Rome Rapid Expansion

Question

How does Rome expand better or faster or both? I dont want to hear the answer because of code of laws. If I have 5 cities before COL does that mean a good Roman player will have 10? 15?

They expand faster, because they only need to grow to 2 population to rush a settler, instead of 3. Because of this, they should have around 8 cities when you have 5.

Doesnt seem significant to pop a settler at 2 when its going to take 10 turns to get back to 2. Is it just me or a city popping settlers at size 3 sound more efficient because at least you can set 2 trees after you lost a pop. Also 3 more cities Doesn't seem to be a game winner. Also how many cities should a roman player have in

Ancient Era =
Medieval =
Industrial =
Modern =

Kadazzle said:

They expand faster, because they only need to grow to 2 population to rush a settler, instead of 3. Because of this, they should have around 8 cities when you have 5.

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Because of this, if you are not a noob, you can have 20 cities when the other one got like 5.. The difference is huge

MKElderGod said:

Doesnt seem significant to pop a settler at 2 when its going to take 10 turns to get back to 2. Is it just me or a city popping settlers at size 3 sound more efficient because at least you can set 2 trees after you lost a pop. Also 3 more cities Doesn't seem to be a game winner. Also how many cities should a roman player have in

Ancient Era =
Medieval =
Industrial =
Modern =

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I see how you read my strategy.. In 7 turns you can build the settler and return to 2 population. It's better than going to 3 pop because if they want to attack you, you got more hammers to convert in units.

I dont see my self as a Roman player BUT there Abilities seem very powerful. MorteEterna how many cities would you have before democracy? I think the most I had on MP was 15. But again im not a roman player. So someone could have gotten 30 (seems unlikely). Expansion is a powerful tool.

MKElderGod said:

I dont see my self as a Roman player BUT there Abilities seem very powerful. MorteEterna how many cities would you have before democracy? I think the most I had on MP was 15. But again im not a roman player. So someone could have gotten 30 (seems unlikely). Expansion is a powerful tool.

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It's not how many cities you get before democracy.. It's how many cities in how many turns (obviously more cities/less time used)

Then, I would say like 15-20 in 30-35 turns normally. And I know how to use all this.. cuatroshuimian for example used chinese (he is a good player, and it was a great game) and I used romans, I got a lot of cities and he attacked me with 3 armies (1 catapult army, 1 pikemen army and 1 archer army plus a galleon). I started building a lot of units (NOT ARMIES) in every city to defend myself and after many turns I used other cities to rush him from the sea with advanced technologies

Holy SHIZER if you can make 15-20 cities in 30-35 turns CONSISTENTLY than in my eyes Rome is unstopable. But im sure holding all those cities can be a challengeing task.

Building only singular units was very smart on Morte's part, I have thought about that, but have never actually used it in a MP game.

nobody is building 15-20 cities in 30-35 turns, the math is not there. The romans are decent expanders, but it's tough to stay alive if you expand too quickly at the beginning. the chinese can expand quicker and have larger cities, morte knows this.

maybe 10 cities in 30 turns at best, but definatly even that many consistently with the romans.

Anarak said:

nobody is building 15-20 cities in 30-35 turns, the math is not there. The romans are decent expanders, but it's tough to stay alive if you expand too quickly at the beginning. the chinese can expand quicker and have larger cities, morte knows this.

maybe 10 cities in 30 turns at best, but definatly even that many consistently with the romans.

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I built 15-20 cities in like 35 turns in almost every game I wanted to do that, with americans, romans, chinese, or expanders like them.. It's not impossible, maybe easy.. The problem may be how to defend all them but it isn't hard

pm me the move order then, i've gotten that high with the help of gold agaisnt the AI, but to say your doing 15-20 cities most of the time by 1000BC is not true. it may not be far off, maybe by about 5 cities or so, but it's not going to happen consistently IMO, if people let you do it, then they aren't rushing you right. Without many units, or units in my border towns or just having a few scouts going, maybe, but that's too much to defend.

I've seen crazy things done with the Americans and the Chinese, so I have no doubt that you can mass expand upon mass expanding, but my real point of contention is that you're getting 15-20 cities by 1000BC with the Romans. That's not happening, and that's where I'm saying the math isn't there.

Anarak said:

pm me the move order then, i've gotten that high with the help of gold agaisnt the AI, but to say your doing 15-20 cities most of the time by 1000BC is not true. it may not be far off, maybe by about 5 cities or so, but it's not going to happen consistently IMO, if people let you do it, then they aren't rushing you right. Without many units, or units in my border towns or just having a few scouts going, maybe, but that's too much to defend.

I've seen crazy things done with the Americans and the Chinese, so I have no doubt that you can mass expand upon mass expanding, but my real point of contention is that you're getting 15-20 cities by 1000BC with the Romans. That's not happening, and that's where I'm saying the math isn't there.

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Don't pm this guy, put it right here. I created the thread to have people become educated in using the Romans to there full potential.

MKElderGod said:

Don't pm this guy, put it right here. I created the thread to have people become educated in using the Romans to there full potential.

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Now I understand how is stupid writing a strategy..

MorteEterna said:

Now I understand how is stupid writing a strategy..

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Listen Morte what time will you be on USA eastern time tonight???? lets get some games in.

