RBC12D - Fall of Rome - Vandals (Demigod)

[Justus II]

Thanks Gobi, I look forward to having some fun with this. A quick question, are the victory conditions the same? I'm only concerned after all the discussion that the Romes will win by turn 100-120 if left alone, is that still the case here? Or should the VP limit be increased? (Or maybe we should just play on Sid, so surviving to 100 with the AI allied against you would be, challenging )

 

[Gobi Bear]

We did not increase the VP limit. I had some of our testers on staff try this a few times. No one survived until 35K VP playing at their usual level. Remember, in the usual game, no one attacks Rome without the player intervening. Here the locked alliances against Rome kick in right away.

I think 22K was the best anyone did. I think I may have made it a little easier since then (by reducing War Weariness), but the plan is definitely to make it challenging just to survive to 35K.

 

[Justus II]

That sounds good, the more I thought about it on the way back to work, the thought of it basically being an Always War from the Roman perspective would probably make it quite a bit harder than I originally thought. And very limited opportunities for the human to use Byzantine diplomacy to manipulate the other civs! (Although I noticed the Vizigoths were not in any locked alliances, I forsee them taking some abuse if I play the Byz, using them as a human shield...)

 

[Gobi Bear]

The interesting thing is the Romans historically DID invite some of the barbarians to settle within the empire. In exchange they were used to supplement the garrisons to fight off the OTHER barbarians.

The way this is set up, you can do the exact same thing with the Franks and Visigoths. I chose those two since they started closest in to the core of the Roman empire.

 

[Rubberjello]

To Doc: Sorry about the tough turns. The exact same thing happened to me when I played this as the Celts. Massive, gigantic, stupendously big traffic jam in the Balkans. Eastern Rome came within 1 turn on winning on Victory Points before I could position my armies and take their 8'th town. Extremely frustrating, beyond question.
That is why I mistakingly predictid that the Sid Celt team may end up losing. Little did I know with their massive victory point reward, they may not even have to touch Eastern Rome in order to win!

 

[Charis]

Excellent! I hope several of you get to play this, or enough folks want to try 12I-Rome and 12J-Byzantium (Demigod-ish?)
I'm sure you could get enough - I wouldn't mind trying Byzantine myself.

IIRC, Rome did, for example, have vicious wars with the Vizigoths, which led to the sacking of Rome. But the Vizis just went home! The city fell but not the empire. There was an uneasy truce. Then soon a much bigger threat emerged - the Huns. Rome actually allied with the Goths to defeat the Huns. But in a spectacular show of... mercy? Rome had the Huns surrounded and defeated, but let them off the hook instead of decimating their army (much like the AI does with humans ) Ah, but it was not mercy! Rome wanted to make sure the Huns survived so that the Goths had to watch their back and view Rome as an ally, not an enemy. Fascinating stuff - it's great to not only play this in this scenario, but to see the players taking everybody's side. In the Vizigoth game alone do the "poor Vizis" rise up and lay down the smack on the Roman empire.

Gobi Bear, others have mentioned that one could just copy/edit the scenario to change 'allowed player civilizations' and play as Rome/Byz. It sounds though, that if you do so it's almost impossible to live to 35K, and that your version has had some changes to make it 'playable' but still hard?

Charis

PS@Rubberjello - we'll see tonight how Speaker did, but don't go handing the Celts the win just yet - it ain't over!

 

[akots]

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
... Whip Dromon in Salonnae (mainly to get rid of Romans). ...

It might have contributed to flip? Speaking of reloading. Probably now it is safe. I tried to reload right after posting and took Constantinople with army and small SOD + HC from Thessaloniki on turn 5. 4 extra marauders generated by army really helped. Then took out Singidunum for the 8th city on turn 5. Another army healed for 1 turn in the open and was besieging Athenae. But East Rome was down to 6 cities on turn 5, not 7 like in your turns. Oh, you had Singidunum taken already by turn 5 as 7th city.

Re: troop movement. It was very tough indeed but much better than it was. At least they were not clogging the hills all around war camp. Re: workers. They were mostly guarding the roads (not fortified) and building detours. Re migrants: did not know what to do with them, to tell the truth. Re: HC. Most of HC on the way was trying to head back to homeland or securing the roads. And all newly built warlords were devoted to homeland security. Logistics was very difficult. Getting troops to Greece was a nighmare. It was also hard to tell if more warlords would be able to get to Singidunum in time. However keeping a couple around Salonae was a good idea which was probably possible and I did not do it.

