Civilization Guide: Rome

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This post refers to Gods and Kings, right? There are a few inaccuracies in this article, but the one that I noticed was that in the liberty tree, republic and collective rule have been switched as a balance change in the expansion, so your strategy on liberty needs some revision. Also, make sure to check to see if the combat strength numbers are correct in the expansion, as the swordsman's numbers have been changed, if I recall correctly.

In addition, if this is a Gods and Kings article, what effect does religion have on Rome? Good idea to found a religion or not? That sort of thing, and also, try to be more specific in regards to tech paths, important timings, and so forth, like when should liberty be done, what wonder to use the free GE on, how many cities by a certain turn, when ironworking should be done, what techs to go for first, and so on. Finally, another note, but for REX empires with liberty, one of the wonders I like to go for is Macchu Picchu if possible, since you will have a lot of trade routes.

Other than the required alterations and possible improvements meteo63 suggested... solid article an interesting read. Made me consider some aspects of Rome I've taken for granted.

I agree very nice. One thing to add though, Legions can also build forts. That is something that shouldn't be overlooked.
As far as religion goes: Rome should definitely pick messenger of the gods. Rome was known for it's road network and going wide the extra 2 science per city is very nice especially early.
Obviously as far as traits go happiness ones are probably the way to go.

meteo63 said:

This post refers to Gods and Kings, right? There are a few inaccuracies in this article, but the one that I noticed was that in the liberty tree, republic and collective rule have been switched as a balance change in the expansion, so your strategy on liberty needs some revision. Also, make sure to check to see if the combat strength numbers are correct in the expansion, as the swordsman's numbers have been changed, if I recall correctly.

In addition, if this is a Gods and Kings article, what effect does religion have on Rome? Good idea to found a religion or not? That sort of thing, and also, try to be more specific in regards to tech paths, important timings, and so forth, like when should liberty be done, what wonder to use the free GE on, how many cities by a certain turn, when ironworking should be done, what techs to go for first, and so on. Finally, another note, but for REX empires with liberty, one of the wonders I like to go for is Macchu Picchu if possible, since you will have a lot of trade routes.

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Yeah, it refers to god and kings. But it's sure that combat strength in the article is correct and... actually I forgot about religion. I'll add it in a few days.

HarvesterofSorr said:

I agree very nice. One thing to add though, Legions can also build forts. That is something that shouldn't be overlooked.
As far as religion goes: Rome should definitely pick messenger of the gods. Rome was known for it's road network and going wide the extra 2 science per city is very nice especially early.
Obviously as far as traits go happiness ones are probably the way to go.

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Thanks for the advice about religion. Messenger of gods is a good idea.
But in gods and kings, legions are not able to build forts.

I like it. I think it looks good but it went a bit into too much detail when it comes to historical context of the ballista. I also got thrown off for a second about the 1453 AD part...I always forget about the siege of Constantinople.

But yeah kudos to the guide, hope clears through the discussion board. And also kudos to beating me to the guide since I wanted to do Rome .

Religion would be nice to add, yes, but don't scare people away from Tradition too much. It actually has some strong synergy with Rome. You probably don't want to fill out the whole thing, mostly because the "better" policies are bad for Rome (growth, happiness, and gold for the capital isn't all that interesting...), but there are a couple of real gems there. A wide empire can benefit greatly from units in cities being free. Rome is likely to have a big army, and making many or all of your units free in times of peace can be huge, particularly as Rome will likely want some peaceful eras between warring to build up newly acquired cities.

Second is the free culture building in the first 4 cities. That is a free building in Rome. Free buildings in Rome are always nice. I'd personally use it to get Opera Houses, since, not going for culture, that is generally my last culture building, but it can help a lot early, getting an amphitheater for Rome and a free monument in other early cities.

I just tried Rome with a liberty opener.

Terrible.

+1 culture from the opener is terrible compared to +3 culture from the tradition opener. The +1 culture only works out to be better than tradition when you have 4 cities or more...which is mid-late game when you start conquering.

+1 production...feels like a drop in the bucket. It took too long to get the free settler. Without tradition, and the free monument, it took much longer to get my initial policies.

I lucked out and started in a very good desert area, and ended up with 3 desert cities and conquering a 4th later on. Massive faith from desert folklore. The downside is i now have 6 useless great prophets (didn't go piety this time).

In the classical age i went with honor and took out arabia..but to be honest, honor was pretty much useless except for the +50% exp gain. Melee strength tends to be irrelevant when the game is all about meat shielding while your ranged units do the heavy lifting. Taking out arabia gave me a huge boost because i ended up with 4 more cities in decent locations, which i puppeted.

