Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
Restitutor Orbis: A Quest of the Roman Empire
- Thread starter Telamon
- Start date
- Original Historic
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Remember that these opportunities are likely to be time-critical. If we don't seize them, it means more and stronger opposition later. The money is worthless to us if one of the other imperial claimants just picks it out of the rubble of our baggage train.
You're not listening.
I'm not saying "be like Tywin."
I'm saying "have tactical options like 'know when to bribe people into changing sides' and 'know when to hire more troops to replace your losses instead of getting ground away to nothing' " The point is, Tywin was more formidable than his military skill would lead you to believe. You can be formidable like Tywin, without literally being Tywin or doing everything he did.
Yes, you're aiming for that. My concern is that you risk missing your aim. Or creating long term problems for us like, oh, Praetorians who bear us no particular good will later on because we ignored them.
Ultimately, our starting gold won't last us for long. Winning the imperial throne costs a LOT, and we're going to be doing a lot of looting and borrowing to make ends meet. Being overly cautious about spending our starting gold on gaining allies isn't going to make the game safer for us in the long run.
Also worth considering - not looking at the potential gains from spending 450k on Spain and 400k on the Praetorians from an all-or-nothing perspective, the idea that the only possible outcomes are 'Victory in Spain' and 'Victory in Rome', or 'Failure in Spain' and 'Failure in Rome'.
In Spain, the situation as explained is that General Barracus privately wants to back us, but his Co-Governor Verro has already publicly backed Aurelian. However, Barracus doesn't think he has the strength to challenge Verro or his forces openly.
As the situation stands, and without our intervention, Spain almost certainly goes to Aurelian. That means that Aurelian gets all that much stronger, and his military strength is already among the top problems we have to deal it.
The 450k that we have the option to send is the only monetary level to choose from. The fact that its counterpart is a relatively meager 2000 of our legionaries suggests that Barracus doesn't need that much to challenge Verro directly, eliminate him, and bring us command of Spain. The other options that give a 400k explicitly list it as 'enough to hire a small army'. All of that suggests that chances of absolute failure in Spain - the kind that would be categorized as throwing our money away entirely - should be minimal.
The alternative is an in-between possibility. Perhaps the 450k doesn't win us Spain right away. Maybe something goes wrong and there's an ongoing war in Spain because things didn't line up quite right for us. Even that would be a win for us, relatively speaking, because Spain being in a civil war means it denies Aurelian access to Spain. That leads to multiple possibilities - perhaps a long civil war, long enough that by the time its over, Aurelian is out of the picture anyway; maybe it forces Aurelian to deploy his own forces or resources to help lay claim to Spain, which helps us by weakening Aurelian without even having to meet him on the battlefield; perhaps a civil war that hurts Spain enough that even if Aurelian wins, it doesn't actually benefit him right away.
Any situation other than absolute, total failure or completely ignoring the situation and letting Spain go to Aurelian by default ultimately benefits us in the long run, one way or another. Based on what has been said about the obstacles we need to overcome to best Aurelian, I think that amounts to a victory for us.
In Rome, the Praetorian don't like Quintillus, and would much prefer to serve us.
Maybe 400k isn't enough to make the plan happen yet. But again, we need to consider options other than 'total failure' and 'total success'. We need to consider middle-ground success possibilities.
At the very least, it's already been clarified by the GM himself that the Praetorian don't easily forget those who pay them. Even if this 400k doesn't automatically give us Rome, it does buy us favorability in the eyes of the Praetorian guard, which is another long-term victory. Alternatively, it may set up the foundation for a plan that we can pay more for later (Plan installments!), or merely require a plan that takes longer to put into place and we get Rome in 3 or 4 months rather than 1 or 2.
Barring absolute disaster, I expect minimal possibility of getting any result that can be classified as just 'throwing money away'.
In Spain, the situation as explained is that General Barracus privately wants to back us, but his Co-Governor Verro has already publicly backed Aurelian. However, Barracus doesn't think he has the strength to challenge Verro or his forces openly.
As the situation stands, and without our intervention, Spain almost certainly goes to Aurelian. That means that Aurelian gets all that much stronger, and his military strength is already among the top problems we have to deal it.
