us. So, we have their money, and I don't see a Scythian unit the whole time. Scythia declares on the Celts too, just for fun. Persia and Carthage ally vs. Goth.

Ack, Carthage lands seven heavy cav by Olbia. It could be worse, though, because those 7 cavs get off of 11 boats somehow.

(7) 65 BC - We are in trouble, and all because of lack of roads. There's plenty of units on the island with Olbia, but there's no direct road between the two cities. While I can send cavs from Caralis to kill 3, that leaves 4 attackers who will be able to attack a 2-garrison city this turn. My legions can't get into the city this turn! I send two legions, who can be there next turn, and hope for the best.

In good news, though, we capture Cirta this turn.

BT - We survive 2 cav attacks at Oblia, but the third one takes the city. Scythia and Persia ally vs. Goth. Celts and Macedonia peace. Caralis riots, since it's no longer connected with Cirta's harbor. The road to Nora was also just completed, so I use the opportunity to scroll ahead and at least let the city grow (during anarchy, it's needed a specialist while it wasn't connected).

(8) 60 BC Recapture Olbia. They magically have a spear in there already, but other than that it's just wounded cavs. Pick off some units at Lilibeo. I'm holding off on offensives waiting for anarchy to be over, but we can take out a lot of units this way.

BT - Choose republic, finally.

(9) 55 BC - Get cities into decent working order. We don't even need to run a lux tax in republic, which is nice. Pisae, Roma, and Neapolis can work on Legion III's. The others get less shields, so should probably do cavs. Garrisons in the outlying areas, of course. We pick off some Carthaginian units, and rush a few galleys and temples.

BT - Syracuse galley - garrison. Caralis galley - garrison. Aleria market - garrison. Tarentum cav - cav. Messana galley - garrison. Burdigala temple - walls. Nora worker (finally!) - rax. Vesantio walls - rax. Segusio temple - garrison. Silk City rax - temple.

(10) 50 BC - Carthage had landed one cav at Caralis, which was easy enough to kill.

We have 596 gold in the bank, and are making 85 per turn. The next leader might consider a Legion III upgrade. Also, barracks in places like Nora and Cirta would be most helpful. We could pick off a lot more units if we could heal faster there, and we are taking some damage from letting them attack.

There's a lot of wide open space, especially to our west, that could be settled fairly easily. That's one reason that I'm building so many garrisons. The Celts are marching all their units back and forth over there, so I don't want to skimp on defenses as we expand southwards. Another priority may be to help secure the islands a bit more.

Shipping. We still don't have quite enough boats to implement my plan, but hopefully I can describe it. The northern islands are accessible via the Pisae/Pompeii route. There's a galley in Pisae, once we get one in Pompeii too we can have one-turn shipping in and out. Aleria and Olbia form the shipping route for the next island south. We want flexibility on our islands depending on where they land, and if we have good shipping that will help. There's two galleys on the way to Aleria and Olbia.

There's not any point in running a shipping route south from Caralis, but we could go west from there if someone wants to settle those islands. I don't know if it would save much time, but it would gain those island tiles for Roma.

Sicily is accessible with a route between Messana and Ferry Dock. There's already a galley in place there. Marsalo and Carthago is our only 4-tile shipping lane. So, ideally it would need four galleys to ship 3 units safely, because they would need to be left out one turn. Right now, there's two galleys, and one more on the way. Once the four are in place, we can ship units to Africa every single turn, and spend only one turn in the water.

If you want to spend the time to MM Confinium every turn, it can average over 10 spt and build a garrison every 2.

That's about it. The next time it comes to me, we'll be 100 turns in! If it comes back to me, of course, but it's looking like we'll need all the time we can get.

50 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3c-50bc.zip)

Griselda - just played
6thGenTexan - UP NOW
Belisar - on deck
Speaker - below deck
T_McC - :sleep:

Originally posted by Griselda

Ack, Carthage lands seven heavy cav by Olbia. It could be worse, though, because those 7 cavs get off of 11 boats somehow.

I expected something like that sooner or later.
On my turn, they landed half the units and I was barely able to fend them off.
Since we can't afford huge garrisons in all island towns, beeing flexible with moving units (like you mentioned) is certainly the right strategy.
On the plus side, our upgraded legion III, when fortified behind walls, should be very tough on defense.
And speaker is right too, once we have their iron they are toast.
This brings up an interesting point, our next victim. Taking out the Celts could be the priority, who is next?
We could focus on the weaker civs or we could 'help' the Persians against Alex.

Thoughts?

Originally posted by Belisar
This brings up an interesting point, our next victim. Taking out the Celts could be the priority, who is next?
We could focus on the weaker civs or we could 'help' the Persians against Alex.

Thoughts? [/B]

I'd like to see what percentage of territory and population we're at once we settle Spain and Africa. There's already a whole lot of land to grab out there, even with Carthage alive.

In the mean time, of course, the AI may make our choices for us.

-Griselda

We should definitely chop through the Celtic lands after we are done with Carthage and then see what we need to win. I would guess that we'll have to grab some Macedonian land to finish the game.

I would agree that the Celts are the next target, but after looking at the save, I don't think we will be attacking Macedon anytime. Seeing as how they have maybe 20 turns to live. Persia is rolling over them.

@Gris - Is the starvation at Olbia intentional? Right now the citizens are all tax collectors.

@All - Do we know if cultural flips are even possible in this game? I ask because our further Spanish conquests are pseudo-first ring to the new Carthage capital.

Well, in the intro screen for the scenario, it says that it allows cultural conversions. I don't know what our flip risk is somewhere like Olbia, but I figured it couldn't hurt since we'd just re-captured it. The one nice thing about this scenario is that captured cities do keep their culture.

While there's not a lot of time left, I do think that starving cities is probably a good bet as we get closer in. For the islands, I think either way is probably fine.

-Griselda

Alright, preventative starvation seems prudent. I doubt we would need to do the same with the Celt cities, as we should have a much higher overall culture than they do.

Has anyone heard from 6thGen? He seems to be missing from some other SG's as well.

I haven't seen 6thGenTexan, but we should keep moving. Belisar could you take it now? I'll put Speaker as on deck, but if Texan checks in, he can have a spot somewhere later in the roster. It's so short, I want everyone to have a chace to play at least twice.

Griselda -
6thGenTexan - skipped, maybe swap
Belisar - UP NOW
Speaker - on deck
T_McC -

I'm currently doing my last 2 turns in LOTR11, had very limited time this week, so I would give 6thGen one more day.
If noboy claims it until tomorrow, I will take it.

Originally posted by Belisar
I'm currently doing my last 2 turns in LOTR11, had very limited time this week, so I would give 6thGen one more day.
If noboy claims it until tomorrow, I will take it.

Sounds good. Thanks for checking in. :)

-Griselda

OK, I take it.

Preturn:
MM Confinium is a good call, change production in Antium to walls to be one the save side
in the east. Swaping a lot of tiles and I finally get both Ancona and Tarentium to exact 20 spt
which means Heavy Cavs in 3 turns.
On the bad-news side: Persia has hospitals, there cities are getting large.
Military situation seems to be good, the only thing that annoyes me is the huge Celtic
archer stack near Vesontio.
A legion III upgrade is not a bad idea but as far as the production of new units is
concerned I would have prefered the 70-shield version,
without rails and factories, 90 shields is quite a lot.
Scythia still won't talk but I will try to end this war as soon as possible.
Finally we are researching at 50%. Even if we wanted Philosophy, we won't invest 9*220 ~ 2000 gold.
Some civs already have it, so I shut down research to min and we are now making 300 gpt with 100% tax.
Now we will start going cash-heavy to rush selectively important things.
I spend something like 500 cash for upgrading units in Spain and in northern boarder-cities and
on the rax in Cirta.

IT: A Carth galley fails at the attack on one of ours in near Sicilia.
Hanni moves a lot of Elephants near Carthago and in Spain.
Egypt and Persia ally against the Goths.
Persia captures Dyrrhachium from Alex, they are getting big, Hmm.
The Goths move some Teutons on our road network near Silk city east.

45BC: Kill 2 Elephants and 1 spear in Spain with legions III, 2 new elite units.
We have 2 armies in Cirta, I upgrade the additional vet-legions and use the armies to kill
the exposed 2 Elephants and 1 Heavy Cavs. I want to begin offensive actions next turn there.

