*Spoiler4* SPECIAL - Must have submitted Gotm19

[zagnut]

Originally posted by col
I left Rome pretty much to their own devices for the whole game. I made an early mistake in expecting the Emperor civs on my continent to behave like Emperor civs. I carefull constructed a barrier to keep them out of the north then settle it at my leisure but found to my horror that the Celts were pretty much crippled from the start.

I took the same course that you did. Blocking the other civs and then developing the northern end of the continent.

However, I seem to be the only person that played the game this month who had trouble invading the Celts. Things got so bad after Rome invaded me at the same time, that I lost Sogut and Iznik (with my Forbidden Palace) to them. I managed to survive and eventually took over my continent and ended with a diplomatic win in 1590.

I take comfort from the fact that I suffered such an embarassing loss and still managed to win the game.

 

[zagnut]

Cracker asked at the beginning of the thread how we handled the special attributes he gave Rome. I think that you can see that a lot of people left Rome alone. Col seems to have summed it up when he says that in order to get a domination victory you would have to conquer the main continent. Therefore, it made sense to bypass Rome. In doing so I think a lot of the special attributes cracker built into Rome went undiscovered by many players.

 

[serttech2003]

I stated this elsewhere, but I think the changes to Rome was a good thing. I feel flexibility to handle the unexpected is part of what makes a good player. I personally liked what was done and would want to see this trend continued in future GOTM's.
Greebley

This is one reason that I likd to shadow the GOTM and finally made me decide to submit my first one #19. If I wanted to just play normally I can fire up the PTW cd anytime. I enjoyed the special challenges that Rome brought. They were the dominant civ in my game in terms of power and culture, until I was able to out research them.

 

[tao]

In my game, Rome was a nuisance, not much more. Okay, I founded a city on their continent and they broke a deal by declaring war. And their legion SOD captured the city.

This added to their prior extortions and marked them victims for my Sipahi once Celts and noeCs were history. Beginning of Industrial Times, I started a dog-pile against them and invaded. Capturing their continent by sipahis with rifles for defence did not create any problems, because they mostly had legions and only about 5 muskets/rifles. And the war gave us 2 Great Leaders for ToE and Hoover. Regrettably, Rome did not built any wonders (now we know why) to conquer.

PS: Most of their ships were eaten by the squids and thus their navy made no trouble at all.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

I seem to remember being puzzled as to why Rome was not building wonders. The rest of thier behavior i attributed to being alone on the landmass.

I invaded them after i had infantry. There was a hill i dropped a transport full onto and then added saphi and a worker for a fortress. After dropping off plenty of saphi and killing many bypassing medievil infantry i attacked and razed a very large metropolis and founded my own town in its place. Some quick culture allowed normal border expansion and a safe place to base operations from.

 

[MadScot]

OK, here's something odd.
Rome in 875BC (roughly my first contact)

Rome in 490BC:

And Rome in 10BC:

I note the following:

City----------------875BC-------490BC-------10BC
Antium--------------3-----------------3-------------4
Cumae--------------3-----------------2-------------5
Hispalis-------------3-----------------2-------------6
Lutetia--------------3-----------------3-------------5
Neapolis------------4-----------------4-------------6
Pisae----------------2-----------------4-------------6
Pompeii-------------3-----------------3-------------4
Ravenna------------2-----------------1-------------4
Rome----------------5-----------------4-------------5
Veii-------------------4-----------------5-------------7
Vironconium--------2-----------------4-------------6

TOTAL POP--------34----------------35-----------58

Something odd is going on. Between 875BC and 490BC there should have been 17 turns by my reckoning. Rome, for example, has 5 improved grassland squares it can work, so there's no reason it shouldn't be at +2 fpt. Yet it loses a population point, rather than gaining a couple. An 875BC city investigation shows Rome was working those 5 tiles, with +2fpt. Furthermore they had 3 luxuries, so they had 3 happy and 2 content people. Where, I wonder, did the population go?

I would suggest that of the 11 cities, only Pompeii and Lutetia should be at less than +2fpt, and perhaps Pisae, depending on how the AI split tiles with Rome. If one makes allowance for the bonus foods present (two cows, for instance) then an average of +2fpt per city is reasonable. Rome should have generated +22fpt overall, which for towns should average to just over one population growth per turn. Yet instead of growing by 17 (875BC-490BC), the total population grew only by one! I don't believe they made 16 workers, surely.

Between 490BC and 10BC the population grew by 23 - almost exactly the predicted 1 per turn (24 turns) - and there is little or no irrigated grasslands, so I don't think that explains the delta.

What I'm wondering is...was the AI trying to build 'banned' units, and then losing the population somehow? Or is this just indicative of the AIs dreadful population/food balancing skills.

 

[hotrod0823]

The only explanation I could see is the !

