View Full Version : WotS The Will of the Senate - out of character thread
Xiahou Liao
05-17-2006, 22:07
I was thinking of doing one of these again. I missed the Spanish one. :( Job got in the way. I'm open to any of the Factions, just not the huge ones...like the Selecuids......you know. Open to suggestions.
PBM campaign - “The Will of the Senate”
EDIT: THIS POST WILL NO LONGER BE MAINTAINED BUT HAS BEEN COPIED TO THE FAQ THREAD
Briefly, what it is all about:
:This will be a PBM where the entire body of participants contributes to the on-going campaign, whether playing the current 'round' or not. We will all be members of the 'Senate' and will generally decide what will happen through debate and voting on the forums. There will always be a single 'Consul', elected by majority vote in the Senate, who will be responsible for playing the actual game itself. He will serve for a 5 year term (20 game turns, using the 4 turns per year mod) and his actions will be reported back to the Senate regularly.
Each Senator will represent an actual Roman family member present in the game. You will know your traits, family connections, etc. All battles will be auto-calc UNLESS the general of the army is the current Consul. In addition, if a Senator's in-game family member is involved in a battle, the Consul will pass off the save game to that Senator for that single battle. Essentially, you will control everything involving the family member that represents YOU in the game. Using politics you can negotiate with other Senators and with the Consuls to get postings to the best cities with the best academies, to be assigned leadership of legions or even to be the next Consul yourself. Alternatively, you can sit back and simply aggitate as a member of the Senate... passing legislation (requirements that the Consul must try and fulfill) and otherwise politicing as you please without needing to play any turns. When your character dies, you will be assigned a new one when one becomes available (probably instantly).
We're still working out the finer points, but that's the gist of it. Oh, and it will be played using the Rome: Total Realism mod and some other sub-mods.
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The Play Order
The list of participants will now be maintained in the first post of the Senate deliberations thread.
People may join the campaign at any time, although the order in which people first post in this thread will be their "seniority" in the campaign and affect the assignment of faction members to be their "avatars". Priority in assigning avatars will go to lower house members, with seniority being a tie breaker. Ultimately as the Republic grows, we should have 30+ faction members, so every one - Upper and Lower House - should have an-game representation.
Anyone who joins the Lower House of the Senate is confirming:
(a) you have successfully installed RTR Platinum and the Metropolis mod for it.
(b) you could fight a battle at 2 days notice if your avatar gets into a scrap.
Anyone who joins the Upper House is confirming they will be an active member of the Senate, voting on elections and motions etc.
Remember, you can always freely switch between houses, but avatars may be re-assigned in order to give priority to lower house members. We don't want to autoresolve battles involving faction members.
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THE NITTY GRITTY
CURRENT RULES:
Game version - We are playing the Metropolis and Naval mod for Rome Total Realism Platinum Edition.
Follow these steps to install the mod:
(1) Start with vanilla RTW patched to 1.5 (1.6 if you have BI); note the 1.5 patch requires installing 1.3 first.
It is recommend that you use windows explorer to copy your RTW directory and everything in it.
Then rename the coped folder "RTR-Platinum" or something and mod this folder, leaving your vanilla RTW in tact.
(2) Install RTR Platinum Edition 1.5.
Currently, this involves two stages: installing the 1.0 Full release (aka 1.4 beta):
http://www.rometotalrealism.org/files/RTR_Platinum.exe
And patching it to 1.5 using the update:
http://www.beaglepc.net/rome/downloads/RTR_Platinum_v1.5_Patch.exe
(4) Install the Metropolis and Naval mod for Platinum
This is explained in:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20000
Current version is 1.4; updated 2 June.
(5) Install the parthia/bactria landblock + africa landblock, and fix for a few map problems etc:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20850
(6) Delete map.rwm from
c:\Rome - Total War\data\world\maps\base
c:\Rome - Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\base
c:\Rome - Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign
CRITICAL WARNING FOR ALL PLAYERS !!!
As you load the game, wait for the advisor to pop up (you do not need to have advice on, it will show up anyway). Click on the show-me-how button to activate the mod. If you forget to do this, you will probably mess up the savegame and at the very least mess up the scripting for four turns per year and Roman leadership. Now you can start playing. You need to do this EVERY TIME you load or start a game.
Settings:
VH campaigns; M battles
Large unit size
Timer on
Fog of war on
Player rules:
*1) No retraining, except ships and full units (to get upgrades). Mercenaries can be merged with AOR units.
2) No extermination (except Carthage).
*3) Fleets can only transport on a 1:1 basis (e.g. one tireme: 1 unit)
4) Historical armies - see below
5) No army may leave Roman territory unless it has a General in command.
6) All battles with captains are autoresolved. Non-siege battle reinforcements led by captains should be placed under AI control.
7) Battles with faction members can be fought manually if the avatar is controlled by a member of the Lower House who plays out the battle within 2 days, otherwise they are autoresolved.
9) Regular reports should provided to Senate. The Consul must post every two days - it could be just a holding message ("Spending time attending to various work duties"), rather than a full report. The purpose is to avoid savegames disappearing for weeks (and encourage interaction with the Senate).
10) Players should post mid-term (after 10 turns) and end-term (after 20 turn) reports in the First Consul reports thread. This will be in character, but include a screenshot of the map, the savegame and a description of the key facts (allies, enemies etc). Players deceiving the Senate are unlikely to garner many votes. Players providing colourful write-ups may be rewarded.
*11) Declarations of war, alliances, ceasefires and relocation of the capital require a Senate vote.
*12) The player must inform the Senate Speaker asap of new faction members when they are spawned (including infants), so that they may be assigned to participants. Please give full details - name, date and season of spawn, relation to family tree, age, location, stats, traits, ancillaries, everything.
13) The game will end when the following factions are destroyed: Carthage, Iberia, Greece, Macedon, Thrace, Seleucia, Egypt, Pontus, Gaul, Numidia.
14) Players are encouraged to read Quintus’ guide to being a true Roman for inspiration - e.g. on how to assign faction members by age to armies and provinces.
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=12035
Ancillaries
(1) Ancillaries normally should not be swapped without the consent of the participants controlling the avatars with the following exceptions.
(2) Chirurgeons and turncoats can be freely assigned by First Consuls.
(3) Priests can be removed from a character if that character is to stay in a settlement with the relevant temple.
(4) Characters who have 6 ancillaries, can have one ancillary transfered to another character (in order to allow the spawing of other ancillaries).
(5) The special ancillaries created by Marcus Camillus - the legion, field and Consular army traits, the quaestor of Roma trait - can be transferred by the First Consul but only to characters qualified - or about to qualify - for them and who are staced with suitably sized armies. eg legios => ex-Tribunes with 10 years experience etc.
Participants, Consuls and avatars
1) The player with the savegame is the (First) Consul and plays out a “reign” of 20 turns unless (a) their avatar dies; or (b) they resign the post (including resigning for premature re-election).
2) Participants must elect to join the upper or lower house of the Senate. Participants may switch between houses at any stage by notifying the Senate speaker.
3) Members of the lower house must be willing at some point to act as Consul (play the game) and ready to fight battles manually during the reign of another Consul within 48 hours of notification.
4) Members of the lower house will be assigned a faction member to act as their “avatar” in the game on a first come first served basis.
5) Members of the upper house are not expected to act as Consul or to fight battles. They will be assigned an avatar subject to availability.
6) Members currently without avatars will be “ghost” senators, with full rights.
7) Members whose avatars die will be assigned new avatars subject to the procedures outline above.
8) Members will be periodically informed of the traits and ancillaries of their avatars and will be expected to “role play” them. This will involve respecting bonds of family (e.g. sons should defer to fathers, unless they are “rotten kids”).
9) Dormant participants - who miss two or more Senate votes etc - may have their avatars reassigned.
10) Family members under 30 are restricted to the Uppper House unless there are exceptional circumstances (ie the Senate votes to waive the rule in a particular case). The reported arrival of King Pyrrhus in South Italy is one such circumstance, so it is likely Tiberius Coruncanius and Lucius Amelius will be assigned to the Lower House, by Speaker's perogative.
11) The future Princeps Senatus (Faction heir) will be elected by the Senate on the death of the Princeps Senatus. Future Princeps Senatus will not be disinherited except by a Senate vote in exceptional circumstances (impeachement etc).
Senate proceedings and election of First Consuls
1) A thread will be created devoted to Senate deliberations. All members can post - in character only - any deliberations or thoughts they have during the campaign. The Senate is always in session for debate.
2) Full Senate sessions - where votes are made - will occur in the 3 day interregnums between Consulates; in a mid-term session in the 3rd year of a Consulate; and in emergency sessions.
3) In end-term Senate sessions, members of the lower house have 2 days to offer themselves up for election to Consul by posting manifestos setting out their objectives.
3) Senate members can propose motions that are binding setting out objectives for a Consuls reign. The Consul may ignore this motions at their peril (risk of censure/impeachment). All motions require a proposer and a seconder. Members whose avatars have one or more influence do not need a seconder.
4) There will then be a 1 day period of voting in which Senate members will vote on motions and, if it is an end-term session, for their preferred Consul. One member has one vote plus votes equal to half the influence of Senator’s avatars (rounded up; ghosts have zero influence)
5) The Senate may choose to reward Consuls by awarding them “Triumphs” or they may choose to censure them by Impeachment. Either vote requires a 2/3 majority of the Senate (influence weighted). Motions of thanks and censure require simple majorities.
(6) The Speaker can summon an emergency session of Senate at any time (ie a pause in play). The Senate is always open for deliberation (ie pontificating!) but only votes at a full session.
(7) The Senate can modify game rules by a 2/3 majority, except those deemed inviolable (and marked with an *).
Participant interactions.
1) Members may interact in public in the Senate deliberations thread or in private, via PMs.
2) Members may lobby Consuls for their avatars to be given some assignment (a governorship, time in an academy, field experience, be given a certain ancillary etc) and - heavens forbid - may even let some dealings influence their voting behaviour.
3) Members may not threaten or insult each other, except through public denunciations on the Senate floor. (ie let’s play nice).
4) Members of the lower house whose character takes part in a battle will be PMd by the Consul and asked to play out the battle. They will have 2 days to perform the task; otherwise it will be autoresolved.
5) Members whose avatars are governors will specify tax rates and construction build lists to the Consul at Senate sessions (training troops will be the Consul's responsibility). The Consul may deviate from those instructions (e.g. to balance the books) but will be accountable for such deviations.
The Senate speaker and other Senate posts
The campaign will be coordinated by one person, the Senate speaker (econ21). He will oversee all aspects of the campaign - assigning avatars, counting votes etc. The speaker will have the right to depose any incumbent player who does not provide a timely and satisfactory account of their progress (ie no running off with the savegame and derailing the campaign), but typically this should be done with the agreement of a majority of the Senate. econ21 will also act as a conventional participant in the game but keep this role strictly separate role from the Speaker role (e.g. his avatar is not the Speaker).
The Senate librarian (TinCow) will field miscellaneous queries from Upper House Senators about in-game information (e.g. what cities we hold, where is my avatar etc?) from savegames. In the first instance, Consuls should field such requests but in interregnums etc, the Librarian may help. Lower House Senators are expected to have the mod installed and so can consult savegames directly.
The Senate Fixer (DDW) will advise on technical issues around the RTR Platinum and Metropolis mod. He will keep the Senate up to date with the lastest patches and tweaks to the mods, helping us to maintain savegame compatibility while avoiding critical bugs and benefiting from essential updates.
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Historical armies: until the Marian reforms, the following rules should be adopted:
(1) There can be no more than one Roman unit per allied unit (generals excepted).
(2) Roman infantry must be deployed in the ratio:
2 hastati: 2 principes: 2 velites: 1 triarii
(use common sense where this exact ratio is not possible - e.g. 1 hastati, 2 principes is ok but 1 hastati, 2 triarii is not)
(3) No more than two ranged foot units (slinger or archer) per stack.
(4) No more than four cavalry units (excl. generals) per stack.
Typically, players should aim for two kinds of armies:
(a) Full stack Consular armies - 2 legions + 2 alae
2 hastati, 2 principes, 2 velites, 1 triarii, 1 funditore, 1 equites, 1 general
+ 10 assorted allies (one slot can be a second general, a tribune).
(b) Half stack Praetorian armies - 1 legion +1 alae
1 hastati, 1 principes, 1 velites, 1 general, and 1 of either triarii, equites or funditore
+5 allies
After the Marian reforms, half the stacks should still be allies (auxiliaries).
Roman units should be in the ratio: 1 first cohort: 3 legionnaires.
So a half stack army - a legion - could be:
1 First cohort; 3 legionnaires; 1 general + 5 auxiliaries
And a full stack army - two legions - could be:
2 first cohort; 6 legionnaires; 1 general; 1 artillery
+10 auxiliaries (one slot can be a second general, a tribune)
Equites should be disbanded and not recruited after the Marian reforms.
Xiahou Liao
05-17-2006, 22:45
Platinum sounds good...Romans sound good too. Anyone else?
If it's long, has complex rules, is hard and involves playing Romans you can count me in. I've got to do something between now and MTW2, don't I?
Avicenna
05-19-2006, 08:11
Oh you'll need complex rules. RTR Romans are too easy otherwise, even for the likes of myself.
OK, let's think about some houserules.
I think it goes without saying that this should be a "roleplaying" game - players will play "in character" and try to make some good stories. Charging at windmills and idiosyncratic personal goals are encouraged, so long as they do not make life too hard for other players (e.g. no disbanding all your armies).
Beyond that I propose that the theme of this game be "Conquest" (~:doh: ). We should aim to conquer all the factions that Rome actually did conquer and each player should dedicate their reign to targeting one of those factions.
Specifically, I propose:
(1) VH campaigns; M battles
(2) No retraining, except ships and full units (to get upgrades) :nurse:
(3) No extermination:hippie:
(4) Fleets can only transport on a 1:1 basis (e.g. one tireme: 1 unit) :captain:
(5) Historical armies - see below :book:
Notes:
1. Target factions: :viking:
The game should last until the following factions are destroyed:
Carthage, Iberia, Greece, Macedon, Thrace, Seleucia, Egypt, Pontus, Gaul, Spain, Numidia.
Other factions (Parthia, Germany, Armenia etc) could be targeted but don't have to be.
2. Historical armies: :book: until the Marian reforms, the following rules should be adopted:
(1) There can be no more than one Roman unit per allied unit (generals excepted).
(2) Roman infantry must be deployed in the ratio:
2 hastati: 2 principes: 2 velites: 1 triarii
(use common sense where this exact ratio is not possible - e.g. 1 hastati, 2 principes is ok but 1 hastati, 2 triarii is not)
(3) No more than two ranged foot units (slinger or archer) per stack.
(4) No more than four cavalry units (excl. generals) per stack.
Typically, players should aim for two kinds of armies:
(a) Full stack Consular armies - 2 legions + 2 alae
2 hastati, 2 principes, 2 velites, 1 triarii, 1 funditore, 1 equites, 1 general
+ 10 assorted allies (one slot can be a second general, a tribune).
(b) Half stack Praetorian armies - 1 legion +1 alae
1 hastati, 1 principes, 1 velites, 1 general, and 1 of either triarii, equites or funditore
+5 allies
After the Marian reforms, half the stacks should still be allies (auxiliaries).
Roman units should be in the ratio: 1 first cohort: 3 legionnaires.
So a half stack army - a legion - could be:
1 First cohort; 3 legionnaires; 1 general + 5 auxiliaries
And a full stack army - two legions - could be:
2 first cohort; 6 legionnaires; 1 general; 1 artillery
+10 auxiliaries (one slot can be a second general, a tribune)
Equites should be disbanded and not recruited after the Marian reforms. ~:mecry:
What do people think? Anyone dislike some of the above rules? Want to add more?
[EDIT: The following rules were proposed but have been withdrawn - see discussion in later posts.]
(6) On receiving the savegame, each player except the first must immediately make three announcements :director: (a) their primary target faction; (b) their secondary target faction; (c) their most favoured ally.
(7) Each player will then play until their primary target faction is destroyed (success! :2thumbsup: ) or their leader dies (failure :no: ). Players who start their turns with leaders aged over 55 can play on after their leader dies :skull: .
(8) Secondary target factions must be raided :duel: - the player must enter their territory and try to destroy their field armies, but must not take any of their cities.
(9) All other factions (rebels are not a faction) can only be defended against - their territory cannot be entered, except in hot pursuit of a repelled invading army. :ballchain:
(10) Most favoured allies must be given military support if attacked and at the end of each turn must be given any excess gold in the treasury above 50,000. ~:pat:
(11) The first player must play until South Italy, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia are Roman, then retire. :sorry:
Whew... I love the army requirements and would like to suggest one more. No army should be allowed to leave Roman territory unless it has a General in command.
I've got issues with 6 - 10, but I've got to run off to work and can't get into it now.
Avicenna
05-19-2006, 14:05
Add Melite (not sure about the region's name) the city to the first player's objectives. It's just a small island south of Sicily.
Seleucia and Egypt seem to be quite ambitious targets for Rome, seeing how Egypt was claimed because of a marriage and the Seleucid Empire was not actually conquered by Rome, at least not all of it. Can the 'must be destroyed' factions be made protectorate instead?
Also, can mercenary units be merged with normal units? eg. the Italian cavalry. Or should the mercs be treated as separate?
Mount Suribachi
05-19-2006, 20:43
If it's long, has complex rules, is hard and involves playing Romans you can count me in.
:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
BTW, isn't RTR 7.0 due soon? Thats what the RTR website said last time I checked - which was like 2 months ago :inquisitive:
Ok, the general problems I see with 7, 8 & 9 is that it will be practically impossible for anyone to elimiate any faction within the reign of one faction leader. RTR is designed to play slowly as it is, so we'd be essentially making rules that would make each player fail their goals. In addition, concentrating only on conquering the 'primary' target will create very strange and un-realistic borders. For instance, say one player takes on the Greeks, forcing him to expand into Ionia. This would bring Rome into conflict with the Selucids. If Selucia then became a major threat that had to be dealt with (primary enemy), we could find ourselves with an empire that stretched all the way to India, without ever having sent a single army north of the Alps. That just doesn't seem right.
Here's an idea though:
The Senate
We're playing in the Republic, right? No single man had total power during that time (ignoring Sulla, et. al.) so why should we? How about this... at the end of every player's turn, he/she must post a picture of the world (FOW on/off?) and a general description of the economy, military and enemy strengths/alliances. This can be VERY brief, it could be done in a few lines dashed out when the game is uploaded. The rest of us would then vote on objectives to be assigned to the next player. If the player achieves those objectives, they are 'successful' (forum equivalent of a triumph?) and if they do not, they have 'failed.'
The nice thing about this is that the requirements could be incredibly varied. It could be as simple as, "Conquer the Italian Peninsula." However it could also be something like, "Take provinces A, B, C & D. Build X building in city E. Obtain the maps of faction F. Build 2 fleets each with 2 decs, 4 tris, & 6 birs."
Now, this would require the non-players to check back in here regularly... so active commitment to the PBM would definitely be required. However, this would also provide some interesting interaction for the non-players as well.
The Senate idea is a very interesting one, TinCow. I like it a lot. Let's explore the mechanics of how it could work.
Here are some ideas - anyone feel free to propose alternatives:
1) The Senate will consist of all faction members in the game. Each participant in the PBM will choose one faction member to be their avatar (e.g. on a first come, first served basis). When their avatars die, participants can be reincarnated in another faction member. When new faction members come of age (or otherwise enter the game), a participant will be assigned to them. Participants may retire at any time, releasing their avatar for another participants. If participants go awol and persistently don't vote etc, their avatar may be assigned to someone else if there is a queue. Participants need not necessarily be players.
2) Players will be elected First Consul for 10 years (20 turns) or until their avatar dies (if sooner). For role-playing purposes, it is expected that players may seek immediate re-election and may even try to reign continuously until they die (ie be dictator for life). However, this will require winning Senate votes every 10 years.
3) Senate members may lobby First Consuls for their avatars to be given some assignment (a governorship, time in an academy, field experience, be given a certain ancillary etc) and - heavens forbid - may even let some dealings influence their voting behaviour. Senate members should try to role-play their avatars - e.g. one who hates smelly barbarians should not propose allying with them. Incumbent players should keep Senate members abreast of any new vices and virtues they acquire. Family relations between avatars should also be respected - sons should usually defer to fathers etc, unless role-playing rotten kids.
4) When a Consulate ends, the incumbent player shall post an end of reign report to the Senate. This will be in character, but include a screenshot of the map, the savegame and a description of the key facts (allies, enemies etc). Players deceiving the Senate are unlikely to garner many votes.
