RBC12B - Fall of Rome - Celts, Sid

This is mostly a placeholder post at the moment until I get a chance to look at the scenario and think about strategy and such, but here it is for players to check in.

RBC12B - Fall of Rome - Celts, Sid difficulty

ROSTER (edited)

T-hawk
Speaker
Coffee
Jabah
Charis

moving along and checking in

Checking in. Hopefully we'll actually win this one.

@Speaker, got that. And on the subject of winning Arathorns post says it nicely. The settler does return 1 population.

What we need are lots of galleys -> map making. I suppose what I'm trying to say that I see this as a 2 pronged invasion by sea into Romes soft underbelly. Five more cities are needed on the mainland to eliminate Rome. Rome is suffering rampant corruption, so cities close to shore will work just fine. I'm guessing 30 galleys, 10 for each invasion and 10 in reserve to resupply. Then its a race to settle and hold the VP sites or not if the migrants are close to the sites.

If there is still a free seat and you accept me, I could be in.

I had started this scenario with the Celt (unfortunatly) in semi god so It is probably better if I play last to avoid using too much pre-knowledge.

What I can tell (and see my comments on the Visigoths thread).

- happiness was a problem/nuissance in semigod so it should be ### in sid. Temple ARE expensive (compared to units)
- for an ultra-corrupted Civilisation, Rome was putting a really good fight (in term of units) in England - so having weakly protected cities there (see spearman remarks) is a good step toward losing more cities than we can afford .
- connecting Iron in both Ireland and Scotland is top priority as well as getting marauder.


More later.

Jabah

Sure, Jabah, you're in and slotted at the end of the roster.

T-hawk << UP NOW
Speaker << On Deck
Coffee
Jabah

I think Arathorn pretty much covered the strategy as well, though I'll have a look at it when I can and see what I can come up with.

OK, some initial thoughts:

* Tribal Council government the whole game, as the Civilopedia and Arathorn both suggest

* We start with our cities pre-built, unlike some other barb civs (Huns)

* We can get by in the long run with none of the second-age techs. Military Strategy for 5-3-2 cavalry isn't necessary compared to 8-3-1 Warlords.

* I think Bamspeedy has shown us the secret to success on Sid. Catapults, catapults, and more catapults. There are no unit maintenance costs! They mesh well with 1-move barb units as well. A stack of about twelve should be enough to redline each Roman outpost in England; we can take England without even researching up the barb tech tree.

* Catapults upgrade to trebuchets, which are WAY WAY at the end of the tech tree where we'll likely never get on Sid.

* The "Barbarism" advance is untradable so the Romes can't get it, and flavor settings prevent them from researching it. (We start with it.) The rest of the barb techs are tradable.

* No Forbidden Palace; we get only one core.

* Great Wonders: forget it. The 200-shield Scourge of God is very tempting, but it's an optional tech that offers nothing else; we won't be able to afford investing economy into that on Sid.

* We start with no contacts, although can contact Western Rome on the first turn. Our neighboring civs of the Anglo-Saxons and Franks start with the same techs as us, except that the Franks lack Sailing. There won't be much early brokering, and Rome starts with Alphabet and Masonry, meaning we won't get to research and trade them at monopoly.

My initial thoughts are to somehow research up to Mathematics, build a dozen each of catapults (they have the usual (4)-0-1 stats) and 2-1-1 Raiders to blitz England and turn that into productive territory for ourselves.

Notta to diagree with. I have a preference for immortals first, then catapults and then galleys. We'll need at least one harbor to upgrade the caraghs so a good food city on the eastern shore will do nicely.

Immortals? I think you mean marauders (4-2-1, require Marauding, the next tech in the barbarian tree.) I would still prefer catapults first; we need a LOT of them. I didn't realize the stats of the Roman Legionary in this scenario: 4-4-1 (50 shields.) We'll need more than 12 catapults to redline a city that manages to get one or two of those. And Marauders can be upgraded from Raiders, while we have to build all the catapults from scratch. I'd still go for the cats first. Last reason is that we do get a 2nd-civ discount (thanks to Rome) on researching towards Math, but not on Marauding (and the AI loves offensive-unit techs; we aren't going to research it before our barb neighbors.)

Edit: OK, I couldn't resist and peeked in the editor (I can do that here at work. ) Each of the border Roman cities in England starts with one veteran Legionary, marked for AI Defense, and nothing else. Legionarys are only 20 shields on Sid for the AI to build more, and we know the AI puts very high priority on getting at least two defenders into every city. I don't think going after that with just Marauders is wise; we'll want to go the slow-but-reliable way with Catapults.

