How to win at RoR

[Solomwi]

I started a new game just to test the gambit of building Roma all the way up ASAP. Got ToA in 245 BC, 1-2 turns before I can get it starting from scratch and using workers from other cities. I doubt I'll be doing that very often, as pumping Roma down seemed to slow my research down a good bit, though I'm just going on feel there. Happiness does become an issue, obviously,but settling spices and silks quickly, and getting Persian dyes immediately, keeps it pretty manageable. Once ToA is done, the two turn LIIs are nice, though. That continues after the GA, btw, as you drop to 32 shields.

I tend to get too caught up pumping out legions and before I know it, I'm researching MT without a single horseman to upgrade. Not something I'm proud of, but it happens.

As long as you keep the avenues of attack covered, Carthage will pretty much turtle on Sicily, though they will try to take Mt. Aetna from the archer. Theoretically, I guess you could use that to delay your GA more than a turn or two, if so inclined.

[Neal the Neophyte]

Solomwi - thanks for the extensive reply to my plea for help. I also wish to thank those who participated in the subsequent discussions, particulary Joncnunn, Aeson, and Modo44. Great stuff!

This game is obviously a lot deeper that I initially thought it to be. I have a lot to learn.

I'm not seeking a turn by turn instruction since that only replicates someone elses game and has little to do with learning. Rather, I hope to distill out of these discussions knowledge that will enable me to become a better skilled player. To that end I have identified a number of topics under which I hope to include the essence of the many discussions, to wit: Strategies; Wonders; Tatics; City Management; Expansion; Techs; and Acronyms and Terms. You guys (?) hit on all these things.

I have chosen Acronyns and Terms as the first to cover since that will allow me to better understand some of the discussions.

ACRONYMS AND TERMS: (Note that the list is in order of appearance in the discussions and that I have identified the person who used the acronym/term and maybe a quote that used it.)

1. ZOC = ? "...and hills don't give ZOC." (Solomwi)
2. Epic Games = ? (Solomwi)
3. FP = some tech? (Joncnunn)
4. Free Tech = how does one get a free tech?
5. AFAICT = As Far As I Can Tell? (Solomwi)
6. Flip Calc = Obviously "Flip calculation", but where is it found? (Solomwi)
7. MP = ? "Having the MP limits garrisons there..."
8. MT = Military Tradition? "...because the AI assigns MT a low value..." (joncnunn)
9. CH = ? "...completion of the Baccrilla and several CHs & MPs to increase...cash rushing..." (joncnunn)
10. s & spt = shields and shield points? "By turn 12, no growth or improvement method will have 252s, 21spt,..." (Aeson)
11. AP = ? "If you figure in AP (which is worker draining due to extreme growth), 30 seems like a reasonable number of workers." (Modo44)
12. WM = ? "...spent 30g on an embassy, and for my WM they signed up against Carthage." (Aeson)
13. NM = ? "I prefer not to give Carthaqge a chance to to a) get ivory and start making more NMs..." (Solomwi)
14. Culture Barrier = ? "...the AI simply can't get to it in time due to the culture barrier,..." (Solomwi)
15. DG = Demo Game?

I intend to make more posts for the other topics so that I can make sure that I got it right. Is this thread a good place to make them?

[Jaguar]

Zones of Control are very rare in Civ3. Sometimes when one unit moves between two squares adjacent to an enemy unit, the enemy unit gets to fire a single shot.

The Epic Game is simply a regular game of Civ3 or Civ3 Conquests. (Not a Conquest or a Scenario or a mod)

FP is the Forbidden Palace Small wonder

Free techs can be acquired in a few ways. You get a free tech from getting to Philosophy first. You can also get two free techs from the Theory of Evolution wonder. You get a free tech at the beginning of each age if you are scientific. And lastly, you can get a bunch of free techs from the Great Library.

MP - In that case, Military Police. Up to a certain number, having military units in your cities decreases unhappiness.

