Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

[blitzkrieg80]

Asclepius, I think you are completely right about the long turn times- many other Mods have them, if not longer from the very beginning! and it's completely unacceptable (especially for a new computer!). I don't know if this issue can be resolved due to the poorly written code of the Civ3 engine... sorry, Firaxis, but you were LAZY! =O( Love Civ3 though! I think less units built for the whole Mod would improve this, besides providing more realistically scaled armies and it might be worth attempting, once the normal 1.0 is out! It will take a lot more time and effort. Let's do it =0)

Let's keep talking about House Rules or other suggestions, even if they aren't used, because maybe something isn't worth writing down as a written rule, but the freedom to use or not use a "trick" is advantageous for the average or newbie player... isn't free-flowing information, opinion, and respect what a forum is all about? I think we can all learn from each other, even if we disagree with the tactics... Of course, this is coming from the guy who doesn't want to pay 5 Maintenance for a decent Wonder ;o)

 

[Hrafnkell]

It is definitely worth talking about house rules. The nice thing is, people can use them or not as they wish and it does not necessarily affect the design of the scenario.

Speaking of which, I just began a new one after eliminating the population cost for the velites. For the moment, since I like to make incremental changes, I left the bombardment for ships - much to my regret. I captured Lilybaeum and immediately the Carthaginians began regular runs from Carales to pound the garrison. I managed to (barely) withstand their assaults, but lost my consular army and a legion and allies. Right now, 6 Carthaginian pirates sortie each turn from Carales to bombard me, usually damaging my units - I find the level of damage inflicted completely unacceptable and unrealistic, so I will go ahead and make the bombardment change as well. It also slows the game up, especially when their regular ships sortie with those nasty Carthaginian marines and add their attacks to the pirates'.

As it is, even with the improvement to the velites, I'm barely hanging onto my possessions. Roman armies are so much weaker now. A single Carthaginian merc in Corsica wiped out my other consular army, leaving Rome defanged. Starvation and disease are killing Roman citizens as fast as the enemy which is eating up my supply of servii, who were destined to become soldiers. Might be time for a human sacrifice or two!!

 

[Hrafnkell]

Nah, I don't see anything wrong with the RoP trick because the AI does it as well. That is really the basis for me in determining whether a tactic is acceptable or not. As for accepting all cities in treaties though, you have to remember the "edge of the world" problem, which is I believe why the "marsh" cities were added. Any player who can clear a corner of a map in Civ has an advantage that obviously doesn't exist in reality. Also, logistically speaking, the Romans were not capable of surpressing and occupying the Highlands of Scotland or the forests of central Germany so the player should be prevented from doing so as the game engine isn't complex enough to show these problems.

These are the situations where I think "house rules" are most handy, because Civ's engine is not designed to simulate specific eras and situations that might pertain to these eras only. Pacification of highlands, of course, is a problem that would exist in Vietnam as well so to avoid unrealistically controlling an area that is uncontrollable, I would certainly avoid accepting certain cities as part of a diplomatic agreement.

 

[senormoll]

can anyone help me with a problem im having...i really wanna try this mod but i can't get it to work. i downloaded the mod, the installed the patches. two of the patches can not be installed straight into the rfre directory, so i had to manually put everything in. now, when i start the game it gives me an error about the LibyanMercenaryFortify.wav. The weird thing is the directory it gave me had something about Barca\ in it. I put the LibyanMercenary folder in my units folder, and in the Barca folder just in case...but it still gives me the error. If anyone knows what the problem is id be grateful

 

[Asclepius]

can anyone help me with a problem im having...i really wanna try this mod but i can't get it to work. i downloaded the mod, the installed the patches. two of the patches can not be installed straight into the rfre directory, so i had to manually put everything in. now, when i start the game it gives me an error about the LibyanMercenaryFortify.wav. The weird thing is the directory it gave me had something about Barca\ in it. I put the LibyanMercenary folder in my units folder, and in the Barca folder just in case...but it still gives me the error. If anyone knows what the problem is id be grateful

Welcome to CFC! This mod is still being Beta tested so it may not be as easy to install as it could be, that should come later. This error was fixed with patch 0.83 so you will have to start again and try reinstalling all of the posted patches (0.6 + 0.8 patch + 0.83 patch + 0.85 patch) in Civilization Conquests/Scenarios/RFRE. Originally, there was a spelling mistake in the sound file LibyanMercenaryFortify.wav (in RFRE/Art/Units) which is also used by a unit called Barca.

