The Rise of Rome - A Sid Challenge

[Stoertebeker]

Very well played, but i´d put the "Boot City" right on the land´s end, but oh well, i guess that way the units can reach it faster...the disadvantage is that a galley makes only one trip that way, while it could make two (8 troops) after the discovery of Astro...

Yes, that's right. On the other hand: Our 4 southern cities will produce 2,5 units per turn in the Golden Age (some of them probably galleys), while Rome and Ancona will be busy on Wonders. So with 1 or 2 galleys we already are able to get everyone over.

So no iron? sweet, we can make warriors for future upgrades, maybe get one of a barracks city do it after the improvements are done, maybe Canusium...

That's why I want to rush barracks in "Boot Harbour".

Can you boat a scout on that party going to Sinai?, you could drop him at Cyrenaica maybe and make him go to the goody hut on the deep desert...

Would do that, but: Our trip to Sinai will take the northern route: It's shorter, as we'd have to cross the ocean tiles near Carthago (what would be also risky) to take the other route. But we can build a scout in Africa as soon as we have conquered our first towns there.

Superb micromanaging.

Pisae is growing in 1, yet it is making a Harbor, switch to worker instead and start on Courthouse, use the new worker to chop the forest nearby.

If we chop the forest, the city won't get to 30 SPT in the GA and no 20 after that (at least I think so). Plus: Chopping is extremely expensive in this scenario (7 turns for our industrious workers). Another thing: Pisae does not produce enough shields to make a worker this turn. If you have a look into the excel sheet you will see that everything is timed as good as possible: All mines that are needed for 30 SPT in GA will be built, while we can join 2 workers into the city to bring it to maximum size as soon as the GA starts, so that we'll get out the maximum out of it.
So I'd rather stick to the plan if you're okay with that.

There is also a goody hut in Iberia near nowadays Porto city, maybe if a scout gets there it would pop us a free tech...

You pin your hopes on those goody huts, hm? Can we really expect to get something good out of them on Sid? But actually, you're right. We'll try anyway. I'll send our Scout that our Spicetown will produce to Iberia and see what we get ... . Let's hope that your homeland has something good for us. If not, we have at least prevented anyone else to pop goodies.

Very nice! Actually, I'm amazed)) Could you please upload a save too? Not necessary the final.

Glad to see you're happy. Here's the save.

 

[RedKi-rr]

BtW, are we going to settle dye at some moment?
One of them are on the island near Persia, and another to the south of Greece. Do we have time for this?

Also I can open the save with my version. All seems as usual, only I see Ivory Lux instead of Silk...%)
I took a new look for this map, tried to explore it a little bit for myself) Numidian mercs require Ivory. Do they strong enough to aim (in future) for disconnecting the Ivory?
Also I was surprised how good is Garrison units. So, the best defenders for the most civs are spearmen (heavy cavalry=elephants=immortal), arent' they? In this case - is it worth to use catapult accompaning heavy cavalry?
Yes, legionaries are extremely expensive...

 

[RickFGS]

How do you plan to connect the gem city on Sinai to our trade network? since Egypt cities are blocking it and there is no crossing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean unless you conquer Pelusium.

 

[Stoertebeker]

BtW, are we going to settle dye at some moment?
One of them are on the island near Persia, and another to the south of Greece. Do we have time for this?

I have the one settler that we built in Ancona at hand - waiting for a ship to board. But I think we should wait until another settler is ready (plus at least one slave) so that our next journey to the east brings us more than just one Lux. I'd prefer the Cyprus-Location, by the way. Later, when will will have beaten up Carthage, we can still make a colony in Cyrenaica with a cheap slave.

Also I can open the save with my version. All seems as usual, only I see Ivory Lux instead of Silk...%)

Which version? I'm playing with Civ Complete.

I took a new look for this map, tried to explore it a little bit for myself) Numidian mercs require Ivory. Do they strong enough to aim (in future) for disconnecting the Ivory?

As we will conquer Carthago as soon as possible, we will practically disconnect ivory for the Carthagians. But we don't need it ourselves, of course. Garrisons are cheaper and as good in defense. Anyway: I'd prefere to build as much Heavy Cavs as possible rather than defensive units (or units to block coasts): Time is everything in this scenario.

Also I was surprised how good is Garrison units. So, the best defenders for the most civs are spearmen (heavy cavalry=elephants=immortal), arent' they? In this case - is it worth to use catapult accompaning heavy cavalry?

Good that you ask that question. But even after thinking about it, I still think that Cats are worth the effort. Carthage will have at least some NumMercs, Macedonia has Hoplites to defend. If we attack towns with walls, on hills or cities, even fortified War Elephants have nearly a 50%-chance to beat our Heavy Cavs due to their 5 hitpoints. (We could send ships with our armies as long as we are going conquer coastal towns. This way we might be able to move the cats as fast as our Cav armies.)

 

[RedKi-rr]

I agree with Cyprus Island. At least it should be safer. As far as I understand we are not planning to have a war with Persia.

