Can somone please explaint MGTs Roman strategy?

[BroKenWaRRioR]

I have been reading his posts for a while but I don't completely understand his strategy. He said he was able to achieve economic victory in the demo(BC even i think) and I don't understand how he did it. I understand you have to get your population to 31 but I don't understand how he could do it so fast, hanging gardens or not. There are so many intelligent players here so asking something like this is difficult. Sorry for the moronic question and thanks to anyone who is willing to deal with my nobishness-_-.

What I did up to this point is built 5 or so cities and made settlers in each except rome and sent them to rome, I was eventually able to get 31 with the gardens but by that time it was too late. And also, most of the time egyptians have the gardens so I can't even get to 20 population.

Thanks tp anyone willing to explain this.

[BroKenWaRRioR]

I have tried many, many times but to no avail.

[MorteEterna]

Win before the year 0 is impossible, it is cheating or joking, or maybe wanting to be very famous (ask yourself how there are now a lot of threads about this impossible strategy that can't work). In the demo is very difficult, you have to settle more than 5 cities maybe but it can't work, you have to kill someone fast, but i think that in the year 1250 you can't do that. So now stop asking how is it possible or how to beat it. It is a difficult strategy that is very easy to beat. Only don't look for this strategy but create your one

[xbman22x]

the strategy is you play as rome. as you know, rome starts out with code of laws which give them republic govt. this allows you to create a settler for one population unit. what you start doing is creating a crapload of settlers. these settlers make small cities near the capital. you keep your civ. multiplying until you have about 10 tiny cities near your capital.(with a few archers mixed in for some defense, but it is still not much). now, continue creating settlers but instead of moving them to create new cities, move them all to rome and add that to the population. if you do the math, 10 cities producing 1 settler every 10 turns, it will take 30 turns to make your city 31 population (after you have all of your settler pump cities set up). once the cap. is 31 make all support cities pump nothing but defense units and allocate as nessecary.

while you are doing this, make your capital do science, but specialize in economic tech. once you have discovered bank, stop and switch to gold. you will realize that once you have a pop. over 20 that many of your workers will be forced to work in the city itself. this is good. the more workers in the city the better. this is true because once you have a certain # of workers working in the city, you get both trade and production. using this method, build key buildings while doing science. the only structures you really need are market, bank, and trade fair of troyes. if you get a great person that will increase gold production by 50%, settle him. now, if you do this you should be able to produce 1500 gold per turn by year 800 ad. if you do this correctly. do the math and 14 turns later you have 20000 gold and can build the world bank. make sure to save a great builder for this moment but even if you dont it is isnt too long with your mega-city. after

if the opponent doesnt catch you doing this early you can become almost unstoppable later in the game. the only bad part of it is that you are VERY vulnerable near the beginning of the game to domination fanatics.

dont listen to monte eterna. this is by far the best strat so far and Mr. game theory is a civilization god.

[BroKenWaRRioR]

Thanks for the reply. One thing though

I don't have enough room to put 10 cities in, most good territory is taken up by 5-7 cities for me. Otherwise it's either almost all science/gold, all production etc. Which ones are acceptable that have mostly same thing?Anyway you don't even have to answer if you don't want to you helped me a great deal. Thanks a lot for the long explanations, it's nice to know there are people that are passionate about the game and are willing to help fellow gamers.

Thanks.

[xbman22x]

thats the great thing about the strat. the tiny settler pumping cities dont need any thing near by except for 1 food and 1 production. this is true because when you are pumping settlers it will keep your tiny cities' pop. around 2 or 3 so you wont have that many workers to use anyway.

you can still use the strat with less cities. it will just take a bit longer. 5 cities creating 1 settler every 10 turns means 60 turns once you have your tiny cities set up.but this is some what offset by the fact that it doesnt take as long to set up only 5 cities. sometimes this is a better option if your opponent likes to attack you because less cities is easier to defend.

