Roman strategy thread

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Esoteric
Liberating Sicily- only through extensive burning I hope.

Actually, I plan to take both cities, then load the Legions on Galleys and ship them to burn Carthage. The cities on Sicily can be very productive and have some infrastructure I would like to keep. The Senators couldn't make up their minds, so it is my decision. Divide et impera.


Well, taking Sicily goes slowny, so others will have to finish. Have fun.


I wanted to explain some things that were not said here yet.

We have AP turned on, so we need more Workers than usual to make up for the speedy growth. I made it to 14 plus 2 Slaves, but still find we could use some more.

Since no one starts with a war and no wars were declared by other civs, only Rome has Golden Age started.

This means that we can go for 2 or even 3 wonders and have a realistic chance to get them. The Oracle in Neapolis is planned a prebuild for the Great Library, with Literacy soon available.

The idea is to maximize the Golden Age while it's there. Get a super production powerhouse up and running in those 20 turns, even if it means slowing down our conquests. That's also a reason why I would recommend that only 2 or 3 cities keep building Legions, while others develop infrastructure.

[joncnunn]

I agree don't burn down towns in Silicy. Once they come out of resistance and grow they'll be productive, especally with Court Houses.

[joncnunn]

Culuture flips are actually somewhat less common in this scenerio than the normal game unless it's been modified to turn off the retain culture flag.

[joncnunn]

This is probably extreme taking advantage of the AI, but in my SP game I convinced the Celts to give me Maraselles in exchange for the privilage of joining me in an alliance against the Carths. [insert evil grin here.] Celts came close to losing a city to the Carths. (I was hoping the Carths would take it and then I'd wait for it to regrow to size 2 and then liberate it.)

Originally posted by Modo44
Two turns done, we're on the verge of a war - on Sicily and just west of the Alps.

Legions are marching and Sicily and should be liberating it soon. The Celts shall meet us in a turn. If it was a SP game, I'd probably send the Celts to war with Carthage and then still attack the Celts. Just to make things interesting.

I'm thinking about leaving the barb camps in the Alps as a training ground for Elite Legions. They could provide easy targets and could be held in check by a very small force. What are your opinions, Senators?

[joncnunn]

I don't like the Granery builds, I'd much rather see Baracks / Garrisions / Workers in them.

[Modo44]

Granaries are for Citizen production. I think at least one of those cities should finish the build. Workers and Garrisons can be built by other cities that already have both Granaries and Barracks. Not all of them are good for pushing out Citizens yet, so that would be a better use for them.

What worries me is the lack of Aqueducts and thus many cities stuck at size 6. Lot's of unused land. And we don't even have the tech yet.

Just to be sure, I'd send out 2 or 3 Legions towards the Macedonians next. Preferably blocking roads, so that they can't jump us.

[joncnunn]

Um, I think we're better off with the Oracle than the Great Libary. Oracle pairs extremely well the the Temple of Artemis while us in a GA and them not and thus getting a tech lead devalues the Great Libary.

I'm also thinking that our city with lots of food in the NE is a great city site for the Musieum which makes 3 citizens of that city happy.
Mine all that wheat fast!

Greece and Macedonia both have a faint possibily of getting a GA without a war if they manage to build the right wonders to satisfy all three of their traights in this conquest.

[joncnunn]

In this conquest, Citizens cost 40 shields and use only 1 citizen!

Granaries aren't needed at all for them. Just wait for those cities without aquaducts to hit size 6 and they can be set permenately to citizen producing duty and only a forest chop or an ongoing GA would cause them to get below size 5.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Um, I think we're better off with the Oracle than the Great Libary. Oracle pairs extremely well the the Temple of Artemis while us in a GA and them not and thus getting a tech lead devalues the Great Libary.

Good point.

Originally posted by joncnunn
I'm also thinking that our city with lots of food in the NE is a great city site for the Musieum which makes 3 citizens of that city happy.
Mine all that wheat fast!

That's been started. With AP, we'll need a whole lot of work done, before we let Padua grow. That's why it's making Workers all the time.

Originally posted by joncnunn
Greece and Macedonia both have a faint possibily of getting a GA without a war if they manage to build the right wonders to satisfy all three of their traights in this conquest.

Let them have it. The point is, by the time they do, we'll have the wonders we chose and Legions III to boot.

[joncnunn]

Victory condition is 20% of land + 50% of pop. I'd recomending keep the cities without rivers producing citizens rather than producing an aquaduct to expand until we are closer to hiting to reaching 20% of the land than we are to 50% of the pop.

I see on tech paths beelining to Imperlism.

1. Tactics.
2. Military Traning? (The one that allows Heavy Calvary)

3. If AI has Monarchy, trade for it now and start Republic. Otherwise reserach Literary waiting for the AI to reach Monarchy, then trade for Monarchy and start Republic.

4. Republic.

5. If we don't have Literacy already then Literary.

6. Philosphacy. Choose Imperalism as the free tech.

[Daddy-O]

re: Elite training grounds
That is why superpowers keep lesser nations around anyway - Granada, Haiti, Nicarragua, France...
Keep them around until they become a problem.

re: the liberation of Sicily.
Make sure there will be no flipping. Burn it to the ground and rebuild. Rome will not become the great empire that it is destined to be by being nice to the natives.

[joncnunn]

There's absoutely no need to burn down cities in Silicy, Corsica, or Sardina.

The SE city in Silicy is extremely secure, it's reinforced by our starting city in Silicy.

The Western corner city is under only minor influence from Carthage, and is slightly reinforced by the other Silicy cities.

Sacking Carthage elimates what cultural presence there is in Silicy.

Sardina and Corscia taken as a unit won't feel any Carthage culture either.

And historically, Rome's Carrot was just as big as their Stick. They would historically leave local laws in place (except making it illegal for the local govt to execute someone without permission from a Roman offical) and set up a native puppet as a figure head and hire a few head tax collectors and tell them they wanted X dinari.
Those cities that responded to this by revolting against Rome were severely punished.

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by skrobism

Rome will not become the great empire that it is destined to be by being nice to the natives.

Makes me wander if this is where Star Trek NG got the idea of assimulation into the collective

[joncnunn]

Rome didn't invent assmilation into their culture, they perfected it.

The Assyrians and Babs both moved massive numbers of conquered peoples into other parts of conquered lands to detroy their ties to the old religion. (At the time it was generally belived that each god only had domination over a specific land, so if you transported someone out of the land, you were cutting them off from their god.)

The Persians were much more lenient and in fact allowed many groups previously exilied to return to their native lands if they wished. They basically didn't interfere with local laws as long as they got their cut.

Alexander basically maintaigned the same non-local interference under his reign.

The Romans perfected this practice by giving the sons of their puppets a free education in Rome, the earlier the better. These sons would often return home more Roman than the Romans.

[joncnunn]

In game terms, there seems to be a very rapid assmilation of foreign nationals compared to the epic game in this (unmodified) conquest.