Debate on whether MGT's Rome strategy is the best of not

[IllusionofGrandeur]

As a long time Civ player, a clan mate of MrGameTheory, and one of the people who actively plays with MGT, I feel up to the task in relaying some information MGT has given me to share with the community and I personally have some information I would like to contribute as well

General Message for everyone:

If you’re not going to read through an entire thread/post, don’t add feedback to it. It’s rude and presents inaccurate opinions which hurt the community more than it helps it.

MrGameTheory still keeps seeing blah blah blah going on with no hard core facts to support a strategy better than his Rome strategy. I have received the full version and have let MrGameTheory borrow it for several days since it has been out, so to say his opinion is trapped in a demo perspective is nonsense. I agree with MrGameTheory that the creators of Civ Rev made a huge logical mistake when they created the game and the entire development team lacked either the ability to convince Sid Meiers that he was making a huge mistake or they lacked the insight to know they were making a huge mistake and until they face up to that and cut the pride they are going to have a game that doesn't even remotely live up to its potential

MrGameTheory believes there are some good players in Europe and he is impressed that people are using their heads in the Game of The Weeks and getting some spectacular conquest victories early on, but while there is strategy needed in the game of the week, true skills come from besting a "thinking" opponent that is "Real." Civ is the best strategy game not because of a play feature like the game of the week which is comparable to lots of good free online strategy games. Civ is the best strategy game because of the different types of variables, negotiations, etc and to play a civ type of game without the above is to not actually play a true Civ game, but another type of strategy game with the look of Civ. From the looks of it, all game of the weeks will end up being conquest victories at the end of the day and that itself brings down the overall strategic appeal of the setting. Even if they create unique Game of The Weeks, there will always prove to be 1 viable strategy making the others not worth partaking in.

"Once again there is nothing wrong with having fun, these messages are only intended for an audience who take strategy games seriously and enjoy very thought demanding competitive situations. This is no insult to people, but a comment on the nature of the structure you are dealing with."

People will soon notice that 99% of the people who get 1st on the GOTW are just the people who logged onto the game first for that week and found the solution in the first 10 hours. He believes that the solutions aren’t easy to find, but hundreds of players are capable of coming up with the perfect solutions and whoever is the most dedicated to the glory will achieve 1st, and to achieve 1st on such a setting is significantly less desirable compared to other settings and definitely doesn't prove who is the best at Civilization, but who wanted the glory the most that week.

A message to the Dev team:

The fact that games are not being recorded correctly and players can never lose a game, but have several losses due to major connection problems is really game breaking to the entire system and requires your absolute attention and should have been fixed already. A problem in the recording structure for a somewhat competitive game is probably the worst problem to have, even above strategic problems and the fact that these issues have remained unresolved is absolutely unprofessional on every level. There is nothing that will drive out competitive players faster than having a problem with recording stats and you are going to see people gradually leaving over aggravation. Its terrible that a player can win 100 games in a row, but not receive the credit for it because the system itself is flawed, but at the end of the day, you created a game that is not prepared for an MP community and more money was needed, so don't be surprised when you reap what you sow.

A message to the community:

As you will see, the bottom isn’t Blah Blah Blah, but “facts” used to support an “Opinion.” So unless you are capable of at least following this model loosely, be kind enough to not post an opinion.

First off, people need to stop generalizing that all players that play ranked games believe the Rome strategy is not game breaking because that is just non-sense and there are plenty of players on this message board and off it who agree and believe that there are some major game breaking problems with Rome.

Second off, no Dev Representative has presented and elaborated on a strategy that is comparable to the Rome strategy. They should be able to come up with 10 if this game is truly balanced, but unfortunately they haven’t come up with a single one.

Third off, its difficult to accept any opinion that conflicts with the Rome strategy especially when it avoids addressing the following post:

[IllusionofGrandeur]

1. Rome gets republic when settlers still cost 40 gold, while other leaders wont be able to use Republic until settlers cost (60 gold+).

2. Its obvious that people won't be seeing economic victories at 500 bc in ranked games and I don't see anyone arguing for it either, but that doesn't mean that Rome will be unable to secure an economic victory later on by taking more defensive measures. I see people talking about receiving a nuke and destroying the 31 population city, but they are already getting ahead of themselves with a very conflicted situation because a good player will get the Oxford with Rome before anyone by using a turn worth of economic victory gold to purchase it and get the bombers. There is pretty much no chance that any player will naturally research all the way to a nuke and build it with a non Rome civ before Rome gets an economic victory, ill tell you that for sure. There are too many technologies needed before you can reach the Nuke and MGT and myself have already practiced getting an economic victory on normal settings and it’s easily possible with significant pressure to get economic victories between 200 and 700 AD.

3. The free code of laws gives a huge advantage if a player starts with a cow, but even if it doesn't, every game the player gets an advantage of being able to sell code of laws to the 1 computer player on the map if the game is a free for all, and if its a 1 versus 1 game than the Rome leader will get to sell code of laws to 3 computer players and a good player will be able to squeeze 35 gold out of each computer player if they know what they are doing and that is the equivalent of almost 3 free cities. MGT is confident that the dev team will address the Rome problem by taking away Code of Laws and just giving them Republic and he believes that will still not be enough and Rome will remain the most powerful even when they do this.

