How to win at RoR

[Neal the Neophyte]

Gosh dang it all! I can't seem to win on RoR. I'm playing Warlord level and there would seem to be little excuse for losing. I always choose Rome and refuse to try any other civ until I win. Of course Rome is surrounded by potential foes and lacks luxuries in close proximity.

In my earlier games I ended up playing defensively, which soon became obvious as being a bad strategy. Since one of the game winners is population and territory, I've decided to go for an early as possible conquering of the Celts and Goths for the territory gain. But first I will exploit the Celts and Goths against the Carth's and my eventual enemies, the Macedonians, Persians, and Scythians. Of course this assumes I play my diplomacy cards right.

I've also given up producing wonders in order to max attack and defensive units for expansion. I failed to send my attacking and defensive units in a flow towards my enemies to support captured city defense and my attacking armies. I will use the two elite Legionary units that I start with to try to create army leaders early in the game.

Masala (sp?) always seems to create a GML, which I spirit off the island to the mainland and create an army. I had previously given up defending Masala, but it was demonstrated that with a wall, a harbor, and a few Garrisons, that Masala ate up a lot of Carthage's attack unit production.

Basically that's it. Comments?

[Solomwi]

I'm currently playing it through as Rome on Monarch for the third time (was winning the first and abandoned it to start the second, because I thought I could do some things better, won the second and third, and am playing the third out to conquest), so I should be familiar enough with it to help.

You didn't mention what your research path looks like, but Literature->Philosophy seems like the best route to me. I take Tactics with the free tech, trade for Monarchy (which Macedon always seems to have) and Construction (ditto Persia) then research Military Training->The Republic->Imperialism. A quick note on this: if you're going to research Imperialism immediately after Republic, don't revolt into a republic. Wait a few turns and revolt directly to Imp.

On luxuries, you can get spices on the second turn if you play your cards right with the Celts (hint: you can bargain with them for Massilia and La Tene), then send the citizen that starts north of Pisae up the Rhone Valley. Also, expand along the road to the east from Padua and you'll have silks pretty quickly. Also, you start with two techs none of the AIs have. Immediately trade mathematics to Egypt, and Macedon for cash and maps, and to Persia especially, for cash, maps and dyes.

Early on, I like to focus Padua and Pisae on pumping out citizens for a quick land grab, and focus southern Italy on units to be shipped to Africa via Sicily. Central Italy is going to take advantage of my Golden Age to build some wonders, as described below.

Wonders: Unlike the epic game, building as many wonders as you can in these scenarios is usually a good idea. First turn I switch Roma to Temple of Artemis (which I never care about building in the epic game, due to losing all those temples on expiration), Ancona to Colossus and Neapolis to the Lighthouse. If I had to give one of those up, it would be the Colossus. With your main enemy and immediate neighbor both being seafaring, the Lighthouse is a great equalizer. Hadrian's Wall is nice, but the only reason to get it is to keep the enemy from having it. In my first two games, I built it, and in the third, Macedon built it in Athens. No big deal, since my first move when I went to war with Macedon was to land 8 Legionary III's on Athens' doorstep and take it from them.

Diplomacy: In the first turn, shop every civ you know and every civ you meet. First turn diplomacy can set you up well for the near future, even if you don't feel like gaining Massilia and La Tene through bargaining. Also, my approach is to renegotiate peace with Macedon and Persia. I do this because I don't plan on attacking them in the first 20 turns, and it seems to make them more hesitant about joining an alliance with Carthage. Keep an eye on the F2 (Trade Advisor) screen, and as soon as you see either the Goths or Scythians with extra furs, jump on them. They'll sell them fairly cheap.

Military: On a grand scale, the first order of business is to eliminate Carthage. Clean out southern Italy and Neapolis. Use two of your archers in Roma to keep the peace, and send the others into the Alps to get rid of barbs. Don't be afraid to use the luxury slider if needed for other cities. All your garrisons should be moving north to cover new cities, except maybe the one at Croton, which can go to Sicily. The four legions that start in and near Pisae should head through Massilia down the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. I like to take out Lilibeo, then set up a fortress on the road just outside the borders of Carthago Novo. This way, you can easily pick off the archers and war elephants Hannibal will try to send north. At the same time, I've got Pisae working some legions in between citizens, and going over to legions completely once I've got Massilia or another city or two producing citizens. These citizens are colonizing the coast along the road your legions just took. That way, when you pop a leader, it doesn't take long to get him to a city and get that army built.