The 450k that we have the option to send is the only monetary level to choose from. The fact that its counterpart is a relatively meager 2000 of our legionaries suggests that Barracus doesn't need that much to challenge Verro directly, eliminate him, and bring us command of Spain. The other options that give a 400k explicitly list it as 'enough to hire a small army'. All of that suggests that chances of absolute failure in Spain - the kind that would be categorized as throwing our money away entirely - should be minimal.
The alternative is an in-between possibility. Perhaps the 450k doesn't win us Spain right away. Maybe something goes wrong and there's an ongoing war in Spain because things didn't line up quite right for us. Even that would be a win for us, relatively speaking, because Spain being in a civil war means it denies Aurelian access to Spain. That leads to multiple possibilities - perhaps a long civil war, long enough that by the time its over, Aurelian is out of the picture anyway; maybe it forces Aurelian to deploy his own forces or resources to help lay claim to Spain, which helps us by weakening Aurelian without even having to meet him on the battlefield; perhaps a civil war that hurts Spain enough that even if Aurelian wins, it doesn't actually benefit him right away.
Any situation other than absolute, total failure or completely ignoring the situation and letting Spain go to Aurelian by default ultimately benefits us in the long run, one way or another. Based on what has been said about the obstacles we need to overcome to best Aurelian, I think that amounts to a victory for us.
In Rome, the Praetorian don't like Quintillus, and would much prefer to serve us.
Maybe 400k isn't enough to make the plan happen yet. But again, we need to consider options other than 'total failure' and 'total success'. We need to consider middle-ground success possibilities.
At the very least, it's already been clarified by the GM himself that the Praetorian don't easily forget those who pay them. Even if this 400k doesn't automatically give us Rome, it does buy us favorability in the eyes of the Praetorian guard, which is another long-term victory. Alternatively, it may set up the foundation for a plan that we can pay more for later (Plan installments!), or merely require a plan that takes longer to put into place and we get Rome in 3 or 4 months rather than 1 or 2.
Barring absolute disaster, I expect minimal possibility of getting any result that can be classified as just 'throwing money away'.
Teen Spirit
Lost in Ever After
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So what? We could just kill them when we take the city for treason or something, you're overstating the threat of them to us right now. They're a unique threat to us if we take their deal and make them our guards, which is another reason I'm not particularly keen on focusing on Rome right now. As it stands they're just another enemy force.
And I would rather not run out of it with little to show for it. Considering our build, running out of gold means VERY BAD things for us. I'm not being overly cautious I just don't want blow nearly half of it in the first round for risky actions that we can't really try to salvage.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
One does not simply put the Praetorians to death safely or easily.
If your plan relies on "and then we kill the Praetorians" in order to work, or views antagonizing the Praetorians as inevitable and acceptable when the Praetorians have a long history of successfully destroying anyone they didn't like who managed to take the throne... I don't want to follow your plan. It's got a very large risk attached in the future.
Teen Spirit
Lost in Ever After
- Pronouns
- He/Him
...Could we not just assume that my plan hinges on something I just put out there with the phrase 'or something' on it. I don't have a solid idea for how to deal with the Praetorians right now, I'll concede that .But again I feel like you're overstating their threat, they're not going to ninja their way into our camp until we take Rome for starters. We need a plan but if we don't immediately try to grab Italy we don't need a plan this very second.
But that's in general why I want to focus Westward, For a chance to build our strength in regions free from the most corrupt parts of the Roman Empire, the Praetorians and Senate.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Let's just say that I'm a bit alarmed about where your plan leads, if it's easy to namedrop as a solution "well, maybe we can just purge the Praetorians."
Teen Spirit
Lost in Ever After
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's not where my plan leads though, we're not deciding the entire direction of the war here in this vote after all.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It's not where the specific actions you propose this turn mandate that we go...
But it's a question of evaluating the mentality and the values that underlie the plan as a whole. Following your plan causes us to build momentum in a particular direction. Looking down that road to see where it takes us is relevant.
