Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

[pinktilapia]

Version: 1.323
Released: 09-02-05 (v1.323: 21-05-07)
Requirements: Civilization 3: Conquests updated to 1.22, and over 400 MB free disk space

It is the year 275BC, nearly 500 years have passed since Rome was founded by Romulus on the Palatine hill. Over the centuries, Rome has grown and your people have become the dominant power in Italy, defeating the Etruscans in the north, and the Greeks in the south. After nearly a decade of conflict with Tarentum, the last Greek stronghold, your forces are deployed near Beneventum, for once more you will meet Pyrrhus on the battlefield. Surely, one more defeat for the King of Epirus would bring all southern Italy finally under your authority. You would be then left to face the great naval power of Carthage. The momentum towards war with the Phoenicians seems inevitable.

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (RFRE) is a total conversion for Civilization 3 Conquests. The game trusts you with Rome, in 275 BC, at the eve of its glorious conquests of the Mediterranean world. Using the Civilization 3 engine like it has never been done before, the game puts you directly under pressure as timed events slowly work against you and your empire. You will face glorious protagonists like Hannibal, Mithridatus, or Attila and important events such as civil war, imperial glory, internal crisis and barbarian invasions.

The Senate has vested you with the power of Consul, trusting that you can lead the Republic to an even greater fortune. Once having defeated Pyrrhus, you will be plunged in the Punic Wars. These times are critical, and you will have to prove your valour against Carthage’s mercenaries, ships, and most of all, Hannibal. With the help of Scipio Africanus and the reliance of the legions, Rome should triumph, but the Punic Wars will be the first great challenge of any player. Peace shouldn’t settle though, and Rome will soon be looking east, where the divided nations left by the successors of Alexander the Great are incessantly waging war against each other. It will be your duty to restore peace in the shattered yet wealthy Greek and Asian territories.

Alas, the people of Italy have been left neglected, and with only the people of Rome having right to citizenship, you will meet your first civil war. By the same time, surely the pesky Samnites will once more come down their mountains, while a serious threat will arise in the East, where Mithridates will gather a great army and invade Asia. You should once more defeat all odds, grant citizenship to the Italians and crush Pontus and the remaining power at your eastern borders.

By the 1st century BC, the times of the Republic are slowly coming to an end. After Sulla and Pompey, another great leader has emerged: Julius Caesar will be your strongest asset to finally defeat the dreaded Gauls north and west of the Alps. The Gallic War will not be simple, but it will be quick. Shortly after, the first triumvirate will come to end, and Caesar named dictator for life. His assassination and yet another civil war will not change the fact that the Republic, as known for nearly five centuries, is now defunct.

The first 200 years of the Empire will be days of glory and you should meet your peak under the Antonines Emperors. Great names such a Trajan and Marcus Aurelius will be heard through your vast territories. The whole Mediterranean world will be yours and you should even be able to dispute Mesopotamia with the Parthians. Yet, the cold north remains out of reach. With the rise of Commodus, and the trouble following his parochial reign, Rome’s rise will come to an end. The crisis of the 3rd century will be both an internal and external one. While your economy and stability will break down, the first serious barbarian invasions will also take place. Yet, you surely should survive the crisis for Rome is still strong, and the Empire will go forth with other grand names such as Diocletian, Constantine or Theodose.

But even for the strongest, an end must come and by the 5th century AC, swarms of invaders and a disastrous internal situation will cause an acceleration in the decline. The Empire will be divided into West and East. It is unlikely the city of Rome will be able to maintain its far ranging possessions and Germanic tribes will soon overrun Gaul and the Danube. Rome eventually might even fall. In the East, where riches are still amassed and corruption kept at bay, you might have a chance to save the Empire. Great leaders such as Justinian, Belisarus, and Heraclius are still to come. Will you be able to bring Constantinople into the dark ages as a great power, or will Roman history end in rust and blood before the name of Mahomet even awakes the great deserts of Arabia?

Current Version:

The modpack is finally to be considered as complete after an huge number of patches and long testing. Such an undertaking would not have been possible without the commitment and motivation of the CFC community and more specifically of those listed in the credits below. What we have now is a fully playable version with all desired features implemented, which are bug-free (besides unresolvable Civ bugs). Although it is no longer a work-in-progress, do report problems, features not working as they should be, game-balance issues, or just comments on the thread. Another art update is not out of question in the future.

Scenarii:

Currently available (within the main download):

- RFRE Campaign, Great Campaign, starting 275BC (easy settings)
- RFRE Campaign, Great Campaign, starting 275BC (hard settings)
- RFRE Campaign, The Fall of the Republic, starting 100BC (by blitzkrieg80)
- RFRE Campaign, Fall of the Empire, starting 325AD (by Captain Beaver)

All other scenarii included are remains of old versions of the mod - you should not use them - you can safely delete these!

