The Will of the Senate - out of character thread

[econ21]

Excellent - good to have you on board, Shadeswolf! I'll sign you up. It might be an idea to keep checking this forum every other day, as I am hoping we will have a Senate session and a Consular election in a day or two. You are free to vote on the 278 emergency motions right now - polls close 6pm UK time today.

[econ21]

I want to propose a few rules changes about ancillaries.

Now we have an academy and are winning battles, some of our members are getting their maximum number of ancillaries (note that the maximum that can be gained has been reduced to 6 in this mod to allow for the new Roman leadership ancillaries). We had a "no ancillary swopping without consent" rule, but now that is appearing very inefficient for our Republic and yet it would be a pain to keep stopping the game and asking people permission to swap their ancillaries. It would slow things down awfully for a really trivial reason. I want to Consuls to play their ten turns and get on with it - the Senate sessions and farmed out battles are delays enough.

So I propose the following: ancillaries should not be swapped except by mutual consent or in the event of one of the following conditions:

(1) Chirurgeons and turncoats may be freely swapped by the First Consul. The former are just too useful not to have assigned to the main armies (and if we "farm" them, we can get a lot from Academies). Likewise the turncoats should be assigned to the relevant theatre - e.g. its a waste having a rebel turncoat in an army fighting Carthage - they should be assigned to the reserve (anti-rebel) legion.

(2) Priest farming: priest ancillaries can be regularly gained from temples. If we allow the First Consul to redistribute them, then we will spawn more of them. This will save tedious rotations of members between temples. So new rule: if a member is in a town with a temple, is going to stay in that town for another turn and acquires the priest of that temple, this ancillary may be freely swapped by the First Consul.

(3) Ancillary overload: if a member has maxxed out on ancillaries (ie has 6), the First can transfer one ancillary to another member, allowing the original member to keep acquiring ancillaries. This will particularly help members in Academies, who will quickly max out, and also generals in the field who are able to pick up some tasty combat ancillaries (esp. turncoats).

(4) Roman leadership ancillaries: the First Consul may swap the Consular Army and Legio ancillaries, but only with a view to assigning them to appropriate members. I am a little fuzzy on exactly how these things work, but presently we have a Consul I Army ancillary and a Legio I ancillary. The Consul I ancillary should go to someone who has or could have the Consul trait; the Legio ancillaries should go to someone who has or could have the Legate trait (ie 10 years experience; ex-Tribune). Marcus Camillus designed the ancillaries to be limited (e.g. we can only have a max of two Consular armies) and linked to traits. But he also intended they could be traded, so that we could change the general with the Consul trait etc.

(5) Unfavourable ancillaries (we don't have any of these yet): drunken uncles etc may be assigned to the oldest members, so they disappear when the member dies.

Are people ok with this? I don't want to put them to a senate style vote. If agreed, I expect First Consuls to manage ancillaries in good faith - no trading them in return for political favours or to knobble rivals etc.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I'm fine with all except 5. I don't think that we should be "rewarding" the old guys who have been around so long with pet idiots and evil mothers-in-law. It's more fair if everyone just kept their bad ancillaries.

[Mount Suribachi]

It all sounds a bit complicated & tedious to me - I've never been one much for swapping ancillaries around, good or bad. But then again I won't be consul for a long time so I won't be doing all that micro-management. And its a little bit too much like cheesey powergaming for my liking.

Apart from things like the turncoats & chirudgeons, which I agree should be sent to where they are needed.

I especially don't like (5), having bad traits & ancillaries are half the fun for me, especially when role-playing. I mean c'mon, who doesn't love the Actor and Comedian ancillaries? Francius Howardus is one of my favourite parts of the game ~:D

Titter ye not Simon....

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

I'm for 1 and 2, as I don't particularly care one way or the other.

I'm against 3. This ancillary can be traded by the characters amongst themselves for influence in the senate debates and votes, but I'm willing to make an exception about (1) and (2) kind of ancilliaries.

I'm for 4, but these ancillaries should be assigned to active field commanders, whether they are consuls or not. I you have command of a consular army you should eligable to get the banner in my opinion.

I'm against 5, but this is personal. I wouldn't mind if other people drop their annoying relatives. I prefer to keep mine. If I had a drunken uncle I would sometimes appear in the senate drunk or late from an orgy for example :)

I expect first consuls to be meticously correct in the handling of the ancilliaries, but I would like to see senators hagglling and making voting promises over an exotic slave (+1 influence) and so on.

[econ21]

OK, everyone wants to keep their drunken uncles (or maybe not get other people's) - fair enough.

