What do you think of Rome

[Light Cleric]

Rome is just fine. Legions are actually one of the few Swords units actually worth using, and Ballistas are very powerful too. 30 strength vs cities is very powerful at that point in the game.

I played Rome a ton. They indeed need a change.

UA needs a change, because as it is currently it only fits in some games.
Say you have a game where your capital is MUCH better off as a military spammer or wonder spammer, no you are forced to spam buildings to use the UA.

Why not just make it like every city connected to Rome gets +25% production to buildings period.
That way you can play your capital in different ways, and it even synergizes with the Legion road-building.

You aren't "forced" to spam buildings. You can build the important ones that you'll should build anyway like the Library, Granary, Water Mill, etc. If you're "spamming" buildings you're probably building stuff that you don't need in every city anyway.

 

[whiplash27]

I still think they should have the bonus for roads. They can even leave it as is for the rest of the UA and UUs and just add to the UA: roads build 25% faster and are 50% cheaper to maintain. Having a large empire of roads would make moving troops into enemy territory faster and would make that perk of the legion more useful. No point in having legions help with making roads if they're going to make you go broke.

 

[pilot00]

I think its fine as it is. It symbolizes the greatest contribution the Romans did to their subject peoples (aside from the bad stuff): Build infrastructure. When Rome (the capital) gets up and running with the hammer producing improvements and you connect 3-4 caravans (or better yet ships) sending it hammers all your cities are going to build improvements in no time.

As to its units, I fear both when face them, no need to change anything IMHO.

 

[Falconiano]

Rome is just fine. Legions are actually one of the few Swords units actually worth using, and Ballistas are very powerful too. 30 strength vs cities is very powerful at that point in the game.

You aren't "forced" to spam buildings. You can build the important ones that you'll should build anyway like the Library, Granary, Water Mill, etc. If you're "spamming" buildings you're probably building stuff that you don't need in every city anyway.

There are a plethora of buildings that you must build on other cities but most likely won't - or even can't - be built in Rome, making the UA very unreliable.

Some examples: walls & upgrades, barracks & upgrades, mint, stable, forge, circus, windmill, watermill, hydro plant, solar plant, courthouse, lighthouse & upgrades, observatory.

Even if you build everything in the capital, 19 buildings out of 44 will very likely be unaffected by UA.
And then you have to consider the fact many buildings are built either at the same time you're building them in the capital, or even earlier - therefore being unaffected as well.

So at the end of the day, how many buildings are taking advantage of the UA?
20-25%?

It's flawed, and many more intelligent solutions have been posted.

 

[pilot00]

Sorry to bring the beef and without offense, but all those building (barring walls, lighthouse and courthouses) are crucial. Rome is a warmongering REX empire. If you dont build barracks in Rome you loose the heroic epic. If you don't build mints you loose gold (very unwise in BNW), watermills and production building usually are a top priority (while they can be situational I agree due to terrain some of them will be present). Considering that the capital of Rome will be different than the rest (you wont build wonders in Rome) and that it is the very first city, it has an ample head-start to help the rest of the empire.
Its not flawed, its not simple to use, try reconsidering the implementation

 

[civvver]

A flat 25% boost to production when connected by roads would be very overpowered. 25% to buildings only, maybe, excluding wonders, but still a little too good. Fine as is.

 

[ehecatzin]

The Ballista is the short end of the stick for Rome, yes its useful, but very bland if you compare it to the Legion, seeing as its unlikely they'll replace it with either a UB or UI:

How do you propose they fix, rework or just add more flavour to the Ballista?

 

[Light Cleric]

There are a plethora of buildings that you must build on other cities but most likely won't - or even can't - be built in Rome, making the UA very unreliable.

Some examples: walls & upgrades, barracks & upgrades, mint, stable, forge, circus, windmill, watermill, hydro plant, solar plant, courthouse, lighthouse & upgrades, observatory.

Even if you build everything in the capital, 19 buildings out of 44 will very likely be unaffected by UA.
And then you have to consider the fact many buildings are built either at the same time you're building them in the capital, or even earlier - therefore being unaffected as well.

So at the end of the day, how many buildings are taking advantage of the UA?
20-25%?

Except for the Courthouse(Which obv. can't be built there) those are not "very likely to not be built by the capital". Especially the Barracks/Armory/Military Academy line: you're building those in satellite cities but not in your best city, the capital?

A lot of those wouldn't even be worthwhile to build for the UA anyway given that they may only go in a few cities or they're just straight up mediocre You're getting 25% production bonuses on Libraries, Granaries, Shrines, Universities, Monuments, Workshops, Banks, Colosseums, Markets, Factories(you can borrow Coal and the Factories work fine when you lose it again), Public Schools, Barracks, Markets, Banks, Armories, Military Academies(this is kind of iffy in your satellite cities anyway), and those are just the ones with little to no restrictions, let alone that ones that are pretty commonly buildable like Water Mills, Gardens, Stables and Circuses. Some of these may be built at the same time as the capital is but not always, for instance Universities will often be a bit delayed because the other cities haven't grown quickly enough to support the specialists, and also as Rome your capital should be building everything fast anyway so it will still yield some kind of bonus.

How often are you going to hard-build Arsenals, Military Bases, Broadcast Towers, Stadiums, Police Stations, Constabularies, Museums, and all the other stuff that's included in those 44 buildings that you used to get to "20-25%" of without building them in the capital anyway? I just listed 36-38% of the buildings as useful with no restrictions(I'll even give you the Factories if you want), let alone ignoring the useless ones that you would probably only ever build in the capital anyway.

It's flawed, and many more intelligent solutions have been posted.

