The Will of the Senate - out of character thread

[Mount Suribachi]

At the moment a seleucid war elephant will kill around 120 hoplites at the moment of impact when charging head on. Oh, and they are so welarmoured they are practically unkillable. Let's just say that if we were playing as Parthia I would not have recommened using this beta just yet :)

Thats just ridiculous. I thought RTR was meant to be doing away with uber-units?

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Yes, and they will. The thing is that all cavalry were much too weak and so they increased their carge bonus in the latest EDU. But elephants are very strong and they are also counted as cavalry and so their charge became immensely powerful. This will be fixed in the final EDU. Modding is easy. Getting the balance just right is incredibly difficult.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

remove double post.

[Tricky Lady]

Interesting, Braden - I was just thinking the same thing about seconding motions. OK, all motions must have a named Senator second them. I was even thinking about requiring two seconders - Senate debates seem so fractured, it would be good to encourage a little more coherence and collectivism. What do people think?

I think this is a good idea. So that's a "yes" from me

If it is ok with people, Braden can be our first existing spy (currently in Sicily). Let's say you are a kind of "spymaster" who is tasked with various missions. YAKOBU can be the next diplomat we hire. If any Upper House member wants to be the second spy I just hired in Roma, shout out. It would be good if the people controlling this avatars give suggestions about their deployment to the First Consul. Players probably focus on the armies and may neglect agents.

: shout :
Well, I was thinking that perhaps for a long-time-not-playing-RTW player like me, it'd be more appropriate if I could control a less important character, such as, why not, a spy.
It's just that maybe someone more experienced wants to use the Titus avatar and run for consul?
Anyway, perhaps I should try & play a few turns in RTR and vanilla RTW to get into the game again. My last campaign dates from December 2005 if memory serves.

[econ21]

Tricky_Lady - I don't see any need for you to give up your avatar. All Lower House members have a general already, except DoH whose avatar will mature in just a season or two. Why don't you install this mod and have a look? It's rather different from the usual RTW, particularly if you have not played RTR before. But if you are set on dropping Titus Vatinus post again and the deed will be done. The second spy is Quintis Classicianus, aged 28.

Also, just a note to say that the MN mod has been revised, with the culprit of the Rhegium bug taken out, the latest EDU in and (attention Craterus) available to download from something other than rapidshare. I've ammended post #2 accordingly.

EDIT: BTW, Braden, you know have been assigned the spy Decius Curtius. I am sure TinCow will post his mugshot in the library in due course. Decius is currently in Sicily, but personally, I would agitate for him to be sent to Cisalpine Gaul. While there is already a spy in Roma, having two spies in the region would not be excessive - one to watch the road west to transalpine Gaul, the other to scout around our invading army. Some very interesting things are probably happening in Illyria (at war with Greece) that we might want to know about too.

[Craterus]

Message received.

[GeneralHankerchief]

If Tricky Lady keeps her current avatar then I'll be the second spy (Quintus Classicianus).

[Tricky Lady]

I'll keep the Titus Vatinus character. If really necessary I can play a battle, but pls don't rely too heavily on me to win difficult battles

[Mount Suribachi]

This EDU thingy, can you just patch it onto your current game and carry on? Don't have to reinstall from scratch or owt?

[econ21]

This EDU thingy, can you just patch it onto your current game and carry on? Don't have to reinstall from scratch or owt?

Yes, I believe you can just add it on. I guess it is mainly accessed during battles.

By contrast I understand some other files - e.g. the descr_strat file we altered to give Quintus et al their starting Roman leadership traits - are only accessed at the beginning of a campaign, so we are stuck with them.

[TinCow]

As a side note to anyone taking a Spy over a Diplomat... Spies don't accumulate influence, but Diplomats do.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Perhaps stealthiness could be our version of influence?

[econ21]

Perhaps stealthiness could be our version of influence?

I'm wondering about giving spies (& assassins) bonus votes equal to (subterfuge/5), rounded up, compared to (influence/2) for others. I can see how subterfuge might give you some political leverage, but I would not want an spy, however good, to rival an ex-Consul who is a conqueror etc. I suspect Upper House senators won't accumulate that much influence anyway, so it should balance out.

On another matter, I don't use spies much, but I know it can be a risky business if they are used aggressively (the kind of thing that gives subterfuge). Maybe people controlling spies should give some instruction to the First Consul (via PM) about how aggressive or not they want their spies to be.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

I like GeneralHankerchief and econ21's ideas. I'll second them. Spies tend to live a long time, but assassins tend to die really fast however. We might say we will not make the assasination attempt if we have less than 50 % chance of success or something like that. Then there is the real possibility of getting assasinated. In my last campaign I lost four generals to that, two of which were my very best. Especially Anatolia (Turkey) can be really nasty as it is a sort of crossroads. I remember a shot where my general was in a city with 10 (!) assassins around it. That didn't end well. I advise sending spies with capable generals. That helps to keep the number of assassinations down.

