Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

[blitzkrieg80]

Maybe we should ask ourselves: how important are some of the suggested changes?

If we want a true version 1.0 any time soon, maybe we should hold off on some of the more theoretical ideas that need to be tested- save it for a 1.1? Some gamers have stated that they don't really need the super-transports, because one can amass transports.
I am all for new ideas and additions to the scenario, but if we want a whole version we can't always be in a state of testing...

 

[Asclepius]

I agree with blitz', there are too many ideas being kicked around for a scenario that is supposed to be almost finished. As it stands I think 0.9 is too easy and any more help for the player is unnecessary....apart from the long range transports. Even travelling from Byzantium to the Crimea takes 3 turns!

 

[gringoesteban]

Maybe we should ask ourselves: how important are some of the suggested changes?

I agree with blitz', there are too many ideas being kicked around for a scenario that is supposed to be almost finished.

I'm not sure I agree that we should hold off on making changes....

In my opinion, some of the suggestions could improve the game. It seems to me that a version 1.0 implies a more-or-less final product, rather than something put out as an interim release prior to an expected v1.1.

I only played v0.9 through 377 AD, but I think v1.0 should include, at a minimum, the changes bulleted below. Note that I have brought most of these issues up in previous posts, so let me apologize in advance for repeating myself.

* Forts and Limes should have defensive values raised to +50% each (from +25% each in v0.9). Asclepius, you mentioned previously that you built a string of Limes along your northern frontier. Have you made it to the barbarian migrations yet (after 377 AC)? I have a feeling that the default 25% defensive setting will allow the Germans and Scythians to quickly overwhelm your defensive line. (I lost a few heavily defended Limes during the Crisis of the Third Century, even though I had adjusted my BIQ to +50%).

* RFRE offers no reason to take Britain other than the fact that it is there, or that from a historical context the Romans held part of the island for a while. With current RFRE settings, the Player could avoid a lot of headaches and a lot of casualties by staying away from Britain entirely. To encourage and reward the Player for taking Britain, I would suggest placing a luxury resource (someone suggested "pearls") a half dozen squares south of the city of Picti, or perhaps placing a new resource under the Hadrian's Wall city that would be required to build one of RFRE's Wonders.

* Even after building a road network and discovering Civil Engineering, it still takes a unit 4 turns (up to 8 years!) to move from the southern tip of Italy to the Cisalpine Gaul border in northern Italy. Pre-placing a single, north-south railroad line (imperial road) along the length of Italy might be prudent. The Player would be unable to build additional RR lines.

* Preplacing some "great harbors" (i.e. airports) would help speed intercontinental movement of units. Maybe it was my fault for not attacking Persia until the mid-fourth century AD, but by then they had a HUGE army, which included many, many dozen cavalry units. I had to strip my northern frontier defenses to move units into the Middle East. That reployment literally took decades. That is completely unrealistic. Even with airports, a player could move only one unit per turn per airport.

* Giving the Player a few long-range transports would also help address the situation mentioned in the bullet immediately above.

As it stands I think 0.9 is too easy.

In general, I think the settings are more-or-less okay, at least through 377AD. Any decent Civ player can certainly eliminate all opponents except Britain, Germany, Scythia, and Persia, but who wants to spend days playing RFRE and then be overwhelmed by, say, Dacia?

That being said, I suggest a few tweaks to make things more difficult:

* The Corvus spawning rate of the Mare Nostrum Wonder should be reduced. The Player receives way too many Corvus units in v0.9. I found myself scrapping a few ships because my navy got too big and expensive to maintain.

* The Crisis of the Third Century (C3C) is too easy in v0.9. The Germans and Scythians should have more units (but not a whole lot more). The C3C Wonder should make one additional person unhappy in every city (including an extra unhappy person in Rome). If possible, it would be nice if the C3C increased corruption because in v0.9 it was easy to raise the luxury rate and sail through with minimal impact to the Player's treasury. The Wonder that ends the C3C (is it Opus Imp Soldati?) should have its shield cost doubled. The C3C is way too short and easy to ride out in v0.9.

* Disregard this final bullet. In this point, I had originally said the Player's treasury got too large, but then I realized I had (over)modified the corruption setting in my BIQ, so the original v0.9 settings were fine.

Of course, all this post only reflects one person's opinion, so whatever the majority of playtesters (and most importantly, Pink himself) ultimately agree to will be fine with me.

