Is Rome best Civ for me?

[Redaxe]

I don't see why mixing Tradition & Liberty is idiotic. If you have a very wide Empire, I think theres merit in filling out Liberty, then grabbing the Tradition opener & Oligarchy. Slow border growth & the lack of gold from the liberty tree makes those 2 Tradition policies quite attractive. If AIs covet your land & ate threatened by your city building, then you need a large army & the unit maintenance costs really bite into your budget. This also alleviates much of your need to keep buying tiles, again saving you gold.
Also Oligarchy is useful for defending cities.
I'm not saying you should always mix these trees but there can be circumstances where it can be valuable.

 

[Carmack]

Rome is a production powerhouse. One of the few civs where I actually target beliefs such as god of craftsmen, guruship, and religious communities. They can develop their cities like nobody's business and are excellent for science victories.

Rome is also one of the few civs where the liberty policy tree has beautiful synergy with them. Those extra hammers from republic, the worker speed for going wide, and the free great person upon completion makes liberty an ideal marriage for Rome. Just a tip: almost always pick a great engineer for your liberty finisher and plant them as an improvement. Rome needs to be a production powerhouse in order to best leverage their unique ability. The more production Rome has, the more the rest of your cities will benefit.

 

[djm_jm]

I think that Ethiopia and India are the best civ for you, due you empire be small per your number of cities.

 

[Crafty Bison]

Try Portugal.

Also, why does the OP always start with no scout on continents? It's a pretty standard first build unless you are on archipelago or are aiming at an early UU, especially now the AI is toothless early, and early wars give such serious diplo hits.

There's also a deity Shoshone thread lying about that may be good for the OP to try.