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Res Publica: A Quest of Ancient Rome

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Guys, can you help me out here? Because people are voting without discussing things, and I would really like to know the appeal of Plan Populus. As I see it, it has two main flaws:

- Sure, Sertorius can theoretically help us with law. In practice he won't, because we'll be a staff tribune. The only thing we'll learn in that scenario is war, and that is far from an immediate concern. Not having an education in legal matters, on the other hand, means that we're stuck in our current quagmire, lacking in resources and clients and unable to use fully half our build to its full extent.

- It stakes our career and quite possibly our life on the longshot gamble that a somewhat above average military tribune of no great distinction can butterfly the civil war.

So, am I missing something here? What's the attraction?
 
if we go with Sertorius we're probably going to be forced into choosing between staying with him and going to Spain(which seems like an unwinnable situation to me) or staying in Rome as a known supporter of Sertorius and have to deal with the possibility of proscription. Even if we decide to support the Optimates for the near future it does not mean that we are going to be one forever given the nature of political factions in Rome at the time.
 
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Caesar said:
Guys, can you help me out here? Because people are voting without discussing things, and I would really like to know the appeal of Plan Populus. As I see it, it has two main flaws:

- Sure, Sertorius can theoretically help us with law. In practice he won't, because we'll be a staff tribune. The only thing we'll learn in that scenario is war, and that is far from an immediate concern. Not having an education in legal matters, on the other hand, means that we're stuck in our current quagmire, lacking in resources and clients and unable to use fully half our build to its full extent.

- It stakes our career and quite possibly our life on the longshot gamble that a somewhat above average military tribune of no great distinction can butterfly the civil war.

So, am I missing something here? What's the attraction?
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It's because this thread is full of plebeians.
 
[X] Plan populus romanus

I'm actually pretty excited to have come across this. Seems like this Quest has plenty of potential.
 
All that I ask is that no one attempt to change the short sword of the Roman Legions, the Gladius.

It's just so badass. The Katana? No, it is the Gladius that has cut through the opponents of Rome. Carthage, Greece, Macedonia, Sparta, all have fallen to it at some point or another.
 
Caesar said:
Guys, can you help me out here? Because people are voting without discussing things, and I would really like to know the appeal of Plan Populus. As I see it, it has two main flaws:

- Sure, Sertorius can theoretically help us with law. In practice he won't, because we'll be a staff tribune. The only thing we'll learn in that scenario is war, and that is far from an immediate concern. Not having an education in legal matters, on the other hand, means that we're stuck in our current quagmire, lacking in resources and clients and unable to use fully half our build to its full extent.

- It stakes our career and quite possibly our life on the longshot gamble that a somewhat above average military tribune of no great distinction can butterfly the civil war.

So, am I missing something here? What's the attraction?
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We can learn the legal systems later, hopefully without having to go full-on-lawyerkin. It's like Xerxes said:

For Glorys Sake,
For Vengeance Sake,
War..
 
ComradeDoge said:
We can learn the legal systems later, hopefully without having to go full-on-lawyerkin. It's like Xerxes said:

For Glorys Sake,
For Vengeance Sake,
War..
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Right, I'll say it again. We are not a Caecilius Metellus or a Claudius Pulcher, born consul designate thanks to the prestige and glamour of the family name. We're not Crassus or Pompey, heir to enough wealth and clients to be assured of a place at the very top. For all that we are a patrician, our situation is in many ways essentially that of a New Man. We don't have money, we don't have clients, we don't have prestigious ancestors to invoke the Roman belief in hereditary with, we don't have ties of amicitia with other families. Our name means nothing to pretty much the entirety of Rome. We need to work to win elections.

You want war? So do I. But here's the thing - we need imperium to command troops and we can only get imperium with a magistracy, which means winning elections, which means money and clients and fame. So how do we get those?

Well, we leverage our skills. Our martial ability is already enough to see us through the ten campaigns we need to serve before starting the cursus proper with distinction. But, barring extreme luck, those ten campaigns are not going to give us enough of what we need. So we need Speech to make up the difference. And therein lies the rub - we won't get to speak in the Senate or address assemblies until we're well started on our climb up the greasy pole.

