(2-07a) Rome Rework

[KlHannibal2]

I really like the flavor of conquering unique buildings as Rome. And I like that Rome can safely take a contested city since it will keep defensive buildings. Another factor here is that keeping the buildings makes early conquering and annexing more benificial to Rome. But I can see the modding headache it creates in the background, and that's a strong argument for a change.

I also see a big overlap of the colosseum with Persia and the Aztecs. All these civs are warmongers that can get more golden age turns than other warmongers. The only one with a strong synergy is Persia.

I really like to make the Pilum permanent.

As for annexing city states: what do you think of keeping all the buildings there, including walls? That should not conflict with any UBs.
Also, what about giving the city state units a unique auxilia promotion? I could see myself wanting more legions (and ballistas) instead if CS spearmen. With an extra promotion they become more valuable.

I love the idea of food in the capital for every villa. I find it a bit couter-productive to incentivie a farm spam to max villa yields. It makes sense historically, but will I ever work those farms in a Rome game? Maybe add more improvement types like pastures.

 

[pineappledan]

As for annexing city states: what do you think of keeping all the buildings there, including walls? That should not conflict with any UBs.

Isn't that how it already works? You can look at Venice's Merchant and see if CS annexation retains all buildings

I really like the flavor of conquering unique buildings as Rome. And I like that Rome can safely take a contested city since it will keep defensive buildings. Another factor here is that keeping the buildings makes early conquering and annexing more benificial to Rome. But I can see the modding headache it creates in the background, and that's a strong argument for a change.

The proposal is to move the building retention to Civilized mission, so it's not going away. I'm mainly proposing that if this ability is going to stick around in some form, it should replace UBs with their base versions.
I think having it at a later policy is better anyways; it means there's actual buildings to steal in most cities.

I love the idea of food in the capital for every villa. I find it a bit couter-productive to incentivie a farm spam to max villa yields. It makes sense historically, but will I ever work those farms in a Rome game? Maybe add more improvement types like pastures.

We discussed adding Pastures to it. FWIW if we get the code needed to make 2-adjacent yield bonuses work between different improvement types, then that opens up a pasture adjacency bonus for the Hunnic Eki. That doesn't preclude adding a pasture adjacency to the Latifundia, but it would keep the two more separate and unique if they didn't overlap. The thematic tie-in to plantations/farms is much stronger.

 

[axatin]

I like the idea of the Villa UI, but I'm not convinced about annexing city-states using tribute. Rome should be incentivized to conquer other empires, not city states, and the current UA provides such an incentive. Its problems can be solved by excluding UBs and UNWs from it. Making Pilum stay on upgrade should make up for the weaker UA.

 

[pineappledan]

Sure, Rome had some major conflicts where they conquered large empires like the Macedonians, Ptolemaic Egypt, and Carthage, but Rome did plenty of bullying smaller cities and minor kingdoms in their time. Boudicca would be a prime example of that.

In my proposal I specifically hit out against civs that are incentivized to conquer other civs; we have plenty of those already, and any bonus in that vein cuts against Rome truly unique. Are you actually playing Rome any differently because you get 4 tiles and more buildings when you conquer a city, as opposed to getting science if you had been playing assyria, or culture and production bonuses as France?

 

[Zakuzelo]

I don't care for the UA change at all. Rome's current UA is fun as hell and feels great to use, didn't care for annexing city states back when Mongolia had that move. Making that action separate is a good idea, but give it back to Mongolia, not to Rome.
Legions keeping pilum is neat, wouldn't mind that.
The Villa is cool, giving food to your capital is a really neat idea and I'm always in favor of UIs on conquerors, but I'm not sure I'd want to give up the Coliseum for it. Buffing part of the arena/barracks/forge trio on a swordsman civ feels sooo good, and I'll point out that your 3rd/4th UC mod adds GG synergy to both the Legion and their new Ballista.

 

[KlHannibal2]

I don't care for the UA change at all. Rome's current UA is fun as hell and feels great to use, didn't care for annexing city states back when Mongolia had that move. Making that action separate is a good idea, but give it back to Mongolia, not to Rome.
Legions keeping pilum is neat, wouldn't mind that.
The Villa is cool, giving food to your capital is a really neat idea and I'm always in favor of UIs on conquerors, but I'm not sure I'd want to give up the Coliseum for it. Buffing part of the arena/barracks/forge trio on a swordsman civ feels sooo good, and I'll point out that your 3rd/4th UC mod adds GG synergy to both the Legion and their new Ballista.

Yeah, I also like the current version. I think annexing city states fits Mongolia better. AFAIK, Rome mostly conquered the lands they gained.

