Pax Romana Aeternum ? FALL OF ROME DEITY

hey guys,

about to start playing as western rome on the fall of rome scenario on deity ... not quite sure about the achievement though, do i have to hold every city i originally start with and have the winning amount of points to get the achievement?

if anyone has done some tips would be great, ill head off to give it a go now

rafeshankar said:

hey guys,

about to start playing as western rome on the fall of rome scenario on deity ... not quite sure about the achievement though, do i have to hold every city i originally start with and have the winning amount of points to get the achievement?

if anyone has done some tips would be great, ill head off to give it a go now

Click to expand...

I don't think you have to have all of your cities left, but I'm pretty sure you have to have the winning amount of points, and you can't lose Rome.

The achievement description says that you have to control all of your original cities (in addition to winning the scenario, which means that your *team*, you + Byzantium, need to have the highest score).

Halcyan2 said:

The achievement description says that you have to control all of your original cities (in addition to winning the scenario, which means that your *team*, you + Byzantium, need to have the highest score).

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dont think west and east have to have combined winning score? achievement only says...

Win the game as Eastern or Western Rome on Deity and have all your original cities under your control in the Fall of Rome scenario.

rafeshankar said:

hey guys,

about to start playing as western rome on the fall of rome scenario on deity ... not quite sure about the achievement though, do i have to hold every city i originally start with and have the winning amount of points to get the achievement?

if anyone has done some tips would be great, ill head off to give it a go now

Click to expand...

you sir are brave im getting my but slowly beat on prince as the romans. to much land to defend, to many fronts to fight, and to few units. ive tried fighting a delaying action ill loose alot of cities before i have a good defensive line i can hold. I don't know how you could even attempt this on deity.

Post no. 224 of this thread gives a way to do this. Really tough.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=460177&page=12

gunslinger6792 said:

you sir are brave im getting my but slowly beat on prince as the romans. to much land to defend, to many fronts to fight, and to few units. ive tried fighting a delaying action ill loose alot of cities before i have a good defensive line i can hold. I don't know how you could even attempt this on deity.

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hey, im having similiar problems on deity all be it on a larger scale... im 100% sure its possible tho, the units are there, just a matter of making it all work in 70 turns... the western roman ability to recruit defeated barbarians is very very helpful in making tactical retreats with your main roman army also... maybe try this technique on prince see how it goes for you, or you could just keep them as part of your main army, either way its helpful

rafeshankar said:

dont think west and east have to have combined winning score? achievement only says...

Win the game as Eastern or Western Rome on Deity and have all your original cities under your control in the Fall of Rome scenario.

Click to expand...

You don't win the game unless your Team has the highest score.

Has anyone tried the scenario since the patch was released?

I tried as Eastern Rome to get the achievement. What a nightmare.

The Med is full of Vandals and they took over Seleucia in about 5 turns with 3 axemen and 4 trihemiolias. The Huns took over Trebizond and Theodosiopolis by turn 4. Then took Amaseia and Dyrrachium. The Sassanids took Theodosiopolis from the Huns, Edessa and Antioch and have Melitene surrounded. The Goths took Sirmium, Naissus and Dyrachium. All the above happened in the first 10 turns!

I read the post at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11638962&postcount=224 but I had a hard time stopping any of the other armies from just steam rolling my cities. Only losing 6 cites in 13 turn would have been great.

Anyone have any ideas on strategy?

What to build in the cites and when? I started out producing gold in the cities I though would fall early and units in the others. I back up any unit in a front line city to make a stand but that didn't seem to work.

And how do you attack the Gadrauht, Clibanarii, and Axeman effectively? What kind of units should I use?

Thanks.