 

[ltccone]

Originally posted by hotrod0823


The only explanation I could see is the !

I bet you're right. They were pop rushing units.
Where there's a whip, there's a way.

 

[vanatteveldt]

My experience with rome:

At first I noticed the fact that they were very very strong both militarily, culturally and scientifically. I traded with them to get on par, but later they actually outreseached me to MT when I was waging expensive wars against carthage. I think this was mainly because they had a very compact empire with lots of lushy meadows and rivers.

Some other strange things:
- They had lots of galleys floating around. As my first emphasis was on capturing my own continent I did not really care, and they nicely killed all squids around the continent . Later on, however, when I was at war with Rome, they did have the annoying tendency to have lots of galleys around the "Corinthian Gulf" between the two continents, but for some reason they seldom attacked my galleys.
- They did not have saltpeter, so by the time I went to war with them it was a very unfair MI / Sipahi+riflemen battle. Even though they never really had a chance, I was surprised by the strong counterattack after my first invasion. As I was overconfident due to my tech lead I actually grabbed fout cities in the first turn of my invasion (after landing, of course) including Rome. However this did mean that my defenders (riflemen by then) were unable to get to the two inland cities and I had to defend with my sipahi. I must have lost more than a dozen sipahi in their first counterattack, which really annoyed me. After mopping up all their units, however, only their 2 pikemen per city remained and it was a lost battle
- they were really aggresive, even for an emperor AI. I was in an alliance with them and they declared war on me to drop six units and rush to my capital, and later when we had killed Carthage together (and he even managed to capture the Carthagan saltpeter city) he declared war on me again, allowing me to kick him off the continent with my leftover army and capture their new saltpeter source before they had it hooked on.
- I think they actually had more workers than normal, I have captured at least 12 workers which allowed me to build two RR tiles a turn (before I was democracy) allowing me to move my armies around very efficiently during the invasion.

In short, they were a worthy opponent initially, but their lack of saltpeter made them less of a threat later on, even though this is when Lepanto should have occurred. I first thought that saltpeter-hunger was the reason for their initial agressiveness, but as they also declared war on me after capturing the carthagan saltpeter (but before defending it properly, as far as the AI ever defends anything properly) it might just be a matter of character.

 

[ltcoljt]

My thoughts are that Rome would have been more significant if they had more luxuries, perhaps a monopoly, or had the other continent been more difficult to reach.

As it was I simply worked around them until later in the game when they were a pushover.

And, IIRC, they had horses but no mounted units at all. Not complaining, it made this emperor game even easier.

 

[jeffelammar]

Like several others I basically left Rome alone. I fought a couple non-conclusive wars with Rome.

I finished off Carthage a bit late in 800 AD or so. I then debate attacking India or Rome. I'm glad I chose India.

After I rolled through India (while I was mopping them up) I made the mistake of trying for Rome.

I figured that with 10 Musketmen and a dozen or so Siphi that I would be able to take and hold a town. Then I would pick off his knights (Rome had no Saltpeter).

Unfortunately, I was greeted with wave after wave of Mideviel Infantry and Pikemen. The hoardes of Roman Frigates soon showed up to sink my ironclads and transport ships. All in all, I lost probably 12 muskets and 14 Siphi.

After that I decided that Rome didn't matter, and I went on by ignoring them. By this time I had at least a two tech lead on them, and by fermenting wars for them, I kept them slow.

I think that Rome's lack of wonders kept them out of the game entirely. Once they had covered their own island, they stagnated.

The other side effect of the Roman wonder setting was that for the first time ever in a game over Regent, I got every single Mideviel Wonder for myself by building them. This was because I kept the wonder enabled civs embroiled in wars and forced them to keep building units.

For my game I would say that the wonder settings caused the game to be probably the easiest Emporer level that I've played.

 

[ControlFreak]

Emotions:
Surprize - first meeting revealed they had many more cities, were ahead in tech and culture.
Fear - Embassy revealed 10-12 legions in their capital.
Disappointment - Rome was a worthless ally, opting to just bombard improvements rather than landing an assault force that could have better occupied the Carthaginians.
Respect - Being so productive, yet lacking saltpeter they made a very profitable trading partner. India, Spain and with a little help from me China and Egypt all turned out to be good profit makers, accepting my techs for large GPT.
Love - Being able to trade so much (first in an attempt to avoid Sneak Attacks, then in an attempt to make a lot of money.) made the Romans "gracious" enough to vote for me.

Having such a strong Rome made be abandon any thought of conquest. I didn't want domination as that was how I won last month and it was the obvious choice with the powerful Sipahi. I would have gone for the spaceship had I not run out of RL playing time.

My navy never had the chance to test the Romans since my first galleys were all sunk by squid, I opted not to build anymore, even after the completion of the GLighthouse. The Roman navy did make me turn off "Show friend moves" as this added 2-3minutes to the in between turn.

