RBC3c - Ancient Mediterranean Mayhem - Roma

[Griselda]

RBC3c - Ancient Mediterranean Mayhem - Roma

This game is one of four running on the Rise of Rome Conquest, seeking to experience each of the four playable civs and to compare their different situations.

Scenario: Rise of Rome
Civ: Roma
Difficulty: Deity
Goal: Domination Victory before time limit is reached

All exploits listed at RBCiv are off-limits. 10 turns per player at all times. 24/48 rule is in effect for "got it" message/playing turns, once everyone gets a copy of the expansion. Until then, we will be more flexible.

Roster:
Griselda
6thGenTexan
Belisar
Speaker
T_McC

I *think* everyone on our roster has Conquests, but please let us know if you're still waiting.

Here we our, snugly fit into our little boot:


I don't have any experience with this conquest, but it does look like we have a lot of "rising" to do!

Things we have:
two sources of iron, one of horses
wines
bonus resources- silver and olive oil

Two volcanoes- one near Neapolis, the other near Messana. Are these things programmed to erupt at some point in this scenario? Isn't that the whole reason why they added those? Scary.

We're at war with Carthago, and hoping that they can't land an invasion force any better than regular AI can. Of course, galleys do now transport 4. Curraghs transport one.

Other than the island by Messana, I don't see any real motivation for continuing the war with Carthage. There looks to be a whole lot of Europe to conquer, and naturally we wouldn't be afraid of the unwashed masses up there, would we? I don't know if the screenshot shows the dark green border up there, but we certainly do have company. They need to be shown the greatness of the Roman empire, don't you think?

Hmm, the Goths get a 4-1-1 spearman. That should be interesting. We get the Legionary I, II, and III. They can all lay roads and build fortresses, and move at a rate of one. We can still make workers, though, which is a relief! We get one pop, two movement settlers (citizens), and can build 20 shield garrisons (1-3-1) in cities with iron.

That can all be a problem in Messana, which is guarded by two legions, and archer, and a galley. It has no harbor, so it has no resources at the moment. I'm not sure what all Carthage has over there, but Syracuse has a regular numidian showing.

Our military consists of one army, ONE worker , 6 archers, 8 garrisons, 4 galleys, 13 legionary I's, and 4 citizens. We're paying 19 gpt in unit support. We have nine cities, certainly the least of any of the "major" civs. Of course, the legionaries and garrisons look pretty darn good as UUs go.

We're in Oligarchy, which seems like a reasonable enough government for now. Poprushing, 2 MP, "nuisance" corruption. Monarchy has a cash rush, 3 MP, and "problematic" corruption. The Republic, in this scenario anyway, appears to be like Oligarchy except with cash rushing. None of the available governments have war weariness. I have no idea whether it would be worthwhile for us to go through an anarchy in a short game like this.

Hey, also we're militaristic, commercial, and industrious! The bad news is, we don't start with a heck of a lot of land.

I can start us off and play 10, but it would be nice to hear a general consensus as far as there we'd like to go. I'm thinking, military push north into Europe, some sort of zone defense on the boot to guard against landings. Ditch the wonders and focus on military. I have no idea WTH to do about that island. :unsure: In general, though, maybe we should try to make peace with Carthage soonish, and come back to them later? Even a military push towards Greece seems more doable than Carthage, though it would be nice to see how the Greece/Persia conflict seems to be going first.

Everything needs some good human MM help, naturally. We actually have a barracks, granary, marketplace, and walls in almost all of our cities, which is helpful. Only Messana has a temple, but we already know that AI Caesar never build culture, right?

Oh, we're actually tech leaders! We're up on the ones we can talk to by mathematics, and they have gold but no tech to sell. Persia has dyes for trade. There's also workers for sale. What was the ruling? One per civ? What do we, as a team, feel comfortable with? We only start with one worker, sheesh.

With 4 citizens and very little visible unclaimed land (and a short game) the idea of backfilling a bit sounds very appealing. I want to get this posted so we can get the ball rolling, but I'll see if I can dotmap a couple of new cities onto our boot without getting excessively dense.

