AU601: Rhoth's Roman DAR (playing against Beta)

[sabrewolf]

thanks

[Rhothaerill]

310bc

It's been a while since I posted. Basically I've just been cruising along building my cities and firing out units galore. In terms of military power, only Beta currently rivals me. The Statue of Zeus has been helping those military numbers too. It was the only wonder I would have gotten, even if I had been shooting for others. A serious run on wonders occurred that shot Rome out of the top5 cities.

As I kept expanding outward I started running into settler stacks from Carthage and eventually Persia. I was able to "dance" around them and keep them from settling in areas where I wanted to settle though.

I finally finish up construction...a turn after the Germannic tribes finish it. I was hoping someone would have gotten to currency beforehand so I could grab it. Luckily I had a deal with Beta who had just finished the Republic. A few turns after I received Republic I entered anarchy. I was tired of all my bonus tiles not having their maximum output. Though Beta decided to wait a bit.

After coming out of a long anarchy I discovered that currency had been discovered the same turn I came out of it and had already been traded around. Construction wasn't worth much, but I was able to purchase currency from Carthage to catapult me as the last of the nations into the next age...

...where I was already behind in tech. Three scientific nations meant there was already tech trading going on of which I wasn't a part. Luckily only two of the techs (monotheism and engineering) were discovered. So I started feudalism with my new republic in the hope that I'd be the first to it and be able to trade it around for the other techs.

Alas it was not to be. About 12 turns before I would have discovered feudalism I pull up the foreign advisor to discover Persia and Babylon both have the tech. I realized that if they traded with Beta or traded it all around I would be completely shut out of being able to trade for the other techs. So here is where I panicked a little bit.

[Rhothaerill]

310bc

From the previous post, I bought feudalism from the Persians for a moderately hefty price, hoping to be able to trade it to one of the other civs for engineering. It didn't work though. None of the ones who had engineering wanted to give it up for any price. I ended up settling for gaining monotheism and monarchy and some gold from the Germannics.

[Rhothaerill]

310bc

And the Celts for a little gold...more to keep anyone else from gaining that gold than anything.

It was about here that I wised up and contacted Beta on mIRC (we use that to tell each other when the save has been passed usually). I offered him feudalism for engineering when he got it...and he agreed.

[Rhothaerill]

250bc

And finally a look at my nation as of 250bc.

As you can see, many of my cities are packed close to Carthage cities. I wasn't able to perform any early settler bops as he already had Numidians covering them by the time I had a chance to do that.

So my strategy is to pack my cities close to Carthage and use culture to take his tiles. Unfortunately that did cost me a bit as I failed to get a city up to the peninsula in time. A Carthage galley sailed all the way around my nation to place a city there. Soon after that the hill tile at the other end of the peninsula was settled by the Germans with none of their other cities for quite a ways between at the time they settled (now they have more up there of course). I definitely have missed out on a few hidden resources up there since those are the only thing that would make the AI nations head to that area so quickly, forsaking other spots in between.

My current goal is to finish out the area with settlers. I am just about to settle on the flood plains west of Ravenna, and I have a couple settlers in the works, one of which will settle on the west coast beyond Hispalis for access to the inland lake there while the other will settle close to Hadrumetum to take some of it's tiles (and hopefully the resource).

[Rhothaerill]

Oh, and one more thing. The war I had mentioned in sabrewolf's topped thread wasn't really much of a war. I had an exploratory warrior that Beta was blocking from his territory. He knew I was attempting to take a shot at a hoplite (just as I knew he would have taken a shot at a legion when I was blocking him ) but he ran out of available other units to keep blocking me while not letting me get close to a hoplite. So he torched my warrior and then we went back to peace.

But I won't forget.

[Rhothaerill]

310ad

Slight update. Since 250bc there hasn't been much going on other than building military and commerce. I'm still the top military and commerce nation, though I'm currently second in production (likely behind the Germans).

Leading up to 310ad I had made a deal with Beta to give him theology for invention. I later came to regret it a little bit as he took a while to research invention. In that time I researched both education (which everyone already had) and printing press which leads me to the deals as follow.

First I trade printing press and a bunch of stuff to Persia for banking. At the moment, no one has printing press, everyone has invention, only Persia and Germany have banking, and only Persia, Germany and Carthage have astronomy.

[Rhothaerill]

310ad

Next I grab astronomy from Carthage.

[Rhothaerill]

310ad

Some gold from the Germans to make up for over half of what I laid our for banking.

[Rhothaerill]

310ad

I checked with the Celts before the other two and luckily it didn't cost me when I took gold from them.

[Rhothaerill]

310ad

Since Egypt gave me GPT and gold.

[Rhothaerill]

310ad

Same with Babylon.

[Rhothaerill]

310ad

And finally my next acquisition...hopefully. I ramped up research on economics as much as possible to get it quickly and set Rome to building a university which would be built the turn after I discover economics, allowing me to change to Smith's Trading Company before that. Rome is easily my best shield production city at the moment, though others will become better as soon as my forbidden palace is finished in Ravenna (a few more turns).

If I do finish Smith's before anyone else then I will enter my Golden Age at a fairly opportune time. Much of my empire will be improved by then, and I will have the forbidden palace in a centralized location in the west. I have no plans to move my capital out of Rome so it will stay where it is.

2 turns after my big deal I finally get invention from Beta and discover that only Germany and Persia have gunpowder so I probably wouldn't have been able to trade for it anyway.

[sabrewolf]

you said beta is ahead on the gunpowder-branch
has he got PP, banking and/or astronomy?

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
you said beta is ahead on the gunpowder-branch
has he got PP, banking and/or astronomy?

No actually he is likely just starting gunpowder as he only finished invention in 330ad (and invention is already known by everyone). Meanwhile I have education, printing press, banking, and astronomy while he does not. Education and printing press are now known by everyone, but banking and astronomy are not.

So at the moment I'm four techs ahead of him and he doesn't have any techs he can use to trade to others for the ones he is missing.