Arcani ..... and spies

[PROMETHEUS ts]

Hi I am one of the ones that woudl like Arcani to be back in RTW 2 ... possibly as they where in RTW 1 , despite all the critics that have been rised about their unhistoricity , they have been proved to be very historical , apart eventually on how they where portrayed , but since no one knows how they dressed the first rtw depiction despite fantasy looked very cool and I woudl really enjoy seeing them on field as well ... they coudl easily cover the same position occupied by the ninjas in STW2...

now for some historic reference :

Ammianus Marcellinus
Liber XXVIII III VIII

http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/ammianus.html

............haec etiam praecipua. Arcanos genus hominum a veteribus institutum, super quibus aliqua in actibus Constantis rettulimus, paulatim prolapsos in vitia a stationibus suis removit: aperte convictos, acceptarum promissarumque magnitudine praedarum allectos, quae apud nos agebantur, aliquotiens barbaris prodidisse. id enim illis erat officium, ut ultro citroque [per longa spatia] discurrentes, vicinarum gentium strepitus nostris ducibus intimarent

It basically tells how the Arcani unit were used for behind enemy lines operations .
The notation by Ammianus Marcellinus we know that they acted as foreign spies. He indicates that they were in existence under Constans but that they had been 'established in early times'.
In the 4th century they seem to have become unreliable and were disbanded.

So we know how they where an ancient institution .... by the time of the Ammianus Marcellinus quoting of them is later date when they become corrupt and unafidable .. but they where an earlier times institution thus coudl fid in the later game roman timeframe ...

Actually there other proves of them beeing actual soldiers ( miles Arcani )
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/4DLi...splayEnglish=1
Vindolanda Inventory No. 85.244 A fragment of a leaf containing two words written in a good capital hand. It is possible that it is some sort of "tag", merely recording the name of a soldier. Alternatively it might refer to an intelligence agent or explorator of some sort
excavated from the Roman fort at Vindolanda in northern England



Other units to be atested as Spies instead are Frumentarii ( secret Police ) peregrines ( counterespionage ), Delatores ( information reporters ) , Agentes in rebus ( secret Agents ) etc...

For frumentarii ( they where more like legionaries used as scouts )

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4101/4...b76039df_z.jpg

from Tvllia AD picture. Bologna museum

D(is) M(anibus) / M(arco) Cuspio / Quieto frum(entario) / leg(ionis) XXX U(lpiae) V(ictricis) / Q(uintus) Flaccinius / Verus frum(entarius) / leg(ionis) eiusdem / h(eres) f(aciendum) c(uravit)

----------
now on the hypothesis zone ...

Showing how possibly coudl look like hoods and masks for disguise in the period ....
a representation of those Gallic Genies of later time....Several of these figures also seem to carry swords or daggers, and Henig discusses them in the context of warrior cults.
here a depiction of roman hoods
http://www.unc.edu/~css/green83.jpg

As for a possible fantasy reconstruction ... could be cool to have for that special unit the former hoods mixed twith this lower armor mask
http://i53.tinypic.com/mhzsrr.jpg

[Lord Baal]

Yes, in fact, in rome 1 they could have called the roman spy or assassin arcani, or made a single unit capable of doing all that called arcani. It would still be fiction, since I don't think the arcani existed trough all history of rome, but it would have been a lot more bearable.

For a more realistic way of handling agents I think of this:
Picture, imagine if you will, a screen or frame, with the map of the whole known world at the right, taking most of the screen, it's provinces and who owns what... A mini map for all purposes and intention. Now, contemplate that at the left, for what it's left of this frame, there's a list. This list reflects several things and have sliders, yes, sliders that go from 0 to 100%. This sliders describe things like commercial interest, religion conversion, espionage, sabotage and other non conventional shenanigans, and right below there's the amount of money you spend on them.

As you click on regions on the mini map, the list changes to reflect how much you care and therefore invest on the underground of each region, and the trick is that for very well, known, or even own provinces establishing a spy network to keep your own forces on check and protect you from outsiders is not that really hard compared for example to do the same in unknown enemy territory. This will reflect on the cost of this networks. Having them for example in Rome it self at 100% would cost you let's say, 50 pieces of gold per turn, while having them at 100% in let's say, Britain will cost you 1000 pieces of gold per turn, at least until the region it's pacified and fully integrated to your empire.

Now, as you have this sliders up your rats network will start to grow on the region, adding "points", levels or percentage to it, progressively and directly proportional to the amount of interest you put on them versus certain things like the happiness of the region with their current government and certain cultural modifiers. It would be really hard and expensive for Rome to have a spy network in Cartage for example.

Anyhow, as your networks start to grow, things starts to happen at certain levels, like gaining random information about troop movements and camps, city population and happiness. Those would be passive actions that would happen automatically with minimal chances of getting caught.

Then there are the active actions, like ordering the untimely dead of a specific political or military figure, the occasional fire of certain buildings and so on. But before you order those things you need to have certain levels of certain networks on those provinces. And each time you oder something the level of that province lowers a little or a lot depending on the importance of your deeds. Burning a farm is not so much notorious as trying to kill the emperor or chieftain don't you think? This, way each time you order something the level of the network drops, combined with a capped max amount of "points" in each region gives a mechanism that refraining you and the AI from simply stocking lots of points and razing all with your spies and assassins for example.

