When are you "supposed" to attack the Senate?

It's 198 BC in my campaign (first 'long' one ive played), I am playing Brutii and I have about 25 provinces...

For some reason the Senate doesn't like me very much even though I've been completing their requests. My rating with the plebs is 6, which is higher than the other guys, but my Senate rating is 3, much lower than Scippi and Julii. Julii has craploads of provinces so I'd hate to risk war with them, but
am I 'supposed' to attack the Senate now or will they attack me once they are angry enough?

What should my general strategy be here? (Also, I don't understand why letting my own people revolt and then exterminating them HELPS the profitability of the settlement greatly with no apparent side effects)

To answer your first question I have to ask one myself: did you get the "Chance to Power" message yet? If so, you can attack the other Roman factions any time you like. However, if you choose to start the civil war by yourself, either by directly attacking the Senate or another Roman faction, an all-out civil war breaks out, and it´s each for himself. If, however, you choose not to attack the Senate, I´m told (I´ve never experienced it myself, sadly, because tha´s how it is actually supposed to work) you´ll sooner or later get a message from the Senate, demanding your faction leader to commit suicide. You can obey, which will buy you a couple of turns before the message is repeated, over and over again in time, until all your family members are dead, or you can choose not to obey and be outlawed.

As for your second question, actually that´s a misconception down to bad presentation of data. You see, army and family member upkeep cost are distributed among all your settlements according to settlement size, the bigger the settlement the higher the part it has to contribute to your war chest. That also means, small settlements only have to contribute very little, which makes them seem more profitable - they´re not! Your big settlements have high tax incomes (the overall tax income, among other things, depends on the numbers of taxpayers, after all), let them rebel and kill all the payers off and you´ll lose a mayor income source. It will look like the settlement became profitable, but the screen you´ve got to pay attention to is the financial overview on your faction screen. Forget the figures you see on the campaign map, they´re screwed.

Nope, haven't received that message about starting a civil war. I just hope I have enough navy for the eventual confrontation - the AI is out of control with ships I've noticed. Thanks for the response though, I think i'll wait it out and try to strengthen any cities I have bordering julii and SPQR.

And as to the second point, I feel slightly remorseful now for killing upwards of 30000 of my civilians in the 3 cities that i exterminated. It all seemed to work out so nicely. One second they were earning -1500, the next +2500, and none of the other cities I have seemed negatively affected. Now I realize it is more of a hidden cost, then.

If you don't mind, a second question: does the distance that your troops go from the place they are created affect their upkeep?

Originally Posted by :
does the distance that your troops go from the place they are created affect their upkeep?

No.

I think you need a higher popularity with the people. 7 or 8 before the chance for power message can occur.

I say 'can occur' as various end of turn messages do not always occur as they should and CFP is one of them.

I'm probably more guilty of this than anybody.

While I do not enjoy exterminating population, I enjoy the same city rioting and killing thousands of my citizens, and hundreds of my soldiers every turn even less.

I'd much rather be able to get to 12,000 or 24,000 people and build the next upgrade to Large City, or Huge City, but there are a few places that simply start rioting every time you get near that number.

Last night for instance, there were two cities which I (as the Celts) had taken from WRE. One was already a huge city when I took it, so I upgraded the Roman Armorer to a Barbarian Foundry, as well as a few other buildings. Even with very few Roman Buildings, I seemed to have a huge culture penalty because of a Roman Large Stone Wall, and an Imperial Palace, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about those. About every 12 - 20 turns, both of the cities would riot, killing thousands of citizens and hundreds of soldiers, which cost me a great deal to retrain.

On one last night, I had actually gotten the second one up to 24,000 people, paid the price for the next size palace, and halfway through construction, 3 more turns required, the whole city revolted, threw me out, and the palace I'd paid so much for disappeared. To the revolter's chagrin, they had only about 8 units of peasants without armor. I had a full stack of Gallowglasses, Spearmen, and Noble Cavalry, upgraded at the foundry city, and moved over.

None of us should take pleasure in exterminating a city, but sometimes, large numbers of city people are more trouble than they are worth. What I would like to see would be a mod which allows us to go to the "battle map" inside a city, and deal with the rioting mob while we are getting the "rioting" icon beside the city. The guilty ones could be surgically removed, without exterminating probably thousands of others. Better yet, maybe we can learn how to mod out the riots.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

Originally Posted by asherba2:
Nope, haven't received that message about starting a civil war. I just hope I have enough navy for the eventual confrontation - the AI is out of control with ships I've noticed. Thanks for the response though, I think i'll wait it out and try to strengthen any cities I have bordering julii and SPQR.

And as to the second point, I feel slightly remorseful now for killing upwards of 30000 of my civilians in the 3 cities that i exterminated. It all seemed to work out so nicely. One second they were earning -1500, the next +2500, and none of the other cities I have seemed negatively affected. Now I realize it is more of a hidden cost, then.

If you don't mind, a second question: does the distance that your troops go from the place they are created affect their upkeep?

Just as a refernce, destroying other cultures buildings lowers the culture penalty OVER TIME. Leaving them or teching over them will still reduce culture penalty over time. So the lesson is: time..and garrison.

Originally Posted by pevergreen:
Just as a refernce, destroying other cultures buildings lowers the culture penalty OVER TIME. Leaving them or teching over them will still reduce culture penalty over time. So the lesson is: time..and garrison.

Yep,

Time and garrison. I do tech up when I take a city, and it certainly takes time to do it. Think about it, 3 turns for this, 4 turns more for something else, 6 for most level 4 facilities, and 7 for most of the level 5 buildings. something really big. Something of a culture penalty will be there for a long time. To replace every building the previous culture had may take 20 to 30 turns, sometimes much more. Then, if it's a huge city, and has an Imperial Palace, Epic Stone Wall, and Great Estate, you cannot tech over them, nor can you destroy them, and re-create them in your own image. Same with highways and Mines+1. Once built, they are there to stay. One would think though, that once you had built every other building in your own image, and by then had a full garrison inside, that the riots would stop, but, as mentioned earlier, some places keep rioting anyway, examples being Cordoba, and Jerusalem. There are a few others, but at the moment, I cannot remember which.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion