RBC12 - Fall of Rome - Huns (Diety)

We could try that plan; it's up to Abegweit. I think the research time for Leadership is about 22 turns. If we go for that, *definitely* go for the wonder. It pays back for its shield cost in 15 turns just by making Warlords.

All the barbarians haven't had much for economy so far, though, and we know the AIs try to put all their money into research when they're behind, and the barbs will be behind the Romes for some time. Going for Leadership won't get us much economy at all, but it could net us the wonder and a trade for another tech or two...
 
Preturn: I decide that going after barbarian leadership is worth it. What’s more we should have a good shot at the wonder, since the AI never pre-builds. Ruse will be the wonder city. I switch to a palace for a pre-build.

Madara is disorder. By hiring scientists there and at two other cities which are about to suffer the same fate, we can get the research rate down to 13 turns at 0.8.2.

Some of the eastern horses will come home to act as MPs. The western ones will continue to explore in order to sell maps.

Press enter. Several turns later...

In 372AD, Bourgas is founded. This will be our forward base. The spot is chosen because it’s about the only place where there is any growth potential on the whole path.

378AD Trade WM to Franks for MM plus 64g. I then gain another 150g or so for selling maps around.

380AD Barbarian leadership due next turn. After that, it’s time for some upgrades. The Palace pre-build at Ruse could be exchanged for something else but my thought was that a migrant or two could be merged into the city. These suckers are powerful, since they cost one pop to make but add two pop to the city they join. Two migrants have just been built. One should go into the hole between Sliven and Ruse. I leave the other up to the next player.

Sav file here
 
There are so few turns in these conquests, so I suggest we wait for Ridgelake. He is supposedly back the 22:nd.

If you want to push the tempo, I could probably make my turn tonight or early tomorrow.

As to Migrants, Didn't Charis say some of the patches have fixed so they only add one pop when merged ? ( If they do add two, then it is a nono. )
If we do have worker factory, we may very well merge workers anyway, just to get up to speed in the city.

Grimjack
 
Grimjack, I just played a little in the next turn to test this out and you are right. Merging a migrant does indeed add one pop, not two as the civilopedia claims. I was astonished when I read this and I can see why you would call it a no-no.

The worker factory is indeed ready. We just got up to the magic five food. Right now, it's a bit too big and needs to be starved back to 3.5 or 4. Still, I don't think workers will be much of a problem anymore. We're already up to 20 and some areas are almost overworked.

In view of this, perhaps the outer cities should be whipping barracks and raiders from here on out? I have little experience with whipping since I rarely use it. Is the fur sufficient to prevent the town from going completely useless?

Incidently, we do indeed have a monopoly on Barbarian Leadership and, after merging the migrant, Ruse is due to build the Scourge of God in 33 turns. Plenty of time to be useful. Of course, there are little details to take care of. Like, for example, the city is starving and is about go into disorder. Perhaps this might be premature and the migrant should go over to hook up the furs after all? :rolleyes:

Anyway, I definitely think we should go for it. This is not like a standard game where you start out so far in the hole that you have no time for early wonders. In this case, we are the biggest barbarian tribe by far and should certainly get it if we tried. After hooking up the furs, mining the iron and merging some workers, Ruse will be a powerful producer.

T-Hawk, I just noticed your comment about the fortified horse and the cattle. Oops. I guess I should read more carefully. :o I never even realised that there was a fortified horse and so never moved it through the entire turn. I actually built the forward base much further down the path, at the deer. I don't think it's a big deal, either way, though. One advantage of the location I chose is that there are some trees to chop.

I probably don't need to mention this but... don't forget to have some units ready to snatch the Victory Points in the Balkans when Byzantium falls.

I just noticed that there are several luxuries to be had between Antioch and Nubia! :band:

I just wish one of us (like me, maybe???) had seen this before. :wallbash: Snagging the incense beside Pasargadae and the ivory south of Alexandria should be priorities. The gems in the Sinai will take more work. The incense is especially attractive, since the trade network can go through Persia.

One of the migrants I sent north should be turned around to head there, eventually hooking up with the horsie wandering around in Arabia. The other lux might be taken by a migrant whipped out of Bourgas. Why not do this before building the barracks? We'll still have that in plenty of time.

