Middle Provincial Era GROGPUBLIC game thread

[JasonPratt]

At long last, the GROGPUBLIC begins!

This will be (as far as I'm planning) the only actual game thread, for playing the game. The information thread can be found at that link. And the signup thread can be found at that link. Both are still viable in their own way.

The starting players will be:

ArizonaTank (aka Larry from the Crisis Grogs, longtime Groghead)
Dave from the Crisis Grogs (Ethel the Frog here on Grogheads)
IncompetentIdiot (a very new Groghead member)
Tripoli (of the Grogheads)

A slot was also reserved for Windigo but I never heard back from you. However: there are still four slots remaining, and if Windi or anyone else wants to join, it will be fairly easy for me to incorporate you as one of the remaining factions (semi-randomly chosen) at any time, though possibly with some game delay before I can phase you and your first senators in.

I have not, at the time of writing this post, generated the starting conditions for the game. This is simply to create the game-thread itself; to announce that I'm starting the game data generation; and to clarify that initial start positions are now closed (although ongoing positions remain open).

Later this evening I'll p-mail starting faction cards to all players, and explain what they do, and when you can play them (which I'll also p-mail reminders about when applicable.) I have sent initial pre-game p-mail checkins to all players, although at this time only I.I. has responded by p-mail. I have left instructions for p-mail usage near the bottom of the signup thread.

I strongly recommend all players either click the "notify" button at the bottom of this thread, and/or drop an initial post so that (if your forum account is set up to do so) your designated email address will receive updates for activity here. (...maybe. The forum engine gets a little squirrely about this.)

Off to start my work now! May you all keep the Republic alive against the slings of outrageous fortune!

[JasonPratt]

No players expressed any faction preferences (for or against).

I've now reached the point where I've dealt out the first senators and so formed the Player order around the table, as well as having assigned the four earliest factions. (Other players will be assigned to factions around the table whenifever they join in.)

I'll reveal the first senator families per se later tonight as I finish setup. Until then:

I.I., you drew the oldest average families, and so they formed THE ARISTOCRAT FACTION. You'll be Player 1.

AzTank and Tripoli's initial senators tied on Military score; and the Frog (Dave? Ethel? not sure what to call you here) tied them both on Influence. (Which is good: that means the factions will be pretty well balanced.)

But AzTank’s senators have the highest remaining loyalty, so they formed THE CONSERVATIVE FACTION. You'll be Player 4.

This leaves Tripoli's senators with the highest remaining Military rating, so they formed THE MILITARIST FACTION. You'll be Player 2.

By deduction, this leaves the Frog with (aptly) the green Player 3, as his senators form THE PLUTOCRAT FACTION.

Everyone can check your Faction specialties starting back here in the Introduction thread.

Factions are permanent throughout the game.

[JasonPratt]

TURN ZERO
---------

Status: the Republic starts with 0 Unrest, and with 30 Talents in the Roman Treasury. Income later in Turn One will be another 30 Talents. The 1st and 2nd Legions have been raised. Rome has enough manpower to raise another 5 Legions, potentially 7 maximum.



The 1st Latin War is active, with the Enemy Leader Tarquinius Superbus. (Historically, this War represents Tarqy’s attempt at taking back the kingship of Rome after the SPQR, the Senate and People of Rome, threw him out; but it also sort of represents the attempt of nearby Latin towns to secede from Roman rule, already established by the Roman kings. The prologue designer has intentionally conflated about three wars together here, since Tarq’s actual attempt was rather lackluster.) It has a strength of 3 (2+1) thanks to Tarqy, who also improves the Disaster and Standoff chances.

If you can defeat this war, Tarqy will also be discarded, and Rome will gain 10 Talents. Defeating this war will also create Tax Farming Concessions 1 and 2 (allowing them to be played).

This War costs 10 Talents per Revenue Phase. Your Active Legions (whether on campaign or not) will cost 4 Talents (2x2). Basic net Roman income during Turn One will be 30 - 10 - 4 = +16 Talents.



Currently, only the Statesman Lucius Junius Brutus (#10a), is waiting in the Forum. He will be assigned to whichever Faction first persuades Family 10, the Junii, to join. (If we had had one more player, or more, he would have been assigned automatically to whoever drew him, and would have been the starting Consul; but he won’t grant that ability now.) He has the ability to nullify Standoffs and Disasters, if assigned to fight the 1st Latin War. I'll remind players about him once he becomes relevant.