IT: Hanni attacks Carthago like made with 5 Jumbos/Heavy Cavs.
We lose one pike, one Elephant retreats and 3 get killed. Another Elephant impales
itself on a legion in spain and 2 move next to Nora and a third joins the 2 wounded ones near Carthago.
Macedons and Goths sign peace, Persia takes the last Macedon city in the north, no only
the southern ones are remaining.

40BC: Kill of all 5 visible Jumbos in the Carthago-Nora region with Heavy cavs.
2 settlers ready this turn so I settle Hispalis on the road to Silk City.
Attack Hadrumetum with one of the armies, it is defended by 2 spears and we capture it without
problems.
I move 3 offensive stacks towards Carthago Nova in Spain, Hippo and Thenae in Africa.

IT: Hanni still must have tons og cash to rush units.
2 Elephants impale themselves on the stack near Thenae, one stops near Hippo, 5 land near Cirta and 4
advance in Spain.

35BC: Landing near Cirta was probably the most idiotic thing Hanni could have done as we have half
of the African units (including 2 armies) near the town. Kill all 5 Jumbos before they get a chance
for offensive actions.
I advance at Hippo and Thenae for the attack next turn. I Spain our forces are a bit outnumbered but our
army attacks Carthago Nova to fivide their forces whereas the legion III hide 2 tiles away from the Elephants
to lure them on open terrain.
Our southern army advances on Gabes.
Settle Viroconium, now Silk City is connected to the Empire.
Both new new towns are on the existing road network and on fresh water.
I spend something like 120 cash on rushing walls in 5 boarder cities, with beeing militaristic
this is always a priority a great way to reduce casulaties with penuts.

IT: 2 Elephants attack our offebsive stack at Thenae. One retreats, the other kills a garrison.
In Spain, 4 Elephants attack Lilibaeum. Our legion III kill 2 of them, the ohter 2 retreat
A single Elephant moves near Cirta.
The Celts move a lot of units south., so do the Goths, they are at peace with Alex so they must
be going for the new Persian cities.

30BC: Our army in Spain takes Carthago Nova, the remaining Elephant retreats when attacked by one of our legions.
The situation in Africa is getting better now, we finally start major offensive actions.
I kill the Elephant near Cirta, then our western stack captures Hippo from the spears
without casulaties. I'm really glad we began the invasion of Hanni in Leptis, denying him Ivory for NuMes,
killing spears takes far less casulaties.
The main stack east with 6 Heavy Cavs takes Thenae form 4 defenders and the southern army takes Gabes,
now all easters-Afrian cities are secured.

To be continued at night...
Belisar

How is the iron-removal going?

I had research set to 50%? :crazyeye: Ack, I didn't think I was researching anything at all. I must have set it accidentally when I was playing with the sliders. Thanks for catching that, and sorry for wasting our gold.

I *was* wondering why we weren't doing better than that running all cash in republic.:lol:

-Griselda

Iron or no iron, there is not much from Hanni left for Speaker. :D

IT: 2 Heavy Cavs approach Carthago Nova in Spain, a Jumbo stops near Cirta.
Our casualties this round is an empty galley, sunk by a Carth elite! galley near Caralis
The Perisans complete Bacchanalia.

25BC: Half of the game is already over, turn 65 of just 130.
Mostly a consolidation turn. I send the army that captured Gabes west to get the desert-city Theveste.
On the western African front we need a turn to heal the offensive army and get the troops in position,
some are healing in Cirta.
I think we have enough units to finish of Carthago in place, so I begin sending the newly produced units north
for our upcoming war against the Celts, they have tons of archers and gallics moving around.
We have now walls in all northern boarder cities.
There are a lot of Egyptian units near our Dyes city.
Diplo-check, they ship us a lux and I don't want to risk loosing it, so I ship them
ne of our 3 excess spices for an MA against Hanni, just an insurence policy.
Units and army in Spain are healing too, so it is a non-exiting turn.
We sink the injured Carth galley and get an elite one.

IT: Somehow, somewhere and sometimes someone will program a better AI, the Celtic moves
(20+ units on our territorry back and forth (I guess one turns towards Hanni and the other turns towards
some enemy in the esat) are more than just idiotic.
Hanni's 2 Heavy Cavs impale themselves on our army near carthago Nova.

20BC: Our southern army destroys Theveste, getting a worker.
I advance towards Malacca in Spain and Icosium in Africa.
Scythia finally talks and we sign a peace treaty. Now we are only at war with Carthago,
we are most peaceful civ in the known world :D

IT: Bad news, Celts and Hanni sign a peace treaty and the Celts begin moving tons of units
back into our territory.
Hanni sends 3 Elephants this turn in southern Africa, they stop near our armies.
In Spain he sends 2 Heavy Cavs and he also sends a 4 galley stack towards Carthago, will have
to watch this one.

15BC: We take Icosium (defended by 2 spears, 1 Jumbo) and destroyed at least one galley too.
Kill the 3 visible Elephants with Hevay Cav.
I capture Malacca in Spain with our army.
I continue sending all newly build units north and advance on Mersa Madakh near their new capital.

IT: Things in Spain get interesting, I now count 5 Heavy cav near Malacca,
only 2 Jumbos Africa. The galley stack is heading for our islands.

10BC: Kill the 2 Elephants in Africa and our main offensive stack approaches Mersa Madakh for the attack next turn.
Found Lugdunum in northern Spain and move settler in position for founding the next city in the east near the Silk Town.
I begin reinforcing our island cities Caralis and Olbia to avoid a 'Griselda-surprise' with garrisons
from the northern island and Heavy Cav from Africa. We have now 11 galleys so we are more flexible this time.
In Spain I have to remain defensively and avoid exposed units, all those Heavy Cavs are annoying, heal the army in
Carthago Nova, the city has raxes.

IT: I have no luck in sea battles, Hanni sinks another of our galleys with one that came out
from the fog. 3 Elephants attack one of our legions on a hill. The first retreats, the second dies but
the third is succcesful. The stupid Celts are blocking my Heavy Cav reinforcements for Spain on the roadnetwork.

5BC: We cature a nd raze Mersa Madakh, it's way too big and too close to the capital, we get a fire cat
and a worker.
I settle Brundisium in the esat.
I advance towards Oea in southern Africa.

IT: Hanni sends 4 Jumbos in Africa and trys to bypass our armies.
In Spain I spot his Heavy Cav stack moving north, maybe towards Lilibeo, maybe towards France
(Info for Speaker, something like 5 Heavy Cavs)

1AD: Kill 3 Jumbos in Northern Africa.
Our southern army takes Oea, I recommend razing the city to free our army, up to Speaker.
I advance towards Carmona in Spain.
I left most of the offensive units near the Carthagian capital unmoved (+some galleys) to allow
some troop repositioning for Speaker.
I have a stack in Olbia for the expected landing from the 4 galleys, hope it's enough.
There are also 2 galleys in case they land on the northern island and I also blocked the high ground there.

We are up to 41 legions, 23 Heavy Cavs, 67 garrisons so I think we are doing not bad.
I already collected two stacks at Ariminium and Segusio for the Celt-war, also up to the next leader
when to begin. Notice the huge archer stack near Ravenna (there is also a settler in Ravenna)

Good luck
Belisar

The situation in Africa:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3c-1.gif

SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3c-1AD.zip)

I’m sorry for the disappearance but I’m back now. My holiday stay at the in-laws was to end on the 29th. It was unfortunately extended a week. Last Friday night, we learned the hard way that my wife had an ectopic pregnancy and she underwent emergency surgery. We are home now and she will be fine and will take it easy for the next 6 weeks. I did not have internet access to give y’all a heads up. I’ll need a day or tow to get settled back in at home,work,CIV3 so if you can squeeze me back in after Speaker, that will be fine.

Playing tomorrow may be tricky for me GthGenTexan, so if you have time, feel free to grab it and I'll play after you.

I'm looking at Tuesday before I would have the time, so take your time.

6thGenTexan,

I'm sorry to hear about the rough ride and loss for you and your wife. My condolences and prayers are with you.

Charis

Welcome back 6thGen :)

6thGenTexan,

It sounds like quite a scary time for your family! I hope your wife is beginning to feel better. In the mean time, I bet that 7thGenTexan is keeping you busy!