Even better, build a worker in Bourgas to make a road to the gems (and a colony on them?). The ivory can be taken through a migrant from somewhere else. In retrospect, my decision to build the base at the deer may have been best, after all. It was completely accidental but this does get us to the luxuries quicker.

I agree that we should wait for Ridgelake.

Ridgelake <---- Up when he returns
Grimjack <---- On deck
T-Hawk <---- In the dugout
Abegweit <---- Crying over missed luxuries

Edit: there is ivory east of Persia too and the Sassanids are willing to trade silks for WM+280g. A deal should be considered shortly, either gpt or furs for silks. Hooking up the furs west of Silven would get our fur supply back if we go the second route.
 
Check this out.

I twice played the game into 382 in order to test things. The first time, it was to check the migrant merge thingey. The second time, I wanted to see if I had left one of the migrants on autopilot. I didn't think I had (and I didn't), but I thought I would check to avoid having to put up a warning if it wasn't necessary.

What I found was something FAR more interesting.

The second time, I got an SGL! So I thought that maybe I didn't notice before and tried yet again. Nope. My memory was right. No leader.

The reload-to-get-what-you-want trick from civ2 is back :eek: What a huge exploit! This is far far bigger than it was back then. With enough patience, you can build virtually every wonder in the game.

Ridgelake, there's only one wonder in this game, you know. And patience is a virtue. :lol:
 
Yes, all the scenarios have "Preserve Random Seed" *off*

:wallbash:

It's not a bug, but a design, so 'average joe' reloaing players can beat a scenario. Too bad it's not an "option" too for scenarios, but you can't change ANY of the options.

Charis
 
It's horrible. If someone wants to cheat in combat that is, I suppose, one thing. But reloading to get a leader??? That is completely obscene.
 
Incidently, do you know what the rules are about Great Leaders in conquests? Can you have two SGLs at the same time? An SGL and an MGL?
 
AFAIK in limited testing, it's like this: you can't get a new MGL if you have any existing GLs of either type. You can always get a new SGL regardless of any other leaders.

So you can have any number of SGLs at the same time. You can have both a SGL and a MGL if you get the MGL first. But if you already have a SGL, you can't get a MGL.
 
I can confirm at least that you can have more than one SGL. Have happened once in my SP games where I had a parked leader for a wonder, and I got another.

Grimjack
 
I am back in town now but I still have my computer problems to resolve. After I upgraded to the latest MS Service Pack, I can't get Civ to run. It doesn't launch. Going to try to upgrade the video and audio drivers today to make sure they are the latest. Maybe thats the problem. I will let you know when I can get civ to run again.

Looks like a good start. Wish I could open the game to see more.

Ridge
 
I figured out my computer problems and have Civ working now. Video drivers seem to be the culprit.

Consider this an "I got it". I am up both here and in Cultured Communists. Will try to get both done in the next 48.

Ridge
 
Good to hear you are go again Ridgelake.

Grimjack
 
Fall of Rome – Attila the Hun!

380AD (0) We are a nomadic tribe that is still in its infancy. We have some cities and are working desperately to improve our lands. I am really wondering how we are going to win this game. To amass enough troops in 150 turns after starting from scratch is going to be a….challenge.

I am disappointed that this government has as much corruption as we are seeing. We are going to have a hard time getting a enough productive bases to compete. The lands east of our capitol don’t seem all that great. In retrospect, we might have been better off with our capitol in what is now Pleven or Dobrich. This is not a negative comment on Grimjack’s choice. The only way to know that it might have been better would be to play the scenario first.

Temples are the cheapest culture building that I can see and they are 60 shields a piece. That is a lot of shields for a new city in a 150 turn game. This tells me that we better chose city sites with good first-ring tiles. Waiting for a temple to complete (even via whip) will probably not pay off.

So how can we win? As T-Hawk mentioned, probably the best way is to get a lot of units and then upgrade and attack. The problem is getting them to the enemy in a timely fashion. But as much as we might want to use warlords, I think that we need to build heavy cavs. It will take way too long to get to the front, otherwise.

So lets start playing.

