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

[joncnunn]

Only the first barb tech is unsellable.

All others are sellable (to other barb civs)

I was refering to selling the techs on the barb tree to other less advanced barbs.

Originally posted by 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

[joncnunn]

As Huns, completed the barb tech tree before turn 50 on Monarch.

I was able to get all regular techs off other barbs except for Construction & Fortifcation which I ended up reseraching myself.
I wouldn't pay 1 credit for totally useless Imeralism.

I have decided to turn reserach down to 20% now that I've entered the "Rome Fights Back" era. (Would have done this earlier but it takes until Fortification for bridges.)

I'm actually ahead of the Sas in techs. I know that both halves of Rome has the tech for Bryzentene ingeniuity.

None of the Barbs has declared war on Rome yet.

In fact, all say "Can't be done" to alliance against them offers.

My first wave of Warlords started for eastern Rome the turn after finishing reserching sacking. [Had to upgrade them.] They are still in route.

Originally posted by Dissident
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.

[Dis]

Okay finally beat this scenario (I haven't played in a few days). I was having trouble with the Vandals so this time I played as the Sassinids.

The Sassinids might be too easy. They start with a few cities that have the essentual improvements for waging war (temple and barracks was all I really cared about). You start off without enough cities to support your army, but you have quite a bit of room to expand. I expanded throughout the Iraq, Iran region right up to eastern rome. I also expanded throughout Turkey up to the mountains in the north and all the way west until about central Turkey. I quickly built barracks (and in some cases temples to fully utilize the land), and started cranking out horseman and catapults. The horseman can be upgraded to heavy calvary, and catapults can be upgraded to trebuchets.

I started the attack shortly after turn 50. Hitting the lebanon/Israel region and central turkey. Western Rome was a bit trickier. But with the road in N. Africa, you can follow it to Carthage. Carthage is a good spot because it allows you to use galleys to hit mainland Italy. You can get there in 2 turns. I also used galleys in Northern Turkey area near constantinople to ferry units accross, and take the roads into N. Italy region.

Heavy cavalry while it seemed weak in the Rise of Rome scenario, seems very powerful in this one. In many cases I did not need to bomb with my trebuchets to soften cities up. And after the first few cities I didn't want to be slowed down by them anyways. I just raced 6 to 10 heavy cavs up to a city and took it and then burned it to the ground. I did save a few cities along the coast so I could build galleys. And of course I saved Alexandria. I didn't get much help from the barb civs. And the purple guys (one of the goths) attacked me with useless warrior units. I had a decent defensive setup near the caucasis mountains, they posed no real threat.

Sassinids are very powerful because they have such a good defensive setup. You don't have to worry about the other barbs attacking you while you are attacking the Roman empires too much. And if they do, they can't do much due to the distance and terrain.

I generally like to play the easiest civ and get a feel for the scenario. Now that I have beaten this scenario with arguably the easiest civ, I now think I can continue my game as the Vandals and win that one. It will be trickier though because I don't think the barb units have as good as movement as the heavy cavs.


Some thoughts. At first the ai didn't seem to utilize the VP locations. After taking E. Rome, I was able to secure all of their locations. The AI didn't occupy any of them. Maybe they didn't have any units nearby though. Because after taking west rome, I wasn't able to get 3 of them. They were occupied by the franco barbs (and the blue guys). I think the celts got London.

In either case the AI did not make enough moves to actually win the game. I guess they wern't going to attack me again with my massive military, but they made no attempt to get my VP locations. I destroyed the N. Italy cities too (didn't want to mess with them). They could have tried to take out my fortified units on the VP locations.

So I can't say the ai is more of a challenge in this game as in Rise of Rome. Also I'm thinking maybe the Roman cities should have started with city walls. I'm not sure if that would have made things too hard for barb civs. But their barb units do have a bombarb ability, so I wouldn't think so.