Role Play Challenge: Julius Caesar of Rome, All or Nothing

[madscientist]

This is exactly the reason I've been following this one so closely. I prefer large maps with lots of opponents, so I've never achieved one of the military victories; most of mine end in culture or space (Digression: about Huayna, the culture part was slow but the diplomacy got very interesting). I'm planning to do a Pangaea with Rome on a smaller map so that I can get the hang of it.

Can't wait to see you run with Rifling.

I preferred huge maps at marathon speed on Warlords, but BTS forced me to standard sized maps and I have not regretted it.

My best Warlords game was as Washington where I secured a snakey continent by about 1 AD destroying 3 civlizations. I then proceeded to out tech everyone and one by one invade other AIs. I razed entire continents to avoid domination and brought my ARMADA oF AMERICAN JUSTICE arround the world destroying all. Ending by nuking the hell out of Isabella and Toku who had just built muskets, followed by Navy Seals. My only Conquest on a huge map to date although I am looking for second here from JC!

 

[madscientist]

I'm also rather surprised by the lack of posts. I find this one very interesting.

Yet it seems Augustus attracted more interest! (Although Augustus' game was fantastic, this one is great too)

Glory of Rome (Augustus) = Nine Pages

Tokugawa the Isolationist = Eight Pages

Alexander, The Greek God of War! Volume III = Seven Pages

Pericles, Greek God of Peace = Nine Pages

Chairman Mao's Plan II = Nine Pages

Charlemagne the Blessed II = Seven Pages

Joao the Restless = ELEVEN Pages

The most viewed RPCs (Joao WAS the best IMO, I loved playing it out by myself first and then seeing your alternate take on it, plus a very creative idea...partly suggested by me )

Yes, Joao was definitely a suggested RPC game blush:just couldn't remember who), and was a brilliant Idea!!!!

I loved all my RPC games, each are like a mini story I wrote. As you all may have realized I am a frustrated writer, I would love to do it but I am just BAD at it (Scientists make generally poor marrative writes, Asimov and Critchen exempted). These games offer a great way to get it out of my system.

But I guess my favorite 5, 1 being best

1) Bismark
2) MAo
3) Joao
4) Monty
5) Al III

Shaka 1 would have been up there if I could have pulled it out, and the Might Khan also except it is tarnished a bit because it was the only of my RPCs played at Prince.

When I review my games, it's always Bismark the Master Builder that I say, "Damn that was well played all arround". From taking a key barb city early with my last warrior to getting Qin the games biggest backstabber to vote for me at the UN!

 

[madscientist]

Julius Caesar of Rome, All or Nothing!

A shorter round tonight, and I forsesee this game going a LONG time.

So the million dollar question is what do we do with our new shiney rifles and who do we kill, er I mean Vassal first!!!

Before I go further, all I teched this round was Military tradition partly and democracy entirely.

So let's have a look at the diplomatic screen, Mehmed's relations in particular.

He is a snake, slipping out of our grasp. OK, Asoka is the target. Numerous reasons to mention. well OK, Versailles/Mausoleum/shrine/SoZ etc...

Before that though I took another chance as I did with replaceable parts, trade off rifling (No not to Asoka, I may be Mad but not stupid)

Gee remember that Mehmed/Gilgamech DP??? Doesn't that mean Zara DoWs on Gilgamech too? That gives Zara an offensive edge although he loses his UU. Can't have that happen.

There that's better. Let those guy rip each other to pieces and as of the save they are still at it

Now that we kept the west busy except for Ragnar

We make a request from Asoka for 5000 gold, which he refused.

HEY, I tried to be a nice guy!

We clobber Bombay, Asoka got rifles pretty fast. We look to take Agra

Also Ragnar has DoWed on Asoke from the west. What a great slimebag that guy is, DoWing on us earlier and now smelling an opportunistic war. I gotta come up with a Good RPC idea for our horned friend!

Soon Agra falls

And we drag the Indian Holy Man to the bargaining table.

Welcome to Rome Asoka, you may have a few more techs but we will tech way beyond you very soon, I PROMISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next logical step is to hit Mehmed except the snake has capitulated to either Zara or Gilgamesh, I can never remember which he sucks up to.

A view of Rome

Note we settled yet another GG there. That's 4 promotions we are getting right now. Enough where I feel more comfortable to adjust civics after teching democracy.

To cleanup techs a bit, and since JC wants every military option we make a trade to that Byzantine, I mean rebel Eastern Roman guy.

