primordial stew
Emperor
============ Quick Overview + FAQ Section ==========================
Here is the download link, overview, and instructions:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=15177
Here is a screenshot: need to do this..
Rise and Fall of the Roman empire is a historical mod from the point of view of the Romans. It is for Warlords.
FAQ:
Q. What is a historical mod?
It does a reasonable job following history. Yay, it's educational
Q. What is special about RFRE?
1. non semper erit aestas (it will not always be summer)
Most significant historical events are represented in game. From Hannibal invading Italia, to Illyrian auxiliaries revolting, and even splitting the WRE and ERE late in the 4th century. The AI even has some events, such as the mercenary uprising following the end of the Punic Wars. Significant plagues (eg Plague of Cyprian, boubonic plague, Antonine Plague) will ravage the plebs. Petra will be buried in an earthquake, and the Jews will repeatedly revolt. King Attalus will bequeath his kingdom. Sertorius will revolt, Queen Zenobia will secede, the Gallic Empire will secede, Spartacus will rise up, and Armenia will be the 1st state to adopt Christianity. Goths will invade, Pictii will invade, Cimbri will invade, Moors will invade, Saxons will invade, Vandals and Huns will tear across your empire...
2. Details such as army composition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_military_structure. The Romans fielded very few foot or horse archers, so it is in the game. Pre-Marius legions were composed only of citizens, so for a city to be able to build a legion it must have civitas (citizenship). Civitas is achieved either through grant (such as to end the Social War), or through sufficient accumulation of Roman culture. Another detail on legions is that since the early legions were only part time soldiers, they have low XP gains. Later legions were professionals so can gain XP faster. Legions cost more upkeep than auxillaries do.
3. Reasonably historic scenarios. As far as documentation is available, and translating into game terms can be done.
4. Pirates are a problem.
5. Religion is represented. Judaism is present throughout the game in some cities, but most of the pagan religions will be abandoned when Christianity is adopted.
6. The famous Roman road network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads) can be built. Legions are expensive to maintain, but if there are idle periods you might as well put them to work!
7. Significant Roman generals are represented by promotions which have a fixed lifetime. No more seeing Scipio in 50BC! Scipio is different than the others in that he must be "forged in battle". Only if Hannibal reaches the south of Italia will he become the man he finally was.
8. Roman leaderheads change during the game. While Hadrian is in charge it is a good time to build wonders. While Augustus is in charge it is good to build the military.
9. Regional recruiting (including Barbarian Civ units)
10. Alliances with barbarians (Alans, Goths, Franks, Burgundians..). de duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum (of two evils, the lesser is always to be chosen
11. Select national units. You won't see a Carthaginian army composed solely of elephants. Similarly, Praetorians can only make up a small fraction of the field army. The Romans considered the units raised in Illyria to be their best infantry (there is a special promotion available in Illyrian cities).
12. The concept of a field army. There are many static garrison units available. They keep the peace, and defend the city, but that is all. They are cheap to maintain.
13. Hero unit strategy. Only hero units (eg Consular armies, Mithradites, Hannibal, etc..) get medic promotions. This represents their recruiting ability rather than inherent medical capability. So there is a choice sometimes of using the powerful hero to attack and possibly lose them, or to keep them safe to quickly rebuild a damaged army. Additionally, Rome can always field 2 Consular Legions. Do you keep them together for max capability, or spread them apart as was typically done?
14. Roman unit names are either historical (eg Legio XII Fulminata, Equites Scutarii Aureliaci, Cohors V Delmatarum c.R.), or historical sounding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_legions
15. Proscription is available twice if you run low on gold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription
16. Enslaving similar to civIII.
Q. Please explain research!
There are 2 tracks, the "timer" track, and the Roman's track. All civs are given the timer techs (via python) every 25 turns. While the AI is doing research, the cost is too high for them to actually discover the tech in this way.
