IDEAS for a potential Roman civ

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
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Hello everyone. Before I begin, please let this be clear: This topic IS NOT ABOUT WHETHER ROMANS SHOULD GET ADDED OR NOT, AND/OR WOULD OVERLAP WITH GREEKS OR ATLANTEANS. The purpose of this thread is only to discuss ideas for a potential Roman civ in order to make it as unique and interesting as possible. Now that it is clear, I’ll begin! :smiley:

I’ve already shared some interesting ideas on another thread, mainly with Skadidesu (sorry, I don’t know how to tag people) and it has become clear this needed its own thread, so here it is. I’ll share parts of an unfinished concept I made some time ago, with some explanation regarding why I made it this way. You’ll notice I do not indicate any numbers, stats or costs, as to not make anything OP. We can discuss about it.

Overall description of the civ: The Romans start with a relatively weak military in early game, which they need to compensate with auxiliaries, stronger and more expensive versions of existing units (basically aoe3 mercenaries). Auxiliaries cannot be upgraded and therefore become less effective in later ages. Romans have a great map control ability and should use it in order to max their potential in heroic age. They eventually decline in mythic age due to very expensive military. Favor is gained by assimilating gods (I’ll come back to this later. Finally, their heroes are the evocati (kind of like the hersir, but stronger and harder to obtain).

MILITARY

War camp

  • Pedes (infantry, strong against cavalry. Cannot be upgraded past medium. Benefits from promotions, like some units in aoe3. Hastati => Principes => Triarii. Each evolution has more hitpoints and/or attack. The triarii can be upgraded to evocatus (hero))

  • Veles (trash INFANTRY who inflicts PIERCE damage at short range to counter infantry. Also a small bonus against cavalry. Cannot be upgraded past medium.)

  • Eques (cavalry, strong against archers)

Auxiliary camp (trains stronger but more expensive versions of existing units)

  • Funditor / Balearic slinger (slinger)

  • Sagittarius / Cretian archer (toxote, should be mixed with the velites to compensate for the latter’s weak attack)

  • Clibanarius / Parthian cavalry (cataphract)

  • Dromedarius (camelry)

  • Maurorum / Numidian cavalry (cavalry archer, though it would throw javelins like the tuma)

  • And so on…

I gave them latin names as I think it’s more interesting than the “Nationality + type” format. I could have added many more but you get the idea.

Castrum

  • Legionary (Available in mythical age. Infantry, strong against cavalry. Tanky and good overall stats, but expensive. Just like the triarii, the legionary can be upgraded to evocatus. Players should train legionaries instead of pedites upon reaching mythical)

  • Scorpion (siege weapon, good against infantry)

  • Battering ram (siege weapon, strong against buildings)

That’s all for their human units / siege weapons. Let me know what you think. I’ve tried my best to give them a large and varied roster while keeping the military asymmetry with other civs as much as possible.

GODS

Major gods

  • Mars (God of war)

Pomerium (GP): Slowly generates a settlement on the targeted area. Cannot be casted near another settlement, trees or mountains. (Visually, this could be represented by a bull and a cow circling a small area with a scratch plough. killing them would prevent the settlement from appearing, therefore they must be protected!).
Bonus: Pedites (pedes) and velites (veles) can be upgraded to heavy and champion and train faster.
Tech: Infantry deals more hack damage.

  • Jupiter (God of sky and thunder)

GP: Target a forum to give its statue a lightning attack. (replaces the forum’s arrow attack)
Bonus: Each forum has an eagle hovering over it for more LOS. Pedites can be upgraded to evocatus at the principes rank. Evocatus regenerate.
Tech: Allows legionaries to build walls, towers and castrums.

  • Quirinus (Deified Romulus)

GP: Plebeians (villagers) momentarily train faster. (Can be used later in the game when you have more forums)
Bonus: Plow already researched. Economic buildings are built faster.
Celeres (tech): Equites (eques) have more more hitpoints and gain bonus damage against myth units.

