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Magna Graecia: Titanomachia (A City State Quest)

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Shebe Zuu said:
Seeing as Syrakousai seems to be the runaway favorite for our enemy, I'd like to point out that they and most of their powerbase are on Sicily, which will be hard to threaten without a strong navy. Supremacy over the Straight of Messina will determine who gets to go on the offensive and who has to stay on the back foot. The Demos Drakonia is your one stop naval power shop for the aspiring thalassocracy, come on down!
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what good is a fleet besieging the harbor of syracuse, mister anderson, when it is set on fire with a giant array of mirrors
 
enragedavocado said:
If I understand correctly, the city is divided roughly into aristocrats, citizens, and metics. My interests primarily lie with the ekklessia and the citizens, as I am among their number.

The metics have the least amount of rights and wealth, so it makes sense that they would want more. What doesn't make sense is why the aristocracy has so much more than the rest but still wants more. Thus, I believe, as a citizen, the aristocracy are dangerous and irrational and present a greater threat. They've already tried for tyranny in our history. The metics are dangerous, outnumbering the citizens with less to lose, but more rational and easier to please and deal with than the aristocracy. So I'd rather use the metics against the aristocrats, than have the aristocrats use me and my fellow citizens against the metics and ourselves.
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Oh. So you're doing an IC thing?

Mmmm. Might kind of work. Though again, as I've tried to explain, Citizenship is sacred as fuck and the average Eretrian feels bound to his fellow citizen, wether he be beggar or Noble. The Metics are, as discussed, an underclass, and are not citizens. The idea of sharing citizenship with a Metic, or supporting the Metics in Stasis, something the Eretrians have always looked down upon, over your fellow citizens is maybe a bit to extreme?

To the extent the Citizenry would very usually support the nobles over the Metics due to the shared bond, and would get violent with the Metic underclass if they seemed to be on the verge of getting too close to true, sacred, citizenship.

Fun idea though.
Cetashwayo said:
Eretria will never be left alone. None of the options will leave you alone. Eretria is part of a larger system it cannot escape and if it attempts to avoid it may find the system dropping on top of it like a ton of bricks. However, how Eretria interacts with that system is decided by the options you have. You can choose how involved you get and how over time in different wars and conflicts, but if you attempt to avoid all conflicts you will simply be outmaneuvered.

The reality of interstate anarchy is that isolationism is impossible. States must find allies constantly or die. This is why Eretria starts with three choices for major allies and an opportunity to gain one more off the bat. The purpose of the Antipatrid bonus is not short-term; it grants Eretria far better ability to find allies in Italy. Of course, it has its disadvantages, and both the Demos Drakonia and Demos Exoria are attractive. That's because I made all three options attractive. I don't think manpower is a short-term advantage. Eretria will grow slowly and an increase of more than 3,000 male citizens is a very big one. Who knows how fast Eretria will reach that with current numbers
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Eretria may never be fully left alone, but it needs a few years in a few decades to sit down and sort it's internal self out, without being involved in a war or surrounded in all sides, getting rid of the Dauni, Messapii, Illyrians or stepping out of the coming Greek Wars would give us the breathing room I feel we need to address the internal issues the Antipater option would cause. And actively makes it worse due to depriving us of the stalling reforms we could utilise and increasing the populace to make the problems more pronounced.

The Antipatids option, it doesn't help us enough to achieve that. It gives us manpower yeah, but manpower that can be turned on us and might get involved in internal conflict, it gives us tax, but tax we then grow reliant on, and then can't give up, which makes reform harder. It doesn't get rid of any of our immediate enemies or stop our encirclement, whilst also raising the possibility of getting us into more wars abroad.

I'm not asking for blessed isolationism like Post Napoleonic Britain claimed to have achieved, just a few flanks that don't have enemies on them, and less entanglements abroad that will drag us into wars at poor times, so we can sort our shit out.

Edit: basically Exorians destroy the Daunj and give us the army to finally secure the Messapii lands. Drakonids glare the Illyrians down and give us the power to match naval threats. Both keep with the Eretrian spirit of military innovation. Antipatids give us no defeated enemy, and no military innovations whilst risking an earlier, and more damaging, Metic revolt and do not get rid of any one of our enemies, instead bringing the risk of giving us new ones.
Cetashwayo said:
I'm not sure why you're apologizing. This is your opinion and it's valuable, and I ultimately don't care what options players take. I like all three options and think they're all cool. I made cool little symbols for each faction, even
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I feel like people are being insulted by my arguments somehow, one guy claimed I was somehow calling everyone fools? Which wasn't my intent. So I thinks it's better if I show some caution when dealing with this. Since people seem to be getting sensitive to certain parts of my argument.
 
