The Dutiful Son Campaign...

Has anyone ever played a Roman faction in a manner similar to this?

Always, always do your utmost to complete the Senate missons (The only reason to fail is that the mission is impossible for you, like you can't get there in time, or the faction won't accept a diplomatic relationship, for example).

Other than that, you can only take over rebel held settlements, and defend your own settlements. Also, you cannot do anything to cause a settlement to rebel. Even if another faction attacks you, you cannot take any of their settlements, unless the Senate asks you to, of course.

Your slavish devotion to the Senate can be broken in only 2 ways, either you get the call to power, or another Roman faction starts the civil war, then it becomes a free for all.

If anyone has played like this, I would be interested in hearing how it came out. I have started a campaign with these house rules, but have only gotten a few turns so far.

Yeh I often play Roman campaigns like this.

It really slows the game down and you will end up fighting more advanced enemy armies later on (a plus in my books)

Also you wil find that you'll get to a stage where all you're getting is blockade ports and diplomacy missions for quite a while, you need resolve to continue at this stage as not much will be happening but it wont last too long and eventually the Senate will start giving you conquest missions again.

I'm not sure how true it is but it seems to me that the senate tries to balance the power amongst the 3 families and will be reluctant to give you conquest missions when you're more powerful than the other 2 familes combined.

All in all I'd recomend it as it is a fun way to play.

For an example of how the campaign pans out see my thread in the throne room called rise of the Scipii. If I had not been following those rules then Caralis and Carthage would already be mine and it is likely that Id have an army invading Greece as well.

Mike

In the early days of playing R:TW, this tactic was pretty much the only one I used. At the time, not understanding quite what to do, I obeyed the senatorial orders to the letter exactly.

These camapigns were slow, and, at times, quite difficult. Deadlines were often hard to meet - especially if I bumped into a superior force in the meantime.

~:)

One difficulty I see with this, how do you deal with inactive standing armies.

RTW Vanilla makes it difficult to muster forces quickly, once you disband to "peace" time levels. So economically once an army is raised, and events make it unecessary, there's a huge incentive to wage a pre-emptive "War of Aggression" on some for time being innocent party.

There'd be quite a skill in getting the balance right.

When I've played trying to minimise wars, apart from Senate, once I am betrayed, then my campaign tends to be one of near faction annihilation (I'll leave isolated settlements out on limb like Gauls Numantia though, especially as it tends to feature in senate orders if you are Jullii later on).

I try to play nice for the Senate on occasion,but my primary goal is always to encircle the Scipii and Brutii,that way I can keep their expansion in check.

Two words: Mercenary Armies!