First run through of the Spartacus scenario

[Taciturn Scot]

I picked this title up at the weekend with both the Spartacus and Cantabrian Wars expansions in anticipation of the Parthian wars expansion later this week. I'll confess that I've been struggling a bit with the AGEOD engine and don't really understand why certain things happen, particularly why my armies get beaten. I love the game though and am willing to learn by playing, then RTM and playing again, etc. The Spartacus scenario looked like a good place to get to grips with the game engine and so I took the plunge and decided to fight as the Romans. That has to be easy, right?

Well, not at all as it turns out There are so few forces on the map at the start and I wanted to get started a.s.a.p. but I thought an attack on the slaves at the start might be afoolhardy and so there were several turns of not very much happening. When I did decided to sally forth, the slaves handed me my butt. Then the consular armies arrived in Rome. I thought this was it. My initial skirmishes with slave units went well but I split my armies up, one going down the west coast, the other the east coast and one of them got severely trounced by Spartacus' army.

The whole of southern Italy was ablaze and the slaves were pushing into Sicily as well but having a very hard time capturing any cities due to lack of siege equipment. When I received the option to bring in Crassus, I siezed the chance and it all started to look good. but Spartacus had built up such a strong force in this time that he was able to defeat Crassus.

Bring on Pompei . He marched down the east coast and took down Spartacus' army driving them back down towards Sicily. But the terrain down the toe was very slow going and the scenario ended before I was able to crush the slaves.

I got a minor victory which felt a bit generous. But I learned quite a bit about the game from playing this scenario, more than I have by playing the somewhat larger scenarios/campaigns thatr come with ROP and RUS. I think I know now about how the engine handles replacements and building new units. It was great fun and it looks like there's a tremendous amount of strategic depth to this game. I'll have to do some reading up on the naval aspects of the game as there's not much of that in ROP. It looks like I'm going to be playing AGEOD titles for quite a long time to come now.

edit to add:
BTW, I really like the piece of music called 'Ambience'. It was playing when Pompei crushed Spartacus' army and I was informed that Spartacus had been executed. I actually said 'Aw' and felt sad. Really evinced a sense of pathos.

[Gerry58]

I also have never been able to get more than a 'minor victory'. Actually, Spartacus was executed and the other rebels crucified

[Vincentius]

Anybody does know how can we get a "great victory" in this scenario ?

[PJJ]

I think this is a really fun scenario and a great introduction to the game. The slaves have it easy until the big Roman armies start appearing. Crassus can often be handled, but Pompeius is much more dangerous. Combined, they are deadly.

I've also been able to win only a minor victory, but I always like to analyze the situation and decide whether the actual outcome corresponds with the score at the end of a scenario. So if you played as the Romans and wiped out the slave armies and all their important leaders were killed, then it's a major victory, no matter what the game says. That was the historical outcome, and it took the Romans about two years to achieve it. And if you manage to keep Spartacus alive till the end with at least some troops left on the field, then I'd consider that also a victory, and an even bigger one, because you've just fought the greatest power of the ancient world for three years and survived.

[pantsukki]

I wonder if the end results have been fixed in the current version? Because at least earlier you were pretty much guaranteed to receive only a minor victory at best.

[Agesilaus]

I wouldn't worry about the minor/major victory distinction. The game does not properly evaluate the final score, so it's up to the player right now to determine how well he did. For example, I absolutely demolished Carthage as the mercenaries in the Mercenary War scenario, to the point where I owned practically everything and was just clicking through the turns. Then I was awarded a minor victory... Apparently Rome was second place, despite not having any notable role in the scenario. It was sheer nonsense.

Spartacus is a great scenario, though; it's quick to play, with lots of interesting possibilities. Try playing as the Slaves next time.

[Franciscus]

Major victories or defeat calculations (on all Ageod games, AFAIK) are based on NM and depend on:
- NM cutoffs defined at scenario setup (as a rule of thumb, 25 and 175)
- rule sudden death ON or OFF

In Spartacus scenario: Sudden death is ON for ROM but OFF for Slaves, and the cutoffs are 25|175

So, for example:
Romans will win a major victory if at the end of scenario their NM is above 175, but will suffer a major defeat is at anytime their NM falls below 25 (= "sudden death")

Regards

[H Gilmer3]

I wouldn't worry about the minor/major victory distinction. The game does not properly evaluate the final score, so it's up to the player right now to determine how well he did. For example, I absolutely demolished Carthage as the mercenaries in the Mercenary War scenario, to the point where I owned practically everything and was just clicking through the turns. Then I was awarded a minor victory... Apparently Rome was second place, despite not having any notable role in the scenario. It was sheer nonsense.

Spartacus is a great scenario, though; it's quick to play, with lots of interesting possibilities. Try playing as the Slaves next time.

I'd agree with this and the scenario I would use as an example is the Sepoy Rebellion in Pride of Nations (The revolt in India against the British empire). I captured everything as the British but missed one town and that was all it took for me to not get a major victory.