I'm glad Rome couldn't build wonders because I would have been tempted to mess with them and probably would have been handed my head.

 

[cracker]

Originally posted by jeffelammar
The other side effect of the Roman wonder setting was that for the first time ever in a game over Regent, I got every single Mideviel Wonder for myself by building them. This was because I kept the wonder enabled civs embroiled in wars and forced them to keep building units.

For my game I would say that the wonder settings caused the game to be probably the easiest Emporer level that I've played.

FYI, from the 4 or 5 version of the game that I played on the raw setup, Rome would have never gotten any wonders in the game if they started with one settler, with wonders on, and alone on that small continent. In all of the raw test versions, "someone" attacked Rome early because they were so weak and so far behind in tech.

 

[jeffelammar]

Originally posted by cracker

FYI, from the 4 or 5 version of the game that I played on the raw setup, Rome would have never gotten any wonders in the game if they started with one settler, with wonders on, and alone on that small continent. In all of the raw test versions, "someone" attacked Rome early because they were so weak and so far behind in tech.

That is interesting. I can see the inherent weaknesses of Rome's start position. They would have been crushed.

My main point was that the Roman inability to build wonders made it much easier to embroil the AI's in in war. This made few differeces in the game.
1. Tech advantage. I was able to stay in Monarchy and still lead the tech race. I did this by making sure that Rome was at war with other nations.
2. Minimized wonder cascade. Once the Celts and Carthage were out of the way, there were only 4 opponents even trying to build wonders. Egypt was down and out, India was in expansion mode, Spain and China behind in tech.

What it boils down to is that by being that Powerful, Rome was not absorbed by one of the other AI's. This allowed more opportunities to play relatively powerful AIs off each other.

 

[cracker]

Originally posted by jeffelammar
What it boils down to is that by being that Powerful, Rome was not absorbed by one of the other AI's. This allowed more opportunities to play relatively powerful AIs off each other.

Yes, .

 

[z0dd]

What I remember about the Romans:

- After watching the "history of time" playback, I was wondering how Rome had 6 cities before I had 2. Now it makes sense.

- Rome had a huge navy, which I sunk in almost one turn with my more than huge navy (20+ BBs, 20+ DDs, 10 transports).

- Rome kept invading the eastern coast of "my" island. Brilliantly, they keep landing on Mt or Hill tiles (until I put units on all the coastal locations).

- Rome nuked me at least 8 times. They nuked both my worst main-isle city and my Capital, but never the same city twice.

I was wondering why Rome was the only Civ without a wonder.
Very interesting game. Rome in my game:

 

[denyd]

My main emotion about Rome was FEAR!!

I normally run a very lean military game with just 1 garrison per city (no walls) and 15-20 unit invasion force. If Rome had ever landed 30-40 units (legionaries early or cavalry late), I would have been toast!!

After realizing that they were the 800lb gorilla of the game, I just kept giving goodies (cities, money, tech, etc) to them to make them an ally in all of my other wars. I was glad to win (via domination) before needing to have to invade their island.

I kind of attributed the lack of wonders to being behind in tech for the early part of the game. Their early, huge lead in culture, was a major influence for me away from a culture type victory.

I was also a little surprised how weak the Celts were. The jungle slowed them down a bit, but I was expecting more Gallic Swordsmen (they had iron, but never hooked it up).

 

[CellarDweller22]

I can't remember EXACT details until after 1365 AD (didn't know to keep notes! ). version 1.29f

Ironically, I played this game to survive. Roman galley's contacted me after a few failed attempts at killing squid and sailing through all of the FOG gods. I purchased contacts with the civs on the other islands through them, then sold these to the Celts and Joan's evil twin.

I NEVER had a war with Rome. In fact, they were GRACIOUS with me throughout the game! Up until the time when I had my 5th spaceship component built.... then they were upset.

We signed (about 5 turns after meeting) a MPP which was kept in tact until 1710 AD. Although Rome got me in a few wars with the other island (and the celts, which was welcome.... ), there wasn't ever a bad period in our relationship. We traded techs and luxuries. And, heck, at the end, even if they DID want to declare war with me, I was the one supplying their saltpeter and oil? (or whatever big resource they didn't have).

The first war in the game (other than pre-ancient times) occurred in 1365, where Spain (with 3 cities LOL) declared war on the powerhouse Egypt (#1 in histograph throughout the AD's). Rome eventually signed an alliance with India and attacked Egypt. Celt's attacked Rome. Celts died (with a little help from their "brothers in arms" ).

Rome was a VERY useful trading partner. During the industrial ages, they kept me in the game. I then took the lead in the Modern Age, and Rome lost its usefulness..... EXCEPT that neither Egypt nor India had made even one spaceship component (India ended the game with one).

