The Will of the Senate - Senate Deliberations

[econ21]

[QUINTUS]: Senator Publius Laevinius, your long term thinking is to your credit. At your prompting, I have begun building an auxiliary barracks at Arretium, the first province that we conquered.

However, I resent the charge of neglect. In captured settlements, this has been my preferred build order:
1. Temples, if necessary for loyalty (ideally I seek to be able to impose high taxes on all settlements, subject to allowing population growth)
2. Traders, for income and for population growth in slow growing settlements.
3. Mines, if available, for income.

After this, I am open to persuasion and, if there are other Senators of the same view as Senator Laevinius, I will prioritise auxiliary buildings.

Obviously, Tarentum is a separate case - as potentially the finest port available to use, I believe it is essential to work towards establishing naval facilities there.

However, I oppose your motion, good Senator. I repeat - we have the capacity to raise the core of a legion (1 velite, 1 hastati, 1 princeps) each season. But we do not have currently have the income to sustain such a level of recruitment. My building priorities will give us the income we need. In the meantime, I maintain that our scarce resources be devoted to establishing armourers in our Roman provinces, so that what troops we do raise have superior equipment to their enemies.