But it's a question of evaluating the mentality and the values that underlie the plan as a whole. Following your plan causes us to build momentum in a particular direction. Looking down that road to see where it takes us is relevant.
- Location
- Anchorage, Alaska
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
anyone got any ideas on how were going to keep Rome from collapsing in the long-term? because This is going to be a very interesting fight, after all one of romes problems is that it NEEDS to keep on fighting, otherwise it will collapse on within itself, and if it expands to much, well eventually mini-emperors and the like will start rebelling against us.
Unless we find a way to solve the communication problem, which I mean to say either train ravens for very secure mail, create post-man stations (with a small garrison and a time-table) in-between cities and towns to give better communications between city leaders and governors (secure as much as a man can be loyal to the cause), or rely on carriers for the said mail (unsecure due to a single man carrying all the information).
otherwise we will need to rebuild parts of Rome as well, some problems with Rome is that its OLD, and thus will probably need to be rebuilt in a more modern style, heck even updating housing conditions might be profitable.
not to mention insuring once were emperor we can insure 1) public health is good (healthy people means more they are more able to work and pay taxes), educated people (well for the middle class and the high class, the plebs would most likely be taught their jobs and how to get it done efficiently), better tools...I have to say this but if we can figure out some better tool usage (like skip straight into the iron age, or beyond that) then things will get interesting...
anyway first we need to unite the roman empire, then we can figure out how to make it more long-term stability...such as finding ways to make the succession process easier and more capable then before.
because if anything I would say the senate needs to be cut down on the number of the members, if only to make things easier on keeping tabs on people.
sigh, this is going to be a long-haul to get this "Republic" up and running, heres to making Rome Great again! (of course I also look forward to if we can take the territories of all of Europe, if we can do so then we might stand a very interesting chance of slowly "Romanizing" the barbarian tribes).
anyone got any ideas on how were going to keep Rome from collapsing in the long-term? because This is going to be a very interesting fight, after all one of romes problems is that it NEEDS to keep on fighting, otherwise it will collapse on within itself, and if it expands to much, well eventually mini-emperors and the like will start rebelling against us.
Unless we find a way to solve the communication problem, which I mean to say either train ravens for very secure mail, create post-man stations (with a small garrison and a time-table) in-between cities and towns to give better communications between city leaders and governors (secure as much as a man can be loyal to the cause), or rely on carriers for the said mail (unsecure due to a single man carrying all the information).
otherwise we will need to rebuild parts of Rome as well, some problems with Rome is that its OLD, and thus will probably need to be rebuilt in a more modern style, heck even updating housing conditions might be profitable.
not to mention insuring once were emperor we can insure 1) public health is good (healthy people means more they are more able to work and pay taxes), educated people (well for the middle class and the high class, the plebs would most likely be taught their jobs and how to get it done efficiently), better tools...I have to say this but if we can figure out some better tool usage (like skip straight into the iron age, or beyond that) then things will get interesting...
anyway first we need to unite the roman empire, then we can figure out how to make it more long-term stability...such as finding ways to make the succession process easier and more capable then before.
because if anything I would say the senate needs to be cut down on the number of the members, if only to make things easier on keeping tabs on people.
sigh, this is going to be a long-haul to get this "Republic" up and running, heres to making Rome Great again! (of course I also look forward to if we can take the territories of all of Europe, if we can do so then we might stand a very interesting chance of slowly "Romanizing" the barbarian tribes).
- Location
- Venezuela
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
ThatGuyWithIdeas
Treize died for our sins
- Location
- Romania
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Probably. His reputation as an enemy of Rome probably outweighs his reputation as a great legendary general.
Plus, in this era most people who thought they could get away with it claimed descent from literal gods or at least from deified demigod-heroes like Hercules. We're not going to win any bragging contests just by having a famous mortal ancestor or six.
Juuuust those guys wait. Things will start sucking over there too.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
- Location
- Sydney
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I don't think that quite captures the dynamics rightly, though you're totally right that the Empire faces a dilemma.