[BroKenWaRRioR]

Thanks a lot. Now I will play demo for about the 50th time and use this great strategy!

[MorteEterna]

Thanks a lot. Now I will play demo for about the 50th time and use this great strategy!

I don't know why all still continue to talking about this strategy. I give you a tip now, think about how could it work:

You make a lot of settlers, you need at least 5 turns for a new settler and it could be impossible, your medium production will be 3 (2 is starting production), so it means 7 turns. In rome you have 2 forests so you need 5 turns, you start to settle and you now have to grow. In 10 turn you will be rome having 2 pop. and the new city create maybe a new settler, so you have 2-1-2. Now you start researching for a bit (it's an example, but only to make you KNOW that this strategy isn't big as you think) to take the bronze working, about the turn 15 you start building archers and in the turn 20 you have 1 archer each city. Now one come to you with a warrior army and.. What could you do? And now a new answer, if arabians come to you, what should do only archers? A veteran army of warrior has at least 9 attack and 4,5 defence, so.. So this strategy isn't so good, think a bit, it's impossible, you CAN'T build units while you settle so if you build some troops while you settle means you will die very easy.

I have tried this strategy, it isn't good because it is very hard to build settlers, have good positions, build archers, and research technologies

[Dire Wombat]

MorteEterna, you're right that using a Roman Megacity Strategy from the first turn, pumping settlers immediately to try to win before year 0 is very vulnerable to an early rush, especially from Saladin, and thus depends on having a poor opponent (inexperienced human player or weak AI)... and even then, I believe you'd need a large handicap to pull it off. So you're right that that strategy is not very good.

A modified version that allows for decent early defense is another matter entirely, though. That wouldn't be winning games quite so quickly, but a Roman player can afford to start slow to focus on early defense, since once the settler pump gets rolling it can produce a win very, very quickly. That's the strategy that people are saying is broken, and it's no more vulnerable to an early rush than any other. The only question is whether it's possible to maintain up-to-date defenses while still running the settler pump at a respectable speed long enough to build the mega-city and start crushing one's opponent economically. Very few people have experimented with it long enough to get that balance right, but I certainly expect it to be possible (and, unless MGT and some others are actually flat-out lying about having used this in multiplayer/on deity/etc., then it's already been more or less perfected).

We'll see soon enough, once everyone has the full game and some time to hammer away at the multiplayer, but I wouldn't be so quick to write off the whole issue just because it fails against an early rush if the Roman player starts focusing on settlers too soon.

[MorteEterna]

MorteEterna, you're right that using a Roman Megacity Strategy from the first turn, pumping settlers immediately to try to win before year 0 is very vulnerable to an early rush, especially from Saladin, and thus depends on having a poor opponent (inexperienced human player or weak AI)... and even then, I believe you'd need a large handicap to pull it off. So you're right that that strategy is not very good.

A modified version that allows for decent early defense is another matter entirely, though. That wouldn't be winning games quite so quickly, but a Roman player can afford to start slow to focus on early defense, since once the settler pump gets rolling it can produce a win very, very quickly. That's the strategy that people are saying is broken, and it's no more vulnerable to an early rush than any other. The only question is whether it's possible to maintain up-to-date defenses while still running the settler pump at a respectable speed long enough to build the mega-city and start crushing one's opponent economically. Very few people have experimented with it long enough to get that balance right, but I certainly expect it to be possible (and, unless MGT and some others are actually flat-out lying about having used this in multiplayer/on deity/etc., then it's already been more or less perfected).

We'll see soon enough, once everyone has the full game and some time to hammer away at the multiplayer, but I wouldn't be so quick to write off the whole issue just because it fails against an early rush if the Roman player starts focusing on settlers too soon.