4. The faster roads helps with emergencies and the gold can easily go towards another free city and some units.

5. As soon as you get bronze working you get archers for the same cost of warriors and while its possible for a Shaka to get the jump on you and you can loose 1 city, that’s pretty much all a great player will lose because they will build an archer in the closest city to the lost one and the Impi warriors will die to archers. Every other leader from Aztec on down will not be able to affect the Rome strategy because all that is needed in the bank is a 20 gold insurance policy to secure all cities and as soon as a player gets near a city, all Rome needs to do is buy an archer in that city and it will be defended than the following turn if they decide to attack all that is needed is another archer to guarentee its survival. Plus if you add in that all good players scout properly and the land is very narrow, it makes it very difficult to get the jump on Rome.

6. The 50% off the cost of wonders is really amazing because the East Indian Company is so expensive and even Spain will be unable to build it unless they get a great engineer and if you had a race on the same land between Rome and Spain I would say with confidence Rome could beat Spain to it and if by a miracle Spain was able to build it before Rome naturally, Spain would have absolutely no cities or no defense and just be screwed. The 50% applies towards all the important wonders your going to need which is very vital in itself. Spain may have access to the relics early on, but Rome will be flying to navigation and force Spain to either get 3 ****ty tecs which will save Rome only 3 turns anyways, 200 gold, 2 great people which is good, but all Rome needs is a Great Merchant anyways and the 2 great people are gravy at the end of the day, or a tank which should just be sold. Ultimatly Spain doesn't have nearly enough to make it Viable competition.

7. The ability to generate more great people helps raise the probability of getting that vital great merchant which means everything.

8. Aztecs are tuff to remove from forests, but all that is needed is a legion army until you can secure your borders. Japan's Food is nice, but ultimately fails in comparison to the quick 31 population strategy, especially when you only need about 5-10 cities to get to 2 population before you take a population away to the 31 population city and those 5-10 cities will be working grass anyways. Mongols don't have control over Tribal free cities and they are usually in bad positions which ruin placement of other cities. Arabian's Caravans being worth more gold come too late and still isn't good enough and their traits are just flat terrible. Shaka is a good suicide leader, but you won't be seeing many great players winning with Shaka, especially in a FFA, plus Archers ruin Shaka. Greece doesn't get started up fast enough and the mass expansion will produce faster technology rate, more production, and reaching the technology bonuses faster. India's free resources is heavily dependent on luck and there are only a few rare resources that can help India, but in the end you would need those resources surrounding your first 8 cities (Which is impossible) to compete against the expansion Rome is capable of on an almost every game basis. Germany isn't that good because the important offensive units come too late and archers and pikes adequately defend against anything. Egypt is only an annoyance if they take the Colossus or Hanging Gardens and by an annoyance I mean that they only postpone losing a few turns. Russians are more of an insult to RL Russians and are beyond terrible, Chinese are a good civilization, but they ultimately lose out compared to all of Rome’s Bonuses, The Chinese may reach 1 or 2 early bonuses first, but ultimately they will lose out on the game because they can't compete with the expansion and receiving the important wonders fast enough. The Chinese's last 3 traits are worthless for the most part. America was good when they could rush everything at 50% discount, now that they are only units they have lost a lot of stock, they may be able to get a free engineer which can make them good, but its too risky, French are terrible and you might as well pick America if France appeals to you. English is terrible, but hard to kill.

9. Due to the cost of buildings it’s very difficult to get buildings in all cities making the best source of tec coming from working more ocean squares and that comes from having more cities. A Rome player can expand faster than all leaders and reach further tribal villages before other leaders and the “Opinion” that a player can use all the gold they get to go military while a Rome player is spending theirs on cities is such a gross incorrect generalization that it is completely invalid. First off, the Rome leader will be reaching more huts, even more than Shaka, and because of the cheap cost of Archers and the relatively enormous defense of them, an archer army can pound for pound take way too much damage and if they even get a single promotion and become fortified which is very common, they can defend a city up until the very late era or at least until pikes and with pikes cities become invincible up until bombers and tanks. The fact remains that because this game favors defensive players so massively, Rome is secure in its expansion, and as soon as an aggressive player loses 1-5 units attacking an archer/ archer army in a city, they are going to notice that they are wasting too much resources attacking “Only 1 player” and they are going to try and get a victory for themselves through another method. Now obviously if a player tries to get 30 cities right off the back they can lose, but if a player goes for 5 cities and expands carefully, considering 1 settler is equal to 2 warriors, its pretty safe to say that the early sacrifice getting the settler is worth it. These are obviously generalizations of situations, but ultimately the probability of the above occurring is highly more probable than most of the bogus scenarios people have come up with to oppose the Rome strategy.

10. MrGameTheory also says that while 100 people "may" of thought about inventing the rollerblade before it hit the market, at the end of the day only 1 guy got the patent for the invention and had the skills to bring it to the world. How many millions of people have an idea for a business or movie script or invention etc, but they never act on it? The fact remains that he was the first person to organize the "entire strategy "Minus key secrets"" and put it on a plate for the entire community to check out, he took time out of his life to help the community evolve and expand with this strategy, so to say that he isn't the inventor of the Rome strategy is just rude and nonsense.

11. MrGameTheory isn't saying that you will win every time with the Rome strategy, all he is saying is that in terms of probability and statistics your chances of achieving a victory are increased by picking Rome over picking another leader and no great strategy game can be labeled as balanced when that kind of opportunity is presented to a single strategy when there are dozens of potential strategies and leaders. All MGT asks is for someone to present "Logical" evidence proving him wrong and proving another strategy right. Everything released thus far is incorrect. MGT does have a strategy with another leader which makes that leader second best for a specific reason, but he will release that information when they completely nerf Rome like he has been asking them too do all along.