-Griselda

For those that don't know, an ectopic pregnancy is also called a tubal pregnancy. More often than not the mother's life is in extreme danger and the baby will be lost. So unfortunately there won't be a 7thGen this year. Prayers go out to you Tex during this difficult time. God Bless you and Mrs. Tex.

Bugs

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I believe there already is a 7thGenTexan who is probably keeping daddy very busy these days! :)

-Griselda

Thanks for all the paryers, cares and support. We do have one 7thGenTexan (pictures are available :D ) We were working on a second but that has been put off for a while. Mrs. 6thGen is doing fine. With an aunt in town to help out , all my wife has to do is rest, relax and find things to keep me off the computer. :rolleyes: If Speaker doesn't jump in, I can play tomorrow.

6gntxn

edit - sp

Why don't you go ahead GthGenTexan. I'm swamped with work here in my last week of classes. My condolences on your loss. I'll jump in after you play.

Just a bump to keep this thread on the 1st page.

Roster
Griselda
6thGenTexan (up)
Belisar (Just Played)
Speaker (on-deck)
T_McC

It took a while to get through 10 truns last night. It had been a while.
Initial Obsrevations: We have 9% of the total area and Spain/North Africa/France is more than enough to get to 20%.
We have 22% of the population, Persia has 36% and we have 14 cities that have maxed growth. I'll be getting some aqueducts and infirmaries built. Switch 11 towns to aqueduct.
If we are not revolting to Imperialism, I stop all research.
I buy Education from Egypt for 520g and WM. Safe steal was 2000+. I sell Persia Spices and WM for Medicine and 427g. I did not want to give them spices but they are about to kill off Macedon.
Pisae, Roma, Neapolis and Tarentum start Infirmaries.
Pull some legions on garrison duty to build some roads on worked tiles for more income.
I attack a war elephant not realizing it was on a mountain and lose a Legion2.
Buy aqueducts: Carthago--356g, Leptis Magna--376g, Marsala--384g, Messana--360g, and Syracuse--352g.

IBT Celts move back north. Two elephants land near Icosium.

5AD-1 Carthago aqueduct-->marketplace Marsala aqueduct-->marketplace Ancona HC-->HC Syracuse aqueduct-->granary Caralis riots. Leptis Magna aqueduct-->granary Messana aqueduct-->marketplace Confinium garrison-->garrison Lugdunum walls-->temple Genua and Massilia swapped to temple. I'm expecting these markets to help with happiness when built. Olbia gets an aqueduct for 320g. Mediolanum for 132g.
Legion1 army defeats elephant on way to Rusicade. Kill elephant near Oea with army.
Caesaraugusta founded SW of Lugdunum and starts a granary.
Macedonia down to one city.

IBT lose two slaves and two HC in Spain.

10AD-2 Padoa citizen-->temple Olbia aqueduct-->granary Aquileia citizen-->temple Ariminum garrison-->temple Mediolanum aqueduct-->temple Rush the aqueduct in Caralis.
Move in on Rusaddir, Rusicade and Carmona but miss click and leave an elephant able to attack us but kill two.

IBT Scyuthia and Carthage join forces verses Egypt. The lone elephant captures our fire catapult.

15AD-3 Caralis aqueduct-->temple Kill off two elephants and recapture our catapult and gain the leader Regulus. He will become a HC army. Capture Rusicade, 2 spears. Kill 3 spears and a HC in Carmona but there is another HC. Six more HC are running lose in Spain.
Rush Aqueduct in Aleria for 232g.

IBT Egypt and the Celts stop fighting. Incense deal ends with Egypt.

20AD-4 Ancona HC-->HC Aleria aqueduct-->granary Confinium garrison-->garrison Pompeii reg garrison-->harbor Kill another HC and spear in Carmona. Kill 2 elephants outside Rusaddir and a elephant and spear inside. Miss click and leaf a garrison in the open near 3 HC. Have to pay Egypt 33GPT and Wines for Incense. Rush Temple in Silk City for 184g and in Ariminum for 224g.

IBT Macedonians are no more. Carthage and Egypt sign a peace treaty. Caesaraugusta falls losing to 2 HC. Unfortunately there was a citizen in there also. :(

25AD-5 Roma, Pisae infirmary-->legion3 Canusium aqueduct-->HC Ariminum temple-->garrison Silk City temple-->garrison
Kill another spear and two HC and take Carmona for 14g and a fire catapult.
Remove 2 elephants and a spear from Rusiddar.
All HC on Celt border head to Spain.
Rush temple in Aquileia for 192g.
Rush harbor in Ferry Dock for 56g.

IBT

30AD-6 Neapolis infirmary-->Legion3 Tarentum infirmary-->legion3 Aquileia temple-->courthouse
Ferry Dock harbor-->granary Ravenna barrack-->garrison Hispalis walls-->barrack
Finally get Rusaddir and 2 slaves and a catapult, but we have 10 resistors and no infrastructure in city. I start a temple. The capital has moved to Utica in Spain.

IBT Trade HC in Spain. Egypt and Celts join up against Persia. Forgot to check happiness last turn. Carthago and Marsala riot.

35AD-7 Ancona HC-->Legion3 Burdigala garrison-->garrison Genua temple-->courthouse Confinium garrison-->garrison
All waiting Legions head to Silk City. I count 51 Persian HC here. The are fighting the Celts and the Goths up here. We will need to attack them, not the Celts, to reach our pop goal.
Kill 2 HC in Spain. Kill 2 of 3 elephants dropped off at Caralis. The third kills a HC.
Rush infirmary in Padau. Rush Temple in Antium for 176g. Rush temple in Massilia for 88g.

IBT Trade 2 HC for and elephant. Darius is demanding our TM and 15g. He gets it. The Goths and Scythia stop fighting.

40AD-8 Roma Legion3-->Legion3 Massilia harbor-->courthouse Padua infirmary-->courthouse Croton aqueduct-->harbor Veii garrison-->temple Antium temple-->barrack
Trade HC in Spain. Kill a spear near Sabratha and one in Sulcis.

IBT Trade a HC for an elephant.

45AD-9 Brundisium walls-->barrack Confinium garrison-->garrison
Capture Tingus, Sabratha and Sulcis and get a great leader. Kill off an elephant and 2 HC in Spain.
Rush market in Messana for 368g. Rush temple in Caralis for 144g.

IBT

50ad-10 Neapolis & Pisae Legion3-->legion3 Caralis temple-->harbor Icosium garrison-->aqueduct Messana market-->infirmary Vesontio barrack-->garrison Segusio garrison-->granary

I have moved the troops east this turn. There should not be any on goto. There are 2 galleys shipping an army from Africa to the east side of the boot. These can do ferry duty from Italy. I have not moved any other boats. Persia had a long string of ships heading to Gibralter , but they reversed course about 3 turns ago. There are plenty of forces to complete the take over of North Africa. Extras need to head back to Carthago for the return home. Production here may need to switch to citizens to settle the rest of that land. The HC's in Spain are looking for a second city there. They will be needed to help capture the current Carthage capital. Our gains this turn equal 1% of the world’s area and 3% of the population. We are still 6% behind Persia in land and 13% of the population with 50 turns to go. We will not win the score tie-breaker at the time limit. Persia is up 3600 and has every wonder.
I had hoped to se better gains with my infrastructure. That may show up in later turns. Courthouses in the Italian Alps will greatly help the production in that area.



THE GAME (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3c-50AD.zip)

This is why Persia will not be fun:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Persian_Trouble.JPG



:help:

3 Regular Archers
1 Regular Immortal
2 Veteran Immortals
9 Regular Heavy Cavalry
58 Veteran Heavy Cavalry :eek:
11 Elite Heavy Cavalry

:eek: ! The Persian AI is doing a better job in your game than we humans could do in ours!
Now, THAT is rather a humbling experience! :blush:

:D

That picture is hilarious. I wish you all luck with that one. :shakes head:

Got it.

lovely screenshot, just had to load the game in and see it for myself, good luck guys :lol:

IT- A number of things need to happen for us to win this game. 1) We must finish off the Carthaginians and fill in their land with cities. 2) We must fill in Spain with cities. 3) We need to capture the Celtic lands. That should be enough for us to win, however, Persia is 4% in land and 12% in population from winning, so we may have to stop them (uh, yeah right).

