Help Winning the Historical Way: Rome 1.17

[ChineseWarlord]

Winning the Historical Way is a series of posts where I ask the community for help with some of the tougher UHVs (for me anyway) with the added caveat that it is EXTRA historical. What these means is that I achieve the UHV required while also trying to achieve these goals in descending order of importance:

Building all wonders historically built by the civilization I'm playing
Not building any wonders not historically built by it
Not Changing to civics that do not make historical sense (no Republic for China for example)
Settling or conquering all historical and contested areas
Avoiding settling or conquering all foreign areas.

I've played Rome a few times before, actually having the most success with semi-peacefully building up my civilization and completing the infrastructure goal before going on a conquering spree. However, I've noticed that doesn't actually leave me with a lot of time for conquering, and I suspect that my rivals being allowed to live is what is making it difficult to research the appropriate technologies for the UHV before everyone else.

 

[Dracosolon]

I feel like these threads could do with a civ's specific bullet points of what you want to achieve on which specific turns.

 

[ChineseWarlord]

I think how historical you can play also depends on the civilization... For example, playing Babylonia, I have to build the Oracle Wonder or I'll never be able to research the necessary techs in time. Playing Egypt however, I am easily able to only build historically Egyptian wonders and still win the UHV.

For Rome I want to complete the UHVs obviously, while also building The Colosseum, The Aqua Appia, The Theodosian Walls, and any other Historical Wonders built by Rome. I'm fine with eventually switching the Republic Civic to Monarchy or Despotism eventually since that's what Rome did historically, but I'm also just as fine sticking with Republic if it is the best one to complete the UHV. It doesn't matter when I achieve these goals, just that I am successfully able to achieve them.

 

[ChineseWarlord]

So does anyone have any advice?

 

[Dracosolon]

You need to bulb Scientists and use one trade mission Merchant to keep research up I guess. As mentioned here in the guide it's also useful to optimize build order by beelining Citizenship and building in Rome first. Currency is of course your next target, Rome's economy will quickly go down the drain as you expand.

 

[manio curio]

So does anyone have any advice?

I attacked Greece after a few turns. Took Athens and razed Sparta. Then I sent one settler to England with and archer and while on my way I took some gold from the village in Spain and the ones in Britain and Ireland. While the settler was travelling I attacked Egypt and kept two of their cities. After that Gaul. Cavalry units are very useful against the Celts. At this point I have not build many units besides the horsemen necessary to defend Italy, but focused on building barracks, arenas and so on. After achieving the first historical goal I started building settlers and legions to meet all the criteria for the 2nd historical goal. At this point there are more than enough cities to build plenty of units and Carthage fell easily. The 3rd goal can be accomplished quickly if the number of cities is kept very small until the last very moment. I did not build Constantinople and the cities in Spain until 320 AD to prevent the malus coming from the cities number to drain my finances. Sacrificing the population to finish buildings and units is imperative. Last but not least it does help a lot if Greece builds a city in Italy and declares war on you as you spawn.

 

[Dracosolon]

If we do a rough outline:

- Turn 90, 760 BCE: You start with either Despotism or Monarchy, to represent the pre-Republic period. Deification is technically ahistorical but there's no strategic reason not to use it, so you may as well take it and fudge it as a general pagan civic. Another cheat: you start with two cities and two additional settlers, even though Rome didn't control Italy until centuries later. Let's say you represent various Italic and Illyrian cultures instead.

- Turn 107, 505 BCE: Adopt Republic. Ideally you'd adopt another civic on Normal speed, but you're unlikely to have researched Citizenship by then.

- Turn 120, 310 BCE: Aqua Appia is built in Rome. This implies that Engineering is the first tech you'll research (barring trading).

- Turn 126, 220 BCE: Greece likely has a city in Illyria, which you should conquer by then.

- Turn 127, 205 BCE: A city on the eastern coast of Spain. Historically you should probably conquer it from Carthage, but settling is more probable.

- Turn 131, 145 BCE: Greece and the city of Carthage are conquered.

- Turn 132, 130 BCE: Expansion into Western Anatolia and Spain.

- Turn 133, 115 BCE: Begin expansion into southern Gaul.

- Turn 134, 100 BCE: City in Lybia.

- Turn 136, 70 BCE: Expansion into Anatolia.

- Turn 137, 55 BCE: Around this time you should conquer/settle Crimea, the Levant, Gaul, and Egypt. The exact dates can be excused since that's a lot on your plates.

- Turn 139, 25 BCE: Adopt Monarchy and conquer Mauritania (the western Carthaginian cities).

- Turn 143, 35 CE: Orthodoxy is founded (normally in Jerusalem).

- Turn 144, 50 CE: Settle Londinium.

- Turn 146, 80 CE: Flavian Amphitheater is built in Rome. In practice you'll likely have built it long before that, which is a good thing since you risk a spread of Orthodoxy by that time.

- Turn 147, 95 CE: Deadline for UHV 1 - Bread and Circuses. With Rome's UP and so many cities you should have little trouble accomplishing it.

