The Will of the Senate - out of character thread

[econ21]

Reading the notes on Roman Leadership, in the Senate library, I realise there is an in-game office of Consul, so referring to the incumbent player as Consul may be confusing. I propose we switch back to my original terminology of "First Consul" (there are, afterall, potentially two Consuls but we can only have one incumbent player at a time).

I've also been wondering what to do about the titles of Faction Leader and Faction Heir - Marcus Camillus renames them Princeps Senatus and Future Princeps Senatus - ie Senate leader and future Senate leader. They are titles that come with valuable bonuses, but I don't want us to mess about with them unduly - lots of disinherited Senators will not be good for Rome; also we can't change the Leader easily.

So, I propose that when the Faction Leader dies, we have a Senate vote on who should be the new Faction Heir and not change that decision unless there are extreme circumstances (e.g. impeachment). We are stuck with Quintus as Leader and I propose we keep Publius Laevinus as heir, being the second oldest character with better bonuses than his juniors. When Quintus dies, we'll vote on who should be the next Princeps Senatus, after Publius Laevinus.

I have not read the leadership notes carefully, but my impression is that they automate a lot of the assignment of other titles and the intention was that titles not be traded. If that is true, I would like to keep them non-tradable as Marcus intended them to be.

[Avicenna]

Yes, if that's the case, I guess we'll have to live with the scripted appointments of offices. For the leadership of the faction, should we give it to the character with the most influence? Of course, no heir can be a nut, eg. someone with the 'hooting' trait or any other form of fear. If the character is related to the former faction leader or current faction leader, pretend he has a higher influence than he actually does. ie. if he is son of the former faction leader, add +2 influence. If he is the son of the current faction leader, add +3 influence. Brothers gain one less than both respectively, and nephews should not gain much at all, just +1 for the nephew of the current faction leader. Historically, marriages strengthened alliances, so there should be a high boost if the character in question is the son-in-law of the current or former faction leader, with around +3 boost and +2 boost respectively. If there is a deadlock, the priority should be given to a son, son-in-law, brother and then nephew. Grandsons should count as sons, but when there is a deadlock, sons take priority over grandsons. Grandsons-in-law gain no boost. Uncles should gain the same as nephews, as there's a very low chance of passing on the power to your uncle.

Right now, I'm quite anxious to decide upon a course of action: should our two legions take the rebel towns, or should they combine and take down Pyrrhus first? The first fight(s) is going to be easy, and the risk of losing to Pyrrhus when our ranks are thinned by rebels is quite high. I'm recommending the immediate destruction of Pyrrhus and his army, and the expulsion of the Greeks from the Italian peninsula. Then, we will have time to decide which rebel cities to take, and face no immediate threat while we build up our core cities and army. I also propose that the Roman legion, when the two armies join, be led by Quintus until a suitable candidate for generalship, which is usually presented in the form of a suitor, appears. I also advise that we build up a reasonably strong fleet, to protect our interests in the sea against foreign interference. We should also obtain trade rights with the Gauls to the North and the Illyrians to the East for now, and perhaps even Carthage if the other senators think it appropriate.

[econ21]

On the faction heir, let's just have an election when the faction leader dies - we can debate criteria for election in the Senate at the time.

On the issue of what the First Consul should do, your second paragraph is exactly the kind of thing I hope to see in the Senate deliberations thread. Let's open the Senate for deliberations now, as time is short if the First Consul is going to start playing on Friday evening (ie please repost your second para in that thread tomorrow after 6pm UK time). It's not ideal, as I had wanted to wait until avatars are assigned but at least the debate may be less self-interested, since we will all be behind a Rawlsian "veil of ignorance" for one day.

More generally, I think we should have two kinds of posts in the Senate deliberations threads - general musings, such as yours (Senate speeches if your like) and specific motions that are to be voted on. If you would like to propose a motion, I suggest the following format:

MOTION 1This House:
(a) agrees to reward the Senate Librarian (TinCow with a Librarian Ancillary in acknowledgement of his office.
(b) agrees to reward the Senate Fixer (DDW) with a Scribe Ancillary in acknowledgement of his office.[/b]

Motions should be capable of being voted "yes or no". We could also propose ammendments.

Both motions and ammendments would require seconders (unless your avatar has 1 influence)

We'll collect motions and then have a set interval for voting. Given the rather compressed schedule to get ready for a Friday start, I suggest Wednesday 6pm UK time as the cut-off for all motions and ammendments. We will vote on motions and for the First Consul between then and Friday 6pm. So two days drafting motions; two days voting.