Basically, the problem is that by becoming so large, Rome has become exposed to every single wave of Volkerwanderung that comes in out of what (in the modern era) we'd call Russia or the steppes of Asia. The Germanic tribes are now being pushed by the Gothic tribes who will in turn be pushed by the Huns, and even if Rome survives them as it arguably did in the form of the Byzantines, there was still further pressure in the form of the Slavs, the Avars, the Magyars, and so on. These mass migrations pile up tribes and ethnicities at the Roman border like detritus washed up on a beach, creating a belt of complex, zero-sum political conflict among the various tribes because we seldom if ever let any of them into Rome. We're seeing this now with the Marcomanni, who are caught between a Goth and a hard place, as it were, and are trying to make a deal with us in hopes of not simply being destroyed as a people and absorbed by the Vandals.
This external 'barbarian' pressure is then further complicated by the internal political conflict within Rome. Rome does indeed have a lot of corrupt institutions, and the lack of real dynastic legitimacy means that basically any prominent Roman can aspire to be emperor if they have troops willing to follow them, which greatly complicates the picture in terms of civil wars.
The good news is, the blueprint for a successful transition of Roman institutions into something that can survive for several more centuries does exist in the form of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines accomplished this by:
1) Eliminating institutions that had become actively counterproductive, such as the Senate.
2) Reorganizing taxation and the control of land.
3) Scaling back the institution of slavery, though decidedly not eliminating it.
4) Reforming the law code into something more manageable than the tangled Late Roman law.
There were probably other key features I haven't identified. It also helped that the Byzantines held the richer half of the Empire, and that they were able to successfully deflect the worst of the fifth century barbarian invasions away from themselves and into the West, effectively sacrificing that half of the Empire to preserve the other.
I don't think ravens actually work well as messenger birds, contrary to A Song of Ice and Fire. Carrier pigeons work better. And they are already in use in our time period, so not an anachronism!
Telamon usually is pretty... good?... about not going for full anachronism, but if we become emperor he might be okay with letting us set up a semaphore or other signalling network. The Romans actually weren't THAT bad at communication; they had a well developed infrastructure of postal and courier communications that took advantage of their excellent road network. We might be able to improve on this, but it's not an area where we have low-hanging fruit.
This could be true but I don't know.
not to mention insuring once were emperor we can insure 1) public health is good (healthy people means more they are more able to work and pay taxes), educated people (well for the middle class and the high class, the plebs would most likely be taught their jobs and how to get it done efficiently), better tools...
Uh, Ancient Rome was pretty much the Iron Age at its glorious height. The biggest handicap the Romans had was in lack of certain key technologies that weren't invented until centuries later. The horse collar was a big one because the lack of it decreased their agricultural efficiency; crop rotation was another thing the Romans kind of lacked. The stirrup may have been another big one because its absence diminished the effectiveness of Roman cavalry which in turn limited their options against the barbarians (not sure about this one). They DID have watermills though I'm not sure if they had windmills. Certain other basic innovations like the wheelbarrow were also missing.
This is gonna be hard, and obviously success can't be evaluated until well after Synnodus is dead.
The big problem with the Senate is that it was never a representative body, it was just the top tier of the aristocracy. As such, it exists mainly as a vehicle for prominent Romans- as in, people from Rome, specifically- who aren't Emperor to enjoy prestige and political power. On the one hand this makes it pretty ineffective as a tool for actually addressing real problems the Empire faces, since no senator loses his seat if the barbarians overrun Gaul or whatever. On the other hand, this also makes it hard to eliminate them because they consist of pretty much "all the prominent Romans."
Getting away from the Senate in the long term is the best argument for moving the capital away from Rome itself. In the short term we may wind up needing them as an ally, but in the long term they are actively counterproductive to us, and the best way to avoid problems with them will be to establish a new capital and let them slowly continue dying on the vine.
Honestly I'd be happier actively shortening the frontiers of the Empire to the lines of the Rhine and the Danube rivers. This would give us more defensible borders that are less likely to be casually crossed by barbarian invasions, while having the advantages of being unambiguous "bright lines" that future generations of Romans would have less incentive to let the barbarians cross.
