RBC12D - Fall of Rome - Vandals (Demigod)

Fall of Rome - C3C Scenario - Succession Game series
RBC12D - Vandals

This is the Vandal team for the RBC Series playing the Fall of Rome conquest. Difficulty for this one is Demigod, all other settings are normal. We are using C3C Version 1.15. See the general thread for rules, but nothing special beyond the usual RB list of non-exploits. (Dastardly non-exploits are fine, as typical, with one worker per civ thru turn 50) (Link to RBCiv Exploits Here )
Normal SG rules also (24 hours for "got it", 48 hours to post, 10 turns per player).


Our current roster is:
Justus II
RubberJello
Gobi Bear (Welcome aboard!)
???
???

Could definitely use a couple more players, with Demigod+ experience. This should be a very interesting and challenging game, although we start with some (eventually) productive lands, we are centrally located, which is both good and bad. Our main advantage (?) is by being centrally located, we can reach either half of the Roman empire equally well. The problem with that is we will have the Huns threatening to our east, Saxons I believe to the west, and will probably have to fight through the Visigoths to our south to even get to either Rome.

I would like to open this thread up for discussion, both for our start before I play the opening turns (see next post for start and dot map) and also for long-term strategy. As Charis said in the main thread, take some time to review the Civilopedia, there are some significant changes in this game, but I wanted to point out a few key points:

We get Migrants instead of settlers, 2 move, but more significantly only cost 20 shields and 1 pop. That means "Settler Factories" are pretty easy to set up, and seems to encourage a pretty dense style of development.

Our starting government, Tribal Council, should be our only government throughout! NO unit support costs, Minimal corruption, and no despot penalty. We do get 2 MP support, and use pop-rush.

The barbarian branch of the tech tree seems our best choice, and then try to trade for the "regular" techs as needed. We don't start at war with the Romes (in fact, we don't even have any contacts to start), so there may be some opportunity to buy techs if we decide we need some, but I doubt we will for a while.
As our units progress, they get quite powerful, expecially the Warlords with their ability to enslave enemies into Marauders.

Edit: Updated Roster

This is a proposed dot map. We start with 10 raiders (2.1.1 warriors), 7 Migrants (0.0.2 settlers) and 3 workers. Since my first set of turns will basically involve settling our initial core, I thought it would be a good idea to get some input from the team. I have opened the game, but only moved the raiders (and 1 migrant) to clear some of the fog, then saved, so we can discuss where to settle.

The Mighty Vandals, 324 AD


BTW, we are Military/Industrious, and our starting techs are Barbarism, Pottery, Warrior Code, and Iron Working.
(The industrious will come in handy for clearing all these forests).

I have labeled where our starting migrants and workers are. The star is my proposed capital, central-south as that is our likely direction of expansion. The lettered dots are proposed city sites for our other six starting migrants, and a few open dots for future sites, depending on what's behind the fog. Key is getting the Iron (B) and Fur (F). Site A can be a near-instant Migrant factory, if we mine the cattle, it will produce one every 4 turns at size 3, without a granary! Most of the rest are positioned to take advantage of the river or some of the game tiles. I plan on having several of our cities start building workers, then use them to clear forests and get barracks in place, maybe a couple temples to link our borders.

I have saved at this point, and will wait 24-48 hours for some comments and additional sign-ups before playing out the rest of my starting turns. We do have some time to expand and build up a military, but not forever, the VP clock will be ticking, and either Rome can win within 100-120 turns if they aren't destroyed first!

I actually like this starting location geographical-wise in terms of where the two Romes are. In the only other game I played on this Conquest, I started as the Celts. Eastern Rome came within 1 Turn of winning on V.P. before I was able to march 3/4's of the way across the map and get their 8'th city.

The only trouble with being in the middle of things is- of course- keeping our neighbors happy and focused upon our true enemy: the Romans

I like your dot map - but I had one question: Location city C doesn't have a migrant anywhere close to it. Some of the unallocated migrants to the East will have an awfully long trek to get there. How about just settling them to the closest dot in the East?

Agree about building plan: Workers --> Chops --> Barracks and Temples. Early phase should be about getting as many contacts as possible quickly, look for trading opportunities, and start hitting that Barb tech tree pretty hard.
Oh yeah...Checking in here.

Checking in. Rubberjello just invited me to join this game. Very interested in seeing how all these Fall of Rome games turn out.