Load a bunch of the excess Garrison units from one of the islands (I don't know my Italian geography obviously) onto galleys to take to African Carthage. Celts move giant SODBL (...by laughter) toward Persia's SOHFD (...holy f* doom). We better hurry and take some Celtic lands before Persia beats us to it.

55AD (1): Kill Elephant and two spears in Leptis Minor and capture the town. Move a ton of Legionary IIIs toward Celtic land. Switch most Legion production over to Cavalry production since time is of the essence. It's too bad there is no working FP because one would do wonders in Africa.

IT- Celtic SOL retreats. Persia is about to massacre them.

60AD (2): Kill an Elephant and Spear in Saldae and capture the city. Rush 6 citizens in Aftica and 5 more in Spain.

65AD (3): Kill elephant and 3 spears in Utica and the city is ours. I can't see any more Carthaginian cities. They might have a settler on a boat. :rolleyes: Ah, find the settler trying to escape into the mountains. He should go down in a turn or two.

IT- Persians capture their first Celtic city.

70AD (4): We cannot wait any longer or we risk losing all the Celtic lands to Persia. I dial up Brennus and tell him we plan to annex his territory. He declares war when I ask his troops to please return to their homes. Samarobvia falls without casualty. Found a couple cities and move several citizens into position.

IT- Egypt joins Celts against us in an MA. Celts take back Samarobiva, but it will be secure next turn.

75AD (5): Kill Carthaginian spear/settler and Carthage is finished. Large forces take out Gergovia and Vellaunodunum and Samarobriva is taken back.

IT- Celtics counterattack with a couple Gallic swordsmen who are slaughtered. They are being overwhelmed on two fronts and don't stand a chance. It's a race to claim the most territory. Egypt plants a city near "our" ivory in Africa, apparently not noticing the two Legionaries sitting right there. :smoke:

80AD (6): Mostly shuffling troops to prepare more attacks.

IT- Nuisance Celts pillage a few roads but don't attack anything. The Persians truly have a frightening number of troops. Celts declare war on the Goths.

85AD (7): Widescale rioting. I think maybe we lost a luxury or something because it was WLTED last turn. Turning on the governor saves me a lot of time fixing each city and I raise the luxury rate to 10%.

90AD (8): Back on the offensive, we capture La Tene with a single casualty. Unload three armies back in Italy and send them toward the Celtic lands. Destroy Egyptian city "This" and take away their ivory. Rush 5 citizens in Spain.

95 (9): Troop positioning for my last turn.

IT- Celts have no idea what to do. Gallic swordsmen are running around like chicken's with their heads cut off. Persians steal a city right before I can grab it and force an awkward retreat from me.

100AD (10): It's too bad we didn't get Temple of Artamis, with all these new cities I'm founding. Rushing temples is rather pricy.

Conclusion- Dyes city is likely gone. Egypt won't talk. There are tons of troops in the north to continue the assault on the Celts. We now have 14% land and 28% population to Persia's 18 and 39. We should probably start irrigating our core soon to raise the population there. There are a bunch of workers fortified near Pisae (I got sick of using them). I apologize if there are any gotos (I don't think there are). With such a big map and no railroads, moving units is torture. Good luck to the next player. Take it to those Celts!

PS- I would recommend continuing to rush Citizens in Africa to fill in the land. There are hundreds of tiles to be had. I think catching up in population will be the really hard thing, not in land.

RBC3c (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3c-100AD.zip)

Originally posted by Speaker

Conclusion- Dyes city is likely gone. Egypt won't talk.

Will have to look at the save but taking out Egypt comes to mind, our African troops need new targets anyway. They have some big cities and that may be just enough together with the Celtic land, Africa and Spain.

Egypt will likely be a tougher nut to crack. They have NuMe and plenty of troops, although they are being hit by Persia on the other side (who knows how much though). I did move most of our African armies back to Spain/Italy to deal with the Celts (though there are at least two of three left), however, since Persia will roll over them if we don't.

Got it. (I think I'm up?)

Will play tonight or tomorrow morning, any suggestions are welcome.

FYI, build orders are pretty random. Most of Africa/Spain is totally corrupt so I was rushing Citizens and Temples. There are so many cities down there that I didn't fuss with what the governor chose for them to build, but just changed and rushed on a case-by-case basis.

I haven't had a chance to look at the save, but I have a few general ideas (most have already been mentioned, but could stand mentioning again).

- Settle, settle, settle! This will increase our population and our land area, and with only one-pop per citizen, it's easier than usual.

- As others have pointed out, one easy way to gain populaton is to continue to take AI cities after we're over the land area threshhold. No matter how much land we have, we should keep trying for more if we need more population.

- Persia is scary! One thing to consider is that they're likely to attack us at some point. Will we be ready?

- I do hope science is off now. I don't think that we want any more tech. We can use the gold to cash rush infra so that we can grow population and continue to build military.

-Griselda

I got a bit busy this weekend, so I'll most likely play on Monday morning.

I'll take a look at the save later, but hear the message loud and clear: Get more cities by any means necessary. And try to keep a solid front to the Persians.

Work threw me a curve today, and I only got two turns completed before I had to go in. I will complete my turns tonight/tomorrow morning. I will post the game by 2:00 PM tomorrow.

RBC3c

Well, this report is sort of brief, but the turns are complete and we are making progress. Just hitting the highlights.

100 AD (0)
Been a while since I saw this game. We are at 14% area/28% population (Persians have 18/39) DyesTown is toast. But we do have an Army coming along the road, so we'll get it back pretty soon. I won't abandon it. We make 368 gpt. Think about buying Furs from Goths, but they are at war with Persia and I don't think they will survive. Swap a few builds to Citizens and Garrisons, from Temples. Easier to gain land by settlement than 60-shield border expansions. Notice 40 Persian Galleys in the Mediterranean. Move a couple troops out of old Carthage and towards the Egyptian front. We are well set up to attack the Celts.

<Return>

IT - Celts and Scythia make peace. The Persians appear to be serious about invading England. We lose DyesTown and much rioting ensues. Use scroll-ahead to fix. Good Lord do we have a lot of cities.

105 AD (1)
Found 4 or 5 cities, kill 5 units at Alesia, but there is still one left.

IT - Egypt advances a swordsman in the south.

110 AD (2)
Capture Alesia w/no losses. Found no new cities, should get a couple next turn. After thinking about it for a turn, lux to 20% to put some of the clowns back to work. We need population (food) above all else.

IT - Nothing interesting happens.

115 AD (3)
Capture Hallein with no losses. Three workers are part of the spoils. Attack Dece.., but don't have enough units to finish the job. Found two new cities.

IT - Persians declare war on Scythia.

120 AD (4)
Capture Decetia (with 3 catapults). Found 1 new city.

IT - Celts and Persia sign peace treaty. Should allow for a more patient attack. Egypt offers peace, I decline. I have just now gotten units down to attack them.

125 AD (5)
Upon seeing stack of units Egypt has to throw at our colonies, I think about peace. I'll take it. We can prepare for a real invasion of Egypt after we dispose of the Celts. So peace + WM swap with Cleo. Capture Noviodunum, losing two units, gaining a leader. Leader forms an 18 HP, 2 Legion III / 1 Legion II army. Found a new city.

IT - Persian troop movement is rather disconcerting. They are at war with the civs to their south and northeast, yet have a lot of troops moving towards their Celtic conquests.

130 AD (6)
Capture Bibracte, with 4 workers and a catapult. Found a new city.

IT - Nothing much, except lots of Persian troops milling around.

135 AD (7)
Capture Brat.. from Celts. Generate leader, form 18-HP Legion III army. Found a city.

IT - Celts drop off a couple of Gallics.

140 AD (8)
Samarobriva flips away from us. Heh. Capture Admage... from Celts. Founded two cities.

IT - Boy, do the Persians have a lot of Heavy Cav.

145 AD (9)
Capture Bibrax, come one unit short of capturing second city.

IT - It appears as though the Celts are out of Iron.

150 AD (10)
Re-capture Samarobriva. Capture Avaricum. Generate present for Gris, there is a leader waiting for her in Bibrax. Leave it her to decide between Heavy Cav army and Legion army. Found a new city in ex-Celtic territory.

