(OUT OF DATE/2UC)A Vox Populi(CBP) Guide: Rome

This guide is currently out of date for the 5.0 aka 4UC integration patch of Vox Populi. I thought it would be easier to make new guides instead of trying to edit these, plus they may be good to have if someone wanted to play an older version of Vox Populi. However, do note that some things in this guide may be out of date, as due to both busier life stuff and the knowledge that 4UC has been coming for a while some parts of the guides weren’t updating even with other VP changes

Rome's UA is very different causing them to play quite differently from this guide. Use caution unless you're on a much older version of VP

Once a new version of this guide comes out, it will be linked here [new guide link waiting]

These guides are designed to help players who are new to Civ but still interested in Vox Populi, familiar with Civ but new to Vox Populi, or even those well versed in Vox Populi who just want to see if there's anything they didn't know about a particular civilization. I am actually a big fan of Zigzagzigal's Civ guide series, and it really helped me learn a lot about the game, and I wanted to bring a similar experience for fans of the Vox Populi or Community Balance Patch modpack. For those interested in the modpack it can be downloaded here[forums.civfanatics.com]

Anyways, without further ado, onto the Romans!

Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. +33% Great Scientist rate and +25% growth in all cities from rationalism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% Great Person Rate and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

Rome has a hills start bias. This means they should have more production in their capital, both to take advantage of their UA and to help pump out their UU.
When you conquer a city, the city retains all buildings, and you immediately claim additional territory around the city +15% towards buildings already constructed in the capital

A melee unit

*Currently seems to be non-functional Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher combat strength (18 instead of 16)
  
• Obsoletes at Gunpowder rather than Steel
  
• When fortified, adjacent enemy units takes 10 damage at the beginning of the turn(Pilum)
  
• May construct roads and forts

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• +25% combat strength when defending against ranged attacks(Cover I)

Positive Changes

• +3 & +3 (Up from 1 and 0 respectively)
  
• +1 from every 3 population(up from 1 per 4)
  
• When a unit defeats an enemy unit in battle, gain 5 in the city, scaling with era. If the unit was made in the city, also gain +10 great general points(if land) or +10 great admiral points(if sea), scaling with era.
  
• City Connections give +2%
  

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Roman uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking


Domination is the obvious path for Rome, given they have a solid UU and their other uniques also support conquest. Their strengths generally translate equally well on offense or defense
Rome's UB gives a solid amount of golden age points, meaning Rome might have slightly more culture then most warmongers at any rate. It doesn't really help them with Tourism however
The Roman UA, and to a lesser extent their UB too give a massive boost to production in several ways, probably making Rome the strongest domination inclined production civ, only rivaled by the Huns. While they have no direct bonuses to science, I do believe Rome's high production makes science a good backup
Rome's extra golden ages also gives them a bit more gold then most, but of course they lack diplomatic bonuses to leverage it into.
While Rome is an early conqueror, they like to build infrastructure and so can probably take the time to build some shrines early on.

Rome's UA comes in two parts. One part encourages conquest, but the other encourages you to build a strong capital

15% production is a solid amount, it should end up shaving 2-3 turns on most buildings, which means pretty much your entire empire is going to be 15% more efficient. However the one catch is that the building needs to be built in the capital for the bonus to apply. If your capital has a building it can build, it should be building it. Your other cities will be able to pick up the slack of building units and wonders, especially since they'll have to spend less time producing buildings.

That's all well and good, but in my opinion what really differentiates Rome is how their UA applies to conquest

Before...
And after, 4 tiles stronger

Rome gets massive benefits from conquering, possibly more then any other civ in the game. 4 extra tiles when you conquer a city is a nice bonus, but that's really just the cherry on top. One of the biggest downsides to conquest is that even if you capture a highly developed city, it is going to be severely weakened from your conquest and probably be a burden on your empire in the short term. Rome however, doesn't have that problem.

