Winning as Rome on a Huge World

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Winning as the Romans on a Huge Earth-like World

For many reasons, the Romans are the most interesting civilization to play: after all, there's no empire you hear as more about than the Roman Empire.

And their traits - militaristic and commercial - are GREAT for the mid-to-late game... they give you the ability to conquer a huge empire, and then maintain it.

The real problem, though, is the early game, when you're more often than not surrounded by Hoplites and Numidian Mercenaries, and then a sleiugh of other formidable units or civilizations - industrious Eygpt, Persia, Ottomans, France, militaristic Germany, Zululand, Celts, etc.

Most Civ players agree that the ancient era is the most important in terms of developing your future game. But surrounded by powerful units and without any traits that allow you to easily build temples and libraries, how are the Romans to prosper?

That is my question to all of you. I have been trying for some time to rule the world as the Romans without "cheating" - playing on 4 billion years, roaming Barbarians, continents, and max # of opponents.

I am determined to do so soon, or I will flip out. Please help me, someone.

[vmxa1]

You did not say what level, but it does not matter. It can be done all the way to Deity.
You need to expand fast and I prefer to smash the nearest civ. This gives me their land. If you can jump on a civ before contact with others, no one will no of your treachery. Make lots of warriors and when you get the tech and resources, upgrade to UU and go calling.
Take down the all on the land mass.
Legionares in an Army are going to take down cities.
I would say to look at the threads for AU. I seem to recall that Thesus used romans on several with detail logs of events
If you are having problems, post some saves for review.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I will try to post a save... in the meantime, I am trying to do as you suggest. But I play on Regent level, huge world, and I find the neighbors are always too far away for me to take. Sometimes I'll take a Greek city here, an Egyptian city there, but the window of opportunity is not very wide, especially if I'm unsure where exactly my opponents are.

I did notice, in my last Romans game, the Legionaries are a great unit. I misused them, as I was very tired and unfocused when I was playing. But I can see their utility. Still, even Legionaries against the Greeks and Carthaginians, you better hope their empires are small and hope to overwhelm them with numbers.

Unless I'm missing something?

People, please tell me what your build order is when using Romans on this setting, or a similar setting. Warriors first, then what?

[joncnunn]

I think playing Rome is easier with Cultural Related starts set to OFF, just based on the UUs.

But with it on, at least the other civs are pretty much in the same boat trying to expand early against you.

As Rome, if you have a Greek neighbor, you can basically forget about initally expanding aginst them with Legions. I'm recommend picking another anicent era target entirely in that case, and wait for Knights.

If your neighbor is the Carths, your choices are an Archer rush prior to them getting Bronze Working or else waiting for Knights.

If your neighbor is the Celts, then your choices are beating them to hooking up Iron or else waiting for Knights.

Against the Irq, it's esstineal that you get several Legionaries prior to them having a bunch of Mounted Warriors.

Against Egyptains, Aztecs, and Zulu: Use standard slow moving offensive tactics against fast units.

[Arrian]

Rome on a huge map, with cultural linking on. Eek. 2 civs with 3-defense units, and the other with cheapy 2-1-2's. You, meanwhile, with a swordsman with a +1 defense.

Frankly, unless your nearest neighbor is Egypt, you may want to consider going "builder" until at least knights... perhaps even Cavalry. Egypt can be taken down with Horsemen backed by Legionaries relatively easily, but Carthage and Greece can do baaaaad things to ancient era attackers not named the Iroquios or Persians. That said, I've taken Carthage down as Rome with horsies and legions, but I am convinced I got a really good run of luck in that campaign.

The key to going "builder" for a while is aggressive expansion and picking a good spot for your FP. If you can get a good "core and a half" up and running, you can use the commercial power of Rome to either gain a tech lead or save up cash for unit upgrades.

[disclaimer] I've never played out a game on a huge map (only attempt: Marla's Map as China) [/disclaimer]

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I did take one Carthaginian city with 2 archers and 1 spearman. But all of them? There's 7 already, in my current game, and with those little b*******, there's more on the way. The Greeks, thankfully, are small, but my immediate neighbors are the (groan) Mongols... (in one Roman game, where I had 5 different luxury resources under my belt, the Mongols wiped me out when I wouldn't give in to their extortion)

How do I consistently win? Must I target only the weak? That seems to leave only the Babylonians, and maybe some weak European powers, if they haven't expanded.

How can I defeat, or at least cripple, the Greeks and Carthaginians?

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Arrian
Frankly, unless your nearest neighbor is Egypt, you may want to consider going "builder" until at least knights...

Ok, so, that being said, and you haven't played huge, but still, any good ideas how to get into builder mode and not be out-built? I know how to do this with industrious, religious, scientific and expansionist civs.

I (currently) build one warrior, and then a settler, or if have very productive land, 3-4 warriors and then a settler. Would you advise building an archer instead? I suppose that would make early conquest easier (though not garunteed) but exploration more difficult.

What do you do with your Roman worker? Roads or improvements?

[joncnunn]

Archer rush won't work at all against the Greeks on high levels. Greeks can build Hoplites form turn 1 and on the higher levels, probably start with at least one.

[joncnunn]

On what to do with Roman workers:

Roads first unless you have a lot of plains, in which case roads + irrigate the plains.

Mines should generally wait until you have a basic road network.

Basically, irrigating grassland tiles is a waste of time under despotism (unless it contains a food bonus or else is needed to form a path to irrigation.)