The Roman track you have some influence over, but for the most part your future is fixed. It's best you move with the time line!
Q. Please explain the Social War.
In 91BC many of the Italian cities revolted against Roma.
In game terms, to bring the cities back under control 3 things need to happen (in no particular order):
Upon completing these 3 tasks the Italians will once again be part of the Empire.
Q. Please explain the Roman army
The Romans relied on heavy infantry (legions) for too long. Early on they did great, but against opponent using large amounts of cavalry, like the Persians, it almost always turned out bad for the Romans.
Legions were always composed of citizens. A city must have "civitas" (see explanation in the pedia) in order to build a legion, otherwise they can only build auxiliaries. In 8BC the Roman army consisted of 28 legion and 28 auxiliary regiments. The proportion of auxiliaries would grow over time.
It wasn't until maybe the 3rd century when the Romans finally fielded independent cavalry units. Until then the units were a mix. For example a legion was ~5000 heavy infantry, and 200 horses. In some of the auxiliaries the ratio was better (2:1), however the units were smaller (500-1000 soldiers). In game terms auxiliaries are cheaper to maintain (no extra cost), however they are not as powerful (again, the smaller size of the unit).
Auxiliaries will account for much of your army. Recruiting is done locally, so conquered lands usually bring new troop options.
Q. Please explain how great Roman generals such as Caesar, and Scipio are represented.
Scipio, Caesar, Trajan, and Belisarius are special promotions to the Consular armies. Please see Mods\RFRE\releaseNotes.txt for specifics.
Q. What is with all these pirate ships?
Pirates were quite active until Pompey cleared them out, but they increased again following the 2nd century as order decayed.
In game terms the number of pirates spawned will depend on how many of the pirate creating civs have been wiped out (eg Illyria, Piratea).
Q. When is the BtS port coming?
Never!
The focus is different, but check out:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=342350 Imperium Romanum
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=352646 Pie's Ancient Europe
Q. Why doesn't gold make my people happy?
Your citizens are impressed by conquest. Specifically conquest of Gaul, Greece, Egypt, Nabatae, Britania, and some of Germany. Gold instead adds +4% taxes from a market.
Q. Why is the worker rate so slow?
The time period of the game is rather short in Civilization terms.
Also worth noting is that some tasks will consume the worker (eg building a mine).
Q. How is a Castra building created?
A slave must be consumed to create this building.
Q. My citizens are unhappy, and production is too low!
Have slaves join cities that have access to lots of food. Slaves consume only 1 food, and produce 2 hammers. This is especially important in Roma! Portus Ostia provides +10 food, and +25% food!!!! At times 1/3 of Roma's population were slaves.
Q. I added too many slaves, and now the city is starving!
Excess slaves will be automatically killed off if a city starves (no, they didn't eat the slaves).
A granaria gives +2 food, but access to wheat is required to build it.
Q. Hannibal's army is smashing through Italia, is looks hopeless! Should I give up?
The Romans utilized 2 strategies against him in Italia. First was the typical Roman approach, raise a really large army and seek battle. After 3 major defeats a new strategy was utilized, the Fabian strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy.
While this was happening they sent troops to Hispania to capture the Carthaginian holdings there (Carthage captured a good part of Hispania between the 1st and 2nd Punic Wars). Following this Scipio (the surviving one) invaded Africa. To counter this Carthage recalled Hannibal to defend the motherland.
In game terms it is set to work similar to this. Specifically, if you capture Hispania this will impress Numidia. Then, if you capture Utica they will ally with you as you are obviously the superior force. Also, Hannibal will be recalled, though his army will remain in Italia.
Also worth mentioning is that Carthage will be fully disarmed when the 2nd Punic War ends.
Q. I'm playing the 200AD scenario and things look really bad for the Romans!
The Empire nearly went away during this period. The economy crashed, 2 major revolts took place, and there were barbarian migrations. For full details start here and follow all the links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century Most of the events described will happen, along with some other minor details from Gibbons book.