When you capture a city as Rome, the only penalties it will have is a short period of anarchy, happiness debuffs from either occupation or from being a puppet, and population loss. The city will retain all buildings it had pre-conquest. Not only does this mean the city will be able to contribute to your empire much sooner, it will also be a lot harder for the enemy to take back, as the city will retain any defensive buildings it had, which are guaranteed to be destroyed by anyone else who conquers it. This makes it a lot easier to snowball a conquest, as you don't have to spend nearly as much resources to reinforce your new cities.

Rome may be incentivized to conquer, but their UA doesn't make them really any better at it. The Legion gives just that little bit of extra punch to let them do it.

The Legion, here to remind everyone who the world belongs to

The Legion has quite a few things going for it, make no mistake, but the best thing it has going for it in my opinion is that swordsman are easily the strongest unit of the classical era. It completely outclasses every melee unit in combat strength, and since it has cover I ranged units have no hope to beat them either. It probably takes about 3 units to reliably take out a single swordsman. Legion are simply a superior version of them. However the very important drawback to swordsman are the requirement of iron. As Rome, you'll want to go straight for Bronze Working, maybe nab Pottery so you can get out a settler or two to grab any nearby iron, then go straight for Iron Working so you can get your legions out fast.

All roads lead to Rome, or at least they will if my Legions have anything to say about it

Arguably the best unique thing Legions bring is their ability to build roads (and also forts once you get engineering but eh). You'll need to build up a bit of an army for your first conquest, and so your units will just be sitting around until then. The Legion can actually be benefiting you before the war begins, either assisting your workers in building roads so they are up rapidly, or entirely taking over road duty for workers so they can improve other tiles. If you already have roads between all your cities but your army isn't quite ready yet, why not start building a road to your future conquest?

In combat, Legions hold a minor strength advantage over normal swordsman, and also have cover II. Now to be fair Cover II is probably a little excessive, but it still definitely helps, making Legions practically immune to ranged fire from classical units instead of just highly resistant.

Legion also have the Pilum promotion, however as much as I tried I could not get the promotion to work. It is possible I don't understand how it works, but I do believe it is currently bugged. But nonetheless, if they either fix it or I'm just bad, I do think I understand how Pilum could be useful. It could be useful if you can put Legions in a chokepoint, making it nigh impossible for a melee unit to take them out, so the only method to fight them would be ranged, except they are already practically immune to that too. I think the best use though would be to surround a city with a unit in it with Legions so that the unit inside would rapidly die with no chance of escape, making the city much easier to take.

+25% combat strength defending against ranged attacks(Cover II)

Since Legions don't keep the ability to build roads when upgraded, keeping a few around un-upgraded might not be too bad an idea

The Colosseum both gives Rome more incentive to conquer, as well as some extra advantages to actually be able to conquer better.

Both pictures are from the same combat victory

Every unit you defeat gives 5 golden age points per Colosseum in your empire(increasing to 10 in the medieval era, and by 5 every era after) and if the unit was built in a city with a Colosseum it will also give 10 great general points or great admiral points if it was a naval unit(this increases to 20 in the medieval era and by 10 each era after). Long story short, if you kill lots of units, you'll find yourself with lots of extra gold, culture, production, and a bunch of great generals.

The Colosseum does come with a few minor bonuses outside of those too. The extra 3 production is nice to help keep your empire moving, and the extra 2% gold from city connections should help keep your economy from not totally collapsing under the maintenance of your army.

Early game Rome has an interesting choice. Authority is the obvious choice for an early conqueror, and it is absolutely a valid choice that will make your army stronger in the long run. However, Rome should have the infrastructure to build up enough of an army to almost not need the bonuses from Authority for their first war at least. If you think you won't be doing a ton more conquest after your first or second war Tradition is a better choice. You'll still have the ability to go on a couple wars, but Tradition will make sure your capital is strong enough for you to be able to efficiently utilize the +15% building production from your UA. Either way, Fealty makes a solid second tree. As for your third, if you plan for domination, go Imperialism otherwise if you plan to leverage your production towards a science win, go Rationalism

Opener: The extra population will help your capital be able to produce buildings at a good pace

Justice: The early production will further make sure your capital is on top of buildings

Sovereignty: Border expansion is nice, and the bit of faith will help a bit towards maybe getting a religion

Ceremony: The extra science will help the push towards Iron Working and/or to clean up your worker techs

Splendor: I always recommend going Splendor before Majesty because Splendor can give a good amount of culture, getting you to finishing tradition quicker

Majesty: Considering your capital is going to be very large, and likely have a lot of specialists, this ensures your growth isn't stumped.

