Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

[edboltz]

Something else that might help both with history and to encourage Roman expansion, particularly across the Bosphorus into Asian Minor:

I believe that the Roman Empire "inherited" both Bythnia and Pergamon, culture flipping could accomplish this.

1. Allow a great wonder, sometime between Dictator and Julian & Flavian Dynasties, to be built along the Bosphorus. In Byzantium would be easiest, since it already has a dedicated resource. This wonder is nothing but a culture generator, generating enough to make it very likely that one or two Asian Minor cities will flip. Set it to expire after 50 years or so. Call it "Roma nos vin cere posse" : You the Romans Can Conquer- Strictly the advice that the Delphic Oracle gave to Pyrrhus, but fitting.

2. To increase the likelihood that some of these will flip:
a. Don't give Bythnia or Pergamon palaces. Yes, this would keep them from trading, but since they're really just minor flavor civs in this mod (most of the time one or both get knocked out by Persia, the Antigonids or Pontus rather early), its not a big deal.
b. Don't give them any culture buildings, maybe even give them negative culture and unhappiness buildings.
c. Limit their unit production. The AI, particularly when it only has 2 cities, tends to stockpile in the capital. To protect them from being overrun by Rome or other civs, either lock them into an alliance with Syria or Pontus or give them a couple very strong non-buildable defenders from the begining. I've never seen either of these civs attack anyone, so making theme weaker really won't harm game balance.

d. Ethnicity: Doesn't similar ethnicity (i.e. Japanese and Chinese in Vanilla Civ) increase likeliness of conversion? Do the same with Rome and Bythnia/Pergamon.

By doing this, a couple of Asia Minor cities will flip, expanding the Roman Empire without having to increase the army size and being hisotrically accurate. It will also put Rome and the Asian powers into contension sooner.

[edboltz]

Another Means for encouraging Roman Expansion: Airports

Obviously rename them, but allow the Romans to build Shipping Ports that allow the fast long-distance transport of Troops to other ports. Make them very expensive to maintain, representing the cost of maintaining a transport fleet.

Its not unrealistic to be able to sail between Gades and Tyrus in one year, more realistic than it taking somewhere around 7-10 to march between Gades and Rome.

Also, maybe let those special wonder generated workes (Arx Fabiri or whatever they're called) build Imperial Highways (i.e. rail roads) They're rare and expensive enough that you'll never seen a player carpet the entire empire with them, but would speed expansion.

[gringoesteban]

Originally Posted by edboltz

Another option for minimizing the Germans and Scythians, albeit much slower, is to bombard the tar out of their cities. With no units, few buildings and low population, the AI will trade them (often several) for peace after 10 turns of wars.

Ed, you certainly are ruthless and creative!

And you seem to have it in for those poor Scythians. They must have really upset you in your first game to have you come back at them with such vengeance.

Pink solved the issue of Britania giving away the city of Picti (the city that spawns the Picti Praedator unit in later turns of the game) by moving the British capital to that city. The AI cannot give away its capital for a peace treaty. But we cannot put a "capital" in every German or Scythian city. I think the only closure for this "loophole" would be to make the entire northern section of the map one huge marsh....

[gringoesteban]

Originally Posted by edboltz

Another Means for encouraging Roman Expansion: Airports

Obviously rename them, but allow the Romans to build Shipping Ports that allow the fast long-distance transport of Troops to other ports. Make them very expensive to maintain, representing the cost of maintaining a transport fleet.

Its not unrealistic to be able to sail between Gades and Tyrus in one year, more realistic than it taking somewhere around 7-10 to march between Gades and Rome.

Also, maybe let those special wonder generated workes (Arx Fabiri or whatever they're called) build Imperial Highways (i.e. rail roads) They're rare and expensive enough that you'll never seen a player carpet the entire empire with them, but would speed expansion.

I think you are onto something here. Airports or limited railroads (of course with different names) would help solve my issue of needing more "turns" due to the length of time it takes to move one's military around the map. Like I pointed out in an earlier post, it takes 30+ years to go from Jerusalem to London even if one has built a road network all the way across France. This is not acceptable given that historical accuracy is a goal of many of the people helping to develop and beta test RFRE. Airports and railroads will enable the Player to use components within the Civilization III software package to compensate for the fact that land units move 5 spaces per turn and transport ships only move four. Changing those stats wouldn't work, but with airports and railroads, the Player could expand/defend his Empire much more efficiently.

[edboltz]

Rome inherited Pergamon from Attuls III in 133 B.C.

Rome inherited Bithynia from Nicomedes IV in 74 B.C.

