Imperium Romanum released...

[MagyarCrusader]

I understand that the AI isn't meant to overrun the Romans, but I think there should be a possibiliy. I'm just wondering about the future, if the Punic Wars of the Gaulic campaign will be difficult. Will Hannibal really come out of the Alps and attack me? Will the Gauls try to retake any of the cities I have conquered from them? Stuff like that is all I'm wondering.

[CyberChrist]

quote: Originally posted by BeBro on 02-07-2001 05:55 AM CyberChrist, this is no real error. During the tests I thought the same as you, and want to move their creation points into Opitergium, but then I did not, because it seems not too unrealistic that Barb plunderers appear directly in front of a Roman city

Heh heh ok, of course all you need to do to negate this is to permanently place a unit on that location. I am sure most players will figure this out, so it is not really anything that affects the game anyway. Just rather annoying having to figure out all these non-city random unit generation spots.

Speaking of barbarians, why are the Persian not pestered by a horde of these as well? Parthia conquered large parts of Persia coming from the North (East of the Caspian Sea) starting from around 300BC.

[Prometeus]

Sorry to burst out your post, Cybbie... But as a matter of fact, Parthian power on Iran was unsure untill the rise to power of Mithridates II in 124-123 BC. Before him, Parthian kings were vassal rulers for Achaemenids and Seleucids at first, and then second level kings, in spite of some great generals like Mithridates I. Maybe you're confusing them with Saka. Parthians were members of Dahae confederation.

[BeBMan]

Cockney, don´t worry, my day wasn´t better

MagyarCrusader, Ceteram lost Mediolanum to the Barbs with the Cimbri/Teuton event in Northern Italy, which was absolutely planned, but generally the Barbs are randomly created.
I included another thing to help the poor Barbs a bit: with every new rules file, their units are a bit upgraded, so the same units are stronger in the later parts. They are sometimes very strong in the open, in my current game I lost some fortified Legions on mountains due to German/Celtic attacks...

Hannibal will attack in Northern Italy, but I have to admit that some players found it to easy to resist Hannibal´s army. But this is a problem of the limited events capacity, even with multiple files. I could include more units for Hannibal, but then I have to leave out other things, or use more events files, but I´m unsure if I should do that.

To sum up, there are several events that can cost you cities, especially when playing Carthage in the second part, but they don´t drive you to the edge of destruction. This may be related to the fact that I´m not an expert player...

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Civ2000

[CyberChrist]

quote: Originally posted by Prometeus on 02-07-2001 05:10 PM Parthian power on Iran was unsure untill the rise to power of Mithridates II in 124-123 BC. Before him, Parthian kings were vassal rulers for Achaemenids and Seleucids at first, and then second level kings, in spite of some great generals like Mithridates I. Maybe you're confusing them with Saka. Parthians were members of Dahae confederation.

Huh?
The Parthian Kingdom was founded by Arsaces I in 238BC (in other words they became independent from the Seleucid) and it was Mithridates I who conquored Iran(Persia) and Mesopotamia in 141BC. It is true that the Parthians further expansion was hampered by the Sakas invasion from the East, but by 80BC the disputes with the Sakas was settled and the Sakas actually became a vassal state to the Parthians.
In 66BC they increased their land by taking Atropatene and sieze northern Mesopotamia - where they settled a common border with the Romans on the Euphrates. The Romans was immediately destroyed at Carrhae by the Parthian Horse Archers when they crossed the border in 53BC.

Anyway, my real point was that the Persian have it far too quiet and cosy out there to the east.
Some heavy barbarian pressure should be added to keep their otherwise unchallenged expansion in check - whether you choose to call them Parthian or Saka is not that important(even though Parthian Horse Archers would be a nice addition ).

[BeBMan]

dp
[This message has been edited by BeBro (edited February 07, 2001).]

[BeBMan]

CyberChrist, coming back to the eventschange error, I´m just after the third change in my new game with the update 2.1 (143BC), the poor Greeks were destroyed years before, but the eventschange worked absolutely fine.
I have to admit that I have no idea about the reason of the problem. At first I thought it appears only under MGE, but now I´m unsure. Has someone another idea? Any help is of course welcome...

This reminds on the release of Cross&Crescent, when Mao complained about weird researches of one civ, but many players, including me, hadn´t such problems. Seems that civ has already some new surprises for me...

