Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

[IXIRandyIXI]

And here's the new .sav at the start for version .81! Obviously, I started over. After losing about 14 Consular Legions to those high-HP archers after only taking 2 Iberian cities, I just decided to call it quits.



P.S. Pinktilapia, did you decrease the costs of the early Republican techs as well? For the most part, those techs were the ones holding me back early on. Then the later Republican techs just made it impossible.

 

[AndrewH]

Do you HAVE to play as rome? I want to play as Greece.

 

[blitzkrieg80]

I think the Celto-Iberians should be tough... I also like the high HP Sagitari making a tough resistance for me as I swamp Gaul...

My game using .8 values was AWESOME! I am at around 20 AD now and JUST invading Anatolia and Gaul, with the rest of tradition Rome already conquered (except the Iberians).
I DID have to CHEAT, using Powerbar to advance myself 3 TECHS to Triumvirate, once I realized I was behind around 80BC- so I got Caesar on time.... After that, everything seems well. Although I missed my Civitas since I advanced past Agrarian Troubles and Sulla's Rule...

What's the motivation to build a Colloseum again? I don't think I will build it since I need to go through another long Civil War and I am already behind on territory... besides the fact that it doesn't seem worth it, except historically... which is a good reason =0)

I ran into 5+ Hannibal Armies in Iberia (their HP was a wonderful surprise) that made for a challenging and fun Second Punic War. I think Carthage VS Roman power is balanced well for a challenge in .80... I don't mind extra mines though ;O)
*For anyone having trouble against Carthage- you must play historically and take Corsica and Sardinia and Sicily, who are weak at the beginning and this gives you a peace with Carthage until you are ready to go for the challenging conquest of Spain and Africa... I took all of Illyria (putting me behind time-wise) before I sent a horde of transports...

I like the reduction in food from grassland and production from plains, although I don't know how this has affected Scythia, Persia and other areas of mostly plains.

Govts and support seem to work nicely so far...

I agree that the tech rate is too high since I am woefully behind, but I think the main problem might be the cost of the techs directly after the Second Punic War/Macedonian Wars... OR MAYBE since its very difficult to conquer the correct territory in the short amount of time alotted, nonetheless have the right technologies- extend the amount of time before things speed up, as in Every Turn = 2 years... Or a combo of tech price and time to research/conquer?

Anyways.. having a blast, hope I don't need to restart now that everything seems in order... hope Barb. Sagitarri can have a compromise between interesting error and original HP value...

 

[IXIRandyIXI]

Anyways.. having a blast, hope I don't need to restart now that everything seems in order... hope Barb. Sagitarri can have a compromise between interesting error and original HP value...

Are you saying that you liked having those 7-HP archers (with about 4 in each city!) rip apart your troops like there's no tommorow!? The 4 HP for those things is plenty, especially taking into consideration their cost and number that they appear in.

Do you HAVE to play as rome? I want to play as Greece.

Yes, the game is set and designed for the Human to play as Rome. Otherwise, things won't work out correctly.

 

[King Coltrane]

sry, double post

 

[King Coltrane]

hey all, especially Randy...
do you see any real reason to invade carthage a second time, ie after the first punic war, with the regular legions? in my current game (.81) i waited until i had the consular legions to attack carthage in spain and africa and it was a breeze (so far, though im only at thapsus, working from the west.) however, i do have all of illyria, greece, macedon, bovianum, syracuse, gallia cisalpinia, and magna graecia. to me it just seems like there must be more of an incentive to conquer carthage before the consular legions, cause that makes it too easy.

@pink, i like the new mines, it makes it much more fun i think. good job with everything in this update, though for some reason, the barb techs are one turn behind... not a big deal

 

[IXIRandyIXI]

Has anyone else playing on 0.81 had Carthage not build Exercitus Barcae? That seems to have happened in my game. I didn't run into any of the Carthaginian Elephant armies at all, not even Hannibal. Speaking of Hannibal: is it just me, or does he never make his appearance? In all my games, I've never actually run across the elephant army named Hamilcar Barca. Has anyone else?