5) On receiving an end of Consulate report, the Senate will be in session for 7 days. During the first 4 days, prospective players - including the incumbent if he/she desires - will campaign for office and submit manifestoes proposing objectives for their prospective Consulships. Senate members may recommend objectives, but it will up to prospective players to include such recommendations in their manifestoes (which can be revised at any time until the end of the fourth day).
6) At the end of the fourth day, the speaker of the Senate will confirm the list of candidates and the Senate will then have three days to vote on which should be the next player. The speaker will collate the votes cast and announce the result.
7) The campaign will be coordinated by one person (the Senate speaker). He/she will be immortal and will oversee all aspects of the campaign - assigning avatars, counting votes etc. The speaker will have the right to depose any incumbent player who does provide a timely and satisfactory account of their progress (ie no running off with the savegame and derailing the campaign), but typically this should be done with the agreement of a majority of the Senate. The person acting as speaker will also act in a seperate role as a conventional participant with an avatar, the possibility of reigns etc (and be strictly impartial in the speaker role). I'm happy to do this, although other volunteers such as Xiahou Liao or TinCow are welcome.
What do you think? I am trying to get something concrete that allows players to set the agenda for their reigns but also gives the Senate the ultimate power to decide Rome's fate. It will only work if there are enough participants to make it lively, but the fact that participants don't actually have to do anything may mean we can attract PBMers who may not have the time to play a reign at the moment.
If people like this idea, we may change the way we do write-ups. It might be better to have real time "letters from the field" or other propaganda to document a reign, rather than wait for long conventional write-ups. Similarly, Senate members may want to agitate during a Consuls reign, by commenting in character on events, making demands, denunciations or even paeans. I'm thinking of having a "Senate proceedings" thread for all in-character stuff (only).
I like all of that, though I would like to give some sort of power to the Senate to end a Consul's reign if he is particularly irksome to the rest. Perhaps something like 3/4 vote to 'impeach'. This would allow some force behind Senate votes to do this or that during a campaign. Ignore the body too often and you'll be done... unless of course you assume full dictatorship by refusing to upload a save game. :P
As for the running commentaries from both Consul and Senate, that would be great... but it would require the Consul to play relatively slowly. If someone zipped through and did their reign in two play sessions (like I tend to do) there would be no room for any dialog and developments. We could respond to this by asking people to play no more than 5 turns every day or something, but how long do we want this to go for? Can we keep people interested and active for that long?
While I find these ideas incredibly interesting from a role-playing perspective, I'm very concerned that this will require too much dedication to work properly. There's no point in doing a Senate like this unless we have at least a half dozen people who are willing to regularly post and role-play. Given the lackluster responses most PBMs get, I'm not sure if this is possible. Maybe we should be advertising in some of the more frequented forums.
Avicenna
05-20-2006, 08:03
I'd participate in the voting, but I have no time or the writing skills to do the PBM. Just have a vote once a decade, as econ suggested.
Also, wouldn't it be a bit difficult for a non-player to role-play their character? The traits change so often it's hard to keep up. :confused:
OK, I agree a running commentary from the Senate is not very feasible. Let's assume their involvement will largely come during the Senate sessions - their traits will also only be updated then. (I'm thinking of making trading ancillaries against the rules, except by the mutual consent. I was even wondering about weighting votes by influence). I agree personally I tend like to blitz through my reign in a week (or weekend) rather than pace myself.
It's true that to make this interesting we will need around six active people. But we've got at least 3 already - me, TinCow and Tiberius. IIRC, we only start with 4 Roman faction members in RTR anyway. Perhaps we can have some "ghost" Senate members - ie who have not been assigned avatars yet. I think some weeding out of sleeping Senate members will be required - let's say miss two votes and your avatar is reassigned (if there are some active ghosts without avatars). The limit on participants will steadily grow up to 40+, but we might be able to fill that by involving some Org stalwarts (e.g. staff) who like Tiberius may not actually want to play out a reign[1]. We could advertise more widely - even in the RTR website - but right now I'd like to get a hardcore of PBM veterans interested to see if we have critical mass.
An impeachment rule is ok, but I was thinking of a more cooperative model for participant interactions. :laugh4: Maybe that kind of thing might come in to play if we manage to attract a large number of active participants. If it is just a handful of us, we may not want to go at each other's throats.
I am wondering if I should start a new thread - with a different title ("The Senate needs YOU" or something) - to see if we can involve more PMers. Are we happy enough to go public?
[1]EDIT: Although, I am thinking that this PBM may involve much less writing than previous ones - incumbents only need produce a manifesto and a report. So the burden of writing need not put you off playing a reign, Tiberius.
Dutch_guy
05-20-2006, 11:43
I am wondering if I should start a new thread - with a different title ("The Senate needs YOU" or something) - to see if we can involve more PBMers. Are we happy enough to go public?
Well I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd love to play, and like the idea, so I don't see what's wrong with a little advertisement. ~:)
I bet loads of members don't even know the throne room exists.
As for the whole senate Idea, I like it. I'd be happy to participate even though time at the moment is scarce...
Meaning...
It will only work if there are enough participants to make it lively, but the fact that participants don't actually have to do anything may mean we can attract PBMers who may not have the time to play a reign at the moment.
...would be good for me. :2thumbsup:
:balloon2:
Mount Suribachi
05-20-2006, 12:28
I think this PBEM has excellent potential! Count me in, though only as a back bencher until I get my WRE write-up done! Definately publicise it, and I believe their is a PBEM community on the .com, it may be worth asking them along.
If I may offer several points
Rules 6,7,8 as suggested by Simon now seem a little bit superfluous, not to say confusing. Now that we will have a Senate dictating the Consuls actions, I think the need to declare your enemies/objectives has been superceded. However, a candidate for the Consulship may declare his intentions to make war upon a particular faction as part of his election campaign.
I nominate Simon as the Speaker - he effectively operates that role in the Throne Room anyway :bow:
I also think that as a way to keep the campaign ticking along, and to increase realism, all battles should be auto-resolved unless the player (Consul)himself is the general on the battlefield. By doing this we may lose a few more battles than we would normally, but it could also precipitate crises that would require Senate intervention and the dispatch of a PBEMer led army to deal with it. This also raises the possibility of having a PBEMer who isn't currently Consul being sent a save game by the Consul in order to fight just one battle, before returning the save. Thus players who may not have the time to do a full reign can still actively participate in the full game. MSN might be useful for co-ordinating activity like this, maybe even Senate sessions?
Finally, an addition to the army make-up rules. No family members under 30 to be Generals or Governors. Under the Cursus Honorum this very rarely happened. Instead, send 19 year olds out to serve as Legates in an army in the field led by a family member.
OK, I've posted a call for players at the RTR Platinum forum:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20179
Hopefully we'll get some interest. I'll make similar calls in the Org in due course.
[EDIT]: Some very interesting ideas, there, Mount
I think rules 6+ have been overtaken by events, so I've edited the relevant post to make that clear.
Autoresolving is a biggie. I've never done it but I'm interested in what other people think. The idea of involving non-incumbents in fighting particular battles sounds fun, but may slow things down. I'm thinking of dividing the Senate into two houses - lower (like your frontbench), where members want to play out turns and upper (like your backbench) where there is no such implied commitment[1]. We probably should prioritise avatars for members of the lower House and so expecting them to fight out ad hoc battles would not be unreasonable. If they forfeit - e.g. don't respond to the call to battle within two days and so the battle is autoresolved - the Senate may look unfavorably on a future candidature for the First Consul.
On the age thing, I have similar restrictions in my own games. I like the "true Roman" guidelines on the RTR tips and strategies sub-forum - teenage youngsters first stay at an academy, then sometime in their 20s become military tribunes (2nd general in a stack) etc. But I am not inflexible, as I can't help thinking of outstanding generals and Kings - not Roman, I admit - who were ridiculously young. So if we have an ambitious young thing with lots of command stars and we were in a desperate situation, I might let him have a command. I'd be tempted to make it a guideline, rather than a hard and fast rule (maybe the Senate might have to authorise violations of the rule? perhaps ex post).
Not sure about MSN - I don't use it and would rather try to use this forum - and PMs - to try to build up a collegiate spirit here.
On reflection, I like your proposals but let's get other views.
[1]Participants would be able to switch between upper and lower Houses of the Senate at any time.
Mount Suribachi
05-20-2006, 14:46
When you talk about sorting out Avatars do you mean we will actually have our avatars on the Org changed to reflect the avatar of our in-game character? Cool ~:) I also suggest that to help each other out we also alter our custom member titles to the name of our in-game character.
I think you are correct to not be totally rigid regarding the Cursus Honorum. IIRC Pompey Magnus was only 19 when he got his first command and Scipio Africanus was also quite young (under 30) when he was given command to fight against Carthage, but like you said, exceptional individuals in exceptional circumstances (civil war and imminent annihilation). And I'm sure we can create ourselves a Boni faction, spouting off about the Mos Maorium and such ~;)
*trots off to read "True Roman" guidelines ~:) *
By "avatar", I was just using the term in the role-playing sense to refer to the faction member in the game that represents the participant. (I still feel I need a shower after being Shodan's avatar in System Shock 2...:sweatdrop: ) It would be nice if all or most Senate members had an in-game representation. But adopting appropriate Org graphical avatars and custom names sounds neat.
The "true Roman" guidelines are at:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=12035
They give lots of good ideas and information.
This is sounding very promising. Autocalc for all battles not supervised by the playing Consul himself makes a lot of sense and would vastly increase the interaction. This would definitely be a much slower progressing game, but I think it could be very interesting. It would also be relatively undemanding for most people, just checking the forums regularly (which I do anyway) and responding.
We don't even have to 'win' in any real sense. Just playing it like this would be the interesting point. Politics, battles, back-stabbing maybe... that would be the goal in and of itself. Are there any mods out there that increase the number of turns per game year? The slower this went, the longer people would get to play their specific avatars.
edit:
After reading those guidelines, not only do I think a lot of them are perfect for us, but I think that the RTR forums may be the perfect place to recruit. Anyone who likes that kind of play style may also like our interactive version of it.
Good point, TinCow - there are "four turns per year mods" (FTPY):
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=8656
Currently, one possibility is the "FTPY mod for Platinum". I'd like to use a Platinum mod so we can use 1.5 RTW as I am getting sick of fighting rebels in 1.2 and also IIRC there are some bugs (save/reload? charge bonus?) etc.
I've tried to recruit on the RTR Platinum sub-forum - feel free to make your own announcements in other forum. In response, LestaT said he would join if we used his Imperator II mod. This includes the FTPY mod and is designed for Romans specifically, so I think it is ideal for us. But it is still a beta and we can't have CTDs messing up our PBM. We should check on the status of the mod when we are about to start.
FTPY is also incorporated in other mods which we should investigate (and maybe try out).
I am quite keen to start this going quite soon - maybe next weekend? But I'd like some more old-time PBMers (and newcomers!) to sign up here first.
I played an old version of RTR and enjoyed it but I'm largely out of the loop when it comes to RTW modding. As such, I'll go with whatever mods and config edits everyone else agrees with. The complexity of installing mods and such is not an issue for me. I'll do whatever is decided.
I may actually download RTR Platinum this afternoon to see what has changed since last I played.
Edit:
Urrr... I'm only seeing RTR 6 Gold. Where is Platinum?
Urrr... I'm only seeing RTR 6 Gold. Where is Platinum?
The download link is in my post #2 above.
And for future reference (inc. mine!) the 4TPY mod for Platinum is at:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=8656&st=260&p=251110&#entry251110
Thanks, I have made a fresh install and will be using Platinum and the 4TPY and Metropolis mods for it (and the extra music). I'll check it out later tonight. Gotta make a run to the wine store first though; you can't properly celebrate the slaughter of stinking Gauls unless you're sipping from a nice bottle!
Mount Suribachi
05-20-2006, 19:30
This is sounding more and more excellent. I really hope we can get a few folks together for this one. I wonder if the folks in the chapter house would be interested? Its the kind of thing that's right up their street.
And I like the idea of using Influence as a weighting factor, nice way to represent the clients of a Roman patrician ~:)
Also like the 4 turns per year thing, makes for a more realistic game in a couple of ways. First, it allows for a "campaigning season" style of play where you stick all your troops in a fort for the winter. Secondly, a consul's reign is only 5 years that way - I know historically they only had 1, but special commands, such as Julius Caeser in Gaul could be up to 5 years.
*drums fingers whilst waiting for RTRPE to download*
Avicenna
05-20-2006, 21:15
Pleease allow the extermination of Carthage as a single exception. Pretty please?
Also, thanks for the recommendation that I play econ, but I'm at a boarding school, so I can't play RTW. The upload website is blocked anyway. I can't actually get onto totalwar.org, but luckily the forum isn't blocked :2thumbsup:
By the way, don't elect Quintus as a consul. He's just some randomer. When the RTR campaign starts, Decius Laevinius and Tiberius Coruncianus were the historical consuls. I recommend that both stay in a city, and they'll soon develop into characters with incredibly high influence and management. Laevinius should take Paestum and then settle, Coruncianus should have the city east of Roma (forgot the name) until he overtakes the other character (Amulius?) in management. Remember not to make taxes on VH all the time though, as it makes the governors stingy and hence squalor increasing.
OK, Tiberius - I'd be happy to have you in the Upper House. But who knows, the campaign may keep going until one of your vacations and you could pick up a reign?
Mount - thanks for reminding me about the parallel with the interactive histories. I've put a call for players in both the Chapter House and the Colosseum. Hopefully, we'll have some new players come over.
I'm starting to wonder if we could make more of TinCow's original idea of Senate missions. Maybe during the interregnum's, the Senate could propose and vote on motions ("Carthage must be destroyed") quite independent of the manifestoes. First Consuls could ignore the Senate missions at their own peril (or could incorporate them into their manifestoes).
Before we launch this, we should provide direct links to every file that will be needed and specific instructions on what to install first and any extra editing that will be required. It looks like we'll be using a lot of mods and we'll want to minimize any technical problems.
Will we be using the Metropolis mod or some other mod that removes most city walls? Siege: Total Realism is a bit of a pain. Also, it would probably make Senators whose avatars govern un-walled frontier cities aggitate for a stronger city garrison and such.
I'm really liking the idea of handing off the save game to a specific Senator for a single battle if that Senator's avatar is attacked in-game. It will definitely slow this thing down, but I think it will make it much more interactive and highly amusing to boot.
As far as the 'missions' go, we could do something like a mandatory legislative period at the beginning of each consulship. After the save has been uploaded (allowing everyone who wants to to see the state of the world in detail) we could require a one week (or longer) debate period before the next Consul can play. During that time period, the Senate can propose objectives for the next Consulship. Each proposal can be voted on by the group and all that are accepted will be included in the final list. Individual Senators could gain assests for their own benefit (e.g. new academy building in the city they govern, stronger garrison) by refusing to vote for an objective that is borderline unless the others agree to 'fund' the side-project. Essentially... politics. :D Voting blocs could work well here and might result in the rise of a 'party' system.
Also, even though there are only 4 'of age' family members at the start of the game, there are 3-4 underage ones as well. We could instantly assign these to Senators so that they would know what their name and family relation would be from the start, rather than being nameless participants. As soon as they turned 16, they could be placed in a proper position befitting their situation.
The more I think about this, I'm beginning to think that we won't really need a write-up of any kind at all. Regular posting by the current Consul about the world would be more than enough. He could even upload the save several times during his Consulship to allow everyone else to see the status without having to go into crazy details. If enough people post regularly in "The Senate" (thread) and stay in-character, that should be all the write-up we need.
On the issue of mods, the constraint seems to be that we can have one other mod with Platinum - either 4TPY or Metropolis or Imperator II. We can't combine more than one (although Imperator II includes 4TPY).
If we went for RTR Gold, we could have the combined Imperator+Metropolis mod:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=16953
This would give us (a) tighter economy & more threats for Romans; (b) fewer walls; (c) 4TPY. ie everything we want. I've tried it and it is good. But there is the downside - it is for RTW 1.2 - ie uncontrollable rebel spawn and save/reload bug etc.
Personally, I'd vote we go for RTR God + Imperator + Metropolis, as the Platinum mods and Platinum itself seem to be more works in progress (e.g. people seem to be constantly tweaking the unit stats etc), whereas we know Gold etc has no CTDs and will not be revised anymore. But if other players prefer the 1.5 TW engine, I'd understand (I've played so much RTR and EB, 1.2 does not bother me).
It would be good if we could agree on the mod in the next few days, as it might influence whether people want to join in.
On the missions, I agree - I am inclining more to a missions than a manifesto approach, although there's no reason we can't have both. I am wondering if we should have more regular Senate meetings. Say a mid-term? So Consuls play 5 years (4TPY) and sometime in the 3rd year must report back and submit to Senate missions (and possible impeachment). And give more chances for Senators to lobby for favours.
I agree about assigning the under-age and the write-ups, although maybe Consuls may want to write dramatic (and self-aggrandising) battle reports to win favour with the Senate.
There is also the Metropolis & Naval Mod for Platinum, which includes the 4TPY mod as well.
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20000
How about there must be a mandatory legislative period prior to the beginning of a Consulate term. After that, we can require the Consul to post regular reports to allow us to debate before continuing the game. The Senate could then say whatever they want during interrim sessions, votes there would be 'binding' as well, though it's possible none may be proposed or none may pass. This would also allow for personal requests and favors between the Consul and individual Senators.
However, if we are going to have an effective interrim debate period, we will have to limit the speed at which the Consul plays. Perhaps something like no more than 1 game year (4 turns) per day, with a maximum of 5 game years per week. We could require an update at end of each 'year' (1 real time day) about events, though that update could consist of:
"Not much, a couple buildings and some recruitment."
If things are going too slowly like this, we could always pass 'legislation' requing a report only every 2 years. The Senate could be used like this to change the very rules/mechanics of the game itself.
There is also the Metropolis & Naval Mod for Platinum, which includes the 4TPY mod as well.
Well spotted, I'd missed that. I am a little worried about the last update being only 3 days ago - my point about being a work in progress - but I'll try anything once.
A system of yearly reporting to the Senate (& playing a maximum of one year per day of real life) sounds good to me.
The Senate could be used like this to change the very rules/mechanics of the game itself.
Very important point, agreed.
BTW, I've now posted calls for players in the Entrance Hall and the M2TW forum, as well as the Colosseum and the Chapter House. I've also posted in the RTR website AAR section, as well as the Platinum sub-forum. Hopefully we'll get some newcomers to the Throne room expressing interested by posting in this thread.
I'm currently playing a campaign with the Metropolis & Naval Mod. Seems to be working fine; I'll let you know if I see any bugs.
shifty157
05-21-2006, 04:07
Im interested but i dont have time over the next few days to read this entire thread. Can someone give a quick overview? Thanks.
Ok, brief summary:
This will be a PBM where the entire body of participants contributes to the on-going campaign, whether playing the current 'round' or not. We will all be members of the 'Senate' and will generally decide what will happen through debate and voting on the forums. There will always be a single 'Consul', elected by majority vote in the Senate, who will be responsible for playing the actual game itself. He will serve for a 5 year term (20 game turns, using the 4 turns per year mod) and his actions will be reported back to the Senate regularly.
Each Senator will represent an actual Roman family member present in the game. You will know your traits, family connections, etc. All battles will be auto-calc UNLESS the general of the army is the current Consul. In addition, if a Senator's in-game family member is involved in a battle, the Consul will pass off the save game to that Senator for that single battle. Essentially, you will control everything involving the family member that represents YOU in the game. Using politics you can negotiate with other Senators and with the Consuls to get postings to the best cities with the best academies, to be assigned leadership of legions or even to be the next Consul yourself. Alternatively, you can sit back and simply aggitate as a member of the Senate... passing legislation (requirements that the Consul must try and fulfill) and otherwise politicing as you please without needing to play any turns. When your character dies, you will be assigned a new one when one becomes available (probably instantly).
We're still working out the finer points, but that's the gist of it. Oh, and it will be played using the Rome: Total Realism mod and some other sub-mods.
This sounds like a great idea, I'm in, lower house.
Comments on rules. I'm for the manifesto idea, but also senate directives, or missions, and at least one senate session during the consul's term. But I'm not sure that we should slow the player down. Instead he could play at any speed, while providing regular reports. The senate would not be in session, and there would be no formal deliberation. But once the consul hit the middle of his term, he would pause. Senate would enter session, deliberate things, and perhaps issue directives. Once they're done, the consul would continue.
Additionally, the senate speaker would perhaps have the ability to call an emergency session at any time, should something come up, which would, possibly pause the game again while the senate is in session, or would perhaps not. Perhaps the speaker would have two types of emergency session to call. I haven't quite made up my mind on this part.
And thirdly, there could be certain actions which the consul could not undertake without the permission of the senate, like starting a war, for example, but also possibly other things like forming an alliance, or even getting a ceasefire.
Mount Suribachi
05-21-2006, 07:34
And thirdly, there could be certain actions which the consul could not undertake without the permission of the senate, like starting a war, for example, but also possibly other things like forming an alliance, or even getting a ceasefire.
