The Will of the Senate - out of character thread II

[econ21]

econ21, motion 8.7 has two seconders.

And 8.12 it seems. Apologies, I missed your post where you seconded them and another motion. I've posted an extra thread so people can vote on those two motions.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Just a note.

I know that some of you have been (in-character) complaining about the threat of Iberia and us not doing anything about it but I personally think when the time comes and we finally fight 'em, it will make for one awesome war.

It's been hard to justify putting it off while role-playing, but I've somehow managed to adopt a "let them come/I'm a greedy *#%! who wants the Aegean" platform.

[Avicenna]

GAH!

Take those Spaniards now I say! The best footballers in the world play there!

[Silver Rusher]

That's a very good argument GeneralHankerchief, but I think that we should begin to take a more populous stance on our affairs, by which I mean concerning ourselves with the welfare of our own people. IMO this is far more realistic than simply expansionism.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

The real reason for my resignation is that I just can't stand the thought of yet another bridge battle . I expect Silver Rusher (Senator Gnaeus Hordeonius, a tribune in my legion) might be up for some battle experience. I'm quite interested in trying to develop my avatar as a brilliant administrator instead. Nothing of interest will happen on the western front the next few years anyway. I also feel it will be in-character for Lucius Aemilius to resign now all his plans have been voted down.

And it sure seemed to bring some activity to the debate

[flyd]

And it sure seemed to bring some activity to the debate

Oh, it will. Over the first half of my term, I found we had fewer active lower house members than the ideal number of independent armies I'd like to have had. So, I'm not letting you resign without a fight!

On an unrelated matter, there seems to be something a bit funky with the traits. Coruncanius was Legate with 20 years experience trait. Did not command an army at one point, got Former Legate trait. Started commanding an army again, got a Field Army banner, but did not get a new rank trait. Another strange (and perhaps related) thing is that while he gained a Field Army banner, he never lost his II Legion banner. Something seems amiss.

[TinCow]

Field Army is given when a character is eligible for Praetor. It doesn't matter if a Legion banner is present nor will it remove a Legion banner.

As for him not getting Praetor... do we already have two of them? A quick count shows that we have 26 provinces, which would give us a max of 2 Praetors. If we already have two, then no character can get a third. If this is the case, perhaps Praetor rank should only be given by Senatorial vote.

On a side note, does anyone know how to use scripts/console commands to change diplomacy? I've searched the Org and RTR forums and none of the stuff I've found works. force_diplomacy and diplomatic_stance both seem like they could do the job, but I can't get them to actually work. I want to force a ceasefire between my faction and two others in a SP game I have going. The other two factions share no border with me and never attack me, but since they are in perpetual war with me, they don't go after anyone else, effectively removing them from the game since they don't do anything. I think making them neutral to me would make them re-analyze their position and move against their neighbors.

[flyd]

We have no Praetors at this time.

[TinCow]

My only advice then would be to make sure everything is being done properly. Make sure the character is a Former Legate and does not have an active rank. Put him in the field in command of an army that includes infantry. Make sure that he has more command stars than any other general in that stack. In that situation, if he has 20 years of service, he should be promoted to Praetor as long as he has a banner of some kind on him (Legion, Field, Consular). To check, save and click through a few turns quickly to see if he gets it.

If he doesn't...

[TinCow]

double post

[Avicenna]

force_diplomacy_accept?

Most of the cheats don't seem to work, though.

[Silver Rusher]

I have begun to realise that we are winning our battles far too easily. It is unrealistic for us to have such a huge advantage simply because we have human commanders. Come on people, think about it! If the odds on us to win battles are any less than 4-1 we win them! If we give the AI a chance in these battles then I believe it will make this PBeM far, far, far more fun to play.

And so I propose that we change the battle difficulty to either H or VH. Sure, it doesn't improve the command ability of the AI but it will force us to think much more carefully about our actions if their armies are a bit souped up. The increase in morale of Ai armies makes up fine for the lack of command strength. At the next interrim session I will propose this as an OOC motion.

Thoughts?

[x-dANGEr]

Bad bad idea Silver.. Just now, it takes a lot to rout a hoplite unit, and believe me, fighting it all that period with it having +9 attack, +6 defence is absurd.. It is easy in vanilla, because units rout there, but here in RTR no no bad idea..

[Silver Rusher]

Bad bad idea Silver.. Just now, it takes a lot to rout a hoplite unit, and believe me, fighting it all that period with it having +9 attack, +6 defence is absurd.. It is easy in vanilla, because units rout there, but here in RTR no no bad idea..

So you would rather play a game where we have only ever lost a single battle?

