Introduction

Hello, this is my first guide for Civilization 5, into a scenario that has kept me intrigued for a long time because of its difficulty. I have beaten it on Deity as a barbarian power, but the challenge is still several steps higher as the titular Romans. As Romans you are almost expected to lose, and I fully suspect the point of the scenario is to just experience the downfall regardless of how well you play. Especially the fall patch that made AI players much more aggressive has really done a good job of making this scenario fun. However, as Firaxis has included the practically unreachable “pax romana” achievement they tempt us anyway to try and change history anyway.


As any good player knows, the path to success is to first have a suitable plan that will end in victory, and then make sure all your actions are in alignment with this plan. This plan should take into account both your own strengths and the enemies, as well as compensate for your own weaknesses. This is certainly true here, as you have several weaknesses you need to address as the barbarian hordes are breathing on your neck.

For this guide I have decided that the most important thing to do is to first repair your economy, so you can support a very large army in the late game. It is very tempting to just ignore the money entirely, and it is another viable strategy that can especially get you more in the early game, when your units are still better than the enemies. But I’ve found out that a few unlucky disbands on key units like legions can really break your defense and only thing you can do is save-load like a scum.

So, the real challenge is that you have to manage your economy to keep pace with your ever-growing army as well as fight several numerically superior enemies. Most of your cities are going to be pumping out units all game long, as well as any barbarians your legions can recruit. The goal is to field a truly massive army by the time the first AI barbarians get their grubby hands on the cheat known as “Gods army” social policy.

Another thing to keep in mind is the pacing of the game. For the sake of simplicity, I have divided the game roughly into three phases: early, middle and late game. This division is based on important changes in the balance of power between parties in the game. Early game lasts to about turn 10, while mid game ends around turn 30 where the first AI barbarian powers get Gods army. In early game you are greatly weaker than any enemies you face, and your main goal should be to just delay them as much as possible while you set up a line of defense. Mid game is where you get your first large boost of units as most cities finish their first unit or walls. This is when you can fight them on as evenly as you ever will, so try to destroy and recruit as many of their units as possible. Also keep in mind barbarians spawn units as waves, so you want to destroy the first wave before the second one appears. You can retake a few cities at this point before the next wave spawns, but don’t take anything you can’t hold. Late game use your superior numbers to hold defensive ground and maintain a good formation, while whittling the enemies down and isolate their units to take away their +50% combat bonus.

One last thing about the mentality, you need to actively look out and make things happen to gain advantages wherever you can, and destroy units. Being too passive only means you will get overrun eventually, instead you want to force fights where you have the most advantage. In addition the West Roman unique ability to convert units works in a snowball fashion, that you can build more opportunities out of the early victories. In the next chapter I will look into the different areas that most action will be going down, and they are numbered in order of importance.

In the early game you have only enough power to make one meaningful attack, and I suggest you make it towards East. There are several reasons for this, for one the Goths are the most dangerous barbarian faction because of their ability to use foreign roads. Left unchecked, they will cruise through Byzantine lands much faster than any other enemy faction. Secondly, it is the closest theater to Rome, which is your main unit building city, so you can have several legions built in time for the fight. Thirdly, it is the only place you can go two against one. Sure there is nothing you can do to save their units, but if you time it right you can get a good flanking position on their army as they are setting up to take the cities. Remember that since you are in the same team, their cities are just as important. Especially the closest city to your border has an excellent defensive position, and you should be able to stop the Goths from taking it.

This is where you should aim to get your first converted units, but don’t be too hasty even if there is an easy catapult or archer you could capture. Taking just one unit will only result in the AI targeting it on their turn, especially if it is a weak ranged unit. Instead take a good defensive position in rough terrain until you can strike a blow that can convert several units in the same turn. Just remember to try observe how much experience the enemy units get, and if they get a level-up kill them before they can use instant healing. The most important targets are the gadrauths, although hardest to get they are the most useful assets, as they retain their ability to use enemy roads. Catapults are the second one, since they are easiest and they help you retake cities while making it harder for the enemy to take more.