I think i have version 1.22 (without "f") under mode Evolution (with extraterrastians and mages in the end of tech tree). I was very dissapointed with it in the past, it's rather strange. But it seems that scenaries is OK. According to gameplay and other things. I can see silk at the map, but in the city screen I see Ivory instead of it %) At your pictures I see only Silk, that is right. I didn't notice other wrong things in this version. But probably I should find civ3consuqests 1.22f?

Back to the game...When is the best time to atack Carths?...After GA? Or should we always press them step by step?

It's nice to move cats at the ships!) Also I think we should keep cats only as "seige weapons of elite army", and againts Carth and Greeks only. Barbarians should be exterminated with fast heavy cavs. Time is more important than shiled and money. And...should we use legions as warring workers? That is for roads and frotresses (for heal). Which armies are we going to create? Only heavy cav armies? Or one-two legion army as well?..

Also, I forget, but do barbarians have heavy cavs? Or their best units are UU?

Added:
I'm aslo for breaking our agreements (RoP) with AIs and backstabbing it in the end. Don't you consider this as exploit?..I don't want do it earlier in the game since our reputation helps a lot in the game.

 

[Stoertebeker]

Hi Team!

I finally did it. And most things went very good.

Some bad things to begin with: Our Scout from Spice City, that I sent to Iberia, was killed by Carthagian Swordsmen. The same happened to our glorious pirate boat - luckily, the workers and the Garrisons already had been unloaded. Another bad thing: The Celts signed an Alliance with Persia against Macedonia, later, Egypt also joined sides with the Persians. Let's hope that the Greek will survive this Gangbang - at least until we are ready to conquer their valuable Cities, above all Sparta with the ToA. I also didn't manage to produce a second settler so that the one is still sitting in Croton, waiting for his departure - quite a waste.

To the better things:
I micromanaged every city, every turn, not only for shields and food but also for commerce, as on Sid, the run on Philo is hard to win against Sid AI's with more cities in their GA. But now, we are on a good way (I investigated Salonae: Macedonia runs a 50%-Science. They get 350 GPT in total (minus corruption), so make around 150 beakers per turn. As Philo costs 2400 according to CivAssist2, that's 1000 for them - and their Golden Age is soon to end.) I'm sure we'll win the race - and get the GL as well. We finished Literature in 280 BC, one turn later Macedonia had Construction to offer - so I waited another 4 four turns before I sold them Literature (as it was quite sure that they'd go for that after Construction.) I had sold them Currency, after they had made peace with Carthage (unfortunately, they got Tactics from Carthage: Persia had already discovered Tactics and it would have been easy to sell it to Alex - I have been too greedy as I wanted the Persians to pay more than just Tactics and few GPT for Currency). But okay, I now wanted no risk that they would sign an alliance against us so I sold them Currency to a quite low price (some cash plus 31 GPT. It would have been much better to get the Alliance for Cash and then getting the Cash back in a separate deal - now we'll lose the GPT if Macedonia signs peace.)


Anyway, let's turn to the very good things:

Our Garrisons in Messana fought bravely, they killed around 5 attackers (mostly archers) and have been rewarded:

Spoiler :

That came in quicker than we could hope.

(One of the Hoplite had been killed by a Jumbo IBT: It's at last now that Carthage has got it's Golden Age. )
I had coordinated Legion moves so that most of them would finish their duties in the south. Soon after I took this picture, I filled up the first army with 2 Vets and 1 Reg, another 3 Legions ready to join Trajans Army. Together with some more Legions and additional Units this is a small but fine Force that will be able to take Sicily over.



And the Micromanagement payed off: After having built as much workers as needed to get our Core to the 15/20/30/40 SPT like planned, plus having made sure that enough MP's would be in place to trigger parties in all size 6 towns, and to calm down all size 12 towns, I began to prebuild Libraries:

Spoiler :

Now everything was ready for the Golden Age of the Roman Civilization. Before:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

And after:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

In 270 Cleopatra signed peace with Carthage and requested an audiance (I think she wanted to ally against Alexander. I proposed her something else:

Spoiler :

We would get back the money later by selling her Currency in 260 BC: After Persia also had finished Monarchy, I traded Macedonia Literature for Construction plus some GPT. Then I sold Currency and Construction to Persia for Monarchy and GPT. Then I sold Currency to Cleopatra. (By the way: I kept trading maps around every turn: first I ask the Goth' (I'll pay them what they want), then the Celts, then Scythia, then the two Majors and Egypt. If the later deals revealed a lot of tiles, I sold the maps again to Arminius and Aneas.)

The Situation on Sicily:

Spoiler :

Sicily after my moves in 265:

Spoiler :

Not too smart by my side - as it turned out. IBT, a Jumbo from Marsala killed our Legion.


260 BC:

Spoiler :

Successful bomb WE on the Volcano with Cat.
Kill a WE and 1 SP in Marsala with Army: I wanted to conquer the city as soon as possible so that we can use the roads. Attack remaining Spear with Legion - win. Marsala is taken.
Attack Jumbo near Syracuse with Legion: WE flees. Wanted to finish him off with a Vet Horse - fail. Horse dies. A second Horse wins.

