The Will of the Senate PBM - out of character thread IV

[Lucjan]

I was playing around with a german campaign to see how they played on our set of mods and found this in the british isles.



Nice to know that even though the goal of the mod was realism, the rtr team still had a sense of humor!

[Tamur]

That's a barrel of laughs, methinks.

[econ21]

Just to let people know, I will be away from 20th October to 6th November.
EDIT: And so joining the Upper House until 7th November.

TinCow has kindly agreed to be the acting Senate Speaker during that period - as I do, he will roleplay the Speaker as a separate character from his general; Verginius won't be Senate Speaker. He will also oversee any administrative issues that may arise with the PBM, but from past experience, I suspect things will look after themselves.

If anyone needs to invoke any moderating powers (e.g. editing threads) etc then Myrddraal is the other forum moderator, but again, I doubt that will be necessary.

[Tamur]

Those warlocks got me thinking: what if someone modded a unit to basically be an energy sink? i.e. 0 attack, extremely high defence... they would be the ultimate "pinning" unit because once engaged, they would never die, and never kill their enemies! I think these drumstick-wielding fellows are the prime candidates for such a position.

OK, sorry back to our regularly scheduled programme...

[Lucjan]

And the game would lose all of it's fun factor, because you'd have a unit that could never die... boring.

[Tamur]

Very true, and I speak from experience because I just tried it with Gallic peasants. I'm not sure why I thought such a thing would be enjoyable, but it's pretty insanely dull. Don't try this at home.

[Lucjan]

I remember vanilla spartan hoplites being disgusting though too...they basically did not die unless you mass cavalry charged them in the back half a dozen times.

[StoneCold]

From what I understand from Lucjan's statement in the deliberation tread, you meant to conquer all of Carthagian land by the end of your term? I was hoping for a little more drawn out battle on that front, a mini 3rd Punic war, where after a short truce, we finally wipe them out. If you take them out now, or at least their most profitable and coastal cities, it will make it hard for them to mount a credible challenge again, and that front will be dull again. :P

Just my 2cents worth of opinion, I always keep the enemies alive to spice things up abit in my game. :P

[Tamur]

Too late I realise I didn't understand the seconding part of the midterm motions. Apparently some motions were not seconded enough? My fault for not asking earlier.

I'm not worried about the amendment, I can see where that would be a real pain in the * (asterisk) for the consul. I just want to understand so that NEXT time around I'll actually do something instead of wonder what the format and end is for deliberations.

[econ21]

Too late I realise I didn't understand the seconding part of the midterm motions. Apparently some motions were not seconded enough? My fault for not asking earlier.

Yes, two seconders are needed - I tried to prompt people about that:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=444

But there's always next time.

[Lucjan]

It's simply not worth trying to draw a conflict out over a couple years in Carthage. It's a waste of time, resources, and positioning of our lower house generals when you consider the more volatile borders will soon switch immediately to the east and Iberia. Iberia will be ready for war soon, and the Seleucids and Ptolemites won't stop trying to take their land back. If we can flatten Carthage in its entirety now, it'll save everybody one huge headache.

[Ignoramus]

Can I join this again? I'll need someone to update me on what's happened while I've been gone.

[econ21]

Can I join this again? I'll need someone to update me on what's happened while I've been gone.

I can't quite remember where you left off. But basically, we finished off Macedon and Greece, but in doing so came into contact with Ptolemy and Seleucia. Both declared war on us with a few turns of "first contact". Things were tense for a bit - we lost two Co-Consuls in battle - but the situation in the east has now stabilised with us holding the west end of Asia Minor. The present Consul, Lucjan, has torn the heart out of Carthage. Iberia is the main power we are in contact with who has not attacked us.

[Braden]

Ignoramus,

I can’t remember if you were a Lower member and had the full mods installed or not??

If you were, then it would certainly pay you to upload the latest save file and have a look at the campaign map.

As Econ21 said, I’ve been a very busy boy in defeating Seleucia and Ptolemy locally so you’ll see a large amount or new regions that we control since the last time you joined us. Mostly to the East (Greece and onwards).

Also an important thing to look at would be what armies we have now, where they are and who’s controlling them.

Unfortunately the Senate Library isn’t up to date. So the best method to get up to speed would be to look at the newest save file if you can.

[Mount Suribachi]

So I'm wondering. Um, where are the Elephants? Invading Carthage I expected to hear of these great beasts trampling our armies. When I played RTW as the Scipii, Carthage had plenty of Elephants, yet I don't think we've encountered one unit of them.

Furthermore, in my Bactria game, I just cannot seem to be able to build them. I have tons of supposedly Elephant producing provinces, yet can't seem to make them. I've come across just 1 unit of Elephant mercs available for hire, and you can't bribe all the elephant containing armies in India.

[Tamur]

They all went on a forray after bananas which has led them to Brazil. The unit is now called Irritado Elephants (yet another RTW anachronism, egads), mainly because the natives hide the bananas.

I think the 1.5 patch added it as part of the M2TW's Americas-map marketing plan. I could be wrong though...

[Lucjan]

Woah, what?

As far as I know, elephants are fairly moot to the ai's strategy.

[Lucjan]

(Sorry, dutch guy has exceeded his pm storage space, so I'm posting his orders here. And before Augustus has a fit IC in the deliberations, because I know he'll check up on Servius, the proceeds from the demolished provincial barracks in Utica will be spent on that silly hippodrome and the small temple canceled out.)

Utica should not present much difficulty for a man of your caliber. Crush the defenders, enslave the population.

Good luck Flavius, though I doubt you'll need it.