Spend 49 gold for an embassy with the Eastern Romans. We need to see who else is at war with them. Constanople has 8 garrisons, rax, granary, temple, market, court and will finish a library in 1. Four luxes and all 4 resources. They are at peace with everyone.

I move some tiles around to help our prebuild city grow beyond size 2. Swap Dobrich to a granary. This will provide numerous migrants and workers in time.

IT Byzantines start Justinian, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Hagia Sophia. Byzantines are all the way to Christianity.

382AD (1) Whip rax in Kutmichevitsa. Sell around WM. Barb Leadership comes in. Start on currency. We need to get to the next age for heavy cavalry.

384AD (2) Furs hooked up. Adjust slider to 0/9/1. Currency due in 10. Sell WM around.

386AD (3) Shumen and Rouse founded. Sell around WM.

IT Ostrogoths start Scourge of God

388AD (4) Sell WM. Build more workers. Merge one into Ruse.

390AD (5)

392AD (6)

394AD (7)

IT Vandals start Scourge of God

396AD (8)

IT Sassanids start St. Peters.

398AD (9)

400AD (10) Currency comes in, trade it to the Ostrogoths for Poly, 2 gold and WM.

Scourge of God due in 18 for us. I started a new road that will help move our troops to the front. Fortification tech allows bridges.

I nominally have us started on Construction. We might consider swapping over to Sacking and hoping one of the other barb tribes goes for construction.

Great Bulgar has been building workers and migrants. We should think seriously of swapping over to military. We will need to start some offensive sooner rather than later. Many of our troops have been going for MP. We probably do have near enough workers now. Courthouses will be worth looking at.

This is going to be a tough game. I am not sure how we are going to win it.

Good luck, Grimjack. We are going to need it.



Rampaging? Huns
 
Got it.
Grimjack

I agree, I cannot see an easy way to win this. We need to go on some wholesale slaughter to amass victory points.

I think a mix of barbarians and cavalry will do the trick. If we build slow units for the next coupld of 20 turns, they will have time to position themselves. fortunately there is nothing we need research after we get bridges, and then we can run a 60% lux tax :) It is not as if we could cash rush stuff ....

Granary/barracks should be enough for most of our cities. It is way expensive to build temples.
Grimjack
 
@Ridgelake. Agreed about temples. Forget 'em and hook up those luxes instead. Furs to the west of Silven (trade to Persia for silks). Ivory to the east of Tyre. Incense to the west of Pasgardae. Gems and incense in the Sinai. Dyes to the west of Zohak.

I'm not at all sure about granaries, though. They cost two horsemen or six raiders to build and I can't see that we can afford it. Instead of granaries, build migrants. Not only do they double your food, they double your productive power too. And they're a third the price! In fact, our cities are too far apart. I have never tried an ICS, but this scenario seems ideal for it. I think we should have. Too late for that, but not for backfilling.

I think we've all been playing this too much like a standard game instead of adapting to the needs of this scenario where we have to rise from nothing to world dominance in no time flat. Certainly, I've found it hard to get out of that thinking at any rate. I'm naturally a builder and this scenario is about WAR! TOTAL WAR! Our whole game needs to focus on the war effort. Everything else takes the back seat, if it takes a seat at all.

We should be building nothing but barracks and units for quite a while (maybe forever), switching from barbs to horsemen at some point. We need precisely two techs: Sacking and Military Training. As such I agree with the decision to research Construction. We can trade for Sacking but MT is three steps up the tree.

There are two issues we have to address now. First, when do we attack Byzantium? And how many wars do we fight? Secondly, what in the Sam Hill do we do about the Roman situation?

Here is my thoughts how to play out the rest of the scenario. First, some basic facts:

1. We have approximately 98 turns left until one of the Empires reaches 35,000 VP and wins the game.

2. While it will be a bit less after the new road is finished (good idea!), it currently takes 18 turns for a barb to get from Great Bulgar to Bourgas, and it will take a lot more to get from there to the Mediterranean.

3. We have a grand total of 14 raiders at this date.

4. It costs 90g to upgrade one raider to a pillager and another 90 to promote him to warlord (as I understand it, the upgrade cost is three times the difference in the build cost in C3C). Upgrade of horse to cav is 120g.

5. Once we learn MT, we can't build horsemen anymore.

Pretty scary stuff.

