The Will of the Senate - out of character thread

**Craterus** · 05-30-2006, 00:21

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** · 05-30-2006, 00:30

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** · 05-30-2006, 00:34

Excellent work TinCow, much obliged.

**econ21** · 05-30-2006, 00:35

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** · 05-30-2006, 12:08

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** · 05-30-2006, 12:25

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

**econ21** · 05-30-2006, 13:28

Originally Posted by 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.

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** · 05-30-2006, 13:45

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** · 05-30-2006, 13:59

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.

**Mount Suribachi** · 05-30-2006, 18:25

Originally Posted by econ21

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!