[BNW] Civilization Guide: Rome (BNW)

Lordleoz submitted a new resource:

Civilization Guide: Rome - Civilization Guide: Rome

Rome​

Augustus Caesar​

Introduction

The Roman Empire was one of the most remarkable and long-lived political entities in the history of Western Civilization. Founded in the Apennines in 753 BC, the city of Rome quickly expanded and came to govern most of Italy. In 509 BC the king...

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This article has been updated for Brave New World.

Comments:

Rationalism drives a Science Victory and has nice policies for a wide tech civ

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Rationalism has nice polices for any civ; not just tall ones. Or was this line left over from G&K when Rationalism also had happiness bonuses for every science building? (That's now been moved to Order)

Goddess of love on the recommended pantheon for anybody??? Maybe if you are really late to a pantheon; but few cities are size 6 around the time pantheons are founded; it's kind of like getting nothing for your pantheon but an extra follower belief based on timing of when cities become that size.

the Great Library can be utilized (usually Emperor and below)

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Does Rome has a bias towards above average hammer starts for the capital? If not; I wouldn't say they can "usually" beat the AI to Great Library at Emperor; it's more like sometimes. Even King needs an above average hammer start to beat the AI to Great Library.

Pyramids: The 2 workers provided shouldn't really be called free when the wonder itself costs more hammers than 2 workers.

Forbidden Palace: The main point of this wonder with BNW is the extra votes in the World Council; it's on the recommended list for those seeking Diplomatic victory.

For games that you found/conquer over 10 cities and are developing them with a large pop, wonders like machu pichu and the forbiden palace are absolutly incredible. They can be the difference between running slightly unhappy and winning the happiness fight for the top order culture policy, or between running broke and swimming in cash. Ive had games where the later was worth somewhere in the range of 30-50 happiness.

Lordleoz said:

[*]Goddess of Love: +1 from cities with 6+ population. It's never bad to have extra happiness and a per city happiness boost early in the game can help offset (when combined with Meritocracy) most of the unhappiness/city expansion costs. Although only your capital is likely to benefit from it immediately, through the process of the game the benefit from this belief will become more significant (Order opener equivalent).[/list]

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As far as i remember from previous testing i believe Goddess of Love provides local happiness not global happiness so does not offset city expansion unhappiness.

Ceremonial burial is the best way to offset city expansion unhappiness although it has been nerfed for BNW so you now need to convert 2 cities for 1 extra global happiness but as it counts for foreign cities also if you push your religion out you can in theory expand while totally off setting the unhappiness from cities themselves.

Ahh, glorious Rome.

A well-written and well laid out guide. There are but a few suggestions made to raise eyebrows if are not flat out incorrect - for instance, suggesting Fertility rites seems like a very odd choice for a decidedly wide civ with smaller, production-focused cities that won't be growing [as] tall and Freedom is perhaps the worst choice of ideology for Rome, who - pun intended - won't be resting on the laurels and will seek to grow to as many cities as possible by peaceful means or otherwise. God of Craftsmen is a better suggestion for a generic pantheon belief as Rome will be all about maximizing , and Rome makes for an excellent Autocracy dictatorship, as well, with the UA being as well suited for Domination as it is. Also, Rome should shy away from Tradition unless the map generator gods are angry and the situation demands it - Liberty or Honor both suit Rome far better, and even Piety is very strong with them. The rest of the strategy provided in this guide is ace - clean and concise.

Strategist83 said:

Ahh, glorious Rome.

A well-written and well laid out guide. There are but a few suggestions made to raise eyebrows if are not flat out incorrect - for instance, suggesting Fertility rites seems like a very odd choice for a decidedly wide civ with smaller, production-focused cities that won't be growing [as] tall and Freedom is perhaps the worst choice of ideology for Rome, who - pun intended - won't be resting on the laurels and will seek to grow to as many cities as possible by peaceful means or otherwise. God of Craftsmen is a better suggestion for a generic pantheon belief as Rome will be all about maximizing , and Rome makes for an excellent Autocracy dictatorship, as well, with the UA being as well suited for Domination as it is. Also, Rome should shy away from Tradition unless the map generator gods are angry and the situation demands it - Liberty or Honor both suit Rome far better, and even Piety is very strong with them. The rest of the strategy provided in this guide is ace - clean and concise.

