The Empire (lots of pictures, NOT modem friendly)

Game settings:

• Civilization 3 vanilla v 1.29f
• Rome
• Continents
• 60% water
• Temperate
• 5 billion years
• Huge sized world
• 7 civilizations

How I am intent to play this game:

• I will try to play this game as an "honorouble" emperor.
• I will help the smaller civilizations by providing financial support and if necaserry military support.
• I will not declare war for territory, luxuries, recourses or any other "immoral" reasons.
• But I will declare war on aggressive states if they attack smaller country's!

I read alot of the other stories in this forum, and got alot of inspiration from them. One of them is the celtic peacekeepers thread. So don't be surprised if you see similarities with some other threads. I tryed to be as original as possible .

Becouse I have taken a large amount of pictures this may not be a friendly topic for people on a modem, but I resised all the pictures to a tolerable 50 kb, and if you click on a picture you will see the fullsize one. Ain't that a nice feature .



In the year 4000 BC (We had a fealing that the "messiah" would be born 4000 years later ) our civilization, the great Romans, decided that we would give up our nomadic way of life and would settle down. We swore a holy outh that we would defend and help the weak of the world and protect them from the agression of larger nations. We will be the peacekeepers of the world.

Our settler found a good spot and we build our first city: Rome.


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Some of the citizens of Rome enlisted in the military forming the first Roman warrior devision. While others were working hard to equipt a new settler, the warrior devision was exploring the surrounding looking for a good spot for the next city. When the settler was equiped he went out to a good spot to settle. The city of Veii was founded 3200 BC.


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The Empire continued to produce settlers, becouse to form a strong and powerfull Empire we would need to have a large number of cities. So we sended out 2 more settlers, and they founded the cities of Antium and Cumae (Which perverted official came up with that?)


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While we settled the nearby land our warrior devision was still exploring our further surroundings. Soon it became clear that we were on a very large island, our military advisors informed us that this was a good thing becouse an invasion is a lot harder if all the troops should be brought in by ship, but it also had a drawback. We also would have trouble keeping the peace if we can't reach the other nations that easily.

But on the southern tip of our island our warrior devision could see land in the distance.


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We continued to settle the land around us, but unfortunately not all the land was of the good quality around Rome itself.


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Also at that time we enlisted more citizens in our warrior devisions, becouse reports had gotten in that there were aggressive barbarian tribes hiding in the mountains. They had already attacked some of our cities but they were well defended, annihilating the barbarians. But our settlers were under constant attack from them, doing severe damage to our expansion. The Empire decided to send out a few warrior devisions to wipe out the barbarians. They were very succesfull.


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A little while later The Empire build its first navy vessel to explore further, we loaded our 2 bravest warrior devisions in and set sail into the unknown....


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5 Minutes later we arrived at a new land. Our warriors disembarged and started exploring the surrounding country side. This was a strange land for them, this land was almost entirely covered by jungle. Very different from the home land. Then one of our devisions spotted a foreign warrior devision, we decided to make contact.


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We made contact with these people called "the Iroquois", they were a friendly nation and we traded our world maps. They also gave us contact to the russians, also a very friendly people. The 3 of us traded technology and maps, giving us a better understanding of the world. Here is our map at that time:



We saw that they had more cities, but it seemed that they were underdeveloped, non the less we decided to crank up our expansion to get our island under our complete control. In the meantime our galley did more exploring which lead to the discovery of a new civilization, the Japanese.


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We traded maps with them, it turned out that the Japanese did not know any other civilazations other then themselves. So we brought them into contact with the Iroquois and the Russians. Our map of the world expanded once more.



At that time we almost had our island under our complete control, but there was still a mountanous area in the south with ALOT of barbarian activity. There came almost a non stop horde of barbarians from that region to raid and plunder our cities. The Empire decided to put a hold to this and send in the famous Roman legionaires.


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After we had eliminated the barbarians, the area was clear for settling, but other nations also came to that conclusion. The Japanese were the first to land on our island.


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Also the Russians and the Iroquios didn't let this oppurtinity go, in the end there were a number of foreign settlements on the edge of our island. But according to our cultural advisor we didn't have to worry about this becouse the citizens of those cities would probably join our Empire soon.


