RBC12I - The Western Roman Empire

[Caesar_Augustus]

Fall of Rome RBC Succession Game Series

The RBC12 team has successfully dismantled the Roman Empire. Now, thanks to the 'Fall of Rome' scenario designer, Gobi Bear, we have the unique chance of playing the other side! We are Western Rome, and now we're the ones who have to fight off the opposing Barbarian Tribes and their Warlords!

The scenario is called Everlasting Rome - click HERE to get it:

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

-Demigod Difficulty
-C3C 1.15
-Normal SG rules: 24hrs for 'Got it', 48hrs to post with turnlog and save, 10 turns per round

Roster:
Caesar_Augustus
akots
HannibalBarka
Doc Tsiolkovski
Corrado

Demi-god+ experience please. And an AW background would be nice too, since we'll be at war for the whole game!

Edit: Roster update

[Caesar_Augustus]

-We are Militaristic and Religious (E. Rome is Commerical and Religious). Our gov't is Imperialism:

Here's the F1 screen of our empire, sorted by population (we have lots of 1 pop towns):

I fired all of the entertainers to give you all an idea of how screwed our economy is, but we'll obviously have to hire a few to prevent disorder and bankruptcy.

War Weariness is our biggest problem. We'll always be at war so there is no solution to it. And unlike Eastern Rome, we have no visible luxuries nearby, although there is some incense in Africa somewhere under the fog.

Our army:

We have more units than E. Rome, but they have 3 more legions. We also have way more cities, all spread out over Europe, Africa, and England. This is NOT good in view of the 8 city elimination rule.

[Caesar_Augustus]

Legend: All of our 'stray' units are circled with yellow.

The remnants of once-mighty Rome, first from the East:


The North East (note the furs! Too bad there's no harbours in England):


And the South West:

[akots]

It would be of great interest and honor to try to play this game for me if the Noble Host permits. The life time opportunity to observe in person and write up the fall and shame of Western Roman Empire succumbing to barbarians. It was indeed a heroic time. Age of Medeival Darkness descended on Europe after the torchlight of Roman civilization was extinguished. Trying to change the path of history would be challenging as there is huge corruption, empty treasury, war weariness, no luxuries except wines, enemies everywhere, etc. etc. A very difficult game indeed.

The only opportunity may be to strike as soon as possible with all available military before these barbarians can progress to marauding and pillaging.

[Caesar_Augustus]

True, Akots, all too true. The Roman empire has been reduced to a pathetic shell of its former self - trying to sustain and re-build it will be a Herculean task.

You're in. I agree, we need to hit fast and hard while we have the advantage. We have 3 legions in Britain, and they need to take out that Celtic city fast. We only have 3 legions along the Danube, and 3 along the Rhine, but we need to march them into Germania ASAP. Hopefully we can get lucky and raze their cities while they're still 1 pop.

Random Thoughts:

-We also need to ally ASAP with the Franks. Relieving the pressure along the Rhine frontier will enable us to concentrate on the Danube. Spain and Africa are relatively safe for now - until the Barbs get galleys going or the Sassanids overrun Alexandria and take the road west to Carthage.

R-esearch is also critical. The other RBC12 games showed that the Romans usually beeline for for Military Training. So we could let the Byzantines go for Mil. Trai., research Monotheism or Byzantine Ing., and then trade. However, @ Demigod the trade rate won't be the best, so our ally will rip us off and charge monopoly price So should we self-research or trade for Heavy Cav?

-We need to get our city pops down fast. We simply can't afford to have many size 4 or + cities, since we don't have the means to keep them happy. Plus corruption is a killer under Imperialism, so most cities won't produce more than a few shields anyway, no matter the size. So we should build some workers, and then when the pop is at a manageable level start building military.

-Catapults. Artillery is the key unit of Always War: they cut down on losses, the enemy flees when 1 hp is bombarded off, they can get the enemy down to 1hp at virtually no risk. Plus they're only 30 shields (as opposed to 50 for legions) and don't require a barracks, so our backwater Spainish and African cities can pump them out.

-Italy. This is really the only defensible area on the map, and the only place where we'll have semi-productive cities. Therefore I recommend we squeeze another 5-10 cities into there. No need to worry about them getting captured, cuz if Italy is in danger then we're pretty much screwed anyway.

-Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica: The latter is within Rome's first ring, the other two within the first few. I think we should settle them. If we blockade the Straits of Hercules (Gibraltar) with a couple of galleys, the only barb tribes we'll have to worry about for seaborne invasions for awhile are the Sassanids when they conquer Phoenicia and Alexandria.

So, to sum up:
-Ally with the Franks
-Strike hard across the Danube
-Settle Italy
-Try to somehow reign in our unruly economy
--slap our unhappy people. God I wish we could pop-rush . . .

Any other ideas/comments? I'm going to wait awhile before starting this one, we need more people and then more input into these critical first turns.

EDIT: BTW akots, what's your Civ experience level like? Will demigod be a problem for you?

[HannibalBarka]

I too was thinking about changing the scenario and play Rome or E Rome. I can't apply for now as I am still installing my new PC, but if I'll be ready when you'll start, I'll be happy to join. This going to be my first SG. I am a civ player since CIV1, and already won a lot of games at GOD level. I also won some AW games on Emperor.
Now just a suggestion, is tribal coucil available for Rome on this secnario? if yes, that is the best govt in this scenario, so maybe we should think of revolting.

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I'm interested, though I'd like to have a look at the .biq before I join.
Already participated in the vandal game (like akots), si I should be able to handle this.

Caesar_Augustus:
Your opening analysis sounds convincing, except for one point where I heavily disagree:

We need to get our city pops down fast

IMHO, Rome needs to employ lots of specialists to be able to reseach anything at a decent rate, so the outlying cities should be maxed for Food. Also, this should help with unit support.
Is there any way to draft in this Scenario, like in Middle Ages, btw?

[Corrado]

I'd love to be a part of this.

[Justus II]

@Doc, after reviewing the editor, Garrisons are set for draft, but no tech is flagged to enable it, so no luck on drafting. Also, I pointed out in my thread that the units do NOT trigger a Golden Age, but it is possible to trigger with wonders. W. Rome would need Justinians AND one of the two religious wonders (St. Peters or Hagia Sophia).

[Caesar_Augustus]

@HannibalBarka: Although I have reservations about letting you into this game due to your name, welcome aboard. Tribal Council is not an option, since it would take 150+ turns to research its tech, Barbarism. However, even if we could research Barbarism in less than 40 turns, I still wouldn't do it. We're the Romans! Upholders of civilization and order! We're too proud to use a barbaric system of government!

@Doc: Welcome aboard. As Justus said, we have no way of drafting, which really sucks. I agree with your specialist comment, and I should have clarified that I meant no more than 3-4 labourers per town. The pops of our aqueduct/river cities should definitely go as high as their food allows. However, I still think we should get workers from our cities ASAP, since we have 0 at the moment.

Thinking more on strategy: if things get really bad we can set up a 'killzone' in Northern Italy by leaving Rome undefended and then picking off the barbarians with cats/legions/HC. However, that would be a little cheesy, so I'm hesitant to endorse it as a strategy. Sounds like something the Romans would do though - desperate times call for desperate measures.

@Corrado: You're in.

We now have 5 people total, sounds like a good number. Here's the roster:

Caesar_Augustus
akots
HannibalBarka
Doc Tsiolkovski
Corrado

Everyone should load up the scenario in the game and/or editor (after the rbc12 games map spoilers are a moot point), and take a look around. Let's have a few more days of discussion before I start the first 10 turns. I'll be back later with some more details on my opening move plans.

[Caesar_Augustus]

Earlier I mentioned that Cats cost 30 shields. That's incorrect, they're 20 shields (with trebs coming much later at 30 shields).

In this scenario Curraghs can transport 1 unit, so we might have to blockade the straits of gibraltar sooner than later. This might might make taking out the Scottish Celt city harder, as they start with a Curragh and can reinforce the city. Our 3 British legions will take a few turns to get up there.

We can't build Migrants, we're stuck with the standard settlers.

Building wonders will be hard if not impossible. We would need Justinian's and one of the religious wonders (Hagia, St. peter's) to trigger a Golden Age. Assuming we can get Rome up to 15spt (perhaps a pipedream figure with our unhappiness), it would take 70 turns to get the 1050 shields needed for them. In comparison, we could build 21 legions instead of the wonders. 21 legions or two wonders near the end of the game?? Plus, it'll be awhile before we can research the techs necessary for those wonders.