But it's the same, you can have archers, but if Saladin attacks you using horsemen, what are archers? Pikemen are too far and it's not the same strategy. If you build defences you can't build settlers, and when your enemy attacks you while you are expanding you can't kill him, if he uses 1-2 spies and he uses horsemen your cities will fall. I want to make you understand that this strategy has a lot of problems because you are a standard civ if you defend with yours 3-4 cities when your enemy attacks you. I tried vs who was using this strategy and i killed him very easy

[PhillyMike101]

But it's the same, you can have archers, but if Saladin attacks you using horsemen, what are archers? Pikemen are too far and it's not the same strategy. If you build defences you can't build settlers, and when your enemy attacks you while you are expanding you can't kill him, if he uses 1-2 spies and he uses horsemen your cities will fall. I want to make you understand that this strategy has a lot of problems because you are a standard civ if you defend with yours 3-4 cities when your enemy attacks you. I tried vs who was using this strategy and i killed him very easy

Saying youve beaten somebody who was using that strategy means very, very little. If you can understand a football analogy: the Patriots pass, and they pass often. Its a great strategy and they win games. To say 'The pass strategy is very weak because I beat the Dolphins who were passing' is ignorant. Your strategy assumes that the Rome cities cannot rush their units, which at a certain point they can. If they have a fortified archer army with a free spy from Writing, and maybe a legion army they can attack your horsemen first. There are alterations that need to be made for the Rome strategy, as there is for any strategy, which makes it a little slower but helps against a rushing player like yourself. I know you want this strategy to be considered worthless while yours is praised, because you probably love people thinking youre the best ever, but in the hands of a competent, careful Rome expander, it is a very powerful strategy and not something that you can just write off.

[Leo]

he is ranked second on the H2H ladder though phillymike, it is safe to assume he has played (and therefore beaten) competent, or even good players who use this strategy.

[PhillyMike101]

he is ranked second on the H2H ladder though phillymike, it is safe to assume he has played (and therefore beaten) competent, or even good players who use this strategy.

In the only example he has given he beat someone who only had 1 city while he had 10. Does that sound competent?

[Dire Wombat]

Archers defending a city beat Arabian horsemen unless you use spies first (which you can do, but that's more research/time/money, and even then the horsemen aren't a whole lot stronger until the Industrial era, which is a long ways off if you're trying to rush).

Horsemen also cost twice as much as archers, and the Arabian player needs to build defenders of his/her own, unless they want to risk someone else rushing them. You can say that one can't build settlers and defenses at the same time, but I could just as easily say that you can't build horsemen, spies, and defenses at the same time, and without defenses Saladin would just be committing suicide and taking Caesar down with him, at best.

I believe you that you easily defeated someone who was trying to do a Roman settler-pumping strategy... but that only proves anything about the strategy in general if they were very good at it, right?

There's been a lot of talk on the forums over the past month; some people say Rome is unbeatable if played "correctly", others say it's easy to counter. I'm inclined to agree with the former camp, since I haven't heard any counterarguments that have really convinced me. I could be wrong, of course; for now, as far as most of us are concerned, it's all talk so far.

The only real evidence will be when the fine-tuned Roman strategy (the one MGT, for instance, was talking about) becomes sufficiently widely-adopted that the community at large can evaluate it (and any counters) for themselves.

[PhillyMike101]

Archers defending a city beat Arabian horsemen unless you use spies first (which you can do, but that's more research/time/money, and even then the horsemen aren't a whole lot stronger until the Industrial era, which is a long ways off if you're trying to rush).

The problem with his strategy is that he automatically assumes he can easily get his armies up to Ninja elites (which isnt always an option) with a great general on top of a hill. He doesnt always account for a narrow point in the map held down by fortified veteran archer armies in forests or across a river.