A personal note, I am happy that Civ Rev has come to the Consol and I wish it better success so that it makes the next PC Civilization game a more enjoyable MP experience.

Illusion of Grandeur

[PhillyMike101]

While never really posting on his strategy, and only having the demo, I do agree that this strategy is extremely powerful. I even emailed him on his long, detailed post on the strategy and thanked him as I would any player that helped me out. As to people not crediting him with the 'invention' I dont think that has been a problem. BOSS NASTi has tried to up his reputation by saying he thought of it without any help, but nobody takes him seriously. MGT, in my opinion, came up and spoon fed players a great strategy that will surely make better players out of most (by editing the strategy and making it their own).

Sure, people think hes arrogant, but in my experience he has been a helpful member of this community and as someone who has helped me out, I respect him more. Im not sure if he got banned or will read this, but I just felt like typing it out anyways.

[Big Toe]

[QUOTE=
A message to the Dev team:

The fact that games are not being recorded correctly and players can never lose a game, but have several losses due to major connection problems is really game breaking to the entire system and requires your absolute attention and should have been fixed already. A problem in the recording structure for a somewhat competitive game is probably the worst problem to have, even above strategic problems and the fact that these issues have remained unresolved is absolutely unprofessional on every level. There is nothing that will drive out competitive players faster than having a problem with recording stats and you are going to see people gradually leaving over aggravation. Its terrible that a player can win 100 games in a row, but not receive the credit for it because the system itself is flawed, but at the end of the day, you created a game that is not prepared for an MP community and more money was needed, so don't be surprised when you reap what you sow.

[/QUOTE]

I've played 2 online games and won both of them. The first has been recorded as a loss. This did put me off and i feel i have played less online games as a result. I got a win for my second game but if it records alot more loses when i win, i will feel cheated and soon lose interest in the game. The whole appeal off playing online is to see how well you do compared to other gamers!

[IllusionofGrandeur]

People ramble on over and over and over that all you need is an early rush on Rome and the problem is solved. What kind of ridiculous defense of an Anti-Rome strategy is that? Explain to me how you plan on early rushing a player who is even remotely scouting or has 1-2 archers in the furthest city. I am not saying go and make 40 cities quickly, all I am saying is, go ahead and make 3-6 quick cities and have an archer in them before anyone else can seriously mount an offense on you. The trick is to take the early advantage to get the early technologies and rush to get pikes or something and move on from there. Problem solve, Rush neutralized. The point is your able to get out way more cities faster and ultimately that is what is so game breaking. If you have 3 cities and your opponent has 1 that’s equal to having 9 cities and your opponent having 3 or having 30 cities and your opponent having 10. There is plenty of room to get that early 4-7 cities and all that matters is you have several more than your opponent. We are not saying go crazy, we are saying the easier expansion for less money is worth 10x more than was originally intended and those early cities make all other leader's traits not as valued.

Say your opponent gets a lucky city. WHO CARES, you are saving so much gold and the production accumulated from having the early cities more than makes up for it. An opponent would need to get 1 lucky city for every 2 cities you build for it to mean anything and any logical player is going to build an archer in a city next to any city that just happen to be taken by a wondering Impi warrior.

Let’s not even talk about if you happen to start on one of the corners of the map with only 1 land entrance to your area. In the above situation which occurs 4/5ths of the time, you only have to expand in 1 direction and defend from there and the ocean tiles.

Say you are attacked from the ocean by a player, all you need is to have 2 units in a city and that buys you enough time to fill that city with more units or buy more units in that city. Plus let’s say you just leave the cities open. You have 10 cities surrounding that one, you honestly think they are going to keep that city when you are buying 10 units a turn to form armies in order to take the city back? Plus on top of everything with the Rome strategy you will reach galleons before any other player and will be able to dominate any galleys that come wondering your way and no player is going to fill a galley with units and risk it dieing to a galleon that has 3 movements and can come out of left field and kill everything in 1 attack.

Another thing that people fail to realize, once a city gets to 31 population it becomes the only city in an empire that needs to be defended. Forget all the other cities, sure you don't want to lose them because you lose gold and they slightly increase your victory time, but they don't mean jack and you can lose them and you can have your opponent occupying every square of your 31 population city and you will still make 2000 gold a turn minimum which is enough to buy bombers or pikes or whatever you like and still achieve the economic victory faster than anyone else. Plus people fail to realize that Rome will almost always be the first person to discover Oxford and that means they have bombers for the rest of the game which can destroy any attacking force. lets say you lose Oxford by a miracle, all you need to do is continually send legions or archers or pikes to your 31 population city and because it takes so much time to attack there will not be able to have all the battles and the clock will wear down.

[Magwill]

If you have that many cities, arent you leaving a weakness in losing cities? I know you are claiming that it is easy to defend the cities, but let's say that you actually lose some of your settler generating cities, what do you then lose extra? How much gold is it that you lose (what variables are involved)?

[PhillyMike101]

People ramble on over and over and over that all you need is an early rush on Rome and the problem is solved. What kind of ridiculous defense of an Anti-Rome strategy is that? Explain to me how you plan on early rushing a player who is even remotely scouting, who has 1-2 archers in the furthest city. I am not saying go and make 40 cities quickly, all I am saying is, go ahead and make 3-6 quick cities and have an archer in them before anyone else can get to you and take that advantage to get the early tecs and rush to get pikes or something and move on from there. Problem solve, Rush neutralized. The point is your able to get out way more cities faster and ultimately that is what is so game breaking. If you have 3 cities and your opponent has 1 that’s equal to having 9 cities and your opponent having 3 or having 30 cities and your opponent having 10. There is plenty of Room to get that early 4-7 cities and all that matters is you have several more than your opponent. We are not saying go crazy, we are saying the easier expansion for less money is worth 10x more than was originally intended and those early cities make all other leader's traits not as valued.

