Investigation of Senate missions

[Vacuity]

I read the entire thread and no-one seems to have noticed this info previously, so my apologies if I am teaching to the enlightened. Also it's a very long time since I played a Roman faction in the Imperial Campaign, so my memories of senate mission descriptions in-game are very fuzzy.

It seems to me that a lot of the info needed is contained in the file [game install]\Data\descr_senate.txt, the problem is making sense of it and filling in the gaps.


From the comments it appears there is a difference between the senate generating a "random mission" and "other missions".
This would indicate to me that the Senate generates some missions according to specific events in-game (my suspicions on this would be events like being ordered to re-capture cities, remove forces from allies' territory, et cetera, but quite possibly there are other, more subtle things here). While any mission remains active you will not get random missions generated. When there are no current missions then there is a percentage chance of a random mission being assigned, un-modded this appears to be a 15% chance per turn. It might be interesting to mod this figure to 100% and 0% just to make sure it really works this way.


Next point of interest are the comments about Pleasure/Displeasure duration. By default these variables are both set to 10 turns (5 years). I am not too sure what effect these variables have directly on the game as they don't seem to logically be likely to impact on the "senate popularity" value you see in the Senate tab of your faction overview. If the senate liked you more for only a few turns because you completed a mission then it seems likely that instead of going up and up you would reach a threshold maximum as soon as you had completed 10 missions in 10 turns and be unlikely to go up further (and very likely go down). If it worked that way then it's be (theoretically) possible to reach maximum popularity with the senate within 10 turns of starting a new campaign. Far more likely (to me) is that these affect the odds of getting assigned senate offices after you get the specific reward (I forget the exact wording) which talks about making you more popular with the senate, or more likely to get senate offices (sorry, I really cannot remember the wording: blame prolonged play in BI, and with Eastern factions). As senate offices are held for 8 turns (see below) each this means that such mission rewards could have an effect over 2 sets of title-elections and could be modded to last longer (or shorter), though it'd be tough to test these values.


Next up are the coefficients on Senate attitude, and frankly this is where I start getting lost. The first comment on this helpfully states "The attitude coefficients are as in the algorithm documentation" which means sweet f-a to me. The 4 coefficients and their original values are
turn_coefficient 200
strength_coefficient 25
relative_strength_coefficient 25
combined_strength_coefficient 25

I'd guess that combined_strength_coefficient is likely to be affecting some measured value of (i) the overall strength of either *all* the Roman factions together, or (ii) the overall strength of all roman factions except yours, or (iii) the combined strength of your faction + the Senate.

relative_strength_coefficient seems likely to be affecting some measured value of (i) your strength relative to the other roman factions, or (ii) your strength relative to the "rest of the world", or (iii) total roman strength compared to the rest of the world.

strength_coefficient seems likely to be affecting some measured value of your own strength.

I wouldn't care to seriously postulate at this point what turn_coefficient is for.

In this way you could construct an equation to measure each Roman faction's current senate standing by measuring values for the strength of the faction, how strong it is compared to the roman empire as a whole and how strong Rome is as a whole compared to the whole world. Again, modding these numbers may provide better indications as to what's going on.
Suggestions for the turn_coefficient are also welcome, as the only obvious idea I have is that each Roman faction gets progressively more (or less) popular as the campaign progresses just by still existing.


Next up we have values for Senate attitude boundaries:

attitude_boundary_1 30000
attitude_boundary_2 60000
attitude_boundary_3 90000
attitude_boundary_4 120000
attitude_boundary_5 150000
attitude_boundary_6 180000

I'd guess that this is used for comparing the figures you get out of the equation using the attitude coefficients to tell the game how the Senate should treat each Roman faction. I'd also assume that higher is better, and this could be tested easily enough by adjusting the values and seeing the in-game effect. Note that there are *6* boundaries and so presumably *7* states of senate attitude (take a piece of string and make 6 cuts through it to see what I mean). This value is important later.


Next up are the Senatorial offices, I know that this section is not directly relevant to the subject here, but I couldn't find a topic on this subject in this forum, I'll enclose this section in ***** lines to make it easy to skip.

**************************************************
(I have slightly tidied the formatting to make it easier to read):

;Title
;Quantity ; How many hold this office at any one time
;Duration ; Duration of tenure (turns)
;Settings ; Number of times office can be held - 0 implies unlimited
;Restrictions ; What restricts office being taken
; not_consecutively ; Can not be re-elected while in office
; quaestor_tenure ; Must have held office as quaestor
; aedile_tenure ; aedile
; praetor_tenure ; praetor
; consul_tenure ; tenure
;End_restrictions
;Senate_benefits ; The crony-perks of the office
; no_censor_suicide ; Censor investigation will not result in your suicide
; censor_immunity ; You will avoid investigation by the censor
;End_senate_benefits
;End

If we look at the example of the Consul office:

Consul
Rank 40
Quantity 1
Duration 8
Sittings 0
Restrictions
not_consecutively
praetor_tenure
End_restrictions
Senate_benefits
no_censor_suicide
End_senate_benefits
End

The tenure restrictions we already know about: you need to be a Quaestor before you can be an Aedile, an Aedile before a Praetor, et cetera. The Senate_benefits also tells us what we already pretty much know from playing the game.

