Re: Historical Romani AAR/ Journal
I have played one partial game following @QuintusSertorius' Guide to Conduct Becoming of a True Roman (Redux for EB) and his suggested historically-accurate Roman conquest timeline. What follows is an attempt to distill this experience together with some research into a variant of these rules, which I then hope to apply to an actual game. As the game progresses, so will the rules. I'll also be quite open on what details I'm uncertain about, so if anyone following the thread wants to offer a suggestion, I'm all ears.
Apart from Quintus' work, I'll occasionally refer to @candelarius' Ultimate Guide to Playing RTR Historically as the Roman and to other relevant threads I've found. Many MANY thanks to all these RTW fans for their work and research. I'm a latecomer to this discussion, and whatever refinements I suggest -- to the timeline, the treatment of conquered cities etc. very much build upon these prior efforts. On the other hand, wherever I choose to ignore the original guidelines it's purely as a matter of taste -- because I think it'll leave me more room to focus on those parts of the game that I personally find more fun.
Difficulty and Scope
I agree with Quintus that a good setting for a historical Romani campaign is H/M.
As far as the historical flow of the game goes, the EB requirements for Marian and Augustan reforms could IMO be amended to reflect historical realities and timing more closely. In particular, while there certainly was an element of personality that led to both sets of reforms, they also resulted from social and economic pressures of Roman growth. To reflect this, I'm inclined to have a pair of alternative requirements for each: one with the right man for the job, which can kick in earlier & with fewer requirements on territory, buildings, etc., and one not dependent on the existence of a character, triggering a few decades later & with higher requirements. Something similar is in place now for Marian reforms but I'd like to refine it. I'll revisit this in more detail when I look into how to implement it.
If I ever reach 14 CE I will be tempted to mod the game to play a few decades more, say until the end of the reign of Claudius to round out the borders & conquer Britain, or until Vespasian & the revolt in Judea. If it ever comes to this I suspect modding it will be pretty easy. The funnest part would be simulating the reign of Caligula: hold games everywhere until bankrupt, disband (read: sink) the fleet, execute random family members, then recover best I can 4 years down the road. And Nero? Burn the city and blame it on Christians?
Finally, it's fun to speculate how the game would unfold from the POV of Rome if it were to start 3-4 decades earlier, when the Hellenistic empires had just formed and when Rome was still hard-pressed by the Samnites, taking up only Rome and Capua. This will remain just speculation, though, as it would require significant adjustments to the starting setup of the game.
Family Members
Although my main focus in strategy games is not hard core role-playing, I do pay some attention to the "lives" of the characters. The life histories of Roman men, as outlined by Quintus, run as follows:
- 16-19: Stay in Rome and get some education.
- 20-29: Get down & dirty as an army lieutenant.
- 30-37: Go back to Rome & serve in the government.
- 38-: Lead armies and govern settlements.
This outline makes a lot of sense and I tend to stick to it, although in the very beginning there aren't that many characters around, so the results get a little strange. For example, there is a teenager who needs to go to Rome to school right away in 272 BCE, but when all the older characters are off on campaign in 270 he effectively ends up governing Rome. Also, again in the early stages of the game, I find it convenient to put available younger characters (typically 30+) in charge of smaller settlements rather than leave them ungoverned. These restrictions of course do not apply to client rulers, where I tend to take whomever the game gives me -- usually a dude in his early 20s.
As far as suitors go, I tend to accept only those high in two or more of the three main traits (intelligence, charisma & vigor), and among older ones (35+), only those who have some accomplishments to their name. RTW, perhaps understandably, doesn't offer all that much in terms of women's rights, but forcing teenage girls to marry middle-aged losers is where I draw the line. Despite all the pious pronouncements about obedient Roman daughters, I'd bet this policy amounted to both good politics & good parenthood then, too.
While we're at it, can a woman rule Egypt in RTW?
Economy
I like to play a builder game. This is IMO somewhat in character: the earliest remains of public infrastructure in Rome suggest that it was out of proportion to the city's relatively minor size and importance at the time, so the legendary kings apparently subscribed to the principle "if you build it, they will come." As Rome expanded, it was apt to cast its conquests as a civilizing mission. In the early days, and certainly more than those who later coined the phrase, Romans seemed to have meant it, bringing the benefits of their technology and public works, and later citizenship, to the governed.
Playing a builder game means, no surprise, having all cities building something at all times. Of course, this is impossible early on when income is relatively low because the empire is still small and roads & markets relatively primitive, as well as during major military engagements when army maintenance costs are high. It does imply, then, that civilian building priorities are those that increase income, in other words, exactly in line with Quintus' suggestions: roads, markets, commercial docks. Departing from Quintus, however, it also means the taxes are set to the highest level allowed by public sentiment & population growth, usually Very High.