Finisher: Get a bit more use out of your great person improvements! Plus hey, a stronger capital never hurt yeah? Have a throne room!

Opener: Little bit of production to help early unit and building construction, plus easier barbarians and some culture out of them and any other units you kill to boot

Tribute: Extra yields on border growth are definitely welcome

Imperium: You're bound to be conquering a lot of cities, so this will probably add up to several techs and a few policies. This also makes sure you can claim lots of iron early without having to sacrifice as much city production into settlers

Dominance: Get some science out of your kills too, plus the healing will allow your units to stand a bit of a chance at surviving a followup attack after defeating another unit

Discipline: Rome may have a stronger infrastructure then most warmongers but they have just as much problems with unhappiness and especially with money, so this helps with both

Honor: More and stronger units, what more can you ask for?

Finisher: Rome doesn't need these units as much as other warmongers, at least for a quick defense, but that's not to say they can't be useful

Opener: Monasteries are a solid building, definitely build them where you can, but it's going to be hard to build them in every city considering how much you're likely to conquer

Nobility: Extra production is extra production, plus better buildings are nice when you can build them so quickly

Divine Right: Reduces unhappiness by a very large amount, plus if you actually manage to keep your happiness up for any length of time, enjoy a nice bit of culture

Serfdom: You're bound to have plenty of pastures somewhere at this point, make them better

Burghers: You're going to be conquering lots of resources and getting plenty of We Love the King Days, so get some production out of them.

Organized Religion: Not very useful if you didn't found a religion, but is still somewhat useful to get monasteries and industrial era great people a bit faster.

Finisher: Whether you've founded your own religion or had one spread to you, some extra yields never hurt

Opener: Your Great Generals are more mobile now, which can help keep your army buffed and your generals safe. Plus if you need to conquer someone overseas, faster navies can help with that.

Colonialism: You'll have lots of monopolies by now, get some more use out of them.

Regimental Tradition: Faster Great General and Admiral generation, as well as making them stronger, good to have on the land or on the sea

Martial Law: You'll definitely have plenty of puppet cities, and conquered ones too. Both of them will be less of a burden now.

Exploitation: A good boost to your tile yields, can't complain

Civilizing Mission: Gold from conquering cities, and production in said conquered cities, everything you need to push the front line.

Finisher: A stronger navy, and a new way to use air units to help manage unhappiness.

Opener: Little bit of science and a small bit of production too. Happiness should become an issue of the past for you as well if it ever was. Grow to your heart's content

Scientific Revolution: Depending on the terrain, observatories could give a lot of science, or not much at all, but a science boost is a science boost

Empiricism: Helps make sure other civs won't leech off your science lead, and now you can afford to work more specialists

Rights of Man: A bit of extra yields across the empire, which is always welcome

Enlightenment: Postponing this as long as possible means you're getting a more expensive tech for free.

Free Thought: Extra science from Great Scientists is always good.

Finisher: More Great Scientists, More Growth, All is good for Rome

If you're going full domination, Autocracy is the obvious choice, but if you are falling back to science, Order will serve you much better.

Peace, Land, Bread: Rome builds wide with high production towards buildings, so building maintenance is a huge drain. This will help a lot with that and give other bonuses

Hero of the People: Faster great people generation will be a huge boon, and a free one on top is nice. Either a scientist or an engineer will probably serve you best

Communism: There are some crucial late game science wonders, this makes sure you actually get them

Five Year Plan: Make your buildings ultra fast!

Nationalization: Will let you boost your cities strength up even faster with better internal trade.