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The concept of foreigners on our island worried us, but our holy outh prevented us from taking there cities by force, we would have to be patient untill they voluntarely joined us. In the meantime we sended out our navy to discover more foreign lands. But our small boats were no match for the oceans, we send out quitte a few but none ever returned. But we did get a glimpse of a foreign land!


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We decided that we would stop our exploration untill we would have better technology that would allow us to cross the oceans. In the meantime we would improve our foreign relations by trade. We traded with everyone and got quitte a few good deals out of it. All 4 nations were getting along fine for the moment.


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In the meantime some of the foreign cities on our island joined The Roman Empire.


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And then without a warning Japan declared war on the Iroquois! It seemed a foolish decision of the Japanese becouse the Iroquois were alot bigger and powerfull then the Japanese. Our government thought that the Japanese were so desperate for expansion (they were confined to a small island) that they decided to gain territory through war.


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The Japanese had a small colony on the island of the Iroquios, offcourse it stould no change to the Iroquois army who were on there home island enjoying fast reinforcements, while the Japanese had only a small garrison of defenders. Some of our warrior devisions were in the area to see the battle progress. Some of our government said we should form a line around that city preventing it being captured by the Iroquois. But there were not enough soldiers in that area to prevent it. And the Japanese were the agressors in this war. It was decided that we would allow the Iroquois to capture that city.


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There was also troop movement of the 2 enemy's on our OWN island! But the Japanese had the upperhand here since they had 3 colony's and the Iroquois only 1. Our troops saw the Japanese and the Iroquois engaging in combat, then they saw the japanese advancing to the Iroquois city of "Ganogeh". Our military would set up a defensive perimiter around the city to save it from the Japanese.


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Our action was a succes, we saved the city. And we didn't declare war on anyone. A little while later the Iroquois and the Japanese signed a peace treaty.



Peace returned to our corner of the world, in the end the Japanese only lost one city, which was on the Iroquois island, which was a good punishment for the war they started.

In the meantime we aquired technology that allowed us to explore the oceans. Our ships set sail over the path were years before our fleets sunk. When we crossed the ocean we met a new nation called the "Babelonians".


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We traded some technology and maps, and communications offcourse. We then had contact with a whole other continent: The Zulu, the Babalonians, the Aztects and the Germans. We now had a map that showed all the nations in the world.


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It turned out that Germany was a very small nation which had already lost 3 of its cities to the Aztects (the most powerfull nation on the world), and at this time they were at war with the Babelonians. Our intelligence said that the Germans were barely holding on to there few cities.


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It was clear that this small nation could not survive much longer on a continent that was populated by warmongers. The Roman Empire decided to send out peacekeepers who whould help the Germans by setting up a blocade at there borders keeping the Babelonians out. But The Empire had a hard time mobilizing a transportation fleet and the required army. And it would take a very long time before the first troops would arrive in Germany. Non the less the first peacekeeper forces were send on there way.


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During the time that the peacekeepers were on there way to Germany our military studied how the world power structure was, and it showed that The Empire was not as strong as some others. And the Aztects were VERY powerfull. We would need to send a HUGE amount of troops to the other continent to prevent that the Aztecs would conquer it!


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After a long time at sea our first shipment of troops arrived in Germany. But this was only a small number of soldiers. Which stood no chance against a full scale assault. But we were not here to wage an offensive war, we would built up a defence line which would hold out the Babelonians.


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But as we were just setting up our line of defence we spotted a large Babelonian army just before Berlin, the German capitol. A force that size could take Berlin.


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The only alternative to declaring war on the Babelonians was to see Berlin fall into there hands. Though we had a very small force in Germany at that moment, we decided that we would sign a military alliance with Germany against Babelon. We struck with our army against the Babelonian army killing 2 of there devisions, while we lost 1 devision and another badly damaged. But with the help of the Germans we prevented the fall of Berlin.


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At the same time some more peacekeeping forces arrived at the German beaches to protect it, back at home the mobilization had begun to gain momentum. Also larger ships with more transport capicity were used to transport the troops. As you can see it was real busy in the Roman waters.