 

[Asclepius]

* Forts and Limes should have defensive values raised to +50% each (from +25% each in v0.9). Asclepius, you mentioned previously that you built a string of Limes along your northern frontier. Have you made it to the barbarian migrations yet (after 377 AC)? I have a feeling that the default 25% defensive setting will allow the Germans and Scythians to quickly overwhelm your defensive line. (I lost a few heavily defended Limes during the Crisis of the Third Century, even though I had adjusted my BIQ to +50%).

Bit of a tricky balance this one... I would agree that Limes forts don't offer as much protection as they should. Even a Cohortes Imp. with a defence of 7, on a hill, behind a river, loses out to the German hordes. However, I have played up to AD 445 and am actually a little underwhelmed by the migrations. My economy is strong and I have conquered almost everything there is to conquer so I am able to maintain a huge mobile reserve of archers and catapults. With enough of these combined with continuous lines of forts to stop movement, the Germans and Scythians don't stand a chance. The irony is I don't actually man my defences, I hide behind them! That way you always get first strike and not the AI!

I would urge you to continue playing as long as possible just to see if you have the same problem I do, as turn times since the migrations started have slowed to a crawl again. Ten minutes per turn is getting near switch off time for me. Especially as it is relatively easy to pick off the Germans as they cross the border. I haven't lost a single town and don't believe I will. Crisis of the 3rd Century? What Crisis!

I still believe half of the problem with German and Scythian aggressiveness is due to the HN units. The AI wastes most of these units in piecemeal attacks instead of combining them with its own units to create killer stacks. It doesn't have the nerve to declare war. If I can pluck up the courage to start another game I think I will try it with NO HN units at all. This should have the added side effect of speeding up the game and stopping the two "allies" from wasting 50% of all HN units from killing each other instead of me.

I deliberately abandoned northern Dacia to the Germans and Scythians and so there is no way to stop them from attacking each other. The AI is too stupid to ignore HN units anyway. As soon as one HN unit pops up, everything moves in that direction. I say get rid of all HN units except Pirates.

* RFRE offers no reason to take Britain other than the fact that it is there, or that from a historical context the Romans held part of the island for a while. With current RFRE settings, the Player could avoid a lot of headaches and a lot of casualties by staying away from Britain entirely. To encourage and reward the Player for taking Britain, I would suggest placing a luxury resource (someone suggested "pearls") a half dozen squares south of the city of Picti, or perhaps placing a new resource under the Hadrian's Wall city that would be required to build one of RFRE's Wonders.

Did I say I had conquered almost everything? Well, I chose to avoid the headache of Britain altogether as you suggested. Doesn't make a bit of difference and you are quite right to say that shouldn't be rewarded by having an "easier" game. A required resource in Britannia is a good idea.

* Even after building a road network and discovering Civil Engineering, it still takes a unit 4 turns (up to 8 years!) to move from the southern tip of Italy to the Cisalpine Gaul border in northern Italy. Pre-placing a single, north-south railroad line (imperial road) along the length of Italy might be prudent. The Player would be unable to build additional RR lines.

I agree in principle with the problem of movement taking too long when compared with reality, but then each legion in the game doesn't actually represent a real legion either. So, how far do we want to go with out losing the strategic challenge the game currently offers?

* Preplacing some "great harbors" (i.e. airports) would help speed intercontinental movement of units. Maybe it was my fault for not attacking Persia until the mid-fourth century AD, but by then they had a HUGE army, which included many, many dozen cavalry units. I had to strip my northern frontier defenses to move units into the Middle East. That reployment literally took decades. That is completely unrealistic. Even with airports, a player could move only one unit per turn per airport.

I'm still not a fan of Airports...I found the best way to deal with the Persian cities is to throw money at them! I "conquered" most of Egypt and half of Persia by using propaganda

* The Crisis of the Third Century (C3C) is too easy in v0.9. The Germans and Scythians should have more units (but not a whole lot more). The C3C Wonder should make one additional person unhappy in every city (including an extra unhappy person in Rome). If possible, it would be nice if the C3C increased corruption because in v0.9 it was easy to raise the luxury rate and sail through with minimal impact to the Player's treasury. The Wonder that ends the C3C (is it Opus Imp Soldati?) should have its shield cost doubled. The C3C is way too short and easy to ride out in v0.9.

I agree with this completely. The "Crisis" was far too short and didn't seem to upset anyone apart from a few plebs in North Africa It maybe also be because I delay building the Christian Persecutions until I'm ready to build the Declaration of Milan... Yes, I suppose that is cheating but then there is no reason to build the Christian Persecutions until you "need" it.

* I was able to grow my Treasury up to almost 30,000 and then I easily maintained it above 20,000 through 377AC. I discovered most Techs in about 12-14 turns, so it wasn't like I was cutting my research budget to build my Treasury. Perhaps some of the early buildings could be made slightly more expensive. For example, maybe a Triumphus and a Mercatus and a Bibliotecha could each cost 1 extra gold per turn.

