Rome

[Gazebo]

We’ll see how it goes.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Since when you reconquer a city no pop or buildings are lost, does that mean if Rome conquers my city with a Wall and I take it the next turn, I will have the Wall still?

 

[Gazebo]

Since when you reconquer a city no pop or buildings are lost, does that mean if Rome conquers my city with a Wall and I take it the next turn, I will have the Wall still?

We'll see! It has never been an issue as it was always destroyed right away.

G

 

[Legen]

Retaining military/defensive buildings wouldn't work against a human player due to the possibility of selling the buildings before the city is captured. That applies to any building that can be sold, actually, Rome's UA is stronger against the AI than against a human.

Maybe Rome could use a different warring UA component? Like gaining free military/defensive/colosseum buildings that are present in the Capital. Something that isn't reliant on what the AI is unable to do.

 

[Gazebo]

Retaining military/defensive buildings wouldn't work against a human player due to the possibility of selling the buildings before the city is captured. That applies to any building that can be sold, actually, Rome's UA is stronger against the AI than against a human.

Maybe Rome could use a different warring UA component? Like gaining free military/defensive/colosseum buildings that are present in the Capital. Something that isn't reliant on what the AI is unable to do.

IIRC you can't sell while the city is in revolt.

G

 

[YukiN]

IIRC you can't sell while the city is in revolt.

G

I think what he meant is that a human player can sell the important buildings right before the city gets captured by an AI Rome, so the AI doesn't benefit as much as a human player of Rome would from the UA. Revolt is only something that happens after capture.

 

[chicorbeef]

I think what he meant is that a human player can sell the important buildings right before the city gets captured by an AI Rome, so the AI doesn't benefit as much as a human player of Rome would from the UA. Revolt is only something that happens after capture.

I don't see the issue. Selling buildings has existed since forever and isn't a Rome-exclusive issue.
Also this only applies to AI Rome conquering human cities. AI Rome vs. AI players works just fine. If you're losing cities against an AI Rome he's probably doing well regardless.

 

[Gazebo]

I don't see the issue. Selling buildings has existed since forever and isn't a Rome-exclusive issue.
Also this only applies to AI Rome conquering human cities. AI Rome vs. AI players works just fine. If you're losing cities against an AI Rome he's probably doing well regardless.

And you're also denying yourself those same buildings if you take the city back.

G

 

[tu_79]

And you can only sell one building each turn, IIRC.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

And it's already something humans can benefit from. If Rome is about to conquer your conquerable UB-having city, you can just sell the UB so he doesn't benefit. It's the same sort of thing, basically.

 

[ElliotS]

And you're also denying yourself those same buildings if you take the city back.

G

This is the big one. How often do you lose a city and not only decide that you'll never take it back but continue the game? I would think very few.

 

[pineappledan]

Aight, so at this point I'm ready to eat some humble pie.

I never felt particularly strongly about this change, but I'd much rather have the old system than the new one.

The ability to capture unique buildings from other civs is a fun, flavorful addition, but it has always been a bit peripheral to the core strengths of the civ. This is because any captured UBs are necessarily in conquered, 3rd-rate cities. They're exposed, they've had their population reduced, they're on the fringes of the empire, and their infrastructure has been pillaged, Unless they are a capital it's unlikely that extra UB would be enough to catch up. Capturing a UB also meant you were getting a fraction of the full power of that UB (full power would require having that UB in every city). Capturing multiple civs' cities also meant that the bonus UBs often had clashing playstyles. When playing Rome, I've never felt influenced to alter my gameplay or VC strategy based on the UBs I've captured.

This update changes that dynamic drastically. By capturing unique national wonders, Rome gets 100% of the benefit of another civ's UB in all its cities, because those bonuses are empire-wide. This is especially bad in the case of Ashurbanipal, because his UWonder is arguably stronger than his UA, and combines perfectly with Rome's warmonger flavor.

Some of these bonuses are powerful enough that, depending on who your neighbors are, it could completely reorient Rome towards a different victory condition or playstyle. Capturing Assyria's wonder could tilt you fully into a full warmonger civ, probably your optimal strategy anyways, but it synergizes extremely well with Rome's existing kit. Capturing Carthage could tilt you diplomatic or cultural, with its extra, early TRs. America's could make your optimal win strat a Cultural victory. Capturing a few scattered UBs from different civs was never really enough to alter Rome's core playstyle until now; you never had the critical mass for a single captured UB type to reorient the entire civ before.

