Formulating a basic strategy (Rome, Early game)

[Emperor Giulio]

Off the bat, I like to not rush my enemies because I want to give them more time to develop their cities so they may be more valuable to conquer. By my logic, I find it is more profitable (and fun) to wait for a culturally inclined Civ to construct many great wonders before I send my armies forth to take it from them.

Ok so basically this is how I’ve been playing and I’ve had success numerous times. I would like to have some constructive criticism on this plan. I hope that I and whomever may read this post can use this strategy to their advantage once it has been critiqued.

Rome, on prince, maps and settings as standard as you can get.

After I find my capital, I immediately construct a worker. I send my warrior out to explore.

I tech mining first, all the while the worker is being produced. Afterwards I make a b-line to writing, and use the worker to chop forests for added production bonus, and to construct farms, and mine. However before I build a library I make sure I have at least one warrior to protect my improvements; this should be completed before I even fully research writing. After the library is finished I make a National college so I may have a significant technological advantage. Luxury improvement techs should be followed after writing is finished.

For my social policies, I research Tradition, Legalism, and Monarchy.

I build another warrior and a settler. Set them out and find a city, I repeat this until I have 4 warriors at home, 1 warrior exploring, and 4 cities. This takes full advantage of the aforementioned social policies.

By this time, ironworking should be researched, and you should have enough money to easily upgrade your warriors to Legions. The wheel is another tech that should have been researched, and you can use your legions and workers to quickly connect all of your cities. If you have acquired about 6 iron, I recommend complimenting your 4 legions with 2 ballistas

By this time, you have a strong Roman state with a powerful military that is ready to conquer your rivals. Send them forth and take their cities keeping the most valuable and razing the undeveloped ones. While you are out conquering be sure to have at least 2 spearmen to defend your home cities from barbarians from barbarians. The great general should be born around this time or sooner (if you spent a lot of time killing barbarians.) In the midst of conquering the continent, b-line to steel, by the time you reach your second rival, you should upgrade to Longswordsmen (this will give you a great leap in offence)

For social policies, after the traditional polices are acquired, I suggest liberty if you have not yet reached piety, but ultimately, you will need piety. Also, keep those conquered cities as puppets for the time being.

Once you can complete your conquest of the continent, your happiness should be pretty good once you have reached the social policy of Theocracy. At this point, I would recommend expanding to fill up the rest of the continent. This is the part that I kind of become hazy, usually I just fill up the continent and eventually choose Order (Autocracy if I have not invested into liberty, and if I want to conquer the world.) once I reach the industrial era.

Feedback, Thanks!

 

[slobberinbear]

For prince, I see nothing wrong with this, but I suggest a walk-through game so your specific decisions can be viewed. I really try not to have a set strategy; what you want to go with is essentially a set of combos that you can mix and match as civ and map dictate.

For Rome specifically you can go any direction early. Personally I like to slow expand and build infrastructures with glory of Rome and play defense until iron is revealed, then I reassess.

 

[snarzberry]

An improvement might be to open with Liberty - free worker - free settler policies and build something like scout - monument - granary - settler - warrior - settler in your capital. Send your initial warrior out to survey your nearish surroundings and his job is to come back home with a stolen worker from a city state.

Delaying your scout and monument at the start for a worker is really gonna slow down your SP acquisition rate. If you do it this way you'll have your 4 city set up much faster.

NC first isn't really needed for your goal as you're not attempting to rush to ironworking to get swords out asap so I would prefer to get the early production and population base growing. For the fourth policy you could settle a manufactory to help with your army building.

 

[Emperor Giulio]

An improvement might be to open with Liberty - free worker - free settler policies and build something like scout - monument - granary - settler - warrior - settler in your capital. Send your initial warrior out to survey your nearish surroundings and his job is to come back home with a stolen worker from a city state.

Delaying your scout and monument at the start for a worker is really gonna slow down your SP acquisition rate. If you do it this way you'll have your 4 city set up much faster.

NC first isn't really needed for your goal as you're not attempting to rush to ironworking to get swords out asap so I would prefer to get the early production and population base growing. For the fourth policy you could settle a manufactory to help with your army building.