I'm not too sure about increasing the costs any, I actually have trouble in the early game balancing my economy. It's not until about AD 50 that I start to have a healthy amount of gold but nothing like the figures you are quoting. I thought I was doing well when I reached a maximum of 4500 gold just before "the crisis". Still managed nearly all techs in 12 turns though.

A final closing thought, which as gringoesteban suggests is merely one person's opinion, so feel free to disagree...:

This truly is a brilliant scenario, the depth of detail and quality of background history is astonishing. However, If I had to sum up only the negative points at the moment, I would say;
* the early game of conquest proceeds too slowly and it is virtually impossible to conquer and control what the Romans achieved in the same time frame,
* the collapse of Roman society and economy after the third century doesn't yet have a great enough impact to affect the players ability to "do what he wants",
* the migratory pressure (invasions) in the end game aren't yet strong enough (and yet controllable) to cause a collapse in the western provinces.

 

[gringoesteban]

....The irony is I don't actually man my defences, I hide behind them! That way you always get first strike and not the AI!...

Interesting approach. I tried something similar -- I built a line of Limes but deliberatly left a few openings, then I had cav units a couple squares back to pick off the HN units that tried to sneak through the gaps.

I'm not too sure about increasing the costs any, I actually have trouble in the early game balancing my economy. It's not until about AD 50 that I start to have a healthy amount of gold but nothing like the figures you are quoting. I thought I was doing well when I reached a maximum of 4500 gold just before "the crisis". Still managed nearly all techs in 12 turns though.

Whoops, my bad. I forgot that I had lowered the corruption percentage in my BIQ to only 31%. I obviously overdid it. Therefore, please disregard my original comment on excessive cashflow. I will go back and delete that from my post.

This truly is a brilliant scenario, the depth of detail and quality of background history is astonishing. However, If I had to sum up only the negative points at the moment, I would say;
* the early game of conquest proceeds too slowly and it is virtually impossible to conquer and control what the Romans achieved in the same time frame,
* the collapse of Roman society and economy after the third century doesn't yet have a great enough impact to affect the players ability to "do what he wants"

I concur.

Regarding the barbarian migrations later in the game, I haven't gone far enough in RFRE to coment other than to say that through 377AD there was certainly no challenge in maintaining my northern frontier.

 

[captain beaver]

just quicking an idea in : can we create a kind of land transport? I suppose we could make a buildable unit that could transport others. Or even better : what about an air unit that can move every unit with the "foot unit" ability? Give it 20 movement (because air units cant use road if I remember correctly) and a big enough cost so that we cant build huge stacks of them and it should work. I don't know if it's possible though.

 

[loki1232]

But if you let the Ai take your forts, doesn't its units get a defensive bonus?

Not making important changes because we want 1.0 to come out soon seems silly. 1.0 should be a finished version, and anything after it just fixes minor bugs.

 

[blitzkrieg80]

Great feedback people!

So, is it being suggested that the upcoming patch versions should digress into the thousandth's place? .901 ?
I joke : ) but only because we are at version .9 and maybe the numbering has increased too hastily, but we're still there nonetheless...

I would really love a reason to invade the Picts and Welsh and a Peals luxury is a good start. I have never seen a scenario so far that really encourages conquest of Britain and it would definitely add flavor.

I don't think its too hard to believe that a town would defect to Iberia. The Celts who had integrated themselves into the land were pretty good at war and Rome had many battles throughout a long time period just for control, despite all the resources that Carthage wasted, softening them up for Rome. I think an insecure town could easily pay allegiance to a local population of able defenders in Celto-Iberia.

Theoretically at least, wouldn't almost-impossible barbarian invasions be preferred to playing out turns in prosperous boredom? I thought we were close to getting the barbarians perfected, but tiding of their pacifism makes me yearn for a new patch... I am also wary of long turn times, but maybe it's unavoidable... something we must resolve. If we're testing different issues sometimes we miss out altogether. Let's focus... Everybody, MOD your own games and test this stuff! : )

 

[blitzkrieg80]

I forgot to mention how rich Celtic culture is- another reason why a town could defect to Iberia. Rome gained their word Rex from a Celtic word, so I don't think we can easily dismiss their influence.

 

[Asclepius]

But if you let the Ai take your forts, doesn't its units get a defensive bonus?

Yes, but if you have a stack of six to ten catapults and archers which can red-line or destroy a unit by bombardment in one turn, then it is pretty easy to control the AI's attack.