On the southern front, all your southern Italian legions need to go to Sicily. The two (veteran, not elite, to begin with) you start with there are nice, but they won't take it by themselves. Load Roma's legion into Caesar Augustus and send it to Neapolis, where it should meet the legions from Tarentum and Canusium. Croton's legions can safely sail directly to Messana, if you unload them when your galley is in the adjacent tile. Otherwise, Carthage's Syracuse galley may be able to sink you. Losing the galley isn't devastating, but losing two legions with it is. Back at Neapolis, load all your legions into the galleys and send them to Messana. Once there, or in Neapolis if you prefer, fill out Caesar Augustus. Now you've got a full army, plus five legions at Messana. By the way, one of your original legions, or your Messana garrison, needs to take the volcano immediately. Numidians are hell to get off it. With those three units that start at Messana on the volcano and two wheats, you can easily bide your time for rein forcements to arrive, and possibly even take Syracuse before they get there.

Once Sicily is in hand, I load everybody up and head to Carthago. It will fall fairly quickly, and you'll spend a few turns cleaning up a flood of swords and mercs Hannibal will send your way. By the time that's done and the attack can resume, you should have two things: a second army and Legionary II's. I think you're messing up by sending your leader back to the mainland from Sicily, btw. Leave him there, since the whole island should be yours in short order. Get him into a city ASAP, preferably as soon as he's generated, and form that second army, then bring units from the mainland to fill it. Now, back to Carthago, where we've got two armies and Legionary II's. What I typically do here is split my forces, with one army and a little over half my legions going west, city by city, and the rest going east, again, city by city. When my eastbound legions cross the border of Leptis Magna, I try to have a citizen and garrison ready to leave Syracuse and found a city at the Libyan dyes. That way, you only have to renew your deal with Persia once for their dyes. Leptis Magna's going to fall before they get there, so the only real danger is somebody else (Egypt) getting there first.

By this time, you're well on your way to eliminating Carthage in Africa, and your legions in Spain should be having success, too. Of course, as soon as you have enough of a force built up in the fort at Carthago Novo (5-6 healthy legions), you need to advance. Don't give him time to get a bunch of settlers out. In the meantime, also, you need to have taken Corsica and Sardinia (4 legionaries on each island, or the same four ferried from one to the next, should be sufficient). If you let these stand for too long, you'll be slaughtering NM's and swords in Italy, which I never like.

This is getting kind of long, so I'll break it up with a second post about Post-Carthage strategy.

[Donegeal]

Currently, The Civ III Democracy Game is doing the Rise of Rome conquest on Demi-god level. Check it out.

[Solomwi]

Cool stuff, Don.

I meant to mention this in the first post, but forgot, so I'll preface this one by saying in no way am I laying this out as an imperative. Obviously, there are other ways to attack the scenario. This is just the way that has worked best for me. So if it comes across that way, my apologies.

One other thing I neglected is that the Celts are the only civ I ever want to sign up against Carthage. Persia and Macedon are too liable to actually take a city, forcing me to either endure there encroachment for a time or go to war with them earlier than I'd like. Egypt is a possibility, but Africa east of Carthago is so lightly defended that all Egypt might do is draw off a few units that could possibly slip behind my forces once they've left Leptis Magna.

After the Carthiginian defeat, options tend to open up more. Typically, as soon as I take Leptis Magna, my forces keep marching toward Egypt. My reinforcements that are still flowing in via Sicily can handle quelling resistors, making for brief pauses before they, also, get on the road to Egypt. I want to take Alexandria and (most importantly) Pelusium, with its incense and access to gems, before Persia or Macedon can. Egypt is as easy as the pickings get among the civilized tribes, and doesn't offer much as an ally, so I haven't been able to find a reason not to annihilate them. Pelusium's a natural and easily defended chokepoint if things go wrong with Persia in the future, and Gaza provides a very nice staging area for an attack on Tyre, Beirut and Antioch, but that's in the future.

Celtic lands don't offer much, and except for furs, neither do the Goth lands, and if, during the course of the Carthiginian war, you sent three or so citizens west from Massilia, you've effectively cut off their expansion into Iberia. Still, I usually turn to them after taking out Egypt, in order to protect my flank for when I attack Macedon/Persia. If you've built/captured any cats or fire cats, don't bother with them against the barbs. You won't need them. Use that time to get them to the civilized front along which you plan to attack next, or expect an attack next.

