The Rhye's and Fall of the Roman Empire – is it possible?

[lumpthing]

I've recently become obsessed (to the extent of hiding my civ-playing habit from colleagues and family) with playing RFC Rome as a recreation of Rome's historical rise and fall, including the survival for another 1,000 years of the Eastern Roman Empire. I've banned myself from playing civ for a while so I thought I'd talk about playing it instead .

Thing is I'm really good at the fall of Rome, but I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that the rise of Rome is impossible without genius playing skills and great luck.

Ideally I'd like to:
1) Conquer the entire historical Roman empire (but if necessary I will reluctantly settle for conquering Carthage, Greece, Egypt, Anatolia and the Levant)
2) Concentrate my best forces in the East, so that the West, including Rome itself, crumbles before the barbarian hordes sometime around 450 (give or take a couple of centuries)
3) Have built Constantinople into a city which makes a rational choice as capital (I think it would be legitimate to use the world editor to switch the capital to Constantinople if the computer put it elsewhere after Rome falls).

Apparently the historical Roman Empire has been done but the genius in question didn't explain how he did it. In any case it apparently involved the Great Wall, which I can't use because I want the barbarians to win in the end.

So, is my attempt to recreate history's classic rise and fall futile or does anyone have a strategy? If it is currently impossible, what do you think would be a fair booster for Rome's start in order to make it happen? (e.g. adding extra workers or praetorians).

 

[Panopticon]

The stability penalty for losing your core area is probably going to be a problem. Constantinople itself is a fine city spot. So I think 2 would be the problem. It's an interesting idea, though.

 

[Cethegus]

What's funny about recreating Rome in RFC is that you have to settle most of your city spots instead of conquering them, and you have to start building your empire from the east. Sack Greece alongside with Babylon and only then start focusing more on the other areas. They're essentially useless without the Great Lighthouse while Babel can support itself easily.

 

[Zagoroth]

I have said this strategy many times, so here it goes. First you should restart the game until there is a Greek city in Southern Italy. This city will flip to you, and will cause Greece to declare war on your (giving you extra legions) Greece might even have workers working the land around that city, which is great for you to bring your economy up quickly. With your initial legions conquer Greece, Babylon and clear out any unnecessary Middle East cities, you might want to keep Jerusalem for extra commerce. I have never done so, but you can also try to conquer Egypt during this initial war. I recommend trying to go for the UHV to get the free Golden Age. Use your high production cities from conquest for all your UHV buildings. Once Carthage has two cities with a population greater than two, conquer them. Do not settle France! It will be settled for you much earlier than the UHV requirement and you can conquer three cities. If you did the math you can see that your initial settlers will be left to settle Spain. Thus using this strategy you only need to build one settler to rid of the UHV requirement for Britannia. My record with achieving this is 100 B.C.E. From there you can mass produce settlers, and hopefully have workers to quickly build up that land, to get the historical Roman area. You can either aim for around 150 C.E., largest extent of Roman Empire, or around 450 C.E., extent before the sack of Rome. Obviously the former is more of a challenge.

 

[Cethegus]

First you should restart the game until there is a Greek city in Southern Italy. This city will flip to you, and will cause Greece to declare war on your (giving you extra legions) Greece might even have workers working the land around that city, which is great for you to bring your economy up quickly.

Does Rome automatically start at war with Greece in the newest patch? I'm not sure.

 

[Panopticon]

Does Rome automatically start at war with Greece in the newest patch? I'm not sure.

I think war-from-start is governed by a random process.

 

[lumpthing]

Thanks Zagaroth. I look forward to trying again when my self-imposed ban ends.

However for me, sending my initial legions on a round-the-known-world conquest cruise, which sounds so easy in the strategy guides, is, for me, easier said than done. These are difficulties I encounter:

1. Carthage (which is almost always at war with me initially) sinks my galleys. I can conquer Greece by land, but for the rest it seems I have to have two or three triremes, to guard my armada, before I can get mobile.
2. If Greece has built a city on hills (e.g. Sparta) it's possible I will lose a legion or two.
3. How can I conquer the entire Eastern Mediterranean and Carthage with my initial legions when I need to leave behind some units for city defence?
4. Carthage has a sizeable initial army who take out some or all of my legions.