I also pondered about the 4 tiles you get on conquest. While I never noticed them, I can see the synergy of those tiles, extra generals and legions with cover and pilum.
While conquering is not a very unique playstyle, the current roman army feels quite unique as long as you have legions. You can use citadels and forts offensively, have legions fortified and using pilum, and use ballistas from behind. You can also have a road network. If you manage to take a city, but there is still a strong army around, why not peace out for 10 turns, occupy the new territory without resistance, pop a citadel and build roads and forts everywhere?

Why not start off with just making pilum permanent, and also the construction ability of the legion? It would allow to use this unique style of warfare for the whole game.

 

[adan_eslavo]

How will CS giving bonuses after capture work with UCS? Another killer change?

Adding forced annexation will require new button so cs window will be reworked, right? I will need detailed info for CSL if this was done.

I prefer Latifundium to Villa. Mostly because of Flax mechanic. Rest things maybe except those yields after capture are acceptable.

Maybe few counterproposals should be made like fir China?

 

[axatin]

Maybe we could split this proposal into two parts (with counterproposals), so that there is more flexibility to discuss and vote for the different aspects of the Rome rework:
Proposal 1 about Rome's UB: Colosseum / Villa / Latifundium
Proposal 2 about Rome's UA: Retaining Buildings / Annex CSs
(Proposal 3: Should Pilum stay on upgrade already exists)

 

[axatin]

As to the UA: Yes, the current bonuses aren't that great. The additional tiles are quite negligible, and the retaining building bonus actually undercuts the other Roman trait: the production bonus to buildings already in the capital.

On the other hand, the Romans are not remembered for / associated with the conquest of a lot of city states. They did, of course (as many states at that time were rather small), but the thing that makes the Romans really unique is that they were able to build up a large empire and keep it for a long time (unlike for example the Mongolians). So, I think, Rome doesn't necessarily need a conquest bonus but rather a bonus on wide play. It's not really worked out yet, but some ideas could be:
- Some buffs to puppet cities (inspired by the Roman provinciae and their administration by local governors)
- Happiness bonuses: A reduction of war weariness and/or a reduction of the +9% needs modifier per additional city (inspired by the Pax Romana, which meant a period of inner peace and stability while wars were being waged at the borders)

 

[KlHannibal2]

- Some buffs to puppet cities (inspired by the Roman provinciae and their administration by local governors)
- Happiness bonuses: A reduction of war weariness and/or a reduction of the +9% needs modifier per additional city (inspired by the Pax Romana, which meant a period of inner peace and stability while wars were being waged at the borders)

Good ideas. I favor the happiness bonus over the puppet one.
Rome was the most stable and long live ancient empire, which is represented by happiness/less unhappiness IMO.
And I don't think puppets represent Rome well. IMO, a puppet is a defeated local state that is allowed to keep its OWN ruler, the former king. He must swear loyalty to his new overlord. Many ancient empires in the middle east worked that way. But Rome appointed governors from their own ruling class to a province. They rotated every few years back to Rome, freeing their post for another roman noble. Thise governors were part of the senate/imperial hierarchy. That's probably the most direct control you got in an ancient empire.

 

[Emperorman1]

How about for UA something like "military training and courthouse buildings provide +1 happiness", plus some other bonuses?

 

[adan_eslavo]

As to the UA: Yes, the current bonuses aren't that great. The additional tiles are quite negligible, and the retaining building bonus actually undercuts the other Roman trait: the production bonus to buildings already in the capital.

On the other hand, the Romans are not remembered for / associated with the conquest of a lot of city states. They did, of course (as many states at that time were rather small), but the thing that makes the Romans really unique is that they were able to build up a large empire and keep it for a long time (unlike for example the Mongolians). So, I think, Rome doesn't necessarily need a conquest bonus but rather a bonus on wide play. It's not really worked out yet, but some ideas could be:
- Some buffs to puppet cities (inspired by the Roman provinciae and their administration by local governors)
- Happiness bonuses: A reduction of war weariness and/or a reduction of the +9% needs modifier per additional city (inspired by the Pax Romana, which meant a period of inner peace and stability while wars were being waged at the borders)

Puppet cities look more original to me. +1 from me.

 

[pineappledan]

How will CS giving bonuses after capture work with UCS? Another killer change?

The conquered CSs would only give a friend bonus, not allied, and UCS doesn't affect those. Thus, UCS would be unaffected re: mechanics

Adding forced annexation will require new button so cs window will be reworked, right? I will need detailed info for CSL if this was done.

We would need to add an extra button to the "Ask for Tribute" part of the menu, yes. I don't think CSLeaders icons would be much affected by that

I prefer Latifundium to Villa. Mostly because of Flax mechanic. Rest things maybe except those yields after capture are acceptable.

