Middle Provincial Era GROGPUBLIC game thread

Started by JasonPratt, September 17, 2018, 05:04:17 PM

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JasonPratt

As noted, the 3rd segment of the Revenue Phase this Turn simply ends with the usual Latin Era Turn One net Republic total of 46 Talents (since no one contributed).

After this, things will heat up.  :knuppel2:

Here's a quick snapshot overview before the Forum Phase starts.

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

TURN ONE -- FORUM PHASE
-----------------------

The Plutocrats hold the HRAO senator (Fulvius the Roman Consul), so the Frog will start the round again.

To draw a card players roll a 2d6. On a total of 7 you'll re-roll more dice for a random event; but the Plutocrats roll 8, so it's a scenario card. (I won't report actual totals henceforth unless someone asks how and why sometimes it's a scenario and sometimes a random event.)

The Frog draws the next active political family, the Acilians! Notice this (like all family Senators) is a black-text card, so it's a Forum card, being played publicly to the Forum.



This family is pretty meh to be honest -- they don't even have a famous historical Statesman in the deck! (Which you can tell by the lack of brackets around their family number). But even a meh senator can be a game saver (or game winner) if played cleverly. He'll hang out in the Forum (along with Junius Brutus), waiting for someone to convince him to join their Faction. (Brutus will join anyone who picks up Family #10, the Junii, but they aren't active yet.)

Ethel now gets to make one or more or all the following choices, once this round, in any order you prefer.

1.) Persuade a senator to join your faction. You must use one of your senators in Rome, but any (non-Captive, non-Leader) senator can be your target. You can try going after the new Senator Acilius. Your 2d6 roll will have to be LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO the sum of your persuading senator's Inf + Ora stats, minus the target's Loyalty (minus another 7 if he's already in a Faction), minus any personal cash of his, plus any Bribe your senator may give him, but minus any Bribe other Factions (from their Faction Treasuries) may give him. (He keeps all bribery cash in any case, making him that much harder to persuade next time -- but bringing this cash into the Faction if you win!) Also, if you roll too high a total (>=10), you automatically fail anyway from trying too hard! (This by the way makes a sure bet impossible for persuading senators, which keeps players from unbeatably sniping each other's senators away late in the game when cash is plentiful.)

As you can see by comparing his snapshot to your senators...



if Claudius tried you'd need to roll less than or equal to 10 (5 Ora + 5 Inf) - 7 (Ac's loyalty) = 3. In other words you'd have to roll snake eyes, or a 1 and a 2. That's 3 out of 36 possible rolls, or 1 chance in 12. If you add Appius' 2 Talents as a bribe, you can improve that to <=5, which is better but still not even near 50/50. Fulvius will have a signifiantly worse chance! -- he'd need all his 2 cash just to have any chance at all (with a roll of 2, snake-eyes, 1:36th of a chance.)

The other Players should keep this in mind, too when it's your round soon. This early in the game, it's hard to persuade a Senator to join you.

2.) Persuade a knight. This is a lot easier: >=6 on a 1d6, which is naturally 1 in 6 chance, and it improves 1 point for each Talent you contribute. (Except you won't get control of those Talents back if you win! -- they're gone straight to the bank.) So if any of your senators had 5 Talents, he could pick up a knight without even bothering to roll. You might still want to try, even with your chosen senator donating 1 or 2 Talents (33 or 50 percent chance to win respectively). There's no limit to the number of knights in the game, or which your senators can pick up, but you only get one chance per Forum Phase round.

3.) Choose a new Faction Leader. This is free, and always automatically succeeds: you just declare it.

The choices are totally optional; as will be a few other optional choices unlocking here later in the game.

In short, you can (in any order, nothing mandatory): choose a new leader; try to persuade a senator to join you (but Acilius in the Forum has the only distant chance right now, and if you fail it makes him harder later); or try to persuade a knight to join one of your senators.