Guidebook and Tutorials

A guidebook for the mod was attempted (but never completed), you can consult it there.
A few "tutorials", games played and commented by experienced players, are also available; a great read for those with difficulties early in game:
- Stazro's Roma Victrix , nicely illustrated
- Christophoros' Vae Victis
- mscaevola's complete campaign in just two posts

Installation instructions:

1. Ensure you have Civilization 3 and its extension Conquests installed and patched to its latest version (v1.22);
2. Download RFRE's self-extracting archive and updates using the links below;
3. Open the installer and unzip the Modpack in ...\Civilization3\Conquests\Scenarios;
4. Unzip the updates sequentially (1.20 first, then 1.323) in the same folder, accepting overwritting;
5. Play the game, and have fun!

Links:

Modpack (beta version) removed after 2,401 downloads
Download v1.0 162MB
Update to version 1.20 77MB
Update version 1.20 to version 1.323 8MB RE-RELEASE of 1.320-1.322 - minor fixes

Note: To extract the update and patches (.rar/.zip format), you will need Win-Rar or 7-Zip. Both are free!

For those having non-English Civilization 3:

To have the mod working on your regional version, visit these threads:
German Civ
French Civ
Spanish Civ

And for those of you who have a Mac, visit Blue Monkey's thread on Mac Mod Installation Solutions

Credits:

Original idea and Design: pinktilapia
Lead Patcher (1.23 onward): blitzkrieg80
Leaderhead Graphics: VisualParadox, R8XFT, Piernik, gael
Unit Graphics: VisualParadox, Kinboat, BeBro, Aaglo, embryodead, Dom Pedro II, utahjazz7, Jobiwan7 (multiunits), Orthanc, zulu9812, R8XFT, and Gaias
City Graphics : LBPB, Red Alert
Terrain Graphics: Sn00py
Misc. Art: VisualParadox, pinktilapia, embryodead, frenchman, Pounder, Traianus, the Monarch
Logo design: LionQ
Alpha-testing: King Coltrane
Beta-testing: IXIRandyIXI, King Coltrane, Blitzkrieg80, gringoesteban, mungman, Ciceronian, Jobiwan7, loki1232, Asclepius, Gunner, Gaias, Captain Beaver, Traianus
Original map: Thamis
Latin translations: onedreamer, Ciceronian, Metacomet, Aion, pinktilapia
English edition: Asclepius, Gringoesteban, Nick Ashton, Keroro
Civilopedia: adapted or abridged by pinktilapia from Wikipedia
Hosting: Thunderfall, CFC, 3DDownloads, and now Atomic Gamer

Acknowledgments to all who have contributed to the mod, by their ideas or their talent, especially the CFC community and the CFC Forums. If you have been forgotten in the credit list (and it is likely many are, sorry for that), mail me, you will be added ASAP.

Screenshots


Germanic invasion, during the crisis of the 3rd century (courtesy Gaias)


Everything is lost for the Phoenicians (courtesy Gunner)


Carthage has fallen, Rome is going east (courtesy Gunner)


The great invasions have started: hunnic and germanic tribes are flooding the limes (courtesy Gringoesteban)

[jobiwan7]

Yes!!! I'm downloading immediately!

[Grohan]

Sounds really good!
Downloading...

[IXIRandyIXI]

Looks interesting! Can you please provide a .sav from the very start, since it seems to take a while to load the Scenario up?

[Ciceronian]

Yes! Beta finally available for download! Won't be able to play it for a week or so since I really want to submit the current GotM (I need to hurry, I haven't started yet!) After that, I will eagerly be beta-testing. Thankyou pink for all the effort you invested!

[IXIRandyIXI]

Been a pretty good game so far. Some problems I've run in to, tho:

- Romans don't have any Fine Timber at the start. In fact, the only Fine Timber resources that are visible from the start are all the way over by Thessalonica, on Crete, and by Carthage. The reason this is significant is because the Small wonder Imperium Scipionus requires that as one of the resources, and that wonder goes obsolete with a technology that can be researched pretty early (from the start, actually). Is this intended so that it can only be built after Carthago has been captured? If so, I'm not so sure about that! I'm a fairly decent player and I was barely able to hang on to Sicily and Sardinia during the first Punic War.

- the starting Republic's war weariness seems a bit high. It's near impossible to carry on a war for even close to as long as the real First Punic War lasted; I'd say about 75% of my population was unhappy because of the war by 240 BC.