Lets say your opponent gets a lucky city. WHO CARES, you are saving so much gold that they would need to get 1 lucky city for every 2 cities you build for it to mean anything and any logical player is going to build an archer in a city next to any city that just happen to be taken by a wondering Impi warrior.

Ive been playing the demo and the strategy has worked fine against every player so far. The problem with defending the Rome strategy is that you have to know the person is going to be using it. Sure, youll know if you play against MGT, but if its just some other person you could be wasting your resources on a rush if they have a counter attack. Furthermore, in the demo you can wait for a few turns for the Aztec to get Bronze Working so you can buy it and not waste your time researching it, letting you get to irrigation and everything else a lot faster.

There are tons of bottlenecks in this game so if you have a city by one you can build one or two archer armies to protect it and in case of the sea attack rushing archers is insanely cheap and also the half priced roads are paramount with the rushing of defensive units. The strategy might not always work, sure, but it is way too powerful to be considered on par with anything Ive heard so far. Thats the main problem that even MGT mentions, while not impossible to beat it is extremely difficult to beat against a capable person which makes the game that much more unbalanced.

[Magwill]

Ive been playing the demo and the strategy has worked fine against every player so far. The problem with defending the Rome strategy is that you have to know the person is going to be using it. Sure, youll know if you play against MGT, but if its just some other person you could be wasting your resources on a rush if they have a counter attack. Furthermore, in the demo you can wait for a few turns for the Aztec to get Bronze Working so you can buy it and not waste your time researching it, letting you get to irrigation and everything else a lot faster.

There are tons of bottlenecks in this game so if you have a city by one you can build one or two archer armies to protect it and in case of the sea attack rushing archers is insanely cheap and also the half priced roads are paramount with the rushing of defensive units. The strategy might not always work, sure, but it is way too powerful to be considered on par with anything Ive heard so far. Thats the main problem that even MGT mentions, while not impossible to beat it is extremely difficult to beat against a capable person which makes the game that much more unbalanced.

I'm not voicing myself on the full game, but as for the demo game I don't think Cleopatra is the best counter to Rome if you get what I mean. So it might not be strange that it works easily online when you know your enemy is Cleopatra.

[PhillyMike101]

I'm not voicing myself on the full game, but as for the demo game I don't think Cleopatra is the best counter to Rome if you get what I mean. So it might not be strange that it works easily online when you know your enemy is Cleopatra.

I definitely agree, which is why I like to tell people Im basing the impressions from the demo. As for the real game, I imagine the only real threats to the strategy are the military rushing civs, which arent many. If you see people using them you should know what to expect and then defend accordingly. But yes, Cleo isnt really pushing the limits.

[PrivateJohn]

First off, stop posting in 3rd person. You must be MrGameTheory himself otherwise how are you able post this with fully details as if you are MrGameTheory himself, unless you eat/sleep/play with him 24/7.

1. That's true because it's Rome advantage? For China however, the advantage come in the new city because of +1 population. So the best number of City China should have is 4. (or 5 if you really sure you are in a comfortable zone) With that in mind, China do not need Library until Industrial era and they still able to lead or at least catch up with other Civ in science.

2. That's a very bad assumption you made on Rome as if it's a definite scenario that Rome will reign supreme in tech while other Civ just sit and do nothing. I've play against Rome player in top 10 who took the path of megacity, our science research are mostly on par, until modern era which i lead in certain tech & vice versa.

3. By selling the tech to the AI, you are also opening a can of opportunity to the aggressive player who start off with weak science. Sometimes aggresive players doesn't need to rush you, instead all they need to do is swallow up at least 2 AI civ then their science will be up on par with you, or eventually exceed yours.

4. That's rome advantage, no doubt about it. Anyway Road sometimes...is a double edge sword. Due to the nature of Rome megacity strategy, his "feeder" cities will be very weak compare to the Palace. So what the other player need to do is just send some defensive troop to block the road while they slowly take over your "feeder". When he has control all or most of your "feeder", he can then plan for the next siege easier with the help of road linking to your main palace. During this timeframe, your Palace growth will be hampered badly as well because you need to readjust your offense/defense.

5. Archer is hardly the best defense when you are against Arabian or German. Especially the Arabian religion +1 attack, Archer will be slaughter and with the no.3 scenario above, catapult will be laying siege outside your palace sooner than you think. Arabian gets free mathematic.

6. Yes, it's a great advantage to the Rome. No argument.

7. Again, no argument.

8. Some of the race i do not have enough experience with but your assumption on Arab is flat out incorrect. First by using Arab, they need to be aggresive but that doesn't mean they need to be fighting against you. Instead they could easily destroy 1 AI civ at Ancient era, and another 1 or 2 in Medieval era. That alone almost guarantee a free catch up with the amount of extra city & free tech. As for China, their last three tech isn't worthless. If you follow my no.1 scenario, the 1/2 cost library is very important. Writing & literacy both are science tech which will grant China early access to tech advance because they doesn't need to research it. As for Cities not affected by Anarchy, it provide a flexibility to the China in late game. For instance when you believe you've research enough & feel like attacking, you can then switch to communism to mass produce your Red Army. Once you have enough army, you can then switch to fundamentalism +1 attack. After you've capture enough city & wish to stop, switch back to Democracy. Launching a nuke? no problem. All of these have no effect on China growth.