Really, by the time you get Legionary III's, there's nobody that can stand toe to toe with you. Keep that in mind as you watch the Macedon/Persia war. Your full empire won't be needed to produce units against the Celts, so you should have your Macedonian border well staffed. Keep an eye on Scythia. Those bastards burned Eburacum in my current game (left undefended, and when I went into diplo, it only gave me "They must be withdrawn!, instead of remove or declare war ). Of course, I responded with a ROP from Persia and a two-pronged attack that kept only a handful of cities in Ukraine and wiped the rest from the face of the earth, even using Scythian slaves to road the area and erase the last traces of their cities. The lamentations of their women and cries of their children as they watched their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons die cruel, slow and painful deaths were music to my ears.

Anyway, a couple of things to do if you decide to attack Macedon next: Put a city on the heel of Italy (332 of Tarentum) and start sending new troops built in Italy, as well as several galleys, to it. This gives you a convenient ferry point and lets you land legions pretty much anywhere in Greece as soon as hostilities break out. I took Ambracia, so I could easily keep pumping legions into Greece, and, as mentioned before, Athens, for Hadrian's Wall. Second, make sure you've got plenty of troops along Macedon's northern border and make a beeline for Byzantium, another natural chokepoint, and one that can check the Persian advance if taken quickly enough. The last thing you want is Persia overrunning Byzantium and taking Macedonian cities in Europe.

Neither civ is tough to defeat, though they will initially throw a bevy of heavy cavs at you, so let geopolitics dictate which one you attack first. I prefer to attack whichever one is making gains against the other. You'll soon see the erstwhile loser taking back a few cities, and maybe even taking a few of the other's original cities. Meanwhile, if you play your cards right, you can get the meat of either empire while most of their forces are either in transit or still fighting at the front. Either one you choose, as soon as they're wiped out, you should be in a prime position to turn on the other and wipe them out.

One trade note: Keep in mind that Bacchanalia requires silks and spices. In every one of my games, Persia and Macedon needed my help to get both luxuries (help I obviously didn't give ). Both can get silks on their own (though Macedon is usually beaten to them by Scythia, in my experience), but the spices are all in the west, which is another reason to keep them, especially Persia, out of the war with Carthage. Don't trade them spices and you'll be able to build Bacchanalia at your leisure, which means you may well be able to beat them to a fourth wonder and leave them with a lot of wasted shields.

On the Goths: The only reason I've found for attacking them is for the sheer fun of it. They start with one spearman and can't build any more. In fact, that will be their only possible unit with better than a 1 defense rating. Use them for target practice and leader generation if you want, and don't let them get the jump on you and bring that 4 attack to bear, but other than that, they're irrelevant, since they'll trade you their furs, and if they don't Scythia will. If you just don't feel like trading for them, you can also take the source at Glojkowie culturally with little effort.

On Egypt: As soon as you take the Sinai, get a citizen down there and get those gems. Egypt's best attacker is the archer, unless they've traded for some iron (unlikely if you get to them early enough), so a garrison should be all the defense you need, since you should have legions and heavy cavs swarming all over the place. Well, they do have the war chariot, but whoopity do, a horseman, and they have to expand to get horses. Further, that expansion is likely to be the very first thing you take out. You may see a couple of WCs if you use my "March to Egypt" strategy, but that's it.

On Scythia: They're very useful as a dsitraction for Persia, and probably for Macedon, too, but that's about it, aside from the furs. Either keep the eastern edge of your empire decently garrisoned or wipe them out.

On Persia: I've yet to see an Immortal, since I typically don't engage them until they're fielding heavy cavs exclusively as their offense. Frankly, though, by the time I get to Persia, my LIIIs should have little trouble with an Immortal, so they're really just not much of a consideration. If you've taken Egypt whole, a slew of workers and legions can make short work of a road across Arabia, giving you a really quick shot at Babylon and Susa. Depending on the circumstances, you can engage in a full out attack in Asia Minor, or along the Eastern Med coast, while getting your forces to Mesopotamia to strike at their heart. In my current game, they took Miletus (destroying Macedon completely) with two or three of my armies sitting there ready to attack it next turn. Naturally, since I had been pouring units into the area to fight Macedon myself, I declared war immediately and took Miletus, then quickly marched across Asia Minor. I didn't have a chance to get the Via Arabia up, so I'm now pouring legions into Palestine and finding it fairly easy to hold off their attacks at a couple of key chokepoints, as well as taking Tyre and Beirut, until I get enough troops to make the desert march. With no unit better than 2 defense, defeating Persia is just a matter of getting there with more attackers than Darius has defenders, and forcing heavy cavs to defend instead of attack.

