Alexander The Great (Turd) Or blowing a blood Vassell (long read, short version inc)

[Dominico]

My latest game I decided on Rome after debating the pros and cons of each civilizations unique unit. Thanks for all the imput guys, well it went amazingly!!

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Short Version :

Alexander and Vassals make the game so hard!! He is unpredictable, vassalage is tough to cope with. Also pretorians are obsolete at Crossbowmen and Macemen despite what people say. I had a 50sum xp general and he couldnt cope! Lol
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From the outset each city was perfectly placed, i even dropped a city on on a narrow piece of land to stop expansion by the Carthaginians (something in my mind told me to be wary of this guy Hannibal...) Then once i had Pretorians i began plotting the expansion of my wondrous Roman Civilization with its baths and wine (ok, i didnt know how to make wine yet but i had grapes!)

Carthaginian cities fell too easily, Pretorians rock!! I rolled over city after city and then something terrible happened. Alexander was there, angry i was attacking his friends. I ignored this and before i could finish Carthage they vassilised to him. Damn it vassalage makes warring tough! I was now at war with both civs.

My attack had stalled at Carthage.

Like so many warmongers before me this city became the sole focus of my attack on the Carthaginians, I had to capture it! It was my Stalingrad. I threw so many troops into the fray, the fight lasted years and still nowhere. And by now they were improving to Longbowmen and onwards. It was a massive walled city sited on a hill.

In the end i had to make peace, as now i was from the most powerfull civilization to the 3rd backward. Alex was now in charge of negotiations and before he would quit he wanted a city. The long and short of it is, he dropped some troops miles behind the front line, razed Rome destroying Stonehenge, then i took anything i could get for peace!! Immortal Rome!!!

War has errupted again in 1860s and stupid me.. i fell for the same trick. The horror has razed my capital of science Pisae. A beautiful city of over 1.5 million people, innocent (other than working out new ways to kill Greeks...) now just a pile of bricks because i left only an axeman and musketman in there...

Well, i feel better now. Like Alexander haters annonymous.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

"While these things were taking place... a dreadful rumor reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold, and that when they had been thus despoiled they were again beleaguered, so as to lose not only their substance but their lives. The speaker's voice failed and sobs interrupted his utterance. The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell by sword, and there were but a few found to be made prisoners..."

-- Jerome, Letter 127.12, on the sack of Rome in 410 AD

The moral of the story is, never leave Roma Aeterna lightly defended.

Another helpful hint that I sometimes use when playing as Rome: a quote from the movie Patton.
"Sir, did you say if you found your armies between the Russians and the Germans, you'd attack in both directions?"

This can be dangerous sometimes, though. Were you playing as Augustus or Julius? Were the Greeks and Carthaginians your only neighbors? And did you have catapults yet? (Go for these right after you research the wheel, bronze and iron working, and pottery.)

 

[jkp1187]

Agreed! I was playing as the Vikings once and had a pleased relationship with Louis/France -- in fact, he was located on the far side of the world, and we weren't in opposition at all. Suddenly, he declares war on me and lands six cavalry right next to my capital. My jaw dropped wide open. I had nothing to stop him other than two longbowmen.....I had several cavalry units, but they were just too far away to get there in time. Long story short, he traded six cavalry for razing my capital city. Since he was so far away, I couldn't do much (other than destroying his expeditionary force) beyond shooting up a few fishing vessels and sinking a few ships. Not a bad trade for him at all.
(I went on to win the game, but I was definitely not expecting that move from him.) From then on, I've kept my capital well secured....

And if you're playing with Vassal states on, ALWAYS check to see if your opponent is willing to trade "capitulation" to you. If they're willing to surrender to you, they're willing to become someone else's vassal -- and it's better for them to surrender to you, I say.

 

[Dominico]

"While these things were taking place... a dreadful rumor reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold, and that when they had been thus despoiled they were again beleaguered, so as to lose not only their substance but their lives. The speaker's voice failed and sobs interrupted his utterance. The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell by sword, and there were but a few found to be made prisoners..."