After losing a few cities, they finally built new ones in the extreme NE corner of the other continent (growth was apparently not a priority).

The key to my strategy was to not fall too behind in tech, and to not lose my sorry behind in a war. Because I had build enough Dragoons (Siphai), Rome didn't mess with me when push came to shove (I guess?!). The 500 years of MPP didn't hurt either....

Personally, I am very glad for the modifications.... it gave the game some spice (and, in Rome's case, I couldn't beat 'em, so I joined 'em!). I suppose the #1 reason why Rome didn't attack me was because I didn't try to settle on their island. In fact, I don't think I purchased a galley or transport the entire game. I knew Rome would take care of the seas, which was evident when Egypt was at war with me with 120 modern land troops and NO NAVY.....

Thanks to Rome for my 1782 launch on Emperor Level! Here, Here!!

-- From The Cellar

 

[kiregh]

Rome – a Summary

My earliest recollection of Rome is their galleys working up our eastern shores against fog and squids. At one awkward moment they landed two legionaries near an unprotected city on our northeastern peninsula, necessitating an expensive peace treaty. Perhaps that set the tone for all our future dealings with them which were always positive and friendly.

They always had a large naval presence off our eastern shores where the three continents came together and at times this was a source of unease. I generally went out of my way to meet their requests and do business with them. They backed us unfailingly in confrontations with Carthage and Egypt. They paid me so generously for resources, it funded all costs except research.

Twice over the years when their affections began to fade I gave them a city and each time you could feel the room warm up. Were they playing me or visa versa?

After the fall of Carthage I was about to rotate my pumped up military into the jumping off point prepared in an ex-Celtic city I had on the Roman continent. I agonized for more than a week and mutual good history of the two countries and their financial interdependence held me in check. I also realized I would be all alone without Caesar coming around to buy and sell. Much later when only three nations remained Rome voted for us in the UN.

Rome always seemed like a big puppy dog, easily dissuaded from serious violence and eager to please. Rome missed the hard, nasty edge of Egypt, the other definite personality in my game. This Caesar was the most personable AI I have encountered – my distracted early good humor seemed to play into the special early developmental circumstances of this particular Rome - and here I thought it was my innate charm.

kiregh

 

[Snaga]

My notes on Rome:

1700BC Spot red border off SE coast, that'll be the Romans. Unable to make contact yet.

1675BC Can now rule out land bridge with Roman land, there is however a coastal bridge which means trade will be possible.

1350BC Send first galley towards Rome, it is immediately destroyed by squid

11000BC Second galley. Ditto.

750BC Finally contact Rome with galley, they are behind in tech, but have a huge lead 619 vs 365. Trade code of laws for world map and all their gold (117g). They have 13 towns to our 12, so not sure why they rate so high. Perhaps they have a huge military. Met one of their galleys, just off their coast, so it was only a matter of a turn or two before they contacted Carthage or the Celts. They have almost filled their island but their is an unoccupied island to their E. Looks like it must have started with free settlers as it dominated the histogram from a very early stage. Trade contact with Rome to Celts for 2 workers and to Carthage for world map and 135g.

650BC Gain all contacts, ranking is: Rome 653, India 498, Ottomans 394, Egypt 378 ... Establish embassy with Rome. The city of Rome has 3 legions defending.

430BC Build first harbor. Trade monotheism to rome for 1g, world map and ivory.

50AD Rome threatens us for dyes. We laugh at their audacity.

110AD Trade theology to Rome for ivory. Found Bolu on NW coast of Roman island.

150AD The evil Romans sneak attack and sack Bolu. We lose our ivory as we are now at war. Egypt and China declare war on Romans in exchange for engineering. Spain declares war on Rome for 210g. India is Rome's only ally.

This is where my notes end, but I ended up taking a Roman coastal city with knights, sued for peace (Republican war weariness was kicking in), built a barracks, moved all my knights to that city (about 20-25) and then once military tradition was discovered upgraded them to Sipahi, and took out the remaining Roman towns between 460AD and 560AD.

Rome did build a few galleys in my game, but not much more than would be expected from an island nation. They didn't establish contact with the northern nations until I gave it to them in 350BC, in an attempt to speed up research. When I was at war, I managed to build more galleys than them, and was able maintain control of the sea by attacking their galleys. Rome never managed a landing on Ottoman soil.

After securing my home continent I considered attacking India first, but Rome had the advantage of being closer and connected by coastal tiles. Their high power rating was also a bit flattering as their early cities gave them a big rating boost, but their real strength was limited by their island status. They built quite a few legions and medieval infantry, but these were beatable with knights, and dogfood against sipahi. I think I took them out before they had a chance to trade for saltpeter, having only just gained gunpowder, so I missed out on seeing galleases.