I say we forget about the wonders and concentrate on military. Put Rome (our only city besides Eboracum in England that has barracks) on legions, Italy's core on barracks, and the rest of the empire on Catapults (our galleys can ferry them to Northern Italy). I'll optimize Rome for 10spt and hopefully we can lower our lux tax a little.

Or do you think we should build some settlers in Rome initially to build up an Italian cat producing core? I disagree with this, because NOW is the only time in the game when we'll have the adavantage. We need legions ASAP to strike at the Anglo Saxons and the Vandals. We'll ally with the Vizigoths and the Franks, and our front will be fairly narrow. We'll let the Byzantines worry about the Ostrogoths, Huns, and Sassanids.

I don't know about Britain. We have 3 legions and a few Garrisons. We'll never get more than 1 spt in those cities due to corruption, so it'll take another 20 turns to even build an extra garrison . The Celts have one or two cities in Scotland - if we don't take those out ASAP they'll be flooding England with 7 shield 2.1.1 Raiders in no time. It's a tough call - do we try to take them out with our 3 legions and then pick off their curragh-landed assaults? Or do we cut our losses now and evacuate our 3 legions to Europe? The latter may sound harsh, but if we fail to take out those Scottish cities our legions will be killed anyway by the flood of Demigod cost factor Raiders and Mauraders.

I'm undecided which route to go - while I don't like losing 3 cities within the first 20 turns, thus driving us to within 5 cities of elimination, losing 3 legions and still losing those 3 cities within 40-50 turns doesn't sound all that great either. With our alliances with the Franks and Visigoths, Europe is much more defensible, and those 3 British legions could cause some serious problems if they landed in Anglo-Saxon territory early in the game. We could move some galleys off of France to guard against Celtic amphibious assaults towards our weak Spanish cities. The Franks and our Rhine forces could handle any assaults across the English channel. The more I type the more I'm becoming convinced that Britain is a lost cause and we should evacuate our legions and concentrate on taking out the Vandals and Anglo-Saxons. Thoughts?

EDIT: I'll also make sure to sign the Franks into Alliances against everyone - nothing like signing them up for war against the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Vandals, and then the next turn having them sign an Alliance with the Sassanids against US!

[Corrado]

On England:

There's no real good choice there- abandoning those cities just encourages the Celts to take over all of England, and from there they'll spill into northern France, which means we'll be fighting to protect Durcotorum even with the Franks on our side. Not abandoning them means trying to defend them, either by holding the cities, holding Hadrian's wall, or trying to take out the Scottish cities.

Personally, I lean towards killing off the Scottish cities. We can have all 3 Legions in position on Dunedin before the 6th turn, so we won't face strong opposition. And once those 2 cities are dealt with, we can then either abandon the island (knowing that an invasion from Ireland will take a while) or take the war to Ireland and maybe even knock the Celts out.

Even just taking the Scottish cities is a few hundred VP, which cuts down on the number of turns we have to spend defending ourselves. And the Celts are always a threat to build the Scourge- if anyone other than the Celts build the Scourge, we have a chance.

[Caesar_Augustus]

@Corrado: Yeah, the barb civ which gets the SoG is going to be a MAJOR pain.

There are two Celtic cities in Scotland, and unfortunately one of them is on a hill. So it'll be our 4 att vs 4.5 defence when we attack it. Hopefully we can pop a leader, make an army, and ship the army to Europe.

I'm going to play 5 turns or so, and if anything major comes up I'll post a partial turnlog and then play the rest tomorrow. My goals:

-After considerable thinking, I've decided to forget about ever building a garrison. Instead, I'm going to build Archers. They are 2.1.1, 20 shields, as opposed to the Garrisons which are 1.2.1, 20 shields, ZoC. Offence is King in this scenario - if we sit back and let 6 attack Mauraders and 8 attack Warlords go against our 2 def, we're in trouble. However, 2 att Archers vs 2 def Maurad. and 3 def Warlords sounds a lot better.

-Backwater cities will make catapults. Rome will build 5 turn legions @10spt. Eboracum (barracks city in England) will make Archers, and will be helped with cash rushing. Italian core - some workers, and then barracks, and then either archers/legions.

-Ally and RoP with Franks and Visigoths. Sell them contacts to the other barbs first to drain their accounts, and then give them whatever it takes to get the alliances done.