There were 2 Jumbos and 1 Sword left on the Volcano (did not realize that they could land there) plus the Spear in the south. We had 3 Attacks left: 2 with the Army, 1 with a Legion. I move the second army around so that it has not to attack across a river: destroy one WE, then move to protect our yellow-lined Legion on the plains.

IBT: The Carth. Sword cannot win against our Garrison in Messana, the Jumbo kills the Hoplite.

Note that there are fightings going on on the other fronts:

Spoiler :

Hopefully the Celts will concentrate more on Carthage than on Macedonia soon. And hopefully, the Goth' and Scyth' will do some damage in Iberia. In 255 BC, I cleaned Sicily from Carthagian troops.

Notes for RedKi-rr:

Sorry for the revolt in Syracuse.

Philo is coming in soon: We have to decide what we want to take: Military Training might be cool, as it would take us to our next big goal: to revolt to Imperialism as long as we are still small - ideally just one turn after our GA has ended - so that we don't have to stay in anarchy for a long time. while at the same time it will finally allow us Heavy Cavs. On the other hand, Military Training is quite popular among AI's so we'll probably get it as soon we have the GL. Education would be an alternative as it's fairly expensive and not completely useless (even if we don't want to build Universities as we will have the GL), I don't know, we'll have to discuss.

Military strategy should be clear: amassing some horses and Cats on Sicily, upgrade them and take Carthago over. By then we'll see how much resistance they can bring up against us. By the way: I prefer not to station armies in cities with high flip-risks. I did it now, but would vote to station them right in front of cities with more than 2 or 3% fliprisk. Also, AI will actually attack armies if they are stationed inside a city. That means that by now most fighting should be done by our single units while the armies protect healing units and Cats.

There's a settler and a worker waiting in Croton - another settler is on his way. I'd propose to send them east. Now it's your turn. You'll rock it anyway.

Here’s the save.

 

[Stoertebeker]

Some additional notes:

Diplomacy:
Many deals are to expire in the next turns. The AI's currently don't have much to sell. We should pay them at least 1 GPT for the alliances, and RoP's, I think that they will be less likely to cancel it then. Also make sure to get the Dyes from Persia as soon as the Deal expires - we'll have to pay much for it, but we can sell them Philo to get the money back. Trade around maps at least every three turns: At this stage of the game, 30 or even 20 GPT are a lot - plus, the AI will be happier. (I always use the "Care to trade map"-option: If they offer just a map swap, I renegotiate and ask them what they will offer for our maps: They usually offer a small sum then. If they want money for their maps, I pay it.)
But please make sure that everyone is on our side against Carthage - at any time. Like that we don't have to fear any attacks. That makes sure that we can throw everything against Carthage.

Here's an overview over our current deals:

Spoiler :

Wonders:

We can be sure to get the Great Library: Even if the Macedons try to build it at Athens, they cannot beat our 40 SPT in Rome as their GA will end soon. We can also consider to build Bacchanalia - in Rome (that could make a settler after the GL is finished, than build Baccha) or in Pisae. I don't think that the AI could beat us in that. (But I'm not sure - if it can, we will lose some hundred shields ...) Would be a nice one to get Carthagian cities happy.
A propos: All wonders have been built by the Macedons: Except of the Oracle, that is located in Caralis. Good for us. (And Egypt succeeded to build the Mausoleum at Alesandria - don't care about that, though.)

Buildings:

The numbers dictate production: Rome will build wonders (and maybe settlers), Neapolis and Pisae build Galleys (we need some to get our african campaign working well) or Horsemen, Canusium builts Cats, Croton can build Galleys, Tarentum Horsemen. In Padua we might want to have a Courthouse, to get 15 SPT plus some Cash out of it, we could also build Warriors (but actually, the Upgrades to Legions are so expensive ...) or Settlers.
But please do make sure that every city has 2 MP's in place, as they will revolt/stop partying otherwise.

The non-core cities are good for a rush now and then and build workers. We have no need to grow them too fast: We will send workers there later, then they will grow much faster than now. There are more than 100 turns left in the game: We want them to be at Max Pop as soon as we are near to win - before that, they should contribute otherwise to our progress. Without a Granary, at 4 SFPT (1 irrigrated tile plus 1 food ressource), our remote towns can grow every 5 turns until they are on size 6: That's 25 turns. Another 50 turns would be needed to grow to size 12. If we irrigrate just two additional tiles per town after it's on size six, (I assume 1 food ressource and river location), it will take 55 turns in total. We play on Sid, so we cannot expect to win the game before, say, 100 AD: That means that we have at least 25 turns left by now, where we can rush things in those locations - without risking to miss our final goal.

Iron:
I've built a Colony in the Alps because I wanted to upgrade some Warriors. We currently deliver Iron to the Celts and the Egyptians. If you want to disconnect our source near Canusium, just make sure that Canusium still gets 20 SPT: There are some workers assigned to mine an additional hill, by then, it doesn't need the iron to work on.

Workers:
There are no urgent works to be done in our core. You could ship some workers to sicily, or prepare some tiles for the distant future (irrigrating the few unworked plains, near Tarentum and Croton, for example).