Since we’re starting with only 4 players, I have dealt out everyone 2 Faction cards. You should have each received a p-mail from me by now, detailing what you’ve drawn, how to use them, and when that’s possible. You may reveal as many of your Faction cards as you want to anyone, at any time, in any way; but I’ll always ‘give’ them to you privately first. I’ll also let you know when you’re over your hand limit (5 cards) so you can think about discarding, playing, or donating to another Player (perhaps for considerations! ) You may trade or donate Faction cards at any time after the end of the first Turn; but they will not come into play until the end of the Turn. I’ll let you know when. (If you trade privately, I’ll keep them turned down, but you need to send me a p-mail to let me know so I can keep track of the game status!)

Faction starting information comes next.

[JasonPratt]

Other than any unplayed (or unrevealed) Faction cards, everything else in the game is public information. I've already given the starting stats for the Republic per se (30 cash, 30 income coming, 1 War and 1 Enemy leader active, Unrest 0, two Legions active, five more Legions potentially. The war will cost 10 talents this turn, your legions 2x2=4 more.)

I.I. will be the Aristocrats. (I linked to everyone's special abilities upthread, but I'll keep track of them and remind y'all where appropriate. I highly recommend Players keep their own notes along the way, tho!)



You're starting with Cornelius and Valerius. 0 Faction cash. Together their Oratory skills mean you control 5 votes in the Senate. Their total Influence is 10. You’ve got enough influence to trigger your knights’ special ability (but almost no one starts with any knights, you included). The snapshot should show your senators stats well enough.

As a recap for you and other players (now or potentially):

Mil = Military. This skill lets you double the effectiveness of an equal number of legions or fleets. So if Cornelius with Mil 4 was leading an Army of 4 Legions, they’d fight at 4x2=8 power. Under Valerius, with 1 Mil, only one of those Legions would fight at double strength, so the total power would be 3 + (1x2) = 5, not 8. On the other hand, if Cornelius was leading 5 Legions, one of them wouldn’t be doubled, so their strength would be 1 + (4x2) = 9, not 10. Mil skill represents logistic and other management factors, so applies (for the game) equally to legions or fleets. (It does not apply to inherent Province strength or provincial militias however. It does apply to Veteran Legions! -- but all those will come later, if we survive that long. )

Ora = Oratory. This mostly tracks how many other generic (invisible) senators will vote with the senator (minimum 1 for the senator himself, of course). It also sometimes affects dice rolls.

Loy = Loyalty. This affects how hard it is to get a senator to move into or out of a Faction. Corny and Val are pretty dang loyal! (They would have made a good Conservative Faction, too.) This early in the game, it’s nearly impossible to root out a senator once he’s attached to a Faction.

The picture of a stack of coins just shows where the personal treasury of each senator will eventually be. They usually start with none (including all these senators), although sometimes there are inherited chips.

Pop = Popularity. Almost every Senator and Statesman starts with 0, which is neutral. This can go up or down, to a limit of 9. It mainly affects certain dice rolls. If we get a Populist Faction player, it also affects how many extra votes his senators can count on!

Inf = Influence. This is the ultimate scoring factor of the game, and also affects dice rolls and some other things. For I. I., as the Aristocrat player, having more Influence than any other Faction triggers his main knight special ability! -- doubling their votes on any topic pro or con! Influence is the main way a senator might win the game for his Faction alone, too, by being appointed or elected Consul for Life; but that won’t be a factor until the Early Provincial Era starts.

Last but not least, the Knights are not-quite-totally-generic invisible senators who act as minions for your Senators or Statesmen. Each knight always brings at least 1 extra vote for his senator; and also at least 1 extra Talent of income. Knights are heavily connected into the special abilities of most factions, which usually (but not always) involve doubling the voting power of a Faction’s knights under various circumstances. I.I.’s knights, as noted, will double their votes on any topic as long as the Aristocrats have the most Influence total.

Moving on more quickly to the other players, after that catchup information.

[JasonPratt]

Here’s Tripoli as the MILITARIST faction. He was formed by Julius and Manlius. Together their Oratory controls 5 votes, and they have 8 Influence total. Not much more to say about them yet.




The Frog as the PLUTOCRAT faction gets to start with 2 cash in his faction treasury! -- as well as 1 free Knight you’ll be able to assign to any senator soon! (He’s the only Faction who gets this starting bonus.) As if that wasn’t enough, Fulvius there won the draw for being the first Roman Consul! -- which ticked up his influence a little. (Usually it provides a bigger boost, but Fulvius won’t be Consul for long, just long enough to start the first Senate Phase and deliver the State of the Republic address. More on that later.) Even though he’s only a temporary Consul long enough to get the Republic started, he’ll always be a “Prior Consul” (like any other consul), so will be eligible for election to a special office later in the game once that unlocks. He can also be elected Consul again, but no one can be a consul two turns in a row (unless literally all other senators are dead perhaps!)

