Building Slots

[Myth]

Using this I now have a much better understanding of what to build and where. It's interesting to see the differences in buildings between cultures. For example, the limited port options for Barbarians are compensated with expanded farming options, which in turn means that Barbarian factions actually don't suffer that much from being primarily landlocked, while the Romans and Hellenistic factions must seek the coastal provinces to make use of their great trade ports and temples.

OTOH some barb bonuses (iron/bronze smith) can stack up to create devastating melee infantry for example. The Roman tier 5 temple to Jupiter is something wondrous as well. The worst thing for me are the library line of buildings, and espcially Egypt's unique tier 5 Great Library. Speeding research by 50% means little if you can research everything you need in 50 turns.

I wish the research tree was expanded to something of the scope of Alpha Centauri (for those who have played it). That would really add a whole nother level of depth to the game.

[Spoonska]

Eureka! In an earlier post in this thread I'd speculated that increased level of settlement building (in cities and towns) allowed that 6th or 4th building slot to become available but since then I've realised I was wrong. And you have cracked it - a port gives the extra 'free' slot.

Except (possibly): I'm playing a game as Athens and Sparta's home region belongs to me. Not being coastal it only has 3 slots and now growth has stopped in the province so no more slots will appear. I wondered how tough that would make a start as the Spartan faction - no port and only 3 slots in home region - so I started a game as Sparta. While my home region only had 3 slots there was growth beginning which presumably would eventually lead to an extra slot.

Has anyone played Sparta yet for long enough to get growth to actually provide an extra 4th slot in their home region?

I can confirm with 100% certainty that it doesn't. If you have a town, but not the capital you still accumulate growth. Even if you're maxed out in your settlement. That accumulated growth can be spent once you take the capital.

In my campaign I took Segestica, and waited about 30-40 turns before taking Akink. When I marched on Singidun I had 11 total growth, and was able to expand my city twice once I had it.

[Spoonska]

Using this Speeding research by 50% means little if you can research everything you need in 50 turns.

I wish the research tree was expanded to something of the scope of Alpha Centauri (for those who have played it). That would really add a whole nother level of depth to the game.

The good thing about this though is Rome 2 has a great way of converting your buildings to something more useful once you don't need it. Town growth for example. Town growth becomes obsolete fairly quickly in a lot of towns. Aqueducts, religious buildings... all those that have modifiers that increase growth you can flip over to something like +food or +% wealth.

[Sp4]

Sparta wont grow beyong 3 slots, which is a little crap, seeing as your home region ends up being this little hovel of a town. Athens right next door is nice though

[andrewt]

Isn't that historically accurate? Sparta was a hovel.

[quadalpha]

Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame. And yet they own two-fifths of the Peloponnesus, and are acknowledged leaders of the whole, as well as of numerous allies in the rest of Hellas. But their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages like the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make a poor show. Whereas, if the same fate befell the Athenians, the ruins of Athens would strike the eye, and we should infer their power to have been twice as great as it really is. We ought not then to be unduly sceptical. The greatness of cities should be estimated by their real power and not by appearances.

3ch

[lars573]

Not entirely correct. Some towns have four slots, a minority have three. I think this may be an issue where a port counts as the fourth slot.

Likewise cities. If they have a port, they have six slots. Since we all know Rome never had a port of any sort, it has five.

psst Ostia-anitca was a seperate town.

[Sp4]

Isn't that historically accurate? Sparta was a hovel.

I must be one of the few people who doesn't give a shite about historical accuracy because I think the game is about rewriting history.. Right? At least that's what I like about it. I'd love a unit creation tool, where you could come up with new units for your empire and chose between weapons and armour and stuff and the game figures out a way to make them cost an appropriate amount of money.

On a sidenote, I think the unit descriptions in the encyclopedia is pretty lacking. In many cases, they just copy pasted stuff... Like anything about Hastati and Principes and their ship borne versions are like Paste text about manipular legions.. Then you get post Marius legions and it's like Paste text about Marius' reform.

Pretty much all of the different auxiliary troops description is the same and some descriptions have nothing to do with the unit they are about. This annoyed me since Fall of the Samurai, where the encyclopedia was stuffed with lots of useless and uninteresting information about... gun and the same thing was repeated for all different kinds of infantry.. with guns... ad nauseum.

[CaptainCrunch]

I must be one of the few people who doesn't give a shite about historical accuracy because I think the game is about rewriting history.. Right? ...

Mmm, I don't think CA does either

You're right though. 'Historical liberties' are part of RTW. The simple fact that we can take a faction to heights of power it never reached is ahistorical, why shouldn't we be able to develop cities beyond their historical limits?

On the other hand, it can be argued that it would greatly reduce the strategic & economic significance of capturing historically important cities from a gameplay standpoint.

[Sp4]

Mmm, I don't CA does either

You're right though. 'Historical liberties' are part of RTW. The simple fact that we can take a faction to heights of power it never reached is ahistorical, why shouldn't we be able to develop cities beyond their historical limits?

On the other hand, it can be argued that it would greatly reduce the strategic & economic significance of capturing historically important cities from a gameplay standpoint.

They seem to have taken a more cinematic approach to it, which I really don't mind. The game does look beautiful.