RBC12G - Sassanids (Emperor)

Here we are! The assault on Rome shall start and the mighty Persians shall rise again to a powere unknown before: The Shahansha Shapur has come to power of the mighty sassanidian kingdom!

I was so impudent to open the thread. (Is this good english?).
Our players are:

Ducki
mitsho
Improviser
Corrado
Caesar Augustus

I think we can take this roster? We only have to wait and look for Ducki and Improviser. I haven't heard of them talking about this SG!

Our starting position:


Our tech tree:


I am sorry the pictures are in german, but you certainely can read them. I was too lazy to translate the whole tech tree. The pictures must be enough.

And to the terrain. I know, not everyone likes this terrain. It's cordy's and I like this.

Our best unit is the heavy cavalry (we have two of them at the start, but we need some time (~40 turns) to research them)! They come with military tradition in the second age! So I think we chould concentrate first on researching them an expand in peace! But I never played this scenario before!

For a good game! mitsho

So . . . we're the Sassanids on Emperor. This game should be an enjoyable romp. I've loaded up the scenario
and looked at our starting position The way I see it, we have several advantages over the other civs in this scenario:

-Technologies We're the most advanced playable civ in the game. We can't research any of the barbarian techs
however, since the entry tech of Barbarism is untradeable and it would take 200+ turns to research. Western and
Eastern Rome are up at least Fortifications (which we can trade for after accumulating some gold), Mapmaking
(I think we should trade for it first, so we can sell our map to the backwards Barbarian civs for $$$ and contacts),
and Imperialism (a useless and thankfully optional tech and gov't, since our second advantage is . . .

-Tribal Council We start the game in the best form of government, Tribal Council. We have *FREE* unit support,
2 Military Police, 2 Draft Limit, Minimal Corruption, and Forced Labour, and NO war weariness. Imperialism can cash buy
stuff, but it has rampant corruption and war weariness. So we should never change govt's.

-MIGRANTS This is a biggie. Migrants are 20 shield, 2 movement, *1 pop cost*, settlers. We should be able to
quickly settle all of Iran/Iraq/Caucasus with these guys. The Romans are stuck with the standard 30 shield, 1 movement,
2 pop cost settlers. Fast-moving Migrants will help us quickly settle those victory point locations.

-Luxuries and Resources We start the game with 1 horse, 1 iron, and 1 silks already connected.

Above I've identified the other resources. Priority #1 should be to road those spices. We should settle directly on top
of those wines, so we can make use of them right away and not waste worker turns roading it.

-Heavy Cavalry Personally, I think the Warlord units (8.3.1, 12 collateral bombard) are overrated in this scenario.
They have enslave and attack of 8, but are so-so on defense and only have 1 movement point. I agree with mitsho,
Heavy Cavalry (5.3.2) are the best unit; we can cover the map quickly with them (important considering we only have
120 turns before either W. or E. Rome wins on VPs) and they have the retreat capability. Who needs the barbarian
tech branch? We're only 3 techs away from Military Tradition and Heavy Cavs.

-STARTING LOCATION This is the most important. We're nicely tucked away in a safe corner of the map.
Our only 'threat' ATM are the Eastern Romans. Later the Huns and Ostrogoths might send some units down, but we can
easily fortify/settle the Caucasus region and set up a nice, tight line of defence.


IMHO, the only three units we have to build are migrants, workers, and horsemen/Heavy cav. Horsemen (30 shields)
will be expensive to upgrade to Heavy Cav (70 shields, so probably 120 gold a pop), but it'll be worth it.
Spearmen/Roman Garrisons are 1.2.1, 20 shields, and are basically worthless on the Defence. So Heavy Cav will be
our main defenders as well as attackers. BTW, the only difference between Spearmen and ROman Garrisons are that
the latter have ZOC and can be drafted.

Cats/Trebs would be nice to knock down those 4 def. Legions, but I think our 5 attack Heavy Cav are enough to take
them out. Plus having to worry about 1 movement bombardment units would only slow us down. I'd rather invest the
shields into heavy cavs.

IMO we should focus on migrants and workers these first 20 or so turns. Ctesiphon is ideal for a few migrants to begin.
We should settle tightly too, not ICS/Borg style , but maybe with only 2-3 tiles in between cities max. We'll want lots
of size 6-8 cities pumping out Horsemen. Build barracks and maybe a temple to expand culture and work more
tiles. Set research to 0, and buy mapmaking in a few turns from the E. Romans. By the time our 20 turn GPT deal
with them expires, we should be ready to start chipping away at their empire. Once we get Military Tradition, we could
shut off research and amass our gold for horsemen-->Heavy Cav upgrades.

