Did the romans still use the testudo formation at this point ?
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Well, it is a ranked civ soon, so probably with the civ bonuses nerfed heavily 11.
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Fortunately or unfortunately 1.
I think the civ is ridiculous for water maps. It is just a free win. On land map they seem fine unless Centurion and Comitatenses are OP.
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Getting on the ranked ladder is necessary to know by how much it needs being buffed or nerfed, at which level of the game.
Yeah water bonuses need a revisit.
1 and 2 at the same time. There will be enough unranked matches to analyze to find out the problems.
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Unranked matches are 1- maybe not even recorded in stats and 2- it’s not guaranteed that both players are roughly at an even level.
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I’m confused by the name of their Imperial Age unique tech. “Comitatenses” seems to be an adjective meaning something like “pertaining to a comitatus”. So it’s like giving, say, Franks, a unique tech called “Knightly”.
I stand correct, after seeing their tech tree they seem less busted…
Really? How so? They seem to have terrible archers, which is fine, but everything else seems to be totally overbearing. Of course, it’s hard to tell just from pre-release builds, but it doesn’t look good.
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Well I still didn’t have the time to carefully analyze and compare every detail of the civ, but they don’t seem as broken as at first glance.
For example, yes they get infantry armor with double the effect, but lack plate armor, so in the end it’ll be a +4/4 instead of a +3/4, not that OP, and they seem on the same line of malians or malay bonuses in the end.
I like less the description of the civ in the new post… people really underestimate the strength of the late roman empire, it was still considered a super power for the time being…
I dunno, outside Militia, scorpions and Galleys the rest of the bonuses are very “residual”
Their archery is probably next to Spanish in how bad it is.
Unlike the Spanish, they don’t seem to have very strong stables, no hussar or paladins, their best is cavalier with charge
No siege onager or bombard cannon even if they get amazing scorpions
No arrowslits, hoardings, or heated shot means their defenses aren’t exactly optimal
Their +1 attack bonus in galleys is strong at the start, but it will fall behind other civs due to the lack of range without brace, which I assume the extra armor is also trying to counterbalance.
And their eco bonus is a 5%
So their legionaries+scorpions are probably pretty brutal, but seems they will lack any counter-response if that initial plan fails
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On another note, let’s have a more casual look at the new Roman Castle.
(It should be fine to share this image now. Hopefully. This is the best image I have of it.)
This Castle is very clearly based on a Roman fort at Hadrian’s Wall.
What do you think?
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If you mean the one in South Shields, yeah it looks like a dead-ringer.
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That is exactly correct. It’s practically one-to-one.
Got to say, seeing a high medieval swordsman with heater shield suddenly go early medieval is a little funny.
I think they can safely make it a separate line stemming from militia. The advantage is they require fewer upgrades and are strong in the early game, while the disadvantage is their ultimate form is weaker without centurion buffs.
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They are coming to ranked so maybe venice will come to complete italy.
Nah I don’t think so…
The best thing that I can hope for is for a redisign of the Italians, that can be called venetians, lombards or whatever and is a bit more historically accurate.
For how much I would like to see the civ in the game I’m the first to admit that there isn’t space for it. I keep redisign the civ mostly because I have fun while doing it, and because I hope that one day someone might make a mod out it.
But who knows… maybe in ten years and after 5 other DLCs we might see them 
Does anyone know why they get this bonus, from a historical/thematic point of view? To me it feels like the most flavourless eco bonus ever (despite its superficial similarity to the very flavourful Palmyran bonus). I don’t really get the naval bonuses either.
Minor nitpick: Arbeia (the fort in the picture) is not on Hadrian’s Wall. The Wall ends on the north side of the Tyne, at Segedunum/Wallsend, and Arbeia is a few miles east of that, on the south side of the Tyne (but actually slightly further north than Segedunum).
Personally, this is one of the things I like about the civ design (which I grant isn’t much - the two things I like more are the Dromon and the Legionary as a militia-line upgrade). The other aspects I find derivative or just clearly overpowered. As far as historical/thematic justification, I think the building/repair aspect is a nod to their prolific construction and building/road maintenance within the empire. Unfortunately that’s also the least impactful part of of the bonus, as a 5% boost to building/repair is negligible, whereas for farming, mining, etc, it’s a half-decent bonus. But the much higher Spanish building rate is already taken. And I’ll propose that the generalized eco aspect of the bonus could simply be interpreted as one way of representing the wealth and (relatively efficient) administration of the empire and its superior ability to acquire and transport a variety of goods from its provinces, especially compared to some Medieval civs with lesser reach and organization, but with more specialization in terms of specific resources (e.g. Britons’ sheep or Japanese fish bonuses). The Roman bonus could be more interesting, but to me it’s more interesting than the Slavs’ farm bonus, and I like the idea of a modest but generalized strength; In effect it will be kind of similar to the Aztec carry bonus. And having looked through a ton of civ designs (and made a few), this was an obvious choice for an eco bonus on a new civ (as the Slav bonus would be if it didn’t exist already), even if it was kind of a tame choice.
If you want my frank opinion though, I suspect that the civ was intentionally designed with less rigor and creativity than a “standard” civ, as during the period of design it was meant as an extra that wouldn’t be available in ranked. Hence (as I suppose) they felt more free to overlap with existing civ bonuses/UTs and make some aspects obviously overpowered, although the Gurjaras/Hindustanis design on release is a counterpoint to that possibility.
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