Middle Provincial Era GROGPUBLIC game thread

[JasonPratt]

Okay, here's the War that has to be dealt with eventually:



I'll explain some of this in more detail later when I run the Combat Phase (if anyone goes to fight it), but for now what you need to know is that the War plus the Leader (Tarqy) has combat power equal to three Legions, and any Leader (including Tarqy) changes (typically improves) the chances of a Disaster or a Standoff result, which while not outright Defeat for Rome would still be problematic.

Y'all have 2 Active Legions ready for deployment, and another 5 potentially in the manpower pool. A senator's Military skill, remember, allows him to double the effect of X-number of Legions. So if you're only sending 2 Legions to fight, there's no point sending a level 5 leader yet; a 2 skill Leader will get maximum results from your Force.

The Republic has 36 Talents, with a promise from your allies of another 25 next Turn (plus a nominal income of 30, minus 2 for any surviving active Legions, minus 10 if the 1st Latin War doesn't get defeated this Turn.)

Legions cost 10 Talents to raise. You can deploy Legions raised during the same Senate phase.

It's impossible to start fighting against a War without a Consul leading an Army (or Force) up to it. You can send multiple Forces to the same War at the same time, but no Force can have more than one senator leading it (currently, with an important exception later in the game). Multiple Forces at a War must decide among the senators leading them, what order to attack in, or how the Legions will be split between them. (For example if you seriously overpower a war, you might send two strong Forces to attack it, with the first attack led by a Statesman who has the power to ignore Standoff and Disaster rolls, since there can only be one of each of those per War per turn. Consequently if he rolls a Standoff, it wouldn't affect his troops, and the next general would not have to worry about a Standoff result this Turn.)

None of this can be decided or enacted before Mandatory business is concluded (war isn't actually Mandatory business for the Senate!), but electing Consuls will naturally have a bearing on such decisions, so I thought it might be a good idea for Players to be looking ahead to what they can be planning to do with any Consuls you elect.

[JasonPratt]

And now the sideboards (which you left-click to toggle bigger), clockwise around the table from Player One (I.I. and his Aristocrat Faction):










In case you're wondering, don't worry about the area labeled "Delayed Transfer" yet. Any cash and/or Faction cards sent from one Player to another, will stop there temporarily until certain Phases allow them to pass through to be received.

[JasonPratt]

The Frog was away from his computer today, and still is -- he can read the thread on his phone, sort of, but can't reply to it.

Fortunately he was able to text me by another method, so... um, like an oracle, I guess, I'm able to pass on his messages!  O:-)

His first proposal nominates his other senator, the Statesman Appius Claudius, as the Roman Consul (replacing Fulvius); and nominates Quintius Cincinnatus of the Aristocrats as Field Consul.

Their stats can be seen one post upward, where I zoomed into the Faction sidebars (and left-clicking will zoom again a little). Of particular note is that while Appius is as weak a commander as possible (Mil 1), he does deflect any Standoff or Disaster combat result if he has to go out and lead an army himself. Cinc of course is Mil 5. Also, as long as one of the Frog's senators stays in Rome as the HRAO, you won't have to worry about losing the game going broke! -- which by the way means you can risk spending cash below zero to buff up your army early! But beware that if for some reason his senator isn't HRAO when there's an expense below zero, everyone loses!

Normal vote tallies are Aristocrats 7, Militarists 6, Plutocrats 9, and Conservatives 5.

The Frog calls his own faction to vote first, giving 9 votes in favor.

Next he calls the Aristocrats. The Militarists and the Conservatives will finish out the voting order, but note that if I.I.'s Aristocrats vote in favor then they've got a majority voting block (9+7 = 15, vs 6+5 = 11 potentially against), and there will be no point to finishing out the vote (since in this case voting one way or another carries no special benefits or penalties for senators. This will help move things along to the next proposal, assuming I.I. agrees.)

[IncompetentIdiot]

The Aristocratic Faction of course consents to this arrangement.

[JasonPratt]

That settles the vote with a majority of Senate approval, and I'll make the adjustments.

The Frog already told me what he wants to propose next if Appius remains Roman Consul, so I'll get to that soon.

[JasonPratt]

Okay, here's a quick screenshot update -- click to embiggen:

[JasonPratt]

The Aristocrats narrowly retain their Influence lead, but they don't have any knights yet to specially exploit that with their Faction ability.

With Appius as the HRAO, as long as he stays alive and in Rome, the Republic can have deficit expenses. Which may be relevant very soon!

