The Rome thread

[manio curio]

Hi all, I finished playing with Rome. As a DoC version I used a git update made by @Leoreth in early December. I had a blast, I got the 3 historical victory conditions plus what I would call the 4th victory condition: be the sole master of Rome, which means have +20 of stability at the 290AD checkpoint thus preventing Byzantium's spawn. Plus I built the Colosseum and Aqua Appia in Rome. Saves and pics are attached.

 

[Aradziem]

You can use f12 or (button with windows)+shift+s to take screenshots, they are better quality than photos.

 

[manio curio]

I have played a few games with Rome and it seems like ballistae and not really that useful besides very rare cases and therefore I don't build them at all. It becomes a little bit of a bummer not to use one of the unique units, therefore why not replacing it with something else? We started the discussion in the 'Suggestions and requests' thread, but I thought to continue here in the 'Rome thread', it seems more convenient.

I took some of the initial feedback and I came up with a new unique unit for Rome: comitatensis.
unit to replace: heavy swordsman
bonus: two movement points to represent its mobility in plugging the several holes in the roman frontier and a garrison promotion given their mainly defensive duties.
a little bit of history: introduced by either Diocletian or Constantine as part of the new military of Rome. Usually stationed a bit removed from the frontier and called upon need when large incursions made it far into Roman land. The equipment changed from the classic legionnaire, no more gladius but longer sword (spatha), oval shield replaced the square scutum and a bow was provided as well.

The only real option is a late antiquity unit since the previous period is 'covered' by the legion which can perform all the necessary tasks of conquest and city defense. The comitatensis historically only covered 200 years of Roman history (being generous) but in my opinion the user would benefit from it in their quest to defend Rome from the swarms of barbarians, plus let's remember turns equate fewer years as the game goes on, therefore I believe a good number of comitatenses would be produced during a game. I agree it is not that of an iconic Roman unit especially given its short historical lifetime, but a very good upgrade from the ballista.

Alternatively a second unique building instead of a ballista: castrum, it would replace the barrack and provide +5 experience points.

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

Hello.

It has been a while since I last played even though I've been keeping up with the update log. Are the city names working properly again? If not, how much is left before we do that?

 

[brett0007]

While I haven't done the whole historical victory I have 1700ad ish save where barring Britain I more or less kept the empire whole. Honestly its funny because I still have like 12 legions on standby to fix/build Roman roads. On the topic of ballistae I
often found that for there cost and role they are just flat out worse than training more legions. With the UP some cities can snowball real quick and churn out legions at a rate that you never really need it.

So here is my argument for a new roman UU

For a long time early Rome had an achillies heel, cavalry. The reason Hannibal was able to effectivly chew through whatever the Romans threw at him was because the romans really had no decent acess to or need for quality cavalry support. Romes traditional enemies up to that point had been the Greeks of Magna Grecia and other Italic tribes of the Italian penninsula. The mountainous and hilly geography made cavalry less effective and needed. Hannibals ace that the Romans had no counter to was his cavalry, his Numidian cavalry were decisive in that they routed the Roman cavalry and lured the Romans into the trap at Trebia, and his Iberian and gallic cavalry mercenaries are what sealed the crushing defeat at Cannae.

Zama ironically enough was the only battle of the Second Punic war where the Romans and Hannibal had parity in cavaly in terms of quality because a portion of the Numidian Massylii confederation defected to Rome and gave them the quality cavalry that ended up routing the Carthaginian cavalry and sealing Carthage's fate. From that point on up until the reforms of Augustus Roman armies basically sourced the vast majority of their cavalry from foreign mecenaries. By the point of Augustus all the practical sources of mecenaries were annexed and they were auxilliary troops.

My idea is to Nerf the Legion(not sure how) vs heavy cavalry somewhat since it wasn't the all powerful Swiss army knife that pop culture depics it as and make the second unique unit a cheap anti heavy cavalry cavalry, Equites Auxilia.(replaces horsemen starts with formation costs 45 hammers) The idea is its the support unit that covers the Legions weakness, while not being as ridiculously OP as the Legion is. This does raise the question why not just use spearmen? Historically the early Romans were not hiring them as a cavalry counter and that is why I emphasise cheap. They should be the superior(and quick) anti heavy cavalry choice to spearmen for Rome. Adding on to this maybe tweak the Celtic and Carthaginian AI and barbarian spawns to have more horsemen so they would be a more exisential threat to legions without an auxillay escort and early game Celts and Carthaginans a more potent threat until you can unlock the auxillia and legionaries can go in protected and conquer them. Being cheap also helps because with the nerf, the window of conquest would be pushed back since just loading your starting legions onto a ship and taking Carthage by 400 bc wouldnt be as easy as it is now.

 

[Leoreth]

All city names N-Z.

 

[manio curio]

While I haven't done the whole historical victory I have 1700ad ish save where barring Britain I more or less kept the empire whole. Honestly its funny because I still have like 12 legions on standby to fix/build Roman roads. On the topic of ballistae I
often found that for there cost and role they are just flat out worse than training more legions. With the UP some cities can snowball real quick and churn out legions at a rate that you never really need it.