Come on guys, lets think about this. The game is completely biased on us because we have human commanders. You say that it takes a lot to route a hoplite unit. Why is it, then, that we are constantly able to defeat huge hordes of hoplite units while sustaining few casualties? I find these easy victories detract from the real spirit of the game, where we actually have to be very careful about our invasions etc. etc.

[Avicenna]

It's the only way we can deal with their stacks, which are almost as numerous as TS's spam posts.

[Silver Rusher]

It's the only way we can deal with their stacks, which are almost as numerous as TS's spam posts.

Lol

But anyway, back to my argument, if this was true history we would not be attacking these people anyway because their armies are too strong and powerful. We would actually have to think much more carefully about our wars, at some points not even making any war at all.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

We have no Praetors at this time.

As far as I understood it you do not get the Praetor trait, just the field army banner. Not 100 % sure about this.

[econ21]

Personally, I'd like to stick to the difficulty levels we currently have. In this mod, we don't have an edge in command stars over the AI, so the unit match ups on medium battles are "realistic".

If people want harder battles, I think we should fight with Praetorian armies (half stacks) except for those with the Consular army banner (only one such banner right now, two max). Maybe Field Army banners could be 3/4 stacks (Praetorian + some local troops?).

When I fought a full stack of Carthaginians in Sardinia with half a stack of my own, it was a very tense battle. The casualty figures don't really reveal it, but it could easily have gone the other way. Ditto at Apollonia - we did actually lose that, I only "won" with a timer exploit.

On VH campaigns, if we are fighting away from home, it is easy for our stacks to get whittled down by repeated full stacks of AI troops. Marching a Praetorian army into southern Greece would be very risky, for example.

The real reason for my resignation is that I just can't stand the thought of yet another bridge battle . I expect Silver Rusher (Senator Gnaeus Hordeonius, a tribune in my legion) might be up for some battle experience.

I think Silver Rusher is still in the Upper House - when he installs the mod, I'm happy to move him down. The Massila ford sounds a perfect posting for a budding Tribune. Mount Suribachi and x-DANGEr fit the bill. Quintus or his successor would be up for it too.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

On diplomacy, this might be what you are looking for, TinCow :

http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=21614

[GeneralHankerchief]

We must Strike for the South

*massive groan*

[TinCow]

If you want to do something simple that will make the game much harder, ban Chirugeons from active armies. We'll still win, but many wins will force us to cease expansion until we are reinforced..

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

I've read :
Livy - History of Rome
Suetonius - The Twelve Caesars
Virgil - The Aeneid
Robert Graves - I, Claudius
Robert Graves - Claudius the God

I've seen :
Spartacus (1960)
Ben Hur (1959)
Gladiator (2000)
I, Claudius (1976)
Attila (2001)
Cleopatra (1999)
Julius Ceasar (2002)
Imperium: Augustus (2003)

What else is good ?

[Mount Suribachi]

Are you after recomendations for Roman themed entertainment?

Read: The 6 books in Colleen McCulloughs Masters of Rome series. She's a bit too much of a Julius Caeser fanboy, but I thoroughly enjoyed the books.

Watch: The recent BBC/HBO series "Rome", don't think its out on DVD yet though. Very good (once you get past the first episode which is more like a porn flick with all the gratuitous sex).

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Are you after recomendations for Roman themed entertainment?

Read: The 6 books in Colleen McCulloughs Masters of Rome series. She's a bit too much of a Julius Caeser fanboy, but I thoroughly enjoyed the books.

Watch: The recent BBC/HBO series "Rome", don't think its out on DVD yet though. Very good (once you get past the first episode which is more like a porn flick with all the gratuitous sex).

I'll check into the Masters of Rome. Thanks !
I went looking for 'Rome' the miniseries, but it isn't out yet here *groan*. I saw one episode on the bbc when it was running and I liked it a lot. I don't really mind gratuitous sex all that much

[TinCow]

I'm not sure about acrosss the Pond, but over here Rome comes out on DVD in mid-August. It's on my "must buy" list.

[Avicenna]

Hi everyone, DL'ed RTR.

How do I add the traits to Quintus and co.? I can only find the 'notConsul' trait in the export_descr traits file.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

Hi everyone, DL'ed RTR.

How do I add the traits to Quintus and co.? I can only find the 'notConsul' trait in the export_descr traits file.

Which traits do you mean and why ?

[Avicenna]

The Military experience ones that I can't find, otherwise they can't advance into offices and all, which seems quite stupid.

I think econ found a way to add them in, but I can't find those traits in the export_descr_character_traits file.

EDIT: btw, the link to the Parthian/Bactrian and African landblocks mods is out of date/broken.

[TinCow]

The traits are not from RTR, they are from the 4TPY mod, which you have to install after RTR.

[Avicenna]

Okay, thanks a lot TinCow.