-Should I make a deal for the Byzantine Dyes after our GPT stabilizes? It'll probably cost us 12-18gpt for them. Thoughts?

-Smack down the Celts with our 3 legions. Move 1 garrison from Northern European fort to England to garrison London, and move London's garrison to cover the city with the legion. Celts will be hard to take out - there are good reasons why the Ancient Romans never tried to invade Ireland.

-Move a few galleys from the mediterranean up to the English Channel to mess up some Curraghs. I'll start building some Cats in England to help bombard them before our Galleys attack. Keep a couple of Galleys in the Med. to ferry cats from the backwater cities.

-Let the Franks and Anglo-Saxons go at it, since the Anglo units will have to go through Frankish territory to get to us. Concentrate all European legions on the Vandals. Once (or if) they're gone, go after the Anglos.

-Scientists from unhappy cities will do our research for us.

Alright, 'Got it'.

[akots]

All discussion sounds good. Common sense suggests concentrating legions and moving them to do whatever damage possible as soon as possible. Either we get some VP or throw back these nasty barbarians. Demigod in general is an easy game (just slightly more difficult than Emperor) and there should be no problems with early crushing of Vandals, Anglo-Saxons and Celts. They wil probably try to strike with Raiders. And legions can slaughter these poorly armed and poorly trained inexperienced forces. Attacking Celts is a priority. It might be good to spend some cash on buying workers and legions there. IMHO, workers and forestry operations are top priority at the moment in peripheral cities. In the core, building a couple of settlers may help. And workers to mine and build roads. We might have about 50 turns of minor warfare. Then, they will have pillagers and it would be tough to survive. Cats and archers may help. However, horsemen should be better. By the time they get warlords, we can hope to have heavy cavalry. And in this game HC rules. Defensive tactics is dangerous. We must attack!

Edited: If some our citizens are unhappy... They will starve. This is their choice, not ours. Why should we feed the unhappy? And this weird war weariness. Rome is at war for 500 years. Never was a single citizen unhappy with war. Now out of the sudden they are unhappy. Ridiculous. Stupid. We got wines. What else do they need? Dyes? What dyes? What for? What can you do with dyes when you are drunk? It might be dangerous to give them dyes in their present condition.

[Caesar_Augustus]

We don't have any horses hooked up ATM. However, there are some horses within the cultural boundaries of a Spanish city, so I'll get a worker started there to hook them up.

We can't build legions in Britain, since there is no harbour. However, sources of iron are plentiful, and a captured slave worker can form a colony on one.

I'm playing right now, but here's a spoiler: we have Dyes, and didn't have to pay a cent for them

[Caesar_Augustus]

324 AD (1): Wow what an economic mess. After 25 minutes of setting various build orders, luxury rates, and hiring/firing specialists, here's our F1 screen (sorted by pop.):

As you can see, our cities are ridiculously unhappy. Most can't go beyond size 1 without hiring an entertainer.

The city of Rome is stacked! It has every available improvement, including a Courthouse which I immediately sell for 12 gold and to save on Maintenance. At 10spt it'll be a nice Legionary factory.

I'm going to buy Carthage's settler after a few turns, and then ship it to Italy. With two entertainers, we need to get some pop out of that backwater city.

We have 1 legion each in Spain and Africa - I start them on their long march to the Alps. I send two galleys from the Mediterranean to join our sole Galley off of England. Two other galley will remain for ferrying. Here's the marching plan:


I establish an embassy with the Franks, and then meet with them. I sell them Contact with the Celts for WM + 50g, and then sign separate Military Alliances with them against the Celts, A-S, and Vandals. We could give them Contact with the Sassanids and Huns and then sign MAs, but I want to wait until the Franks have more $$$ to trade for the contacts.

We dial up Eastern Rome. I trade them Contact with the Franks for WM + 17g. Damn I want those dyes! Hey wait a sec . . .

Perhaps a little cheesy, but hey - a real Ally would have just given us those dyes anyway! Now check out our F1 screen:


I'm basically ignoring Science for now so we can get some gold for some cash rushes.

IT: One of our cities in England is exposed, so the Celts go bonkers after it - two curraghs sail down the coast, and two raiders come beside Hadrian's Wall. A Visigoth warrior pops his head out of the fog near Aquicum. London starves. So be it. The far eastern Byzantine city (the one right next to the Sassanid horseman) does not fall - good
news.

