Rome Total War - A deity journal

[Minh Le]

I was hoping Korea picking Tradition so I could try capturing a Tradition Capital. The Idiot went for Authority ... And there is no Tradition civ in the game...

 

[Minh Le]

I had the pictures, just need time to write up now. Its lunch break so I could post another part. Hope you guys enjoy.

Spoiler Just a matter of time... :

...before Zanzibar liberated. Another good part about Rome UA now for liberated city state is that the city retain its defensive building, so I dont need to keep an army there to protect it from being retaken afterward. Really convenient.

Spoiler Carolean!!! :

Normally I would freak out when Im at war with Sweden and Caroleans show up. Crazy strong and one of my most favourite Unique Unit. But it was too late in this case.

Spoiler Imperialism unlocked :

It was obvious since my Navy played the most important role in this game. Extra 1 movement from the Opener actually was a big deal.

Spoiler Sigtuna Falls :

I took Sigtuna without much effort, all thanks to my navy. Funny though all of the capitals on my continent are coastal, so my navy will be very useful as they continues to gain experience. Sigtuna is actually a very good city with 5 fishes and a bunch of mine resources, lots of NW too .

Spoiler First Vassal :

With Sigtuna is now mine, Sweden is left with only one city. No reason to keep fighting, so I took him under my wing.

Spoiler Get caught by Bluetooth :

He caught me moving my fleet. Well, I was hoping for him to declare war, but whatever, its time to take your capital.

Spoiler The end of friendship :

Sorry Pocatello, You have 9 wonders which suppose to be mine. We are friends no more!

Spoiler It was easy... :

Sandwitch between me and The Shoshone, Denmark had little chance. Copenhagen was soon taken under the Great Roman Empire, another set of NW... and 7 coals as a bonus.

Spoiler Officially become the tech leader :

Thanks to all of the Oxford U, School of Philosophy, etc, my science output was sky rocket, I worked every scientist slot in all of my cities. It feels like each city I conquered was adding more to my empire rather than slowing me down as it should be.

Spoiler Forgot to take pictures.. again.. :

I totally forgot to take any picture of my war with Korea happening at the same time. Being left for a while, Korea surely have built up their army, including some cannon with logistic. However their Navy is close to non existance and they will pay greatly for that. My navy was making the advance while my Army on land keep their Army occupied. Koreas cities felt one after another and little could they do about that.

Spoiler Always remember to blockage a city :

to deny its ability to heal everyturn and reduce its strength. It greatly speed up your process in taking it, given you take care of all of the enemy units. After taking some cities, War weariness started to hit hard, my Happiness was down to 4 from 72. However, I was almost done, just in time. I didnt lose any unit in both wars.

With Denmark and Korea were almost gone, there was only Shoshone left on my continent. They hold the most Wonders in the game now and I dont mind taking all of those. The Shoshone did a good job taking alliance with all the city states around me so I shift production to Diplomat to take them back. When Im done, then its time for war.

 

[chicorbeef]

Enjoying this! Denmark is my arch-nemesis in domination games, always so hard to beat for me.

How did you promote your units?

 

[Minh Le]

Denmark was definitely the toughest on the continent, it took me 3 wars with lots of effort to take him down. I went for a very simple and standard promotions on my units, all melees got drill then stalwart then cover, all mounted got shock then march, ranged infantry half went for range, half went logistic with a few went Medic, I got Field on all of my siege engine then logistic and range. All melee ships got Dreadnought and all ranged ships got targeting.

 

[CppMaster]

Omg, capturing National Wonders is absolutely broken!
Maybe 50% of war weariness from attacking is too much. 25% might be better, but I guess it needs to be tested more.

 

[Minh Le]

Yep its broken
50% feels a bit much but I like it. It makes domination much harder, requires lots more planning compare to previous patch.

 

[Minh Le]

One thing I really like about VP is how interesting the late game is. I cannot have half this excitement playing vanilla Civ 5. While I have the lead, the enemies still formidable and the chance of losing is still there until I was able to give Spain a beating. However, I should unite my continent first, after I made Denmark and Korea my vassal, only one left to be conquered (It was all perfect timing because Shoshone didnt have their UU yet which make my life a lot easier)...
As for Rome UA (prehotfix), another broken thing about it is I was able to capture a bunch of Scriven Office, which means LOTs of papers, I can build/ buy LOTs of Diplomat in a same turn, so I was able to convert those city states to my alliance very quickly...

Spoiler Poor Shoshone couldnt keep up :

Poor Shoshone tried hard but cannot keep up with my ridiculous amount of Diplomat , It was right after I made peace with both Korea and Denmark, my happiness was in negative due to War weariness, but it will go away soon, so I decided to immediately declare war, not allowing them to convert back my city states.

Spoiler A happy empire :

3 turns after, my happiness was back to normal despite of being at war with Shoshone. So a tip for new player, war weariness is actually tie with one war and seperate from others. So you can comfortably make peace your older war and eliminate war weariness from it while keeping the current war. You dont need to wait for war weariness to go away before declaring war, just like this case.