I like the idea of just stealing a worker from a city-state instead of spending time working on it. (I don't know why I didn't think of it!) However, I feel the tradition social polices supplement the monuments since they give you the culture for free. Nevertheless, I will take your advice into consideration and give it a trial run.

 

[snarzberry]

Out of curiosity, what do you normally do with your conquered cities? puppet or annex?

I have barely played any of Rome in civ5. I have rome-phobia leftover from civ 4 where I thought they were stupidly good. I must get around to playing them properly one of these days. It seems that this is the one civ that you don't want to be left without iron as. Your UU window closes and they don't keep anything when you upgrade them (that's a bit harsh, right?).

What do you do in that iron-less situation? rage quit, or improvise?

 

[Emperor Giulio]

Out of curiosity, what do you normally do with your conquered cities? puppet or annex?

I have barely played any of Rome in civ5. I have rome-phobia leftover from civ 4 where I thought they were stupidly good. I must get around to playing them properly one of these days. It seems that this is the one civ that you don't want to be left without iron as. Your UU window closes and they don't keep anything when you upgrade them (that's a bit harsh, right?).

What do you do in that iron-less situation? rage quit, or improvise?

In regards to puppet or annex, I keep them as puppets until continental conquest is complete, and I annex in descending order of importance if the public happiness permits it.

It is true, without iron Rome is pretty impotent. Personally I feel that Rome without iron is like a naval based civ without access to water. Initially I will try to improvise, but if the situation seems hopeless, I will rage quit. However, if I at least can get my hands on a 2 source of iron, I will upgrade two warriors to legions and try to take a city-state that has more iron. In theory, one could attempt to conquer a city-state that has iron, without the use of iron, but I myself am lazy; I will just restart.

 

[vexing]

with rome i'd try to leverage their unique swordsmen as much as possible.
the gminor 3 competition was prince, epic speed, domination, inland sea map. rome was a decent choice for swordsmen rush. strategy there was:

settle on top of a mining luxury.
set research to bronze working
scout -> warrior -> warrior -> monument -> warriors
hit a culture ruin to get liberty. your culture path is liberty -> citizenship -> meritocracy
when you find your first target sell your luxury to them, you'll probably get all their gold and plenty of gpt.
when second built warrior is finishing, buy a fourth warrior
around turn 30 you should be able to declare on first target and take their city with your 4 warriors + scout, with judicious use of instant heals. puppet the city, it'll start building a monument, which should finish in time to help getting to meritocracy.

when you get enough culture for meritocracy, use the great scientist for iron working, and you can either build a settler in your capital prior to this or rush buy one to settle on a 6 iron, or if you have iron in your borders you can mine it. after upgrading a few warriors you'll be able to steamroll the rest of the civs.

 

[Emperor Giulio]

I guess the best solution to an ironless situation for Rome is to build a pre-iron age army that will acquire it from a city-state

 

[snarzberry]

Or, in that case you could ally with the city state and they will give you their iron. Some have been running into a total lack of iron and have been complaining quite loudly about it on the forum, but in my experience that is quite rare and I kind of like the challenge when it happens. But with Rome, well there's the bulk of your individual civs attributes out the window so I can understand the rage quit in that case (I would most likely).

 

[Emperor Giulio]

with rome i'd try to leverage their unique swordsmen as much as possible.
the gminor 3 competition was prince, epic speed, domination, inland sea map. rome was a decent choice for swordsmen rush. strategy there was:

settle on top of a mining luxury.
set research to bronze working
scout -> warrior -> warrior -> monument -> warriors
hit a culture ruin to get liberty. your culture path is liberty -> citizenship -> meritocracy
when you find your first target sell your luxury to them, you'll probably get all their gold and plenty of gpt.
when second built warrior is finishing, buy a fourth warrior
around turn 30 you should be able to declare on first target and take their city with your 4 warriors + scout, with judicious use of instant heals. puppet the city, it'll start building a monument, which should finish in time to help getting to meritocracy.

when you get enough culture for meritocracy, use the great scientist for iron working, and you can either build a settler in your capital prior to this or rush buy one to settle on a 6 iron, or if you have iron in your borders you can mine it. after upgrading a few warriors you'll be able to steamroll the rest of the civs.

Interesting strategy, Rome really is a dominator in the early game.

