[R&F] Civ of the Week: Rome!

[acluewithout]

• Leader: Trajan.

• Leader Ability: Trajan's Column. All founded cities start with a free building in the City Centre (Monument for Ancient Era starts).
  
  
• Civ Ability: All Roads Lead to Rome. All founded or conquered cities start with a Trading post and, if within Trade Route range of their Capital, a road to it. Trade routes generate +1 gold for each Roman Trading post the pass through.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Legion. Replaces the Swordsman. Costs more (110 v 90), hits harder (40 v 36), doesn't need iron, and has a single builder charge it can use to build a Roman Fort, a Road or Harvest a Resource. Unit can also repair pillaged tiles or clear nuclear fallout like a builder. Because Reasons. Movement 2, Maintenance 2.
  
  
• Unique Infrastructure: Roman Form. Unique Improvement. Can only be built by Legion, and expends their single Builder Charge. Has the same benefits as a normal Fort (+4 Defensive Strength and two turns of Fortification automatically), but can be build in Neutral Territory and (sadly) doesn't trigger the Ballistics Eureka (build Two Forts).

• Unique Infrastructure: Bath. Unique District, which replaces the Aqueduct. Half-price (18 v 36), as the same build requirements as an Aqueduct, but provides and additional +2 Housing and + 1 Amenity.

• Leader Agenda: Optimus Princeps. Believes freedom is the right of all sentient beings, and dislikes people that laugh at the name of his Leader Ability. Also, and more accurately, tries to take all the land - all of it - and likes other Civs that do the same. Dislikes Civs with little territory

• Suggested Reading: What have the Romans Ever Done for Us?; Archon_Wing; Lily_Lancer; Rome's Hidden Bonus (hint - swordsmen that chop); How Good is Rome (hint - swordsmen that chop - both woods and other swordsmen); Fast Science Victory with Rome (157 Turns) (hint - choppy chop chop); Monument Timing on Deity;

Notes:

• I usually try to keep these notes brief. But Rome is a bit special. Frankly, I'll be a little disappointed if people don't have a lot to say both about Rome. It's a very, very well put together Civ.
  
  
• One thing I like about Rome is that it buffs a lot of otherwise "boring" and or "work-a-day" infrastructure and units. There is maybe some interesting discussion to be had about both Rome's versions of these things and the underlying infrastructure and units themselves. In particular, people might like to discuss the following...
  • Are Aqueducts any good? Are Roman Aqueducts any good?
    
    
  • Are Forts any good? Are Roman Forts any good?
    
    
  • Are Swordsmen any good? (Hint: Yes) Are Roman Swordsmen any good? (Hint: ah, a Swordsmen that doesn't need Iron, can repair and chop, and has 40 Strength. Yeah, that's a hard yes).
    
    
  • How important are Monuments, Trading Posts and Roads? Huh. How do you feel about getting them for free?
    
    
  • How important is chopping, pillaging and repair? How would you like to do that for free (well, free with every Swordsmen)?
    
    
  • Is Rome the perfect entry level Civ for someone who's never played Civ?
    
    
  • Has Rome been "buffed" by R&F? If so, by how much?

• Trading Posts. I only had this recently explained to me: a city usually gets a Trading Post when you send a trade route to that city and the trade route completes (however many turns that takes). The Trading Post then provides two benefits. First, usually Trade Routes can only travel 15 tiles (or 30 over water). But if a Trade Route can reach a Trading Post it "resets", and can then travel an additional 15 tiles from that Trading Post (and so on, if it can reach further Trading Posts). Second, a Trade Route gets an additional +1 Gold for each Trading Post it travels through. Rome, of course, gets Trading Posts automatically when it settles or conquers a city (as described above) and get additional gold from their Trading Posts.

• Aqueducts. When thinking about whether Aqueducts are any good, just remember that they are a district, and just like other districts: (1) they provide +1/2 Adjacency to all other Districts, and (2) count as a District for those "you get x per district" cards and powers. Unlike most Districts though, they don't count towards your District limit.
  
  
• If you didn't watch the video in the "Epic of Gilgamesh" link last week, you're really missing out.

 

[Disgustipated]

I admit I never used the builder ability for the legion. Does using this ability consume the legion? That has been my fear, and why I never use that ability.

Yes they are the perfect starter civ. One of if not the fastest ci v to get to political philosophy.

I have much more to add later when I'm not at work on a crappy tablet.

 

[UWHabs]

I played Rome in my first civ 6 game, because I figured free roads would at least be one less thing to worry about.