Next up, only one Mandatory Business remains this Turn: the Presiding Magistrate (now Appius) must propose a Type 1 Land Bill, thanks to the Agrarian Unrest Event. (This will also unlock all three Land Bill Types starting next Turn.) I'll talk about this in detail next, in its own post.

[JasonPratt]

(Since this Land Bill proposal happens automatically thanks to the event, it's considered already on the table for discussion, for or against -- we don't have to wait for the Frog, as Appius, to officially propose it.)

Land Bills are popular with the people, and reduce a little unrest, but they're expensive. Types 2 and 3 aren't as expensive as a Type 1 to implement, but they require ongoing upkeep expenses each Turn during the Revenue Phase! -- and at no extra benefit to Unrest, either! Whereas the Type 1 is over and done, but costs a lot up front and barely reduces unrest at all.

As you can tell, then, Land Bills are only meant for emergency unrest reduction. But the Agrarian Unrest (due to the drought, which it spawned) counts as a special emergency condition. (And also as the unlock for the Senate ability to pass Land Bills.)

To pass the Land Bill, it cannot only be proposed, it must also have a Sponsor and a Co-sponsor. (This is the only Proposal that needs sponsors, if I recall correctly.) Sponsors don't have to pay anything, they just volunteer to get a little popularity boost if the Land Bill passes.  >:D

Essentially, the first two senators' players to volunteer, get to be the Sponsor and Co-Sponsor. The PM cannot be a sponsor. A Player may announce two of his senators as Sponsor and Co-Sponsor, although there's a special risk of assassination for doing so. (Or rather, any player attempting to assassinate one of them afterward runs one important less risk if his senator is caught trying.) This early in the game, I don't expect anyone to be trying to assassinate each other's senators, btw, since that might easily be fatal to the whole game as a cascade effect!

If no one volunteers to sponsor the bill, it dies on the table, at no penalty to anyone (including the PM, since every other Faction didn't actually vote against his proposal).

The Sponsor senators must of course vote for the proposal, along with the PM, although a Player might decide other senators of his might vote against it for some reason!

Every senator who voted against it, loses 1 Popularity, whether the Bill passes or not. (If it's a Type 3 Land Bill, senators voting against it will lose 2 Pop each.)

If the Bill doesn't pass, there's no effect (except for senators who voted against it losing 1 Pop each).

If the Bill does pass: the Sponsor will gain 2 Pop, the Co-Sponsor will gain 1 Pop, and Unrest will drop by 1. (Other Land Bill types have slightly better results.) The Republic will also have to pay an extra 20 Talents during the next Revenue Phase, which will deactivate the bill. (Other Types must be deactivated, after at least one Turn in play, by a Senate proposal to repeal the Bill. Which will be unpopular with the people as might be expected!

As a reminder, the Republic has 36 Talents right now.

If this particular Type I Land Bill passes, the Republic will also be spared any bad results from any subsequent Plebian Seccession events for the rest of the game! (There are two of these historical events somewhere in the Latin deck, and each of them creates one more Drought event.) So you do have a special interest in risking the cash this early in the game as an opportunity. But then again, at most the Secession events will raise the Unrest by 2 total. That isn't a lot to deal with, whereas 20 Talents is a lot of cash to spend right now!

Aside from possible discussion, the first choice to be made will be whether anyone volunteers their senators as Sponsor and Co-Sponsor (or for the Frog, as one of the sponsors since he only has two senators and one of them is proposing the Bill as the Presiding Magistrate.)

[ArizonaTank]

Fabius volunteers to sponsor the land bill.

[JasonPratt]

So noted! {scribbling notes}

While we're waiting to see if there's a co-sponsor, let me do some subtle strategizing commentary. 

First, the fewer Faction/Players there are, the easier it is for the Player with the Presiding Magistrate to engineer a voting bloc in favor of his Proposals. The Frog acted in a shrewd political way to raise the probability (if not the certainty) of one of his senators remaining the HRAO -- even though there is motivation for other Players to keep him HRAO for at least a little while (to avoid financial ruin) -- by picking a good general as Field Consul from a Faction whose votes would be a clear majority together with the Plutocrats. This effectively disenfranchised the other two Parties on the vote (and also sped up the game a little since it wasn't necessary to wait for them to vote). In this particular case, Tripoli and AzTank might not have cared, since it makes good sense -- but then again, right now Tripoli's Militarist senators offer equal advantage (still being Mil 5 each right now), and together they would have made an equally majority block of over 50% votes.

(As a side note, exactly 50% of votes isn't a majority, and so would lose.)