Military:

One thing I forgot: We should set up a naval blockade in the street of Messana as soon as possible. We don't want the Macedons to conquer Sardinia and Corsica ... (After Astro and the conquest of Carthago we can also block the western passage).

 

[RedKi-rr]

Got it. I'll post my thoughts soon)

 

[RickFGS]

As always a superb micromanaging, you are a very good player Stoertebeker.

On a quick note: so we have Construction? Sweet, maybe we should get Ancona to build Aqueduct, my mind just suffers when i see a level 6 city not growing at all, i know it is level 6 because you sacrificed workers/slaves to achieve a good spt output and the plan is set, but on this particular case, an aqueduct and after an heroic epic could give us more on the long run.

Ill look at the other things after, but the gameplay as been like a clockwork, keep it up

Two armies already!

 

[Stoertebeker]

As always a superb micromanaging, you are a very good player Stoertebeker.

Thanks, man. Civ assist tells me I have used 14 hours to play the first 20 turns - and it doesn't know about the hours to plan the moves - such an investment should pay off.

On a quick note: so we have Construction? Sweet, maybe we should get Ancona to build Aqueduct, my mind just suffers when i see a level 6 city not growing at all, i know it is level 6 because you sacrificed workers/slaves to achieve a good spt output and the plan is set, but on this particular case, an aqueduct and after an heroic epic could give us more on the long run.

I think it would be a good idea if that would be your first move: You'll have 5 turns left in the GA, enough to complete Ducts in Ancona and Canusium, Croton and Tarentum would need one more turn. After the GA has ended, we can afford citizens to work food tiles again. But especially Ancona is very short on food: Even if we build a Harbor, we'd only be able to work one more mine. All other Citizens would just work sea-tiles - great if we are in imperialism and really can use the money. But if we let it grow now, they'll lose some shields because the cities stop partying - and there's no use for 19 SPT-cities. Ideal would be to complete Ducts one turn before we revolt, (which would ideally be one or two turns after we end the Golden Age) so that the cities can grow during Anarchy - as that's the only thing they can do then anyway. By that time, we've hopefully connected another luxury and finished the Baccha, so that the cities can party even at higher Poplevels.

 

[RedKi-rr]

I have two type of questions:

General:

1) How does population count? Does it take cities population or size?

2) I found out for myself the great thing in civ3. I looked for it for a long time, but did realize only now)
In civ1-2 there is a great thing like celebration in Republic/Democracy, therefore cities can grow 1 size per turn if it has enough food. In civ3 we can add workers and sitizens if a city has enough food...So we can grow a city to its cap very fast. That's why we need some land (20%) with a good food and a lot of workes/slaves. I think we should start collecting them from beginning.
So, another question - if a city has size 6, but only 3 roman - Do other 3 men count as population? What if city has resistance?

Special:

1) What are we going to do with resistance? Starve to 1 pop? Maybe whip markets/workers?
Flippings are rather dangerous. Once I even reload my comp due to this (and wasted army as well)...))

2) Should we send our 2 settlers (which are at near cities) to colonize dye and insane? Have we time for this? Aslo - are we going to build other cities (not near resourse)? Or will we wait for imperialism?

3) What should we take from Philo? Some tech towards imperialism?

4) Where should we send our new troops? To Sicily? And when we will win battle at the sea - to Carphage-city? Should we keep our armies together? How many troops are needed to attack Carphage-city?

 

[RickFGS]

I think it would be a good idea if that would be your first move: You'll have 5 turns left in the GA, enough to complete Ducts in Ancona and Canusium, Croton and Tarentum would need one more turn. After the GA has ended, we can afford citizens to work food tiles again. But especially Ancona is very short on food: Even if we build a Harbor, we'd only be able to work one more mine. All other Citizens would just work sea-tiles - great if we are in imperialism and really can use the money. But if we let it grow now, they'll lose some shields because the cities stop partying - and there's no use for 19 SPT-cities. Ideal would be to complete Ducts one turn before we revolt, (which would ideally be one or two turns after we end the Golden Age) so that the cities can grow during Anarchy - as that's the only thing they can do then anyway. By that time, we've hopefully connected another luxury and finished the Baccha, so that the cities can party even at higher Poplevels.

Hummm, you ´re right although looking at the city screen i can see it working at least 2 or 3 more mine tiles with a population level greater than 6 (there is olive oil and 2 plains, get 1 city to elevate water over the oilves and irrigate the plains but thats costly for now), and probably beeing able to achieve a 25-30 spt output but you´re way is better of course, more resource efficent.

 

[RickFGS]

I have two type of questions:

General:

1) How does population count? Does it take cities population or size?

2) I found out for myself the great thing in civ3. I looked for it for a long time, but did realize only now)
In civ1-2 there is a great thing like celebration in Republic/Democracy, therefore cities can grow 1 size per turn if it has enough food. In civ3 we can add workers and sitizens if a city has enough food...So we can grow a city to its cap very fast. That's why we need some land (20%) with a good food and a lot of workes/slaves. I think we should start collecting them from beginning.
So, another question - if a city has size 6, but only 3 roman - Do other 3 men count as population? What if city has resistance?