9. I am not sure what you meant by Rome can reach hut earlier than other civ. Zulu has +1 movement, China has +1 population which give them the advantage of rushing out unit in first 3 turn while still have the ability to grow its city or research. Russian has the local map which give them the advantage to rush unit earlier while not wandering around aimlessly with wasted turn. There are many more & i will leave it to other players who are pro with their respective Civ. Also, apparently you haven't play a good aggressive player thus you made an assumption based on that. Try mxzx3 or Crypt Rascal nl in the top 10 leaderboard, you will be amaze at how fast they are able to destroy other Civ because obviously you've never seen it.

10. It's true. Wright Brother invented aircraft and not many are able to mimic their success but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Point to note, i would rather sit on a 747 than say...the Wright brothers wingman.;) Pioneer may be first, but not necessary the best.

11. I believe what you are able to prove is...Rome strategy is the most popular & easiest to pull of. That may be true, just as any other game which always have the most famous strategy. However, that doesn't mean it's the best.

It's funny when you disregard others' comment as opinion while you yourself doesn't have much real world experience in full retail game or to say play with the top10 players much yet is consider....fact?

I am not here to preach my favourite Civ is unbeatable, i do lose a few games but from my level of experience...there isn't a best strategy that is able to counter everything because there are so many unknown factor till you encounter it. At the end of the day, it's all about the player using their Civ advantage to the fullest & remain flexible.

IMo, the biggest weakness of Rome is early harassment & culture influence which put Rome in the same shoe as China. Rome expanding city will be converted easily...

[PrivateJohn]

-deleted-

double post

[Grumbles69]

Its a good strat for sure, but there are better strats out there. Its up to individuals to define their own play style, but there will be 6 or so of the civs that get used the most often. Im happy for someone to use this strat against me, I have plenty of strats of my own. I feel people have heard of this strat and tried it and it works so they have stuck with it without experimenting other ways.

Multiplayer always has hiccups to begin with, and possibly the European soft release was to test the waters. Please make a judgment on this 1 week after US release, please give them the chance.

As for the other points, this is Civ Revolutions not any other civ its new and unique, and its a hell of a lot of fun. You seem to have a really good grasp of Rome. Good for you. but you lack a good grasp of the other races and how to play them, obviously using another civ with the same strat isn't going to work as well as it does with the Romans. Use different Strats for different Civs.

As for Game of the Week, please visit www.civgameoftheweek.com (http://www.civgameoftheweek.com) we record everyone who posts the same time on the same level, very few people have executed perfect strategy, and I look forward to seeing MGT in the top 10. Until the full game comes out in the US and we have had a couple of tournaments we will wait and see as to whether MGT's Rome Strategy is best.

[IllusionofGrandeur]

In response to Private John:

First off, MGT emailed me a list of things he wanted to say and I edited most of the rude and insulting things out to make it more digestible by the community, MGT may be the King of strategy, but he’s a condescending arrogant prick and doesn't have the social skills to talk to people/groups he believes are inferior to him without pissing them off.

1. China and Rome are pretty much equal in the beginning, but when you add in the -50% cost of roads, more great people. 50% production to wonders, a more expensive technology AI will pay more for, a chance to use cattle, more tecs are available to you by knowing Code of Laws, plus the fact that if China wan't to get Republic they will lose the other bonuses.

2. First off, saying you played someone who used the Mega City strategy means absolutely nothing. 0 <-----. Who is to say if this player you played was using it correctly? Can we have the name of this player? What we are saying using "Logical" facts is that due to the difficulty of getting higher population in cities its easier to have several cities with lower population working ocean tiles than 1 or a few big cities. Second off, who is talking about tec here? Maybe you can explain to me the "STRATEGY" you used instead of saying some general remark over and over again thinking that people actually give you credibility by writing a long sentence. Please use facts, explain to us who you used, explain to us what technologies you researched. "(Explain to us facts)" on how you beat this player. What you are explaining to us now we can't utilize unfortunately. This entire paragraph is invalid and you answered it with the same general type of language you attacked it for and claimed was a problem.

3. Please explain how a can of opportunity is being opened to an aggressive player? So you are depending on the huge variable of the AI on the map being next to you and you being able to conquer it without a problem? You are honestly claiming that killing AI's will keep you on par technology wise with a good player doing the Rome strategy? Im sorry but this is nonsense. First off you are depending on way too many variables, you are hoping your near the AI and you are hoping that you will be able to take it over without a problem. You are also leaving yourself up for a Shaka is the only way to bring down Rome argument which is definitely invalid when you are planning on not even attacking Rome, but attacking the AI and hoping Rome hasn't secured itself by the time you have taken over the AI. Sure you can buy some of the tecs from AI at a very high price if you play properly, but the point is that Rome still receives that huge advantage in the first place, plus the bonus gold and by the time a non Roman player gets Code of Laws through research or an AI the cost of the cities will be 60 gold+. Notice how I am giving figures from the actual game. Numbers, specific situations based on other things? That is what we expect you to do if you want us to respond to your posts. I am going to mark this paragraph as 90% invalid and will give minimal points for saying you can get stuff from AIs, even at a major disadvantage to you.

