RBC12G - Sassanids (Emperor)

[Corrado]

Pre-turn check: Everything looks okay.

344 AD (1): Arbela Spearman -> Horseman.
Horseman kills a barb camp for 25 g.
Sell Contact with the Franks to Attila for 18 g.

346 AD (2): Ctesiphon worker -> Migrant. Babylon worker -> Migrant. Singara Spearman -> Marketplace.

Horsemen discover a barb camp in Egypt.

348 AD (3): Susa Horsemen -> Horsemen. Ecbatana Migrant -> Temple. Nehavend Spearman -> Horsemen.

Regular horseman kills a barb and promotes.

WM to Rome for WM and 16 g. WM to Franks for WM and 12 g. Alphabet to Huns for 55g. and TM. WM to Visigoths for WM and 9 g.

Slide Science up to 40%; we are now getting Military Training in 32 turns at -3gpt. The problem with buying it from East or West Rome is that we'll probably have to do a gpt deal, which forces us to have 20 turns of peace before we unroll the cavalry, by which time they'll be spilling out their own cavalry. Better, IMO, to research it ourselves and slam into them ASAP. Besides- we have no idea how long it'll take their corrupt, shaky governments to actually do the research.


350 AD (4): Kill barb camp for 25 g.
WM to Western Rome for 10g. WM to Eastern Rome for 13 g.

352 AD (5): Spasinu Migrant -> Spearman.
Found Parsargadae near all the luxuries in the world. Well, a lot of them. Begin work on Temple.

We can now slide lux to 0% and get Military Training in 19 with -2 gpt.

WM to West Rome for 8 g. Everyone else is just plain broke.

354 AD (6): Ctsiphon Horseman -> Horseman. Peshawar Barracks -> Temple.

Found Gordium near the "D" site. Begin work on a Spearman.

356 AD (7): Babylon Horseman -> Horseman. Perseopolis Barracks -> Spearman.
WM to Western Rome for 18 g. WM to Eastern Rome for 24 g. Barbarians remain broke, which raises the question of how they keep ending up with 25 gold in their camps.

358 AD (8): Hook up more Silks.
Western and Eastern Rome have Byzantine Ingenuity (Hospitals and Dromons). They want 47 gpt and 392 g for it. Hah. And I say again, Hah.
WM to Celts for WM and 8 g. We now have 400 g., 2 gpt., and expect Military Training in 14 turns.

IBT - Barb horsemen show up near an exploring Horseman.

360 AD (9): Ctesiphon Horsemen -> Horseman. Arbela Horseman -> Horseman. Susa Horseman -> Horseman.

Horses move to Arbela; from there they can upgrade and strike at Nisibis when ready.

362 AD (10): Babylon Horseman -> Migrant. Spasinu Charax Spearman -> Worker. Nehavend Horseman -> Worker.

That's in for me; I'll pass it on to Mitsho. We're ~12 turns away from Military Tradition, and likely will have it before either Roman civs. We have a lot of horsemen; I'm not sure how much upgrading will cost, but once we have MT, we can switch over to a no-science economy and make what we need for a massive Heavy Cavalry launch.

There are 11 Eastern Rome cities that can be reached without using boats, so I suggest we try to take her on without getting help: that's a lot more points for us, and we can avoid someone else poaching the 8th city and stealing those points.

After Eastern Rome is out, we have 3 Western Rome cities in North Africa (probably lightly defended, and all on VP spots), but we'll likely have to shuttle troops off to Italy to do the necessaries, so after MT we should either work on Byzantine Ingenuity or hope to extort it from Western Rome for peace.

Okay, here's the save.

 

[Corrado]

Originally posted by Caesar_Augustus
We should also keep skimming migrants off of our cities, even when our production core is settled. We'll need 8-10 migrant/horse pairs to quickly settle VP spots once the Romans are eliminated.

We don't need a city on a VP spot to own it; we only need to have a unit on it. Throwing a bunch of small cities out on VP squares only increases our risk of losing 8 cities. Let's just send a few Spearmen or un-upgraded Horses to those sites to claim them.

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

mitsho (Up)
DeceasedHorse (On Deck)
Ducki (???)
Caesar Augustus
Corrado (just played)

24hrs for 'Got It'; 48 hrs to complete turns after 'Got It'

We don't need a city on a VP spot to own it; we only need to have a unit on it. Throwing a bunch of small cities out on VP squares only increases our risk of losing 8 cities

True, we don't need a city to own it, just a unit on top of it. However, the other civs WILL send settlers to found cities right next to the VP locations and then demand us to leave. I don't want to have to break alliances to get 'our' victory point locations back. So I think more migrants are in order.

From this post and others, I get the sense that you're really worried about the 8 city rule. While I think wariness is good, the 8 city rule isn't that big of a deal. If we lose 4-5 cities, we're probably in rough shape anyway, and I don't see that happening with our gameplan. Asia and Egypt's VP locations are ours - it'll take ages for the AI to mount an attack to claim them, and we'll be able to see them coming from a mile away and can easily organize our defence. I think we need to be aggressive in attacking and grabbing victory points to win this; if we lose a couple of cities in the process, so be it.

