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

[WarpStorm]

Yes, just taking out the Romans often won't generate enough VPs to determine the winner.

[joncnunn]

I'll try this as the ultimate barbarbian : The HUNS!

Looking at starting tech situation, I'm thinking of the inital startegy of trying to bullying the Sassandists into give me their techs while my own reserach just beelines up the barb techs. I see several good sites for cities within one tile of my starting nomads.

[planetfall]

Ok, after more play time, revised a few initial conclusions.

1. Elimination game is not all bad. It does change the flavor of the game a huge amount, but still is playable. The plus side to playing elimination is can quickly get rid of both Romes and assorted pesky civs.

2. Even if plague pops up, it is not bad as it goes away in 3-4 turns.

Sass's arenot a bad tribe to play. {Was my picked random selection}.
1. 2 sides are safe from attack and 3rd is only rarely used. South and West are safe. A few troops makes East safe, which means only have to worry about north.

2. Huns will probably attack but that is not hard to deal with.

3. Romans are stagnant, so there is time to build a mini empire.

4. Hard part is timing when to switch from building to conquest. If wait too long, Rome will steal away the game.


If I were changing the scenario, about all I would change is the VP generated by Rome. Rather than projecting a win about turn 110, I would move it out to about turn 130.

OH, would also change scoring. Dumb that higher difficulty level generates less points than lower difficulty level. Need some additional factor here to recognize higher levels.

Oh #2, warlords need adjusting a bit. They either need more offense, like 9.3.1 or lower cost. They are no match for heavy cavs. Barb warlords are helpless against Sass heavy cavs.

Oh, #3. I would probably extend the number of turns from 150 to 200. I was left with Celts & Sass. Without RR, these two don't come into contact. The only way the Sass can touch Celts is to plant a city on the Med. Sea and then have time to build galleys. Granted the Celts do have cities in N.Europe
but it will take about 20 turns for one unit from Sass to move to their area. Even with all other civs except Celts gone.

-- PF

[planetfall]

Another note-- Intro should have highlighted the change in govt Imperialism values in Scenario #3 vs #2 {rise of Rome}. In #2 no WW, in #3 much WW. This is highlighted in civopedia, but not everyone thinks of reading all civopedia entries before starting scenario.

Nasty suprise for first play of game. Second time I did not switch govt, what a change.

-- PF

[Fried-Psitalon]

I think it *does* say in the civilopedia entry that Imperialism is very much discouraged in the FoR scenario....

[planetfall]

Fried,

Yes it does with bold highlight. Wording is good, it implies you would be a huge dummy to play with Imperialism.

But if don't check civopedia, you would not know that from either the Conquest into or the Conquest summary.
I have learned now, but could be annoying dissatisfier for new FoR players.

Now before jumping in to any of these scenarios I check for changes in Units/govts/tech trees/scoring changes.

-- PF

[Dis]

ack!

Is this scenario hard. I'm not losing, well actually I am losing because I'm not winning.

East Rome is in the lead with 16,000 VP's, and I only have around 2000 .

I'm playing as the Vandals. It seemed like a good setup. No one to the right of me. But the annoying french are to the left of me.

How can I defeat Rome when the annoying barb tribes keep attacking me?

And I don't get the option to form alliances against rome. What tech. is necessary to form alliances? writing?

I guess playing as Rome would be the easiest. But I get the impression the scenario was intended to be played by a barb civ.

[planetfall]

Watch out for the French.

I couldn't get alliances but others started attacking once I knocked off about 4-6 Rome/Byzantine cities.

Key is to eliminate Rome/Byzantine at least by when they have about 32,000 VP. I don't understand what a VP location is. It may be those spires.

My plan was simple: build til turn 70, turn to military production and start hammering. Remember even though it looks hopeless Rome/Byzantine has WW to deal with and that will help you.

-- PF

[Dis]

hmm, maybe I'll continue. My first city with a VP (It's those obelisk looking things- playing the Intro scenario #1 will illustrate that).

I'm also curious what those stone-looking structures are in the forest near the northern roman cities. They aren't VP locations from what I can tell, but I don't know what they are.

Most of the VP locations are located in the same square as cities not surprisingly. All the major cities have them. Constaninople, Rome, several northern Italy cities.

[planetfall]

stone laying all over the structure == quarry. A new resource.

Yeah, I ignored VP's and still won with second play.

-- PF

[joncnunn]

Yes; Writing is needed by one party. (Or is it an Embassy which requires writing?)

No point reseraching that yourself though; just concentrate on the barb techs and trade those first. (Look around first before any deal.) Also, several techs can be grabed from the Romans in early game in exchange for your WM because at least one party needs Map Making to trade maps.

As the Huns, my plan is to start the invasion of Romans around turn 50. (Right when I finish researching the last of the barb unique techs.) I'll bribe them with techs if that's what it takes. I've built lots of Raiders that can be upgraded.

The Sas will be the next target after that. Folowed by any barbs with higher scores.

[planetfall]

Joncnunn,

Trade barb techs? In my copy of the scenario barb tech trading is not allowed. This was a big surprise on the first play of this scenario. If you read the developers log in civ3.com you will see that only the first barb tech has a high cost. It is possible to get the barb techs the old fashioned way, but it will be almost the end of the game.

Initial barb tech research at start of game is 200-400 turns.

-- PF

[Dis]

you can trade barb techs to the other barb civs.

I was able to get some of the "regular" techs off other barbs- like alphabet and sailing.

I managed to research fairly fast, but it still takes a while to get all 3 barb techs.

[planetfall]

Sorry, my bad. Sass can't trade barb techs.

-- PF

[Dis]

I did a start with them to see if they would be interesting.

But they don't start with much . I didn't see them being able to do much.

But upon further reflection- they could be fairly successful depending on what the barb civs do. You need their hope with western rome for sure.

But they seemed to be lacking good units at the beginning.