On Macedon: The hoplite is a nice unit, almost equal to the Legionary I, but very susceptible to the LII and LIII, especially when backed with fire cats. Macedonia has some good land that can be made more productive than Persia, and if they can at least fight the Persians to a standstill, that land, including the gems at Miletus, can be yours for the taking. Like Persia, they'll try to come at you with heavy cavs, but, unlike Persia in Arabia and Mesopotamia, the terrain doesn't really lend itself to fastmovers, so they're pretty easy to pick off when they cross the border.

On the Celts: All they do is take up space. No unique resources. No luxuries they can trade you. And they even have the gall (no pun intended) to make their own wine instead of buying your obviously superior Roman wine. All in all, they're useless. However, the Gallic Swordsman is annoying as hell, and makes them a danger as long as they live. They won't be able to overrun you, but could take a couple of cities, and will soak up too many units keeping that from happening. Early on, expand across the Pyrenees and along Spain's northern coast. This will stop them dead, and their only expansion options will be Britain (where you can destroy them at your leisure), or into Goth territory. Keeping these two busy against each other is a nice way to keep them off your back. Typically, when you get through offing Carthage, you'll have a ton of troops, and probably an army or two, in southern Spain. As soon as these get back up into Gaul, they should be enough to run the Celts out of Europe. The sooner you do that, the sooner you confine them to ironless and horseless Britain and ironless and horseless Ireland, at which point they become Egypt without even the remote possibility of a war chariot. Nothing but archers and spears. At that point, I like to just send about 4-8 elite legions over and see if I can generate some leaders to send back to Europe.

[Solomwi]

Now, a few general notes and thoughts on the scenario (as you can tell, I really, REALLY like this one ):

Four-move roads are powerful. This allows a little looser city spacing, as far as defense purposes are concerned. With the Temple of Artemis filling in the border gaps, I moved away from my normal CxxC spacing and used a combination of CxxC and CxxxC. They also benefit you more than the other civs since, even though everybody can get their troops somewhere quicker along these roads, you're getting better troops there. Also, you've got many more units (legions) that can help build your network. Say you attack a city with four legions, and once you take it two of them need to heal. Chances are that city doesn't have a good road network around it, so if you need a road somewhere, have the other two building it immediately. When your first two legions have healed, the road is there for you to move on to the next victim.

Luxuries are readily available. As I touched on before, you start with wines, can trade for dyes on turn 1 and can get spices and silks pretty quickly thereafter. As soon as you take Pelusium, you have incense and an easy road to gems. Furs can be had for a song. The only problem is waiting for the AI to hook up a second source. However, early on, your cities can survive on wines, dyes, spices and silks.

No war weariness rocks! Self-explanatory.

Legions plus crossroads equals a huge advantage for Rome. The map is chock full of strategic crossroads, as well as single-lane roads through high country, and one or two legions, especially in a fortress, can hold them against all comers. Control these, and you control your enemy's attack plans. On that note...

Build fortresses. Forts give a 50% defense bonus, just like hills. The only difference is your legions can't build hills, and hills don't give ZOC. If you can get two or more legions together blocking a road, fortify one and have the others build a fort. Time is on your side, for the most part, and in a fort a single legion can absorb a good bit of the enemy's attackers. Fortified in a fort on flat ground, an LI or a garrison is looking at a 5.55 defense rating. LIIs go to 7.4 and LIIIs to 9.25. The best attacker available to any other civ is the heavy cav, with attack of 5, or in Carthage's case, the war elephant, at attack 4. In fact, most of the time, Hannibal's war elephants will try to bypass your LIs in a fort, which is where ZOC comes into play. I don't use them much in the epic game, but in this scenario, they're very useful tools.

Unlike my epic games, war in this scenario isn't about mobility. Sure, mobility is still nice, but the best use for heavy cavs is making sure the enemy's fast movers don't retreat. A stack of legions of any variety may take a few more turns to get there, but are going to cut right through any defense when they do, and doubly so if backed by fire cats, which of course don't slow legions down one little bit. Leave a heavy cav exposed, and the AI will throw attackers at it until it dies, which at D:2 won't take many. Leave a 5-HP LIII exposed and the enemy won't touch him. Even if they do, it's likely to take down their entire attacking stack. In the epic game, your fast movers very quickly become your strongest attack units, also, but not here, and because of that, footsloggers rule the day. Plus, when you get into rough terrain, the movement difference is negated, and the defense bonus makes your legions practically invincible. Methodical attacks, with thousands of legionaries tromping down everything in front of them in lockstep, appearing over the horizon like a slow-moving hurricane, which is a certainty to destroy everything you hold dear, and also a certainty not to be deterred, but which you can never avoid, are definitely in order.