Final Demographics: 18% Area, 32% Population. Persia has 19%/39%. On these turns, we captured 9 cities and founded 12.

I leave Gris with a shrinking front with the Celts, with the possibility of 4 armies to attack their new capital on her first turn. All of the Celt lands in Europe lie to the east of our lines. They only have a few cities left on the mainland, and should be banished to the islands by the middle of Gris' turn. She then gets to make the decision of where to go next. Maybe the Goths, maybe Scythia, maybe we shift all of our troops towards Persia and go for one big, bloody battle. Or we could rush some Galleys and re-do the Norman Conquest.

I made peace with Egypt because we didn't have enough troops down there to keep her large stacks of obsolete units from taking away most of our newly founded cities. Also wanted to give her only one front to send troops to, as she is still at war with Persia.

I also leave a full treasury (>2000 gold). I figure a big wad of cash will make the opening turn MM a lot easier.


Rome in 150 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3c-150_BC.zip)

I'm not sure if we want a war with Persia.
If we can take some other land more easily, we probably should, but if they get
very close to the dom. limit we would have to do something about it soon enough

I would avoid war with Persia at all costs. I don't think we could make much of a gain against them.

Some further notes for the next player:

There are 4 citizens out and roaming, and I believe 2 more will complete on the IT. There are still tiles to claim in Spain, and we can start to settle gaps in the ex-Celt land. These won't do much for the land requirement, as there aren't many tiles not under our control, but any population growth potential is good.

There are 4 Legion III coming out of the boot that are still active from my last turn. Where they go depends on what you decide your objective is.

There is enough population in England that I think it would be worthwhile to pursue this war with the Celts to their death. The danger with this approach is the possiblity that Persia would attack us when most of our army is overseas. Attacking the Goths is also possible, but they don't have much population to offer.

There are furs to capture in the European Celt lands. We are making +399 gpt, but if we could lower lux by 10%, that would increase to +466 gpt.

A picture of the situation in the East.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3c_East.JPG

I've got it. It may take a couple of days to get through this one, though.

-Griselda

Ack! I did download the save before I posted "got it", but I didn't look at it too closely!

The link points to the 150 BC save. I looked in the uploads folder, but I couldn't find the 150 AD one. Could you post that one, please?

Thanks.

-Griselda

Whoops! :blush:

Rome in 150 AD, really (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3C_150_AD.zip)

Guys, we've done our best, but I must say, I don't think it's winnable from this point.

There's 30 turns left in the game. We're at 18/32, with 6,144 points. Persia is at 19/39 with 10,319 points. Winning the tiebreaker is not going to happen. So, we'll need domination in the next 30 turns to win it.

Persia's population plus our population is 71%. So, 29% of the world's population is still conquerable, theoretically. The only problem? It will take us most of those 30 turns just getting to most of the AI. Scythia, for example, still has a nice little civilization, but the game would be over before we could conquer them. So, that segment of the population is essentially off the table for us (although it remains on the table for Persia).

We could finish the Celts off, but it would require a naval invasion of two islands in order to gain a dozen or so cities, almost all of which are under size 6.

Where is the population? Egypt! Just look at those cities! They're huge! Realistically, though, it would take almost as much time to get to Egypt as it would take to get to Scythia. But, I think the payoff would be better.

We have 15 turns of peace left with Egypt. I'm not sure how long it would take to prepare an invasion. Did we only take the world map for peace with them? If so, I have absolutely no qualms about violating that peace treaty if it gives us the chance to win the game.

Even with Egypt, it feels like a long shot. But, I don't see that we have another option. We've been gaining strength, but I fear it hasn't been fast enough.

I'd like to know what others think. Should I go to war with Egypt, if I can get the logistics together? Are there other solutions? At this point, I don't think we're past looking for likely ways to win the game. We need to focus on strategies that give us a glimmer of hope.

We won't have time to change directions again. Maybe everyone should take a peek at the save, and we should decide as a group, before moving on?

-Griselda

On our strategy: I agree that Egypt offers the only hope to make large population gains. When I made peace, it was only a WM swap, nothing else changed hands. I have no problems with breaking that deal. It wouldn't surprise me if they came in on an MA against us soon, but we shouldn't wait for that. The Celts have one more significant city on the mainland, and you are set up to take that on your 1st or 2nd turn. You have 4 armies that can attack on your first turn. I'd guess capture that city (it's their capital), and the capital should move to England. Then see if they will give you the rest of the European cities for peace. You might need to also capture Neme... before peace, then we should be able to get the others in the peace treaty. I think I could have gotten 3 cities for peace around my 8th turn, but I can't remember total pop of those cities.

On transporting troops, I think we have a 1-turn crossing at Gibraltar now. We'll still have to move the Legions from the boot, but we could get our armies across fairly soon. I doubt we would be in a position to attack on your turn, but we could get set up well.

At least on high levels, I think this scenario is easier as Macedon or Persia than as Rome, simply due to the lower probability of a run-away AI. I think we could have won fairly easily if Macedon and Persia had fought to a stalemate, although it still would have been tight for population. The other advantage Macedon and Persia have is that they never have to prosecute an amphibious assault. We kicked Carthage around pretty good, and it still took ~85 turns to finish our blood enemy. I'll have to look to see how quickly the Macedon and Persian teams vanquished their opposition.

It almost makes me wonder whether the best strategy would have been to not be concerned with African Carthage, to just conquer Spanish Carthage, and then go to town on the barbarian tribes. Then late in the game return to African Carthage with loads of Heavy Cavs and Legion III's. Do a lot of conquering/settling early, and only hit Carthage's homeland to put Rome over the top. Not a criticism of anything we've done, it all seemed perfectly logical at the time, and the runaway AI took away our other late-game option of making a short-distance invasion of Macedon.

> It almost makes me wonder whether the best strategy would
> have been to not be concerned with African Carthage, to just
> conquer Spanish Carthage, and then go to town on the
> barbarian tribes.

We had exactly the same thoughts about our game as Carthage, that we should have ignored Rome for the most part and instead should have gone after the barbarian tribes, especially Egypt in our game. Maybe it's a consolation for you that we made the same "mistake" - although playing this scenario basically ignoring your blood enemy would have been rather silly.

I also guess that the Macedon-Persian war will nearly always end with Persia on top (assuming both are AIs, of course); reading all four games lets me come to the conclusion that Persia is overpowered in this scenario.

Anyway, what's done is done, so I wish you good luck for your last 30 turns! Maybe a miracle will happen, we hope so at least for our last 40 turns. ;)

-Kylearan

We certainly need no miracle to win this game.
It will be close but we still have a chance.

First, we have nearly reached the point of 20% land so this will be no problem.
I hope we already maxed our cities for growth (irrigation, ducts) wherever possible)

Second, we should take all available cities in the north - northeast region (Celtic AND Goths, if Persia leaves some for us, I know they are small but the troops are in place)

Third, we have to take out Egypt (I suggested this before)
If we concentrate our main force down there, we can dig into Persia as well during the last turns if we are just short of 50% pop.

And I suggest to produce (and/or rush) Heavy Cav. instead of more legions, with
only 30 turns remaining the reinforcements have to be quick-moving units.
We have only 24 Heavy Cavs, I hoped we would have something like 50 by this time but our casulaties seem to be higher than expected.


One thing that I would do different for sure if I played this scenario again:
Taking out the Celts and maybe even the goths (and thus securing the north for growth, allowing all further military operations to be concentrated south) is a priority.
We agreed as a team to focus on Carthage, so nobody can be blamed about this but it turned out that 130 turns are just not enough to let 30-40% of our troops sitting idle on the northern front, waiting for Hanni's end.

An additional possibilty was mentioned by T_McC: staying away from northern Africa for the first half of the game.
This would have allowed us an invasion of Greece after their initial hoplite-force was consumed against the Persians.
We would have gotten big cities near our homelands AND we would have denyed them to the Persians.
Just some thoughts......

Rush as many galleys as we can on the southern part of the boot, mass our troops, and let's make one final landfall in the heart of Egypt. We can do it!

I was preparing to play this conquest through SP as the Romans, and re-read some of the opening discussion, when I came across this uncanny premonition from Griselda's first set of turns:

BT - Persians want territory map for territory map, that's OK. They have so much land. Right now, we want to get stronger, but at some point, we may need to think about how to stop them from running away with this.