To recap: Mars is focused on infantry and can keep training pedites and velites in later ages for a more cost effective army. Jupiter has more resilient and accessible evocatus and can control the map more aggressively. Quirinus has the best early economy.

As I’ve mentionned earlier, I did not write any numbers, stats or costs, as to not make anything OP. But again, feel free to give your opinion.

Minor gods

There are many potential candidates , so I’ll only list some of them: Janus, Neptune, Pluto, Faunus, Minerva, Juno, Diana, Vulcan, Saturne, Uranus, etc…

Assimilated gods

This would be a unique roman mechanic. At first, I thought this could be an alternate age-up option depending on your enemies major god. The thing is, this could make the game too hard to balance. On another thread, Skadidesu proposed it could be like the aoe3 asian consulate. This way, you could choose another god who would provide unique bonuses and maybe access to other myth units. If you decide to choose another god, you’ll lose his bonuses. Of course, some of these gods could overlap with age-up minor gods.

Potential candidates and bonuses:

  • Isis: She could protect your temples from god powers.

  • Serapis: Originaly a Graeco-egyptian god, with caracteristics of the gods Hades, Osiris and Apis, he was later adopted all over the Roman empire. He could give access to shades of Hades, maybe.

  • Hercules: Just like his greek equivalent, he was worshipped as a god after his death. He could give access to nemean lions or hydras. Also, depending on the current age, he could be trainable as a hero (just like the greek one). In archaic, he’d be as weak as Theseus, for example. In classical, he’d use a bow. In heroic, he would be a clone of the greek Heracles. In mythical, he would be more tanky and have a one shot kill ability like Polyphemus.

I could write more but I’m getting tired now. XD

I think this god assimilating mechanic should be how Romans obtain favor. That would make sense, since they practiced the evocatio, a religious ritual which consists of inviting their enemy’s gods to Rome.

That’s all for now. I’ll come back later with myth units ideas. Feel free to comment and share your own ideas.

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@BaphometSLM you can tag people by using the @ symbol!

Back to the topic:

Cut of techtrees are not a think in AoM so far and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to add them.

Cutting them of after Medium would be very early because it would force you to change units in every single Age for the Romans. That’s a little extreme.

What if the Medium/Heavy/Champion upgrades of Romans where just worse then the ones of the other civs instead of being cut off?

Normal Upgrades:

  • +10/15/20% HP
  • +10/10/10% attack
  • +1/1/1 Line of Sight

Roman Upgrades:

  • +10/10/10% HP
  • +10/10/10% attack
  • +1/1/1 Line of Sight

Means that they will have -15% HP in the Mythic Age.
Not extremely bad but certainly a disadvantage.
To make up for that the techs should be a little cheaper.
Also Romans get a unique 3rd tech for faster training in Classical Age.

I think Romans should have a different Hero system. This feels to much like a worse version of the Athlantean system.

Those 2 mechanics should be the same.
You choose a foreign god and then get access to human and mythological units.
On top you get a technology and a passive bonus.
The technology stays active when you change gods but the bonus is lost.

Also I think all of the gods and units you can access should already be in the game.
So you choose existing major gods and get existing human and myth units.
So practically the same as the Consulate in AoE3.

This feature would become available with 2 gods in the Heroic Age.
In the Mythic Age you get a 3rd god to choose from so it can have some bonuses that only make sense in the Mythic Age.

The available gods are different for each Major god but there are overlaps like for the Minor gods.

General Ideas

  • Roman Infantry build military buildings and defences, villagers (Plebeians) build economic buildings
  • Velites are trainable in the Town Centre and the player stats with one Veles as a scout
  • Centurion (Infantry) available in Heroic Age a the Castellum. Buffs nearby Infantry and has bonus damage vs. Myth unit (not a hero!)
  • Legionaries have a charged ranged attack that does bonus damage vs. Infantry. They don’t do bonus damage vs. Cavalry in melee and just have good stats like most melee infantry.

