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Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

How does the barbarian research make your stuff go obsolete? I'd like to know...
 
@pinktilapia I still have problems playing. I got the message:

Art\Units\citizen hoplite\...\hoplite\hopliteRun.amb File Not Found

Am I not the only one who has this problem or did I just install the mod wrong? (don't have the time now to check... :))

mfG mitsho
 
Excellent mod! You can tell you put a lot of work into it.

A few things I noticed:
1. I'm in 4 B.C. and I've completed a total conquest of modern Greece, leaving Carthage alone after reading previous comments. It took alot of time and men to do it. Athens and Corinth had alot of defenders in the city. I agree that some form of government limiting the size of other civ's armies would be appropriate.
2. It takes Rome forever to move her legions. Maybe increase legion movement rate to two and allow them to cross hills at one mp. Maybe allow them to move a certain distance with a penalty to their hit points ( I remember this in one of the Civs ).
3. Can you turn off the volcanos. I lost Neapolis to an eruption. I don't feel it adds anything to the scenario itself.

I'm a casual player who loves to play historical based scenarios. This is definetely one of the better ones.
 
mitsho said:
@pinktilapia I still have problems playing. I got the message:

Art\Units\citizen hoplite\...\hoplite\hopliteRun.amb File Not Found

Am I not the only one who has this problem or did I just install the mod wrong? (don't have the time now to check... :))

mfG mitsho


It worked fine for me. I think you must have installed it wrong.
 
chico81 said:
A few things I noticed:
1. I'm in 4 B.C. and I've completed a total conquest of modern Greece, leaving Carthage alone after reading previous comments. It took alot of time and men to do it. Athens and Corinth had alot of defenders in the city. I agree that some form of government limiting the size of other civ's armies would be appropriate.
2. It takes Rome forever to move her legions. Maybe increase legion movement rate to two and allow them to cross hills at one mp. Maybe allow them to move a certain distance with a penalty to their hit points ( I remember this in one of the Civs ).
3. Can you turn off the volcanos. I lost Neapolis to an eruption. I don't feel it adds anything to the scenario itself.

I agree with a few things here:

- Rome's Legions probably should have 2 movement points. This will allow for Legios trained in the Italian peninsula (where most of them come from, at least early on) and get to the front line fairly quickly and not be obsolete by the time they get there. :p I don't really think that there should be any major sacrifices for the extra movement point, however.

- Some enemies, esp. the Monarchies, have the ability to just mass WAY too many troops. For example, during my conquest of Carthaginian Spain, I had an army of about 5 Hoplites Atarii, 10 Legios, 15 Ballistas, and a few Velites left over from my early conquests (which is a pretty large army early on, considering the military support allowed by the Republic). In Carthaginian Spain ALONE, Carthage was able to fight this army off pretty easily. They just sent waves (I'd say around 10 units in each wave) after waves of masses of Militia, the elephants, and the horsemen until my force was wiped out and I was forced to sue for peace. Considering that I KNOW that Carthage also has MASSES of troops in Africa as well, I believe that Monarchies still have much too much support. I think it would be a much better idea to lower the Monarchy's military support down to Republic level, or a maybe a tiny bit higher. This will allow the Monarchies to still put up a fight and defend their lands against aggressive opponents like Rome, but not build up an incredibly overwhelming force like they currently do. In my current game, I've also experienced the same problem with Syria (another Monarchy) when I invaded Bithynia. I'm not asking to make all civs a complete pushover, but sheesh, at least make it possible! ;)

- Volcanoes...well, it is somewhat historically accurate for the Roman cities near Mt. Vesuvius to be destroyed by a huge eruption. Even tho it's probably extremely annoying to lose a city to Vesuvius, I still think it should be kept the way it is.