Special:

1) What are we going to do with resistance? Starve to 1 pop? Maybe whip markets/workers?
Flippings are rather dangerous. Once I even reload my comp due to this (and wasted army as well)...))

2) Should we send our 2 settlers (which are at near cities) to colonize dye and insane? Have we time for this? Aslo - are we going to build other cities (not near resourse)? Or will we wait for imperialism?

3) What should we take from Philo? Some tech towards imperialism?

4) Where should we send our new troops? To Sicily? And when we will win battle at the sea - to Carphage-city? Should we keep our armies together? How many troops are needed to attack Carphage-city?

General:

1) don´t remenber how the actual number is calculated, but if a level 1 city is 16,000 and a level 6 is 200,000, a simple whatif equation should provide with what you want at a given time, search the foruns, there are some articules abouth the city population count (if that´s what you want to know that is);

2) If a city has 3 roman and 3 slaves (see Ancona) they will all count as population for that city, but the slaves will probably be unhappy (if they are put to working tiles of course), thus the concern in part for obtaining more luxuries/partying in cities and wonders that provide hapiness, a happy civ tends to achieve much more shield output than a normal one;

3) Resistance is beeing taken care off by lux/wonders/partying, and if the slaves are celts in our cities killing the Celts would also resolve the matter

4)Flippings are dangerous if you build your city to close to other civs citys, in this scenario we should be carefull where we put our cities next to Macedon, since it has a higher cultural level for now, but usually rushing a temple avoids a city flipping for a long time, enough for warfare purposes anyway;

5)I think the plan is to wait for imperialism;

6)Donno what tech to take, i´d probably choose Education aswell, we don´t really need Universitys like was said but the ability to reach Medicine and Infirmary to grow beyond level 12 could be huge;

7)The next target should be Carthage capital, Carthage itself, i don´t think there will be many defenses in the city, since the AI tends to spread defenders around, but you never know with the AI, we can alays send a coat to scout the unit on top, from there we can deduct what the city has also, but i think our current 2 armies are already more than enough to take the city, of course we need to take some garissons to hold the city/allow healing of troops, rush a barracks, get some galleys to allow a safe crossing and so on (maybe taking 1 or 2 citizens along to snatch cultural borders and allow a lightining conquering campaign)

Your turn, you could probably say what you´ll be doing before playing the save for example and we would discuss it (like a true democracy )

 

[Stoertebeker]

Hummm, you ´re right although looking at the city screen i can see it working at least 2 or 3 more mine tiles with a population level greater than 6 (there is olive oil and 2 plains, get 1 city to elevate water over the oilves and irrigate the plains but thats costly for now), and probably beeing able to achieve a 25-30 spt output but you´re way is better of course, more resource efficent.

For now, Rome needs the olives to get it's 40 SPT. So there's one more production tile for Ancona, plus the forest that we could chop and mine. that's 4 more production in the GA - but even 25 doesn't get us closer to anything than 20 SPT do. Also, there's a lack of food in Ancona: With a harbour and only 2-Food-tiles worked, it will only make 1 SFPT. That will be one more mine - for 29 SPT in the GA (if we are still partying). After the GA, it would be fine to get this city to 20 SPT. Then, we'll need the duct.

General:

1) don´t remenber how the actual number is calculated, but if a level 1 city is 16,000 and a level 6 is 200,000, a simple whatif equation should provide with what you want at a given time, search the foruns, there are some articules abouth the city population count (if that´s what you want to know that is);

The game counts population. 20 level-1-cities count like 1 level-20-cities: no need for megacities with happyness issues, though.

2) If a city has 3 roman and 3 slaves (see Ancona) they will all count as population for that city, but the slaves will probably be unhappy (if they are put to working tiles of course), thus the concern in part for obtaining more luxuries/partying in cities and wonders that provide hapiness, a happy civ tends to achieve much more shield output than a normal one;

No, slaves aren't more unhappy than domestic citizens (that's why Ancona parties as well). That's why I used them to merge into the city. They will only get unhappy if we're at war with their homeland. (So Carthagians will be more unhappy - don't merge them until we have erased Carthage from the map).

Merging our current workers - I don't know. There's plenty to do, most of our core cities (except of Ancona) have plenty of food and no urgent need to grow. We'll merge all our workers when we are 2-3 turns away from winning and still need pop.

3) Resistance is beeing taken care off by lux/wonders/partying, and if the slaves are celts in our cities killing the Celts would also resolve the matter

Yet another misunderstanding, I think. Resistance only happens if we conquer a city. The mechanics are very well eyplained here. Starving resistors, like RedKi-rr proposed, is a good idea. I'd prefer a balanced approach: In Carthagian Level 6 cities we can expect to get 4-5 resistors. Thus, starving one or two and trying to quell the rest with healing units/warriors/garrisons.