Overall, I'd concur with the above that it's a very well put together civ. Free monuments means that you get the base culture and just helps push borders in new cities and get them online faster. Free roads obviously helps for movement, and you can still send traders to build roads normally. And the baths are basically at least as good as neighbourhood, giving 4 housing at the minimum, plus the amenity which is big. And it comes many eras before neighbourhoods.

And then having a stronger resourceless legion who can repair pillaged tiles? Pillaging and repairing will slow down a little, but especially if you run the double pillage card, you can get some pretty solid rewards from that.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Rome is always a favorite of mine, and they are an extremely well-designed Civ. All of their bonuses are useful and they all rhyme with Rome. Those monuments do a number of nice things, especially in the early turns. If you settle in place with no CS or culture tile you'll unlock CoL on turn 7, giving you an extra hammer (unless you insist on the faith) and the +5 against barbarians card. That significantly reduces the risk of getting pressed by barbs when you're trying to lay the ground-work for your Civ. Similarly, if you can't build an early builder because you're fighting for your life you'll unlock Agoge on turn 19, which will make it easier to punch your way out of a bad situation. That said an early builder will work wonders if you can get away with it. The boost for Craftsmanship gets you to Magnus that much faster and the extra hammers are a huge help. Remember that monuments give loyalty until they give culture, which gives you more freedom to found cities. This is particularly important because I usually find myself in a Dark Classical age with Rome. The monuments allow you to expand even with the loyalty penalty, and this sets you up for a Heroic Medieval age. Every city comes with the monument, so you'll have strong culture as long as you expand aggressively. Prioritizing the Ancestral Hall for +50% settlers and free builders is a good idea. A free monument and a free builder is all a city needs to blossom quickly so you're encouraged to plant as many as possible.
The fact that Agoge unlocks early makes it likely that you will be able to go on the offensive before IW, but once your legions come on-line you can take as much of your starting continent as you want. Upgrading from warriors with or without iron brings them into the game as soon as they unlock. They're muscular enough to overwhelm the ai and they can repair the tiles they pillage. They can also chop in reinforcements (or monuments if you're having loyalty issues) right at the front line. They'll never be as fast as horses or knights but the free roads get them where they need to be in good order, especially now that Commando grants +1 movement.
All that fast culture will unlock the Coliseum very quickly, and if you aim for it you shouldn't have any trouble securing it even on Deity. The amenities it gives are lovely but the real prize is +2 culture per city. That's huge if you can cover 5 or more cities. If you hammer out some cheap baths all those amenities will give you the ecstatic city bonuses.
I'll make time for a few Roman games this week.

 

[liv]

I am not good with Rome on deity. Will start a game and maybe ask for advice this week. I think my issue is that there is usually no room to settle much for cities so the free monument dies early (but the first one is a good one) I do not really do Ancestors' Hall either since by the time that is done I probably have no space. I usually play deity on small maps with standard civs. Not sure it that makes it more crowded than standard size.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I happened to start a Rome game last week. I ended up in a spot with lots of lakes and city-states, and it's been pretty fun.

I mostly use the Legions to chop. A single tile of road and a fort aren't terribly useful.

The Baths aren't bad, but I don't find myself appreciating them.

The free monuments, roads, and Trading Posts are the best part. I can move units from city to city with ease and get better range with traders right off the bat. And Rome has an early lead in the Civic tree.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I agree with the general theme of your thread, but think you may have slightly exaggerated the +1 loyalty bonus from monuments due to an understandably zealous enthusiasm for the Roman civ .

Remember that monuments give loyalty until they give culture, which gives you more freedom to found cities. This is particularly important because I usually find myself in a Dark Classical age with Rome. The monuments allow you to expand even with the loyalty penalty, and this sets you up for a Heroic Medieval age.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I agree with the general theme of your thread, but think you may have slightly exaggerated the +1 loyalty bonus from monuments due to an understandably zealous enthusiasm for the Roman civ .

Well, I rarely if ever have loyalty issues with my expos as Rome, while I certainly have (in Dark Ages at least) with other Civs. Chopping a monument in a city you just took is questionable though. I've been able to stop cities from flipping by chopping a monument and assigning a governor but that doesn't always work. I don't completely understand how the loyalty works but I don't think the difference is my imagination. It isn't a magic bullet but it's just one more way that they grease the wheels for Rome.

 

[Disgustipated]

It's only +1, right? Not a game changer, but sometimes all it takes is that little nudge to keep from flipping. City growth and the granary is more useful in the long run.

Here's a starting position for a King game I will play if anyone is interested. I take the first start as always. My difficulty isn't high enough that picking and choosing is a thing. It's easy enough as is, especially with such a powerful Civ.

Spoiler :

 

[Disgustipated]

My game actually proved to be much more challenging than anticipated. My nearest neighbor was really aggressive, though he normally is (I won't spoil who it is), and had one other surprise war against me. They came at me with a lot of units. I almost lost my capital both times.