- City States are actually fairly easy to conquer. Want a tip? ;) Read on if you do!:

Make sure you have a lot (10+) Ballistas ready to attack with and a decent size army (5+ Legios, 2-3 Hoplites Atarii, Velites). Pack your army into a city right by the City State that you're going to conquer (like, Apollonia if you're going to attack Aetolia). Declare war on them and then just wait. Eventually, they'll send some Hoplites and Militia little by little into your territory right by the city you have your army packed in to. Use your Ballista horde to blow them away as they come. Eventually, the number of troops they send thins out. This normally means that their army is just down to a few defenders in their main city. March your troops right up to the city, and if you're lucky, you'll then be able to take out most of the defenders with your Ballistas. City State conquered! :goodjob:


Another minor problem:

- Imperium Caesaris costs too much, considering it must be built in a city with "Gauls Goods." Normally by the time I complete it in Massilia (the city that most people will probably be building it in), it's gone obsolete after the Civil War -> Dictator Perpetuus Wonder -> 2 free techs routine. Hopefully decreasing the cost will allow at least a couple of Caesar's Legions to make an appearance in Gaul. :)
 
mitsho said:
@pinktilapia I still have problems playing. I got the message:

Art\Units\citizen hoplite\...\hoplite\hopliteRun.amb File Not Found

Am I not the only one who has this problem or did I just install the mod wrong? (don't have the time now to check... :))

mfG mitsho

HopliteRun.amb is an original Civ3 vanilla file, thus not included in the mod! Check in your ...\Civilization 3\Art\units\Hoplite folder if the file is present and tell me.
 
PresidentMarcos said:
How does the barbarian research make your stuff go obsolete? I'd like to know...

Hum, where is the catch? I do believe (or I stop modding and start playing instead coz it will seems I have still much to learn on the game ;)) a wonder is made obsolete when any side reach the tech that make it obsolete. Thus, both the Praetorium and Diocese are made obsolete at a certain time, because the Germans have reach a specific tech (date). That's the idea behind, simple!
 
@ Chico, Randy

Thanks spending so much time testing, I have never reached 4 BC myself yet. A shame but modding cut some of the pleasure to play lol. I get your comments:
- Extra move for legions: I don't think it can be done because of the huge advantage it will give Rome. Legion with 2 moves will be able to retreat. Thus, you are not likely to loose troops anymore. Walking through the game will be a piece of cake. Do you think legions with a 1 move is still to slow once you have developed your road network (which you should!). This becomes 4 moves a turn. We can make it 5. I know road are very slow to build in RFRE (especially on hills), but by putting several legion plus slaves on the tasks, it can be done in a few turns. Have you tried to do this? Besides possibly increasing road ratio from 4 to 5 (from 3 in vanilla!), we can also reduce the job cost but my idea was to put the cost high so that the map is not systematically full of roads on every tile (except in more developed area like Italy or Asia).
- Vesuvius is not nice? I agree that seeing a nice city burn to ashes is somewhat not too pleasant... Well it is a beta :) so although I wish it to happen (I doubt anyone in historical Pompei found the eruption funny, yet it happened!), if it do so too often, the chance can be reduced. I personally think the rate is currently ok.
- Too many units built by the AI... I think this become the next issue to address. The main problem is I guess the fact the AI finish quickly the possible buildings it can build in its cities. I have already try to address that for the Parthes before (anyone noticed the expansive bazaar which take forever to be completed) so that they don't stockpile horsemen everywhere. I don't think reducing free upkeep will help much. Let's put some thought behind it and hopefully it will be resolved in next patch. Randy, I enjoyed your Greek walkthrough, but does this indicate ballista are to strong (cheap)?
- I noted about Caesar, it will be addressed in today's patch.

@ Coltrane
Get the latest civilopedia in that patch, thanks :)

I post patch 0.62 now!
 
Hi, just like to say great mod, I've been waiting for something like this for a long time.
I was playing and ran into slight problem, my game crashed and I recieved an error message saying that a file was missing "Art\Units\Sarmatian Swordsman\..\AnsarWarriorRun.amb" I know I have the file so I'm guessing the path is incorrect?
 
Hi Soam, thanks for the report
And I thought I had tested all the units in -game... I even think I had a screenshot of that unit working fine??? Anyway, yes, the path is incorrect.