Marauding is the next tech on the tree where math comes in third. I'm ok with both, waiting the extra turns for math may slow the expansion some, but permits time for contacts & hopefully alliances. We'll need to make good use of alliances to pull the AI strings. That assumes an assult in the southwest corner of Rome.

Let's make sure we learn from RBC4 where the Sid AI overwhelmed us with Silent Hunters when we were unable to build any bombardment units. I agree with T-Hawk that Cats are the priority over marauders.

Agreed.

Edit: By the time we get math and have some cats built we'll also have marauding and can upgrade. It a problem of cash, happiness is going to be an issue and I'm averse to building temples etc. when I can get furs from Rome.

Those cities will be fully corrupt and Romes core is many turns away so I don't think capturing those cities and defending the island is a problem. Getting off the island is more the problem for the long run. I'm good with both.

Here's a picture of the start:



I set research to Alphabet first because it's more expensive than Masonry and less likely for our neighbor barbs to get it sooner; we might get it before one of them.

The two cities in Scotland start with both barracks and granary; none of the other cities start with anything.

Any more comments or observations are welcome. I'll be playing the Huns game tonight and this one tomorrow.

Here's a comment: for Elimination games, does it count twice if a civ loses a city twice? Can we conquer four cities from Rome on the British Isles, give them back, conquer them again, and *poof* goes Rome? EDIT: never mind, you can't give away cities in Elimination.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc12b-324ad.zip

Any more comments or observations are welcome
I'm fairly certain that the Romes English cities don't have harbors. We shpuld settle the iron sites in southern England to delay the early build of legionairs.

If you lost a city twice it is the same as losing 2 cities (I tested it after a Roman city FLIPPED back to Rome and I had to recapture it), so if Rome decides to build cities in England, we might have to conquer more than 3 there. and yes cities can flip back in this scenario.

Eliminating Rome early is probably not a good idea as our fellow barbarians will be the ones feeding on Rome dead body. (BTW what happens to the cities of a civ that is eliminated, did they stay with 'neutral' force defending or what)

I kind of disagree with the catapult, Rome might have 2 legionnaires in each city, but without Iron or Harbor, they are gonna build like 8-10 garnisons (ie spear) in each city for defence (that is what they did when I play) as soon as possible. Catapult can be nice to soften legionnaire, but we will have to kill unsoften garnison -mainly because with that many units there won't be enough cats to seriously damage everyone- and a 4.2.1 barbarian (at least) can do that without problem. (at least in England - on the continent it will be another story, catapults will be needed there)

What I am trying to say is that we should be facing hords of spears and archers, we do need some catapult for defensive purpose, but we probably need decent offensive units more than cats.

Anyway, we should/would have both Marauding (at least) and Math when striking time comes.

We probably should delay having an outpost in France (or anywhere apart UK) before finishing Rome in England as we won't be able to defend it against Heavy cavalry that Rome might have very soon.

On the victory point subject, I think we should try not to get other barbarian against Rome too soon, as killing units and capturing cities score big and they will be in better position than us for that (except if we think that they won't be able to protect their cities and do that in order to have them eliminated by Rome - it might work as well but is dangerous).

Agree with Coffee for settling cities next to the iron in Wales and South-West England to denie Legionaire, but we will have to be ready to defend properly when it will be time to hammer Rome.

Another 'tactical' question is do we want to connect the Iron in Ireland or use those cities to build cheap raider and upgrade them in Scotland.

And remember that without expensive temple, our culture will be inexistant (for the city cultural expansion), so we should pack our cities a little bit (anyway Great Britain geography will force us to do so).

Regarding the furs, should we build a colony there and hope Rome won't build a temple in Eporacum soon?


Regarding the tech tree, barbarians tech might be more expensive to buy than regular ones (especially since the regular ones are known by both Roman Empire + Perse?)

that is all for now, all comments welcome

Jabah

Interesting choice of going alphabet. Normally it seems like the barbarian AIs squander their initial cash on getting this tech from the Romes. ( Probably together with their maps/contacts. )

I will follow this interesting alternative opening closely.

Grimjack

(BTW what happens to the cities of a civ that is eliminated, did they stay with 'neutral' force defending or what)

Click to expand...

They are completey destroyed -- turn to ruins. It becomes a landgrab again. All of their cities and units are instantly destroyed, as if a might YUMBO unit came through and razed all their cities. It's elimination.

