A general strategy for Rome [BNW]

It's been a few months since my last comprehensive strategy guide for Civ V BNW, but I haven't stopped writing them. My latest guide is for another legacy vanilla civ: Rome.
Please check it out at:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2015/09/29/Civ-V-Rome-strategy.aspx

I had originally planned this strategy with the assumption that Rome's Glory of Rome ability would buff the yield of internal production trade routes, and so they would serve to benefit strongly from the new trade route mechanics (similar to India). After playing through the first half of a game, I realized that this assumption was false, so instead the strategy makes a point of emphasizing this limitation of the ability. In fact, trade route yield seems to be applied after all other multiplicative modifiers have been applied.

This strategy focuses on how to manage construction in your capital in order to ensure that your other cities can utilize Glory of Rome efficiently. It also covers different ways to use the road-building capabilities of Rome's Legion in both military and non-military applications.

As always, I appreciate any feedback, so please comment, share, or rate the post as you see fit. I also welcome any discussion about the strategy guide or Roman strategies in general in this forum topic.

Additional strategies for the BNW civilizations can be found at:
Assyria the tech thief
Brazil the jungle king
spicy Indonesia
Moroccan gatekeepers
Poland the progressive warhorse
Portual borrows luxuries
Land-snatching Shoshone
Blindly managing Venice
Beware Shaka's loincloth of DOOM!

Additional BNW strategies for updated legacy civs:
French tourist trap
Spreading faith with Arabian Ships of the Desert
India is misunderstood
German engineering
Living by the Japanese sword
All your tiles are belong to U.S.
Ottoman Renaissance war machine


I will also post a similar thread on the official 2k forum in case anyone wants to check the discussion there.

This is more across the board than Rome specific, but personally the only outbound internal routes I've ever used were food routes. (Under the theory that the additional food will allow the city to grow and work more productive tiles)

This approach seems even more suitable for Rome though since hammers from tiles are included in their bonus.

So overall I wouldn't say that Rome got the short end, it's just that you were comparing outbound hammer trade routes when you should have been considering outbound food routes.

Swordsmen comment: Unless playing with strategic balance advanced option, I seem to have very poor luck at actually having Iron near me when I play Rome. (Not even close enough to conquer a civ to get it)

Ballista comment: This unit was actually improved by a late Vanilla patch. Before then, the Catapult & Ballista required Iron.

Honor not needed against poor AI, much greater benefit picking an economic bonus.

You are probably playing on too low a difficulty level if you are seeking Domination victory and have so much time to spare that you can build Statue of Zeus.

Also, instead of sending hammers to the capital in early and mid game, I'd recommend food instead so the capital can grow and work more productive tiles. In addition, Granaries are both much earlier and cheaper than Workhouses.

joncnunn said:

This is more across the board than Rome specific, but personally the only outbound internal routes I've ever used were food routes. (Under the theory that the additional food will allow the city to grow and work more productive tiles)

This approach seems even more suitable for Rome though since hammers from tiles are included in their bonus.

So overall I wouldn't say that Rome got the short end, it's just that you were comparing outbound hammer trade routes when you should have been considering outbound food routes.

Click to expand...

Excellent observation. I did that in the early/mid game to get my cities to grow, but it is such a general strategy that I neglected to mention it in the strategy. I have added a brief paragraph to clarify that food routes should be used to grow your population enough to work productive tiles (and thus, get 25% more production from them).

joncnunn said:

You are probably playing on too low a difficulty level if you are seeking Domination victory and have so much time to spare that you can build Statue of Zeus.

Click to expand...