Very High taxes curb pop growth, which reduces it somewhat closer to realistic figures, and means that building projects can keep up with settlement size more easily. However, as RTW ties building choices to pop size, certain minimum pop thresholds need to be reached more quickly for the purposes of infrastructure. In particular, paved roads & highways are a must for Roman legions, so I like to keep growth at 2% or more for settlements under 6,000, between 1% and 2% until 12,000, and at a trickle afterwards. The upshot of this is that, after a while, it's difficult to avoid a certain uniformity among settlements.
The construction of other buildings, then, follows the need to balance between keeping growth adequate and taxes all the way up. In practice this means healers, sanitation, and baths pretty quickly in smaller settlements, and farming & religious buildings roughly in proportion to settlement size. In the rare cases where I get to start building temples from scratch, I try to follow the few historical precedents I'm aware of (Juno in Carthage), honor gods underrepresented in other cities, and otherwise trust my hunches on what may give me tactical advantage and appeal to the masses :)
Both Quintus and the game agree that Romans should be able to build hospitals and guard posts only in the Augustan era. I wrote a simple mod that enforces this limitation, details below.
Diplomacy
I'm totally on board with the instructions from the Diplomacy section of Quintus' guide: send diplomats out early, establish trading rights ASAP, don't ask for money for trading rights, trade maps only for maps, always ask for money for peace, and overall try to be a global power broker.
Where I depart from Quintus is the use of Force Diplomacy and the console to nudge other factions to behave more-or-less historically, in which I'm considerably more conservative. It's not that I'm opposed to this or that "it feels like cheating" -- I think Quintus justification is totally legit -- but for me personally, the role of deus ex machina in other factions' affairs ultimately took away from the game. Saying "Oh, it's 240 BCE, let me take Lilibeo off Carthage's hands" felt too easy, like I was forcing the game to be a historical reenactment when it didn't want to be. After thinking it over, the following guidelines seem reasonable:
Use the console only to:
- Clear the fog of war every so often, provided other factions refuse to trade maps. The ancient world was economically well-connected and news of faraway territorial changes would usually spread.
- Donate a token amount of money to a faction, to be used as payment for territory I'm about to hand over (see Force Diplomacy below), provided they are totally broke.
- Donate cash to an opposing faction whom I'm strengthening with a script-generated army (see Historical Event Submods below), corresponding to the upkeep of the army for a set number of turns.
Use Force Diplomacy only to:
- Hand over a conquered territory to another faction in exchange for a token payment, provided the territory is one of their target territories and they keep refusing it as a gift or in trade.
- Gain military access from an ally whom I'm clearly helping, provided they keep refusing to do so, in exchange for military access to my own lands.
- Make peace with an intransigent ahistorical aggressor, provided they aren't making any actual progress in their campaigns and are primarily a nuisance.
In particular, I don't expect to use Force Diplomacy to take territory, even if the goal is to pass it to someone else. Also,
- If a faction is being steamrolled by another and I want to stop it, I'll donate them money from the Roman treasury rather than via the console, or actually intervene.
- If it's the right year in history to acquire a territory by treaty and it isn't forthcoming, I'll attempt to conquer it in the least destructive manner possible
.
Armies and Tactics
Romans used to say "res ad triarios venit" -- the matter has come down to the triarii -- when things are fought to the bitter end, and playing historically is a sure way to discover what they meant. I've found that RTW battle dynamics that arise from traditional Roman army composition, formations and tactics are nothing short of fascinating and well worth the trouble. That said, research into army organization is not my main interest -- I'm more into the interplay between conquest & economy -- so I'm happy to defer to the original guides in this regard. Both Quintus and Candelarius did an amazing job at it -- and while Candelarius' guide is for RTR, many of his guidelines adapt easily to EB. I cannot overstate the fun & challenge of putting together part-Roman, part-allied armies early in the game and managing their interplay in battles following these guides.
Since the numbers of allied and Roman troops early on need to be in balance, and Romans preferred levies to mercenaries, an important bulding priority in freshly captured territorries are regional MICs. Check the Recruitment Viewer to avoid spending money and building time in vain: regional MICs are useless in the starting five provinces, and some towns (Alalia, Karali) provide no new regional units past level 1 or 2. Still, in most cities lower levels provide adequate garrison troops, and I've found it great to build level 3 ASAP in places such as Taras (Bruttian infantry, classical hoplites, Hellenistic cavalry) and Bononia (Gallic archers and spearmen). These two MICs in particular don't work forever as both eventually become home provinces, but until that time (~75 years) they are an invaluable source of inexpensive, capable allied units.
I agree with not replenishing ground troops by retraining, as it doesn't seem to dilute their experience. Throwing money at an undermanned army shouldn't generate new silver-chevron soldiers in 3 months no matter how much one invests. This may turn out to be a significant disadvantage in Alex, where the AI apparently does retrain its troops, and I wish it were possible to mod the game to forbid retraining ground troops altogether. I see no problem with retraing navies, though, or with retraining to upgrade weapons and armor. In fact I try to do so as soon as possible.