Definately! :2thumbsup:
Avicenna
05-21-2006, 08:31
My proposal: We start off at war with the Greeks. I say take the 2 rebel settlements first and then drive Pyrrhus' army off Italia and send them man himself to an early grave. After that, Taras and Croton should be lightly defended, and then taking Rhegion allows us to concentrate our efforts on whoever we want: the Carthaginians in Sicily or the Gauls in Cispaline Gaul.
Anyone up for a vote now?
By the way, could we disallow younger members to join the senate? Also, unless they're closely related to the most influential member or the faction leader, we shouldn't allow any randomer to join the senate. I've played 2 RTR Roman campaigns, and Decius Laevinius always seems to turn out as a bit of a useless waste of space with almost no positive traits whatsoever. We should have a minimum of, say, 1 influence and 1 in command or management to join the senate, unless well-connected.
Also, if we follow TinCow's suggestion of one week's deliberation and voting, I don't think I'll be on for long enough, unless I just take command for a few short years of 1 week each. I'll also be unable to take command if attacked, so my character should be auto'ed unless I've stated that I'm in a holiday.
Mount Suribachi
05-21-2006, 10:02
By the way, could we disallow younger members to join the senate? Also, unless they're closely related to the most influential member or the faction leader, we shouldn't allow any randomer to join the senate. I've played 2 RTR Roman campaigns, and Decius Laevinius always seems to turn out as a bit of a useless waste of space with almost no positive traits whatsoever. We should have a minimum of, say, 1 influence and 1 in command or management to join the senate, unless well-connected.
I disagree completely! :rtwno: See, we're arguing like Roman Senators already! :ave:
Membership of the Senate was by birthright, not by ability. Being an in-bred, stupid, arrogant buffoon shouldn't bar someone from the Senate, indeed some Patricians would regard them as virtues suitable for the Consulship! :2thumbsup: Half the fun for me would be the role-playing of all the different avatars, good and bad. Birth, breeding (and money) are much more important to a patrician than ability. If we get a moron as Consul, so the better as far as I'm concerned ~:)
As for age, whilst 30 was the minimum age for membership of the Senate (though there were exceptions, eg Julius Caeser), I think for gameplay purposes, limiting avatars under 30 to the upper house is a good comprimise between historicity and fun.
Finally, war with Greece. Well, I'd have to wait till I see the state of the game at the start, and see which traits my avatar has before I decide on that. The Roman Senate was notoriously mistrustful of wars and foreign adventures - costs money you know! :2cents:
Good to see some new faces here - welcome, FLYdude and shifty157. ~:wave:
Let's pencil in RTR Platinum with the Metropolis mod for now, so people can install that and try it out solo. I'd like use to elect a First Consul by Friday, so he/she has the weekend to play. People can table proposals like Tiberius has done to prompt discussion. I'll gradually formalise things so that we have some direction by the end of the week.
Based on the discussion so far, proposed new/ammended rules:
(1) Declarations of war, alliances and ceasefires require a Senate vote.
(2) Family members under 30 are restricted to the Uppper House unless there are exceptional circumstances (ie the Senate votes to waive the rule in a particular case).
(3) There must be an mid-term session of the Senate during the 3rd year of a Consuls reign.
(4) The Consul should provide regular reports - e.g. annual. The pace of reports may be specified by the Senate.
(5) The Speaker can summon an emergency session of Senate at any time (ie a pause in play). The Senate is always open for deliberation (ie pontificating!) but only votes at a full session.
(6) The Senate can modify all game rules by a 2/3 majority.
Also, I've been thinking about involving Senators with avatars more in the game. Fighting out their own battles is the biggie, of course. And players will want to lobby for command, over strategy etc to this end. But for governors, I think they should be allowed at each Senate session to set their own taxes and construction priorities (we'll leave training units to the First Consul). The First Consul may deviate from those instructions with reason (e.g. he has to balance the books) but of course there may be a political price.
I'm going to PM some of the other active PBMers to see if they want to join in. I'd like to start calling the Senate to order over the next few days.
EDIT - LATEST RULES ARE ON SECOND POST OF THIS THREAD AND WILL BE CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1143829&postcount=2
Mount Suribachi
05-21-2006, 11:10
Technical question. I d'loaded and installed RTRPE last night. I got it to boot up, past the intro to the menu screens. But every time I tried to start a battle or a campaign I got a CTD.
I think it might be because I'm not using a "clean" install - I copied my RTW folder, which includes things like bug-fixer. I did this cos I couldn't figure out how to manually install a fresh copy of RTW, all the CD wanted to do was let me uninstall my original install.
So how do I do a clean install of RTW without deleting my original install? :help:
Oh, and I thought BI was meant to include a mod-switch so you could play numerous mods on 1 install?
Well, you are doing better than me, Mount - I can't even download the mod!
One thing you could try is deleting a file "map.rwm". That is sometimes necessary for some mods to work.
Mount Suribachi
05-21-2006, 11:34
Already did that.
EDIT: Looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and uninstall then reinstall (http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?s=&showtopic=8308&view=findpost&p=98077)
Dutch_guy
05-21-2006, 11:35
Econ, I've seen your post in the Chapter house, good initiative !
Maybe you should also post one in the colosseum, which has a lot more viewers than the chapter house.
Further more, this idea is getting better and better, I like what FLYdude mentioned earlier:
And thirdly, there could be certain actions which the consul could not undertake without the permission of the senate, like starting a war, for example, but also possibly other things like forming an alliance, or even getting a ceasefire.
This makes the senate a real force to deal with, and makes them as important as they were historically. Also, it gives the players in the senate - who don't actually play a reign - the chance to influence the game.
:balloon2:
Hi everyone and thanks SA for the PM ~:wave:
I've had my eye on this thread over the last few days but have not wanted to commit as of yet. The end of next week is my year-end at work and as I work in the Finance Department I will be a little busy. I'm sure I will still find time to check out the org every day though. If you want me to participate in a limited capacity then I offer my services :bow:
:charge:
Dutch_guy
05-21-2006, 12:15
Maybe you should also post one in the colosseum, which has a lot more viewers than the chapter house.
He already did that you fool, think before you post...
:balloon2:
Mount Suribachi
05-21-2006, 12:48
Hi everyone and thanks SA for the PM ~:wave:
I've had my eye on this thread over the last few days but have not wanted to commit as of yet. The end of next week is my year-end at work and as I work in the Finance Department I will be a little busy. I'm sure I will still find time to check out the org every day though. If you want me to participate in a limited capacity then I offer my services :bow:
:charge:
Thats the great thing about this PBEM, you can tailor your participation to your free time. Got a week off? Run for Consul, or campaign for a governorship. Busy at work? Sit in the upper house and vote now and then
:2thumbsup:
One other rule I've just thought of - it was one of Kukrikhan's old ones, but is arguably the best single rule for a PBM: the incumbent player must post every two days. It could just be a holding message ("Busy with domestic duties."), but it should help stop people disappearing for weeks - and eventually for good - while everyone else loses interest. It would fit particularly well into this PBM, with its emphasis on reporting to the Senate and taking up a reign when you have the time for it.
Already did that.
EDIT: Looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and uninstall then reinstall (http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?s=&showtopic=8308&view=findpost&p=98077)
Are you sure you removed them both? I had the same problem and it turned out there are two copies of map.rwm, in different folders. When I removed them both, it worked fine. The two folders were:
...\Data\world\maps\base
...\Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign
Mount Suribachi
05-21-2006, 14:40
I shall try it tonight and see.
Avicenna
05-21-2006, 15:16
Can anyone give me the .zip file of 1.5? I've got multiple copies of RTW and I can't remember which the original is...
I did a fresh install and downloaded 1.2, 1.3 and 1.5 from here:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/rometotalwar/downloads.html
Dutch_guy
05-21-2006, 15:51
Econ,
Do the upper house members get assigned an avatar too, or is that limited to the lower house members - who do the playing.
I take it they both can, but would like some assurance on the matter.
:balloon2:
Avatars will be assigned to everyone when they become available, though it would make sense to give lower house members priority.
Having played for a while with RTR Platinum and the Metropolis et. al. mods, I have to say this will be fabulous from a role-play perspective. There's so much detail in the added character traits. Faction members come of age as students and are meant to spend the first 4 years in an academy (building one in Rome should probably be one of our first priorities). After that they advance to tribune, where they are meant to act as a second in the field armies. Beyond that their careers continue in great detail, indicating their seniority and influence. There is even a large number of traits dealing with family issues. All in all, I'm very impressed.
Dutch_guy eventually there will be plenty of avatars to go round, so everyone should get one. Indeed, this may be an important incentive for the Senate demanding conquest - more provinces => more faction members! But early on, family members are scarce and so priority will go to the lower house, especially those wanting to stand for Consul immediately.
Which leads me on to...
Given the aim of getting this campaign going by next weekend, the immediate priority is assigning avatars to members of the lower House. At the start of the Rome campaign, there are only 4 adult family members ("avatars"), so only a maximum of 4 players can stand for election as Consul. There are also 3 under-age avatars to be assigned.
So, please post below in this thread picking one of the 3 options:
1) Lower house, candidate for Consul
2) Lower house, not a candidate for Consul at the moment
3) Upper house
Priority in assigning avatars will go to candidates, then other lower house members. Where there are ties, we'll go on a "first-come-first-served" principle, where this applies to the first time you posted in this thread, not to the when you post confirmation. The deadline for confirming participation is 6pm UK time Tuesday 23. I will then assign avatars. People may still join after that date, but they may then have to wait for avatars.
Notes:
If you pick option (1) you are confirming:
(a) you have successfully installed RTR Platinum and the Metropolis mod for it (ie you've started up a campaign with no crashes etc).
(b) you who would like to start the campaign of next weekend
If you pick option (2) you are confirming:
(a) you have successfully installed RTR Platinum and the Metropolis mod for it.
(b) you could fight a battle at 2 days notice if their avatar gets into a scrap.
If you pick option (3) you are confirming that you will be an active member of the Senate, voting on elections and motions etc.
Remember, you can always freely switch between houses, but avatars will be assigned - and re-assigned - in order to give priority to lower house members. We don't want to autoresolve battles involving faction members.
EDIT: updated list of provisional participants in post #2. .
Just to confirm, I will enter the lower house and stand for Consul. :eyebrows:
Dutch_guy
05-21-2006, 16:17
Dutch_guy eventually there will be plenty of avatars to go round, so everyone should get one. Indeed, this may be an important incentive for the Senate demanding conquest - more provinces => more faction members! But early on, family members are scarce and so priority will go to the lower house, especially those wanting to stand for Consul immediately.
That sounds good, thanks for the information.
As for now, I'd like to pick option 3
If you pick option (3) you are confirming that you will be an active member of the Senate, voting on elections and motions etc.
Oh and by the way, do members of the upper house vote on who get's assigned consul, or is that just for the lower house, or for both - if there even is a vote on the matter.
:balloon2:
Confirming I will enter the Upper House but may step down to Lower House but not be a candidate for Consul if needed.
:charge:
... do members of the upper house vote on who get's assigned consul, or is that just for the lower house, or for both -
Both - the whole Senate votes on elections, on motions etc. Every member gets one vote + one vote for each point of influence their avatar has.
The only distinction between the upper and lower house is that lower house members are expected to be available to load up a savegame - e.g. to fight a battle. Upper house members need never load a savegame (or install the mod etc), although they can always step down into the lower house when they want to get involved in a more hands-on way.
SwordsMaster
05-21-2006, 16:29
Sure, I'll take a seat in the Senate too. Upper house, please, with nice views.
EDIT: Just had a thought. Members of the Senate need not be members of the family, so we can use the ones provided with vanilla RTW from all 4 roman factions too, as avatars, I mean. And only for the upper house, as they will not actually be in the game.
EDIT 2: ok, last thing. Could anybody please post a map of the world as it is in the mod at the top of the IC thread? It'd be handy to be able to see where cities and provinces are for the senators when making decisions...
shifty157
05-21-2006, 16:36
Ok. Some problems im seeing from a logisitcal point of view. Each player fighting his own battles will be a nightmare especially as the empire starts getting bigger and there are more generals. And theres no way to save the game right before an AI stack attacks meaning that other players definitly wont be able to run their armies as a defensive.
I think players should be able to play for more years at a time. 5 is too few. Especially considering that some generals may have to spend a significant number turns walking all the way to the front line. This wont be such a huge problem in the beginning but itd take much much more than 5 years to get from Italy to Egypt. It also doesnt give the player much time to prepare an army and then complete the conquest.
What I think might be better is to give a handful of players an area of influence. These are granted upon request by the senate and give a player full command of armies in a certain area and against a particular enemy. The grants could have other conditions as well when granted by the senate and could be revoked or changed at any time. Obviously this makes playing slower and more troublesome because each turn would have to pass through several players, each player playing through his own area of influence.
For example one player may have southern italy and Sicily while another player may have Gaul and a third be granted the Southern Balkans. A fourth player may petition and be granted Iberia.
It basically gives players more control over their own characters and more room to role play. This would remove the role of the Consul as prime military dictator but it would showcase better later Roman senate politics with alliances and betrayals etc.
Players should give a detailed report to the senate every year. This will include screenshots with arrows indicating the movement of armies, markers indicating battles (both successful and unsuccessful), cities gained and any other information the player wants to add.
Players will have full control over the cities which they conquer until a point when the senate deems that the cities are under no immediate threat and can be fully incorporated into the empire.
OK, some interesting ideas there, shifty157. :bow: Unfortunately, I don't see them working for this campaign and would rather press on with what we have. Maybe we can try out the present rules and then reflect on the experience? Other campaigns under different rules can always be tried at a later date (or simultaneously).
Anyway, detailed responses to your proposals follow:
Each player fighting his own battles will be a nightmare especially as the empire starts getting bigger and there are more generals. And theres no way to save the game right before an AI stack attacks meaning that other players definitly wont be able to run their armies as a defensive.
You can save a game in the pre-battle screen (just press escape and save). I do it when I am attacking. I don't believe it is ruled out when the AI attacks.
In my experience, it need not be a nightmare even in a larger game as the Consul can do most of the fighting. I do that as a matter of course in my BI Roman games (due to loyalty problems). The Consul might want to pick a "trusty sidekick" to start a second front, but then they may want to pick a player who is quick and responsive. This is the downside (and upside?) of being in the lower house - you have to be available for fight battles promptly.
I say we give it a try. If things fall apart, we'll just autoresolve (ouch!).
I think players should be able to play for more years at a time. 5 is too few. Especially considering that some generals may have to spend a significant number turns walking all the way to the front line. This wont be such a huge problem in the beginning but itd take much much more than 5 years to get from Italy to Egypt. It also doesnt give the player much time to prepare an army and then complete the conquest.
We're playing a 4 turns per year mod, so 5 years = 20 turns. That's the norm for a PBM and believe me it is long enough (especially end game). You can always stand for a second term and even try to go on and on. It's an important point about being in the right place, but that's one reason for an ambitious Senator to lobby the Consul to make sure your avatar is not assigned to a backwater.
What I think might be better is to give a handful of players an area of influence. These are granted upon request by the senate and give a player full command of armies in a certain area and against a particular enemy. The grants could have other conditions as well when granted by the senate and could be revoked or changed at any time. Obviously this makes playing slower and more troublesome because each turn would have to pass through several players, each player playing through his own area of influence.
In my experience with PBMs, momentum is everything. Interest lasts a few weeks and then they often fall apart. Slowing things down any more than this campaign will already do could be fatal, IMO. Swapping savegames every turn is my explanation for why Myrdaal's valiant attempts at a multiplayer campaign have disappointed him.
Players should give a detailed report to the senate every year. This will include screenshots with arrows indicating the movement of armies, markers indicating battles (both successful and unsuccessful), cities gained and any other information the player wants to add.
Again, this may be too onerous. Writing an AAR takes time - often an evening. I want Consuls to report every 2 days. But I'd prefer to leave the level of detail up to the player. What you specify would be appropriate for the mid-term and end-term reports, though.
Players will have full control over the cities which they conquer until a point when the senate deems that the cities are under no immediate threat and can be fully incorporated into the empire.
I'd like governors to be able to recommend taxes and construction build lists, but ultimately the Consul will decide (although if he overrules the governor, there may be trouble).
Sorry to be so negative about your proposals. :embarassed:
Would you like to confirm your involvement in this PBM?
Avicenna
05-21-2006, 17:11
Option Twee for me sir.
So if a senator from the lower house gets elected for consul, does it mean he plays the next reign and gets transferred into the upper house?
By the way, can we just siggify the avatar? I like my Mongol warrior right now :tongue:
So if a senator from the lower house gets elected for consul, does it mean he plays the next reign and gets transferred into the upper house?
He plays the next reign, but I would like him to stay in the lower house. Ex-Consuls might be the most reliable people in terms of picking up savegames if their avatar is in a battle. Furthermore, PBMs tend to end up with a few hardcore players finishing them off (ie recycling players). Indeed, I'd like to give Consuls the chance to try for immediate re-election if they feel they have some unfinished business. The Senate can always vote for a challenger instead.
By the way, can we just siggify the avatar? I like my Mongol warrior right now :tongue:
No problem. Juliius Caesar let in some Gauls to be Senators. We've just let in a Hun. :inquisitive:
Avicenna
05-21-2006, 17:36
Shush. Complain anymore, and I'll sack Rome. So there. :2thumbsup:
Just to say I've had a PM from Glaucus confirming that he would like to be in the Upper House; he may move down to the Lower House when he's installed the mod.
Avicenna
05-21-2006, 20:12
So, econ, now that we have the rules laid down and six confirmed members, when will we start? Should we try to get ten confirmed first?
Mount Suribachi
05-21-2006, 20:25
Simon, in the IC thread, you have a Lucius Aemilius listed, but no picture/details :huh:
Pencil me in for the lower house, pending me getting RTRPE to work... :computer:
I'm in for the Lower House, but not in the running for the first Consulship (out of town for Memorial Day weekend; will be able to post, but not play).
Both - the whole Senate votes on elections, on motions etc. Every member gets one vote + one vote for each point of influence their avatar has.
I like the idea of adding the actual avatar's influence to the vote, but I think a direct 1 to 1 for each influence point could be heavily unbalancing. You could have two Senators out-vote 20 others! I would like to suggest the additional votes be given out at the rate of 1 for every two, preferrably three influence points. Keep in mind, the most powerful Roman Senators won votes simply by swaying the rest via debate, bribery or other means. No reason why that can't work here either. I'll tell you for a fact that I'll be far more likely to vote for someone who promises to give me one of his more valuable retainers than for someone who offers nothing. After all, I'm Roman. :D
EDIT 2: ok, last thing. Could anybody please post a map of the world as it is in the mod at the top of the IC thread? It'd be handy to be able to see where cities and provinces are for the senators when making decisions...
I grabbed this off of the RTR gallery. It doesn't show individual cities and provinces, but I don't know where to find a map like that. It would be huge!
https://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b203/TinCow/RTR%20Senate%20PBM/factionmaps_final_664.jpg
Avicenna
05-21-2006, 21:45
Wow, nice find, TinCow!
I've already chosen Tiberius Coruncianus right? If I'm the character and am allowed to control him, could I request a governorship of Ancona to train up my skills? (Very) High taxes for a short period of time is enough to get Coruncianus to 10 management in no time, to provide Roma with an excellent govrenor. :2thumbsup: So far, I've got him to that level in 2/2 Roman RTR campaigns. I also propose that I begin training Triarii at immediate effect in Ancona, to fill up the two Legions with Triarii.
I thought about it and I figured that SwordsMaster was right, it really would be very useful to be able to see the actual cities and provinces without going into the game. As such, I created the "Senate Library" for the posting of reference materials that would otherwise clog up the other threads or get lost. Anything of an informative nature can be posted there and I have started it off with overview maps of the areas of the world that will be most significant in the beginning of the game.
Senate Library (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=64965)
SwordsMaster
05-21-2006, 22:19
I thought about it and I figured that SwordsMaster was right, it really would be very useful to be able to see the actual cities and provinces without going into the game. As such, I created the "Senate Library" for the posting of reference materials that would otherwise clog up the other threads or get lost. Anything of an informative nature can be posted there and I have started it off with overview maps of the areas of the world that will be most significant in the beginning of the game.
Senate Library (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=64965)
Cool. Good job.
I've been thinking about the whole influence thing.
Here's my conclusions:
A member of the senate with high influence can "outvote" another senator, if he has more influence. This is done, by subtracting the influence of the rival from your own, and if the result is >0, the other senator doesn't get to vote at all (this can be considered as uncovering some shameful behaviour or bias that would prevent him from inervening). Thing is, there exist the possibility of alliances, so if a senator is part of an alliance, the influence of the whole alliance is used for the calculations. This is why politics are important, a senator with a good base of allies and people who owe him favours, can dictate law.
