The Fate of the Roman Rebels

[DimeBagHo]

The purpose of this thread is to sound out how people feel about various possible uses of the Roman Rebels faction slot. In the current version of XGM they play a very minor role in the early campaign, but they do allow for loyalty to be activated for the playable Roman faction. The possible uses that have been discussed for this faction slot so far are:

(1) Leave the Roman rebels as they are in the main campaign, but add one or more civil war campaigns.

(2) Restore the Roman Senate. Rome would remain unified in the main campaign, but a provincial campaign would be available with the Senate controlling Rome, as in vanilla. Roman civil war campaigns are also a possibility.

(3) Create a Carthaginian Senate. Carthage would be unified in the main campaign, but a provincial campaign would be available with Carthage under the control of the Carthaginian Senate.

(4) Turn the Roman Rebels into an entirely new faction.

Notes:

-(1) Obviously requires the least work. (3) and (4) would require quite a lot of work, with (4) requiring somewhat less.
-(4) Might sound exciting at first, but if you vote for this I'd like to see some seriously interesting proposals for new factions. Past discussions have come up short on this option.
-(2) Restoring the Roman Senate might require ditching loyalty for the Romans.

[Mathais]

Hmm man this is a hard one for I would have to say 1 on this. I like what they become they are there own. It may sound odd but I like being a rebel of rome. Though the #3 dose sound rather fun but would you have the freedom to attack the senate when ever you wished or would be like vanilla. Now I will go with 3 if is will not be like vanilla but if it is then no on 3. Other wise like the Roman Rebels as they are. Now am not one who is big on loyalty for i find it to be more of a pest than rebel ships that are every where for all I do is kill all my leaders all day for there lack of loyalty. That my say for that.

[Spartan198]

I'd prefer a whole new faction myself, like Syracuse, Epirus, or Pergamon.

[Maraxus]

I would love to see a Roman Civil War script, also wasn't there talk earlier about some Roman Civil War provincial campaigns?

[DimeBagHo]

I would love to see a Roman Civil War script, also wasn't there talk earlier about some Roman Civil War provincial campaigns?

I gave up on the script idea. I couldn't find a sufficiently non-klunky way to do it. Provincial campaigns could definitely be done with options (1) and (2).

[Stilgar CG]

Well, that's a tough one, Dime. I probably have to go to Delphi to answer that. Speaking the truth, I want them all. Well, (4) can wait, I guess.

Btw, can the senate be shared by Rome and Carthage in different prov campaigns? Or, in other words may (2) and (3) coexist in a form or another?

[TM Is Back]

Keep the Roman Rebels, add civil war campaigns.

I always liked them so just leave them.

[Hippias]

I voted to keep them - even the occasional loyalty inspired roman rebel activity throughout the game makes it worthwhile for me + I think there are enough playable factions already especially now that provincial campaigns are in.

[Webba]

I voted for no. 2 as imho it has the most possibility for interesting gameplay. We could have both Rome as it is now in the main campaign, Rome with senate provincial campaign and a couple of Rome civil war campaigns. Of these options I feel this best uses both the faction slot and the senate feature.

@Magister Equitum, there was a discussion about this in another thread. I believe the problem with having both Roman and Carthaginian senates is the culture and appearance of the senate faction as it is not possible to change this for provincial campaigns. It would be just as weird to have a Rome that look Carthaginian as it would to have a Carthage that looked Roman.

[LucretiusTC]

I voted to keep them - even the occasional loyalty inspired roman rebel activity throughout the game makes it worthwhile for me + I think there are enough playable factions already especially now that provincial campaigns are in.

I agree with those arguments. Now that we have several provincial campaings there is no real need to have a new small Greek Faction, and it is quite diffucult to create a new plausible Faction for the Imperial Campaign. Would Illyria or Numidia be plausible for such imperial ambitions? Or we could try to develop some non-Playable Faction similar to the Eastern Kingdoms. But personally I still prefer the possibility of the Roman civil war campaign.

About this loyalty issue, what if the Gauls have a Rebel Faction, would they become too difficult to handle or too weak for the gameplay? Surely I want to keep the Gauls strong, after all they are one of my favourite opponents especially in the Roman campaings...

Luc.

[DimeBagHo]

Given the way the voting and comments have gone so far it looks like:

(1) People like the idea of adding Roman civil war campaigns.

(2) The design choice is down to whether we keep the Roman Rebels (as a regular faction) or whether we convert them into the Senate.