The file Sarmatian Swordsman.ini in ...\Civilization 3\Conquests\Scenarios\RFRE\Art\Units\Sarmatian Swordsman should read as follow (changes in red):

Code:
[Speed]
Normal Speed=225
Fast Speed=225

[Animations]
BLANK=
DEFAULT=SarmDefault.flc
WALK=
RUN=SarmRun.flc
ATTACK1=SarmAttackA.flc
ATTACK2=
ATTACK3=
DEFEND=
DEATH=SarmDeath.flc
DEAD=
FORTIFY=SarmFortify.flc
FORTIFYHOLD=
FIDGET=
VICTORY=SarmVictory.flc
TURNLEFT=
TURNRIGHT=
BUILD=
ROAD=
MINE=
IRRIGATE=
FORTRESS=
CAPTURE=
STOP_AT_LAST_FRAME=
PauseROAD=
PauseMINE=
PauseIRRIGATE=

[Timing]
BLANK=0.500000
DEFAULT=0.500000
WALK=0.500000
RUN=0.500000
ATTACK1=0.500000
ATTACK2=0.500000
ATTACK3=0.500000
DEFEND=0.500000
DEATH=0.500000
DEAD=0.500000
FORTIFY=0.500000
FORTIFYHOLD=0.500000
FIDGET=0.500000
VICTORY=0.500000
TURNLEFT=0.500000
TURNRIGHT=0.500000
BUILD=0.500000
ROAD=0.500000
MINE=0.500000
IRRIGATE=0.500000
FORTRESS=0.500000
CAPTURE=0.500000
STOP_AT_LAST_FRAME=0.500000
PauseROAD=0.500000
PauseMINE=0.500000
PauseIRRIGATE=0.500000

[Sound Effects]
BLANK=
DEFAULT=
WALK=
RUN=..\[COLOR=DarkRed]Ansar Warrior\[/COLOR]AnsarWarriorRun.amb
ATTACK1=..\[COLOR=DarkRed]Ansar Warrior\[/COLOR]AnsarWarriorAttackA.amb
ATTACK2=..\[COLOR=DarkRed]Ansar Warrior\[/COLOR]AnsarWarriorAttackB.amb
ATTACK3=
DEFEND=
DEATH=..\[COLOR=DarkRed]Ansar Warrior\[/COLOR]AnsarWarriorDeath.wav
DEAD=
FORTIFY=..\[COLOR=DarkRed]Ansar Warrior\[/COLOR]AnsarWarriorFortify.wav
FORTIFYHOLD=
FIDGET=..\[COLOR=DarkRed]Ansar Warrior\[/COLOR]AnsarWarriorFidget.wav
VICTORY=..\[COLOR=DarkRed]Ansar Warrior\[/COLOR]AnsarWarriorVictory.wav
TURNLEFT=
TURNRIGHT=
BUILD=
ROAD=
MINE=
IRRIGATE=
FORTRESS=
CAPTURE=
STOP_AT_LAST_FRAME=
[Version]
VERSION=1
[Palette]
PALETTE=
It will be fixed in the next patch, but that will be sometime next week.
 
Pink, why don't u make other civs playable, only romans ? :rolleyes:
 
Take a look at the scenario. This is made to represent how Rome developed throughout it's history. Meaning that Rome should first conquer Carthage, then Gaul, etc, and much more later, the Germanians, the Barbarians should come. Attila should come. Now, if he made everyone playable, Attila would be playable in (when does it start?) 100 BC (or so). And don't tell me that would make sense to you. If so, it just wouldn't be a historical scenario any more.
No, It is needed that only the Romans are playable.

mfG mitsho
 
pinktilapia said:
@ Chico, Randy

Thanks spending so much time testing, I have never reached 4 BC myself yet. A shame but modding cut some of the pleasure to play lol. I get your comments:
- Extra move for legions: I don't think it can be done because of the huge advantage it will give Rome. Legion with 2 moves will be able to retreat. Thus, you are not likely to loose troops anymore. Walking through the game will be a piece of cake. Do you think legions with a 1 move is still to slow once you have developed your road network (which you should!). This becomes 4 moves a turn. We can make it 5. I know road are very slow to build in RFRE (especially on hills), but by putting several legion plus slaves on the tasks, it can be done in a few turns. Have you tried to do this? Besides possibly increasing road ratio from 4 to 5 (from 3 in vanilla!), we can also reduce the job cost but my idea was to put the cost high so that the map is not systematically full of roads on every tile (except in more developed area like Italy or Asia).
- Vesuvius is not nice? I agree that seeing a nice city burn to ashes is somewhat not too pleasant... Well it is a beta :) so although I wish it to happen (I doubt anyone in historical Pompei found the eruption funny, yet it happened!), if it do so too often, the chance can be reduced. I personally think the rate is currently ok.
- Too many units built by the AI... I think this become the next issue to address. The main problem is I guess the fact the AI finish quickly the possible buildings it can build in its cities. I have already try to address that for the Parthes before (anyone noticed the expansive bazaar which take forever to be completed) so that they don't stockpile horsemen everywhere. I don't think reducing free upkeep will help much. Let's put some thought behind it and hopefully it will be resolved in next patch. Randy, I enjoyed your Greek walkthrough, but does this indicate ballista are to strong (cheap)?
- I noted about Caesar, it will be addressed in today's patch.