Justus' plan looks fine to me. We want a good productive core of cities, but you have to be careful in these Elimination games not to found any cities you aren't prepared to defend. So you have to be cautious about trying to use new settlements to aggressively push your borders ... you can regret it if you lose some of those scenarios.

And that is the biggest danger of our central location; if we get too many opponents, we can lose 8 cities quickly. Luckily we are a bit further from the action than the poor Visigoths.

Welcome aboard, Gobi Bear! I saw your post in the RBCiv thread, but RJ beat me to the invite. I have also PM'ed Skyfish so hopefully he can confirm soon.

RJ-Good point about C, I certainly don't want to miss the cattle, but it may have to wait a few turns. Relooking the map, we should have one "spare" migrant near site A, who can settle somewhere near the open dot to the east. When A is founded, we should see better what is over there. I think we can delay settling 'E' for a while, as no one starts to our north, and could reach the cattle in 4 turns. E can then be settled by a migrant built at F or A.

I think contacts will be critical, as always, probably more so as civs start with so many units/etc and will contact one another quickly. From reading another thread, it appears map trading and communications are available at start, so first contact is worth quite a bit more than usual, and will also be critical for getting our non-barb techs eventually.

Two key questions as I see it, for the longer term:
Tech- What are our essential non-barb techs, so we prioritize our buys/trading? I would say: Masonry (walls, Palace pre-build for Scourge of God), Horseback Riding (Horses, good for scouting), then eventually Alpha-Math (cat)-Construction (Ducts).

Strategy-After an initial build-up, 10-20 turns, do we go on an early offensive vs. our neighbors? Do we ally with whoever is to our south and go after one of the Romes early? Or do we wait, build up a larger force w/Pillargers, then try to engineer a dogpile, making sure we get the 8th city. Right now my leaning is toward a slightly longer buildup, get Pillagers at least, but events may dictate otherwise....

(BTW, it might be worth noting how many/what cities each civ has as we contact them, we will eventually want to keep track of how many each has lost, although that will be tricky).

Actually, the Victory Screen (Ctrl-V) shows which civ has lost the most cities. When I played this one as the Vandals, I noticed at one point that the Romans had lost 6 cities when I was about to take another one of their cities. So instead of attacking right away, I waited until the Celts in this case had taken the last Roman city on their island, and only then moved in to claim all the VP .

I would vote for a slower buildup. Try to stay out of the initial frays and maybe *join* a dogpile on one of our neighbors. As Gobi Bear pointed out, aggressive over-settling (vs neighbors) is not something to be overdone in this conquest.
We want to be competitive with the other teams scores, but to lose altogether?

At lower difficulties, trying to keep as many of the other barbarians pounding on your enemies (either Rome or "barbarians gone astray") is a key to doing really well. I'm not sure how easy that is going to be to do here at Demi-God. Most of my experience is at Monarch or Emperor.

Regardless, we should make sure we use some of our finances toward embassies. We'll have to treat the diplomatic side of this scenario seriously.

OK, I heard back from Skyfish, and he is not able to join us, too many other commitments. So we still have an opening or two.

@Gobi-I agree diplomacy will be key, the trick seems to be to keep them focused on the Romes while we set up to deliver the killing blow, AND have enough troops/migrants to sieze all the newly opened VP locations after they fall. I would also think we want to prioritize exploration/expansion to try and grab some more luxuries or resources, so we have something to buy alliances with. I will post a message in the RBCiv discussion thread looking for another player, and plan to play our first set of turns tonight.

Originally posted by Justus II
... So we still have an opening or two. ...

Click to expand...

Is it possible to try for me? I played franks on emperor and won around turn 107-110. Though no experience with SG.

It was very easy indeed. Franks managed to build SoG and got total 8 leaders (3 in wars with Vandals allied to Anglo-Sax/pillager armies and 5 in war with Western Rome/warlord armies). Eastern Rome fell in no time, then all the rest. Ony Hunns and Sassanids survived. They were just too far away. But there were no early wars untill pillagers and no wars with other barbarians except Vandals. And also culture was a must to have. I did not realize it early on and one city flipped to Anglo-Sax. Of note was that hooking up iron before pillagers is not so reasonable because there is not much to do with extra cash (pop-rushing) but spend it for upgrades. Warlords rock indeed! They are expensive to build but getting maradeurs in huge numbers and upgrading them to warlords was fun.

