I have a dream (carthaginian senate)...

[Zarax]

This thread is obsolete now, if you're interested take a look at http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184343


After much discussion, thinking and planning, here is a wild dream I have about using the roman rebels slot.

Historically Carthage while a powerful kingdom was somewhat divided and had its internal strife.
Eventually this came to two prominent parties in their senate: Barcid (expansionists) and antibarcid (who wanted to focus mostly on Africa).

The punic wars showed the effect of this division several times, especially when the senate chose to sue for peace while its generals were still putting a fight with some chances (Hanno for example left Sicily almost undefeated and everybody knows about Hannibal).

So, how to represent this internal bickering without having a senseless civil war?

The answer lies in the senate.
As all RTW players knows, when you played a roman faction the senate would give you (often frustrating) missions and tried to decide your diplomacy and course of actions in general.
If you didn't follow you would get penalized with fines and eventually with them asking for your faction leader's head, while if you were good they would give you money and extra troops.

This is exactly how the carthaginian senate worked, being supportive at times and a big nuisance at others, often mismanaging the global strategy.

This can be represented in RTW, even though it will take lots of work.

Basically, what is needed is to rename the roman factions and carthage internally so that the only two with the "romans_" prefix would be the carthies and their senate.
Playing a carthaginian campaign you would be in control of most territories except for Carthage itself, which would be the only place (along with Carthago Nova eventually) in which the sacred bands could be trained.
Instead, the senate would award you the elites and extra mercs if you are successful in your missions, forcing you to rely even more on local troops.

The net result would be a harder (no carthage means less money) but truly unique campaign, with chances to get even more exotic units (as the senate can reward you any mercenary unit) than before and a potentially different game every time as senate has some randomness in itself.

Sure, this would mean lots of work and no chances of a potential playable faction, but let's face it: all big bases are covered and everything else is considered more viable for a provincial campaign rather than the imperial one.

I eagerly await for your opinions!

[TM Is Back]

Wow, that could be very nice. The only thing i don't like is losing Carthage, so imo this should be a provincial campaign then or something so you can play normal Carthage(as it is now) as well.

[RedFox]

Zarax: Unfortunately, when facing the reality of limitations that the RTW engine has, this idea won't work as it should. It's a great idea, but it will just never work the way it should.

That's my opinion though - and don't get me wrong, the idea is good, but I'm not very certain this could work (considering the huge amount of work and extra faction needed..).

[Zarax]

Redfox, what could go wrong exactly?

I'm aware that AI senate won't be very focused or strategically useful (but that's the point of it) but other than that civil war risks should be minimal (so no CTDs on BI, I also think you can mod missions a bit) but as player you would be facing tighter money than now (let's face it, if you let go everything out of Africa you can be rich quickly and pretty much without any risks of invasion) and a more exciting start.

TM: You would be playing as the barcids so you would still get some support from Carthage and need to help its defence.
We could easily put the senate in lybia deserta but then it would just be a spoiler rather than a part of the experience.

[Webba]

What about adding another couple of options to your poll, Roman Senate and Greek (Athenian) Senate? If this application of that faction slot is possible then I think they'd be options worth considering.

Carthage has quite an interesting campaign already due to their roster and location whereas Rome is now just a fairly difficult civilised faction with powerful armies. When the post Marian project arrives their uniqueness will be reduced even further. Having the senate could be interesting for them and would require less work than applying it to carthage.

A Greek Senate using Athens as the city would be harder to justify historically although presumably were the league the faction represents historically sucessful they would have had some form of representational government, but the GCS are rather the stars of the mod and if it's considered for Carthage it could be considered for them too.

I'd love to see something like this in the mod. My personal preference would be for adding the Senate in to Rome again. Less work and the Roman Republic was famous for a reason.

[Publius Quirinus]

A Greek Senate using Athens as the city would be harder to justify historically although presumably were the league the faction represents historically sucessful they would have had some form of representational government, but the GCS are rather the stars of the mod and if it's considered for Carthage it could be considered for them too.