There's an interesting issue of how much we want to tie down First Consuls by motions and how much we want to be decided by elections. So with your proposal, we could either try to mandate the First Consul to attack Pyrrhus or we could simply elect the candidate who we believed (from his manifesto etc) most likely to do that. Personally, I favour the latter approach but that can be something we can debate about in the Senate.

Now that I have moderating powers here, I am thinking of using the "poll" option to manage voting. I will make the polls public and then look at the names to exclude any non-Senators who try to vote and to augment votes by avatar influence. I'll want to avoid too many polls, so I may have to consolidate motions so we only a few votes per session.

[Tricky Lady]

If it's not too late yet, you can count me in for the more passive role of member of the Upper House; option 3, right?

Cool idea, btw.

[Avicenna]

You're probably going to be accepted, Tricky Lady. The PBeM hasn't started yet, and Upper House members should be allowed to join any time anyway. Welcome to the Senate!

[shifty157]

Im up for the lower house and hell ill run for consul as well. What mods are we playing with exactly? Links would be convenient as im short on time for the next few days.

[Mount Suribachi]

OK, I'm definately in. D'loaded and installed both mods and it seems to be working and stable. Only took me 2 full evenings of uninstalling and re-installing.....

Only thing is the battle map is a bit jerky. RTW & BI run smooth as silk for me, even on huge units and med-high graphical settings. Is this common with RTR?

Tricky Lady, glad to see you made your way here

[Avicenna]

RTW, v 1.5, then RTR Platinum.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Welcome Tricky Lady

(* Do they allow women in the senate these days ? :) *)

I have no problems with RTR and I have been running various setups for quite some time now. Then again, I have a 3 gig machine and a pretty decent graphics card. Actually, RTRPE seems to run 2-3 times as fast in campaign mode (don't ask me why, it must be the leap from RTW 1.2 to 1.5). It only gets slightly jerky when I have 4500+ guys on screen with all the graphic settings to max. Perhaps you can experiment with other graphics settings. You can alos check your task manager to see what other processes are labouring for your CPU's attention and get rid of a few obvious redundant programs.

I will post a link with all the relevant downloads and instructions on thursday evening. Be warned, RTR PE is a 450 MB download, so you might get that sometime this week.
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=19682

The poll system sounds good, but how will you take influence in effect there ? Voters must post to show who they are and what they voted too I guess.

[Tricky Lady]

Hello everyone, and thanks for the welcome.

A question.
When "discussing" in the Senate, I assume we don't have to think about gameplay reasons to attack this or that faction, do we? It's just that I liked to put forward another opinion than the rest

[Dutch_guy]

The senate deliberation thread is a great addition to this affair, great way to keep the players ( or should I say senate members ) interested.

I realize that was way off topic, but it had to be said.

Also welcome Tricky Lady, good to have you here

[Avicenna]

Gah, all you unreasonable people! Listen to me, I've taken Italy twice in RTR so far The safest strategy is to rid the Greeks. Then, proceed to take Paestum and Corfinium. By this time, you'll have the finances to support your already created third legion, which then quickly and efficiently takes the weakly defended provinces that the kind Gauls have captured for us. We then sweep the Gauls back to the North, and secure our holdings from there. While the Gauls are dying, the Greeks are following their example in the south. Finally, Rhegion is taken, and the whole peninsula belongs to Rome. What happens next is up to you all

[GeneralHankerchief]

Tiberius, good Romans aren't supposed to have time travel machines...

[shifty157]

Nor are we supposed to discuss strategy here.

Im running DSL so im cruising at a smooth 200 kbps download rate. 40 minutes total download time.

I thought we were playing with a minimod or two as well?

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Off topic :
Out of character I would crush Pyrrhus like a fly, but in character my reasoning is sound :)
Back on topic :
Yes, also metronaval mod (which includes 4PTY) and perhaps some tiny, but crucial, modifications involving rebalancing and strange phalanx behaviour. I suggest making a vanilla RTW 1.5 install and storing that in a backup, and storing the mods seperately. This will save you a lot ofpain in case of a flawed install or corrupted mos. The rest of the mods I'd advise installing at the latest as modifications and improvements are continuing.
To prevent more confusion RTRPE 1.0 final = final BETA 1.4
More technical details follow thrusday evening

[Zomby_Woof]

I'm interested in taking part in this, although I won't have much free time for the next two weeks or so.

[shifty157]

Im not sure where to get these mods. Could you provide a link?

[econ21]

Im not sure where to get these mods. Could you provide a link?

The link to the mods and lots of other technical information about this PBM are in the second post of this thread:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...29&postcount=2

I am continually updating this second post, so participants don't need to wade through the whole thread to get the key information they need.