Victory condition is writed wrong in the achievement. You dont'n need to Win the scenario in order to complete the achievement. Instead you need to have more points together , Eastern and Western Roman empires. I lost the scenario as Eastern Rome with a score arround 3700, Western Rome had about 2700 and the Sanassids about6100 but I get the achievement.
What to build at the beggining? I build all units except 7 border cities which I know I will lost after some try an error in which I build Wealth. So Cataphartcs , Catapults, Swordsmans and some Dromons.
I lost 8 cities in first 10 turns. Smirnium and Naissus to the Goths, Trebizond to the Huns, Melitene ,Edessa and Teodoupolis to the Sanasisds and Seleucia and Mistra to the Vandals.
I move my existing troops to defend Adrianopole(Archer and legion), Dyrrachium(legions) in the nord, Antioch(2 legions) and Amasea(1 legion) in the east. All legions put to build forts. All Workers put to build forts except the one in Alexandria which I put to erase roads until Cyrene. The Dromons near Constantinopole send one nord to wait for Gtohs and one east for the Huns. The Alexandria Dromon send to Cyrene. The Mistra Dromon send to Dyrrachium.
Build a swordsman in Nicopolis and Catapult in Athens so you can take back Mistra with Dromons help.
Social Policies. I first took Barbarian Conscripton then Rise of Serfdom (don't build any walls because of this one) the Usurper General (dont build any baracks because of this one) and finaally in the last 10 turns I get Neglected Infrastructure. Don't be afraid of the enemy army appearing next to your city because it can not take a city. Every time the city is red on health and a legion atacks it that legion dies (very strange behaviour).
When you start getting in red with the money start building markets and maybe a Harbour in Cyrene because you destroyed the roads there. In rest build only units.
First retake the 2 city lost to the Vandals with 52 turn left. Then I took Edessa, Melitene and Naissus with 42 turns left. With only 20 turns left I took all my cities back and Salonae for Western Rome. From that point was an all war agaisnt the Sanassids because their points where almost double then mine and I didn't know the scores will add with Western Romans. I managed to raze Amida and almost managed to raze Nisibis but the Sanassid score kept raising. In the nord I just hold the border agaisnt Goths and help a little with Dromons the Westerns to hold Ravena and Rome.
For the Vandal atack in later turns I manged to destroy them with 4 Dromons waiting for them along the coast to Cyrene.
I hope I helped someon with this information. Have fun.

Does the score not show up for this scenario?
The reason I'm asking is (as the Huns) I'm not seeing one (unlike the Korean one)
At first I thought it might be because I had no points; but I ought to have some points now that I've captured Constantinople. (Plus the E Roman city NW of there and three Gaul cities that were in the way)

I'm trying to figure out if I need to take more cities to win.

specia3147 said:

Victory condition is writed wrong in the achievement. You dont'n need to Win the scenario in order to complete the achievement. Instead you need to have more points together , Eastern and Western Roman empires. I lost the scenario as Eastern Rome with a score arround 3700, Western Rome had about 2700 and the Sanassids about6100 but I get the achievement.


I built all units except 7 border cities which I know I will lost after some trial an error in which I build Wealth. So Cataphartcs , Catapults, Swordsmen and some Dromon.


I lost 8 cities in first 10 turns:

Smirnium and Naissus to the Goths
Trebizond to the Huns
Melitene ,Edessa and Teodoupolis to the Sanasisds
Seleucia and Mistra to the Vandals


I move my existing troops to defend

Adrianopole(Archer and legion)
Dyrrachium(legions) in the nord,
Antioch(2 legions) and Amasea(1 legion) in the east.

All legions put to build forts. All Workers put to build forts except the one in Alexandria which I put to erase roads until Cyrene.

The Dromons near Constantinopole send one nord to wait for Gtohs and one east for the Huns. The Alexandria Dromon send to Cyrene. The Mistra Dromon send to Dyrrachium.

Build a swordsman in Nicopolis and Catapult in Athens so you can take back Mistra with Dromons help.

Social Policies: I first took Barbarian Conscripton then Rise of Serfdom (don't build any walls because of this one) the Usurper General (dont build any baracks because of this one) and finaally in the last 10 turns I get Neglected Infrastructure.

Don't be afraid of the enemy army appearing next to your city because it can not take a city. Every time the city is red on health and a legion atacks it that legion dies (very strange behaviour).

When you start getting in red with the money start building markets and maybe a Harbour in Cyrene because you destroyed the roads there. In rest build only units.


First retake the 2 city lost to the Vandals with 52 turn left.
Then I took Edessa, Melitene and Naissus with 42 turns left.
With only 20 turns left I took all my cities back and Salonae for Western Rome.

From that point was an all war agaisnt the Sanassids because their points where almost double then mine and I didn't know the scores will add with Western Romans.

I managed to raze Amida and almost managed to raze Nisibis but the Sanassid score kept raising.

In the nord I just hold the border agaisnt Goths and help a little with Dromons the Westerns to hold Ravena and Rome.