Spoiler Smart AI :

With this picture I think you can see how smart the AI is. In the picture, you cannot see ANY of Shoshone unit, both on the coast which can be bombard by my fleet and on land, which I can kill easily with my Logistic Cuiraissier and Gatling Gun. Pocatello hide ALL of his unit in the fog and suprise kill my units if I made the wrong move. So I sent my more mobile mouted unit first to scout the enemy while pillaging their Encampment. Its better to use Recon units for this purpose, but Ive sent them out to discover the world and Recon without Lots of promotions is not my taste so...

Spoiler First set of Wonders :

My army may look small, but they are all seasoned warriors who made it through all the wars Ive fought. They are tough, Shoshone army despite larger in number, cannot match my army at all. In just a few turns Pohokwi was taken, I took the wonders as planned.

Spoiler Having nothing to build :

With the bonus to building, my cities soon have nothing left to put hammers on. So I decided to waste it on some wonders which I dont even need.

Spoiler The Tresure Fleet :

I got a proposal in the World Congress, Tresure Fleet was the obvious choice. It passed, and I switch all of my cities to Treasure Fleet project.

..and finished it in 2 turns.

Its a nice buff for my navy.

Spoiler Some more Wonders :

How nice of Pocatello, building all those wonders for me

Spoiler Continent secured :

With Moson Kahni captured, I have taken all of (my) wonders which Pocatello has built. So I gave him peace and rewarded him by taking as one of my vassals.

I then move all of my units toward Spain and America, preparing for the biggest war.

Spoiler Right on time :

Just then, Washington decided to declare war... It saved me the from declaring war on him though. Time to get to the other continent.

 

[CppMaster]

As for Rome UA (prehotfix), another broken thing about it is I was able to capture a bunch of Scrivener's Office, which means LOTs of papers, I can build/ buy LOTs of Diplomat in a same turn, so I was able to convert those city states to my alliance very quickly...

That's a good point. I'll add that to Rome balance thread.

 

[Minh Le]

That's a good point. I'll add that to Rome balance thread.

Sorry it was prehotfix, Im aware that it has been fixed in the lattest version.

 

[CppMaster]

Yep, nevermind

 

[Minh Le]

Things were happen fast so Im posting the last part of my Photojournal.
After I united my continent, I was ahead in everything, I was swimming in gold so I just bought units in mass, my cities were very developed I literally have nothing to build so I put hammer to culture. My land were also mostly improved so I put my workers to sleep. The only thing left to do now is moving my massive army and navy toward America and Spain. I had very strong navy, most of my previously built ranged ships now have logistic, most of my melee ships also have Dautless and it made them extremely sturdy they could tank all the horsehocky throwed at them and come out on top, not to mention I have the ability to heal everywhere thanks to Treasure Fleet. Victory was just a matter of when.

Spoiler Northern front :

I split my army and navy in two and sent one group north, one group south. Here is my northen front (after cleared all of America fleet)

Spoiler Southern Front :

..and Southern front

Spoiler A little experiment :

With my overpowered navy, the wars were easy. I took my time to make a little experiment. Just one turn after America declared war, I declare war on Spain, and now Im about to get into negative unit supply due to war weariness.

I want to test if I sue peace with America (I got his capital already), can I reduce war weariness enough to maintain my war with Spain. And here is the result:

The answer was yes, Im still at war with Spain, but war weariness has been greatly reduced, so I can keep waring for some more time. I think this information will be helpful somehow.

Spoiler Not much resistant :

With the America and Spain now gone, there were 2 capitals left to my victory. And I am always ready.

Autria and Ethiopia stand no chance against my Bomber. So that's my victory on turn 433.

Some thoughts after the game:
- It was a very interesting game, I think I made quite good decisions so I was able to survive Denmark and Sweden agression in the early game which was key to my victory.
- Rome prehotfix is broken...
- With the ability to capture defensive building, Rome now has an extreme advantage in invading other continents. You can safely capture a city with your navy, send in one garrison, then spend a few turns clean up enemy units with naval bombardment without risking the city being retaken or losing units trying to defend it.
- Retain all building is a big deal. In this game I had situation where the newly conquered cities has no building left to build except Courthouse. Those cities were as good as or even better my own settled secondary cities right of the bat. Its really strong.
- Happiness is very stable, I dont experience any jumps of happiness in this game despite focus growing my cities to the most pop possible and never stop growth, even send food TR around my empires (except for war weariness which I can always make peace to get rid of).
- War weariness was harder, but more exciting IMO. I really liked it.
Thanks you guys for reading. I have another ongoing game as Rome with hotfix, will share some of my impressions after finish it .

 

[tu_79]

Very nice!

Happiness is very stable, I dont experience any jumps of happiness in this game despite focus growing my cities to the most pop possible and never stop growth, even send food TR around my empires (except for war weariness which I can always make peace to get rid of).

I'd take it with a pinch of saltz. You were playing with pre-hotfix version.

It feels like retaining captured walls is a big deal, and an exciting one at that. It opens up strategies not available to any other warmonger. Rome already had more great generals than usual, via Colisseums, allowing a border citadel abuse strategy. For her economy, it has the production bonus on buildings already present in the Capital.

If it needs a nerf, I'd replace "captures all valid buildings" by "increased chance of capturing valid buildings", so buildings with more than 0% capture chance get an aditional x% to building capture. This way you may capture a wall, but it is not 100% assured. But I think G said this is not posible, anyways.