Here's the start, in case you'd like to look around:
Roma!

 

[Griselda]

Things are actually more cramped than I had thought, with those four citizens burning holes in my strategy. I think the only thing we should settle on our mainland would be this "blue dot" fishing village:



That can pull in two fish, olive oil, and gold, and doesn't have to take tiles from our core if we don't let it. Will it be worth it considering how long it would take for a harbor? I don't know. The very least it can do is to increase our unit support.

The rest of the citizens might have to wait until we have a better idea what's to the north of us.

Oh, and I wanted to clarify- CAN we make peace with Carthage, or are we locked into war with them?

-Griselda

 

[Louis XXIV]

No you can't

I look forward to seeing this game (and all other versions of it), to get a feel of how it is played before doing anything to change it.

Good Luck

 

[Belisar]

No time to get C&C Saturday, will hopefully get it tomorrow.

The north looks promosing for additionall cities.
I think we should try securing the Sizil. island quickly, then the other islands near our homelands, they should be reasonable productive.

Let's some Carths.

 

[6thGenTexan]

I say we should keep the Temple of Artemis. That is a free temple in every city on the continent which would be helpful going for domination.
I agree with Belizar about taking the islands now.
I'll go with one worker purchase per civ.
Start the fishing village. There are a lot of hills around for it to be productive when it grows. The others should expand towards carthage in Spain. If we are locked in war with Carthage, we do not want the second front verses Greece any time soon.
Tech wise, aime for whatever will get the Legion III's.

I'm good to go any time.

6gntxn

 

[T_McC]

Opened the save and took a few notes:

It seems we have to run a deficit or min. sci, as break even nets 40 turns for any available technology. I would think we would go Tactics 1st, then try to get to Republic. With <130 turns, we may only be able to get the Republic right before time runs out, unless we can trade for one of the other required technologies.

Padua seems our best chance at producing workers/settlers (I think it has access to 8 food bonuses).

We can meet the Celts right away. It is their city boundary peeking our from under the western fog. We should have many techs over them, and by checking diplomacy, we have a monopoly on Mathematics. (Which Gris already mentioned) That should allow us to at least partially solve our worker problem before we take a turn. I counted 4 workers and 1 luxury, plus cash available from the four civs we can have contact with before we have to move more than one unit. If we can get enough stuff, we may want to consider non-minimum research on Tactics, as getting Legion II's before Carthage gets their UU may be really advantageous.

In addition to the fishing village Gris mentioned, I noticed two other good sites. There is a wines/iron/wheat spot NW of Pisae, and a silver/iron/wheat spot NE of Padua.

Galleys can carry 4 units in this scenario (i.e. a full army). It seems our best strategy may be to form a 15 hp-legion army and take Sicily. Then we could either invade island-by-island, or I guess it is possible to settle/war our way through the northern barbarian tribes. I don't know whether this scenario will require fighting any of the other major civs besides Carthage, or if we will need to wipe Carthage out to achieve domination.

[Edit: An alternative to Tactics might be Construction, so we can build aqueducts. I'm not sure how many of our cities are on fresh water, so I'm not sure how critical this will be for reaching the population limit. Almost assuredly not as important as Tactics, but probably something we should put a premium on trading for when it becomes available.]

 

[Griselda]

Just a note- I've got it, and have played about halfway. It took longer than I'd expected, especially with that first turn, so I should finish up and post tomorrow.

A few notes:

- We don't want any part of 3/3 hoplite until we're ready!
- Carthage has numidians already. I don't have the game open, but do they have another UU in this conquest?

Now, the Celts, on the other hand, we'll want to before they get their UU!

-Griselda

 

[T_McC]

@Gris - Carthage gets the War Elephant (4.2.2, +1 HP, no required resources) with Tactics.

 

[Greebley]

I mentioned this in our own thread, but I don't think the Numidean Merc is a UU for Carthage.

PS - is posting minor rule points like this ok in the "other threads"? I was assuming yes since we can read one another's threads. Tell me if I shouldn't be doing it.