A few notes on tactics. Keep the infantry in guard mode, especially when assaulting cities, and expect losses. The first wave of hastati against enemy foot will get roughed up, particularly in narrow spaces where it's hard or impossible to flank the opponent. Take it in stride -- one of the secrets of early Roman success was the simple fact of manpower they could afford to lose because they had the capacity to replenish it. In the realm of ranged troops, for those coming to EB from vanilla RTW it comes as a bit of a surprise that you can not just survive but thrive without archers. This is even more true in historical play where legions depend on locally available units. Still, even in Gaul where Sotaroas are available I tend to balance them out with slingers, unless I'm up against barbarians in force and want to shake them up with fire.
As far as cavalry goes, it will feel strange to let one's general just sit back and watch the battle, but that's what it takes. I suppose I'd throw him in if it would make a difference between a win and a loss, and while I've had close calls, it's never come to that. Even so, I probably tend to use cavalry more than historically. True, default Equites aren't much to write home about, and all Roman cavalry in RTW has an unsettling tendency to disregard orders and seek out the nearest enemy spear that can get them mauled in short order. However, when closely supervised, Campanian cavalry is versatile, and most cavalry can chase away enemies' ranged troops, protect one's own, and occasionally set a death trap for the opposing general. Additionally, taking a page from Macedon, charging infantry even with inferior Roman cavalry can reap dividends despite losses. These diminish after Greek cavalry units become available.
Finally there's the question of army unit size. In history this varied over time in a way that's difficult to represent in the game without throwing off the balance. According to Wikipedia, which in turn cites The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History by Pat Southern, the size of a full-strength Camillan maniple was 60 soldiers, Polybian maniple 120, Marian cohors 80. At the same time, the size of the legions increased. As far as I see it, there are at least three viable options and it boils down to a personal preference between them:
- Use Large units (base size=80) to reflect Marian cohorts and as a compromise size for earlier armies.
- Use Huge units (base size=160) to better reflect the size of the legions.
- Mod the game for base size=120 to reflect Polybian armies, and as compromise between these two options.
Whichever the base size is, Polybian triarii are half as big, which is easily accomplished by editing export_descr_unit.txt as described here.
EB Submods
The submods to EB I'm employing and/or writing can be broadly divided into three categories:
- Existing submods, those already written or described in detail by others.
- General Romani realism mods, those that can be applied to EB no matter the faction of the human player.
- Roman historical event mods, those that assume that the Romani are played historically by the human player.
Existing Submods
I like to tiptoe rather than leap into submods. Even if it were otherwise, I'd be forced to do so these days because, sadly, many of the links on the forums are dead either of age or due to the recent crackdown on download sites. The choice is made easier also because, while I am a fan of eye candy, I don't go out of my way obtaining graphics mods -- the game is immersive & addictive enough as it is. I'm using, considering, or have considered using the following mods:
- In: @Maksimus' Alex for EB, engine-only version, with thanks for his amazing instructions.
- In: @Jarardo's Force Diplomacy, as discussed above.
- I'd love to try @Lysander's compilation of formation submods, but downloading them seems mighty difficult these days.
- Still considering @JMRC's win conditions, reading up on how they affect the game.
- Need to try out @Atraphoenix' Realist Movement Mod. I'd love to make the game more dynamic, especially if it's more realistic, but I'm concerned it may throw off the balance.
- Considered @V.T. Marvin's Spoils of Victory but decided against it. The Roman state will let its soldiers keep the spoils they rightfully earned.
Thanks to @jirisys and @||Lz3|| for their great compilations I'm picking apart for ideas!
General Romani Submods
These modifications are fairly small and arise logically out of Romani historical house rules. They also comprise my todo list for hacking the game; I eventually expect to put them together into a Romani Historicity mini-mod of some sorts. Here are the changes that come to mind, in order of importance -- and therefore, also, likelihood of being implemented:
- Done: Halve Polybian triarii unit size. Here is the DIY, I did it slightly differently.
- Done: Bar Rome from building Hospitals and Guard Posts before the Augustan era. I found that the best way to this was to adjust the upgrade sequence of Town Garrison buildings -- will write a separate post about it.
- Next: Quincunx player formation in line with Quintus' and Candelarius' instructions, or as close to it as the engine allows.
- Probable: Change requirements for Marian and Augustan reforms, as discussed above.
- Maybe: Change end date to 54 CE or early 70s CE along with winning conditions, as discussed above. I doubt I'll get this far.
Roman Historical Event Submods
In simple English, enemy armies appearing on schedule. Since I'm not adopting Quintus' approach of donating cash to my enemies and waiting for them to send armies at me, I expect to be building little scripts such as this one to give Roman legions some work :). I have little experience in writing these so I'll take them one by one, and keep a rough tally here. I expect my first chore in this regard will be Xanthippus.
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Originally Posted by ZombiVoziKombi
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