And I had my most challenging emergency to date. Mainly because of the traffic jam in this picture. I hate 1 unit per tile so much sometimes. Stupid city state units blocking my path. This map isn't all standard settings, so I urge you all to give it a try. I actually chose old world, but still quite a few mountains as you can see. Once encountering Macedon unique units I had to back track and get my uu. It was still a nailbiter and got the city-state emergency with about 5 turns to go. Don't think I could have done it without strategic use of Amani.

Usually I dominate better as Rome. This game is challenging. And I only had one nearby neighbor. although Macedon is nearby as well, but quite formidable against my uu, I don't feel confident attacking him, though with upgrades to crossbows I could I suppose. I'm just not that interested. I may actually see knights soon which will make short work of my uu. Other than the city state emergency, I really didn't get much mileage out of my uu this game.

Rome can't always dominate the classical era. I actually got my lead in the ancient era.

Spoiler :

 

[Ferocitus]

Good to see another win by the underdog!

 

[BarbarianHunter]

• Unique Infrastructure: Bath. Unique District, which replaces the Aqueduct. Half-price (18 v 36), as the same build requirements as an Aqueduct, but provides and additional +2 Housing and + 1 Amenity.

Notes:

• I usually try to keep these notes brief. But Rome is a bit special. Frankly, I'll be a little disappointed if people don't have a lot to say both about Rome. It's a very, very well put together Civ.
  
  
• One thing I like about Rome is that it buffs a lot of otherwise "boring" and or "work-a-day" infrastructure and units. There is maybe some interesting discussion to be had about both Rome's versions of these things and the underlying infrastructure and units themselves. In particular, people might like to discuss the following...
  • Are Aqueducts any good? Are Roman Aqueducts any good?
• Aqueducts. When thinking about whether Aqueducts are any good, just remember that they are a district, and just like other districts: (1) they provide +1/2 Adjacency to all other Districts, and (2) count as a District for those "you get x per district" cards and powers. Unlike most Districts though, they don't count towards your District limit.

Let the discussing begin! They say a picture is worth 1000 words. This game has some potential! I usually don't plan my starts around building aqueducts, but in Rome's case I'll make an exception.

Spoiler :

X = Settle
O = Campus
~ = Bath

EDIT: Never mind. Boxed in, Dark Age, Sythia . In closing, Rome does get allot of neet bonuses that don't look like much, but when take in their entirety, seem to be more than the sum of the parts.

 

[acluewithout]

There is so much I like about Rome. I’ve posted elsewhere about how well designed they are. And of course Rome is exactly the type of Civ many people will be itching to play in a game about Civilisations.

I really like playing with and sometimes exploring the existing mechanics of the game. I therefore usually play Civs that don’t really change the base game, but instead let you lean into existing mechanics. Rome in many ways fits that bill for me.

...and yet, I never play them. Because they are just too powerful at precisely the wrong time.

Rome is very powerful for three reasons. First, it gets a tonne of early culture, and culture early game is incredibly powerful - only more so since R&F moved most of its new mechanics to early in the civics tree. Second, Rome buffs maybe the most powerful unit in the game after Knights - Swordsmen. And Swords have only got stronger since the last patch. Third, those same Unique Swordsmen let you do one of the most powerful things in the game - chop. Those things combined are just crazy powerful.

But to me, it’s early in the game that you want to be underpowered. That’s when Civ VI and its cheese AI are the most challenging, and playing the map and governance requires the most skill. Rome undercuts that challenge by giving you such strong advantages upfront. Worse, you don’t then have anything more to look forward to - Rome has nothing unique after the Classical era (which makes sense of course).

I find that if I want to play “Rome”, I’m actually better playing Germany. It’s a Civ which has a lot of the same flavour, but it’s not as strong and its bonuses are spread out more.

To me, Rome illustrates why it must be so hard to balance Civs and mechanics. Rome is extremely well designed and really nails all the “roleplaying” and “gameplay” elements. But as a result it maybe then ends up a little to tank.

I certainly don’t want Rome changed. It’s perfect as is. And my sort of gripe about Rome being “too easy” should fall away as the game hopefully gets more challenging.

 

[Archon_Wing]

What can i say about Rome? Well, they have consistency since with legions they can break out of most bad spots with their legions and archers might be optional. I always thought those civs (others being Aztec/Sumeria) tend to be strong in those regards. Though having an iron mine still boosts Iron Working and thus still helpful. But otherwise I just make warriors.

So with that in mind I rolled a start and ended up isolated on a crappy island :S But you can still get free monuments for settling fast so there though having to get seafaring technology sucks. It does have jungle in the capital so we can have some very fast growth.