For the Vandal atack in later turns I manged to destroy them with 4 Dromons waiting for them along the coast to Cyrene.

I hope I helped someon with this information. Have fun.

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Even though this is a wall of text and a year old it's still the best play by play advice I have seen on the net.

So I cleaned it up a bit for future readers and will add a few points:

Lots of RNG in this scenario which is kinda irritating because it's so long.

For example my first run through I destroyed everyone but the Sassanids but eventually got my cities back and even razed one of his and still lost. Western Rome got steam rolled so bad he eventually only had 2 cities in Italy. This caused our combined score to be about 2k less than Sassanids. You will most likely have to help W. Rome take back a few cities to win.

The trick is to lose as FEW cities as possible during the initial barbarian push. This requires multiple reloads to figure out exactly where to move your troops each turn to bait and switch etc. It is POSSIBLE to lose as few as 6 cities according to some, the fewest I got was 7 lost.

Don't bother building barracks it's counter productive for a few reasons, special got it right accidentally. Build only troops initially followed by happiness and then markets.

Make sure huns get Theodosiopolis that means leaving it quickly and focusing all city fire on the Sass. This will cause Siss and the Huns to battle it out this is essential to only losing 3 cities on that side otherwise they will both swarm you.

I wouldn't recommend building forts with workers, instead chop out troops and buildings then improve production nodes. Build forts with Legions.

I also wouldn't recommend patroling, every turn your troops aren't attacking or healing is wasted time and lost exp towards your GG's which are mandatory for E Rome.

You can squeeze out a troop in Sirmium, Edessa, Melitene and Selucia before they get capped if you play it right.

I earned the Pax Romana Aeternum achievement in the Fall of Rome scenario last week winning as Eastern Rome on Deity. I barely eked out a score victory with 6227 pts (Eastern 3952 + Western 2275) versus the Sassanids with 6,133. I used ideas from the Eastern Rome strategy described on this thread with a few twists.

I admit I did back track and reload a number of times. I only lost three cities - all in the initial wave of attacks. I lost the port of Seleucia to the Vandals, Naissus to the Goths, and Theodosiopolis to the Huns. I lost no city to the Sassanids.

At the start

I defended Sirmium with the two nearby legions. I put them to building forts on adjacent squares south of the city. Once the forts were built I rotated the unit between the city and forts to deal with threats but mostly to passively destroy Goth attackers while taking care to protecting the legions from elimination.

I put the legion near Constantinople to work building a fort adjacent to Adrianople.

I sent the legion near Theodosipolis to build a fort on the road square north of Melitene. I took the legion in Melitene to build a fort on the adjacent road square south of the city.

I moved the legion in Edessa to the adjacent fort and set him to fortify. I was intending to just create a delay. But I managed to keep Edessa the entire game because the Sassanids rushed in the horse axemen and infantry without waiting for their catapults to arrive. My unit took wave after wave of the attacks from three units at a time. But, it was getting a healing promotion almost every turn while the attackers were chewing themselves up. Counter fire from the city was killing one unit every turn. But mostly they were killing themselves. The AI does not take care to heal severely damaged units.

When the first fort in Melitene was done I rotated that legion into the defense of Edessa in time to attack some catapults from behind. Newly constructed spearman also rushed into the fray . When the first general was spawned I rushed it to Edessa. I created a citadel outside the city which caused enough attrition to dissipate the attack.

I managed to save Tebizond mostly by luck. The huns were close to taking it several times but got distracted by Sassanid attacks on their newly conquered city of Theodosipolus. When the huns lost Theodosipolus, it became their primary focus. Later I sent in spearmen and dromons to help. In retrospect I ought to have built a wall in the city from the start. It would have made defending it easier.

I protected Mistra from the Vandal onslaught wiping out the land and sea invasion. To accomplish this, I beelined the Dromon from Cyrene plus the two near Constantinople toward Mistra. The one near Mistra went into port where it could fight from safety. I moved the one near Alexandria into port to preserve it. The trick is don’t rush the dromons in piecemeal to be chewed up. Wait until all three are assembled just out of reach east of the city. Then bring them in as a team to fire first. The vandal fleet was already damaged by their city attack so I wiped them out in a couple of turns with just one Dromon damaged and none lost. Once the city is secure I returned one dromon to Cyrene to counter an in-progress sea attack, sent one to Nicopolis to defend it as port artillery, and two to Thessalonica to fire against Goths on the shore.