Interestingly it seems that it would be possible to mod:
(a) the length of time senate offices are held for
(b) the number of people who can hold each office concurrently
(c) how often an office can be held by any character
(d) what senate benefits a character receives from the position
and (e) adjust whether characters can get re-elected for their current position or not.
Remembering, of course, that we seem to be able to modify how long your faction gets bonuses for qualifying for offices from certain missions it would be possible to significantly alter the way offices get dealt with.

What I don't get here is why there is a *value* for the Rank. It goes up by 10 for each increasing rank (10 for Quaestor, 60 for Pontifex Maximus), but why is there an integer value here? Why multiples of 10, rather than just 1 through 6? Suggestions, please.

**************************************************

Then we get to the missions section, and it gets tougher to interpret the data. First we appear to have some data relating to rewards and penalties

; Fines are expressed as percentages of current annual income
major_fine 10
moderate_fine 5
minor_fine 1

; Rewards are expressed as direct denari payments
major_reward 10000
moderate_reward 5000
minor_reward 1000

Easy enough to understand what it means, but the formatting of this section confuses me. Also seems easy enough to mod these values. Notably missing here is any data regarding non-financial rewards, like gifted units which are not mentioned anywhere in this file.

Next in this section appear to be the actual missions. Rather than reproduce the file verbatim I copy across the mission titles only and my guess as to the meaning in [] (where necessary).

Help_Player [where the senate gives you a present because they like you]
Demand_Suicide
Attack_Outlaw_Faction [you have to attack a Roman faction the senate dislikes]
Assassinate
Break_Alliance
Cease_Hostilities
Declare_War
Give_Back_City
Exact_Tribute
Subjugate [probably getting a protectorate]
Broker_Peace
Make_Trade_Agreement
Get_Map_Info
Appease [Not certain what this one would be]
Make_Alliance
Give_Cash
Annex_City [not sure of the difference between this and the Take_City options below]
Blockade_Port
Capture_Rebel_City
Destroy_Rebel_City
Take_City

With a format example using the last mission:

Take_City
max_region_traversal 3
Duration 10
-3 E p3
-3 M p2
-3 D p2
-2 E p3
-2 M p2
-2 D p1
-1 E p2
-1 M p1
-1 D r1
0 E r1
0 M r1
0 D r1
1 E r1
1 M r1
1 D r2
2 E r1
2 M r2
2 D r3
3 E r2
3 M r3
3 D r3
End

take_city_lower_boundary 0.6
take_city_higher_boundary 0.8


The format appears to be:
___________________________________________________
Mission_name
Additional_info
Duration How many turns allowed for completion
A penalty/reward matrix
End

Further_info

___________________________________________________


There is all sorts of interesting stuff in here.
Each mission seems to have a preset number of turns within which the mission must be completed. For Help_Player it is 0, you get given the money and the mission ends. For most other missions it is 10 (5 years) (look through the file for the exceptions).

Certain other missions have additional values describing them which I'll describe here:

For the Assassinate mission you have the Additional_info lines
difficulty_boundaries_0 75
difficulty_boundaries_1 60
difficulty_boundaries_2 40
I have no idea what these mean, but I'd guess they help ensure you only get assassinate missions when you have a good enough assassin near a suitable target...

For the Break_Alliance, Cease_Hostilities and Declare_War missions you have an Additional_info line saying
reissue_delay_in_turns 20
which I assume means that after this mission has been issued (or after it has been completed: would need to be tested to see which is true) this specific mission cannot be issued again for 20 turns.

The Destroy_Rebel_City and Take_City missions are unique as they appear to have two additional lines associated with each *after* the End line of each mission. Again, I don't actually know what effect these lines have in-game.

Take_City has the Additional_info line saying
max_region_traversal 3
which I suspect means that you're only going to get told to take cities within 3 regions of one of your armies? I am not really too sure how this works in practice though, as I am sure I remember being told to take cities separated from my armies by sea (Carthage, for example). It is a long time since I played as a Roman faction though.

The final point of discussion in this post is the penalty/reward matrix:

E, M and D probably refer to Easy, Medium and Difficult, (the hint is in the comment at the beginning of the file saying "Penalties and rewards are marked next to the difficulty") and presumably these are pegged to certain campaign difficulty levels. This would indicate that the reward on offer might vary according to what difficulty level you're playing at. Now remember that ages ago I mentioned that there were *7* states of senate attitude? Right, well, my guess is that this translates into the matrix as the -3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3 values in the matrix. The final part of the matrix is the p3,p2,p1,r1,r2,r3,Outlaw column which seems to clearly correlate to 3 levels of Penalty and 3 levels of Reward, + a special value of Outlaw for certain missions.

