Rome - how strong is Rome and why

[Santa Maria]

What do you think of Rome, their UU, their UA, how to exploit their adv and where are thy weak.
Please I like to know how to play Rome and how to play against them.

I dont know what to think about them, I find them weak.

Legions are weak and obsolete too fast. UA I also find to be Lame. I am disappointed of Rome, but I like to have your opinion.

Thanks

 

[chazzycat]

Love Rome. The UA isn't bad at all, since you will generally have buildings in your capital first anyway, and 25% is a significant boost.

Legions are definitely not weak. You should beeline iron working, settle on 6 iron, and have some warriors ready to upgrade. That will help maximize their window of dominance. Conquer some more iron and start bringing in ballistas for support, that will prolong their window even more.

After you have conquered a neighbor or three and your legions start getting obsolete, you can stop warring and use your UA to focus on building up your economy. Or, push hard towards rifles/artillery and keep conquering.

MadDjinn has an excellent "let's play" video as Rome on Deity, I would highly recommend taking a look at that as well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SBFMadDjinn#p/u/29/yuYp-u9cbSI

 

[awesome]

swordsmen are the stock unit of their era and legions are a stronger version with an ability that can be pretty handy when you don't want to put your workers in danger. ballistas are just stronger versions of catapults.

rome's ability is best for people who like lots of cities with lots of buildings. to take advantage of it, build everything in your capital and let your other cities worry about specializing.

to beat them, remember that their main weakness is that both of their unique units require iron. take out their iron supply first.

 

[drubell]

Rome is very good. It's not incredibly great, but it is a very good civ.

The UA is very strong for ICS. Pick up Republic in Liberty for even more (5%) bonus on buildings and then Organized Religion in Piety for further building boosts on cultural buildings that will also grant you the happiness you need to maintain your ICS.

Legions are very powerful. If you are beelining to Iron Working, make a bunch of warriors, upgrade them to Legions when you get the tech, and I guarantee that you'll be destroying cities in an early rush. They can also build roads which you can use to help your infrastructure or to road yourself to an enemy civ faster.

Ballistas have a 50% bonus against cities. This can stack with the 25% city siege promotion. They blow cities up very well. Even when you eventually may upgrade your ballistas to cannons, you'll still retain a passive 20% bonus against cities + the 25% city siege promotion if you have it.

If you want early rushing and easy ICS, Rome is a very powerful civ.

 

[ShahJahanII]

I don't like them as much as I want to.
One of my biggest issues is their UUs, that last only for the shortest era of the game.

 

[spicytimothy]

Well as an AI, I prefer to not share a continent with them... they always expand really fast but are relatively easy to conquer... then you end up with all the poorly placed small cities that eff up you cultral points :-(

 

[ShahJahanII]

Well as an AI, I prefer to not share a continent with them... they always expand really fast but are relatively easy to conquer... then you end up with all the poorly placed small cities that eff up you cultral points :-(

We are talking about the civ itself, not the AI.
Also, there is this great new feature in civV.
It is called the "puppet system".
These cities contribute less to and don't increase policy costs.

 

[Tabarnak]

The UA is fantastic if you do a NC start. Legions let you delay Steel for a longer time. You can keep 1 less worker than usual(the one needed to build roads). One of my favourite civs both for sp and mp mode.

 

[ShahJahanII]

The UA is fantastic if you do a NC start. Legions let you delay Steel for a longer time. You can keep 1 less worker than usual(the one needed to build roads). One of my favourite civs both for sp and mp mode.

I am usually too busy at war with legions to worry about roads sometimes.

 

[Becomedeath]

I virtually ignore their UU.

Romes major strength is their UA. Fantastic for large puppet empires as the reduced build time means it doesn't matter as much that your puppets are building culture when you want science!

 

[TM Moot]

Another big fan of Rome.

Production is crucial, so the UA helps, just build every building in the capital and specialise your cities as appropriate.

Legions, with an attendent ballista, are great. Early war, then concentrate on infrastructure.

Probably the civ that suits my playstyle the most.

 

[D712]

I really like playing Rome, I find it quite fun and the production is a plus. But the problem I run into is that by the medieval era they stop making money. I don't do anything different than what I do for any other game. It seems to be the civ, not me. But I may (and probably am) wrong.