 

[Belisar]

Originally posted by T_McC

It seems we have to run a deficit or min. sci, as break even nets 40 turns for any available technology. I would think we would go Tactics 1st, then try to get to Republic. With <130 turns, we may only be able to get the Republic right before time runs out, unless we can trade for one of the other required technologies.

This is likely a constant-war game, so unless Republic was changed in C&C or we get a huge number of lux-sources we will want to stay in Monarchy (or some equivalent gov.)
'Military' research is necessary (techs that are immediately usefull in a 130-turn domination run)

 

[T_McC]

Originally posted by Belisar


This is likely a constant-war game, so unless Republic was changed in C&C or we get a huge number of lux-sources we will want to stay in Monarchy (or some equivalent gov.)
'Military' research is necessary (techs that are immediately usefull in a 130-turn domination run)

In this scenario, Republic does not generate war weariness. More importantly, Republic is the technology that enables Legion III's (and the now completely-broken-until-patched FP).

The uber-government in this scenario is Imperialism (Democracy without WW, with MP and town/city/metro unit support), but unless the AI all research different paths we probably can't reach it (nor will we likely want to go through the Anarchy period).

It will be interesting to see how the AI research in this scenario. IIRC there are about 15 techs available to research, but costs are so high a single civ can probably only do about 4-5 on their own. There will either be a lot of trading, or hardly any, depending on whether the AI stick to the unit-only techs or not. In particular for us, it would be real nice if some of the AI decided that Construction/Engineering was the research path of choice. We want both techs, but probably won't get the chance to research them.

 

[Matt_G]

Originally posted by T_McC
In this scenario, Republic does not generate war weariness. More importantly, Republic is the technology that enables Legion III's (and the now completely-broken-until-patched FP).

What`s 'broken' about the FP and is it only broken in this scenario, or is it broken in the epic game as well??

 

[T_McC]

Originally posted by Matt_G


What`s 'broken' about the FP and is it only broken in this scenario, or is it broken in the epic game as well??

What is broken about the FP (and Secret Police HQ) is that building one will almost never reduce the total corruption in your empire. It will just switch around which cities have the low corruption. If I'm understanding the "fix" they put in for the Palace-Rank corruption bug, the cities around the FP can occupy only even slots for rank corruption (i.e. closest is rank 2, second closest rank 4, ... ) and the cities around the Palace get the odd slots. So when you build the FP, the 2nd closest city to your Palace goes from rank 2 to rank 3 (increased corruption). It is possible for some of your "core" cities to go [1/1] by building the FP. I know this is the case for the epic game, and I have to figure it will work the same in the scenarios.

As an example, pull up a standard game and check out corruption for a city 2nd ring to the palace. In my current epic game, these are 1/1's due to this bug. (I build only slightly tighter than OCP)

I may not have the details correct, but I have correctly described the effect. More information is
here.

 

[Matt_G]

Thanks for the link T_McC.

Well, they have certainly screwed this up big time, haven`t they?
The cure is 50 times worse than the disease.
IMHO this is broken bad enough to warrant uninstalling C3C until it's fixed. Hopefully it will be fixed, but frankly, I`m not going to hold my breath.

Of course I will hold off on a final judgement, until I get further along in my first solo game which I started last night.
From the thread you linked to though, it sure doesn't sound good.

Sometimes I get the feeling they could screw up an anvil with a rubber hammer.

 

[Belisar]

Originally posted by T_McC
In this scenario, Republic does not generate war weariness. More importantly, Republic is the technology that enables Legion III's (and the now completely-broken-until-patched FP).

If the different advanced govs. that are available don't generate WW, we could accept one Anarchy to get the corresponding economical advantages.
That will depend on how quick a better gov. is available for us and how much better it is. If Monarchy is only a small improvement of our current situation (Olig. doesn't seem too bad) and something better (which might be Republic if it is freed from WW, can't say until tomorrow when I hopefully get the game)
is prospective, we might as well stay in our current gov.
Cash rushing would be an advantage, but I don't see us in a situation with a lot of spare money in the near future.