 

[vexing]

Interesting strategy, Rome really is a maverick in the early game.

that strategy actually will work with any civ as 11 str swordsmen are good enough. it's slightly better with rome than most (13 str swordsmen + faster monuments in puppets).

france is the best choice (significantly more culture -> faster meritocracy -> earlier swordsmen), i got a turn 90 finish with rome, turn 78ish with france

 

[Emperor Giulio]

My current game is going successfully. I endeavored to steal a worker from a city-state, but I find that they take too long to produce one to rely on that tactic, so I just produced one myself. However, I now see the great benefit from producing a scout; it was the first thing I built. Then I built a warrior, and then finally a worker. I went on to build my library and then my national college. Then I focused on reaching my 4th city with a 4 more warriors. Fast forward, I made a strong legion based army of 5 and 2 ballistas (I had lots of iron.) and I went on and crushed my rivals, (Iroquois, Chinese, and currently Germans). I’ve captured some really advanced cities with ease (especially when I upgraded to longswordsmen). Many of the cities have libraries, marketplaces, and even aqueducts. More importantly, I must have a total of 6 or 7 wonders now, something that would not have been had I rushed them early on. I’m in Germany and I had just taken Berlin, this war is as good as over since I only have 3 minor cities left to take. My army is now riflemen and cannons going up against classical era swordsmen, throughout all of the wars I have not lost a single unit. I had a 25+ golden era thanks to Reformation and the addition turns by using my second great general. Also, the cities I have taken account for much land space due to the fact that they are so culturally developed.

My plan is after I finish off Germany, I need to reach the industrial era before I reach my next social policy. I will rex until I have filled up the remaining land; this will push back the social policies and give me time to research what will be needed. If I can do this, I will select free religion, and go for autocracy, and expand into that. I will conquer the world.

I’ll post a pic and a save once I get home from work.

Cheers

 

[Emperor Giulio]

Here is where I left off last night.

 

[Bibor]

Feedback, Thanks!

The optimal strategy for the first 100 turns is to scout your lands and determine what approach would be the most beneficial or needed. One great benefit of the Roman UUs is that they are good for almost any opening, including a completely peaceful game.

 

[slobberinbear]

On emperor, I am finding as Rome that unless I really go for early IW (either as the OP suggests or simply doing a beeline while taking Honor), by the time I get enough iron hooked up the AI is about to get Steel.

Personally, I find Glory of Rome to be a wonderful builder ability and can see doing a peaceful strategy with Tradition and/or Liberty.

 

[Nurgle84]

The last very enjoyable game I had with rome was a Pangea map on King difficulty. I started with a liberty powered REX (Liberty > Free Settler > Republic). Republic with Rome UA gives a great boost for early infrastructure. I actually had iron available, but only for two units. So I had to take more from my neighbor france. Conquered two cities, on of this were paris. Left him one city to avoid warmonger status. From then on I improved army, but did not go to war. Instead I kept rexing until I had about 1/4 of the continent under control (There were a long mountain range, dividing the continent, so I blocked the chocke points.)
From the on it was a race straight to space, with occassionaly doing war on the mongols. I was allied with the egypts for almost two third of the game.

 

[Civsassin]

What do you do in that iron-less situation? rage quit, or improvise?

The first time I played Rome, I had this exact situation. I nearly quit because I wanted to play with the Roman UUs, but I stuck with it and beelined to build horses and pikeman. I wound up winning a pretty successful game after beating France, Polynesia, and another civ. I don't remember which one. I did eventually acquire iron just in time to build and use a couple of the Roman UUs before they went obsolete.

 

[Emperor Giulio]

The optimal strategy for the first 100 turns is to scout your lands and determine what approach would be the most beneficial or needed. One great benefit of the Roman UUs is that they are good for almost any opening, including a completely peaceful game.

Agreed, I have learned there are a lot of advantages that can come from the having an early game scout. i.e. the optimal strategy you mentioned, and also more goody ruin discovery, and extra XP towards the 1st GG everytime they survive a barbarian attack.

 

[KevinMiles90000]

I think I was consciously/unconsciously inspired by this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422253

maybe merge them?

 

[vexing]

I think I was consciously/unconsciously inspired by this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422253

maybe merge them?

that's funny. are you prone to subconscious suggestions? this thread came first.