I’m just curious, why they decide to give Romans a borderline OP (or maybe outright broken) navy since historically WRE had almost no navy (aside from transport ships to retake Africa). These navy bonuses should either be remove or replaced with something better. I guess since they indeed want the Romans to enter the ranking ladder they should start from fixing these navy bonuses.
Source:
Im pretty sure they had more going for them than transport ships.
Yeah, maybe I’m exaggerating it a bit, but still I don’t think their navy is their best forte anyways. If this Roman civ covered it’s Eastern parts as well maybe I can accept that (which is unlikely since we already got Byzantine for that).
I guess it’s having a professional navy which by medieval standards was significant.
Their ships are tanky but they still lack bracer (already the galley line attack bonus becomes -1 range compared to full upgrade) and drydock, making them short-range and slow. They also lack demo ships.
“In the 5th century, only the eastern half of the Empire could field an effective fleet, as it could draw upon the maritime resources of Greece and the Levant. Although the Notitia Dignitatum still mentions several naval units for the Western Empire, these were apparently too depleted to be able to carry out much more than patrol duties.[69] At any rate, the rise of the naval power of the Vandal Kingdom under Geiseric in North Africa, and its raids in the Western Mediterranean, were practically uncontested.[57] Although there is some evidence of West Roman naval activity in the first half of the 5th century, this is mostly confined to troop transports and minor landing operations.”
This is from what I read from here:
If the romans were realistic, you would barely have any functional economy, your gold reserves vanishing due to inflation, your buildings constantly losing hp as villagers steal their stones, and your troops would rebel all the time. I guess this civ is, if played correctly, what if the Western Roman Empire managed to stay afloat by stabilising everything.
Well certainly not THAT realistic of course, but when was the last time Romans were known for their navy, the Punic Wars? It wasn’t until Justinian I when the Romans (now its Eastern counterparts) finally have its fleet restored to its glory days.
Actium, just before Augustus crowned himself emperor.
Yes the need of a navy was limited by the fact that Rome controlled the entire Mediterranean.
Completely agreed. They have the bonuses of like 3 different civs stacked on top of each other now. They’ll most likely nerf it, but we can’t say if they’ll do enough.
But the actual answer to the question is, they couldn’t find any other pillar to fit in. So, Vikings are an infantry-navy-archer civ, Dravidians are an infantry-navy-archer civ, Malay are an infantry-cavalry-navy civ. You can do this with all the infantry civs.
Romans are an infantry-siege civ, which already has a huge overlap with Slavs. They can’t add cavalry because that removes the need for the scorpion play. Neither can they add archers. So what’s left? Navy.
Ah yes Actium
and then it goes to dump when Pax Romana was achieved, it wasn’t until the Crisis of the 3rd century when Rome finally realized how bad their navy had become.
They should make Rome an infantry and defensive civ imo, since they were surrounded and attacked from all side. Romans built many more fortifications during this time period, hence why they need to divide their army between Limitanei and Comitatensis.
I have no problems with the siege though.
That could work. But, pro players tend to hate defensive civs, because that is boring. Generally, all the current defensive civs have 3 other pillars as well. Teutons have infantry-cavalary-siege, Koreans have Archer-navy-siege, and Spanish have gunpowder-monk-cavalry. The only exceptions I can think of are, ironically enough, the byzantines. Even Sicilians have direct and indirect naval bonuses.
I guess they didn’t want too much overlap with the byzantines by making Romans too defence-focused. I honestly wouldn’t mind an infantry-siege-defence civ though.
Never played on ladder, but if that’s the case that would be a bummer.
Certainly agree if they become an infantry-siege-defence.
Agreed. Focusing so heavily on their navy seems like a pointless errand. I’m not interested in the Roman Navy going up against the Portuguese. I don’t expect the Romans to perform well on Islands or other water maps. I’d prefer the devs swap out some of these silly +1 attack or +2/+2 armor bonuses with something more interesting and relevant. How about “Villagers produce a small trickle of gold when gathering resources”? And I mean a VEEEEERY slow trickle for obvious reasons, but this would be reference to their impressive taxation and governing systems. “Infantry units move 10% faster” would be a good reference to their road system, but would step on the toes of the Celts so need to think of something different for that… Land units move 5% faster?
From the same article:
“Throughout their history, the Romans remained a primarily land-based people and relied partially on their more nautically inclined subjects, such as the Greeks and the Egyptians, to build their ships.”
It’s “Age of Empires” and the subjects like the Greeks and Egyptians were part of the Roman Empire. So makes sense to me.