[X] Plan Firm Foundations
Res Publica: A Quest of Ancient Rome
- Thread starter Telamon
- Start date
- Original Historic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Last time around, personal actions were a big part of our success in diplomancing. This time, we have already invested our servant choice and at least 2 actions (with your plan doing the second si vis pacem) into preparing for diplomancing the greeks. Being a main point of contact with the greeks will give us much more influence/safety when we flip sides, as we will be harder to replace, making it very worth while for us. Plus we also have our scary superiors to deal with now and I highly doubt the thread is going to entirely forgo study xp sources. Competition for those slots will be fierce.
Were they? Let's take a look on what personal actions we took during the Samnite War.
Turn 2: The Legate and The Old Teacher, two social actions.
Turn 5: Correspondence, another social action (and the one separated from the rest now)
Turn 7: Eliminate the Bandits, Connect With Elders, Study Logistics, one diplomatic action, one military, one study.
Turn 8: Town Protection and Journal, one military, one let's say social.
Turn 10: Old One-Eye, Bonds of Brotherhood, Correspondence, Study Logistics (Which, if you forgive my insistence, is still unaccounted, @Telamon), Study Finance, 3 social actions, two study.
Turn 11: The Cult of Mars, Fortune's Favor, Study Logistics, Sparring (Both still unaccounted) - two social actions, two study.
So, as we can see, 10 social actions (with two being free Correspondence right now), 5 study (4 during the siege) and only 3 actions in support of our direct duties. Of course, our current war will not be the same as last - for one, as we're now a commanding officer, we would most probably have to sink more personal actions into campaign, much like we did during turns 7-8 in Bovianum. But I can assure you that we will find a place for a social actions, especially ones as important as establishing our relationship with our co-commander.
Edit: Hell, it's not like we won't ever talk with Cassianus again should Connect succeed. On the contrary, it would be as much if not more important to expand our newfound friendship or at least understanding as much as possible. So we will have to spend personal actions on social with him no matter whether Connect or Make Terms wins, unless cooperation totally falls through.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes, which would be fine if we could expect that many actions worth of personal time in the same time period. The segment I quoted suggests we won't have nearly as much free time this time around.
We won't have as much as 6, but 2 or 3 we had for the most of Samnite campaign are much less than 6. So I expect us to have the same amount this war.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah, there's the underlying difference in interpretation. You take it as "Don't expect six personal actions per turn for months or years", I read it as "Don't expect 6 personal actions, TOTAL, for months or years".
Each turn takes weeks to months, so I believe your interpretation is totally wrong.
- Location
- USA
Pretty much this. The tally is looking really wonky at the moment and I can't make heads or tails of how to actually format it so that every vote is counted correctly as this approval voting, but for those who want to Make Terms rather than Connect, people should probably unite behind one of the options as Plan Publicola is already going to collect most of the connect votes without any coalescing of the disparate voters.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
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I do have to wonder, what is the draw of Cicero over Scaevola here?
I understand wanting INT xp, but it seems ludicrous to focus on that over writing to the guy that literally used to be governer of the area.
I understand wanting INT xp, but it seems ludicrous to focus on that over writing to the guy that literally used to be governer of the area.
Plan Publicola - 25 votes
Plan Firm Foundations - 16 votes
Plan Love of the Legion and various Studies - 11 votes
Plan Dual Command - 10 votes.
Approval voting is a bit fucked, but to properly see who is voting for whom, tally by line and then search for individual plan names in the lines.
Plan Firm Foundations - 16 votes
Plan Love of the Legion and various Studies - 11 votes
Plan Dual Command - 10 votes.
Approval voting is a bit fucked, but to properly see who is voting for whom, tally by line and then search for individual plan names in the lines.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
Ah yeah was poking around in it, need to set it to "by line" and check the box for newest vote only.
rn its 25 Publicola to 16 Firm Foundations.
Edit: ninja'd
- Location
- I think somewhere. I might be nowhere though
Watching this whole debacle from the sidelines with my vote for only Overshadow is hilarious 
Call me old fashioned, but I don't really like this 'Approval Voting'. It's confusing as to what is winning, and what people actually want to win. Seems to just complicate what the end plan is.
Feels like it give people the opportunity to be wish-washy.