Some observations and comments on Corrado's turns after taking a look at the save:

-Note to next ruler (Mitsho): Trade our WM before hitting next turn; there's roughly 40+g out there from all of the civs.

-Build choices : Singara is building a Marketplace, Ecbatana a Temple, Peshawar a Temple. We don't need Temples; luxuries provide us with our happiness, and most of our cities will be kept in the size 6-8 range, so more tiles to work is unnecessary. Marketplaces are also useless: we don't need the happiness boost, and after we research Mil. Trad. our gpt will be a moot point (we can buy alliances with techs or extra luxuries/resources).

If this was a 540 turn game, then Temples and Markets would be a good choice. However, we only have 150 turns in this scenario (and 120 before Rome wins on VPs). We need barracks and that's IT for buildings.

I was also puzzled with some of your unit build choices. Why build a spear in Gordium (which doesn't have a barracks) when Spasinu has an extra one to move up? For units, we need more workers to mine and increase production, migrants to claim VP locations, and horsemen/HC to Rome. And oh yeah, galleys to transport them.

Not trying to you or anything Corrado, overall I thought your turns were good. I like and agree with your choice to veto my 0% science and get Military Tradition on our own; if we had waited for its gpt deal to expire, war wouldn't have come until turn 50-60, and that might be too late. The purpose of my comments is to A) hopefully get some debate and discussion going B) learn some more about Civ from you guys. Maybe there's a method to your market/temple madness that my Heavy Cavalry-obsessed mind overlooked!

There are 11 Eastern Rome cities that can be reached without using boats, so I suggest we try to take her on without getting help: that's a lot more points for us, and we can avoid someone else poaching the 8th city and stealing those points.

While we do want to ensure we eliminate the 8th city, I'm worried that E. Rome, with all of its techs, might buy the barb civs into alliances with us if we don't get them into alliances first, creating a dogpile. What does everyone else think?

. . .after MT we should either work on Byzantine Ingenuity or hope to extort it from Western Rome for peace.

?? We don't need BI; Map Making provided us with Galleys (1.1.4, 2 transport, which are just as good as Dromons (2.1.4, 2 transport). And 160 shield hospitals aren't necessary for our warmongering ways After MT, science should go to 0.

I'm not sure how much upgrading will cost

80 gold for every horseman --> Heavy Cav upgrade.

@Team: Should we be wasting our time building unnecessary roads (ie non-military/connecting roads)? Focusing solely on mines would be much more useful for our military gameplan, and we have no need for the commerce bonus that roads provide

EDIT: Summary Pic

 

[Corrado]

Originally posted by Caesar_Augustus True, we don't need a city to own it, just a unit on top of it. However, the other civs WILL send settlers to found cities right next to the VP locations and then demand us to leave. I don't want to have to break alliances to get 'our' victory point locations back. So I think more migrants are in order.

Not yet, though. Remember- we're practically on an island. Only the Huns can really send settlers down- everyone else needs to send settlers over the water, which means building boats, which few of them have. The only area to be contested is Greece and the Balkans, and I think that will be an assault all of its own: we can destroy Eastern Rome without touching that area (again, 11 cities in Turkey/ME/Africa, and we only need destroy 8); then, we can let the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and others quick-settle that area and open themselves up to being wiped out by us.

Remember- VP sites help, but won't win it for us. To hit 35,000 we'll need to take the 8th city of both Romes and 2-3 other civs. Eastern Rome will be easy. Western Rome will be a bit more difficult- 3 cities in NA, then 5 cities somewhere else, maybe Italy and/or Spain. After that, we hit the civs which have dangled out the most 1-pop cities or have taken the worst from their fellows.

From this post and others, I get the sense that you're really worried about the 8 city rule. While I think wariness is good, the 8 city rule isn't that big of a deal. If we lose 4-5 cities, we're probably in rough shape anyway, and I don't see that happening with our gameplan.

But remember- each time we lose a city, even the same city, counts against us. So if we take, say, Caesarea, then lose Caesarea, then retake it, then lose it again, we've now lost 2 cities of the 8, not 1.

Since we'll be fighting Legions, and maybe Heavy Cav, and we'll have no defense to speak of (as the scenario is set up), I'd prefer to keep us from making things worse by aggressively expanding and thus allowing Eastern Rome to out us by taking a couple of 1-pop cities.

Asia and Egypt's VP locations are ours - it'll take ages for the AI to mount an attack to claim them, and we'll be able to see them coming from a mile away and can easily organize our defence. I think we need to be aggressive in attacking and grabbing victory points to win this; if we lose a couple of cities in the process, so be it.

Yeah, sure, it'll be easy once we've cleared Eastern Rome out. That's not what I'm worried about- once we have Turkey/ME/Africa to ourselves, we're golden and just racing against the clock. What I'm worried about is the counter-attack Eastern Rome will throw against us once we declare war on them.