Trade techs. As I mentioned earlier, trade Math immediately. A few turns later, see if you can trade anything for Currency. Feel free to trade Literature, as the AI will not beat you to Philosophy in your golden age, even though Persia and Macedon are likely in a GA, too. When you get Philosophy, you should be able to get Monarchy and Construction out of the AI. If not, you'll definitely get them with Philo and the free tech you get. Aside from Engineering, the rest of the research past Imperialism is almost an afterthought. Still, Macedon and Persia both seem to have plenty of gold and plenty of gpt to trade for techs, so milk them.

Citizens are the most powerful unit in the scenario. While war may be about the slow-moving legions, peaceful expansion is all about speed, and two-move settlers that only cost one pop mean you've got about as much speed as you can handle. Plant a city next to a wheat tile, set it to build a citizen, wait 5-7 turns to grow, then cash rush the rest of the citizen under Imperialism. Lather, rinse, repeat, and you've just settled vast tracts in the time it took the Celts, for instance, to build a single settler.

Get the Lighthouse. I don't know if Macedon or Carthage would get it if I didn't, but 5-move Carthaginian galleys against my 3-move galleys would severely hinder my reinforcement chain from Italy to Sicily to Carthago. For that reason, I don't ever intend to find out which one would get it. Besides, I'm going to have to deal with Macedonian galleys eventually, anyway, so I'd rather be on equal footing with them, too. The lighthouse also eliminates the need to ever research astronomy, as it allows trade over sea tiles. An aside to that note is to flood the sea with galleys as long as Macedon and Carthage live. Carthage isn't as formidable a sea foe once your advance gets rolling, but given time, Macedon will have a good-sized navy, and with the only naval unit being the galley, which has pretty much even odds against other galleys on offense or defense (1 attack, 1.1 defense), the only way to establish and maintain control of the vital seaways is through overwhelming numbers.

Build ToA early. The shield cost will be repaid many times over by the temples you never have to build, and it's effective everywhere you're likely to settle except the Med islands and Britain. Forget the happiness bonus, the culture is overwhelming, allowing you to grab territory that much quicker. Plus, it doesn't expire, so those temples never go away like they do in the epic game. If you don't build it early, the AI will.

It's best to keep Hadrian's Wall in Macedonian, if not Roman, hands. Keeping it close by makes it easier to take when the time is right. Also, while I haven't really seen it in my games, word is Persia usually gets the better of Macedon, so if Alexander has the wall, it only helps you by checking the Persian advance. If Macedon's actually moving into Persia and threatening to beat you to victory, it's also easier to mobilize to hit them from the north than it is to mobilize for Persia.

A tedious, but fairly easy, way to win would be to expand along the road to the western coast of the Black Sea, wipe out the Scythians (easily done), then just pump settlers into the vast expanse that leaves and avoid war with Persia and Macedon.

Okay, I've long since gotten long-winded, and for that I apologize, but this is seriously my favorite conquest by far, and I think they did a wonderful job with it, down to the little details. Hope some of what I said helps.

[Neal the Neophyte]

Gee Solomwi, too bad you couldn't come up with anything useful.

All seriousness aside, thanks. I've printed out your reply for study. I already have a few questions and I hope you won't mind answering them, but right now I only have two:

You did all this in 130 turns?

Do you have a bound and autographed copy of this strategy available - on Amazon maybe?

[Solomwi]

, no publishing for me, unfortunately, but fire away with your questions. The only thing I think I mentioned that I didn't do was the Scythian thing at the end, though in this current game, I wiped them out and settled part of the area. That's what gave me the idea. The only thing out there to stop you is regular white-clad barbs, and a handful of heavy cavs takes care of them. Bear in mind, that I've mixed some things I tried in the different games, mainly the second and third. I prosecuted the Carthiginian War basically the same in all three, and went to Egypt fairly quickly as I described in 2 and 3, but in 2 I went from Egypt on to Persia, whereas in 3, I attacked Macedon before Persia.

Here's the minimap from 170 AD in my current game:

[gunkulator]

Wouldn't you have won that game by domination many turns ago? I usually get domination just by going after the Celts, Goths and Cathage's Spanish holdings.

[joncnunn]

Recomended tactics for Rise of Rome as Rome.