In the middle

I recovered the last of my lost cities on turn 39. At that point the score was 2139 ER + 1438 WR = 3577 The leader was the Franks with 3800. The Sassanids had only 2,824 It baffles me how the Sassanids gained ground so many points to the end. They took none of my cities and I took Amida from them. They must have been beating up the Huns out of view.

With the cities recaptured so early, I expected the rest of the 31 turns to be a cake walk figuring I could probably take a bunch of cities as my forces and promotions accumulated. But the end of the game was difficult. The Sassanids and Goths appeared in waves. Starting around the last 10 turns the AI units benefited from Culture policy advances and every conceivable attack against them – even against wounded units projected as a major defeat.

I did score enough points by taking Amida, from the Sasssanids, recovering Syracuse from the Vandals and recovering Ravena from the Goths several times.

By the end of the game I had four culture demotions – Rise of Serfdom, Neglect of Infrastructure, Roman Atrophy, and Usurper General. Usurper General was no big deal. The barbarian army appeared around Melitene. It didn’t pillage anything and only killed one of my units. It was more of a nuisance to the Sassanids.


My tips to win the achievement are

1) Build mostly spearman. Quantity matters more than quality and getting a unit a turn or two earlier is crucial in the beginning. Spearman allow you the luxury of pulling one out of action to heal and allow you to more easily keep contiguous lines to deny flanking bonuses to attackers. Later in the game you will be subject to one units being disbanded every couple of turns ,so having mostly Spearman minimizes the impact of these losses.

2) Use promotions mostly to heal – especially in the first 10 turns. The AI tends to focus on damaged units. What is the point of giving a damaged spearman a rough terrain promotion only to lose it the next turn?

3) Resist the urge to attack at the beginning, Use the fortify command and keep your units in contiguous lines on rough terrain or forts near cities. Let the AI destroy itself attacking you with the help of counter-fire from your cities.

4) The Ai will sometimes abandon an attack to switch to another city target. It is not good at protecting its catapults. Look for opportunities to attack them from the cities it bypasses..

5) Conserve and heal the legions using them in pairs as fortified defenders in forts or citadels or rough terrain. I still had all five of them up through turn 60.

6) I followed the advice posted here to use the workers to chop out production at Constantinople. Those early Spearman helped protect Adrianople.

7) I also used a worker near Cyrene to destroy the road to Alexandria but first I used him to help chop out its harbor improvement,

8) Conventional wisdom is to avoid building walls because of maintenance and diminished production. But a city with low production beats a lost city. Walls make some sense in an exposed weak city. You might try pre-building but interrupting the wall production when it is 90% complete so you can finish it quickly if you need it.

Good luck.

So yesterday I won the achievment playing Eastern Rome. I personally think that it is absolutely impossible to win as West Rome.

Here is what I did:

1. Set all your cities to full production. Most will stagnate in growth which is good because you are low in happiness anyway. Still set them on "no growth". Then set the cities closest to the borders on scouts and spearmen. In the background build swordman and bowman. If you got a good feeling save it. At turn 0 nothing moved.

2. With that savegame you can start the most important. I lost only 4 cities. Trapezunt will go to the Huns. Melitene and Edessa to the Sassanids. And Naissus will go for very short time to the Goths. Vandals get nothing.

Now as far as I remember:

Therefore I moved one legion backward. They were put on the hills so the Vandals could not conquer Seleukia. Another legion close to Antiochia building the first fort. This alone would not have saved it. I managed to move 2 dromons there to sink their ships fast enough.

Mistra was defended by scout and dromon. Scouts were always used to block enemies pumping them out within 2-4 turns usually is a good choice if you got no time. The dromons in africa had to stay there for the first turns. Moving them out they get killed and belong to the Vandals.

About Naissus you will first retreat to Adrianopolis and save Drachyium and save your greek units to Sirmium. You really want to Goths to try to split up a bit but mainly focus on Naissus so you can take out most of their army defending Sirmium and Adrianople. Doing well you should be able to gain back the low 13 points Naissus with just 3-4 turns using bowman, cataphracts (which i build mostly in constantinople besides dromons) and your legions.