-Build choices : Singara is building a Marketplace, Ecbatana a Temple, Peshawar a Temple. We don't need Temples; luxuries provide us with our happiness, and most of our cities will be kept in the size 6-8 range, so more tiles to work is unnecessary.

Marketplaces are also useless: we don't need the happiness boost, and after we research Mil. Trad. our gpt will be a moot point (we can buy alliances with techs or extra luxuries/resources).

I'm spending now to save us time and money later. We'll need a hell of a lot of money once we get MT in order to upgrade all of our horsemen. Likewise, marketplaces and temples allow our cities to grow even more, and thus produce HC even faster. I could either spend the shields now on Horsemen- which would mean having to dump more money we may not have without Markets into upgrading them- or I can spend it on items that allow our cities to be in the 9-12 size without worries and produce HC 50-100% faster.

And also- trading will not be easy. Nobody's going to have harbors for a long time, if at all, so all of our trading has to be done overland and through the Huns.

I was also puzzled with some of your unit build choices. Why build a spear in Gordium (which doesn't have a barracks) when Spasinu has an extra one to move up? For units, we need more workers to mine and increase production, migrants to claim VP locations, and horsemen/HC to Rome. And oh yeah, galleys to transport them.

I did not notice that Spasinu has an extra spear. As for building a spear in Gordium w/o barracks- who cares? It's a 2 defense unit- if Gordium is attacked, it's dead whether it's veteran or not.

After MT, science should go to 0. 80 gold for every horseman --> Heavy Cav upgrade.

Agreed.

@Team: Should we be wasting our time building unnecessary roads (ie non-military/connecting roads)? Focusing solely on mines would be much more useful for our military gameplan, and we have no need for the commerce bonus that roads provide

Again- we'll need that money in 19 turns when we start upgrading horsemen. After we have all HC, then I think we can go straight to a 'mine only' worker path.

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

Ahh, good to see a long reply! The debates and discussions are finally starting to roll in this thread.

I'd prefer to keep us from making things worse by aggressively expanding and thus allowing Eastern Rome to out us by taking a couple of 1-pop cities.

? These 1-pop VP cities won't be founded until the Eastern Romans are dead though. Or are you talking about the blue dots? Those were to fill in our territory so we can work the maximum amount of low-corruption tiles without having to grow cities above size 8. If every city works 8 tiles (including its center square), then the cities should be crammed together so that no useful (grass/plains/hills) tiles are wasted.

I'm spending now to save us time and money later.

Ok, I'll split this comment into two:

A)Time (production): I touched on this above, but having cities above size 8 is a waste when you build as tight as we are planning, because it's hard for a city to find more than 7 tiles to work. The main advantage of a tight build, however, is that you don't need to build temples/markets to keep the people happy; our 5 luxuries will take care of happiness. At size 8, most of our cities should hit 12-14spt. At size 12, maybe 18-20 spt. 3 size-8 cities will produce 3 Heavy Cavalry every 7 turns; 2 size-12 cities will produce 2 every 5. Both use the same amount of space.

I realize this gets into the endless OCP vs ICS/tight build debates. If I read more about 'zenning' and 'ralphing' over at 'poly, I'M going to start ralphing . But in a 150 turn game, I think there's no debate that ICS/tight build is the way to go, especially in a game where there's going to be lots of warmongering, since tight builds are much easier to defend and shift garrisons around in.

B) Money: Ok, bear with me here . At the end of this turn, after map trading, we'll have 443g. In 12 turns we'll have MT (less if Rome gets it first), and we're making +4 gpt. We're also making approximately 20gpt (a very low end estimate, it's been higher) from map/tech sales and barb camp fragging. Therefore, when we get MT in 12, we should have roughly 730 gold in the bank.

We currently have 13 horsies with 3 in production. Ctesiphon alone can pump out another 3 by itself before Military Tradition comes in. I'll guess the other cities can pump out another 3 as well (after they finish their current builds), giving us 22 Horsemen and 730 gold when we get MT on turn 32 of 150.

We'll immediately upgrade as many horse as possible: 9 horse * 80 gold = 720. 13 horses left. Our gpt deals with Rome will have expired by then, so our income will be be *at least* 80gpt, most likely closer to 100gpt given natural growth/map trades/barb frags. So if we upgrade a horse a turn, by turn 10-13 we'll be out of horses (and have 20+ Heavy Cav ), and subsequently be out of uses for our gold. At turn *42 of 150.*

60 turns after that, at turn 100, we should be steamrolling E. Rome and massing for W. Rome. And we'll have at least 5000 gold rotting and wasting in our coffers.

However, if we had built horses instead of temples and marketplaces, we'd have an extra 7 horsemen to upgrade. It's like we're throwing away 7 free Heavy Cavalry. It's up to the next ruler to decide if they want to veto the builds - it might be too late to do so - but I'd do it in a heartbeat. Take those marble temple walls down and . . . uh . . . make them into living horses!

What I'm worried about is the counter-attack Eastern Rome will throw against us once we declare war on them.

