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Res Publica: A Quest of Ancient Rome

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29 Plan Publicola
21 Firm Foundations
16 Dual Command

top 3 votes at the moment. Leading vote has just under half of voters.

Differences between are such. Underline and italics used to show matches between two plans:

Plan Publicola
[] Connect
[] A Law Beyond The Sword
--[] Cicero
[] The Scipians
[] Si Vis Pacem
[] Para Bellum
[] The City of the Kings of Asia

Firm Foundations
-[] Make Terms
-[] See To Repairs
--[] Scaevola
-[] Brotherhood
-[] Para Bellum
-[] Res Publica
-[] The Prince

Dual Command
-[] Make Terms
-[] Training
--[] Cicero
-[] The Cult
-[] Res Publica
-[] The Marians
-[] The Prince
 
My main objection to @Publicola 's plan is that I think training the legionnaires is extremely important and should definitely not be neglected just because we think the other guy will do it. There are nine items on that list, so unless Cassianus gets waaay more actions per turn than we do, some things are going to be left undone. And some things are important enough that both of us working on them is probably worth it- and training the troops is likely one of them.

Unless our cohorts have gained considerable veterancy since the last time we got a readout on them ( @Telamon what is their current veterancy status please?), we still have most of the legion rolling at a -1 or 0 on the die roll. This is not going to look great when stacked up against veterans who've spent years or even decades serving under Marius. One very real potential failure mode for us is if we and Cassianus have some kind of very satisfactory resolution to our own squabble, but the Sixth performs poorly enough that Marius just squints at us, says "who crapped on a plate and called this a legion," deposes BOTH of us and appoints one of his own followers to run things.

I mean, the guy just deposed a consul for the offenses of 'being a wimp' and 'not bringing enough troops.' The guy, nominally one of the two most powerful men in Rome, is now wandering the palace grumbling.

If Marius gets anywhere near that pissed at Atellus, we may find ourselves demoted all the way down to "liaison with Nicomedes" duty or something.

We need to make sure that we're not so focused on establishing our authority over the Sixth that we forget to, y'know, win the battles. And right now our training levels are something of a weak link.

That's the main reason I support Dual Command instead. I wouldn't mind any plan that had Training in it, so for example I support @Random Member 's plan, " Plan Make Connections and Study v2 ," which is fairly similar to Publicola's except for having Training instead of A Law Beyond The Sword. I feel like that's an important difference.

Simmr001 said:
Does the "but shes really attractive" excuse exist in Republican Rome?
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Yes, but so does easy divorce. As does the custom of extremely powerful and murder-happy Romans glaring at you until you divorce your wife.
 
Simon_Jester said:
My main objection to @Publicola 's plan is that I think training the legionnaires is extremely important and should definitely not be neglected just because we think the other guy will do it. There are nine items on that list, so unless Cassianus gets waaay more actions per turn than we do, some things are going to be left undone. And some things are important enough that both of us working on them is probably worth it- and training the troops is likely one of them.

Unless our cohorts have gained considerable veterancy since the last time we got a readout on them ( @Telamon what is their current veterancy status please?), we still have most of the legion rolling at a -1 or 0 on the die roll. This is not going to look great when stacked up against veterans who've spent years or even decades serving under Marius. One very real potential failure mode for us is if we and Cassianus have some kind of very satisfactory resolution to our own squabble, but the Sixth performs poorly enough that Marius just squints at us, says "who crapped on a plate and called this a legion," deposes BOTH of us and appoints one of his own followers to run things.

I mean, the guy just deposed a consul for the offenses of 'being a wimp' and 'not bringing enough troops.' The guy, nominally one of the two most powerful men in Rome, is now wandering the palace grumbling.
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As an aside, there is no point in becoming very popular with the troops if they get shredded in this war and have to be replenished with new faces who don't know Atellus yet.
 
I'm personally going with Plan Publicola over the other two because it has Connect rather than Make Terms. If there was another plan which had Connect rather than Make Terms, I would be willingly to vote for that.
 
Yyyeah, I....think that Connect is better than Make Terms, because it has us fishing for a useful ally when we get back in Rome.
But Make Terms, with its fairly business-like approach, is presenting us as rather professional wrt it all, which is not a bad opening in relationship either.

