The Rise of Rome - A Sid Challenge

[RedKi-rr]

Now I decided to try Rome at Sid in my version with accelerated production. It seems to me harder ...Hundreds of enemy troops. I didn't use any dimplomacy at the first turn. At the moment I play almost RBC rules, I only blocked Egypt pass for a few turns (to prevent Pesians invasion), and added workers to any cities.

Also I have pretty much "bad" luck. I lost about 10 units because of Vulcan %) I didn't know about that, but I decided to play without reloadings. Then I forgot that MA with Celts expired. So, they were bribed and I had war with them. But eventually, I won the war.
Celts bribed Egypt against me. Eventually, I lost Gem city.
Also, I stupidly lost two armies %)
Now I'm at war only with Carthage. Greeks and Pesrians are about equal.
At turn 64 I have 13/25 %. Persians are the closest rival and they have 9/21 %, IIRC.
So, things are going not too bad. I hope to win it))

I would point out that general strategy stated by Stoertebeker works very very good. Even with accelerated production (with minimal changings)

If someone are interested I will upload later some saves and probably desciptions)

 

[RedKi-rr]

Eventually I won the game (it took about 98 turns).
Stoertebeker was right again) It was just more tedious to play with accelerated production.
Now my goal to continue conquering of the world. And I expect to do it before turn 130)
At least, the question from the initial thread is completely answered for all cases I was interested in)

There are a LOT of unit...Now (turn 107) I have about 700 units and 350 of them are heavy cavs. There were some interesting moments in the game. For example how and when to attack AI to avoid there SoDs...Goths were insane. From some point in the game they built only fire cats...
So, they had about 30-50 fire cats in each city...Can somebody explain this? They even didn't use them. Is it a bug?

I will upload some saves and pictures when I finish the game) Hope, Stoertebeker don't mind)

 

[RedKi-rr]

I have completely finished my game. The whole world was conquered by turn 125 (i.e. before turn 130). It was rether tight competition for me. Sometimes I even thought that my grand mission is impossible.
I'm very happy now. I did a lot of saves. I'm going to write a story (description) now)

 

[RedKi-rr]

The epilogue.
Rome at Sid with accelerated production.
Rules - Respect reputation during the whole game, don’t use diplomacy at turn 1 att all, try to avoid well-known exploits.
I did only two things: I added workers to any cities, I put a troop on the passage between Persia and Egypt (it was only for several turns, then Egypt declared on me...)
I can say that on one hand this game was more tedious and harder, but on other hand it was easier.
In many aspects this game was very similar to our SG RoR game.


Chapter 1. The start and the war with Carthage.
I started like in our SG Sid game.I delayed GA, I sent colonizators to lux resourses (I even did it more agressively), I growed and developed my cities, I prepared my troops for the Sicilia invasion, I bribed at any costs all civs against Carthage. Due to accelerated prodution I started GA earlier (I beleive it was turn 12-13). I didnt build wonders except GL and Bacchanalia. Other wonders were built like in our SG game (Egypt built MoM, and Greece built the rest, but in different cities)

So, some pictures at turn 13.
Cities
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Colonizators
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Attackers
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The save from turn 13
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During GA I build some legions. Well, they aren’t so bad, but they aren’t so good either. I didn’t want to waste some shields during GA. It found out that they can be useful for attacking hill cities with strenght 3 defenders (HC are very poor here, they often retreat or lose).
Step by step I pressed Carthage, I had only 1 army and 27 HC at turn 30.
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Carthage are the strongest nation at the moment. They had a lot of troops. Moreover Celts were at war with Goths...So, I hand to destroy Carthage with my own forces.
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Persia went for Egypt. I was going to block the passage, but Egypt had infinite stream of units...Insense were about to be ready.
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[RedKi-rr]

Later I managed to block the passage. And, I beleive, Persia and Egypt signed a peace. Also Egypt was pressed by Carthage from the west.
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Carthage cities were captured step by step.
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But, as you can see I was at war with Celts...I forgot to renew MA against Carthage. So, Carthage bribed them against me. I lost my important lux city. I bribed Goths and Scythes against Gauls. I were in anarchy. I have no troops, I have only 1 army and 24 HC, even less then at turn 30. I even took a break here. I could only hope for the best and wait imperialism.
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Creece pressed Pesia, while Persia moved their troops from Egypt to Greece and vice versa.
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Eventually Imperialism came. And soon, I went to counter-attack. I had 4 armies and 43 HC.
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I had to have the two front war. So my troops were heading for my former lux city.
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And my future power. Later I will turn this 12-size cities into taxfarms and will use for rushbuyings. Rivers=no ducts. I am only have 6% of land and 14% of population. Turn 45 is now...And I almost had no progress since last time.
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[RedKi-rr]

Eventually, Egypt was so annoyed by the blocker that they were bribed by Celts. And they captured my gem city. Uff...And all these because of I misslooked how Celts declared on me with the Carthage help...Now Egypt were at war with Persia too.
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This is my diplomacy. Also I sold Ivory and Spices to Greece to help them against Persia.
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There was still no progress at the Carthage front. Some of theis cities flipped back...I was very nervous. At least, I was at 8/18, at this was barely equal to Persia.

Hopefully, I returned the lux city captured by Cetls. I had 7 armies and 69 HC.
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Then I signed peace with Egypt and with Celts. I was not able to block the passage againt. Egypt captured the Carthage cities and pushed towards Pesia now...So Persia was forced to turn their forces from Greece to Egypt again (they had a small progress against Greeks).
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Celts were almost wiped out from the Europe continent. Goth had very huge army...
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And Carthage lost their cities pretty fast. I’m at 13/25, even better then Persia. I have 7 armies and 110 HC.
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I even started colonizing new lands.
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The save from turn 64.
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[RedKi-rr]

Chapter 2. The end of Carthage and new preparings.