4)Flippings are dangerous if you build your city to close to other civs citys, in this scenario we should be carefull where we put our cities next to Macedon, since it has a higher cultural level for now, but usually rushing a temple avoids a city flipping for a long time, enough for warfare purposes anyway;

Do you two use CivAssist? (A link how to get it to work on Vista.) It's very helpful, especially to see the fliprisks. The mechanics of fliprisks also has a good strategy article.

5)I think the plan is to wait for imperialism;

6)Donno what tech to take, i´d probably choose Education aswell, we don´t really need Universitys like was said but the ability to reach Medicine and Infirmary to grow beyond level 12 could be huge;

I had a second thought about that: Hospitals serve the AI more than us - as they are so expensive. So we should not take Education as free Philo tech (as it will cheapen the way to Medicine for the AI's) but Military Training. That also allows us to research to imperialism faster, we only need Republic and and Imperialism itself by then - short after the GA ends, we'll be ready to revolt. It maybe even worth to wait with settlements until we got that.

7)The next target should be Carthage capital, Carthage itself, i don´t think there will be many defenses in the city, since the AI tends to spread defenders around, but you never know with the AI, we can alays send a coat to scout the unit on top, from there we can deduct what the city has also, but i think our current 2 armies are already more than enough to take the city, of course we need to take some garissons to hold the city/allow healing of troops, rush a barracks, get some galleys to allow a safe crossing and so on (maybe taking 1 or 2 citizens along to snatch cultural borders and allow a lightining conquering campaign)

Like I said: Conquering cities with armies is quite dangerous. If a city flips and 3 garrisons or 2 healing heavy cavs disappear, that's not too bad. Losing armies is! So the first or 2 attacks can be run with armies, by then, let's take single Legions and heavy cavs to finish the last units. Also, the AI avoids to attack armies with more than 8-10 Hitpoints. But that's not true if the armies are inside a city: they will attack them anyway, then.

Edit: I haven't ever used Citizens to proceed quicklier - but it might be a good tactic. But only, if we have a first cav-army. If not, our settlers could just proceed as fast as our fastest units - so there would be little gain.

 

[RickFGS]

I may have mixed some concepts:

@When i say that slaves will probably be unhappy, i´m considering the possibility of beeing at war (thus unhappy) or at peace (thus content), still the fact that they are not a native population will make them less happy (thus the content stance) then grown local population, beeing at war or not, thus the "resistance" i talk about and the need to assimilation, see the xenophobia penalty for fascim governments.

@Instead of dealing with the war-resistance issue and starve the native population, why not plan ahead and make a blitzkrieg war where in some 5 turns we conquer almost all of the carthaginian cities, that would kick in the assimilation quicker, we can use the military police limit of 2 per city to quell the resistance and place the unhappy population on science duty or making workers on these high corrupt cities, thus turning unhappy pop into manpower.

The trick is to use the citizens to capture enemy cultural border, thus allowing our armies or Heavy Cav to capture a city and then on the same turn keep moving to the next and repeating the process. In this scenario we have a total of 8 moves on roads, allowing for capturing a city spending moves of a few Heavy cav and upon capture moving a citizen over to enemy occupied land and on the same turn build a city there, thus allowing Cavs to conquer another city, if we do this in two directions we can conquer Carthage empire very quickly.

Just a sugestion of course, and yes, we must have a 2 movement unit for this, we could do it with the legionary armies aswell, but it´s risky. No need to have Cav armies for this tactic, the Heavy Cav itself will sufice.

To avoid losing armies on flips, i just sentry them outside the city...usually in the enemy snatched territory and with a barracks rushed on the newly founded city .

 

[Stoertebeker]

I may have mixed some concepts:

@When i say that slaves will probably be unhappy, i´m considering the possibility of beeing at war (thus unhappy) or at peace (thus content), still the fact that they are not a native population will make them less happy (thus the content stance) then grown local population, beeing at war or not, thus the "resistance" i talk about and the need to assimilation, see the xenophobia penalty for fascim governments.

Okay, now things are getting clearer. I totally agree with this.

The trick is to use the citizens to capture enemy cultural border, thus allowing our armies or Heavy Cav to capture a city and then on the same turn keep moving to the next and repeating the process. In this scenario we have a total of 8 moves on roads, allowing for capturing a city spending moves of a few Heavy cav and upon capture moving a citizen over to enemy occupied land and on the same turn build a city there, thus allowing Cavs to conquer another city, if we do this in two directions we can conquer Carthage empire very quickly.

Just a sugestion of course, and yes, we must have a 2 movement unit for this, we could do it with the legionary armies aswell, but it´s risky. No need to have Cav armies for this tactic, the Heavy Cav itself will sufice.

I had a look on the map to figure out good spots for towns to do that:

Spoiler :

Some places are good (as the one near Gades, which will allow us to gain one turn plus it can pull in the wheat in SW, that Gades cannot work) but it's not necessary: Most of the towns would grow very slowly, whereas there are very good spots in Hungary and Germany that would serve us better in the long run. So we should use "Blitzkriegsettlers" if we feel that we have a lot of troops (more than we need to fight off all the Jumbos that Hannibal will angrily throw at us by all directions) and time is the limiting factor. I'm curious how much Hannibal has left in northern Africa.

