Fall of Rome

[Tarwoch]

Persians! Persians! Persians! Their starting pos and tech level is superior

 

[DBear]

Aren't the Sassanids also stuck with an Imperial government?

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by DBear
Aren't the Sassanids also stuck with an Imperial government?

Nope - I played this scenario fairly quickly as the Sassanids at Sid level, started in Tribal Council and stayed there of course

I've played just three of the scenarios so far, all at "Sid", and this seemed by far the easiest to me. At this difficulty it would probably be harder as any of the other Civs. But as the Sassanids it was straightforward. I played it roughly as follows:

1) Researched at 100%, first toward Map Making, then toward the tech in the second age allowing Heavy Cavalry.

2) Built up infrastructure and additioinal towns. At first I built a number of workers, then some new towns, and a good number of libraries.

3) Claimed and connected luxuries asap - I think I got four fairly quickly just by settling and connecting them.

4) After building infrastructure in each town, built barracks and then horsemen.

5) Traded maps with Rome for some cash. Traded away my tech lead to other Civs a bit at a time to keep cash flow coming in. And later when I had Map Making, traded maps to/from the other Civs also.

6) When I learned to build Heavy Cavalry, started upgrading horsemen and continued building Heavy Cavalry.

7) After I had a few Heavy Cavalry I declared war on both Romes, then traded some maps/tech to ally everyone else against them. (Had built embassies with everyone as cash became available by this time.)

8) And then it was easy. With everyone else helping, destroyed each part of Rome (it took some slugging but was never in doubt), sent some Cavalry/Migrant pairs to claim all the southern victory points before anyone else could get them, sent galleys with a couple of additional pairs to claim some points across the water, continued research and built a couple of wonders, and won by a nice margin.

 

[Duke Togo]

Played as Celts... its awfully nice to have the entire island to yourself once you kick the Western Romans off of it. Played it once on Regent, finished it on my first try, never want to play it again!

 

[drsteve]

I played this scenario on the lowest dificulty level (haven't played CIV for a while) and found the Visigoths hard work. I attacked the Byzantines first (took Constantinople) and had it culture flip instantly, despite my 10 units in the city. So I took it again, and decided to raze all the Roman and Byzantine cities that I took, and then leave a fortified unit to occupy the VP locations.

The problem was, that by razing cities I took big diplomatic rep hits: every other civ in the game ended up at war with me, despite my best efforts to pacify them with goodies. Fortunately, the AI at that level tended to just send single units towards me (and often obsolete ones as well) so I racked up quite a lot of VP's by killing them off. When I hurt them enough, they usually decided to stop fighting me, but this often only lasted for a few turns before someone (usually Rome) would convince them to attack again.

Even when I did manage to convince other civs to attack Rome (earlier in the game), they attacked with such pathetic units that they just got slaughtered. I ended up having to take out both the Byzantines and the Romans entirely by myself. Taking out the Byzantines wasn't too hard, but getting the Romans was tough - I managed to kill them off about 2 turns before they were due to achieve a VP victory. I got the VP's the next turn...

 

[robbomb89]

yo. Iv'e been trying this forever and i can't beat it. Do you think you can email me a really good strategy guide to beat it. If you can thanks. If you can't i'll understand.

 

[robbomb89]

yo. Iv'e been trying this forever and i can't beat it. Do you think you can email me a really good strategy guide to beat it. If you can thanks. If you can't i'll understand.

 

[robbomb89]

yo. Iv'e been trying this forever and i can't beat it. Do you think you can email me a really good strategy guide to beat it. If you can thanks. If you can't i'll understand.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by robbomb89
Do you think you can email me a really good strategy guide to beat it.

Sorry, I don't have or know of a good strategy guide for this.

Are you trying as the Sassanids? If so then my note earlier in this thread might be some help. Did that note make sense to you? If there are parts of it which didn't make sense I can try to describe them more clearly.

I think that being very focused helps a lot in playing this scenario and this will be true regardless of which Civ you are playing. Spreading your energy across different objectives will hurt. Some examples:

1) I researched as quickly as I could to be able to build Heavy Cavalry. After that I didn't do any more research until I had no other use for my income.

2) I didn't build any military units except Horsemen and Heavy Cavalry. And I didn't fight with anything except Heavy Cavalry (and with armies of them of course when I got leaders.) I had about 30 veteran Horsemen (no regulars! build a barracks first) before I could build Heavy Cavalry. I then stopped researching and used all available funds to upgrade Horsemen before sending them to the field. It took a lot of turns before they were all upgraded but that's no big deal - these guys were essentially "free" Heavy Cavalries which didn't have to be built.

3) Don't try to fight both parts of Rome at the same time. Focus on eliminating one quickly, then fight the other. When you take the eighth city from one, it crumbles. That cuts your opposition in half and is worth going for asap.

4) Don't fight anyone else, at least not until Rome is gone. Instead ally them all with you against Rome.

5) At the very start, build lots of workers and lots of towns. You won't need military units until you start fighting. Building a lot of military at the start just drains energy which could have been used to expand. (And thus to have a higher capacity for building military units later on.)

6) When you feel it is time to stop expanding and prepare for war, put all efforts into that. Build barracks and military units. Only build other city improvements when you have a specific need to do so.

7) Take over as many victory locations as you can. Send a settler and a Heavy Cavalry to take each - if you don't settle it, your opponents will, and then they'll make your life awkward by asking your military unit to leave. Don't take out the first part of Rome (whichever you are going for) until you have units positioned and ready to claim most of the resulting victory point locations. (I just worried about the southern ones when I played it.)