 

[King Coltrane]

no i got to him, but he was just hanging out at carthago nova. also i did encounter 3 of them, not counting hamilcar and that one in africa, so i assume they built it

 

[mungman]

I ran into them, but not as many as I did before. Also tech is still way behind. It's 12 BC and I'm still 10 turns away from Agrarian Troubles. I think the reason is because you have the minimum tech at 12 turns, yet you also say you need to keep researching at 12 per turn. The problem is that you're expecting the player to be able to make optimal research right from the start, which is impossible unless you keep the tech slider at 1-9 or 2-8. Right now I keep the tech slider at 8-2 because I'm losing money at anything under 8 on taxes and increasing tech doesn't change reasearch time until I hit 70 and 80% research. And I've made sure to build Domus Discendis and Mercatus everywhere I can.

I'd say if a person needs to research at 12 per turn to stay on target, then the minimum turn per research should be around 6-8. Of course you'll have people with an exceptional game finishing the techs before the game ends, but I figure that's about right, because right now, the only way to stay on pace is to have a flawless game.

 

[blitzkrieg80]

I didn't even know there was an actual "Hannibal"... I just thought there were Barcae, which is what I called Hannibal armies... so that's what I meant when I called them that... and YES, I like the annoying and frustrating high HP Sagitarri =oP

 

[pinktilapia]

Hi All

I am going out to the field until next weekend. Will be back next Monday for possible compilation of a 'final' patch (1.0).

I had a play on RFRE last weekend based on v0.81 and I felt it was a bit too easy. Have a few changes in mind (less Roman armies!). Will bring this up soon. I will try to get the tech cost right. Maybe a slight reduction of cost & a min tech rate of 10 would do.

@ Blitz - Colosseum double the effect of the amphitheaters. Is that enough for justifying going though a civil war?

How are the Gauls/Germanics doing? Still strong like in 0.7? Or weak again...?

@Coltrane - thanks The only reason I see for you to get Carthage ASAP is to avoid it stockpiles Barcan armies. I have slightly boost them (while reducing the number of Roman armies) in my last game and a pack of them is really threathening.
@AndrewH - once we get v1.0, I (we?!) could be thinking on scenarios, and these could be playable by non-roman civs.
@Randy - only starting units can be renamed... There is no Hannibal unit, only Barcan armies, which reflects armies lead by Hasdrubal and Hannibal. I don't know why the AI didn't build the wonder in your game. Sounds like you are going to have an easy start

 

[Gunner]

Well I finally downloaded this wonderful scenario yesterday. I took forever with dialup, but its definitely worth it!

I started out by building up a little and then conquering Aleria, Olbia, Caralis, and Lilybaeum. I was thinking about continuing the war against Carthage (taking Palma or something) and then a Barcan army and two numidian cavalry showed up next to Pisae! I quickely made peace and got some money.

Then I conquered Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria fairly quickely and with almost no resistance or casualties. Now it is 209BC and I'm in the process of conquering the third Greek city state in Greece. I'm also at war with Magna Greece and am starting to take their cities in Spain.
I have a total of two armies which are both in Greece right now.

Currently I'm researching Marius' reforms. It seems like that tech is a bit overpriced considering that at 80% (max) science I only get it in 14 turns and am losing 37 gpt. Other than that I've been doing pretty well and have only deviated by 2 turns from the 12 turn standard so that I could get a Scipio army by not getting slavery.

I poked around in the editor a little bit and see that for the World Sizes tab everything is not standardized. I seem to remeber hearing about something before called the World Size bug where scenarios like this use the world size settings from the last used regular random map game. The easy way to fix that is to standardize the OCN and tech rate for all of the sizes. Maybe this is affecting those of us that think the tech pace is a bit hard?

Great job overall Pink, I cant wait to play more.