That leads us to the objective of this campaign, which is to retake all cities captured by the Goths in their initial assault. No matter how well you play, they are going to take several cities fast while Theo sits around twiddling her thumbs and ordering new culture buildings to be constructed! So once you have crushed the main army or they have split up to take cities faster, you need to get a move on and start liberating. Without units, even strong cities are easy to take back with a few siege units and your legions if you know how to do basic aggro management. Keep your siege units at full health while intentionally taking some damage on a strong melee unit, so the AI will target the melee unit instead of the ballistas or catapults. You only need to keep the melee unit strong enough not to actually die from the city attacks. Remember you can and should also pillage the improvements in your “allied” area when they are under barbarian control. The money benefit from pillaging is small, but sometimes it could help you keep above the red for a turn, and it is a much faster way to heal your units than resting. As the saying goes, when in barbarian lands do as barbarians do.

Keep in mind that the goal of the scenario is to get points from owning cities, and if Byzantine isn’t contributing it will be really hard to win if a barbarian faction gets a good score. But there is more benefits for liberating allied cities. As previously mentioned with pillaging, taking cities gives even bigger money reward, and as this strategy centers on good economy, taking cities is one more source of income. Another thing to do is that you should construct a few triremes; especially with coastal raider promotions they can be really useful for taking coastal cities and make some extra cash at the same time.


This is the second most important theater of action, and probably the trickiest one since you will be facing two enemies at once. Both have abilities to move in their preferred terrain easier, that is rivers and forest for Franks and Celts respectively. As your early focus is elsewhere, the plan here is to fall back into a more defensive line along the cities of Lugdunum and Mediolanum. But this doesn’t mean simply to move backwards, as you should slow the enemy down as much as possible by pillaging roads and hitting forward units, if you are sure that you can escape next turn. It is even possible to capture a lone archer if the opportunity presents itself. But here, your most important unit is the starting worker, who should be chopping forests to speed up the production of a legion at Lugdunum and walls at Mediolanum.

Here I would suggest you to concentrate on the Frankish seaxmen, as they are a good unit with strong base strength. Especially if you manage to get one in the first turns, holding out in Casta Regina on the other side of the Alps gets more probable. Although in my opinion losing Casta Regina is not a great loss, since you can take it back by using your first great general to citadel-bomb the hill-road through the mountains, 2 hexes south of the city. It is especially good place for a citadel, plugging up the mountain passes and even letting you siege the city while not even getting shot back because the city won’t have vision on the ballista as you also control the hill hex in between.

Meanwhile you should let the Celts advance be slowed down only by cities. Their unique unit sucks against cities since it has a crappy base strength and none of the percentage based bonuses work against cities. Also, they are the weakest enemy in the late game, and their ability to move through woods makes defending with units too dangerous. Instead, just hit their melee units with the cities’ ranged attacks every time and they should lose a significant number before they hit your chosen defensive line. You also need to direct enough units to this region, that once they hit your line you are able to hold it. Also keep in mind that the Celts also have a navy, so the city of Brigantium should start by building a trireme that should be ready just in time to help keep your coast clean up North.

Theater III: The Barbary Pirates

The last theater is quite separate from the rest, while it is technically possible to move units between the other two. It only influences the others through how much of your production is allocated there and on its effect on your economy. Both roads leading from Carthage are the most utterly useless and expensive things in your empire, and your first action here should be to send your worker to dismantle the one going east. Even the other one should be removed as soon as possible, only leaving the first hill hex road intact, since you can move units just as fast by embarking them. This will lift a significant financial burden and allow you to maintain a much larger army.

Second thing you need to do is to plug the stretch of sea between Africa and the Iberian Peninsula with boats. It is 4 hexes broad, and you need a few extra boats to switch places when they get damaged. The Vandals are a sea-based faction after all, so you want to restrain their entry into the Mediterranean. Also be careful not to let them capture any of your ships, even if you see a chance to sink one of their trihemiohelia, it is better to maintain the roadblock, or seablock, than risk your fleet getting boarded by other ships you didn’t see in the fog of war. Though it is possible to prevent the capture of ships by having an embarked unit in the same hex, that tactic is only feasible later in the game. With this and your border legion pillaging the road while falling back, you should be able to force the AI into making stupid moves and waste time, letting you fortify the defense of Iol Caesarea. You will be hard pressed to get the walls up in time, but managing the production of food and then starving them to work the hills should do it.
Your legion from Carthage should be able to reach Iol Caesarea in time to build a fortress on your side of the river, on the grass hex next to the luxuries. This way the only route to attack is through the swamp hexes where you can inflict massive casualties on them. Again trying to convert is a risk, unless in a position where the unit won’t be wiped out during the next AI turn. The axeman is probably the second best barbarian unit in the game with its large bonus against wounded units, another ability that a human player can utilize much better than AI.

