Conquests: Rise of Rome strategy/tip thread

[BrianJ]

I'm creating one thread per conquest in order to discuss strategies and experiences with each conquest. I'm curious to see what people think is the best civ to play for each one, as well as the easiest and toughest. I'd like to see some straegies and tips for each civ.

 

[iggymnrr]

Gave this a go on monarch. Booted Cathage off Sicily and ran a citizen over to Spain and settled there. Grabbed two coastal cities off Carthage in Spain and it was pretty easy after that. Played nice with Greece. We're both in permanent wars so why not watch each others backs?

Settled a couple cities early to NE of Italy, follow the roads, for a lux. Contacted the 3 "barb" civs early. After a couple of techs put each "barb" in contact with a known civ, sat back and watched the fireworks. Alliances were formed and broken at breakneck speed, reformed and broken again. For a long while I had only one war, Carthage. Everyone else had multiple wars. There is no point in signing an alliance with anyone for a long time. Eventually invaded Carthage via Spain/North Africa since galley traffic around Sicily was intense. Made it all the way to Perisa and was driving towards the Persian capitol at the end. (No war with Egypt and used legionaries to facilitate roads when the AI was in the way.) Did fight the Celts some but otherwise citizen spammed Spain and northeast of Italy.

 

[Stoertebeker]

I have won the scenario with Carthage (deity, no cheats).

I think, there were 5 pillars to success:

1. Carthage has one big problem in the game. That are the roman legions. The question is, how to deal with them. And the answer is: Don’t.

You have to destroy the roman supply of iron. Rome has only two of them, one near the city of Rome, one near Neapolis. So one should use the initial army (filled with swordsmen and/or Numidean Mercenaries) to cut them off. One can stay with the army in Italy, if one wants to. I would suggest, not to destroy all of the roads, since one will need them for quick movement later. (It’s somehow dirty, because the AI never seems to attack an army with a green hitpoint-bar. I can live with that.)
That’s the most important key for carthagian victory, I think. Since Garrisons also need iron, Rome will fight mostly with Spears and Archers for the rest of the game.

2. Maintain naval superiority. Sink the initial roman fleets and build galleys on Sicily and the other Islands. Place one galley near every roman port so that you can sink every roman fleet.
Later, it's useful to blockade the western mediterranian with 6 ships to keep persian and macedon fleets outside.

3. Another crucial factor is diplomacy. In the first turn, you can get everyone into an alliance against Rome (plus nearly everything they have. Since the AI would not accept such deals in other turns than turn one, I think, it’s an exploit and would suggest to set yourself a limit). Use that! Before you have built some Heavy Cavalry, it's not worth to attack anyone anyway. It's better to let the initial roman Legions disappear in Gaul, Germany and Greece than seeing them in Spain.
I made ROP-agreements with everyone. Only after having Rome on their knees, I began to prepare for an attack on Alexander (since he nearly always succeeds to build the Temple of Artemis in Athens: And that's important, because you want your borders to expand quickly).
So: Be nice with everyone, trade around maps to make some gold. As soon as you meeet the Barbarians: Give them all the techs you can give them: They'll get them anyway. But you want to be the one to get the return!


4. Technology. Carthago can easily reach Philosophy first, when it wants to. And it wants! The free tech will be incredibly high-cost Monotheism. Nobody else will research this useless tech, but everyone will pay a lot for it. After that, go all the way to imperialism. AI will normally research the rest. You can trade away the techs for money, if the others don't have techs to trade. I managed to have around 10.000 Bucks in treasury when I switched to imperialism (what you should do! With that short tech-tree, you need investment opportunities for your money!). It's imortant to always research on 100% though.

5. Luxuries. If you are filthy enough to get yourself Khmun in the first turn in exchange for helping the poor egyptians against rome, you'll have no problem to rush a settler there to place a city near Silk and a Colony near Incense. If you're not filthy enough, you should nevertheless try to get those egyptian Luxuries. I would suggest to send settlers as early as possible. Also try to get the Gems on Sinai sooner or later. In addition to Spices, Wine and Dyes from Persia, (later out of Lybia) that's enough to keep your small towns happy. Later, send a galley with a settler and a worker to Scotland to get the furs up there. You should try to get all your distant towns to party, since that gains you a lot of shields.

