Imperial Rome Strategies?

[KhanMan]

For those of you who haven't yet tried BB's great new scenario about the rise of Rome, I would highly reccommend it.

For those who have, what strategies do you use? Where do you attack first? Anyone win yet at deity?

Personally, I find myself stacking legions on hills 90% of the time. This might go against conventional wisdom, but most enemies lack units with strong enough attack to kill legions on hills early.

I strike Northern Italy first, since any independent cities that fall to barbs tend to drop to the 1-population level, making them impossible to conquer intact.

I tried conquering Spain once (after Italy, of course), but all I ended up with was three cities and a horde of angry Carthaginians. Stalemate.

It took some time to take Pella without destroying the city, but most of the rest of Greece fell fairly easily to the legions and catapults.

Anyone use cavalry here? The light cavalry worked fairly well as a scout, but I can't see the need for heavy cavalry-most of the fighting is in rough terrain, where legions thrive.

Anyway, post here with your strategies, and their success, or lack thereof.

-KhanMan

PS. The Pedia.txt provides lots of laughs if you get really bored.

[Henrik]

I havent played the scenario yet but:
If cavalry isn't usefull then that is historical; cavalry was hardly used by romans at all other than as reinforcements in very hard situations.
[This message has been edited by Henrik (edited February 20, 2001).]

[Gothmog]

I am working my way through Imperium Romanum for the first time and have these observations.
1. I went after Northern Italy first, Southern Italy is too strong early on.
2. The Roman cavalry are too weak (1h/2f) and too expensive to be useful.
3. The Carthaginians are tough. I've only taken a few of their cities. I wonder if I should have gone after them first instead of the Independents and Greeks. Now the Carthaginians are maxed out in tech and have huge cities, so I may never be able to take them out.
4. It's helpful to watch where barbarians keep popping up and then garrisoning that square.

[Dienstag]

Excellent scenario, most fun I've had in a long time with Civ.

I'm at about 209 B.C. (as of last night/this morning?), and have conquered Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, the Spanish east coast down to Carthago Nova (very recently), Greece, and those other cities on the east shore of the Adriatic. Oh, and 2 Barb cities north of the Alps for some reason. I wonder if I'm being aggressive enough?

I'm planning on really focusing on Spain soon... thought about attacking Pella but found it's only a size 1! Maybe later...

One Strategy: lots of Trade Routes! I'm a Triumvirate (Communist) government and I'm getting a tech like every 4 turns. Alexandria can't seem to get enough of my wonderful Roman goods.

Other Observations:
*Building Leonardo's Workshop has only upgraded my settlers so far... If there's any reason to hold back on researching Imperial Army, I don't know what it is.
*I suggest going for Syracusea as soon as you have ships and Consular Legions.
*I built two more cities in Italy and one northeast of Opitergium that are all very helpful.

[BeBMan]

Dienstag, have you downloaded the update 2.1? It should solve the problem with Leo´s workshop and some other things. If you haven´t downloaded it, please check this ScenarioLeague thread, there are links for the update at the bottom of the first post:
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum18/HTML/001369.html?124

An even more improved version of the scn is nearly finished, it includes also minor changes in the unit stats (e.g. Roman cavalry units are stronger in the later parts) and some reworked events. But this version requires a new scenario start. I think I´ll release it in the next days...

[KhanMan]

BeBro-Good to hear that! I'm looking forward to testing the changes...

Just MHO, but you might want to increase the strength of the barbs that are event generated in the third events period-in both cases (slave revolt and north italy), they simply died valiant deaths hurlting against my city walls, with not a unit of mine lost...hardly the terror I was afraid of...

As for Spain, it get's a little easy if you launch an overwhelming attack on Carthage first (it'll be destroyed by your legions...send in at least 3 shiploads (15 consular or imperial legions), and it'll fall...it seems that this makes the defenders in Spam and elsewhere a lot weaker.

Of course, once Imperial legions and Seige engines are in, the war's as good as won.

-KhanMan

[Dienstag]

quote: Dienstag, have you downloaded the update 2.1?

No, I downloaded the previous version as soon as you released it, and haven't had time to play it or follow up on these things until just recently. I'll probably just hold off now until the next revision that you spoke of. Thanks a bunch! Now what to do in the meantime . . . ?

Edit: I spelled "QUOTE" wrong. Doh!!!
[This message has been edited by Dienstag (edited February 22, 2001).]

[Jim Winchell]

After taking Capua (the city that gives you a free engineer), fortify a couple of veteran legions on the hill north of city just south of Capua. That independent city gets a unit every few turns that will suicide attack your legions and give you a free legion in Rome or the cities north of Rome. Turn your event-created legions north to take the barbarian cities and independent cities in northern Italy. Once you've grabbed the cities in northern Italy and fortified a few legions in the mountains to stop barbarians, take the cities in southern Italy.

The event-created Legions really add steam to your northern advance, since the Legions will appear in the captured independent cities. I tried a "southern strategy" and captured the independent cities south of Rome very quickly. But without the event-created units, I was not able to build Legions fast enough to replace losses.

[Cal]

Yeah, the best strategy seems to be piling legions next to an enemy's city on a hill and getting more units through the events until you have enough to just overwelm the souther half of italy. In my first game, barbarians took an independent city to the west right outside the alps (Nescea, I think...) so I was able to get that city, but none of the ones it was connected to.
Then I found out a new version of the game was released and I had to start over.

[BeBMan]

Hi, the reworked version is now available in this SLeague thread for a testdrive: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum18/HTML/001409.html?0

If it runs well, I would consider it as the final version.