For some missions there are only values for E and M, or even E only. Presumably the rewards on offer and and penalties threatened are going to be the same no matter which difficulty level you're playing at (M and H = M for the former, E, M and H = E for the latter).

There is a clear correlation in the matrixes that as the senate likes you less you are going to get more penalties offered and fewer rewards, and in some missions you might be threatened with being outlawed, rather than just an ordinary punishment.
There is also (surprisingly to me) a clear correlation that on the easier difficulty levels the Senate is harsher; offering lower rewards and harsher punishments at equivalent levels of senate attitude. I would guess that this is because as other factors in the game are made easier, the missions are easier to achieve, but it's a very interesting note.


This is about all I was able to make sense of from this file without fiddling with the values. Hope it helps someone.

Vac

[Severous]

Thats some post Vacuity.

Im playing my first Brutii campaign. On RTW V1.5 H/H. Previously I played Julii on M/M

In my Brutii campaign Ive kept detailed notes for 20 years.
I do not look at the game files, nor have I modded it. My observations as follows.

How many missions at a time
I have one mission at a time. As soon as it is complete the senate gives me a new one (at end of turn).

There have been two exceptions:
- When I trespassed on an ally region. 2 turns to get off.
- When a previously captured city rebelled. 10 turns to recapture it.

That second exception is occuring regulary. I capture Gaul cities in accordance with Senate missions then withdraw leaving no garrison and high taxes in place. It rebels and I get a recapture mission.

If I complete a regular senate mission and still have a 'recapture' mission outstanding I will not get another regular mission. As soon as the recapture is complete I will get another mission if I dont already have one.

Recapture rewards have been 'richly rewarded' 10,000 (always) or two minor exotic units (Scorpions last time)

Mission duration.
- Capture towns = 10 turns.
- Recapture towns = 10 turns.
- Blockade town = 5 turns.
- Get off Ally land = 2 turns

Senate Rating
I previously worked on the basis that you gain favour with the Senate for completing missions. But I cannot say this is for sure and now I doubt it. My Senate rating reached 10 in 259BC..10 years in. Its been dropping back to 7 despite completing missions. I suspect because my strength relative to other Romans is now getting very high.

Ive not failed any mission in the Brutii campaign and dont recall anything bad in the Julii campaign when I failed.

Senatorial Offices
I recall holding lots of offices as Julii when on M/M. But as Brutii on H/H ive not had one single office. Ive been good..doing missions. My Govenors have clocked up some good traits and plenty of things like '+10% with senate'. So im really in the dark about whats going on in the senate. Maybe I have to send leaders near Rome ?

[Severous]

Heres a picture of my two senate missions:



Both are to capture rebel towns. These were Towns the senate asked me to capture from Gaul. Which I did. I then allowed them to revolt on purpose. As they revolted I got these new missions.

Ive seen my senate popularity plummet since Ive been doing this. Might it be allowing a town to revolt is bad for senate ranking ?

Ive actually got a third senate mission. Ive just been ordered to have my faction leader commit suicide. Ive not accepted or rejected this demand..at the moment.....just closed down the message. This has allowed me to move my faction leader to another town and unload all his good retinue. This suicide mission is the first I have ever had. It follows my new strategy of allowing Massila and Mediolanium to revolt. A link maybe.?

Edit:
- Reward for senate mission to recapture Malissa turned out to be 2 barbarian mercenaries
- Reward for recapture of Mediolanium was one lousy Triarii

The senate mission to have my faction leader suicide was ignored all that turn. Every time I had a battle a new senate mission came up asking for my faction leader suicide. I had 6 of them at one stage.


Made me wonder if game would want 6 consequtive leaders to suicide. I didnt try it out. Instead I ignored the messages and saved the game. Next day when reloaded I only had the one senate mission to suicide the faction leader.
- If I said no I was outlawed and war broke out
- If I said yet I lost my faction leader.
- If I ingored the mission and tried to end the turn the game wouldnt let me. It started flashing the senate message icon inviting me to choose y/n.

Neither action changed my senate rating which was 2 (People=9)

Being unprepared for war with Rome I suicided. Most my forces were heading East for a showdown with Egypt which I know is coming. That suicide buys me some time. Now all across Europe soldiers are swearing...as they turn around and retrace their steps towards Italy. The war with Egypt will wait and the Gaul will gain some respite as I attack Julii next year.

[Mooks]

Im going to try to add too this thread by experimenting with the suicide (how many times they ask).

And if you are outlawed and re-gain senate favor. In a few days ill compile everything and fiqure this out.