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/pbm/253-win-utica.zip

[Avicenna]

I would like to propose motion 11.01: the consul send a representative to the republic to the tin isles with the intent of recruiting an army of NOWONMAI WARLOCKS

[Tamur]

I second the motion! *pounds on the deck of the ship*

[Lucjan]

In the spirit of staying IC, I have to beligerantly oppose both of you, attempt to demean you, assault your intelligence and then go ahead and recruit the warlocks anyway! But use them somewhere completely different than where the motion stated they were to be used in.

Ahh, I love my character. Servius may need some serious in regards to personality disorders, but he's a genius in that sick, cynical mastermind kind of way. Servius Lecter anyone?

[econ21]

(Sorry, dutch guy has exceeded his pm storage space, so I'm posting his orders here. And before Augustus has a fit IC in the deliberations, because I know he'll check up on Servius, the proceeds from the demolished provincial barracks in Utica will be spent on that silly hippodrome and the small temple canceled out.)

Utica should not present much difficulty for a man of your caliber. Crush the defenders, enslave the population.

Good luck Flavius, though I doubt you'll need it.

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/pbm/253-win-utica.zip

I have a bad feeling about this. Dutch_guy has not logged onto the Org since 11th October. I'll be surprised if he makes the 48 hour deadline.

I suspect he is a busy student in real life and am a bit reluctant to see him subject to the full Publius Laevinus treatment. I suggest that, if possible, Lucjan cancel the attack and arrange for another general to handle it later. But if people want to autoresolve, you could do that. Henceforth Dutch_guy should be treated as being in the Upper House until he signs back in here.

It's probably a good idea to check before giving a battle to someone who's not been around for a bit. Two days may seem like a life-time to some of us Org addicts, but for other folk it can slip by in no time at all.

Of course, Dutch_guy may pick up the savegame shortly and prove me wrong, but I'm off on my travels soon and just wanted to prepare for the contingency.

[flyd]

Have a good trip. We'll do our best not to break this PBM while you're away. I can't, however, guarantee Alexander's safety, although he may be ok now that Servius keeps insisting on drawing the entire Senate's ire towards himself.

[Braden]

How does everyone feel about a “Deputising” system being put in place?

For example: in this instance Dutch_guy (someone who’s been a regular, a backbone of this forum game for a good long time), is away from contact for over a week and has a battle pending.

Now, what I propose IDEALLY is that if a member knows they will be away for a set period of time and are a member in the Lower House (i.e. a holiday period) they can Deputise another Lower House member to effectively “play them”.

This can be both in-game as their Avatar fighting their battles and as their character in the Senate OR could be just as their Avatar fighting battles and they keep quiet in the Senate floor.

However, if an unexpected inability to play the game (potentially as has occurred with Dutch_guy) should happen then there can be a pool of volunteers to fight the battle for them at short notice.

Most of us don’t want to see the re-occurance of the hearings I conducted on a regular basis, though, it has to be said that was fun in itself I foresee it happening quite often as the game advances on in time OOC.

As we stand the game is libel to take months (perhaps a year even!) to draw to a complete close, and that length of time lends itself to people being away for long periods of time due to – computer problems, connection issues, holidays, illness etc.

Of course, IF someone is on-line and logged in on a Regular Basis but still fails to play a battle within the 48 hours I propose they still get an Auto-resolve result and live with the consequences!

So, to recap and form it so it can be worded as a “Rule”:

1 (a) - Lower House Players are asked that if they are aware of scheduled Holidays or other issues that will prevent them logging into the Forums for a period greater than 48 hours or playing the campaign game for the same period, they are to notify the player base in the OOC Thread. A player can be allocated either by pre-arrangement directly by themselves or from a pool of volunteers, another player to cover their in-game time for this period.

It is up to the absent player to discuss the details of this cover with their Deputy (i.e. Do they also want them to speak for them in the Senate as well?).

1 (b) – Should an “unknown” absence from the forums occur for a period greater than 4 days for a Lower House player, a member of the Deputies will take control of that players Avatar on a temporary basis until their next log-in is registered. These Deputisements will only encompass the Playing through of the absent players avatars own battles and NOT Senate deliberations/discussions.

1 (c) – Supplemental Rules 1 (a) and 1 (b) do NOT apply when:

The “absent” player is continuing to Log-in to and/or post (either IC or OOC) to the .org website. Should a player still be “logged-in” and does not respond to PM’s regarding the allocation of a Battle in-game within the ruled 48 hour window, they will still be libel to an Auto-resolve result AND any IC repercussions of that result.


Does this sound ok, will it be acceptable as a compromise?

_______________________________________________________

[Mount Suribachi]

No, I like us to be forced to autoresolve now and then. Means we might occasionally lose a battle (or at least take some casualties).

Think of a LH general being away leading to an autoresolve as being our equivalent of Napoleon at Borodino

[econ21]

On reflection, I agree with Mount - let's stick to the rules and autoresolve if Dutch_guy does not show up. We have enough active players to fight most our battles if we take care over it. However, players and the Consul should be alert to the risks of no shows.

But my earlier point about not being too hard on players overtaken by real life still stands.

[Braden]

Econ, What's your contingency plan whilst your away?

.......actually, why are you still HERE??

[Lucjan]

Actually Dutch Guy contacted me in pm over night, I just got his message now and told him to check here for his save file. I think he'll be fine.

[Braden]

If everyone's ok as it stands then I'm happy. Afterall, I can't afford "holidays" so it won't effect me *sniff*

[Lucjan]

I have a holiday coming up in november, but for me, holiday means staying at home and getting as much gaming is as possible.