Glory of Rome

[Olleus]

I'm not a big fan of Rome's UA, not least because it does the opposite of what it says on the tin - it helps Rome (the city) grow it's provinces, rather than helping the provinces grow Rome (the city).

Here's an alternative which might be fun: Domestic trade routes to or from Rome provide double food and production

Historically this would represent the massive shipment of grain to Rome from Egypt and elsewhere, as well as the influx of slaves which built many of it's monuments. But also the Roman's ability to make new cities appear very quickly where ever they want.

Gameplay wise, it seems pretty fun too. You can conquer a city per trade route you have, pumping Rome into a mega capital. Or you can do the opposite, and make new cities expand insanely fast as soon as they are built. It would mean Rome is the jack-of-all-trades, and could start off with Tradition, Liberty or Honour.

 

[apocalypse105]

You underestimate the power of this ability it allows you tu built libraries faster and get the national college faster. you can actually built 5 or 6 cities and get the national college before turn 100 because of this ability.. Use the great enginier from liberty for the national college.

its olso usefull to get a religion withouth going into piety just built a shrine and temple in rome and start building them in youre other cities.. now you have the free piety opener for shrines and temples at other cities.

Key part is to use trade routes to get MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF GOLD so you can BUY the key buildings in rome like universities public schools so you get reduce cost at other cities its not usefulll if you finish education that you have to wait for rome to finish a university for bonus want to start asap in all cities.

In late game pick order and use the reduce cost of purchasing buiildings to abuse glory of rome. Or you could go commerce and get discount of purchasing.and build big bang

 

[PreLynMax]

Ave gloriosa in namine Rome!

 

[76ers]

You underestimate the power of this ability it allows you tu built libraries faster and get the national college faster. you can actually built 5 or 6 cities and get the national college before turn 100 because of this ability.. Use the great enginier from liberty for the national college.

I'll be trying this soon which is a bit different than how I usually play. The other day I did a new game on immortal. Random map, standard size and speed, random civ and got Rome. Turned out to be a Pangaea map. By turn 25 I was annoyed because it seemed like a promising map but must have been a glitch loading since I encountered no civs. Turned out they were actually there. So much space to settle for a standard map. Here is a shot at 25. Went back and made a save on turn 1 so I could start it again.

Spoiler :

Just lost a scout at this point. The spot North of the remaining scout had marble and was coastal. The spearman is pretty close to encountering France. The Incas were a bit East of the Northern most gold that is visible. Haven't fully played it yet since I got ill but I was able to get my first settler all the way down to the gold and silver at a mountain for an observatory. It isn't visible but there is citrus on the map 5 tiles from the northern most salt. Next to another mountain for another observatory city. This will be the first time I really go wide. Not sure how many cities will fit.

 

[Olleus]

You underestimate the power of this ability

It's not about it being strong. It's about it being boring.

 

[Big J Money]

I agree the current ability is boring. I typically don't like passive bonuses to generic or global gameplay elements like this.

At least with your idea you pick and choose which shipments go where. It sounds possibly OP though. I think 50% bonus, perhaps.

Edit: Or here's another thought. They only provide 25% bonus but you no longer need a granary or workshop to do it. This would allow pitiful colonies to provide a useful bonus right away.

 

[apocalypse105]

Problem is you allready have this bonus with the order technology..

 

[Iberian]

Rome is only strong at Emperor levels when playing for fun. If you can build every building and go super-wide it is awesome but the current meta of 4 city tradition, food focus, science enabled end game means that trait is weak compared to most.

That said I love playing a super wide game with those amazing legions building roads out to my soon to be new cities that the AI is building for me.

 

[apocalypse105]

Rome is only strong at Emperor levels when playing for fun. If you can build every building and go super-wide it is awesome but the current meta of 4 city tradition, food focus, science enabled end game means that trait is weak compared to most.

That said I love playing a super wide game with those amazing legions building roads out to my soon to be new cities that the AI is building for me.

Play a huge map and be suprised by rome's ability you can even outspam the AI on cities

 

[Redaxe]

Play a huge map and be suprised by rome's ability you can even outspam the AI on cities

Indeed. Liberty is harder to manage but I think a lot of players fall into the trap of going for the top of the tech tree towards universities when ideally you should tech to metal casting first.

 

[RNorth2]

I think it'd be cool if there was some kind of bonus for each city from a different civilization in your empire, including City-States. Considering the actual Roman Empire had all sorts of different people(since they conquered or vassalized, like, everyone), it fits the theme. Think of it kind of like Morocco's UA, except it's cities you control instead of trade routes.