Anyway, they also control 5 votes right now, and 9 total Influence. But once the Frog assigns his free knight, that will add 1 vote to the total. So he’s about to have 6 votes.

Since the Plutocrats control the Consul, they also have the Highest Ranking Available Officer in Rome, and so will get to go first on any cycle of players around the table. This will be relevant very soon.




ArizonaTank gets to be the CONSERVATIVE FACTION, with Fabius and Furius down there. Together they also control 5 votes (this tie across all the Factions is a little unusual even at the start of the game), but only 8 Influence.

That’s enough to chew over for tonight, and perhaps to inspire some questions.

Tomorrow afternoon, I hope to explain the choices each player can make at this time. (There aren’t many, but they’re important.)

[JasonPratt]

So, each Player now gets to make a few choices for Turn Zero.

Since none of these choices affect anyone else, you'll be making them simultaneously, which for asynch means any of you can post your choices whenever you want, in any Player order. You can also change your mind and do something else, up to the point where I start Turn One with the mortality chit draw. (Obviously you can't make any revealed Faction cards secret again. But you can take them back and save them for later.)

You can also each make your choices themselves in any order -- this time. (Often choices have to be made in a specific order, and I'll tell you when.)

Everyone's choices boil down to two things. All choices here cost nothing. (Most of your choices in the game will cost nothing. I'll let you know if there's a cost to pay; if I don't you can assume it's free.)


CHOICE 1.) You can now play any VALID Concessions and/or Statesmen from your Faction cards, onto any of your senators. I will have explained to each of you already, by p-mail, which of your cards are valid right now (and which have to be saved until later, and generally until when, and why.)

Concessions are always played directly onto any senator, and any senator has no limit to the Concessions he can have. However, most Concessions are locked this early in the game. The only unlocked Concessions are Harbor Fees and Mining. Locked Concessions don't "exist" yet in the game, but if you hold onto the card you'll get first dibs once it does exist. Concessions give your senator extra income during certain events, usually the Revenue Phase.

You can also play any Statesmen to your Faction as long as someone else doesn't already have a senator from his Family in play.

If you've got his family in play, you'll upgrade that family Senator into the Statesman -- basically revealing that this guy was ta-daaaa this Statesman all along.

If no one has his family in play yet, your Statesman just becomes a distinctly new senator for your Faction; and if his Family ever shows up before he dies, you'll pick up his family underneath his card automatically.

There's a special Statesman in the Latin Era who's a generic military leader: all he really does is give one of your Senators a +2 buff to military skill (5 max).

This choice is optional. You can wait until later. The next time you'll be able to play Statesmen and/or Concessions, will be in the final Phase of Turn One.

No other Faction cards can be played yet.

If you can't play a card, you don't have to reveal you can't play it. Just say you aren't playing any cards, or you're only playing X and holding the other one.


CHOICE 2: Each of you must choose one of your own senators as your Faction Leader. This is mandatory. (If you only had one senator left, he'd be Faction Leader by default.) If you can and do play an independent Statesman senator, you can make him your Leader; or any other senator in your Faction, no restrictions.

A Faction Leader gets at least three benefits (for as long as he remains the Leader): he earns an extra 2 Talents during the Revenue Phase (coming up soon); he can't be Persuaded to join any other Faction by any means; and if he dies, you'll get his family card back immediately as a fresh new vanilla Senator (no chips yet) to be the new Faction Leader. Note that a Statesman still dies and leaves the game permanently, but as long as he has his associated family then you'll get the family card back as a new vanilla Senator. If he has no family support yet, he just dies, and you'll have to appoint another of your senators as Leader immediately.

During your round in the Forum Phase (coming soon), you can simply declare any of your current senators the new Faction Leader. Until that time each turn, though, you're committed to that senator being your Leader.


The Plutocrat Faction gets a 3rd unique choice: you must assign one free Knight to any one of your senators. This is mandatory but there are no drawbacks, only benefits. One of your senators will get a minion, for free, before anyone else!  Your chosen senator will get the normal 1 more vote in the Senate (per knight), and because you're the Plutocrats each of your knights, including this one, will earn 2 extra Talents instead of 1 extra during the Revenue Phase (coming up soon).


So the two (or for the Frog, three) choices are pretty simple to implement: "I'm playing this or these cards; and/or holding my other cards. And (for the Plutocrats) I'm assigning my free knight to this senator. And I'm making this senator my Faction Leader." The end. 

