RBC12J - Eastern Roman Empire

Fall of Rome - C3C Scenario - Succession Game series
RBC12J - Eastern Roman Empire

During the course of the RBC Series playing the Fall of Rome conquest, the scenario designer, Gobi Bear, offered to give us access to a modified version of the Fall of Rome scenario, in which the two halves of the Roman Empire were playable, called Rome Everlasting:

The changes from the Fall of Rome that shipped with Conquests go something like this:

- Update the scenario name and description
- Change which civs are human playable
- Add locked alliance of Sassanids vs. Rome
- Add locked alliance of Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Vandals vs. Rome
- Add locked alliance of Ostrogoths and Huns vs. Rome
- Allow colonies in desert
- Change War Weariness from High to Low for the Imperialism Government
- Military police to 1 in Imperialism
- Harbor and Walls for Constantinople
- Harbor for Alexandria

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We are putting together a team to explore this version, and see how long we can hold off the barbarians! Difficulty for this one is Demigod, all other settings are normal. We are using C3C Version 1.15. See the general thread here 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).

Edit: Updated Roster
Justus II
Charis
RubberJello
Arathorn
Aggie

This WILL be a very interesting and challenging game, you will see from the next post that although we start with some advantages (Strong military, VP locations, advanced in tech), we are also struggling to maintain a crumbling empire. Because of the locked alliances, this will probably play similar to an Always War game, although we do have West Rome as a locked ally, and there are two "neutrals", Franks and Vizigoths, who are not locked in war. The other races begin the game at war with us, and we start with 50%+ War Weariness

Come join the challenge, and keep Byzantium safe from the Barbarian Hordes!

EDIT: Here is a link to the scenario, with a word file with instructions. Rome Everlasting

Also updated roster.

This was just trying to put some entertainers back to work to give an idea of our economy. You will see, we have an immediate choice between a budget deficit and starvation! Also, although we start in the 2nd age, tech research is not exactly "cheap". (All 3 first-tier techs cost the same). The good news is there are 3 luxuries unconnected in Egypt/Sinai, if we can quickly get colonies there before we go broke, that will go a long way to keeping us above water. Bad news is we start with ZERO workers, and Alexandria is pretty corrupt. Our military is decent, stronger than the barbarians, but weak compared to West Rome:



Mostly garrisons in towns, and Legions at various road fortifications. We do have one threatened town in the east, where a single garrision will have to hold off a Sassinid horseman on the very first turn. We definitely need more military, but then again we are already over the unit support limit.

Here is a screenshot of our starting lands, we also have several cities in the Balkans (Athens, Salonea), Cyrene in Libya, and one further to the east (threatened by a horse). There is certainly room to settle a few more cities in our Core, although it may further push corruption at the fringes. I'm certainly open to suggestions or a 'dotmap', I haven't had a chance to look at much more detail than this.

Here are the details on our wonderful government:


I would like to get a couple more signups, and some good strategy discussion, over the next couple days, and hopefully kick off Wednesday, as I will be out of town Thursday-Saturday with limited internet access (and no Civ access ). Otherwise, Charis or Rubberjello can start things off and I will fall into the roster when I return. Meanwhile, there are plenty of topics for discussion!

would love to join but shall watch in interest instead.

(cos i'm not good enough YET).

Initial thoughts:

We need those luxes!!!! I mean BAAAAADDDDDLLLLYYYYY!!!

Does anybody know/care to guess: If we eliminate the Sassinids, would that cut WW by 1/3? (Logically, it would, but....) That would be a good side effect (besides trying to stay alive!!!)

Errr....(Embarrasing question here) I assume if you abandon a city, it counts against your 8? I wouldn't want to do it because it goes against the flavor of the scenario and would be cheesy, but I've never tried it on this type of victory condition before.

The first 10 turns will require some tough choices. I'm inclined to let some cities starve and/or rush workers. Strike a balance between an ungodly lux tax and merely an obscene one.

I'm not sure what to do about techs. Just a minimum or none until the luxes come online?

I think rushing workers to connect luxuries is a definite. We will need to either burn workers to make colonies, or rush settlers to build cities (which we may or may not need to defend, except against barbs, we can probably block access to the Sinai pretty easily. Obviously, if we spend a little to rush settlers from cities that would starve anyway, it will probably pay off in the long run. I am a little concerned about 'real' barbarians hitting a colony in S. Egypt at the Ivory, so a town would probably hold up better. (At least they won't destroy the town!).