Military:

1. Cease Silicy, start this on turn 1. This should result in your GA starting on turn 2.
2. Cease Corscia and Sardina. Capture; do not raize. This brings a luxary under your control
3. Sack Carthage with a combo of Elite Leg Is and Vet Leg IIs, do not capture, raize it to the ground. Afterwards, use this force to sack a few more African towns that are coastal using the Galleys to rest.
4. As soon as you have tech for Legionary IIs, launch the assult with Legionary IIs heading west to Spain. Along with your empty army. Cease Spain
5. Have the forces upgrade to Leginary IIIs and transport over to western Africa and now start capturing Carthagian Africa.
6. Continue marching east and capturing towns until Carthage wiped out.

At this point, your basically in a winning military position and can pick your next target(s) easily. In my own game, I picked Greece and also Egypt picked itself for a few turns by planting a city between mine.

Colonization:

Have cities permenatly stuck at size 6 without Aquaducts and size 12 with them resposible for citizen building. Don't build aguaducts in Europe until the river valley is filled. At that point, allow all your size 6 cities to grow by building aqauducts while the cities stuck at size 12 take over the city builds.

1. North to the first river.
2. Infill Italy.
3. North east thru that river valley. This secures another luxary
4. West thru Southern France and Spain as Carthigans kicked out of Europe.
5. After Carthage wiped out Africa, especally the coast and that luxary near Egypt.
6. At this point your in a winning colonization position, there is a lot of territory that can be annexed for free in Afria.

Techs:

I. Legionary II tech and then Heavy Calvary tech
II. While waiting for an AI to get Monarchy, reserach Literature.
III. Now beeline for Republic and Leg IIIs + FP
IV. Now beeline to Philosphacy. Choose Imperalism as the free tech.
V. Beeline to the techs allowing road briding.
VI. I guess Fire Catapult tech
VII. Finish the rest of the techs.
VIII. Upon finishing all techs, turn reserach competly off.

Govts:
Stay in your current govt until you discover Imperalism. At that point declare the revolutation and switch to it.


Wonders:

I. Small Wonders: Rush the FP with the first MGL you get after resarching Republic in some city site not completly surrounded by cities at max corruption. Normal build the Heroic Epic once you have a victorious army.

II. Great Wonders:
On a not too high level, I'd start the Musieum in the NE starting city, the ToA in the highest shield city near Rome, and the Colosus in another coastal city right away. And also build the Baccrilla and Herridan's Walls as those techs become adviable.
I wouldn't bother with the Great Library nor Great Light House.

Worker force:

In Europe, a 1 native worker per city is recommended. Meanwhile the Legionary Is that aren't lauched immedately for the island attacks are best off roading while awaiting the tech for Legionary IIs.

New City Builds order:

1. Worker. [Unless high shield, then reverse]
2. Garrsion.
3. Baracks. [Candiate for cash rushing with Imperalism everywhere]
4. Court House where benifital. (Candidate for cash rushing for size 3+ cities when Imperalism for most cities)
5. Market Places (Candidate for cash rushing for size 5+ cities when Imperalism)
6. Military units. Lowest shield cities build Garrisons, the others build HC and Legions.

Existing cities at start will need to build a few more cheap Legonary Is for upgrades and wait a bit for the court houses and market places.


Armies:
Fill the first one with Legionary IIs. Have any other armies remain empty shells until there are non-upgradable units. (Heavy Calvary / Legionary IIIs)
Do NOT mix Heavy Calvary with Legionaries inside an army.

Victory condition is 50% of pop + 20% of the land. The land is the bigest obsticle.


Realtive difficulty levels of the civs IMHO, from Easyist to Hardest:

1. Rome
2. Persia : about 1/2 difficulty level more difficult
3. Carthage : almost a full difficulty level more difficult
4. Greece : slighlty more than a full difficulty level more difficult
------ the following civs can not be chosen unless you mod it ------
5. Scythians : two 1/2 difficulty levels more difficult. Large open lands on all sides.
----- Remainder of the civs appear to be in impossible to win situations --------------
Egypt does start with virtual tech parity, but is hemmed in way too much by adjoining civs with superior UUs.
Gauls have no units with defenisve factor > 1. Open land east.
Celts have a good enough UU to fight other barbs, and some open land, but is way too close to Rome.

Originally posted by Neal the Neophyte
Gosh dang it all! I can't seem to win on RoR. I'm playing Warlord level and there would seem to be little excuse for losing. I always choose Rome and refuse to try any other civ until I win. Of course Rome is surrounded by potential foes and lacks luxuries in close proximity.