The Roman army is based on a 60AD legion location map, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_auxiliary_regiments. The auxiliary regiments in the game are the miliara type, so smaller units were combined for game purposes.
Q. In the 200/400/500AD scenario, how come there are still buildings to be built?
Civ doesn't provide much in the way of wbs, python, or XML mechanisms to set initial conditions. Actually the only one it provide is GameTurn in the wbs file, but it doesn't work like one would expect. Setting the game turn in python works better, but still not like it needs to. Consider trade routes. Trade routes increase in value over time (but I've not found anyone who knows how to control this), and so does inflation. Neither of these are set the same as if one had played starting in 275BC! So to try to compensate for this the economic buildings are not fully developed as they would be if played from the start. Another issue with trade routes is that almost all cities in the game have the same start time, and trade duration, so they all change on the same turn! This is no good, no good at all
Great people points (GPPs) are also in the same situation.
It may be possible through the SDK to set these things right, but I don't have the skill to accomplish this, nor have heard of anyone attempting this sort of thing. It would certainly be the best solution.
Q. The Romans had many vassals/client kings at times. How is this in the game?
The implementation still needs work. For example, the Germanics should never offer capitulation, but currently they could though it is highly unlikely.
As is there are 2 methods. The first is the regular vassal state that Warlords provides. This is available with Philosophy and Poetry tech. The reason it is here is that around this point (Augustus) the empire had grown so much that there was no capacity to annex new territories. Time was needed to absorb the existing territory before adding any more. In game terms this is desired to be an economic decision. There is a small penalty for number of cities, and a high penalty for having too big of an army. So the hope is to take vassals (eg Thrace, Judea, Pontus, Galatia, Armenia) while economic buildings are created in Hispania and Gaul.
The other vassal type is done via python. Pergamum is handled this way. When the King of Pergamum died he bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. They will become your vassal, and then some turns later will be merged. Aegyptus is handled similarly, but to get Aegyptus to merge Mark Antony must be defeated first.
Q. Please give an economic overview
During the early Republican times your economy is in pretty good shape, however the need to keep the military large to enable expansion will consume most of the surplus. Still, with conquest the treasury will improve. Expectation is to run somewhere between 1000 - 2000 gold, but there will be dips, and if necessary proscription will be used (only 2 times though). Much of the time you will have a negative gold rate, but so long as the rate is not too high city conquest gold will keep things moving.
Trade routes have a fixed yield of 3. In typical Civ these values will increase over time, but not so here. Only the number of routes will change.
Many buildings directly increase the base commerce in a city (eg lupinaria/brothel), but only 3 increase the rate. The market can be built anywhere. With civitas (citizenship) the emporium and census can be built. The emporium provides bonuses from conquest (ie an additional 1-2% income for each conquered region), and the census provides +15% gold, but with 1 unhappy citizen. The emporium will become obsolete in 215AD.
Combat will yield slaves (all legions till the Merc legion might create slaves), and slaves will create most of the tile improvements. This works great while slaves are readily available, but over time there will be fewer available as slaves are consumed, revolt, or are captured. This will make it difficult to recover from any plundering. In normal Civ you could just create new workers, but in RFRE the worker is a nation unit and only 1 is allowed.
For the decline period, this article ("To what extent were economic factors to blame for the deterioration of the Roman Empire in the Third Century A.D?" by Julian Fenner ) is pretty good: http://www.roman-empire.net/articles/article-018.html
Q. What is left to do?
Balance! Please help by providing feedback.
As mentioned above, vassalship needs work.
Some sort of way to win the game needs to be created!
Problems: Warlords starts, but then nothing happens
Make sure Quickstart = 0 in CivilizationIV.ini
============ Original thread Section ==========================
Here is the download link, overview, and instructions:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=15177
Here is a screenshot: need to do this..
Rise and Fall of the Roman empire is a historical mod from the point of view of the Romans. It is for Warlords.
