Middle Provincial Era GROGPUBLIC game thread

[JasonPratt]

Unless somebody has a good reason to replace Camillus, I will be sending him all our legions next.

He didn't spell it out, but I'm inferring from context that he means this as an intention for a formal Proposal if X happens, which it has.

So that's 13 votes for sending all three (now) Active Legions to Reinforce Camillus. Presumably voting order is at will.

[ArizonaTank]

Conservatives vote "for" sending legions to Cam

[JasonPratt]

We already know that Tripoli's Militarists and Erax's Progressives would vote in favor of throwing everything at Cam's War, so their votes can be added in as well.

That's 13 Aristo (including activist x2 knights); +8 Mils; +8 +1 (knights) +1 (priest on Deployment) +2 (PontMax double vote on Deployment) Conservs; +4 Progs = 37 votes so far 'for'.

Even if the Plutocrats and the Populists voted against the Proposal, they could only bring, respectively, 13 (including priest vote) +9 = 21 votes against, so the Proposal will pass.

Since no useful or unlocked Proposal options remain, this effectively ends the Senate, unless AzTank's Papirus the Pontifex Maximus wants to appoint or reassign a priest. For asynch purposes I'll allow some lag here, if so.

I'll process the Combat Phase soon.

[JasonPratt]

TURN FOUR -- COMBAT PHASE
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Marcus Furius Camillus prepares to face the Fate of the Veii!



He has come well prepared. But whether Rome's allied logistic support defects their supplies to the Veians remains to be seen...

Total Legions = 7
Total Effective Commander rating = +5
Veian War Land Strength = -4
Die Roll Modifier = +8

Camillus rolls 3d6, ignoring any D/S results against this War -- but Allied Desertion means that if the total is even instead of odd, then the value of the first die gets counted in favor of Veia instead.

[blockquote]Rolled 3d6 : 2, 6, 5, total 13[/blockquote]

[JasonPratt]

13!! -- the auxiliaries support the Republic after all!

13+8 = 21. Any result over 17 is a total Victory, no casualties!!  :clap:  <:-)


Unrest -1, but it's already at minimum 0 (no unrest). No Enemy Leader defeated, so Spolia Opima doesn't trigger yet. No spoils for this War either. Instead, Rome's annual income increases by 10 Talents, up to 40! The 8th, 9th, and 10th Legions are added to the logistic Force Pool. This War is permanently discarded, and with no other Wars fought this Turn the Allied Desertion Event is removed.

Camillus gains half the War strength (or 4/2=2) in Influence (now 10) and Popularity (now 2). No casualties, so no Popularity lost, and no death chits drawn. Camillus returns to Rome, and his Legions (1st thru 7th inclusive) return to the Active Pool. Conservative Total Influence increases from 22 to 32; normal vote from 9 to 13. Camillus' Proconsul office ends.

This also ends the Combat Phase. Revolution Phase next, and the end of Turn Four!

[JasonPratt]

TURN FOUR -- REVOLUTION PHASE
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No one can rebel against the Senate yet.

No previously dedicated Faction cards to pick up.

No Player needs to reduce their hand.

If you have a playable Concession or Statesman Faction card, I have p-mailed you already.

Since there is at least one card to be played, and since the play might be affected by Mortality, or might affect Revenue, I will hold up a little while before advancing into Turn Five.

Players may trade or donate Faction cards to each other immediately for a little while, with some lag allowed for asynch purposes. After a reasonable period, I'll regard any such transfer as Delayed for resolution at the end of Turn Five.

[IncompetentIdiot]

Cornelius acquires tax farming privileges in the newly conquered lands (Tax Farm 1).

[JasonPratt]

TURN FIVE -- INTRODUCTION TO THE ITALIAN ERA
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While we're waiting, I'll talk a little about what can be expected as the game advances into its first new Era!  <:-)

0.) Obviously there will be some historical Events, including Wars and things of that sort, which will show up only in the Italian Era, and I'm not going to spoil those.

00.) Strictly speaking, the Italian Era hasn't started yet, but I've gone ahead and plopped the remaining Latin Era Scenario card onto the top of its pile. That makes 23 cards in the pile.

1.) A new Era typically starts when a card of its Era is first played openly face up somehow. That means an orange border card in this case. It also means that simply dealing out an orange border Faction card doesn't trigger the new Era, since I'm giving it to the Player face down.

2.) I say "typically", because the Italian (and for that matter the Latin) Era doesn't usually treat Early Era (white border) cards that way: Early Era cards don't usually trigger the Early Era.

3.) I say "usually" ;), because after a certain point the next Early Era (white-bordered) card played face-up will trigger the start of the Early Provincial Era, and thus the start of the main game! -- the Latin and Italian Eras are a tutorial prologue in effect, introducing much of the game functionality and rules progressively.

