Krill Wrote:Doesn't really matter. Get the gold hooked up and aggressive preats will just steamroll Korea even if they start building nothing but archers now, or manage to get metal hooked up in time (I don;t think they will).
I think that's a possible outcome, but I'm not convinced it's a sure thing. I agree that Rome surely has the advantage, but I also think Korea has the ability to draw out the conflict and prevent a "steamroll". For one thing, Korea gets cheap walls and strong archers while Prats are expensive, and Rome will lack siege weapons for some time due to the Iron Working beeline.
It's also likely that Korea will beeline construction for their UU the hwacha. This means that the window of praetorian dominance isn't all that long. If Korea can only hold out until hwachas, then they can effectively neutralize Rome's offensive advantage.
I'm at work now so I can't make a test game, but I'm wondering what the odds are for an aggressive prat versus a protective archer behind a wall? Prat get's 8.8 from +10 strength, Archer is a bit more math-intensive. Starts at 3, plus fortify bonus, plus city garrison promotion, plus cultural bonus, and also some kind of bonus due to the drill promotion.
Seems like the prat has a good advantage, but then again, they are much more expensive than an archer, so it's possible to build 2 archers for every prat, and then a few more during the time that the invading prats are healing from their victories. But then in that situation, Korea is replacing losses while Rome is taking hardly any, so the long term advantage goes to Rome.
The more I think about this the more I think you're right that Korea is in big trouble.