Am really not fond of everyone running for Cult though; not sure why would we want to do it.
 
Simon_Jester said:
And some things are important enough that both of us working on them is probably worth it- and training the troops is likely one of them.
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I personally see no indication that us both working on one thing is possible or is going to be of any benefit. And, well, I already replied to with my thoughts on why Cassianus would be a complete idiot to not take Training - and if he is, we probably need to learn about it sooner than later.
 
*sees own plan made it to (a pretty distant) 4th place*

Well, better than I expected. Maybe if I had added 'The Crone', but I really hate prophecy....
agumentic said:
I personally see no indication that us both working on one thing is possible or is going to be of any benefit. And, well, I already replied to with my thoughts on why Cassianus would be a complete idiot to not take Training - and if he is, we probably need to learn about it sooner than later.
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Meanwhile, in Cassianus Quest:
"Atellus would be a complete idiot to not take Training, so we can leave that to him and do all these other things instead."
 
Telamon said:
Alesia in particular would be an Engineering/Siegecraft roll.

And yes, I hadn't added Siegecraft to Alexander and Caesar both because you didn't have it yet and because I wasn't sure at that point if I wanted to roll it into Engineering. I have since decided I don't, and I'll actually head back and give it to both of them, so thanks for the reminder.
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I can understand why you would want to separate Engineering (building bridges, erecting camps, constructing siege engines?, ...) from the applied knowledge of how to besiege a walled settlement. But I fear this will make Engineering such a specialized skill, that we are never gonna level it. The thread is probably gonna go for the new Siegecraft skill and leave Engineering to a subordinate.

Simon_Jester said:
My main objection to @Publicola 's plan is that I think training the legionnaires is extremely important and should definitely not be neglected just because we think the other guy will do it. There are nine items on that list, so unless Cassianus gets waaay more actions per turn than we do, some things are going to be left undone. And some things are important enough that both of us working on them is probably worth it- and training the troops is likely one of them.

Unless our cohorts have gained considerable veterancy since the last time we got a readout on them ( @Telamon what is their current veterancy status please?), we still have most of the legion rolling at a -1 or 0 on the die roll. This is not going to look great when stacked up against veterans who've spent years or even decades serving under Marius. One very real potential failure mode for us is if we and Cassianus have some kind of very satisfactory resolution to our own squabble, but the Sixth performs poorly enough that Marius just squints at us, says "who crapped on a plate and called this a legion," deposes BOTH of us and appoints one of his own followers to run things.

I mean, the guy just deposed a consul for the offenses of 'being a wimp' and 'not bringing enough troops.' The guy, nominally one of the two most powerful men in Rome, is now wandering the palace grumbling.

If Marius gets anywhere near that pissed at Atellus, we may find ourselves demoted all the way down to "liaison with Nicomedes" duty or something.

We need to make sure that we're not so focused on establishing our authority over the Sixth that we forget to, y'know, win the battles. And right now our training levels are something of a weak link.

That's the main reason I support Dual Command instead. I wouldn't mind any plan that had Training in it, so for example I support @Random Member 's plan, " Plan Make Connections and Study v2 ," which is fairly similar to Publicola's except for having Training instead of A Law Beyond The Sword. I feel like that's an important difference.

Yes, but so does easy divorce. As does the custom of extremely powerful and murder-happy Romans glaring at you until you divorce your wife.
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While I agree that Training is important, and have thus approval voted for Plan Make Connections and Study v2, I would say it is less crucial in "Connect" plans. I agree with @agumentic that Cassianus is likely to take care of Training, if we don't pick it. What I am worried about is letting the men get too used to following his orders. Still, if we manage to establish a good rapport with him, then I feel that is less of an issue.

Also did using "Tasks" to correctly count the vote already work yesterday? I feel like I tried that and failed, but maybe I'm just confused...
_Pluto_ said:
Plan Make Connections and Study v2
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You will need brackets to vote!
 
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@_Pluto_

Do you now oppose "Dual Command?"

Because while I'd be okay with seeing @Random Member 's plan win (though I'd be disappointed to miss that prophecy option), we're also under a pretty serious vote deficit compared to Publicola's plan. May I ask that you continue voting for "Dual Command," which has the training option, even though it involves a division of responsibilities and not an attempt to win over Cassianus through "Connect?"

