I have a question. I am new to Civilization, but am loving every minute of it. I recently played this scenario as Western Rome on King difficulty. I ended up loosing, but I don't understand why. It says that Empires gain victory points for control of imperial cities. Well, I had control of all of my cites (I lost some, but took them back eventually), and even took 3 more, 1 from the Goths, 1 from the Franks, and 1 from the Vandals. I would think this would help my score, as it increases the number of cities I control beyond what I am expected to maintain. The Goth's and the Huns went to town on Eastern Rome, but I was able to retake all the cities the East had lost to the Goths, but I couldn't do anything about the Huns because they were so far away. Plus, I was busy fighting my own battles as well as helping take back land the East had lost to the Goths.
The ranking was 1) Huns 2) East 3) Me.
The Huns crushed the East, so I can understand why they did well. But I can't fathom why I had a lower score than East Rome. In fact, my score was closer to that of the Sanssanids than to East Rome.
The Sanssanida were almost completely destroyed this game!
I really enjoyed this scenario until the end when I found out that I didn't understand how the rules worked apparently. I am wondering if I lost because I kept my population low. I did this to try and deal with the insane amount of unhappiness that would result from a growing empire with this many cities. The rules did say that bigger cities count more, but I thought this only applied to the Barbarian Tribes when they took cities. If I do have to let my cities grow large, then I have no way to prevent unhappiness. I will eventually get hit with a -33% combat penalty from so much unhappiness.
How the in the world is my score calculated? Why was my score worse than East Rome and nearly as bad as the Sanssanids? Did taking those extra cities give me any points at all, was it a complete waist of time? I assumed that once I took them they would become "imperial cities" and increase my score. Was this wrong? What the hell am I supposed to do about the Huns? Am I to believe that not only do I have to defend my land from 4 different invaders, but I have to send units all the way over to the other side of the map to defend the borders of land I don't even control? WTF!
I am attaching a picture of the starting map, my end game map, and a screen shot so you can see the final score.
Can someone please help me understand how this scenario works. I would love to play it again, but I see no point if the description of the rules are so vague that I have to guess at what they are.