Edited: Razing Salonae was not an option because troop movement would be delayed by 2 more turns then and all the migrants to rebuild were stuck around War Camp. Forgot to write: I blocked Singidunum from Visigoth with warlords and they did not have a chance to attack it.

 

[Justus II]

@Akots,
I appreciate your interest in exploring some of the what-ifs in strategy for this scenario. I know from some of your posts in the Conquests forum that you like to be thorough and test things out. However, during the course of the SG, please refrain from any reloading of current or older saves to try different approaches. If we want to look at some 'alternative history' after the game is complete, to illustrate lessons learned or point out opportunities for discussion, that's fine. But while the game is in progress, it is not appropriate to gain information from the game that is not currently available, or execute events that did not occur to see the results. It acts as a spoiler for other players, and can influence their future decisions, especially if they think their moves are being second-guessed.

 

[Gobi Bear]

Originally posted by Charis
Gobi Bear, others have mentioned that one could just copy/edit the scenario to change 'allowed player civilizations' and play as Rome/Byz. It sounds though, that if you do so it's almost impossible to live to 35K, and that your version has had some changes to make it 'playable' but still hard?

Actually, if all you do is edit the allowed player civs, it doesn't make for an interesting game (if it did, we would have shipped the scenario with the Romes being playable).

All the barbarians do is spend the game saying "Wow that's a big empire you have with a stronger military than I ..." and let Rome cruise to victory.

The key change to make this interesting was to lock some of the barbarians into alliances against Rome. With that change, playing Rome is tough! I am hoping this is a good (but not impossible) challenge to survive to 35K now. The tweaks to Imperialism are the "fine tuning" I am using right now to try and finish balancing it off.

Make sense?

 

[akots]

Originally posted by Justus II
... But while the game is in progress, it is not appropriate to gain information from the game that is not currently available, or execute events that did not occur to see the results. It acts as a spoiler for other players, and can influence their future decisions, especially if they think their moves are being second-guessed.

That is another strong point with which I have to agree completely. How then would I let Doc know which was the plan? Just post in the end of my log something like "Attack Constantinople with army. Apparently we are able to take it within 5 turns. Also, try to surround Singidunum to prevent Visigoth from reaching it. And wait for East Rome 6 cities off and Constantinople to fall before attacking it. Or for 7 cities off and Constantinople not taken." On my view at the point, all this was more or less evident. Would that be OK? Indeed it sounds like a direct instruction which is not a good thing to post. And I do share responsibility with Doc for not taking out the East Rome in any case. Looks like these SG are more complicated in terms of relationship between the players than it seems. Well, at least for me it is not that easy to understand.

Edited: To me it was important to see if that plan is actually working. Hence, I reloaded and tried it and it worked. Then, nothing was posted. OK, then should have posted it at the end of the game, this is very clear.

 

[Justus II]

Justus II assumes his turn as head of the Tribal Council, and knows he shoulders the heavy burden of leading his people to war. Although the oppressive Roman Empire had disintegrated, (with substantial help from the Vandals), the other neighboring tribes were getting more aggressive in stealing prized fertile lands. Something must be done, and the first one to feel Justus’ wrath would be Clovis, the treacherous king of the Franks. Justus believed it possible that by hitting him hard enough, in multiple places at once, his kingdom would disintegrate as well, even faster than the Romans. So he set out to position his troops. Bribing wanderers, Justus inquired about the number of troops the Franks had in nearby towns, and discovered that each had at least four units of spearmen, half trained, half regular, and Bordeux had two extra units, presumably to guard the ancient Roman Obelisk. Although the Vandals had powerful Warlords and speedy cav, not enough could get through the mountain pass in time to attack right away, but Justus was a patient leader, and he would wait until the time was right.

(Current VP status: 21715, Sassinids at 13925). Speaking of Sassinids, they have Spices and Silks available, I buy both for our furs and 28gpt, dropping lux from 30% to 10%. Saves us 30gpt (net gain of 2) but the hard lux helps more in remote towns. I also cancel our ROP with the Franks, but don’t declare yet, just reposition a few garrisons to shadow wandering Franks.
IBT: LOTS of Anglo-Sax running through our lands. Visigoths and Huns ally vs. Sassinids. Franks kick our HC off the VP location, figured that would happen. Anglo and Franks ally vs. Sassinids. Syracuse HC-HC, Cagliari HC-HC, New Zuch Spear-spear, and the Plague now hits Zuchabar! VP is 21965 (+250).