4.) When does the Early Era trigger? For the Italian and all subsequent Eras, during deck creation I took the last 6 cards of an Era and the first 6 cards of the next Era, having shuffled those Era decks already, and then shuffled those 12 cards together, stacking them under the current Era. There was a slight difference in doing this for the Italian Era, based on the "Birth of the Republic" expansion rules for distributing Early Era cards through the Latin and Italian Eras, but the basic concept is the same. Normally this means that cards for the next Era will start showing up randomly in a 50/50 distribution during the final 12 cards of an Era, and once a next-Era card gets played face up then any remaining cards in the deck are stacked on top of the next Era, triggering the start of that Era. Since the Italian Era has some selected white-bordered Early Era cards shuffled throughout it anyway, the normal rule applies a little differently: the Early Provincial Era can't start until there are only 6 cards remaining in the Italian deck. At that point, the next white-bordered card played face up after drawing from the 6 remaining, will trigger the Early Era.

(The "Early Era" and "Early Provincial Era" are the same thing; I just like to distinguish the main game Eras as "provincial", since otherwise the Latin and Italian Eras are Earlier-than-Early Eras.  ::) Provinces can't unlock until the "Early Era", so from that point the Eras are also "Provincial".)


5.) White-bordered "Early Era" Statesmen will start being dealt out as Faction cards to Players in the Italian Era. However, they will not be unlocked for play (during Revolutionary Phases as usual) until we're into the final 6 cards of the Italian Era.

6.) Once the Early Era starts, all currently active Italian and Latin Era Statesmen (yellow and orange borders) will retire, and so discard permanently out of play. If a Statesman's family card is already politically active under him, that family Senator will inherit all the Statesman's chips. (The families of Conservative Statesmen always inherit if active, so that'll be business as usual for AzTank.  ^-^ But this will be the only time it also applies for other Factions. Usually when Statesmen die, their families under them start over empty with their standard family stats, though still in the same Faction.) Otherwise the chips are lost with the Statesman as if he died. The Era cannot start by playing an Early Statesman on a pre-Early Statesman, except for Quinctius Flaminius, who can inherit from Cincinnatus this way -- he is the only Statesman who can thus inherit directly from another Statesman. However, once the Early Era is going, new Statesmen can be played on family Senators who have inherited chips from per-Early Statesmen, thus inheriting those chips from the family as usual for all Players.

7.) Once the Italian Era starts, several Senatorial Offices will grant +2 more Influence upon election.

8.) Once the Italian Era starts, a Random Event total of 15, which would normally be Allied Enthusiasm, will grant the Republic 4 Fleets from an alliance with Carthage instead! This is kind of insidious, since while you don't have to pay the 40 Talents to create them, you'll still have to pay 2 per Fleet per Turn for upkeep, and you won't have any opportunity to use them until some Wars of the Early Era arrive -- and when (not if) the 1st Punic War arrives, Carthage will take all survivors of those 4 Fleets back! (The expansion rules say the HRAO will decide which four fleets go back, but that doesn't make any sense, so I'm tweaking the rule. In the event of a Carthaginian Alliance, I'll deal out the 23rd through 25th Fleets as being from Carthage, since it's practically impossible for Rome to build more than 22 Fleets before the 1st Punic War triggers.)


I think that covers all the automatic rule changes for the Italian Era, once it happens, which should be during the Forum Phase of this upcoming Turn. Any other rule changes should happen as historical Events.

[JasonPratt]

TURN FIVE -- MORTALITY PHASE
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As noted, Cornelius arranges a Tax Farming Concession for himself in some Latium areas which tried to support the last king Tarquinius in overthrowing the nascent Republic!

No Immanent Wars to promote to Active yet.

An x2 chip is drawn from the Sack of Death!! It gets put back in, and the sack thoroughly reshuffled again. Two chits will be drawn.

Patricians from families 21 and 25 die during the winter, but those families aren't politically active yet. (Or not enough to matter.  ::) ) Spurius Cassius Vicellinus of the Conservatives breathes a sigh of relief as the Kindly Ones pass him by. (His family is #24, and won't be politically active again until sometime in the Middle Era.)


This ends the Mortality Phase. I'll process Faction Incomes of the Revenue Phase next.

[JasonPratt]

TURN FIVE -- REVENUE PHASE
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Before I do the report (with photos for convenience), each Faction has enough cash that one of their senators (in some cases two) could buy 1 influence by donating 10 Talents to the Republic, which without donations will definitely have a new net total of 97 Talents by the end of this Phase. AzTank has enough cash (29) that he could donate 25 Talents to give 3 Influence to one senator!