Favour and Heroes

This is the more complicated part.
I thought about good methods that don’t come down to introducing a new building that just trickles favour.
The Athlantean method would make the most sense since they where originally Romans and got changed later.

Vestals were very important in Roman religion and should be represented as a unit in AoMR. Not sure what their purpose should be. They shouldn’t just be the Roman version of the Priest.
The number of Vestals can be upgraded through the ages.
Vesta could also be one of the Roman Major gods. Maybe replacing Jupiter to have less overlap with the Greek Major gods.
Vestals could work at the Temple to generate favour. They should probably also be able to heal units.
Maybe they can buff villagers and military units like the Prelates in AoE4.
Choosing between buffing your economy, military or generating favour could be an interesting strategic decision.
Of course they can pick up relics.

The Poitifex Maximus is a famous and important role in Roman religion (and the title is being used by Popes to this day) so it could be a unit in the game too.

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I’ve always thought that the Atlanteans could somehow merge and become the Romans after discovering that their current gods have been secretly sabotaging them from the beginning.

They seek refuge and are taken in by the more benevolent Roman gods and goddesses. Gradually, they shed their Atlantean identity by incorporating more Roman culture and architecture.

Devs did 3/4 of the work already by having most of their units based off of historical Roman soldiers/gladiators.

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Yes, that may seem a little extreme. My idea was that the promotions would cover this. Your idea of weaker line upgrades is good too. However, I think it would feel odd to keep training pedites alongside legionaries in late game. I wanted to represent the set the line between pre-marian and post-marian.

Also, I agree that techtree cuts don’t exist in aom. But, it’s not unusual for new civilisations to bring more diversity in a game, like in aoe3. furthermore, I love the asymetry between the aom civs and if the devs want to keep it while adding new civs, they’ll have to find news ways to make things different.

I disagree on this. The auxiliary camp should only be another military buildings. Auxiliaries were part of the roman army and had nothing to do with religion.

Why should they already be in the game? Serapis and hercules are very good candidates in my opinion and would way more interesting than copy pasted gods. Of course, there could be gods who are already in the game, but it would be boring if we don’t get new ones.

I’d be fine with each roman major god having a different selection, however.

Basically, like the Norse. I think construction should be only allowed for legionaries, not all infantry. I proposed this as a Jupiter tech, but this could be a roman feature for all 3 gods. Also, I wouldn’t restrict plebeians to economic buildings.

I don’t know, it seems like what the pharaoh already does. I thought about having flamines as heroes. Moreover, the pre-capitoline triad (mars, jupiter and quirinus) had the most important flamines. However, I don’t know how to include them in the game without being a mere priest clone. Maybe they should have different traits depending on your god?

As for the evocatus, I still think it’s not a bad idea. They would be much harder to acquire than atlantean heroes since your pedites would need to stay alive and be fully promoted in order to become heroes. In my opinion, this is the improved version of the atlantean system.

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This isn’t what this post is about. I’ve mentioned it at the very top of my post… I’m not arguing about this on this thread, sorry.

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My idea was kinda the same as yours. Not completely stop them from being trainable but making the Legionary just a way better deal.
Especially because population efficiency becomes more important in the late game.

Both units having the same pop but one of them being just strong from the start while the other one has to level up to become good.
You kinda skip to Trarii and get the bonus of a charged ranged attack.
They gotta have to throw pila!

It’s AoM so mixing up religion and military is kinda the core of the game.

Norse Infantry build everything whole Villagers only build farms and maybe now houses (there are some hints they changed that) but no other buildings like Town Centre, Market, Dock and so on.

My idea for the Romans would be to let villagers build every civilian building, I think that would be different enough from the Norse.

That could be a compromise to make them less like the Norse.
Yet another reason to switch to Legionaries in the late game.

The Pharaoh buffs buildings not units.
In AoE4 the Chinese Official buffs buildings and the HRE Prelate buffs villagers and later units.
Both units coexist in AoE4 so why not in AoMR?