4. Why is the feeder city going to be weak? Explain to me why? Explain to me how your going to magical get in the middle of the civilization. Explain to me how your going to magical defend those troops from the troops the Rome player will purchase. Please "Explain," stop using these scenarios that are at step 10 before they get to step 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, the facts remain that you are throwing out these ideas with no evidence to back them up. Which units will you be putting where? Is there a technology you need to get those units, at what technology will the Rome player be out. These are all the things you need to explain or your posts are not going to have credibility. This entire paragraph is completely invalid and is nothing more than loose assumptions.

5. Explain to me how you will afford catapults? Explain to me what you will do when a Rome player attacks your catapults before you attack them? Explain to me how Germany or Arabs will take down an archer defending a city with ease? In your best case scenario its a 50% chance and that’s if the unit hasn't been defending the city. Lets say you take that first city, than what? You think you just magically take all the cities? It doesn't make any sense. No player is just going to let that happen and sit there dead and its not like we have said there are roads between cities. Can you please explain if archers are hardly the best defense what is better? Is there another unit out there that we haven’t heard of, is there some special technology that isn't released in the Demo or is magically removed when the full version is played in the USA? Can you explain any of this? I am going to make this thread 90% invalid and ill give you 10 points for explaining the Arabian 1+ for fundamentalism, but its obviously still neutralized by a legion/archer combination anyways and catapults’ are way too expansive and 1 catapults is practically equal to an entire city for Rome.

8. I feel that you lack experience in the game because you believe that taking over an AI will keep you on pace with a roman player. First off 2 warriors are equal to the cost of a settler for Rome. If you lose 2 warriors that’s already 1 city Rome now has, you than have to deal with getting units to the ai while Rome is expanding to the open land. You are dealing with destroying your own units and another player/AI units which is only a good thing for the Roman player. Any player, not just the Romans, wants their enemies to fight with each other and destroy themselves. Lets say you lose 0 units fighting an AI, the time wasted in its self already makes it not worth it and you have no control over the placement of the AIs cities so you could be taking over cities that have terrible locations. Than you factor in the other Bonuses that Rome has on top of the expansion and you easily have the Arabs being a terrible civilization. I am going to make this entire paragraph invalid.

9. Reading this paragraph makes me doubt that you know what your talking about in regards to lots of things. First off, zulu may have 1 movement point bonus, but if you had a race between a settler that was planting and building and a zulu warrior, the zulu warrior would be left in the dust and the Roman cities can buy a warrior right when it plants and attack the same turn, than buy another warrior if it likes the following turn and guarantee taking the hut incase the attacking unit the first time was damaged. China doesn't start the game with their bonus, so there is that entire gap of time where Rome is expanding and China is not, plus chinas traits are terrible. Sure china can set its population to production and build settlers faster, which is a very nice trait, but unfortunately by the time this is utilized its too late because Rome has expanded too much and has snowballed getting specific key technologies like literacy, navigation, irrigation, in fact Rome will most certainly get irrigation before China and make its cities equal to China. The fact that you said the Russians are good because they can see most of the map is just completely nonsense, there is a difference between seeing the map and having the units to take the tribal villages that you see. Most of the time you don't even need to see what is on the map, there is very narrow land for the most part and you just follow the path and reach every hut you would of seen with the Russians. The Russians remain a terrible civilization. I want nothing more than my opponent to take out another civilization because I am able to expand to the land of the lost civilization as well. I don't get why you think all of these conquered empires are soo good. I am going to make 90% of this paragraph invalid and give you 10% for naming 2 players that are supposedly good and giving the general strategies they used.

11. This is the most nonsense paragraph of everything you have said and definitely supports that you lack knowledge in what you are talking about. Do you have an idea how difficult this strategy is to pull off? You know how hard it is to micro manage 30 cities when your opponent ends the turn instantly and is attacking you? You have absolutely no idea what is required in order to properly pull off this strategy efficiently. You have to memorize all of the tecs and analyze the map all the way to even have time to micro manage and every single turn between 15 turns to 35 turns into the game it will end without everything being completed. There simply isn't enough time to play the turn all the way through with this Rome strategy. To say its the easiest to pull off just goes to show how little you know about this strategy and saying that makes me either think you haven’t read any of the threads on the strategy or you haven’t following them. On top of everything you did the exact thing we told people not to do, you said in a general way that the strategy is bad and you didn't give a better strategy to replace it. Posts like this are nonsense. I am giving you -10% for this nonsense of a paragraph.

The cultural influence is only a threat to people who don't understand the game, by even putting this in it shows that you don't know what your talking about. Ultimately none of your cities matter except for the 31 population city and if your cities happen to be in danger of being taken over all you do is recapture the city the same turn with a standing legion army, hopefully your opponent is dumb enough to waste gold on buying something in the city the turn they get it that way you easily kill it and take it back. The 31 population city will never be taken over and if you build a temple and a cathedral in the city you can do massive damage to all the people who don't know what they are doing in the game.

[IllusionofGrandeur]

In Response to Grumbles69:

Can you please list the better strategies out there and not waste our time with filler? Everything you are writing here is just line after line of no facts. Please read the thread before you post, we want only opinions backed with facts in here.

What do you mean lack a grasp of other leaders? Care to explain how you came up with this assumption. Saying the above has absolutely 0 value, I say 0 because you have made a claim with no support, your just talking and wasting everyone time. This is not a thread for this. We don't care about these things. Talk about the facts. All we want is the facts. Don't waste our time with things like this. Responses like this are probably the reason why MGT must have gone mad and left this website in the first place, there are too many people throwing in their 2 cents when there is already hundreds of dollars in the pot. "Show me the big bucks!!!!" Not the pennys!!!