Spaceflight Pioneers: Save every engineer you get for when you can build spaceships and win the game almost instantly.
Military-Industrial Complex: Rome will likely have around more defensive buildings then a lot of domination civs, so this will be a solid bit of science. The cheaper upgrades also helps a ton

Elite Forces: New units start better, old units get better quicker, all you could want for a world-conquering force

New World Order: You're gonna have a lot of cities by now, you absolutely need this.

Lightning Warfare: Now your large amount of generals are super fast, and your army gets quite a bit stronger, whether you stuck with gun units or switched to armor or are using both

Martial Spirit: An amazing bonus to clean up your last conquest or two, but it is a temporary boost. If you still have more then two civs to conquer, it might be better to postpone this, but it is always worth getting when the moment is right.

Air Supremacy: Free Airports in every city means that you almost don't need a navy as long as you have a city on every continent. Also makes air units quicker to build if you need to.

Pyramids: While building this might somewhat disrupt your capital producing buildings, the extra settler will be nice to claim iron early for your legions.

Statue of Zeus: Makes it a bit easier to conquer cities, plus the free barracks means you won't have wasted much time that could've been spent towards buildings

Hanging Gardens: If you can build this in the capital it will be very strong in the long run and can easily support the 15% building bonus across the empire for pretty much every building

Oracle: Almost a free tech and almost a free policy, a great wonder to nab if you can

Alhambra(Authority Only): If you want to pivot over to mounted units once Legions go obsolete, this is the best way to start

University of Sankore(Tradition Only): Keep making great people and you'll keep getting science

Porcelain Tower(Science): Put this in your strongest science city and see a nice return on investment

Red Fort(Fealty Only): Whatever city you put this in will effectively be unconquerable for quite a long time, so put this in a city at risk of invasion

Brandenburg Gate(Domination): The xp is nice but the extra unit supply is just as if not more important

Neuschwanstein: Might be hard to build due to terrain requirements, but you should have castles basically everywhere, so this will be a huge buff

Soho Foundry: Build this in the capital and it can continue to be the engine of your empire

Prora(Autocracy Only): Will be a big help towards unhappiness problems, and a free policy is great

Kremlin(Order Only): You're mostly here for the free policy, but that is worth building this for

Bletchley Park(Rationalism Only): More science, and more importantly it is now harder for others to leech off of your tech lead

Pentagon(Imperialism Only): Free planes, better planes, faster to produce planes, what more do you want?

CERN: Who can say no to two free techs?

Great Firewall(Science): Makes it nigh impossible to steal techs from you

Hubble Space Telescope(Science): Will make building spaceship parts significantly faster

Rome isn't the craziest civ around but they aren't the easiest either. Mistakes are certainly possible

Legions are your first tangible military bonus, and the rest of your military bonuses are pretty much worthless if you can't conquer anything, so getting Legions up is very important, and you need iron for that
The Colosseum is a strong building that will enhance your conquests and you do want to get them up ASAP. However, the longer you wait to start your first war the less effective Legions will be, so once your Legion army is ready, pull the trigger, don't wait
While you want to try your best to always have your capital build a building first, at some point some of your other cities will catch up to your capital and you won't have anything to produce until a new tech comes along. So if a building is a very important one, say a key science building, don't wait for your capital to build it if you don't have anything else good to build in your other cities. The lost yields from not making the building early are probably greater then the lost production, especially in the later game
Rome can keep a lot more cities then other conquerors as their conquests will have more buildings and therefore less unhappiness. However there is still a limit, especially for newly founded or otherwise bad cities. If a city isn't helpful then raze it.
Legions are a very strong unit, however they can be somewhat limited, either by iron restraints or by being poor at taking cities. Legions will need some ranged support to take out cities, and depending on how much iron you can get, they might need melee support too. Furthermore, Legion's don't retain much on upgrade, so Rome can more or less make an army out of whatever they want to once Legions obsolete
The capital is the center of Rome's empire yes, however a strong capital merely enables the rest of your empire to be stronger, you don't actually have any bonuses to improve your capital, just the rest of your empire. Your capital should be your strongest city, but you should make sure your other cities aren't far behind

Rome has incredibly strong production, and the ability to snowball either in military conquest or in domestic development if given the chance. However, Rome need a good bit to go right to get that all going, and if contained, will be unable to fully use most of their assets.