 

[Asclepius]

Rome gained their word Rex from a Celtic word, so I don't think we can easily dismiss their influence.

I don't think that is entirely accurate. It might be better to say Celtic languages and Latin are all Indo-european which both share the same stem for the word king. In Latin the vowel remained an e, in Celtic it became an i. One didn't come from the other, they probably developed or diverged at the same time. If Rome was influenced by any culture it was Greek and not Celtic.

 

[loki1232]

Pink--have you figured out the Kings (Hannibal) yet?

 

[blitzkrieg80]

Ascplepius- correct and well spoken I guess I got caught up with myself and neglected how widespread "right" is. Much of Celtic culture can be said to be Proto Indo-European, but that doesn't devalue it just because it helped to formulate/characterize PIE (in my opinion).

Anyways. To my knowledge the Celts knew quite a bit about ironworking long before others: La Tene, Hallstatt.

 

[Erster.Heiler]

I would also say that in the early time it is very hard for the player (even on Consul-level) but if there are "radical" changes to make it easier the later era would be too easy. The game is good how it is but there are some things I think that should be changed.

The Hoplitia was a large problem. After 20 or 30 turns I had the time and the units to attack Magna Graecia once more and to conquer Massilia and the other two cities in the west. I attacked with 6 Legio Marius from the south and 2 Legio Consularis (2 Legio - Elite in them), 4 Legio and ca. 7 Velites from the north in the thinking that I could beat them in a short time with such a large army. The problem was that there stood 10 Hoplitia in one city - that wasn't the capital and so I lost a large part of my army (3 Legio Marius, 2 Legio, 4 Velites) and was thrown back for over 10 turns... The AI can build Hoplitia as much as he want. They should cost also 1 population to avoid that the Greece states have large armies because it seems that in the history the Greece had millions of these units.

I would make the Phalanx a little bit stronger because it was the best unit similar to a Hoplitia.

The rest of the game is all in all ok but the AI builds too much units. How can I defeat an enemy who has nearly 70 attacking units when I am fighting at 2 fronts because the Gaul Celts declared war some turns after I attacked Syria?

I agree: The HN units should be deleted except of Piratae because in my game the AI fought nearly the whole time against each other and gave me the chance to do my things without being disturbed by the mighty armies of Germania or Scythia.

 

[Gunner]

*Hint*
Use ballistas, they are your friends. A stack of about 10-15 should do the trick.

 

[loki1232]

I believe that a cool new quinmerine with Corvus unit just came out, you might want to look at it.

Why did the Fine timber cost for things like ballistae and fabers get taken away?

 

[CyberChrist]

Great scenario! I have been missing a Civ3 version of Bebro's excellent Civ2 Rome scenario. This one certainly fills that spot well

However! Currently in v0.9 the Sinope resource is not present under Sinope (or anywhere else that I can see for that matter).


Regarding the discussion about increasing movement speed then how about enabling Legio Armies to work like Telepads (using the 'cracked' editor) allowing all units (except other Legio armies) to 'reinforce' the armies stationed around the world - or to follow armies after shipping the army using a 'Great Harbor' (airport)?

Now before you start saying that it would destroy the strategic element then be aware that each unit porting to the Telepad(army) unit would cause the Telepad(army) unit to loose 1 HP. This means that at most you could instant transfer 20 units to 'reinforce' a Legio Belisarii army (with 3 Elite units) or 11 units to other Legio armies (with 2 Elite units)

So not only would you still have to have an army in place where you would want to get units to fast(er), but the Army would also need some time to heal up to be ready for action after the 'forced walk'.

Come to think of it then perhaps the Cumba and other transport ships could also function as Telepads.

 

[Fictionles]

However![/b] Currently in v0.9 the Sinope resource is not present under Sinope (or anywhere else that I can see for that matter).

You're right, its not on the map either. Pink will have to add it when he gets back.

 

[gringoesteban]

Currently in v0.9 the Sinope resource is not present under Sinope

Many of the resources required to build the spaceship (Byzantine Legacy) do not show up on the map until later in the game. If I remember right, they show up when the AI discovers the 525-575AC technology advance.

 

[CyberChrist]

Many of the resources required to build the spaceship (Byzantine Legacy) do not show up on the map until later in the game. If I remember right, they show up when the AI discovers the 525-575AC technology advance.

Yes, but that is not the problem - the Sinope resource is not on the map at all.

I think this may have happened if the underlaying terrain of Sinope city was once grassland and was later changed to hills and since the Sinope resource is not set to be able to exist on hills - the resource was automatically deleted with the change to hills.