Feels like it give people the opportunity to be wish-washy.
- Location
- USA
Ahh, now I see it, I had it by Block.
The thing is, if all of the people who voted for making terms combined their votes that Plan would be winning by 1. Oh well.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's the point. Wishywashy is good, it means people don't stick to a plan they hate just because they hate another plan more.
Also, It's only really confusing because the tally is wonky at the moment.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
@Telamon I have two XP/rule questions. One, is it true that our previous Study Logistics action's XP award was never resolved? And for the other...
If this is true...
Hm. I think Res Publica is a VERY strong contender, not least because "drill the legion synergizes really well with "practice legion-on-legion fighting tactics."
I'm actually tempted to challenge Cassianus to mock legion-on-legion fights in that case, though it might backfire, and I'm not sure we're really equipped to do that kind of large scale nonlethal training exercise.
[fist-bump]
Especially since it may synergize well with actions like Res Publica.
butt-boy liaison with the Roman Republic.
Prince is there because assuming Atellus succeeds in becoming a prominent and powerful Roman, having some prior familiarity with the Ptolemiac Dynasty would be very very helpful. It is the most valuable of the unique networking opportunities our time in Bithynia is likely to present us with, and I wanted to take at least one of them.
Crone is there because I think the prophecy might actually help given how this quest is explicitly stated to work. Also because I want to find out, at least once, just what such activities are worth. If we keep not taking prophecy options, I am always, always going to wonder, and it's going to frustrate me. Plus, it's in-character, since we've established by this point that Atellus is at least somewhat more religious than baseline for an ancient Roman.
[/quote]@Telamon , is this true?
If this is true...
YES, yes I will switch away from "Study Seafaring" for now, if this is confirmed.
Hm. I think Res Publica is a VERY strong contender, not least because "drill the legion synergizes really well with "practice legion-on-legion fighting tactics."
I'm actually tempted to challenge Cassianus to mock legion-on-legion fights in that case, though it might backfire, and I'm not sure we're really equipped to do that kind of large scale nonlethal training exercise.
Respect!
[fist-bump]
In fairness, you're not wrong, but I still think this action is important enough that we should attend to it personally.
Especially since it may synergize well with actions like Res Publica.
...Making a lot of assumptions there. Suppose he had gone insane the way Joseph Stalin was insane- megalomaniacal and paranoid. How would we know?
He already casually deposed a consul, without even knowing whether Asiaticus was popular with the men. Besides, he has a ready-made replacement for us in the form of Cassianus. He doesn't even have to have us executed, which admittedly maybe could make the Sixth grumble a tiny little bit, for a few minutes, even though he IS the Third Founder. He could just send us packing back to Rome, or reassign us as Nicomedes' personal
I respect your plan, though I disagree with some of its personal choices. I will approval-vote for it, along with rewriting my own plan to remove Seafaring and replace it with something else, after I get confirmation from @Telamon about the thing.
Seafaring is there because I don't want to roll at a -6 on the die on our next saving throw against seasickness. If that's not a problem because we already got enough XP to level up to "merely you suck at it" levels, it's negated. And then I'd replace it with Si Vis Pacem or Res Publica.
Prince is there because assuming Atellus succeeds in becoming a prominent and powerful Roman, having some prior familiarity with the Ptolemiac Dynasty would be very very helpful. It is the most valuable of the unique networking opportunities our time in Bithynia is likely to present us with, and I wanted to take at least one of them.
Crone is there because I think the prophecy might actually help given how this quest is explicitly stated to work. Also because I want to find out, at least once, just what such activities are worth. If we keep not taking prophecy options, I am always, always going to wonder, and it's going to frustrate me. Plus, it's in-character, since we've established by this point that Atellus is at least somewhat more religious than baseline for an ancient Roman.
This is a good point.
Alternatively, it gives people who, for example, don't really care what personal actions we take as long as our core strategy towards Cassianus is "Connect" as opposed to "Make Terms" but have broad preferences as to which set of personal actions win a way to express that.
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Next time we'll spend on the ship is going to be really far away in any case, though. If one option can wait, it's this, added XP or not.
- Location
- Europe
That's fine and good, but we will either need it for the second phase of the war (should be march on Sulla in Greece), or for our way home. I doubt we are going to invade say Rhodes on this campaign, which makes me think that we can take an option in its stead that has far more immediate applications.
