@Juan_Raigada got those troublesome concessions at the opening deal. Maybe that was the thing to be concerned about then, not punishing me and @Panzeh. By the time we paid attention to the EGC, Papirius was unprosecutable.
Edit: PM’d it already, but great play @Juan_Raigada.
Also, there was a huge diplomatic fail at the beginning, at least as seen from my POV.
All my initial deal proposals would have meant me giving pretty much all income to Rome for some influence (but not really enough). I didn’t want to play spoiler, but to slowly build some stability through donations and games (getting most of my guys to high popularity). I was actually wary of going into any sort of offensive and wanted to play defensively, using my money to offset the lack of influence due to less offices. But not agreeing to the deals meant I could be prosecuted or persuaded, which meant I could not give the money away since I needed it for defense.
This diplomatic fail is more so if you take into account the shipbuilding concession (and the armament one) seem to be really effective early game, but not mid game when fleets and armies are already built. The storms did help, but I only profited from one or two rounds of shipbuilding, so deals covering my donations those turns (and they were offered) would have taken a lot of bite from the EGC.
As the deals kept falling through, I was pushed into more aggressive attitudes to stay in the game (specially because I was not given even a censorship to play with). It was only three turns ago (I think, @scottagibson should be able to confirm) that I decided on offensive and not defensive play.
I felt pretty much pushed into trying to win or at least move the game aggressively. Before this last play, I offered to support a win to both @scottagibson (who declined) and @CraigM (who did not reply).
@Panzeh and @Navaronegun knew (better than me, since this was my first game) money was a problem, but their constant pointing out made it more of an issue that I originally intended it to be, I think.
Yes, we all would have been better served by better early cooperation. The reaction to the ‘conspiracy’ @Panzeh and I plotted was way overblown; it was basically an agreement to parcel out the early offices and could not have done much harm or lasted very long. I brought Juan into it because I thought it would be good to have some money on our side. But once he exposed it, all of the attention was on that, and not the threat Juan’s money represented.
Juan and I were cooperating in the middle game. I thought it would be best to let @Navaronegun make the prosecution attempt and fail — we knew it would fail because of popularity — and that perhaps then cooler heads could prevail and we could start cooperating. But instead @Navaronegun tried the assassination and was eliminated by failure.
At this point the only idea I had was to find a way to weaken Juan enough to force some cooperation, pry away the revenue that was unbalancing the situation. Probably I should have just made some kind of deal offer. Instead I agreed to help him win and went along with his plans until I was in a position to kill one of his Senators to weaken him. Unfortunately I picked the wrong one.
I think if you look back I was always on the side of a cooperation agreement and focusing on the wars. At least after the first round anyway.
I’ll add that the RNG decides a lot in this game. Some players got senatorial families with statesmen, others didn’t. Some got 3 concessions on the opening deal, some got none. Some got families killed immediately. It’s hard to overcome the weak starting positions that result.
You didn’t pick the wrong one. You killed 50 talents or so with that Senator and since then, the shipbuilding amounted to pretty much nothing. Has you killed Papirius, I would have been in a much stronger position to force a vote to my side or to persuade away Senators. As things stood I had barely enough cash if you guys had kept all of it in play for the Consul for Life nomination.
Those talents did hurt more than Papirius would have at that point. Again, shipbuilding concession power is very limited after the main fleet building effort is done, I think.
Yeah that was really good timing with the shipbuilding. I should have held back my cash more, but I felt like my out was this not happening and me continuing on with Julius. I don’t think I have even a ghost of a chance with just Claudius, even if the game continues on.
Yeah, that’s the calculation I made at the time, but afterwards I kept second guessing it.
That’s what I wanted everybody to do, in the hope you would waste an assassination attempt on the now pretty useless Papirius (useless except for punishing assassination attempts, that is).
I think @Panzeh Will confirm that my real consideration the first term was basically separating moneybags from HRH. After that, he and I became quite friendly, because my concern was not letting moneybags win. 😀 As well as not seeing Rome fall due to the wars. Also, I felt the need to play aggressively early, losing a senator on the first turn. The game is interesting because with a large group someone who’s in a position of weakness actually poses less of a threat and therefore isn’t perceived as having ulterior motives at the front of their mind because frankly they’re so far away from winning
You should forget the Spanish Civil War already (well, and Carthage :P), that game had design problems I stumbled upon and took advantage of :)
I dunno, seems like Juan bought an unassailable position with his very first consulship. He averted a prosecution by making deals for acquittal, and that was really the last chance we had to use force to strip the concessions. Everyone but @Panzeh and I voted to acquit.
Yes, given enough cash you need to avoid prosecutions for just 2 turns to be unassailable (third turn you get to 9).
“Moneybags” isn’t just you, sorry Juan. :). You’re a good grog, but “moneybags” would be my target, regardless of who it was. It’s the thing to be afraid of early, along with Rome getting sacked.
Just messing with you a little there :P
I’m guessing the late game is very different, with everybody having much higher income due to provincial spoils. Is that right?
Let’s find out!
Yeah, I think people tend to consider minor prosecutions much more aggressive moves than they really are and in the end it came out there. Minor prosecutions are part and parcel of any working senate in this game.
Basically. Multiple centers of power competing is a hallmark of the Late Republic, that being a large reason.
In the late game one of the challenges is that any senator with money is also a potential rebel so you end up trying to push as lightly as you can against the wars to avoid creating potentially good rebels.
Isn’t it enough to not sending to war/electing Consul senators with too high a personal treasury? Also, looking at the card manifest. Middle and late Republic wars are sort of mellow.
Here’s the deal that turned the game.
That’s just the first turn, but yes, the Land Bill I passed thanks to the deal helped build popularity for Papirius and made him hard to prosecute starting turn 2. That game him 4 popularity. 6 after next year’s games, and by then prosecution is very risky, with 70% or so chances of direct acquittal and chit draws to kill the prosecutor.