Eventually Carthage had only one city. When they were destoyed my hands became free (since I didn’t worry any more about city flipping). I had 8 armies and 132 HC now.
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So, I was at peace with everyone and started preparing invasion into Goth, Egypt and Greece (I was going to put my troops near their borders).
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And the Goth troops. Some of these stacks are pretty huge.
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The Egypt Campaing
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My core cities. They produced HC every 1-2 turn.
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[RedKi-rr]

Chapter 3. Vile Scythes...

There was an empty border city. Soon Scythes singed peace with Greece and attacked this city. At this time I’was waiting when all deals with Greece, Egypt, and Goth would expire. But after this vile Scythe attack I had to turn my Goth forces against Scythes. Also I signed Mas against Scythes.
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I bribed Goth and Persians against Scythes. They bribed Greece against me...My borders weren’t prepared against them. I immediately turned all free forces from Goth-Celtic front to Scythe-Greece front. Goth also turned their huge troops to Scythes. But it took pretty much time before thier real fights. I had 9 armies and 233 HC. I tried to rushbuy or chop as many HC as I could.
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At the same time I proceeded in Egypt pretty well.
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Also I prepared some troops to invade the Greece (Sparta with Great wall) for the south.
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The save from turn 82.
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Egypt almost died. So, I began to think about the war with Persia. Some troops and armies were shipped to Greece. I had 13 armies and 221 HC. I was at 26/41 now.
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Vile Greeks bribed Celts into war against me. Celts are not dangerous. They didn’t have iron or horses, and I didn’t sell them iron. Step by step I pressed Greeks.
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And the south front.
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Also I sold ivory to Persia and, this could help them here. Later I had to wait until this deal expired...
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And my Scythes “friends”.
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[RedKi-rr]

Scythes had a lot of troops near my border. They were looking for a weak city. But I had a lot a garrisons in my border cities. Moreover, I moved them in a neighbor city while Scythe troop moved throught forests and mountains. I waited for huge Goth troop to open a front against Scythes.
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The main forces were concentrated on Creeks
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and the situation at the South
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An invasion into Celtic island
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I had 18 armies and 248 HC, I were at 29/46.
The save from turn 94
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At turn 98 I won at 31/50.
There are some pitures. It took 51 hour.
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The save
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Chapter 4. The Goth-Scythe war after the win.

Now I had only 32 turn to be at 100% population.
Eventually I saw Goth troops. There were pretty huge Scythe stack near my city. But I had GW, and a lot of garrisons. So, I could defend it.
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[RedKi-rr]

Later I had good news. Goth and Scythes fought on the moutains. I had a couple of turns of deals with Goths. So I decided to wait. And when the main Goth forces will fight with Scythes on mountains I will attack Goth cities and attack the rest of their troops near my cities.
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My troops are ready for blitzkrig already
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At the same time the last Greeks city fall too.
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There are Celtic and Scythe fronts
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And the Persian aggression against Scythes
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I had 22 armies and 347 HC, and I were at 41/59.

Two turns later all the deals expired and I declared on Goths and on Persia (I waited a couple of turn since I thought that they sent their troop to Scythe fronts. This helped me to win a little time).
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You can see how many fire cats were built by Goths...The same was in other cities.
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Also Goth splitted their forces. Half of them were near mu cities and the rest part fought with Scythes on mountains.
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Several turns later Goths were destroyed...
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[RedKi-rr]

Chapter 5. The hard war with Persia.

The war with Celts and with Scythes went well. But it was very hard to fight with Persia. Their HC and NM were very annoying and I hadn’t enought troops. So, I stuck here for a moment.
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I stucked at the south front too
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I had 34 armies and 408HC, but solid amount of them were at other places or on the way.
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When it left only 16-18 turns in the game I became very nervous. The persian campaing went very slow. Their hill city Miletine were extremely annoying. A few turns later I will lost some troop and fail the capturing (they entered some other troops here). On other hand Celts were only at Ireland. So, I decided to send all armies (besides 3 of them) to the persian front. Scythes were almost dead also. Celtic cities flipped very often, even more often than Persian cities.
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Most of my cities were put onto wealth now. I had 45 armies and 434 HC. Sometimes I lost armies attacking Persian cities...
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Now I had very big stack near Miletine. I will capture it on the next turn. But Persian had so many cities, and I had only 12 turns. I should change my tactics against them and I began to attack their cities with 3-4 armies without seige and without HC. All troops that could attack cities did it.
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And now I had the north front with Persia too.
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At the south my main goal was to capture cities preventing the using of roads.
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I continiued pressing Celts with HC
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I played about 1-1.5 hour every turn at these moments. I had only 12 turns...
The save
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[RedKi-rr]

Eventually Scythes were died.
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Celts were almost dead too.
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And I had huge forces on the several persian fronts...They almost don’t have attacking units. My armies were unstoppable now.
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Four turns later Celts and Persian were destroyed simultaneously (Celts could be killed earlier, but a city flipped again. And it was the farthest city without my troops near)
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Celts died
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Persians died
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I had 48 armies, 526 HC, and I was at 75/100 now.
The saves
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[RedKi-rr]

That's all)
When I have written all these, I started to think that it's too many pictures...I'm very sorry for that.