Chronicles of Rome under Nbarclius Caesar, Vol. IV

[nbarclay]

The glorious Roman Empire has conquered the Greeks, who were led by their great leader Theseus. This story follows the Empire's development in the modern era, picking up after the discovery of Rocketry as their second modern technology. The game is being played on Emperor level under the AU Mod rules.

Please do NOT read this thread if you are playing the game unless you have discovered both Rocketry and Fission.

My other DARs:

The Chronicles of Rome under the Leadership of Nbarclius Caesar, Volume I

The Chronicles of Rome under the Leadership of Nbarclius Caesar, Volume II

The Chronicles of Rome under the Leadership of Nbarclius Caesar, Volume III

Theseus's DARs:

Theseus's DAR1

Theseus's DAR2

[nbarclay]

In 1390, the Celts pulled a doublecross and used a Right of Passage agreement to send a band of guerillas all the way to the undefended city of Knossos. Rome promptly retook the city and killed every Celtic guerilla in sight, capturing a band of Celtic workers. More importantly, Rome allied the entire world against the Celts, aiming for their destruction (which, in turn, would provide access to furs, the last luxury that Rome did not yet have).

[I'm starting to seriously consider seeing whether a domination victory will be possible without ever capturing a single city from an AI except for retaking cities an AI took from me. With another city founded in 1395, I'm up to 40% of the world's land area. If I can get the AIs to kill each other off and slip in Roman cities in between, domination may be possible - although I may have to use a strange kind of ROP rape to plant the last cities I need.]

[Arrian]

Go for it. I wouldn't be surprised if you pulled it off.

-Arrian, still reading

[Solomwi]

An interesting idea. With several cities plopping down in their borders, each equally defended, would the AI concentrate its attack or dribble units at each one?

[nbarclay]

By the year 1430, Persia had taken four cities from the Celts, Babylon had taken three, and Egypt managed to take one. Roman settlers with a heavy Mechanized Infantry escort followed in the wake of the rival military forces and founded three cities in former Celtic lands. With the founding of the cities of New Troy and Fur Valley, the fur supplies that had once belonged to the Celts were in Roman hands. Rome now had domestic supplies of all eight luxuries.

In regard to the research situation, Computers took six turns, Rocketry five, and Miniaturization six. The Internet was completed using a palace prebuild the same turn Miniaturization was researched, and that put Rome on a four-turn research pace. The only real obstacle to maintaining that pace would be whether or not sufficient financing could be maintained from Rome's neighbors. Much of Rome's gold hoarde had been spent upgrading infantry and guerillas to Mechanized Infantry and TOW Infantry, so there was a limit to how long Rome could maintain its research pace without significant foreign income.

[nbarclay]

As the war dragged on, Rome became the beneficiary of two culture flips: one of the former Carthaginian city the Celts had captured in the south and one of the southernmost native Germanic city that Persia had captured in the Germanic War. Babylon and Egypt both signed peace treaties with the Celts, but Rome immediately bribed them to rejoin the war.

By 1465, Persia and Babylon had each captured four cities from the Celts and Egypt had captured two. Rome had built a total of eight cities in the war zone, in addition to the seven it settled in territory made available in the Germanic War. In that year, Persia razed the southernmost city of the Celts' homeland, consolidating a large patch of territory in Roman hands.

[nbarclay]

The war with the Celts dragged on for a long time after they were confined to their home peninsula, mostly because it was hard for Rome's allies to get infantry through the isthmus. But eventually, the Babylonians were able to capture the Celtic capital. From there, it didn't take long for the rest of the Celtic civilization to collapse. In the meantime, Rome benefitted from two more culture flips, adding a little more territory to its empire.

The war with the Celts ended in AD 1560. Rome then immediately allied with the Persians and Babylonians against Egypt, which was kind enough not to leave when ordered to. This screenshot shows what the former Celtic and Germanic lands looked like one turn into the war with Egypt.

By that point, Motorized Transportation was the only industrial technology that Rome's allies lacked. Rome finished researching its eleventh modern technology in 1565. Had Rome tried to win the space race as quickly as possible, it could have launched in 1585.

[vmxa1]

Wow 4 flips now.

[nbarclay]

Now it's up to five, not counting the Carthaginian city of Leptis Minor a lot earlier in the game. The recent flips have mostily involved cities where I had cities on more than one side of the AI city and at least one of my cities was built right next to the AI city with city-tile-city spacing. Add to that the fact that I've been keeping the AIs in constant warfare, so the AI offensive units are all out fighting instead of serving as extra anti-flip garrison forces.

[Arrian]

With that type of culture bombing against captured cities, I'm not surprised.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Yeah, I just don't see much of the intermingled city placement. I can see how it would lead to flips.

[nbarclay]

The First Law of Unit Support: No matter how much you have, it's not enough. By AD 1630, the fully developed Roman cities were given orders to build airports and then wealth rather than run up even more absurd unit totals than had already been reached. Unit production would resume once the support limit was higher.

Note that the unit support situation was a major part of how the culture flipping game worked. I routinely used garrisons of about eight units to help protect against having my own cities flip. The need for military police also explains why I'm relatively light on artillery.

[nbarclay]

I forgot the picture:

[Arrian]

First thought looking at that map:

"We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Arrian
First thought looking at that map:

"We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

I actually had thoughts of Borghood early in the game when I had such a strong REX, but I hadn't thought about that analogy lately. This is, indeed, turning out to be a game of assimilating.

