Middle Provincial Era GROGPUBLIC game thread

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

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JasonPratt

Well, that will settle Julius being the Field Consul, so Junius of the Populists will be Roman Consul by deduction.

That Proposal will have to wait until Mandatory Business is finished, though. But now we can tell that Malize will be running the Senate for the rest of the Turn, and his first duty as the new HRAO and thus the Presiding Magistrate will be to Propose a Censor election -- which he's Contracted to pick from I.I.'s Aristocrats.

Theoretically, AzTank and/or the Frog could preempt that with a Tribune, if one of them has one (or more), and Propose someone themselves for Censor, but whether they have the votes to get away with it is a whole other question. My guess is that for one or another reason they won't rock the boat on it, but we'll see.

Anyway. Over to Malize now to Propose a Censor from I.I.'s stable.

After that gets done, then I.I. will have to consider investigations, and we'll have to process one or two or none of those; and then we'll be done with Mandatory business and can move on to Malize Proposing Julius slaughtering the Samnites like crickets.  >:D
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malize

I propose the honorable Valerius as Censor.

JasonPratt

Catching up on Consul assignment results: Junius gets a Prior Consul marker and 5 Influence, up to 8, bringing Populists' total Influence to 11. Julius also earns a Prior Consul marker and 5 Influence, up to 9, Militarist total Influence up to 34. Roman and Field Consuls respectively, as noted.

Valerius is a valid choice (being in Rome, and being a Prior Consul), and the 8th Turn Coalition certainly has the votes to pass it. I'll provisionally process it as done.

Valerius gains 5 Influence, up to 16, new total up to 46. The Aristocrats generate an extra Influence point from this (the 47th total) to be given to someone other than Val.

The PM duty shifts over to Valerius and I.I. must decide whether to investigate anyone. Valid targets after the Contracted Factions are excluded are:

From the Plutocrats, Claudius and the PontMax Acilius, each on Major suspicions.

From the Aristocrats... well, no one, because suffering the slings of fortune and being politically irrelevant for a while also makes you invulnerable to suspicion.  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!

IncompetentIdiot

First off, Valerius will commission the construction of the Via Appia Valeria south for the use of Julius' legions. Owing to its significance to the war effort, he will consider judicial matters once the groundwork has been laid (possible prosecutions to come).

Erax

After we are done with prosecutions and before we go off to war, we should decide whether to raise the three new legions in our pool.

Having looked at the rules, it's clear to me that an attacked Imminent War does, in fact, go active and multiply its matching wars immediately, so that would be a bad idea and we should focus on the active war.

JasonPratt

Quote from: IncompetentIdiot on December 12, 2018, 09:32:41 PM
First off, Valerius will commission the construction of the Via Appia Valeria south for the use of Julius' legions. Owing to its significance to the war effort, he will consider judicial matters once the groundwork has been laid (possible prosecutions to come).

To be clear, he's playing an Italian Era Faction Intrigue card from his hand, which happens to also be an historical Event.

I'm not where I can take a snapshot of it (much less process the results), but the card text which is sufficiently explanatory reads: "Playable during the Senate Phase," check, "after Censor election," check, "by a faction that controls the Censor," check. Within the implications of the game rules, this means I.I. can play it at will, any time after Val has been elected Censor, which is what he's doing.

"Censor gains 2 Popularity and Unrest is lowered by 2. The State must immediately pay 10 Talents from the Treasury. Cannot be played if less than 10t in the Treasury." In other words you can't troll everyone in the game by suiciding the Republic with this card.  ::) As usual it discards permanently after use.

Historically, Appius Claudius convinced the Senate to build (and pay for) the Appian Way while he was serving as Censor, thus the terms of the card (and why Rome's and indeed the Western World's, perhaps even the world's, first superhighway was named that.)

Ironically, Appius Claudius in this game was Censor at least once; and had the Frog gotten this card at that time somehow, he could have matched history with it.  :coolsmiley:

I'll have to process the results when I get home from work, but I can verify it's a valid card play.
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!

malize

Rome looked on the road, and it was a good road.

JasonPratt

Quote from: Erax on December 13, 2018, 05:17:32 AM
After we are done with prosecutions and before we go off to war, we should decide whether to raise the three new legions in our pool.