Right now we have 2 Heavy Cavs (elite, named 'Immortals', in Ctesiphon), and 3 horsemen. I vote that we send
ALL of them exploring - maybe the 2 elites into the desert to search for more luxuries/city sites, and the 3 horses
can take the roads to make contact with the other civs (so we don't have to pay for contact).

Diplomacy will be key in this game, which is why we need contacts. While we concentrate on the E. Romans, we
should establish embassies with the barbarian tribes and ally with them v.s Western Rome . However, on Emperor,
the Barb civs will be slower to grow and attack W. Rome, so we'll need to move fast through the East and attack the West before Rome amasses too many VPs.

Of course, if things are going really well, I'd like to delay victory and take out ALL of the other civs as well

Mount up Sassanids, time to trample some Roman scum!

RB Civ Exploits List

If anyone hasn't checked it out yet, there it is.

Although 'surprise' attacks and declaring war to break GPT/diplomatics deals are only considered 'dastardly', I think we should avoid them due to their 'cheapness' factor. The mighty Sassanid empire has her Heavy Cavalry; we have no need for such barbaric tactics!

Two important notes:

First, this game heavily favors the offense. Even behind City wall equivalents, the best defender we can build is no real match for a few Heavy Cavalry.

Second, when someone loses 8 cities, they are out. This includes us. Be wary about building a lot of little cities- if we declare on Eastern Rome and they knock out a few of our tiny outposts, we run the risk of being kicked out of the game.

Yeah, we'll definitely have to station some heavy cav detachments near our Syrian and Caucasian borders to protect city losses. Offense will be the best defense in this scenario.

With our map position though, I still think a dense build is the way to go. A bunch of 8 pop / 10 shield cities should help crank out the horsemen in 4 and heavy cav in 7, and with our luxuries and MP we'll have no need for happiness improvements.

Another note - since Tribal Council is a pop rushing gov't, money will only be important for tech buys, embassies, alliances, and the luxury slider. So I think markets, churches, colosseums, libraries, etc . . are all worthless to us. Barracks, horsemen, and workers are all we need

Oh, and galleys later on of course, so we can get to Western Rome.

I pm'ed Ducki to see when we could get this puppy started, but the PM message tracker says that he/she hasn't been to CFC since Jan. 22. So if no one minds, I'm going to start us off. If I run into any strategic decisions, I'll stop before my full 10 turns to post here.

CA

'Impudent' was a very good word choice mitsho, though not a very commonly used word

Given Ducki's absence, let me adjust the starting roster by swaping first and last, and assigned Caesar as the new host of the Sassanids:

Caesar Augustus <- new host
mitsho
Improviser
Corrado
Ducki <-- needs to confirm interest in the game

Good luck guys!
Charis

Thanks Charis, and good luck with your games!


FUN SASSANID FACT: The Sassanid Kingdom derives its name from Sasan, grandfather of Artaxerxes I. Artaxerxes (211-12 - 241 AD) was the founder of the Sassanid Kingdom.


Alright, my gameplan for our opening is to A) explore our middle-eastern starting area so hopefully we can B) find some more luxuries. C) Micro-manage our cities to optimally produce workers and then a few migrants. D) Make contact with both East and West Rome and the other civs, and hopefully buy our way into the second age.

324 AD (1) We have 8 cities, all of which have Barracks and Granaries, and there are plenty of Marketplaces and Temples spread around too. Our capital, Ctesiphon, has every improvement except a Library and a Colosseum - including a Courthouse? In the Capital? Well, with Democracy-like corruption and patch 1.15, which seems to make the Capital impervious to corruption, I sell it for 12 gold to save on maintenance. Too bad we couldn't load it onto a cart and move it somewhere else.

I set research to zero and luxuries to 10% (to prevent a riot in Ctesiphon), and we're at +29gpt, 100 gold. As for our cities, I'm going to build some more workers in most of them (gotta love free unit support ). The worker in Spasinu moves to the spices and will begin roading next turn. Ctesiphon begins work on a Migrant, due in 3. Susa is mm'ed to avoid starvation next turn and begins work on a Worker, due in 4. Singara: Worker in 4. Babylon: Migrant in 4 (should be a nice 4 turn Migrant factory; with some worker improvements will go to 3 or even 2 turns. Nehavend, at 5spt, will be our Spearman factory for cheap defence and MP.

Time to plan our exploration.