Or it could be represented as the Oracle at Delphi or something similar, which would be slightly more historically accurate, less Atheno-centric and more pan-Hellenic (i.e. GCS), no?

Personally I think it would be a great addition-- I liked the Senate's function in vanilla because it makes it easier to roleplay as Rome, IMO.

Though wouldn't having a Carthagenian senate make it have abnormally aggressive behaviour? I'm pretty sure the Roman faction(s), at least, are more aggressive with a Senate. Can Senate policy-aggressiveness and priorities be modded to suit the faction (say, Carthage being asked to acquire coastal settlements or blockade ports rather than expand into Gaul and Germania), or is it hardcoded?

[Webba]

Or it could be represented as the Oracle at Delphi or something similar, which would be slightly more historically accurate, less Atheno-centric and more pan-Hellenic (i.e. GCS), no?

Sure, whatever would be an appropriate name and place for the feature. I just chose what I thought was the most appropriate of the starting cities.

Zarax, I'm going to 'qualify' what follows with a question, because I'm not sure of the answer (as I have never tried it). Can the internal 'carthage' and 'romans_julii' be switched culture-wise? Make the Romans 'carthaginian', and Carthage 'roman' culture. Likewise, the Senate would have to be 'Carthaginian'...I don't know how well RTW would stomach that.

That would make the marian reforms reliant on Carthage, right?

[Zarax]

Actually, the amount of work needed won't be much different.
We would still need extensive faction renaming even for Rome (as we can have only one romans_ faction to keep BI compatibility) and imho it would be more of a help to them as AI tends to leave senate territories alone so it would mess up with the starting battles (bringing XGM4 back to memory, where the senate had a huge pretorian guard)...

[RedFox]

as we can have only one romans_ faction to keep BI compatibility

XGMD works without hitches both on BI and ALX exe, even though I have romans_senate (Epirus), romans_brutii (Achaea), romans_scipii (Carthage).
The romans_ prefix plays only minor part - mainly in the senate superfaction.
As far as I have tested it, it seemed that only roman culture could have the senate working properly, the others wouldn't appear in the senate floor.
So as far as I am concerned, this won't work. - Sorry.

[Zarax]

XGMD works without hitches both on BI and ALX exe, even though I have romans_senate (Epirus), romans_brutii (Achaea), romans_scipii (Carthage).
The romans_ prefix plays only minor part - mainly in the senate superfaction.
As far as I have tested it, it seemed that only roman culture could have the senate working properly, the others wouldn't appear in the senate floor.
So as far as I am concerned, this won't work. - Sorry.

It worked when I tested the brutii as greek, of course if the senate is not a superfaction then they won't show...

[Noodlegasm]

good idea Zarax but i can see the novelty wearing off and people asking for it back to normal.So i have to say no

sorry

[atraps]

Thats a good idea, but wasnt there a good reason why the roman senate was removed in the first place?

I voted no, because well...it just doesnt seem right to have a carthaginian senate in a greek mod...it would seem kinnda odd giving carthage such a new feature that no other faction has.

[Zarax]

The roman senate was taken out because civil war would CTD with BI.
By modding it to be used by the carthies this would be pretty much solved though.

[atraps]

The roman senate was taken out because civil war would CTD with BI.
By modding it to be used by the carthies this would be pretty much solved though.

Well then I guess there isnt a "bug" problem.

Still, as much as this idea sounds interesting, it doesnt seem to fit to have a carthaginian senate in this mod, imo.

[Scutarii]

I'd say its a good idea. Especially, as Quirinal said, it might make Carthage a little more aggressive (right now after Rome beats them they just die). Although I do admit it might be a good idea to also have a provincial campaign where it is as it is now.

[dvk901]

Zarax, I'm going to 'qualify' what follows with a question, because I'm not sure of the answer (as I have never tried it). Can the internal 'carthage' and 'romans_julii' be switched culture-wise? Make the Romans 'carthaginian', and Carthage 'roman' culture. Likewise, the Senate would have to be 'Carthaginian'...I don't know how well RTW would stomach that.