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While more of our forces were landing in Germany we got a call from the Aztecs (the most powerfull nation). They threatend us to give them incense.


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Our mighty Empire would not be bullied around and replied with "go fish", the Aztecs did not have the guts to declare war on us. So we decided to threaten them a bit, and return the German cities to us so we could return them to their rightfull owners, the Germans. As suspected they did not do so and we had to declare war on them.


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We did not get the Germans involved in our war with the Aztects, becouse our action might backfire and destroy the Germans. While more and more of our troops were landing the more were annihilated by the Aztects. The war was not going good. It was trench warfare, for a long time we didn't gain any ground. But soon more reinforcements kept arriving and we were able to advance in Aztec territory.


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Soon we captured the Aztec controlled German city of "Leipzig", this was a great victory for the Empire, and a welcome healing point for our troops.


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But the fighting was still going hard, and many Imperial forces died in this war. And instead of the Aztec attack waves losing force, they were becoming bigger and bigger. Also less and less reinforcements were landing on the German beaches.


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How will this end, will the Roman peacekeepers be able to reconquer the German cities? Or will the Roman peacekeepers be kicked out by the Aztecs? And the Babelonians and Germans are still at war with eachother, and Babelon is gaining the upper hand again.

The follow up will be posted sunday, if you have advice on how to deal with the current situation on the new continent than please post your suggestion. I can use it .

Wow. Looks like you caught yourself in a pickle

You're declaring war on a civ so you can give your captured cities away? I don't even think daftpanzer and the celtic peacekeepers did that!

But, great story! Keep it up.

MSTK said:

Wow. Looks like you caught yourself in a pickle

You're declaring war on a civ so you can give your captured cities away? I don't even think daftpanzer and the celtic peacekeepers did that!

But, great story! Keep it up.

Click to expand...

Good story. I wonder if Peacekeeping will become a new way of playing?
Roman peackeeprs

MSTK said:

Wow. Looks like you caught yourself in a pickle

You're declaring war on a civ so you can give your captured cities away? I don't even think daftpanzer and the celtic peacekeepers did that!

But, great story! Keep it up.

Click to expand...

Actaully, daftpanzer had the exact same scenario, where he recaptured the German cities and then gave them back to the Germans.

Yeah, I did not intent to be like this but you can't tell the computer what to do , but there will be some interesting things happening soon. I want to attack the Aztec empire and devide it among The Roman Empire (me), the Japanese and the Russians. Leaving a small piece to the Aztects itself. That will neutralize the threat they pose to world peace.

wow, I enjoyed this.
it was cool, and I admire your peace keeping methods.
nice story overall though.

also, when you save screenshots, do you simply press the "prt scr" button, then open up paint at that time, or when you press that button, it saves automatically?

PRT SCR copies your screen to the clipboard.

Yes. When I press "print screen" it saves it to the clipboard, then I simply access "Photoshop", past it into there (ctrl+v). And then I save the image in the normal size (1024 x 768 pixels) and then I reduce the size to 50% to get a smaller image and save that aswell.

So I get 2 versions of every image one full size, and another smaller one which I use as a "preview" picture. If I would directly post the fullsize images it would take 4 times as long to load.

While our peacekeeper forces were engaged in heavy combat on the other continent, the Aztects launced a surprise invasion on our island. In the entire history of the Roman Empire this had never happend, and it was a big shock to the people.


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But a quick counterattack from our cavalry foiled the Aztec invasion plans.


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After fending off the small invasion attempt, our armies captured the other 2 German cities which were under Aztec control. But the Aztec armies still kept on coming, it was clear that they used the Babelonian roads as a supply route!


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Bombardement ships had been dispatched to the Aztec cousts to inflict damage to its infrastructure and there economy.


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The Aztecst had now started a full scale assault to take back the cities, the closest city to the Aztecs "Munich" was defended by a large number of Roman peacekeepers. But the Aztects didn't even care about the lives of there own troop and sended in wave after wave of there troops. At first the peacekeepers hold them off. One soldier wrote in his diary:

"I can't believe the courage of the Aztec soldiers, its almost if they don't care about there own live, almost if they only exist to serve there country. We can hold them off for now, I myself lost count of how many I have killed. This isn't a war, this is murder...."