- Extra movement along roads was another thing that I thought might help. I always build roads to connect my Empire the best I can, but there's still a large distance to cover from Italy to, say, even Macedonia. Transports would greatly reduce the trip, of course, but because they require support, I rarely find myself building them so that I can have more Legios.

- I still think the problem is that the Monarchies have much too high unit support. Though adding more high-cost structures for them to build will keep them from amassing too large of a horde early on, later in the game they will still amass a giant horde of an army because of their large unit support and numerous cities. Perhaps a combination of both adding more high-cost structures for them to build and further reducing their unit support will fix the problem. I know the reason that you're reluctant to further lower the unit support is because those nation's primary defense unit is the Militia (which they pay for, unlike the Romans), but trust me, after you run into those masses of Militia stacks combined with highly-mobile, powerful cavalry and elephants, you'll think differently. ;)

- Yes, Ballista are pretty powerful when massed. Really, they're the only reason I've managed to put up a decent fight against the Monarchies in my current game. Their ability to do a lethal bombard for up to 3 HP a hit makes them pretty deadly when you have 2x or more Ballistas than the army that you're fighting. But really, if you ask me, if you lower the Rate of Fire and/or take away the Lethal Bombardment from Ballistas, you're going to have to give at least the early Legios some kind of advantage over most of the enemy's early foot troops.

In the current state of the game, the early Legio costs more than Militia (one of the more prominent foot troops that you will be running in to) and the same as the Phalanx (seen more in the East); they have the same HP bonus except for Phalanx, which receive a 2 HP bonus; have worse defense than Militia and slightly higher attack (thus, the Militia can normally defeat the Legio when the Legio is defending), and only worse defense than the Phalanx; and neither of them even cost a population point to create (was this overlooked?)! Combine the early Legio's inability to defend itself well with the fact that at least the Monarchies are going to have a much larger army than you, and you really won't be able to do much against Carthage and Macedonia early on until you get the better Legios (without the aid of the Ballista, of course) with Marius' Reform. Since Marius' Reform is supposed to be reached sometime around 100 B.C., there's quite a few conquests that need to happen before then, namely most of Carthage's holdings including Carthage itself, Macedonia, the Greek City-States, and Illyricum (as displayed by this map ). I know you're not going for complete historical accuracy concerning the conquests, but in my experiences, it's pretty much impossible to get even close to that by 100 B.C. because the early Legios are constantly getting slaughtered on the defense without the aid of Hoplite Atarii (and sometimes on the offensive thanks to the "random chances in battle feature" a.k.a. the "cheat in favor of the computer feature") and the shear size of the land that needs to be conquered so early. Perhaps a (very painstaking) way to fix the problem with Rome's early conquests would be to make the 200 B.C. to 100 B.C. era go by in 1-year turns instead of 2-year turns. Then you'd just need to either change the Legio's or the other nation's unit's stats, or add in another technology that adds in a better Legio between the start and Marius' Reform. Just something to consider. :goodjob:

Sheesh, that was a lot of rambling! I hope some of it was useful. :lol:

Edit: And just to add in on the unit comparisons, I forgot about Hoplites. They're exactly like the Macedonian Phalanx (not costing a population point either), except that they only have a 1 HP bonus.
 
when i downloaded this my first words were wtf(what the fudge). it wasnt in a zipped folder . im pissed off. thats a big file. please explain
 
It's a .rar-file which is a zipped file, only using a better compression method giving you a smaller file. Get winrar.
 
IXIRandyIXI said:
- Extra movement along roads was another thing that I thought might help. I always build roads to connect my Empire the best I can, but there's still a large distance to cover from Italy to, say, even Macedonia. Transports would greatly reduce the trip, of course, but because they require support, I rarely find myself building them so that I can have more Legios.