[Leo]

well i dont know about his example, but hes played over 60 games, and there are at least 2 guys in the top 10 who play rome mega city, if not more (i only know about the ones i have personally played). he must have played against it a number of times, i certainly have and i dont have half as many ranked games played.

and the rome mega city strat is in my opinion very easy to execute, that is one of it's strengths, it works to varying degrees in a variety of settings (less susceptible to map screws), however it is also very predictable. the information about it has been around since before the european launch (i read about it before i had my copy in the UK) so i dont think it is valid to say that it hasnt been played properly yet and people havnt faced a competent rome mega city player yet. i personally feel i play this strategy pretty well myself, but i tend not to because sending settlers to your main city for 30 minutes is extremely dull and i enjoy variety (nevertheless i do play this strat from time to time).

it seems to be a wierd feature that people will say 'i dont think the rome strat is unstoppable' while simultaneously shooting down anything anyone says that suggests they can beat it (implying perhaps that they DO think it is unstoppable).

its a very powerful strategy no doubt, but it can be beaten (well if rome starts on a big island with room for 5 expansions, and your on the other side of the map, your going to lose, but thats just how this game goes), it just requires stategy and general play that is harder to execute, to defeat it, than it does to play the mega city strategy itself. i dont use quite as aggressive a strat as morteeterna does when i match up against rome, i have no faith in the outcome of battles, ive seen to many battles go the way of the statistically weaker unit to want to risk too much early on. however i am quite happy to camp out on his land and stop him sending settlers to his main city, sit on his production squares (which have the nice bonus of improving my units defence) and just generally make a nuisance of myself. he will be making military to get rid of me instead of settlers and buildings, and he will likely be spending more, because he is going to need a decent army to be sure of taking out defend and fortified units. its all slowing him down, preventing him from utilising his advantage.

there is a period in the mega city strat, a period of 'lag' if you like, where he is setting out his expansions, all his cities are low pop, he hasnt started sending settlers back yet, has little research, little production etc. the power of his strat hasnt kicked in yet, with this strat you have to initially make yourself weak before you can make yourself strong. this is the point at which you ideally want to start 'choking' his economy, hit him at this 'lag point' before he starts to get the settlers going, he is very very weak at this early stage and if you can get to him then you have a very good chance of permanently shutting down his strat.
he doesnt have the production to make lots of archers, he doesnt have the research to be ahead of you in tech just yet, he probably doesnt have the gold to rush out lots of units (and if he did he probably spent that gold rushing out settlers).

so you just close down his production by sitting on his squares, get an army together, legions or horses (something that will definetly beat a 'single archer'), and start 'testing' his expansions. the first place he will fortify is his main city (almost certainly rome), test the expansions, if he has an archer army and you cant beat it, retreat from the fight (dont lose your units) and move on to the next expansion, its impossible for him to have archer armies in all of them, and taking just one or two will really slow him down a lot. giving you a chance to actually get ahead of him economically, then you can choose what you want to do with that (probably more military to make sure he never gets out of his predicament).

[MorteEterna]

In the only example he has given he beat someone who only had 1 city while he had 10. Does that sound competent?

It wasn't an example of Rome mega cities.

-----

Archers defending a city beat Arabian horsemen unless you use spies first (which you can do, but that's more research/time/money, and even then the horsemen aren't a whole lot stronger until the Industrial era, which is a long ways off if you're trying to rush).

Horsemen also cost twice as much as archers, and the Arabian player needs to build defenders of his/her own, unless they want to risk someone else rushing them. You can say that one can't build settlers and defenses at the same time, but I could just as easily say that you can't build horsemen, spies, and defenses at the same time, and without defenses Saladin would just be committing suicide and taking Caesar down with him, at best.

I believe you that you easily defeated someone who was trying to do a Roman settler-pumping strategy... but that only proves anything about the strategy in general if they were very good at it, right?

There's been a lot of talk on the forums over the past month; some people say Rome is unbeatable if played "correctly", others say it's easy to counter. I'm inclined to agree with the former camp, since I haven't heard any counterarguments that have really convinced me. I could be wrong, of course; for now, as far as most of us are concerned, it's all talk so far.

