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

[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

[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??

[Dutch_guy]

(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.

I was visting Rome* as Part of a school excursion, If I'm right I still have a couple of hours which I do intend to use, to play the battle

I was hoping to let you all know where I was going the day before I left, but at that exact time the Guild was taken of the net for an upgrade (or for repairs). Just for the record, I left thursday a week ago, and the Guild was out wednesday evening.

I do apolosgise for causing such a hassle, and I do thank all those who were maybe even willing to bend the rules for me. I do appreciate it, really. But I do agree, rules are there to keep the show running, so had I not shown up, I'd have respected the decision to keep the show running and auto resolve the battle. However, it's a good thing such an action won't be necessary.

On a side note, have fun on your trip Simon

I'm off to play the battle

* Pictures may be posted in due time

[Dutch_guy]

Okay, here's the post-battle save:

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/pbm/...-utica-fin.rar

Just so we can move on before the battle report is posted (this weekend, or today) I am pleased to say Utica is ours, the city is enslaved and every Cartheginian soldier is dead. We lost about 180 soldiers, mostly Gaullic mercenaries.

Read more in the battle report.

[Lucjan]

I thought this was a pretty cool screenie, wanted to share it. It's from my, oh, I don't know, 500th Battle of Pavia. lol

Keep up the quality CA!
I demand it!
*Marks November 10th as a holy day.*

French Gendarmes assaulting Spanish Musketeers, German Arquebusiers charge to relieve the Spanish.




EDIT - Also, while playing on rtr v1.7 as Illyria, I noticed the Macedonians I was assaulting in Bylasora had a unit of cretan archers with 3 silver chevrons, silver weaponry, and gold armor. Myself, curious as to how much of an enormous amount of money this mercenary group had to be costing them, right clicked them. The unit card said Upkeep: 5. Yes, FIVE. This is on medium camp difficulty, very hard battle difficulty. Can somebody please explain to me this blatant cheatery on the part of the computer, and also, why even on medium, the ai's diplomacy in rtr sucks beyond compare.

Arthurian total war somehow harnassed diplomacy in such a realistic manner that I was astounded, why can't RTR do so?

[Lucjan]

Total nonsense, that's what it is!

GRRRRR, this is ridiculous already. Macedon had a FULL stack of those 3 silver chevron units, rhodian slingers, cretan archers, mercenary hoplites, I've spent three full stacks trying to dislodge this ridiculous army from Ratiaria.

EDIT - Ok, I had always assumed the ai cheated in all the campaigns I ever played, but on medium difficulty, I just watched it pull 5 heavily diminished units, that did not previously exist in Ratiaria (I just besieged and lost a battle against it and have a spy right next to it, they were NOWHERE anywhere even remotely near it), units not part of Ratiaria's ZoR, out of Ratiaria and move them a few spaces east.

[Dutch_guy]

Just wanted to post that my (two)battle reports are underway, and yes, I did convert everything to jpeg format.

[Glaucus]

Ok, I had always assumed the ai cheated in all the campaigns I ever played

YEA! And have you ever noticed how if the enemy capture a settlement, and you take it back a season later... there are miraculously 3 temples and a level 2 auxilia building?!?!?! They lie cheat and steal I tell you!

[Lucjan]

Most certainly, but that full stack army of 3 silver chevron uber equipped macedonian slingers and peltasts and hoplites... AAAAGGGGHHHHHH.

I quit the rtr 1.7 version until that kind of garbage is fixed.

I'm sticking with Arthurian Total War, which works, and works realistically.

By the way, first consul report is out.

EDIT - Alright..there are SOOOOO many females being born it's almost impossible to keep track of them all. Can we only report the male births, as they're the only ones that can become playable characters anyway? It's just a pain in the butt tracking down 3 or 4 parents every consular report for characters we can't use.

[TinCow]

I'll do an update on the family members section of the Library tonight. Frankly, I think you can ignore all births unless you want to mention them otherwise. I know how much of a pain all that stuff can be and I'm impressed with just how much you continue to report on.

[Lucjan]

Really short consular report up now. Ugghhh..so busy, don't worry though, game is progressing, Marcellus has the save file now.

[Mount Suribachi]

TinCow, who you taking as your new avatar?

[TinCow]

I will be taking Cnaeus Caprarius and will continue in the Lower House. The crippled chap was rather tempting, but I think it's inappropriate to have him be a Lower House general given his -4 movement rate.

[Dutch_guy]

I will be taking Cnaeus Caprarius and will continue in the Lower House. The crippled chap was rather tempting, but I think it's inappropriate to have him be a Lower House general given his -4 movement rate.

Agreed, although I'd imagine it would make for some nice in-battle stories