After Action Report: Disaster in Free Mode
End Game – The Eternal City in Chaos
Which would have not been so bad had it not been for the one crazy slave from early in the game. If it had not been for this guy, I think I may have had a chance to come though the grueling mid game and get ahead of the crisis. As it was, he managed to infect other slaves with his crazy talk and the riots were on.
From this point on riots broke out everywhere. I was not sure if this was supposed to happen or if it was a glitch. Chaos spread pretty quickly and I decided the best course would be to slink off to Carthage before the angry mob caught up with me. It was a pretty unhappy ending to the game but the learning experience will be invaluable.
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Thoughts on Failure
It seems to me that I was used to games where the ability to get ahead of a crisis and stay ahead was much easier. Glory of the Roman Empire, in my experience, does a pretty fair job of making you plan carefully each building decision and each location choice. Although you can demolish buildings and start over fresh, this really puts you behind the game. In some of my other attempts at Glory of the Roman Empire, I had barbarians showing up very early on, causing all sorts of havoc before I was ready for them.
Trading is not just a side venture or a luxury it is very important to the growth of your city and depending on your resource situation, it may be more or less important during certain times of the game. I really should have kept on my trade houses and possibly even expanded their number.
For the most part my community planning was ok but I think that it is again very important. So many things rely on how the community feels or on improving the mood of that neighborhood that it is hard just to drop houses wherever you wish. They need to be close to their jobs and to their altars and temples and taverns. If not, these folks are not shy about letting you know.
I am not sure that I have spent enough time with the game to come up with a surefire strategy to winning, other then the key is keeping the workload of the slaves low and the number of citizen demands equally low. Once they start complaining about multiple holes in the economy you can tell trouble is not going to be too far away.
About the Author
Since he was a young lad, Sean's heart and head have always been on some distant battlefield. Whether in the future or in the past, the study of war and wargaming have been two of his most passionate pursuits. This has caused a large degree of angst for his mother and his wife who think he should pursue more lucrative hobbies. He hopes to one day be a part a wargame design where a player can actually create their own military man by man and tank by tank. When not pushing battle cruisers around a starmap, he can usually be found involved with his other passion: Role Playing Games. He is a member of the campaign staff for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the RPGA's Living Greyhawk campaign. Sean also wants to be a published writer, someday.