Assyria:

• 45XP on all new trained units on empire.
• +3 for libraries

Carthage:

• +2 free trade units.
• +2 on lighthouses and +3 on Harbors.
• Can capture a full era earlier than Rome can build his own EIC.
• If captured after medieval, you can have 2 cities with double luxury quantities, and 3 free trade routes on empire.

America: Not nearly as serious, it's a very late wonder

• +5/ for Museums and Broadcast Towers
• A butt-load of culture and tourism

Venice: Unclear to me if Arsenale/Murano/Rialto are capturable. Rome cannot build them, since they are tied to Venice

• Some extra GP rate and Spy defense, not a big deal.

If People really wanted to Give Rome a soft buff, couldn't we do something a little easier, like increase the production bonus to +20%, or +1 on City connections or something? Double down on the Arena's +2% bonus from city connections?

 

[Almonds]

I actually think it opens up pretty unique and engaging interactions between Rome and other civs. I know you have more unique NWs in 4UC, so it's definitely more of a concern there whether you address it here or not. So besides that Rome would be more powerful in that modmod, I think in general this change has made Rome much more interesting and stronger. It's an infrastructure-based warmonger whereas most other civs lean towards pure army enhancing UCs. I am still in favor of holding onto NWs, unique or not, and see how it fares balance-wise, because I'd love to see it work out.

Also, I don't think we have gotten as close to historical accuracy as much as Rome conquering Carthage for naval superiority

 

[ElliotS]

Assyria does seem pretty crazy to take over, I agree. Carthage seems very good to take over, and America seems fair.

That said: it only happens when Rome has one of those two trouble civs in game, and is able to take over their capital. This is fairly rare, with the first condition being more difficult than the second.

If Rome gets one of those buildings: Is he unstoppable, or toeing the top-edge of the power curve?

The fact that you need to go through a lot of trouble to occasionally get a power boost that you need to plan around can very well mitigate the awesome power offered, and I don't know it's enough to take away what I see as a good change overall.

Like: If Rome could build them, or garuntee them with the right timing, then those wonders would be much stronger than they are captured. Timing consideration and risk mitigate the benefit. For example producing too many units before you get Assyria's UB means you waste some of it, and too few can cause you to not be able to take it in the first place.

Also remember that the two civs that have those UBs are pretty good at defending themselves or even attacking early. They're not exactly defenseless fruit waiting to be picked if you've got the right difficulty settings.

In the worst case scenario forbidding Rome from taking over Unique National Wonders would be better than undoing everything, but I don't know if it's common enough or insane enough to ban.

 

[Stalker0]

My reaction right now is Rome is significantly “cooler” with this change. Too powerful I think is up in the air.

We probably could toss out the building bonus is the capture ability puts us on the edge of OP

 

[Gazebo]

I mean, balance concerns aside, I really like the fluff that Rome is the borg now.

G

 

[pineappledan]

My problem with the NW capturing isn't really a balance issue, per se. You could run a million tests with this new Rome and compare it to the old Rome, and I'm sure the win % won't have been affected that much. No, my issue is that having a very specific set of prerequisites in a small number of games -- sharing a continent with Carthage or Assyria -- means that Rome's optimal strategy is to now THROW THEMSELVES at that one civ's capital, hijack their national wonder, sue for peace, let them rebuild their national wonder in a new city, hijack THAT copy of the wonder, and then you have basically broken the game. These two wonders also just happen to come right around Rome's own power spike.

Players can do this easily enough by forcing map conditions and re-roll. This would happen rarely enough in full AI games that it wouldn't really matter. In both cases, however, a very specific situation can be exploited where Rome can virtually co-opt a power from another civ, the power of which is almost a second UA unto itself. Furthermore, they might be able to do it multiple times.

It sort of becomes a situation where, given the right ingredients, Rome can have wildly varying power levels. That power is so dependent on what other civs are in the mix, that Rome doesn't really have a consistent level of balance anymore. It would be equivalent to creating a custom civ, where, depending on which civ they conquer, they can augment their own UA with the UA of a civ they have wiped out. If anyone made a civ like that I'm sure it would be accused of being gamey and incoherent.

TL;DR - In specific circumstances, Rome can be handed a 6th victory condition: capture X civ and throttle the game.

If we were strictly speaking about historicity, Rome has actually captured 2 national wonders that are already gamified: The Great Cothon in Carthage, and the Second Temple in Jerusalem (my Israel mod). They completely leveled Carthage, and the first thing Pompey did after conquering Jerusalem was desecrate and loot the Temple. 150 years later, they leveled the Temple too, and even banned Jews from so much as entering Jerusalem. So in both cases where Rome has captured a real-world national wonder, they didn't get much use from them.