I hope it's a big one! I'll be sorely disappointed if 8-10 legionnaires limp to the Euphrates and prostrate themselves before our hooves

And also- trading will not be easy. Nobody's going to have harbors for a long time, if at all, so all of our trading has to be done overland and through the Huns.

Good point on the harbors, I hadn't thought of that. We can forget resource selling then; besides, I'm sure techs will be enough to buy everyone in to the dogpile. And we can always make the Huns our bestest friend . . . for the time being

As for building a spear in Gordium w/o barracks- who cares? It's a 2 defense unit- if Gordium is attacked, it's dead whether it's veteran or not

True that! If ANY of our cities are attacked, they're dead Too bad for Rome that our Heavy Cav will slaughter any legionary who happens to move next to a city

 

[Corrado]

Originally posted by Caesar_Augustus
? These 1-pop VP cities won't be founded until the Eastern Romans are dead though. Or are you talking about the blue dots?

Ah, sorry- I thought I was being taken to task for not have aggressively built Migrants right now in order to expand our borders. If you're saying "We'll do that, but only after Eastern Rome is dead", then I definitely agree with you.

But if you're saying that we should have aggressively expanded right now... I don't agree. Remember, the Huns are to our north and highly aggressive, so leaving little pips out to be taken by them is just as bad.

A)Time (production): I touched on this above, but having cities above size 8 is a waste when you build as tight as we are planning, because it's hard for a city to find more than 7 tiles to work. The main advantage of a tight build, however, is that you don't need to build temples/markets to keep the people happy; our 5 luxuries will take care of happiness. At size 8, most of our cities should hit 12-14spt. At size 12, maybe 18-20 spt. 3 size-8 cities will produce 3 Heavy Cavalry every 7 turns; 2 size-12 cities will produce 2 every 5. Both use the same amount of space.

...However, if we had built horses instead of temples and marketplaces, we'd have an extra 7 horsemen to upgrade. It's like we're throwing away 7 free Heavy Cavalry. It's up to the next ruler to decide if they want to veto the builds - it might be too late to do so - but I'd do it in a heartbeat. Take those marble temple walls down and . . . uh . . . make them into living horses!

I guess that it comes down to this- I'd prefer to get our core cities as large as possible and have them throw out HC every 2-3 turns, and I see building marketplaces for happiness and extra money as an early investment in getting those super-cities. And those super-cities will more than make up for 7 lost HC, which would dribble in to our forces as we make the cash.

We'll see. You certainly may be right, and if you are, I bow to your foresight. But I think that turning our core cities into the biggest production centers we can will help us in the long run. And even though it's a short game, we're not going to his 35,000 until at least turn 90-110.

Good point on the harbors, I hadn't thought of that. We can forget resource selling then; besides, I'm sure techs will be enough to buy everyone in to the dogpile. And we can always make the Huns our bestest friend . . . for the time being

Yeah, the Huns are on my list. After we sack Eastern Rome and take the NA cities of Western Rome, we'll need some time to build our fleets (can't start working on 'em till we get some port cities!) While we do that, if we have a lot of units sitting around, maybe it'll be time to clear out our northern trade route...

True that! If ANY of our cities are attacked, they're dead Too bad for Rome that our Heavy Cav will slaughter any legionary who happens to move next to a city [/B]

Forward defense is the name of this game!

 

[mitsho]

hmm , the proposal is still standing. I cannot play before tommorow (or likely) Friday. So, if anyone wants to play, put me one back in the roster . . .

@the game: hmm, the most things have been said by you two.
So what should I add?

-aren't the temples needed for the cultural expanding in those cities? (I don't have the map in my mind, so I am most likely wrong and these cities are in the core of our empire?)

-for the counterattack, we likely should build some 'defense' units in the single city, that's near to the East Roman Border. Although I think, this doesn't need to be done, some attention cannot be bad. Can it?

-about the harbors: I think, we should quickly take Ceasarea and Alexandria and be building immediately some harbors (do we need veteran?) and triremes. Begin early and you'll have enough later on?

mfG mitsho

 

[Corrado]

So... Deceased Horse? You willing to grab it?

 

[DeceasedHorse]

Preturn: Do a round of map trading and selling.

Turn 1: Keep exploring

Turn 2: Horses and workers complete. Send migrant from babylon east to settle near peshwar.

Turn 3: Horseman kills sacks barb camp east of Persepolis.
Found Bactra (gotta love speed 2 settlers!) and it starts on a spear.

IBT: Ostrogoths kick out our exploring horseman. Relations go to cautious.

Turn 4: Our Immortals walk into a hornet's nest of barbs in Arabia.

IBT: Two Horsemen dare to challenge our Immortal on a hill. Loses 1 hp and kills both, shoots another hp off another passing horse. Didn't notice they had ZoC before now.

Turn 5: Babylon grows to size 8 and will riot, so I switch its horsemen to migrant and hire a tax dude for a turn. Scratch that; a scientest instead, which cuts our time to MT down a turn. Our Immortals in Arabia raze another barb camp, +25 gold. Scouts in general begin marching back to Persia in preperation for our immeninent assault on the Byzantines.

