Character Stats
Leadership: 32%
Strength: 60%
Charm: 43%
Intellect: 39%
Insult him. (Only do this if your character has Charm+Intellect >= 70, it will make your match less difficult).
Parry with your weapon.
go on the offensive and bring the fight to him
Charge!
That was how I beat the guy, but I only won 3 out 6 times I replayed the fight, and I always succeeded at every check. This battle is extremely difficult.
Sorry for being a bit late; what I meant by honor and dignity was your personal integrity, thinking back to the bread scene whilst on the slave ship: eat the bread to have a better chance of surviving or not to maintain your dignity.
Ah yes. That would be a pretty seamless way to integrate it in. I will play around with the respective scenes for the Noble and Merchant classes and see what I can do. Thanks for the suggestion!!
AHAHA staring lustfully at your nemesis, thats quite a funny thought!!! Hmm, agree abt the bath scene, I will throw in some conditionals and try to ascertain the MCās orientation earlier on. Great suggestions and thanks for offering your pov! Correct me if Iām wrong, but for now I will probably write it no different from a straight rs, cause I think thatās probably closer to reality?
This is true. But for most part I would imagine that it would be very difficult for a slave working in the plantation with other slaves to pick up latin as his exposure to the language is minimal.
Before the fight, the Roman master had no reason to invest in you (or any other slave perhaps other than the vilicus), and interaction was minimal. And the timeframe we are looking at numbers in weeks, not months. Hence I think the way it is now errs closer to reality? What do you think?
With regard to picking up a basic understanding of Latin, I think thereās always a gulf between native speakers and people who hear the language without much explanation. As in most cases, we learn very simple terms but find it impossible to communicate our thoughts any more complicated than a swear word or asking for directions?
Also, I have no intention of allowing lower class MCs to catch up hahaha. As it stands, a lower class MC can still achieve more than a noble MC if he/she is street smart.
Hahahaha i laughed at this. From the polls it seems that thereās really no clear preference. Also because I have yet to develop them much, but we shall see in the next chapter!
Ooh. Thanks for pointing out the errors! I will take a look and fix them on my working copy!! Hahaha the potatoes error is definitely negligence on my part. Was googling āancient roman diet/feastā and saw vegetables so I simply assumed. Thanks for letting me know!! Super sharp as always
Hmm. I will take a look at this. From the way I wrote it, it was more about the Roman sizing you up/reading your sign and commenting, you being unable to comprehend them.
Haha yes! I felt it was rly important to put in the language aspect, I happen to be bilingual, living in a multicultural society, and language barriers can be very real. Haha so yeah glad you could emphatize with your MC
Perhaps I could temper the gaining of literacy/conversational stat depending on intellect? A little afraid that it might complicate things but this seems plausible and could ameliorate @idonotlikeusernamesā concerns as well
Thanks for dropping by and sharing! Definitely helps to make the story more believable. Its definitely an act of negligence on my part and I will fix it.
The thing is, I did do some research (not enough definitely haha) and saw that vegetables were a large part of any Roman diet. Thus I assumed that potatoes being vegetables were legitimate but yes definitely an oversight on my part.
I strive to make it as realistic and believable as I can, so I wont be shying away from little pockets of Roman daily life descriptors, but yes, please do correct me if I get things wrong! Thank you so much
Ahahaha donāt we all? Still glad that youāre around to share your knowledge!
@Prof_Chaos
May I know your stats and your decisions during the market scene?
@Terriermon50
Haha I wonāt spoil it, but I will just say that honour and integrity are as important as they are in real life up to you to decide how important that is
Great feedback as always. From my perspective, I think the randomisation does add a tinge of realism to the playthrough, in the sense that the success of your attacks/decisions are dependent on how someone else reacts.
In the slave market scene, I adjusted the stats checks to be more leniant than the last time you tried. Although the checks are for all round higher than average stats, there is a bias for intellect so perhaps that might be hampering your MC?
I truly apologise about the frustration you are feeling now, but yes this was meant to be a very difficult match I assume youāve looked through the code as well, so the stat checks are if you clear the first 3 checks, the chances of failing the final (and deciding) stat check is almost zero. That being said, I will relook at the stat checks to see if its a fair system. It is a similar system to the one I employed for the Thracian fight on the ship. Iām wondering if there are alternative systems that might be fairer to implement? Iām definitely open to suggestions!! Cause so far I think this system is a good balance between realistic and logical.
I understand you wanting It to be realistic, but when the player pass 4 checks successfully and lose because of RNG 3 out of 6 times then the system is not fair. Just look at how many people were able to win the match, only me and another guy (after 5 tries) did it.
Now what will happen when a new reader buy this game and dies in the first fight? I doubt they will keep replaying the game, and when they become frustrated, they will simple abandon the game.
The system you use is good, with the exception of the last check being left to decide by luck instead of the player stats (I know it does depends on the stats too, but it does rely more on luck).
Ooh, Iāve held a fascination with ancient cultures since I was a curious, curious child and Iām more than tickled to partake of games in this particular vein. (I also had a roguish character named Taurus in my long abandoned Roman epic, so yay for symmetry!) Small note at the start: for a Greek child born of the upper echelons of societyāas per training in rhetoric, politics, and militaryāLatin would have been an essential part of their education.
