Ruff_Hi's Antics

All Happiness is the Release of Internal Pressure

Game Report: Epic 4 - Rome v The Barbarians (2/6)

 
Not for the faint hearted

I decided to start from 4000BC as I like a little challange. Here is the starting position ...

Ok, first things to decide - where to build my capital, what tech to research and what to build. As you can see, I have lots of options on where to build - floodplains, grass, forest, hills, etc. That first selection was fairly easy - it has to be on a hill for the +25% defensive bonus. The next question is - which hill? Pigs, Gold or empty (who knows - maybe Sirian has been nice and that empty hill has Iron). The pigs will give me an initial food bonus but the gold will give me an initial commerce (ie tech) bonus - however, I do lose in the long run as I cannot pasture / mind the hill that I build on. I'll come back to this.

The other things that are outstanding are research tech and initial build. A warrior seems a fairly obvious choice of what to build. These Barbs will be coming soon and I need defense. Now, what to research - options are Wheel, Sailing, Agriculture, Hunting, Mysticism and masonary. Ohh goodie - I can traval, leave the land, farm, hunt, contemplate navel or build big stone buildings - nothing to help me kill Barbs. Hmm - maybe sailing, build a galley and sail away - does the settler on a boat trick still keep you alive?

Obviously the first row of techs aren't any help. The second row includes pottery (maybe something nice to keep my corpse in?), archery, ... what a minute. Archery - that is a fairly obvious selection. So - I set my tech research to archery (which means hunting first). The only problem is that it is in the second row and that is a few too many turns away. I must maximise my commerce / tech from my capital.

That drove my location selection - right on the Gold.

I decide to send my warrior on a circular route from my capital. The barbs are turning up in 3400BC (thx for the info Sirian) so he was sent North, West and then South East to return to the capital at about 3400BC. I left the hut at my capital to be popped by border expansion - a little bit saver. I did find a hut to the North and popped a scout (how lucky is that - he can wander the country side just like the Leyland Brothers while the warrior defends my capital).

So, scout scouts while warrior defends. Apart from some mapping and two other scouts, the scout has the following results from huts ...

Hmmn, am I sure that Sirian hasn't pulled a fast one and set the difficulty to Settler ...

Anyway, back to my capital. In 3700BC, I had two turns to go on my warrior build, 2 turns until Rome hit pop 2 and I had just finished researching Hunting and started on Archery (due in 12). When I had two warriors (1 original and 1 build) in my capital, I still had 9 turns until I could build Archers. I decided to put some hammers into a wall (even more defense). By 3430BC, I had archery due in 2, walls due in 31 and size 3 due in 3. However, I had my first Barb ...

After Archery, I set the tech to Bronze Working and started building Archers - max hammers in my city so no growth. It was a little hairy with my Warriors doing a good job of holding the fort.

After this Barbs started to pour in. It is good that units are finished at the end of a turn as I had 4 Barb warriors ready to attack Rome that was defended by two injured warriors. I had an archer due in 1. In between turns (IBTs), he completed and killed all four warriors - way to go!

In a post about this game, I had mentioned that I had found a trick that would make the game go easier. I had tried to be cryptic with this comment and hoped that some people would think that I had found a way to create a Mech Infantry or similar. The trick is to turn 'Quick Combat (Defense)' on.

This means that I only get notification of battle and result. Usually lots of horns (my units winning) and some ooooh (my unit losing). Not much of a trick but it does speed the IBTs up - sometimes it is really useful ...

In 3010BC after I had researched Bronze Working and started on Iron Working, here is what I know of the land (no close copper) ...

By 2620BC, I had two archers and two warriors defending Rome. Promotions for my units would become a critical consideration. My first warriors just got combat 1. My first archer got Garrison I, II and III (+75% in a city). As you cannot get more that 10 XPs from Barbs, that means no more promotions after the first three. I had to use them wizely. My second archer got Guerilla I and II (+50% on a hill). I selected those promotions for my second archer as some time in the future, he would be the escort to the settlers. One issue was that once I had a Garrison III archer, no other unit got a look in re battles and hence no more XPs. A Garrison III archer in a city with walls on a hill gets (+75% GIII, +25% hills, +50% walls, +50% city defense, +25% hills unit ability, +25% barb city defense, +25% fortify and 1 first strike). That means a archer str 3 becomes 3 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.25 + 0.50 + 0.50 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.25) = 3 * 3.75 or 11.25. All this versus a str 2 warrior. The result - no contest (assuming I have got my understanding of the battle system and my maths correct).

So, what to do about getting promotions for my other units. Options ...

The first two are just plain stupid. I went with option 3 ...

The Barb warriors appreciated the chance of winning and started to give XPs to my other archers. This was repeated through out the game.

As I mentioned earlier, my three scouts hadn't found copper close to home. I started moving them all back to Rome to scout out East. One (Scout Senior) failed to return - barb warrior, one (Scout Jr) got trapped but managed to run away from the warrior ...

And the other (the 3rd) managed to return to Rome and started scouting South and then East.

As you can see, he found copper (yay) just East of Rome but he also found some a warrior. He avoided that warrior but found one more which he killed!!! Then he ran into a bunch while injured and that was the end of Scout the 3rd.

By 1780BC, I had finished teching Iron working and could remove jungles, locate iron and research compass and steel. Most importantly, I could build Praetorian units (the best, most kick ass early unit in the game). I just had to have some Iron, mine it and transport it back to my cities (roads or rivers). I started to tech The Wheel and build a settler, then checked my extensive map for (hopefully) some local Iron - found it, just to the North West). The spare hill had failed to reveal itself as Iron so Sirian wasn't making it toooo easy.

By 1300BC (still alive!), I had my settler ready and was looking for a gap in the hordes of Barbs to scoot him across to the appropriate hill. I had already sent my Guerilla II + Drill I archers out a head to stake the claim.

By 685BC, I had my Iron city (Antium), a worker out mining and roading the iron. The approach here was to get the tile pre-mine (ie mine all the way until it only takes 1 turn to finish) and pre-roaded (ditto), then do the same for the tile connecting Antium to my river (that would take it automatically to Rome. Each turn, my worker would check the country for Barbs, if present, he would take a holiday in the city. If not present (ie couldn't reach the tile the worker wanted to work in the next turn), the worker would run out, do 1 turn's worth of mining or roading and the cancel orders would be issued so he was ready for a new order next turn. If a Barb approached to an adjacent tile, the worker would return to the city, if not, he would do 1 more turn's worth of work. In this way, the worker didn't need to be protected while working and the pre-mined, pre-roaded tile couldn't be pillaged! While this was going on, I was building units to defend the finished mine / road.

How is Jr doing ...

Barb archers had started to turn up - still not much of a problem for my city defending archers, and less of a problem for Praetorian ...

Promotions here were important too. Mostly, Praetorian got Woodsman I and II plus combat I. These promotions were particuarly useful for traveling through forests and jungles and not getting killed.

By 125AD, I had my second settler ready (heading to the copper site), protected piggies and flankers out for some of my cities. I could start to improve the land and not fear pillaging Barbs.

The above is not the best route for the unprotected settler to take. So, I moved him 1 tile S of the first stopping tile (no way the archer could reach him and it would have to be a very clever archer to move SE to cut him off ("never going to happen" - Presendent from SG 1 TV Show). On my next turn, the settler moved onto the protected hill and founded my next city .

In 155AD, things were going well. Three cities, on hills, good defensive units, walls, iron mined and hooked up and some offensive units being built. Research was cracking at 100% - this was looking good.