MT - Yes. Military Tradition.

spt - shields per turn

WM - World Map

NM - Numidian Mercenaries (Carthage's Unique Unit)

Culture Barrier - I think he means the number of Culture points required to win a cultural victory.

DG - Yes. Democracy game.

[joncnunn]

CH = Court House
s = shields [number of shields you already have towards a unit / improvement or wonder]

AP = Accelerated Production. Halfs the cost of growth, production, and science?

NM = the epic Carthigan UU. In RoR, anybody with access to Ivory [not a luxary but is a stregic resource in RoR] can hire (build) them. And does not trigure a GA. It's still a better idea to build Garrsions than NM for Rome. 1/3/1 30 shields vs 2/3/1 40 shields.

The War Elephant is the Carhigan UU in RoR. NO resources required.

Cultural Barrier : I believe he's refering to Cultural Boundary, and how it slows down opposing forces trying to move thru without RoP

Cultural Victory modes are disabled in RoR.

"Epic" : NOT a "Conquest" nor a user developed scenerio that only covers a subset of history. Note that some mods are still Epic: "AU Mod". built in "With Plague" because they still cover the full 4000 BC to 2050 AD range.

Vanilla: Civ III without any addons

Stock (rules): NOT a mod. Usually but not always refers to Epic. (Stock RoR) though would emphanize you haven't made a mod to the Rise Of Rome Conquest.

[Jaguar]

Ah. As you can see, I'm not so familiar with Rise of Rome, and most of my answers were taken from general Civ3 knowledge.

[Solomwi]

1. ZOC: What Jaguar said, but in the context, the point was that units in a fortress do get ZOC. In other words, they get a free shot at passing enemy units. Since the AI will bypass a legion, or stack of legions, in a fortress, but won't make sure to go two tiles away, this can be big.

5. AFAICT: Yep, "as far as I can tell."

6. FlipCalc: A utility program I found at CFC (www.civfanatics.com). Not sure if it's on 'Poly too or not, but it may be.

8. In this case, MT is "Military Training", the tech that allows heavy cavalry.

14. Culture barrier: What joncnunn said. Enemy units can't use roads inside your cultural borders, so it has the effect of slowing them down considerably, as well as letting you see everything that's happeneing inside or at the borders.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Solomwi
1. ZOC: What Jaguar said, but in the context, the point was that units in a fortress do get ZOC. In other words, they get a free shot at passing enemy units. Since the AI will bypass a legion, or stack of legions, in a fortress, but won't make sure to go two tiles away, this can be big.

Also, a city with walls generates ZOC. You get a free shot at units that pass by adjacent to your walled town. Useful when you want a city instead of just a fortress.

[Solomwi]

True, which makes Hadrian's Wall that much nicer if your enemies try to bypass your cities. The upshoot of it in either case is that, with legions in either, you get a fairly easy victory over a damaged attacker when your turn comes back around.

[Neal the Neophyte]

Clarifying Acronyms and terms

I cut my teeth on Civ type games with CTP. CTP game play has proved to be something of a handicap playing CIV3 - especially on "culture barrier", ZOC, and unit attack and defense. CTP used stacked units that attacked and defended as a whole - that is the entire stack attacked or defended simultaneously. There is no territory in CTP and civ units can use your roads. No unit could pass within a one square radius of your units or cities which made territory defense a little easier.

Culture barrier: What joncnunn said. Enemy units can't use roads inside your cultural borders, so it has the effect of slowing them down considerably, as well as letting you see everything that's happeneing inside or at the borders.

The responses have been really helpful. The ones on "culture barrier" especially so. I was completely unaware that other civs could not use roads inside of your territory unless they had RoP. I read about unit movement and cultural influence in the manual and didn't see that important point.

I was also unaware of the free tech thing.

I'm still not sure how the "free shot" works on ZOC. I know that if an enemy attacks a city or fortress, the catapults get a shot at the attacking unit. I also seem to remember that if an enemy unit stops within one square, my units will attack. Is this what is called a "free shot"?

In these posts someone created a glossory of terms and acronyms. I'll contact that person and ask him to update his list with what you folks have supplied. Thanks again.