But soon the peacekeepers were over run and the city was lost. None of the defending peacekeepers survived....


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Things looked very dark at that moment, the Aztects had took back Munich and were on there way to the other city's, but at that moment the Germans and the Babelonians signed a peace treaty!


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This was our change to also sign peace with the Aztecs, and bring peace to the region after years of war! We contacted the Aztecs and started negotiating. The Aztecs seemed as tired of the war as ourselves, they had lost many of there soldiers in taking back the city "Munich". A peace treaty was signed


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Peace has finally settled over the region. The results of this multi-national war? The Germans gained 2 cities they had earlier lost to the Aztects, and lost one city to the Babelonians. The Babelonians captured one German city after many years of war. The Roman Empire was not there to capture cities, territory or resources, they were there to defend the Germans and recapture there cities for them. This was partly accomplished, the had recaptured and returned 2 out of the 3 cities from the Aztecs. But the Roman Empire had lost a large amount of troops and gold. But the big losers were the Aztecs who lost 2 cities and a HUGE amount of troops. Here is a map that was made shortly after the peace treaty's were signed.


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I also have made a map of the entire world from zoomed out perspective. I did this by making around 20 seperate screenshots and pasting them together to make one big map. Here is a small picture first:



And click here for the full size one, but be warned it is 850 KB big, so it might take a while to load!

Next on the agenda for the Roman peacekeepers is to "neutralize" the Aztec threat. They see them as a threat to the continent and perhaps even the world. The Aztec empire need to be cut and devided between the smaller nations, and leave a small Aztec territory behind.

So be sure to tune in for the next episode .

PS: I love comments on my story, good or bad. (But preferebely good )

Hey! The Panorama method!

I did that with my story

I thought I was the first one

Actually your story inspired me in using the panorama method, its quitte a bit of work to make the actual image. Its just like a jigsaw puzzle . But I made the above one in about 30 minutes.

A little preview for the next episode.

The war over the German cities is over and all seems very good. But not for long....

There will be a large war involving the 2 continents, and the Roman Empire itself will be invaded, it will also lose some of its city's to its enemies. This large war will escelate even further, leaving no nation on earth neutral. Many cities will trade ownership and the maps of the second continent will be redrawn.

All in all, it will be an exciting read completly focused on war!

Part 4 will arrive in 24 hours.

Keep it comming. I'm looking forward to Part 4

Good stuff.

Part 4! Where are you!?

The war on the other continent was over, all party's had signed a peace treaty, and the region could begin rebuilding itself. Especially the Germans had alot of rebuilding to do.

But while the Roman citizens in the motherland were celibrating the peace. the Iroquois declared war on the Roman Empire! This was an outraguous action by the Iroquois, after all we had done for them. All the trading we did with them. It was clear that the Iroquois were after territory.


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While we had some minor skirmishes with the Iroquois it turned out that they had a mutual protection act with the Russians! And they were forced to enter the war also!


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Both the Iroquois and the Russians were a little less powerfull then the Roman Empire, but combined they were alot more powerfull! Together they could destroy the Roman Empire! The government decided that we would need help (read: cannonfodder) to assist us in this war. Thus we contacted the Japanese to see if they would join with us in a mutual protection act. They took advantage of this situation by asking a redicilous amount in return, but we had no other way then to accept.


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Now that we had a mutual protection act with the Japanese we had an ally, soon the Japanese declared war on the Iroquois and the Russians.





At this time only a few small skirmishes and naval battles were waged. But the Russians and the Iroquois were sending bombardement ships to our cousts to destroy our roads, mines, farms and other improvements. At first this didn't to much damage but over time they were destroying alot of our improvements.


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We decided to land a small force on the Iroquois island to test there strength. When our forces landed there was major resistance and they took the city of "Izumo" farely easy.


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But then the Iroquois launched a counter attack and took back the city. The Roman forces made another attack on the city and recaptured it again. But now our forces were so heavily hurt and damaged that they had no change of fending of another Iroquois counter attack. When the Iroquois attacked all the Roman soldiers were killed, and the small invasion failed!