[PhillyMike101]

Illusion: Check your PMs

And in response to everyone saying there are better/more dominant strategies vs Rome: Post them, maybe not each detail, but kind of like what MGT did originally. This way the people on the forums here will know how to take down Rome and it will cease to become the uber-strategy. Saying, "Just rush with x" isnt very helpful as it doesnt deal with tec leads and the variability with the map structure.

[Grumbles69]

I came up with the assumption based on your 4 page essay as to why Rome is best. I will not share my strategy with just anyone, but I have helped a few people from the community improve their game play. Ultimately MGT will get the full game and Ultimately I will play him, if you like you guys can be on a team and I will bring someone else on board too.

You will be Rome, I, will be someone else. First rule of strategy is don't tell everyone what your doing. You will see that I beat GOTW Deity in 2500BC that means it was over in 2600bc or 14 turns into the game, this is without choosing a civ. I understand the Rome strategy and the idiosyncrasies in the game that allow you to save turns, moving settlers etc. but this is NOT the best strat, its just your strat.

Your theory that no-one can beat the Rome strategy because I won't tell you how its done is ludicrous.

[PhillyMike101]

I came up with the assumption based on your 4 page essay as to why Rome is best. I will not share my strategy with just anyone, but I have helped a few people from the community improve their game play. Ultimately MGT will get the full game and Ultimately I will play him, if you like you guys can be on a team and I will bring someone else on board too.

You will be Rome, I, will be someone else. First rule of strategy is don't tell everyone what your doing. You will see that I beat GOTW Deity in 2500BC that means it was over in 2600bc or 14 turns into the game, this is without choosing a civ. I understand the Rome strategy and the idiosyncrasies in the game that allow you to save turns, moving settlers etc. but this is NOT the best strat, its just your strat.

Your theory that no-one can beat the Rome strategy because I won't tell you how its done is ludicrous.

Just curious: is there anyway you can download the demo then play him? It would save a few days and have no bearing on ranking, just playing. Ive seen your scores on GOTW and they are very impressive and Im interested to see a meet up between you guys sooner rather than later.

[IllusionofGrandeur]

In Response to Grumbles69:

First off the rules don't apply with what MGT is doing, his primary function for the moment isn't to go undefeated against people who don't have a clue what they are doing. The facts remain that there are several brilliant people out there when it comes to playing and micro managing, but they aren’t smart when it comes to developing or creating their own strategies.

MGT posts here for the same reason he did it for Civ 4, he is trying to create an intelligent multi-player community, faster, so that he can better challenge himself. There is a huge difference between you 2. You care about the win, even when it’s a waste of your time and against someone who might not be #1. MGT want's to win with all the odds stacked against him and only against the best players. You have any idea who MGT is? I feel absolutely no shame in pumping up his ego because the fact remains that he taught me and hundreds of others how to play and he knows what he is doing to such a ridiculous level that its madness not to give the guy credit. The guy has won 11v1 in Civilization 4, do you understand what that is? I mean really, its pretty much impossible. Hes won 4v4v1, 3v1, 100s of 2v1s etc. The guy goes into a free for all and declares war on everyone and tells everyone to do nothing but team up to kill him. MGT wants everyone to know his strategy and wants them to do everything in their power to beat him, thats what you people are not understanding. HE WANTS YOU TO KNOW WHAT HE IS DOING BECUASE HE WILL GET WAY MORE GLORY IN THE END FROM THAT. The guy started a clan called ..A.. when Civ 4 came out and he pretty much trained 75% of the best players to ever play the game and the other 24% were trained by the people he trained. He didn't play in an actual Civilization World Champion tournament until 1.5 years after the game came out and when he did he won the entire tournament, which requires 20 people to even get through because there are so many events, with me and 5 others which seemed impossible, but he had the right strategy and we did it.

He doesn't care about beating someone 1v1 or something, he goes for the ridiculous odd battles, he tries to accomplish the impossible. He tries to create impossible situations and try to survive them. He tries to teach us to do the same and it’s very difficult - impossible. So when you post what you just said, it goes to show how different you both really are. Odds are he will probably only agree to play you and your friend in a 2v1.

And don't even try to boost about GOTW accomplishments because that’s just silly. Sitting and analyzing the same scenario for an entire week and than trying to perfect 20 turns with no clock timer isn't exactly something to boast about. I mean you can even save and redo turns and your going to brag about accomplishments in a setting like that lol.

Once again, there is nothing that is unbeatable; any strategy can lose under the right circumstances. If a Rome player was stuck on an island while another civ wasn't odds are the Rome player would lose for sure. Plus it’s possible for a player to get lucky and attack 5 cities with 5 archers in them with a warrior each time and get lucky and win every time. Its a game of luck, probability, and statistics, that’s what makes it a strategy, playing something like GOTW is not even close to what Civ is on a strategic level and was simply a feature added for all the people who can't hang with the serious MP players or those who like to stroke their own ego by seeing their name on a top 10 list.

[Magwill]

You start in the ancient era so the chinese do get their bonus at the start anyway. But does anyone know the impact of losing your cities?

[PrivateJohn]

You keep trying to disregard my credibility when you have only play the demo and having debate on this in the forum using theory. That's abit...Duh?

1. First you don't need to pay for your first expansion. 100 gold comes with free settlers. Second, you speak as if Rome will grow into a 30population megacity before the end of ancient era, it's a long term strategy.