This is the easiest and straightforward area, where you only lose the 2 cities closest to the Vandal capital. This is probably because there is the least space to move in, so it is also easy to block. And the AI is still quite shaky in amphibious operations, especially if naval and ground units would need to work together. Once you destroy the first wave, it is possible to take back the lost cities quickly. After that it is best to leave just enough units to hold your position there, and direct new units to places they are needed more.

Theater IV: The Far East

While the Huns and Sassanids are not really your problem, it is good to keep an eye out on this area occasionally just to see if either of them is going totally out of control. After you have saved Byzantine from the Goths they should be able to not get wiped out of the map against these two, and since their attack routes overlap they should end up fighting each other.Once your army of liberation in to the lands of your Roman brothers has freed all their cities lost in the initial assault, they have the option of going on the other side on Constantinople if you think either of these two barbarians needs stopping. Both Huns and Sassanids can score high points if left unchecked

Especially if you are doing good on your own borders, you should consider sending whatever troops you have in the Byzantine lands to East. In my games for some reason Iconium is always standing by the time my troops get there. However, keep in mind that bringing troops into this area could also aggravate them to bring units against you, instead of using them in the noble effort of fighting each other for no apparent reason or gain. Best way to do this is to pretend you are marching to attack the Sassanid lands by going around the Hunnic lands. The AI loves to pile in on unfair fights, so this can cause the Huns to go smash them too. Its not exactly top diplomacy, but its the best we can get.

This is a collection of tips and tricks that are in line with the overall strategy that should help you maintain your gold income at about the same level as your unit maintenance. The secondary aim is to have enough gold stored to buy one or two walls at critical cities you have just taken back during the very late game. For this you need to build some workers right at the start, as they are your main way of improving your declining economy.

Workers
The first rule is to cut expenses by removing useless or dangerous roads. And oh boy there are some pretty silly roads in this scenario. As mentioned before both roads from Carthage are huge money-sinks and your starting worker there should start removing the one leading East to Byzantine lands. It will take almost 30 turns but save you almost as much money to use on units. On your border to the Goths you should also remove all roads leading to Byzantine, but start with the one leading to Noricum, as it will fall. One more pointless road is the one leading South from New Carthage, as the city on the other end will fall soon and there is another shorter road there once you take it back.
The second order for your armies of workers is to chop woods to speed up production of units. However, there is no need to chop near Rome as it is already producing with enough speed. Instead move your workers towards the action. It is important to bear in mind that units build near the front can get into the fray quicker, and you can use the workers to shape the battlefield more to your liking. Especially against the Celts it is good to remove as many forests as possible to slow their movement, and to chop woods to speed up your own move when attacking. Chopping a single wood tile can also give line of sight for several of your ranged units, for example when attacking Carnuntum from the Roman side.
Third in importance is to build improvements or repair any pillaged ones. As you probably can guess, the improvement you are going to be building most is the trading post. In a scenario with limited time and no global warming anyway, chopping woods for production is always better than mines as you want the units out as soon as possible. Again try to balance production and money so you don’t lose any precious units to disbandment. Perhaps the only exception is the wheat fields of New Carthage, if you start with a granary to speed up the growth you should also improve them quickly. There are a few tiles where you can build a road to speed up your unit’s travel time to the front. Bridge the Tyber near rome by building one road on the cows and your units can get to Gaul a few turns faster, and leave the one hill West of Carthage with a road so your units can embark on the other side in one turn.
Your workers are and important part of your army, so keep them busy all game long. When you start advancing they can speed up the production of important stuff in the cities you take back. Most retaken cities should be walled to discourage the AI from trying to retake them. Another thing that was already mentioned briefly is to optimize your pillaging. As a rule of thumb if you can pillage it, you probably should even if you are taking the city on the same turn. The money is small, but the HP heal on your units can be very big as you want to keep units active as much as possible. The production of border cities is insignificant anyway and you should have workers following your army to repair if necessary.