Now comes the main key to success. Thedosopolis should not be conquered by the huns or anyone. This seems almost impossible but it has bigger walls than Trapezunt and with some luck the Sassanids and huns will kill each other. Later in game the huns will be that strong you cannot take it back. I tried it with different games and strong armies. No way. I shot mostly hun battery rams or red units to kill them. At around turn 4 or 5 there was no unit left around Theodosiopolis so I started moving my first northern units close to the mountains to Theodosiopolis with another legion so they cannot take it back.

Saving Theodosiopolis you have a good chance now to conquer back the fast improving (wall around 24) Trapezunt back from huns with dromons. Did that around turn 20-25.

So what about Edessa ? Once conquered its still a weak 13 city. If you defend antiochia well and got your first units from south up there you should be able to reconquer it with 4-6 units using the legion that has built up the fort.

And Melitene ? Well thats an ugly one with wall 24. But if you got Edessa back and the Hun city in north you can easily surround it. Try take it back once you get a general. But still try before turn 30.

Now about the defense.

Once you gain back a city of you you will let it grow to around 3 and instantly build wall.

I used my first general from south to take back Edessa and improve therefore troop strenght. After taking Edessa back I used it to build a citadel the second space on the hill east of it. Its out of the 2 square range from the other Sassanid cities and gives you more territory. Then you can control the hills with just 2 bowman and 1 spearman easily. Later on the Sassanids (turn 40-50) will attack with a giant army. If you move some troops to Palmyra they will not attack there but near Edessa. But with this citadel you can easily kill them all.

My second general from Constantinople was used to take back Trapezunt. Then I used it to build a citadel east of Theodosiopolis (the one north to the sheep and out of range of Anium - the other one was set up later) which did a very good job too.

The third general is not building a citadel. It just increase the strenght of all troops near Naissus. There you first reconsturct your infrastructure and then build a lot of forts in north to the Goths with 2 squares each. With like 10-15 units the goths will never come back. Before their next massive attack you will have time to take back the west roman city in the west using dromons as help.

With all that you will have your cities back and borders saved. Always make sure you use rough terrain and your units are in a straight line so the enemy get no bonus.

Now about the dromons. After saving Seleukia I instantly moved all my dromons to the west roman coast. 3 on each side to prevent the attackers. It will not save Ravenna but it will give west rome some time (and points). I even managed to save Rome itself up to turn 70.

Use another 5-6 dromons and an admirale near Carthago. The vandals will have around turn 50-60 such an incredible fleet that they will still take out all these dromons but this way you save carthago and more important your own african cities.

Social policies:

First screw up your walls. Almost no city has walls so it doesnt matter. Next is your money. Then again your money. I was red the whole game in gold but it doesnt matter. You have more than 20 cities so 1 unit killed per turn or per 2 turns doesnt matter. It mostly kills your scouts that why I build them in weak cities. Sometimes it also kills red units therefore I lost 3 legions. Last I chose the politics that gave a -10 % bonus but at this time I had back all my cities and enough generals and forts so it was not much of a difference. The ursurper was not to chose. It had been the 5th. Avoid the happiness policy.


Enough said this is me at turn 67.

http://imageshack.com/a/img716/2311/3ewq.jpg

I also made a picture of west but for somewhat the screen got black uh ? maybe later try it again.

I won as Western Rome. Hardest achievement I've done so far... took me over 40 hours.

There are 3 main ways to lose the scenario.

Lose by not getting all your cities back.
Lose to the Sassanids if they capture and hold too many cities. (random)
Lose to the Huns if they capture too many cities. (random)

There are also 3 main combat fronts and you should focus on all of them at the same time.

The Vandals in Africa and Iberia.
The Celts and Franks in Gaul.
The Goths in the Balkans.

Game strategy:
Focus the Vandal attention on Africa (retreat from the first city, Rusadir, to draw them in), you don't want their main army to go in Iberia.
Take control of the sea (with many, many triremes) and reconquer Iberia.
After that take their capital, Caput Vada, with ballistas positioned on the 2 hills in Iberia, attack the city with triremes so that the city fires at the boats instead of the ballistas.
The reason to take their capital is to stop them from spamming boats, giving you control of the sea. Their city is also much easier to defend than Rusadir (which might get overrun in the late game).
After you have the Vandal capital you can reduce your troop presence in the area since taking their remaining 2 cities will be nearly impossible if they have the 50% combat promotion.
Even so, it will be very difficult to hold the city, you can either leave 6-10 triremes (and the two ballistas) to just take the city back every time you lose it, or build a citadel on a nearby hill.
Send all your extra triremes north to defend against the Celts.