The only real evidence will be when the fine-tuned Roman strategy (the one MGT, for instance, was talking about) becomes sufficiently widely-adopted that the community at large can evaluate it (and any counters) for themselves.

Archers have a maximum of 18 of defence. Well, in a new city they have 3:6. Fortification five them +6 so they are 12. If i attack using horsemen (veteran, i'm not so noob to attack one without make it sure) i have at least 13,5, and when i rush using horsemen nobodies has beaten me using archers. Only one city is the capital, and now don't say "I build the walls" because you have to have about 300-400 to rush walls. If i attack he loses, stop. And he needs a lot of time to build an army of archers each cities. I have a lot of experience and i know how to beat one that is using this strategy. And we didn't remember the culture, if i take one city having an army of archers i can defend my horsemen and continue. I sometimes take Ninja Horsemen and sometimes i attack from hills, and if i have ninja + hill there aren't troops in the ancient era that can kill them. Now don't say "You need a lot of time to have ninja etc.." And i answer no, because you kill about 2 barbarians and when you take a city they become veterans, so when they are veteran they become quite unbeatable. And i repeat, i have my experience of a lot of games, i know what i am talking about, if i say that i'm sure at 99%.
And remember that i have very fast cats in the medieval era and if they become veterans, it's a problem, too.

[xbman22x]

morte eterna... the problem with your strat is that there are to many IFs.
you assume that you wont start out on an island. you assume that you will be able to some how build spys and horseman all while keeping your civ defended. you assume that you will not have to go through another civ to get to rome. you assume that you will already know where rome is. you assume that there will not be 2 romes both using the rome strat. what will you do then. the rome strat is so good because it is incredably flexable. if you decide to take your 10 support cities and produce archers then you can get 10 archers to 1 city in 3 turns if you have roads. point is that with any luck, on the part of rome, you will not be able to find them in time to stop them from setting up the support cities. even if you find them shortly there after they have so much power that in 15 turns you could be facing 50 archers.

[PrivateJohn]

I used to be Top 2, and Morte does indeed beat me. I am not making up any excuse other than I need improvement.
I will explain abit on behalf of him.

you assume that you wont start out on an island.

Anyone who start out in a small island is 99% lost cause, with the 1% of hoping you match up with a newbie.

you assume that you will be able to some how build spys and horseman all while keeping your civ defended.

The best defense is the best offense, so the AI wouldn't have time to attack him. The Rome player isn't playing rush either...right? That's how he defend and make no mistake, that doesn't mean his base wouldn't have any Archer. I've tried taking it myself with my horsemen but to no avail.
His major resource isn't spend on researching, unlike the Rome or my Chinese. He will catch up in tech once he wipe out 2 AI from the map which doesn't take long. I once tried to sell my tech as cheap as 5 gold to the AI to keep them strong, still my effort are wasted and only contribute my tech to Morte indirectly.

you assume that you will already know where rome is

That doesn't matter, he will find out sooner or later. If Rome is next to him, tough luck because it will be quite a tough game. If not, he just need to keep killing off the AI. Right around Ancient era he should at least have 1 AI already, another one in Medieval age. Eventually he will get to the Rome and by that time he will have Horsemen and possible Ninja horsemen. By taking over the AI palace, his culture expansion is incredibly fast. Faster than you expected, next thing you know he is flipping your city and that's just medieval age.

Why i need to keep emphasizing this because i truly believe his Arabian strat is a threat to player like me or Rome players which the biggest weakness is not merely military aggresion early on, but cultural invasion too. With the combination of these two, you need to take care of your defense & your culture VERY early in the game. I once tried building temple in my new expansion with gold, still he is able to flip it.

[eireksten]

We should start complaining about the darn unbeatable arab strat

[PrivateJohn]

By no means its not unbeatable, but just might be the best strat to use against Rome & China...IMO.