- I still think the problem is that the Monarchies have much too high unit support. Though adding more high-cost structures for them to build will keep them from amassing too large of a horde early on, later in the game they will still amass a giant horde of an army because of their large unit support and numerous cities. Perhaps a combination of both adding more high-cost structures for them to build and further reducing their unit support will fix the problem. I know the reason that you're reluctant to further lower the unit support is because those nation's primary defense unit is the Militia (which they pay for, unlike the Romans), but trust me, after you run into those masses of Militia stacks combined with highly-mobile, powerful cavalry and elephants, you'll think differently. ;)

- Yes, Ballista are pretty powerful when massed. Really, they're the only reason I've managed to put up a decent fight against the Monarchies in my current game. Their ability to do a lethal bombard for up to 3 HP a hit makes them pretty deadly when you have 2x or more Ballistas than the army that you're fighting. But really, if you ask me, if you lower the Rate of Fire and/or take away the Lethal Bombardment from Ballistas, you're going to have to give at least the early Legios some kind of advantage over most of the enemy's early foot troops.

In the current state of the game, the early Legio costs more than Militia (one of the more prominent foot troops that you will be running in to) and the same as the Phalanx (seen more in the East); they have the same HP bonus except for Phalanx, which receive a 2 HP bonus; have worse defense than Militia and slightly higher attack (thus, the Militia can normally defeat the Legio when the Legio is defending), and only worse defense than the Phalanx; and Phalanx don't even cost a population point to create (was this overlooked?)! Combine the early Legio's inability to defend itself well with the fact that at least the Monarchies are going to have a much larger army than you, and you really won't be able to do much against Carthage and Macedonia early on until you get the better Legios (without the aid of the Ballista, of course) with Marius' Reform. Since Marius' Reform is supposed to be reached sometime around 100 B.C., there's quite a few conquests that need to happen before then, namely most of Carthage's holdings including Carthage itself, Macedonia, the Greek City-States, and Illyricum.

Edit: And just to add in on the unit comparisons, I forgot about Hoplites. They're exactly like the Macedonian Phalanx (not costing a population point either), except that they only have a 1 HP bonus.

-I think it would be a good idea to increase the road movement from 4 to 5. Also, if all of the distinctly Roman units (such as velites) could build roads, it would be a lot easier to move your legions.

-Instead of reducing the Monarchies support level (they are supposed to have a lot of units) you could increase the pop-point cost of militia. When fighting as Rome, I have the most problems with the Barcan War elephants. If you gave Rome a unit like that--High ATK, medium defense, bombardment, big HP bonus-- it would help to even the odds. Carthage should have a mass of rabble, while Rome has elite units.

-Many you could also take away 1 HP from the Phalanx to signify their lack of mobility.

-Ballistae are essential for Rome to win.

-Maybe you could give the Legions a higher defensive bombard.

-Rome has such a high unit support cost that it seems impossible for me to have both a Navy and an Army and still have enough money left to make the citizens happy and research new technologies.
 
loki1232 said:
-Instead of reducing the Monarchies support level (they are supposed to have a lot of units) you could increase the pop-point cost of militia. When fighting as Rome, I have the most problems with the Barcan War elephants. If you gave Rome a unit like that--High ATK, medium defense, bombardment, big HP bonus-- it would help to even the odds. Carthage should have a mass of rabble, while Rome has elite units.

The elephants are meant to represent the Carthaginian army under Hannibal's leadership. Thus, they're meant to give Rome a hard time in the early wars that (may) take place. And I still stand by my request to further lower the Monarchy's military unit support. :D

--------

And on another note from an earlier post, wonders, buildings, etc. do not go obsolete when another civ researches a technology; only when the civ that has that wonder, building, etc. gets that technology will that wonder, building, etc. go obsolete.

--------

And instead of proposing vague ideas about unit changes, I'll try and sum up my ideas here:

- Ballistae can have their bombardment kept the same (5), have the Rate of Fire reduced to 1, and remove Lethal Bombardment and Zone of Control. This will represent their ability to hit only a portion of an enemy's army hard, as well as their ability to destroy weak wooden defenses such as the Vallus with ease. Moenia will have a high enough defensive bombard value so that it Ballistae cannot destroy them, thus making cities withthem much harder to capture without Catapults. Ballistae require support so that they cannot be massed. They later upgrade to Catapults, which have a higher bombard value (the same as their current value) so that they can destroy the Moenia fairly easily and have a Rate of Fire of (2) to represent the increased damage caused by this new siege weapon. The rest of the stats would remain the same. Catapults also require support.

