Haven’t decided which civ you want to play yet in Civilization VI? For an excellent starting point with lots of early game advantages, Rome is among the best you can pick.
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Changes From Previous Games
Rome’s special ability is similar to what was offered in Civilization V, but with a bit of a twist. Rather than gaining bonus Production towards buildings in your capital, now in Civilization VI you get the aptly titled All Roads Lead To Rome.
This ability automatically starts you off with a Trading Post in any new city, and furthermore automatically creates a road to any new city within trade route range of your capital, netting you extra Gold. Be sure to have traders passing through as many of these Posts as possible for maximum Gold increase.
When combined with the unique Roman leader ability, anyone picking Rome as their civ is going to have a huge infrastructure advantage. As in the previous game, the capital is still your solid foundation, but expansion becomes a bigger focus.
Let’s get started conquering the world!
Rome’s Leader
The less historically-heralded figure Trajan offers the Trajan’s Column ability, granting one free building in the City Center, which becomes more and more useful as you expand.
You get a Monument instead while playing the ancient era, meaning you are going to have a leg up on working through the Civics tree over your opponent.
Unique Roman Buildings / Units
The Legion is very similar to the past game, replacing the Swordsman (and costing more to boot). This unique unit is stronger however, and offers the utility of building roads and forts – meaning you will have advance access to forts over other civs. Although limited compared to regular builders, Legions don’t die after completing construction.
Legions preparing for war
The Baths becomes available when you developing the Engineering tech and replace the standard Aqueduct building. As with many Roman features, this building is all about expansion.
If you build the Baths in a city not adjacent to fresh water, you get a huge Housing bonus so your population will keep going up, in addition to a small Amenity boost to keep citizens happy.
Roman Baths
Roman Victory Conditions
One thing to keep in mind for any victory is that the All Roads Lead To Rome ability is more useful on a single land mass than a map with lots of sea routes.
Other than that consideration, this is an excellent civ for people just getting into the game. Rome doesn’t lean super heavily towards any of the victory conditions, but does offer strong early game bonuses and extra Gold.
Rome does lend itself to expansion, as you want to consistently have more cities, but you don’t necessarily have to go the Domination route. With Cultural and Science victories very strong possibilities considering your bonuses to Civics and Gold.