The buff for the villagers would make them temporary work faster and the buff for the military units would temporary make them stronger, especially against myth units.

The core traits should be the same but then they could have bonus abilities depending on the major God.

Maybe it’s a good idea to make the evocatus and the Vestals coexist.
Vestals allow you to get relics without having to level up infantry first.
They can also help you against an early myth unit attack by buffing your soldiers against them.

Maybe Triarii that killed a myth unit should turn into a ecocatus for free?
Maybe as a bonus for Mars.

I agree that the Atlantean system is the worst but it might be a little too hard to get heroes that way.
It might be to easy to myth unit rush the Romans if they can’t have any heroes in the first fight.

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Yes, there are many different ways to represent the same thing. As long as the legionary becomes the better choice in later ages, it’s fine to me. On this we agree. Also yeah, the pila throw would be good to engage the enemy first.

I agree that everything is kinda mixed up in this game but still, I would keep auxiliaries and assimilated gods separated. These gods could provide a tech, a bonus and one myth unit and it would be fine for me.

Yes, I think this is a good compromise, and as you mentioned, it would force players to switch to legionaries.

Right, the pharaoh doesn’t buff units. I missed that detail, my bad.

Yes, they must stay the same unit of course.

Yes, they could coexist. The buff against myth unit would be interesting. Also, I love your idea for the triarii to become an evocatus after defeating a myth unit!

Yeah, I thought about it and I think the player should start the game with a vestal / flamen and obtain a free evocatus at the temple upon reaching classical. Combined with the buff against myth units for human soldiers, I think it would be fair.

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First of it all, I’m very happy that i’m not alone with the idea of a roman civ in AoM and i love all your ideas. To do my part (and i’m not the guy to create unit math and all this awesome stuff you guys do) i created a visualization of how a roman pantheon (that is as indipendent as possible from the greek pantheon) could look like. I excluded Jupiter from ‘‘the great three’’ just because he is so heavy associated with zeus i really had a hard time to make him an indipendent personality for the game. So i instead chose Janus (he is really a great choice for a major god in my opinion. I mean he was cultural very important and is literally the god of the beginning and the end). And Mithras could be a little strange choice but he replaced Sol because i couldn’t made Sol indipendent from Helios (same problem as for jupiter for me. But maybe that’s just me)

I mean it’s just an example of how it COULD look in my eyes. And i had fun drawing this little ugly portraits haha :smiley: In the end i don’t want to go too deep into details by ‘‘civ concept’’ stuff because i want that the game developers (if they ever make a roman civ) take their own inspiration and ideas.

I hope you guys have fun with my pantheon idea/drawing :slight_smile:

romanpantheonaomidea
romanpantheonaomidea1060×1960 305 KB

My idea was to give the major gods a primary focus of infantry in some way (because romans :smiley: ).
So i thought about mars would be somehow more swordman and aggressive gameplay related, Quirinus spearman and a little bit more defence and janus more into expansion and favor or something like that.
For the second age i chose gods that work good for economic stuff to reflect the early time romans and their ‘‘growth’’ stage. For (very lose) example Faunus fits wood, Ponoma food and Fortuna gold in some way. For the third age my idea was to go deeper into tactics. Neptune for naval and maybe archery (not cavalry because he shouldn’t be just little poseidon hehe), Terminus more into armor and city defence and Mithras for strong myth units and stuff. The last age would follow this idea with Bellona to go full on infantry boni and siege, Orcus for mighty god power and other myth/favor stuff and Justitia for some balanced late game i guess. As i said just very raw concept ideas. I’m everything but a balance guy :smiley:

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This is awesome! I love these little portraits you made. I can easily imagine them with the same artistic design as the other gods in the game. Janus would be a good major god candidate, as well as Saturne (by the way I would love to see how you would represent him!).