I also notice that I can't spell without a spellchecker. Geez.

Turn 6: Immortals destroy the last Arabian barb camp (that I can see). Will heal and head home. I am able to go 80% science, MT in 2 now.

IBT: A trio of suspicious-looking Hun horsemen show up north of Ecbatana. Ostrogoths kick out our scouting horseman again (he'd gotten trapped in their territory when they booted him the first time)

Turn 7: Our world map remains valuble; the Byzantines would actually pay us gpt for it HCav in 1.

IBT: 3 more hun horsemen show up. May delay founding Sidon on the black sea in case the huns are feeling suicidal and start a war.

Turn 8: MT research finishes. [dance] Research to zero, +110 GPT
Blow 600 gold upgrading horsies in Arbela. Found Sidon; I feel confident our Hcav in Arbela can intercept the hun horseman in time..

Let's see, the fastest we could get Justinian's leadership is about 42 turns in the currently size 9 babylon; I'll leave it up to the next leader to decide what to do about it. Ecbatana actually produce more raw shields, but is more and would need a courthouse to compete. It starts one, vetoable of course since it can always be a prebuild . Babylon could probably get up to about 16 spt if it steals the currently irrigated bonus grass (being mined now) from the capital though. Happiness will eventually be a problem as it keeps growing, but the marketplace is currently functioning quite well.

IBT: Well, that was fast. The Byzantines begin Justinian's leadership. Hun Horsies head west, away from us.

Turn 9: Upgrade 2 more horsies after selling map around.

Turn 10: Split our Arbela army into 2 groups; 5 Heavy cavs and 3 horses move right outside the border of the Byzantines, the other half head south and then west to play defense against any counterattack launched from the Byzantine's north african and palestinian possesions, as well as to attack said cities when the times comes. Our Elite Immortals are still on there way back from Arabia, and we have a horse outside of Alexandria ready to pillage or whatever.


The mighty persians

We'll see about that, military advisor!

 

[mitsho]

hmm, I'll play it tomorrow, ok?
BUT:
- Should I attack on turn 0 (or 1)?
- Justinians Leadership. we do not need the barracks, but it is also heroic epic. I honestly don't know. I would build it. But the byzantines are already building it in Constantinople. So they'll probably be faster. So no wasted shields please therefore either investigate constantinople and look then, if we should build it. But this costs money. How much can we afford?
-general question: we do not need more cities in Mesopotamia, do we? Just Alexandria, Caesarea, Carthago and the other NA cities we will conquer and hold. Am I right?

mfG mitsho

 

[DeceasedHorse]

Well, we shouldn't have to worry about the Byzantines finishing it; unless things go horribly wrong Constantinople will be a flaming wreck before they even get close to completing it. Western Rome will probably have a better chance, but I have no idea what their production capablilites are.


EDIT: The only thing we are spending money on right now is upgrading horsemen; we make 110 GPT or so. We can afford to investigate if we want.

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

ROSTER (DeceasedHorse and Mitsho are now perma-switched):

Caesar Augustus (On Deck)
Corrado
DeceasedHorse (just played)
mitsho (Up - I assume your last post was a 'Got it')

(Ducki's out unless he/she makes an appearance)

-Quick nit @ DeceasedHorse: next time you download the save to play, post a 'got it' before you start your turns. It would've sucked if you and Mitsho had been playing at the same time.

Response to mitsho's earlier points:

aren't the temples needed for the cultural expanding in those cities? (I don't have the map in my mind, so I am most likely wrong and these cities are in the core of our empire?)

If we have a tight build. we don't need cultural expansion. But if we abandon the tight build philosophy, then a few temples wouldn't hurt.

-about the harbors: I think, we should quickly take Ceasarea and Alexandria and be building immediately some harbors (do we need veteran?) and triremes. Begin early and you'll have enough later on?

Regular triremes are fine so we don't need harbors. But I agree, Caesarea and Alexandria will be our main trireme factories. Make sure we have a good sized garrison in each to prevent culture flips.

for the counterattack, we likely should build some 'defense' units in the single city, that's near to the East Roman Border

We are buidling defense units- Heavy Cav. A spear per city will be fine for MP / AI sneak attack deterrence, but our only effective manner of defence is to attack with our Heavy Cav. No sitting in our cities this game .

we could get Justinian's leadership is about 42 turns

Building Justinian's Leadership would be , imo:

-600 shields is WAY too much with only 120 turns left. That's 7.5 Heavy Cav wasted.
-our core cities already have barracks.
-Heroic Epic is great and all, but any armies we make will have to march all the way around the Black Sea, through Hun territory, to get to the Romans (Transports in this scenario can only carry 2 units). Not saying we don't want armies, I'd love to have a couple, but sacrificing 7 Heavy Cav for a small increase in our probability to get a leader is a waste.
-We're the Sassanids, inheritors of the mighty legacy of the Parthians and the Persians. Build a *ROMAN* wonder of the world? US? :saiyan: Xerxes would roll over in his grave if we hired a WESTERN general to teach our armies! HA! Our Heavy Cavalry, the lifeblood of our empire, the ESSENCE of Persia, has no need for Justinian and his foolhardy concepts of leadership! I actually hope it IS built in Constantinople, so I can have the pleasure of RAZING that blight of a city to the ground and then using Justinian as a stepping stone to mount my horse!