It may not be optimal in your eyes, but it's at least got a reasonable chance of working, and seems to be closer to what you want than Publicola's plan which is by far in the lead at the moment.

Random Member said:
*sees own plan made it to (a pretty distant) 4th place*

Well, better than I expected. Maybe if I had added 'The Crone', but I really hate prophecy....
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We have good reason to think that @Telamon doesn't , though, and ignoring that seems imprudent.

agumentic said:
I personally see no indication that us both working on one thing is possible or is going to be of any benefit.
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Why wouldn't it be? Telamon tends to shape mechanics and modifiers to match logic and reality, and Telamon is surely sensible enough to recognize that two hard-driven people working on the same thing is generally going to be more productive than one person working on it alone while the other ignores the matter.

And, well, I already replied to with my thoughts on why Cassianus would be a complete idiot to not take Training - and if he is, we probably need to learn about it sooner than later.
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Random Member said:
Meanwhile, in Cassianus Quest:
"Atellus would be a complete idiot to not take Training, so we can leave that to him and do all these other things instead."
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This.

I mean, imagine that this sequence of events were a story in a book of Roman history. Asiaticus brings Marius a legion as reinforcements. Marius, in his arrogant pride, is unsatisfied and angry. He sidelines the consul and appoints two callow youths to command of the Sixth Legion, without making clear arrangements. These young men view each other as rivals. What happens next?

Well, one answer is "The two men focus on competing for honors and status within the legion so hard that they neglect the legion's training and equipment. Whether Atellus or Cassianus succeeds in establishing primacy over the legion, or whether the two men share command, ends up mattering little; Mithridates overruns them and the rest of Marius' paltry force. It just goes to show that regardless of whether one commander is better than another, having one commander is assuredly better than having two."

I don't want us to set ourselves up for that ending.

Spacegnom said:
I can understand why you would want to separate Engineering (building bridges, erecting camps, constructing siege engines?, ...) from the applied knowledge of how to besiege a walled settlement. But I fear this will make Engineering such a specialized skill, that we are never gonna level it. The thread is probably gonna go for the new Siegecraft skill and leave Engineering to a subordinate.
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Well, I don't see how that's worse than leaving Siegecraft to a subordinate... :p

But more seriously, we're mostly Rome fans on some level in this thread. We're gonna take some ranks in Engineering, it's just that we simply cannot spare the personal actions to level up all our skills in a hurry and we only get a chance to vote on XP-gaining personal actions every 3-5 updates or so.
 
Random Member said:
Meanwhile, in Cassianus Quest:
"Atellus would be a complete idiot to not take Training, so we can leave that to him and do all these other things instead."
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Since all plans focus on some cooperation, we obviously hash it out first thing around (Also, in Cassianus quest, he would have the first choice of actions, by the dent of being the protagonist).
Simon_Jester said:
Why wouldn't it be? Telamon tends to shape mechanics and modifiers to match logic and reality, and Telamon is surely sensible enough to recognize that two hard-driven people working on the same thing is generally going to be more productive than one person working on it alone while the other ignores the matter.
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Except it wouldn't, if one person fills all the roles the action needs, which, I believe, is the case for those actions. There is a reason Telamon worded it "Whatever actions you do not get to, Cassianus may", and not something more implying of possibility of sharing the action.
 
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_Pluto_ said:
I preffer the Make terms option, Cassianus seems like the kind of guy that will hate the Friendship route his D.C Roll will probably be really difficult; I think the more "Professional" approach will be better maybe later on we can try to be friends.
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Uh... "Dual Command" is the "Make Terms" option. You're voting for the friendship option right now; earlier I think you were voting for "Dual Command."

EDIT:

Though to be fair I'm not sure I agree with you. We have some evidence that Cassianus is something of a schmoozer, and he clearly doesn't have any aversion to making new friends that can help him get what he wants.

We can help him get what he wants- we don't even have to make him fail to succeed ourselves!
 
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I though the voting system change? (we can vote for multiply plans.)
If the make friends plans win I will preffer training or repairs over Law.

Simon_Jester said:
Uh... "Dual Command" is the "Make Terms" option. You're voting for the friendship option right now; earlier I think you were voting for "Dual Command."

!
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