 

[peddroelm]

I really like playing Rome, I find it quite fun and the production is a plus. But the problem I run into is that by the medieval era they stop making money. I don't do anything different than what I do for any other game. It seems to be the civ, not me. But I may (and probably am) wrong.

With Rome you get more buildings faster ... And the temptation to keep adding buildings ... And all those buildings add ever increasing maintenance costs ...

 

[basta]

I love the idea of Rome, but I've never seen any other civ generate such godawful maps! Desert, tundra, edge of nowhere, no good city sites nearby Rome. It's a mystery how they can be so consistently rotten.

Otherwise, I love the production boost and the legions.

 

[Babri]

I don't like them as much as I want to.
One of my biggest issues is their UUs, that last only for the shortest era of the game.

But that is the time when you can quickly conquer & destroy your enemies before they get a chance to do something to stop you. The conquering done in classical era is usually the most crucial point of the game.

I am usually too busy at war with legions to worry about roads sometimes.

Yeah their road building ability in vanilla is pretty useless. However in VEM (Thal Mod) they build roads much faster, making them more valuable.

 

[ColinTH]

Yeah their road building ability in vanilla is pretty useless.

Don't you just hate it when you have to go and rescue your captured Roman Legion road builder, they are so vulnerable when there are barbarian riflemen on the loose!

 

[jtb1127]

I'd say it is an average civ. Their UU is pretty good and so is their UA. August is always a wimp in the games so they lose some points there.

 

[Gort]

Their Unique Ability is very good. You should exploit it to build those essential buildings as quickly as possible. There are certain buildings you want in every city - the money buildings, monuments, factories, workshops, libraries. ALL of these are 25% cheaper if you play your cards right. You can even use gold to build the building in Rome first - this is particularly good in the "factory rush" phase of the game - insta-build Rome's factory and then all the others get better.

Their Unique Ability is one of the ones that is useful on every map type, to every victory type, in every playstyle, in every era, as well, which is more than you can say for some civs.

 

[oldfool1]

Starting as dumb as they come when I first played Civ 5 I found Rome to be a really strong civ for beginners esp after the patch moved iron working earlier in the tree - build warriors, find iron, mine it, research to iron working, upgrade warriors to legions, research to math, build ballistas, upgrade promoted ones to Trebuchets when you open physics (, run down the honor tree, go out and conquer as soon as you have a few legions and a balista or two. Take your promoted legions and upgrade to longswordsman for a unit that can handle early gunpowder units. And you can save some gold as your ballistas are almost as strong as Trebuchets so don't need early upgrade. Raze and build cities or annex, add buildings you have in your capital. Or puppet if that's your style. Simple and effective

Before you master stuff like how to be sure to bulb astronomy before the sixth policy opens so as to get rationalism early - with the GS you got from the PT which you completed with the GE you got from the HS which you were able to open quickly with a GL/NC start plus the liberty finisher - (which you accelerated by allying early with a cultural city state) or whatever - well Rome is a civ you can handle and win with using basic principles to king and beyond (well beyond - I think Madjinns first or second deity victory video is Rome).

Agree with the other commentators to win taking advantage of Romes UU you have to strike early and hard and expand your civ early to get a dominant position while your UUs gives you the military advantage against other melee units and cities. Once you get the early advantage use the UA to get the cities up and productive and hope you have got your civ so big and the others so small that you can maintain your dominant position as your UUs become irrelevant.

To beat Rome - take away their iron if you can, play defensive early - even the not too smart AI can carve you up if you go after Ballistas and legions offensively with weak units in the early going. If you have horses and are playing against the AI you will have opportunities to pick off poorly defended ballistas with mobile units - and by the time you have Chivalry/machinery open you can handle anything Rome has got. Rome is like a heavyweight boxer in the early going - if Rome can get close - a few legions adjacent to your city and a ballistas one more space away - it will knock you out. Ranged and mobile units to keep it away



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[Bamboocha]

I've grown to hate Rome. If you see my thread called "I keep getting my butt whooped" you can see I can't even play Rome on Emperor without ragequitting in the renaissance era because either:
a) my army is obsolete (knights crushing my legions)
b) my army is too small
c) the upkeep of my empire is either too expensive or too harsh on happiness.
It's great to expand with legions and ballistae IF you get enough iron, but you'll have to take a harsh, harsh blow once legions become obsolete in my experience.