EDIT: Fun little tidbit, but the Royal Library in Assur was completely destroyed, along with the entire city, by a coalition of Medes and Babylonians. So we've got 2 NWs where the city was wiped off the map completely, and one where a retaliation from an occupying force was so violent, it caused racial/religious diaspora. America, you and your pretty little museum better watch your back

 

[CrazyG]

The issue I'm seeing is if you intentionally conuqer a national wonder, let that civ rebuild it, then conquer it again. You can potentially get 3 or 4 royal libraries for example, which results in absurdity.

If you game the system with Carthage you can get like 8 culture per lighthouse. The only issue I'm seeing is unique national wonders.

 

[Gazebo]

My problem with the NW capturing isn't really a balance issue, per se. You could run a million tests with this new Rome and compare it to the old Rome, and I'm sure the win % won't have been affected that much. No, my issue is that having a very specific set of prerequisites in a small number of games -- sharing a continent with Carthage or Assyria -- means that Rome's optimal strategy is to now THROW THEMSELVES at that one civ's capital, hijack their national wonder, sue for peace, let them rebuild their national wonder in a new city, hijack THAT copy of the wonder, and then you have basically broken the game. These two wonders also just happen to come right around Rome's own power spike.

Players can do this easily enough by forcing map conditions and re-roll. This would happen rarely enough in full AI games that it wouldn't really matter. In both cases, however, a very specific situation can be exploited where Rome can virtually co-opt a power from another civ, the power of which is almost a second UA unto itself. Furthermore, they might be able to do it multiple times.

It sort of becomes a situation where, given the right ingredients, Rome can have wildly varying power levels. That power is so dependent on what other civs are in the mix, that Rome doesn't really have a consistent level of balance anymore. It would be equivalent to creating a custom civ, where, depending on which civ they conquer, they can augment their own UA with the UA of a civ they have wiped out. If anyone made a civ like that I'm sure it would be accused of being gamey and incoherent.

TL;DR - In specific circumstances, Rome can be handed a 6th victory condition: capture X civ and throttle game balance.

If we were strictly speaking about historicity, Rome has actually captured 2 national wonders that are already gamified: The Great Cothon in Carthage, and the Second Temple in Jerusalem (my Israel mod). They completely leveled Carthage, and the first thing Pompey did after conquering Jerusalem was desecrate and loot the Temple. 150 years later, they leveled the Temple too, and even banned Jews from so much as entering Jerusalem. So in both cases where Rome has captured a real-world national wonder, they didn't get much use from them.

If you exceed the maximum for a building type you won’t get more than one theoretically . If you are seeing that happen in testing it’s a quirk of my quick filter and I need to add another check.

G

 

[pineappledan]

I know you have more unique NWs in 4UC, so it's definitely more of a concern there whether you address it here or not. So besides that Rome would be more powerful in that modmod, I think in general this change has made Rome much more interesting and stronger.

I'm trying to limit myself only to base VP for this discussion. We haven't made the national wonders compatible for the 10/10 patch; we're still playing catchup.

But yes, if you add the 4UC modmod, that adds Aztec, Babylon, Huns, Byzantium, England, Germany, Iroquois, and Portugal to the list of Unique National Wonders.

That said: it only happens when Rome has one of those two trouble civs in game, and is able to take over their capital. This is fairly rare, with the first condition being more difficult than the second.

Well, that's its own problem isn't it? Rome's power varies drastically based on who its neighbors are. That's pretty hard to balance.

If Rome gets one of those buildings: Is he unstoppable, or toeing the top-edge of the power curve?

Yet to be determined, for sure

Like: If Rome could build them, or garuntee them with the right timing, then those wonders would be much stronger than they are captured. Timing consideration and risk mitigate the benefit. For example producing too many units before you get Assyria's UB means you waste some of it, and too few can cause you to not be able to take it in the first place.

Kind of irrelevant, isn't it? Assyria's NW scales with the number of GWs you have, so Assyria is only getting +10XP or so before medieval anyways. As long as Rome conquers Assyria before, say, mid-Renaissance, he's not getting much less benefit from the wonder than Assyria would.

My reaction right now is Rome is significantly “cooler” with this change. Too powerful I think is up in the air.

I will concede that Rome is, indeed, cooler.