Role Playing

[BOSSate9]

I see some of you guys talking about that you like to role play and stuff. What are you talking about? Can you give me examples of how you role play in this game? Thanks.

[Carados]

It is basically restricting yourself to play the game as the armies would've fought historically. This also includes army composition. The Romans for example would have an army that was roughly 50% Roman, and 50% allied. They would fight in the checkboard formation as they are famous for. They also rarely enslaved a population and extermination was even rarer - to role play this one would only enslave a couple of civilised factions and perhaps half of a barbarian one. Only the most annoying or dangerous of cities would face extermination.

[Sorceri]

I try to play my family members according to their traits (which I do not ever transfer) and personalities. For example one might be a ruthless commander which never offers quarter to an enemy in a fight. One may be an inept young clod which makes horrible decisions based solely on his own vices. One might hate cartheginians and so I assign him to that theater of operations. One may be an upstart who hates his father-in-law and looks for ways to cause trouble for that individual. etc etc etc. The possibilities are truly endless. I try to put myself in the sandals of the faction leader and unleash all the long subverted traits of my own personality that matches theirs. Remember I do not necessarily play to conquer the whole of the map - but rather to develop and expand my own empire as I see fit.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

It is basically restricting yourself to play the game as the armies would've fought historically. This also includes army composition. The Romans for example would have an army that was roughly 50% Roman, and 50% allied. They would fight in the checkboard formation as they are famous for. They also rarely enslaved a population and extermination was even rarer - to role play this one would only enslave a couple of civilised factions and perhaps half of a barbarian one. Only the most annoying or dangerous of cities would face extermination.

The romans only rarely enslaved a population? I don't believe my own ears. The Romans ended up with a huge number of slaves. They killed a huge number of slaves in their gladiatorial games and silver mines and yet still had more of them. Their entire economy and society ended up slave based due to all the wars and enslavement's.

Playing historically the Romans should rarely occupy a settlement without enslaving it.

[Caesar Augustus]

I'm not sure that the Romans did enslave everyone Slayer.

Slaves were a commodity that were bought and sold across thhe ancient world, so not every slave the Romans owned would have been one that was sold into slavery by a victorious Roman general.

Also, it's a common misconception about gladitorial combat being a deathmatch. Yes, there were bouts that were to the death, but more often they were contests of skill. A bit like how boxing is points based, rather than two guys beating the crap out of each other.

And a lot of the slaves were also ex-Roman citizens that had been sentenced to slavery as punishment for a crime, as well as those that were unable to pay off their debts, and thus were sold into slavery to continue paying their debt.

[Quinn Inuit]

And other countries happily provided slaves, too. IIRC, Colchis was one of the major slave markets in the entire world at the time. Or maybe it was Dioscurias. One of those cities around there.

[Caesar Augustus]

Sounds about right to me Quinn!

[Incomitatus]

Also regarding slaves, Roman families would abandon their unwanted children in the street, and it was common for wealthier families to take in those children as slaves.

Romans also sold themselves into slavery for fixed terms. Citizenship was a commodity to them. Granted, it was only sold or lent away under desperate circumstances, but it did happen.

As far as enslaving non-Romans goes... our concept of slavery doesn't really fit into the Roman context. For example, one can argue that the entire native population of Egypt were slaves after Rome took it over. They were forced to work on collective farms and were harshly treated - far more so than populations in the other provinces of the Empire. Slaves? Tough call.

And to say that the Romans didn't enslave their enemies that much... It's a hard position to defend, I think. They most certainly tended to enslave the survivors of sieges, those that weren't slaughtered anyway. The problem with how enslavement is handled in game is that the settlement population is also the population of the whole region, and I don't know of any examples where the Roman's enslaved a whole province (except the weird and controversial case of Egypt). In reality maybe 10-25% of a region's population would be in a major settlement, and if that settlement resisted some portion of those people would be enslaved, but not the peasants out in the countryside or living in towns that didn't actively resist.

I'm left thinking it's six of one and half a dozen of another as to whether it's more appropriate to enslave or just occupy as the Romans, both hit wide of the mark. So, I tend to occupy 'civilised' settlements and enslave 'barbarian' ones, but that's just my preference - based on the idea that a larger percentage of a 'barbarian' region's population will have taken shelter at the central hillfort during an invasion.

[Caesar Augustus]

In the case of Egypt's annexation, this was how the country was ruled prior to Rome's arrival. Rome being Rome, opted to continue running the area in the same manner as it had been under the Ptolemies. I don't know an awful lot about Egypt though, so I couldn't say when that situation arose.

[Wambat]

Romans were typically pragmatic, and one must remember the financial arrangements of the Roman military under the Republic. Republican armies where generally private armies, and it was the responsibility of that army's commander to secure the payment of his troops. A smart commander would never count on the Senate to pay his troops wages, their wages would have to come out of the conquered territories. In this respect the Republican armies had a lot more in common with the barbarian hords than many realise. Whether or not a conquered population would end up being enslaved, outside of the personal inclinations of the Roman comander, had a lot to do with what valuable resources conquered had to offer. In the case of Julius Gaius Caesar and his conquest of Gaul, he did a great deal of enslaving, despite the fact Gauls where highly undervalued as slaves, simply because the Gauls didn't have much to offer aside from bodies, and Caesar needed to pay his troops.

In the real life scenario, enslaving a population has real practical problems associated with the proposition, particularly for an invading army. The reason you enslave a population, rather than put it to the sword, is it to get value from the slaves at market. If you want to get value from the slaves at market, you are now committed to feeding these slaves until you can get them to market, you are now committed to defending a pipeline back to the market; you have now diminished the number of men your army can continue along the campaign trail, and increased the logistical burden on your army in the sort term.

In the market place, a slave born of a slave will always be the better buy, as they will have less inclination to insolence and escape. Let us not also forget that Rome did not invent the practice of slavery. All the areas Rome conquered were already full of slaves, and, in many cases, these excising slaves were tacken as booty, and these would have been far more valuable booty than "free" men impressed into slavery.

[Caesar Augustus]

I'd agree with that.