 

[senormoll]

thanks for the help. this is an absolutely astonishing mod...whoever succeeds atari should be contacting you to get this ready for civ4 asap. kudos

 

[Hrafnkell]

I've become aware of another problem with naval bombardment, and that is the difficulty in Rome building up a fleet to combat piracy. Pirates roam and attack at will and destroy Rome's ships in any port - none are safe - making any sort of naval buildup impossible. I fought a 20 turn war against the pirates in Italian waters, finally giving up when I found that none of my ships, corvus or captured triremes, were safe from naval bombardment. Those not lost in battle were lost in supposedly safe harbors, never to see combat. It was completely impossible to buildup any naval force because any ship caught at sea was instantly destroyed en route, and any ship attempting to remain in harbor was destroyed at its moorings. A rather hopeless situation.

 

[loki1232]

The game already has Arx litoralis', which I beleive are supposed to make your ports safer. However, I for one never use them because they are too expensive to maintain. If you decreased their maintinence cost and increased their def, they might become a useable way of keeping your ports reasonable safe.

 

[Craterus22]

In this most recent pass thru - pirate ships are being spawned after nearly every ship battle...

A ship in my stack loses but drives the opponent down to 1 hp - then bang - new enemy ship generated, that then attacks my stack killing a snother ship of mine then spawning a nother attacker, etc.

If there was anyway to reduce the spawn rate or perhaps spawning a non-spawning ship (or perhaps let the spawned ship create a spawned ship that does not spawn ships).

 

[IXIRandyIXI]

I've become aware of another problem with naval bombardment, and that is the difficulty in Rome building up a fleet to combat piracy. Pirates roam and attack at will and destroy Rome's ships in any port - none are safe - making any sort of naval buildup impossible. I fought a 20 turn war against the pirates in Italian waters, finally giving up when I found that none of my ships, corvus or captured triremes, were safe from naval bombardment. Those not lost in battle were lost in supposedly safe harbors, never to see combat. It was completely impossible to buildup any naval force because any ship caught at sea was instantly destroyed en route, and any ship attempting to remain in harbor was destroyed at its moorings. A rather hopeless situation.

Did you declare war on the Pirates or something? If that's it, then just wait until you have a good force on the Pirate's island and near Side, declare war, then wipe them out in one turn. You shouldn't have many problems with pirates then.

 

[blitzkrieg80]

Arx Litoralis are already FREE to maintiain, because you're right Loki, they were too expensive... They've been changed atleast since .8 and they're the only way to fight Carthage =o) Try it!

Craterus22, the event which you think is spawning is actually Capture which has just recently been added. I like it even though it makes sea battle almost impossible for awhile.

 

[pinktilapia]

Hi all,
I'm looking at all these posts and will try to summarize potential changes for new patch tomorrow. Keep them coming.
I am sorry to see patches still doesn't install right. I thought I had sorted this out. Once the beta is completed, and that shouldn't take too long although it seems we have some remaining big issues to deal with, I will upload a new complete v1.0 of the mod without the need (for some time ) to get any additonal patch.

 

[King Coltrane]

quick comment... conscript unit's stats are perfect, dont change em. in my current "fix" ive recently discovered that my drafted ONE HP miles auxiliarius isnt worth anything lol. i must say though that i do like drafting legions until the 2nd punic war is over, but if that will be the case we need a unit between that and the miles auxiliarius to be drafted, since it upgrades to legio marius. however this doesnt need to be implemented. so far in my game im having a blast. ive been a bit delayed with conquest due to extra infrastructure development/hording units and gold. but now i have all of africa, nabatea, iberia, gaul, greece, britain is just across the channel, syria is falling and the rest of anatolia should fall soon. however, with my overambitious eyes, i dont see whats stopping me from marching to persepolis? im there, might as well go for it while its conveinient lol. but maybe ill just secure my borders and wait for the migrations...

 

[pinktilapia]

Push into Parthia and let me know how they resist.
What year are you now?

 

[loki1232]

Will this new patch be 8.6 or 9.0?

 

[gringoesteban]

The Arx Litoralis can be destroyed by naval bombardment. Is it possible to raise its defensive value vs. bombard attacks? Also, we should lower its shield cost. Whether or not to keep naval bombard has been a heated topic, so if we are keeping it, then at least we should make the Arx Litoralis better and cheaper.

I think the Barbarian Goods in the Crimean penninsula should be moved one square northwest, so that no river is protecting it from the Scythians. I believe there is a horse resource in that tile now. Maybe we could switch places of the horse and the Barbarian Good. The placement of the resource in Germania is perfect. Good luck to anyone trying to hold those tiles!