It will be interesting to see how the AI research in this scenario. IIRC there are about 15 techs available to research, but costs are so high a single civ can probably only do about 4-5 on their own. There will either be a lot of trading, or hardly any, depending on whether the AI stick to the unit-only techs or not.

Tech will be interesting, but not crucial.
The point is: Our legions get better but there is no dramatic difference between the different versions.
What's more important is their shield/stat ratio (what do we get for our shields, games like this scenario are more about production capability than tech-level. If a legion II is significantly cheaper than a legion III, one more point in the stats is likely not enough to compensate)
One important point that might influence our tech-choices: Are their any fast units (cavalry) available for us? These could be extremely useful, especially later in the game when we run for domination.

 

[Griselda]

(0) 350 BC - Wow, the loopy MM and improvement decisions are overwhelming! It's one thing to go around and MM cities with tiles that have been improved in some sensible fashion. This is something different altogether. In general, there's a LOT of food available, but neither food nor shield tiles have been optimized. For cities on fresh water, there's happiness issues already (I started by setting it to 20% lux and firing the capitol's specialists). For cities without fresh water, there still aren't many good shield tiles available. Also, as I've mentioned before, we only have one worker.

I would like to go for the Temple of Artemis, but with the economy looking like it does, and Rome barely happy on 20% lux, we'll need a temple to even have a chance anyway. We go for the temple at a modest +4 food and 12 shields per turn.

The citizen in Neapolis is sent out towards that fishing village I'd mentioned before.

I also gather some legions towards Neapolis, bound for Sicily. I'm assuming regs are OK, since they'll promote inside armies now? In any case, we can't test this out if we don't try it, right?

I have no idea what's going to land when I hit next turn, although no danger is in sight. I pull some "homeland defense" units out of the cities, leaving garrisons inside. Extra units get sent north.

Oh, we'll need harbors to get materials to Sicily, and some worker farm for now. Canusium is a dry city with lots of food available, so that can be a worker farm. Ancona could use some coastal food, so that will make a harbor. Messana will also work on a harbor, of course.

I settle up north, although I don't see the exact cities that McC mentioned. I settle Aquileia at a river/wheat site to the NE, and Genua at a wines/wheat site on fresh water. I can't pull in iron or silver with either city, but of course we get closer, and in a game like this, perfect dotmapping may be less crucial.

Oh, and the new music gets my .

I hate to sell a tech monopoly for cheap, and none of the civs have much to offer, other than workers. However, if the AI isn't able to do anything about the horrible starting deficit, it's quite possible that they'll have even less to offer for math next turn. So, I trade.

- Math to Persia for 80 gold, worker, dyes, and WM.
- Math to Macedon for worker, 100 gold, and WM.
- Math to Egypt for worker, 80 gold, and WM.

I think we all have the same map, actually, although as turns go by trading for map information will be much more important than at the same stage in a similar game, I think. We're now up currency, which makes sense because we have markets already. Let's hold onto currency for now.

Our new workers go to mine Roma's olive oil. That sounds very odd, doesn't it?

Pisae and Padua will also make workers for now. We could use them.

We start tactics at minimum science, because deficit still isn't much faster and we don't really have all that much gold just yet. That's 40 turns at +16 gpt.

OK, finally, it's time to hit next turn!

BT- One barb worker shows up out of the north, and it's my turn again.

(1) 345 BC - Our northern archers can go barb hunting. They can bust some fog while they're at it. We can build scouts, but not when we want to be at war with all of our neighbors. Suddenly, I miss the Chasqui!

We settle Confinium, that fishing village. Our legions take the road east, fogbusting. We contact the Celts. They're backwards- they lack masonry, iron working, and alphabet.

We create our legion army, and the galley sails south, with an empty galley for cover.

BT - Celts ask us to leave their territory. That's fine, but we'll be back. Canusium worker - worker.