[1] 532 Position more troops, move both Armies near Bordeaux, concentrate H.Cav near Avignon, lots of Warlords and HC for Marsailles and Grenoble.
IBT: Franks and Ostrogoths sign peace. Panormus-Migrant-spear, New Carthage Raider-raider. Bordeaux now has a Warlord on top.

[2] 534 Troops are in position, I declare war on Franks. Move units across borders at all 4 towns, use Warlords to pick off wanderers. 7 attacks, 7 victories, I kill a warlord (enslaving), 2 pillagers, 2 raiders, and 2 spears, get 2 marauders and a promotion. First Dromon bombards, second kills galley and we are out of the Adriatic. I disband a Maruader in Thessalonika so I can then whip a Dromon.
IBT: Ostros ally w/ Franks against us! Don’t see any units, but there goes our trade route. Near Grenoble, we lose a HC to a warlord, as well as one near Avignon. The HC by the VP location is killed as well. Thess-Dromon-dromon, Zuch HC-HC, Sald HC-HC, Cirta-Rax-Spear.

[3] 536 Celts are now listed as losing 4 cities. Avignon could be a close call, with his added warlord and our loss of an HC, so I attack there first. HC kills vet spear, then 2nd retreats, #4 wins but loses 3hp, #4 retreat, #5 –1hp but elite, #6 dies, and he still has at least a warlord and spear left. If Avignon wont fall, I don’t want to take too many others, so I focus on a few elite attacks, and save the rest for next turn. I do decide to take Bordeaux, as that’s where the armies are, and if I take it, they should be able to move on Avignon next turn. After 6 straight victories, I get 2 marauders and 2 promotions, and Bordeaux is destroyed, Armies move onto the road. Meanwhile, in the Balkans, we get Guntamond from a warlord, and he moves to quickly form another army.
IBT: Ostro HC kills a marauder scout on the mountain, spear picks off a worker from the road. An Anglo settler was adjacent to Bordeaux, I wasn’t paying enough attention, and they settle, engulfing OUR VP location, and more critically, it means the Armies won’t get the road bonus. Grrrr. Frank Warlord kills an HC. Hippo Regisu HC-HC, Cartenae HC-HC, New Carthage Raider-raider, New Tingsin Spear-spear. Now at 23520.

[4] 538 Need to move armies up. Plague is done in Ravenna. 2 HC, 3 WL take out 5 raiders wandering near Vandal Milan. Gortmunds army is filled with warlords, and heads east.
IBT: Sassinids ask for alliance vs. Celts, no thanks. WL retreats HC, another dies promoting our HC, Pillager kills spear. Anti-Byz Spear-trebuchet, Scourge gives another Warlord, Aleria HC-HC, Ammaera spear-spear, New Zuch spear-spear.

[5] Ready for the attacks. At Avignon, first army kills 2 spear, enslaving one, second army kills the warlord, and that’s it? City is autorazed. Marsailles isn’t much better, 4 HC take on 4 spears, another kills a wounded warlord, and it’s a pile of rubble. Grenoble has a warlord on top, attack with an elite warlord, and the game pauses. . . .

That was it! No more defenders, no more town, no more Franks. Our VP is now 29580, a gain of 5,670 for the Franks. Not bad. Still a little frustrated by the Anglos stealing my VP site, I found New Rusicade adjacent to the VP site, starting a culture battle that we can’t lose with the Hagia Sophia (instant temple). Other HC head to grab the central one near Paris. Meanwhile, all troops not involved in the city captures are turning east, to face the Ostrogoths. Visigoths might have been easier, but Ostros declared on us, so let’s take it to them! We still have a ROP with Visigoths (indefinite, looks like it’s been running a while, so we can keep it as long as we need and cancel later if we have to). Meanwhile, I am still tempted by the idea of the Celts having lost 4 cities. I don’t want to go to England, but they’ve got 3 cities in Spain, and after checking, yes they have one still on the NW coast of France. We can do this, but we have to act now, this is a limited time offer The two armies and some HC from Bordeaux head for Spain along the roads. Meanwhile, as much HC as possible from the north heads W to the coast. It will take 5-8 turns just to get there, but I think we can beat the Anglos, who aren’t even at war with the Celts right now.
IBT: Syracuse HC-HC, Hadrumenton Rax-Hc, New Carthage Raider-raider, Vandal Athens Spear-Dromon (not sure why, but I don’t think it will complete regardless).

