Winning as Rome on a Huge World

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Glory of Rome Maybe.SAV

Small empire, boxed in by the Mongols and Carthage. Warred with Carthage; we each lost a city. 2 luxuries. This is still early in the game, and might have potential.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Glory of Rome Sort Of.SAV

This game has potential. I blew the GA already attacking Egypt, but unlike an earlier game where I wasted the bulk of my legionaries destroying an Egyptian army and taking only 2 of their cities, this time, I took most of Egypt. In this save, I'm at a second, miniature war with them, and ahead of the rest in tech. I'm waiting to switch to Monarchy. I have several luxuries.

The only reason I stopped playing this game was because I blew the GA building legionaries...

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Expanding Rome.SAV

This is my "lucky" game, the one I will probably play through to the end. I knocked Egypt down early, and somehow, Greece never really did much expansion. Normally, no matter who I play as, the Greeks are everywhere very early. This time, they pretty much stayed in one corner. And notice the HUGE DESERT that seperates me from the Carthaginians and Mongols. I have 3 luxury resources, plenty of iron, and I haven't used my GA yet. Furthermore, I'm a good contender to get the GL and HG built before anyone, and my tech and money are moving in at a good clip. My closest competitor seems to be France overseas, who I haven't met but who are building the Great Wall.

I have not built a single legionary and I still have my GA to come. Horray!

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

So, hope that wasn't too much! Those of you who have the time, please, give me some advice. If you don't want to look at them all, skip Expanding Rome... I'm pretty much garunteed victory of some sort there. Also, Glory of Rome Sort Of, I think I could handle. But the others are good case studies for how to "make it" as Rome, or perhaps, to examine the mistakes I already made and how they might have blown the game.

Ok, enjoy!

[vmxa1]

Ok, for what it is worth. I took a peek at the one called Contemptable Rome at 420AD.
I will say right off that I only looked at 5 or 6 cities.
1- why go for monarchy? You are a non religous civ and switching will be painful. I would prefer to make sort of a beeline for Republic and never switch again. You will now have to switch (at some point) or suffer under Monarchy.
2- I would not be researching Chivarly here, I would go for Invention and GunPowder. You will have access to build Leos and Guns are better than sword. Not to mention you have the GL, so you will soon be getting Chiv for free.
3- Now this is my perspective, but I am not seeing the point of making Mech Inf over Legions at this point.
I prefer the 3/3 over 4/2. In fact I would not being making either here as I would prefer to have Pikes and Horses. They have better upgrades and sooner. MI are not much and are stuck until Guerillas and that is too late to care about IMO.
In fact I would be inclined to not make more units, except maybe one city making Horses.
Them as they have the movement to cover cities and you will soon have Knights thanks to the GL.
4- No luxs, the nearest is in German hands, so I would be plotting my conquest.
5- workers that I looked at were not being used well.
In Rome, one was making a road that was on a useless tile that went nowhere. At the same time Rome had tiles with no road that were being worked by citizens.
6- Veli was making a MI and it had no barracks. This is unacceptable at this point in the game and you are not under any pressure. NO combat units with out a barracks after warriors, unless an extreme condition.
I would switch to a Coll as the city is large and growing and you have no lux. Worker minning a tile that was not being worked, while a worked tile was unroaded, for shame.
7-Ravenna It had two workers each on a tile minning and no citizen to work them. The city has jungles all around it and forrest. Either put both on one tile to make the mine or set them to clearing some tiles.
Oh the pain of not being industrious.
You have plenty of troops to handle defense and that is all you need right now as the Celts are not next door.
If you go for Germany, then that different. I would get more of those troops in the rear to the front to be ready for the Celts when they show up and they will. Upgrade more spears to pikes, a big diffrence. You would be so much better off if your troops were vets.
Here is where the value of Horses comes in as you woud be able to get them out to harrass incoming units and cover cities that become sieged. And as I say they will be Knights in awhile.
All in all you can win from here with no real problem, but must get those luxs. I did not see much unhappiness, so they could be putting you into We Love xxx from time to time. The real crunch will come from growing larger. You will have to use citizens as entertainers with luxs.