- Location
- Pilipinas
Just my two cents before voting here, i think the Sybil option is a great idea fluffwise and time-sensitive but i dont think it will have much of an impact gamewise since this is a completely new game after all and not a mere clone of the last Roman quest where prophecy is all important (the very first scene had a priest read animal entrails! So awesome that). Also, since it was mentioned earlier in the thread, i dont see much the appeal of Mithras, yes he's popular with the soldiers, but i'd rather stick to the roman traditional gods or go christian since Jesus had a wider appeal not to just soldiers. Anyway, will probably vote for the plan with Mediolanum and Sybil in it.
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
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xa na xa
A.E.I.O.U. - Antarticae est imperare orbi universo
- Location
- σ Octantis
a) What benefits do you see with scaling back?
b) What's wrong with eliminating?
- Location
- Chile
People read too much on the Tywin Lannister comparison, the original poster was not providing him as an example of the ideal Emperor. If its the fact that he's a GoT character that bothers you, then you can instead think of it as the musings or a thought experiment of how a power levelled Tactics prodigy can be defeated by a High stewardship, good diplo/intrigue, good tactics commander.
In other words, dump stats are dangerous when you're not playing a Hack-and-Slash campaign.
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
I'd like the Sibyll option though... mostly because as much as I like alt history scenarios, alt history scenarios that go beyond a mere strict simulation of the past are even more interesting.
Yes, it would be somewhat ahistorical, for example, to have a 3rd century Roman Emperor use his high stewardship and "strange dreams and ideas" (read thread influence) to come up with a way of kick starting the Industrial Revolution 1400 years ahead of schedule, building the base of a still pagan steampunk Roman Empire.
Pretty ahistorical. Also pretty awesome and interesting to play, so I hope that's a road we can take in the far future when the Empire is (somewhat) stabilized. (or something in that vein as far as deviating from history goes, maybe magic or gods are real, or maybe the Empire discovers America within our reign, stuff like that etc).
If thats too far fetched for most of the players here, then at least we could gather a few high tier intelectuals from greece, egypt, and other places, mix em up with practical tradesmen like blacksmiths and weavers and such, and throw money at the regular meetings.
The Roman Empire had tremendous brainpower just idling by writing theoretical philosophy, as well as an eminently practical and at times even innovative populace. If we could somehow join both forces and light a spark, the resulting chain reaction could be breath taking.
In other words, dump stats are dangerous when you're not playing a Hack-and-Slash campaign.
[X] Plan Firm Foundations
I'd like the Sibyll option though... mostly because as much as I like alt history scenarios, alt history scenarios that go beyond a mere strict simulation of the past are even more interesting.
Yes, it would be somewhat ahistorical, for example, to have a 3rd century Roman Emperor use his high stewardship and "strange dreams and ideas" (read thread influence) to come up with a way of kick starting the Industrial Revolution 1400 years ahead of schedule, building the base of a still pagan steampunk Roman Empire.
Pretty ahistorical. Also pretty awesome and interesting to play, so I hope that's a road we can take in the far future when the Empire is (somewhat) stabilized. (or something in that vein as far as deviating from history goes, maybe magic or gods are real, or maybe the Empire discovers America within our reign, stuff like that etc).
If thats too far fetched for most of the players here, then at least we could gather a few high tier intelectuals from greece, egypt, and other places, mix em up with practical tradesmen like blacksmiths and weavers and such, and throw money at the regular meetings.
The Roman Empire had tremendous brainpower just idling by writing theoretical philosophy, as well as an eminently practical and at times even innovative populace. If we could somehow join both forces and light a spark, the resulting chain reaction could be breath taking.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
When a large enough fraction of the population is enslaved, labor becomes a form of capital that can be easily owned and controlled by a small number of elite individuals. This tends to create a lot of political chaos and rivalry among the aristocrats, who are disproportionately powerful because of their wealth and huge slave-operated latifundias and other industrial concerns.
By contrast, one of the best models for having an effective (infantry) army in classical-to-medieval times seems to be to have lots of independent 'yeoman farmers.' They may have a few tenant farmers or even slaves working for them to give them the time and funds for military training, but by and large we're talking people who own a farm, not a gigantic plantation. The 'yeoman' population provides a steady demographic supply of physically fit and somewhat trained young men for the armed forces.