[Taijian]

Several more things that came up as I played some more:
- Shouldn't Ballistae upgrade to Catapult? The way it is now, you can still build Ballistae after Siege Engineering, which does not make much sense, since Catapults are better in every way.
- Why does Rome have so little culture, compared to other civs? I'm in 89 AD and have lots of wonders in Rome but still the German Capital has the most Culture??? Even Gallia has lots more culture than I do. Why? Shouldn't Rome have a lot more culture than the "Barbarians"??

Regarding the "Airports"-Idea: Great! Rome really sorely needs some means of speeding troop transfer. The movement rate of ships and units, as it is now, really slows down the expansion since I regularly have to shift substantial portions of my military from one end of the empire to the other.
Also, in my biq, I gave Rome the industrial trait since Rome needs to build a lot of roads, which takes forever with servi, and the legions are needed to conquer new territories...

[pinktilapia]

@Gringo: 'C3C' back to bloody mode then

@edboltz:
-Core barb. cities now protected by a belt of impassable terrain for wheeled units (using a marsh terrain looking like forests) as you suggested. There is no way I can protect barb. cities from naval bombardement (beside placing a wonder with naval bomb. defence) since you can't place an ocean next to a land tile.
-Alternative history possibilities was indeed suggested in the very posts of the 1st thread for RFRE, nearly one year back. It was hard enough simulating events and thus I never considered that while designing the game (there was a suggestion by Xen for simulating a Rome remaining Pagan and not turning Christian, for example). I am afraid I won't be able to invest much more time in the mod, but I am looking forward for scenarios (which I could enjoy), even alternative history ones! I still have to find the time for playing RFRE beyond the Macedonian Wars!
- These leaders are supposed to upgrade in due time into elite specific units with their name. I modified v0.9 so as the Ai could technically do it, but it seems it still doesn't work all the time.
- I will give some thought on your suggestion for getting Pergamum and Bithynia through culture flip. But being mostly city states (each with another small city), it will be impossible to get the capital!
- Competely agree with your last suggestion for faster strategic redeployement, especially in regard with recent requests for extra truns. It could help and make life easier for me (adding timers is really ahard as the first era is getting full). Railroads or airports (as ports), I have to think about it but I think I will go for the second (road movement is already faster than naval transportation, as pointed by Gringo).

@Taijian: I corrected the ballista which now 'upgrade' to catapults (you can't upgrade them but at least they will be no longer buildable once you reach siege engineering). You have to use legions or engineers to build roads, slaves will not help much you on that, and should be busy mining and farming anyway!

@Asclepius: corrected the dangling gardens

[vbraun]

Started over using 0.9 on the easiest difficulty level. This time I captured Epirus without losing a city. I then went straight for the closest Celts. That lasted 3-4 turns. Now I'm going through Carthrage. Things are going well.

[psychosomatic]

Originally Posted by edboltz

Another Means for encouraging Roman Expansion: Airports

Obviously rename them, but allow the Romans to build Shipping Ports that allow the fast long-distance transport of Troops to other ports. Make them very expensive to maintain, representing the cost of maintaining a transport fleet.

Its not unrealistic to be able to sail between Gades and Tyrus in one year, more realistic than it taking somewhere around 7-10 to march between Gades and Rome.

Also, maybe let those special wonder generated workes (Arx Fabiri or whatever they're called) build Imperial Highways (i.e. rail roads) They're rare and expensive enough that you'll never seen a player carpet the entire empire with them, but would speed expansion.

10/10 for this brilliant one. Both Gaius Marius & Gaius Julius Caesar effected some brilliantly fast marches on roads that they had constructed, against the Germans & Gauls respectively. And fast sea travel, at least in the Kingdom/Republic/Early empire (I haven't really studied any other eras) were known as a high risk, sometime effective method. However, between pirates and weather, it was risky. but the idea I love.

P.S. the roads were built by their own soldiers.

[edboltz]

If Capitals required a resource that the Bithynians and Pergamites lacked, could you initially create their civ with a temporary capital city, then place Pergamon, Rhodes, Nicea, etc. Then destroy the original capital cities and no new Palace will automatically appear.

Alternatively, stick a False Capital for them out on an island in the depths of the Caspian Sea. With the strengthen Scythian cities, no one will ever sail it and discover these place-holder capitals. The distance and lack of connection with the real cities would further increase the likelihood of a culture flip.

[loki1232]

Do you think that you could add in a quick civil war during Marius' reign to simulate the battles of him and Sulla?

The problem with railroads is that they couldn't go obsolete, could they?

Good ideas about airports and culture flopping though.

Is maximus still in this mod? How does he work?