326 AD (2): Diplo Check: Theodora has 12 gold, so she is probably making 12 gpt. We take that gold with our WM. We trade Contacts with the Celts, A-S, and Vandals to the Visigoths for 50g + WM. We sign them to an MA against the Vandals for Contact with the Sassanids, Alphabet, and WM. Then, to protect our Eastern allies we sign them to an alliance vs the Sassanids for Contacts with the Franks and Huns, and Polytheism. Once they kill a Vandal unit the Visi will be at war with the Celts and A-S. I trade Contacts with the Huns and Sassanids to the Franks for a worker (no more worker buys from them for 50 turns) and then sign the Franks into an MA against the Huns + Sassanids for Alphabet.

Legio VI Victrix flawlessly kills a Celtic Raider. More troop and galley movements. I divert a Regular Rhine Legion to the 4 barbarian camps in the middle of our empire - there's approximately 12 raiders running around there, and hopefully they'll promote our legion to Elite. I cash rush: a Garrison in Aquincum, since it is defenseless with its Legion heading North; a barracks in Ravenna; a worker in Aquileia.

IT: Celtic Curraghs continue South - a Galley will intercept one, and hopefully our Garrisons can fend off the raider in the other. 3 conscript Raiders move next to Augusta Treverorum. Ravenna Barracks-->Settler. Aquincum Garrison-->Walls (worth it for only 10 shields).

328 AD (3): Diplo check: WM to the East for 5g.

Legio I Minerva attacks and kills a Barb conscript. Rhine Garrison arrives in Londinium. Legio II Augusta kills a Celtic Raider. African Legion boards a galley and sets sail for Italy. Quiet turn overall.

IT:Regular Barbs attack Augusta Trev., and all die, promoting Legio I Minerva to Elite! Celtic curraghs continue along the UK coast. Neapolis Worker-->Settler.

330AD (4): Diplo check: Nothing. I cash rush an Archer in Augusta Trev. to disperse the barb camps. The legion en route from Spain can stop by and help. We'll want I Minerva fighting better barbarians than the Rhine riff-raff. A Galley attacks and sinks a Celtic Curragh, losing 1 hp and promoting to Vet. Our two legions cross the river and will attack the Celts next turn.

IT: 3 Barbarian Conscripts impale themselves onto a Garrison fortified on a hill, promoting it to Elite.

332 AD (5): Diplo Check: Strange? We can buy Contact with the Ostros from the Visigoths. I though we were at war with them?? I buy the contact + 60g + WM for Math. Ha, what do you know, we're at peace with them! I establish an embassy with the Ostros and trade them Contacts with the Sass. and Franks for WM + 50g, then MA against the Sassanids for Alphabet and Contacts with the Vandals and A-S, then an MA against the Vandals for Contact with the Huns + WM + Horseback Riding.

Battle of Dunedin:
-Vet legion loses 3 hp, but KILLS a Spear, promoting to Elite.
-Vet legion loses 1 hp, but KILLS a Spear, razing the city and capturing a worker.

You can see the Celtic capital on a hill. I cash rush an archer in Eboracum to help the 3 legions take it in a couple of turns.
----

Rest of turns to come tomorrow night

[Caesar_Augustus]

IT: Aquileia Worker-->Barracks. Milan Worker-->Barracks. Rome Legion-->Legion. I optimize Rome for a legion every 4 turns. Eboracum Archer-->Archer.

334 AD (6): Legio IV Gemina kills a Vandal Raider, losing 1 hp and promoting to Elite.

I scroll through cities to check unhappiness. Man things are bad. Have to hire Scientists in a few cities.

336 AD (7): Move units around. Check for any new unhappiness. Kill a Vandal Raider north of Aquicum. I change my mind on building a colony on the Iron in England, and decide to build a colony on the furs and rush a Harbor in a few turns instead, thus giving us 3 luxuries as well as in England. In addition, the furs will let us immediately fire the entertainers in England, giving us either 9 extra science or 6 extra gpt.

IT: The Celts land a Raider north of . Massilia Worker-->Barracks (Only about 40% corruption, so worth it for building units).

338 AD (8): Kill two more Vandal Raiders. Destroy one of the four Rhine Barb camps and net 25 gold. Trade around our WM for 14g + assorted maps. Notice something unsettling:

One down, seven to go for the Eastern Romans.
[IT]: :saiyan: Franks sign Peace Treaties with the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Vandals :saiyan:! A Celtic Raider dies attacking Derva, promoting its Garrison to Veteran. Tarentum Worker-->Worker.