I hope some of that helps, good luck!

 

[Zandrew]

5) At the very start, build lots of workers and lots of towns. You won't need military units until you start fighting. Building a lot of military at the start just drains energy which could have been used to expand. (And thus to have a higher capacity for building military units later on.)

How many MP's are you putting in each new town? Do you use the heavy cavs as MP's too, or something cheaper?

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Zandrew
How many MP's are you putting in each new town? Do you use the heavy cavs as MP's too, or something cheaper?

I generally use as few MPs as possible. I prefer to use luxuries, marketplaces, the luxury slider, and sometimes for a short while an entertainer to maintain happiness. And I also tend to not need a lot of happiness in the very early game - if a town reaches size 4 or more near the start, I figure it is time for it to pump out a worker or settler.

I do find that it is important at the start of a game (before I am prepared for war) to have some military units garrisoned in border towns. If the AIs send units past one of your towns and it has no garrison at all, that's like a red flag - it tempts the AI to start a war for the easy capture of a town. So a minimal garrison is important. But beyond that, for MPs, I don't usually bother. There are exception cases of course, e.g. when I have a city much larger than others near the start to build wonders. Such cities should have some cheap military units as MPs.

In this game I don't think I ever used a unit as an MP except when I happened to have idle units available, e.g. the starting units and horsemen during the stockpiling phase. I didn't build any units for the purpose of becoming MPs.

I just checked a new start of this scenario and the Sassanids do start with a lot of units - 8 spearmen, 2 archers, 3 horsemen, and 2 heavy cavalry. I would have used many of those spearmen and archers as MPs near the start until I got happiness under control with my preferred methods, because they were available and had nothing else to do.

The Sassanids also have a lot of luxuries available. Silks, spices, wines, and incense can be connected quickly. I think I remember there also being a fifth luxury available before going to war (gems?) And when going to war dyes can quickly be claimed for a sixth. That's a lot of happiness. And most of the Sassanid start towns have Marketplaces, further multiplying the luxury effects.

While looking at the opening position for the scenario I just remembered another point I should have mentioned in the first note I wrote - at the start I immediately sent my 2 heavy cavs and one horseman exploring toward distant lands. They kept exploring till I'd met, or traded for contact with, all other Civs. Then they returned home. Early contact with all Civs is beneficial - more trading partners to keep your coffers full A few of the slower units explored the lands near home during the initial phase.

 

[Duke Togo]

Turn 120 seems to be the killer here. If you don't take down both Empires by that date, they'll get the VP win. I may be wrong about the Western Empire, but I know its true for the Eastern.

 

[andvruss]

Western Rome demanded my maps (playing as the Celts) around the 15th turn. So I declared war, and didn't stop warring. They only had 20000VP when I destroyed them. Then I got all the barbs versus Eastern Rome, then I detroyed them in about turn 70 with around 30000 VP.

 

[erez87]

I had a Franks game, was one of the best and most fun games i EVER had.
I settled northern france, had no quarl with Anglo-Saxons as we both went to diffrent ways.
After North France was mine I attacked Western rome (and not with the best unit, 1 less best cause they much cheaper) So I attacked. and took 8 cities (lost some to ) and destoried Rome.
I rushed to settle the rest. and took all western rome VP except Africa.
Than I saw Byzantion was having a bit more points than me. So I decleared war on them. Took some cities but then Sassanids took a city and Byzantium was gone, they got 10,000 points .
So I took over MOST Byzantium europ VP, one by war...

Vandals were killed because of me (not by me) xome time after. So did Visighosts by me.
I had settled most of France and Italy and had VP cities in Spain.
All I needed to do was earn points or wait for victory.
Some turns befor end I attacked Celts Spanish and French holdings and than won in the end of the game with ALMOST the points I need for real victory.
was TOTAL fun! you should try.

 

[ratrangerm]

I found it very helpful to take out the Roman cities that are on the African continent because there's less resistance overall there. Also, it's a good strategy to target the Roman cities which do not have victory point locations. Those cities don't have as many units defending as the one with the VP locations. I did target a couple of VP location cities when I went about the conquests but targeted more of those without them. It was then generally pretty easy to claim most of the VP locations that were left and win the scenario by passing 30000 victory points.

Keep this in mind: Once either half of the Roman empire falls, they are out of the VP race. Ditto for any other tribe you take out. And the "lose eight cities and you are gone" rule applies to everybody, not just the Roman empires.

 

[EDaddy]

I played as the Anglo-Saxons.

 

[Charis]

Interesting thread here, let me pop in with a question a little bit backwards...

Which are the HARDEST civs to play with for Fall of Rome?
If I read correctly, Vizigoths are among the toughest. At Demigod or higher lvl, what other civs are brutal? We're trying to put together a succession game or two for this scenario and want to make sure we receive sufficient pain!

Charis

 

[Gaddow]

The Visigoths are in a position to attack both Eastern and Western Rome from the get go. Moving the beginning Settlers just a bit westward gives access to plenty of iron as well.

 

[silver 2039]

I think the Huns are diffcult as there not in the greatest lands and have to drive the Visigoths and Osrogoths out of the good lands and it is diffcult to reach the Western Roman Empire.

 

[Lord_Sidious]

i played the huns and visigoths and they are both good to play