- because of Carthage's large amount of wealth and power in the early part of the game, if you go to war with it (which, unless you're a wuss you will), you'll soon find yourself at war with pretty much all known civilization through military alliances and MPPs. Maybe move military alliances and MPPs to a later tech or something? It's hard enough fighting Carthage and their amphibious Mercenariis; fighting off the rest of the world's armies at the same time is near impossible!

Otherwise, excellent work (so far ). I like all the new concepts you implemented in this scenario!

[Rob (R8XFT)]

IT'S HERE!!!!

Sorry about that outburst - it's simply that I've been dying for this mod to come out. Downloading now and can't wait to play it !!

[Abaddon]

wootywootwoot! d/ling

[ThomAnder]

What difficulty level is this reccommended for? i thought the date of the end to a tech era may depend on the difficulty level

[IXIRandyIXI]

You have to play on Monarchy difficulty level. You don't have any other choices.

[King Coltrane]

downloading now pink. im so happy its here!
i will continue to faithfully test every aspect of this game and see how accurate we can make it. sorry i have been away for a while (as usual lol) but my computer was trashed so i had to reformat it and that took FAR too long. anyway, im back AGAIN lol.

[pinktilapia]

Thanks all for your encouragements and glad to see the pack went online without getting corrupted I won't be able to systematically follow-up the thread this month, for work reasons, so King Coltrane and others, please feel free to animate/help

As a general remark, nearly nothing has been left to hazard. Fine timber and wheat are necessary for getting Scipio? Yes, you will need to get Sicilia and Illyria quick enough. The tech that make Scipio obsolete is not to be *historically* researched at start, although if you want to rush to Marius' Reform rather than getting the early game bonus (Imperium Scipio and Mare Nostrum), it is up to you! War weariness is high, yes; you shouldn't stay at war for 30 years consecutively! Make a peace, build some granary so that you get more manpower for your legions, and get back to it. There is no rush needed (not just yet). Later governments are more warlike, but the Republic wasn't waging war aggressively, it was defending itself most of the time! You vs. the world is a known issue, but it is very easy to avoid. Just be sure you get into some alliance at start (you are generally proposed to join one if you don't form one by yourself). You also don't need to show yourself to the world as the badboy so early on (it will come in due time) - Carthage will attack you soon enough Use the first turns of peace to organize the Republic to your taste and likely move some legions to the south.

[IXIRandyIXI]

You're right. I was predispoed to conquering the whole world in the first 100 years. I think I'll restart and maybe be nice this time around! Thanks for the tips, and the awesome scenario! I love it.

[V. Soma]

I hav not yet downloaded this, but surely will...

Is it really so that Carthage's mercenariis are AMPHIBIOUS in this mod?
Wonderful!
In my mod-version (Rhye's for standard map - CLASHING OF EMPIRES)
I independently got to the same conclusion,
mercenariis should be able to attack from ships!

[pinktilapia]

Yes they are . And incredibly good at it! Carthage continuously lands mercenaries (usually by pack of four) in Sicily. Potentially, they can take any coastal city lightly defended before you realize it. Another good reason to dominate the sea!

[pinktilapia]

Some screenshots (taken from the website)

[King Coltrane]

very nice my friend

I havent gotten to play yet, i need to get a new original civ 3 to reinstall it is seems. but anyway, based on the screenies i like that you gave some civ's more starting units. tres bien! ill give you a REAL, useful reply as soon as i have my old vanilla civ3 back from my friend.

[bombshoo]

Looks Awesome! I can't wait to play!

[viper275]

Wow! Looks very cool, downloading now...

[IXIRandyIXI]

Well, I just won a game at 62 AD.

- Either the VPL value needs to be lowered or the required VP to win needs to be raised (IMO), since I won the game when I was barely in the second era.

- It's pretty hard to keep up with the "plan" for Rome's expansion in this scenario due to low production and, more importantly, low military unit support, esp. early on. Maybe checking on Accelerated Production, or just lowering the costs (esp. of some high-cost buildings) of buildings and units would be nice so that you can at least try and keep up with the "real" Rome.

- Carthage's mainland in Africa is pretty much impossible to invade. I dropped off an invasion force of 8 "Legio Consularis" and some Ballista some time in the double digit B.C., and they were all butchered by the next turn.

- I entered the 2nd Age at 31 AD. Pretty sure that's off. I researched ALL the techs I could before advancing.

In all, I just think a general increase in production or lowering the costs of some things and possibly allowing Rome to support more military units would correct the problems I ran in to. I probably could've advanced to the next age a little quicker if I could have a large enough army (even of just auxiliary units) to actually conquer enemies on 2 or more fronts.


Hopefully this info. will be more useful this time.