How did I enter the Empires Hall of Fame?

[MarkShot]

This mini-guide is dedicated to my friend, Pocus, who has spared all of us from yet another ancient map painter game. Thank you!

What is the HALL OF FAME? It is (challenge level: experienced) staying a Glorious Empire for 400+ years with almost consecutive Golden Ages; and, of course, winning (done as Rome). But we are led to believe that you cannot surf the wave of history and become a living god, but you can.

* I very viciously sabotaged Macedonia. Normally, we could had on and off wars for 200 years. But I went after its "objectives". Remember if a nation hits -5, it regresses and bad things happen. When bad things happen, a nation regresses. And this continued and doomed Macedonia (one war). It was grand strategy at its best.

* The game of civilization up or down is your decadence/culture ratio. Legacy can come from many things. Of course, being a top tier civilizations tends to put you in the running for max legacy.

* No clutter of regions. I only had provinces. You accrue only 1/2 the decadence when regions are part of a province. This is a game of fractions which gradual add up.

* Rome intentionally avoided getting any larger than it needed to be to maintain a good accrual of legacy points every turn. I tried accruing at 2:1 my rivals. A larger Rome would have just faced friction.

* Rome built mainly 2 types of buildings: commercial and culture.

* You can get income from commerce buildings or assigning POPs. In the end game, what was driving Rome's economy was commerce buildings. No POP was assigned to anything but culture. In short, I built in the early game and mid-game a self sustaining food and economic machine.

* Late game I built for culture and assigned POPs for culture.

* You have to stay a top tier civilization. Why? Just like Macedonia got pulled into the tar pit, staying on top keeps you on top. You get some real perks for being a Glorious Empire which is further boosted with each Golden Age. Now, in the early days of Rome. Rome was barely breaking a sweat to be on top. By the end Rome had the best minds in the empire working on this. The closer you get to the end game the more a subtle push up or down can determine your fate.

* The game is very lag oriented or said another way, you must think ahead. What causes lag? Build times and variable building offerings. If you are going to need metal for war, or money to pay troops, or culture to stay top tier, then you need to perceive that need 20-50 turns in advance. Not just NOW; that won't do. Of course, you can shuffle (retry) buildings and with a large nation reduce some of the lag.

* War is very destabilizing. If you are rolling in money, buying peace is far better for staying top tier than steam rolling some enemy. Not only war disrupts your carefully constructed civilization machine, the conquest of other lands needed to bring wars to an end does not fit at all into your harmonious nation.

* It always pays to reinvest. Invest in infrastructure. Invest in trade boosting. (both mean you need to have money to make money; so, have money)

* Of course, don't use the game's auto-pilots, they will fly you into the alps.

[MarkShot]

This illustrates Romes steady progress throughout the game reflective of never regressing in terms of civilization.

Now, of course, I was always already ahead of Macedonia, but the thing you want to look at especially taking the long view is LEGACY INCOME PER TURN. If another faction exceeds you or is closing the delta every turn, then this really spells trouble in the early or mid-game. This is how you will unmask your true competition.

So, I saw it would be Macedonia. Around turn #150 is my war sabotaging their chance to win. You will see they are more or less flat for 100 turns. That is because despite expanding as we will see in another screenshot, they were regressing. They would never recover from 10-20 years war which was intended to trip them up. As I set up the war, I was sure that the same would not happen to me. I had just entered a Golden Age. I had culture to burn.

I had three ways to get to the regions I needed:

(1) A long land march from Italy to Greece/Macedonia. Problem: A long and protracted war before I even got close to the objectives.

(2) A long amphibious invasion of a very built up area. Problem: A very risk high attrition venture landing heavily fortified regions with armies to match.

(3) Purchasing the ideal setup. Problem: None.

Epirus didn't particularly like Rome after being ejected from Italy. I bought their love with a lot coin, and even an alliance. This gave me access to their lands and supplies. I was now able to pre-position my armies directly on the border of my objectives. A war could not have a better set up.

I show Egypt's plot as well. They were a late mid-game bloomer. If not for their late start, they might have posed a threat to Rome. But for the most part, they were fading in my rear view mirror.

Pretty much by #200, I had the game. So, the idea of surfing the wave history seemed like something to do for the next 300 years.
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[MarkShot]

Here is a snapshot at the end showing that Rome was always a Glorious Empire, in a Golden Age, and one token from starting the next.
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2020-08-21 23-41-10.jpg (332.04 KiB) Viewed 1772 times

[MarkShot]

Well, two of my ideas:

* Only provinces (generally whole ones by war or by treaty).

* Be Hadrian; not Trajan ... for those who don't follow Roman History ... Trajan grew the empire to its max bounds; and saw an expanding Rome. Hadrian followed him and contracted Rome a bit and planned for a defensible Rome. (See: Hadrian's Wall in Britain.)

So, Sicily, because it is Latin/Hellene. Carthage (North Africa) and Corsica and Cisaplinia were simply about racking up 7 provinces to get my imperial reforms for a better military. I was not really trying to emulate history.

Now, I would initially take parts of Greece and Macedonia and not have a land route to Italy. Strategically depending ocean transit seemed a liability to me. So, the lands to East either belong to uncivilized barbarians or to Epirus, my ally. What belonged to Epirus, I purchased at premium to make sure not to offend them. This went along with my ONLY PROVINCES maxim. So, taking Macedonia was deadly blow to Macedonia, and the area of the Hellespont in the game often seems to become some of the best real estate in the game.

We also see that Macedonia and Carthage are huge, but the game is more than just size. You have to improve your lands properly if you want it really to matter.

So, the game does capture conceptually some of the difference between say Alexander's Empire/Mongol Empire and Roman Empire/Han China. Of course, Empires is just a game, but it does bring some real historical flavor that some big budget titles lack.
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[MarkShot]

What you get when you win. The best game ending I have ever seen was PopTops Tropico 1. You found yourself on the presidential balcony with your personal assistant reading off a list of your accomplishments. Now, PDS tries to do something like this in EU4 as a written history, but it is only semi-readable and lacks the flare of Tropico 1 which had as both excellent cut scenes mash up and seemingly dynamic text/vocals which of course it wasn't. But I don't think the Tropico 1 approach would work here even if there was budget. It is not just the wars, and dates, but these things I am telling you that the program cannot possible know.
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[MarkShot]

Lastly, I want to note Empires is truly a very unique experience, since by most gaming standards Rome finished #4.

[MarkShot]

I am simply illustrating here that if not Pocus building a system with CDR/Ranking+Tokens/Civ life cycle/legacy, then by most grand strategy games Rome would finish in fourth place. And my main focus would have been on map painting.
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[MarkShot]

I am simply illustrating here that if not Pocus building a system with CDR/Ranking+Tokens/Civ life cycle/legacy, then by most grand strategy games Rome would finish in fourth place. And my main focus would have been on map painting.
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2020-08-21 23-35-36.jpg (334.76 KiB) Viewed 1767 times

[MarkShot]

I am simply illustrating here that if not Pocus building a system with CDR/Ranking+Tokens/Civ life cycle/legacy, then by most grand strategy games Rome would finish in fourth place. And my main focus would have been on map painting.
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2020-08-21 23-35-54.jpg (334.24 KiB) Viewed 1766 times

[duirixuanyan]

Great idea.

[Surt]

A short description of what we see in each picture would be nice.

[MarkShot]

A short description of what we see in each picture would be nice.

Sure. Done.

[Surt]

A short description of what we see in each picture would be nice.

Sure. Done.

Thanks.