A few more observations after giving the save a quick lookover:

-Sidon AND Bactra are undefended?? Nothing invites an AI sneak attack like undefended cities. I think that may be why the Huns had a few horsemen approaching Ecbatana. We need to move spears from Ecbatana and Nehavend to Sidon and Bactra, respectively, pronto.

-That migrant I built way back in turn 8 is STILL in Babylon!

we do not need more cities in Mesopotamia, do we? Just Alexandria, Caesarea, Carthago and the other NA cities we will conquer and hold. Am I right?

I'd recommend settling C dot with it, or we could keep it for settling a VP site in Greece once the Byzantines bite the dust.

-DeceasedHorse, why do you have the horsemen in our attack group? They should be in Persepolis or Arbela waiting to be upgraded. We don't want to EVER attack with a horseman, that would be a waste of a future Heavy Cav.

-I was going to suggest keeping our lone horseman in Egypt to explore west and frag barb camps, since we can still sell our maps to the Barbs, but it may be better to bring him back and upgrade him. Especially since we don't need gold anymore. What do you guys think?
-----
As for whether to attack or not, it's your call Mitsho. I think we have enough to take it to the Eastern Romans right now. If you feel like trampling some Romans, I say go for it

Just make sure:
-You declare war on the Western Romans IMMEDIATELY after declaring on the Eastern Romans, and then bring everyone into alliances against the West. Pay whatever it takes to get them in.
-Watch out for culture flips in our newly captured cities! Check out the Culture score in-game and you'll see what I mean
-Don't be afraid to bump up our luxury tax if happiness is a problem - gold is rapidly becoming worthless.
-Remember to keep an eye on the barbs' activity, since we want to be the one to capture the eighth city for the VP bonus.

Mount up Sassanids! For Xerxes! For Darius! For the liberation of land rightfully ours! Onwards, to Constantinople and then, to ROME!

EDIT: Fixed bold type error

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

A little map to help with our planning:

 

[Corrado]

Originally posted by mitsho
- Should I attack on turn 0 (or 1)?

It depends. First, make sure that all of our stacks are HC, not just horsemen. Leave a few (3-4) units near the southern road to deal with the Byz counter- keep 7 spaces from Ces so the HC doesn't get attacked by enemy HC. If you have 7-8 units left to attack Nicea with, then do it. If not, keep building.

- Justinians Leadership. we do not need the barracks, but it is also heroic epic. I honestly don't know. I would build it. But the byzantines are already building it in Constantinople. So they'll probably be faster. So no wasted shields please therefore either investigate constantinople and look then, if we should build it. But this costs money. How much can we afford?

Don't bother with it yet. Either one of the Romes will build it and we can conquer it, or once we've dealt with the Romes, we build it as a finishing touch. But Caesar Augustus is right- it's way too many shields to bother with right now.

-general question: we do not need more cities in Mesopotamia, do we? Just Alexandria, Caesarea, Carthago and the other NA cities we will conquer and hold. Am I right?

mfG mitsho

I'd hold Cyrene- we'll be sending units along NA to attack Western Rome, so having a base to heal in Cyrene would help.

I'd also keep any coastal cities, including the ones in Turkey, for the building of a massive fleet.

As for VP cities... your choice. Keeping them means immediate VP control; destroying them will encourage the Huns and others to come and encroach on our lands. But new Hun settlements will then be tasty treats easily taken out... so it's good either way.

 

[Charis]

Wow Caesar_Augustus, great job on that VP map!

I have a very basic question indeed - for those VP locations, do you get the points for moving onto the square, and they need not be guarded, do the points go to whoever is occupying them and can change, or do they give x pts/turn while on them? Very different strategies to get the points depending on the answer!

Can someone who has played this scenario before answe that?

Charis

 

[Gobi Bear]

The VPs are awarded EACH TURN to the player who currently occupies them with military units (having a city there alone doesn't count).

 

[mitsho]

SO:
-I won't held Nicae (the city next to us?). I'll raze all land cities I can conquer. But I'll conquer the sea cities! So plan: 1. nicea 2. Antioch. A good force will stay there. 3. Ceasarea and then egypt. This force will continuely go on the way till Carthage and farther. When the time has come. The supply should be big enough (with new Heavy Cavalries) to take on Turkey!
good idea?
- We won't build Justinians Leadership!
- I'll settle spot C first.
- I'll make one turn of peace to save the undefended cities with Heavy Cavalries (they ARE defensive units )


everything alright? mitsho (this is the I got it)

mithso

 

[Corrado]

2 further notes:

1.) Bring some workers with you. Our HC works best when the road network is up, and razing cities destroys the road network. If we're going to bring up our reinforcements fast, we need the roads up.