I actually think the ancillary overload problem is the biggest one. Quintus starts with an aged retainer and now has a priest of Mercury. Both are useless for a general, but have pushed him up to his limit of 6 ancillaries, so he can't get a Carthaginian turncoat or any other ancillary from combat. It seems much better that I be allowed to pass them on to a governor who can actually use them. Similarly, we have a student in Roma in the academy and he's got 6 ancillaries, so his studies there for the next 15 or so turns are wasted. Even worse, the poor chap is clogged up with rather medicore ancillaries for the rest of his life.

On the consular army thing, I absolutely agree the Consular army/Legio/Praetorian army ancillaries should be for people with real armies. I just don't want to see them assigned in a way that destroys the associated trait without creating it in someone else. For example, if the Consular army ancillary goes to someone who can't be a consul, then the person with consul trait loses that trait. ie the Consular army ancillary and the consul trait are a package deal. I have no objection to passing on the consular army ancillary to a Praetor who can become a consul. But it seems wasteful to give it to a Legate and thus prevent the Republic having a consul at all. From a role-playing point of view, I propose the character with the consul trait be the "Second" Consul. When we have enough provinces to be eligible for a second consular army ancillary and second consul trait, we can just say there is some kind of triumvirate - a First Consul (who may or may not have a consul trait) and up to two Consuls with the trait.

It is all micromanagement and Consuls don't have to fiddle with them if they don't want to, it's just I am finding it frustrating not to be able to fiddle.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

First off, it seems I have forgotten to welcome our newest senator, ShadesWolf, and let me do so now.

I fully agree with your points about the shifting of banners. A triumvirate is anyway not unheard of in rome history, it has happened on several occasions.

I would not like to infringe on your wish to fiddle around. Perhaps a good idea would be to allow the shifting around of anciliaries within families by the eldest member ? Then the ancilliaries would stay 'in the family' so to speak (shame on you for wanting to dump your aged retainer :) ) and this would give the first consul more leverage and flexibility. Also, it can stimulate the formation of 'family' groups and trades between 'families', so to speak, which might be desirable and provide more senator interaction. Perhaps we will see inter-family rivalry between sibling lobbying for that one available mentor or something like that. We could haggle during the senate deliberations and perhaps some trades can influence the ongoing election process. I would greatly desire to see an update on the current characters when the next election process starts so we can all properly envy the one whose character has become favoured by the gods (hope I'm not imposing on you, TinCow).

[econ21]

Ok, I've done my reign. Thanks, DDW and FLYdude for helping me get through it so quickly. The savegame is up (Senate275s.zip) for anyone who wants to look at the situation.

We have a two new generals:
- Amulius Coruncanius has grown up, so I am afraid I am going to have to re-assign him from Tiberius to Mount Suribachi, if that is ok with Mount.
- Tiberius Coruncanius has adopted a garrison commander, Publius Panga, who I am assigning to Glaucus.

We can also rejig the juniors:
- Manius Amelius is presumably about to mature, so he can go to our last Lower House member, Destroyer of Hope
- Decius Laevinius can be assigned to Tiberius and this time I promise I won't take him away from you (as long as no one else joins the Lower House)
- DoH no longer needs Marcus Laevinus, so I am assigning him to Dutch_guy.

I will revise the preface to the Senate deliberations accordingly. If the people I have assigned characters to don't want them, please let me know. But we won't be changing the rules for prioritising assignments (we need generals who can fight).

I think we should have a three day period of debate (Tu+Wed+Th) and one day of voting (Fri), so the next First Consul can start on Friday night and play over the weekend if they wish.

Anyone wishing to stand - post a manifesto in the Senate Deliberations. But you must be in the Lower House and have an adult general. (I'm inclined not to impose age restrictions on people standing, although the disadvantages of youth could be brought up in debate).

EDIT: I like the "keep it within the family" idea, DDW. I will update the rules on trading ancillaries shortly.

[Craterus]

Is this still open, and what version of RTR are you running?

It's a great idea, by the way. I love it.

[econ21]

Is this still open, and what version of RTR are you running?

It's a great idea, by the way. I love it.

Yes, it's still open. If you want to join, post here and say whether you want to be in the Upper or Lower House. All the gory details are given in post #2 of this thread.

We are using RTR Platinum Edition 1.5 with the latest Metropolis and Naval mod. The mod may look intimidating, but I must say I am very impressed with it so far. It is RTR, which is great. It uses 1.5 RTWs AI (=> modding out bandits, yay!). And the metropolis aspect does away with walls on many settlements, so it is not rome total siege. Plus it has some really neat scripting of Roman leadership traits.

[Craterus]

Let me get this straight. Upper house members don't do any of the campaign itself but decide the fate of things.

Lower house members play the campaign.

I'll play as upper house for now, as it sounds like you're a bit full with Lower House members?

[TinCow]

I have updated the Library to the best of my ability. I think I've gotten all of the pertinent info in there regarding the mature faction members, however I'm not sure if I've listed the right aliases (AKA) for all of them. If someone could check that for me, I would be grateful. I also removed the motions that have been accomplished or are obsolete and added maps of the current extent of Roman power, in the thumbnail format. Let me know if other stuff is needed.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Excellent work TinCow, much obliged.