[TinCow]

On the Senate library, I've been wondering about keeping the character mugshots to there. Also it might be good to keep a record of all Senate motions (laws) there, for easy reference. What do you think, TinCow? If you agree, do you want to oversee both or shall I do the mugshots and you the motions? I think we can just keep the mugshots on coming of age - the Consuls should update the Senators about new vices and virtues in their periodic reports.

I was thinking of making a post for each of the avatars which is being played. For each I would post the mugshot and a full shot of the retinue and traits at every point at which a save game is uploaded (assuming they have changed since the last). I'll crop all the photos and compress the .jpgs so that they won't be too big. I think this will help people to see how their avatars are progressing in-game and to allow better roleplaying.

We should definitely keep a record of successful legislation, perhaps with dates enacted and the number of votes on each side, if it doesn't become overwhelming.

[econ21]

Cheers, TinCow! I'll leave the mugshots in your capable hands then.

On the motions, as I've indicated in an in-character post as speaker in the Senate, I'd like to keep motions short and few. It would be good if we can coalesce on some really big issue ("Carthage must be destroyed!"), vote yay or nay, and leave the First Consuls to work out the details.

That's not to say all the detailed discussion of mechanics in the Senate at the moment is off-topic. It's great and a primary function of the Senate (ie to be a talking shop). But I would be sad if we end up having hundreds of votes each session, not least because I have to organise the mechanics of voting!

[TinCow]

I agree, varied debate is fabulous, but let's keep the actual voting options relatively simple. I ran across this thread on the RTR forums this afternoon and thought it was a great example of complex Senatorial debate on a relatively simple vote.

http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=19710

[Lord Winter]

I would like to join.

[econ21]

I would like to join.

Welcome!

And welcome to everyone else who has recently joined. Tricky_Lady, Zomby_Woof and GeneralHankerchief... apologies if I have missed anyone.

Destroyer of Hope please can you read post #2 in this thread and choose one of options (a), (b) and (c)? Cheers.

[Lord Winter]

Destroyer of Hope please can you read post #2 in this thread and choose one of options (a), (b) and (c)? Cheers.

option b

[econ21]

Major edit: just noticed I made an error in not spotting shifty157 is a candidate for Consul. Apologies to TinCow and Mount but this bumps them down one in the order for avatars. List has been revised to reflect this.

OK, a provisional update on the assignment of avatars. At the moment, everyone has chosen their House except, ironically, the person who started this thread, Xiahou Liao. If he passes by before the Tuesday 6pm UK time deadline, then things may change, as obviously he trumps everyone in seniority (which I am reading from the order in which people first posted in this thread or otherwise expressed interest). But given the Senate deliberations are heating up, I think it might be a good idea to let people know what is likely to happen about avatars. However, it's probably wise not to assume your provisional avatars name and personality until this is finally confirmed.

Recall that we have only 4 adult faction members at the start of the game. We have also have four candidates for First Consul and they will each need an avatar. So at the moment, this plus seniority implies:

Quintus => econ21 (it's not a stitch up, honest )
Publius Laevinius => shifty157
Tiberius Coruncanius => FLYdude
Lucius Amelius => DDW

We have four under-age family members. I am going to assign them to members of the Lower House to allow for role-playing development. Obviously they are too young to be Senators per se, but their votes can represent those of allies of their families. And they can be pretend they are precocious kids - think Octavian in the BBC/HBO series Rome (ok, very precocious in the case of Marcus...)

Amulius Coruncanius => TinCow
Manius Aemilius => Mount Suribachi
Decius Laevinus => Glaucus
Marcus Laevinus => Destroyer of Hope

Note - these kids are young and other faction members (e.g. suitable husbands) may appear as adults earlier. In that case, I will give people the opportunity to ditch their kid and pick the newcomer instead (e.g. if they want to stand for First Consul or fight battles etc).

So at the moment, we have a match of 8 faction members and 8 Lower House Senators. (The Lower House senators should note that all this is on the condition that they have successfully loaded up the mod.)

I have also agreed to the interesting request from Ignoramus that he be assigned Sextus Antio, the diplomat, as his avatar. (TinCow, please can you add Sextus's mugshot to the Senate library?)

Apologies to the other Upper House Senators - you will be assigned avatars as soon as they become available. (As I've said before that gives you an incentive to be as expansionist as Rome was in history - due to the cap on generals, more provinces = more avatars). It was important to prioritise the Lower House, as these people will be expected to fight battles on demand if their avatars get involved in them.

People can always freely switch between houses, although this may lead to some re-assignment of avatars. I'd like to keep reassignments to a minimum, of course, as no one likes to lose a character they have come to identify with. I only really want Lower House members to go to the Upper House if they have a work/travel/other real life crisises. And ideally Upper House to Lower House moves should imply the player wants to stand for Consul in the near future.