I think, when your turn has come, it would be an option to keep in mind. RedKi-rr will have to conquer Carthago and to consolidate our breachhead while fighting off the masses that Carthage will throw on Sicily, I suspect.

To avoid losing armies on flips, i just sentry them outside the city...usually in the enemy snatched territory and with a barracks rushed on the newly founded city .

Yes, that sounds good to me.

 

[Stoertebeker]

I have two type of questions:

General:
2) I found out for myself the great thing in civ3. I looked for it for a long time, but did realize only now)
In civ1-2 there is a great thing like celebration in Republic/Democracy, therefore cities can grow 1 size per turn if it has enough food. In civ3 we can add workers and sitizens if a city has enough food...So we can grow a city to its cap very fast. That's why we need some land (20%) with a good food and a lot of workes/slaves. I think we should start collecting them from beginning.

Yes, but: If we concentrate too much on workers, we'll have paid a lot of shields for them, and a lot of upkeep-coins. So I'd say, we should have an many workers as are necessary to grow and let the cities grow naturally (atl least until they are on size 6).

So, another question - if a city has size 6, but only 3 roman - Do other 3 men count as population? What if city has resistance?

All citizens count as 1. I don't know what's with resistance - but that's not a big matter for us.

Special:

1) What are we going to do with resistance? Starve to 1 pop? Maybe whip markets/workers?[/Quote]

We'll have very few happyness issues- due to our many Luxuries. When we get the Baccha, we'll never see a size 6 town being unhappy.

2) Should we send our 2 settlers (which are at near cities) to colonize dye and insane? Have we time for this? Aslo - are we going to build other cities (not near resourse)? Or will we wait for imperialism?

Maybe we should take a balanced approach: The settlers that we have now should go for luxuries. But you could make a settler-factory out of padua after the Courthouse there is finished: It can get 10 FPT and 20 SPT then.

3) What should we take from Philo? Some tech towards imperialism?

Let's take Military Training.

4) Where should we send our new troops? To Sicily? And when we will win battle at the sea - to Carphage-city? Should we keep our armies together? How many troops are needed to attack Carphage-city?

[/QUOTE]

I'd say: No sea-battles at all, if you can avoid them (maybe we can destroy some carth. galleys if we redlined them with cats before). We don't have many ships and we need them to transport our troops. You can try to get some galleys to Massala and by then, we can ship/unload in one turn: I believe that the AI is more reluctant to attack empty boats - at least I hope so.
Cartagho will have something about 5 defenders and Hannibal will get his whole production to attack us there - so I think, an attack would need at least both of our armies, (that could each do 1 attack), and at least 4 other attackers. Plus, maybe, 4 Cats? I'd feel more comfortable with 6 Cats and 6 single attackers plus the armies, though.

That's what we currently have on sicily. So we lack at least 4 galleys to get them over to africa and some troops to defend Sicily. The turn after we get Philo/Military Training and thus may upgrade our horsemen seems a good date for D-Day.

 

[RedKi-rr]

Eventually, a plan)
It was rather unusal for me, I use to play fast and mostly intuitively))
But now I reanalized things every time I wrote something)

255 BC

Plan for the next 5 turns.

Cities produce:
Pisae – only horsemans + plus growing
Padua – courthouse
Pome – GL
Ancona – HE
Neapolis – galley, galley, horseman, horseman, galley, galley...
Canusium – catapult, catapult, catapult, garrison, garrison,
Tarentum – only horsemans
Croton – only galleys
Messana – I think it should grows quickly and then 2-pop whip marketplace and corthhouse (or at least marketplace since several happy lux faces is better than 2 unhappy). IIRC, 1 pop produces 20 shields?
Other cities are rather corrupted.
I will put some entertainers in Syracuse instead of scientists.
In Fur and Silk cities after barrack I will put temples (?)
Should we build/whip walls in Marsala and Syracuse? I think we need whip markets after 10 shields soon.

Workers: the north wokers will improve land near Alps for future cities.
Also I was going to do the following: 3/4 of the south workers sail to sicily, and I will add 2-3 of them to Messana (for whipping). 1/4 of the south workers will impore something. But then I remembered that they are iron mine workers) Therefore, may be send some north workers to Sicily?


Diplomacy:
Trade maps every turn
Always give at least 1 gpt to AIs..
At all costs have alliance against Carph and always have RoP (esp with Egypt and Persia).
Pay for lux resources (dye) almost any price?
Sometimes sell techs...this is situational. I think its better to hear some comments after the deals )

Troops:
Naval: we have 4 galley, one of them are at the east (about 5 turn to our country).
We need about 5-6 ship to transport our troops (2 armies + 6 catapults + 6 attackes + 2 garrisons (?) ) to Carphage. And we need 2 ships to block the passage (at least they should be ready for that). I’m going to send the first or second galley from Croton to colonize the east (2 settlers + 1-2 workers, no troops). So, we need total 8-10 galleys.

