Rome

Maybe it is just me, but I find it odd that a Civ whose UA is called 'The Glory of Rome', has literally zero bonus to the capital, only to other cities

It doesn't fit historically either, since Rome grew massively, off the back of the rest of the empire. Egyptian and North African grain fed the city, goods poured in from the rest of the empire, and the Roman elite basically enjoyed a level of luxury that wouldn't be reached by the elite again until the Industrial era.

The first part of the UA also sounds like it has caused a lot of issues, and is a bit of anti synergy with the second part, the extra building production. You don't need as much catchup production if conquered cities already have everything they already produced. And the territory is just an odd, cut-rate version of the Shoshone.

A small addition to the second line. Production of the Empire feeding back to the capital.

This would go with the second line. Keeping up to date with building in the rest of the empire then feeds back when producing National Wonders. This also reduces the wide penalty from National Wonders, since they can get a lot more expensive if going wide. Rome at the moment is doubly hit by this since they need to produce all the building first, so their secondary cities can save on production AND then building national wonders that are super expensive because of all these extra cities.

The base building refers to the building that unlocks the National Wonder, so Barracks = Heroic Epic, Monument = National Monument, etc.

Not sure in terms of a larger change, replacing the first line. But I feel it needs to add a bit of power to Rome the city itself. Like more powerful internal trade routes going to the capital, yields/percentage bonus in the capital from a wider empire, instant yields to the National Wonders, for each base building built/already built, etc. Anyone of these could work as possibilities.

 

Rome = city, but Rome also = empire. It do be like that.

G

 

So on Rome. Rome was one of my favorite vanilla civs, it was a civ where your plan was often one good solid set of warring with your awesome UU, and then you settled in and enjoyed your economic UA bonuses for the remaining of the game. That is a play style I greatly enjoy, and Rome was the highlight of that for me.

With the various changes, Rome feels like its in a weird place. Its been shifted to a more true warmonger, but its not at the level of full warmonger, but its economic bonuses for no warring are also weaker now....so its a civ I rarely play, which is a real shame.

Am I alone in that assessment, do people like Rome as is?

 

I agree with your assessment, but I don’t think much was lost. Rome didn’t even have a UB in vanilla, so it’s hard to draw a comparison there. Rome has been oriented more as a perennial warmonger, but with a firm infrastructure focus as well.

you should join us in 4UC land. I think you will like the peaceful expansionist tools the latifundia brings to peacetime Rome, and with the re-addition of the ballista for an even bigger early expansion spike.

 

Rome's niche is that you can conquer strong cities and have them immediately do great, and sometimes even better than your own settled cities (because of UBs). As long as happiness permits, you can conquer non-stop without worrying about the science/culture hit.

 

Rome is a great civ to play, either peacefully (you really get a lot of extra production) or aggressively, like azum4roll said.

 

What I like for Rome is the conquer & administer side, with a fat world city as capital.

Preserving the buildings is a great ability. I would maybe give a slight help to grow the capital: give the capital some food on settling or conquering new cities. Or some %growth to the capital based on the number of owned cities and vassals. Rome could then occasionally be played with progress or even tradition. In exchange for this food boost I would drop the tile gain aspect of the UA.

 

I wonder if Spain's old food-on-settle/capture bonus would fit in with Rome. Obviously not with the same numbers, but food on settling (representing people moving to new coloniae) benefits peaceful Rome in getting new cities up and working production tiles faster, while food on conquest (spoils of war) boosts the capital. Dunno if they really need the buff though, even if the conquest-tile-gain is removed.