Now: alliances would work on a "per vote" basis initially, i.e., someone can owe you a "favour" - one vote - without commiting themselves to the party.
In general, what I mean is, the only men who actually decide the outcomes are them men who have influence left untouched by the end of the voting sesion.
Example:
4 senators: voting a motion:
A: influence: 7
B: 2
C: 4
D: 8
If senators A and B are "teamed up" for the vote, they can "absorb" the vote of senator D if he votes against them, and therefore get 2 votes (A and B); but if a different vote is carried out that same session and senator C votes against the coalition, even though he has less influence than senator A, they would only have 1 influence to withstand him, and would lose both vote A and B.
Don't know if it looks too messy...
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-21-2006, 22:50
Thank you Econ21 for upgrading my status and your kind welcome :2thumbsup: Also thanks for the kind welcome by other people who might read this. You know who you are.
I'd like to apply for option (1) Lower house, candidate for Consul. Mind you, I'm new to this, so if I make a mistake in protocol I apologize in advance. Still, I find this all very interesting and will share my views on the process in a further post when I've reread all the post for the third time :)
Finally, FYI, Marcus Camillus, a God-like contributor to RTR, has also made himself available for this project. His post can be found in the RTRPE thread.
OK, looks like things are warming up here.
Mount - I'll put you down for the lower house. I think Lucius Amelius is in the in-character thread, but maybe I've put the labels in a confusing place (below the pics).
TinCow - excellent job with the Senate library. :2thumbsup: As Speaker of the House I appoint you Senate Librarian (ie miscellaneous queries for in-game information from Upper House members - e.g. from savegames - please direct to TinCow. Lower House members are expected to have already installed the mod and so can load the savegames directly). If you accept, as compensation, I will propose a motion that the first librarian ancillary (do they exist?) spawned in the game be given to your avatar. If this motion is passed, any Senator refusing to surrender said librarian risks a vote of censure or worse.
TinCow and Swordsmaster - on influence and voting. I am sorry but Swordsmaster's voting scheme hurts my brain and as I will be one collating the votes, that's not good. :shame: Influence may be unbalancing with a small Senate, but as we get more faction members and hopefully players, it might be ok. But as a compromise, let's go with:
one member = one vote + (influence points/2), rounding up.
If people can veto trading ancillaries, we might find few become very influential (except ex-Consuls).
Tiberius: avatars will be assigned on Tuesday evening. We will then open the Senate for in-character debate and organise elections promptly. I would like the first incumbent to be chosen by Friday evening, so they can start playing on the weekend. Unfortunately, priority will go to members of the Lower House but some rapid conquests should spawn enough avatars for all Senators.
Death destroyer of worlds, or DDW as you've said you would like to be called for short, welcome! ~:wave: I'll sign you up for the lower house and candidate for Consul.
Marcus Camillus has confirmed to me that he is joining the Upper House. :bow: He will only be active after early June though.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-21-2006, 23:52
MILITARY
There are some (perhaps obvious) rules I would like to add/propose :
1. Never move the capital
2. I think 2 units of cavalry would be more appropriate for a full stack, of which only one should be equites (excluding generals).
3. Don't use any dirty AI-foolishness tricks like dragging an army around the walls of your city.
4. Using the general offensively (except if the character has the bloodthirsty trait or something like that) should be minimized. The general should be used as an 'eagle' unit for morale boosts.
For all the rest of the army/character stuff I also recommend Quintus' guide of Conduct (http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=12035).
An intersting discussion on 'correct' Roman Legions (http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=14498)
POLITICS AND OTHER
A) I think it is possibile to switch savegames around at first when non-consul characters become involved in battle, but I'd recommend against it, as the danger of losing momentum will be great.
B) No character should be assigned a military command unless he actively campaigns for it in the senate (I'm the man for the job !) and then the consul should be allowed to fight the battles with these non-consul characters on the battlefield instead of autoresolving them. This gives the risk of someone getting seriously upset as his character is killed in battle by the consul, but then he should not have lobbied for the military command in the first place.
C) I am against autoresolving battles with armies lead by characters as the results are wildly unpredictable.
D) I'd advise updating the playing platform RTRPE + metronaval (which includes 4TPY) at the last possible moment of this campaign start as improvements are still coming in. Just yesterday, 09:58 PM, an improvement was added which is a best-case solution for the 'phalanx bug', which I would almost say is a vital improvement. (details : http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=18729&st=100)
E) I would make the voting completely individual, including private deals and schemes behind the scenes, lobbying for votes and handing out and cashing in favours. So I do not favour an offical alliance system as this would lead to the situation of a few powerful spokepersons of the different factions and greatly lessen the amount of debate.
For the rest I more or less agree with the consensus that has already been reached. These are all suggestions of course and their inclusion or rejection do not effect my decision to play at all.
I agree with the change to 2 units of cavalry, only one equites, since this means more allied units and more accurate. I, as said before, would like to join the upper house, and am looking into downloading RTR when I'm done with the Selucid PBeM. I have a quick question though, say Econ and DDW are both in the lower house and have an avatar guy in-game. If Econ tells DDW he'll give him his "Tribune" ancillary in game if they vote together, then how does it get transferred? I was under the impression, and correct me if I need correcting, that the Consul is the one actually playing in-game. So would we have to tell him to change it around for us?
Thanks, Glaucus, Upper House Guy
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-22-2006, 00:24
Hiya Glaucus,
Yes, I expect the consul would be obliged to perform these actions (after getting the go-ahead from both members to prevent doubledealings).
Also, and I can't believe I missed these obvious things, I would like to suggest changing the following campaign settings :
A) VH campaigns; M battles -> VH/VH
In my experience, the AI needs all the help it can get.
B) Large unit size -> Huge
It makes for more realistic (and fun) battles IMO. Also, it bring the size a legion close to its 'real' size. You need a good computer tough.
C) Timer on -> Timer off
There is nothing more annoying then sieging a huge city. It is almost impossible to capture it in time if it is defended by 3 units.
Some interesting ideas, DDW. There's a risk of overloading players with rules, so I would like to distinguish between "inviolable rules"; "Senate rules"; and "guidelines".
"Inviolable rules" are things that are so crucial, not even a Senate vote can alter. e.g. no retraining below full strength units. Typically these are to reflect phsyical or logical constraints; or ways in which we as players should interact.
"Senate rules" are rules which could be waived by a Senate vote. Typically, these would be policy issues about in-game strategy or political issues about Senate procedures etc. In this class, I would include "never move the capital". I could imagine a situation in which the Senate might wish the capital to be moved (e.g. WRE in BI) but you are right, a Consul should not be able to do this on a whim.
"Guidelines" are rules which players are encouraged to follow, but which they can deviate from without resort to a Senate vote. For example, 2 cav per stack. Generally, it's good and I do it in my games. But again, I can imagine situations when it might be violated - e.g. if fighting horse archers or in the desert, and you need more mercs/cav; or if you have a tribune leading a cavalry raid into enemy territory etc. Going back to the Senate does not seem appropriate here. Bear in mind, with no retraining, our cavalry units are likely to get depleted very fast, so 4 depleted units might not be an unreasonable amount of horse.
So on your proposed military rules, I suggest treating (1) as a Senate rule; the others as guidelines.
On the non-military stuff:
>> A) I think it is possibile to switch savegames around at first when non-consul characters become involved in battle, but I'd recommend against it, as the danger of losing momentum will be great.
Let's try passing the savegames - they offer the most direct interaction of Senators in the game. I suspect it will be unproblematic early on; but may be an issue as the Republic grows.
>>B) No character should be assigned a military command unless he actively campaigns for it in the senate (I'm the man for the job !) and then the consul should be allowed to fight the battles with these non-consul characters on the battlefield instead of autoresolving them. This gives the risk of someone getting seriously upset as his character is killed in battle by the consul, but then he should not have lobbied for the military command in the first place.
Again, let's try the "pass the savegame" thing first. If Lower House members can't fight their own battle in 2 days, they shouldn't be upset - joining the Lower House means you have undertaken to be available to fight ad hoc battles at short notice.
On command appointments, let's not make hard and fast rules here, but I suspect jockeying for such appointments will be a key issue for Senate interactions.
>>C) I am against autoresolving battles with armies lead by characters as the results are wildly unpredictable.
Yes, "ouch" is my view of autoresolving. But let's try to avoid it by Lower House members doing their duty.
>>D) I'd advise updating the playing platform RTRPE + metronaval (which includes 4TPY) at the last possible moment of this campaign start as improvements are still coming in. Just yesterday, 09:58 PM, an improvement was added which is a best-case solution for the 'phalanx bug', which I would almost say is a vital improvement. (details : http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=18729&st=100)
Very important issue. Patching our games is a potential nightmare with such "work in progress" mods. (Hence my earlier inclination for RTR Gold). There's a trade-off between messing about too much, involving potential compatibility and coordination problems, and being stuck with bugs. I agree let's update on Friday. Whether we update beyond that, is a bridge we will cross when we get to it. Would you be willing to keep an eye on progress with Platinum and Metropolis, and field tech queries about them? If you are, I will appoint you Senate Fixer and see pass a vote that your avatar be rewarded with a suitable ancillary.
>>E) I would make the voting completely individual, including private deals and schemes behind the scenes, lobbying for votes and handing out and cashing in favours. So I do not favour an offical alliance system as this would lead to the situation of a few powerful spokepersons of the different factions and greatly lessen the amount of debate.
Voting will be individual, in the sense that everyone will have to post (in public) their vote. But if alliances emerge organically (e.g. a Cato-style anti-Carthage party vs a peace party), I think it would be rather fun.
EDIT: on the preferences (VH/M; large; timer on), those settings are the ones we almost always use in PBMs here, so I would like to stick with them for this campaign. Your suggested settings may scare off less experienced players (and me!).
No comment on the difficulty settings, I'll go with whatever the preference is. I always win, regardless. :D
Units size... I'll go with Huge if you want since I have a beefy computer, but in the past this has proved problematic for PBMs since the Large to huge jump represents a major performance slowdown for players. This drastically impacts playability for anyone without a top-of-the-line machine.
I agree on timer off.
As far as being 'Librarian,' that is fine with me. I'll be happy to post pertinent screenshots of the world from uploaded saves whenever they appear.
I have a quick question though, say Econ and DDW are both in the lower house and have an avatar guy in-game. If Econ tells DDW he'll give him his "Tribune" ancillary in game if they vote together, then how does it get transferred? I was under the impression, and correct me if I need correcting, that the Consul is the one actually playing in-game. So would we have to tell him to change it around for us?
Interesting question. Yes, you have it right - they would have to ask the Consul.
It raises an interesting issue of how much control over their avatars Lower House members should have. Personally, I think there's a danger of "too many cooks...", so I think the general rule, is that they can ask the Consul to do things with their avatars but can't demand.
Thus, the members can ask the Consul to trade their ancillaries. But the Consul can decline - e.g. if he really needs those faction members to stay put to avoid riots etc. However, in the case of such requests, the player controlling the Consul should act in good faith (and in that respect not play political games - e.g. he should not turn down such requests to punish/frustrate the voting bloc created by the trade). And he will be accountable - he should explain to the frustrated Lower House members what happened. And they can always censure, impeach, not re-elect etc. the Consul if they disagree with his decisions.
[EDIT:] I'm still holding out against the Timer Off. I've had no problem taking huge cities. And the time constraint is so crucial in war, as in life. Being saved by the timer when defending is one of the things I love about TW. "Give me Blucher or give me night".
I'd prefer timer on, in case your defending a bridge and the enemy just sits on the other side forever. Thats really annoying. And I'd prefer VH/M or VH/H, VH battles is just unfair, a veritable instant rout for anyone not a pro (me). And, sorry if I seem a debby-downer, but Large is best I think, since almost everyone can do large, but not everyone can do huge. I would hate drive anyone away because of something as trivial as unit sizes.
In all fairness, I think we should simply put it a vote, which I have another question about. People in the upper house don't have avatars, correct? so does that mean we all have one vote, since we wouldn't have an influence value for our character?
People in the upper house don't have avatars, correct? so does that mean we all have one vote, since we wouldn't have an influence value for our character?
Eventually, they will have avatars. As we expand, we should get 30+ faction members and I doubt we will have 30+ active participants in this PBM by that stage!
Early on, not all Upper House members will have avatars as we have only 7 family members and 10 confirmed Senators.
If you don't have an avatar, you are a "ghost" Senator with 1 vote, same as a Senator with Tiberius Coruncanius or one of the 3 under-age members.
In allocating avatars, the rule will be Lower House trumps Upper House. And within the Lower House, candidates for Consul will get priority. Seniority will be used as a tie-breaker criterion.
Keep in mind that at the game start there is one unmarried daughter and one daughter about to come of age. That's another two avatars that will be adopted in relatively quickly. I expect we should have 8-9 avatars by the end of the first consulate.
GeneralHankerchief
05-22-2006, 02:09
Hi everyone,
I've been lurking in this forum for a while now and figured that this campaign would be a good way to introduce me to PBeM-ing. This sounds extremely interesting and I'd like to be a part of it.
Sign me up for the Upper House (#3) please.
Ok, I finally got my RTW installation sorted out. So I am ready to confirm for myself Option 1, Lower House with possible Consulship.
I've had word from Braden confirming that he is entering the Upper House.
Right now I am only waiting confirmation from Xiahou Liao and shifty157, then I can allocate avatars and we can open the Senate floor for motions.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-22-2006, 09:27
Very important issue. Patching our games is a potential nightmare with such "work in progress" mods. (Hence my earlier inclination for RTR Gold). There's a trade-off between messing about too much, involving potential compatibility and coordination problems, and being stuck with bugs. I agree let's update on Friday. Whether we update beyond that, is a bridge we will cross when we get to it. Would you be willing to keep an eye on progress with Platinum and Metropolis, and field tech queries about them? If you are, I will appoint you Senate Fixer and see pass a vote that your avatar be rewarded with a suitable ancillary.
I would be honored to accept this responsibility :bow: . I will make a post thursday night with information considering how to get the best possible out of RTRPE as the situation is then. I am not a professional modder, so don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong :)
I can live with the current campaign settings. In metronaval mod there are a lot less cities with walls anyway, so the point is a bit moot. If the unit size is large there is enough time to kill them all, but if we'd played huge the timer on can be a real problem. It takes a lot of time to kill 5000 barbarians :)
I agree with the split of rules in sections. Historically, the senate almost voted to move to Capua once, so a Senate rule would be appropriate there :). I see that you already marked some rules inviolable, you work fast :)
Ignoramus
05-22-2006, 10:24
You can put me in the Upper House. But can someone please explain the role of an Upper House Senator to me more, because all this information is making my mind boggle. Also, when does the Senate sit? Could someone tell me in AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time.). And as a #3, I don't need to play the actual campaign or anything do I?
Also, why not use diplomats for senators in the upper house? You could still use generals for those who might chose to go into the lower house later, but it could provide actual characters for those who just want to remain in the upper house. And the Roman diplomats were nobles historically weren't they? That way, the upper house senators could lobby the consul to give them dimplomatic ancilleries in order to gain influence in the Senate for voting.
Edit: I just discovered that 6 pm UK time is 4 o'clock in the morning here in Australia :help: , so what are you going to do about people who don't live in the UK?
Welcome aboard, Ignoramus. The function of the Senate - Upper and Lower House combined - is to elect Consuls (ie players) and to pass motions commiting them to key actions.
When Senators have avatars (faction members) assigned, they will also want to lobby for favours for them and speak in character.
The main difference between the Upper and Lower House is that only the latter must have installed the game, because they will be called upon to fight battles that their avatars get into (although on the strategic map, their avatars are controlled by the Consul). If faction members from the Upper House are in battles on the map, then at the moment the combat will be autoresolved (so Upper House members may prefer their avatars to be given behind the lines duties as governors).
Also, the Consuls will be elected from candidates from the Lower House.
People are free to move between the Upper and Lower Houses, although I expect the Lower House members to try to stick it out, real life willing. If they move to the Upper House, I may have to re-assign their avatars to Lower House members without avatars.
We are not going to have real time meetings of the Senate. There will be protracted sessions for deliberations and continual voting on motions. There will be some deadlines though - for example, voting for the first Consul will begin on Wednesday am and end on Friday pm (UK time). This will also be the interval for voting on motions. In future Senate sessions we will have more time (a full 7 days, instead of 3). But right now, I'd like to assign the avatars before deliberations start on the Senate floor, so people can be in character.
I've created a separate thread for Consuls' reports. I've noticed that some write-up threads become a pain to load because of all the screenshots in them (please reduce the jpgs to 75% before posting, everyone). I would like the reports to be gloriously technicolour.
But the Senate deliberations thread will be largely text and there's no reason to clutter it up with graphics. Plus it might be nice to read the Consuls reports uninterrupted by external commentary.
This thread will remain for out of character discussions.
On the Senate library, I've been wondering about keeping the character mugshots to there. Also it might be good to keep a record of all Senate motions (laws) there, for easy reference. What do you think, TinCow? If you agree, do you want to oversee both or shall I do the mugshots and you the motions? I think we can just keep the mugshots on coming of age - the Consuls should update the Senators about new vices and virtues in their periodic reports.
Reading the notes on Roman Leadership, in the Senate library, I realise there is an in-game office of Consul, so referring to the incumbent player as Consul may be confusing. I propose we switch back to my original terminology of "First Consul" (there are, afterall, potentially two Consuls but we can only have one incumbent player at a time).
I've also been wondering what to do about the titles of Faction Leader and Faction Heir - Marcus Camillus renames them Princeps Senatus and Future Princeps Senatus - ie Senate leader and future Senate leader. They are titles that come with valuable bonuses, but I don't want us to mess about with them unduly - lots of disinherited Senators will not be good for Rome; also we can't change the Leader easily.
So, I propose that when the Faction Leader dies, we have a Senate vote on who should be the new Faction Heir and not change that decision unless there are extreme circumstances (e.g. impeachment). We are stuck with Quintus as Leader and I propose we keep Publius Laevinus as heir, being the second oldest character with better bonuses than his juniors. When Quintus dies, we'll vote on who should be the next Princeps Senatus, after Publius Laevinus.
I have not read the leadership notes carefully, but my impression is that they automate a lot of the assignment of other titles and the intention was that titles not be traded. If that is true, I would like to keep them non-tradable as Marcus intended them to be.
Avicenna
05-22-2006, 16:52
Yes, if that's the case, I guess we'll have to live with the scripted appointments of offices. For the leadership of the faction, should we give it to the character with the most influence? Of course, no heir can be a nut, eg. someone with the 'hooting' trait or any other form of fear. If the character is related to the former faction leader or current faction leader, pretend he has a higher influence than he actually does. ie. if he is son of the former faction leader, add +2 influence. If he is the son of the current faction leader, add +3 influence. Brothers gain one less than both respectively, and nephews should not gain much at all, just +1 for the nephew of the current faction leader. Historically, marriages strengthened alliances, so there should be a high boost if the character in question is the son-in-law of the current or former faction leader, with around +3 boost and +2 boost respectively. If there is a deadlock, the priority should be given to a son, son-in-law, brother and then nephew. Grandsons should count as sons, but when there is a deadlock, sons take priority over grandsons. Grandsons-in-law gain no boost. Uncles should gain the same as nephews, as there's a very low chance of passing on the power to your uncle.
Right now, I'm quite anxious to decide upon a course of action: should our two legions take the rebel towns, or should they combine and take down Pyrrhus first? The first fight(s) is going to be easy, and the risk of losing to Pyrrhus when our ranks are thinned by rebels is quite high. I'm recommending the immediate destruction of Pyrrhus and his army, and the expulsion of the Greeks from the Italian peninsula. Then, we will have time to decide which rebel cities to take, and face no immediate threat while we build up our core cities and army. I also propose that the Roman legion, when the two armies join, be led by Quintus until a suitable candidate for generalship, which is usually presented in the form of a suitor, appears. I also advise that we build up a reasonably strong fleet, to protect our interests in the sea against foreign interference. We should also obtain trade rights with the Gauls to the North and the Illyrians to the East for now, and perhaps even Carthage if the other senators think it appropriate.
On the faction heir, let's just have an election when the faction leader dies - we can debate criteria for election in the Senate at the time.
On the issue of what the First Consul should do, your second paragraph is exactly the kind of thing I hope to see in the Senate deliberations thread. Let's open the Senate for deliberations now, as time is short if the First Consul is going to start playing on Friday evening (ie please repost your second para in that thread tomorrow after 6pm UK time). It's not ideal, as I had wanted to wait until avatars are assigned but at least the debate may be less self-interested, since we will all be behind a Rawlsian "veil of ignorance" for one day.