But if this can be done, I believe it would be easier overall to just switch the two factions, and rename them. This would put Carthage in the proper relationship with the 'romans_senate', as RTW would 'think' they were Rome....as they relate based on the hardcoded name 'romans_' something.

After that, rewriting the old senate files to reflect the changes would be simple. All the text and offices, missions, etc can be rewritten. Before I wrote Roma Surrectum, I was working on a mod for RTW for the reign of Justinian, when he tried to restore the Empire. I completely rewrote the old senate so that it was 'The Emperor' instead. Worked like a champ.

However, if you end up having to change the settlement_plan...well, this could get pretty dicey.

[Zarax]

Zarax, I'm going to 'qualify' what follows with a question, because I'm not sure of the answer (as I have never tried it). Can the internal 'carthage' and 'romans_julii' be switched culture-wise? Make the Romans 'carthaginian', and Carthage 'roman' culture. Likewise, the Senate would have to be 'Carthaginian'...I don't know how well RTW would stomach that.

But if this can be done, I believe it would be easier overall to just switch the two factions, and rename them. This would put Carthage in the proper relationship with the 'romans_senate', as RTW would 'think' they were Rome....as they relate based on the hardcoded name 'romans_' something.

After that, rewriting the old senate files to reflect the changes would be simple. All the text and offices, missions, etc can be rewritten. Before I wrote Roma Surrectum, I was working on a mod for RTW for the reign of Justinian, when he tried to restore the Empire. I completely rewrote the old senate so that it was 'The Emperor' instead. Worked like a champ.

However, if you end up having to change the settlement_plan...well, this could get pretty dicey.

The senate is culture independant, all it cares about is factions with the romans_ prefix.
I tried to make the brutii greek culture in vanilla and it worked fine.

The problem is not switching factions in itself, it's that you need to castrate the other roman faction from the prefix and rename one as the senate.

Reforms should be just tied to the italy resource so it won't be a big problem...

[CaesarVincens]

Reforms should be just tied to the italy resource so it won't be a big problem...

Reforms should be triggered when a Roman culture faction builds an imperial palace in a province with the italy resource. I've tried having the independent Greeks (with the internal name of 'romans_brutii') trigger the reforms and no such luck. The Roman rebels on the other hand can trigger the reforms.

And one can switch the romans_julii to some other culture and put another faction as the Romans. EB does this, internally the Seleucids and Romans are 'romans_julii' and 'seleucid' respectively. Why they did it that way I don't know.

[LucretiusTC]

I am little bit sceptical about the idea to have this kind of special feature to the Carthaginians only. It doesn´t sound like a balanced solution comparing to the Rebel Factions and other non-playable Factions. Not a long time we had a Carthaginian Rebel Faction that was replaced by the Eastern Kingdoms. Maybe we should rather add some action in Central and Eastern European region, or something more universal like the Oracle of Delphoi?...:hmmm:

Luc.

[Publius Quirinus]

I am little bit sceptical about the idea to have this kind of special feature to the Carthaginians only. It doesn´t sound like a balanced solution comparing to the Rebel Factions and other non-playable Factions. Not a long time we had a Carthaginian Rebel Faction that was replaced by the Eastern Kingdoms. Maybe we should rather add some action in Central and Eastern European region, or something more universal like the Oracle of Delphoi?...:hmmm:

Luc.

I sorta agree..... Carthage doesn't usually amount to much in the hands of the AI, and making it even more aggressive may result in the Romans getting another power-up so that they don't snuff it.


(Though, now that I think of it, I have a hard time imagining the Oracle at Delphi making such mundane pronouncements as "blockade so-and-so" or "get trade rights with X faction"....)


I'm not sure if it's possible/practical, but wouldn't this work very well as a provincial campaign? Representing the Carthaginian senate, IMO, mainly improves the gaming of Carthage only.