[econ21]

Thanks TinCow - my second post up sets out how the rules imply the characters should be reallocated; I'ved edited your AKAs. If anything looks wrong or incomplete, let me know.

Hopefully we should have reached the point where we don't need to reassign generals and newly spawned ones can start going to Upper House members.

EDIT: I've updated the First Consul report to include some screenshots of battle etc.

[TinCow]

Can I get a clarification on who is playing Publius Pansa and Decius Laevinus? The main thread lists Glaucus as Decius and no one as Publius, but Glaucus was mentioned as Publius in a post elsewhere. For now I will keep Glaucus as Publius and Decius blank.

[Braden]

Who have we got as Consul candidates so far? I haven't seen many people putting their names forward....

[econ21]

Can I get a clarification on who is playing Publius Pansa and Decius Laevinus? The main thread lists Glaucus as Decius and no one as Publius, but Glaucus was mentioned as Publius in a post elsewhere. For now I will keep Glaucus as Publius and Decius blank.

Sorry, TinCow - is post #284 (wow, so many) not clear?

I've tried to re-do the table in the Senate deliberations thread to be up to date.

Publius Pansa => Glaucus
Decius Laevinus => Tiberius
Amulius Coruncanius => Mount Suribachi
Marcus Laevinus => Dutch_guy
Manius Amelius => Destroyer of Hope

I know it's confusing the heck out of me, but hopefully that's it and I won't have to re-assign any more avatars for a while - new avatars will just go to the Upper House.

[econ21]

Just an out of character note on the direction of this campaign - it's been said that I'm pushing the PBM into the direction of a "blitz" campaign, which is uninteresting. I confess there's an element of truth in this, although I did not plan to take Carthage until I found they held Messana (do they start with Messana?) I have ended up blitzing, although it was interesting - at least for me.

Inevitably, we will vote for candidates and motions for a variety of reasons. For the good of the Republic. For other role-playing reasons. Or because we as players want to see the game to play out in a certain way. That's fine and I don't mean to bulldoze the campaign in any particular direction. I've certainly been playing Quintus as a bulldozing conqueror, although I am not sure which of the three kinds of reason explain that (may be all three).

But I would like to make a few observations on gameplay, based on my experience with RTR. Basically, it can be really easy as Romans. They have some really nice units and a fairly "safe" starting position. Our rules try to constrain them in various historical ways - especially the historical armies. The most boring TW game I've ever played was a "win at all costs" RTR game as Romans. A full stack of principes and funditores kills everything effortlessly.

Conversely the most fun (solo) TW game I've ever played was also a RTR game as Romans, one in which I ended up at war with almost everyone (Carthage, Greece, Gaul, Macedon, Spain, Numidia, Seleucia, Germany) simultaneously and although I got to 50 provinces, I never really knocked out any of them. My armies were spread out, under-strength, battling all over the place, far far from home. The no-retraining and no extermination rules really make fighting far from home tough. The VH campaign difficulty means the AI can keep throwing full stacks at you. Similarly, in this campaign, it was really fun to try to take Sicily very quickly on a shoestring (apologies for Shifty157 for having to use him to control Syracuse). I had to make some careful strategic choices, as I knew our position was precarious and we were potentially over-extended.

Anyway just a few thoughts - players are free to try to push this campaign in any direction they want. One of the nice things about playing Roma is that they have such potential, you can do lots of adventurous things (anyone want to sail to Britain?). There's really only one rule - that we try to make it fun.

[Braden]

Simon, from a personal standpoint I think that it would be unfair to say you’re pushing this campaign in any one direction – you only have direct control whilst you’re character is Consul, after that it’s up to the next player and the Senate.

Sure you may appear aggressive, in fact, you’ve played a more aggressive game than you actually described in character as Quintus.

What I think is very important is that each successive Consul stamps their own In Character personality on the game. I can see why you are, IC, declaring the need to expand – it keeps the Roma armies small and the game more interesting.

I say, as long as you can justify it to my character, in character, then I’ll act in character to it – Out of Character intent or feelings don’t come into it.

The downside to the campaign is the weighted voting system due to influence scores but this will even out as more characters are spawned and the influence is spread out to more characters during the course of the game. This is the only thing that I think people could use to accuse you of pushing the game along – as Consul/Ex-Consul you nearly have a “casting” vote.

[econ21]

... as Consul/Ex-Consul you nearly have a “casting” vote.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I think I have 6/36 of the votes at the moment. It may be actually fairly historical - think of Deng Xiaoping or any other "retired" leader. But I'll try to abstain a lot! I don't believe in tying the First Consul's hands much anyway.