Techs can probably wait at least a few turns. Minimum won't work (set for 500 turns!!), I would wait until our economy is balanced, then start normal research. We do want to consider what to research, Military training gives us Heavy Cav, required to go on the offensive, but W. Rome will probably research that first, so we may want to consider Byzantine Ingneuity (Hospitals we don't need, Dromons would be nice) or Monotheism (Churches are nice, but we already have access to Coloseums) and then trade.

Do you really need a fifth player? These are relatively short games and the 4 of you may all only get two turns.

IF you want a 5th player I like to be in.

@Aggie-Welcome, great to have you on board. I think with our position being at war from the start, turns will get long quick. I'm thinking we would still start with 10 per player the first round, as the barbs are settling and probably sending a trickle of units, then drop to 5 per player by the time they get the tougher units and their production base is in full gear. We'll probably have to see how it develops. After all, the Sassinids start with some real forces, and can start research on Mil Training shortly IIRC, so we should see some action from that corner pretty early.

Aggie, with the Always-war aspect of locked alliances, I think we could definitely use a fifth, and Justus' comment was "Could definitely use a couple more players, with Demigod+ experience" so sounds good to me (Justus' call as host of course) (EDIT - lol, we cross-posted, and Justus made the same points, so welcome)

Just looking here but not yet the save, I agree that lux and workers are very high priority. I'm not so sure on cities, as a big threat for us compared to playing as barbarians is that we may well lose on 8 city capture.

RJ, abandoning DOES count as losing a city, as does flipping. Are there <8 cities above the sea? The picture suggests this, and this gives us the *FALLBACK* position of turtling, using Dromons at sea and a Maginot Sassanid border to protect ourselves. IF things get that ugly, we might get our northen empire eliminated but if we survived, we could counterattack and wipe out 8 cities of any barbs that came against us. I'm not saying to plan on doing this from the start, but if we found more cities up North that option is forever gone. So one question for the team is... do we expand on both North and Southern halves, or ONLY in the inaccesible Southern half. While I would normally think I could hold the North, the comments by Gobi Bear on how hard this is for East and West Rome make me wonder... You guys ALL know how effective warlords can be!

Once we can start researching, Mil Training is KEY -- and if we can take anyone out or down while they're still using Marauders it would be nice.

Charis

@Charis-Crossposted above. We have 6 cities on the European side, (of course one of those is Constantinople, we wouldn't want to lose that, would we???), and I see no need to settle more on that side, there's much more risk than gain. Certainly a fall-back option is needed. I am even thinking (hoping?) that we will have the opportunity at some point to elimiate the Sassinids, then fortify the Caucauses before the Huns come down in too much strength.

I could see a few city sites in Asia Minor, which would be interior, and then consider one or two in Sinai/Egypt to secure the luxuries. I don't think the Barb tribes will be able to get to North Africa any time soon, so as long as we can block the Sassinids (there are some mountains S of Ceasarea), we should be able to secure that area.

Any new cities in our "core" should be productive. I would also suggest a city that would remain unconnected, with a rax, to build vet warriors that can eventually be upgraded to legions, I think our productive cities will be focused on Heavy cav when the time comes, and once we get through the few techs on the tree and get the lux connected, we should have some cash available.

Anyway...I'm happy to be in and didn't fully realize the AW aspect of it. All the better though. My current SG's lack a good fight at the moment

I am happy to be last in the roster, so that I can read up a bit.

Found this thread, everyone! I'll be checking in to see how you all do. Should be fun to watch.

My thoughts...

- Our military starts strong and will weaken over time. Not taking advantage of this would be cowardly, at best. I say we take our random legionaries in Europe and send them all towards the Ostrogoths while they still have raiders and spears. Kill them early.
This also has the advantage of cutting our upkeep costs a bit, which is another good thing. We need financial stability ASAP.
And, remember, this scenario is all about offense, not defense. Turtling is a very BAD idea, IMHO.

- I'd do the same thing in the east. I'd send as many legions as we can towards the Sassanids and try to destroy 8 cities before they get going. Or a few and we can hopefully knock out the last few on a counterattack after they start bringing it to us.

- Workers for colonies is a very good idea. Just be sure to accumulate one shield first to make rushing less expensive. Remember, though, that no cities or colonies can be founded in the desert (unless Gobi Bear fixed/changed that in the latest release). We don't have a lot of pop to spare but happiness concerns dictate some drastic options.