@Prof_Chaos
Hmm is there a reason why you snubbed both of them? Just curious! Iām working on the tenses for chap 3, once im done ill fix that scene
@Quaintrelle
Welcome! Haha always awesome to meet another kindred spirit although I must admit that I am more of an armchair historian than anything ><
Ayeee is this on the forums? I would love to take a peek!
Great point. I never actually considered that hmm. Perhaps I will include this as one of the perks starting out as a Greek. Thank you!
@ruhenri
Thank you! Having a real historian around would be amazing
True. You have a good point there. Maybe I wont do away completely with the randomness, but adjust it such that clearing all 4 stat checks would make winning a certainty.
This would mean that if you are winning outright, you will definitely win. And vice versa (losing outright = confirm lose) and if a player is somewhere in between (clear some stat checks and fail some) then he/she could possibly luck it out, or lose.
This would probably be more realistic/encouraging for the player, as well as being more logical.
Nothing like a good rivalrymance. In character I figure the only reason why my mc agreed to go along with his best friendās plans to do something as stupidly risky as rob a noble was because he held a combination of lust and a measure of jealousy for the one she suggested they rob. Of course then he goes and sells us into slavery.
Still one reason why my mc absolutely needs to learn and write, providing heās ever manumitted in any worthwhile sense of the word, is because heāll need those skills to take any sort of meaningful revenge on Kraterous.
Should he get the chance heāll try to ruin the guy to the point where heāll sell himself into slavery as an educated slave and then buy his former nemesis. Itās a pity both he and the mc are still so very young when that scene happens, otherwise my mc would have made him strip right away and told him to imagine he was a dancing girl at one of his own lavish parties and to give us a good show in exchange for his miserable life.
Hmmmā¦depending on where you want to take the endgame you could even add our childhood nemesis as an RO.
Well as long as intelligence still does something, still will the lower class mc never get the chance to learn to read and write? Or will we have to forego so many other things for it that it isnāt worthwhile anymore by the time we can finally gain the skill?
Still to ever be able to take any sort of satisfying revenge on his old nemesis he needs enough of an education to be able to ruin the guy enough to make him sell himself into slavery. While he wouldnāt actually need many of the noble refinements of education for that he does need business skill and literacy and numeracy that is up to the task of understanding the flows of money to and from Kraterous and his family in order to identify his holdings and systematically take them over or destroy them. In other words he doesnāt need to become a noble himself but he does need to become educated enough to be a very good businessman.
This would seem to mirror real life, as some of the most talented people can apparently attain some fluency within 3 months. Though I agree the plantation and mine slaves would be at a distinct disadvantage for learning Latin through osmosis and the Cato path seems to require the mc already knowing Latin. Otherwise Iād say an intelligent Cato house slave should have a chance to pick up some degree of fluency in understanding and speaking Latin as they go along.
Absolutely. A wonder I never fully realized my dreams in the pursuit of archaeology. I was the little one who actually wanted to live in visit museums and just linger and lingerā¦
Aww. Youāre sweet, but 'twas an overly ambitious novel that I started as a teen and worked on for years before I began to dissect and redistribute it to my other works. In my current WIP, not even remotely ready for viewing, I do include some of itās elements, thoughāperhaps even my Taurus in another incarnation.
Another reason why I was so ecstatic and over the great blue moon to see When In Rome on the forums before the author fled and the emperors of Dropbox overthrew that most gorgeous of WIPs. Hence your valuable addition to this niche is much appreciated and I shall be keeping an anticipatory eye on its futureā¦
Soā¦how have you been?
Flailed. You are the reason I was sold into slavery!
Admittedly it was a long way to go for a second dateā¦
or should that be persistence peels off, in this case?
Admittedly it would be a terribly dysfunctional relationship, but it is what it is, right? Not all āromancesā are fairy tales. Some are indeed terribly dysfunctional lust-fueled affairs.
Letās face it any sort of āromanticā relationship with any of those cute sons of our new masters wonāt be a fairytale picnic either, for one my mc might get tired of always having to bottom.
Hmm. I canāt imagine Lucius would be encouraged to use such a weapon on the face when the slaveās purpose has yet to be determined. Marring a slave who could potentially be chosen to represent a fine house, educate the children of aristocracy or provide beauty and pleasure would be a very costly mistake.
Ah, and the entire fate of the African slave just cuts to the quickā¦[/weeping]
Well, I do know that unless one speaks Latin, the ostentatious Cato will automatically move past the MC, regardless of any other assets.
Now Iām picturing your MC in the pit of an arena awaiting your fate and your rivalmance is in the corner like
Which is surprising because the house of Cato does have checks for the peasant and merchant backgrounds written into the code, but you can never get to where they are actually used. Maybe it used to be more random initially?
Itās a pity that by the time we can get to finally learn to speak Latin it has lost much of its value, for I feel the time where master Brutus resells my mc to the Colosseum is fast approaching and while he is an actual gladiator heāll have no use for it, at least for the spoken parts.
That is a more likely outcome of the gay relationships with either masterās son then our childhood nemesis, one would think.
Yep, the unfortunate fate of a slave, eh? To say that any of the romantic relationships we can get with the cuties will be anywhere near loving, equal and fulfilling would be a very big stretch.
and thanks for offering your pov! Correct me if Iām wrong, but for now I will probably write it no different from a straight rs, cause I think thatās probably closer to reality?
up to you to decide how important that is 
I assume youāve looked through the code as well, 
