Random Event 'Features'
Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 5:38 pm
I'm a long way into my 5th game and am getting somewhat frustrated by some seemingly random events which are taking the pleasure out of a most challenging game.
To set the scene: A Long way means well past the point when I officially lost to Rome. I find it almost impossible to stop their conquering or the north half of Europe in all my games so far, except when I was Carthage on a relatively easy setting. Currently I'm Selucid and trying to beat Rome, which is at war with the rest of the world. I have the southern half of Asia minor and the western quarter so I control the straights between Asia and Europe. I have conquered all the eastern Mediterranean lands and all northern Africa to Cyrenica. I'm at peace with everyone (Carthage holding East Africa, Sparta holding Crete, Pontus holding North West Asia minor and Bosporus holding the corner that it never seems to get out of) bar Rome... this is our common enemy, Rome's army is probably twice as big as all the rest together and there is no hope to beat them in a straight fight. For the last 30 years or so I have managed to occupy a couple of squares in Europe at the north edge of the Europe Asia straits. These have 6 hoplites/Phalagites all fortified supported by galleys and triremes in the strait and patrol towers providing ranged attack support. As the units in Europe get worn down these are rotated back home and fresh units replace these. Rome constantly attacks and the solid fortified and highly trained hoplites generally take out 10 or more Roman units for each loss I occasionally suffer. I'm working on the principle that if I bleed enough of Rome's units, the populace reduces and revolution will occur to give me a chance to advance.
The issues that are hugely frustrating are;
Plague
It's now 50BC and I've had 3 plagues and 2 of the 3 were major plagues that cost me 2 or 3 cities each, lots of population and a small fortune to try to repair. I seem to have 1 or 2 plagues every game and when playing a smaller country that is often struggling against multiple enemies these can be almost crippling.
Revolution
The sequence of events here makes it impossible to make a good judgement regarding what to do. The first time I'm aware of a new (reinstated) country coming into existence is when I get an envoy asking for peace from a country I didn't know I was at war with! I've generally just accepted this as a quirk of the game, but this time it is crippling and completely ruined days of hard work I've invested over the last several days. Athens had just been defeated by Rome, it had been holding out on the small island (Delos?) east of it's homeland. Rome was just finishing its turn and was slaughtering my ships in the straits and hoplites on my home territory... which was odd because it had no way to attack any of them, and then comes the message ... 'Athens would like to make peace with you'. Great I think, I'm getting an ally back and Rome will have to divert forces. I accept peace then look at the map to see how Rome had managed to somehow attack me when it never could before. To my joy I see that Athens now has all of Greece, but to my horror it has a fair chunk of west Asia minor and a good chunk of central Africa! See minimap in attachment:
My gripe here is in two parts;
1) The scale of the uprising... is there any logic to why a country could resurface in a completely different area and why occupy large swathes of a country that has been supportive of it before it was wiped out.
2) The bigger issue: When the peace message is presented there is no way to see where the country is that you have to make a decision about. This is fine for an existing country, but when a new country pops into existence it would be REALLY HELPFUL to know where it is. Of course, I made peace thinking I have another ally, just assuming it is somewhere in Greece, but now most of my land is gone and I need to retake it and I will be a pariah if I attack a country I've just made peace with. To be honest, this has just killed the game.
Your in frustration,
Morbio.
To set the scene: A Long way means well past the point when I officially lost to Rome. I find it almost impossible to stop their conquering or the north half of Europe in all my games so far, except when I was Carthage on a relatively easy setting. Currently I'm Selucid and trying to beat Rome, which is at war with the rest of the world. I have the southern half of Asia minor and the western quarter so I control the straights between Asia and Europe. I have conquered all the eastern Mediterranean lands and all northern Africa to Cyrenica. I'm at peace with everyone (Carthage holding East Africa, Sparta holding Crete, Pontus holding North West Asia minor and Bosporus holding the corner that it never seems to get out of) bar Rome... this is our common enemy, Rome's army is probably twice as big as all the rest together and there is no hope to beat them in a straight fight. For the last 30 years or so I have managed to occupy a couple of squares in Europe at the north edge of the Europe Asia straits. These have 6 hoplites/Phalagites all fortified supported by galleys and triremes in the strait and patrol towers providing ranged attack support. As the units in Europe get worn down these are rotated back home and fresh units replace these. Rome constantly attacks and the solid fortified and highly trained hoplites generally take out 10 or more Roman units for each loss I occasionally suffer. I'm working on the principle that if I bleed enough of Rome's units, the populace reduces and revolution will occur to give me a chance to advance.
The issues that are hugely frustrating are;
Plague
It's now 50BC and I've had 3 plagues and 2 of the 3 were major plagues that cost me 2 or 3 cities each, lots of population and a small fortune to try to repair. I seem to have 1 or 2 plagues every game and when playing a smaller country that is often struggling against multiple enemies these can be almost crippling.
Revolution
The sequence of events here makes it impossible to make a good judgement regarding what to do. The first time I'm aware of a new (reinstated) country coming into existence is when I get an envoy asking for peace from a country I didn't know I was at war with! I've generally just accepted this as a quirk of the game, but this time it is crippling and completely ruined days of hard work I've invested over the last several days. Athens had just been defeated by Rome, it had been holding out on the small island (Delos?) east of it's homeland. Rome was just finishing its turn and was slaughtering my ships in the straits and hoplites on my home territory... which was odd because it had no way to attack any of them, and then comes the message ... 'Athens would like to make peace with you'. Great I think, I'm getting an ally back and Rome will have to divert forces. I accept peace then look at the map to see how Rome had managed to somehow attack me when it never could before. To my joy I see that Athens now has all of Greece, but to my horror it has a fair chunk of west Asia minor and a good chunk of central Africa! See minimap in attachment:
- 22_10_17_31_15.jpg (251.18 KiB) Viewed 2703 times
1) The scale of the uprising... is there any logic to why a country could resurface in a completely different area and why occupy large swathes of a country that has been supportive of it before it was wiped out.
2) The bigger issue: When the peace message is presented there is no way to see where the country is that you have to make a decision about. This is fine for an existing country, but when a new country pops into existence it would be REALLY HELPFUL to know where it is. Of course, I made peace thinking I have another ally, just assuming it is somewhere in Greece, but now most of my land is gone and I need to retake it and I will be a pariah if I attack a country I've just made peace with. To be honest, this has just killed the game.
Your in frustration,
Morbio.