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The Roman Empire had lost its offencive edge in this war, and the Russians and Iroquois were taking the battle to the Roman Empire itself. The Roman city's were not capable of defending themselves since the majority of the Roman army was stationed in Germany. And it would take to long to transport them back to the Roman Empire.

The Iroquois made the first move by landing troops near the city of "Ravenna" they took the city without a fight. This was the first time in history that a Roman city was lost to an enemy.


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A quick counter attack by the cavalry took back the city but more enemy forces were landing on Roman soil, and the remaining military which was not stationed in Germany had a hard time fighting them off. But the mobilization of the Roman citizens was gaining momentum and the Roman Empire took conquered an Iroquois city that was on the Roman island.


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During that time the Japanese decided that they needed a little help from some other nations. And so they signed a military alliance against Russia with Germany. They did the same with Babylon, and they signed a mutual protection act with the Zulu's, who were then forced to declar war on the Russians.









Now things were starting to escalate, before this the war was Russia/Iroquois vs Rome/Japan, now it was Russia/Iroquois vs Rome/Japan/Germany/Babylon/Zulu. But the Roman Empire had other things to worry about since the Iroquois had taken another Roman city.


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At that time the Russian had also landed an invasion force and moved to the city of "Hispalis" instead of occupying the city they BURNED it to the ground and killing all the Roman citizens. This was an outrage and the Russians would pay for this!


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After hearing of these crimes the Roman soldiers fought even harder to capture all the enemy city's on the Roman island. And after a hard battle they succeeded in recapturing "Byzantium" and conquering the Russian city of "Kuibyshev". Now all the enemy city's on the Roman island were under Roman control.


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We now had all the cities on the island under control (excepting one Japanese city), so it was decided to sign peace treaty's with Russia and the Iroquois. Once more we were at peace with everybody.


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But there wasn't peace in the world yet, the Japanese and its ally's were still at war with the Russians (they had signed a peace treaty with the Iroquois). Now the Russians were on there own against 4 other nations! The Russians signed a mutual protection act. And the Aztecs declared war on Japan!





And also the Aztecs and the Russians signed a military alliance against Germany, the ally of the Japanese!



Luckily for the Germans there was a large line of defence formed by the Roman peacekeepers that kept the Aztecs out.


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This kept the German city's save for the moment, but even Babylon wasn't save from the Aztecs, since the Babelonians were enemy's of Russia, the Russians and the Aztects signe a military alliance against them.



Roman peacekeeper scouts were send in to check how this war was going, the Roman military hoped that it would be a long trench war, exhousting the Aztects. But the Roman scouts discovered that the Aztects were raging through the Babelonian empire.


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The small force of Roman peacekeepers could do nothing else then to helplessly watch the carnage.


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In the meantime the Germans and Zulu's had signed a peacetreaty with the Russians, and then declared war on the Babelonians so that they also could get a share of the booty.





Fortunately the peacekeeping line that was designed to protect the Germans from the Aztecs was now also protecting the Babelonians from the Germans, but there was still one Babelonian city in German territory. But the Germans were allowed to capture it becouse it was one of there cities anyway.


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Offcourse the Babelonians stood no change against so many enemy's and most of the Babelonian territory was conquered by the Aztecs, making them even more powerfull. The Roman peacekeepers encirceled the last Babelonian city to protect it, the Babelonian capital could not be saved, but the Romans would not allow the Babelonians to be destroyed.


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We saved the Babelonians and also save the Germans from the Aztecs. But the world is still on major mess. Almost everyone is at war with exception of the Roman Empire and the Iroquois. The Aztec empire has gained alot more territory again.

And the in the last wars the Roman Empire was put in the defence. There will be needed some major change in the near future if the Roman Empire intends to survive!

Maybe I missed it, but what difficulty are you on?

I believe monarch, but I'm not sure. I am not that good of a civ player.

If you're going to be going to war every time you need to keep the peace, I would recommend a change to Communism so you can more easliy maintain a much larger military. It worked for Daftpanzer.