AU601: Aqualung71's DAR

[Aqualung71]

210BC

1 turn to go for Feudalism.

A couple of turns ago we purchase Monarchy from the Celts, in exchange for about 5 techs!!! What extortion! Oh well, they shall pay later for their crimes. I am considering switching into Monarchy once we research Feudalism, so we don't have to worry about the support costs and WW under a Republic. Should have thought about that before, so a clear mistake there! Still, we are doing ok so far so a second government change won't put us back too much. If I go ahead with it, I then intend to declare war on Greece and ask my friends to fight it for me

Babylon called us up for an ROP which we agreed to since they are so far away. Xerxes also asked for one, but he had a snowflakes chance in hell of getting it! Too close, plus Persia is the leading civ. Never trust Xerxes!

We also gifted Monarchy to Babylon. By my calculations, this was the only tech Paddy has that not all other civs have, so this removes his one tech trading opportunity.

Oh yeah, and Carthage asked for peace, but with 12 turns to go on our MA with Persia, no dice They've got nothing to offer anyway, and have no military to speak of. I'm hoping Persia will wipe them out so I can take some of their land and continue my REX.

[Aqualung71]

150BC

A landmark year for the future planning of the Roman Empire.

We declared war on Greece (not particularly easy to work out how to do that in PBEM when you don't actually attack any units, I must say ). The required MA's with Persia, Egypt and Babylon were then put in place at a collective cost of around 200g (mostly for Persia) and a couple of old techs.

The only other civ I'm not at war with is the Celts....strangely I couldn't establish an embassy with them even though they discovered Writing long ago. May this be because I am in anarchy?

Anyway, obviously I pulled the trigger and went for the second government change (yeh, still BC and already 2 government changes.....clever boy this one! )

Still 2 turns of Anarchy to go, but I thought what the heck, may as well ask my friends to go pay Paddy a visit regardless. Now let's see if they actually do something

The foreign advisor's screen is pretty interesting now:

[nbarclay]

I ran into the same thing playing the SP version of this: no embassies while in anarchy.

[Aqualung71]

Well I guess that's another thing I've learned during this game

I suppose then that I will have to sign the Celts up into the Holy Roman Alliance in 2 turns when the Empire emerges as a Monarchy after its short-lived and unsuccessful flirtation with being a Republic.

One thing is for sure....there shall be no Senate over-ruling Aqualicius' delcaration of war on the stinking Greeks!

[Aqualung71]

110BC

A comedy of errors

My inept playing of this game continues.

Rome's capital has been captured by the pathetic Carthaginians, who sneaked a galley up our south-eastern coast and landed a single archer next to the unprotected city of Rome. As I was in Anarchy at the time, I wasn't paying much attention to my empire....add that to the usual PBEM problem of not remembering where you are up to when you open the save and not paying enough attention since you have 10 other saves waiting for you, and the result is I forgot all about the Galley, played the save and sent it back to Paddy......to find the next turn when we emerged into a new Monarchy that Rome was now in Carthaginian hands (with its SoZ) and the new Roman capital was Pompeii. In fact, I didn't even notice it for 2 turns since there is no pop-up in PBEM.

Of course, Rome was repcatured the turn after the Emperor finally discovered the tragedy, minus it's Library, Barracks, Marketplace, Granary and some population

I submit the following screenie as evidence of my stupidity

Appropriate responses expressing mirth and ridicule may now follow

[Tassadar500]

A bit costly, but you could make it up eventually with a bunch of MM.

[Aqualung71]

50AD

On the bright side, a Palace jump to Pompeii, being 2 cities to the west of Rome, is probably not a bad thing in the longer term

Anyway, nothing much to report. Rome is nearly finished its second Granary, then will start on a Barracks so that the AC get their extra hitpoint, then will rebuild the Library and Marketplace. So the city will probably only lose 500 years of develpment and production!!!

Oh yeah, the alliance with Persia against Carthage ended so we made peace (surprise, surprise!). Costly war, that one The Egyptian alliance against the Germanics also ended, so we made peace with them too.

I'm getting impatient with my slow expansion. It may be time to institute the Roman GA to try to make up some lost ground. Stray AI units abound at the moment,, so it won't be too difficult to choose the timing of a GA.

[Aqualung71]

And Paddy has been complaining long and hard about my traitorous behaviour in setting half the world against him, so at least he's being kept busy and distracted for the time being while I arrange for the execution of those minions responsible for the scandalous sacking of Rome

[nbarclay]

What you said about losing the marketplace and library got me looking back to your 270 BC screenshot. What was your logic in shifting over to city improvements when there was still land left available to REX into?

[Aqualung71]

Good point Nathan.

Since AU503 and AU601, I haven't been playing much SP at all. I've been playing almost exclusively PBEM for the last 3 months. I think you can see that by some of the mistakes I've made in this game so far

I have therefore approached this game more as a PBEM than a SP. In reality, it is more of an SP game with an interesting PBEM twist thrown in. At some point one of the humans may be eliminated and it will then revert to a normal AU game.