All of these things cause delays, which means by the time I'm ready to go conquering I have barbarian hordes and city unhappiness to deal with and I don't get round to conquest in time.

 

[merijn_v1]

If you mean by Rhye's and Fall of Roman Empire as a MOD it really exists. It called RFRE. It is a mod for warlords. It hasn't all features as RFC (like plague, stability), but has other (more Roman related) features. Like a spawning Hannibal.

 

[Zagoroth]

You need the extra legions and archers from Greece declaring war on you to make my strategy effective. It is just bad luck if Carthage declares war on you immediately, try to harass their fishing boats to have them declare peace. You can also always use one of your good production cities to build military units if necessary, you should have more than five. Also do not conquer Carthage with your initial legions. You have time to wait for them to have two cities greater than population of one. You really only need four or five legions to assure victory.

 

[lumpthing]

How do I get Greece to declare war on me?

I've tried loading many starts and although Greece often has a city on the Italian peninsula which flips to me, they've only declared war one me once. I actually tried reloading from turn 1 of the one game where Greece declares war but they never declared war the next few times!

I've tried tempting Greece by disbanding all my units so they can just march into unoccupied Rome, but they still don't want to declare war!

Greece often starts at war from the very start, but it seems I don't get the extra legions if this happens.

I assume that some change in RFC or the most recent civ patch means that Greece is much less likely to declare war than when you last played with Rome. But I just thought I'd check in case there was some secret to provoking Greece that I don't know about.

 

[Cosmos1985]

How do I get Greece to declare war on me?

I've tried loading many starts and although Greece often has a city on the Italian peninsula which flips to me, they've only declared war one me once. I actually tried reloading from turn 1 of the one game where Greece declares war but they never declared war the next few times!

I've tried tempting Greece by disbanding all my units so they can just march into unoccupied Rome, but they still don't want to declare war!

Greece often starts at war from the very start, but it seems I don't get the extra legions if this happens.

I assume that some change in RFC or the most recent civ patch means that Greece is much less likely to declare war than when you last played with Rome. But I just thought I'd check in case there was some secret to provoking Greece that I don't know about.

You can edit Consts.py about halfway down to not have certain "civ-combos" start out at war, in this case Greece and Rome - whether they declare war if a city revolts/flips at spawn is only dependant on luck though, afaik.

 

[evran]

You can edit Consts.py about halfway down to not have certain "civ-combos" start out at war, in this case Greece and Rome - whether they declare war if a city revolts/flips at spawn is only dependant on luck though, afaik.

OMG what a lifesaver, I have searched high and low for this file. Ok so i looked at it, if i edit or delete this whole code, will it be game breaking

Spoiler :

#rnf. Some civs have a double entry, for a higher chance
lEnemyCivsOnSpawn = [
[], #Egypt
[], #India
[iIndependent,iIndependent2,iIndependent2], #China
[iIndependent,iIndependent2], #Babylonia
[iIndependent,iIndependent2,iBabylonia], #Greece
[iBabylonia,iBabylonia,iGreece], #Persia
[], #Carthage
[iEgypt,iGreece,iGreece,iCarthage,iCarthage], #Rome
[], #Japan
[], #Ethiopia
[], #Maya
[iRome,iEngland,iFrance,iGermany,iNetherlands,iIndependent,iIndependent2], #Vikings
[iEgypt,iBabylonia,iBabylonia,iGreece,iPersia,iCarthage,iRome,iSpain,iFrance,iCeltia,iCeltia,iIndependent,iIndependent2], #Arabia
[], #Khmer
[iArabia], #Spain
[iArabia], #France
[], #England
[iRome], #Germany
[], #Russia
[], #Netherlands
[], #Mali
[], #Portugal
[], #Inca
[iIndia,iChina,iChina,iJapan,iPersia,iKhmer,iRussia,iRussia,iIndependent,iIndependent,iIndependent2,iIndependent2], #Mongolia
[iMaya], #Aztec
[iEgypt,iBabylonia,iGreece,iGreece,iCeltia,iCeltia], #Turkey
[iSpain,iFrance,iEngland,iIndependent,iIndependent2] #America
]