I suggest we plan on three wars with the Byzantines. The first two are fought with barbs. We don't finish either until we get a tech, first Fortification, then MT. The last war, when we mop up, can be a mixture of barbs and cavs.

Figure on 5-10 turns for each war and 20 turns for each peace plus 20 turns for the first wave of barbs to reach the front. All 14 of 'em. That's 75-90 turns and we only have 98 left!!!

Conclusion #1: The barbs have to be on the move real soon :viking: :smoke: Like now.

Conclusion #2: We can build barbs usefully for about 50-60 turns. We can build horses for about the same period. After that, it's cavalry until the end. We could delay the horse cutoff by about 20 turns if we do not extort MT from Theo. This is probably a good idea. Definitely one to keep in our collective pocket anyway.

Conclusion 3: We need gold - and lots of it. Merely upgrading our current units costs 4500g. :( and we are going to want dozens more. Therefore...

Conclusion 4: No research after construction and...

Conclusion 5: Hook up those luxuries

Conclusion 6: There is no way that we will have time to take out Rome :eek: That doesn't mean that Rome can't fall. Just that we can't do it. We can be in on the final assault but the initial attacks will have to come from elsewhere. Think it's time to bring war to the world? ;)

What about starting a dogpile on the Romans right now? Bring the Byzantines into it to gas them a little before we get there. Our alliance should expire right about the time we are ready to declare on them. :satan:

It's possible that I'm wrong and that it is possible for us to take on the Romans. In any case, we want our cavalry to be in on the final dogpile. So, one last conclusion follows:

Conclusion 7: We need a western base. Somewhere in Switzerland or Bavaria would be ideal but there are lots of alternative choices.

An alternate plan would be to have only two Byzantine wars. I don't see any reason for this and, personally, I think that the sooner we get to it, the better. What do you think?

A decision has to be made soon. If there are three wars, the first one needs to be declared about 20-25 turns from now.

Immediate needs: get the barbs on the move, establish the western base while there's still a place for it and connect the luxuries before someone else does.

Thought for discussion: do we bring the world to war against the Romans? What about a furs for wine deal with the Byzantines to drag them in?
 
Lots of ideas there, Abegweit. :) Good analysis on the number of turns we have left and the timelines of barbs versus horses.

I think our game is different from many in that we did not start with any cities. That means that we realistically cannot win quickly. But hopefully we can get a good base built and then hit like a freight train. I am just worried about the length of time for our troops to get to the front.

I agree that we need to focus on mostly military and not infra. But where I come out on the granaries is that they double the growth of our PRODUCTIVE cities. Corruption is pretty bad. We need our core to get as productive as quickly as possible. Granaries are an investment in that. I suppose that we could put most of our border towns on workers and let them merge into our core cities. That might get us around the granaries. Perhaps a touch unethical, but it might be doable.

Making things productive is why I started so many courthouses. They are relatively cheap at 50 shields and will probably pay off by the end. Particularly if we whip.

Speaking of the whip, our lands are fairly food heavy but shield light. 1 citizen = 20 shields. A good deal for semi-to-mostly corrupt towns.

I think that we should swap our capitol over to military. We need its uncorrupted shields to go into units. Let the outer areas build more migrants.

I also agree with you that we need to take multiple shots at the Eastern Romans. I can easily see us hitting them with the idea of getting needed tech. Some pointy stick research will be a method to take our last needed tech or two. The problem that we have is the linear nature of the needed tech path.

I agree that we need more luxes. Getting some for trade will be helpful. Buying in other barb tribes to an MA will not be cheap. I doubt that we can finance wars against both the east and the west Romans. We may have trouble financing against the east.

We do need tons of gold. Not only for alliance and upgrades, but also for needed techs and forming embassies. Remember, no embassy, no MA.

Speaking of MAs, we will not be able to bring East against West. They are in a locked alliance.

We do need a western base. You did found one for us in the short term. I agree that we can't take out the western romans any time soon. This will be hard for us to overcome. Our only hope is that someone takes out a few of their cities and we can get enough over there to make the deathblow for the points. But we are a long way away from that now. East Rome should be our focus. The Sassanids are our most likely MA partner.
 
:bonk: I knew I should have returned to the forums this morning before playing the last set of turns.