-- Jerome, Letter 127.12, on the sack of Rome in 410 AD

The moral of the story is, never leave Roma Aeterna lightly defended.

Another helpful hint that I sometimes use when playing as Rome: a quote from the movie Patton.
"Sir, did you say if you found your armies between the Russians and the Germans, you'd attack in both directions?"

This can be dangerous sometimes, though. Were you playing as Augustus or Julius? Were the Greeks and Carthaginians your only neighbors? And did you have catapults yet? (Go for these right after you research the wheel, bronze and iron working, and pottery.)

I was julius. I just lost totally but it was a fun game! When i checked the power graph i was top well into the 1600's. So it was my prolonged war which messed things up.

I learnt a lot anyway like to vassalise people before my enemies do! I just didnt want a 2 city vassel caus it says you lose money on each of your cities for a vassal. Didnt want this happening.

The map was n shaped, with me at the bridge, brennus at the left bottom, alex right bottom and Carthage inbetween me and alex. Brennus was cut off from me by a row of mountains lol

It was a cool map! For once i didnt go for religion and picked up someone elses religion later on which seemed to work well keeping me ahead in techs but with hindsight i picked the wrong religion. I went for buddism from the Arabs, and they ended up being weak, though they were strong at the time. I should have gone with Brennus and his religion. That would have made him an ally! Oh well, lessons learned.

As an aside i have never seen so many nukes dropped. I started it with operation Athenian fire lol In my attempt to raze athens. (got sparta instead in the end) in revenge for Rome. Brennus dropped about 6, 3 of them on New rome in the last 11 turns lol. New Rome was lowered to 2 population then razed on the second to last turn lol

Massacre!

 

[coffeeholic]

I like to keep a small mobile force at home when I am out attacking a civ. Usually Knights, cavalry or tanks depending on the age. I keep them in a central location in my mainland, then when the AI tries to backdoor you, you just move your mobile forces to the city in danger. After you defeat a few backdoor attacks he/she will usually give you peace. Another solution is to have a strong navy so that you can destroy the invaders before they land.

AJK

 

[Dominico]

Yeah this was too close a battle to leave forces at home. Basically i had to throw everything i had at alex to stand a chance. He had 20 or so streaming over the borders the nutter!!

The second time i got hit for some reason i had not noticed that they had landed, and the first sign they had was when they were attacking pisae by which time it was too late of course. If i had noticed i would have promoted a unit or moved some fast into the city. I was too preoccupied with the attack though.

It was a fun game! I razed 2 Greek cities in the end and made Carthage my vassal though i was just about wiped out by the end lol

 

[Napalm102]

The second time i got hit for some reason i had not noticed that they had landed, and the first sign they had was when they were attacking pisae by which time it was too late of course. If i had noticed i would have promoted a unit or moved some fast into the city. I was too preoccupied with the attack though.

Yeah, common storry, the game is not very good at screaming at you: "THERE IS A STACK OF UNITS RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR CITY!!!"

Usually I don't have a good navy, so AI controls the seas, and you kind of get used to seeing and hearing turn after turn "enemy spoted near blah balh", where it is just a enemyu frigate sailing up and down your coast trying to pillage all your fishing boats. And then you don't notice when the actuall stack lands.....

I wish there was a filter in a game, that you could say sound the alarm if you have transport ships aproaching the coast or a stack of units sneaking around.

I'm actually getting into the habit of zooming out to world view each turn and using "enemy military" filter thingies to check where all the visible enemy units are.

But AI is also pretty stupid when it comes to naval invasions. Often it will pick a spot and keep landing troops there (if they dont come all at once and this only works once per war), so just leave couple units at that spot and watch AI conduct a suicidal amphibious invasion at -50% strength at that very tile. I once defeated 4 galleons of cavalry with two machine gunners in that manner.