Is Conquest #3, Fall of Rome, a good design?

[planetfall]

Don't know if anyone has started conquest #3. But if you have, what do you think of this design.

According to designer on civ3.com, in developer link, the developer boasts of the challenge to barbarians as even though the game is supposed to last 150 turns, because of the way Rome is set up the game will end about turn 100.

I started game as random civ and got sassanids. Nice stacked deck. You have a bunch of techs, BUT strongest defensive player is spearman. Can't access any of the strong offensive/defensive units as they are in the "Barbarian Tree" and cost about 200 turns of the 150 turn game. Moreover Barb Tree Techs cannot be traded. To say winning is difficult is an understatement. You start with a bunch of techs, so only can research about 8 techs. That's about 800 points. You can kill a few units, but at 30points a pop, that will take too long.

OH, and forgot this is eliminatation also, so if lose 8 cities it's bye bye time.

Would be fun to play as a Barb tribe, or even as one of the Romes, but what is the odd man out tribe supposed to do. Defense of 2 vs legionaires and locked alliance. Those 20 legionaires would cut thru civ like knives thru butter.


My conclusion: this conquest is not designed well for Sassanid tribe.

Humm, just rechecked according to designer, Warlords are 8.2.1. But I thought they were more like 8.5.1. I need to double check tonight.

Anyway, what do you think of this conquest design?

-- PF

[Saint Marcus]

It's sadly disapointing.

therefor, I'm busy making a new version myself.

[asleepathewheel]

I played halfway through a game as the Celts and didn't care for it. I liked the ideas behind it but I thought the 8 city elim was not good-I took 5 great britain w.roman and 3 mainland cities and there were ruins all over the place. Its not difficult to snipe 8 smallish cities from anyone.
And then its a mad dash for the victory points.

It seems like it has a lot of potential, just needs to be flushed out a bit. I agree with you on the Sassanids point. I wish they had an elite unit or something to give them some balance. have to wait a long time for heavy cav's to do anything.

[planetfall]

The major problem I see are:

1. elimination preference on, with victory conditions survival should be enough
2. no "garrison" unit with at least defense of 3.
3. design for Rome to end at turn 100 when game continues to 150 turns.

Better design would have been Rome to win by end of turn 140.

I'm only about 50 turns, i.e. 1/3, into the game. For 40 turns it was "yes sir" to all bully greetings. Then the Huns decided to attack. Think this was a big mistake, I remember their reputation. No cities exchanged, yet!!, but my military went from average to weak.

Still annoyed at design of game, if other scenarios are this bad, that is not good news for C3C.

-- PF

[WarpStorm]

I like this one, it's probably my second favorite. It is hard to actually win it though (from nearly any team, though the Sass and Celts seem to have it hardest).

During the beta, every Conquest was beaten at high difficulties by every playable team.

[planetfall]

Well, if it is winnable, I'll play it ou, to the bitter end.
Thanks for the info.

-- PF

[Uncle Thade]

I won...

I won.. but on Monarch level. It beat the crap outta me! Some tweaks as far as balancing tech and stealing/trading tech would be good. Played as Celts.

[Arnelos]

I've been playing the Anglo-Saxons and they're pretty difficult to play. This is not one of the conquests I played during the beta, so I was interested to try it out.

I agree, this conquest is very very hard.

[Fried-Psitalon]

The trick is, ironically enough, diplomacy. You can win with any civ simply by repeatedly forcing all the other Germanic tribes to attack Rome with treaties, and letting them snap up each other's cities and so on. After the Romans are eliminated, you get all the Germanics to gang up on the one with the highest score, rinse and repeat.

When there's only two tribes left, you take one city, two at most, from the bloodied and battered remaining foe, and you win. If you don't use super-diplo-cheese, this scenario is a vicious and bloody battle from beginning to end, with backstabbing to make a corporate board room look like a Barbie convention.

I won with every available civ during the beta using this method and warned of it but no solution was found - I even won with the Celts without so much as stepping foot off the isles until there was only one opponent left.

I also agree of the need for a higher-value defender, but you are supposed to be churning out insane numbers of attackers in this scenario, so I suppose the whole "best defense is a good offense" rule applies.

[planetfall]

What's with plague??

Why is there plague in Fall of Rome. According to civopedia it is not in this scenario, but in game play plague exists.

While talking about plague, does plague ever go away? The civopedia says almost nothing about plague.

Rethinking this scenario, the worst part is Rome gets VP about 2/3rds thru game. I didn't have enough time to get thru more than a few turns yesterday but will be able to see how it shakes out this weekend.


Fried-Psitalon: interesting. I assumed one civ could not do it alone. My problem is I don't have anything valuable to trade to the tribes for war. I am turning down research to 0 to get cash for bribing.

-- PF

[asleepathewheel]

Re: What's with plague??

Originally posted by planetfall

While talking about plague, does plague ever go away? The civopedia says almost nothing about plague.

it only lasts for a couple of turns, I think I've seen it go 3-4 turns then go away...

[planetfall]

whew, I thought I had to blow away all connections to a city, starve them to death and wait 20 turns. Vultures are cool and annoying at the same time.

-- PF

[charliechizel]

I didn't like this scenario for a couple reasons. I played as the anglos, had the scourge of war and was cranking out warlords like crazy. Eventually I sacked Rome and Constantinople, but I still didn't win. When western rome went down, it gave me a bunch of victory points, but when the eastern empire went down, it didn't. Since I was expecting to win after the east went down, all my armies were far off to the south, when the huns blindsided me from the east. Since I had already lost like 5 cities in scuffles with other barbs, (hard to defend w/2 against 8) I was eliminated. ****ty! I think my problem was that I took too many non-victory points from them before the empires bit the dust. But still I think if you sack both Rome and Constantinople you should win. Also it seemed that after a victory point city was destroyed by the collapse, I couldn't get any points for controlling them.

[joncnunn]

Re: Is Conquest #3, Fall of Rome, a good design?

Sassandids aren't a barabarian tribe.

They are playable as a challenge for any that find winning as the barbs to easy.

Originally posted by planetfall
Don't know if anyone has started conquest #3. But if you have, what do you think of this design.

According to designer on civ3.com, in developer link, the developer boasts of the challenge to barbarians as even though the game is supposed to last 150 turns, because of the way Rome is set up the game will end about turn 100.

I started game as random civ and got sassanids. Nice stacked deck. You have a bunch of techs, BUT strongest defensive player is spearman. Can't access any of the strong offensive/defensive units as they are in the "Barbarian Tree" and cost about 200 turns of the 150 turn game. Moreover Barb Tree Techs cannot be traded. To say winning is difficult is an understatement. You start with a bunch of techs, so only can research about 8 techs. That's about 800 points. You can kill a few units, but at 30points a pop, that will take too long.

OH, and forgot this is eliminatation also, so if lose 8 cities it's bye bye time.

Would be fun to play as a Barb tribe, or even as one of the Romes, but what is the odd man out tribe supposed to do. Defense of 2 vs legionaires and locked alliance. Those 20 legionaires would cut thru civ like knives thru butter.


My conclusion: this conquest is not designed well for Sassanid tribe.

Humm, just rechecked according to designer, Warlords are 8.2.1. But I thought they were more like 8.5.1. I need to double check tonight.

Anyway, what do you think of this conquest design?

-- PF

[joncnunn]

I think the 50 extra turns are for barbs to fight among themselves (and the Huns) assuming they beat both Romans.