[C3C] COTM160 Rome Demigod

It's a matter of taste, but I like screenshots with the grid better... ;-)


Pillage the iron, set all towns to Warrior, have 6 Workers ready to reconnect the iron, upgrade to Legionary interturn...
::Salutes his superior:: Grid it is henceforth.

Yeah I know but I have too many legionaries as it is; already starting to pay gpt for unit support. (Narrator: "too lazy for that kind of micro")
 
250 BC - It has come to my attention that the Egyptians have built Pithom 300 m from Rome, making it technically our least corrupt city. Execute every advisor who points out that it's been there for over two hundred years. Send 19 catapults, 11 legionaries, 1 elite warrior, and 1 settler (one of my improvements in gameplay is always having settlers on hand, though I don't go as overboard as the AI). Tell Cleopatra not to worry: they are just there to protect 2 workers building a road. We Romans are very serious about construction project security.

Screenshot (63).png


230 BC - Pithom has been renamed Caesaraugusta and moved a few inches to the southwest. Legionaries sprint westward to protect an Egyptian worker we couldn't resist kidnapping. One of my proposed improvements to the AI in this game is to somehow make jerk moves like "founding a city all up in someone's rightful business" a valid casus belli. Enter the Middle Ages and learn Monotheism as our free tech.

Screenshot (65).png


210 BC - Pay the Greeks 700 gold to ally vs the Egyptians, solely so they don't backstab us.

190 BC. Spearman and catapults menace Caesaraugusta and Syracuse, and war chariots threaten Ravenna. I assure my legionaries that we will mount a counter-counter-offensive in 40 years or so.

Screenshot (66).png
 
170 BC - Egyptians die throwing themselves against the walls of Syracuse. We meet the Celts. They are the score leaders but some ominous foreshadowing: we're up 4 techs on them, they have declining power graph, no money, and they're at war with the Germans.

Screenshot (67).png

130 BC - 12 catapults arrive in Syracuse, but now the legions are recuperating. The bulk of the rest of the catapults (8) are defending Ravenna. The Egyptian stack is 3 swordsmen, a spearman and a catapult, so we'll soon pick up at least one more.

Screenshot (68).png

My plan is to go for a domination victory, since whenever I try for a different win condition, I struggle to keep my land under 66%, so it should be pretty easy. This continent has 4 civs, and 100 / 8 is about 15, so it should be 60% of the land mass right there. I'll worry about the other 6% later. Now just need to conquer the Egyptians, Greeks, and Babylonians, which at the current rate will net me a victory in 3845 AD and a JASON score of -7.
 
Did not manage to finish before the deadline - stopped playing at 270 AD. At that time had the continent to myself, doing 4 turns research, Magnetism in 1 turn (Industrial Age to be entered in 320 AD), building lots of settlers for science farms.

Stats: 272 pop, 94 towns, ~20 knights/med infs/legionaries, 10+ galleys for faster transportation with the Great Lighthouse, ~45 workers.

- Had 3 great Leaders: 2 build armies (1 legionaries, 1 empty for the future), 1 rushed Forbidden Palace in Athens (thought better to have FP in a far away corrupted town with lots of commerce sooner than waiting few turns for leader to get back to my core - the % decrease in corruption in the Roman empire seems to have been similar);
- Like in others games - in mine too AIs supplied only 1 tech - Invention. Was really hoping AIs to research Astronomy in 24 turns after I gifted them Education, but no luck;
- Was 28 techs from sending the spaceship. Seemingly I've got 5-6 techs from Scientific civs during the Age changes (2 in Industrial Age, 3-4 in Modern Age), 2 freebies from Theroy of Evolution - I still needed to research 20-21 techs, that would mean the projected finish date was 1080 AD - 1120 AD (+- few turns)

Thanks to the game creators for an enjoyable map and to competitiors for posting their spoilers and finishing!
 

Attachments

  • COTM 160 270 AD I.jpg
    COTM 160 270 AD I.jpg
    417.9 KB · Views: 35
  • COTM 160 270 AD II.jpg
    COTM 160 270 AD II.jpg
    386.8 KB · Views: 36
Needless to say, I did not finish before the deadline either! However, I did eventually complete this game, just today, with a conquest victory.

I don't get lots of time to play anymore, and I'm a "methodical" (i.e. slow) player when I do. I did start last year, played a good bit during July and a little in September, but then didn't play again until July this year. Took quite a few sessions during July, September and now October to close out the game (nearly 94 hours overall).

I'm a recovering long time Chieftan player. I played the game when it came out and replayed it often over the years, but I always played on Chieftan and have some bad habits. During the pandemic, I discovered Suede's Youtube channel and started to climb the difficulty ladder of the game while improving my gameplay knowledge. I have a few victories on Monarch at this point, and only one on Emperor. As such, I was fully expecting to lose this one. This resulted in a gripping game for me as I never felt confident of victory. The super Legions definitely helped even the odds! Even as I clinched my conquest condition, the one rival I had not really warred with at all (Byzantines) were building the United Nations and I wasn't sure I would be able to stop them given how far ahead they were in tech (they had bombers, I did not yet have Flight).