[Mooks]

Heres a update. Iv been playing all day. I beat the brutii and julii so I have NO distractions beyond minor factions like sythia, germany, and so and and so on.

The first time I made peace (ceasefire one turn, then they let me become ally and military access next) they made me commit suicide, and blockade a port (the penalty was censor would investigate my family). The second time was 2 turns later they demanded (I put the most worthless govenors as my faction leaders, I felt good killing off my lewd, catamite, lazy, stupid, extravagent, corrupt, governors). They also gave a mission too take a scythian settlement (they were enemies with them, the blockaded port was theirs also), I couldnt take it instantly since those danm steppes take so long to travel (I owned the one city by the river). Took me 4 turns, no senate favor yet. The next suicide mission was 5 turns after the last one (PROGESS!!), this time I killed a 86 year old.....

More results to come!!

[Roy1991]

Playing as the Brutii, I got an impossible senate mission.
I haden't expanded a lot to the north yet, I owned only 2 or 3 provinces north of Cisalpine Gaul.
The Senate then asked me to take Thermyska
They didn't offer a reward, but if I failed, 'my secret would be exposed'

Anyway, I started civil war and destroyed the senate before the 10-turn limit ran out.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Currently playing a Scipii campaign where I'm taking it pretty slow (190s BC and I'm about 20 provinces).

Brutii have outpaced me and their popularity has rocketed to 10 with the Senate, then dropped to 5 in one turn. Since they'll probably be the first to rebel against the Senate I'll post some information here since I know we don't really know too much about being on the Senate's good side during the Civil War.

[Mooks]

Ok, after extensive research, I have concluded that NO you cannot gain favor back into the senate after you have been outlawed. Iv tried everything, for at least 15 turns, that they have asked me too. Nothing works. Iv went through 5 family members.

[Ludens]

Ok, after extensive research, I have concluded that NO you cannot gain favor back into the senate after you have been outlawed. Iv tried everything, for at least 15 turns, that they have asked me too. Nothing works. Iv went through 5 family members.

Have you tried losing half your empire or damaging your popularity with the people? (Or Both?) These are the triggers for the Senate's hostility, so I suppose that if you remove them, the Senate might actually start to like you.

[Mooks]

Too late now, I attempted to download RTR. Anyway, that was extremely boring testing, almost every city I had had 30k+ people in it, riots everywhere.

[Vacuity]

I'd agree with Ludens, to regain popularity with the senate you'd going to have to reduce your own power, by losing territory for example.
Simply commiting suicide won't make you more popular with the senate unless by doing so you're seriously weakening your faction (which doesn't seem likely if you've a large empire) and I've not seen any good evidence that completing or failing missions has any direct effect on your popularity with the senate.

I never got around to playing with the thresholds and coefficients I described above, as I got distracted playing the Zhanguo mod (highly recommended) but if someone was to do this then I'd guess the results might be quite enlightening?

Vac

[Ozzfest20]

The senate missions are for Rome to expand in historical fashion.

[Caius]

I've just had a pretty fun Brutii campaign. In 262, my popularity with the Senate hit 10 and I got a merc war elephant.

How you can do it?

Can anyone explain me why i never have a leader suicide?

[lottrbacchus]

i'm playing julii m/m, my first long campaign. here are some experiences/observations:

impossible mission- blockade london. it was almost possible, but a larger spanish fleet was in the way and i had to sail around the zone of control, and that lost time cost me the mission. then i sailed back into the med and a few turns later i got the same mission, but my ships were even further away so i ignored it.

i haven't received any assassination missions even though i have a few junior assassins and 3 6+ eye assassins wandering around. i found an area in the pripet marshes with a bunch of diplomats standing around doing nothing, so i've sent my assassins that direction to kill them off. this is possibly relevant in that i've had my boys traversing quite a bit of the map, notably past then-neutral thrace.

my popularity with the people is sky high and my senate standing is like 3-4.

[455trt43trg]

Sometimes I seem to have very long times with out mission (years).
Is this normal?

[César Victor]

Try waiting for something big to happen. They won't ask you to take a town for the hell of it, you don't need to Senators ordering you to do that. If you lose a town to rebels or the Senate falls out of favour with another nation, they may ask you to attack them/blockade port.

[Zarax]

Sorry for thread necromancy, I was wondering if anybody wanted to join me in looking for more accurate info about senate behaviour and implementation in mods.

[MajorFreak]

hmmmm...i have a couple save games each time i was offered a major exotic unit reward in this current game. I'm curious as to the senate floor standings...i'd like to replicate this but i suspect there won't be a correlation between them liking me and the first legionary cohort i so badly wanted. That's my theory anyways...i'll test it =)


EDIT: oh my, i didn't realize it was possible for me to please the senate, but in each case i had full favor points for the senate floor when i got the major exotic unit mission.