As far as the prince goes I understand the reason behind it, but it is kind of a shot in the blue, isn't it? After all, there is no actual guarantee that he will return to Egypt and become a valuable contact. Talking with city officials is in comparison to the prince obviously a more short term gain, but is more guaranteed of actually resulting in something.
As far as the crone goes, well... Telamon neither denied nor confirmed anything about the existence of the gods and the validity of fortune telling, however even if she sees the future, it doesn't mean she's going to tell us anything of value. Yes, I know, we are rolling for it, that much is clear, but if I look at Gemino's prophecy the Sybill only really told him to fear Atellus, which is something you don't need to see the future for to know. I'm aware that you can interprete what she's been saying as predicting Atellus' battle plan, but at the time that we caught up to him it was basically over for him anyway. (Unless I misremember the battle that is.)
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm not so sure about that.
Mithridates' empire is large enough, and the situation complex enough, that we may find ourselves needing to take ship sooner than we think.
That said, if the statement made about us going at least up to Level 1 from Level 0 in Seafaring is true, I'm dropping this from the plan.
Admittedly it's a tradeoff of potential payoff versus that payoff not materializing. I can see it either way. Though frankly, if this is the main point on which you disagree with my plan, our views are close enough that you might want to consider approval-voting for it anyway. And if this isn't your main point of disagreement, I'd rather not get bogged down stressing about it. After all, you may want to take the 'connect with Nicomedia' option over the 'network with Ptolemy' option, but some other person who likes my plan and just happens not to be online right now might want the opposite. Any plan we support is going to be a weighted average of different people's preferences, and that's OK. I've already decided that in the near future when I do a votepost I'm going to approval-vote for @Random Member 's plan even though it differs significantly from mine in the personal actions, and I'm seriously considering the merits of @Publicola 's plan to the point where if it were just about the personal actions I'd support it.
Reading @Telamon 's comments on the campaign, and looking at his personal inclinations across this and other quests, I think it fair to say that Telamon actually does mean for auguries and prophecies to matter, and has the poetic inclination to make it happen. Check the spoilered "Augurs and Auguries" comment on the second of the main-sequence threadmarked updates, but basically, I don't think Telamon was lying when he said "auguries can provide important clues and hints to future game events, or the outline of a particular storyline or plot."
If we get someone warning us to beware the Ides of March, do not ignore that.
My impression was that Gemino thought he had a chance to defeat us in detail- at least a chance- and seized on it to the point where he was less focused than he should have been on escape. If he'd focused on fleeing Atellus rather than fighting him, he'd almost certainly have survived personally, and had a good chance of continuing the guerilla war one way or another.
So "fear Atellus" was actually really good advice, inasmuch as Gemino should have been thinking a lot less about how to beat us and a lot more about how to run away from us, from the very beginning of that battle.
We're going into the interior of Asia for the foreseeable future. We're already on the same continent as Mithridates and the whole of his empire, Roman armies will not go away from it.
- Location
- Europe
I finde that dubious if I'm honest. As far as his empire goes, the two main bodies are already being invaded, outliers like the Crimean Peninsular matter more as a place of exile/source of grain (at least I believe that was what they were mainly exporting) for Mithridates. The military value of that and the smaller Greek islands pale in comparison to the Anatolian heartland and mainland Greece.
Oh no, I'm not trying to change your plan (well, ok, I think you should absolutely drop seafaring), I was mainly curious about your reasoning. Telamon likes a good discussion, and who knows, maybe I can come around to seeing it your way.
On the question of Egypt versus Bythinia, obviously Egypt is more valuable, being only second to Italy in importance (and that is mostly the political weight of Italy), and getting a foot in there would be us hitting the jackpot. It's simply a question of higher risk and reward versus lower risk and lower reward. My point about it being a longterm/short term issue wasn't entirely correct. Obviously having contacts in Nicomedia has immidiate benefits, but it's always possible that we'll return to Asia in Atellus' hopefully long and illustrous military and political career.
Unless we have reason to assume that the priest hates us or has otherwise political aims running counter to ours.If we get someone warning us to beware the Ides of March, do not ignore that.
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