2. So i will just point the arrow back at you. Who to say the player you play against in *cough* demo is proper representative of that Civ? It means absolutely nothing. <-----0 The player name is JoeyF1985, no.7. Reason i don't name the names earlier because I do not wish to make an impression I am better than him. He is an equally good player, if not better than me. We've play with each other few times..sometimes i win, sometimes he wins.
As for China, it's not several city with lower population because China gets +1 population & free science tech so they do not need to research as much if they want to be science superior. China branch city is not Rome city when they constantly build up settlers. If you gona start saying that growth takes time, it's just the same as Rome when you need to keep taking hit at your palace population when you keep sending out settlers to expand early on, it's only fruitful in long term...not instant effect.

3. When you have the game, play some of the top Arabian players. I am not an expert in Arab but i have play them a few times & witness the swiftness of their attack. You are either close to AI...or pretty close to AI...or next to human player...or stuck in a 4 square island which pretty much spell doom to whichever Civ - including Rome. Again, you are making an assumption that for other Civ, they MUST use gold to rush Settlers or they must RUSH at 60 gold because the amount of production is so low that they can't build anything unless using gold. Have you thought of them building a settler right before the Code of Law research nearing complete? When the research is done, the settler is either completed OR require little gold to rush. For my case, early on my gold are usually spend on building OR units when i feel threaten. Don't forget, China has an early start of the game with their extra population...do not underestimate that.

4. For a Civ like Rome & China that doesn't have any advantage on defensive unit. Playing Arabian right could pose a very dangerous threat because of their superior offensive unit. What number you want? Arabian gets +1 attack, early offensive tech are easy to research, they get free mathematic, they can capture AI city easily with the +1 fundamentalism, if lucky enough the +50gold caravan could be save till Ancient era which is really easy then they can mass produce offensive unit? Their culture can get pretty strong too, combining that with the capture city....their Culture will definitely be ahead of China & Rome.

5. Er...are you saying when they attack they just gona send a bunch of catapult that's it? No other unit, no archer or anything. You are giving an impression that Rome will have EVERYTHING by medieval era as if all the production are spend on military stuff, not growing.
As for catapult production...depend on which Civ, it will be different? For Arabian, it's really easy when the tech is free & extra gold from caravan & captured city? Even for a veteran archer, it's still gona have hard time with Arab warrior, Legion & horsemen? +1 attack?
Like you said...
No player is just going to let that happen and sit there dead and its not like we have said there are roads between cities.
With constant harassment, you won't be sitting there so obviously you will have to switch your focus? Don't tell me you have 999 archer in every city.
So that can only be proven when people have play the real game instead of...you know, trying to prove whose theory is better?

8. ...and that one Rome city starting with a population of 2 will magically let you grow into a Rome empire. You speak as if time doesn't exist. You speak as if the opponent are dumb and keep rushing warrior only. You know, building settler at the start means -1 population to your main city while new city only start with er...2 population? Get it? Unless you have some kind of magic to make up some numbers...your growth won't be fruitful until later stage because it's not a short term effect, however for the Arabian...they could use the short term effect into good use and make it their advantage later on - aggression?

9. Can't the Zulu sacrifice few turns to rush 1 or 2 warrior? With the +1 movement, I am really curious how you can be faster than them with Rome. You are assuming in 3 turn, your Rome city would be an empire already. The one Civ that can plant, build & research AT the START of the game is Chinese with the 3 population while other civ only including your Rome only start with 2. Get your fact straight.
So tell me now, how is it not Zulu, or Chinese can't get huts earlier than Rome? I know...settler just magically appear for Rome and they get a stash of 9999 gold early on. As for Russian, it's just my early impression on using them because with the local map, you do not need to 'explore' the fog & wasting your turn because you already know where the huts & barbarians are. So you can either sacrifice 3 turn to rush a unit to get them first or take your time. 3 turn isn't gona build you your Rome empire.
I am going to make 90% of this paragraph invalid and give you 10% for naming 2 players that are supposedly good and giving the general strategies they used.
I LOL, now name 2 players that are supposedly good that you beat them using other Civilization. You just keep contradicting yourself.

11. Yup, just as any other Civ that doesn't require micro management or anything.:confused: There is always one or two most popular strategy for any strategy games. Pulling it off successfully doesn't mean you master it....so maybe you need to read between the line. eg. Halo is easy to play, you just point & shoot. Now, am I implying Halo does not require skill or merely the game is accessible?

The cultural influence is only a threat to people who don't understand the game, by even putting this in it shows that you don't know what your talking about. Ultimately none of your cities matter except for the 31 population city and if your cities happen to be in danger of being taken over all you do is recapture the city the same turn with a standing legion army, hopefully your opponent is dumb enough to waste gold on buying something in the city the turn they get it that way you easily kill it and take it back. The 31 population city will never be taken over and if you build a temple and a cathedral in the city you can do massive damage to all the people who don't know what they are doing in the game.
I am just gona ignore that because obviously you've never met any good player who put culture into good use at Ancient/Medieval era.
You keep going round & round as if you will have a 31pop city by default. As you grow, other Civ grow too...just that the method is different.
I am not unbeatable, you could beat me...or probably not. However i would love to play you when you have the full game AND i would like to see you playing against some of the top player namely mxzx3 & Crypt Rascal nl.

Now, you can continue preaching how awesome & unbeatable your strategy is.:o

[2K Elizabeth]

hey guys,

banned members are banned for a reason. creating multiple accounts after you are banned, or posting things for a banned member, is against the rules.

please don't do this. go to another forum where you aren't banned and talk, with or without a proxy.