City management
The second pillar on which your economy will rest is the good management of cities. On your first turn you will have to decide what size to grow each city depending on its location and resources. As your happiness is quite limited you can’t grow each city freely, or your happiness will drop under -10 and cause massive penalties for your units. For this reason it is easier to divide your cities to different roles according to the number of good hexes in their range. Generally, a tile is considered good if it produces 3 or more resources other than just food, and the optimal size is to have just enough population to work all the good tiles. The different city roles are production center, money center and border fort.
Production centers are quite obvious, as they have sources of high food and hammers. Don’t bother with barracks or anything; just start pumping out units from turn 1. Another consideration is how close to the front it is, a good production centers is just behind the lines. Examples of good production centers are Rome and both Carthages, as well as Salonae and Emerita Augusta. Also any cities that don’t fall into any other category should be production centers, just less good ones.
Cities on rivers and with more than one luxury resource are called money centers or nerve centers, because losing two luxuries at once will really hurt your happiness. You should never really lose one, but luckily they are not situated on the extreme borders. These should build a market if it doesn’t have one, and then just pump out units like the rest while workers improve all the worked river tiles with trading posts. I cannot stress it enough that you need to protect these at all costs.
Last ones are the border forts or limes in Latin. They are cities in good defensive locations, where you should rush to build walls just in time before the barbarians are at the gates. The most classic example is Lugdunum. It is protected by hills and a river and should be the place where you stop the Franks and Celts. Also all cities on your original borders should be walled. The downside is that with the serfdom policy these cities won’t produce units anymore. So the choice of walls should always be made only if really needed.

Policies
There is only one order of policies for this strategy, and it is rise of serfdom  barbarian conscripts  traitor general, and then hopefully delay as long as possible before having to take neglected infrastructure and coin debasement. Taking back cities helps as it increases the culture cost of policies. Popular Ennui is just too harsh to ever consider, unless you want to see your empire burn. The reasoning is that serfdom is the least harmful, as Rome doesn’t really care about 2 hammers and if you don’t wall too many other cities. This gives us few more turns to fight with full strength legions. While barbarian conscripts is annoying, the reason is that traitor general is by far the least destructive of the second tier policies. Depending on where the traitor army spawns you can either ignore it or crush it, and even recruit some units from them. The traitor units can’t take cities anyway, so if they are far off from the fighting you can just ignore them and repair the improvements once they are spent. Or if you are really lucky they might even spawn somewhere they’ll fight against barbarians, but nobody is that lucky.
After 3 policies the culture cost is high enough that it will take some time, especially if you have kept a lot of cities. While taking back cities is always the highest priority, try to avoid the situation where you and an AI take the same city several times back and forth. The 20 culture penalty gets added each time a city is taken, and they can really stack up. It is better to delay the capture by a few turns than sacrifice melee units to take a city each time; unless your enemy only has few melees and you can afford the trade.

Since most of this scenario is based on fighting, combat plays a big part in everything you do. The one guideline for you is that you should always plan on how to destroy the enemy army, while sustaining as little damage as possible and recruiting new units. All barbarians spawn units in waves instead of constantly, and if you don’t destroy the previous wave before the next one comes around you could be in big trouble.

By now we have hopefully repaired our economy enough to sustain a decent fighting force, so the rest of this guide is just some tricks I have learned that will help with this scenario. Most civ players have a decent understanding of how combat works, so I won’t point out the very basics of combat. But let me start out by drawing your attention on a little thing that can is easy to overlook. It is the difference between percentage bonuses and base strength. Since percentage bonuses are calculated from your base strength, they are not all equal. For example the negative 10% you get will impact your legions more than your weaker units. The same is why I consider the Celts weakest in the late game, because their unique units base strength is low and it doesn’t benefit from Gods army as much as Franks or Vandals. This also means you will want to keep your legions in rough terrain whenever possible, and why you should focus on killing the strong unique melee units early.