It just jumped out at me, considering the current situation.

BTW, I still think you have a shot, so definitely go for it!

Granted, I have not looked at this game since I played last, but I have another thought. How big are the cities in the old Macedon core? They are closer to us than Egypt and it would be easier to ferry troops here. Any gains would equal loss of Persian pop. This may be a pipe dream if the Persian Parade is still passing Silk Town. If so, here's hoping Cleo is ready for the afterlife :hammer:

6gntxn

Persian parade is still going strong. :(

Hey, guys, I still haven't played my turns here, and I'm really sorry. Part of it was lack of time, and part of it was my own frustration with this game, I must admit. I haven't gotten to that point with a game before, so it took me a little while to even figure out what was going on.

Luckily, I've just played some very enjoyable pointy-stick turns in RBC1, and that's making this seem like fun also.

'The end will not be long,' said the king. 'But I will not end here, taken like an old badger in a trap...When dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm's horn, and I will ride forth. Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn? Maybe we shall cleave a road, or make such an end as will be worth a song- if any be left to sing of us hereafter.'

I was hoping to finish up RBC1 this afternoon, and play this tonight, but that didn't happen. I can play Sunday night for sure, but might not finish until Monday some time.

If anybody is really "feeling it" and wants to jump ahead, please say so. If not, we WILL be moving along Sunday or Monday.

-Griselda

Take all the time you need, some quick turns don't help us in our situation, we really need good turns now

(0) 150 AD - First step, go around and micromanage cities, emphasizing food. I rush projects in cities that look like good prospects for growth. That's an infirmary in Ancona, aqueduct in Icosium and Confinuim, market in Carthago and Marsala, and a colosseum in Messana. I go around and change the build orders. Anything that wouldn't be done in 30 turns, unless I think we can realistically rush it, is changed. In general, Spain (and any 1spt city) builds garrisons, except for a few cities that build citizens (we can settle those little islands easily). The core is swapped from legionaries to heavy cavalry, so that they have some chance of arriving on the front. I'm not too worried about temples on the front, since we're interested in growth more than land area. In general, we wouldn't be able to rush a temple and an aqueduct in border cities anyway, so we might as well get a garrison or two out of them.

Next, I check on shipping. Our galley in Massila is sent SW to pick up island citizens. I send a few of our island galleys south, but do leave a route with two galleys at Pisae/Pompeii, and a single galley to run between Olbia/Aleria. Sicily looks like our best route to Africa and Egypt. With our current boats, we can send four units (or one full army) per turn to Sicily. It's six turns round trip between Syracuse and the dropoff point just east of Leptis Magna, so we'll want six galleys on the Syracuse route to maintain that 4 units/turn rate of shipping. I set Croton to build us galleys for Syracuse. I also set up a small ferry in the west- via Lauriacum and Tingis.

I check with our foreign advisor, who suggests that we trade luxuries wth Egypt. He is fired, and beheaded. I momentarily forget that galleys can carry 4 units in this scenario, and since I want to make a heavy cav army with the leader, I send the leader back corewards without putting any units in him. Actually, I also forgot to make an army out of him, because "leader" had become so synonimous with "army" in my mind. I catch both oversights before he gets on the boat, though, and I do take the time to promote vets while the leader is around.

BT - Carthago market - colosseum. Marsala market - colosseum. Anconium infirmary - cav. Icosium 'duct - garrison. Croton galley - galley. Messana colosseum - infirmary. Aquilea market - colosseum. Confinium 'duct - cav. Also misc units built, but I won't list all of those.

(1) 155 AD - I really take note of the huge number of Celtic galleys off our central coast. They are currently in an area that has *zero* military units! Even if they unload a bunch of regular archers, they coult potentially wipe out several cities before help arrives. I send cavs west out of Hippo Regius, and legions forth out of Agrippina. They can help defend the zone until there's at least something guarding the coastal cities.

There's a gallic and an archer at Avaricum. I bombard them, and kill with our army. That means the army is not available to march on Hallstadt this turn, but a lot of units look like they'd benefit from a turn of healing anyway. There's quite a few units on our backlines that look like they could be moved north towards the battle, so I send them north. I'm guessing they were fortified into cities when those cities were on the front lines, so I'm just trying to keep up with where the actual front is.

(2) 160 AD - Several units move towards us out of the Celtic capitol. We kill four. Two new cities are founded - Cumae (in the gap in western Europe_ and Caesaraugusta (western Africa). I rush an aqueduct at Pompeii, colosseum at Olbia, and a galley at Tingis. There's pollution in our core, but no workers for miles. I'll see if I can get some back that way.

BT - Padua harbor - cav. Olbia colosseum - infirmary. Tingis galley - garrison. Pompeii 'duct - galley. Saldae rax - spear.

(3) 165 AD - I make an army with the leader, and park him in the southern core where he can pick up incoming cavs without accidentally loading other units. I capture the Celtic capitol, defeating many spears. The Celtic capitol moves to England, which will be good for us. We're at 18/33, and Persia is at 20/39. We march on Nemetocenna with a few legions and many cats.

BT - The Persians destroy the Goths. Instantly, their stream of horses starts heading back the other direction past Palmyra. Numidians start moving towards their new cities. Persia and Egypt make peace. Confinium harbor - cav. Hippo citizen - garrison.

(4) 170 AD - Take Nemetocenna, which only had two spears. Found New Aquileia by Palmyra (where the Persians are moving all their units). We're now at 18/34 vs. the Persians' 20/40. We capture Agedincum and some workers, and we go to 19/34. I rush a temple at ferry dock, and infirmary at Messana.

BT - Messana infirmary - garrison. Ferry Dock temple - aqueduct.

(5) 175 AD - Pick off some Celtic archers. March on New Alesia. I rush a citizen to fill the Celtic lands. I found New Genua by the goody hut, pop it with a cav, and there's angry warriors. Luckily I had shielded everything with the cavs, so the barbs can't hurt us. Two galleys depart Syracuse for Egypt, hooray! Rush a colosseum in Marsala.

I note that some of the Persian numidians have moved away from the main stream, and are headed NW through our lands. I'm pretty sure that they're headed for New Decetia. One note- it looks like they have giant stacks of defenders in every single city, yikes.

BT - Marsala colosseum - infirmary. Tarentum colosseum - harbor. Canusium temple - cav. Viroconium rax - garrison. Jerusalem rax - garrison.

(6) 180 AD - We found New Confinium on one of those little islands. We start a warrior. Capture New Alesia. We found New Segusio in our east, and New Medialanum in Africa. Rush two more citizens to fill those islands. We stay at 19/34, but Persia goes to 20/39. Rush an aqueduct at Ferry Dock.

BT - Ferry Dock 'duct - garrison. Hippo citizen - garrison. Nico citizen - garrison.

(7) 185 AD - Capture Gloskowie. Found New Beneventum by the island wines. We go to 20/34. Rush several citizens. We have gathered a bunch of units by Egypt, and I position the stack just outside of the Egyptian borders to attack next turn.

BT - Tarentum harbor - cav.

(8) 190 AD - Found New Luna in a Celtic gap, and New Arminium past Silk City. Declare war on Egypt. We capture two workers that were actually in our borders, and then Mendes. Rush an infirmary in Marsala.

BT - Marsala infirmary - temple. Carmona citizen - garrison. Croton galley - galley.

(9) 195 AD - Capture Matisco and New Novioudumum, the last two Celtic cites on the mainland. We're still at 20/34. Build New Veii. Capture Oryx (Egyptian), and we're at 21/34. There's an Egyptian galley south of Syracuse. We sink it with an empty galley of ours, but lose one galley in the process. Still, if it was full, it was worth it. I lose one cav attacking misc. units in Egypt.

I hope this wasn't :smoke: , but I make a peace treaty with the Celts for some cities (meaning, a binding peace treaty). We just don't have the infrastructure to take it to their islands anyway. I accept New Nemetocenna, New Agedincum, and New Atuatuca and 50 gold for peace, for a total of 7 pop ponts. Unfortunately, New Atuatuca looks like it's been whipped, and is very unhappy. That takes us to 21/35. Atuatuca needs a spear rushed this turn for MP, but the others can wait a turn. Atua will starve, and I can't prevent it.