FAQ:
Q. What is a historical mod?
It does a reasonable job following history. Yay, it's educational
Q. What is special about RFRE?
1. non semper erit aestas (it will not always be summer)
Most significant historical events are represented in game. From Hannibal invading Italia, to Illyrian auxiliaries revolting, and even splitting the WRE and ERE late in the 4th century. The AI even has some events, such as the mercenary uprising following the end of the Punic Wars. Significant plagues (eg Plague of Cyprian, boubonic plague, Antonine Plague) will ravage the plebs. Petra will be buried in an earthquake, and the Jews will repeatedly revolt. King Attalus will bequeath his kingdom. Sertorius will revolt, Queen Zenobia will secede, the Gallic Empire will secede, Spartacus will rise up, and Armenia will be the 1st state to adopt Christianity. Goths will invade, Pictii will invade, Cimbri will invade, Moors will invade, Saxons will invade, Vandals and Huns will tear across your empire...
2. Details such as army composition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_military_structure. The Romans fielded very few foot or horse archers, so it is in the game. Pre-Marius legions were composed only of citizens, so for a city to be able to build a legion it must have civitas (citizenship). Civitas is achieved either through grant (such as to end the Social War), or through sufficient accumulation of Roman culture. Another detail on legions is that since the early legions were only part time soldiers, they have low XP gains. Later legions were professionals so can gain XP faster. Legions cost more upkeep than auxillaries do.
3. Reasonably historic scenarios. As far as documentation is available, and translating into game terms can be done.
4. Pirates are a problem.
5. Religion is represented. Judaism is present throughout the game in some cities, but most of the pagan religions will be abandoned when Christianity is adopted.
6. The famous Roman road network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads) can be built. Legions are expensive to maintain, but if there are idle periods you might as well put them to work!
7. Significant Roman generals are represented by promotions which have a fixed lifetime. No more seeing Scipio in 50BC! Scipio is different than the others in that he must be "forged in battle". Only if Hannibal reaches the south of Italia will he become the man he finally was.
8. Roman leaderheads change during the game. While Hadrian is in charge it is a good time to build wonders. While Augustus is in charge it is good to build the military.
9. Regional recruiting (including Barbarian Civ units)
10. Alliances with barbarians (Alans, Goths, Franks, Burgundians..). de duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum (of two evils, the lesser is always to be chosen
11. Select national units. You won't see a Carthaginian army composed solely of elephants. Similarly, Praetorians can only make up a small fraction of the field army. The Romans considered the units raised in Illyria to be their best infantry (there is a special promotion available in Illyrian cities).
12. The concept of a field army. There are many static garrison units available. They keep the peace, and defend the city, but that is all. They are cheap to maintain.
13. Hero unit strategy. Only hero units (eg Consular armies, Mithradites, Hannibal, etc..) get medic promotions. This represents their recruiting ability rather than inherent medical capability. So there is a choice sometimes of using the powerful hero to attack and possibly lose them, or to keep them safe to quickly rebuild a damaged army. Additionally, Rome can always field 2 Consular Legions. Do you keep them together for max capability, or spread them apart as was typically done?
14. Roman unit names are either historical (eg Legio XII Fulminata, Equites Scutarii Aureliaci, Cohors V Delmatarum c.R.), or historical sounding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_legions
15. Proscription is available twice if you run low on gold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription
16. Enslaving similar to civIII.
Q. Please explain research!
There are 2 tracks, the "timer" track, and the Roman's track. All civs are given the timer techs (via python) every 25 turns. While the AI is doing research, the cost is too high for them to actually discover the tech in this way.
The Roman track you have some influence over, but for the most part your future is fixed. It's best you move with the time line!
Q. Please explain the Social War.
In 91BC many of the Italian cities revolted against Roma.