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+1. Just finished a huge marathon King-level game with Rome. Cultural victory but that was thanks to my war machine which just wiped out any AI who was threatening to get a kind of victory - Brazil was one such culprit...I had to take them out because their cultural push was getting crazy. Then it became my cultural push!

I would definitely argue against the Fertility rights - you have to be very careful letting your cities grow big with Rome as you will probably have a lot of cities and the happiness can become a real problem. So helping your cities to grow faster isn't a particularly great idea if youre going wide - which you will be with Rome. I cant help going wide so Im always aware of this.

Anyway...back to my Egypt game!

Fertility Rites does not seem to be quite useful so I just removed it from the list.

For Goddess of Love, early on it serves to reduce the unhappiness brought by conquered cities. 4 cities with 6+ population should not be hard to get towards the end of, say, Classical Era. Note that only 6 pop is needed, not followers. As the empire expands throughout the game, it is essentially +1 happiness per city later on. Ceremonial Burial is something to think about if one is able to spread religion to more cities.

Thanks for the suggestions!!!

I decided to try your general strategy out.

I just bought Civ 5 so I don't really know what I am doing with most of this stuff. I don't have a firm grasp on how to use specialists, or manage a religion. However, I am having some good success with my army. My opening was pretty basic: I got a second settler with the Liberty policy path and used it to snag some Iron. I had the iron tile worked within two turns of researching Ironworking and managed to upgrade my existing three warriors and rush a legion for a total of four. My nearest neighbour was gone in four more turns and by the time my army reached my second neighbouring city-state I had ballistas backing them up.

Using your legionnaire & ballista advice I created two armies of 3 legionaries and 2 ballistas. My tactic is to use the two outside legions to defend the ballistas with ZoC overlap and the middle forward one to take the city once the ballistas pound it enough.

Getting circuses and colosseums rushed so my puppet cities could build them was very important to deal with all the unhappiness. Despite trying to keep up with trade most of my income is in the form of tribute from the city states I haven't conquered.

My trouble now is that I have expanded until only a few neighbouring cities are left and I don't have anyone close enough to conquer. I don't think settling any new cities is going to do me any good, since I am relying on all my cities staying as puppets.

Edit: I just rushed Machu Pichu with an engineer and went from -5 gpt to +30 gpt.

I just completed an Emperor level, Pangaea, small map game as Rome.

I understand why it is nearly always suggested that Rome go wide with liberty and they are obviously built for conquest with the two UU but I've played nearly 2000 hours of Civ 5 and had one of my most insanely dominate games ever playing Rome with 4-city Tradition and ... peaceful!

With other Civs I almost always try to get the NC just before or after 2nd city but with The Glory of Rome, you can build libraries quickly and I actually had 4 total cities each with libraries just a few turns after finishing Philosophy. I used Legion to build roads so workers could focus on improvements.

As always, the map dictates strategy. I started the game thinking it would be a conquest victory but was now looking at four cities in really good spots for a nice mix of food and production but only one source of 2 Iron. My only two neighbors were Austria to the West separated by a large mountain range and Japan to the South separated by a large area of jungle and hills. So, tall and peaceful seemed logical.

By the end of the game, I was so far ahead I could have easily won any victory I wanted. Three of my trade routes were sending production back to Rome which could build any wonder in under 10 turns. In fact, I didn't even need to use GE because I could build wonders so quickly anyway. I built manufactories instead, further increasing production. I actually was able to build everything I wanted in all my cities to the point I was actually just building science or gold sometimes because there was nothing left to build.

Just for the heck of it I took Autocracy even though I was playing peaceful because I knew I had the game in hand. I was happily surprised by Gunboat Diplomacy which I had never used before. A battleship and a destroyer parked next to a CS and a few turns later you have another ally. If two CS are close together you can influence them both at the same time. Crazy.

Anyway, I know it's not what Rome is built for but any thoughts on 4 city Tradition Rome?

Tradition works for everything and Rome's UA works as long as you have more than one city.

In short, to get the best out of Rome, build as many cities as happiness can take you without hindering growth. The number of cities depends on situation. It can be 4 or it can be 8.

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Vitruvius said:

Tradition works for everything and Rome's UA works as long as you have more than one city.

In short, to get the best out of Rome, build as many cities as happiness can take you without hindering growth. The number of cities depends on situation. It can be 4 or it can be 8.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

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4? 8?

I think I built and took over about 20-30 cities in my last Rome game!

Yes its a constant battle against happiness but its kind of fun in a way!