Local power numbers

The big ones are off the chart right now, but we are piling up jails to get a big espionage edge. The chief rivals are now

Charlemagne
Gilgamesh
Zara
Ragnar

Al/Ghengis are pretty far behind in tech, and hannibal and Justinian are just TOO small. In fatc everyone is too snmall to compete with ROME. Except for Charlemagne who is rather large.

The demographics shows us top dog exept for life expectanct and popularity.

So how to proceed.

1) Do we pick a side in the Summerian/Ethiopian war and bulldoze our way to the east, sweeping Catheginians and Vikings out of the way?

2) Do we start hitting teh war-mongers of the east.

3) OR do we regroup, continue our massive military buildup and build infrastructure!!!!

I like 3, I am sure we want to see Roman tanks/bombers/artillery running amuck!!!!

One question, can someone suggest a GOOD drafting city for the Globe theater?? I never get a good drafting city and I am open to any suggestion outside of Rome. Also we need a good home for West Point which we can build!

 

[NintendoTogepi]

Why on Earth didn't you take Delhi, with all those wonders and the shrine?

Also can you try and post a map of the world? I am not on my Civ4 computer right now.

Otherwise, good!

Edit: Ok, on my Civ4 computer now. Beijing would make for a great Globe Theater Drafting Center, lots of food!

I'm thinking Alexander next. Take most of that land and you'll have TONS more.

 

[madscientist]

Why on Earth didn't you take Delhi, with all those wonders and the shrine?

Also can you try and post a map of the world? I am not on my Civ4 computer right now.

Otherwise, good! I think you should start to get rid of all the small civs to the west.

To beat Ragnar to vassaling Asoka!!! The SoZ is the only wonder I cared about (well we want the great wall but Zara has that) and if Asoka is my vassal it performs the same task!

Sorry, my daughter has control of the JC game computer, gotta wait!

I agree, the west is technologically advanced (just a bit now) but is small and cannot compete in military production. But I still may sit and build infrastructure while the others kill each other some more. I'll think about it.

 

[Navarre]

Why on Earth didn't you take Delhi, with all those wonders and the shrine?

Seconded. I tought you wanted the SoZ, and the Madhabodhi would have given you 64 per turn. Last but not least there are 3 GG settled in Delhi.

Also, why do you keep building cavalry while everyone gonna have Rifling soon ? Why don't you mix your slowpoke stack with some grenadiers, who have +50% versus rifles ?

edit : ok for the SoZ, but 64 is a lot of money....

 

[madscientist]

Pictures of the latest round.

3 GGs in Delhi??? Oh well, It's good to have vassals well armed, and I have a feelign Asoka's gonna get the brunt of it.

Regarding the shrine? Bah, what is gold when Rome has Mighty Vassals that can defend themselves and more improtantly our western border. We are quickly approaching the point of the game where 63 gold is a mere pittance!!!!

 

[madscientist]

One more thing, Cavalry is fast and coming out of Rome at Combat II, pinch, formation. Combat II pinch cavalry will beat rifles, especially when outnumbered by what, 3 to 1!!!

 

[Killroyan]

For the glory of Rome!!!! What a game. Alexander, shame on you. You really need to learn something from Caesar

About an RPC for our horned male how about backstabbing Ragnar (since he did that this game) in which he can only declare on somebody after he got friendly with them or if he gets invited and he needs to get a conquest victory. The intrigue, the betrayal, the anguish. It is almost Shakespeare!!!

 

[toug]

poor darius.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'd say get Steel then go after the Pretenders (Justinian and Charlemagne) to the East. Let the Westerners weaken themselves a bit first

 

[DMOC]

Man, this RPC has been amazing so far, second only to the Joao RPC. I'm impressed by the military conquests...maybe I should fire up a game similar to this in my free time.

 

[madscientist]

Julius Caesar of Rome: All or Nothing!

You want war, you want bloodshed, you want conquering, YOU WANT TO SEE ROMAN AUTHORITY, well we got that all for you!!!

To start remember what the talley is, we have vassaled to us

Darius
Hammarabi
Saladin
Asoka

Techwise, we went Steel/Assembly Line/Fascism!

First think after teching steel and upgrading out trebs to cannons we get this random event

So who's the next target???

Ragnar has 4 cities in his core, he is very susceptible.

After all, it is payback, he declared on us earlier.

For gold and helping out fellow ROMANS

One thing I should mention, is that we took fulla dvantage of grenaders this game. I rarely build them since BTS requires a deadend tech, but perhaps I should reconsider. They did ALOT of damage, especially with Rome popping three promotion Grenaders left and right.