Remember, your chosen senator makes the persuasion attempt; and your persuading senator pays for any bribery from his personal cash.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#32
If you want to make the rolls yourself here on the forum, by the way, you can type {roll}1d6{/roll}, except using [square brackets] instead of {fancy ones}, and putting the type of die-roll in the middle.

Remember however that if you do decide to go for the Senator, all the other players in order around the board get one chance each to add Counter-bribes (from their Faction Treasuries). Although you'll then get a 2nd and last chance to add any more cash from your persuading senator's personal cash (if any remains, and never from your own Faction cash).

Other players can't counter-bribe your attempts to persuade a knight, however.

Also, Players can't simply follow the Frog after he's done, since I've first got to roll and draw cards or events for each player going around the board. (But you can be sort-of planning ahead.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Ethel the Frog

Ok.  Claudius will try without spending any money, and will hope for the snake eyes. 

JasonPratt

It's Fulvius who would need snake-eyes. Appius Claudius would also win on a total of 3: 10 (5 Ora + 5 Inf) - 7 (Ac's loyalty) = 3 or less.

We'll try the forum dice roller:

[blockquote]Rolled 2d6 : 3, 6, total 9[/blockquote]
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#35
Didn't work, but you didn't lose anything either.

Did you want one of your senators to try for a minion? And/or change Leaders?

Note that these can be done in any order, and can even be announced all at once since any bribes for one purpose wouldn't be used for another -- unless you won bribing the Senator!

So when it comes other players' rounds, they can just announce all their choice attempts at once (after I announce what card or event happened and resolve that first). It'll save a little time and effort.  O:-)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Also, in case I haven't emphasized this enough: knights are, in my estimation, the single most cost-effective power in the game. Even if you spend 5 Talents making 100% sure you pick up each of your knights, they'll still earn their keep within 5 turns (unless your senator dies, or you throw your knights away to harvest a one time extra cash bonus off them), and then they're just gravy.

Plus they always bring one extra vote per knight for your Faction, on any topic (unless the Neutralist player is neutralizing them occasionally). And (with the Faction upgrades I introduced) most Players have activist knights who will bring 2 instead of 1 extra vote (the minion and a friend of his who isn't your minion) under various conditions.

And there is no limit to how many knights your senators can have. There's only a limit to how often you can try for a knight: usually once per Turn, during your round of the Forum Phase.

Players should always try for at least one more knight, for some senator, during your Forum round, even if you spend no extra cash to try it. 1:6 chance for a free knight isn't amazing, but it isn't terrible either. Personally I would have an eye toward saving up and distributing cash specifically to pick up a new knight each turn, unless I absolutely needed that cash for some other plan.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Ethel the Frog

Oh.  So, I still have the option of trying for a knight?  If the option is open, I will do so.  Using the senator that has the highest chance.  If I need to spend money to affect it, and it is two dice, I would pay to the point where I need to roll an 8 or less on 2 dice.  And, in that regard, the money would first come from teh general treasury, if that is an option.  If I am requesting this too late, that's fine too.  I take it from your post that all of the others can announce their intent in this regard as well at this point.  I don't see any posts from them but am not confident that this web site updates properly. 

JasonPratt

No, I think they were just waiting on you, to see if you were finished.

The money can't come from the Faction treasury; it can only come from the senator who is trying to persuade the knight to join as his minion. But there isn't much, this early in the game, for your senators to spend cash on anyway, so knights are a good bet.

It's a 1d6, not 2d6, which makes all results equally probable. But that's good for you in this case, because it means you only need to spend 2 Talents to make your odds 50/50 -- in the sense you were asking about, it means with only 2 cash your spread of results will be from 3 to 8 total, and you only need 6 or more to win.

No stats factor into rolling for knights, so your senators each have an equal chance. In your case, there's no particular benefit to trying to concentrate your minions onto one senator, so since Appius already has a knight, I'll roll for Fulvius.