(2) 340 BC - We know Scythia, or at least they know us. They're broke, and lack only writing. I want to know where the Scythians are without looking for a RL map! Perhaps I should know this, but I don't. I'm also curious about the Celtic lands, since they're our neighbors. Somehow, I neglected to trade maps last turn. To get the Celts' map, I can either trade them alphabet, which is not going to get them closer to Gallics, but is still a tech, or I could trade them contact with Carthage. If Carthage is in Spain, and is also a couple tiles south on an island, they're going to meet really soon, aren't they? They certainly can't ally against us without writing, and we wouldn't care if they did anyway I don't think. So, the Celts give me their world map and all their gold, and I tell them about Carthage.

Now that I can see their lands, I back the legions out. We should hit them soon, though. They have spearmen defenders.

I broker world maps around, and get almost 200 gold, plus 5 gpt from Egypt. BTW, iron doesn't seem to sell for much of anything in this game.

BT - Pisae worker - legion.

(3) 335 BC - Our archer attacks a barb warrior, and loses. Our army, plus an archer and a legion, move towards Syracuse. We don't attack, because we want to cross the river first. This river annoyed me to no end in the battle of Syracuse.

BT - Carthage moves an archer out of Marsala. Macedonia wants to "trade" world maps, especially if we throw in currency. No thanks. Padua worker - legion.

(4) 330 BC - We attack Syracuse with our army, win, and it's our golden age. Not much choice in timing there, really. Our army goes to 5/13 vs. their numidian, though. Good thing we crossed the river already! There's a spear on top at Syracuse, but my other two units need to cross the river.

Lux tax can go to 10%. In our golden age, tactics @ 90% can be complete in 14 turns @ -34 gpt. That's doable.

BT- The people want the heroic epic. Roma temple - Temple of Artemis. Canusium worker - worker.

(5) 325 BC - Clear a barb camp. Attack Syracuse's spear with a legion, and win, showing another vet spear. Attack with the army, win, and there's an archer left. Our archer attacks theirs, and we lose, redlining theirs. Now they have a healthy archer showing. Our wounded army has an attack left (yay multiple attacks) but I don't see any point in risking it, especially since we still couldn't take the city this turn.

There's 20 shields left on the harbor in Messana- time to whip! The mainland one is also due in one, no whip required. We bust another barb camp.

Scythia is caught up in tech with us! Still, the other AI are offering everything they have for currency, so I hold it.

BT - Barb from the fog kills an archer. Neapolis legion - legion. Ancona harbor - legion. Croton garrison - worker. Messana harbor - garrison.

(6) 320 BC - At Syracuse, we have a 4/6 legion, and a 4/13 army. There's probably one spear and one archer in the city, because they sent one archer out towards Messana. We could probably take Syracuse this turn, but we could also very well lose it all trying. That could even leave Messana in danger from that lone archer. So, we attack the archer with the only unit in Messana - a legion. We win. Our units by Syracuse retreat to heal.

Nepolis swaps to heroic Epic. Padva to citizen. It's got a disgusting amount of food, and almost no shields. I'm seeing lots of spots to fill in Celtic lands, too.

BT - Persians want territory map for territory map, that's OK. They have so much land. Right now, we want to get stronger, but at some point, we may need to think about how to stop them from running away with this.

Canusium worker - worker.

(7) 315 BC - Whip a garrison in Messana. That will free up both legions. I fortify the army in Messana to heal, but move the two legions out. Lux goes back to 20%.

Persia will offer 57 gpt, 180 gold, and WM for currency. I take it. The other AI still look like they could pay more for it, so I dont sell to them.

BT - Pisae legion - legion. Tarentum legion - legion. Croton worker - garrison. Messana garrison - garrison. Confinium worker - rax(?). The Greeks have stolen our second fish there, and I'm not sure if a temple is worth it. I'm also not sure how likely our Artemis is going to be.

(8) 310 BC - Syracuse sends an archer out north. We attack the city with a legion, and win, revealing another spear. We attack with our 4/6 elite legion and win, popping a leader! Now, Syracuse has a galley showing as its best defender. I've seen this before in a game, a long time ago, but I don't understand it. I'm also wondering if it's because of the change in ship bombardment or something. In any case, I check in with our army- it's full again! I'd read about that, but still wasn't expecting it! I'm glad I retreated. We attack the archer, taking it to 12/13. Now, we have a choice:



I haven't seen a combat calculator yet that will tell me whether I should attack a fortified galley from across a river! But, how can I resist? When we attack, we're actually fighting an archer. Was he hiding in the galley? We win, and our vet inside the army promoted to elite. So, our army is elite/reg/reg now. Will the top always promote first, or does it give the unit in the army that actually wins the chance to promote. Probably the latter, but it's worth paying attention to. Oh, and the galley is showing again on top at Syracuse, and I'm out of moves.

Neapolis to legionary, because the leader's coming home for the Heroic Epic. I'd made one double stack of galleys, but hadn't thought to make two. That's OK. We have one galley at Messana that can load the leader next turn, and one that can leave from Neapolis this turn, and provide cover once the leader's in the water. At some point I actually realize to bring that galley out of Croton to make the second double stack. That's almost done by the end of my turn- you'll see two empty galleys one tile away from one another, and the leader will be in the escorted boat.

The Celts have iron working now. They have two sources of iron in their borders, and neither are hooked up. Oh, and Macedon now has currency. Did they sell iron working to get the cash for currency? In any case, we sell currency to Egypt for 9 gpt, 95 gold, and WM.

BT - Padua citizen - citizen. Canusium worker - worker.

(9) 305 BC - Syracuse has a spear on top again. We attack with a legion and win, leaving an archer on top. We attack with the army, win, see the galley, and take the city. Finally!

Trajan departs for the mainland. We attack a barb, and lose an archer.

BT - Neapolis legionary - garrison. Ancona legionary - legionary. Messana borders expand. Genua garrison - rax.

(10) 300 BC - I hope I didn't delay too long in attacking the Celtics. I was watching some Greek units shuffle around on their mainland, and I didn't want ot leave us high and dry at home, especially when we were doing our initial worker push. I've gathered up a small stack of legions by the Celtic border. There's also a citizen, because I think we could settle at least two cities just north of the one that they have there. The sooner the better, but it's for the next leader to decide if we're ready or not.

I didn't build any temples or courthouses. If we get Artemis, we won't need temples. I'm also not sure that courthouses are worth it in this scenario. YMMV.

It's hard to believe we'll be almost halfway over when this comes back around! Good luck, team!

One word of caution about the cities- I felt like I was reinventing the wheel every turn with my tile management. With such loopy improvements, limited workers, and a short game, many of the guildelines for city management need to be reconsidered. We don't have a lot of cities, so I was scrolling through each of them every turn, although admittedly I was much more careful the first 8 or so turns. This is a great opportunity to throw out preconceived notions about what is "the best" and make decisions based upon the current conditions. I'm not saying I made no mistakes here, because I'm sure I did, but I am asking people to look at this aspect closely rather than following their standard moves. Even deciding what tiles were the most important to improve was much more of a task than it usually is!

It probably goes without saying, but Canusium can build a worker every 2 with a little TLC. Once the second wheat gets irrigated, Tarentum *may* be able to have the grassland wheat to itself. If it can't, that's no biggie, because Tarentum really doesnt need food unless we can justify building aqueducts.

Oh, and we want bridges! Crossing rivers is awful!

-Griselda

The Save

Griselda - just played
6thGenTexan - UP NOW
Belisar - on deck
Speaker
T_McC

 

[Belisar]

Nice work in Sizil.
As in any game, MM in productive cities is a no-brainer and might be just a little more important in a short game like this one. Most of us will have to play only 20 turns, so this shouldn't be a big issue.
Those garrisons seem to be pretty useful units, helping our production capability. With improved legions and de-facto hoplites Rome seems to be nearly overpowered.

 

[Louis XXIV]

What are the Legion and garison's stats?

Great game so far, I'm enjoying reading these all (is there a Greek one, or just Persia, Rome, and Carthage?)

 

[Arathorn]

Greek one to start after Thanksgiving. We have interested parties, but some of us need to refrain from being in too many SGs over the holidays.... Expect to see turn 1 of RBC3d about Dec. 1.

Arathorn

 

[6thGenTexan]

I've got it. Time to make my mark on the Roman Empire.

6gntxn