- Turn 162, 320 CE: Adopt Orthodoxy. Deadline for UHV 2 - Pax Romana, which you've already done and more.

- Turn 163, 335 CE: Byzantium should spawn. UHV 3 - Late Antiquity should historically come after that, but in practice you'll likely have already researched everything you need by then.


So that's the plan. My testing indicates it should be doable, though so many conquests in a short amount of time means you'll need more Legions than strictly needed (instead of conquering your targets one by one) and some Settlers.

Ideally you'd want Citizenship by the time you adopt Republic as well, but this probably isn't possible (and you want Engineering before Law anyway). I haven't detailed every civic, you can fudge things a little (I prefer Manorialism strategically even though Slavery is more historical, Merchant Trade and Conquest should be adopted as well).

Many of your conquests you'll probably have accomplished earlier for easier logistics, but if you want the extra challenge you can try to do everything at the exact dates. Wars against the Germans, the Parthians (or whoever occupies their area), etc. are also possible in the late game.

 

[brett0007]

As far as conquests go both Greece and Carthage are best done ASAP, Greek AI gets armies to conquer Persia and the Carthaginian UU makes later conquest much harder.

Use you UP to your advantage, You have one of the best UP's in the game. Get Rome building buildings! Every building in Rome makes development and conquest all that easier and faster!

Specialize your cities! Have dedicated cities that you can set up quick that can pump out your Legions/Workers non stop to keep up the grind! Mediolanum and Athens are ideal examples! They both have access to decent food and hammers to reliably train them on repeat!

Give the strong cities priority when it comes to infrastructure, their the ones you need with 5/6+ pops building for the UHV and training garrison troops for your conquests!

Legions are not garrison troops! Their your elite troops that should be A out conquering the empire or B setting up roman roads after conquest is done to make moving the real garrison troops from your now well developed heartlands to the frontiers. Only when the barbarian doomstacks start to pressure Gaul and Iberia do you use them as a defensive force.

A decent navy also helps a lot. Once your getting close to forming the Mare Nostrum you should switch to sea transport for moving around your army stategically between theaters. Its much much quicker and allows you to react much faster to threats.

If you choose to play on you can often just reconquer a lot the land that switches civs(barring byzantium/arabia iirc they spawn pretty much ready to spam cataphacts/ghazi and can be a PITA to retake while you're dealing with the barb doomstacks in the west.) But france/spain/moors are surprisingly easy delt with assuming you now have your endless Legion Comitatenses/Heavy Spearmen Limitanei /Lancer Scholae Palatinae doomstacks from the East!

 

[manio curio]

As far as conquests go both Greece and Carthage are best done ASAP, Greek AI gets armies to conquer Persia and the Carthaginian UU makes later conquest much harder.

Use you UP to your advantage, You have one of the best UP's in the game. Get Rome building buildings! Every building in Rome makes development and conquest all that easier and faster!

Specialize your cities! Have dedicated cities that you can set up quick that can pump out your Legions/Workers non stop to keep up the grind! Mediolanum and Athens are ideal examples! They both have access to decent food and hammers to reliably train them on repeat!

Give the strong cities priority when it comes to infrastructure, their the ones you need with 5/6+ pops building for the UHV and training garrison troops for your conquests!

Legions are not garrison troops! Their your elite troops that should be A out conquering the empire or B setting up roman roads after conquest is done to make moving the real garrison troops from your now well developed heartlands to the frontiers. Only when the barbarian doomstacks start to pressure Gaul and Iberia do you use them as a defensive force.

A decent navy also helps a lot. Once your getting close to forming the Mare Nostrum you should switch to sea transport for moving around your army stategically between theaters. Its much much quicker and allows you to react much faster to threats.

If you choose to play on you can often just reconquer a lot the land that switches civs(barring byzantium/arabia iirc they spawn pretty much ready to spam cataphacts/ghazi and can be a PITA to retake while you're dealing with the barb doomstacks in the west.) But france/spain/moors are surprisingly easy delt with assuming you now have your endless Legion Comitatenses/Heavy Spearmen Limitanei /Lancer Scholae Palatinae doomstacks from the East!

can you please elaborate on the 'switch to sea transport'? Also which version are you playing at? I played at 1.17 and I do not recall being able to train comitatenses or scholae palatinae units.

 

[brett0007]

can you please elaborate on the 'switch to sea transport'? Also which version are you playing at? I played at 1.17 and I do not recall being able to train comitatenses or scholae palatinae units.

The latter part is a joke based on the names of late roman military units roughly the equivalents of the Legions, Heavy Spearmen and Lancers.

As for the sea transport lets say you have 6 legions in Egypt you need to move them to the Balkans for whatever reason. Via land even with roman roads you are looking at 4-6 turns to get to Constantinople. With 3 galleys you can move them from the north coast of Egypt to Athens in a turn. I think its 2 or 3 turns between Rome and Carthage and a turn or two between southern Gaul and Iberia. It just dramatically cuts down travel times to have a few transport ships on hand.