So here is my argument for a new roman UU

For a long time early Rome had an achillies heel, cavalry. The reason Hannibal was able to effectivly chew through whatever the Romans threw at him was because the romans really had no decent acess to or need for quality cavalry support. Romes traditional enemies up to that point had been the Greeks of Magna Grecia and other Italic tribes of the Italian penninsula. The mountainous and hilly geography made cavalry less effective and needed. Hannibals ace that the Romans had no counter to was his cavalry, his Numidian cavalry were decisive in that they routed the Roman cavalry and lured the Romans into the trap at Trebia, and his Iberian and gallic cavalry mercenaries are what sealed the crushing defeat at Cannae.

Zama ironically enough was the only battle of the Second Punic war where the Romans and Hannibal had parity in cavaly in terms of quality because a portion of the Numidian Massylii confederation defected to Rome and gave them the quality cavalry that ended up routing the Carthaginian cavalry and sealing Carthage's fate. From that point on up until the reforms of Augustus Roman armies basically sourced the vast majority of their cavalry from foreign mecenaries. By the point of Augustus all the practical sources of mecenaries were annexed and they were auxilliary troops.

My idea is to Nerf the Legion(not sure how) vs heavy cavalry somewhat since it wasn't the all powerful Swiss army knife that pop culture depics it as and make the second unique unit a cheap anti heavy cavalry cavalry, Equites Auxilia.(replaces horsemen starts with formation costs 45 hammers) The idea is its the support unit that covers the Legions weakness, while not being as ridiculously OP as the Legion is. This does raise the question why not just use spearmen? Historically the early Romans were not hiring them as a cavalry counter and that is why I emphasise cheap. They should be the superior(and quick) anti heavy cavalry choice to spearmen for Rome. Adding on to this maybe tweak the Celtic and Carthaginian AI and barbarian spawns to have more horsemen so they would be a more exisential threat to legions without an auxillay escort and early game Celts and Carthaginans a more potent threat until you can unlock the auxillia and legionaries can go in protected and conquer them. Being cheap also helps because with the nerf, the window of conquest would be pushed back since just loading your starting legions onto a ship and taking Carthage by 400 bc wouldnt be as easy as it is now.

As you said Roman cavalry hasn't really been the strongest part of the Roman army and was often made of foreigners. For these reasons I would not have it as a unique unit. The unique unit should represent the best of the Roman army, not one of its flaws, reducing the legions strength against cavalry is not a good idea since their weakness against heavy cavalry is shared with all infantry units of antiquity with the exception of the spearmen. Therefore you would need to make archers, swordmen and so on weaker as well.

 

[Dracosolon]

What about giving the Ballista an advantage that complements the Legion, like +1 ?

I also wouldn't be against nerfing the Legion a bit to make it less of a no-brainer unit, but that's a delicate balance to achieve.

 

[brett0007]

As you said Roman cavalry hasn't really been the strongest part of the Roman army and was often made of foreigners. For these reasons I would not have it as a unique unit. The unique unit should represent the best of the Roman army, not one of its flaws, reducing the legions strength against cavalry is not a good idea since their weakness against heavy cavalry is shared with all infantry units of antiquity with the exception of the spearmen. Therefore you would need to make archers, swordmen and so on weaker as well.

Strictly speaking one of Carthages UU's is technically a foreign unit, and its not representing a flaw its representing how Rome utilized and integrated and adapted the military aspects of its enemies and conquests to cover its own weaknesses.

 

[manio curio]

Strictly speaking one of Carthages UU's is technically a foreign unit, and its not representing a flaw its representing how Rome utilized and integrated and adapted the military aspects of its enemies and conquests to cover its own weaknesses.

You are right about the Carthage unique unit being technically a foreigner unit, however Carthage and Rome had very different military histories. Rome's conquests spanned several centuries and happened on a monumental scale. Therefore I would really push for Rome having iconic units as their unique unit, not units made of foreigners or units that weren't really that memorable in battle. I can only think of the battle of Naissus where the Roman cavalry was decisive (by Roman here I mean made of Romans, not people fighting on the same side of Rome). Cavalry had been neglected for basically their whole republican history, it was then filled with foreigners, only to be revived in the late empire as shock cavalry rose and the Romans introduced the contarii and cataphractarii(clibanarii) modeled on the Sarmatians and Persians respectively.

 

[Dracosolon]

That's a good point, actually. There already is a Roman cavalry unit, it just happens to be for the Byzantine civ.

 

[Hickman888]

What about giving the Ballista an advantage that complements the Legion, like +1 ?

I also wouldn't be against nerfing the Legion a bit to make it less of a no-brainer unit, but that's a delicate balance to achieve.

Yeah, I think for the Ballista, I'd rather have +1 , or additional damage done to city defenses be the unique upgrade he receives, rather than being higher strength at 5, compared to the Catapults 3. The Romans are up against the clock in conquering the many cities in their empire, and a unique siege weapon built to help speed up their rate of conquest would be better suited, IMO.

What would you nerf about the Legion? I think he is pretty cheap considering the value that one Legion gives you, and could therefore potentially get a cost increase... But like you said, it's a difficult balance to achieve, and I don't know if that's worth doing.

 

[brett0007]

That's a good point, actually. There already is a Roman cavalry unit, it just happens to be for the Byzantine civ.

The reason Cataphracts are a byzantine UU because they more or less perfected the tactics and equipment of them to the point they became the model of the western knight.