I dunno what the bonus would be though. It'd be something like:

(+xx) for each city from a different civilization(including city-states) under your control

 

[pdxmm]

Indeed. Liberty is harder to manage but I think a lot of players fall into the trap of going for the top of the tech tree towards universities when ideally you should tech to metal casting first.

Could to explain why for me? I don't usually do well with liberty and one of the things I do is push toward universities so if I am making a mistake I would love to learn what to do differently.

 

[Redaxe]

Could to explain why for me? I don't usually do well with liberty and one of the things I do is push toward universities so if I am making a mistake I would love to learn what to do differently.

Sure. I won't give you a full run down on Liberty (I'm not much good at it anyway) but Ackens guide is a great place to get a more comprehensive guide.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=559009

Basically though if you play Liberty you're going to be planting somewhere around 6-8 cities.
If you play Tradition you generally will have between 3-5 cities.

Now you know that Tradition gives free aqueducts and tonne of growth bonuses so its very easy to make big cities. Thus Universities work well because you'll have the population to work the scientist slots.
Liberty however doesn't give you those population and growth bonuses so if you build a university and put 2 specialists to work, chances are you'll seriously reduce the growth of your cities in doing so. Thus you might get some short term boosts to science but in the long term it will probably hurt you more.

Generally you probably want to tech towards Engineering first (get an aqueduct in your capital after you finish building settlers - this gives your new cities the chances to get their libraries built. You can then tech Philosophy and build the NC or rush it with the Engineer from Liberty.
After that you should tech Metal Casting and get Workshops in all your cities and then tech towards Civil Service/Education. Then you probably want to unlock Chemistry for the production bonus - again Liberty will give you smaller cities so ideally you want to maximize the value you get from every tile you work asap.

You'll need Workshops & other production buildings i.e. stables and also aqueducts before universities because your cities will tend to be smaller and thus lower in production then Tradition will be.

Chances are you'll also need more happiness buildings & with the way the AI is programmed (they don't like civs with a lot of cities) so you'll need a larger army then Tradition.
That is the challenge that playing wide has in Civ 5 - you need a lot more building and armies then playing tall. Thus the earlier you get Workshops the faster you'll catch up to Tradition.

Thus with Liberty, you really want to try and get your capital to population 4-5 asap by the time you get to Collective Rule, and get some mines, quarries, pastures built asap (when you start building settlers the more production tiles you can work the better). The earlier you plant cities the faster they'll get through that early build queue.

 

[danaphanous]

^^^
Eh, depends on situation really. Sometimes even teching the top of the tree you have several cities with liberty that can benefit well from universities. I sometimes pick up universities before metal casting but I agree you ALWAYS get aqueducts before universities. Don't forget that the top of the tree has civil service too which is going to give all your little liberty cities the growth bonuses they need, plus providing access to pikemen which is a nice defensive unit for the inevetitable attacks. A good ordering in my experience is engineering then civil service. Then depending on the sizes of your city, as you say go for workshops or universities.

Both work well, but even if you have only 2 cities that can run the scientists and work early universities the science bonus is STILL huge and worth it, not to mention meaning great scientists far earlier if you are thinking long-term. Also, universities are worth having for even smaller cities because if you run out of happiness (frequent problem) and have to stop growing the best way to do that is to run scientists as it gives you an enormous scientific boost to turn your little cities on them. Your argument about growth slowing only really matters if you had the happiness to grow every city at max rate anyway and usually you don't through the renaissance. So I usually choose between the two based on city pop and remaining happiness. Otherwise I agree with most of your statements.

Also you can't talk about the growth bonuses of tradition without recognizing the production and culture bonuses of liberty, especially for new cities. One of the things I like best about liberty is that you never have to see 75-turn libraries again. Every city will have at LEAST two hammers immediately from republic, 3 from hills, freeing you up to work the high growth tiles and still get your buildings built way faster. I hardly miss 4 free monuments because every city immediately starts with a free 1 culture and monuments get built in like 8-12 turns anyway, usually less time then the production bonuses save you on even the first library. In the end liberty ends up having a lot more culture in the empire than tradition. It does NOT make up for the border expansion rate nerf though, but it makes it so that progressing through liberty is not much slower than tradition and as a result you have a much stronger natural defense against ideologies. Liberty is also better equipped to take advantage of religious benefits and get more out of foreign religions or your own. The only real flaw with it is the inevitable AI land envy and attacks. Sucks that civ5 is programmed that way. The diplo penalty for expanding a little to fast is pretty hefty and almost always results in one early war. But if you don't do it you won't have the space so there's no recourse but to bribe a LOT or fight an early war. Once you get good at fighting early defensive wars (and city placement is key here) then liberty becomes pretty straightforward in my opinion.