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McLuvin said:
Eretria may never be fully left alone, but it needs a few years in a few decades to sit down and sort it's internal self out, without being involved in a war or surrounded in all sides, getting rid of the Dauni, Messapii, Illyrians or stepping out of the coming Greek Wars would give us the breathing room I feel we need to address the internal issues the Antipater option would cause. And actively makes it worse due to depriving us of the stalling reforms we could utilise and increasing the populace to make the problems more pronounced.
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I think that in the context of the Peloponnesian War, it is more likely that the room will breathe on us, than we will find some breathing room. We're both in a better and worse situation than we were in the last quest because on one hand, sure, we've made a powerful rival, but may I remind you that we actually have walls now, allowing us to effectively resist a siege and not have to fear that any war escalates to something existential. In other words, we are no longer living on permanent borrowed time, and the robust institutions and democratic tradition of Eretria the Furthest can now bear the brunt of a far greater degree of force than they once could. It also just happens to be that @Cavalier, the sly devil, has convinced me to change my vote to:

[X] Demos Antipatria

[x] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League. Thurii was a new state, founded by Athenians only fifteen years prior, yet like Eretria it had propelled itself to the pinnacle of power in its region. Thanks to negotiations and diplomacy between the two Italian powers, and the addition of the Sikeliote League composed of a number of free Sicilian cities, an Ionian alliance has formed in Italy. The alliance was also forged on bounds of mutual respect; the Sikeliotes remembered Herodion's battle against the Carthaginians and the Eretrians were aligned against Thurii's enemy, Taras. Though not necessarily as powerful as Carthage or Athens, this alliance still holds much strength, more reliability, and allowed Eretria to avoid the threat of being pulled into major conflicts, except for those conducted solely on Italian soil...

[x] Syrakousai. There are many reasons for Syrakousai and Eretria to despise each other. From the exploits of Herodion, who rode with Carthage against this great Sicilian city, to the harboring of Ionian refugees from Syrakousai by Eretria after the refugees were expelled from their cities, the two regional hegemons have become implacable enemies. Syrakousai, though a democracy, seeks to restore its empire in Sicily by making war against its neighbors; Eretria has, time and again, prevented that by funding its enemies and promoting the formation of new coalitions against it. Now, with new leaders in Syrakousai and a stronger diplomatic focus in the city, it aims to turn Sicily against Carthage and the Sikeliote League in order to finally break its power, and perhaps, to cross over into Italy and take revenge...

A larger Metic population, stronger tax base, more robust living standards and greater capability for forming coalitions and negotiating will serve us well, I think. The powers of Demos Exoria were tempting, but striking cold water in the blood and sleeping on it as well as seeing the excellent arguments in its favour has convinced me.

Cetashwayo said:
The city is not growing at nearly so fast a rate anymore.
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Yet. Until we invent our steam tanks and deport the entire population of Roma to Eretria the Furthest of course.
 
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I do wonder if it would be acceptable for perhaps the metics to vote for citizen only representatives at perhaps a ratio of five metics to one citizen.
 
By the way, don't worry about running out of time to switch your votes or continuing to argue. The vote will be open for several days.
 
Shard said:
I do wonder if it would be acceptable for perhaps the metics to vote for citizen only representatives at perhaps a ratio of five metics to one citizen.
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That sounds like a riot waiting to happen. The citizens will be outraged at the idea of metics having a say in the ekklessia, and the Metics will never be satisfied with only that much if we grant it to them.
 
veekie said:
Well, we have a citizen to speak for foreigners. Assigning one to speak for the Metics works too
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That's the one you're thinking of. The metic representative from the old days which used to be an appointed position is now an elected position; the metics elect a citizen to be their ambassador in the ekklesia, as no metic can enter the assembly field and speak.
 
veekie said:
Well, we have a citizen to speak for foreigners. Assigning one to speak for the Metics works too
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Shard said:
I do wonder if it would be acceptable for perhaps the metics to vote for citizen only representatives at perhaps a ratio of five metics to one citizen.
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If I'm understanding Shard correctly, I think their idea is that these representatives would be able to vote on behalf of the Metics, at a certain ratio. That certainly seems like the kind of thing that would cause a whole raft of issues.
 
[X] Demos Antipatria
[X] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League.
[X] Syrakousai.
 
[X] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League.
[X] Syrakousai. ​

I'm undecided about the Demos vote.
 
[x] Demos Exoria

[x] ...Thurii & the Sikeliote League.

[x] Syrakousai.

Italic it might be, but I kind of prefer it to being involved in the Peloponnese War. :V
 
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