[JasonPratt]

Oh, in case someone is wondering: your Faction Leader is a post completely independent of any other office in the Republic, and in fact doesn't count technically as a major or minor Office. There's only one Office in the game right now, the Roman Consul, currently held by Fulvius of the Plutocrats. The Frog can make him Faction Leader, or any of his other senators -- this has no effect on his office at all, or vice versa.

[ArizonaTank]

I will play Camillus

[JasonPratt]

Who will be your Faction Leader?

[Ethel the Frog]

I will play Appius, assign him a knight and make him my faction leader. 

[JasonPratt]

Here are EthelFrog's results:



His Claudian senator turns out (by playing this Statesman from his family) to be the famous Appius Claudius, changing the stats to Mil 1, Ora 5, Loy 9, Pop 0 (neutral), and Inf 5. Appius sucks at combat management, but he can still prevent Standoff or Disaster rolls if he's sent to fight the 1st Latin War. Also, as long as he's alive (and not in Captivity), he adds +2 to Repopulation Rolls, which helps Families raise up new Senators after their prior scions have died. (We'll see more of this later in the game, after we've had some deaths in the Families. )

With Appius now in play (taking over the position from the generic Claudian Senator), and with the free knight now assigned (to Appius), the Plutocrats now have a tally of 8 normal votes, and a total influence of 10, tying with I.I.'s Aristocrat Faction (and negating I.I.'s special knight ability for now).


Oh, also: all Players have a little pawn the color of their Faction, which designates the declared Faction Leader visually. So that's why Appius has a green pawn now.

I'll adjust for AzTank's card play in a minute.

[IncompetentIdiot]

I'll play Quinctius Cincinnatus as well as the Harbour Fees concession on Valerius. Cornelius will be my Faction Leader.

[JasonPratt]

AzTank plays a Statesman from his hand, morphing his generic Furian Senator into the historical Marcus Furius Camillus.

(Note to self, find photo of Riddick and composit that onto Cam's card...  )

This changes his stats to Mil 5 (the best natural Mil score); Ora 3, Loy 8, Pop 0, and Inf 5. Aside from being a logistical genius, Cami will also void Disasters and Standoffs if he gets deployed in a war against the nearby city of Veii (Rome's first major competitor, more on them later.)

This doesn't change the Conservatives' normal vote tally, but does push their total Influence up to 10, tying the Plutocrats and the Aristocrats.

AzTank has yet to choose a Faction Leader. (So you can see the little brown pawn standing on the normal vote counter.)




I'll catch up with I.I.'s choices next.

[JasonPratt]

I.I. played both of his starting Faction cards, providing a nice couple of rule illustrations along the way!

This time I'll post his table before commenting:



You'll notice his Statesman, Quinctius Cincinnatus, didn't morph anyone. That's because Cinc's family (#18 the Quincies) doesn't exist politically yet: their card isn't out on the table anywhere.

If someone else had already picked up a generic Quinctius for their Faction, I.I. would not have been able to play Cincinnatus (yet). If I.I. already had him, he'd morph into Cinccinnatus. But since the family doesn't exist anywhere yet, Cinc comes into play as a 3rd senator for the Aristocrats! (...a little ironically, since their family is late enough to be listed as #18. But also anti-ironically, since their ancestor was Cincinnatus, after which they didn't do much politically for a while!)

As you can see, Cinc has stats of Mil 5, Ora 2, Loy 9, Pop 1 (!), and Inf 1. He doesn't have much Oratory skill and less influence, but he kicks ass strategically, and he's one of the only Statesmen who start out with more than neutral Popularity!

He also voids Disasters and Standoffs for two separate Wars, the Aequian and the Volsician. And while his Oratory and Influence are weak, they still contribute enough to kick the Aristocrats back up to Influence 11 (which would activate their knight special voting ability) and tick up their normal votes in the Senate to 7.


I.I. also drew, and played, one of the only two currently-unlocked Concessions: the Harbor Fees (representing Rome's port colony of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber river). As long as Valerius is alive (and doesn't get investigated for corruption successfully, which no one has to worry about for a while), he'll pick up an extra 3 Talents (and a minor corruption marker) automatically during every Revenue Phase (which is coming up soon). Concessions can never be permanently lost as long as the Republic stands; once they're freed up (or destroyed and then respawned), the Senate can vote for another senator to have them.

And as I.I. noted, Cornelius is now his Faction Leader.


I.I. and the Frog have fully played their rounds; AzTank mostly but you still need to declare a Faction Leader. We haven't heard publicly from Tripoli yet on either of his choices, but this Phase is moving along nicely (considering we're in the tutorial). 

[ArizonaTank]

I choose the new guy, Camillus to be the faction leader