- Instead of making Archers just another moderate attack, low defense, defensive bombard unit, they can become a sort of siege unit -- that is, low (2) defense and attack so that they are not made for actual combat, with low (4ish, so that they have a very low chance of destroying city defense structures), yet ranged and offensive (meaning Bombard range = 1), lethal bombard, with 3 Rate of Fire and lethal land bombardment. So instead of being that unit that you just sent against the enemy to waste or maybe finish off a weakened unit, the Archers can be used for what they really were used for -- softening the enemy and reducing their numbers before attacking or before they attack. Since massing them could also be a problem, they can also require support. As for graphics, you could probably request for one of those unit graphics guys to make a Roman army archer unit. I'm sure they'd be willing to help out with such a great scenario. :goodjob: And, of course, remove the Oriental Goods requirement from them since some people may not be fortunate enough to conquer that far by the time they're available.

[And while on the subject of Archers, there's a problem with the Sagitarri Auxiliari; the graphics for the unit apparently aren't there. When I built one, I got an error saying that art/units/lonbowman/lonbowman.ini didn't exist. So, knowing nothing about changing the directories & etc. of unit animations, I just C&P'd the Longbowman from C3C and renamed the folder Lonbowman and the file Lonbowman.ini. I know it's misspelled, but really, who cares? :p It works!)

- the earliest Legios are given 1 more defense so that they can defend themselves slightly better. Also, either all of Rome's Legios can receive an extra HP bonus (representing their superior military training and organization, even in the days of the early Republic), or all the enemy civ's foot troops can have their HP bonus reduced by 1. Either way works, tho the latter would likely be the best -- less HP means that the lower-HP units such as Cavalry actually stand a chance against foot troops. Either way, with these changes, the Roman Legios really need to have an HP bonus over the other civ's foot troops.

- Cymba (the transports) no longer require support. Since there's already so many units that require support now, a weak, defenseless transport ship probably shouldn't require too much upkeep. This'll make it so people will actually build transports (and perhaps even a navy!) to transport masses of troops across the Mediterranean.

The result of these changes? You'll be able to have a pretty realistic Roman army -- Legios forming the main center of the army; masses of Auxiliary troops from conquered nations support the Legios; quite a few Archers hiding back behind the Legios firing arrows to weaken the enemy; a few Ballistae and/or Catapults doing the same (and able to destroy city defense structures); and the Cavalry hitting the enemy's flanks when they are weakened. Adding all these extra units to the military support list, tho, may bring up the need to decrease the cost/unit over the military supprt limit so that the larger army can be supported. That can only be found out through further testing, tho.

It'd take a little bit of testing to get the right bombard and bombard defense values so that Ballistae and Archers have trouble destroying the Moenia, but I'll wait on doing those tests until I get your response on if you want to go along with these changes or not. :goodjob:
 
OK...
First I must say that I play alot of Civ 3 (like everyone else) and have been looking for fresh new MODS/Scenarios for a long time... ALWAYS waiting for a truly good Scenario for Rise/Fall of Rome... ALWAYS disappointed - especially with the Firaxis scenario, sheesh, what were they thinking?!
I have been customizing maps and MODS and such to achieve some sort of satisfactory Rise/Fall of Rome, but always the Tech/Unit/Map combo never added up right, despite my tweaks for balance and adjustments for accuracy.
TAM has been my favorite, but is not meant for Rome exclusively and so loses the 'scenario' events that are needed for a real feel.

Anyways... AWESOME job! :goodjob:

This is the most ambitious and interesting MOD/Scenario I have seen and played in a long time... and yet I have some important comments/ suggestions that I think should be examined:

1 - Cities built on the very edge of the map are weak (not enough city boxes to ever do much), hardly visible and generally annoying. I do not know if you've seen/heard of the main concept in Rhye's Civ. MOD, but less cities on a map speeds up the game, thus weak cities on the edge of the map also would bog down a potentially already slow loading scenario (like one with lots of cool unique units). YOU do not have such cities (Thank you!) but some of the terrain on the edge of your map has the possibility of being settled by the AI to everyone's dismay.
So when I customize my games - I always make the terrain on the 2-3 spaces of edge of the map forest/desert/mountain/tundra/swamp, whatever fits the climate and area and cannot be settled... I think you should consider this...
ALSO - Did you know that you have desert terrain checked as ABLE to be settled on in the game rules?! I think that should definitely be no - desert terrain sucks and would only create weak cities...