Having looked at the rules, it's clear to me that an attacked Imminent War does, in fact, go active and multiply its matching wars immediately, so that would be a bad idea and we should focus on the active war.

Thanks, I somehow didn't look that up myself last night to check which way it went, even though I fully meant to!  O0 :notworthy:

To be a little more specific, it not only multiplies its Matching Wars, it multiplies itself, too, immediately. All Matching Wars multiply each other in being part of a set. So going after one of the Imminent Wars will double its own power immediately and also the power of the 1st Samnite.

HOWEVER! -- the sequence of attack can make this less of a problem. If you Deploy a Force to attack the 1st Samnite War first (which will necessarily send the Field Consul as Force Commander, under these circumstances, a Dictator being unavailable yet due to lack of sufficient threat), and then Deploy (by a different Proposal, notice) a Force (with the Roman Consul) to attack one of the Imminent Samnite Wars (which by the way will instantly end the Senate Phase since the PM will have departed, unless the PM resigns his post for this year devolving PM duties onto the next available officer, the Censor presumably in this case).... {inhale!}

...then the Imminent War does go Active and multiplies with its Matching War immediately (as Erax verified), BUT you'd be attacking the weaker War first which only has a strength 4 even doubled. And if you manage to defeat that, then the next fight during the Combat Phase will be against a War depleted back to its normal Land Strength.

So depending on your logistic capabilities, there are ways to game the rules there.  O:-) Still riskier than stomping the Wars one at a time in sequences as they activate, as Minerva would doubtless advise.  :coolsmiley:
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!

Tripoli

Quote from: IncompetentIdiot on December 12, 2018, 09:32:41 PM
First off, Valerius will commission the construction of the Via Appia Valeria south for the use of Julius' legions. Owing to its significance to the war effort, he will consider judicial matters once the groundwork has been laid (possible prosecutions to come).

What are the effects of this card on the war effort?
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" -Abraham Lincoln

JasonPratt

Quote from: Tripoli on December 13, 2018, 08:44:34 AM
Quote from: IncompetentIdiot on December 12, 2018, 09:32:41 PM
First off, Valerius will commission the construction of the Via Appia Valeria south for the use of Julius' legions. Owing to its significance to the war effort, he will consider judicial matters once the groundwork has been laid (possible prosecutions to come).

What are the effects of this card on the war effort?

Nothing in the game; in real life it had a military importance of course. I think this was just Malize roleplaying.  :)
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!

malize

Quote from: JasonPratt on December 13, 2018, 09:38:32 AM
Nothing in the game; in real life it had a military importance of course. I think this was just Malize roleplaying.  :)

Yup.

Rome so serious.

JasonPratt

Eh, it's a heretofore unseen card, so it makes sense to check if it had an in-game military application.

(Also I meant to type "I.I." not Malize, since he was the one rp-ing the building of the Via Valerian. But a neuron zigged instead of zagging.  ::) )

I dearly love all the rp-ing, by the way!  :smitten:

Almost as much as I love the political strategerying.  >:D
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

Catching up a little... here's the Appian Way card:



Val gains his first 2 Pop; Unrest goes down 2 to 4. The Republic pays 10 Talents, down from 206 to 196. That was I.I.'s last remaining Faction card in his hand.

As a reminder, I still don't haven't heard from you, I.I., where your extra point of Influence should go. Not to Valerius (he generated it as a special ability side effect); Quinc and Corny both have 15. Corny is your faction leader and a priest, and has 3 knights and a Tax Farming Concession (and 15 cash). Quinc has 1 Pop, 1 knight, and 5 cash. You can check back to a pre-Senate snapshot to see their basic stats (Mil / Ora / Loy.)
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 case anyone is wondering, most of the action recently has involved back-channel political strategizing. We may have stalled a bit on that in the last day, in regard to whether to do this-or-that (or possibly the other).

Anyway, eventually the Players will work out how to proceed. But we've got Christmas holidays coming up, and this combined with winter weather in the northern hemisphere is likely to delay gameplay off and on until we're clear of it.

Consequently, if Players (including myself as umpire) are going to be out of pocket for a while, be sure to post and let us know.  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!

Tripoli

I'm available.  SImply getting my legions ready to cross the Rubicon, err, I mean defend Rome against the Samarians.... ;D
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" -Abraham Lincoln