Early tactics
Early on you are greatly outnumbered by everyone, so you should concentrate on slowing down enemies and keeping your own alive until you are strong enough to fight. One trick is to put them on a road when you are about to lose a city, and then pillage the road and move back. For example in Africa against the Vandals you can keep your legion in the first city to boost its ranged attack, until it is 1 turn away from falling when you move 1 tile away. On the next turn pillage and move, you should be able to take the ranged attack from the city as the enemy units are set up to take it instead of attacking you. Don’t be afraid to use the instant heal from level up to keep your unit alive, in fact you should use the instant heal a lot in the early game.

Another thing about the instant heal is that if possible try to keep count of enemy unit’s experience. Don’t attack with ranged units if you give enough exp for them to use it before attacking, instead try to bait them into attacking and then kill them before they can use it on the next turn. Of course with almost hundred enemy units around it is impossible to keep track of all, but just try to identify the important ones. Early on using instant heals and preventing the enemy from using it can make a big difference.

If you find a lonely unit you can take with your legions, you should take it. Any extra units during this stage of the game are priceless. Just make sure you aren’t surrounded and destroyed in the next turns.

Mid game
Fighting during mid-game centers around cities you have chosen to defend or attack. The enemies are still probably more numerous, so you should build fortifications with any spare legions during early game. The enemies are going to push against you as they calculate that their odds are better, but if you have a good position around a city your units can hold out surprisingly well at this stage. Only when they have spent their force and try to fall back it is your time to strike back. One way to do this is to have a strong position, but leave one route open where they can attack. The AI will count that it has an advantage in numbers and try to push through in a long line. You can cut this line and isolate the enemy units. For example the Alpine passes are perfect for this, let them push in small groups to the open plains on the other side where you can take them out. The same principle works on a larger scale too, you can control where the AI will attack by fortifying one position strongly so they will go for the other one. For example the Franks have two options to attack you, through the Alps or through Gaul and they will attack from the one that is less defended.

When you are in a position to attack, you should try to attack so that you can take out several units in the same turn. Earlier on this is possible only in the Byzantine lands, but later in all theaters. This way you can hopefully recruit several units, and all of them won’t die during the AI turn. Also attacking gives more experience than defending, so you will get your great generals out sooner. Just don’t get carried away, always maintain a good position with your army in case the enemy turns back. If the AI can take a unit out it probably will, and trading unit kills isn’t what you really want even if it feels like you could spare them.

Late game
In the late game your units are no longer even close to the barbarians individually, so you need to have an obscenely large amount of them. With your huge empire pushing out nothing but units (you still have lot more production than any single enemy) you should have all your legions and cavalry out along with a number of ranged units and spearmen auxiliaries. Spears are actually useful, because you won’t have enough melee units to hold the line without them and they can hold out a few attacks when fortified in defensive position, just don’t attack with them unless you are really sure what you are doing.

Lots of fighting in the late game will be with your units holding positions and ranged units wearing down the enemies. The perfect situation is with your melee units in front and ranged units in the second line, so that you can focus fire from several units to one target. Try to isolate units you want to kill to take away their gods army bonus. A cavalry unit with few open terrain promotions can still take out ranged units just fine. Having a huge army can also make the AI calculate that it would be easier to attack another AI instead of you.

Late game can be a lot about unit movement, especially with huge armies in the field. Sometimes it is even worth it to use a great general citadel to take key road tiles that will help your armies move faster. And building a citadel will always chop the forest in the same tile, so that you can use it to speed up production in a pinch.

I have written this guide mostly to organize my own thoughts and to formulate a consistent strategy for this scenario. I have enjoyed playing this scenario as the West Roman Empire again and again, because even though I have been beaten each time, I have made some slight improvement to my game and done better next time. Perhaps it could even be possible to do the pax romana aeternum as West Rome…

This is a nice spot for a citadel.


Celts worst enemy.


Do not run we are your friends!


Work Work.


Looks like some "barbarians" pillaged your tiles, friend.

Shining beacon of light, all alone in the night