2 - I noticed on your website that you show the area of ancient Persia as Parthia - Thank you! :) I have always thought Rome scenarios should have the real enemy of the east! - but in the game itself it then says "Persia"... and even though the Parthians took over the Persian empire... I think it should be Seleucids or Parthia, but not Persia... just a thought... also the Parthians came later so it doesn't make sense for them to start there and the Seleucids would be in power. I have found it impossible to simulate the Parthians taking over the Seleucids though (before or after Rome in the East). One is always more powerful or both weak. So I like Parthia alreadying being a bad boy.

3 - What's the point of the Roman city Barium? I delete it for my Customization and the game seems better off without it. I can see wanting Rome to have to defend it, but its too close to other cities and makes them weaker and Rome is already too weak, but I also like spaced out cities for the same reason mentioned previously about game speed, besides later power

3 - GREAT JOB with Carthage :goodjob: in the sense that in other Rome scenarios and historically accurate, once Rome defeats Carthage then everything else is way too easy. So I like how Carthage goes to war early, giving Rome a run for her money.
BUT Carthage has too many units to touch and conquering other lands like Greece and Gaul first would ruin the whole feel of accuracy. I did go about Punic Wars at close dates to the hisorical times, but the Second Punic War is seemingly impossible... (as mentioned by other Posts)

4 - I think making Gaul more powerful would be necessary for a later challenge (I don't know since I can't ever get close to defeating Carthage, but if I did, I have a feeling that Gaul wouldn't have a chance against my combined lands of Carthage and Rome)

5 - :) I like how Gaul goes over onto Britain... Although it weakens the Britains (not good at all), I did it myself in the past on the TAM MOD because its too easy to not care about Britain and conquer mainland Europe, so having the pissed off Gauls attack from Britain still after you've taken the area of France would force you to go there too.

6 - You have a lot of accurate city locations which I must commend you for :goodjob: , but just my opinion, Delphi does not make sense where its at.
I also have some issues with locations such as Burgundi in France where they long last settled as well as with ownership on some Barbarian tribe cities, such as Visigoths being German rather than Sarmatian, since Ostrogoths are considered Sarmatian. *Also you could add more tribes than the same name with a space after it. Nothing thats too big of a deal so I will not go into it unless you really care, since you probably already realize it.

7 - Greece, Asia Minor and the East seem too weak (fractionalized) to make much of a challenge after the Second Punic War. I can't get there though so I can't verify that, but in other scenarios, once I have Roman land + Carthage land - there has to be a strong and solid East to stop me. An alliance under Mithrandates would make sense though.

8 - On the same topic as 7 and 4... What is to stop Rome from trashing Germania and Sarmatia once it has Carthage, Gaul, and the Mediterranean? In other games I've found that the game is over by then, unless you pump up the North.

9 - Slaves work too slow to get the production needed for Rome to build units in time to survive, mainly because Rome can't conquer and enslave enough of them because of their weakness... I've tried placing 2 mines already built for each city of Rome and giving every city a pre-built Fabrica, but its still not even close :( I've even tried giving slaves a worker strenth of 200 like Legios, which did help, but I do like the concept of needing a LOT of slaves like in history, but just cannot get them

10 - I agree that Rome's beginning units do indeed suck and need some kind of advantage without making the game too easy. So far I either have tons of Velites that die without doing much or have too many Legios, Hoplites alarii and Ships and cannot continue to build anything because of support and still don't have even close to enough. I could research better units but WILL NOT, because I think I should be able to defeat Carthage before the Macedonian Wars... I need Scipio to give it to Hannible for history's sake! ;)

Sorry, sorry, sorry! To drop a bomb of a Post like this is unforgivable... just some things I've thought of since playing other MODS and enjoying this magnificent one.
Keep working at it there is so much potential!!
 
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