The Roman Rebels got more votes this time around, but the Roman Senate vote may have been split by the other options, so I'll start a new poll on just these two options.

[Zarax]

There is another possibility, actually a range of possibilities.

1) We can keep the roman rebels and have the senate in different campaigns, it's pretty easy to code and shouldn't create any issues

2) We can have an installer option for a carthaginian senate so both could be attained. It would be harder to code but not impossible

3) It may be possible to have a middle ground with some starting script trick so that Rome would look roman and Carthage carthaginian by having the senate "conquer" it with a script and severely limiting development by AI in EDB.
It's not really hard to code but the downside is that stacks and character names would still look different but at least cities would stay the same all game.

It can be done, not so long ago 36 people voted in this forum to restore the senate so I believe in the popularity of the idea.

[Spartan198]

Boy, do I feel lonely on this poll.

[Stilgar CG]

Personally, I am not fond of a classic senate gameplay for either Carthage or Rome (senate-one city, giving missions, with occasional rewards). Not that it isn't fun, but it's essentially same gameplay with one less city, lower income, and necessity to nail nasty senate at some point. (Vanilla version with three competing factions was much more interesting, cause one day half of mideterranian could turn against you, and that was much more of a thrill .)

I hope Roman rebels are used to set up nice Roman civil war prov campaigns, in the first place.

And, I crave to see a barcid version of the Carthage senate campaign, as Zarax proposed. I mean something like African Carthage is solely under control of senate and you are the general ruling Iberia and perhaps mediterranian islands (only in this situation stakes will be high), and fight your way to your own empire. If made methodically (in all details, no concessions for needs of other campaigns/features, and no half-solutions), this would make XGM a trully unique mod, indeed. Two Carthage factions could create interesting scenarios while playing another faction (and one could always play Carthage senate as well, and have to deal with nasty Romans and naughty barcid family)).

So, because Roman civil war campaign(s) would eventually appear anyway (I think CV is already working on it), and I do not care much about one-city Roman/Carthage senate gameplay, I have no choice but to vote the option of the future of XGM (imho), that is option (4), Carthage senate being the new faction on its own. ME

P.S. Dime, Zarax (and all), sorry for making it perhaps even more complicated. You started it all and I was just speaking my mind.

[Alexander24]

I say add the Senate back to Rome. That was always a fun part of the Vanilla was gathering enough support to take Rome back. Maybe you could give Rome to the senate, then once you take Rome a civil war arises much like it does in the vanilla campaign, but with your own cities rebelling against you, and you must retake them. That sounds interesting imo but I dont know anything about coding and such so it may be to difficult.

[Zarax]

ME: once you have the carthaginian senate working making two different versions is very little work, people can easily have both...

[Stilgar CG]

Zarax, two different versions of Carthage senate campaign, you mean? Edit: If so, a one-city Carthage senate could be the main campaign, and barcid version (versions? ), could be prov campaign(s). That's even better

[DimeBagHo]

Magister Equitum: I think we should take your suggestion as a vote for (3). As Zarax says, if we have a Carthaginian Senate it would be relatively easy to make more than one provincial campaign. We could have (1) Senate controls only Carthage, (2) Senate controls Africa, (3) Maybe some speculative late civil war scenario.

Zarax: (1) I still think that using the Senate for more than one culture/faction is too rough to be included in an official version of XGM. (2) Using an install option to switch between a Roman Senate and a Carthaginian Senate is possible, but not really practical. It would be easier to maintain two versions of XGM. (3) I don't think there is any way to have the Senate conquer a city by script, and in any case the faction can't be alive at the start of the campaign unless it starts out holding a city.

[Stilgar CG]

Well, two versions idea was floating in the air in my previous post, I just did not dare say that, cause it's easy to say ... but it would be great to see extended Roman version (civil wars) and extended Carthage version in their ultimate glory.

[Hippias]

Well, two versions idea was floating in the air in my previous post, I just did not dare say that, cause it's easy to say ... but it would be great to see extended Roman version (civil wars) and extended Carthage version in their ultimate glory.

Sorry - I'm probably being thick here - but I thought that (a) roman civil wars (via Loyalty in the main campaign and/or vis Provincial campaigns) require the roman rebel faction whilst (b) Carthage Senate (v Barcid) would require using the RR faction slot, so they are mutually exclusive..??

Let me down gently if I have missed the point