YAY! We can finally talk about how not to get your ass kicked too early!
Well I'll contribute most to general tips and strategies as the only way I will beat the game it seems is by lowering myself the difficulty
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Anyways, heres some of my points :
1) Build a sucessful economy : During the early game (meaning up until the second punic war probably) this is not too much of a concern. Your cities are too small to make a lot of money and consequently, the only early economic building, the mercatus, will not help significatly. However, there are still some things to do to avoid getting bankrupt. First of all, don't build many units in the same cities. As you will find out, most units have a pop cost ranging from 1 to 3. If you build 2 or even 3 Legios in the same city, it will likely fall to 1 pop and stall the rest of the production. It does not mean you have to refrain from building units, but you must do it wisely. For example, a city without an aquaeductus cannot grow beyond pop 5. In order to maximize your pop growth, try to crank out a velites or a Legio everytime it is about to reach that number. At the same time, try to keep some big cities. Rome and Capua are prime early example as their production is so high it is best to keep their pop up in order to build units without pop costs and wonders which will come sooner or later. Plus, the surrounding area is easily roaded early on and these cities can support units built by the rest of the empire.
On buildings, try to keep this rule : check out how much money a given city is putting in your treasury. If the upkeep costs for improvements is higher, stop building improvements or units, road the area, wait for the population to grow and try to build the free improvements. However, you should probably build the basic infrastructure in most cities, meaning delubrum, fabrica, portus, domus discendi, mercatus (this can wait though), templum (it can wait too but try to get 8 fast because it gives the hability to build a hapiness wonder) in that order (that's my way, you can find your own). Also, in newly conquered cities, as their population is either resisting or not really productive (like 2-3 shields per turn), try to rush a Legio or a Faber before any roman population appears. Why? Because if you build these units with foreign nationals, they will be free of support (they are considered slaves or something)! The problem is that as soon as even 1 roman pop goes in the unit, it is considered roman and requires support.
So, the early games consists of building improvements and units intelligently to avoid depleting the city or having too much upkeep from infrastructure. Use slaves to road around to raise extra money, farm and then build mines evenly for Italia. Most of all, build all the wonders as fast as you can
(--> PAETORIUM <-- reduces cirruption in all cities).
For the republican era (from the second punic war up to the beginning of the empire, things are different. Not only the aquaeductus (that you should have started to build in important cities) will increase the general population of the empire, but you get the second economic building, the latifundia. Combined with a good road network, this additional pop and money bonus will make your good cities triving commercial centers. The idea now becomes to specialize your different parts of the empire. Everything around Roma (meaning cities not too far away that do not suffer crippling corruption/waste problems) should be money making cities. The mercatus, templum, catasta (makes slaves that you will very much need to improve an ever growing empire) and latifundia are a must there. The outter cities, while waiting to get more production from mines or more pop, should be building more units than buildings. Thus, you get a rich core that can build units from time to time (when their pop reachs 10 most of the time) and outlying villages that form the backbone of your military strenght. As you expend, the cores get bigger, richer and supports even more units to conquer even more land. The must have wonder there is the Lex Agraria. Try to take as many cities before building that wonder. It enables the construction of civitas(reduces corruption, resistant to propaganda, reduces war weariness) in your cities for a short period of time.
Well, that's as far I can go there in that section as I have never really been much in the imperial era and cannot give reliable tips for that period.
13) Pax Romana : the Roman Golden Age
Build, build, build! That's what you should be doing. Normally, most if not all of your ennemies have benn defeated or are recovering from major defeats. You can reduce the amount of units built and concentrate more on improvements. Making sure you build most money making buildings and science buildings in your cities is your primary concern. At the same time, start the construction of Limes network at your frontiers. Britannia, Gaul and Greece will be put on the front lines in the near future and you must plan immediatly. Use your Legio Imperatoria to build roads along the frontiers too. You will need to catch runaway AIs soon. This period is like your last breath of fresh air before going into about 200 turns of barbarian invasions. Upgrade, research fast, build, road and don't forget to garrison your Limes with enough troops.
Bah, I'm not too proud of that one though. There is room for more and besides, I only have been once at that period (right now in fact).
Check out for my spelling errors Pink and fell free to reformulate, expand, cut or whatever.