MKElderGod said:

Listen Morte what time will you be on USA eastern time tonight???? lets get some games in.

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I'm +1 gmt here.. However I can't play tonight.. Today I played some games but I never see you online when I am.. And I wrote some strategies to have 15-20 cities in 30 turns.. That's not impossible, and I would say that's really easy with the right civilization

i'll wait for the strategy then i guess. I just don't see how you can do this with the Romans without getting rushed or without a lot of luck. If you say it's easy, then I'm intrested to know how...

you're roman strat is pretty good, but you wrote it a long time ago, and i've used it on occasion, i used to use them a lot. But my thing with them is that you've gotta be able to defend first, and a warrior army on a hill or moving archers around isn't gonna stop a rusher with half a brain.

Morte, you know I respect you as a player (2kforums I'm Grayson), and I'm not trying to insult you with my questioning. I can pull off and always try to get 10+ cities in the BC with a lot of civs, even more with China, Spain, and the Americans, but the romans don't have many growth bonuses. I'm not seeing where you can get the growth and settlers without relying on a lot of gold, which isn't coming every game. even with the gold, the growth isn't there. You've gotta have your cities to three to pump out the settlers in 5 turns and keep them at 2. You've gotta grow rome back up, you've gotta have some hammers spent on units to explore.

If left alone, I have no doubt you can build mass amounts of cities, but I don't think this can be done to the tune of 15 cities if people are coming for you.

Anarak said:

i'll wait for the strategy then i guess. I just don't see how you can do this with the Romans without getting rushed or without a lot of luck. If you say it's easy, then I'm intrested to know how...

you're roman strat is pretty good, but you wrote it a long time ago, and i've used it on occasion, i used to use them a lot. But my thing with them is that you've gotta be able to defend first, and a warrior army on a hill or moving archers around isn't gonna stop a rusher with half a brain.

Morte, you know I respect you as a player (2kforums I'm Grayson), and I'm not trying to insult you with my questioning. I can pull off and always try to get 10+ cities in the BC with a lot of civs, even more with China, Spain, and the Americans, but the romans don't have many growth bonuses. I'm not seeing where you can get the growth and settlers without relying on a lot of gold, which isn't coming every game. even with the gold, the growth isn't there. You've gotta have your cities to three to pump out the settlers in 5 turns and keep them at 2. You've gotta grow rome back up, you've gotta have some hammers spent on units to explore.

If left alone, I have no doubt you can build mass amounts of cities, but I don't think this can be done to the tune of 15 cities if people are coming for you.

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-You dont have to worry about rushers if you tech Bronze, take chokes and throw most of your cities on islands. Plus youll have half price roads so moving one movement units will be easy.

-But this is why i assumed that having Rome at 3 would be better because your only losing 1 pop so your saving a whole pop of food compared to all other civs.

-Also I might be the only one missing this but how does america spain and chinas ancient attributes overshadow having COL from turn one? Having republic and half price roads means organized massive expansion right??? +1 pop, whales and Half price units(which is in midevil) are great for expanding but doesnt change the fact you lose 2 pop.

My assumption on the America argument, is the half price unit rushing costs (Not ancient). For China, it's a the plus 1 population (CoL is still better, I think) and for Spain I think it's the fact that you could set up a whale city very quickly and uber-spam islands. But, what could be added to this is the fact that CoL comes relatively early, so their bonuses + CoL would be better than just CoL for Rome. But, like Morte said, Rome could easily get many cities before other civs even hit CoL, I know I can get 10+ cities by 1000BC.

MKElderGod said:

-You dont have to worry about rushers if you tech Bronze, take chokes and throw most of your cities on islands. Plus youll have half price roads so moving one movement units will be easy.

-But this is why i assumed that having Rome at 3 would be better because your only losing 1 pop so your saving a whole pop of food compared to all other civs.

-Also I might be the only one missing this but how does america spain and chinas ancient attributes overshadow having COL from turn one? Having republic and half price roads means organized massive expansion right??? +1 pop, whales and Half price units(which is in midevil) are great for expanding but doesnt change the fact you lose 2 pop.

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yeah, but throwing most of your cities on island requires 60 gold, 30 hammers or luck from a barb village. Putting archers in choke points is always a good strategy, but you'll need to be clever about this and probably get a archer army in a true choke point to hold them off.

the thing about the romans is that although you only lose 1 pop per settler, you'll be going down to 1 pop in your cap if you haven't grown to 3. Yes, you can build a settler in any city, but so can the chinese. The americans can rush settlers for 20 gold after 5 techs, so it's a cinch to expand with them. Spain just needs a few whales on islands and they have a lot of settler farms.

I've had some pretty strong games with the Romans, but I think there's a reason why you don't see many people play with them. They are hard to use, so the masses will use easier civs like the Chinese, Zulu and Aztecs. But the Romans require a lot of things to go right to stay viable on the map. I'm not saying expansion is hard with them, I'm saying 15-20 cities in 30 turns is not easily replicated or may not be very possible without leaving yourself open. I have yet to see anyone pull it off, and I have yet to see a strategy or a turn order that would make it be possible.

If someone would like to prove the math, by all means, post it here. Until then, I'm saying it's not true.