CrossRFC
Emperor
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2008
- Messages
- 1,240
Rome is a lot more problematic than China because "what happens in China stays in China"; the Romans have an overseas empire and have a wider overall border to protect, which causes issues, whereas the Civ IV AI will do a pretty good job at re-uniting China because they are on one landmass and have relatively little external pressure (you've got the barbarians from Tarim/Mongolia harassing, but that only affects the north-westernmost cities). So yeah, I'd focus on getting some cool mechanics for Rome, rebalance the western civs in light of the probably large buff the Romans will get, then redo how China works.
Edit:
Some more thoughts of Rome:
Flavour-wise, we try to keep the civs' styles of play or of winning unique. The Seleucids are all about managing overextension, the Antigonids about overcoming the odds to form an empire, the Ptolemids focus on making Alexandria the world's best city, Tocharians are about feeling small and working with what little you have, etc...
So the mechanics you plan to implement will really help Rome, because to me, the Romans are all about managing a growing empire and/or asserting dominance. It's not about growing an empire, it's about stabilizing it and managing the economy and military of a state pushed to its limits, and then later about stopping a collapse (which is the primary Byzantine theme), if the player chooses to play past the UHV date.
Anything that focuses on what you do with your conquests, and less on the difficulty of conquest is good. I'd even suggest something like the AI great-general stacks, where the stacks themselves would be from a separate Roman civ working with you for conquest, and maybe some power struggles and revolts come into play.
Another feature that could be interesting is a "senate" mechanic. It could, say, request you fulfill certain goals, like in Rome Total War, or maybe something different. Eventually you can overthrow the republic, causing a civil war, and the reward would perhaps involve having more control over Rome, suppressing the "alternate Roman civ" I previously suggested. Just some thoughts.
Edit: loaded a Sassanid game. It didn't crash! But...
Edit:
Some more thoughts of Rome:
Flavour-wise, we try to keep the civs' styles of play or of winning unique. The Seleucids are all about managing overextension, the Antigonids about overcoming the odds to form an empire, the Ptolemids focus on making Alexandria the world's best city, Tocharians are about feeling small and working with what little you have, etc...
So the mechanics you plan to implement will really help Rome, because to me, the Romans are all about managing a growing empire and/or asserting dominance. It's not about growing an empire, it's about stabilizing it and managing the economy and military of a state pushed to its limits, and then later about stopping a collapse (which is the primary Byzantine theme), if the player chooses to play past the UHV date.
Anything that focuses on what you do with your conquests, and less on the difficulty of conquest is good. I'd even suggest something like the AI great-general stacks, where the stacks themselves would be from a separate Roman civ working with you for conquest, and maybe some power struggles and revolts come into play.
Another feature that could be interesting is a "senate" mechanic. It could, say, request you fulfill certain goals, like in Rome Total War, or maybe something different. Eventually you can overthrow the republic, causing a civil war, and the reward would perhaps involve having more control over Rome, suppressing the "alternate Roman civ" I previously suggested. Just some thoughts.
Edit: loaded a Sassanid game. It didn't crash! But...
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