Land:
What do think if the turn 6 in Groton, turn 5 Canusium will be deadline for troop building for the first wave of Carphage war in their homeland? And in other cities relative to this...That is Neapolis finishes in 5 turns (so, its 6 turn galley will be 10-th galley), Pisae finishes in 3-4 turn, and so on.
With this we will be able to have at turn 8 our consolidated troops near Marsala, and we will have about 10 horseman (heavy cavalry?), 6 catapults, 2-3 legionaries and 1-2 garrisons ready for sailing.
Armies are out of cities always. In newly conquered cities I will try to keep 1-2 garrison and legionary or 2 garrisons and 1 heavy cavalry.
Now I begin to think that it will be better to have 1 additional galley instead of 1 heavy cavalry.

How many troops should I keep in Sicily cities? (2-3? Like garrison-garrison-horsman)
And should I leave some defenders near Rome and Pisae (like that two legionaries). Are this places really safe? Should I defend iron colony with legionaries that builds road on wheat? I mean barbs.

I'll try to play tomorrow or the day after tomorrow the first 5 turn. And after that to post some report and the next 5 turn plan)
Sorry for a little delaying. But RL And I don't want to play thoughtless)
BtW, What does it mean IBT?

 

[Stoertebeker]

Eventually, a plan)
It was rather unusal for me, I use to play fast and mostly intuitively))
But now I reanalized things every time I wrote something)

255 BC

Plan for the next 5 turns.

Cities produce:
Pisae – only horsemans + plus growing
Padua – courthouse
Pome – GL
Ancona – HE
Neapolis – galley, galley, horseman, horseman, galley, galley...
Canusium – catapult, catapult, catapult, garrison, garrison,
Tarentum – only horsemans
Croton – only galleys
Messana – I think it should grows quickly and then 2-pop whip marketplace and corthhouse (or at least marketplace since several happy lux faces is better than 2 unhappy). IIRC, 1 pop produces 20 shields?
Other cities are rather corrupted.

Sounds good to me.

I will put some entertainers in Syracuse instead of scientists.
In Fur and Silk cities after barrack I will put temples (?)
Should we build/whip walls in Marsala and Syracuse? I think we need whip markets after 10 shields soon.

No walls. We'll do some offense-defense. Marktetplaces aren'nt very necessary, as long as those cites aren't to grow above 6. But: Not too bad, also.

Workers: the north wokers will improve land near Alps for future cities.
Also I was going to do the following: 3/4 of the south workers sail to sicily, and I will add 2-3 of them to Messana (for whipping). 1/4 of the south workers will impore something. But then I remembered that they are iron mine workers) Therefore, may be send some north workers to Sicily?

Northern workers should improve Padua land further, I think. Try to get it at a 20 SPT and 10 SFPT to have a nice Settler-Factory.
Diplomacy:

Pay for lux resources (dye) almost any price?

It'll cost about 400 Gold. We can get back that an more from Persia if we trade them Literature.

Sometimes sell techs...this is situational. I think its better to hear some comments after the deals )

We won't have much: After Philo, it's only Republic and Imperialism.

Troops:
Naval: we have 4 galley, one of them are at the east (about 5 turn to our country).
We need about 5-6 ship to transport our troops (2 armies + 6 catapults + 6 attackes + 2 garrisons (?) ) to Carphage. And we need 2 ships to block the passage (at least they should be ready for that). I’m going to send the first or second galley from Croton to colonize the east (2 settlers + 1-2 workers, no troops). So, we need total 8-10 galleys.

Yes. Just try to keep them alive.

Land:
What do think if the turn 6 in Groton, turn 5 Canusium will be deadline for troop building for the first wave of Carphage war in their homeland? And in other cities relative to this...That is Neapolis finishes in 5 turns (so, its 6 turn galley will be 10-th galley), Pisae finishes in 3-4 turn, and so on.
With this we will be able to have at turn 8 our consolidated troops near Marsala, and we will have about 10 horseman (heavy cavalry?), 6 catapults, 2-3 legionaries and 1-2 garrisons ready for sailing.

Seems good.

How many troops should I keep in Sicily cities? (2-3? Like garrison-garrison-horsman)
And should I leave some defenders near Rome and Pisae (like that two legionaries). Are this places really safe? Should I defend iron colony with legionaries that builds road on wheat? I mean barbs.

No need to defend against barbs. On Sicily, we'll see a lot of fighting, though. AI's love islands. I also vote for a little homeland defense. You see those Carth. galleys? I fear they'll land something near Pisae. But I don't know, of course.

I'll try to play tomorrow or the day after tomorrow the first 5 turn. And after that to post some report and the next 5 turn plan)
Sorry for a little delaying. But RL And I don't want to play thoughtless)
BtW, What does it mean IBT?

In between turns.

Good luck, the plan seems good.

 

[RedKi-rr]

Offense-defense in Sicily - that is we will attack them ourselves? First go armies (yellow too?) against numidian spearmen and then horsemen? All they are assisted by catapults.

Sure, I see that galleys near Pisae. So...This mean that 2-3 horseman should be here in the future. But what are we going to now if that galleys are full of troops. Could they sail along the south coast of modern France to attack us like with the second front?

I understood other points, I think)