Announcing: Europa Barbarorum

[Kull]

Rome

Until such time where a unified Rome solution that is proven to be bug/nuisance-free exists, EB will continue to search for a solution that includes three Roman factions. Our previous implementation included Optimates, Populares, and Socii. These were abstracts, where the 'leaders' of these factions represented influential members of the particular political group within the Senate, and not an actual political leader. So the Populares faction leader was not actually the political leader of the "Populares" group in the Senate.

Since then we have gone through other ideas. The three factions may be called "Army Groups," or Proconsulates, or Consulates, or two of an above choice and the Socii. Our current implementation in 0.5 is going to be a test of a complete abstract - Dominium Romanum Borealis, Dominium Romanum Australe, and Dominium Romanum Orientalis. These represent, simply, an arbitrary, abstract breakdown of Rome's provincial holdings. Comments are welcome.

Should we continue with this sort of faction division, the Senate seats will be greatly adjusted, for both number and effect.

I too have been quietly following this project, and it's nice to finally see the EB kimono open up a tad. The lead post was most informative, and it seems the team has a great handle on almost every aspect of the mod - except the conundrum of what to do with tri-partite Rome. Your three choices to date seem to have been political parties, social classes, and now geographic expansion zones. For a group with so many historians, I can see why the EB Team would be eager to cast aside the "three families" pablum offered by vanilla RTW, but the alternatives look pretty unappetizing. Aside from the brief era of triumvirates during the end-of-republic times, most of Rome's history has been more dualist than anything - exemplifed by the twin founders (Romulus/Remus), the annual power sharing between two consuls, and the fundamental Patrician/Plebeian divide. But even this doesn't carry over to a game which insists on three permanent factions whose sole raison d'etre is to expand geographically. There's just nothing historic about that! So I empathise with what must be a sisyphean task.

So. In the spirit of no boundaries, no preconceived notions, pure Brainstormery (sic), lets look at some other options - not all of them new or original (and by all means, don't be gentle in your critiques):

1) Another group of factions gets the Senate: I've seen this discussed in many other threads, so the concept isn't new. And maybe there's a fundamental hardcoding which prevents alteration. But if not, the idea of a Council governing the Gallic tribes or the Greek Factions has more historical relevance than the way in which the current model constrains Rome.

2) Two weak factions, one strong: That appeared elsewhere in this thread, and may reflect current EB Team thinking. It has the benefit of preventing the unified Rome bugs that are paramount in your thinking ("first, do no harm"), but there's an air of artificiality about this too. Definitely worth fleshing out a bit, though.

3) Etruscans/Romans/Samnites: This might be a problem if you implement the "three era's" concept, but otherwise it offers an intriguing way to spice up the opening phase of the game. Here's how it would work: The game begins with the "Civil War" already under way, except it's not really that. The Senate has outlawed the Etruscans and Samnites, meaning that Rome begins the game at war with both (this may not be pure historic truth, but Rome was in more or less perpetual war with it's neighbors throughout it's formative years). The struggle for Italy consumed Rome's early history, and now you can simulate that, AND do away with the artificial "three factions" constraint. This also offers players the option of selecting a "Roman" faction (i.e. Etruscan or Samnite) that is fundamentally different from the existing "me-too" factions. A little spice is nice, plus it fulfills the dreams of those "what-iffers" who wonder what a non-Roman Ancient Italy would have looked like. Of course there's one major question - can you open the game with the Civil War underway? And if not, can it be "worked around" to achieve the same (or similar) result?

4) Romans and 2 Native Italian factions: A more detailed variant of concept #2, but the basic premise is to cripple the Italians so they can't be succesfull in expanding beyond Italy, leaving the "Romans" as the only ones who can build an empire outside the "boot". Ideally, you would have something akin to three Senate factions who maintain the kinds of tough armies that would hinder those seeking to invade Italy, while staying contentedly home until the Civil War, at which time they become a real pain - but only within Italy. This means the Civil War would be confined to a small number of intense, painful battles, locally confined. As opposed to the current ahistorical "World Wars" (yes, many - maybe even most - Civil War battles were fought outside Italy. However, they tended to be few in number and usually involved the faction leaders, and loss of the battle often meant loss of the war - none of which is currently true).

5) Senate = Religion: This is just wayyyyyyy out there, but would it be possible to take all the senate missions and pronouncements and give them a religious twist? So instead of pleasing the People or the Senate, the goal would be to increase the level of Divine Approval (maybe two jealous gods must be equally propitiated). I haven't even begun to think this one through, but it's pretty "outside the box", and might enable a different approach to the three faction problem.

Well, just some food for thought, and certainly I invite others to toss in ideas of their own. It sounds like a great mod, and my congratulations to the EB team for their already impressive list of accomplishments.