So why propose the Aristocrat senator instead of the Militarist senator? The Frog might have two reasons, among others. First, Tripoli's militarists are soon going to have strong advantages to being Consul, which the Frog may be worried about competing with, and so he's looking to court favor with the Aristocrats as a way of offsetting Tripoli from gaining too much political clout.

Second, the Aristocrats currently have three instead of two senators, and while they don't have any knights yet, their knights have potentially the strongest activist voting powers in the game -- but only as long as the Aristocrats have the highest total influence among the Factions! Sending Cincinnatus off to war doesn't reduce the influence, but it will reduce the normal vote tally, making the Plutocrats relatively stronger by comparison. Though also reducing the ability of the Aristocrats to help create a voting block with the Plutocrats. But also reducing the ability of the Aristocrats to create a voting block against the Plutocrats!

This game, y'all...  >:D

[JasonPratt]

Second (yes, none of that was "second" to the "first" yet  :)) ), Land Bills are an example of a Proposal where, if it does go to the vote, we'll have to get votes from everyone even if a majority has been established, because there are consequences for a senator voting one way instead of another. And Land Bills are one of the few Proposals where senators may not abstain from voting. A Player trying to abstain his senators, will be counted as votes against, and his senators will lose popularity as a result.

Now, I was thinking this morning, if I was the 5th Player (the Populist Faction as it happens), I'd be kind of torn (especially as the Populist Faction) about which way to vote. A drought or two from Plebian Succession can be managed easily enough by themselves, but they could stack up, too, from bad luck. So I'd be ambivalent about using this particular Type 1 Land Bill to avoid that problem, no clear yes or no. But I'd be much less ambivalent about sacrificing 20 of our 36 Talents for only 1 Unrest reduction and avoiding a couple of droughts later! True, the Republic will pick up another 30 Talents at the time this Bill comes due next Turn, but that's still (on the net) two Legions worth of cost that we'd be sacrificing. We might be better off having those Legions and reducing unrest (at least indirectly) by prosecuting Wars, since after all too many Active Wars will also sink the Republic! (Unless one of Tripoli's senators is HRAO.)

Admittedly, there's a temptation to rely on the Frog's safety net and run the Republic at a deficit, but there's still a risk we'd be caught with someone else as HRAO when a necessary expense happens to trigger and we're at 0 or under already -- and then we all lose! And also, I can't be a very big fan of giving the Plutocrats more and more excuse to always have someone as Consul (and Presiding Magistrate), because this gives him constantly too much power, which he can exploit to increase his influence faster. And while we may be safe right now from anyone trying to be king, a time will come (specifically when the Early Provincial Era starts, after the tutorial turns are done) when the people may accept someone as Consul for Life who might as well be king, and the Frog may have ambitions of winning the game early by himself by grooming up a senator with enough personal Influence to be Emperor!

So on the balance, I myself would like to vote against the Bill (since senators can't just abstain from voting on Land Bills). But there's a problem: I don't want my senators' popularity to go down, especially into the negative. So how to balance these concerns?

One way would be to go around privately by p-mail and voice my concerns, and try to convince no one to sponsor the bill. (POLITICS!  >:D )

But let's say I have three senators already, Fred, George, and Ron. Ron sucks at Oratory, with a skill of 1 (he can only bring his own vote to a topic), and he doesn't have any knights yet to boost that. I can have him sponsor the bill, and inoculate him from losing popularity, while reducing the chances of the bill passing (because Ron is only going to bring 1 vote in favor, not 3 or 5). If Fred or George have only 1 or 2 Oratory, too, I might announce one of them as the other Sponsor, and so inoculate them both, while the other twin happens to have better Oratory and maybe a knight already. So my net votes count against the Bill, but not all my senators take the Popularity hit. And if the Bill passes anyway, I'd get the consolation prize of picking up some popularity as a result of sponsoring it!

This would be an example of subtly playing with the voting system, to hedge my bets, since Players don't have to make all their senators vote together in a Faction.

(And now, coincidentally, I notice AzTank has Sponsored but not Co-Sponsored the Bill, even though right now he'd be safe enough from assassination's lowered risks, to volunteer two senators at once...  >:D )

[JasonPratt]

One more thing which might become relevant for this vote, or if not now then later: I didn't mention it on the prior vote, because it resolved too quickly and this wouldn't have been able to change the result, but when a senator votes -- or when a Player block-votes his senators -- the Player may decide to spend any number of Talents from his senators' personal treasuries, to bribe votes from the larger invisible group of minor senators.

