AU 601: Punkbass2000's DAR 2 (Roman)

[punkbass2000]

Ok, so it looks like it's going to end up being DAR 2 anyway.

Let me begin with an apology for my lack of up-to-date DARs. There are several excuses for this, but none are really adequate, all in all.

Alright, first off, the beginning of this game did not go incredibly well. I kept changing gears because my early exploration teams died quickly. My first two warriors were lost to barbarians ~10-15 tiles west of Rome. Also, I'm certain Zargon got an SGL with either writing or IW (The Pyramids at 2190 on Emp.?!?! The Egyptians didn't even get to the Oracle until 1525!), given his starting techs. Anyway, the first warrior did get far enough to see some nice flood plains with wheat, so I thought, OK, time to REX, and started a prebuild for a granary (no pottery yet). That went fine, but then my second warrior, after the granary, noticed that we were really on quite a peninsula, and so I decided to go with the strat of build four cities with barracks and archer rush someone (taking advatage of my militaristic trait in the process). Boy, did that blow up in my face! I knew the Carthaginians were to my SW, and I didn't want to AR NM's, so I figured I'd just take out whoever was to my N/NW. Then it turned out that NO ONE was near me! So i ended up with ~10 vet. archers running around with next to nothing to do (which is worse than warriors, because they can't even upgrade to legions). So I went back to REX with two cities (Rome and Veii) doing settlers, Antium doing workers and Cumae doing spearmen. I quicky built Neapolis, Pompeii, Hispalis, Pisae, Lutetia, Brundisium, Ravenna, and Viroconium (not necessarily in that order [I'm sure some of you who play Rome more often will know the exact order ]). However, due to earlier problems, my military was not keeping up, as we shall see in the next post.

[punkbass2000]

War with Carthage

It was then that my first stroke of luck came about. I was, in fact, first to phil., despite only researching writing and phil. at a 50 turn pace. The gambit paid off . Plus, I was able to trade for for CoL first, so Rep was my free tech, and I became one ~105 turns into the game. This was a significant advatage over Zargon, who ended up delaying his gov. switch for a long time. It was also my first tech lead of any sort, with phil., rep. and mon. all being in my possession and not in Zargon's (though he did have at least a first tier MA tech). With phil. and rep. I was able to sign all the AI into MA against Zargon (except Carthage, who he had allied with against Persia), as well as gaining all AA techs and a bit of gold.

Naturally, Zargon responded in kind and signed Carthage into a MA against me, which I was not well prepared for. Only the 'key' borderish cities were defended (Pisae, Hispalis, Cumae, Ravenna and Pompeii). Viroconium and Brundisium were defended only by archers and fell almost immediately, and Pisae was also under Carthaginian control for a significant amount of time. Zargon was also able to ally the Celts and Germanics against me briefly, and several new northern cities of which names I cannot remember were razed. Also, Ravenna flipped shortly into the war. Things weren't looking too good. Then, my first legion battle was victorious, setting off my GA. After that, the Carthaginians were not the least bit of a challenge. I just achieved a Feudalism, and Rome was pumping out MDI every two turns, with a couple other cities producing every three turns. It also turned out the Carths had neither iron nor horses (now that Hippo had been disconnected from their empire). HAd they not had their NMs, they would have fell ridiculously quickly. I took back Pisae, and produced a GL, who, naturally, formed a MDI army. With that army I was then able to take a city pretty much every two turns (Sabratha [where another GL was formed], Viroconium, Rusicade, Leptis Magna, Carthage, in that order). The second GL built the FP in Rusicade. Erstwhile, every time a few cities happened to produce MDI in convenient chronological order (factoring in relative city distances), I would take another city that hadn't been in my army's path of destruction (Hippo, Brundisium and Ravenna). A third GL was produced taking Ravenna, who created another MDI army. I certainly had not had enough elite victories to warrant a third GL, but I wasn't complaining. Despite my best leader farming techniques, I believe I had only had not ~30 elite victories. A second set of troops mopped up the eastern cities (Leptis Minor and Utica). Sadly, an army was lost when Carthage flipped, this exacting a PRNG retribution of sorts, but all in all I was fairly pleased with events. Theveste was taken shortly after Cartahage was recaptured. I then signed a peace treaty for Oea, Eng. and Theo, plus maybe an insignificant amount of gold, leaving them with but a single city, Hadrumetum (though Leptis Minor has since flipped).