[econ21]

Ignoramus has proposed giving names to our legions. Here are the names that LestaT on the RTR forums has listed for his Imperator mod:

01. Legio I Italica - Italy
02. Legio II Augusta - Punic
03. Legio III Gallica - Gaul
04. Legio IV Skythia - Illyria
05. Legio V Makedonica - Macedonia
06. Legio VI Ferrata - Greek
07. Legio VII Alaudae - Gaul
08. Legio VIII Gemina - Germania
09. Legio IX Hispana - Iberia
10. Legio X Primigenia - recruited only in Rome
11. Legio XI Cyrenaica - Egypt
12. Legio XII Fulminata - recruited only in region of Umbria
13. Legio XIII Fretensis - Egypt & Syria
14. Legio XIV Parthica - Persia
15. Legio XV Apollinaris - Galatia
16. Legio XVI Triana Fortis - East (Arab & Hill)
17. Legio XVII Claudia Pia Fidelis - East (Arab & Persia)
18. Legio XVIII Macriana Liberatrix - Iberia & Dacia
19. Legio XIX Minervia - Germania & Numidia
20. Legio XX Valeria Victrix - Dacia & Scythia
21. Legio XXI Rapax - Nothern Italy
22. Legio XXII Deiotariana - Galatia

They are for post-Marian legions, but might give us some inspiration.
There are more names listed here:
http://www.davros.org/romans/legions.html
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_legions

I think to make life easy, we should only name legions that have a legion ancillary. Currently, we have Legio I and Legio II ancillaries. Legio I Italica seems like a no-brainer. For Legio II, we might go for Legio II Sabina, as in wikipedia, as that will also have been recruited in Italy. When we get a Legio III, then Gallica might be appropriate if we enter Gaul.

The Consular ancillary supposed to have two legions (and the field army ancillaries we'll eventually get will also include legions) but I think we should leave them nameless for convenience, otherwise we'll lose track.

NB: For the purposes of forming historical armies, I'm treating 1 velite+1principes+1hastati+1general as the core of a legion (to be supplemented by one or more of triarii, cavalry and funditores). But legions should typically be accompanied by equal sized alae of allied troops, making up a half stack army.

[Mount Suribachi]

Sorry, TinCow - is post #284 (wow, so many) not clear?

I've tried to re-do the table in the Senate deliberations thread to be up to date.

Publius Pansa => Glaucus
Decius Laevinus => Tiberius
Amulius Coruncanius => Mount Suribachi
Marcus Laevinus => Dutch_guy
Manius Amelius => Destroyer of Hope

I know it's confusing the heck out of me, but hopefully that's it and I won't have to re-assign any more avatars for a while - new avatars will just go to the Upper House.

I was going to ask to stay as Manius Amelius, but I'm in the middle of something of a chain, so Amulius Coruncanius I guess I am. I'll try and d'load the save game tonight or tomorrow morning and check him out

Regarding blitzing, I'm glad you brought it up Simon. I've been around enough PBEMs with you to know that you're not a glory seeker who tries to conquer the whole map during his "reign", but I was a little concerned as to how this has started out, with so many of our Senators pushing for an agressive, expansionist approach. Given that we are trying to role-play a realistic game as Rome, this hawkish approach contrasts with the traditional Republican Roman tradition of conservatism and suspicion of foreign adventures and wars. I've tried to role-play this in the IC thread, and have constantly voted against conquest and war over anyone apart from the Greeks. I guess that unlike real Roman Senators we don't have vast personal fortunes to protect which makes us much more keen to go to war!

[econ21]

nevermind

[Mount Suribachi]

no no no!! I've already started machinating as Amulius!! Amulius is just fine, honestly.

[Mount Suribachi]

(5) Install the parthia/bactria landblock + africa landblock:
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...e=post&id=5621
Install this in \Data\world\maps\base

Simon, this link leads to an error message for me "topic may have been moved or deleted"

[Mount Suribachi]

*waves bye to his old avatar*

Man, I remember I was so excited when I got to 600 posts and I could choose my own avatar. Me and Mr.Bishop have had some great times at the Org....

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

The landblock has been moved to :
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=20466
Good luck with Amulius :)
Edit : This is an updated version of the map, but that should not matter. Otherwise I've still got the old one.

[Craterus]

Anywhere else I can get that Metropolis and Naval mod from?

[econ21]

I've e-mailed the exe to you but it may be too big for hotmail.

What was your problem with rapidshare, Craterus? Sometimes you have to wait awhile and it looks like nothings happening. But if you use a router like me with a dynamic ISP you may be in trouble. I had to join the Premium service - it cost a few euros, but then everything was fine.

[Mount Suribachi]

The landblock has been moved to :
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=20466
Good luck with Amulius :)
Edit : This is an updated version of the map, but that should not matter. Otherwise I've still got the old one.

Thanks DDW

Simon, could you update post2 with this link?