Depicting Imperium in-game

[Quilts]

Hi,

Had some thoughts about depicting the concept of 'Imperium' for the Romani.

'Generally', during the Republic, power was only invested in Consuls to wage wars, but more relevant to my ideas/thoughts, wars in foreign lands. This system began to break down towards the Mid-Late Rebublic for numerous reasons, which can also be taken into account, but I'll stick with the main question to start with. So-

Is it possible, through traiting, to give some feel for this uniquely Roman concept (Imperium) by limiting foreign wars to Consuls, so that if your not a Consul, and in a non-Romani controlled territory, you incur severe penalties to your personal traits/morale (or for EB2, all of the above plus lowered loyalty ).

This would encourage players to only use Consuls for foreign conquests and the AI could get one of those hidden traits that give them more command stars.....maybe?

So before I go any further, can someone with good traiting know-how please answer this question. Much appreciated!

Cheers,

Quilts

[Foot]

Hi,

Had some thoughts about depicting the concept of 'Imperium' for the Romani.

'Generally', during the Republic, power was only invested in Consuls to wage wars, but more relevant to my ideas/thoughts, wars in foreign lands. This system began to break down towards the Mid-Late Rebublic for numerous reasons, which can also be taken into account, but I'll stick with the main question to start with. So-

Is it possible, through traiting, to give some feel for this uniquely Roman concept (Imperium) by limiting foreign wars to Consuls, so that if your not a Consul, and in a non-Romani controlled territory, you incur severe penalties to your personal traits/morale (or for EB2, all of the above plus lowered loyalty ).

This would encourage players to only use Consuls for foreign conquests and the AI could get one of those hidden traits that give them more command stars.....maybe?

So before I go any further, can someone with good traiting know-how please answer this question. Much appreciated!

Cheers,

Quilts

Yes that would be possible, but I can think of two objections. Firstly, it is really really restrictive on how a player plays the game, roleplaying would be far better. Secondly, the roman family tree does not represent all possible roman men, and it is often the case that a player won't have consuls for some number of years. Obviously that doesn't mean that there are no consuls, but essentially Rome would not be able to wage forum wars.

Foot

[Quilts]

Yes that would be possible, but I can think of two objections. Firstly, it is really really restrictive on how a player plays the game, roleplaying would be far better. Secondly, the roman family tree does not represent all possible roman men, and it is often the case that a player won't have consuls for some number of years. Obviously that doesn't mean that there are no consuls, but essentially Rome would not be able to wage forum wars.

Foot

I hear what your saying about the family tree and completely agree. I see a way around that.....but will keep it to myself for now.

Funny, just before posting I was thinking about typing a 'family tree caveat' as a P.S. and thought 'nah, I'll cover that if it comes up'. First reply.....who would have thought.....

Don't agree on the 'restrictive' aspect. If anything, I think it would encourage roleplaying. The replacement of Consuls whose Imperium was not extended (spoiler?????) was a HUGE aspect of 'The Republican Way' and should be encouraged, rather than ignored as inconvenient. But I'll get into the nitty gritty as I expand on my thoughts in later posts.

Thanks for the answer!

Cheers,

Quilts

[Foot]

But you must remember that not everyone plays the same way that you do, and in giving this trait you are forcing them to. I see no reason why roleplaying this aspect of the imperium would not be suitable, as all this is doing is making the player want to use the consuls in foreign wars, which we do already, if that player is so inclined. As far as I can see this adds nothing, except alienates certain players who don't want to roleplay to the same extent as others.

Foot

[Quilts]

But you must remember that not everyone plays the same way that you do, and in giving this trait you are forcing them to. I see no reason why roleplaying this aspect of the imperium would not be suitable, as all this is doing is making the player want to use the consuls in foreign wars, which we do already, if that player is so inclined. As far as I can see this adds nothing, except alienates certain players who don't want to roleplay to the same extent as others.

Foot

I see where your coming from, but differ in my 'conclusion' in that I fail to see what a 'history mod' fails to gain from having the faction played 'somewhat' historically.

Your failure to see what this may add may be because all you've seen is the general shape, but not the detail.....which I will get into in time.

Cheers,

Quilts

[Foot]

I see where your coming from, but differ in my 'conclusion' in that I fail to see what a 'history mod' fails to gain from having the faction played 'somewhat' historically.

Your failure to see what this may add may be because all you've seen is the general shape, but not the detail.....which I will get into in time.

Cheers,

Quilts

I don't think you've really met my objection. If someone wants to play so that the consul can only be used in foreign wars then that mechanism is already there; we give certain generals the consul traits and the player chooses that general to lead the army into foreign wars.

What you are suggesting, and unless your further detail changes this substantially, is to restrict all players so that they must essentially only use the consul to conduct foreign wars, even if those players don't want. That has never once been our project goal. Our game is a sandbox, we give the initial start positions, and try to put some interesting mid-game stuff in as well (eg reforms), but we have never wanted to restrict how a player plays the game.

However, I am ready to listen, so please do go into this in more detail. I'm sure the roman guys will be very interested.

Foot

[fluffyunbound]

Hi,

Had some thoughts about depicting the concept of 'Imperium' for the Romani.