Each Talent devoted to this gets 1 extra vote, on the current topic. That money goes to the bank, regardless of the vote's result, even if someone vetoes the vote (which is an ability that unlocks in various ways later) or an assassination somehow stops the vote (which wouldn't happen for a Land Bill, by the way, but could on some other votes.)

In the recent Consul vote, Tripoli and AzTank could have added another 3 votes by sacrificing all their remaining personal senator treasuries, but it wouldn't have overcome the majority block of I.I. and the Frog's normal votes (even if I.I. didn't kick in his remaining Talent, too.)

This vote, however, is potentially screwy enough, that I thought I should mention this rule opportunity now. I'll try to remember to bring it up later in relevant votes, too.

(I need to update my "Sabrerules" flowsheet compilation a little, but if anyone has the current doc, you can see it at 2.3.5.7.4.3. ...um, you might be able to tell from the fact that the rule is numbered 2.3.5.7.4.3., that the rule list is the maw of insanity, so be warned, be very awarned!)

[IncompetentIdiot]

I say there's no need to sacrifice the better part of the treasury to momentarily appease the fickle lesser classes. It's best for us all if the land bill dies on the floor. If any one faction is solely responsible for bringing the bill to vote, I will be taking advantage of the reduced consequences for a failed assassination.

[JasonPratt]

Bold!  :bd:

But presumably AzTank won't be Co-Sponsoring, or he'd have done it already. Though he still has the option to do so.

I.I. has weighed in as not sponsoring, and for practical purposes AzTank has weighed in already (though he might do so again). In order to proceed, we'll need to know whether Tripoli and/or the Frog will or will not be volunteering a senator to Co-Sponsor the Bill.

As a reminder, AzTank could still come back with his other senator to Co-Sponsor the Bill (despite I.I.'s threat). And Appius, having proposed the Bill, can't be Co-sponsor (or Sponsor).

If the Bill dies on the floor from a lack of Co-Sponsor, Appius as the Proposer won't be affected.

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, though I.I. has been studying the rules, I guess I should talk enough about assassinations to explain why he's willing to take the reduced risk.

First, while assassinating key target senators can stop a Proposal in various ways, Land Bills cannot be stopped this way, so even if the assassination is successful the vote will go forward. Of course, I.I. could go after AzTank's other senator now, pre-emptively, but he wouldn't get the reduced assassination risk by doing so, and it wouldn't stop someone else from Co-sponsoring.

Second, there's a basic 33/33/33 percent chance of results from a 1d6 roll. 1 or 2, it's a total whiff. 3 or 4, the assassinating senator is caught. 5 or 6, the target senator is killed. (This can be modified up or down by playing Assassin cards or Bodyguard cards, but I.I. definitely does not have an Assassin card because he has no Faction cards remaining. For every Bodyguard, whether open or secret, the assassinating senator must roll again to see if he's caught, although this won't threaten the target further.)

If the assassinating senator is caught, he dies, with usual results. But the Faction Leader (if he wasn't the assassin himself) comes under suspicion of the plot, and the action must pause for the Censor officer to conduct a special Major Prosecution against him.

However (1) this suspicion is waived if the target was one of two Land Bill sponsors from the same Faction; and (2) there is no Censor yet, so I'm a little fuzzy about whether there can even be a Prosecution yet. There can't be for other crime investigations yet, but naturally an assassination is a special case.

Consequently, while whatever senator I.I. chooses to try the plot won't be specially protected, his Faction Leader will be -- this time.

Unless he sends his Faction Leader to try the assassination! -- in which case, if he gets caught, he dies as normal, and then people FREAK THE HELL OUT looking for conspirators. Meaning I'd draw mortality chits equal to any positive Popularity of the target, and any active senator from the drawn families also dies. But this early in the game, I think AzTank's senators' Popularity is still 0 (which is neutral), so there wouldn't be a witch-hunt for conspirators.


I should also add, although it won't be a risk this time, that if your last lone senator is caught in an assassination attempt (not in a random witch-hunt afterward), he not only dies but YOU WILL LOSE THE GAME! This is the only way a Player can lose the game by yourself.

The other Players can vote to show clemency, and allow you to stay in the game, but even then you have to completely discard and all your cash goes back to the bank; your senator's family goes to the bottom of the senator Curia pile instead of immediately respawning (as the Faction Leader, so he loses the normal protection of the Faction Leader to death); and you'll be temporarily out of the game in effect, until the normal respawning procedure (during the Population Phase before the Senate Phase on a Turn) grants you a new family senator as Faction Leader. (Or until you draw a Statesman during a Forum Phase, which you can validly play during a Revolution Phase.)