[6] New Lilybaem founded on the coast of Turkey, picking up a VP spot. Also found New Cagliari where Marsailles used to be just to fill in the gap and connect N. Italy. Lots of movement, some traffic issues, as now we need to use Visigoth roads. Also, the autorazed cities don’t leave a road in the tile.
IBT: Panormus Spear-spear.

[7] Still moving cav west, everything else east.
IBT: Anglos ally w/Ostros vs. Celts (I knew that was coming). Celts want us to ally with them, no way! Thessalonika riots, I moved the MP, and New Carthage raider-raider.

[8] 546 Nothing special, just moves.
IBT: New Carten spear-spear, Carten-HC-HC, Lilybeaum HC-HC, Sabratha Spear-spear New Zuch spear-spear.

[9] 548 We get our first Ostrogoth city, Gavtis, on the Black Sea coast. I keep it, they don’t look too culturally strong, and it is a good location to heal/build armies if we get any leaders. It only had two spears, we won with a warlord and an HC, no losses. Carthago Novo is founded at the site of Carthage, grabbing the VP. The Vandals have finally made it to North Africa. Check F8, and what happened? Before they weren’t even listed (had Celts w/4 lost) and now the Ostros are at 6! I don’t know, we may be too late for this one, as our units are fighting through Vis traffic in their homeland to get to the front. We do have some HCs up front, but I also have no idea what the Huns or Sass are doing from behind. The nearest town has a redlined warlord showing, and there are Vizigoths in range, I decide to go for it and at least I can move other cav forward, to see if we have a shot at #8. 2 HC take out a Warlord and a HC, and we have destroyed Bairauja. HC move forward, toward the capital, but won’t reach it next turn either. At least we get some VP for the units and city. New Aleria is founded to secure our Alpine road.
IBT: 2 Ostro Warlords come out, force 2 HC to retreat. Waiting, waiting, but the Ostros are still around, I just don’t think I can reach them this turn either. Hippo-HC-HC, Scourge-Warlord, Zuch-HC-HC, Saldea-HC-HC, Rusicade HC-HC, Cirta-spear-spear, New Carthage-Raider-raider, New Hippo –HC-HC, New Tingsin-Spear-Spear.

[10] 550AD Wow, we are already at 31,660, a gain of 790 from last turn. Even if we can’t take anyone else out, we can win on VP+ combat points in 4-5 more turns. I continue moving most forces forward, so you have a better idea of what we have. I don’t try to attack an Ostro city, there are two that we are close to, but I could only hit either with 2HC, and I don’t know their defenses. More forces move up, so next turn you could hit one with 4HC, if they stick around that long. Here’s a map of the Ostrogoths:

Also should be able to hit the Celtic cities in Spain in 4-5 turns (he built another one), and the one in France in 2. If the Ostros survive another turn, you might be able to take them, we are closer than the Vis, and we have mostly HC, while they have warlords. Or we could pull back a bit, maybe even back off the VP locations for a few turns, and make sure we have time to get 4 Celt cities, and go over with a bang. Either way, I can’t see this going past RJ’s turn, and it may be a short one at that.

Roster:
Justus II -> Just Played, needs sleep
Rubberjello -> Up Now, on the verge
Gobi Bear -> On deck, but probably won't see it
Akots
Doc Tsiolkovski


Lead us to Victory

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

@Justus

Especially for sinking that *** Frankish Galley.
I was expecting our trade routes to Shappur are not safe; if only they would build a Harbor (we do have one ).

Noticed the Franks gave nearly as much VPs as Eastern Rome would have?


@Akots: Be assured, I do not blame you for anything I found at start of my turns.
Your intentions were pretty obvious.
Nevertheless, the Visis were also approaching Sinidunum from the East, thus I couldn't surround it forever (the SoDs from the S could be blocked, I did that as well). And if you managed to capture Athens and Constantineople, well, preserve random seed is off; I could as well have lost both our Armies. Singidunum was defended by 9 Legions and a Garrison, so I expected around 15 Legions in their capital. Since I expected Visis showing up there, I didn't want to decimate the defenders for them. If I had concentrated on Athens from the beginning, guess I would have gotten that. But I wanted enough troops in Thessaloniki to 99% prevent flipping; Salonae was one thing, but loosing a whole turn of production because all our core cities riot something completely different.
My main problem was the traffic jam, and obviously this is nothing you could have influenced in any way.

