And thus, the land bill is passed and the second pact of the first year of this glorious Republic is agreed upon:
The Senate is adjourned.
May the Gods bless the Republic.
To allow for the forum game, I’m going to give @CraigM the chance to nominate a priest here before the senate phase actually ends.
Unless I am mistaken there isn’t much benefit to undertake this turn, however next turn it would be wise to give our commander the blessings required.
So no priest at this time.
Priesthoods provide 1 influence and 1 extra vote when deciding whether to approve a proposal to send forces to war. Not a huge swing. I’m not aware of any reason to make a military commander a priest.
The senate is adjourned.
Minutes
- Aelius and Flaminius were appointed consuls, with the portents decreeing that Aelius be Rome consul.
- Aemilius was elected as Pontifex Maximus.
- Junius was acclaimed as Censor.
- Papirius was prosecuted for petty corruption but found to be not guilty.
- Raising a small force to delay the progress of the Gauls was considered but not brought to a vote after advice from the respected commander Flaminius.
- A land bill was passed, earning great favour amongst the people for its sponsors Papirius and Cornelius, and quieting rumblings about poor governance. The New Men are quite unpopular with the people for voting against this bill.
Ah, you are correct and I was misreading the effect.
They boost the senators influence, as a priestly blessing or disproval carries extra weight. No more no less.
Nothing to do in the combat phase.
Revolution Phase
This is the final phase of the turn and should be pretty quick, but the rules are really confusing unless you read the 1.6 version.
- Players may trade hand cards freely with other players.
- You may not exchange money at this time but you can set a binding agreement to do so next revenue phase if you wish to trade a card for money.
- Players may play statesmen and concessions from hand. If anyone cares, this happens in player order (from the HRAO) after all trades are complete. In practice, no-one cares.
- Players must then discard down to 5 cards in hand.
- After all of this, returning commanders may declare civil war.
@Juan_Raigada, @Panzeh, @CraigM, @Kolbex, @scottagibson, @Navaronegun
I play my concession on Aelius.
No actions.
No actions
Also, too: This is a very good game! Again, thanks to @rho21 for agreeing to run it, and to @Navaronegun for convincing me to play.
It certainly works well in the forum, perhaps better than it would in a face to face game. Among other things, I can’t imagine it’s easy to craft such complex formal agreements without paperwork in the face to face game, and without documenting them scrupulously, I think they’d be hard to enforce later — can anyone comment on that? Do folks actually write them down?
I agree, the forum format and pacing (this slow pacing is important) seems to allow for a lot of subtlety in the open and secret negotiations, and for the turns to feel filled with events (and we have not done one so far)!
OK, Aelius now has the Harbour Fees concession, earning 3 talents per turn.
Card swap done between @CraigM and @Navaronegun.
And I believe absolutely everything is now up to date.
I would like to play Aegyptian Grain on Valerius.
Play Tax Farmer on Quinctius.
Thanks, Scott. I’ve played a lotta games in my life, and this is probably the best political game I have ever played; certainly the best Ancient Roman Historical game around, in my humble opinion.
People will whip out the legal pads while playing ftf in my experience, though I do think Forum play lends itself to more purple prose, which is a positive.
Other games that approach this one for diplomacy and multiplayer magic? Kremlin and Empires in Arms, though EIA is solidly a wargame with a fantastic political/diplomatic dimension that rivals some aspects of this. IMO, again.
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I noticed in the ADVANCED section the designer says he designed RoR “for those who think Diplomacy is too tame”.
True. EIA has formalized treaties and you actually have to fight the battles too. :)