More generally, I think we should have two kinds of posts in the Senate deliberations threads - general musings, such as yours (Senate speeches if your like) and specific motions that are to be voted on. If you would like to propose a motion, I suggest the following format:
MOTION 1This House:
(a) agrees to reward the Senate Librarian (TinCow with a Librarian Ancillary in acknowledgement of his office.
(b) agrees to reward the Senate Fixer (DDW) with a Scribe Ancillary in acknowledgement of his office.[/b]
Motions should be capable of being voted "yes or no". We could also propose ammendments.
Both motions and ammendments would require seconders (unless your avatar has 1 influence)
We'll collect motions and then have a set interval for voting. Given the rather compressed schedule to get ready for a Friday start, I suggest Wednesday 6pm UK time as the cut-off for all motions and ammendments. We will vote on motions and for the First Consul between then and Friday 6pm. So two days drafting motions; two days voting.
There's an interesting issue of how much we want to tie down First Consuls by motions and how much we want to be decided by elections. So with your proposal, we could either try to mandate the First Consul to attack Pyrrhus or we could simply elect the candidate who we believed (from his manifesto etc) most likely to do that. Personally, I favour the latter approach but that can be something we can debate about in the Senate.
Now that I have moderating powers here, I am thinking of using the "poll" option to manage voting. I will make the polls public and then look at the names to exclude any non-Senators who try to vote and to augment votes by avatar influence. I'll want to avoid too many polls, so I may have to consolidate motions so we only a few votes per session.
Tricky Lady
05-22-2006, 19:00
If it's not too late yet, you can count me in for the more passive role of member of the Upper House; option 3, right?
Cool idea, btw. :2thumbsup:
Avicenna
05-22-2006, 20:22
You're probably going to be accepted, Tricky Lady. The PBeM hasn't started yet, and Upper House members should be allowed to join any time anyway. Welcome to the Senate!
shifty157
05-22-2006, 20:56
Im up for the lower house and hell ill run for consul as well. What mods are we playing with exactly? Links would be convenient as im short on time for the next few days.
Mount Suribachi
05-22-2006, 21:23
OK, I'm definately in. D'loaded and installed both mods and it seems to be working and stable. Only took me 2 full evenings of uninstalling and re-installing.....
Only thing is the battle map is a bit jerky. RTW & BI run smooth as silk for me, even on huge units and med-high graphical settings. Is this common with RTR?
Tricky Lady, glad to see you made your way here ~:)
Avicenna
05-22-2006, 21:36
RTW, v 1.5, then RTR Platinum.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-22-2006, 21:38
Welcome Tricky Lady ~:wave:
(* Do they allow women in the senate these days ? :) *)
I have no problems with RTR and I have been running various setups for quite some time now. Then again, I have a 3 gig machine and a pretty decent graphics card. Actually, RTRPE seems to run 2-3 times as fast in campaign mode (don't ask me why, it must be the leap from RTW 1.2 to 1.5). It only gets slightly jerky when I have 4500+ guys on screen with all the graphic settings to max. Perhaps you can experiment with other graphics settings. You can alos check your task manager to see what other processes are labouring for your CPU's attention and get rid of a few obvious redundant programs.
I will post a link with all the relevant downloads and instructions on thursday evening. Be warned, RTR PE is a 450 MB download, so you might get that sometime this week.
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=19682
The poll system sounds good, but how will you take influence in effect there ? Voters must post to show who they are and what they voted too I guess.
Tricky Lady
05-22-2006, 21:39
Hello everyone, and thanks for the welcome. :smiley:
A question.
When "discussing" in the Senate, I assume we don't have to think about gameplay reasons to attack this or that faction, do we? It's just that I liked to put forward another opinion than the rest :tongue2:
Dutch_guy
05-22-2006, 21:49
The senate deliberation thread is a great addition to this affair, great way to keep the players ( or should I say senate members ) interested.
I realize that was way off topic, but it had to be said.
Also welcome Tricky Lady, good to have you here :2thumbsup:
:balloon2:
Avicenna
05-22-2006, 21:52
Gah, all you unreasonable people! Listen to me, I've taken Italy twice in RTR so far :wink: The safest strategy is to rid the Greeks. Then, proceed to take Paestum and Corfinium. By this time, you'll have the finances to support your already created third legion, which then quickly and efficiently takes the weakly defended provinces that the kind Gauls have captured for us. We then sweep the Gauls back to the North, and secure our holdings from there. While the Gauls are dying, the Greeks are following their example in the south. Finally, Rhegion is taken, and the whole peninsula belongs to Rome. What happens next is up to you all :2thumbsup:
GeneralHankerchief
05-22-2006, 21:58
Tiberius, good Romans aren't supposed to have time travel machines... :wink:
shifty157
05-22-2006, 22:04
Nor are we supposed to discuss strategy here.
Im running DSL so im cruising at a smooth 200 kbps download rate. 40 minutes total download time.
I thought we were playing with a minimod or two as well?
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-22-2006, 22:13
Off topic :
Out of character I would crush Pyrrhus like a fly, but in character my reasoning is sound :)
Back on topic :
Yes, also metronaval mod (which includes 4PTY) and perhaps some tiny, but crucial, modifications involving rebalancing and strange phalanx behaviour. I suggest making a vanilla RTW 1.5 install and storing that in a backup, and storing the mods seperately. This will save you a lot ofpain in case of a flawed install or corrupted mos. The rest of the mods I'd advise installing at the latest as modifications and improvements are continuing.
To prevent more confusion RTRPE 1.0 final = final BETA 1.4
More technical details follow thrusday evening
Zomby_Woof
05-22-2006, 22:44
I'm interested in taking part in this, although I won't have much free time for the next two weeks or so.
shifty157
05-22-2006, 23:40
Im not sure where to get these mods. Could you provide a link?
Im not sure where to get these mods. Could you provide a link?
The link to the mods and lots of other technical information about this PBM are in the second post of this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1143829&postcount=2
I am continually updating this second post, so participants don't need to wade through the whole thread to get the key information they need.
On the Senate library, I've been wondering about keeping the character mugshots to there. Also it might be good to keep a record of all Senate motions (laws) there, for easy reference. What do you think, TinCow? If you agree, do you want to oversee both or shall I do the mugshots and you the motions? I think we can just keep the mugshots on coming of age - the Consuls should update the Senators about new vices and virtues in their periodic reports.
I was thinking of making a post for each of the avatars which is being played. For each I would post the mugshot and a full shot of the retinue and traits at every point at which a save game is uploaded (assuming they have changed since the last). I'll crop all the photos and compress the .jpgs so that they won't be too big. I think this will help people to see how their avatars are progressing in-game and to allow better roleplaying.
We should definitely keep a record of successful legislation, perhaps with dates enacted and the number of votes on each side, if it doesn't become overwhelming.
Cheers, TinCow! I'll leave the mugshots in your capable hands then. :bow:
On the motions, as I've indicated in an in-character post as speaker in the Senate, I'd like to keep motions short and few. It would be good if we can coalesce on some really big issue ("Carthage must be destroyed!"), vote yay or nay, and leave the First Consuls to work out the details.
That's not to say all the detailed discussion of mechanics in the Senate at the moment is off-topic. It's great and a primary function of the Senate (ie to be a talking shop). But I would be sad if we end up having hundreds of votes each session, not least because I have to organise the mechanics of voting! :sweatdrop:
I agree, varied debate is fabulous, but let's keep the actual voting options relatively simple. I ran across this thread on the RTR forums this afternoon and thought it was a great example of complex Senatorial debate on a relatively simple vote.
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=19710
Lord Winter
05-23-2006, 00:41
I would like to join.
I would like to join.
Welcome!
And welcome to everyone else who has recently joined. ~:cheers: Tricky_Lady, Zomby_Woof and GeneralHankerchief... apologies if I have missed anyone.
Destroyer of Hope please can you read post #2 in this thread and choose one of options (a), (b) and (c)? Cheers.
Lord Winter
05-23-2006, 01:03
Destroyer of Hope please can you read post #2 in this thread and choose one of options (a), (b) and (c)? Cheers.option b
Major edit: just noticed I made an error in not spotting shifty157 is a candidate for Consul. Apologies to TinCow and Mount but this bumps them down one in the order for avatars. List has been revised to reflect this.
OK, a provisional update on the assignment of avatars. At the moment, everyone has chosen their House except, ironically, the person who started this thread, Xiahou Liao. If he passes by before the Tuesday 6pm UK time deadline, then things may change, as obviously he trumps everyone in seniority (which I am reading from the order in which people first posted in this thread or otherwise expressed interest). But given the Senate deliberations are heating up, I think it might be a good idea to let people know what is likely to happen about avatars. However, it's probably wise not to assume your provisional avatars name and personality until this is finally confirmed.
Recall that we have only 4 adult faction members at the start of the game. We have also have four candidates for First Consul and they will each need an avatar. So at the moment, this plus seniority implies:
Quintus => econ21 (it's not a stitch up, honest :sweatdrop:)
Publius Laevinius => shifty157
Tiberius Coruncanius => FLYdude
Lucius Amelius => DDW
We have four under-age family members. I am going to assign them to members of the Lower House to allow for role-playing development. Obviously they are too young to be Senators per se, but their votes can represent those of allies of their families. And they can be pretend they are precocious kids - think Octavian in the BBC/HBO series Rome (ok, very precocious in the case of Marcus...)
Amulius Coruncanius => TinCow
Manius Aemilius => Mount Suribachi
Decius Laevinus => Glaucus
Marcus Laevinus => Destroyer of Hope
Note - these kids are young and other faction members (e.g. suitable husbands) may appear as adults earlier. In that case, I will give people the opportunity to ditch their kid and pick the newcomer instead (e.g. if they want to stand for First Consul or fight battles etc).
So at the moment, we have a match of 8 faction members and 8 Lower House Senators. (The Lower House senators should note that all this is on the condition that they have successfully loaded up the mod.)
I have also agreed to the interesting request from Ignoramus that he be assigned Sextus Antio, the diplomat, as his avatar. (TinCow, please can you add Sextus's mugshot to the Senate library?)
Apologies to the other Upper House Senators - you will be assigned avatars as soon as they become available. (As I've said before that gives you an incentive to be as expansionist as Rome was in history - due to the cap on generals, more provinces = more avatars). It was important to prioritise the Lower House, as these people will be expected to fight battles on demand if their avatars get involved in them.
People can always freely switch between houses, although this may lead to some re-assignment of avatars. I'd like to keep reassignments to a minimum, of course, as no one likes to lose a character they have come to identify with. I only really want Lower House members to go to the Upper House if they have a work/travel/other real life crisises. And ideally Upper House to Lower House moves should imply the player wants to stand for Consul in the near future.
Let me know if you think there are any errors in the above provisional assignments. Otherwise, I will not update them until the final confirmation at 6pm UK time today.
Avicenna
05-23-2006, 08:07
Hmm, econ, would it be possible that I stand for the lower house for a few days next week when there's a break? Or would that be just a waste of time?
Also, what about an avatar for Tricky Lady? The daughter of Quintus is an ideal character, being of the correct age and having the connections needed to have any influence in the senate. We can just pretend that she speaks through a male-friend of hers. ~:thumb:
Unlucky for picking Decius, senator Glaucus. He always seems to end up getting the worst traits out of the eight starters.
Hmm, econ, would it be possible that I stand for the lower house for a few days next week when there's a break? Or would that be just a waste of time?
I think it would be a waste of time. But do you have a longer break over Summer we could work around? If you let me know the dates, I will try to ensure you have an adult avatar in that period and so can productively join the Lower House. IIRC, you are the most senior Senator, so it won't be a problem.
Also, what about an avatar for Tricky Lady? The daughter of Quintus is an ideal character, being of the correct age and having the connections needed to have any influence in the senate. We can just pretend that she speaks through a male-friend of hers. ~:thumb:
If this were MTW or M2TW then Princesses would be suitable avatars for the Upper House. But one problem with Rome is that the daughter does not have a representation on the map. Tricky_Lady may prefer a conventional Senator, as then he will have more to do e.g. be a governor. But if she wants a daughter, I am happy to oblige. If so, she should have a veto over suitors. I might even let her control the husband - some wives do that :ballchain:
I think I've worked out the mechanics for Senate voting.
I'll post two seperate polls, each in their own thread. They will both be public, so I can check if the voters really are senators and I can take influence into account.
For the motions votes, I will just list every motion and allow multiple votes. Then you can vote yes to as many motions as you want.
I'll post the First Consul voting thread when avatars are confirmed 6pm tonight (henceforth all my times can be taken to be UK ones) and the motions 6pm tomorrow. I'll get them to be open for 3 and 2 days after opening (ie Friday), but will count the votes a little early on 6pm Friday, so the First Consul can start play Friday night if they want to.
It might be appropriate for us to check with the Senate Fixer,DDW about the current status of patches to the mods we are using.
At the RTR forums, I have found this:
...here is the order I would recommend installing in to use the Metro&Naval Mod for RTR Platinum.
1. Install RTW and patch it to v1.5.
2. Install the RTR Platinum Final Beta full installer.
3. Add the files of the "Corrected_RTR_Platinum_Files_v2.0.zip".
4. Install Shos' latest Updated EDU file.
5. Install the "Metro&Naval Mod for RTR Platinum".
Quote is from:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=18768&st=140#
The Corrected_RTR_Platinum_Files_v2.0.zip, last edited 19th May, can be downloaded from:
http://www.beaglepc.net/storage/rome_total_war/Corrected_RTR_Platinum_Files_v2.0.zip
Shos’s EDU file, last updatd 21 May can be found at:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=5603
Both are discussed on page 7 of:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=18768&st=120#
Marcus may consolidate 3 & 4 into a single 2.1.zip. But that's not a substantive change. He will be going on vacation soon, so perhaps there will be no further changes apart from anything done to the EDU by Shos and Shanky. However, changes to the EDU are rather easy to patch.
It is rather awkward to have step (5) after (3) and (4), as it means that those of us who have already installed the Metro&Naval mod have to unpick this step. However, this is only really an immediate issue for the First Consul.
I'm not clear why (5) comes after (4) - does Metro&Naval mod not have its own EDU?
If DDW confirms Marcus's information, I will put it and the links on post#2 of this thread.
I think I've worked out the mechanics for Senate voting.
I'll post two seperate polls, each in their own thread. They will both be public, so I can check if the voters really are senators and I can take influence into account.
For the motions votes, I will just list every motion and allow multiple votes. Then you can vote yes to as many motions as you want.
I'll post the First Consul voting thread when avatars are confirmed 6pm tonight (henceforth all my times can be taken to be UK ones) and the motions 6pm tomorrow. I'll get them to be open for 3 and 2 days after opening (ie Friday), but will count the votes a little early on 6pm Friday, so the First Consul can start play Friday night if they want to.
I don't mean to try and dictate Org policy, but perhaps it would be best to create a sub-forum for The Will of the Senate. I agree that using seperate voting threads will be the easiest to track votes (though I think all discussion should remain in the original thread). However, we're already in danger of overhwelming the Throne Room with Senate material. Too much more and we'll drown this place and start to lose track of our own threads as well. Is a sub-forum a possibility?
Is a sub-forum a possibility?
Given that I now have moderator powers here, I don't think a sub-forum will be necessary. We now have four "permanent" threads for this PBM: - two interactive ones - this one and the Senate deliberations thread; and two "reference" ones - the Senate library and the First Consul reports. I don't think this is too much, given that the forum page is not even full when displayed with the default "show posts made in the last 2 weeks".
I am going to create two temporary poll threads for voting - one for the first First Consul; one for all motions submitted this session. No one need post in them - just choose your polls options. After Friday, the threads will be irrelevant. As we have more and more sessions, to avoid such temporary threads cluttering up the forum, I will "age" them, so they slip off the front page.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-23-2006, 12:38
It is rather awkward to have step (5) after (3) and (4), as it means that those of us who have already installed the Metro&Naval mod have to unpick this step. However, this is only really an immediate issue for the First Consul.
I'm not clear why (5) comes after (4) - does Metro&Naval mod not have its own EDU?
If DDW confirms Marcus's information, I will put it and the links on post#2 of this thread.
I looked into it last night, and will make a definite post late this evening, a bit early due to popular demand. I suspect the order of 3-5 is not relevant and can be modified and 3 and 4 be done at a later time. Nevertheless, I advise everyone to keep backups of a Vanilla RTW 1.5 edition and the mods. I will look into this later, but I'm at work at the moment :)
Avicenna
05-23-2006, 13:50
Out of Character post:
I propose having an EB Romani campaign just like this when the full version is released. :2thumbsup:
Who's with me?
I propose having an EB Romani campaign just like this when the full version is released. :2thumbsup:
Who's with me?
Absolutely! EB is my favorite mod, but I have held off starting a PBM with it because it is still terribly unstable on my computer - it crashes so often, I've stopped playing it. If the port to 1.5 fixes that problem, then it would make a great PBM. I'd be inclined to let this campaign play out first, though, so we could learn lessons and not dissipate people's energies.
All that said though, I've been impressed with what I have seen of this mod. As TinCow noted, the scripting of Roman leadership traits by Marcus Camillus is lovely for role-playing. Also, just loading it up and fighting a battle, I noticed that the Roman rank and file infantry in RTR are much prettier than their Camillan equivalents in EB (this is not a comment on the modders abilities, just on the actual uniforms of the troops).
Tricky Lady
05-23-2006, 18:10
Wow. I'm offline for, what, 24 hours, and look at the discussions I've missed! :dizzy2: I just spent half an hour reading the two main threads. :book2:
Anyway...
If this were MTW or M2TW then Princesses would be suitable avatars for the Upper House. But one problem with Rome is that the daughter does not have a representation on the map. Tricky_Lady may prefer a conventional Senator, as then he will have more to do e.g. be a governor. But if she wants a daughter, I am happy to oblige. If so, she should have a veto over suitors. I might even let her control the husband - some wives do that :ballchain:
As you mentioned HBO's Rome series, it would be great if I could play a "Servilia" or "Atia" who's controlling a puppet senator. So I'd get a female avatar (just the standard "wife" avatar will do for me, it's not that important), but it will be linked to a male senator, who will speak for me. :whip: Lol, sounds like fun.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-23-2006, 18:50
Out of Character post:
I propose having an EB Romani campaign just like this when the full version is released. :2thumbsup:
Who's with me?
Tempting, but EB still needs a lot of work, amazing as it is already.
Avicenna
05-23-2006, 18:51
Of course, you could always go one step further, and be one of those little aliens in a robot in the form of a human, like in MIB. Or would that be going too far?
DDW: that's why I said after it's finished :2thumbsup:
Mount Suribachi
05-23-2006, 19:05
Out of Character post:
I propose having an EB Romani campaign just like this when the full version is released. :2thumbsup:
Who's with me?
Aye Carumba! Give us chance man, we've not even started this one yet! :dizzy2: Hopefully the fact that everyone continues to have an input will enable this PBEM to maintain its momentum into the late game.
I've played a few turns of the mod, and have been impressed by the professionalism of it. Fought a battle and after playing vanilla RTW for 6 months it....seemed.....so.....slow :laugh4: I'm there drumming my fingers whilst waiting for surrounded hoplites to die. Guess I'll have to get used to no more insta-routs ~:)
Avicenna
05-23-2006, 19:31
I'm planning to do this over the summer holidays, when I actually have time. No problem with planning ahead though, is there? :tongue:
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-23-2006, 19:42
I've played a few turns of the mod, and have been impressed by the professionalism of it. Fought a battle and after playing vanilla RTW for 6 months it....seemed.....so.....slow :laugh4: I'm there drumming my fingers whilst waiting for surrounded hoplites to die. Guess I'll have to get used to no more insta-routs ~:)
There is a problem with morale being way too high for everyone. The last minute fixes I will explain later on reduce moral for everyone by 25 % and give a more realistic battle. Still, hoplites are not know for giving in quickly, we're not talking gaul swordsmen here :)
Avicenna
05-23-2006, 20:12
Personally I don't find the morale too high, in fact the RTR is more enjoyable, getting to kill more without actually having to have masses of light cav for chasing purposes.
Anyway, if two pila volleys can rout a unit, it's not actually that much higher morale-wise.
Tricky_Lady: ok, I will assign you Marcella, who is 18. I am not sure how she is related to the rest of the family tree, as - like Quintus - she has no family name.
She will pretty quickly get an offer of marriage and the family member she weds can be your avatar by proxy. On reflection, I think giving you right of refusal may slow things down too much, so this will have to be an arranged marriage. However, you can let the First Consul know the desirable attributes you will look for in a match and what things you would like to veto - ie age, stats, traits etc.