(By contrast, Tripoli with the Militarists should take note that your knights act as headquarter expansions for your senators on campaign, allowing your senators to more effectively manage larger numbers of fleets and/or legions. So it does make more sense for you to concentrate your knights into one senator. Although there's a risk of you losing all his knights if he dies, and of course if he takes them on campaign then you can't use those knights for their normal +1 voting buffs in the Senate. This game has all kinds of crazy subtle political strategy...  :smitten: )

I'll do the roll in the forum next.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

In effect, Fulvius is spending his 2 Talents to broaden the success range of a 1d6 roll to 50%. 4 or higher wins him a minion. His cash goes to the bank regardless. (But a Plutocrat knight will earn back those 2 Talents next turn, and after that everything will be gravy for as long as Fulvius survives.)

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Rolled a 2, needed a 4, so no knight this round for the Plutocrats.

The Frog doesn't seem to want to change his Faction Leader yet, so we're on to AzTank and the Conservative Faction.

Az rolls for a Scenario card instead of a random Event, and draws a red-text Faction card, which he adds to his hand.



I'll be p-mailing him in a minute to explain what he drew, and when he can play it.

Your choices are the same; you can do none, any, or all of them, in any order you prefer -- they're all optional.

1.) Use one of your senators to try persuading another senator to join your Faction. The only possible target right now is the new family Senator Acilius (see prior snapshot for his stats). Your only senator who might possibly succeed is your Statesman Camilus, but his Ora + Inf stats only add up to 8 against Ac's loyalty of 7, so you'd need to roll a total of 1 on 2d6 which is impossible -- but Camilus only has 1 Talent in his personal treasury. If he adds that as a bribe (and if none of the other players counter-bribe you from their combined Faction Treasuries!) then you've still only got an absolutely minimum 1:36 chance (rolling snake eyes). Personally I don't recommend it.

2.) Choose one of your senators to try to persuade a knight to join as his minion. Each of your senators has only 1 Talent, so your best chance is no better than 33% (5 or 6 out of 1d6.) You should however still try for one of your senators even if you don't spend any cash.

3.) Choose to continue with Camillus as your Faction Leader, or switch to Fabius. (This always costs nothing and succeeds automatically.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

ArizonaTank

I'll try for a knight with Fabius, keeping Camilus as faction leader.
Johannes "Honus" Wagner
"The Flying Dutchman"
Shortstop: Pittsburgh Pirates 1900-1917
Rated as the 2nd most valuable player of all time by Bill James.

JasonPratt

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Rolled a four, which fails. You didn't specify you were risking cash, so I won't deduct Fabius' (which wouldn't have won anyway).

I'm at the shop so I can't roll-and-draw I.I's card, but you're up next, I.I. The card/event draw probably isn't going to affect your ability to make the same choices, unless it spawns another family Senator with even less loyalty than Acilius (which isn't very likely).

The same is true with Tripoli, so if y'all want to send in your choices I'll process them in order.

To recap: you can roll 2d6 to try to pick up Acilius, but honestly this early in the game I wouldn't bother trying. You'll have to spend what little cash your senators have got, to even possibly succeed, and the odds will still be ludicrous. You're better off spending that cash elsewhere.

You can (and I recommend you should) choose one of your senators to try to attract a minion. Spending your senator's personal cash on this is a much better bet, but so would be saving up your cash for a sure bet later. Even if you spend no cash you've still got a 1:6 chance so it isn't unreasonable to try.

And you can switch up your Faction Leader or keep the one you've got.

I'll do the Scenario card draw this afternoon for both of you at once, since again I don't think any result will affect your choices much, and this will help move things along. And for that matter, this Turn it'll be okay if you don't go in order: Tripoli can go before I.I, so just whomever wants to go next. (That's because the only choice which your play-order around the table would affect is going for Acilius, and that's near-or-totally impossible right now.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

IncompetentIdiot

Cornelius will spend his 3 gold to (attempt to) nab himself a client knight. He'll also remain faction leader.