While I want to use our our two Elite Heavy Cavs to explore, I also want to keep them close to home in case the E. Romans get stupid . The 3 Horsemen can hopefully get us loads of contacts, and if the exploring goes well enough we can sell our WM every few turns for some $$$ that can be turned into tech buys and embassies.

We make contact with E. Rome; they have Silver and Gold (two strat resources used to build the Hagia Sophia and St. Peter's Great Wonders, but note that neither are necessary for the only wonder we'll be thinking of building, Justinian's Leadership), Wines, Dyes, Contact with W. Rome. Nothing can get us MM yet, but when our horses meet W. Rome the tech price should come down.

Our 'Red' Explorer uncovers some incense on a road to the east of Caesarea! A definite place to settle a city later.

[IBT] LONG wait as roughly 40 cities are founded by the barbarian civs

326 AD (2) Worker MM'ing, exploring. Check E. Rome, they now have contact with the Visigoths, still won't give us the time of day for MapMaking.

328 AD (3) I sent Ctesiphon's spear to the wines as garrison for the future city (since Migrants have a move of 2, best to send it now). Our capital still has two archers for Military Police.

W. Rome now has contact with us! I trade our World Map, 13gpt, and 158 gold for Map Making. I then dial up E. Rome and trade our World Map and 8 Gold for Contact with the Franks and Visigoths. We get Contact with the Ostrogoths + TM from the Visigoths for our WM. 50 Gold + TM from the Ostros for our WM. 35 Gold + TM + Contact with the Anglo-Saxons from the Franks for our WM + Contact with the Visigoths. Anglo Saxons give us their WM + 50 gold for our WM + Cont. with the Visigoths. I re-dial W. Rome and E. Rome and trade them both Contact with the Anglo-Saxons and our WM for 70 Gold, 11 Gold, and their WM.

Phew. I establish embassies with E. Rome, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths (the three civs closest to us). I realize we'll be at war with E. Rome for most of the game, but I'd like to improve our relations from 'annoyed' until we're ready to take the fight to them. I pass on one with W. Rome, since it'll cost 143G. Here's Constantinople:

We now stand at 43g, +16gpt. I leave research at 0, since Fortification would be 71 turns at 1 gpt income. We have lots of time to build cities and horsemen before we need it though

330 AD (4) Ectabana Worker-->Horseman. Ctesiphon Migrant-->Horseman (optimized for 6spt). Migrant sent to wines. Spices hooked up, luxuries to 0%; now at 20gpt. Whoa! Our 'blue' horse explorer finds an ivory near the silks colony!

We need to get a migrant out here!

332 AD (5) Susa Worker-->Horseman. Babylon Migrant-->Migrant. Nothing new on the trading scene. Victory Point Score:

334 AD (6) Arbela's borders expand. Spasinu Worker-->Migrant. Singara Worker-->Spearman in 7. Peshawar founded on the wines, and starts on a barracks. Trade our WM to the Romans for 14 gold; now at 110 gold, +24gpt. They still won't budge on Fortification.

336 AD (7) Nothing built this turn, but we did found Persepolis to the west of Babylon. Barracks are ordered up for it.

Trade WM to the Anglo-Saxons for WM and 8 gold. Trade WM to W. Rome for WM and 12 gold. Hmm, with a worker currently roading some silks and with us about to get ivory, I decide now is the time to get Fortification. I trade Silks, Spices, 100g, and 15gpt to W. Rome for Fortification. This will buy us insurance if either they or E. Rome declares war on us - they'll lose their silks. I'm a little worried about pumping up W. Rome too much though . . . we'll have to make sure to dogpile them in a big way sometime after this deal runs out. BTW, this tech allows us to cross rivers freely and to build fortresses. We are only down Imperialism (worthless) to both Romans now. I'm going to hold off on research and let them get Military Tradition for us - we need time to settle and build more horsemen anyway. Boosts luxuries to 10% to make up for the lost luxuries - we'll be able to bring it down soon enough.

338 AD (8)

340 AD (9) On the road north we come across some Hun horsemen.

Umm I hope they're not coming down to pay us a visit . . .

We meet with Atilla; good god someone has beaten the poor man with the mother of all ugly sticks! We trade him our WM + Contacts with the Visi and Ostro for his WM + 50 Gold. Whoa, the Huns already have 10 cities - we'll have to keep an eye on them. Hopefully they follow history and go West. I then do lotsa map/contact trading, with the end result being us up Contacts with the Vandals and Celts, 179g, and 13gpt, the gpt coming from W. Rome. I then cash in that $$$ for embassies with the Huns, Franks, and Vandals, leaving us with 44 gold and 19gpt. The Hun horsemen turn around and ride back home. That's right, GO BACK TO (ugly) MOMMY!