[Cal]

About techs...
As the romans, it seems best to go after the two military techs first (so you can build new legions and the Leonardo wonder) then to go after Late Republik... what does everyone else think?

And how long do you wait to start conquering Italy? In real history, it took about 50 years for Rome to recover from the Gaul's sack of rome, but it's quite possible to conquer Capua on the 5th or 6th turn. I usually wait since that way more Samnites are created to become free Legions.

------------------
The strategically impaired,
-Cal

[Xin Yu]

Looks like a perfect scenario for my size-5 strategy until two continental trading system can be established.
I tried the first 15 turns or so at the highest difficulty level. Captured Capua on turn 3. The two independent cities to the North and one barb city there is also captured. Afterwards barb units in this area disappeared (I think). Built settlers in Rome and added them to Capua (has a library). Capua is now size 6 and is rotating between 1 food surplus and 6 scientists. Another such size-5 city will be established in 3-4 turns. Researched Horse Breeding, now half way to Late Republic. 700+ talents in treasury.

[Masis]

Talking of historical strategies, would any of you experts try out some of the scenarios I have made/modified to see if they have an 'edge' to them in terms of strategy or are they blunt-yes the graphics are kak, the scenarios were made before I had Paint Shop Pro...when I have finished my '1st Crusade' scenario I will brush up the graphics in the other ones.
Oh yes-the place to find the scenarios under my Dads name (!) is This Site
Apologies if this appears to be a 'hi-jack' but I think this to be the only topic where I can find the experts interested in this era of history with the knowledge of strategy to be able to offer criticism of the strategic quality of the scenarios.
For a view of the events that took place in the Roman Empire until 1071 AD
------------------
MRP

[Xin Yu]

Spent a lot of time checking out the tech tree and trying different strategies. Here's my pick (Note: I haven't tried it myself):

early strategy:
Southern front: stop after capturing Capua, and put two legions on hills south to the city to get free legions. Other cities in souther Italy has mercenaries so you need better units to attack.
Northern front: expand to the Balcans and Russia. Two barb cities north to the Alps are weak (on grass) but other barb cities are tough. You need to build a city right next to the eastmost barb city and on a good defense terrain to draw barbarian attention so that the rest of your cities are safe.
Chunk out settlers in small cities and build new cities. Rome (keep it size 2) can build one settler every 5 turns under Late Republic. Add 2 settlers to a city when it reaches size 3 and hire all 5 citizens as scientists every other turn.

First tech -- Late Republic (Monarchy). It is essential to my size-5 strategy since the city square and any irrigated square will produce one more food.
Second tech -- School. Build libraries and maximize the effect of scientists.
Third tech -- Manipel (start building Consular Legion in size 5 cities).
Forth tech -- Seatrade.
Fifth tech -- Corvus (now its time to attack using Quinquereme coastal bombardment and Consular Legion amphibius assault).

Mid strategy:
For each coastal city you want to attack, first use an empty ship to bombard (it should severely damage the defending unit), then use manipels to do amphibius assault. Do not put the two ships on the same square when the first ship is attacking or your manipels may disappear as well. However if the city has coastal fortress then it is better to use manipels directly.
Go for Cathargo to get the lighthouse wonder. You'll be able to build vet ships if you own the wonder.
Occupying Syracuse will give you catapult tech. However you can skip it since you'll get a better one on your own.

Sixth tech -- coinage.
Seventh tech -- trade (should be fast now to build the Ostia Tradeport wonder. Stop hiring scientists after getting this tech. Build a lot of traders to finance your expansion and get new techs. Now you should add settlers to rome and make it a size 12 city, and make it celebrate 'WLTKD' to boost your trade revenue).
Eighth tech -- fishing (build harbor).
Nineth tech -- seaport facilities (build port facilities).
Tenth tech -- Bridge building.
Eleventh tech -- Engineering (build engineers).
Twelveth tech -- Fortress building. At least the catapults have a place to hide now.
Thirteens tech -- Siege Engine
Forteens tech -- Mobile Siege Engine. The Ultimate attacking weapon is at hand.

Late strategy:

Use engineers to build fortresses next to enemy cities, then put consular legions and siege engines in it. Go for wonder cities first.
Postpone researching the communist government branch. Rhetorics is 'invention' and will cut your trade bonus into 1/3 (I haven't tested this but it was true in other games). Go for 'dome construction' for the 'statue of liberty' wonder and change government as you like. You will not be able to get Imperial Legion without the communist tech. However the Imperial Legion is not good enough for atttacking while Consular legion is good enough for defending. Plus the leonardo wonder expires with the imperial army tech. So it is not that much a loss.

[Xin Yu]

Tested my strategy. Seems fishing and port facilities (the 8th and 9th tech, allowing building coastal city improvements and defense) could be postponed since shipyard is not so attractive (too expensive). Another reason is that consular legions are good enough to protect coastal cities against ship bombardment even without coastal fortress.

The independent city on the Sicily island demanded fur forever, and my cities were producing them without any difficulty. Repeated commodity strategy worked fine. Building Roman Roads in Rome and rehome caravans gave 300+ golds per trade.

By 287BC I discovered Siege engine, and started researching mobile siege engine. I had 13 cities, all at size 5-6. Engineers were building roads towards Greek. I did not try to take Southern Italy. The cities there werer not important to me since they did not have any wonders. I also gave up attacking Sicily since I wanted trade bonus. In about 10 turns I would have the siege weapon and Pella would be my first target.