340 AD (9): I give the Franks Polytheism to Ally vs the Anglo-Saxons - hopefully they'll attack and go to war with the Vandals and Celts. An archer frags another Rhine Barb Camp. I maneuver our troops to attack the last Celtic city in Scotland. Too late I discover that a road leads all the way up to the Vandals! That's what I get for playing the Sassanids last time and not one of the Barbs:


Rome is at 13spt, which means that after 3 turns it will have 39/50 of the legion done. So I switch it from a forest to a fish to net +2 food and +3 trade, and still get 11spt.

I cash rush the Harbour in Eboracum. Micromanage all cities to prevent disorder - doing this every turn is tedious but necessary. That 3rd luxury will really help.

IT: A Vandal Raider dies attacking a Visigoth Raider! The Celts drop off another raider North of Deva. Rome Legion-->Legion. Eboracum Harbour-->Archer.

342 AD (10): Trade our map for updated maps + 5g. England is still not part of the trade network, since there are still a few tiles of unexplored sea blocking it from the Mediterranean. That can be remedied next turn though. Kill a Vandal Raider.

Battle of Dalraida:
-Legio II Augusta loses 2 hp, but KILLS a Vet Spear.
-Legion XX Valeria Victrix loses 3 hp, but KILLS a Vet Spear, promoting to Elite! That was close.
-Vet Archer DIES, but does 2 damage to a Vet Spear.
-Elite Legio VI Victrix loses 1 hp, but KILLS a Reg Spear. The damaged spear comes back on top.

We have a Reg Garrison left, but I'm not chancing 1 att vs 2 def, especially when another loss will promote that Spear to Elite. We'll take it next turn. I cash rush a Catapult in Deval, which may be if it gets razed next turn by that raider.

Augusta Treverorm is a good example of an 'ideal' backwater city:

By producing 6fpt, it can support 1 labourer and 2 specialists. Luckily quite a few of our cities have a 4fpt tile nearby, so once we get some more workers going we can get a few more specialist cities. This is as good as it gets for the Roman Empire.

IT: We get lucky as our Garrison goes down to 1 hp before rallying and beating the Raider. That was too close, I should've rushed something there earlier. Deva Cat-->Walls. Legio (Horse Town) Worker-->Worker. Tarraco Worker-->Worker. Vindobona Walls-->Archer.

A major mistake, as one of our Galleys is accidentally in an Ocean tile and sinks! Damn it! I though it was in a sea tile; in Snoopy's mod it can be hard to differentiate. That'll cost us a few turns in hooking up England to the trade network.

344 AD (11): We kill the last Spearman at Dalraida and raze the city. Celts are down to 6 cities. I recommend we sit back and let them drop off settlers in England, and once they found a city eliminate them. Or we could take the fight to Ireland. Kill a reg barb raider near the Rhine. Attack and KILL a Vandal Spear in Rusicade - a reg spear remains though, so no razing. Attack a Vandal Raider with an Elite Legion and win - GAME PAUSES - but no leader. Sigh. Trade our WM for 8g. Micromanage more cities to avoid disorder.

IT: More Vizigoths head towards the Vandals. Neapolis Settler-->Settler. Milan Worker-->Barracks.

346 AD (12): Legio VII Gemina (the one from Spain) kills another reg Barb raider. We kill another Vandal Raider, but go down to 1 hp and finish next to a fresh Vandal Raider *gulp*. We attack Rusicade again, killing another Spearman, but we go down to 1hp and a reg Spear still remains! Dammit, I wanted that city this turn.

We finally open the trade route to England! Many of our 2 pop cities can now fire their entertainers and reach 3 pop/6 fpt/2 specialists much quicker. We're losing some gold now so I fire some scientists and hire a few tax collectors.

IT: The 1 hp legion is killed by the Vandal Raider, and a Reg Garrison is killed by a conscript reg. Barb Raider. I guess the RNG is getting back at us for our British successes. Aquicum Walls-->Catapult.