I have fumbled the balls on luxes. I may even have fumbled the ball on techs.

RBC12C-Huns-400AD

Start off by familiarizing myself again. Sassanids have grown way big. I can only hope they are balloon big..
We ought to be able to put in one more worker in our wonder city just as soon as the current irrigation completes.
( Or redistribute tiles with neighbour city next turn. )
With the exception of Ostrogoths, we are ahead of the pack. I will continue to research Construction. It will be

cheaper to go for pillaging when the rest of the AIs have it. I will try to remember that next age techs will only

be sellable to Sassanids and possibly Rome. Likelyhood of war with rome makes it unlikely though.

IBT: Great Bulgar ( GB ) Migrant ->Worker, SOfia Raider->Raider.

402 Cut a couple of turns from Scourge by joining another worker. Just need to mine a plains, and it will be

optimized for size 6 city. I discover I do not have enough lux for this. Consider briefly buying wine from Eastern

Rome, but get laughed out of our council for the stupid suggestion of buying wine. Lose a turn on Construction

instead by raising lux tax.

404 Whip courthouse in Plovdiv. I think we may need/want to use the whip quite often to supplement the shields we

get from production while we cannot keep a high lux tax.
Sell world map for some change.

IBT: Franks come and ask that we give them Currency. While I am fairly certain they are bluffing, I will not call

them on it. I will not risk them getting some other barbarians into the fight, and I do not want the fight to be

barbs vs huns instead of barbs vs Romans.
GB starts building cats instead of workers/migrants.

406 Buy a worker out of the AngloSaxons for Polytheism.

408 Whip a courthouse in Varna.

IBT: Most of the rest of the barbs starts Scourge. We have 10 turns left, which I will get down to 9 turns if I go

deficit food.

410 More movement. Starting to put more and more focus on military, tempting as it may be to expand into the

fruitful rivervalleys that abound.

IBT: GB Cat->Cat, Pliska Horse->Horse, Dobrich Granary->Migrant,

412 Ack, the extra shield I had hoped would push down time for scourge yet another turn, got lost in corruption.

Thats a couple of wasted worker turns. Sorry.

Vandals know sacking now. We could buy Construction for some 2-250 gold, but sacking is much more valuable, so I

will wait. I am not certain we would want sacking until we have a lot of pillagers.

IBT: Sofia Raider->Migrant ( Due to happiness issues. ), Plovdiv Raider->Raider,

414 :zzz:

IBT: Western Rome tempts us by demanding 43 gold, but I cave.

416 Buy Construction from AngloSaxons for 9 gold.
Buy Fortification from Eastern Rome for map and 145 gold.
It is very tempting to also buy Pillaging from Franks for 320 gold and construction.
Instead I buy Military training from Eastern Rome for 165 gold. :o

I set us out on a slow research for Pillaging.

We could trade military training to sassanids in exchange for Monotheism, but we have no need for churches.

In hindsight, I could have waited with the heavy cavs. I lost my judgement when I saw how cheap the tech was.

We do however have very many horsemen if we allow ourselves to use the regular horse we also have.

418 Continue map sales. This is good money which we will use to get pillagers/Heavy cavs.

IBT: A lot of Visigoth troop movement in our direction. Mostly spearmen, but be sure to keep an eye out.
Constantinople finishes Basilica.

420 I put a migrant at the northern tip of the desert. I think he should settle here for a 1st ring city. It ought

to get some 6-7 shields after irrigation of plains. If you think the increased corruption in our outlying cities

is not worth it, then do not settle here.
I have another migrant in Dobrich. He can be used to secure the road, or make a whipping post up north where food

is plentiful.




Save is here
 
We have two free migrants.
Use them to get more firs, in order to trade for luxes from Sassanids.
Sassanids are powerful, and may be needing a pruning after eastern rome. ( Which should not be too hard, since our troops ought to be in this neighbourhood.

I think we should use our starting forces of regular horse to upgrade to heavy cavs. Then use the vets in assaults, and the regulars for defensive counterstrikes on exposed forces. ( Archers, spear in the open )

Also, please try to fill in with at least a single MP in all our cities, hopefully this will lessen any demands.

Grimjack
 
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