Transcription
When I managed to convince my bosses to let me do the Rise of Rome expansion for Age of Empires, obviously the Romans needed to be the centerfold and show a lot of skin, so to speak. Now, the Rise of Rome was the best expansion in the entire history of video games (up to that point). We added playable factions, new units, new upgrades, new campaigns. No one had ever done that before. I am really proud of what we did.
So making the Romans. I had two goals. First, I wanted the Romans to FEEL Roman. I wanted the player to feel like Caesar, commanding his legions & auxiliaries to wipe out the puny foes. Second, I wanted the Roman bonuses to be simple, straightforward, and obvious.
Lots of the Age of Empires civ bonuses are subtle, or only become clear after you've played for a while. But I didn't want that for the Romans. I wanted players to immediately start talking up the Romans in forums and elsewhere - to evangelize the Rise of Rome. This meant they couldn't have weird or esoteric advantages. It had to be easy to understand, so a player could just say, "Wow! The Romans get X!" X, of course being awesome.
You have to remember that no one had ever done an expansion like this - we were NOT sanguine about its success. I mean, I felt it would be a hit, but things can always go wrong, and the Homo habilis creatures that dominate MicroSoft's marketing and advertising could easily screw up, with their tiny over-caffeinated brains. ROMA REGNAT 1/
[A screenshot of the game, showing a Roman colosseum]
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Famously, the Romans used swordsmen in battle. This was almost unique among pre-gunpowder civilizations. Almost everyone used spears. Of course Romans used spears too, they just threw them before charging into battle. You could make a case that the "real" Roman main weapon was actually the scutum.
But yeah I had to use swordsmen for them. Now Age of Empires swordsmen aren't anyone's favorite. They don't have lots of health. They're not fast. They're not ranged. They ARE cheap at least. When facing hoplites, cavalry, or archers, they get skunked. What could I do? Well, one thing I COULDN'T do was give them extra health. The Choson civilization already had that as a bonus, and I didn't want to copy them.
Well the easiest thing to do is increase their attack. I had the Roman swordsmen attack 50% faster. This is h uge actually. If you understand the Lancaster numbers, it means a Roman swordsman is 2.25x as good as a normal one. Now, this has drawbacks. If you're attacking catapults or archers, it doesn't help a bit. Butt it pays off once you close in.
SALVETE ROMAM
2/
Picture this - you are attacked by Roman swordsmen. Naturally you pump out some archers or hoplites or (if you have them) elephants. But the Romans are caving in your buildings 50% faster. While you are training archers, suddenly your Archery Range crumbles. You try to train cavalry, but you get "housed" as the Roman swordsmen burn out your slums. You send villagers to build new houses and the Romans kill them in record time. Speed has a quality all its own.
Faster killing is at its most effective when used by skilled players, but we figured early adopters of Rise of Rome would be above average.
We have now made swordsmen pretty cool. What's next? Famously the Romans had ballista as a standard battlefield weapon. So yeah a Ballista bonus, and I had the perfect bonus. Just simply give them +1 range. Let's unpack this. If you are attacking enemy ballistas, your ballistas shoot first. Then their ballistas need to roll forward to get in range and shoot back. But now your ballistas in the second rank can still hit the enemy, but their rear-rank ballistas have to maneuver to the sides, since the front row is full of ballistas already. This takes even longer for them to get into action, meanwhile you are hitting them.
My example is ballista vs. ballista, but it applies to any range combat. That +1 range really makes more of a difference than one might think. One feature is that usually the first time you realize the Romans are in town comes when a bunch of bolts hits your woodcutters from off-screen.
Having good ballistas is also synergistic for the Romans. One of the main cheap counters to swordsmen is archers, and ballistas devastate archers. So fielding a swordsman/ballista army is a good combo, and you look pretty damn ROMAN as you order them forward. Of course there are plenty of units that can kill ballistas but the swordsman horde should be a comfort.
ROMA VINCIT
/3
I felt I had a solid military for Rome. But I needed a good economic bonus. Many economic bonuses in Age of Empires were picky or just focused on a single resource. The Yamato's only econ bonus was in fishing, which obviously sucked on all-land maps.
Rome needed an easy to understand bonus that helped everything. My first idea was to give them an instant resource reward each time they Aged up. This not only would give them an incentive to advance, but provide immediate funds for an army. It didn't seem "Roman" enough though. Anywhere there's one of the great unused bonuses from Age of Empires.
What I ended up doing is having ALL their buildings (except walls) cost 10% less. This meant they could build houses a little sooner. They could lay down mills sooner. They could build town centers cheaper. It also helpes their military by making barracks and siege workshops cheaper. Not much - a Roman storage pit costs 315 instead of 350. But that's enough wood for part of a house.
Also, this cheap building thing lasts forever. It's ALWAYS good. My theoretical "extra Aging resources" would wear off, but the cheap buildings are helping you even in the late game. I mean it's always nice to build a barracks near the enemy town 10% sooner, right?
I decided the Romans needed a defensive boost too, based on their famous ability to defend their camps. Something to give them time to put together their longsword/ballista army. I went with towers, and had them cost only 90 stone instead of 150. I realize this is a huge bonus, but I needed a huge bonus to entice the Romans into building towers, since they're fundamentally an attack civ. This would let them rely on defenses early on, risking an enemy rush, so they could attack with a zillion troops in Iron Age.
The goal was for Roman towers to be up before anyone else's, hopefully before the Shang come raiding with their crappy cavalry. An unexpected use was that you could build towers in an enemy town cheap, but I didn't think of that while designing the bonus.
Towers are also a mobile, flexible defense, & that seemed Roman.
ODIMUS ROMAM
/4
Did I succeed? Yes and no. The Romans were fun, and got played a lot. They didn't dominate the game as I'd expected. Usually when I saw people talking about Rise of Rome online, they talked up the Palmyrans or Carthage, possibly because they had whack econ bonuses that required lots of discussion. Plus they had weird units (camels & elephants).
The Romans became the "good quiet kid" who sits on the edge of the class and gets ignored. Everyone likes him kinda, but no one LOVES him. Oh well. They were still the hero of the campaign and I'll forever stand by the fact they are fun & easy to play. That might be why they weren't discussed so much - they are so straightforward no one needed to whine online.
ROMA EST MAXIMA
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