Emperor/Shuffle/Normal Size and Speed

I screwed up thinking truffles require irrigation though I did get lucky and pop another builder, but I still played it wrong.

Had an emergency early and I liberated Villinus with galleys (from chopping) but then it immediately changes to someone else. What's worse is that since I don't have shipbuilding, that strands half my army, so screw that.as the CS bonus sucks anyways.

Spoiler :

Monty had defender of the faith and that sucks as it is pretty broken, especially if Aztecs get it. So that took a while and for some reason he started massing catapults. Bought a Great General to help out the legions and I used that great scientist for healing.

Spoiler :

And the capital as of turn 170. Oh somehow Barbs appeared

Spoiler :

2nd place only has a piddling 40'ish science; looks like the map generator just wasn't that kind and I had cycled through almost every Great Scientist. Not really sure how to finish this in a non-boring way, and for some reason I still haven't met everyone despite having circled the world, so we'll see if other people's capitals are on the coast. *cough*

 

[Sostratus]

And the capital as of turn 170. Oh somehow Barbs appeared

As someone who always seems to struggle getting great locations with the dutch, your home island's lakes make me salivate at the polder/huey potential... A perfect huey lake! +5 amenities!

I'm a bit salty that the early patch where they gave swordsmen +1 strength wasn't applied to the Ngao or the Legion. I want my 41 strength legions! And justice for kongo
Regardless of location, a bath always gives at least 4 housing and an amenity, which is an early neighbourhood with shopping mall. The tactical implication for city planning of being willing to settle a tile off fresh water early lets you place such better cities and districts. For example, setting up a petra city, you don't have to be next to the oasis- you can be a tile away, which can be very impactful for desert or resource coverage, etc. Plus, baths make it a sure bet you can grab Angkor Wat- a choice wonder for those with a lot of cities...

Rome is just so fun. I think it is the best designed Civ in the game in terms bonus and flavor synergy.

 

[Flaxton]

Leader Ability: Trajan's Column. All founded cities start with a free building in the City Centre (Monument for Ancient Era starts).

I've always wondered what happens in later starts? Do they ever get nothing or sewers for example instead of monuments?

 

[Karpius]

Rome Eternal!

As someone who rarely plays optimally, I think Rome is the most fun of all the civs (close second being pre-nerf England). I will settle in place each and every game with Rome and no matter how bad the start, I know I can get out of it. The greatest advantage is having the internal road network built automatically as you go. My first few trade routes are almost always to outlying city-states or nearby civs I worry may become hostile. Roads do become important as the game goes on, but Rome's advantage in that regard diminishes as more foreign trade routes (roads) are built. But early on its huge.

Baths, in my opinion, are a quick and easy fix to housing/happiness issues early on. Even in the late game, they can be a convenient band-aid for new or conquered cities.

Legions!! What can I say? Hands down my favorite unit in all of Civ6! It comes early and has real staying power. It may not be fast like a cavalry unit, but I will build Legions til I can't build them no more. Used well, they remain potent right up until musket men make the scene. I never use their ability to chop because I prefer to reserve that charge in case I need a quick fort somewhere. I upgrade very few of my Legions and only those with at least two promotions. I personally love building Legion 'armies' and having them follow the main force into battle....even in the late game. Of course this part comes down to personal taste, but there is nothing like having your modern armor and rocket artillery soften a city to the point that your Legion army named something like "Trajan's Terror Dogs" can march in and capture it for the glory of Rome! It may be silly from a thematic viewpoint, but it is fun as sh.......well, you get the idea.

 

[acluewithout]

I’m shocked it’s Monday and we already have 3 “we want to keep talking about Rome” votes. Clearly a Fan Favourite.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Leader Ability: Trajan's Column. All founded cities start with a free building in the City Centre (Monument for Ancient Era starts).

I've always wondered what happens in later starts? Do they ever get nothing or sewers for example instead of monuments?

I don't think I've ever noticed getting anything besides the Monument. I'm currently in the Industrial Era in my Rome game and founded a couple more cities on an unoccupied landmass, and it's still just the Monument.

 

[Karpius]

I don't think I've ever noticed getting anything besides the Monument. I'm currently in the Industrial Era in my Rome game and founded a couple more cities on an unoccupied landmass, and it's still just the Monument.

Before R&F, I did one Industrial Age start with Rome. As I recall, my cities started with a complete city center. I only noticed it after re-capturing a Roman city I had lost briefly, but had to 'repair' the Monument, Watermill and Grainary. I had never built them (or really paid attention to what was there) and I doubt the opposing civ had time to build them in the two turns they occupied it.

I have yet to try anything but an Ancient start since R&F.