Mount: morale is about the only quibble I have with RTR. IIRC a unit of hastati has a morale of about 6 in RTW, 13 in EB and 24 in RTR Gold. Shos's EDU file I posted earlier cuts it down to 18 or so, 25% as DDW said. I think the implication is that breaking the enemy's morale is even more important - try to go for the flanks, prepare the ground with missiles, threaten with cavalry etc. Total War has lots of pretty big morale modifiers hidden under the engine - you need to bring them into play. Just fight a frontal stand-up battle and the enemy can often fight to almost the last man - taking a lot of yours with them. Given that we have a no retraining rule, a couple of big battles can wreck your army (we'll need a fairly constant chain of replacements to top up depleted units regardless).
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-23-2006, 23:50
As promised, here are the final instructions. This has been tested by me and seems to work fine.
For the people that have already installed metronaval mod (step 4) :
After reviewing the files I'd say it is possible to do step 3 after step 5, but then I would like someone who does that to send me the final resulting files that are included in 3. So what you end up with after step 7. Then I can compare them with what I have and see if everything is correct, and otherwise send you the correct files. If this is unclear let me know and I'll go into excruciating detail.
Step 3 : the Corrected_RTR_Platinum_Files are just what they say.
Step 5 : The update of the metronaval mod includes Marcus his 4PTY mod 1.9.1. which is especially compatible with metonaval mod.
Step 6 : Shos latest EDU for RTRPE with Metro&Naval Mod contains various essential fixes.
Step 7 : It fix solves the problem that the ptolemaic empire gets wasted by Carthage while its fighting the Seleucids. No more crossing the endless desert of Libya.
There are more fixes and tweaks, but none I considered absolutely vital. This seems like the best setup as of 24/05/2006 00:56. I do not own BI and so this has only been tested for RTW1.5 !
RTR Platinum Edition install instructions
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=19705
1. Prior to installing Rome Total Realism Platinum, you will need a fresh install of Vanilla RTW(v1.0).
Download and patch RTW to the following patch versions, in the order listed.
a. RTW v1.2 patch (this is probably unnecessary, but do it anyway)
b. RTW v1.3 patch
c. RTW v1.5 patch
! Test if it still works, and if so make a backup !
! And for the sake of the gods save all your mod files so you can recreate this install later !
2. Download the full installer v1.0 and install it to your fresh RTW directory.
RTR Platinum Edition 1.0 (=BETA 1.4)
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=19682
Included in this mod are :
Darth Vader (DarthFormations: added to patch_v0.3.rar)
Archer (SkyMod: included in beta 1.0)
SignifierOne (Animations pack v0.8, without which it would have taken much longer to make this)
3. Install the Corrected_RTR_Platinum_Files_v2.0.zip
Files belong in \Data
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=18768&st=120
4. Install METROPOLIS & NAVALMOD by Snake_IV
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20000&st=0
5. Install Update1 for METROPOLIS & NAVALMOD by Snake_IV
Unzip these files and add them MANUALLY in \Data
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20000&st=0
6. Shos latest EDU for RTRPE with Metro&Naval Mod
Install this in \Data
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=18768&st=120
7. parthia/bactria landblock + africa landblock
Install this in \Data\world\maps\base
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=18768&st=140
8. Delete map.rwm from
c:\Rome - Total War\data\world\maps\base
c:\Rome - Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\base
c:\Rome - Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign
CRITICAL WARNING FOR ALL PLAYERS !!!
As you load the game, wait for the advisor to pop up (you do not need to have advice on, it will show up anyway). Click on the show-me-how button to activate the 4TPY mod. If you forget to do this, you will probably mess up the savegame and at the very least mess up the 4PTY mod. Now you can start playing. You need to do this EVERY TIME you load or start a game.
9. Now get out there and kick some ass !
I've earned a beer, me thinks...
With regards to Tricky Lady, how should I represent her in the Biography? Clearly we cannot assign her future husband to another player and her 'influence' will be via manipulating the man. As such, would it be appropriate for me to simply include the husband's biography with an additional note that gossip in Rome indicates that it is really Marcella who wears the... toga... in the family?
Yes, unless she indicates otherwise, I would present Tricky_Lady's soon-to-be husband and Senator as the public face of her character, but note the rumours.
On other business, now that some of us have avatars assigned, I think it would be good if we could use their Roman names in deliberations in the senate, e.g. "Quintus (econ21)" for clarity. There was also the idea of changing user titles to have your PBM avatar's name, so people can remember who you are roleplaying - I will put Quintus in quotation marks as my user title. If you can find your avatars picture, you can use that too although you don't have to - I won't as Org convention dictates mods keep their robes.
Ignoramus
05-24-2006, 12:11
I can't find Sextus Antio's avatar.
Avicenna
05-24-2006, 12:24
It should be under Roman_Dips.
econ, don't you mean rags?
Ignoramus
05-24-2006, 12:26
I've looked, but strangely Roman_Dips is not there.
I've looked, but strangely Roman_Dips is not there.
It's there - go to "show avatars", press the rightside arrow and RTW_Roman_Dip is one screne you can select.
I think you want: Roman Diplomat000
Ignoramus
05-24-2006, 12:38
Ach, I need 600 posts.
Avicenna
05-24-2006, 12:47
Start visiting the Entrance Hall and Frontroom. Also post in the forum games. Rome must have a civilised diplomat!
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-24-2006, 13:28
I must have been having premonitions by sorting out all the technical stuff yesterday, as today I will not be home before midnight due to overwork. Luckily I have tomorrow off and then I will continue my political campaign with a vengeance :)
It's not possible to upload an avatar is it ? I suspect posting 600 'Hello World' posts will get me banned :)
I conquered Corfinium yesterday with just 41 casualties, just getting in a bit of practice. The AI played pretty well, retreating back to he square with his last two spearmen units. If not for that, I'd probably have gotten him with under 20 casualties. I really have to get used to playing large size again, I keep wondering where the rest of my troops are. At least I will not have the problem with overflow at the bottom of the siege towers.
When I look at the posts I feel most people do not understand how vulnerable you are with 1.5 and metronaval. Most of your cities do not have walls and the AI WILL make naval invasions. It is quite capable of blitzing half you cities while your troops are fighting over the border. Last trial camapign I played, the greeks managed to slip past my armies and take Ancona. And while I was hanging out near Tarentum, Carthage managed to blitz the west coast and I only caught up with right next to Rome itself.
Well, I hope I have not been too off topic. Back to work.
I will raise the issue of avatars with the admins, but I'm not hopeful. People can be rather petty and I suspect they won't want to field queries of "how come he gets to have a cool avatar with only 25 posts" or whatever.
Ignoramus asked me about what units we can recruit, so I posted a few notes on our unit stats in RTR in the Senate library. I may update it with the stats of our enemies (e.g. the Greeks) over time.
...people do not understand how vulnerable you are with 1.5 and metronaval. Most of your cities do not have walls and the AI WILL make naval invasions. It is quite capable of blitzing half you cities while your troops are fighting over the border.
This sounds excellent! To be honest, many folk complain how easy Roma is in RTR Gold, so it will be good if we have to keep on our toes in this mod.
Displaying a given Avatar doesn’t worry me by the way, we’ll just deal with it. As long as we remember to use our Avatar’s given name in our In Character postings (I can’t yet, haven’t got one).
As to the vulnerability – I’m playing purely to Character….as a archetypal, scheming, arrogant, Roman senator of the Upper House…..as such I couldn’t even consider that the greatness that is Rome could be vulnerable, even if I could consider such an ignoble act as a marine landing!
…..landing troops by ship! Unheard of! :laugh4:
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-24-2006, 16:03
This is an intersting post about what playing with (almost) the same config is like :
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20310
I've been wondering about the mechanics of a mid-term session of the Senate. Given how well the current session is going, I definitely want to insist that we have a compulsory mid-term one.
However, I don't want it to slow down the campaign unduly. So I am wondering about:
(a) after 10 turns of play, the First Consul suspends play;
(b) before that, he gives two days advance notice of when his mid-term report will be submitted;
(c) as soon as the report is posted, the Senate will open for one day (24 hours) for the tabling of emergency motions;
and (d) it will remain open for another one day (24 hours) for voting on those emergency motions.
So basically, the incumbent will only have to take a 48 hours "time-out" from the game. That seems to strike a reasonable balance between the need to keep momentum going and giving the Senate a (small) window to intervene in the reign.
I don't want to put this to a vote, Senate-style, but would welcome reactions and hope we can come to a consensus.
I should also say that the Senate will always remain open for debate, but to avoid over-legislating, I want to restrict the tabling of motions to interregnums but with the safety valve of emergency motions in mid-term.
I was also wondering about some kind of "opinion poll" option, to rate the First Consul's performance in the first term. But on balance, I think that would be out of character for the Senate (too much like modern day opinion poll dominated politics) and anyway Senators can always propose motions of acclaim or censure if they want to.
PS: The admins initial response over Org avatars was encouraging - I'll keep you posted.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-24-2006, 17:05
I was going to write it thought it was a bad idea, but halfway through I decided it was a pretty good idea actually. I'm with you. 24 hours is not much, but the debate should have been continuous since day one, so more time isn't necessary/
shifty157
05-24-2006, 21:44
Also remember that the senate may dismiss the consul if they wish and appoint a new one.
I do think that it may be a good idea that the consul should post a screenshot every four turns (1 year) to show the current state of the empire. Its boundaries and the locations of its armies. This would not require any commenting by the consul though he can if he wishes. Just a single screenshot to show the current state of affairs. It will also help the senators to prepare for the midterm session.
If not this then the screenshot should be posted in his two day warning post. Again to give the senators time to think and prepare.
By the way, how many senators are there?
Some interesting ideas - I like the idea of posting screenshots. I'm expecting reports every two days of real life, so including a screenshot in them would be nice.
I'm starting to cool off on the 2 day advance warning thing - the problem is that, with the possibility of other players fighting some battles, the incumbent can't actually control or predict how long it will take to play his reign. It depends on how quickly other senators answer the call if their avatars get into a fight. So a 2 day warning just means adding an extra 2 day hiatus in the middle of a reign.
Instead, how about:
(a) report every 2 days (minimum - one-liner; ideally a screenshot; everything else is icing on the cake)
(b) pauses after 10 turns & produces mid-term report (reasonably detailed)
(c) mid-term Session: two days for Senators to debate and draft emergency motions & one day voting
(d) player continues & we're back to (a)
Ideally, I'd be hoping a 20 year reign would span 2 weekends (with the incumbent trying to blast through 10 turns in each weekend), with a mid-term Senate imbetween.
Then we'd have a full Senate session lasting 5 weekdays, ending with a Friday election and on we go.
In the early game, we might be covering 5 years every two weeks.
Is that an acceptable pace?
I think it's actually the full Senate sessions - rather than the mid-terms - that will slow things down. But a slower pace is a price worth paying to get all 19 of us Senators involved in this PBM at the same time.
That's a fine pace, although I'm not certain we can always do 10 turns over 2 days. While certainly possible to do normally, battles by lower house members other than the consul would slow things down. If the consul and the senator involved in battle are both online and can play when the battles occur, then the delay would be minimal. But we have people from all sorts of different timezones, and if a battle came up at a bad time, it could delay things by several hours. I can see delays of more than 12 hours in really unlucky cases. And then if there are several battles, it might take a while to get through them.
Of course, that's not really a problem. But depending on what happens during a half-term, the time it takes to complete could vary wildly.
Oh, and by the way, there are 18 senators. There is an error in the senator list on the first page of the senate thread, where item 7 is missing.
I have a query
since were using the 4 turn patch thing, would the consul still have 20 turns, 5 years? or do we want him to have 10 years as was the original plan?
That's a fine pace, although I'm not certain we can always do 10 turns over 2 days. While certainly possible to do normally, battles by lower house members other than the consul would slow things down.
Yes, it's going to be a challenge. We've never tried anything like this before. It could make the experience really fun for those directly involved. Or it could really bog things down. Fingers crossed.
Oh, and by the way, there are 18 senators. There is an error in the senator list on the first page of the senate thread, where item 7 is missing.
OK, I'll send the Senate Speaker to shout at the scribes. :laugh4:
shifty157
05-24-2006, 23:25
Just a request. Could we change all the maps in the library to thumbnail links? They are large and a pain to have to continually scroll through and at this point the majority are not entirely necessary.
Also something ive jsut noticed. It is entirely possible that motions 6, 7, and 8 are all voted no. I assume that if this happened then the ruling would stand and the consul could deal as he pleases with the provinces in question. But it may be pertinent to decide whether or not if this were to happen there will be a runoff vote between the two motions with the highest approval (or the lowest disapproval). I believe there would be time if we decided to.
BTW, does anyone know anything about Quintus? Tiberius said he was just "some randomer". So is he fictitious? DDW wondered about role-playing him as the father of the faction, but the ages look wrong. I'd prefer it if he were just leader of the Senate and we let the 4 houses[1] grow up organically and independently.
[1] ie the parts of the family tree headed by the 3 other adult faction members + I guess the house TrickyLady's character will soon start.
I have a query
since were using the 4 turn patch thing, would the consul still have 20 turns, 5 years? or do we want him to have 10 years as was the original plan?
No, it's 5 years - 20 turns. 20 turns is usually long enough for anyone to handle - especially mid to end game, when you might have 3-4 battles a turn.
shifty157
05-24-2006, 23:36
BTW, does anyone know anything about Quintus? Tiberius said he was just "some randomer". So is he fictitious? DDW wondered about role-playing him as the father of the faction, but the ages look wrong. I'd prefer it if he were just leader of the Senate and we let the 4 houses[1] grow up organically and independently.
[1] ie the parts of the family tree headed by the 3 other adult faction members + I guess the house TrickyLady's character will soon start.
Id say this is the best bet. I think itd be rather odd otherwise.
Just a request. Could we change all the maps in the library to thumbnail links? They are large and a pain to have to continually scroll through and at this point the majority are not entirely necessary.
Done. I would actually like to arrange the thumbnails in a table somewhat in accordance to their positions on a map. This would spread them out horizontally as well and further decrease the scrolling, but I don't know how to do tables in here.
shifty157
05-25-2006, 00:48
Thank you very much. Its much better.
No i dont think tables are possible in the forums. How you have them now is fine though.
Thanks to therother, I just found out how to do tables here. There's a tag for them, just like for quotes etc.
For the gory details, look at the end of the FAQ in the entrance hall. It is all explained in a link to a post by Tosa.
For example to create:
3^A|B|C
7^econ21|TinCow|shifty157
7^4|5|6
I typed:
{table=1 2 2}3^A|B|C
7^econ21|TinCow|shifty157
7^4|5|6
{/table}
but using [ and ] instead of { and }
Holy crap that works well. Check it out; it's not perfect due to screenshot alignment, but I think it looks decent and takes up almost no room.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1147293&postcount=2
shifty157
05-25-2006, 04:35
thats really impressive. thanks econ and good work tincow. i tip my hat to you both. everyhting looks a hell of alot better now.
Sweet! :2thumbsup: Excellent work, TinCow!
Avicenna
05-25-2006, 08:24
Historically, Coruncanius and Laevinius were the Consuls of the time. Lucius Aemilius was a consul, but much later, at around 218 and 216 BCE. His daughter married Scipio Africanus Majorus, and his grandson was adopted by him.
Seeing how Quintus has no surname (cognomen I think) he should be fictional.
Mount Suribachi
05-25-2006, 08:57
Holy crap that works well. Check it out; it's not perfect due to screenshot alignment, but I think it looks decent and takes up almost no room.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1147293&postcount=2
3 cheers for Simon and Tincow! :2thumbsup:
I am not sure I can do it but I am thinking of modding the start files so that our four existing family members start with some of Marcus Camillus's new Roman leadership traits. It seems strange that when a new mature member is spawned - e.g. a husband - they come with some traits (military experience, studentship) and yet we have old generals in command of armies with a blank slate.
If anyone has tried out this mod and played on for a few years (TinCow? DDW?) , I wonder if you could upload a savegame I could look at? I'd like to see what traits the new members have.
I'm inclined to make all 4 existing members have had studentships, military experience and be ex-tribunes. The two with field armies I would make legates; the other two I would make ex-legates. If players with those avatars would rather not have those traits - e.g. they want to have to really work for them - let me know. But AFAIK, there's no downside.
I can't currently access my save games and won't be able to till next Monday, sorry. However, I can confirm that the starting 4 never advance down the student->military->governorship path. I suspect this is because they don't start with the Student trait, so it never advances. However, I've noticed that family members who marry in or are adopted ARE spawned with a variety of the traits. They're not perfect (I had a 16 year old who was a legate with 4 years of military service!) but at least they work.
However, I can confirm that the starting 4 never advance down the student->military->governorship path.
That's very useful to know, thanks - it makes modding them in pretty essential, unless we are to roleplay a bunch of old duffers!
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-25-2006, 12:48
Hi,
It seems Marcus Camillus is planning to release RTRPE 1.5 later today. Not sure if he'll get it done before he leaves for his vacation however. I'm undecided if we want to use this, coming at the last moment and all that. More details follow should he make his release.
Also, there is a new update of metronaval mode (Update2), which includes
1. BI's torches from adonys
2. Stuie's AI Command Bonus (Gives the AI a command bonus, Reduces morale by 25% for all units).
3. changed descr_mercenaries.txt (cheaper mercenaries)
I suspect (1) will not work for those like us who only have RTW and not BI, but it should not cause a problem also, you just won't have torches on night battles, but I will have to check into that. I thought (2) was already included in the fixes I listed, but it seems I was wrong. Some mercenaries are ridiculously expensive, hence (3).
I dumped all my savegames because of all the testing with different configs, but I distinctly remember a starting character getting the governmentship of Latium. As far as I understand, the military and goverment traits should work for the starting characters. This was with 4TPY mod 1.8 however, so I might be wrong.
Off topic: The AI WILL leave the city during a siege if it sees an oppurtunity. Yesterday he made a cavalry sortie from a side gate and laid waste to three units of velites before I noticed what was going on. You have been warned.
It seems Marcus Camillus is planning to release RTRPE 1.5 later today. ...Also, there is a new update of metronaval mode (Update2),
Wow, looks like this will be going up to the wire. Let's see how things stand when we've elected the First Consul tomorrow. Needless to say, they should hold off starting their reign until we've agreed on versions etc.
PS: We seem to have a lot of undecideds or wait n sees in the First Consul election. Lots of votes on the motions, not many on the candidates. Poll closes 6pm UK time Friday.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-25-2006, 17:15
BTW, does anyone know anything about Quintus? Tiberius said he was just "some randomer". So is he fictitious? DDW wondered about role-playing him as the father of the faction, but the ages look wrong. I'd prefer it if he were just leader of the Senate and we let the 4 houses[1] grow up organically and independently.
[1] ie the parts of the family tree headed by the 3 other adult faction members + I guess the house TrickyLady's character will soon start.
According to the family tree, we three are sons-in law of Quintus, but I agree to treat them as four distint families. I rather worry that Quintus will nor produce any more offspring however, thus rendering his family extinct eventually.
shifty157
05-25-2006, 17:21
I didnt realise that we coudl vote for consul. I was under the impression the voting started today. Oh well.
I think giving the existing characters some traits would be a good idea. Even you just picked a handful at random. Just to make things more interesting. I mean my character is in his thirties and has only 4 traits and a single ancilliary to show for his 20 or so years of service.
Mount Suribachi
05-25-2006, 17:38
Simon, I definately think you should look into adding some career traits to our 4 starting avatars.
According to the family tree, we three are sons-in law of Quintus, but I agree to treat them as four distint families. I rather worry that Quintus will nor produce any more offspring however, thus rendering his family extinct eventually.
Well, TinCow in the Senate Library has put Tricky_Lady's character as being Quintus's daughter. I don't know what she thinks, but I rather like that. So we will still have four distinct families, but Quintus's bloodline need not die out, even if his family name does (not a big problem, really,as he does not have a family name!).
Avicenna
05-25-2006, 20:33
Four fictional Roman gentes maiores eh? That could work quite well. At least we have one actual gentes maiores, Aemilius.
Tricky_Lady: Could you state what kind of husband you're looking for? Someone strong in command, management or influence? Or do you want a weakling who can be manipulated easily?
OK, I've had a look at one of DDWs savegames - its 8 turns on from the start and as TinCow reported, none of the four original faction members have any of the new Roman leadership traits. The two new generals do.
The good news is that in the descr_strat.txt in the zipped version of Marcus_Camillus's mod, the gang of four do have some of these traits - at least the military experience ones - whereas in the descr_strat.txt that results from my installing these metro&naval mod, they don't. So it should be straightforward to cut and paste from the relevant bits so the four at least start with some military experience.
Only the First Consul will have to worry about this at the first instance, so we can wait another day to see if anything new emerges and then take stock, doing a little minor modding of our own if the problem is still there. The First Consul can then be the guinea pig.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-25-2006, 23:33
Just a little warning to the future first consul. I've been testing the engine some more. If you get as far as Messana, Carthage will come a'knocking, and the naval invasions work just fine, thank you very much. I must say that landing a full stack of hoplites to intercept just one of my units was a tad overkill by the AI, but effective. Gawds. I've been stuck in Messana for 15 seasons already, getting nowhere, just building up my strength. The fact that you only have three unit-producing cities is a severe limitation on what you can actually accomplish in 20 seasons.