2.) Look at the F8 screen at the beginning of each turn to see who has lost the most cities. If we have allies attacking the Romes, we want to be absolutely sure that we're in position to take city #8. I don't want to take the 3 NA Western Rome cities only to find us in no position to strike at WR while the Saxons pound the next 5 cities...

 

[Corrado]

Okay, I think our desired 8 for Byz, in priority, are:
Nicea (it's right there)
Caesarea
Antioch (the two closest good cities, for galley production)
Alexandria (for the Lighthouse and galleys)
Cyrene (forward base against WR)

That leaves Cappadocia and the two west of it as 6-8, to be taken as we see what happens to the Balkan portion of ER.

Again, after we've taken Cyrene, we can move against the 3 WR NA cities, which should be lightly defended and unreinforcable. We'll save the last one to be razed once WR is up to 7 cities lost so we can ensure that we snag the big bonus for knocking them out.


As for the rest of it- we'll see how quick WR goes down. If the barbs are barely touching him, we may need to invade Italy and do the job ourself. If not, we may invade the Balkans and take out the Visi and the Ostro; or, if they haven't dangled their cities down quick enough, maybe we'll go north and hit the Huns. It looks like we can take 8 cities from them without going too much into their core. Once that's done, we're free to pretend that we're the Huns, and start rolling west with massive cavalry.

 

[mitsho]

It was a hot day in summer 392 AD, when the king's council assembled. Shapur I. sat on his throne thinking about his life and the meaning of it. He wasn't really motivated for politics at this day. Yesterday, they had had a glorious feast and everything had been fine. He thought about the nice slave he had got to know better the last night. She was hot.
But now it was day again and he had to sit here and listen to this boring stuff. Not that he wasn't eager to rule and fight. But just not on a immense hot summer day like this.
General Decaedus opened the council. He said:
'My dear king. Just look around. Our governers in the provinces are sending good news. the taxes are being brought in fine. the people are happy, and just a few days ago, a big ship from India arrived at Spasinu Charax, bringing loads of luxuries to you. Just for you. There's nothing we should change now, not in this hot summer!"
Shapur agreed, and all the other councillers nodded slightly.
But General Micis raised his voice.
"This might be true, my king. I do not disagree. The news from the East are excellent. But so are the ones from the West. Just an hour ago, I got a letter from our spy in Nisibis. There are roumors going round the town. The vicious lord of Constantinople Justinian should have sent an order to Nisibis. The biggest part of the roman garrison of Nisibis shall be removed to the northern boarder. It seems that he needs troops as soon as possible. We think that the Ostrogoths are knocking at the door of Constantinople. That's our news we have, my king.' he made a pause to let the king think. But Shapur just lowered his head and was near to sleep. So he continued.
"Therefore, my king, I propose something. In ancient times, Mesopotamia belonged to the Persian Empire. And it shall be again like this. It is the perfect time to strike against our enemy Rome and reconquer the Persian Empire. They are weak. As weak as never before. If we do not strike now, we'll never strike. There are barbarians keeping the East Romans busy. I heard of the Ostrogoths, and the Visigoths and the Vandals. And', he made another pause, 'there is someone even these barbarians are afraid of. His name is Atilla. And his men are riding the fastest horses ever born on this world. His soldiers are the most cruel ones, they never let one single soul survive, I've been told. And I believe it. My king, we have nothing to fear from Eastern Rome. We won't speak of the Western Roman Empire."
and again, Shapur saw all his Generals nodding to the words of Micis. Then, some other persons stand up and talked, but he didn't listen. He had made his decision already.
Then, he raised his hand, and everything was suddenly quiet. Everyone looked to the king. "Micis, I agree with you, and therefore you shall have the honour of preparing this conquest!" I want the army to be prepared in 21 days. From now on. Then we will march onto Nisibus, and you shall be the first general - under my rule."

And so began the sassanidian conquest of Rome. Because of the speech of the glorious Micis, nowadays known as mitsho.

Turn 0, 384 AD:
-move two spearmen, most cities are building hc. Nehavend will build some more bows to defend against huns (I do not want to use hc up there (would be a waste)

press space

Turn 1, 386 AD:
Nehavend: spear -> archer
Peshawar: temple -> worker
Bactra gets a garrison
Ecbatana a second spear
Sidon has a garrison
4 horses are in Arbela, waiting to be upgraded
3 are 'scouting'
1 is in Spasinu Charax (just came back from scouting)
8 horses wait in front of Nisibis
3 (next turn 4) are waiting on southern road!
Immortal kills a barb warrior
another one goes a bit north, going to Caesarea, and is joined by a horse.
babylonian migrant goes to spot C, needs a defense!

diplo: Western Rome has Byzantine Inguenity, but not military tradition (I won't trade), nothing else...

ibt
babylon riots (sorry, my faut): it'll get another garrison!