[vmxa1]

Expanding Rome - I loaded it, but come on this is a walk over. You have double the score of the next civ.
I did not look at anything else, but could not help notice that you are making temples in some new towns and one has two lux. I would suggest making a worker first and then the temple. Now you can hook up the lux and mine and road the worked tile, which ever one that turns out to be.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Replies to vmxa1:

"Contemptible Rome": how would you deal with my tech deficit?

"Expanding Rome": Yeah, this is a cakewalk. Like I said, I got very lucky. Nonetheless, why not build temples? Should I build libraries instead, to promote culture?

Anyone have any thoughts on this matter, in general?

[vmxa1]

Glory of Rome Sort of-
I did not do much looking at this either as you lead is quite large (score), so you should be good to go.
Some of my points in the first game probably apply, especially the research. You have luxs and that is a big help.
I presume the Greeks are not coming for you, but are traipsing across to get to the French or someone.
In any event you have no horsemen and that makes it harder to cover incursions. The other thing is that Legions (swords of any flavor really) do not upgrade well, so I do not want to make massive numbers of them on larger maps. The slow movement and lack upgrades is a real handicap. Horsemen are more useful and versatile.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Well, believe you me, I regret using those legionaries, although I did use them to good effect. I could have used double the number of horsemen as the number of legionaries I used, and I would have had the same conquest without a wasted GA.

As for the Greeks - I'm not worried about them conquering me, I'm a little concerned about having to wait forever (read: a long time) to conquer them.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
Replies to vmxa1:

"Expanding Rome": Yeah, this is a cakewalk. Like I said, I got very lucky. Nonetheless, why not build temples? Should I build libraries instead, to promote culture?

I do not mean to not build temples in that city, only that a worker and then a temple could be a better choice. The worker can hook up those luxs and do some minning.
One method I use to allow me to make teh temple right off, is to have a worker already heading for the new town, but if I do not have any to spare, then oftenmy first build is a worker. This may not be wise if you have industrial traits, but Romans take forever to get a task donw and need a lot of workers.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I wholeheartedly concur: first thing I've been building in most of my new cities (the ones on the West coast and in the desert) are workers. Still, the deserty ones have workers headed to them.

Yeah, the non-industriousness is a hassle, even more so under the Romans than under other civs I could name.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
Replies to vmxa1:

"Contemptible Rome": how would you deal with my tech deficit?
"

I do not have the game up right this minute, but tech deficts are not a huge problem. If you have the GL you will not be far behind, if you do not and are 2-3 techs back, you can over take them soon.
If you were in republic form you would likely not be behind, as Monarch is not so kind.
Anyway you have a few options in general
1- increase research via spending and pop growth (more cities and libs, etc)
2- aquire from conquest
3- trade for them
I would be using 1 and 3 mainly. I did not intend to try to cover all possible options, just the main ones.
Form of Gov and optimal use of citizens and workers are going to do a lot to increase research.

[Arrian]

Pretty much every new city I build pumps out a worker relatively soon (at the very beginning, it's warrior, worker. Later, further out when the city may only produce 1 shield for a bit, it may produce a few workers at 10 turns per). Just judging by vmxa1's comments, it would appear that you have a shortage of workers. Citizens should almost never have to work undeveloped tiles.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I think the main crippling effect is lack of libraries, marketplaces, and roads due to excessive military output during the ancient era.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
As for the Greeks - I'm not worried about them conquering me, I'm a little concerned about having to wait forever (read: a long time) to conquer them.

No you can not be conquered IMO at this point unless all civs went to all war against you and I doubt thatthey would wage it effectively enough even them, but it would be a handful.
I just say all those units in your land and did a double take. My point about get the extra units to the front is in case they get ugly on you and the Celts will be coming.
Understand that it is possible that the greeks could join the Celts and jump you. I sometimes will try to get others to join in on my enemies, not to help me so much, but to ensure that they do not join in against me.
Anyway i do not see any real reason why you could not win any of these games if you want to play them out.
I would suggest that avoiding going to Monarch is a better move in new games on larger map. You will not be at war all that soon and probably not all that long, so the benefits are small and the cost are high for Monarch. Like I said that switching Govs is just a bad idea for non Religous civs. Rep can go the whole game and really Monarch can not on a huge map. (yeah it could but it would hurt, unless you plan on warring all the time)