One big advantage, that Carthage has, is, that is doesn't have to waste his Golden Age. Instead, you can wait for your cities to grow and for your workers to develop the lands, until you decide to win your first battle with war elephants. The golden Age should then be used to buil up a really big army of Heavy Cavalry and Catapults. With at least 10 of them each plus some Numidean Mercenaries, an Invasion on Italy has a good chance of success. Starting in the south seems most reasonable.

Without Legions, Rome is quite easy to kill. Hopefully, some Leaders popped up too: Now you can pick your next enemy. Macedonia will be the best target, I think. Take care, that you get them with all their wonders, before the persians do so!

By then, with having done some colonization in Spain and northern Africe in the meanwhile, you should be on the road to victory.

I had about 30 turns left, when the conquest of some egyptian cities finally got me those 50% of the world population.

That's my strategy for Carthage.

 

[Arexander]

Did any of you two notice that this is (was) a 6-year-old thread before you posted?

 

[iggymnrr]

Yes, but the request was made recently. Got me interested in playing one of the other conquests too!

 

[Stoertebeker]

I haven't yet finished a rome-campaign. But I think, I could win easily on Deity (Abandoned my last game around 30 b.c., with 5 Armies attacking Egypt and Macedonia: Too tired to finish it off).

Most important thing with rome: Wait a bit with the Golden Age. You'll waste a lot of shields and coins, if you go for the tempting start and conquer sicily in the beginning. I suggest to ferry some garrisons over to Lilybaeum in the first place and then to use the Legions to road up your core.
Get some foreign workers and merge them to Ancona, since that city has low corruption, extremly valuable tiles and a slow groth rate.
Build workers in the other towns (exception may be Neapolis and/or Pisae, where you may want to build harbors - mainly to get veteran galleys). I use the 3 southern-most towns and Padua to continue worker-building.

I think it's most useful to use the initial settlers for Luxury-Grabbing: 1 for Spices in Gaul (you can get them in the second turn, if you got RoP with the celts). 1 for Silks in Hungary. 1 for Furs in Germany (there's one fur-tile near the goth' city of Waldegesheim: The goth' will be friendly enough to build a road there, so you just have to place a town next to it). One Settler (and a worker) heads for Sinai-Peninsula, to grab those gems and, (the worker), incense.

After about 20 turns, Italy should be quite an efficient landscape, Rome, Padua, Neapolis and Pisae should have around 10 Citizens. Now it's time for the Golden Age, triggered by an attack on Carthage by your Legions.
Actually, I don't care about waiting on better Legions to fill up the initial army with them: I like to build the cheaper Legion I's to upgrade the most possible for money later on. So I don't research Tactics myself.

You will have a lot of money, because: You will gain everyone as Partner against Hannibal, you will sell them your Maps and because you will sell them your Techs. That'll make nice GPT-Sums that allow further full-speed teching. I'd try to get Philosophy, but with rome, it seems a bit harder, than with Carthage, to get it. But nevertheless, it's possible. And it's worth the run.

Hopefully, you'll get some nice Leaders. And hopefully, Carthage hasn't colonized too much. You want to crush them as soon as possible. When Carthage is up, it's up to you to decide, where to turn. Again, I'd advocate for Macedonia, since they usually have some nice wonders to grab.

 

[iliekater]

I have a major problem in playing the Rise of Rome scenario ... I'd like to play with Alexander , but the game ALWAYS crashes after a few turns . I've tried playing from both options (Conquests and Civ-Content) but there is always the same problem . I even made a copy of the scenario file , made a few minor changes , saved it and played it but it still crashes ! ... Do have any idea what could I do in order to play this scenario ? I can't even see what's the problem ; no message pops up , it just crashes and throws me back to the desktop ...

 

[iggymnrr]

Did some research into this and found a number of games where PERSIA is a big problem to winning before the turn limit expires. AI handles Persia very well, often making the population limit unreachable. This makes me assert that a Greco-Roman conflict is in noone's interest except Persia. Found 2 diety level SG games where both human Carthage and Rome lost merely to AI Persian size-- that is, time ran out too fast. Curiously, human Greece or Persia do well at diety. Duh!

