Originally Posted by Gerula: And what really mean a Total War game for you and anyone else?
Only that part where we start the game, and already we have full control of our faction, and we just got in huge battles, build stuff in cities and that's it!?
I think I already played this part in the latest editions.
A small beautiful short story to better understand what happens in the Roman Empire.
Gaius Julius Caesar was born on 12 July 100 BC in Rome to patrician parents but not into a position of wealth and power.
Caesar grew up in a period of unrest and civil war in Rome. The increased size of the empire had led to cheap slave labour flooding into the country which in turned made many Roman workers unemployed. The Social Wars created turmoil all over Italy and Marius and Sulla were the great leaders of the time.
As a member of an old aristocratic family Julius was expected, at the completion of his education, to assume a modest office on the lower end of the long ladder of the Roman political career. However, Caesar was not like other Romans. Already at a young age he had realized that money was the key to Roman politics as the system had by his time long been corrupt.
His first step was to marry into a yet more distinguished family. He spent a few years making a name for himself in the military and then got married, to a woman named Cornelia, who was the daughter of an important man.
Things changed when Sulla ruled the Roman government as dictator. For one thing, Sulla ordered Julius to divorce Cornelia since she was from the family of one Sulla's enemies,. Caesar refused to obey the dictator's wishes.
Julius continued to grow as a soldier, distinguishing himself in battle against Rome's many enemies.
He was elected military tribune in 72 B.C. He was also making a name for himself as a lawyer and public speaker. He was elected quaestor in 68 B.C. and, therefore, got a seat in the Senate. He also married Pompeia, Sulla's granddaughter.
Caesar continued to rise in the rankings of government, being elected pontifex maximus (chief priest) and then praetor. He also continued his military successes and was elected consul, in 60 B.C.
The consulship was the top job in government at the time, but Caesar wasn't the only consul. In fact, Rome already had two consuls, Crassus and Pompey.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
See my friend, everyone fought for power in Rome. Nobody was born direct dictator or emperor in that period in Rome
A Total War game, for me or anyone else, means a campaign map with a decent economic system, a touch of grand strategy, coupled with real-time battles. The ideas presented in the OP change the perspective of the game quite dramatically, as Total War has only ever made more or less token gestures towards RPGs.
I am afraid that I am not quite sophisticated enough to see the method in your colour schemes, nor do I see how a small beautiful, etc., story about the rise of Caesar works against my assertion that Roman citizens did not have private armies or that Roman citizens advanced through money and politics, of which latter point, in fact, the story of Caesar is a prime example. As for the moral you draw from the story, that 'nobody was born direct dictator or emperor in that period in Rome,' that is quite true (up to a certain point), but seems irrelevant to the current discussion, especially as you are never playing as an emperor or a dictator in a Total War game, but as a faction. You might note that playing as a faction, or some kind of 'guiding spirit' of a nation, though implausible, has been the fundamental conceit of every significant strategy franchise on the TW scale.