 

[Gunner]

Here's the link for the world size thing:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=98041

 

[King Coltrane]

pink i agree... too many armies for rome, makes it too easy. also a slight decrease in tech cost would be good, though not much, as it requires that you "stay on schedule". also, gaul is way too easy, with about 10 (maybe !!!)(consular legios and one ceasar) im half way through with ZERO casualties... need more strength for them. overall id say the eastern civs are too weak, especially navally. on the other hand, the easiness of this game sure is fun! (7 legios taking out illyria in 6ish turns with no casualties!!!!)

 

[IXIRandyIXI]

The random battle calculator sure seems to like you guys. Conquering Gaul and Illyria with relatively small numbers of Legions and no casualties! My experiences have been quite different. I guess I'm not in the favor of the RBG (RNG) god.

 

[gringoesteban]

Yeah, no kidding. In taking out Illyria, and in a border skirmish with the Gauls over a couple towns, I lost two Legio armies plus around eight Legios. Needless to say, it took me a while to recover after that before I could move on to attack Carthage in southern Spain, and by then they had a boatload of Elephant armies. Again, horrendous casualites. So I am way behind the Roman's historical expansion rate because I keep having to build new forces....

 

[King Coltrane]

wow, based on what you guys said, i sure do seem lucky. in this game, other than a legio here or there, i only had one failed military expedition, which was a feint at carthage from eastern africa, which actually provided enough time to land my forces in the west, so it worked out for the greater good lol. but even with that, id say ive lost maybe 8-10 legios throughout my whole game so far. i am a little far behind, i need to get pontus and egypt still, but im poised to do so. im well established in turkey, with syria totally destroyed and the few, maybe 5, mithridates armies will be crushed before the force of 50 imperial legions, 30 milites alarii, and 10 balistae!!!! MUAHAHAHAHA!!! (and btw, im ripping through gaul with like 10 imp legios now and crushing the opposition)

 

[King Coltrane]

while im sticking to what i just said, pontus is putting up the best fight so far, though they will be crushed after this first wave is put down

 

[Asclepius]

Well, I definitely still find this game a bit too hard to achieve anything like what King Coltrane did, or the Romans for that matter. Certainly don't agree with 0.81 being too easy. I just don't have enough units early in the game. Even, with mungman's great advice on how to win the first Punic War (which just about worked for me ), it still takes me too long to build up a crushing advantage. For example, in my war against the Western Greeks, I "foolishly" attacked Syracusae with *only* 8 Consular Legions.... I lost 6 before I gave up. I conquered the rest (just) but left Syracusae as a cute little principality in my late growing empire. By 50 BC they were becoming a little annoying again, so I sent in 8 Ballistae and 10 (!) Imperial Legions. I lost 5 legions before the damn city finally surrendered. I'm certainly not having any luck.

Plus, how much does it cost to upgrade Velites? Either they can't be upgraded or my 2500 gold isn't enough to upgrade 1!

 

[IXIRandyIXI]

Well, I definitely still find this game a bit too hard to achieve anything like what King Coltrane did, or the Romans for that matter. Certainly don't agree with 0.81 being too easy. I just don't have enough units early in the game. Even, with mungman's great advice on how to win the first Punic War (which just about worked for me ), it still takes me too long to build up a crushing advantage. For example, in my war against the Western Greeks, I "foolishly" attacked Syracusae with *only* 8 Consular Legions.... I lost 6 before I gave up. I conquered the rest (just) but left Syracusae as a cute little principality in my late growing empire. By 50 BC they were becoming a little annoying again, so I sent in 8 Ballistae and 10 (!) Imperial Legions. I lost 5 legions before the damn city finally surrendered. I'm certainly not having any luck.

Plus, how much does it cost to upgrade Velites? Either they can't be upgraded or my 2500 gold isn't enough to upgrade 1!

You have to pick your wars and battles wisely. Wasting your troops like you explained with attacking Syracusae can be extremely costly and set you behind. Maybe I'll write up a little guide on what, where, and when you generally want to attack the other nation's holdings sometime soon.

Velites don't upgrade to the Imperial Legions. Much like the Hoplites Alarii "upgrading" to the Milites Alarii, they simply are not buildable once you can build the unit it upgrades to.