For the Barb events, i´ll move their creation points a bit away from Opitergium in the later events files.

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Civ2000

[C0ckney]

Have finally entered northern Spain and subdued the Macedonians (although I haven't captured any cities yet), I am planing a campian against the Greeks which will be my first big naval operation

Also I am building up the navy but the damn carths never seem to run out of ships, still I'll be able to invade Africa soon

[St Leo]

Hint: You will never capture Massila without the use of Siege Towers...

I managed using only Consular Legions. It took a legion them but still...

But I know I am behind with science, still no siege towers and the independents are a pain in Gaul.

Fortify a legion in the Mountains on their path.

My impressions are that Pyrrhus should be easier to defeat (he captured 3-4 cities) and Hannibal should be harder to defeat (he captured 0 - although Mediolanum would have fallen if 3 Imperial Legions were not nearby).

Also I am building up the navy but the damn carths never seem to run out of ships, still I'll be able to invade Africa soon.

The Gibraltar is a landbridge. For my part, I am not building an offensive Navy until I own North Africa.

You´re right with the event, but the only solution would be that I remove the most historic correct events, because there´s always a chance that the things develop completely different in civ, but I think they create a good atmo.

I'll just assume Pyrrhus' Massilian.

My impressions are that Pyrrhus should be easier to defeat (he captured 3-4 cities) and Hannibal should be harder to defeat (he captured 0 - although Mediolanum would have fallen if 3 Imperial Legions were not nearby). Oh, and Macs didn't get beyond Anatolia, allowing Persia to grow really fast.

HINTS:
-go for Bohemia before Gaul - its defenders are easier to defeat and their units are more annoying (then again, I colonized Illyricum)
-fortify a legion in a mountain square bordering on Hills between Mediolanum and an Independent Massilia, it will be more or less invincible

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St. Leo
http://www.sidgames.com/hosted/ziggurat/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[BeBMan]

quote: My impressions are that Pyrrhus should be easier to defeat (he captured 3-4 cities) and Hannibal should be harder to defeat (he captured 0 - although Mediolanum would have fallen if 3 Imperial Legions were not nearby). Oh, and Macs didn't get beyond Anatolia, allowing Persia to grow really fast.

Yes you´re right with Hannibal, but I have to find a way to do this without leaving lots of other events out. Another problem is that most players are simply better prepared later in the game when Hannibal arrives, but some were pretty surprised by the earlier attacks by Pyrrhos But i have some ideas...

For the Macs, it´s different: some players report that they conquer sometimes all of Persia, others report the same as you. In my last game I had the same, and the reason was that the Macs hadn´t researched a better government until 150BC and so they were totally behind. I can give them a tech via events that ensures that they reach the Late Republic earlier.

[CyberChrist]

A few suggestions regarding the issues raised about the dificulty of Pyrrhus and Hannibal.

Pyrrhus was in Italy for 5 years and only won the battle a Heraclea (situated between Tarentum an Croton) with heavy losses. Perhaps you could make some of his forces 0 movement - so that they would be annoying but didn't overrun the cities (I already had Katapults at that stage, so I didn't find Pyrrhus a problem myself).

Give Hannibal some elephants for crying out loud!
Elephants (in general) should be reduced in defence strength to 6(or so) but then given pikeman ability. This should make them hard for even Imperial Legions and Cavalry, but easier targets for Ballista, Katapult and Siege Towers(!! - I'll come to that later).
This should be very realistic as Hannibals elephants spread terror among the troops and cavalry at the Battle at Trebia River (Velites did manage to drive of the elephants by poking them in the butt with their spears - no kidding).
Also remember - Hannibal was in Italy for 15 years.
He entered Italy in 218BC over the Alps and after dealing Rome a crushing at Cannae(situated east of Paestum and north of Tarentum) in 216BC, he went on to to capture Tarentum(which he held until 209BC).

I have played this excellent scenario both as Proconsul and as Imperator now and one thing I have noticed is the overwhelming power of Siege Towers. In fact they are far too powerfull - why would anyone even consider using Cavalry or Elephants when you have Siege Towers that moves almost as fast but strike twice as hard?
I tried reducing their move to 1 and this seems to work much better. Laying siege does require more care, but how realistic is a Siege Tower that can keep up with Legion on fast march anyway?
I do have better ideas for how to deal with this problem, but I fear they would require quite a bit of rework on the scenario.

[Kull]

Bebro: Definitely having fun with this! Here's a few thoughts on possible improvements (and praise for what works:

1) The Teutons appearing at 52,54: Add a second location so they can appear elsewhere when the player fortifies that square against them. Should do that for all your Barbs. (If event space is the problem, see comment #11)

2) Barbarians coming in from Gaul/Germany: This really works well, and even fortified vet legions on mountains die when attacked by the Suebi. I really had to pay attention (which often involved retreating) until I was able to post a line of Vet Consular Legions in the Alps. The random Barbs also make it very dangerous to go off "exploring" in Gaul. The overall effect is excellent.

3) Pyrrhus/Hannibal: If you include "fortresses" with these armies, it will be impossible for the Roman player to take out the units before they go into action. (The fortresses could be removed via changeterrain events several turns later to prevent them from interfering with game play). You could also give them some special units (like Samnites), the killing of which generates more Carthaginian/Greek units. This would really make it hard to defeat them.

4) Punic Wars: This period was such a seminal event in the development of the Roman Republic that it's almost worth adding a whole new period (and events) to simulate it. Consider giving the "Corvus" tech to the Roman player during this period, since the sudden transformation of Rome into a maritime power was one of the signal events of this period.

5) AI and Movepoints: The AI kicks butt with Siegetowers (M2), but they are clueless on using catapults and ballistas (M1). (I had real trouble with the Independents until they researched ballistas, after which the number of siegetowers dropped dramatically.) In fact, anything with a movement of "one" just marches up next to your positions and waits to be destroyed on the next turn. If you want to encourage a more dynamic AI, consider restricting the number of M1 units it can build.

6) Infinite City Sleaze: The AI just goes wild building new cities. Rather than take away their settlers consider expanding the amount of unappetizing desert or mountain type terrain. (Especially in North Africa, Egypt, Saudi, and Persia) Excellent idea to use fortresses to wall off most of Central Europe/Russia, although even more might be needed.

7) Ptolemaios' Earthmap: Hated it! The AI built this wonder halfway through the game, and it really eliminated the fun which comes from exploring and uncovering new terrain. If you retain this, at least move it to the very end of the tech tree so it's one of the last things that can be built. Or give it a "no" prereq until a new rules.txt file is loaded in 27 BC.

8) Light Woods: Great terrain, but the AI insists on destroying it via irrigation (replacing it with plains which offer identical food but less trade and shields. Duh!) Suggest editing the rules.txt and allow it to be irrigated only by AI Democracies.

9) Terrain/Cities/Units/Icons: Superb artistry. A real feast for the eyes! But the women in people.gif have to be the ugliest set of wenches I've ever seen. Double-baggers, one and all!

10) Egypt/Carthage: Consider adding some fortresses between these two powers, as it will prevent ANY land warfare from taking place. To the best of my knowledge no army ever marched between Carthage and Alexandria, so you might as well make it impossible. The human player WILL do it otherwise, and so will the AI (plus it forces the Carthaginians to focus on Rome and the Egyptians to look toward the Levant).

11) Naval Units and Events: A little known fact is that naval units summoned by events will appear in a square EVEN IF IT IS OCCUPIED BY AN ENEMY UNIT! They won't bump to a second location, even if one is included. So you can get some of your event space back by deleting all but one of the naval unit locations in your events files.

12) Wooden Castle: It would be nice if only the Romans got the benefit. The AI is almost certain to get here first, and of course the "anybody" trigger locks in on the first civ to use it.

13) Economy: Talk about living paycheck to paycheck! Maybe it's just the Imperator level, but my empire always seems to be on the verge of bankruptcy! And conquering a huge AI city requires some serious city management in order to stave off starvation. This may be one of the greatest challenges in your game, and is certainly the source of my deepest anxieties!

Well, that's all for now. I have to strap on the armor, summon my centurions and prepare for the siege of Cartenna. As Cato the Elder reminds me on a daily basis, "Carthage must be destroyed!"

[Chris 62]

The new pedia works fine with MGE Bebro.

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All knowledge begins with the phrase: I don't know.

[BeBMan]

Ah, thats good to hear!

[Snog]

The .bat files don't work under windows2000. No big deal I guess, but I thought you might want to know.