- Remember we can trade contacts and maps right from the start. Take advantage of this. There's no reason not to contact the Vizigoths right away, get all their gold, and start befriending them. If cash allows, I'd probably ally them against the Ostrogoths right away, too, so that we can use some human shields.

That's my take, without seeing the actual game.

Arathorn

@Arathorn,

Good points, especially re: the Ostrogoths, we could have a shot for a quick kill if we can gather enough legions together, and maybe get some elite along the way. Sassinids I think will be hard to knock out early, and we start with fewer legions that way, but a quick offensive, taking 2-3 cities, so they are more vulnerable later, makes sense. They do start with 2 Immortals (Heavy Cav), but can't build any until they get the tech, they are otherwise limited to horses and spears, IIRC.

Re: Colonies in desert, yes that was one of the modifications, so that's an option, and probably quicker than settlers. We will need to garrison the colony, though, as 'regular' barbarians will try to pillage.

I also agree on the Vizigoths, we should be able to get contact with the Franks from West Rome, and should do the same with them. On Vizigoths, I think once we contact them we can sell them a spare luxury, or use that for the alliance. For that matter, we can trade them several of the 1st age techs (math, etc) for an alliance.

A couple of other points, after looking at the save some more. First, we do start with infrastructure in our larger towns. Most size 2+ towns have a temple, and most have a granary (which could be good or bad at this point). Our 4 largest have markets and courthouses (including the capital? Probably ought to sell that one). However, ONLY Constantinople starts with a barracks. Also, we can avoid most starvation at 40% lux, and go with 0 science at first, until we get things on our feet, but I don't see any way to avoid starvation at Antioch, it would take all 7 working food tiles to make it, and I can't see that happening.

As for my earlier idea about an unconnected city building warriors for upgrade, scratch that. We can't build warriors, our only choices are archers, Garrisons, and Legions (with Iron), or Horsemen (with horses). We don't have horses connected yet. We will want to build some horses for upgrades, until we get the tech. BTW, Garrisons are just spearmen that look like Pikes, I thought they had 3 defense, but they only get 2. They do have Zone of Control

We have 4-5 mobile legions on each front (North-Balkans and East-Sassinid), and a few more as garrisons in the south. Of course, using them leaves our towns in the hands of garrisons, but we may have a window in the early game to get in a quick strike.

West Rome does not have contact with Franks to start, althougth they will the first turn. They do have 100g, and would trade it for our dyes. I also wanted to discuss what our 'policy' toward them is, obviously the longer they stay alive the more it benefits us. Do we want to trade for max profit from them, or try to prop them up?

West Rome does not have contact with Franks to start, althougth they will the first turn. They do have 100g, and would trade it for our dyes

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Sigh, I wish you guys were our teammates for RBC12I instead of the AI Eastern Romans. If Theodora accepted our 100g for Dyes I would spontaneously combust due to my ecstatic happiness.

A quick note on the Sassanids - though I'll be vague since I'm not sure if my playing as them in RBC12g counts as a 'spoiler': they have 4 other offensive units besides the two Elite HC, so tread carefully lest your Eastern forces get annihilated.

I think both of us are equally screwed . Although you have 3 luxuries visible, more legions and a semi-defensible chunk of territory, you start next to the Sassanids, the strongest of the Barbarian Tribes. Not to mention the Huns and their 10 horsemen will eventually be knocking at your gate . We really only have the Danube and British frontiers (providing we ally with the Franks) to defend, but our cities are horribly spread out and our economy is a complete disaster.

Best of luck everyone, this is gonna be brutal

I absolutely agree with Arathorn that we have to strike soon. The advantage of all the barbarian tribe games is a disadvantage for us: no warlords. We simply have stronge offense/defense now, but in the long run we will be getting weaker and weaker.

Regarding the lux deal: go for it I'd say. Western Rome are our allies but also our competition. They are the biggest foe regarding VP's. Still: we need the lux.

Selling our contacts, maps and spare luxuries also is very important and I like the idea of letting the barbarians fight amongst themselves.

Lurker question:

Do you have "spare" Legionary to connect your luxes? Don't they have the ability to build roads and forts.

Hotrod

@Hotrod, good point, I had overlooked that. There is one "spare" legion south of Antioch, if we don't send it toward the Sassinids. The problem is unless we found a city in Sinai, they will require colonies, but a legion could go with to speed the road to the colony.