[/quote]

I'm not at all convinced that, for example, giving a flat +25% production bonus to every single thing a city with a road builds, which is one of the solutions posted in this thread, is a good idea, or even +25% to all buildings is a good idea. This just lets Rome build whatever it wants, wherever it wants, super fast and then move on to spamming units.

 

[newarkinvaders]

I played Rome a ton. They indeed need a change.

UA needs a change, because as it is currently it only fits in some games.
Say you have a game where your capital is MUCH better off as a military spammer or wonder spammer, no you are forced to spam buildings to use the UA.

Why not just make it like every city connected to Rome gets +25% production to buildings period.
That way you can play your capital in different ways, and it even synergizes with the Legion road-building.

I dont agree that you should change romes bonus so that you are not forced to play a certain way .
I would say that your point of view is completly opposite to the purpose of UAs

The UA's are there to force you to play a Civ a certain way and its what makes playing the different Civs interesting

Lets change Babylon because the UA forces you to play a science based empire ....
Lets change Greece's UA because it forces you to play diplomatically with the CS
Lets change etc etc etc .....

 

[andymant]

I think the idea of giving free cover promotion to Legions is pretty nifty personally, and it would fit historically, as suggested; otherwise I think their strength and roadbuilding abilities make them cool. I also think their UA is quite special; even for puppeted empires, their build order IMO is not all that sub-optimal, it avoids building worthless things like barracks and constublaries, and will automatically switch to things like world's fair etc. The ballista is meh, the idea is to re-create the Roman city kingdom smashing powerhouse that it was by sticking them behind the incredibly formidible Legions, but I could definitely see them getting a UB instead (hello Forum!). Giving 25% production to all cities seems a little imbalanced to me, much better as it is. The road matinence isn't a bad idea if you tack it on to the existing UA, or making all city connections to Rome generate more gold or something. Having a Roman UA feature roads in some fashion makes sense historically.

Also I like getting these from city-states, quite possibly my favorite gifted unit, always complimentary. Oh look, a crappy un-upgraded unit that at the least can build a road to my new puppet states and then garrison them!

 

[LastSword]

UA All roads lead to Rome UA
+25% Production towards any buildings that already exist in the Capital.
+1 Production in Capital per city connected.

UU Legion UU
+Cover Promotion

UR Via praetoriae UR
Road replacement.
Half-maintainence cost.
Half-time build.
Cannot be pillaged.

 

[whiplash27]

UA All roads lead to Rome UA
+25% Production towards any buildings that already exist in the Capital.
+1 Production in Capital per city connected.

UU Legion UU
+Cover Promotion

UR Via praetoriae UR
Road replacement.
Half-maintainence cost.
Half-time build.
Cannot be pillaged.

I like this.

 

[Lordleoz]

I mean no offense here, but most of the changes above really make Rome too strong and imbalanced. The Glory of Rome requires a different way to play, where you will focus on investing in the capital. Most of the gold will be saved to purchase buildings in Rome when available, and the city of Rome will mainly build units or wonders. This will ensure the +25% bonus, which will let other cities complete their building queues pretty fast. Think of it: Workshop, Windmill and Factory each gives +10%, but you get +25% from the UA alone, although only on buildings. I have played Rome for 4 times and it's my favorite one. A capital-oriented strategy works well.

The strength of a Legion is even stronger than that of a Pikeman, not to mention that it can build roads. With iron being revealed at Bronze Working now, Legions are available early enough to overwhelm all the nearby civs. However, with Legions, Ballistas indeed seem to be a bit redundant. But anyways, Ballistas are still efficient city raiders for they have 30 RS(10*3) attack on cities, while CB has 11.

Rome is good enough. IMO, If Rome can get a buff, then more than 30 civs in the game will require greater buffs.

 

[King_Course]

With iron revealed at bronze, Rome has been strengthened. And with the scarce gold and often inability to rushbuy in the early game, their building bonus has also become more valuable. It aids a good deal in getting national wonders up.

 

[Falconiano]

UA All roads lead to Rome UA
+25% Production towards any buildings that already exist in the Capital.
+1 Production in Capital per city connected.

UU Legion UU
+Cover Promotion

UR Via praetoriae UR
Road replacement.
Half-maintainence cost.
Half-time build.
Cannot be pillaged.

That's another intelligent solution there.

 

[Callonia]

Dude

by building Market, bank, stock exchange in rome, it means it now takes less time in all other cities to build those.

pop 1 cities tend to build things very slowly.

All roads lead to rome + Maritime infrastructure + whatever hammer focused hexs you found next to your new city. It isn't even a exaggeration to say that Rome is the civ that can build the buildings fastest.

In my current game I was building markets in 8 turns.. Rome might be able to build them in 5 or less turns in size 1 cities.

 

[Light Cleric]

Legions with free Cover would be nuts. How many things in that era can stand up to that?

That's another intelligent solution there.

I don't suppose you have anything to say in response to people's criticisms of these solutions to a problem many don't even think exists?

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

I think they are fine as is, there is no problem.

The only buff I would dare mention would be the Romans get up to 4 free Iron resources upon researching Iron Working. It just destroys the flavour of playing them when you get no immediate Iron, and your window off UU opportunity just fades away.


I personally think we should be thinking about poor Gandhi right now.....

 

[Callonia]

I think they are fine as is, there is no problem.

The only buff I would dare mention would be the Romans get up to 4 free Iron resources upon researching Iron Working. It just destroys the flavour of playing them when you get no immediate Iron, and your window off UU opportunity just fades away.


I personally think we should be thinking about poor Gandhi right now.....

I'm fine with that. I have seen few AI romes with no iron, it was a sad sight to see.

 

[pilot00]

I'm fine with that. I have seen few AI romes with no iron, it was a sad sight to see.

If that happens then every civ with a UU that requires a specific resource should start with some free as well.