348 AD (13): Reg Archer frags a Rhine barb camp, promoting and netting 25g. VII Gemina then disperses the last Rhine camp. Good riddance. Our Legions kill a reg Spearman and destroy Rusicade. One Vandal city down, 7 to go. We found Veii on a nice spot near Rome and Neapolis on the Adriatic, and it starts on a Barracks. Carthago Nova, Durcotorum, and Vindobona all reach the 3pop/6fpt level this turn and thus hire two specialists.

IT: Vandals and Ostrogoths make peace. A Celtic Curragh bypasses Deva and heads for the southwest tip of England - I'll shadow with a Galley and send a cat to hopefully catch it near the coast for a bombardment. Rome Legion-->Legion. Carthage Settler-->Worker (some mineabler tiles around Carthage).

350 AD (14):VII Gemina kills the last of the Rhine Raiders. Carthagian Settler boards a Galley, will head for a spot near Rome (ancient Etruria).

Eastern Rome loses another city:

That's 2 now, and they have 6 left before elimination. I'm worried about them - I don't want the Huns and Sassanids marching around the Black Sea at us - but I don't really know what to do to help them. We've got enough to worry about on our own.

Londinium, Eboracum, and Aquincum all reach 3pop/6fpt and hire specialists.

And I'll stop here; 350 AD is a nice round number so I won't go for the full 15 turns. Note that every round after this is 10 turns - I took 15 just to get us started (and to seem some ).

Some notes for the next ruler:
-The only unmoved unit is the Galley shadowing the Celtic Curragh. I'll leave it up to you to decide how to move.
-Rome grows to size 9 next turn, watch out for disorder.
-You may want to sign more alliances against the Huns and Sassanids to prevent an Eastern Rome dogpile.
-The Worker near Lugdunum is there to irrigate the wheat, thus giving that city the 3pop/6fpt/2 specialists setup.
-I'm building mainly cats and archers, with a few settlers and workers, but by all means feel free to veto any build orders you want.
-I haven't seen or heard anything of the Anglo-Saxons, so either the Franks are taking care of them or they're turtling and building up their forces.
-The settler on the galley is intended for here:


THE SAVE

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I'm already playing this as a solo game (kind of a 'best-case-scenario', since I got a SGL, thus managed to trigger a GA later); as long as I'm late in the roster, my preknowledge shouldn't affect the game in an inappropriate way. But I found a number of problems, and unfortunately, you managed to exploit one of those already....

Ouch. May I suggest to restart, without the "First-turn-most-powerful-Civ-gets-everything" - exploit? We have a honorable way to trade for Dyes rather soon.

On the other hand, the AI seems to get unintented benefits as well...let's steel Barbarism, and revolt ASAP

(Please check the Eastern Rome thread, I don't want to repeat everything here.)

Oh, and be assured, the situation is even worse than it seems to be from looking at the start - and don't expect it to get nay better!

[Caesar_Augustus]

Caesar_Augustus (Just Played)
akots (Up)
HannibalBarka (On Deck)
Doc Tsiolkovski
Corrado

24hrs for 'Got it', 48hrs to post with turnlog and save, 10 turns per round.
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Some thoughts:

-We have to check every city each turn, since with our happiness problems a city is likely to go into disorder whenever it grows.

-My attack against the Vandals wasn't very organized, since I had to kill all the Raiders that were straggling towards our cities. Hopefully the next ruler can regroup and take out some of their cities.

-England is safe for the time being. Once we get another galley up there, we can either pick off their curraghs with galleys and cats or land some legions over there to mess them up.

-having the Ostrogoths at peace with us instead of at war was a nice surprise. A change by Gobi Bear?

Some screenies:

[Caesar_Augustus]

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
May I suggest to restart, without the "First-turn-most-powerful-Civ-gets-everything" - exploit? We have a honorable way to trade for Dyes rather soon.

The Byzantines wouldn't agree to trade the dyes unless I included ALL of the alliances in the deal - if I included only 4 alliances it was 'getting close to a deal', 3 'doubtful'. So I'm not sure if this is a case of 'most powerful first turn' exploit - more of a case of a stupid AI not realizing we're in a fixed alliance.

As for the Franks, I didn't get anything off of them when signing the Military Alliances, they were just straight up MAs. I could've taken their worker, but felt that was cheap so I bought it later.

Restart? Not what I want to hear after 5 hours of playing and taking screenshots. Let's hear from the rest of the team on this.

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
Oh, and be assured, the situation is even worse than it seems to be from looking at the start - and don't expect it to get nay better!

No spoilers!