After you retake your cities from the Celts fortify units (archers) all along the coast (if you don't have enough triremes). They are much easier to deal with in the water.

In Gaul try not to lose Lugdunum (it's on a hill). And if given the choice lose cities to the Celts instead of the Franks (you don't want to fight both of them there).
When it comes to the offense versus the Celts, Franks and Goths, chop forests, build roads and focus on taking their cities with a line of melee and lots of catapults.

Combat:
Make sure you always have 14 active legions (or how much iron you have available) and focus on taking their archers and catapults since those have an 80% chance of converting. You might want to leave 1 or 2 horse unused since you sometimes convert horsemen.
During the early game, smash as many catapults as possible, they are the doom of your cities.
The barbarians will attack a city with 10 to 15 units in some cases...
If you are unlucky some barbarians will get the 50% combat policy very early. Remember that only their melee units get the bonus. Build lots of archers against them.
Do not take the 10% combat penalty. Fighting the barbarians with their 50% combat bonus is hard enough.
Use workers to build roads all over contested areas, you want your troops to move freely.
Use workers aggressively to chop forests when your catapults cannot see the enemy city (versus the Celts most likely).
Use citadels aggressively to take difficult cities (vs franks or goths).
If you cannot advance, start sacrificing your extra scouts, spearmen and archers to give your catapults enough time to bring cities down (brute force it).

Cities:
Build only units and workers for the entire game (and happy buildings where available) as the economy is unrecoverable.
Cap growth in all cities to 2 (colosseum) or 3 (for extra production), unless they have a circus, in which case 4 is best.
Starve useless cities if you are running out of happiness (especially before getting the -1 happiness per luxury policy).
Don't bother fixing the economy (just stay afloat for a few turns until you get the -50% trade income policy), I had -300 gpt by the end of the game, just build loads of scouts (and use them in occasional combat). Your weakest unit will be disbanded every few turns.
Use all workers to chop forests in the start of the game. (don't bother removing roads)

The focus in the early game is to stop the Vandals in Africa and the Goths in the Balkans. You need Eastern Rome points to win this.
If the Huns are advancing too much you might try to send a few Horsemen to kill their battering rams.
Once you secure the Balkans send a force to attack either the Sassanids or the Huns, depending on who is doing better.

Good luck...

Well. . I guess not worry about it because you eventually can try again and fix the mistakes did you did by saving before and loading after. It would take awhile particularly from loading times but if youre patient and make the necessary editions youll get it..

Egh I nearly won Diety as Eastern Rome once. Persia seems to be the real threat in this game. I don't find western rome so hard to defend from constantinople as you can blast through the mediterranean with Dromons. That range 2 fire attack and a bonus against naval units means you can put your upgrade to attacking land units and at +33% damage per promotion you can incinerate any barbarian within the mediterranean. Build them and keep 2-3 in the Black sea near the Huns and also around the Aegean to repel the Vandals. Once the Vandals are repelled send them to the Italian Peninsula to help your Western ally. Once they get to rank 3 they are very good for recapturing cities.

Success imo needs to come from very tedious micromanagement.
You really need to play through and get a feel for where the AI strikes. Frontier cities that you expect to lose in a few turns are best used to build scouts. Scouts fortified can actually take a decent amount of damage particularly if you place them on hills behind rivers etc. Scouts are also useful in that they are the units that tend to disband first (unless you have a legion on 5hp - do everything to avoid this). They also make very good fodder and help with flanking bonuses.

Legions can start trying to build Forts - but if you feel they are in a vulnerable position pull them back to where they can be used more effectively.
Dromons and Composite bowmen are the best option to build further back. City walls in cities a just back from the front may also be advisable so long as you have time to build them - otherwise scouts or spearmen.
Spearmen are great particularly for barbarian civs that have mounted units. That +50% bonus will always come in handy.
You should also try and get some extra workers when your frontier is a bit more stable. Chopping forests as others mentioned is highly recommended. The more early hammers and early units the quicker you can blunt the barbarian and persian onslaught.