[captain beaver]

good idea eboltz for the railroad and "airport", although instead of building this building, they could be preplaced in key cities to augment their naval importance such as carthago nova, carthago, massilia, tyrus, alexandria, nicaea, gesoriacum, ... and others
by the way, i started a new game on .9, which is going rather well. I only wondered, is Numidia supposed to get overrun easily by Rome? After the second punic war in which I enlisted their help, I turned against them, seeing that they had nothing left. I then thought, arent they supposed to come back during the barbarian invasion to conquer Africa (as the Vandal tribe did)? If not, it would still be good to make them unconquerable, simply to force the player to keep a few legions over there because there is no way the comp will mount an invasion force to there as the barbs have no ships and the Parthians have to build competely a navy since they got no coatal cities.

[captain beaver]

yea I want to see Maximus too!!

[IXIRandyIXI]

Originally Posted by captain beaver

by the way, i started a new game on .9, which is going rather well. I only wondered, is Numidia supposed to get overrun easily by Rome? After the second punic war in which I enlisted their help, I turned against them, seeing that they had nothing left. I then thought, arent they supposed to come back during the barbarian invasion to conquer Africa (as the Vandal tribe did)? If not, it would still be good to make them unconquerable, simply to force the player to keep a few legions over there because there is no way the comp will mount an invasion force to there as the barbs have no ships and the Parthians have to build competely a navy since they got no coatal cities.

Nope. AFAIK, northwestern Africa remained in Roman control until it either broke off or was raided by the Vandals. Pretty sure the Numids didn't come back and take over.


edboltz - Since I apparently forgot to welcome you in my first post towards you, welcome to the RFRE testing team! Glad to see some new, innovative thoughts floating around!

For your idea with the airports, I'm not completely sure if it will work (I too thought about it months back). Since the Capitol improvement (that makes the city your civ's capitol) and -- I think -- one of the more popular barbarian improvements already have the "allow air trade" ability checked, then it may or may not allow these buildings to "airlift" troops around if you make it so troops can be "airlifted" from port to port like with your idea. I'm not really sure if the "airlift" ability is tagged on with the "allow air trade" ability or the "veteran air unit" ability, though. Someone mind testing that?

I really like your idea about the Imperial Roads. Making it so only the Arx Fabri (which can then possibly be named, oh, Imperial Architects or something to that degree?) can build them and making them take a VERY long time to build would both make the Arx Fabri much more useful to the player and would greatly limit the amount of Imperial Roads that would be built throughout the Roman Empire. So then the Imperial Roads would hopefully be used for what they're meant to be used for -- connecting important cities and areas with a very fast route so that the Roman troops can react to invasions very quickly.

[edboltz]

I know that if a City has a Great Wonder that is only allowed under specific governments, that the Wonder will disappear if the city is conquered by a Civ with an inhospitable government.

Will Wonders re-appear if later conquered by a Civ with a hospitable government?

If so, couldn't this be use to mimic the ability in Civ II to trigger events upon the capture of a city?

I could foresee that Triumverate Rome capturing a pirate's city (since Pompey and Julius Caesar both were famed for fighting pirates) in Crete and a wonder that was unavailable to the Pirates (are they a Monarchy?) re-appearing for Triumverate, which generated legions for a while. For a human player, a bunch of legions showing up in Crete would (especially if not disbandable and expensive to maintain) would force the player to transport them out of Crete and use them elsewhere, mostl likely nearby, such as Palestine, Egypt or Asia Minor. The wonder would shut off once the player switches to Principate and the units could be upgraded to Imperial Legion to reduce their cost, but this would again push the player into new regions.

[blitzkrieg80]

Is there any way to make the Limes have the Railroad ability too? The Limes like the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall worked more like a fortified road, like the concept of a Imperial Road/Railroad for quick troops than a fortified "wall" ...

[blitzkrieg80]

If Ballista have Zone of Control and Catapults do NOT, then why do Ballista have to go obsolete? disregarding historical logic, even

[blitzkrieg80]

why does Sea Movement for ships have to be so slow? why not make them quicker to reflect greater realism in movement?

Diff. subj.- on my game of .84 I noticed TONS of pirates battling back and forth from the only Numid city left by Gibraltar all the way to the Black Sea... most were invisible, but there was crazy lag just for their invisible nearby battles... in this case the lag of having so many spawned pirates continuously moving/battling FAR OUTWEIGHED their existence... shouldn't the pirate ships expire by the time we have all the other HN units lagging everything too

[loki1232]

Great ideas edboltz

[gringoesteban]

Yeah, how do I build Maximus? I noticed that the "king" box is checked in the BIQ entry related to that unit. In Civilization, can a Player actually build a "king" during the game, or is that something that cannot be built and that you need to start with?