Ignoramus
05-25-2006, 23:49
Why worry about Carthage yet, true, we will need to be careful about her increasing power, but the priority is the defeat of Pyrrhus, in which I fully support Senator Quintus.
Lord Winter
05-26-2006, 00:11
There's an error in the motions poll, It says under motion 5 that DDW proposed it, where i was the one in the thread to propose it.
Avicenna
05-26-2006, 08:27
Will we actually be able to support a whole system of forts manned by at least Praetorian armies?
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 08:49
I think we will be hardpressed to station a decent garrison (say 4 units) in all out cities and supporting our troops. We will need decent garrisons, otherwise a local rebel uprising might attack one of our unwalled cities before we can do anything about it. We will only be able to recruit 3 maniples every season. Saying we take Corfinium, Paestum, Rhegium, Armenium, Arretium, Tarentum and Croton, we will need to recruit 7 * 4 = 28 units / 3 = 9.33. So it will take us 2 1/2 years just to recruit decent garrisons for our conquests. Then of course there are war losses, and the recruiting of 2 new legions, each of which consists of 11 unit-building time. So, if we do not suffer any major defeats, we just might be able to recruit the necessary troops in 5 years.
Carthage – I agreed with Ignoramus that we don’t have to worry about them yet, none of the proposals currently authorise an invasion of Sicily but only the amalgamation of Italy into the Republic……….to be honest I see a period of consolidation after this fast expansion and we’ll have many more than just three troop producing cities at the point we do cross the straits.
Garrisons - Have to admit that I know nothing about RTR, have never played it so my knowledge and hence advise about what we can support is likely to be out. However from DDW’s figures I don’t think that 5 years is too long if that’s how long it takes to ensure Italy is “secured” before moving on…..
……”Rome wasn’t built in a day” after all and, say we have captured the additional SEVEN settlements DDW mentions above in quite short order – say 2-3 years –, surely a longer period of stabilisation, building and securing is the normal thing in any game of Rome?
Remember I am giving players the options of modding down the bandit and pirate spawn rate. I am certainly going to do that, as detailed on post #2 here. In the past, my RTR and EB games as the Romans have been as much about fighting tiny stacks of rebels as fighting enemy armies - I don't want to do that this time round. It doesn't feel realistic and it's not fun.
But I think a system of forts would add to the realism: according to the "true Roman" guide, Roman armies typically did not garrison cities. It's not quite clear what we should use as garrisons - there's no "town guard" type unit. I'd be inclined to use a mix of infantry - just as our historical pre-Marian armies are going to be mixed - so we can shuffle them around to make up losses as need be.
In my most recent game, I used forts as holding areas for all the very depleted units that I would gradually call upon to top up the stacks in my armies. They were kind of staging areas, where I could put together a collection of replacements that a Tribune would march to the front. Remember, we can't retrain to make up losses and, as DDW says, RTR stops you recruiting in recently captured areas, so shuffling replacements and reinforcements to the front is going to be an important part of the game. Captains move slower than generals in this mod, so it may be efficient to assign some family members to these supply chains. Forts would also allow generals to keep adding military experience (indeed, I think it probably was partly Marcus Camillus's intention when designing his traits system to encourage armies not to loiter in cities).
Overtime, I think we should move to a system where, at least among the lower house, governors are the older experienced family members (ex-generals etc get influence bonuses), but the younger ones are working on their military careers. Upper House members might be suitable as Tribunes (ie second general in a full stack) if young and governors if older. But if the Upper House members want to move down into the Lower House at some stage, we should develop their military careers too.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 10:40
I agree 5 years is a realistic period. This will most like end up in 6-7 years if we indeed put a small garrison in each city. It will stretch our resources to the very limit to build enough Auxilia building to actually expand our troop building capacity. Buildings are hideously expensive, and rightly so.
A 4-unit garrison can withstand a small force which might land at our coasts behind the lines. It also has the added benifit of supressing unrest (only a real problem in the greek colonies). I generally garrison with italian spear and swordsmen in equal numbers, as they are cheap, yet effective.
I find that a city with a garrison smaller than 4 units tends to act as a irresistable magnet to any enemy army nearby. The rebels tend not to attack cities very often, but they do. A small garrison in each city prevents the domino-effect, where you get blitzed by the AI. These garrisons are expensive, but we can afford it.
I also station praetorian legions in strategic locations in forts with generals. This also helps to keep down the rebels.
Having said all this, I think troop management is the responsibility of the first consul and he should do as he sees fit.
I agree with Econ21, they brought Cincinnatus out of retirement to be Dictator when he was 80 years old, so I don't have a problem with venerable senators leading armies. I recommend following the guide of Conduct concerning generals.
Having said all this, I think troop management is the responsibility of the first consul and he should do as he sees fit.
Absolutely, but players are rather constrained by the historical armies guidelines. It's hard to do at the beginning, as we have lots of Romans and few Italians. But over time, half the stacks should be Italians or other allies/auxilia, with the right proportions of the different Roman infantry etc. It should not be too much of a problem, because - as you say - the non-Romans are cheaper and are still servicable. (The Italian swordsmen are very like hastati).
I think the historical armies are fun from a gameplay point of view, because you end with such a varied roster, about 10 different unit types in a single stack. It means you have lots of fun battlefield decisions to make - e.g. where should the allies go? who should the one or two missile and cavalry units target? etc where are the princeps most needed?
RTR PE 1.5 is now out:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20459#
I'm going to play around with it and then create a savegame that the First Consul can use to start this PBM.
Avicenna
05-26-2006, 11:31
By the way, we should put priority to capturing Greece or Carthage, for their units :2thumbsup:
Simon, DDW & TinCow, as I’ve just mentioned on another thread I’m completely impressed with this PBM you’re running, the very concept of player involvement is wonderful.
I hope to be able to emulate it in the future. Basically though, I’m finding the array of mods you’re using bewildering to me. I don’t even know where to start to change my Rome version 1.5 over to RTR, let along amend the relevant data files that are listed here.
Anyway, I’m never “that” confident in modding my own files and partitioning save games/Mods like you – we’ve discussed this on PM.
However, what I would like to achieve is a less complex version of your PBM for more entry level PBM’ers – so at the very least I’m looking at using RTR so I can have a Senate of players. See the blatant plagiarism here?
Perhaps it may even be something you’d consider starting once this PBM is well under way? Personally, I can’t undertake my own proposal until I’ve upgraded my PC, which is after I’ve moved home…which is whenever the surveyor gets back to me!....sorry, won’t rant about that issue here.
So, just to say I utterly LOVE this basic idea – Senate control, auto-resolve battles unless there is a PC (Player Character) physically involved, voting, political discussion….all that is just great! As an NPC (Non-Player Character), I’m really enjoying myself just as a member of the Upper Senate….I shudder to think how much MORE fun I’d have if I had a chance of actually conducting a battle now and then.:2thumbsup:
Well done all involved here, I salute you. This PBM is a “benchmark” for all other PBM’s to work by.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 12:14
RTR PE 1.5 is now out:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20459#
I'm going to play around with it and then create a savegame that the First Consul can use to start this PBM.
As far as I can see, this will not relieve our patchwork. As the changes in RTR 1.5 are not specfically for metronavalmod, all this changes in my list of installing is :
REPLACE :
3. Install the Corrected_RTR_Platinum_Files_v2.0.zip
Files belong in \Data
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...c=18768&st=120
WITH :
3. Install RTR 1.5 patch.
http://www.beaglepc.net/rome/downloads/RTR_Platinum_v1.5_Patch.exe
Also, we should add between step (5) and (6) :
5A. Install Update2 for METROPOLIS & NAVALMOD by Snake_IV
Unzip these files and add them MANUALLY in \Data
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...pic=20000&st=0
That's all I can say from work.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 12:55
I hope to be able to emulate it in the future. Basically though, I’m finding the array of mods you’re using bewildering to me. I don’t even know where to start to change my Rome version 1.5 over to RTR, let along amend the relevant data files that are listed here.
Anyway, I’m never “that” confident in modding my own files and partitioning save games/Mods like you – we’ve discussed this on PM.
Hi,
As the Senate Fixer, I would be glad to help you with getting it all up and running. I can see it would be a bit bewildering at first, but the truth is, it is actually quite easy. Most of the modifications concern text files in the \Data directory. The rest is just a matter of downloading and installing. I'll be glad to answer any specfic questions you might have.
On the matter of starting a new PBM, don't let me stop you. I personally would not play a RTW 1.2 game anymore, as the improvements in 1.5 as so good, there's no going back for me :) I'll probably sit in the upper house if you were to run a RTR 6 gold game for example.
On the matter of playing, once this campaign is well underway, more avatars will be available and you will be able to get some 'action' as it were :)
Thanks for the advice, DDW. Based on what you say, I have updated post #2 with how I intend to install the mod.
I will start the campaign, immediately save a game and then upload the save to the Org. It would be good if when you get home, you download the save and see if it works fine on your install.
Braden: I understand how you feel about installing mods. As you can see from this thread, it's particularly confusing in this case as we are essentially using beta mods and they keep changing. There is some light at the end of the tunnel, though, as Marcus Camillus has proposed locking down the final version of Platinum and then letting people do their own thing with any further mods.
On doing another PBM, my inclination would be to let this one and your Carthaginian one play out for a while. The pool of potential players is only so big. And this one is very much a prototype so while the ideas in it sound really good, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating!
I feel confident that once RTR Platinum has been finalised will use that as a basis for a PBM. I, like DDW, would never go back to anything running under version 1.2 of Vanilla – I personally found the Load/Save bug intolerable.
My current PBM plans are:
1. Maintain focus and momentum in the current Carthage 1.5 PBM.
2. Play Test to establish an “entry level” PBM (BI or Rome 1.5, undecided)
3. Plan ahead (looking a month or so) to a RTR Platinum PBM using similar (though simplified) rules to this Senate one.
I’m not going to overstretch the player base by committing to the my RTR PBM until this RTR PBM is well underway – looking August/September perhaps.
I want to keep my “entry level” PBM quite small, stipulating it is for beginners to PBM’s – hence it will have some specific rules but nothing too complex (perhaps using a more familiar faction), whilst keeping the core game at a VH/Medium setting to challenge the players who are good at the vanilla game but looking for a new challenge. Again though, the start of this will not be for a good few weeks.
Avicenna
05-26-2006, 14:04
Can I suggest trying to play another mod Braden? I think after one RTR Roman PBM, the PBM community will prefer to try another mod or another faction. Or, if you do want a Roman RTR PBM badly, we could always download a mod for RTR and use that in the PBM.
Currently I'm considering all options for my third PBM. I'll keep everyone posted and, I'm sure, ask for help when I select what mod I need to run! lol
Mount Suribachi
05-26-2006, 14:34
By the way, we should put priority to capturing Greece or Carthage, for their units :2thumbsup:
Thats not a very realistic role-playing target though is it?
shifty157
05-26-2006, 14:49
Currently I'm considering all options for my third PBM. I'll keep everyone posted and, I'm sure, ask for help when I select what mod I need to run! lol
I think itd be pretty nice to start a PBM that uses Myrdraals script. It would be a three person PBM using RTW Vanilla 1.5 (perhaps with some small mods) and each player would play one of the three Roman factions. I think itd be really interesting to see them truly jokey for power and then finally turn on eachother.
Or my other idea was to play a PBM with five or so people again with Myrdraals script. Each player could choose whatever faction they wanted. Then after a given amount of time (5-10 years) the players would be reassigned a new faction at random. The reassignments would continue to happen throughout the game.
I have done what I hope is my "final" install of all the mods we need for this PBM. I have explained the procedures in grisly detail in post #2.
But in principle, the sequence I followed is simple. First install RTR Platinum Edition (PE) 1.5. Then install Metropolis and Naval (MN) mod. Finally there's a little add-on to put some landblocks in.
The complications stem from the fact that the MN mod is older than the PE one, so I think it is over-writing some important files. This causes the problem that we noted about starting Roman generals not having the military experience they need to get all those cool new Roman leadership traits. I hope that this will get sorted out by the RTR people in due course.
However, as a work around, I have given instructions to download the latest EDU file (the one that determines unit stats) and a DESCR_STRAT file (the one that determines the starting characters and units) that I have modded to put in the lost military experience.
Candidates for First Consul may like to know that these are the additional traits that Marcus Camillus assigned to them:
Quintus - 25 years military experience, former consul (+4 influence)
Publius Laevinus - 10 years military experience, former tribune (+1 influence)
Tiberius Coruncanius - 8 years military experience, former tribune (+1 influence)
Lucius Amelius - 7 years military experience, former tribune (+1 infuence)
Note that experience is basically a function of age (although when the game starts, you will have to avoid staying in settlements for more than one turn to gain experience). The former tribune trait is a precondition for being a legate.
I am going to upload my 280 BC savegame, senate280v.zip, for DDW to try out. If it works and he approves my installation procedure as explained in post#2, then we are ready to go once we have the election result 6pm today.
I must confess I am apprehensive that we are going to encounter technical problems as we play this mod. :sweatdrop: That's the price of choosing a beta mod to play. But hopefully we will find work arounds. We have some plusses on our side:
(1) Marcus Camillus, the man responsible for the leadership traits, will be joining us after 6 June.
(2) Most updates to the mods we are using seem to be savegame compatible (that's a biggie)
(3) If the worst comes to the worst, we may have to reload and replay some years - we'll just have to be flexible.
Shifty157, PM or email some details and links regarding Myrdraals script. I know nothing of it but the concept sounds interesting though perhaps too narrowed in base, would be ideal for a “friends” game though rather than a Forum based game.
- sorry everyone, seems I’m monopolising the forums today!
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 15:29
I have done what I hope is my "final" install of all the mods we need for this PBM. I have explained the procedures in grisly detail in post #2.
...
I must confess I am apprehensive that we are going to encounter technical problems as we play this mod. :sweatdrop: .
I've read your modifications and they seem fine. Why would you have a problem with rapidshare ?
I won't be home till 7 or 8 pm, but I'll reinstall and try it out then. I must express some confidence here. I do not really expect any problems or CTDs. The stability so far has been examplary.
Upcoming interesting (save-compatible) bugfix :
Fix for cathapract archers that are acting wierd.
I've read your modifications and they seem fine. Why would you have a problem with rapidshare ?
I think it is something to do with my using a router so I don't have a fixed ISP address (I have a dynamic one, whatever that means). Consequently, Rapidshare stops me downloading because they think I've downloaded too much when in fact it is other people. I had to pay some Euros to get a premium account in order to download the Metro&Naval mod. I wish Macedonn would find another way of uploading his mod.
I've saved a game - am about to upload it now. Don't worry about testing it quickly. BTW, I was going to go into a rant on the RTR boards about negative population growth, then I realised I had not deleted the *.rwm files! (easy to do when you are incrementally testing installs).
Quick query: how do people feel about the length of this Senate session?
Here's the schedule we followed:
Monday 6pm: session opens
Wednesday 6pm: deadline for motions and First Consul nominations; voting starts
Friday 6pm: voting ends
I think this timetable was long enough - was it too long? I'm thinking ahead to the next full session of Senate and election of next First Consul. We've agreed the mid-term will be shorter (2 days debate/proposing motions/1 day voting).
I think it was probably ok, but I feel that the last day or so has dragged. How about a 24 hour voting period? On reflection, I guess I'm really proposing extending the mid-term model for all sessions - 2 days debate; 1 day voting.
It's not a big issue, but maintaining momentum is key in PBMs and so if people feel we could hurry things up a little, I'm all for it.
shifty157
05-26-2006, 15:54
Shifty157, PM or email some details and links regarding Myrdraals script. I know nothing of it but the concept sounds interesting though perhaps too narrowed in base, would be ideal for a “friends” game though rather than a Forum based game.
- sorry everyone, seems I’m monopolising the forums today!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=64876
Its really rather simple to set up and it works with any mod at all.
I think this timetable was long enough - was it too long? I'm thinking ahead to the next full session of Senate and election of next First Consul. We've agreed the mid-term will be shorter (2 days debate/proposing motions/1 day voting).
I think a 5 day week is entirely appropriate. It allowed us to have a rather nice, in-depth debate on the issues yet was long enough to bring it to a close eventually. We have to embrace the fact that this is a PBM (is it even right to call it that anymore?) that will span many months. I easily forsee this going 6 months, perhaps longer. That's assuming people hang around for it and it doesn't die off like a lot of normal PBMs do. That's the aspect econ21 was cautioning Braden about as well: this looks nice now, but we can't call it a success until we're a month or two in and everything is still working properly.
Avicenna
05-26-2006, 20:20
Master econ, after reading post #2 I've noticed you mentioned Iberia twice in your list of factions to be destroyed. Once as Iberia, another time as Spain.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 21:24
I am suggesting a combat rule. If you get reinforcements in battle and the reinforcements do not have an avatar assigned, they should be assigned to computer control, with the exception when you are sieging a city.
I myself find it quite amusing to have to anticipate an unpredictable AI as an ally. What do you think ?
Mount Suribachi
05-26-2006, 21:41
I agree DDW
As for the senate, I felt it dragged a little. Got a little bored with the endless arguments about the minutae of the conflict with Greece...Maybe 3 days deliberation?
Avicenna
05-26-2006, 21:51
Better still: put mercenaries, unless the commanding officer of the army has a 'mercenary captain' ancillary, under computer control. After all, you just paid them to fight. Not to fight your way. Just fight.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 22:11
Just a tiny technical point :
Optional setting: brigand_spawn_value 50 pirate_spawn_value 60 [1]
is not optional as it is set in the descr_strat.txt in senate.zip :)
I say remove 'Optional setting' from the sentence and leave it as it is as :
a) There is much argument is setting this helps anyway.
b) If it helps that's fine by me.
More technical hubris :
Sanky has released his EDU fix for cavalry units (1.5 & M&N compatible)
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/index.php?showtopic=20472
Interesting, but not crucial. Will just let that ferment for a couple of days and see what the response is.
Well, done reinstalling. Let's see if this works...
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 22:16
Econ21, I am for short discussing and voting periods. I'm in favour of 2 days discussion and 1 day voting. This will keep pace with the 2-day required post of the first consul. Good luck, by the way :)
I like your way of thinking Tiberius, but it think that would be undoable in practice and I feel the generals had a bit more control over their mercenaries than that.
OK, I have not started yet, so I will download the lastest EDU. I'm not sure to what extent we can keep updating EDUs as we play, but I suspect we can. I guess that means I have to change the library table with the Romans' stats.
I agree think non-siege reinforcements should be AI controlled if led by captains - I'll add that to the rules. But let's leave the mercs under our control. Mercs seem hideously expensive in this mod, so I'm not sure they will be a major part of our forces and making them uncontrollable might just rule out them being bought entirely.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-26-2006, 23:07
Drat drat drat, I get a CTD when I attack Pyrrhus his army. I will investigate in more detail tomorrow. My attack on Corfinium went without a glitch. Not sure what the problem could be.
Avicenna
05-27-2006, 08:29
It's doable, DDW. Select the mercenaries in the battle map,m and click 'put under AI assistance' button on the right.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-27-2006, 11:42
Silly me for not thinking of that. I would leave that up to the player's decision. I can imagine some scenarios where that might work, and some where it might cause disaster. For example, where I to recruit a large group a srmatian horse archers, I would be tempted to led them be lead by the AI in battle.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-27-2006, 12:18
Hi,
The CTD is definitely caused by having a battle on the battlefield when attacking Pyrrhus when he is stationed in Rhegium. Everything else works fine. No clue where the problem lies. I will try out some different configs today and try to figure out what the problem is.
Good luck tracking down the bug, DDW. You cost me half a night's sleep last night - I had just saved the game where I was about to give battle to Pyrrhus and was going to bed, when I read how attacking him had led your game to crash. :sweatdrop: So I just had to go back to it and see if it was playable. It was, fortunately, but I'll be anxious approaching Rhegium.
It's good if some people play parallel games to this PBM, especially if there are tech problems like this we may stumble over. Fore-warned is fore-armed, as they say. :2thumbsup:
I am a muppet.
I took lots of screenshots last night, but the default directory FRAPS saved them in was for an older install that I had deleted. So they are all gone. :wall:
Shame - there were some great shots of elephants smashing into hastati and Pyrrhus and Quintus locked in hand to hand combat. ~:mecry:
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-27-2006, 14:23
Shame about the screenhsots, but good to hear you're being so succesfull on the battlefield.
The link to sho's latest edu gives a file called : export_descr_unitmn.txt
I am assuming this needs to overwrite export_descr_unit.txt ?