@Akots: If you haven't already, review Charis' post here in the RBCiv SG discussion thread, to review the rules and some key points he makes about playing the Conquests. I know from reading the pre-game discussion for GOTM14 Babylon you are familiar with the RBCiv rules/exploits list As it says in the opening post we will not use any exploits, but dastardly is OK if necessary. Certainly we want to protect our reputation as we go. Otherwise, follow standard SG etiquette and you should be good to go. Welcome aboard!

324AD (1) Move Raiders to push back fog, as shown on original dotmap. Found three cities: Hippo Regius (Capital), Syracuse (A), Zuchabar (D). In founding Zucchabar, more fog is pushed back, revealing a pre-built road and another cattle! (I was concerned at first that the city names seem to be Carthaginian, Hannibal is the leaderhead, but based on the Civilopedia entry, the Vandals reached their height of power after occupying North Africa, so it makes sense). Hippo starts a Migrant, the other two start workers. Start research on Marauding at 100%, 23 turns. I do send one Migrant from near site F toward site C to the SW.

326AD (2) Found Cartennae (F) near the furs, who starts on a Barracks. I am surprised to realize that Forest chops cost 10, I think they were like this in Rise of Rome as well, but I have gotten used to the 4-turn chop. I delay chopping the forest at the furs for now, as it would complete the same turn as the barracks, rather than half-way. In fact, I change Cartennae to a Migrant, to settle site E.

328AD (3) Saldae (C) is founded next to the Iron, and starts on a worker. Raiders keep exploring, but very quiet. (Too quiet….)

330AD (4) Rusicade is founded in the east, near the marsh, next to a wheat, and starts on a raider. Lilybaeum is also founded, just west of D, getting on the river and prebuilt road, starts a worker.

332AD (5) More exploring, workers working, etc.
IBT: Syracuse finishes worker, starts Migrant.

334AD (6) A raider to the north hits the coast, and one to the NW finally makes contact with Hergest of the Anglo-Saxons. They are up Sailing on us. There is no option on the diplo screen to see how many cities he has?? (Must be a ‘feature’ of elimination, I guess you wouldn’t want to allow an AI to trade away their 8th city ). So much for using that to keep track of cities! Anyway, no trade opportunities, as communications and map-trading are still in the future.

336AD (7) Zuchabar riots, I thought they would complete the worker this turn, my mistake.
IBT: Hippo-Migrant>Raider, Zuchabbar-Worker>Raider

338AD (8) Our raider crests a hill, and we have contact with the Western Roman Empire. They are up Masonry, Alphabet, Sailing, Horseback, and Polytheism. They also have contacts with Byzantine, Celts, Franks, Sassinids, and Visigoths, but lack the Anglo-Saxons. (Also notice that they have Silver and Gold as Strategic resources, check the pedia, they are only needed for late wonders). They would take everything we have, and all our income (w/science at 0) to get Masonry, everything else is an insult, so no deals again. I could buy a contact, but it would take a lot, and they will probably sell us out next turn anyway. I hope that they at least sell us to the Eastern empire, otherwise we need to contact them soon. All these techs are considered Monopoly until we can contact the other half.
IBT: Cartennae-Migrant>Barracks, Lilybaeum-Worker>Barracks.

340AD (9) Rome came through, and sold our contact to the Eastern Roman Empire. They are up the same techs and contacts, except the Visigoths. At least now I can get a break on tech, and should be able to sell the Anglo-Saxons and my map twice. From the East, I get Alphabet for contact with Anglos, WM, and 33g. From the West, I get Masonry for Anglo, WM, 12 and I have to throw in 1gpt. We shouldn’t be going to war within 20 turns anyway (I hope), at least not by our choosing, so our rep should be safe. I am able to turn around and sell Alphabet to the Anglo-Saxons for 130g, and research is back at 100%.
IBT: See a Frank warrior move into view. Culture expands at the capital.

342AD (10) Need to MM Rusicade, Syracuse w/entertainers to avoid riots (should have used scientists, now that I look back…). Franks are up Sail, missing Masonry, Alphabet. Since I just sold Alphabet to the Anglos, I trade it to the Franks, plus 60g, for Sailing (it is needed for Map-Making).

At this point, I took the liberty of going on for 14 turns, both to see us through to Marauding and to even up the years with the turns. (Charis did say first player could go up to 15 turns). This turned out to be a busy turn, as IBT an Ostrogoth warrior moves into view.