[econ21]

...assassins tend to die really fast however. We might say we will not make the assasination attempt if we have less than 50 % chance of success or something like that. Then there is the real possibility of getting assasinated.

I never used assassins until one campaign, a Macedonian assassin started systematically taking down all my generals in the region. I asked around and the advice was that recruiting my newbie assassins to kill their elite assassin were my best counter. It worked. Assassins, strangely, are the easiest target for other assassins.[1]

Ever since, I've used "double-teams" of spies (to find the enemy assassins) and assassins (to nail them). You can get very high subterfuge assassins that way. In the recent WRE PBM, TinCow used them very effectively to decapitate the Slav horde. Personally, I'd rather players did not take assassins as avatars (spies are fine), as sometimes - as TinCow showed - it can be best to take risks with them.

[1]Also, I might be imagining it, but I think if you end your turn with your assassin in one of your settlements he is immune from enemy assassination - is that right? I've never had one assassinated anyway.

[econ21]

I am assigning General Valerius Paullus to YAKOBU.

If anyone wants our second diplomat, Oppius Vitruvius, to be their avatar, let me know.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Also, I might be imagining it, but I think if you end your turn with your assassin in one of your settlements he is immune from enemy assassination - is that right? I've never had one assassinated anyway.

You are probably correct. The AI does not target assassins. I was referring to generals.

Also, it would be handy for the first consul if there were links to PM the senators in the senate membership list. I suspect this is possible, but perhaps there is another way to make a 'quick reference list'. I sometimes have to look for quite some time to find someone's post so I can PM him. Any suggestions ?

[econ21]

Also, it would be handy for the first consul if there were links to PM the senators in the senate membership list. I suspect this is possible, but perhaps there is another way to make a 'quick reference list'. I sometimes have to look for quite some time to find someone's post so I can PM him. Any suggestions ?

I'd like to keep the beginning of the Senate deliberations thread our master list of players. I could add links to either the member's profile or to directly PM them. I think I will go with the profile, it is then just another click on that profile to PM them.

edit: done it; let me know if any links are wrong/broken etc.

edit: Can I remind everyone to zip their savegames before uploading to the Org Uploader. IIRC, it means they take about 1/4 of the space. The nature of this campaign means that we will probably being using the uploader a lot and I don't want to hit a hard space constraint. DDW and future First Consuls, please can you remind players of that when you assign them to fight battles?

[shifty157]

Sorry. That was my fault. I was in a hurry and i forgot to.

[Glaucus]

you can zip a save game using winrar right?

[econ21]

you can zip a save game using winrar right?

Yes, a compressed file in *.zip or *.rar format should be fine. I believe you can get the appropriate programs to compress and uncompress them free on the web, so everyone should be able to handle them.

[Dutch_guy]

DDW, may I ask how you are using my avatar - Marcus Laevinus ?.

Would be good to know for my future posts in the Senate Deliberations thread !

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Marcus Laevinus is only 10 years old at the moment :)
There are two new active charcters which are unassigned at the moment, our new diplomat Oppius Vintruvius and my son Manius Aemilius. You could apply for a transfer. My son might be 'hooting', but he is from a noble family :)

[shifty157]

What exactly does having the 'hooting' trait do? It sounds rather hilarious. I cant get the picture out of my head of a guy in a toga perched up in some rafters and hooting like an owl at anyone who walks by below him.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Wisdom wears many guises, but hooting in the manner of a starving owl may not be one of them. -1 Influence, -1 Command, -1 Management.

I am not sure, but I think if you have hooting you have a chance of going stark raving mad. I once had a Pontus campaign where due to a set of unhappy accidents, all I had left was a totally insane family. Oh, it was the bomb ! The battlefield speeches ! I absolutely loved it, but I got annihalated.

[shifty157]

Thats amazing. Ive never had that happen to me before though it would be cool.

[Braden]

Right! Thanks econ21 - will adjust my profile to show the new name and will start using it in Senate.

Influence - I don't agree with "capping" as it takes away the historical edge to proceedings (powerful families), but I'm glad you agree with my feelings about Motions.

I hope to see more PM's and emails flying about as Senators try to offer up various "things" to gain votes - which also leads to the use of secondary Avatars such as Spies. It is far easier to offer easy missions to a spy for example so he gains skills (and, I like the idea put forward, influence).

Obviously, those soft missions can be offered by people wanting votes etc (evil ain't I?).

Likewise with nice governor positions or army positions but we need to expand the Avatars to get as many people as possible more actively involved.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Would you mind showing me a mugshot of my character too? I don't look as sneaky with the avatar of a Carthaginian general who looks high, somehow.

[Braden]

Yeah, need a mug shot myself from TinCow but no major rush - just picked the Rogue Avatar that looked most like me........scary innit?

[TinCow]

I'll get the shots up, just gotta scroll back up and figure out who you are!

[Edit:] Done, bios are up.

On a side note, what's the rule on editing down the spawn rate of brigands/pirates? Also, what file is it in for RTR?