still a newbie but here is an early war strat for romans

[Cyclonis]

first off I want to admit that I am still a civ4 newbie, and have only played through about 40 AI games so far on noble setting.
I was an avid civ2 player though for some years, I was better in that one

nevertheless, maybe some other newbies like this strategy for the romans:

i tried this strat on a small, standard and large map, on noble setting, with domination and conquest victory conditions, all other things on normal. about 5- 7 other civ players and barbarians.
I choose Romans as my civ

I make use of the unbalanced roman pretorians early in the game. these units are soooo strong compared to what most other civs can put on the board untill they have macemen, that it is very easy to clear out your whole continent with them.

I put my city on the first move. I train warriors for exploring untill my city is about size 3. then I train 2 settlers. in the meantime I am researching bronze working and ironworking so I can see where the closest Iron mine is. I then move my settlers in that direction. with my main capital I then build a worker so I can build the roads and the iron mine. I also research either writing or the research that allows you to build obelisk, for some larger borders in the new cities.

the moment I have the iron mine, start building several pretorians to defend your cities and mine from barbarians. barbarians are no match fora fortified pretorian.
I usually expand to about 6 cities, preferably with barracks and some cultural building. at that point I put all my cities on building pretorians. I don't build any wonders usually, only some workers ocassionally after I have built around 10-15 pretorians. I give all my pretorians either the 20% city attack upgrade, or the 10% strength upgrade
the workers that I do build I usually put on auto mode. I put all my cities on research focus combined with production focus.
your economy will collapse as you progress and your science will often have to go down to only 30-50%. all the great scientists I get I make them build academies. by the time I conquered the continent, however, I will usually not be very far behind the other players on science. and as soon as I build up the continent for myself, I will quickly gain on science compared to all the other civs

if you have done this all fast enough, there is a good chance your enemies on your continent have nothing but archers, pikemen, axemen, chariots, and sometimes swordsman. if they have swordsmen it becomes slightly more difficult but it is still doable as long as you make sure you produce a lot of pretorians.

as soon as I go to the offense I may consider building some forges here and there, but the main focus remains on pretorians.

the cities you attack you can defend with the 10% upgraded pretorians. the other ones will gain experience and you can give them an extra city raider upgrade and let them recover in the city you just captured.


keep on doing this and if you manage to produce more pretorians than you lose, you will be succesful. I succeed about 80% of the time. the only times I fail is when an iron mine is far away, or when I make the mistake of building wonders early on.

the disadvantage is that you don't get any early wonders, and that because of the focus on iron and the metal casting researches, by the time you have conquered your continent, you may still not have any boats to transport your pretorians to other continents, and by the time you finally achieve this, the other civs will have macemen.

nevertheless, having an entire continent for yourself will prove VERY helpful later in the game as far as income, research and resources are concerned. you will most definitely have several sources of oil, uranium, aluminium, coal.
although I never get any early wonders, I always get almost ALL the new age wonders such as hollywood, rock&roll etc.
I also manage to get to have tanks earlier than all the other civs and then it is time to start conquering all the other continents, before it is too late.


I hope other people will find this strat useful as well

[Cam_H]

Cyclonis,

Welcome to CivFanatics and thanks for your strategy.

I guess I might add to that the following observations;

• I would be inclined to play with all victory conditions enabled. Generally the AI finds its most frequent success with Space race wins, and by denying them this arguably 'stacks the cards' somewhat in the human player's favour.

• I would not, ever, recommend automating your Workers.

• You should consider cheaper units to defend cities such as Archers, Spearmen, or Axemen, while Praetorians do the bulk of the pre-Catapult city taking (generally).

• After Iron Working, the player should be mindful to prioritise by research or trade Currency and Code of Laws to assist with the financial predicament of the empire. Currency (extra trade route, markets, trade for gold) and Code of Laws (courthouses > Forbidden Palace, caste system {can employ Specialist Merchants for gold, Specialist Artists for border pop}) will push open the door for larger empires.
  
  A common trap for 'new Romans' is to hold every city that is captured - empire maintenance will become oppressive unless some very smart micromanagement is undertaken. Razing cities should be part of the invasion plan while on the path to Currency and Code of Laws.

• Consider including a few units with Medic promotions. Some players with Warlords use their first Great General(s) as super-Medics.

• If playing on Continents, invading across the sea is not possible until Galleons are constructed, where more advanced units and mixed stacks may be preferential to still relying on the Classical Era's Praetorian.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

[KROL]

I think 40 games would make you an intermediate player. 60 more and you should technically be an expert.

[CivCorpse]

Originally Posted by KROL

I think 40 games would make you an intermediate player. 60 more and you should technically be an expert.

40 games makes you a heavy social civver, 60 games makes you an addict

[popejubal]

Originally Posted by Cam_H

• I would not, ever, recommend automating your Workers.

• You should consider cheaper units to defend cities such as Archers, Spearmen, or Axemen, while Praetorians do the bulk of the pre-Catapult city taking (generally).

I would strongly recommend automating your workers when you have nothing better for them to do and really don't feel like actually controlling them.

Any time that you're annoyed at having to control your workers, you aren't having fun playing the game. If you're enjoying what you're doing, then certainly keep doing it. You won't do quite as well in your game if you automate your workers (although I do automate a couple of workers later in the game to develop and hook up a resource or two that I just happen to have missed and not seen before because I went temporarily blind when planting my cities), but you'll enjoy your game more.

[Dubai Vol]

Gosh, I've had CIV for three onths now and just on my third game! Guess that makes me a super-newbie! I'm so green I ended up with Romans by accident for my third game...sure beats the Celts I chose for my second gamem (tho the no anarchy for civ changes is useful.) Praetorians just beg you to be an early warmonger. Also learned a bit of history by reading the thumbnail bio of Augustus.

FTR I started playing Civ in 1992, loved it, loved civ2, didn't care much for civ3, and am just thrilled with CIV. And now I have an empire to run, so if you'll excuse me....

[HungryMouse]

Isn't axeman a bigger threat to praets than swordsman? What about fortified axeman in the city with let's say 40% culture and axeman's 50% vs melee units? I think in that case you need more than 1 praet per axeman?

[cabert]

Originally Posted by HungryMouse

Isn't axeman a bigger threat to praets than swordsman? What about fortified axeman in the city with let's say 40% culture and axeman's 50% vs melee units? I think in that case you need more than 1 praet per axeman?

you need a CR3 praetorian, then

[aelf]

Originally Posted by KROL

I think 40 games would make you an intermediate player. 60 more and you should technically be an expert.

It's all about how you play your games and setting goals for yourself. I was playing on Demigod in Civ3, so I wanted to advance as quickly as possible when I started playing Civ4. I'm sure by the time I've played 40 games, I was close to mastering Emperor.