344AD (11) I move our other exploring raiders, and also see a Visigoth. Also settle Cagliari to our SW and Aleria at site E near the two games. The Ostrogoths already have Marauding, but are down Masonry, Alpha, and Sail. We are only 3 turns from it ourselves, so we are able to get Maruading and their 50g for Alphabet. The Visigoths are down the same 3 techs, but no Marauding, so I sell Alpha to get their 50g as well. Another break, the 2 Romes are still lacking contact with the Ostrogoths! Time for some more trading, to use Ostro and WM for a discount. I get Horseback Riding from East Rome for 115g, Ostro, and WM. Can’t really afford a tech from West Rome, but I get contact with the Celts for Ostro, WM, and 30g. The Celts are down Alpha, Masonry, HBR, and Marauding, sell them Alphabet for their 86g. Finally, sell the Franks Masonry for 110g while they have money. Looking at the map, I see horses to our NW near Aleria. (Heavy Cav will be useful in the second age, I think).
IBT: Hippo-Raider>Rax, Syracuse-Raider>Migrant (both need MPs).

346AD (12) Not much happens, workers start building roads to connect cities, and work toward the fur.
IBT: Zuchabar-raider>rax, Cartennae-rax>raider, Saldea-worker>rax, Rusicade-worker>raider.

348AD (13) The Sassinids have made contact with us, they have the same techs as the Romans. They do have a worker for sale, and after a quick check of our rules, I trade our WM to them for the worker and 5g. (We can only get 1 worker/civ during the first 50 turns, so that’s it for the Sassinids). East Rome also has one available, but at full price (130g), probably not worth it at this point. I have been checking the other barb tribes, as a worker would be decent value for some of the techs we still have. Actually, our tech lead is diminishing, as the Franks now have Marauding, but haven’t had any gold the last few turns, so it must be self-researched. No one else has any real money either.

350AD (14) Not much happens, more worker actions, and some of our exploring raiders are returning home for MP duty, as we have contacts with everyone except for the Huns. Franks also have HBR, as they are now even in tech. Anglo/Saxon are down HBR, Marauding, Ostrogoths are down HBR and Sailing, Visigoths HBR, Sail, and Marauding, and Celts down HBR, but none of them have any real money. Sassinids and both Romes are still up at least Writing, Math, and Poly.

The Vandal Homeland, 350BC


Time for our next Warlord to emerge and lead the Vandal people to greatness. As you can tell, this was mostly a farmer’s gambit type opening, most of our cities still need MPs. But we have one barracks complete, and 4 more on the way, and some raiders returning. Our military is a total of 13 Raiders, and 8 workers (plus the slave). Pillaging is 12 turns away, and a worker just started mining the iron, but I haven’t roaded it yet, so there should be plenty of time to crank out vet Raiders for upgrade, and keep the regulars for MP. (With no unit cost, they’re cheaper than lux tax). I have placed a few dots on the map, the red is critical, as it gets the horse and another source of furs, Aleria should complete the migrant sooner with growth. Syracuse will be a perfect 4-turn migrant factory after the 2nd MP completes next turn, working the cattle, wheat, and a forest (actually will have +6fpt). There are two workers adjacent to the fur, ready to road it, or chop first then road, your choice.

Roster:
Justus II – Just finished
RubberJello – Up
Gobi Bear – On Deck
Akots – Warming up
???

Build Our Armies!

OK, thanks. Just give me a try. I was a good team chessplayer in the high school... Then, re your building plan. It is great and Vandals have advantage against other northern barbarians with more or less central capital location. There is also considerable advantage in starting military and migrants/towns.

A great start for us, Justus. Very well thought out.

I've downloaded the save and looked it over. Since I will be up in 10 turns, I've thought of a few questions for the team:

1) In 12 turns (probably during my watch), we finish Pillaging. The tree then branches with paths to Barbarian Leadership and Sacking. Shall we go to Barbarian Leadership first to ensure we get the Scourge of God wonder before anyone else?

2) A palace prebuild would be a great help for ensuring Scourge of God. We could start immediately in fact. Any idea when to start that and in what city? Syracuse is a nice 5 shield city. Should we try it there?

3) Should we hold off on trading Pillaging to the other barbarians (to keep them further from the Scourge)? Or once we see that one of them has Pillaging, shall we just go ahead and trade it to the rest if there is a worthwhile deal?

"Got it" and started the write up. Answers to Gobi.