'Generally', during the Republic, power was only invested in Consuls to wage wars, but more relevant to my ideas/thoughts, wars in foreign lands. This system began to break down towards the Mid-Late Rebublic for numerous reasons, which can also be taken into account, but I'll stick with the main question to start with. So-

Is it possible, through traiting, to give some feel for this uniquely Roman concept (Imperium) by limiting foreign wars to Consuls, so that if your not a Consul, and in a non-Romani controlled territory, you incur severe penalties to your personal traits/morale (or for EB2, all of the above plus lowered loyalty ).

This would encourage players to only use Consuls for foreign conquests and the AI could get one of those hidden traits that give them more command stars.....maybe?

So before I go any further, can someone with good traiting know-how please answer this question. Much appreciated!

Cheers,

Quilts

The Republican-era consuls when at war all had access to large numbers of military tribunes and legates.

The non-consul characters can be said to reflect senatorial class figures of those other ranks.

Provincial governors also led armies in the field, and had little problem contriving excuses to engage in foreign wars. These men were former consuls, true, but they didn't have the rank of consul at the moment they were in the field.

[Quilts]

The Republican-era consuls when at war all had access to large numbers of military tribunes and legates.

The non-consul characters can be said to reflect senatorial class figures of those other ranks.

Provincial governors also led armies in the field, and had little problem contriving excuses to engage in foreign wars. These men were former consuls, true, but they didn't have the rank of consul at the moment they were in the field.

Absolutely. Consul is merely the first hurdle I'm trying to tackle in my 'quest' to represent Imperium.....which Provincial Governors had

Trust me when I say it's very much a work in progress, especially as the original concept was more MTW2 mechanics based, but I'm hoping that with a little bit of work it could transfer pretty well to the RTW mechanics as well.

Cheers,

Quilts

[fluffyunbound]

I've wondered about the travel distances myself, beginning with vanilla and proceeding through every mod I've played.

If I ever developed some mod skills, movement points would be the first thing I would change.

I think the problem is that giving units a lot of movement points [particularly fleets] would end up making too much of the map too open to quick strikes by the human player. If the AI could be trusted to fortify choke points, properly defend cities, etc. it would be less of an issue.

Ultimately what is really needed is very high movement point allowances combined with much larger zones of control for fleets [to allow "patrol" fleets to protect long stretches of coast] and with a greater range of terrain difficulty to force the player to use his greater movement points to move along lines of advance that are historical. I think the supply system in EB points you in the right direction [you should have relative freedom of movement in areas that could support forage, but devastating supply penalties if you move out of those areas] but I don't know how to make that happen.

[Foot]

The thing with movement is that the games turns represent 3 months, and within that time most of the immediate world is open to you. In 3 months you could march across gaul quite easily, but this doesn't allow for the fact that the enemy, in those 3 months, could have mobilised defences. Basically, in RTW, the enemy is at your gates before you could reasonably respond.

Foot

[kalkwerk]

Has anyone tried this out? Itd be interesting to see how itd influence the AI.

The human player could still be forced to fortify better and given higher penalties for forced marching.

What Id like at any rate is much more movement for ships.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

A couple comments...
I love playing the Romans. I've tried making Consul lead armies and such, but I couldn't do it. First of all, I don't know who is my Consuls, if I don't remember who was elected the previous spring. (One time, I spent about 10 minutes looking for a Consul, gave up and gave the army to the closes S/C/V guy.) Also, as stated, movements speed. Usually, the guy who gets elected Consul is far from my war. Once I had a guy become Consul in Rome, so I took him north to fight in Gaul and he lost his office before he even got into enemy territory. For me, it usually happens backwards: I make a good general, then he becomes Consul.

There is a restriction on the number of children a guy can have in the starting family tree.

Movement speed is a balance between gameplay and realism.

[Quilts]

A couple comments...
I love playing the Romans. I've tried making Consul lead armies and such, but I couldn't do it. First of all, I don't know who is my Consuls, if I don't remember who was elected the previous spring. (One time, I spent about 10 minutes looking for a Consul, gave up and gave the army to the closes S/C/V guy.) Also, as stated, movements speed. Usually, the guy who gets elected Consul is far from my war. Once I had a guy become Consul in Rome, so I took him north to fight in Gaul and he lost his office before he even got into enemy territory. For me, it usually happens backwards: I make a good general, then he becomes Consul.

I've had this problem myself, as in finding my Consul.....when I actually had one that is. I would hope to solve this problem by them being virtually the only guys with Command stars . Don't shoot me yet!!!!!

In line with my compromise to Foot's objections, what I'm now thinking is that rather than disadvantaging them, rather they don't get the added bonus that the Consul gets. Sort of works really, representing the idea of the Consul moving behind the battle line encourgaing the troops and giving them the belief their actions are being watched and will be rewarded appropriately after the battle.

One of my favourite aspects of EB is the virtual doing away with Command stars, and added morale bonuses. Much more representative, but there's definately something in the Consul (when any good anyway, some may not be due to negative traits) providing a morale/attack boost to the troops he is nearby/encouraging/exhorting to greater bravery. Yes, very Roman according to some historians, particularly Goldsworthy.

There is a restriction on the number of children a guy can have in the starting family tree.

Good to know. Do you know what the actual limit is?

Cheers,

Quilts