You can do this 8-city elimination thing to more than just the Romes, and, playing on Sid, I'm guessing you're going to need to do so...set up a series of gangbangs for whatever civ is closest to the 35000 VP barrier, being careful to deliver some of the finishing blows yourself (I'm uncertain whether the YUMBO/wrath of god effect counts towards your VP total -- I think it does).

Arathorn

Arathorn - In the scenario notes (can't remeber exactly where I spotted this - possibly in one of the threads or in the civpedia) there is a significant bonus for destroying the eight city. I'm not sure if this is a straight up calc for the remaining bits and pieces or a fixed amount.

Eliminating Rome early is probably not a good idea as our fellow barbarians will be the ones feeding on Rome dead body.

I'm of the opinion that on Sid, we need to eliminate whatever we can whenever we can. The Romes win on victory points around turn 120 if they're not taken out before that. Let's knock them out, then worry about taking on the other barb tribes.


I kind of disagree with the catapult, Rome might have 2 legionnaires in each city, but without Iron or Harbor, they are gonna build like 8-10 garnisons (ie spear) in each city for defence (that is what they did when I play)

Right. And one thing we can't afford on Sid is to take too many unit losses - we can't afford to be spending marauders attacking fortified legionarys, and even against spearmen marauders will take more losses than we really want. We need *both* catapults and marauders to solidly conquer England, and then the units can move right over to the Continent and keep attacking. There *will* be enough catapults to soften all the defenders if we build enough.


Another 'tactical' question is do we want to connect the Iron in Ireland or use those cities to build cheap raider and upgrade them in Scotland.

I think we need to build marauders instead, when possible. On Sid, you don't get gold to waste on upgrades; everything you can put towards tech economy has to go there.


Regarding the furs, should we build a colony there and hope Rome won't build a temple in Eporacum soon?

I'm hesitant to waste a worker, but it's a possibility that I'll look at.


Regarding the tech tree, barbarians tech might be more expensive to buy than regular ones (especially since the regular ones are known by both Roman Empire + Perse?)

I don't expect to be buying much of any tech until it gets around to several civs. We're counting on Rome trading around our contact to Byzantium and the other barbarian tribes. That seems to have happened in most of the other RBC12 games, so it should here...


Edit: Tonight got busier than expected. I can play tomorrow for sure.

Just a few think that I noticed in this scenario that might not be in the Civilopedia

- It seems that the 'second age' tech and possibly Fortification and Imperialism are not tradable BETWEEN barb civilisations (I had to buy them from Rome - and sell them to Perse only) and there is no (?) way to know if the other barbs have them (well except facing heavy cavalries and trebuchets.

- On top of that Second Age techs were dirty cheap to buy (like 8gpt each from a furious Rome/Byzance - and were not a peace concession) and hard to research.

---> It is a good idea to be at peace at least for a short time with Rome at this time to be able to get the 'heavy cavalry' tech for peanuts (and -less likely in Sid- something to give/trade to Perse).

- Rome and Byzance have more than a MPP, when you make peace with one, you automaticaly are at peace with the other.

- the best ships can carry only 2 units, so Armies can't use them. (In case we get one in England, it will stay there).

- the Atlantic NW of Ireland is consider a lake for food purpose (and probably harbor can't be built there)



Regarding our Celt scenario

- forget my comments about the furs as long as we don't have habours in both Scotland and Ireland, it will be useful only for 2 cities.
But as soon as we get the Roman border city we probably should use a slave for colony as it will take ages to have a temple there.

- we do want to get (at least) 2 cities in the SouthWest of England to deny Iron (and Legionnaires) to Rome there, but what about the East, should we let Rome settle there (good for number of lost roman cities) or another barb (Anglo-Saxon can get there in no time if they want, they start in Denmark with boats) since at least 1 spot look very nice (at the end of the small river with 2cows+1wheat).
But defending all that against Rome might be a nightmare (well except if we strike very very hard once and get the 2 northern cities first turns)
---> I think it might be better to let the AI do it, if Rome it is more targets, if another one, well it is our next foe.

- Isle of Man (between England and Ireland) could be a not stupid place to settle to get some titles in Ireland before temple, and is in the long term not bad (have a fish, a grassland (forrest) and can share 1 plain and 1 hill)

- Another question, if we have a leader (or a second leader after army), should we consider moving the Palace in a more central position in England as our capitol is stupidly far away in the north

And then a little silly (as I know some are in water under the fog!!!) dotmap that will need to be adjust according to
- ocean and fish
- AI strategy
---> it is far too dense for my taste, but considering that cities will be small for a long time ...


Jabah