The only points aiming at you were the Italy situation, and selling off our Temples, and both turned out to be minor/ no issues.

 

[Charis]

A palpable hush falls over the uncivilized world as the Vandal masses poise themselves for victory and conquest over the known world!

Good job, bring it home Rubberjello!
Charis

 

[Rubberjello]

Preturn: Wow! The world has changed very, very much since last I've seen it! No need to speak Latin anymore! The smell of doom is hanging over the Ostrogoths. The mighty Huns have finally stirred in the East and have picked them as a foe. If the Barbaric tribes of Western Europe were smart, they would unite against this massive foe in the East before they got swept away.

IT: True to form:

We did not suffer a single attack.

552: Well. I think we'll just coast to a victory here. Send armies against the Celts and turnaround our Ostrogoth forces for use in Homeland Security in case the Anglos or Visigoths get delusions that they might be able to win. So just a suffling of forces, continuing road projects to alleviate traffic jams, etc. Approaching Celt cities in Spain.

554: VP: 32450. Notice that the Sassies and Visigoths are at war, as we see one of the Visigoths cities destroyed by a Sassy HC. I start moving our units out of the Vizzies' territory, in case there is a chance to honorably declare and get their last cities. I then declare war on the Celts and promptly destroy Segusio (France - 2 spears defending, no losses). Our Warlod armies in Spain attack, and Rutupaie gets destroyed (1 Spear, no losses). 2 more to go.

556: It is the usual entertainment watching the great migratory herds of Anglos wandering about through our lands, as they have been doing for the last 2 centuries. The logic of their wanderings seems to be lost on all but them, but personally the Vandals just think they've been experimenting with some strange mushrooms in the forest. Paris is founded on the France victory location. I can take the 7'th Celt city (in Spain) this turn, but I wait because we are two turns away from the 8'th, and I astutely notice the rest of the world is at war with them.

558: VP: 33390. A convoy of Celt ships is sighted in the Mediterranean. A very, very early Crusade? I sink two of their Dromons with our Dromons near Carthage. (Very cool attack animation!)

560: Vandal Aquilia riots. Sorry about that. On to the Celts! Lapurdum falls with 3 Spears defending and no losses to our HC. Lindum easily falls also to our Warlord Army (2 Marauders created). Our victory points jump to 41,110! [dance]

The save below is at the end of the turn of 560. Just hit end turn to see the ending stuff. We didn't end up with a single top 5 city. We ended up with 41,460 Victory Points, and with our Demigod bonus it ended up as 66,336 score on the final screen.

The final turn before victory.

'Twas a pleasure playing this game with you all, and meeting some new folks in the SG circuit. Thanks, Gobi Bear, for joining in. Its always a pleasure to see Developers still interested in their product after they are "finished".
A special thanks to Charis for orchestrating everything.

 

[Justus II]

Good job Rubberjello, seems only fitting that the "real" wars started on your turn, then came full circle. Everyone got in a round of Marauding, Pillaging, and generally being a Warlord! I definitely want to give a big to everyone on the team, we had some great discussions and a lot of input, which is one of the things I enjoy about an SG. The unpredictable nature of when the AI finally 'gets in gear' vs. another civ and takes cities created a lot of suspense, which was cool too. I think we might have been better off taking out the Celts after all, that's a much bigger bonus than we got for the Franks. I think it is for a similar reason to what the Sid team said about taking W. Rome early, they still had most of their original units left. I'm sure the AI Celts (unlike their Sid cousins ) didn't get too many forces off the islands and into combat yet, so they were all just waiting to be "cashed in". Thanks again for everyone on the team!

 

[akots]

Great! That is a lot of points! Thanks everyone for letting me in as a newbie. It was a pleasure playing with you.

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
... well, preserve random seed is off ...

How come?

Edited: OK, I got it in the main thread.

 

[Gobi Bear]

Lots of fun. I enjoyed it immensely. Thanks everyone, and do try the Rome Everlasting variant I posted. I'd love some input from people who understand the scope and feel of the Fall of Rome conquest already.

If you want to email me directly about it, my address is:
ebeach@breakawaygames.com

That might be easier than trying to post a message for me on the forums.