I like the Latifundium too, but I don't think it's stable enough to use as a base UC design for VP.
They swing in power way too much based on whether you start with a plantation luxury or something else like Gold mines. We also had to make them unpillageable and permanent so that they couldn't be used to spawn multiple copies of Figs for the same tile.

On the other hand, the Romans are not remembered for / associated with the conquest of a lot of city states. They did, of course (as many states at that time were rather small), but the thing that makes the Romans really unique is that they were able to build up a large empire and keep it for a long time (unlike for example the Mongolians). So, I think, Rome doesn't necessarily need a conquest bonus but rather a bonus on wide play. It's not really worked out yet, but some ideas could be:

Hard Disagree, that is how Rome started. Rome began as a minor city-state satellite of the Etruscans and expanded early by gobbling up their non-Etruscan neighbours to the south. First they forcefully annexed the Messapians, which drew them into conflict with the Samnites in the hills of central Italy, and then they wheeled south and gobbled up the individual colonies in Magna Graecia. The Greek colony of Neapolis/Naples joined with Rome fairly early on for all of this. And then the first Punic war was kicked off because the Romans were invited into Messana on Sicily, and the Carthaginians were worried they were about to annex Syracuse.

Giving continued yields after annexation of city states also fits well, because the Romans integrated a lot of the ideas and materials from all the little city-states they conquered. Most obviously the Romans absorbed a lot of Greek culture, philosophy and ideas, and their early tactics were taken from the Greek Phalanx. That changed when they integrated the Samnites, and modelled their manipular legions after Samnite tactics. We also wanted to have the militaristic CS gifts part so that Rome has a secure source of auxilia, which Rome almost wholly relied on for scouting and cavalry early on, and became more and more dependent on as the empire grew.

Then, you leverage your early city-state gobbling to take on a major civ (like Carthage), and once you have conquered enough and have enough space for all your villas, you can sit back and leverage your % infrastructure boost to keep coasting ahead. You aren't going to be able to gamify an empire's longevity in civ, because the way the individual civs exist as entities at all for thousands of years is a basic game mechanic, and already the most artificial thing in the game. You'll notice that Ethiopia doesn't have a "longevity bonus", and I never attempted to give the Chola a "longevity" bonus, even though these are the two longest unbroken dynastic lines in history. Both of those civs put Rome’s longevity to shame. Hell, Eastern Rome is its own civ in the game, and it lasted a lot longer than the Western Roman Empire. So even Rome was less stable and long-lived than Rome

And I don't think puppets represent Rome well. IMO, a puppet is a defeated local state that is allowed to keep its OWN ruler, the former king. He must swear loyalty to his new overlord. Many ancient empires in the middle east worked that way. But Rome appointed governors from their own ruling class to a province. They rotated every few years back to Rome, freeing their post for another roman noble. Thise governors were part of the senate/imperial hierarchy. That's probably the most direct control you got in an ancient empire.

Very true. Rome's style of direct rule, and expanding citizenship to client people is not the behaviour of a distant, disinterested empire. Compare to Persia, who often allowed kings to keep all their laws, taxes and administrations as satraps. The later Roman emperors set up multiple different capitals, most famously the Tetrarchy of Diocletian, so they could exert more direct control as emperor closer to the borders. Rome became a historic old capital, but largely neglected and treated as a white elephant by the later emperors, who even moved the capital of the Latin province to Ravenna.

Also, if you gave Rome some bonus for puppets, then Venice and Rome would both have similar bonuses, and I think that's poo.

How about for UA something like "military training and courthouse buildings provide +1 happiness", plus some other bonuses?

So pretty much Japan's UA combined with Persia's Satrap's court. no thanks.

 

[adan_eslavo]

The conquered CSs would only give a friend bonus, not allied, and UCS doesn't affect those. Thus, UCS would be unaffected re: mechanics

But they do not exist as "changed" CSs. I mean it is hidden yield, right?

We would need to add an extra button to the "Ask for Tribute" part of the menu, yes. I don't think CSLeaders icons would be much affected by that

Im affected because I reworked whole panel, so any change means I must add it on my version.

I like the Latifundium too, but I don't think it's stable enough to use as a base UC design for VP.
They swing in power way too much based on whether you start with a plantation luxury or something else like Gold mines. We also had to make them unpillageable and permanent so that they couldn't be used to spawn multiple copies of Figs for the same tile.

They don't have to be base unique. Cannot they stay as 4th uc?

 

[Legen]

You'll notice that Ethiopia doesn't have a "longevity bonus", and I never attempted to give the Chola a "longevity" bonus, even though these are the two longest unbroken dynastic lines in history.