[eireksten]

I understood that, it was kind of a joke. Bad one, yes, but it was the best I could do...

[PrivateJohn]

lol, good try.

[Miz isHere]

The Rome strategy is good.(if your playing someone who doesnt understand the gamefully yet....)
YES you can get economic victory very fact/and tech
I Hear people saying mr game theory is a god (acts asif he was the first one to think of the rome strategy lol)

All I can say is good luck using that crap vs me.
Its total noob crap!!!! so easy to counter its a joke!

[MorteEterna]

Private, the culture invasion make that strategy very very good but you don't need it, because i have won also when i haven't had a great artist. Sometimes i take the great humanitarian and i wait to have about 6-7 cities so i take irrigation if i can + great humanitarian and it's +2 for each city that means about at least +15 research more. I remember in a head to head vs a top 15 i had about 20 research for turn very fast in the game while i was expanding/attacking or building troops.

I think this strategy isn't the best but yes, it is the best counter vs Roma mega city strategy, but it's too hard to play. In civ4 the best civ for me was Mongolians as Genghis Khan but in this new game i think Saladin is going to be the first. But in civ4 it was very hard to play it, here for Saladin, too.
I tried again a match vs the same top15 and he used china and i have only conquered 1 civ. He was using china, what did he do? I had no units in all my cities but my capital that had about 1-2 archers i remember, only 1 archer have killed some barbarians, and a galley was going to try to kill him, with 2 army of warriors. What have i done? Sold my archer (after he killed barbarians), rush an archer on my capital, moved an archer from a city to my capital and i built an army, so i rushed another archer. He tried to move his warriors next to my capital but he hasn't attacked me. In a while i took a great artist and i waited about 6-7 turns when i known his second city, so now i flip that, i move my warriors there, and now next to his capital. I built an army of archers rushing them and i attacked with warriors and archers, and he had only archers without staying in one army.

And it was China, remember it, if it was Rome there will be cities that have pop. of about 1 and no defences, or a few to defend from veteran warriors or their best enemy in ancient era, horsemen

PS: have you tried to use vs me the strategy of rome?

[PrivateJohn]

lol i have not really play Rome online because it's getting too popular

Anyway do hope to play you again once i've research enough on other Civ...or maybe rematch with my China. Still trying to figure a way to counter the great artist flip. (btw, i don't think Arab can get Irrigation before Chinese because Chinese can get to the tech pretty fast and all they need is 2 city, thanks to the +1 population. However, by rushing to irrigation means forgetting Cermonial Burial...no temple )

[MorteEterna]

lol i have not really play Rome online because it's getting too popular

Anyway do hope to play you again once i've research enough on other Civ...or maybe rematch with my China. Still trying to figure a way to counter the great artist flip. (btw, i don't think Arab can get Irrigation before Chinese because Chinese can get to the tech pretty fast and all they need is 2 city, thanks to the +1 population. However, by rushing to irrigation means forgetting Cermonial Burial...no temple )

If i take one of your cities it has at least 1 for culture and it can't be flipped fast, and if i build a temple fast there you can't continue. However i don't need irrigation, only it is a great bonus

[Feech Lamanna]

the thing about mgt strat is that it does not work in single player, the only way he does what he does is because of the handicap setting, so he gets things cheaper, ect ect, it is impossible to get a victory that fast in singleplayer

[Colt B]

I checked out the forums about a week ago and read up on MGT's strategy. Ive used it in the demo (a couple times single and once multi) and im not sure it can be beaten if you wait a bit to apply it and get a little lucky with a chokepoint on your part of the map. You can line up a defense wit some archers and horsmen at the chokepoint and it should stand up against pretty much anything, i held off the zulus and another players army np.

[2K Elizabeth]

hey guys,

i'm doing a clean up on the forums lately, and there's a thread about this rome mega city strategy in the strategy forum. i'm shutting this down as it's a dupe, and recommend you all go there!

thanks.