Domestically, Rome's UA allows them to get new cities up quicker as long as they put some investment into their capital. This means Rome generally wants to build wide to get the most out of the enhanced infrastructure. If you can prevent Rome from expanding, they won't be able to get the most out of their production. Of course Rome will most likely then try to conquer you.

Outside of Legions though, Rome has little advantage to actually conquering anybody. Keep on top of your defensive buildings, and keep on top of killing Rome's siege/ranged units, and Rome won't be able to do much to you. It is important to defend your cities well though. If Rome captures an important city you will struggle to get it back. I wouldn't worry that much about forward settling Rome though. If Rome captures the city before you have time to build it up their UA won't help them much anyways. If you forward settle Rome you should use it as a staging ground for your own invasion, or make sure it is heavily defended before you invest in it, otherwise you will be handing Rome a good city without them having to do much for it.

The Legion is an extremely strong unit, probably the strongest unit of the classical era, but part of that is probably because swordsman are otherwise the strongest unit of the classical. You'll want to bring down the hammer on a Legion, don't spread out damage, send several units at once onto a single Legion and take it out fast. Assuming Pilum worked, try to avoid leaving melee units next to a fortified Legion, use mounted units to avoid that problem. Beating Legions even with this strategy will be hard, so perhaps instead you should try to take down Rome's other units. Legions are slow to take out cities, so take out their ranged support and you can whittle them down. Once you can get to medieval units, particularly knights, Legions will stand no chance.
The Colosseum is only going to give Rome a very minor boost if they can't kill any of your units. So don't let Rome. Pull back weakened units, use hit and run, ranged, etc. Legions are strong but slow, and will most likely be the bulk of Rome's army at least in the early game, so as long as you are smart you should be able to outmaneuver Rome and prevent them from getting the bonuses from this.
Early-Game Warmongers: Rome will be tough, try to take out any iron Rome has, or better yet settle it yourself, and Rome will be a lot easier

Mid-Game Warmongers: Rome might still be running on Legion upgrades by this point, so use knights or even melee units of your own

Late-Game Warmongers: Rome is likely to have lots of the late game defensive buildings faster then a lot of other civs, so you'll need a strong army, but no particular strategy other then that should be needed, just use strong force

Science Players: Rome has strong production to put out their science buildings quick, but the nature of having a wider empire the way Rome does it will somewhat offset this, meaning Rome still won't have stellar science. Use your science advantage to grab any essential wonders, especially in the late game, and Rome shouldn't prove a major rival. If Rome is going domination, especially if you have to deal with them early game, Legions should hopefully be less of an issue since you can get to medieval units quicker

Cultural Players: Cultural Players are in a very bad situation to deal with Rome. You may have to forgo some early plans to defend against Rome if they are a neighbor

Diplomatic Players: Global Peace Accords will hit a warmongering Rome hard. Arts Funding will hit a science Rome pretty solidly too

These guide cover every civ in the game, and can be used as a quick reference

• Civ Summaries

• America (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• Assyria (Science/Domination)
  
• Austria (Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Aztecs (Domination/Science)
  
• Babylon (Science)
  
• Brazil (Culture)
  
• Byzantium (All)
  
• Carthage (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• The Celts (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• China (Domination/Culture)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Culture)
  
• England (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• Ethiopia (Science)
  
• France (Domination/Culture)
  
• Germany (Diplomacy/Science)
  
• Greece (Domination/Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• India (Science/Culture)
  
• Indonesia (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• The Iroquois (Domination)
  
• Japan (Domination/Culture)
  
• Korea (Science/Domination)
  
• The Maya (Science/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Culture/Diplomacy)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination)
  
• The Ottomans (Domination/Science)
  
• Persia(Domination/Culture)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Russia (Science/Domination)
  
• The Shoshone (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Domination/Culture)
  
• Sweden (Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomacy/Culture/Domination)
  
• The Zulus (Domination)