In my earlier games I ended up playing defensively, which soon became obvious as being a bad strategy. Since one of the game winners is population and territory, I've decided to go for an early as possible conquering of the Celts and Goths for the territory gain. But first I will exploit the Celts and Goths against the Carth's and my eventual enemies, the Macedonians, Persians, and Scythians. Of course this assumes I play my diplomacy cards right.

I've also given up producing wonders in order to max attack and defensive units for expansion. I failed to send my attacking and defensive units in a flow towards my enemies to support captured city defense and my attacking armies. I will use the two elite Legionary units that I start with to try to create army leaders early in the game.

Masala (sp?) always seems to create a GML, which I spirit off the island to the mainland and create an army. I had previously given up defending Masala, but it was demonstrated that with a wall, a harbor, and a few Garrisons, that Masala ate up a lot of Carthage's attack unit production.

Basically that's it. Comments?

[joncnunn]

Actually a mod to it:

1. Accel production is on.
2. Locked wars were turned off.

It turns out that population may actually be harder to get to than land.

Originally posted by Donegeal
Currently, The Civ III Democracy Game is doing the Rise of Rome conquest on Demi-god level. Check it out.

[joncnunn]

On trading techs, don't trade a tech unless your getting a tech in return.

Math is far more vauable as part of a deal for Monarchy [the most likely first AI tech since the AI loves govt techs so much.]

And if you put of the trade for Monarchy until whichever of Greece / Persia was first until it's traded around, you may get a lot of gold in addition to Monarchy for trading Math at that point.

The other tech the the AI assigns a much higher priority for than humans would is the one that allows trade network to include sea tiles.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by joncnunn
On trading techs, don't trade a tech unless your getting a tech in return.

Math is far more vauable as part of a deal for Monarchy [the most likely first AI tech since the AI loves govt techs so much.]

It may be a level difference, but I disagree here. First, in general, there's too much AI money to be had by trading techs to them to wait until you get one in return. Second, by the time the AI has Monarchy, I've gotten other techs that I can get Monarchy and whatever gold they can spare in exchange for. This should be even more true in Neal's case, playing Warlord. The only tech I even somewhat worry about trading to the AI is military training, and I'll just make sure I don't trade it to Persia and not Macedon.

I disagree with razing Carthago, too. The flip risk is miniscule. You control all 21 tiles, have the same local culture (thanks to the "retain culture" property of the scenario) and Carthage's capital jumps to either Carthago Novo or Tingis (AFAICT, based on whether you raze Lilibeo or take Carthago first), both of which are farther from the city than Rome. Carthage's only advantage is that its total culture starts out higher than Rome's and the citizens are, obviously, Carthiginian. According to FlipCalc, chances of a flip are less than 1% on a given turn and less than 7% over 10 turns, even with no garrison. Having the MP limit garrison there cuts the chances to 0.62% and 5.98%, respectively. Keeping the city gives you control over enough tiles to cut down attackers from Cirta and Thenae before they can get to you, and provides a nice base for the African invasion. One caveat I'll offer is that if you don't intend to take Africa immediately, I can see the logic in razing. Remember, too, that Carthage doesn't start with the ability to build any more Numidians (no ivory, unless they colonize the one at Leptis Magna, which I've yet to see them do). They start with 11 of them, but they're all regulars. With the extra hp, that doesn't frighten me when attacking with LIs.

I still say getting that first army into the field to destroy Carthage, and build the Heroic Epic, ASAP is more important than waiting for LIIs. Rome's militaristic trait is a big advantage in a game like this, and leaders are going to come by the handful as long as you keep fighting.

On tech, I prefer to hold off Tactics for a little bit, since cash is easier than shields to come by. I like your gambit of waiting and getting Imperialism as the free tech, though, so I may have to try it your way. Does the AI really not run to Philosophy like it sometimes will in the epic game? That's been the main concern causing me to go the route I have.

Gunk: yes, as I said, that game's already won and I'm playing it out for total conquest. I posted the map to show Neal that 130 turns isn't that much of a time crunch.

[Aeson]

Been a long time since I played it, but one thing still stands out in my mind about this scenario as Rome:

Roma and Neapolis are 1 turn Worker pumps in a GA, which should start the second turn... most of the other cities start out 2 turn Worker capable. Italy needs 20+ Workers real quick.

