Talk:Birth of Rome/@comment-60.242.113.135-20170210205745/@comment-31571913-20200218012749

NOTE: The above advice referred to the original game. For the Definitive Edition remake, I found that it did not work at all (on Hardest, at least) and that building up a decent fighting force was a necessity. In fact, since putting down early towers at the flags is so ineffective in that version, it might be a good idea to delay mining stone completely in the beginning and focus on collecting food instead to get the economy going as quickly as possible.

Speed is essential, as you only get a certain amount of time to prepare before enemies from many different tribes swarm your city from all sides and your opening forces won't stand a chance. Broad Swordsmen and mass Bowmen should be your best bet. Priests would come in handy, but gold is tight in the beginning, so it's better spent on the Broad Swordsman upgrade and more units of that type until later in the game. This is also the reason why I would recommend not bothering with Cavalry and Improved Bowmen in this scenario (though converted Etruscan Cavalry can be useful, if you're lucky enough to snatch a few).