Whew! After about five tries, I finally achieved the Roman Historical Victory on Monarch, using todays Warlords update. Here's my suggestions on how to accomplish it, based on how I did it.
First, the historical victory requirements:
1. By 450 A.D./Turn 143
450-turn 143every city size 5 or more must be:
connected to the capital
have barracks
have an aqueduct
have an amphitheatre
2. By 450 A.D./Turn 143
Emulate the reaches of Rome's Western Empire: Three cities in France, two on west coast of northern Africa, two in Spain, one in England.
3. Before 1400 AD, no city lost to barbs
First turn:
I took the four Praets and put them all on the two galleys. I sent my archers down southeast to be picked up later. I sent my workers to minethe iron to the northeast. The galleys stop right outside of the borders of Carthage, and depending on their mood, you may be able to trade some techs with them. I set Rome to building a trireme-forge-barracks.
I set tech for agriculture, then monarchy, then mathematics, then construction, but since I was beaten to the Coliseum, this may not be the best tactic. My reasoning: agriculture for fields so you can pump out settlers, monarchy for the wine and happiness of impressing armies, math for the catapults, and construction for the Coliseum/Great Wall. Making a beeline for theology and Christianity is risky, but it may work as well (I never tried it myself.)
Second turn: Declare war on Carthage and rush them with the four Praets. You should be able to attack directly from sea and lose only one, if any. (If not, I'd just reload the scenariotoo early to lose precious Praets.) You may even be able to pick up another worker from them. If you're lucky, you won't end up razing Carthage, but if you do, no big deal. Better to eliminate the civ now then to let them grow into a problem later.
Around the second/third turn Medio flips. Send one of their archers down to keep Rome happy. I set Medio to archer-settler-archer-settler, ad infinitum, with some workers in the mix as well as needed.
Third-Tenth Turns: Reload all the Praets on the gallies and head to Greece. Trade a few techs with them and then, naturally, attack. Athens has always been pretty weak in my experiences. If you're lucky, they may also have settled Constantinople, so you can take that too (if your Praets survive!). If they have any cities left afterwards, no problem, the Greek civ should crumble within a few turns. Any independent civ of Greek leftovers will not be aggressive, and may even act as a buffer from Babylon or Persia if they're in Turkey, as was the case with my game.
Carthage and Athens I tend to set up as Wonder building towns, guarding them with just an archer apiece for now (the archers I had sent southeast of Italy in turn one, picked up by galleys.) Athens is a great place to build the Great Wall if you can, and that eliminates a great deal of headaches from barbarians later on. But for now build the Great Lighthouseit will keep you afloat financially when your empire gets huge and unwieldly. I'd set Carthage on the Parthenon.
So, by this stage you have at least three cities: Athens, Medio, and Rome, and maybe Carthage.
10th-142th turn: Some keys at this stage:
1. At least two Brennus cities will spawn in France. Taking them over is fairly easy. In the last scenario no Paris city spawned, so I had to settle that one myself. So, don't send settlers into France right away--better to take over their cities then use up one of your settlers.
2. Speaking of settlers: You need to become a settler factory. In previous games I kept trying to make Rome a military-only town and found that I simply couldnt settle all my cities in time. Youll need at least one settler for North Africa (two if Carthage is razed); two for Spain; one for London; and possibly one for France. I didnt bother with settling a city in the bootheel of Italy until after 450; I didt have a settler to spare.
3. Forget conquering any other civs or cities until after turn 450. Jerusalem and Egypt are tempting, but they spread you out too thin.
4. Keep a good road network between your cities. Rome should be churning out Praets at least every other turn. Barbarians will pop up in Spain and in Germany by the fours and sixes, and will be very aggressive. I kept a squadron of four Praets in southeast France, since it was midways between where they liked to spawn. Again, keep your worker busy with roads! Use the Roman Unique Power to its best advantage.
5. Your Spanish/French/English cities should take up few resources. I build monuments (for culture) if I dont have a religion handy, but otherwise spend little time on them. Maximize production with them, churning out military units.
6. The easiest way to deal with the adequct/ampitheatre/barracks requirement for cities size five or larger? Have no cities size five or larger. I set my cities to No Growth once they hit level 4, or make sure to keep them low with slavery rushes, at least by turn 144. I had no city over city 4 when 450 AD hit in my victory.
7. As soon as I can, I set an engineer in Rome, towards building a Great Engineer: very handy for a Great Wall or a Coliseum rush later on.
143th turn-1400 AD
Managing to get both the 450 AD historical victories is the hard part. After that, barbarians shouldnt be too much of a problem, except perhaps around Carthage, and some spearmen/praets should be enough to keep it safe. I was able to cruise to the third historical victory pretty easily by this point.
Then its a matter of seeing your cities get peeled away by Spain, England, and France. From 450 AD to the eighth century those flip-vulnerable cities just build workers or military units for meI wouldn't bother to invest any buildings, except perhaps walls and monuments. When the change comes, I always agreed the flip because the loss of cities actually helped stabilize my badly bleeding economy.
Now, I would settle cities on the Balkan coast and the bootheel of Italy. Depending on the size of my army and the strength of the Eastern civilizations like Egypt, Babylon, and Arabia, you may want to push into the Middle East (beware the eventual Turkey flip, however).
Anyhow, thats my advice, based on my Roman Historical Victory.
I just took what you suggested and made some little modifications. You did the hard work.
