Mini Guide: Getting started with Rome II

[Sociopsychoactive]

Level four barracks in neoplolis of both types.

[Myth]

Level four barracks in neoplolis of both types.

Wow, you are right. Barracks are indeed available in minor cities. So, only the temple should be in the captol. Can you confirm if levle 5 buildngs are capped in number? Circus Maximus/Colloseum/Cloaca Maxima and the Pantheon?

I think the issue might be because they seem to requre/consume resources upon further inspection. Circus Maximus wants wine, the Pantheon wants marble and the Cloaca Maxima wants lead.

Do the just want you to have them or do they also consume units of the resource?

[Oleander Ardens]

Nice guide indeed.

I think it is important to visualize 3 key economic pools when playing:

1. Wealth

2. Food

3. Public order

The first two are global and the third is regional and then provincial. Quite often you have to make big trade-offs between them, especially when adjusting the taxes and choosing your buildings. It is not a trivial thing and I'm greatly enjoying the campaign game. Obviously there are also growth, wealth and characters which are all intertwined. Regional ressources and wonders also play a big role.

I like the way regional/provincial growth and income is related to public order. The higher your public order the bigger the growth and the bigger the income, while a very unhappy province is full of people avoiding work and evading taxes. This great modifier means that the return on investment for level III and IV buildings is often even worse then I first calculated. You have to careful where do you built what to not drain that precious ressource public order. BTW the patch gives you the trend even after hitting 100, which is great. For example Macedonia has a PO of 100 (4) without stationed troops meaning that I can for a bit more disorder to fully skim off that PO growth

[Bad213Boy]

Neapolis



The guide has some merit, but Neapolis can not have 3 Military buildings. The most you can have is 2 because there is a port there. You can't turn a port into a military building, unless there's a bug I'm unaware of.

[Bramborough]

No, Neapolis (or any other minor settlement) cannot have 3 military bldgs, but it doesn't have to. The workshop can be in a different town of the same province.

[Myth]

You are right. This was an edit after the guide was done based on previous feedback and I got overzelous with the buiding icons. It will be fixed.

[Bramborough]

I'm interested in thoughts about +tech buildings (and character traits, for that matter). Anybody out there building lots of libraries, +research temples, etc?

Reworking my province building slots IAW Myth's thoughts zoomed my income through the roof. Works great. (A factor may have been the Patch 2 squalor/food tweaks. It's possible that I had settled on some semi-conscious "building rules" which made sense before Patch 2, and then I didn't adjust afterwards until reading this guide).

One constant, however, before/after Patch 2, and before/after reading through the OP here, has been that I haven't built any library-line buildings at all, and very few research temples. I just always felt that there were more compelling uses for building slots. As a result, 240ish turns into the campaign, my overall research rate is in the 120's. I haven't finished out the third tier in any of the six research trees. Each of the remaining tier-three techs are requiring 16-18 turns to research, and I've got enough of them left that it would take something like 150 more turns to completely finish out the entire tech tree.

Is this consistent with others' experiences deep into a campaign, or have I just totally gooned it somehow? Has anyone had success in creating a specialized "research province" or two?