[Solomwi]

This is true. Going back and looking at my previous games, I had a nine-turn lead on Sparta for ToA, so some of those initial turns could definitely have been better spent on workers from Roma. I think I made the same mistake with that that I did with Philosophy, assuming the AI was in as good a situation and had as much of a target drawn on it as I did.

What I've been doing is making use of the 2-turn worker pumps exclusively. I think I may try it again (too fun not to ) and incorporate this and a couple of things joncnunn mentioned.

[joncnunn]

The AI generally does not have full cash value for a tech that your the only one in possesion of in RoR unless there's a tech involved, and even then your usually giving them some kind of discount.

Yes, I make fewer trades, but I get a lot more out of them and also don't have to worry so much about missing Herridan's Wall & other wonders.
And because the AI assigns MT a low value compared to a human, and I've not giving them a 75% discount on Math and other techs, they are going to be delayed getting it .

It's not the flip risk I'm concerned about in rasizing Cathargo at all. It's trying to continue my offense in africa. In early game when I'm raiding africa there just isn't enough units to both defend and attack. By raizing all towns there , I am eliminating my need to defend and so can freely burn down several Carthigan towns.

There is plenty of time to found replacement towns in Africa after the Carthigans are wiped out.

It's actually not much a delay at all sacking Carthage. The tech allowing Leg IIs is my first tech, I'm in the GA at turn 2, and my forces going on the raid annexes Corscia & Sardina as Is and so are only in the staging area in Western Silicy for a little while.

The army is better used against Spainish Carthigans, and is probably going to win it's victory before reaching Spain because the AI Carthigans start marching some forces from Spain towards Italy on turn 1.

On tech path, the AI does not seem to see Philosphacy until it has Literature.
By neither trading them Literature nor giving big discounts to Math and other techs you are delaying them getting Literature.

It's not much past turn 30 that I have Philosphacy (and Imperalism)

Never saw a single enemy HC in my singple player game, the worst unit I had to fight off was the Carthigan UU, but by then Leg IIIs were only a few turns away.

Now in the RoR demogame, I did have to fight off enemy HC, but that was on Demigod + accel production on and by the time it was my term, the whole world [except for the barb civs] had finished the tech tree. (The most notable accomplishments were completion of the Baccrilla and several CHs & MPs to increase all the following emperor's cash rushing of military units abilities, and a couple of cities in Spain were annexed from the Carthigans as well.)

Originally posted by Solomwi

It may be a level difference, but I disagree here. First, in general, there's too much AI money to be had by trading techs to them to wait until you get one in return. Second, by the time the AI has Monarchy, I've gotten other techs that I can get Monarchy and whatever gold they can spare in exchange for. This should be even more true in Neal's case, playing Warlord. The only tech I even somewhat worry about trading to the AI is military training, and I'll just make sure I don't trade it to Persia and not Macedon.

I disagree with razing Carthago, too. The flip risk is miniscule. You control all 21 tiles, have the same local culture (thanks to the "retain culture" property of the scenario) and Carthage's capital jumps to either Carthago Novo or Tingis (AFAICT, based on whether you raze Lilibeo or take Carthago first), both of which are farther from the city than Rome. Carthage's only advantage is that its total culture starts out higher than Rome's and the citizens are, obviously, Carthiginian. According to FlipCalc, chances of a flip are less than 1% on a given turn and less than 7% over 10 turns, even with no garrison. Having the MP limit garrison there cuts the chances to 0.62% and 5.98%, respectively. Keeping the city gives you control over enough tiles to cut down attackers from Cirta and Thenae before they can get to you, and provides a nice base for the African invasion. One caveat I'll offer is that if you don't intend to take Africa immediately, I can see the logic in razing. Remember, too, that Carthage doesn't start with the ability to build any more Numidians (no ivory, unless they colonize the one at Leptis Magna, which I've yet to see them do). They start with 11 of them, but they're all regulars. With the extra hp, that doesn't frighten me when attacking with LIs.

I still say getting that first army into the field to destroy Carthage, and build the Heroic Epic, ASAP is more important than waiting for LIIs. Rome's militaristic trait is a big advantage in a game like this, and leaders are going to come by the handful as long as you keep fighting.

On tech, I prefer to hold off Tactics for a little bit, since cash is easier than shields to come by. I like your gambit of waiting and getting Imperialism as the free tech, though, so I may have to try it your way. Does the AI really not run to Philosophy like it sometimes will in the epic game? That's been the main concern causing me to go the route I have.

Gunk: yes, as I said, that game's already won and I'm playing it out for total conquest. I posted the map to show Neal that 130 turns isn't that much of a time crunch.