Also, a losing Roman team speculated whether an earlier Spanish strategy may have worked, perhaps ignoring Africa altogether. FWIW.

 

[iliekater]

Thanks for your reply iggymnrr . However I couldn't understand some things . What is SG game and what FWIW ?
Let me specify something else : the game also crashes on other civilizations too . I played with Romans and at turn number 9 it crashed with no error message . It seems that something happens at the beginning because at turn 7 it also crashes with the Greeks . Is there something I could do in order to play this campaign ?

 

[Lanzelot]

3. Another crucial factor is diplomacy. In the first turn, you can get everyone into an alliance against Rome (plus nearly everything they have. Since the AI would not accept such deals in other turns than turn one, I think, it’s an exploit and would suggest to set yourself a limit).

Yes, as this is so "obviously broken", some consider it an exploit...
On Deity it may be "acceptable"
But on lower levels it definitely spoils the challenge...

Lanzelot

 

[iggymnrr]

@iliekater
Can't speak to the crash problem. I recently acquire Civ 3 from direct to drive and play in XP. (There was one problem involving a victory screen crash, easily fixed.) I'm assuming you have Vista? I found my crash answer by something like "victory screen crash civ 3" in google.

SG-Succession game, usually a 4-5 player team. Each team member plays around 10 turns and then hands off to teammate. FWIW. For what it's worth.

Edit: As to Roman strategy, the point about lux above is good but I think the first two are nessecary only in the beginning, silk(?) and spice. Spice (w/RoP) also snaps a premature Carthago communication with the Celts. I found that after Sicily and the two main Spanish ports were taken that the other two Carthago islands were essentially "island hopped" and could be ignored for awhile. On a side note, would you believe that the human Persian team won their game by capturing Sicily and the 2 other islands from Carthage? (Culture flips are turned off.) ToA is not that good, what is inheriting culture of conquered cities. i.e. Celts build a lot of temples. (Evil laugh.)

 

[iliekater]

I reinstalled the game and now it works fine . I wonder , though , what disturbed it . Is it the fact that I changed the text files ? I only added some units . In fact I have played games (from primitives to modern times) with no problem , but the campaigns seem not to cooperate if I modify the game's files . Anyway ...

 

[iggymnrr]

Good you got it working! I've moved on to Cordova in the middle ages conquest. (Want to see the questions Ansars answer ... Groan.)

 

[Stoertebeker]

Did some research into this and found a number of games where PERSIA is a big problem to winning before the turn limit expires. AI handles Persia very well, often making the population limit unreachable. This makes me assert that a Greco-Roman conflict is in noone's interest except Persia. Found 2 diety level SG games where both human Carthage and Rome lost merely to AI Persian size-- that is, time ran out too fast. Curiously, human Greece or Persia do well at diety. Duh!

Also, a losing Roman team speculated whether an earlier Spanish strategy may have worked, perhaps ignoring Africa altogether. FWIW.

I also read that SG (Shared Game) Threads. I think, the main faults of the roman players was, that they wasted their golden age in the first turns (where you should build workers and grow instead!) and that they didn't follow a proper luxury strategy. Luxuries are very important, as they will bring your towns to celebrate, which saves you a lot of corruption.
Where to hit first is a matter of logistics, I think. In my Rome game, the celts did most of the work in Spain for me. And since africa is so near, you'll get more return for your "invested" soldiers.

To the persian problem: Persia gets really dangerous, after they built up a force of Heavy Cavalry. Until then, it will be a stalemate between them and Macedonia. The point is: You can't prevent that persian victory. So I find it more reasonable to conquer Macedonia myself with all their wonders. Since you should also conquer Egypt sooner or later, Persia will have nowhere to turn (except the steppes, perhaps: But that's no problem). (I save Egypt by placing a single Unit in the tile east to Pelusium.) Stuck in Asia, Persia is no problem for a human player.

A fault that both, the roman and the carthagian team in the RBC-SG, made, was, that they didn't fund science enough. Selling techs won't only rise your treasury but also slow up science of your opponents. So the first 40 turns are crucial and so is Philosophy.

To the exploit in the beginning: In my rome game, I checked, what I could get in the second turn: With giving away Mathematics, you can still get all you want by anyone. That's what I did.