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-27-2006, 14:44
Hi,
Well I'm done testing. I tried several configs, and the problem is not Pyrrhus his army, but Rhegium itself.
I downloaded your interrim savegame and assaulted Rhegium with the army stationed in Croton which resulted in a CTD again. Attacking anywhere else on the map gives no problems. When I attack Rhegium with RTR 1.4 and metronaval mod, it gives no problems. It seems that the combination of RTR 1.5 and metronaval mod is the problem.
Now, I am running RTW, and do not have BI installed. Could anyone verify that attacking Rhegium causes a CTD for them as well ? Otherwise the problem could be mine alone.
Yes, good point about the EDU - I've clarified that in post #2 now.
On Rhegium, does it crash if you auto-resolve? If you siege them out? I'll try it out myself, although it may take a while.
Edit: I noticed on the RTR forums, in the thread on MN for PE, Macedonn acknowledges the missing Roman traits problem with descr_strat.txt that we noticed. He says he uploaded the wrong file and posts the right one. I wonder if using the right one fixes the Rhegium crash?
Just FYI, I'm out of town for the weekend and thus won't have much time to update the bios. Be assured that I will ass all pictures and info updates to the Library no later than Monday evening.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-27-2006, 18:23
On Rhegium, does it crash if you auto-resolve? If you siege them out? I'll try it out myself, although it may take a while.
Edit: I noticed on the RTR forums, in the thread on MN for PE, Macedonn acknowledges the missing Roman traits problem with descr_strat.txt that we noticed. He says he uploaded the wrong file and posts the right one. I wonder if using the right one fixes the Rhegium crash?
Yes, I noticed that myself. I does not make any difference. Basically, his changes are the same you made yourself. Autoresolve does work, but of course, the casualties will be high. Sieging them out makes no difference, fighting a battle at the city of Rhegium on the battlefield causes the CTD. For the hell of it, I also tried a night attack, but that makes no difference. I think it must be something to do with generating the battlefield and the geography. Perhaps a terrain file is missing or corrupted. Still, this is the only problem, and quite possibly might be only occuring with my system, so it's not all that important. Should my avatar get involved in a battle that causes a CTD, I'll pass the savegame along to someone else.
I will try it Rhegium on my savegame, DDW, but I am waiting to hear from FLYDUDE first. I'm reluctant to do a "dummy run", as it takes some of the fun out of playing my reign for real.
Tiberius: I am assigning you TinCow's previous avatar - Amulius Coruncanius, as we've found an adult for TinCow. Overtime, I am going to make sure everyone has an adult.
If any member of the Upper House wants a diplomat, you should lobby for his recruitment in the Senate. Antio Sextius is going walkabout, so one closer to home would be justifiable.
TrickyLady's character has married an amazing young fighter - I'm trying to persuade her to eventually step down to the Lower House or to liberate him for another Lower House player, as it seems a waste not to let him fight.
shifty157
05-27-2006, 21:31
Im curious to see how all of the charcters progressed. Can you post screenshots?
Tricky Lady
05-27-2006, 21:52
TrickyLady's character has married an amazing young fighter - I'm trying to persuade her to eventually step down to the Lower House or to liberate him for another Lower House player, as it seems a waste not to let him fight.
:sweatdrop: Sending me to the Lower House? :sweatdrop:
I better get my RTW box off the shelf if you want me to play a turn. Let's just wait & see. :wink2:
PS. Thanks for linking me to a strong character. I would be happy to see a screenshot of this fighting youngster.
TrickyLady - your character's screenshot is in the Senate library. The key thing about being a Lower House member is not just that you might take a reign - it's that you may be asked to fight a battle in another person's reign at 48 hours notice. There's no urgency at the moment, as we have more Lower House people than generals and you character is still rather young to take a field command. But your man really does seem to be marked for greatness and it would be a shame not to use him eventually.
TinCow will update the other screenshots when he returns to his computer, but IIRC they have not changed much so far. I am going to post a savegame Senate278s.zip later tonight that Lower House members can download to find out how their characters have changed.
EDIT: With the latest version of the Metropolisis and Naval mod out, I've revised the installation instructions in post #2 yet again. I realise this constant patching is a pain for Lower House members, but the revisions do help with some minor bugs. What I recommend is that whoever becomes First Consul reinstall the mod when they take office. But other Lower House members can probably patch as they go along (I just installed the latest MN over my existing installation and then did the last 2 steps again).
EDIT: I also get the CTD that DDW reported when I attack Rhegium. Grrrr... I am going to load my prebattle save as Rhegium.zip. Anyone with the mod installed can try it and see if they also get the CTD.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-28-2006, 17:30
I also get the CTD that DDW reported when I attack Rhegium. Grrrr... I am going to load my prebattle save as Rhegium.zip. Anyone with the mod installed can try it and see if they also get the CTD.
You night try to lure them out of the city by posting a lone unit just outside as bait and your army just beyond that. Then your army can reinforce the lone unit if it gets attacked. The rebels will not attack you however. If the battlefield does not figure the city of Rhegium there are no problems. Otherwise autoresolve seems to be the only way out of this conundrum.
I'm a little confused how we can lure them out if they can't move. I know the rebel generals in cities have traits that make them immovable (and unbribable).
I am currently installing PE 1.4 and seeing if I can play out the rhegium save on that, save again and go back to 1.5.
EDIT: no, it still crashes. Autoresolving seems to be the only option left.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-28-2006, 18:07
There is the possibilty of waiting for Rhegium to be taken over by another faction and luring them out. It is of course theoretical in the current scenario. I was able to play the battle at Rhegium by intalling RTRPE 1.4 and the previous M&N mod. It seems the new install contains the critical flaw as well. I see you have reacted to my posts in tech support about this, good work.
Can you play out "my" battle at Rhegium on your 1.4 install, DDW? ie download the rhegium.zip and fight the battle manually? Or are you referring to your own earlier battles at Rhegium.
If you can play out "my" battle, you might try doing that, saving it as rhegium2.zip and uploading it. I could try to play on from there. What do you think?
Autoresolve is brutal, although if we have to go that route, I would bring up more men before doing it. I don't think we can wait for another faction to take it - they are too weak, in my experience.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-28-2006, 20:21
I agree Rhegium must be taken one way or the other. I am an idiot :wall: as I realise that I've overwritten the 'previous' M&N mod with the new one. Still, I will give it a try anyway and see what happens.
It's ok - DDW - don't worry about it. I don't think my save will work on an older install of MN. It did not work for me anyway. I can take Rhegium by autoresolve and it's not so painful. I think I will do that.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-28-2006, 21:15
Too late now, I already did it :laugh4:
The trick ended up being only RTR 1.4 and M&N, NOT the updates. Adding the updates causes the CTD at Rhegium. I lost 44 men and rhegium2.zip is available in the upload directory. I am a tiny bit worried about savegame compatibility, so I advise you to load, then save again immediately, quit the game and load it again. That should probably clear up any hidden problems.
By the way, it seems someone has gotten the 'Favour of the Gods' ! *Insane jealousy carefully hidden*.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-29-2006, 00:29
I know I'm horribly spamming, please excuse me, but just had to show that a 4-unit garrison is sufficient to hold of a Gaul army :) :
https://img502.imageshack.us/img502/3195/eatthatyoubastardssmall3gx.th.jpg (https://img502.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eatthatyoubastardssmall3gx.jpg)
Avicenna
05-29-2006, 00:40
So was that just a bit of flanking fun or are you some kind of strategic genius?
Thanks for helping with the Rhegium problem, DDW. :2thumbsup:
I know I'm horribly spamming, please excuse me, but just had to show that a 4-unit garrison is sufficient to hold of a Gaul army.
Impressive - but tell me, is that on autoresolve?
shifty157
05-29-2006, 02:13
I know I'm horribly spamming, please excuse me, but just had to show that a 4-unit garrison is sufficient to hold of a Gaul army :) :
Well i would assume considering the utter lack of casualties on the roman side that the gaul must have been composed almost entirely of peasants or some equivalent unit. Otherwise the Gauls in this mod are incredibly underpowered. More underpowered than even RTW vanilla.
How large were the Gaulish units? If they were in excess of 100 men per unit each then this means the gauls had only 5 or 6 units. Hardly a sizeable advantage over your own forces.
Otherwise the Gauls in this mod are incredibly underpowered. More underpowered than even RTW vanilla.
Um, maybe I should dig out their stats. I don't believe they are more underpowered than even RTW vanilla. In RTR Gold, I fought a battle with 1 stack of Romans against about 2 stacks of Gauls. It was horrific - everyone died virtually to a man - I only won by using cavalry charges to the rear. Morale has been reduced in the mod we are playing but it gave me a new respect for Gauls.
shifty157
05-29-2006, 02:42
Um, maybe I should dig out their stats. I don't believe they are more underpowered than even RTW vanilla. In RTR Gold, I fought a battle with 1 stack of Romans against about 2 stacks of Gauls. It was horrific - everyone died virtually to a man - I only won by using cavalry charges to the rear. Morale has been reduced in the mod we are playing but it gave me a new respect for Gauls.
Yeah i was thinking the same thing. Thats why i say that DDWs battle couldnt have included gauls of anything above peasant status to have so few casualties.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-29-2006, 08:40
That's wierd, is my image only available to me ? There is one tiny, but spectacular difference in RTRPE. The italian spearmen (perhaps all spearmen ?) seem to have the phalanx ability. That means they are murderous in the streets.
I placed my two spearmen units side by side in defensive mode, 4 ranks deep, at the end of the main street with the two swordsmen behind them on fire-at-will. The Gauls had a decent army, with 3 cavalry units, and the rest assorted spear- and swordsmen. They charged en masse down main street and almost broke trough, I managed to just hold them, but I needed the swordsmen to push them back a little so I could compensate for my losses and link the spearmen units again into a line. Then I had to stop a cavalry charge down a side street with the swordsmen. Then it became a slaughter. My swordsmen flanking the spearmen created the 'pit-of-death', and then fear spread like trough the massed enemy troops like a brushfire. They came with 925 men, and they left with 5. I lost 58 men.
The barbarian units are very vulnerable to routing. If you can contain them and rout one of them, the rest are very likely to start routing also. In open field they do a lot better.
EDIT : I play with these campaign settings, i.e. VH/M (campaign/combat) and large unit size (80 men).
OK, it's good to know how you did it. I read something about Italian spearmen being made hoplites in PE, which sounds good as I found them pretty poor before. Other players should be aware there's lots of debate on the RTR PE forums about phalanxes in PE (maybe in RTW 1.5 in general?) - apparently they can easily get in to trouble if you try to attack with them, they get out of formation and draw swords etc. From what I've read, best results seem to be keeping them stationary and letting the enemy attack. But I don't know what DDWs found.
The autoresolve question was tongue in cheek, DDW - unless we have a Lower House member leading them, our garrisons won't get a chance to emulate your tactics.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-29-2006, 10:20
The autoresolve question was tongue in cheek, DDW - unless we have a Lower House member leading them, our garrisons won't get a chance to emulate your tactics.
Oh drat, I was trying to follow our house rules in my own campaign and I just forgot ! :) :) Oh well, I autoresolved at Rhegium in my campaign so now I'll call it 'even' with the AI. You will still get 2-1 kills on autoresolve I suspect.
There have been changes since I last experimented, but the major problem is when phalanx charges phalanx. They charge right into each other's formation and it becomes a chaotic melee, the so-called 'mosh pit'.
The best way to use hoplites is to use them defensively in guard mode. If you want to attack with them, best results are reached with taking them off guard mode. The triarii also have phalanx ability. You can tell by they way they hold their spears.
The whole thing is caused because they 'downgraded' the phalanx units in RTW patch 1.5 (this is not a RTRPE issue).
ShadesWolf
05-29-2006, 12:53
I have had a good nose around and could i join the upper house please.
I think i need to play the mod a little before im ready for the lower house.
This is a cracking idea econ21, well done. :2thumbsup:
Excellent - good to have you on board, Shadeswolf! I'll sign you up. It might be an idea to keep checking this forum every other day, as I am hoping we will have a Senate session and a Consular election in a day or two. You are free to vote on the 278 emergency motions right now - polls close 6pm UK time today.
I want to propose a few rules changes about ancillaries.
Now we have an academy and are winning battles, some of our members are getting their maximum number of ancillaries (note that the maximum that can be gained has been reduced to 6 in this mod to allow for the new Roman leadership ancillaries). We had a "no ancillary swopping without consent" rule, but now that is appearing very inefficient for our Republic and yet it would be a pain to keep stopping the game and asking people permission to swap their ancillaries. It would slow things down awfully for a really trivial reason. I want to Consuls to play their ten turns and get on with it - the Senate sessions and farmed out battles are delays enough.
So I propose the following: ancillaries should not be swapped except by mutual consent or in the event of one of the following conditions:
(1) Chirurgeons and turncoats may be freely swapped by the First Consul. The former are just too useful not to have assigned to the main armies (and if we "farm" them, we can get a lot from Academies). Likewise the turncoats should be assigned to the relevant theatre - e.g. its a waste having a rebel turncoat in an army fighting Carthage - they should be assigned to the reserve (anti-rebel) legion.
(2) Priest farming: priest ancillaries can be regularly gained from temples. If we allow the First Consul to redistribute them, then we will spawn more of them. This will save tedious rotations of members between temples. So new rule: if a member is in a town with a temple, is going to stay in that town for another turn and acquires the priest of that temple, this ancillary may be freely swapped by the First Consul.
(3) Ancillary overload: if a member has maxxed out on ancillaries (ie has 6), the First can transfer one ancillary to another member, allowing the original member to keep acquiring ancillaries. This will particularly help members in Academies, who will quickly max out, and also generals in the field who are able to pick up some tasty combat ancillaries (esp. turncoats).
(4) Roman leadership ancillaries: the First Consul may swap the Consular Army and Legio ancillaries, but only with a view to assigning them to appropriate members. I am a little fuzzy on exactly how these things work, but presently we have a Consul I Army ancillary and a Legio I ancillary. The Consul I ancillary should go to someone who has or could have the Consul trait; the Legio ancillaries should go to someone who has or could have the Legate trait (ie 10 years experience; ex-Tribune). Marcus Camillus designed the ancillaries to be limited (e.g. we can only have a max of two Consular armies) and linked to traits. But he also intended they could be traded, so that we could change the general with the Consul trait etc.
(5) Unfavourable ancillaries (we don't have any of these yet): drunken uncles etc may be assigned to the oldest members, so they disappear when the member dies.
Are people ok with this? I don't want to put them to a senate style vote. If agreed, I expect First Consuls to manage ancillaries in good faith - no trading them in return for political favours or to knobble rivals etc.
GeneralHankerchief
05-29-2006, 17:53
I'm fine with all except 5. I don't think that we should be "rewarding" the old guys who have been around so long with pet idiots and evil mothers-in-law. It's more fair if everyone just kept their bad ancillaries.
Mount Suribachi
05-29-2006, 18:19
It all sounds a bit complicated & tedious to me - I've never been one much for swapping ancillaries around, good or bad. But then again I won't be consul for a long time so I won't be doing all that micro-management. And its a little bit too much like cheesey powergaming for my liking.
Apart from things like the turncoats & chirudgeons, which I agree should be sent to where they are needed.
I especially don't like (5), having bad traits & ancillaries are half the fun for me, especially when role-playing. I mean c'mon, who doesn't love the Actor and Comedian ancillaries? Francius Howardus is one of my favourite parts of the game ~:D
Titter ye not Simon....
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-29-2006, 18:32
I'm for 1 and 2, as I don't particularly care one way or the other.
I'm against 3. This ancillary can be traded by the characters amongst themselves for influence in the senate debates and votes, but I'm willing to make an exception about (1) and (2) kind of ancilliaries.
I'm for 4, but these ancillaries should be assigned to active field commanders, whether they are consuls or not. I you have command of a consular army you should eligable to get the banner in my opinion.
I'm against 5, but this is personal. I wouldn't mind if other people drop their annoying relatives. I prefer to keep mine. If I had a drunken uncle I would sometimes appear in the senate drunk or late from an orgy for example :)
I expect first consuls to be meticously correct in the handling of the ancilliaries, but I would like to see senators hagglling and making voting promises over an exotic slave (+1 influence) and so on.
OK, everyone wants to keep their drunken uncles (or maybe not get other people's) - fair enough.
I actually think the ancillary overload problem is the biggest one. Quintus starts with an aged retainer and now has a priest of Mercury. Both are useless for a general, but have pushed him up to his limit of 6 ancillaries, so he can't get a Carthaginian turncoat or any other ancillary from combat. It seems much better that I be allowed to pass them on to a governor who can actually use them. Similarly, we have a student in Roma in the academy and he's got 6 ancillaries, so his studies there for the next 15 or so turns are wasted. Even worse, the poor chap is clogged up with rather medicore ancillaries for the rest of his life.
On the consular army thing, I absolutely agree the Consular army/Legio/Praetorian army ancillaries should be for people with real armies. I just don't want to see them assigned in a way that destroys the associated trait without creating it in someone else. For example, if the Consular army ancillary goes to someone who can't be a consul, then the person with consul trait loses that trait. ie the Consular army ancillary and the consul trait are a package deal. I have no objection to passing on the consular army ancillary to a Praetor who can become a consul. But it seems wasteful to give it to a Legate and thus prevent the Republic having a consul at all. From a role-playing point of view, I propose the character with the consul trait be the "Second" Consul. When we have enough provinces to be eligible for a second consular army ancillary and second consul trait, we can just say there is some kind of triumvirate - a First Consul (who may or may not have a consul trait) and up to two Consuls with the trait.
It is all micromanagement and Consuls don't have to fiddle with them if they don't want to, it's just I am finding it frustrating not to be able to fiddle.
Death the destroyer of worlds
05-29-2006, 22:39
First off, it seems I have forgotten to welcome our newest senator, ShadesWolf, and let me do so now.
I fully agree with your points about the shifting of banners. A triumvirate is anyway not unheard of in rome history, it has happened on several occasions.
I would not like to infringe on your wish to fiddle around. Perhaps a good idea would be to allow the shifting around of anciliaries within families by the eldest member ? Then the ancilliaries would stay 'in the family' so to speak (shame on you for wanting to dump your aged retainer :) ) and this would give the first consul more leverage and flexibility. Also, it can stimulate the formation of 'family' groups and trades between 'families', so to speak, which might be desirable and provide more senator interaction. Perhaps we will see inter-family rivalry between sibling lobbying for that one available mentor or something like that. We could haggle during the senate deliberations and perhaps some trades can influence the ongoing election process. I would greatly desire to see an update on the current characters when the next election process starts so we can all properly envy the one whose character has become favoured by the gods (hope I'm not imposing on you, TinCow).
Ok, I've done my reign. Thanks, DDW and FLYdude for helping me get through it so quickly. The savegame is up (Senate275s.zip) for anyone who wants to look at the situation.
We have a two new generals:
- Amulius Coruncanius has grown up, so I am afraid I am going to have to re-assign him from Tiberius to Mount Suribachi, if that is ok with Mount.
- Tiberius Coruncanius has adopted a garrison commander, Publius Panga, who I am assigning to Glaucus.
We can also rejig the juniors:
- Manius Amelius is presumably about to mature, so he can go to our last Lower House member, Destroyer of Hope
- Decius Laevinius can be assigned to Tiberius and this time I promise I won't take him away from you (as long as no one else joins the Lower House)
- DoH no longer needs Marcus Laevinus, so I am assigning him to Dutch_guy.
I will revise the preface to the Senate deliberations accordingly. If the people I have assigned characters to don't want them, please let me know. But we won't be changing the rules for prioritising assignments (we need generals who can fight).
I think we should have a three day period of debate (Tu+Wed+Th) and one day of voting (Fri), so the next First Consul can start on Friday night and play over the weekend if they wish.
Anyone wishing to stand - post a manifesto in the Senate Deliberations. But you must be in the Lower House and have an adult general. (I'm inclined not to impose age restrictions on people standing, although the disadvantages of youth could be brought up in debate).
EDIT: I like the "keep it within the family" idea, DDW. I will update the rules on trading ancillaries shortly.
Craterus
05-29-2006, 23:58
Is this still open, and what version of RTR are you running?
It's a great idea, by the way. I love it.
Is this still open, and what version of RTR are you running?
It's a great idea, by the way. I love it.
Yes, it's still open. If you want to join, post here and say whether you want to be in the Upper or Lower House. All the gory details are given in post #2 of this thread.
We are using RTR Platinum Edition 1.5 with the latest Metropolis and Naval mod. The mod may look intimidating, but I must say I am very impressed with it so far. It is RTR, which is great. It uses 1.5 RTWs AI (=> modding out bandits, yay!). And the metropolis aspect does away with walls on many settlements, so it is not rome total siege. Plus it has some really neat scripting of Roman leadership traits.
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