As I've mentioned before, these strategies aren't intended only for high difficulty levels. They are intended for all players, at all skill levels and game speeds. You could make an argument that I shouldn't promote "bad" habits (such as building unnecessary wonders), and that's certainly valid. I do make a point of stating "could be worth building if you have time to spare". I don't really feel that there's much value in gearing civ-specific strategies towards immortal and diety, since a lot of the unique flavor of the civs tends to get lost in those difficulty levels, and most of the strategies collapse into the same optimal play strategies: adopt tradition, build national college, kill everything. So I guess the target audience for these posts is more the intermediate players. I certainly hope that they contain useful information and tips for high-level players as well, and I try to point out places where changes in strategy might be necessary for high-level and multiplayer play. But sadly, I don't get to play much multiplayer, and I don't play on Immortal or Diety, so I can't really write much specifically for those audiences.

This is one of the reasons that I ask for feedback. I know you Diety players will point out all the places where my strategies are sub-optimal, and I'm always happy to revise the articles accordingly. I wish I had all the time in the world to research the game and become super-pro. Stupid jobs, always getting in the way of important stuff

It is worth noting that when I started writing these strategies, I was playing on Prince difficulty. Now I play on Emperor and ocassionaly Immortal. So writing the guides has certainly improved my play!

Well, I think the difficulty is that Deity players want reasons to appreciate Rome -- but that is so hard to do! The UU and UA are just so weak relative to the limited options one has in a Deity game.

Does the road and fort building ability stay when legionnaire is upgraded to longsword?

When Rome was in the ICL some players made a really interesting use of the UA by going tradition tall. It may be counter intuitive but it works really well, rather than straining your economy by going wide, you go tall and pay less maintenance because of less buildings. Tall cities will outproduce wide cities in every game purely by eventually working more tiles and having a higher base yield to apply modifiers on.

Conquest wise, Ballista is a bit inconvenient in the Liberty/Honor tech path as it comes after CBs which are the go-to unit in early domination. Legions are really good but ineffective in an early rush, however they're silly when fortified on a hill, and can tank ridiculous damage.

The difference between Emperor and Immortal, as well as Immortal and Deity appear subtle but they're MASSIVE so it's really hard to come up with a general strategy

beetle said:

Does the road and fort building ability stay when legionnaire is upgraded to longsword?

Click to expand...

Nope it doesn't.

Rome is a tricky civ to master. The early UUs are average but when used together the synergy is certainly stronger. The ballista at least gets an extra point of defensive strength which does give it a much better rate of survivability against city attacks.

Because the main benefit of your UUs is higher strength the Heroic Epic is certainly a critical piece of infrastructure - arguably more important than Statue of Zeus.
For domination I think opening Liberty, then opening Honor (for barb culture), then taking Republic, settler bonus and then the left side of Honor is the optimum strategy.

You'll get a Great General so with your Heroic Epic your legions and ballista's will get a flat +30% bonus. Later you'll get the promotion bonus poicy which helps keep these units relevant even once they start to obsolete. I think because the Roman UUs have no special promotions Heroic Epic and the promotion bonus policy is pretty important.

Lets Face it - in Immortal or Diety it's not so much whittling down a city that's the challenge it's getting through the AI carpets first. Once you exhaust an AI army it's pretty easy to knock a city out. On these higher difficulties you'll always be fighting with a smaller army - the Roman UUs set you up to have a smaller but better trained army to even the odds. I guess that sort of mirrors history; small legions vs massive barbarian hordes...

Statue of Zeus helps with cities but it doesn't really confer any economic advantage outside of 1 culture point. If a Roman player insists of building an early Wonder a well placed Mausoleum of Harlicanissus or Colossus would be better as your main shortage will be gold. But even then it's a huge opportunity cost - Rome has a hard enough setup just trying to find iron and build a heroic epic then trying to get wonders.

It feels clumsy to play and it does depend a lot on having a production rich start to get an early army out.

For Domination as Rome, I'd go with Full tradition first.

Tradition's happiness bonuses for a conquered empire >>> Liberty's.

Liberty's bonuses are tailored for self founding a lot of cities where you need the faster settler production speed.

The Honor opener if ONLY taken from the barb bonus actually slows down your policies after around the 6th or 7th because every policy increases the price of the next one.