The Corvus unit is pretty worthless. Historically, the Romans wiped out the Carthaginian navy and took control of the seas in the First Punic War using the Corvus. I would suggest the following stats, which might also help address the pirate fleet situation mentioned in a couple earlier posts:
- A6 / D5 / M4 ; +1 HP ; Transport 1
- Bombard zero (how can a bridge bombard anything?)
- Enslave Trireme
- Cost 55 shields and 1 pop
- Requires support
- Buildable with First Punic War tech
- City must have Roma resource (not in the radius) and a portus improvement
- Obsolete with Second Punic War tech (upgrade to Trireme Summae). Not sure how to make this happen in the BIQ.

The Mare Nostrum Wonder should go obsolete with Second Punic War, which would give that Wonder extra time to crank out Corvus given that the AI has massive fleets.

I played v0.85 for a couple hours last night. Pyrrhus got wiped out almost immediately. Not sure if that was intentional, but it only took 2 turns and I only lost one Velite and one Milite Solaris (the unit that looks like a Hoplite).

In the second turn of the game, the southernmost Ilyrian city culture-flipped to Rome. It had two Wonders in it, so that was strange. Perhaps we could add some culture points to that city to prevent that from happening.

 

[Hrafnkell]

The Arx Litoralis can be destroyed by naval bombardment. Is it possible to raise its defensive value vs. bombard attacks? Also, we should lower its shield cost. Whether or not to keep naval bombard has been a heated topic, so if we are keeping it, then at least we should make the Arx Litoralis better and cheaper.

I was going to suggest this myself. There is nothing more frustrating than having a pirate ship wipe out a city's naval defenses. They should not crumble so easily against the very thing they're designed to defend against. At this point, I hesitate to even build them as they are so quickly destroyed and built only with great expense.

The Corvus unit is pretty worthless.

Having finally had the opportunity to use the corvus, I also agree with this statement. The Carthaginian fleet was largely composed of quinqueremes and the Roman ships, armed with the corvus, were easily a match for them. In the game, the corvus does not measure up well against it and is, if anything, not a match. I'm not asking that it be superior, but the historical record shows that it should at the least be equal to.

Did you declare war on the Pirates or something? If that's it, then just wait until you have a good force on the Pirate's island and near Side, declare war, then wipe them out in one turn. You shouldn't have many problems with pirates then.

No...these were most likely Carthaginian pirates, and I was at peace with Carthage, though it is, of course, impossible to tell whose pirates are whose. I spoke of 8 pirates making a regular sortie...it ended up being 10 or 11 before Carthage turned its attentions elsewhere. At this point I had so many pirate ships of various navies sailing around Sicily (and all my fleet was destroyed in its berths) that I gave up trying to keep track and concentrated on my war against Gallia. The only time I've seen anyone declare war with the pirates was the pirates themselves declaring war on Carthage, but as I said, it's impossible to tell which ships belong to which faction. I hardly see a regular Carthaginian warship at this point.

 

[Hrafnkell]

I had just built a new Legio Scipionis in Neapolis, composed of two new legions, and just lost the legion, and the city, to a Samnite, who then destroyed another Roman army that counter-attacked the very next turn. By this time, the city was full of Greeks who had popped up out of nowhere. I also lost 3 Miles Socius and did not kill one single Greek. So two Roman armies destroyed and 3 allies and a city lost. Something is wrong with this picture.

 

[gringoesteban]

Within the v0.85 BIQ, the Scythia/German alliance (Alliance 1) starts the game at war with Rome (Alliance 3). That doesn't make sense, since those civilizations share no common borders at the beginning of the game.

I tried modifying the BIQ to cancel the war, but I could not figure out how to do it. Moving civs in and out of an alliance is easy, but turning off the "war" setting among all the various alliances does not seem possible.

Ideally, the only war in progress at the beginning of the game be should be Rome (Alliance 3) vs. Pyrrhus (Alliance 4). Unless I screwed up the BIQ somehow, my game started with all four alliances at war with one another. Perhaps that is why there was the war weariness issue that someone mentioned in an earlier post regarding v0.85.

 

[Asclepius]

I haven't tried 0.85 yet and it does sound like the Pirates are more of problem than they were in previous versions but it *is* supposed to be a challenge and not a stroll in the park. As far as I know Rome didn't gain true domination of the Mediterranean until Pompey dealt with the pirates in 67 BC. Piracy went unchecked up until then as the pirates supplied cheap slaves.

Also, being in harbour as an enemy fleet approached was the worst place to be, I never was a fan of bombard, but sinking ships stuck in harbour by a force out at sea is actually very realistic. Battle of Drepana, anyone...? The Romans lost to a smaller Carthaginian fleet because they got themselves stuck in the harbour and the shallows off the coast. There was no advantage to be had hiding in a harbour.