342 AD (10) Ecbatana Horse-->Migrant. Send the horse north to frag a freshly sprung barb camp. Kills one warrior at no damage; one warrior remaining. The first victim of our mighty Persian steeds! Babylon Migrant-->Worker. Ctesiphon Horse-->Worker; mm the city to produce a worker in 2 and grow in 2. Send Horse to the East to explore Southern Iran.

Trade our WM around for gold, and that's enough for me.

Demo/WM/Victory Points:


Notes for the next ruler:
-Ctesiphon and Babylon will produce workers on the turn they grow, so no need to bump the lux tax.
-There is a freshly built Migrant in Babylon waiting for your orders. Although the luxury rich area near the Caspian Sea is a top priority, the migrant being built in Ecbatana can claim that spot. I'd suggest settling the Babylon Migrant towards the West.
-Check diplo every turn for new contacts, and to score a few gold from maptrading.
-Peshawar may want to build a temple to bring its cattle within range; or if a new city is built to the southwest with a 3 space gap, Peshawar won't need a temple to bring it in range and can build some mighty horsemen

RBC12g_Sassanids_342_AD.SAV

Caesar Augustus (just played)
mitsho UP NEXT
Corrado (On Deck)
Improviser (???)
Ducki (???)

-24hrs to post 'got it', 48 hrs after got it to post turnlog and save.
-After reading some of the other threads, we should ban the merging of Migrants into cities, since it appears to be a broken 'feature.'

A few things:

-Justinian's Leadership (Gr. Wonder available with Military Trad.) certainly seems nice. Barracks in every city + increased chance of leaders. But 600 shields? In a 120-160 turn game? I don't know. I'd rather have 8 extra Heavy Cavs than the wonder, especially since all of our cities have / are building barracks. Thoughts?

-Barb camps are starting to spring up, so explore before sending unescorted Migrants out into unexplored areas.

-Apparently W. and E. Rome have an undocumented MPP, so war with one means war with the other.

-We're paying W. Rome the following:
13gpt (expires in 13 turns)
15gpt, Silks, Spices (expires in 17 turns)
and they're paying us 13 gpt (expires in 19 turns).

-More migrants, workers, and horsemen. Once we get a nice little force of 8-10 Heavy Cav, we march to WAR! Hopefully later on we can pop a leader with one of our two Elite Heavy Cav and make an army

hmm, I have 72 hours to play. counting from now on, there are 62 hours left. Tomorrow and wednesday I have NO chance of getting time to play. And on Thursday It'll be too late. So, I'm afraid I cannot play in this timeframe, too busy with school. I'd like to, but....

comments on the game: Shouldn't we be careful with settling cities in the direction of Rome? I mean, we haven't a big army yet and cannot defend them properly, and we don't have military tradition yet (how long would it take to research it?). The huns won't come down to attack us, I think! They may have loads of cities, BUT they are all almost totally in the plains...

@charis, impudent was the only word in the dix, I thought it sounds weird, but I didn't know.

mfG mitsho

Mitshuo, if Corrado (or Ducki or Improviser) wants to jump in before Thursday, then I'll bump you down a roster spot and you can play turns 20-30. However, if no one posts 'got it' before Thursday, then the game's all yours.

As for settling towards E. Rome, I'm not worried. Settling RIGHT NEXT to a Roman city would be bad; wouldn't want to anger them with aggressive border-pushing. But they don't worry me at all:

1) All of the forts in their territory were empty, and I didn't see any military traffic moving around, when our 'red' horseman was moving down to Egypt.

2) Constantinople and Thessalonica are their two strongest cities - and are separated from Asia Minor by the sea, thus making it time-consuming for them to mount an invasion force. And they'll have a hard time building a force near us; because of the 'rampant' corruption of Imperialism, most of their Asian Minor cities - and probably all of their Syrian/Egyptian ones - are hopelessly corrupt.

3) We have 2 Horsemen, 2 Archers, and 2 Elite Heavy Cavs 2-3 turns away from the Western front. So if someone spots a stack of slow-moving legions moving towards us, we can easily fortify the threatened city and annihilate the stack once it moves next to the city (after honourably requesting they withdraw or declare war, of course).

4) Another advantage of a tight (2-3 space) build is that we can quickly move troops from one city to another, as well as shifts garrisons to 'hot spot' cities.