Looking ahead to the coming Forum Phase, all Factions have enough cash that one senator from each Faction could throw at least a level 1 Gladiatorial game (for 7 Talents); in some cases up to a level 3 (for 18 Talents). Unrest is currently zero, although who knows what will trigger during the Forum Phase? The assured goal would be to gain Popularity (1, 2, or 3 points depending on level of the games). Only 1 senator per Faction can Sponsor Games per Turn (unlike Donations to the Republic).

Of course everyone has enough to give one of your senators an automatic knight (sacrificing 5 Talents). New families might start becoming politically active in the Forum this Turn, however, so making sure your best persuader (Inf + Ora) has cash for bribery might or might not be a good idea again!

Finally, before the accounting starts: thanks to the 12 Tables historical Event, a Censor will be elected each Turn starting with this Senate, who will be able to prosecute senators on suspicion of corruption. There are two levels of suspicion, Minor and Major; and each triggering Concession (most of which happen automatically, though not always during the Revenue Phase) always generates a Minor marker (which stacks per Concession triggered) for its senator.

The upshot is that minor suspicion markers will now be given to senators starting from this Revenue Phase going forward. I'll explain more how this works out in practice, when we get to the Censor Proposal business of the Senate Phase this Turn. For now, all you need to know is that the only way to avoid minor suspicion from Concessions, is not to give your senators Concessions! ;) There's no way to get rid of suspicion markers (or Concessions for that matter) directly: you'll lose a marker, one way or another, during a Prosecution; and all your markers will disappear at the end of any Senate Phase; and if you lose a Concession somehow while you're still marked with suspicion, then you'll lose its mark, too. (The Censor cannot prosecute you over a Concession you don't have anymore.)

If you're wondering how to get a Major suspicion marker, the main way is to hold a Major Office: everything and anything from PontMax upward (including Censor). Those get assigned at the start of the Senate Phase, including starting this Turn. The PontMax can also earn a Major marker if he loses his PontMax office due to a run of Evil Omens. (He might otherwise not get one at the start of the Senate if he doesn't have another Major Office.)

The only other way I can think of offhand to get (the equivalent of) a Major marker, is for one of your senators to try to assassinate someone: if he gets caught, and if he isn't your Faction Leader, then your Leader goes immediately to a Special Major Prosecution for conspiracy to murder. But that's a case of where he gets a Major marker and immediately loses it (one way or another) by the trial.

[JasonPratt]

Okay, enough preliminaries. Time for the Faction accounting!  <:-)

I.I's Aristocrats: 4 starting cash; +2 +2 senator cash; +3 +2 senator income; +3 knights income; +2 Tax Farming +3 Harbor Fees
= new Faction total 21 Talents.




Tripoli's Militarists: 11 starting cash; +0 senator cash; +3 +1 senator income; +3 knights income; +2 Tax Farming
= new Faction total 20 Talents.




The Frog's Plutocrats: 2 starting cash; +4 +4 senator cash; +5 (faction bonus) +2 senator income; +3 knights income +3 knight faction bonus; +0 Concessions
= new Faction total 23 Talents.




AzTank's Conservatives: 8 starting cash; +4 +4 +4 senator cash; +3 +3 senator income; +2 knights income; +1 (random 1d6) PontMax income; +0 Concessions
= new Faction total 29 Talents.




Malize's Populists: 6 starting cash; +0 senator cash; +3 +1 senator income; +2 knights income; +3 Mining Concession
= new Faction total 15 Talents.




Erax's Progressives: 1 starting cash; +1 +2 senator cash; +3 +1 senator income; +1 knight income; +2 +2 Tax Farming Concessions
= new Faction total 13 Talents.



(If you see little blue bags next to your Total Influence counters now? -- those are the Major/Minor marker source bags. The minor suspicion chit actually says "corrupto"; major is spelled "mayor" per Latin.)

Anyone can send in their Revenue Choices in any order -- they still come down (this Turn) to distribution among your senators, and announcing donations from senators to the Republic's Treasury.

However, if you're sure about how you will use your cash during your round of the upcoming Forum Phase (which will start with I.I. since he's the most influential Consular Tribune right now), you can go ahead and tell me now and I'll resolve it when the time comes. If you tell me "and nothing else", I'll move along to the next Player around the table in the Forum Phase without checking to see if you want to act on any new opportunities that might have come up -- but I'll be fair and still allow some lag for asynch, so long as you don't try to pre-empt someone else's choice to take advantage of the same opportunity.

...and with that, I'm done for the night! See y'all tomorrow! phew.

[IncompetentIdiot]

19 to Cornelius, who donates 10 for influence.

[malize]

13 to Brutus
2 to Aurelius

Brutus will Sponsor games to honor the great victory
Aurelius will try for a knight

[Erax]

Flaminius 10, Plautius 2, Faction Treasury 1. No donations. Plautius will spend 1 on a knight roll in the Forum Phase.

[ArizonaTank]

3 talents to each of my 4 guys, total 12. Fabius will spend 2 to try for a knight.