I'm not sure whether to just annex or puppet them, but i had to annex the coastal city or i couldn't use it to build ships.

With 7 cities at this point, i decided to go get some policies in tradition because -1 happiness per 2 citizens in my capital is huge...my capital had petra, and had easily expanded to size 30. That's a boost of 15 happiness right there. Free opera houses for my first 4 cities and the boost for wonder building was also useful.

Religion wise, i went with ceremonial burial, pagodas, +2 happiness per temples (figuring that if i was going to conquer, i needed as much happiness as i could get) and religious texts. Pagodas did not prove to be very useful when you consider that you can't buy them in puppeted cities.

Edit : Is representation in the liberty tree retroactive, or does it apply to cities you annex (instead of founding with a settler)? E.G. If i have 4 cities and i choose representation, does my culture cost for the next policy decrease?

Yeah I always go for the +3 in capital culture first. But then I go for liberty and work the tradition and liberty trees depending on the situation. The extra culture boost at the beginning helps get those boosters quicker at beginning when you really need them.
But in gods and kings, legions are not able to build forts.
Hmm.. because I've built them with my legions in G+K before.

I like your suggestions on religion though I always go with some different ones
I like Mosques/Cathedrals and always snatch them up if available. For first founder bonus I go with tithes instead for the +1 every 4 believers but +2 for every city makes sense as well I just try to stretch the tall in addition to the wide to the breaking point so I have larger population cities than most ciVers would recommend. You can't take the habits from the old Civ1-4 away that easy.

@HarvesterofSorr:

Yes, a mistake, legions can build forts
And I like your suggestion on policy and I agree that developing population is also important. However, I still like church property better than tithe. Although my first 3-5 cities can definitely reach a population of 8 easily, my average population still can't reach 8 before industrial era because I'm a bit war-mongering. And I sometimes struggle with 'financial crisis' before discovering currency so I like the instant benefit provided by church property. Besides, if the major religion in your city is your state religion, you can enjoy the benefit from church property. But tithe actually require 8 believers, not 8 population, and I seldom get so much believer before industrial era.

I find it a lot harder to get happiness than gold....in my rome game, i'm just entering renaissance but i already have infinite gold.

It is true. But have you used money to buy coliseums and theaters? For me, if I have infinite money, it's impossible to get few happiness.

Couple things.

1. What turn were you on when you had 30 pop? I don't usually have that even by the end of most games. Maybe I don't focus enough on growth. Or have bad locations.
2. What are you doing to get that infinite money? Or is it just the gold you get from all the puppets.

I play on epic research speed with quick build speed, so it will probably be different for you...

But at turn 185 i had a 33 pop capital and +452 gold in golden age. 161 from trade routes, 30 gold from foreign trade routes (mod). 2 puppets giving me 80 gold. This was after i took out Arabia.

Lordleoz: I'm not saying your wrong. I'm probably wrong with the way most veteran CiVer's play. I just like Tithes because you don't have to have the majority in a city for your followers to get the bonus. I play religion quite aggressively so I have a lot of believers. I am also relatively new and playing at the medium diff levels so this may have something to do with it.

I should add that the UA is awesome for having puppets build their buildings, since you cant purchase buildings for them.

I almost always play honor as Rome, its honestly the only civ I even consider taking the honor tree with at deity.

Consider that you can build warriors for 34 hammers, and upgrade them for like 52 gold to a 17 strength legion (if you have honor tree). Add on the 15 percent bonus for adjacent melee units and youre basically looking at legions with the strength of longswords at ironworking. Back them up with powerful ballistas and a few highly upgraded cbs and youve got yourself an unstoppable swarm of next to free very powerful legions running around. Very easy for each city to be producing another one of these guys every other turn. Not even sure if deity civs can match that output... maybe bismark.

Tip though, go down the right hand side of the honor tree first.

Also, playing tradition as Rome... just no. That doesnt make any sense at all.

Priah77 said:

Also, playing tradition as Rome... just no. That doesnt make any sense at all.

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Not even with a widespread puppet empire, using a base 4 city production powerhouse?
I might be off, but whenever I go liberty, I have a lot of very low production cities and 2-3 strong ones.

I mean, I can see why Liberty and/or Honor are potentially better choices depending on your land and whatnot. Also, I find Tradition has significantly better happiness bonuses vs meritocracy.

I'd love to go Tradition/Honor with them and see how that worked.