About the Huns: I agree, they probably won't attack. They just worry me since they started with 12-15 horsemen However, all of the Barbs civs are polite with us; probably because Tribal Council is the 'preferred' gov't for all of us. The Romans are annoyed, probably because TC is their shunned and Imperialism their preferred.

That would be ok for me. I'll wait till thursday... and, ok , I need a look in the save to comment more, which I cannot do since I have no time

mfG mitsho

Yeah, sure. I can't get it tonight, but I'll definitely be able to pick it up tomorrow.

Is there any space left in this SG? I'm not sure I'm ready for one of the Demigod ones

Corrado (Up - will grab on Tuesday)
mitsho (On Deck)
Improviser (???)
Ducki (???)
Caesar Augustus (just played)

@DeceasedHorse - You're first alternate. After mitsho's turn, if our missing Sassanid leaders (Improv and D.) are still AWOL, we'll pencil you in over them. I've pm'ed both of them, but no response thus far.

Yeah, I agree to my leader Caesar Augustus ()! No, I doubt they 'll answer. If they were around, they definitately would have answered yet.

mfG mitsho

Sorry I should have posted something in the RBConquests sign up thread as well, but my computer game access has been severely restricted due to my brother being back at school ('You can't do anything that might distract him from his schoolwork' )... For me at least computer games were a good way to relax during my final years of school, and they certainly didn't do my results any harm (3rd in my state)... so I really can't see what the issue is.

I will be able to lurk, but actually playing the game will be out of the question... sorry to everyone for the late notice about this. Best of luck with the game, and I hope I will soon be able to take part in other succession games.

Improviser

Corrado (Up - will grab on Tuesday)
mitsho (On Deck)
DeceasedHorse
Ducki (???)
Caesar Augustus (just played)

Welcome aboard DeceasedHorse! Hope you're ready to trample some Romans

@Improviser - No problem about the late notice, better late than none at all! Hope to see you in another SG sometime.

Two more notes before dotmapping:
A) We will have no Golden Age. None of the wonders are Industrious, and we won't have access to Warlords, the only GA-causing unit in the game.
B) I read that the Upgrade Cost is only 2 in this scenario, as opposed to 3 in epic games. Therefore, our horsies will only cost 80 (70-30 = 40, 40*2=80) gold to upgrade. So let's not be afraid to pump out horsies.

Ok - since this is a large map, the OCN # for Emperor will be 19 cities (24 * 80%). We already have 10 cities, so we can still double our empire.

Sassanid Dotmap


Blue Dots (A-F) are city spots that I think we should get, but not necessarily in alphabetical order. E (near the 4 luxuries) is a must have, but will need a temple to get the spices (though our spice deal with W. Rome expires in 17, and Nehavend's borders will expand in 32). A will get us the Incense. C & D are nice and close to the capital, and are tightly spaced for optimal defence. B is another good spot, and F will snag more horses and a cow (though watch out for barbs coming from the fog).

The Red Dot in the West is a low-priority city; 3 tiles away from Arbela and Singara, and can work river tiles for +commerce. Another city can be founded near the Caspian Sea; I couldn't decide among the three spots. I'm leaning to the southern one since it'll pull in the iron and have lower corruption.

We'll have 17 cities if we settle all the blues.

What do you guys think?

A is iffy; the city will be largly useless except to grab the luxury. I think we should see what the land is like to our east, near that cow. Since we will probably want to launch an amphibious assault on the Western Romans, we will want to capture or build a coastal city on the mediterranean, so keep that in mind as well. I say that we settle D, C, and E immediatly.

True, Dot A will need lots of worker improvements to become useful, but it could eventually become a 5 spt city. However, we're pretty much set on luxuries with Spices, Silks, Ivory, and Wines, so a 5th luxury might not be that useful if all of our cities are going to be size 6-8.

Since we will probably want to launch an amphibious assault on the Western Romans, we will want to capture or build a coastal city on the mediterranean

Click to expand...

Definitely. Carthage and Alexandria are the obvious ones - both are VP locations; Alex. has the Great Lighthouse (+1 ship movement; Carthage would be the perfect base to ship our Heavy Cav into Rome and claim the Italian VP spots. Cyrene (next to Alex.) will also be another nice spot for galley construction, and the two Byzantine cities in Israel/Lebanon as well.

We should also keep skimming migrants off of our cities, even when our production core is settled. We'll need 8-10 migrant/horse pairs to quickly settle VP spots once the Romans are eliminated.