In game terms, to bring the cities back under control 3 things need to happen (in no particular order):
- research the Agrarian (land) Reforms tech, this is available immediately after the revolt
- build Lex Agraria in Roma
- capture 2 Italian cities
Upon completing these 3 tasks the Italians will once again be part of the Empire.
Q. Please explain the Roman army
The Romans relied on heavy infantry (legions) for too long. Early on they did great, but against opponent using large amounts of cavalry, like the Persians, it almost always turned out bad for the Romans.
Legions were always composed of citizens. A city must have "civitas" (see explanation in the pedia) in order to build a legion, otherwise they can only build auxiliaries. In 8BC the Roman army consisted of 28 legion and 28 auxiliary regiments. The proportion of auxiliaries would grow over time.
It wasn't until maybe the 3rd century when the Romans finally fielded independent cavalry units. Until then the units were a mix. For example a legion was ~5000 heavy infantry, and 200 horses. In some of the auxiliaries the ratio was better (2:1), however the units were smaller (500-1000 soldiers). In game terms auxiliaries are cheaper to maintain (no extra cost), however they are not as powerful (again, the smaller size of the unit).
Auxiliaries will account for much of your army. Recruiting is done locally, so conquered lands usually bring new troop options.
Q. Please explain how great Roman generals such as Caesar, and Scipio are represented.
Scipio, Caesar, Trajan, and Belisarius are special promotions to the Consular armies. Please see Mods\RFRE\releaseNotes.txt for specifics.
Q. What is with all these pirate ships?
Pirates were quite active until Pompey cleared them out, but they increased again following the 2nd century as order decayed.
In game terms the number of pirates spawned will depend on how many of the pirate creating civs have been wiped out (eg Illyria, Piratea).
Q. When is the BtS port coming?
Never!
The focus is different, but check out:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=342350 Imperium Romanum
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=352646 Pie's Ancient Europe
Q. Why doesn't gold make my people happy?
Your citizens are impressed by conquest. Specifically conquest of Gaul, Greece, Egypt, Nabatae, Britania, and some of Germany. Gold instead adds +4% taxes from a market.
Q. Why is the worker rate so slow?
The time period of the game is rather short in Civilization terms.
Also worth noting is that some tasks will consume the worker (eg building a mine).
Q. How is a Castra building created?
A slave must be consumed to create this building.
Q. My citizens are unhappy, and production is too low!
Have slaves join cities that have access to lots of food. Slaves consume only 1 food, and produce 2 hammers. This is especially important in Roma! Portus Ostia provides +10 food, and +25% food!!!! At times 1/3 of Roma's population were slaves.
Q. I added too many slaves, and now the city is starving!
Excess slaves will be automatically killed off if a city starves (no, they didn't eat the slaves).
A granaria gives +2 food, but access to wheat is required to build it.
Q. Hannibal's army is smashing through Italia, is looks hopeless! Should I give up?
The Romans utilized 2 strategies against him in Italia. First was the typical Roman approach, raise a really large army and seek battle. After 3 major defeats a new strategy was utilized, the Fabian strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy.
While this was happening they sent troops to Hispania to capture the Carthaginian holdings there (Carthage captured a good part of Hispania between the 1st and 2nd Punic Wars). Following this Scipio (the surviving one) invaded Africa. To counter this Carthage recalled Hannibal to defend the motherland.
In game terms it is set to work similar to this. Specifically, if you capture Hispania this will impress Numidia. Then, if you capture Utica they will ally with you as you are obviously the superior force. Also, Hannibal will be recalled, though his army will remain in Italia.
Also worth mentioning is that Carthage will be fully disarmed when the 2nd Punic War ends.
Q. I'm playing the 200AD scenario and things look really bad for the Romans!
The Empire nearly went away during this period. The economy crashed, 2 major revolts took place, and there were barbarian migrations. For full details start here and follow all the links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century Most of the events described will happen, along with some other minor details from Gibbons book.
