Admittedly, I know only the basics about Game of Thrones and have never read the books nor watched the TV series.
That said, I find the idea of comparing the situation in this game to any situation in Game of Thrones to be silly and ridiculous.
But maybe that's just me.
Well, my basic point is just to remember what made him
dangerous. The point is, we deliberately chose the character origin with high Stewardship. If we don't use money as a weapon we're pointlessly crippling ourselves.
Yeah. Not to mention that comparing ourselves to Tywin Lannister is a bad idea considering he was a brutal thug who ultimately did more damage to his family than anything else.
Bluntly, he'd defeated all his rivals for power by the time he died. What killed him was being personally abusive to his youngest son and using him as a scapegoat rather than building a relationship with him. That was
wrong and stupid, but it doesn't negate the fact that Tywin Lannister is a good illustration of how a High Stewardship High Martial character can defeat a character who is better at Martial, but worse in other areas.
I'm not saying "let's be like Tywin Lannister," but being
capable of thinking like him in terms of knowing how to direct gold to benefit our cause is a useful asset for someone who wants to be an emperor.
The Praetorians option expressly said it was going to need a lot of money
400,000 denarii is a lot of money.
As others, including you have pointed out.
So I just thought of two issues with Firm Foundations. The text for the Praetorians pretty strongly implies we need to send them a butt load of cash. The plan may not be sending them enough to actually accomplish anything. And with the Spanish Situation, if we send them money and attack Southern Gaul, we should be in position to assist in Spain if anything goes wrong. So yeah, Firm Foundations has a strong chance of throwing away a lot of money for no gain.
Look, we MAY lose the money on one of the options. If we succeed in both areas we have a huge advantage. If things are going well in Spain but the coup in Rome doesn't materialize,
we can live. We just do what you want us to do and march to Gaul. If things go well in Rome but our man in Spain gets beaten... well frankly, we gave him as much money as he asked for so I HOPE he won't lose right away.
The point is, winning the backing of the Praetorians and destroying one of the rival claimants would be a huge coup in our favor, pun intended. Even if the Praetorians don't go through with the coup, the money we've given them will be remembered; they will know that we do in fact favor and support them, and that will bias them in our favor against other rival claimants in the future. Heck, it's entirely possible that a random event will result in the Praetorians ganking the claimant in Rome and going for us anyway, it's pretty much what happened to Aurelian in real life!
I know that these are not 100% certain ways to spend cash. But bluntly,
we will not gain 100% certainty in any way, shape, or form. Nothing is certain. The outcome of battles is not certain. The outcome of intrigues is not certain. The intentions of our opponents is not certain.
We have to chart a course that secures us advantages, secures us a base of operations, and weakens our rivals. Punching up into southern Gaul and staying on the move for several turns has risks too.