The Roman Republic had lots of small farmers, so this system worked for them. Over time the Roman Empire had more and more slave latifundia, which produced no military manpower for the state and basically served no purpose except to make the rich senators and other elites richer.
So basically, "too many slaves" in a classical-era society leads to a decline in the state's ability to defend itself in battle, and a rise in the power of a small aristocracy which has the incentive to distort the well-being of the state for its own gain.
...
That said...
One caveat to bear in mind is that A LOT of jobs in a medieval or classical economy are so degrading and unpleasant that almost no one would voluntarily do them except for sums of money so large that the available economic surplus arguably couldn't sustain them.
Like, working in a Roman mine is very bad for your health, and will kill you. You'd have to be an idiot to voluntarily work in a Roman mine. But the Romans need metal, and lots of it, and they don't have gunpowder or other technology that could speed up the mining. If they relied on the people willing to voluntarily mine, they'd have to pay much higher prices for metal and metal production would drop off sharply, which is exactly what happened in the Middle Ages with the closure of the big slave-operated mining complexes. Having a metal-rich society at Roman technology levels means either sending a steady stream of slaves to the mines (where they won't last long), OR something else that the Romans never figured out how to do.
Now, you can reasonably argue that if the Romans couldn't have copious metal without working slaves to death, they shouldn't have copious metal. I'm not going to dispute that, but it's important to understand where all this stuff came from historically. If Jupiter had descended from Mount Olympus and freed every slave in the empire, the imperial economy would have suffered a blow it probably couldn't recover from without further divine intervention. Even if that's a good thing, it's still a thing.
Nothing's wrong with it as such as far as I'm concerned, it's just that the Byzantines didn't do it. They did not in fact abolish slavery, but they DID scale it back dramatically in that way fewer poeple were personally slaves.
The main problem we're likely to have with eliminating it is the mindset of the time and not having anything to use as justification for it yet. Even if Synnodus is an enlightened enough man to realize that slavery is wrong, he's still but one man, and the vast majority of people in the Roman Empire at the time are going to disagree with him.
To my knowledge, there are two primary avenues to justify ending slavery:
1) Economic Benefit
2) Religious/Moral Justification (AKA "Slavery is wrong")
As pointed out, we're going to be hard pressed to push an economic angle since - as pointed out by Simon_Jester - the system of the time means that slavery may in fact be the genuinely most economically viable option for some tasks. To really push anti-slavery from an Economic angle, we both have to ensure that we've established a philosophic groundwork to argue that free men are going to do better work than slaves because free men reap the rewards of their own work while slaves see none of the rewards of their labor; and then ensure that we have a means to provide viable economic compensation to entice people to do jobs that nobody wants to do in a way that that's doesn't make that economic angle unviable for what we're getting.
Religious and Moral justification is likewise going to be a difficult approach at this time. As far as I'm aware, the general mindset of the time is that slavery is just a thing that happens and for the most part, nobody in the Roman Empire has a problem with that. As far as the Roman Empire is concerned, slavery is just a way of life. Nothing in the moral structure gives them any reason to think of slavery as wrong.
If there's to be an avenue to the religious and moral justification at this time, it's most likely to be the Christians, or at least finding an avenue where their worldview is allowed weight within Roman society. As stands, they're presently not likely to be pushing it on their own - the closest they're going to come so long as they're a minority society is for humane treatment of slaves and actually treating slaves as human beings in their own right. Actual, genuine anti-slavery sentiment isn't likely to gain weight unless the Christians or another, similar religious and philosophical bent gains a majority standing of some kind.
Note that in the New Testiment, when a slave escaped their master and ran to the Apostle Paul, the stance that Paul took was to tell the slave to return to their master, but then to write the master and tell them to treat their slave as a brother in Christ, effectively a preaching of both 'love thy neighbor as thyself'/'the golden rule' and 'serve thy master faithfully' at the same time and probably as close as anyone can come to an anti-slavery position without actually saying 'slavery is wrong'.
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