Assassination politics

[Upxl]

Hey,

I’ve been trying to play the game the senate way.
This means that I've been trying to dominate the senate with my family.
Also I've been trying to stay on the good side of the senate.

Doing this couple of questions come to mind:

1st: To eliminate the competition I've been killing all the scipi leaders with assassins.
Never thought I would be able to kill all of them ^^.
But then the game crashed.
And keeps crashing.

2nd:What is it that makes the senate love you’re faction??????
I only got a couple of (strategic placed) (huge)cities.
Keeping the conquered terrain to a minimum.

My traits aren't bad (sanet wise),and no real conquering hero.
But still the senate gratitude is at an all time low.

Can anyone give me some advise on the subject?
some detailed info would be great.

cheers

[Haudegen]

Welcome Upxl,

1. I have never gone that far with my assassins. Therefore I can´t tell you if this happens everytime.

2. Have a look at the guides section. frogbeastegg´s guide contains some infos about the senate. However, there is no safe way to make the senate love you for a longer period for obvious reasons: If you go for every city they want you to conquer, sooner or later your empire will become too powerful in the eyes of the senate. At at this point your popularity with the senate will be on a constant downward spiral and there is nothing you can do about it.

My idea to avoid this however is described in a parallel thread, named: "Being the underdog in the Roman civil war". It´s not about making the senate love you, but making the senate hate someone else more than it hates you! The problem might however be, that the game possibly doesn´t allow a war between the senate and an AI controlled Roman faction. I have not seen this happen, but I keep trying.

[Seasoned Alcoholic]

I haven't played as a Roman faction in a long time. Probably because that last one got a bit boring (think it was the Julii), same old senate barking out random rubbish. [sarcasm]EG "Block the port at Pergammum, bearing in mind you have one ship in your fleet, and it is based at the port in Narbo Martius. You have 5 turns to comply, and your reward will be nothing special" [/Sarcasm]

In the end, you just get fed up with what the senate tell you to do. Think I went ahead without orders (from the senate) and took control of Gaul, Britain and Spain. This wasn't enough to gain the popularity needed with the people to turn on Rome, so I tried something else - started the civil war early by using assassins.

What I did was sent a useless assassin (with limited subterfuge skills) to Rome, and found an important Senate family member, think it was the heir or leader (if you're going to give this a try, save your game before you do this ). Made an attempt at trying to kill the Senate leader, obviously it failed, but my assassin was caught and slain by the bodyguards - note that this has to happen if you want the civil war to start. You are immediately outlawed by the Senate, but for some random reason they usually outlaw the other 2 factions within a turn or so. Well done, you've started the civil war early, and can finally put the Senate to the sword - they deserve it after all, after what they've put you through

[Upxl]

I didn't mind the missions that much.
They kind off kept things interesting.

And I normally don’t care that much, but kind of was trying another approach on the game.

It was doing alright; Senate was happy, Scipi and Bruti happy.
Real family like. [Sarcasm]
Hell, I even gave almost every conquered peace a dart to the Senate.

But then they started hating me again. ~: confused:

I really think the AI shouldn't push you that much, to the objective that is.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

My first real game - playing on vanilla - I caused an internal collapse of both the Scipii and Brutii by assassinating their leaders. I was able to keep the senate on my side partly by doing this and by obeying missions, until I have a huge number of provinces. I had most of the map, but I still hadn't caused a civil war yet.



It was pretty fun walking the line between "civil war" and keeping the republic. No mods or anything here. The image shows the turn where they finally insisted I kill my faction leader or start a civil war.

[C-F]

Hi Teleklos Archelaou,

Congrats

It looks like I've got a lot to learn - I played the Germania faction and ended up with the following stats:

Family members 100
Year 180 BC
Provinces 74
Battles won 779
Battles lost 220 (about 75-80% were these forsaken 'sea battles).

So, my questions are, how did you get away with so few battles (I noticed in my campaign the 'sea battles' were a big portion each turn - sometimes 6- to 10 during the 'end turn' process (where my boats got kicked around like a ball in a soccer game 1-2-3-sink... the Brutii triangle I came to call it )
The other big 'counter' were the rebel fights - did you just ignore them?
Needless to say, I did a 'good' number in 'autoresolve' just to move the game along...

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I'm not entirely sure how I did it. It was about a year ago actually. But I tend to build cities up pretty big and not fight every turn. Build up forces, then strike at a faction in one or two turns and try to wipe it out quickly. The assassinating of the other roman factions was the most interesting part - those provinces went rebel after their leaders were slain - and so I didn't irritate anyone by taking them. Didn't have many allies - as you can see I tried to work with the Germans as much as I could.

[RemusAvenged]

That's a crazy situtation there. I can't believe the senate let you get so big. Assassinating that many people must have taken forever. I like to conquer rebel provinces too so I can avoid open warfare. So I like to destroy the plumbing, temples and forums of my not-quite-enemies to start civil unrest.

Then I pack their cities full of spies and wait for rebellions. I used to love that back in STW, I'd have 20 spies moving together that would crash any territory in a turn.

But to be on topic I think the senate likes it when you folow their rules for who to attack and who to be friendly with in their diplomacy pane. But I think 'the people' love it when you start conquering. I generally start romna factions by limiting my allies growth. ie as Julii going into Greece, Carthage and Sicily. Then they can't grow financially and can't get great generals to compete against in the senate.