Most PBEM's do not have AI, or only have a couple. Because the land grab is not so pronounced when playing mainly against humans, and defence is much more important due to the devious nature of the human mind ( ), in PBEM it is much more important to control your growth and match it with building a reasonable defence force in parallel with a decent economy.

Specifically in relation to this game then, I set out to build 3 Granaries (initially only 1, but when I was beaten to the Pyramids I built a couple more), then oscillate those 3 towns between building settlers/workers and improvements/military. I usually try to get at least a Library and possibly Marketplace built in the most productive towns fairly early. This really helps in PBEM games playing against humans who often don't place enough emphasis on research. I've scored a few SGL's this way, which can really turn a PBEM game in your favour. Another AU enthusiast who plays a lot of PBEM is Sabrewolf, and I get the impression his style is similar to this too (except he's better than me!).

Right now I am in a phase where several towns will be put on settler duty as soon as they have finished their current build, to expand rapidly then activate a GA after the empire has reached a greater size and population.

So the short answer I guess is that I'm kinda out of practice with SP. The longer answer is that I've developed my play style more along the lines of PBEM, where the uber-REX is not as important as in SP, and in fact often dangerous and counterproductive.....and more in favour of building a better military earlier (which probably guards better against AI invasion anyway) and ensuring a more rapid economic build-up in the latter Ancient Age instead of expanding early and not building an economy until the mid-Middle Ages.

This AU course is a good introduction to PBEM for those of us who haven't played this format very much. But play PBEM against 3-5 other humans with no AI and you will find a completely different experience. It becomes a lot more about diplomacy - I recommend you try a few more games Nathan, as I think you would enjoy it. The added challenge for you, being the player that you are, would be trying to avoid falling victim to the "tall poppy" syndrome

[nbarclay]

I definitely agree about this game's having a very different flavor from PBEMs involving larger numbers of human players. I've played a couple of those in the past, but there are two main reasons why I don't play more of them. One is the huge amount of time that PBEM games tend to consume for me. The other is that I'm not all that fond of the politics of deception, the back-stabbing, and the "gang up on the leader" mentality that can so easily become parts of such games. It's hard to get as enthusiastic about building up a the world's leading civilization when I know that in doing so, I'm painting a bullseye on it.

Nathan

[Aqualung71]

I agree with the sentiment Nathan. What it comes down to I've found is finding a good group of guys where you know that that the "3 against 1" scenario is not going to happen. Even though I've only been playing PBEM intensively for 4 months, there are a bunch of guys that are there because they get a kick out of historical role playing and "honourable diplomacy", and while they of course try to win the game, do not take the "win at all costs" attitude. It is those games that I enjoy playing the most, and if you're interested I'd be very happy to try to start up such a game with you and a few reliable souls.....notwithstanding the fact that you'd kick all our butts anyway!

With the time spent, I sympathise with your point there. Lots of guys say " big deal, 5 minutes a turn". These are not AU fanatics like us who srcoll through every city each turn to minimise production times and maximise growth rates by sharing tiles between cities. I can sometimes take 30 minutes or more for a single PBEM turn, particularly in a tournament game. when you're playing 20 PBEMs, it can turn into a major daily time commitment. Which is of course why I seldom play SP these days.

[Aqualung71]

110AD

Back to the game.

We finished Montheism and sold it to Egypt for 119g + 17gpt, then to the Germanics for 68g + 7gpt and a worker. This replenished the coffers and gave us some good income to keep the research pace high.

Rome has now completed its Granary and Barracks again. Library is next on the agenda. We also have 4 Settlers at various stages of completion to push out our REX before our GA is generated, west across the sparse Carthaginian lands. We have a strong military against all civs except Greece, compared to whom we are average. This is not surprising since Paddy is at war against 3 civs at the moment, so will be busy building units (and probably neglecting his economy). This will allow us to continue REXing without much risk, though we need to watch the war against the Greeks quite carefully to ensure there are no nasty surprises approaching our borders.

The strange diplomatic restrictions with the Celts continue. Though we established an Embassy with Brennus several turns ago in order to bring them into the world anti-Greek league, our diplo screen only offers MA's against Egypt, Germanics, Persians and Carthaginians. Presumably, Celts have no diplomatic relations with Babylon or Greece (ie, no embassy), which prevents an MA against those civs. I never realised that was the case - perhaps it's a PBEM quirk.

[Aqualung71]

250AD

The next milestone has been reached, and it's clear that the human scores in our game are well behind some of the other Monarch level games. This is not a good indictment of the standard of play in this thread

Anyway, Rome has built a bunch more settlers and is sending them out to intermingle new towns with the existing Carthaginian towns, with the ultimate objective of reaching the inland sea and linking up with Persia. We have also sent a couple of AC northwards through Germanic lands (and arranged an ROP) to get a better look at what is happening in the Greek wars of our allies. We may also need to sign an ROP with Persia to send observers up through the western route.

We renewed the holy MA's against Greece with Persia, Egypt and Babylon.

Engineering is only a turn away, as is the newly rebuilt Library in Rome - almost back to its former glory, minus a Marketplace and Palace!

[nbarclay]

What's probably going on with your Celtic diplomacy is that the Celts haven't even met the Greeks and Babylonians yet. They can't ally against a civ they've never met.