The law courts, though? That's a different story. They're our platform. The law is how we raise our profile, how we start to gain clients, how we improve our finances in a perfectly senatorial manner, how we make friends among our peers and deal with our enemies. Successfully prosecute a man of praetorian status, and we are suddenly of praetorian status and able to speak in the senate with the other praetorians.

Of course, at the moment, any attempt to speak in the law courts is just going to embarrass us, because the law and legal procedure are a gaping, unRoman hole in our education. Fortunately, this is the best time to plug that gap (if anything we're a little young to be standing as a military tribune), and Scaevola is the best man to help us do it.

Cicero, as a New Man dogged by accusations of cowardice and draft dodging, rode the courts and oratory all the way to the consulship. We can do better.
 
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Cicero the Warrior. The Legionaire, The Praetor. The Consul.

Sounds good. Changing my vote.
 
[X] Plan Education
-[X] Proserpina
-[X] Negotiation
-[X] Scaevola
-[X] No Position

Reasoning: I'm all for playing OP Roman General later on, but @Caesar is right, lets play the lawyerkin role for awhile and see how that goes.
 
Recommended reading:

The Book Of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi. Describes the Four Elements and how it relates to Swordsmanship.

Scipio Africanus: Greater Than Napoleon. Jim Mattis, America's secretary of defense, swears by this book. The strategy of Scipio during the Second Punic War would help us greatly.
 
I'd recommend Rubicon, by Tom Holland. It covers essentially the entire time period we're going to be concerned with, and offers (IMO) a pretty good insight into late Republican politics and the personalities involved.

In The Name Of Rome, by Adrian Goldsworthy is pretty good too. It gives an overview of the careers of a number of Roman generals from Fabius and Marcellus to Belisarius, and it's a useful look at how the Romans viewed generalship and command, and what their successful generals had in common.
 
Belisarius was almost as Good as Scipio. I remember watching the Extra History thing and he basically re-conquered Italy with less than 10k troops..
 
So, one more effort. Could people please tell me what flaws they see in Plan Education? I'm willing to admit that I might have missed something, and even if I haven't I enjoy debating this sort of thing.

(And guys, I hate saying this, but please remember that Telamon has said that discussion will be rewarded... so keep that in mind, yeah?)
 
Are we going to improve our stewardship in the near future? This should be our primary concern in my opinion. People might be underestimating the value of money.
 
tinkerbell said:
Are we going to improve our stewardship in the near future? This should be our primary concern in my opinion. People might be underestimating the value of money.
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None of the patrons, as far as I can tell, are primarily stewardship based but Gratidianus and Scaevola are likely to help at least a little.

Long term, money is going to be hugely important but so long as we continue to look like a sound investment (i.e. likely to be electorally successful) we should manage.

Edit: We will of course want at least above average stewardship for our quaestorship, as that's primarily treasury work, at least in theory. It's currently my second priority, behind law.
 
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Well, money and prestige went hand-and-hand in the late Republic days, so increasing Stewardship and Learning is probably more important than Martial..

Edit: Maybe we can charge for our lawyering skills and get the best of both worlds?
 
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ComradeDoge said:
Well, money and prestige went hand-and-hand in the late Republic days, so increasing Stewardship and Learning is probably more important than Martial..

Edit: Maybe we can charge for our lawyering skills and get the best of both worlds?
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It is illegal to pay your legal counsel in the Republic. However, it is perfectly acceptable to give him valuable "gifts" as a token of your esteem. (IIRC, someone once gave Cicero a villa.)
 
How does this quest deal with morality (and outlooks on life)? Will we just make it up as it comes along?
 
[X] Plan Education
-[X] Proserpina
-[X] Negotiation
-[X] Scaevola
-[X] No Position

I wholeheartedly second @Caesar's reasonings for this plan. I don't see how aligning with Sertorius would help us at all, unless we want to spend some years in Iberia fighting a doomed guerilla war against increasing odds... Under different circumstances I'd all be for Sertorius, but it looks a really sub-optimal choice to me, given our circumstances.

We won't really be in the position to change the outcome of the civil war, so studying, possibly even impressing Scaevola enough to net a marriage and start making our name known in the forum seems the best bet. I also really want to see some Roman Law in action !(at this point much closer to Common Law under many respects, especially praetorian law).
 
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Seriously, correcting the gap in our education is important.

We need to work on our knowledge of the law to truly maximize our skill in speech.
 
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