Ah yes... Civ3, civfanatics. Good memories. You wouldnt happen to know if TETurkhan finished his test of time map, would you? I regard civ3 as the best game of all time. Perfect balance of detail and simplicity. The AI was possibly the best of any game to date (that i know of) save perhaps GlaCiv. Giving the AI a very slight bonus (10% or so IIRC) Made it the equivelent, if not better than, a good human player, and even on the easiest setting (where the AI got penalized a good deal, I think 50% or more, in the grounds of 70% maybe) many people I know couldn't beat the AI. It was(is) just that good.

But enough about civ. I think the Rome would be a truly awesome game for a demogame like that to happen. The only trouble I see is that the turns would crawl if each player resolved his/her own battles, but if one player did all the battles, if he was too good/ too bad it would definately sway the game to be too easy/hard/predictable (ie an expert plays all the battles, and wins all of them, even those 10:1 or 5:1 in the enemies favor)

Although, I think it would be truly fun, rewarding, and awesome if something like the following structure were set up:

Faction leader: Someone to give general orders, like "send your men north". He would also fight his own battles. He would also be the guy who actually does the turns

Family members: People with armies under their command, and cities too. They choose more direct orders in the map, like: move men west of _cityname_, and fight any armies encountered. Each family member would also get a city to govern. He would make reports like "train a unit of hastati, and build wooden walls" and give them to the faction leader.

Advisors: players only in the forums just giving general input, and other such duties relating to forums only, not in game.


Then captains' battles would be auto resolved, and the cities without governors would be automated too.

The only problems would be:
1. Too long gameplay, turns would take a week or so, for a quick one
2. Having more than 5 family members would be really hard to coordinate.
3. If any family members wanted to plot for the heirdom, their plans would be revealed to the leader.

I know this would be hard to pull off and extremely fun, I don't think that Rome is suited to it as it is. Heh, and I say this after writing out that long post.