BT - We get a "20 turns left" popup, and there's a counter on the screen.

(10) 200 AD - Build New Antium in the Celtic gaps. Attack Thebes with a lone cav, win, but there's a spear left. I'd attacked on the off chance that the new city had only one defender. Capture Kahun. We unload an island settler. We attack an Egyptian sword, and pop a leader. I send the leader to Oryx, for the next leader to use. We attack a Numidian in the open, and lose a cav.

Our stats at the end of my turn are 21% land, 35% pop. Persia is at 20% land, and 39% pop.

I'm trying to build a road to Oryx with the captured workers, because Oryx is a straight road towards the Egyptian core. However, there's a lot of pop in dyes city and around the coast, although it's a longer march. I don't know what would be better, but we should be able to go either direction (and maybe both) from this position.

As far as the other workers go, I've mostly been building roads to facilitate movement. At some point (maybe when we get to about 10 turns left), we probably want to go for a mass worker merge. Who knows, maybe we have 15% of the world's population in workers. :crazyeye: . If I recall correctly, the game's measuring straight pop points, regardless of the city's size. So, we don't really need to worry about what size cities we merge them into, although they probably should be merged into cities that could sustain the population.

We can also still gain population by founding cities. Any city that could grow to size two by the end would be a net gain for us, especially if the citizens are built in non-growing cities that can regrow after the citizen. It won't be long before the cities won't be able to grow by the end, and I guess at that point we just need to make sure that all the citizens settle down somewhere.

The galley exposed by Ferry Dock is headed for Syracuse. Remember to keep a boat in Ferry Dock and Messana every turn. The Syracuse north/south route should be pretty obvious. We just lost a galley, so I think we need at least one or two more. Remember there's also a route in Lauiacum and Tingis if that would be helpful. There's some fortified units healing in the former Celtic lands. They can be woken and sent south.

I'm sure there's a bunch of other little tidbits that I should mention, but I can't remember anything. I guess the important thing is that the next leaders are willing to take their time and focus, even if it means we need to veto everything I did here (ack, I do hope not). I'm not going to worry about 24/48, especially this week, but do drop a note if you're up and can't play or will need a few extra days.

Charis has requested that none of the RBC3 games use the beta patch. That seems like it makes sense, considering how close to the end we are. We might as well complete all the RBC3 games in the same version.

Good luck, everyone! I'll be rooting for you! :hammer:

-Griselda

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3c-200ad.zip)

Griselda - Done
6thGenTexan - UP
Belisar - on deck
Speaker
T_McC

I've got it. I'll not get a good long look at it until Friday. I am scared that Persia is up tp 39% of the worlds population. I my not see the end of my 10 turns. I think the first order of business is to merge as many workers as possible. This will increase our population as well as the total population. Hopefully the total pop increase will slow Persia's % growth buying us some more time to make gains in Egypt.

6gntxn

The good news is, Persia really didn't grow during my turns. It was at 40% at one point, but was down to 39% by the end. I would guess that's from population added as we settled cities.

The bad news is, I suspect they didn't grow because they were moving their cavs towards Scythia. Once they arrive, and start making gains there, they'll likely start growing again.

Merging workers is a good idea, though, as long as it doesn't cripple our capacity to move units to Egypt.

-Griselda

I see now that Persia was at 20/40 in 170AD but 20/39 in 180AD. I guess the world pop increased enough IBT to deny them the victory condition.

I think the victory condition is 50%, not 40%.

-Griselda

:crazyeye: :crazyeye: :crazyeye: :crazyeye:

Well then, it does help to know the correct victory conditions. In that case we should have plenty of time. :)

I decided to sit down and play a turn or two to see how the game is going.





Well, its going........




First time I hit End Turn

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Persian_War.JPG

:saiyan:

I'd been watching their troop movements during my turns, but I didn't notice any "sneak attack" movements. :saiyan:

Good luck, Texan. With any luck, they're in a type of government that allows poprushing, although without war weariness in any of them I suppose that's highly unlikely.

-Griselda

I've played 2 more turns and it looks like their primary concern was to wipe out our roadblock towns on their highway. I will continue to hit Egypt but I will not get any more reinforcments there. The armies in the north will hit the Persians on their way south. Taking these Persians cities may help our score overall.

Huh, this one is interesting, good luck 6thGen

THE BOTTOM LINE:

ROME Persia
BEGINNING 21/35 20/39
END 23/37 21/38

How it happened:

200AD MM every city for more growth. Most will gain in pop at least once during these turns. Rush granary in Bibracte for 232g. Rush Aqueduct in Cirta for 390g. End Turn.

IBT Persian attack. I lost track of actual numbers but for every unit lost, we killed and retreated a HC. We lost Brundisium, Silk Town, New Segusio, New Arminim and Palmyra. Palmyra was the only one not burned to the ground. We also lost about 8 slaves/workers, a full galley heading to Africa and mass rioting ensued.

205AD Rebuild Brundisium on an island. Capture a worker in old Celt land. 21/34 to 21/40

IBT Lost New Aquileia.

210AD Capture Asyut from Eqypt. Built Trapezus up north. Rush aqueduct in Leptis Minor and Carthago Novo.

IBT Persians capture Viroconium.

215AD Capture Abydos but lose 4 legions to 2 NuMercs in Dyes town. I was attacking from a hill, too. Settle New Aquileia in N. Africa.

220AD Get Dyes Town back with 2 workers and a fire cat. Destroy Thebes in the desert. Capture New Decetia from the Persians but we may not be able to hold it. We only have a one HP army there with two HC on the road blocking it from at least 7 HC. Capture the Persian city of Teutoburg in Germany.
22/36 to 20/39

IBT Persian Hoard arrives at our boarder to Celtic lands. We cannot survive long.

225AD Capture Heliopolis with another fire cat and a worker. Rush Aqueduct in Ravenna. Rush Infirmary in Caralis.

230AD Destroyed Sebennytus in the desert but gain 6 workers. Rush workers in Tingis? (I do not know what I rushed.) Rush walls in New Decetia. 22/36 to 20/39

235 Our legions are becoming mortal. Egyptian NuMercs are not dieing like they should.

240 Egyptian troops made it to the West front is mass numbers, many NuMercs. 22/37 to 20/38

IBT Darius asking for Peace @ 60G. :thanx: I Take it! We were about to loose a couple of Celt cities and he had dropped off a big stack on Sicily. (It is still there.)

245 Capture Hieraconpolis. Rush infirmary in Carthago.

250AD I have been positioning troops in the north near the Persian cities in case we want to make a run at them in about five turns. I have been clearing up some loose Egyptians. If we heal up and consolidate, We might have a shot at Alexandria, size 22. The workers have been irrigating any place that might do some good. Don't forget to have them all join cities in about 8 turns. Several places grew last turn so you will need to check happiness. Most places need a specialist after growth.

Good luck Belisar.


THE GAME (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3c-250ad.zip)

Nice turns Tex! Bring it home Belisar!

Go, Belisar, go! For Glory! For Roma!

-Griselda

Will see what I can do, but have to finish MLDR04 first.
got it

Bump!

Just to keep this on the first page and everyone's radar. I know this is a bear to play, especially now since Belisar has to form an actual coherent strategy. My turns took a long time, and I just had to pursue a general objective.

It's been fun playing with you folks, and I'd love to do so again.

The scenarios are fun, but I find them a little too sprawling and war-heavy for my usual playstyle. But maybe I'll have to give this one another shot if we don't win ...

@Belisar: If you have time for only 5 turns, feel free to play that and I'll finish it up. Take your time though. No need to rush at this point.

It took 2 hours to get an overview and another to form a strategy, I played the first 4 turns and will hopefully finish tomorrow (Sunday).
I made progress, but it will be tough.

Win or lose, we're behind you all the way Belisar!

I'm up to 8 turns, 1 1/2 turns take ~2 hours. :sad: (I need an exhousted smiley)
It doesn't look good, the remaining 2 turns will likely be not enough, I overestimate our strength and underrated the effort it takes to get 13% of the worlds population.
If we loose, I would be a little disappointed :( but I tried my best.

Is this game still alive?

Any news Belisar?

Well, I'd like to see how this one ends, even if we probably know the result.

Speaker, if you have time, do you want to take a crack at it? Or, you could take 5 and T_McC could take 5 too.

-Griselda

I'll have more time in a few days. How about T_McC takes the first 5 turns and I'll finish it up.

Alright, I can take the game and play 5 either late tonight or tomorrow.

I hope there isn't anything peculiar about this scenario. You know, like hit the wrong sequences of keys and get sucked into your monitor .... First Sulla and now Belisar! :eek:

Blame it on the Persians!!! :p

Yeah. That Persian team was a bunch of LOSERS!
Er....wait a minute.... :lol:

Originally posted by T_McC
Alright, I can take the game and play 5 either late tonight or tomorrow.
Leave me some Persians/Egyptians to kill please. :)

I hope there isn't anything peculiar about this scenario. You know, like hit the wrong sequences of keys and get sucked into your monitor .... First Sulla and now Belisar!

And Todd, too... :eek:

RBC3c - 250 AD

Attempt to re-familiarize myself with the game. Hopefully peace with Persia will hold for 5.

MM all cities for growth and happiness. Rush Granary in Massilia, to try to get an extra two growths before the clock runs out. Rush Temple in New Alesia to get the Cow in play. Also will expand borders of three other cities. Rush Temple in Syracuse, to get more people working. Rush Harbor in Thenae, to get more food. Rush Harbor in Gabes. Rush Harbor in Sulcis, I think it can get two growths before the end. Rush Temple in Hispalis, need access to tiles to grow another point. Rush Harbor in New Autatuca. Next turn in Jerusalem, I'm out of money. Rush Harbor in Agrippina. Rush Harbor in Lauriacum. Rush Harbor in Curia.

IT - The enormous Egyptian stack changes targets.

255 AD (1)
Pop a leader attacking Egypt. Thought about an FP, but too late in the game to try that. Move armies to assault Alexandria. Buy Aqueduct in Jerusalem.

IT - No Egyptian attacks. Their targeting is starting to get confused by the shifting armies.

260 AD (2)
Kill a couple of Egyptian troops, change focus of attack to Memphis, should go next turn. Rush an aqueduct.

IT - Nothing eventful.

265 AD (3)
OK, let's get this party started. Advance on Memphis. Five army victories without a loss, and we should be the new leaders in population. Kill a few more Egyptians, no new leaders. Another one would have been nice.

IT - Apparently we are trespassing on Persian soil. Couldn't tell you where. The Egyptians look lost.

270 AD (4)
Only a little combat. Assault on Alexandria next turn, and two armies resting in Memphis for Speaker's first turn. Set Governor to manage Memphis, we don't want to starve it. Have to take the risk with keeping pop. And thank God that was the last time I have to MM all these cities for happiness and growth.

IT - We lose Heiracanopolis. I had thought about abandoning the size 2 city, but figured it would keep the Egyptian troops away from re-capturing their own cities.

275 AD (5)
Assault on Alexandria: Hit with about 5 Fire Cats, lead with Legion III Army, win twice. Then Heavy Cav army wins twice, and second H.Cav army wins twice and loses 6 straight HP on a sword to die. Lone H.Cav finishes the job, and we trade a size 2 city for a size 21 city. Governor set in Alexandria.

Final Notes: We are now at 23/40 vs. Persia at 22/39. There are two size 20+ Egyptian cities to capture, and I have positioned troops near the Persian border in case Speaker wants to declare on Darius. The troops should be active, but if it isn't apparent, look in Hispalis, outside La Tene, outside Matisco, and outside Lancken. Each group should be able to claim a city on the turn we declare war. If Speaker wants to attack Persia, there are 4 H.Cav in the boot to send to Sicily to clear out the Persian H.Cav.

I left Speaker w/2 turns income, but have not done the MM of the cities on the last turn. Most are able to grow one more time before the end of the game. I have the workers irrigating, but Speaker will have to corral them for a final merge.

Best Guess: We end up with about 45% of the worlds pop.


Last Chance for Caesar (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3c-275_AD.zip)

Since we've waited so long for this one anyways, I'm putting it after RBC6 in my queue. Got it.

So ... uhh ... any word Speaker?

I placed troops near Persia with the thought of declaring war on them on your 3rd (maybe 4th) turn. They are still fighting Scythia, and I figured if we only gave them 2 turns to counter-attack it was unlikely very much of their offensive forces could make it back from the Scythian front. We might be able to steal 4-6 cities from them, and at least guarantee we end the game with the largest pop and land area, even if we fall short of the domination criteria.

I'm really sorry, but there is no way I'm going to be able to make time this week. Why don't you go ahead and finish it up T_McC.

RBC3c - Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan

275 AD (0)
Well, this looks a little more familiar. We are at 23/40 while Persia is at 22/39. There are 5 turns left in the game. Only worth using money on those cites that would grow more than once in last 5 turns. Here we go a'MM-ing!

280 AD (1)
Egyptians land one NuMerc in Sicily, and approach Alexandria. Whack a whole bunch of Egyptian troops, but can't get in position to attack any Egyptian Cities.

285 AD (2)
Begin process of merging workers. Move into position to attack Pelusium.

290 AD (3)
Capture size 17 Pelusium. Seeing no way to get troops to the other large Egyptian city, I make peace for about 6 small cities, most of which I can't see. I now have empty cities all over Egypt. Merge a bunch more workers. We are now 24/42 vs Persia at 23/37.

295 AD (4)
Declare war on Persia. I think I overestimated how many troops would be defending some cities. Capture Virconium. Capture Lancken. Capture Uxellodunum. Clear out Persian units in Sicily. All without losing a single unit. Move into position to capture Wagel... and New Tyre next turn. Capture a couple of slaves and merge them into the cities. Captured 22 points of pop from Persia. with 14 more to come next turn.

IT - What can Persia come back with?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3c_Fini.JPG

And there is no next turn. Heh. :blush:


Final stats: Us 25/44, Persia 23/36. If I would have known that I wasn't going to get any moves in 300 AD, we might have made it to 46% pop with a couple of more city captures and slave merges. Looking back at the last 30 turns, this was winnable. Persia was not making great headway against Scythia, and may have been gassed. If we had been able to get a couple of turns ahead in Egypt, and capture all of the large cities, and I had known to start attacking Persia soon enough so each army group could capture two cities, it would have been close.

Oh well, 'twas fun. Next time let's try not to let any team members fall into the vortex. :lol:

In case anyone is interested

Rome on the Verge of Defeat (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3c-295_AD.zip)

P.S. The title quote is from an Italian (Roman), Galeazzo Ciano. Of course, he was a fascist ...

We're done!

Thanks to everyone for hanging on and not letting this one fall into the vortex with our lost players. It was also great to get to know some folks a bit better. :)

We were so close that clearly it would have been winnable with a few small changes to any number of different areas. But, I don't think that the loss was due to an excessive amount of :smoke: on the part of the team. It turned out to be quite a challenging scenario! 71 hours, wow!

The turn limit is a new concept and it will take some getting used to. As players, the traditional best approach has been to make moves that will be most effective over the long term, with the knowledge that it's very rarely a close game by 2050 if it lasts that long. Here, that simply won't work. While we knew that from the start, I think that it's hard to change the underlying mentality that went with the 540-turn game.

Another thing that I think might be helpful in a situation like this one would be a cohesive plan of action that the entire team could be a part of. I'd guess that quite a few turns that were spent moving troops from one part of the map to another (and then back sometimes!) could have been used more effectively.

As the "captain" of this team, I'm sure I could have done a better job of facilitating this discussion and decision making to help make that happen. But, that sort of discussion means pausing the game, perhaps quite frequently, while we work to reach team consensus, thus lengthening the time it takes for the game to complete a cycle of players and come back around. Even with an active discussion, I know I have a hard time reorienting myself to a game if it ends up being quite a long time between my turns. With a military late-game feel to this Conquest, perhaps 5 turns per player, or even an odd number like 7 turns per player might have been more effective.

I do hope that these thoughts aren't taken as criticism of any of you as a team or as players. I am trying to take a critical look at the game, to take something from this experience that I can use to move forward as a player. In that way, I think, defeat can never be an orphan, but victory, especially an easy victory, just might be...

Congratulations to all on a valiant effort!

-Griselda