Let me know if you think there are any errors in the above provisional assignments. Otherwise, I will not update them until the final confirmation at 6pm UK time today.

[Avicenna]

Hmm, econ, would it be possible that I stand for the lower house for a few days next week when there's a break? Or would that be just a waste of time?

Also, what about an avatar for Tricky Lady? The daughter of Quintus is an ideal character, being of the correct age and having the connections needed to have any influence in the senate. We can just pretend that she speaks through a male-friend of hers.

Unlucky for picking Decius, senator Glaucus. He always seems to end up getting the worst traits out of the eight starters.

[econ21]

Hmm, econ, would it be possible that I stand for the lower house for a few days next week when there's a break? Or would that be just a waste of time?

I think it would be a waste of time. But do you have a longer break over Summer we could work around? If you let me know the dates, I will try to ensure you have an adult avatar in that period and so can productively join the Lower House. IIRC, you are the most senior Senator, so it won't be a problem.

Also, what about an avatar for Tricky Lady? The daughter of Quintus is an ideal character, being of the correct age and having the connections needed to have any influence in the senate. We can just pretend that she speaks through a male-friend of hers.

If this were MTW or M2TW then Princesses would be suitable avatars for the Upper House. But one problem with Rome is that the daughter does not have a representation on the map. Tricky_Lady may prefer a conventional Senator, as then he will have more to do e.g. be a governor. But if she wants a daughter, I am happy to oblige. If so, she should have a veto over suitors. I might even let her control the husband - some wives do that

[econ21]

I think I've worked out the mechanics for Senate voting.

I'll post two seperate polls, each in their own thread. They will both be public, so I can check if the voters really are senators and I can take influence into account.

For the motions votes, I will just list every motion and allow multiple votes. Then you can vote yes to as many motions as you want.

I'll post the First Consul voting thread when avatars are confirmed 6pm tonight (henceforth all my times can be taken to be UK ones) and the motions 6pm tomorrow. I'll get them to be open for 3 and 2 days after opening (ie Friday), but will count the votes a little early on 6pm Friday, so the First Consul can start play Friday night if they want to.

[econ21]

It might be appropriate for us to check with the Senate Fixer,DDW about the current status of patches to the mods we are using.

At the RTR forums, I have found this:

...here is the order I would recommend installing in to use the Metro&Naval Mod for RTR Platinum.
1. Install RTW and patch it to v1.5.
2. Install the RTR Platinum Final Beta full installer.
3. Add the files of the "Corrected_RTR_Platinum_Files_v2.0.zip".
4. Install Shos' latest Updated EDU file.
5. Install the "Metro&Naval Mod for RTR Platinum".

Quote is from:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...=18768&st=140#

The Corrected_RTR_Platinum_Files_v2.0.zip, last edited 19th May, can be downloaded from:
http://www.beaglepc.net/storage/rome...Files_v2.0.zip

Shos’s EDU file, last updatd 21 May can be found at:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...e=post&id=5603

Both are discussed on page 7 of:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...=18768&st=120#

Marcus may consolidate 3 & 4 into a single 2.1.zip. But that's not a substantive change. He will be going on vacation soon, so perhaps there will be no further changes apart from anything done to the EDU by Shos and Shanky. However, changes to the EDU are rather easy to patch.

It is rather awkward to have step (5) after (3) and (4), as it means that those of us who have already installed the Metro&Naval mod have to unpick this step. However, this is only really an immediate issue for the First Consul.

I'm not clear why (5) comes after (4) - does Metro&Naval mod not have its own EDU?

If DDW confirms Marcus's information, I will put it and the links on post#2 of this thread.

[TinCow]

I think I've worked out the mechanics for Senate voting.

I'll post two seperate polls, each in their own thread. They will both be public, so I can check if the voters really are senators and I can take influence into account.

For the motions votes, I will just list every motion and allow multiple votes. Then you can vote yes to as many motions as you want.

I'll post the First Consul voting thread when avatars are confirmed 6pm tonight (henceforth all my times can be taken to be UK ones) and the motions 6pm tomorrow. I'll get them to be open for 3 and 2 days after opening (ie Friday), but will count the votes a little early on 6pm Friday, so the First Consul can start play Friday night if they want to.

I don't mean to try and dictate Org policy, but perhaps it would be best to create a sub-forum for The Will of the Senate. I agree that using seperate voting threads will be the easiest to track votes (though I think all discussion should remain in the original thread). However, we're already in danger of overhwelming the Throne Room with Senate material. Too much more and we'll drown this place and start to lose track of our own threads as well. Is a sub-forum a possibility?