Senate Rewards and strategic considerations

[chemchok]

I don't know what everyone's talking about. I find that building a ship, crossing the Mediterranean, and laying siege to a neutral faction's city is well worth the Senate's gift of a barbarian warband.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

In your situation, it might be best to ignore the mission you describe. I ignored many, many missions against the Greeks while I was at war with Macedonia because I needed the Greek trade income to finance my war & I was at war with two other nations as well. I finally accepted one, beginning war with the Greeks a bit earlier than I intended, but only a little. But by then I had enough ships to strangle their trade income completely, so they are unable to rebuild. If you are not yet in a position to risk the damage to your navy, ignore it.

[Ulstan]

I usually take the cities they ask, but when it comes to blockading the ports of my trading partners, I have to respectfully decline and mumble about how I, as the julii, can't possibly spare any money for a fleet.

[Oaty]

When I played as the Julii, I got lovely rewards. About 80 percent were lovely gifts. 10k and 5k rewards for taking cities. All decent mercanary units. The worst mercanary unit I got from them were the numidian cavalry but they gave me 2 of them and since it's hard to train cavalry auxilia early they were in good timing. The other 20 percent were poor gifts but when they gave me missions for being considered into senate office it allowed my whole faction to be elected to senate and the missions seem quite easy once you have that power. When I had every senate position it seemed I'd get a mission to take a city I already had besieged. It does seem the more positions you have in the senate the easier the missions and the better the rewards.

Now when I played as the Scipii, the best unit I got from the senate was Scorpions. 1 10k mission reward and the rest were lousy rewards principes, ships and barbarian mercanaries and I never held more than 2 positions in the senate.

So it seems the more control you have of the senate the better the rewards are.

[Vanya]

GAH!

Vanya sez... Opportunity wears many guises.

Vanya recently finished Scipii campaign. Vanya figthing Carthaginians. Vanya take Carthage. Then Numidians stab Vanya in back.

Senator waltzes in and tells Vanya to "go blockage Apollonia for the glory of the Empire." At first, Vanya sez "GAH! Senator lost head! GAH!" But, then Vanya sez to Himself, maybe senator onto something?

So, Vanya send a ship to commence the hostilities, and packs TWO legions from North Africa and Sicily into boats and crosses the pond. First dingy shuts down the port, giving Vanya an irrelevant prize. That same turn, the two legions -- full stacks no less, though mostly of crap units (hastati, archers, equites, watch) -- disembark in the meadows outside of Sparta. One goes for the capital, Sparta, and the other makes a run for Corinth just to the north. Few turns later, GAH! Vanya is master of Peloponesus! Vanya had to gourge His admirals with sake to get them to navigate the greek-infested waters to get reinforcements there (cause Vanya, in His eternal Wisdom, decided to land legions headed by mere captains only ). After a few tough battles, Vanya finally broke through to Athens and later Larissa. After that, it was a rampage.

Vanya eventually lost Carthage to a Carthaginian revolt. At time, Vanya at peace with old foe. So, Vanya walk away -- head to Thapsus. Vanya later just let Thapsus go the same way when He decided the remaining legion was best used in a rear attack on Egypt.

So, Vanya essentially traded North Africa for Greece. Turns out it was a pretty good trade. At least in this case.

So, ask yourself... can youz drop one war with meagre riches up for grabs and instead focus on a bigger fish?



GAH!