Topic: Barbarians somewhat aggressive?

[wryun]

I may have lucked out on the random number generator, but I just started playing and the Parthians are already in Africa in 25 AD (of course the province itself was taken by Numidians on the first turn...).

Of the civilised nations, the Seleucids have one province in Asia Minor and Carthage has Sardinia. Rome made a few mistakes in her opening moves and only has 5 provinces.

[Strategy]

The level of aggressiveness is quite random; each turn has one major wave of "barbarians" (the one mentioned at the "coming threat") and one or more secondary waves, which can be the same state as the first wave. When the latter happens, you are likely to see major conquests by a single power. If the secondary waves are more spread out, things can easily devolve into a status quo, so you're likely to see the other powers develop fairly differently from game to game.

The Parthians are pretty nasty though, as they have several waves of attacks, so will often end up in control of a large empire if they are not contained early on. Just be thankful the Carthaginians decided to go East instead of North.

I think the difficulty setting is about right once people have got a few games under their belt, but I should probably have made it adjustable. Something to put in when I get around to do a version 0.2.0, perhaps?

[wryun]

No, difficulty setting is definitely fine... I was just bemused by all the other civs being wiped out.

To give you an idea, I played 4 games, none of them particularly successful, then finally read the manual about the victory conditions and played a fifth game. I got fairly lucky at the start, but still only ended up with 95 points (didn't expand fast enough into the civ cities in Asia).

Most enjoyable - thanks!

[Demonic_Emperor]

Wow, interesting game. I wasn't expecting this. I got a score of just over 150, apparently this is very good. The barbarians seem to come on too strong too fast (especially the Parthians), the established civilizations get wiped out almost immediately.

[Strategy]

150 is a really good score. Don't repeat it too often, or I'll think I made it too easy after all. 

The key to a high score, I think, is to manage to grab and hold the cities in the east fairly early on, and generally avoiding the "uncivilized" barbarians destroying those cities you have - which is easier said than done. In most games, some of the established civilizations usually last until around 25 BC (unless Rome comes calling). But I've dialled down the Parthians in the next release, as I think they were a little bit too hard (giving them strength 9 was a last minute change).

[Demonic_Emperor]

150 is a really good score. Don't repeat it too often, or I'll think I made it too easy after all.  

There was a game after that where I thought I did even better (gaining and holding territory for longer), but only ended up with a score of 102. It seems like the use of "civilize" made all the difference (5 times in the previous game vs 0).

Moderator Error: Apologies - hit modify rather than quote.

[Strategy]

There was a game after that where I thought I did even better (gaining and holding territory for longer), but only ended up with a score of 102. It seems like the use of "civilize" made all the difference (5 times in the previous game vs 0).

Check the victory conditions. 

[Demonic_Emperor]

There was a game after that where I thought I did even better (gaining and holding territory for longer), but only ended up with a score of 102. It seems like the use of "civilize" made all the difference (5 times in the previous game vs 0).

Check the victory conditions. 

Yes, that explains it.