What would you do?

I'm puttering around on Emperor now, and gave up on a Rome game after about turn 140 (Epic speed) because I was so clearly far behind.

I couldn't manage a rush of any of my neighbors, because they were all too darned far away. Brazil and Japan were both about 25 hexes from my starting area, which in my experience means an archer rush will get there just in time to fail against city walls.

My starting area had two small (5 hex) rivers. One river had a mountain. Which meant only two sites for Baths, and one for a poor (+1 science) Campus.

There were 3 city states between my neighbors and myself. 2 Industrious and 1 Religious. All had their own little rivers.

There was another continent nearby with Sumeria and Spain, reachable by galley.

I tried peaceful expansion, and that went poorly. Beelining for Shipbuilding to hit the neighboring continent would have taken a long time. Maybe I should have taken out the city states? I don't often do that unless I'm Germany.

 

If you knew an archer rush was impossible you should have went for a knight timing push with seige towers.

Build a few chariots, kill a few barbs, maybe even capture the religious city state if you were planning on avoiding religion.

 

When playing as Rome if there are no neighbors close enough to rush with archers and warriors, or if the walls come up to soon and I don't have a ram yet, I usually just tech up to machinery and hit em with legions and crossbows. I can get to machinery by turn 100 at the very latest without building a single campus. After that head for gunpowder and ballistics. Muskets and field cannons, with some naval support, are often good enough for me to finish the game, but I play small maps.

 

Shipbuilding taking too long? Maybe you think other techs need to be done first which slows you down.

Sure animal husbandy and mining and pottery have value but the more tech that distract you the slower the navy is ready. Have you rushed frigates before? Because that is what you are doing. 2 galleys 4-5 quads then get to frigates. It may feel like a long time but you will be taking a city in 2 turns if you are out fast.

 

I talked about going Shipbuilding because you need that to embark units. Rushing frigates to take cities didn't even cross my mind. At least in part because frigates are mid-game units in my mind.

How practical is it in general to try and run these mid-game rushes if your archer rush proves impractical, and you thus likely well behind the AI players in tech?

 

It is one option but rushing archers has already lost you a few turns. If you want to continue though it is a good way as they are typically poor at naval warfare. The tech difference can be crippling when subs start lurking around your frigates but normally not too bad.

I always make sure of a couple of campuses somewhere to at least keep some push against the AI going. Its so much more important on higher levels.

Another way is rebuild your forces and joint war them, especially if you delay a bit hoping the armies go for the other opposition.

I think you know fairly early that your initial push in going to fail or not, its about recognizing it early enough before you start loosing units.

 

Archer and legion just do fine vs walls. I do it every time on deity. Just make more archer and be a bit patient
Also you should just take those city states, they are just freebies early game. Don't get the bad civ5 habit

 

Could you post your map seed number?

The nice thing about Rome is that you don't need to build monuments in new cities, or granaries for that matter (at least at the start) if you can settle spots that give you at least 4 housing. Pop of 4 is plenty in satellite cities to churn out early units (focus on improving production tiles first).

So a general strategy in this situation would be:

1. Build a small starting army of the usual 3-4 slingers (archers) and a couple of warriors, for barb hunting, defense against early DoW, etc.
2. Forward settle the neighbor you plan to take out first. Take out any CS that is in the way using your starter army.
3. Beeline legions. Once you have the tech just keep building them in all cities. Six would be good to start your conquering (2 upgraded warriors and build/buy 4 more + your archers and one battering ram), but just keep building them until you have a dozen. If you have enough legions you can take out some fairly strong cities with walls, but you will eventually also need siege so beeline for those next (catapults then bombards).
4. When you have a sufficient army start building commercial hubs in all cities and internal trade routes back to your capital (this will make your small satellite cities even more productive). You can build a campus in your capital (or a satellite city), but science is not that important at this stage and you will likely capture cities with a campus anyway.
5. The goal will be to have 6-8 cities by turn 100 (standard speed) either through settling or conquering, then you can start strategizing for the mid-game.