[vmxa1]

In the modern age, I do not see a need for lots of arty. They only slow down the armies I will be using to smash into cities.

A dozen is enough to move around on rails to do damage to shipping or attackers. Anyway you tend to capture a few here and there.

[nbarclay]

In 1635, Babylon finished conquering Egypt. Caesar and his council then started considering whether to ally with Persia against Babylon or with Babylon against Persia.

On one hand, the situation had reached a point where Babylon actually had a larger population than Persia. Further, Babylon's communist regime could make good use of its territory. And the fact that Babylon had won the greater number of cities in the wars with the Celts and especially with Egypt argued that Babylon could be the stronger ally.

But while that was true, Caesar also had it within his power to ensure that Babylon would be a relatively weak enemy. Babylon's two sources of rubber and one of oil were all adjacent to Rome's borders where they could be pillaged easily - and where any workers that tried to reconnect them could be captured. Babylon's advantage over Persia in control of luxuries could also be dealt with through appropriate pillaging.

Finally, there was some geographic advantage involved in allying with Persia against Babylon rather than vice versa. Most of Persia's cities had enough cultural depth for Babylonian forces approaching Persia to be vulnerable to counterattack. But Persian tanks could strike at numerous Babylonian cities without warning, including not only the isolated cities but also core cities where Rome had founded cities just on the Egyptian side of the former Egyptian-Babylonian border. With a little luck, Babylon could be defeated in detail by Persian forces achieving local superiority.

And finally, there was the worker situation. Babylon had around twenty workers, some native and some slaves, working along the border between Babylon and Rome. By choosing Babylon as his target, Caesar could add to his already extensive collection of slaves.

After weighing those issues, Caesar decided to make Babylon his target. Radar artillery and artillery pounded the Babylonian forces that had not yet returned to their cities after defeating Egypt, including a 2-tank, 1-infantry army. Modern armor and an old elite tank unit moved in to finish off the enemy forces, finally gaining Rome its first great leader. The only Roman losses of the initial operation were a single modern armor unit that lost to a mechanized infantry force that was defending the Babylonian army.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by vmxa1
In the modern age, I do not see a need for lots of arty. They only slow down the armies I will be using to smash into cities.

Radar artillery can bombard anything Modern Armor can attack: move one and bombard two, versus move three. Only MA armies (and armies of older 3-move units) can outrun the reach of radar artillery, and even then, radar artillery can support them more often than not. The RA/MA combination is a very powerful one.

But remember that I'm not attacking cities in this game. So my force mix is heavily overbalanced toward defensive rather than offensive units. The only thing my bombardment forces are normally needed for is to weaken any enemy units that try to enter my territory before I use tanks or MAs to dispatch them.

A dozen is enough to move around on rails to do damage to shipping or attackers. Anyway you tend to capture a few here and there.

In the AU Mod, we told the AIs not to build artillery-type units because when it does, human players usually seem to get more use out of them than the AIs do. (Actually, AIs probably get some decent use out of them at times defending against other AIs, but against a good human player, they usually just get one shot before they're captured.)

[vmxa1]

RA comes too late for me to even think about and I am talking about MA armies and a few calv armies to take out those last old or wounded units.

So in this game (AU mod and rules) it makes even more sense to go light on arty later in the game.

My other consideration is being lazy. I do not want to fire and move 50 arties or RA. It takes a bit longer, but I will use MA armies. I am in no rush to shave a few turns off, if it means 100's of additional firings of atillery.

It is not a statement of techniques, so much as ease for me.

[nbarclay]

The endgame was a bit anticlimactic. During the war between Persia and Babylon, I was not inclined to try to squeeze cities into Babylonian territory, mostly because I wasn't in a hurry to win under conditions that would leave the new Roman cities culturally crowded and isolated. As time went on, a couple more towns that were horribly crowded by Roman culture decided to join the Roman Empire.

Then, as the year turned over to AD 1730, two events conspired to bring victory. Persia conquered a core Babylonian city along the former Babylonian-Greek border, allowing Roman borders to expand a little, and the former Germanic city of Nuremburg with its nine tiles flipped.

Due to how long it took to win by domination without attacking AI cities myself, I actually researched through the entire tech tree for the first time ever. I got to have some fun with stealth bombers, first building them to destroy the Babylonian navy (which was seriously annoying me by futilly bombarding me and retreating into a city turn after turn) and then using them to destroy invading Babylonian land units.

There was one oddity regarding the tech picture: I actually had to go back and research Free Artistry myself as my next-to-last tech (the last being Advanced Flight) before I could move on and start researching Future Tech 1. The research effort required for Free Artistry was one turn at twenty percent and three at ten percent - the equivalent of half of a single turn's potential research output. I had just started on Future Tech 1 when the game ended.

Playing out the game for domination in this fashion has proven to be an interesting exercise in the manipulation of AIs. I doubt that I'll ever do it again because of how much time is involved, but it is an interesting thing to have done once.

[nbarclay]

And here's the final F8 information.

[vmxa1]

I did not realize you had to research all optional techs to do future techs. I never tried it before either. I remember doing them in Civ2.

Nice game and report.

[Jawa Jocky]

Just when I thought I had seen it all