[punkbass2000]

Consolidation

This is the first point in the game where I really feel I have a chance at getting ahead of Zargon. He has been the tech leader, points leader and growth leader for the whole game (largely from such early Pyramids, of course) compared to me. My score is now rapidly approaching his, as I've annexed the Carthaginian lands. I've decided not to continue paying the Celts or the Germanics for MAs against the Greeks, as they add virtually nothing and I don't feel I need to worry about them going to war with me. My main focus is keeping the Persians, Egyptians and Babylonians at war with Zargon so that he has to deal with two fronts. I also have a ROP with the Persians, so I will be helping them out a bit (they desperately need it). Zargon has made inroads into Persia, I arrived just in time to see Persepolis fall. My plans were to take back Persian cities and then gift them to Persia, but Zargon has prophylactically been abandoning cities . Fortunately, he's taking this a little too far, it seems, as after I saw him do this to about three cities that I approached, I've sent my army back home, with only a couple ACs doing general exploration, yet he's still abandoning cities upon the arrival of my ACs . In other good news, when I first arrived in Persian territory, I discovered a knight army of Zargon's sitting on a mountain that was yellow-lined, so I bombarded it a bit and then killed it off with my MDI army . Boy, was he surprised . I also moved my army out of his field vision, prompting his message with the following save, "Did you kill my army last turn? If yes, you don't have to tell me what unit(s) you used, but if not something very odd is happening..."

Anyway, I have gone completely builder now (my natural leaning), as my previous infrastructure was pathetic. Viroconium had owned a temple for <5 turns before being captured by the Carths (It was near their territory and had Iron in its radius which I wanted to keep from them, so I rushed in a temple), so my culture had been something like Palace + 6 until the end of my war with the Carths. I am not building any units ATM, and am hoping this infrastructure will be the boon I need to cement a lead over Zargon, who likely has little time to produce anything but units. I have enough units right now to be able to keep him out of my territory, and he doesn't seem like he's going to be advancing any time soon anyway. I checked around after getting theo. + eng. from the Carths, and was able to get inv. but no other techs. I noted that only the Egyptians had PP, while 2-3 civs had edu., most had gunpowder and everyone had chivalry, so I researched PP as fast as possible without a deficit (6-7 turns), then traded it around for the three above techs + a bit of gold. I then was able to see that nearly everyone has chem., while the Egyptians have that, astro. and MT, so I'm now researching Banking with an ETA of 6 turns.

Plans for the future include possibly taking a few border cities from the Celts and maybe sneaking a few ships around to Zargon's core when I get Mil. Trad. Other than that, I plan to take advantage of my ROP with the Persians by killing any Greek units that dare to advance forward, which should keep my losses to a minimum.

[punkbass2000]

And the save, for anyone wanting to root around in my empire

[Krill]

as much as'd like to have a look at the roman starting position, we would need to have your password...

[punkbass2000]

There isn't one

[Krill]

That is not a smart idea...I hope your opponent is honourable (and I believe him to be though, although paranoia is a good thing)

[punkbass2000]

Call me trusting... or a sucker

BTW, if you haven't seen the Roman starting position, shouldn't you not be reading this DAR?

[sabrewolf]

interesting how wide city spacing you've got. nearly OCP

nice comeback, by the way
i would have thought that war weariness would have been killing your after so many city losses, but obviously having 3 civs declaring war on you gave you enough war happiness to compensate for that!

why is zargon actually razing all persian cities? these would be good outposts, troop-recharging places and could slow down any of your attacks... (btw: why not upgrade the catapults to trebs?)

maybe i missed it, but how is he standing in the tech race? is there any tech that you have MORE than him?

anyway, it looks interesting and you guys are coping well against AUmod-emperor

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
interesting how wide city spacing you've got. nearly OCP

I usually go cxxc, but circumstances in this game led to different strats for me. I'm not 'hardcoded'

nice comeback, by the way

Thank you. Really, allying with Carthage against me was probably Zargon's biggest mistake in the long run.

i would have thought that war weariness would have been killing your after so many city losses, but obviously having 3 civs declaring war on you gave you enough war happiness to compensate for that!

I believe I only ever reached WW level one, and only near the end of my war with Carthage. Republic really is a beast, despite AU's attempts to restrict it.

why is zargon actually razing all persian cities? these would be good outposts, troop-recharging places and could slow down any of your attacks... (btw: why not upgrade the catapults to trebs?)

I think he's probably over-estimating my army, to be honest. AS for the cats, well, I don't have many, and just have got around to upgrading yet.

maybe i missed it, but how is he standing in the tech race? is there any tech that you have MORE than him?

I have Printing Press and Education over him. He could have Chem. over me, but I doubt anything more than that.

anyway, it looks interesting and you guys are coping well against AUmod-emperor

Thanks, we try

[punkbass2000]

As my armies were leaving Persian territory, I had decided to leave two elite legions at the choke point. When starting this turn, I noticed one more unit left behind than I remembered, so I go to check and I see 'Germanicus' in the list. So I go check, and sure enough, this past turn Zargon allied with them against me, and, lo and behold, a GL was born! I think we all know what he's gonna do...

[sabrewolf]

hint: if you really want a secure border, just barricate (fortress first) the 2 tiles. that gives you a 100% defence bonus. plus the 25% you get from forification and the 10% from grassland... that's a grand total of 2.35 times the defence strength
a musketman in there suddenly is suddenly defence 9+something... nearly an infantry --> impassable for anything except overwhelming forces