Aeon221
Lord of the Cheese Helmet
I think I proposed something just like that back in Pax Romana testing. This is good save for the problem of overpowering: there is no real caveat. There is very little to limit this power. Remember, most of Rome's cities (in the empire, not in Italy alone) are coastal. It will be very rare that a city will be cut off from trade. All this will achieve is an extremely rich Rome that gets richer the longer it exists without needing to do much to keep this bonus going. This is exactly the kind of idea that the enemies-in-radius concept is supposed to improve upon. Maybe +1and -20% total maintenance in cities without enemies within their radius... I really think making Rome need to keep enemies out is key to getting the right dynamics in. It's not enough to make Rome strong. Rome has to have incentive to strengthen itself in ways similar to those it historically chose.
The problem with this is that, as you are no doubt aware, the Romans were focused on enriching Rome and Roman citizens, not everyone in the empire. The enrichment of non-citizens was seen as a fortunate side effect, but was in no way the goal of the Romans.
I would posit that basing the Roman bonus on trade is probably a silly way of doing things for the premier military power of around six hundred years (yes, I know that Rome was around for twelve hundred years, but it was not a military power for all of them). I would love it if we had Venice and Genoa in the game, as this would be an excellent idea for either of them.
Rome is popularly depicted as having a system in which military conquest, and the resulting booty, powered the incredible imperial war machine. I have a book around here somewhere called The Punic Wars (can't find the bugger right now, or I'd quote from it), which depicts the incredibly organized system the Romans had for pillaging in order to maximize gains from conquering and looting a city. Many cite the halting of further conquest (from necessity, but still) as a major reason for the decline and fall. Hell, I'm almost certain I remember even Gibbon remarking on it, but I can't make a direct cite from there either =/
In any event, the ideal Rome, at least in the eyes of this foo, would have a system which rewards it for conquest, rather than simply rewarding it for being big. Ergo, I would like to suggest the following:
The Power of Triumph (or Conquest, or even Monkey Nuts,I don't care)
1) 3x gold from city conquests
2) +2 happy for five turns in all cities on the same continent after each city conquest3
3) Able to conscript one legion per turn from any city over size five (outdated when legions are)
And then one of these two following powers:
4A)-25% total city maintenance for five turns after each conquest.
4B)+3 exp for three turns for all units produced (allowing your units, with the proper combination of civics and a barracks, to attain rank three from the start)
As you can see, I'm encouraging the Roman player to get out there and kick some ass. I _think_ that these would benefit an aggressive player or ai by providing large infusions of cash to support a big army, and providing happies to offset war weariness and allow some growth. By making them both temporary and contingent on conquest, I've compensated for what I consider to be fairly overpowered advantages. Unlike your suggested model, this will fail to reward someone who plays a peaceful Rome. In addition, providing a free legion every turn to size six cities would encourage the Roman player to build up some cities, rather than using whipping to avoid the need.
I am against penalizing Rome for having enemies inside its borders, for, as The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire makes abundantly clear, the Romans in fact used their massive size to absorb foes with a combination of defense in depth and forward diplomacy. As the empire declined, it became less and less able to project itself beyond its own borders, resulting in deeper and deeper penetrations by enemies. Not the other way around. Penalizing for enemies in the empire would be putting the cart before the horse, in a sense.
In any case, I'm not sure how much is ramble and how much is gold, but I've hopefully got at least a tad of gold in there.
