alpha123

That would be because the AI isn't very bright. There's nothing preventing you from doing that, however without nearby territory you'd be penalized for doing so. Caravans for temporarily holding resources would diminish the value of territories by removing that penalization, which IMO hurts gameplay.

Right. Like I said, there shouldn't be a way to avoid that. Um yeah, that's my point. To encourage expansion. I understand that.

-1 You should have to build a civ center (or dock) to extract far resources, unless your civ has some ability to do otherwise, such as the Mauryans. A caravan to extract far resources hurts gameplay IMO because it diminishes the value of territories.

OK, I just tried this again. Victory in 25:36! I highly advise retreating the army, as it gives you some workers to start gathering wood and a few champions to boot. Essentially: 1. Retreat the army you start with. This may be a bit tricky as qBot will give chase. Sacrifice the citizen soldiers. 2. Build a barracks and a few extra towers. 3. Have the barracks build swordsmen, the civ center build skirmishers, and the Royal Stoa build heavy skirmishers. Try to make sure everything is always training something. 4. Put a ton of citizen soldiers on stone and metal (wood you should already have a bunch of people on). 5. Build a fortress near the northern part of your base, and maybe a few towers -- this really helps beat qBot's attack. 6. Train 5-10 Thracians. 7. Depending on how fast you are, qBot may or may not attack for a while. Garrison the fortress and towers to the max. 8. If you're decent, qBot's army should fall in 2-3 minutes max. Now's the time to attack. 9. Build a few battering rams. 10. Attack. Have the skirmishers, swordsmen, and spearmen take out their units, use the Thracians to take out towers, and the battering rams civ centers and fortresses.

I really like this idea. I think it adds great possibilities to gameplay. The extra realism is just a bonus; for me the real draw is the gameplay. Presumably the caravan would be capturable like animals and female citizens, yes? Also, the caravan would have to be dropped off at a civ center only, right? I haven't looked at the code, but I think the caravan would have to be trained from a civ center or possibly a special building (but I'd rather not add a caravan building) as opposed to being built by workers. :-/ Maybe there's a way around that. Like I said, I think this is an awesome idea.

I've beaten it more than once, so yes, it's winnable. I can't really tell you how though. It helps somewhat to pull back all your troops as soon as you can. Besides, you also get 8 special Spartan Champion Pikemen if you do, which are otherwise unbuildable. Get to City Phase and use the Royal Stoa ASAP. A few Thracian Black Cloaks and a couple towers can take down a sizeable army if you're decent at micromanaging battles. Also, build your mills and farmsteads as far from your civ center as possible. qBot isn't very bright.