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Your opening post was unclear to me. You mentioned that this topic is not about whether the Romans should be added, but then you said it’s a thread to discuss ideas for a potential Roman civilization. Potential as in…to be in the game? This made me think the thread was for brainstorming ideas for adding the Romans in the future.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see everyone’s ideas for the Roman bestiary!

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We have a lot of advantages for it by now:

  • Higher pop efficiency
  • Charged attack
  • Can build military buildings and defences
  • Can directly become a hero

Maybe they should be 2 systems but indirectly interact with each other.
Each Assimilated god has a technology that benefits units from that part of the world. Maybe even explicit. Like Isis buffs the Camel or Elephant units.

Maybe Romans get one free evocatus on every age up instead of a free myth unit.

Another idea I had is to let Romans Age up by building the temple for set god.
So ageing up is like in AoE4 for the Romans.
You build a Temple for your main god to age up to the new Wonder Age.

Romans would then be limited to 4 Temples.
Each of the Temples could should have a unique bonus though.

You need to build a Vestal Flame before being able to Age up to the Classical Age.

Looks cool.

Jupiter is too important to completely ignore him.
The game will run into the issue of having the same god multiple times a lot more often in the future.
There are a lot of potential Indo European civilisations that all share the same original gods.

I like the choices for most gods I’d just move them around a little.
I think each age should have the choice between different types of gods so just economic gods for the Classical Age for example.
Mitras should probably be part of the Assimilation feature and not part of the main pantheon.

That’s gonna be the hard part.
Roman mythology doesn’t involve many beasts that aren’t just copied over from the Greeks.

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Why not give these to a Persian and a Numidian civ respectively?

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I think the Auxiliary troops should be based on units of other civilisations.
So the Persians obviously get those units first before the Romans are added.

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Ah I see.

I’d rather not, AoT’s Atlantean lore is bad enough as it is.

By the way, about Hercules, the Greek unit should be renamed to Heracles. Why are people always using the Latin spelling?

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The same reason why certain Chinese units are “pinyin’d” (Jiangsi, Pixiu) and others are English words (White Tiger, Azure Dragon).
There is no standard whatsoever but I hope the devs address this issue.

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That’s an Extended Edition-specific issue. I’m talking about works about the character always using Hercules (Roman name) instead of Heracles (Greek name)

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Probably the majority pronounce the name “Her-Q-lease” which sounds and looks more like Her-cu-les (Hercules) than Heh-ra-cles (Heracles).

Doesn’t help that Disney is a big power house. Most people probably learn to write and say “Her-Q-Lease” / Hercules because of the movie.

And also… Hercules: The Legendary Journeys starring Kevin Sorbo.

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Yes, I like the idea… I would expect something similar to the Romans from AoEO but adding the mythical units and powers of Roman mythology…

Yeah, I would make a lore/campaign based on the history of Rome by Titus Livy…after the destruction of Troy and Atlantis in the Fall of the Trident in 1207 BC, both civs would cross paths on the Italian peninsula and fight each other until that a more powerful enemy (the Etruscans) would make them ally in the middle of the campaign, then they would defeat the Etruscans and in the final cinematic of the campaign they would create Alba Longa (in this campaign you would play with Greeks and Atlanteans) in 1203 BC…then in a shorter Roman campaign five centuries later you would play with Romulus and Remus (something similar to the Golden Gift) founding Rome by killing Remus and destroying Remoria in a 1vs1 battle, after you would defeat his grandfather, the king of Alba Longa and with Romulus as absolute owner in the region, you would create the Roman monarchy in 753 BC…

Yes, I agree with everything…they are very good ideas…

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I’d unironically love Goths but it doesn’t seem there’s enough info about Gothic paganism to design an AoM civ.

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It would not be far from Celtic mythology, since this one influence on Germanic mythology, which is what the Goths believed in… to the west of Germania (Galia and Belgium) they believed in Celtic mythology, to the north of Germania (Denmark and Scandinavia) they believed in Norse mythology, to the east of Germania they believed in Slavic mythology “a la The Witcher” and to the south it was Italy, that is, Roman mythology…