I have notes on the game and my intention is to write them up like the others have done, even if just as an exercise to myself. I can't imagine there will be much interest to others given how long has passed since this was active...

This was my first time participating in a COTM, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would like to participate again in future but probably not immediately. I would like to thank the organizer and especially the scenario designer as I found the scenario/map to be excellent, at least for someone at my level.
 
This was my first time participating in a COTM, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would like to participate again in future but probably not immediately. I would like to thank the organizer and especially the scenario designer as I found the scenario/map to be excellent, at least for someone at my level.
May I suggest the following two Regent games to you:

COTM165 Carthage Regent 1 Oct 23
GOTM193 China Regent 1 Jan 24
 
May I suggest the following two Regent games to you:

COTM165 Carthage Regent 1 Oct 23
GOTM193 China Regent 1 Jan 24
Working on the map right now for gotm193 China, regent level right now. Hoping to make it somewhat of a challenge for high level players while keeping it very playable for everybody. Get ready for it the first of the year!!
 
Thanks for the suggestions, I may try the COTM but I'm not sure that I will have sufficient free gaming time to complete it.

In the mean time, here are my notes from the first phase of this game (more or less covering the ancient and medieval eras).


I had what felt like a relatively solid expansion phase, but I'm not familiar with this difficulty level to know if I could have gotten away with more. I didn't want to be overly "greedy" by settling right up to my neighbours while I still had no significant military forces. I was also very wary of culture flips so I wanted to get temples in my edge cities before the borders joined up.

I was able to wall off both Egypt and Greece:
cotm-bc-925-expansion-phase.png

(I don't remember why I thought I could build the Great Library in this situation!)

I decided my strategy would be to get the most out of these super Legionnaires before they became militarily obsolete. I decided to make war on Egypt as they were going to be the most powerful local opponent, at least once they started using their Iron. I didn't want to attack Greece as their Hopolites would be a pain to push through. The priority was to cut off Egypt from using the Iron to my immediate West, and hope that they had no more.

I had been avoiding roading my own Iron to allow me to continue build Warriors cheaply. Between building Legionnaires and upgrading warriors, I was hoping I would have sufficient forces to take some of Egypt's closest cities at least. At this point in the game I was afraid that at this difficulty level, the A.I. would already have so many units that it would potentially be game over (I had seen impressive stacks of units being sent to round up barbarians).

Around 500 B.C. I declare war on Egypt and make a military alliance with Greece against them. I manage to take their Iron and raze several cities (clearing a buffer space) and start building settlers to try to take the now free land:
cotm-bc-150-first-egypt-war.png

I don't remember if there was a pause for peace or not, but in the end I had conquered all of Egypt's mainland cities by around 30 B.C., though it turned out that they had some cities somewhere else. Their capital had the Great Library, capturing it brought my back up to date in technology, which I had fallen very much behind on. I make peace with them. The city Alexandria culture flips back to them at some point.

During the war, I got two great leaders, the first I used to rush the Forbidden Palace in Hippo Regius (North West, near Egpyt´s former Iron). The other is used to create a Legionnaire Army - which I somehow nearly lose when attacking a 1hp spearman!

I decided to continue my strategy of maximising the value of my unique unit, so I switched to Monarchy to allow me to sustain war for a long time to come. I take some time to rebuild my military and improve my core cities, and around 500 A.D. I decided to attack Greece (I was considering also India, who were weaker, but I lacked the required naval units).

I lose lots of Legionnaries as Greece have good defensive units and also the terrain is very unfavourable (jungle slows me and gives them defensive bonus). This is exacerbated by the fact that the Great Library has made Legionnaires obsolete so I can no longer build them, with Medieval Infantry being slower and Knights being more expensive. Fighting a two front war against Greece (on either side of the inner sea) divides my forces. I also lack sufficient defensive units, so Greek counter-attacks keep killing off my valuable strong attacking units.

This meat grinder continues on for a very long time, to the point where I'm down to relatively few units and Greece still seems to have strong stacks, so I sign a Military Alliance with Babylon to distract Greece and take some heat off my front. This works as intended, I eventually achieve a critical mass on both fronts and break through the problematic terrain and start steamrolling the Greek cities, with my troops meeting in Athens. I conquer Greece by around 730 A.D., and around the same time I conquer the last remaining Egyptian cities.

cotm-ad-770-greece-conquest.png


Elsewhere in the world, the Zulu appear to be collapsing too. The other A.I.s are generally in Republic and out-teching me once again. At this point I am considering triggering some kind of world war to try to slow everyone down, ideally against Germany who are the strongest, and including Babylon, both to drain their forces and to avoid them looking to attack me.
 
Top Bottom