[Neal the Neophyte]

CTP used stacked units that attacked and defended as a whole - that is the entire stack attacked or defended simultaneously.

I need to claify that statement. Stacks attacked as a whole if you moved your stack onto an opposing unit or city square. It was a pitched battle against the strength of the opposing stack. Individual units could attack if the opposing units or city was on an adjacent square. The defense of each used the entire opposing stack in all cases - no one on one.

[Solomwi]

Neal, to address a comment you made earlier: It will be easier for other posters to see, and therefore respond to, new topics if you make a new thread for each.

[gunkulator]

Re: Clarifying Acronyms and terms

Originally posted by Neal the Neophyte
I'm still not sure how the "free shot" works on ZOC. I know that if an enemy attacks a city or fortress, the catapults get a shot at the attacking unit. I also seem to remember that if an enemy unit stops within one square, my units will attack. Is this what is called a "free shot"?

No. Catapults and a few other units have what is known as defensive bombardment. When another unit in the same stack as the catapult attacked, the catapult gets one shot at the attacker. Each unit is allowed no more than one defensive bombardment per turn.

The ZOC free shot is available to any unit with at least an attack of 1, so long as that unit is in a fortress or walled city. Some units generate ZOC without any need of walls or fortresses. Unlike the defensive bombard, there is no limit to the number of free shots allowed per turn due to ZOC. That's why they're called "free shots".

[Dominae]

I play Rise of Rome (as Rome) a little differently. Demigod difficulty.

I beeline to Tactics to upgrade my Legion I's to Legion II's, which do not trigger my GA. I hold off on attacking the Carthaginians, fending them off with Garrisons and Archers behind Walls, plus a couple of Catapults ferried over from the mainland. This allows me to dictate the timing for my GA, which in this scenario is really a big one once your cities are all maxed out in pop and relevant city improvements.

Getting to Tactics takes about 15 turns, in which time Carthage is no more than an annoyance. I sign Military Alliances versus Carthage with all the major civs on the first turn, which is possible of you negotitate a ROP with them first. This takes some of the pressure from Carthage off of me.

During those 15 turns, all but a couple of my core cities build Workers (Roma is a 1-turn Worker-pump by turn 2 or 3 I think). All my Legion I's assist in building Roads to offset the lack of bridges (really annoying in this scenario). Regular Workers are ordered to build Mines, almost exclusively.

With Tactics, I'm free to attack Carthage without fear of triggering my GA by upgrading all my existing I's to II's. I've found that an Army plus a bunch of Legion II's is enough to take down Carthage, if rather slowly. I end up triggering my GA toward the end of that war, when all my cities are almost maxed out.

I try to get Hadrian's Wall during my GA. If I lose that race it is preferably to Persia, as Macedonia is a closer and therefore more convenient target.

I admit to only having played this one about 3-4 times, so please take what I say with big grain of salt.

[joncnunn]

I'm wondering why you would want to postpone your GA in RoR.
The earlier the GA starts, the faster you can get Legionary IIs, Heavy Calvary, and Legionary IIIs for sure and possibly Philospahcy and Imperalism.

You don't start in Despostism so an early GA wouldn't be wasted. In addition, forming new cities only costs 1 citizen each [as Rome] so a GA is benifitial REXing.

Plus if you wait to long to trigure your GA you might actually be in it when you finish reseraching Imperalism and have to put off the switch in govts a few turns.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by joncnunn
I'm wondering why you would want to postpone your GA in RoR.

Most of your core cities are under size 6, and need Aqueducts to grow. Most of them suffer from 25% Corruption or more, and need Courthouses. Your land is underdeveloped, and needs more Workers. These are all things you do not want to attend to during a GA.

The way I see the scenario, there is no pressure to trigger your GA right away: your opponents are not that strong to begin with; they get stronger much more slowly than you; and because of your superior units, time is on your side. Under such conditions I prefer delaying my GA in order to completely blow away the competition rather than establish an earlier but less decisive lead.