As logic dictates, failed attempts could randomly drops the network level or "points" far more or even outright destroying the whole network with the risk of exposing you. But even successful attempts are not out of the scope of blowing everything. Why you ask? Imagine the agent gets caught, either after being successfully or not (of course failed attempts are way more prone to get caught) and he don't kill himself as ordered, and starts to sing all about who hired him and so on. This would make this kind of move more risky and exciting, adding a little more randomness and making developing a good network a necessity to get the job done.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

thats for the strat map , wich is cool , but I like the idea of the battlefield roman ninjas ^^ ....

[DarthRuanek]

thats for the strat map , wich is cool , but I like the idea of the battlefield roman ninjas ^^ ....

It's probably not historically accurate.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

It's probably not historically accurate.

Actually not , if you read several ancient texts there are plenty of behind thelines cover operations references like delatores , frumentarii and in this case I forementioned Arcani , quoted by Ammianus as a earlier institution and verged toward disband at 3rd 4rth century AD . most of those Agentes in rebus for military intelligence where also legionaries .

surely the equipment is not like what was portrayed for Rtw1 arcani , but also there are no proves on countrary , actually there are no findings or evidences of how they looked lik eso any artistic licence is allowed for the game with perhaps some logics ... about their existence tough that is indisputable .

I am talking gameplay wise , on field they woudl be a nice addition and fill easily in the role of behind enemy line units .. the same coudl be said of the nightriders of the german tribe Harii ...

[DarthRuanek]

Actually not , if you read several ancient texts there are plenty of behind thelines cover operations references like delatores , frumentarii and in this case I forementioned Arcani , quoted by Ammianus as a earlier institution and verged toward disband at 3rd 4rth century AD . most of those Agentes in rebus for military intelligence where also legionaries .

surely the equipment is not like what was portrayed for Rtw1 arcani , but also there are no proves on countrary , actually there are no findings or evidences of how they looked lik eso any artistic licence is allowed for the game with perhaps some logics ... about their existence tough that is indisputable .

I'm not debating their existence, or even their RTW appearance. I'm debating their battlefield abilities as shown in RTW.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

I'm not debating their existence, or even their RTW appearance. I'm debating their battlefield abilities as shown in RTW.

ah ok .. ...

I actually do not remember what abilities they had ... I think the best to portray them woudl be :
give the placement behind enemy lines as in STW2 ninjas
allow them to walk and run disguised
eventually camouflage as an enemy unit
then attack or strike on the back

no bombs or stuff like that , but a sudden strike from back coudl make a severe morale loss ... or perhaps they could sabotage artillery or other units ....

[PROMETHEUS ts]

well perhaps you can hide under sand lol ... but I mean more of a disguise ...

imagine if they could mimic a friendly unit ...

[DarthRuanek]

well perhaps you can hide under sand lol ... but I mean more of a disguise ...

imagine if they could mimic a friendly unit ...

I don't know if that's really realistic. I mean, for the most part it would be difficult to get the equipment necessary to look like even one enemy unit. And they'd probably still have to deal with other normal spy problems, like different accents.

[Lacedaemon]

I think it would be neat if they started out in the battle behind enemy lines, and then there special ability was 'subterfuge' and as soon as they attacked, it disabled letting the enemy attack them. Also there should be like a random chance of being found based on the size of the army such as, a larger army is easier to infiltrate rather than one consisting of 100 men( who will easily notice the 20 'newcomers' who suddenly appear). While I think this could work with a bit of tweaking in campaign, Multi player would be interesting to say the least..
Also, I would like to see a larger happiness bonus in towns with the Arcani rooting out people who threaten the city on the inside. Could give them a little more purpose as i found them rather difficult to use in any battle that wasn't against light infantry.

[Lord Baal]

PROMETHEUS ts, I think that would be more suited for something as a fantasy units DLC...

[PROMETHEUS ts]

PROMETHEUS ts, I think that would be more suited for something as a fantasy units DLC...

why if they really exhisted ?

[Humble Warrior]

Didn`t the Roman spies in RTW look like Gladiators with clubs or was that the Assassins?

Anyway, I hope they remove that look and make them look like shady men in robes. The Gladiator look was terrible.

[RexImperator]

Didn`t the Roman spies in RTW look like Gladiators with clubs or was that the Assassins?

Anyway, I hope they remove that look and make them look like shady men in robes. The Gladiator look was terrible.

The assassin was the club guy. The spy is a hooded guy.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

It's just too silly.

[Markas]

I'd prefer them as an agent you can recruit through advanced espionage buildings (improved spies, basically). If they were units I'd have them as small-numbered light cav used for scouting with the 'paths seldom trod' trait on the campaign map and maybe the ability to see hidden units on the battle one. Nothing too fancy.

[Zimmy]

Arcani did exist as spies in Brittania. They did NOT go on the battlefield. If Roman spies were renamed Arcani we would all be happy, no?

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

How about the Praeventatories from Barbarian Invasion instead? They were basicly the same thing but seemed more real.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

Actually there other proves of them beeing actual soldiers ( miles Arcani )

Vindolanda Inventory No. 85.244 A fragment of a leaf containing two words written in a good capital hand. It is possible that it is some sort of "tag", merely recording the name of a soldier. Alternatively it might refer to an intelligence agent or explorator of some sort
excavated from the Roman fort at Vindolanda in northern England

[DarthRuanek]

Actually there other proves of them beeing actual soldiers ( miles Arcani )

Vindolanda Inventory No. 85.244 A fragment of a leaf containing two words written in a good capital hand. It is possible that it is some sort of "tag", merely recording the name of a soldier. Alternatively it might refer to an intelligence agent or explorator of some sort
excavated from the Roman fort at Vindolanda in northern England

That doesn't mean they fought in battles alongside normal Roman soldiers as some different Arcani unit.