Unrelated to the proposal itself, but I thought it was the Yamato dynasty? I know nothing about these two dynasties and I'm curious now.

 

[Gazebo]

An easier fix would be to add a building boolean column called 'RomeCanSteal' that defaults to false, and we set it as true for all buildings Rome can steal. Rome would then simply check if this bool is true.

G

 

[pineappledan]

An easier fix would be to add a building boolean column called 'RomeCanSteal' that defaults to false, and we set it as true for all buildings Rome can steal. Rome would then simply check if this bool is true.

G

Why not instead let the NeverCapture Boolean function as expected? Rome or civilized mission could just treat all buildings as capture chance = 100, but not ignore NeverCapture. Isn’t that preferable to adding a column?

Either way, That doesn’t fix the issue of UB stealing, which is a separate matter.

Edit: I will repeat, I think building retention should stay, but it’s way better as a policy bonus. Civilized mission getting to keep buildings is a way better place for this than Rome.

 

[Gazebo]

Why not instead let the NeverCapture Boolean function as expected? Rome or civilized mission could just treat all buildings as capture chance = 100, but not ignore NeverCapture. Isn’t that preferable to adding a column?

Either way, That doesn’t fix the issue of UB stealing, which is a separate matter.

Edit: I will repeat, I think building retention should stay, but it’s way better as a policy bonus. Civilized mission getting to keep buildings is a way better place for this than Rome.

I like it better on Rome than as a policy finisher, as its a fairly complex addition for a policy finisher viz. other finishers.

G

 

[axatin]

But Rome appointed governors from their own ruling class to a province. They rotated every few years back to Rome, freeing their post for another roman noble. Thise governors were part of the senate/imperial hierarchy. That's probably the most direct control you got in an ancient empire.

Very true. Rome's style of direct rule, and expanding citizenship to client people is not the behaviour of a distant, disinterested empire.

Thank you for your explanations, these are interesting facts.

Hard Disagree, that is how Rome started. Rome began as a minor city-state satellite of the Etruscans and expanded early ...

I've never claimed that Rome has never conquered any city-states. Just that they are more remembered today for conquering Greece and Carthage than for conquering the Etruscans and the Samnites...

Giving continued yields after annexation of city states also fits well, because the Romans integrated a lot of the ideas and materials from all the little city-states they conquered. Most obviously the Romans absorbed a lot of Greek culture, philosophy and ideas, and their early tactics were taken from the Greek Phalanx.

Well, this seems to be exactly what the current "keep unique buildings of conquered cities" tries to model. Greece is a major civilization in the game, not a little city-state. But I can see your point and I agree that this...

We also wanted to have the militaristic CS gifts part so that Rome has a secure source of auxilia, which Rome almost wholly relied on for scouting and cavalry early on, and became more and more dependent on as the empire grew.

Then, you leverage your early city-state gobbling to take on a major civ (like Carthage), and once you have conquered enough and have enough space for all your villas, you can sit back and leverage your % infrastructure boost to keep coasting ahead.

...is a nice concept that is based on historical facts and would be interesting to play.

Also, what about giving the city state units a unique auxilia promotion?

Rome would already have some military advantage with their legions and the additional city-state military, an additional promotion wouldn't be necessary in my opinion.

You aren't going to be able to gamify an empire's longevity in civ, because the way the individual civs exist as entities at all for thousands of years is a basic game mechanic, and already the most artificial thing in the game. You'll notice that Ethiopia doesn't have a "longevity bonus", and I never attempted to give the Chola a "longevity" bonus, even though these are the two longest unbroken dynastic lines in history.

I wasn't thinking of unbroken dynastic lines but rather of the longevity of the empire as a whole. And for a large empire based on conquering of a lot of foreign peoples and territories, isn't it a more impressive feat to keep the empire together than it is for others? Of course, longevity cannot be directly modeled, but stability can (using happiness).

I think both proposals have their advantages and disadvantages, and I will make a counterproposal so that the community can decide. As for the idea of buffing puppet cities: Considering the explanations about the Roman government system quoted above, I will not make a counterproposal on this topic. @adan_eslavo: Feel free to make a proposal yourself if you like the concept and have an idea how to implement it so that it doesn't overlap with existing bonuses.

 

[Rekk]

Maybe it should have a name that refers to the Republic in some way instead of the man who ended it.

Some interesting words that I found that may or may not be relevant:

The ager publicus (Classical Latin: [ˈaɡɛr ˈpuːblɪkʊs]; "public land") is the Latin name for the public land of Ancient Rome. It was usually acquired via the means of expropriation from enemies of Rome.

Probably too specific.