We made a few trades

Trading steel to Gilgamech and buying Zara to declare on him. Roman diplomacy at it's best, more on that later.

Back to Ragnar.

We took two of Ragnar's core cities, and then that one on our borders.

Soon, Ragnar caves in

Good for several reasons. Unlike Hammarabi, he's an agressive AI who knows how to leverage that trait. Second look at the west and you will see alot of former Spanish cities there, good for later work.

We also gifted back those two Viking core cities, we want a stronge Roman Ragnar for the upcoming wars, speaking of which.

Doing pretty well in power!!!

Also we get a city to culture flip to us

Solifying that western border, but more to come.

we decide the time is ripe to take on the biggest western threat, Zara

He has 2 vassals, Mehmed and Qin, both of whom are sneaky and have barely avoided Roman rule.

Ethipoian city #1

Ethiopian city #2

Ottoman city captured, culture was dealt with later.

Ethiopian city #3,

And what a haul this city was!!! Got the Great wall AND the AP!!!! As you can see

We take an ethiopian city on the border

While my vassals took that northern former chinese city from Zara.

Zara is now ready to talk.

Vassaled Ragnar and Zara, very nice. Qin and Mehmed break away and are damned hard to vassal. Is there a time wait period after vassals break away???

Anyway, after moving my forces to take out teh vassals we finally get Physics.

Excellent!!!!

To be continued

 

[madscientist]

Julius caesar of Rome, All or Nothing!

we had built the Globe theater in bejing, and started drafting units there to begin our eastern wars.

We start by assaulting the last Chinese city to the north.

we take it leaving Qin with 2 former Spanih cities to the south, and he still will not capitulate to us! We just declared peace and deal with him later.

Mehmed is just as stubborn, but he has nice cities so we launch a major assault on Ottoman homelands

Once down to 1 city he finally caves in

A one city vassal. Hell worse than Darius!

We saved here.

Power graph numbers

Charlemagne is certainly pumping out military!!!! Good thing we have such a good tech lead.

A view of the Roman empire

And techs

OK, so here is the situation as far as what needs to be done.

Gilgamesh and Hannibal are free but small and are to our west.

Isabella is Charlemagnes's vassal but very tech deficient.

Al and Ghengis are at each other throats and tech deficient (neither has rifles yet).

Justinian is our biggest tech threat but limited to a few cities.

And finally demographics

The shocking thing is we have a 4 times edge in production. And we have yet to get Communism for State property OR build a single factory yet.

Also note the economy!!! Organized is a damn great civic, still my favorite of all!

So my plan is to subdue Gilgamesh and hannibal, then move onto the Huns and Greeks. Once they are brought under ROMAN influence we can decide what to do with Charles and Justinian, but I expect to be rolling tanks by then!!!!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'd hit Gilgamesh first.. because he is the closest to Infantry so you want to eliminate him before he gets them.

I'd also get Railroads after Facism... it helps to move across a big empire (and it fits with the RPC for you to have good roads)

Then Radio (for Eiffel Tower allows instant 1 turn border pops), Combustion, and Industrialism
No need for Communism if you can get yourself a GEngineer (Mining Inc.)

Also in the spirit of the RPC, it might be a good idea to raze Carthage (the city)... but Hannibal didn't attack you here so maybe not.

 

[Mesousa]

First think after teching steel and upgrading out trebs to cannons we get this random event

So who's the next target???

I've noticed this before in your reports - either take a screenshot with the mouseover of the random event result visible or tell us what it did.

 

[NintendoTogepi]

The Roman people are strong, even the incorrect Byzantine's and Holy Roman's are doing wonderful! And most of the other top civs are vassals of Rome and thus Romans!

I think Carthage and Sumeria are next. Don't hurt the 'mesh and Hannibal too bad though, they're so cool looking and tough (make sure you raze Carthage though)

Good round though. I think that the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires shall be the last two to take on.

 

[Quotey]

I find "Gilgamech" hilarious, and I'm going to use it for all my SG reports.

GILGAMECH, TERMINATE.

 

[bestje]

looks like the game is going well.
there are only the other roman empires who pose real threats now.
its time for some roman tanks!

EDIT: razing Carthage seems a bit harsh as Hannibal has been friendly most of the game

 

[Nares]

I find "Gilgamech" hilarious, and I'm going to use it for all my SG reports.

I smell the basis for an SG.