The Roman army is based on a 60AD legion location map, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_auxiliary_regiments. The auxiliary regiments in the game are the miliara type, so smaller units were combined for game purposes.
Q. In the 200/400/500AD scenario, how come there are still buildings to be built?
Civ doesn't provide much in the way of wbs, python, or XML mechanisms to set initial conditions. Actually the only one it provide is GameTurn in the wbs file, but it doesn't work like one would expect. Setting the game turn in python works better, but still not like it needs to. Consider trade routes. Trade routes increase in value over time (but I've not found anyone who knows how to control this), and so does inflation. Neither of these are set the same as if one had played starting in 275BC! So to try to compensate for this the economic buildings are not fully developed as they would be if played from the start. Another issue with trade routes is that almost all cities in the game have the same start time, and trade duration, so they all change on the same turn! This is no good, no good at all
Great people points (GPPs) are also in the same situation.
It may be possible through the SDK to set these things right, but I don't have the skill to accomplish this, nor have heard of anyone attempting this sort of thing. It would certainly be the best solution.
Q. The Romans had many vassals/client kings at times. How is this in the game?
The implementation still needs work. For example, the Germanics should never offer capitulation, but currently they could though it is highly unlikely.
As is there are 2 methods. The first is the regular vassal state that Warlords provides. This is available with Philosophy and Poetry tech. The reason it is here is that around this point (Augustus) the empire had grown so much that there was no capacity to annex new territories. Time was needed to absorb the existing territory before adding any more. In game terms this is desired to be an economic decision. There is a small penalty for number of cities, and a high penalty for having too big of an army. So the hope is to take vassals (eg Thrace, Judea, Pontus, Galatia, Armenia) while economic buildings are created in Hispania and Gaul.
The other vassal type is done via python. Pergamum is handled this way. When the King of Pergamum died he bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. They will become your vassal, and then some turns later will be merged. Aegyptus is handled similarly, but to get Aegyptus to merge Mark Antony must be defeated first.
Q. Please give an economic overview
During the early Republican times your economy is in pretty good shape, however the need to keep the military large to enable expansion will consume most of the surplus. Still, with conquest the treasury will improve. Expectation is to run somewhere between 1000 - 2000 gold, but there will be dips, and if necessary proscription will be used (only 2 times though). Much of the time you will have a negative gold rate, but so long as the rate is not too high city conquest gold will keep things moving.
Trade routes have a fixed yield of 3. In typical Civ these values will increase over time, but not so here. Only the number of routes will change.
Many buildings directly increase the base commerce in a city (eg lupinaria/brothel), but only 3 increase the rate. The market can be built anywhere. With civitas (citizenship) the emporium and census can be built. The emporium provides bonuses from conquest (ie an additional 1-2% income for each conquered region), and the census provides +15% gold, but with 1 unhappy citizen. The emporium will become obsolete in 215AD.
Combat will yield slaves (all legions till the Merc legion might create slaves), and slaves will create most of the tile improvements. This works great while slaves are readily available, but over time there will be fewer available as slaves are consumed, revolt, or are captured. This will make it difficult to recover from any plundering. In normal Civ you could just create new workers, but in RFRE the worker is a nation unit and only 1 is allowed.
For the decline period, this article ("To what extent were economic factors to blame for the deterioration of the Roman Empire in the Third Century A.D?" by Julian Fenner ) is pretty good: http://www.roman-empire.net/articles/article-018.html
Q. What is left to do?
Balance! Please help by providing feedback.
As mentioned above, vassalship needs work.
Some sort of way to win the game needs to be created!
Problems: Warlords starts, but then nothing happens
Make sure Quickstart = 0 in CivilizationIV.ini
============ Original thread Section ==========================
Spoiler :
, including some long lost familiar faces (there you are Gunner!)
) So maybe once I'm done with my current project I will look into a Roman one. Of course if something from this thread takes off then I'd love to help out with it.
Let me know if you want to take this on!