1. Go for Barbarian Leadership.

2. Syracuse sounds good to me for a pre-build. I may pump out a worker first though.

3. Trade pillaging the split second any other Civ has it. (But I doubt we'll get a monopoly on it in the first place???)

My thoughts:

1. Barb Leadership definitely.
2. Syracuse will work well, it started as a 4-turn migrant factory, but can easily grow to size 6+, working mostly forests, and get to 10+shield/turn, which should get it for us.
3. I agree with RJ, trade it if anyone else has it, or is about to get it (suddenly offers less for it). We were beaten to Marauding only by the Ostrogoths, (we would have had it in 3), and started Pillaging the same turn. The Franks and Celts have only gotten Marauding within the past 2 turns, so we should have a 2-3 turn head start on anyone but the Ostros, if we keep research on max, I think we do still have a chance to get there first. The other problem is the other civs had very little to trade for it, most techs have come from the Romes.

I'm not going to play in this one, but I'm just going to lurk. I'm actually waiting for a demigod or another deity SG to join. (almost got a OCC demigod culture victory under my belt, but left the AI agression on very high, and the Russians won by domination).

Is the tech price known for the Demigod? It is possible to look for it in the scenario probably. Getting MapMaking is very important because allows map brokering in between barbarians. This brings lots of cash and possibility to buy other less expensive techs from Rome or Sassanids. Early investment in it should pay back twice. Also, pillager can be the main offensive unit almost through all the game. It has fair attack/survival/cost ratio. Whereas with warlords, it is better to have heavy cavalry or at least some horsemen around to keep them from being slaughtered by horsemen/legions/cavalry. So, learning sacking ealry seems like a bad idea. It is probably too early to discuss this, but SODs of pillagers should include a couple of spearmen to be wasted because spearmen are the defenders when SOD is attacked. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited:
Normal Tree:
Masonry – 4
Alphabet – 5
Sailing – 6
Mysticism – 4
HBR – 5
Writing – 8
Mathematics – 8
CoL – 10
MapMaking – 12
Polytheism – 12
Currency – 16
Construction – 20
Fortification – 20
Imperialism – 20

Barbarian Tree:
Marauding - 6
Pillaging – 10
Sacking – 15
Barbarian Leadership – 12

Rome fights back:
Siege craft – 20
Christianity – 20
Byzantine Ingenuity – 20
Monotheism – 20
Military Training - 20
Military Strategy – 20

So, looks like going up barbarian tree is not so good idea greatly limiting trading opportunities. Barbarian techs are not worth much and can be traded from a normal tree. For example, MapMaking is well worth Pillaging even on Deity provided that the same number of civs know it. Also, other barbarian countries will also go up barbarian tree further diminishing the cost of these techs. Also, Rome and Sassanids cannot participate in barb tech trading. I don’t know how it works in this case, but the cost of barbarian techs may be even less. Certainly Sacking and Leadership are worth a lot anyhow. And Leadership is not needed before SoG is almost ready.

I still think Barb Leadership is worth researching ourselves, we have a good chance of getting Scourge of God quickly that way, rather than take a chance of an AI getting it. Based on your costs, it should take a bit longer to research than Pillaging, which was 15 to start, (although with growth that should come down some). Roughly 10-12 turns for Pillaging, another 12-15 for leadership, and we will want our prebuild to start fairly soon. Assuming we use Syracuse, which will start at 5spt (40 turns) but quickly grow to 10+spt, we will probably want to start sometime during the next reign.

I wouldn't count on the AI researching the barb tree, as I mentioned only the Ostro's beat us to Marauding, and then the Franks got it, the other civs have been researching or buying "normal" techs. Sacking is one we can probably wait on, though, as long as we get the SoG for the free warlords. In fact, I would see our goal to be Pillaging-Leadership-then stop research for a while to build up cash for upgrades and to buy our way into the second era. Once in the 2nd era, we definitely will want Military Tradition (Heavy Cav), the others seem pretty optional.

I agree on the value for MapMaking, but I'm not in a rush. The AI have been so short on gold, there wasn't much to be made even for the techs we have, we have been able to get most of their money when it is available. When the time comes, probably the best option is to (temporarily) drop research to free up income, and buy it from the Sassanids for gpt. (Don't buy from either Rome, as we a-don't want to enrich them and b-by then may have to get a war started before too much longer). Then increase research back to max. Once we can start map brokering, we should be able to recoup the cost, and can pay for deficit research, or use the cash for upgrades.

Warlords hold up surpisingly well in my experience. If we get our fractious neighbors in line to only attack the Romans, then we will face surpisingly few *offensive* Roman units. I think researching the Barb tech tree is our best way to go. We have very little need for money in this scenario except for using it to buy the more traditional techs.