Playable Senate?!

[Mamba]

I recently tried to play as the Senate. Obviously, you have to mod the desc_strat file in your RTW directory to unlock this faction, but I have heard testimony that it was impossible to play as the Senate due to bugs or whatever.

I never saw anything like this. Sure, it's difficult to get the Senate off the ground simply because Rome is hemmoraging money like crazy, but managed correctly I saw nothing wrong. I quickly conquered Caralis and Lilybaeum with my considerable standing army and set Rome's tax rate to very high and started having a positive income.

Now, I did locate one bug, and that was the 'Senate' tab on the diplomacy screen. Using the other Roman factions, you would click this tab to see the Senate's status, but, as the Senate, obviously your priorities are different. Upon clicking on this tab, the game immediately crashed to the desktop. However, it would seem to me that if you either a) Never touch that tab, or b) Somehow mod the Senate's game so that that tab is unavailable, the Senate would be a fully playable faction.

What I'd like to know is about any future bugs. Anyone have any info?

[Monarch]

Interesting. Though doesn't sound too appealing to me, I am of course assuming you do not have the ability like the AI Senate has to order missions, send messages etc, I am correct to assume those things are impossible? So yeah, one starting province and you're boxed in by allies....could be a difficult game imo

[Mattisius Carsonius]

...You would have a huge standing army with which to immediately begin conquering.....It would be very interesting to see how the three roman factions respond to you.

Tell us more.

[AntiochusIII]

Erm...as a senate you won't have the power to order around people like the senate once did to you. Sorry, no sweet revenge and proper manipulation of the patriotism of your fellow country, just like you couldn't manipulate the faithful Catholics as a Papal faction in MTW would do if it was A.I.

It is also bugged and I never heard of anyone ever winning the game.

There are also reports of random CTD's, though the consistent "senate tap" one is there no matter what.

Nonetheless, an RTW game doesn't need to be finished, and it's helluva fun to just going around crushing enemies to pieces with your veteran army from the start.

[Mamba]

Erm...as a senate you won't have the power to order around people like the senate once did to you. Sorry, no sweet revenge and proper manipulation of the patriotism of your fellow country, just like you couldn't manipulate the faithful Catholics as a Papal faction in MTW would do if it was A.I.

Yup. Senate just plays like your run of the mill faction, from what I've seen.

It is also bugged and I never heard of anyone ever winning the game.

There are also reports of random CTD's, though the consistent "senate tap" one is there no matter what.

About these bugs. Could I get some examples? As of now I am going to start fresh on RTW now that I've patched up to 1.5 (by that I mean playing each faction on easy, then replaying them on medium, etc.). Following this order, the Senate would fall as 4th, so I'd like to know of any outstanding bugs besides the "senate tap" one. That is one I think I can remedy by some well-placed modification, and if worst comes to worst I can just try my best to avoid it.

[Zatoichi]

I think the main bug is that the game crashes when you get to 50 provinces, so you can't 'win' as the Senate. Other than that, I can't think of any off hand. You may want to check out the modding section here or at the twcenter, as I'm sure this topic has been covered there a lot in the past.