turn 2, 388 AD
immortal kills another barb. I have to give babylon a tax collector, because I do not want to rise the slider for one city.
upgrade horses!
found Sardis: barracks

ibt
-

turn 3, 390 AD
Ctesiphon: hc -> spear (military polici, fpr sardis, no defense, it is in the middle of our empire)
singara: hc -> hc
Susa needs an Aequaduct, it wil get one (first ring city) after the hc, which is buildt now. ten turns for Aequaduct
Ecbatana: courthouse -> worker
horse kills a barb camp
a horse stays in babylon till another spear is present

ibt
Theodora demands silk. Of course I tell her to shut up, she doesn't declare war!

turn 4, 392 AD
Babylon: hc -> spear
Spasinu: spear -> a last spear
Ecbatana: worker -> hc
Peshawae: worker -> courthouse

Now, the time for war has come! nobody is at war till now, I'll declare war to theodora by demanding tribute... But we're not at war with constantine now! A second later, we are! I'll make some diplo:
- Visigoths for code of laws and they give us 8 gold
- Franks go to war with Rome for some horses (was this bad?)
- Vandals go to war with Rome for world map and 11 gpt (we do not need more money.. ) They give us 48 gold!
- The Ostrogoths want code of laws and silks, I agree (I've already given away code of laws anyways), they'll give us their 13 gold!

I upgrade the last horse, we now only have three left, outdoors. Before my diplo part, everyone was at peace. Now the diplo screen looks like this:
[/i]

Now, we'll attack under General Micis (a renamed hc) Nisibis:
1. hc loses to legionaire without a single damage to the legionaire (I even moved the way we do not have to attack over the Euphrat)
2. General Micis attacks, wins (2 hitpoints lost) and promotes
3. I accidentially attack over the Euphrat, we lose, hurting a legionaire by two
4. hc kills the legion without a single loss
5. hc kills a garrison without a loss
6. hc kills a garrison without a loss. we conquer and raze nisibis. we do not need workers, because the road goes around the city. 0 gold we get

move 6 more hc to a hill, and wait, I want to attack with full force.

ibt
Eastern Rome declares war to franks!


turn 5, 394 AD
Ctesiphon: spear -> spear
Nehavend: archer -> spear
Peshawar culturally expands
Gordium: granary -> barracks
luxury slider to 10 % (babylon), science to 30 % (for what do we need them? It's just the case, that no horse can be upgraded now... (20 turns to military strategy (=academy))
move hc's meet a legionary (one) and decide to wait in a fortress (instead of attacking him in the forest)

ibt
the legionary attacks our southern road force (5 hc's) and loses while hurting one hp)

turn 6,396 AD
Babylon: spear -> court (4 turns)
Persepolis (?): hc -> hc
Romans begin building Justinians Leadership
Byzantines too (?)
moving

ibt
Western Rome declares war to the visigoths

turn 7, 398 AD
Ctesiphon: spear -> hc
Vandals are building the wonder scourge of god. (that means that they were pretty good researching!)
Huns too
moving towards Antiochia!

ibt
Byzantines are building Just. Leadership (?)
Vandals the scourge of god

turn 8, 400 AD
Gordium: barracks -> court
attack on Antioch:
1. hc loses, legionaire has one hp
2. kills a legion, losing one hp
3. attacks, kills nothing and retreats
4. hc attacks, loses no hp, wins, and promotes
next attack next turn
I upgrade a horse

ibt
a legion appears, but does nothing.
Vandals: scourge of god

turn 9, 402 AD
Arbela: hc -> court
There's a ' long live our king' day in Spasinu Charax:
Spearmen -> court
Nehavend: spearmen -> court
Bactra: spearmen -> court
Sardis: barracks -> hc
a hc attacks the legion in the outskirts and wins with having one hp left!
attack on Antioch:
1. hc kills 2 hp of an legionairy and retreats
2. hc kills a legionairy without losing a single hp, promotes
3. hc attacks, kills a hp, and retreats
4. hc (elite) attacks, kills 2 hps and loses!
5. hc attacks, legionairy down to a hp, and dies
6. hc finally kills a legion
7. hc attacks, loses 2 hp, wins and promotes
No legion left!
8. hc attacks, loses 2 hp and kills the garrison
9. hc attacks, doesn't lose a hp and kills the garrison.
a one hp legion left? should I attack?
I attack, we lose rolleyes: ), the legion promotes
I attack again, we lose (Again?), legion down to a hp
but I cannot attack again...

ibt
4 hun horsemen show up
I do not fear them!

turn 10, 404 AD,
babylon: courthouse -> hc
Singara: hc -> hc
Ecbatana: hc -> hc

elite hc attacks antiochia, we lose!
another one attacks, legion down to 3 hp
another attacks, down to 2 hp.
I cannot attack (no full hp hc's left)

There are some hc's unmoved (the hun problem!)
Next leader shall decide!

And there, on the plain before the city walls of Antiochia, Micis knelt down and lowered his head. He asked Shapur for mercy. But Shapur was not in the mood for it. The vicious general had not succeeded. The people of Antiochia were laughing about him, because they saw that his army was defeated. He was angry.
And so, in a morning of the April 404 AD, Micis head was chopped off.

the testament of Micis