Mining takes longer than both irrigating and roading, and in the case of hills / mountains, you don't get full advantage under Despotism.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

So you would irrigate? Doesn't that cause an unhappiness problem? What do you do with your surplus population? You can't seem to kill 'em quickly enough to make it profitable without religious or scientific.

Do you draft them as military units? Doesn't that create unhappiness problems with the remaining population?

[Arrian]

On a huge map, there should be lots of room to expand into. Therefore, researching or trading for pottery early and building a granary in Rome could be a good idea. That will speed your expansion.

The only way to overcome non-industriousness is to build more workers than you otherwise would. Your commercialism helps balance out the upkeep cost of doing that (though the population & shield cost you just have to accept). Otherwise, accept slower development.

Re: starting near the Mongols... HIT THEM. The only civs that I fear in the ancient age are ones with powerful UU's, particularly powerful defensive or mobile UUs (that would be Greece, Carthage, Rome w/iron, Celts w/iron, Iroquois w/horses). The Mongols are garbage. You can take them down with a standard horseman-based attack.

Bascially, Greece & Carthage - barring extreme weakness on their parts due to starting terrain - are off-limits until Knights. Again, I've done it with horsies & legionaries, but that just isn't a good percentage play. I got lucky. I recall another game in which I tried a legionary rush on Greece and lost horribly.

How can I defeat, or at least cripple, the Greeks and Carthaginians?

I often practice warrior harrassment of neighbors. This is a very early game tactic. Basically, my exploring warrior that meets them runs around breaking stuff and trying to steal workers or nailing a settler team. You're not going to take them down with that one warrior, but you'd be surprised by how much damage you can do. Then, when you make peace, you may be able to extort a tech or two, or at least buy a tech on the cheap.

Another thing to do is try to get them embroiled in long-distance ancient warfare. Say you get attacked by the Mongols. Ok, call up Carthage and get an alliance (requires embassies, I know). Neither AI is likely to do serious damage to the other, but they will focus on military units, instead of improvements, and plus you will blow Carthage's GA in despotism. Maybe if you're lucky they will use that GA to build the Pyramids for you.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Arrian, all good points. I have not tried the warrior harrasment strategy, in general. I will give it a shot soon. A warrior can do damage to roads, workers, etc., and I hadn't considered the option of getting free techs from it... valuable indeed.

As for those Mongols... man... with the free city they tend to get, and their scouts, they normally get a grotesque amount of cities and are well ahead of me in science no matter whom I play as. I do try to crush them as soon as I can, and pray that they don't get in too far. But they can take me out by building endless swordsmen while I'm attending to something else...

I do utilize alliances... this saved me against the Mongols once and a joint Egyptian-French attack another time. But I still couldn't expand fast enough.

Any other hints? Terrain that I should or shouldn't improve? More more more!

[vmxa1]

On Regent you can out rex them and out research them, if you make good use of your workers and tiles.
I presume you have enough land nearby to actually build a good size empire. If you are stuck in a corner or something that is another story.
On a huge map, I will not try for an early rush, unless I just happened to be right on top of someone (not likely).
I would build up, trade and expand.
Maybe a war would come my way and it would likely be after I had UU in place, so they are not going to win and I will probably grab some new land. A 3/3/1 legion is not going to have trouble with acient units, with maybe the exception of Immortals.
I would crank out horsemen and find me a foe. Later they will be Knights and spanking someone.
By the time I get knights going I will be pulling away in all respects and my tech will make it a cake walk.
Calvs will be use to expand some more.
The important thing is to not be low man on the troops totem pole, even if oyu do not want to make war.
You do this by making strong cities.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Forgive me, I am a fool, but what is "rex"ing again? I hear it all the time around here and can never remember. And when you say "research them," what do you mean?

Anyone got thoughts on when, how, and if to use legionaires? How many to have before attacking whom, etc? They are potent, though certainly not so much as immortals.

[Arrian]

Yahweh Sabaoth,

Regarding being behind technologically, it doesn't really matter much so long as you have Ironworking and Horseback Riding.

One thing to do is task 2 workers or so to build a road in the enemy's general direction. That way you can speed your forces to the front. Another thing to do is play defense until you have a large number of troops built up, and then switch over to all-out attack.

By the way, when I play as Rome, I do my best to NOT use my legionaries until I'm at least out of Despotism, and hopefully have built my Forbidden. I hate blowing my GA early.

Are you familiar with the chariot -> horseman upgrade tactic? If not, give it a try: hold off on discovering HBR while building chariots. Mass a bunch of them, discover or trade for HBR, and upgrade them.

I like Legionaries/Horsemen together, with more horsemen than Legionaries (I do the same with standard swordsmen too). Legionaries are no better than normal swordsmen on attack. Their strength lies in their defensive capabilities. Therefore, the best use for them is to escort your horsies (the AI will rarely attack a legionary unless it's out in the open and the AI can muster multiple units... or something with a 4 attack), finish damaged defenders, and for dangerous pillaging operations deep into enemy territory. In a recent game, I cut my enemy's iron (Vikings) that was about 6 tiles deep in their territory by sending in 3 veteran legionaries. Only one survived long enough to cut the iron (1hp elite) and he died immediately on the next turn. But they never had iron again.

Re: early development... have you checked out the "Must Read" threads? There is one... "Winning Early... what do YOU do?" that addresses that, I think.

-Arrian

p.s. "REX" stands for "Rapid Early Expansion." He's saying that on Regent difficulty, a human player can out-expand and out-research the AI (assuming a decent starting position).