I mean, it’s made quite explicit:
but granted, this info is buried in a place where not too many people would wander (the codex, when maybe it’d be better to roll it into the “characters and factions” screen)
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That will be an option for all romances, including hers. Provided that the MC has a compatible sexuality, of course, as you can fake romance a character regardless of orientation.
That’s a fair point, and an easy thing to change. I’ll make the edit.
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I have some reticence to suggest larger changes, but this is not the first time that the codex has been changed and information has been placed elsewhere due to a convoluted navigation tree in the codex. Rather than slowly supplanting the core functions of the codex and leaving it in a redundant or vestigial form, it may be more fruitful to rework the concept outright and centralize the plot, lore, and character information.
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Fair enough. I’ll move the Codex tabs onto to the main stats screen. Let me know if that works better.
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Just wanted to say that this is the absolute best Choice of Games thing out right now. Absolute peak. Can’t wait for the next chapter!
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I think this is a better layout for the stats and world information. Well done.
Looking forward to finally be able to finish Ch. III.
@Azan Something I have yet to rationalize: Why does the legion take greater offense in the MC expanding the city guard than working with Cato during the riot?
City Guards can be seen as a rival group to the Military, meanwhile Cato, who mainly operate within the city, is nobody to the Legion.
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In addition to what @Dragomer said, they also benefit from casting the Watch as incompetent in particular in order to bolster the idea that the military is needed to maintain order in the capital. If Ceto’s gang takes over, they can still put on the image that they’re needed as saviors. If the Watch solves the problem, they’re stuck with no more influence in the capital than before.
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What would happen if Augusta has a high puppet stat but develops a lot of strength over the course of the story?
A high strength Augusta will lose Puppet points, and be more likely to switch onto the Paragon or Tyrant tracks depending on which is highest. There will be a point in the story, however, where her personality will permanently lock into one of the three.
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Oops, I feel behind by a few days! Replying to some posts I forgot to reply to.
As always, whenever I mention real history, it’s only for analogy and illustration – this is Azan’s story and world, not a historical text. I’m mostly discussing how I’m RPing my MC.
She’s pretty great in Andor, too. Her portrayal is a little bit different than in the old EU – there she was the firebrand and Leia the moderate, whereas the new canon has flipped it.
I reject the notion that an autocracy is inherently more stable than a republic. I also disagree that an autocrat is the answer to chaos, and that an autocrat necessarily means safety. History furnishes us with plenty of examples of the opposite.
Yes, I imagine that will be a very tall order. At the start Augusta clearly admires her mother and wants to behave like her. It will take her a lot of work to get her to behave otherwise. I’m being very ambitious/idealistic here, haha.
As for enlightened autocrat – that could be a start, but my goal would even go so far as more of a constitutional ruler or the first citizen of the principate rather than a lord and master of the dominate. An empress that consults with the Senate and People, who takes their counsel, and attends to their needs.
At least, if such a thing will be possible in the story! Here’s hoping.
Yes, I doubt that the senators would look twice at the MC if it weren’t for the MC’s current power and usefulness to them. I also agree that if the Senate had its way, it would in fact try to sideline the MC if the republic was restored to the way it was. I definitely get the feeling Consentia feels like she’s using the MC – but we’ll see if it can change into a genuine partnership.
Sure, but I don’t think Leia acts as if her adopted royal bloodline defines her or justifies her views. And besides, if you mend the rift between the Senate and People, you’re sort of putting those two factors together anyway – without possessing either of them!
Just a note: the Romans did not particularly agree that all of the so-called five good emperors (not a contemporary name) were, in fact, good. The portrayal of Tiberius in Tacitus in particular seems to be his way of criticizing Hadrian indirectly, for example.
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Are there still prohibitions with using the legions in urban settings in Iudia? The Roman restrictions against standing armies in Italia had ended by the late Empire. The legions kept order in Rome by the end. However, the ‘city watch’ concept seems very medieval, and it would be very strange for medieval levied armies to be stationed for urban crime. The closest analogue in Roman times is probably the Vigiles, although the City Watch have less paramilitary connotations and enslavement. There was just less of a state role in crime-fighting in those days. Presenting guilt and determining a suspect for a robbery or assault was more… self-directed than the modern concept of prosecutorial agencies, detectives, and police forces.
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Augusta certainly does admire her mother at the beginning of the story, but if you win her trust and teach her, explicitly or otherwise, that her mother’s way of doing things isn’t right, there may soon be even more conflict in the imperial household than before…
As for that, how a Paragon or Tyrant Augusta might see her role as ruler changes based on which faction you ally with, and thus who Augusta spends more time around. Once her personality locks, I plan for her role in the story to be significantly affected by that.
A Puppet Augusta, of course, will act more as a mouthpiece for the MC’s agenda rather than having goals and an ideology to her own, though hers will be a more twisted and tragic story if the MC is truly keen on breaking her will for the sake of power.
At this point, the legions aren’t stationed in cities out of norm and tradition, not legal prohibition as it might once have been. The Castra has a garrison, but it’s in a specifically designated area of the city and they don’t really sally out except on direct orders. The MC is in the position to break those norms, of course, if they so wish it.
It’s a pastiche of inspirations, as I try to often do. The vigiles are certainly one, though they aren’t a carbon copy. The City Watch is not like a police force that we would know it, in the sense that they investigate crime and prosecuting criminals.
Instead, their job is to simply maintain public order, be it through arresting disorderly elements or just making examples out of ‘suspects’. Any accountability has plummeted in the decline of the Empire. How the Watch acts mainly just depends on the Watch prefect in question, of which a Watch MC can certainly choose what their approach might have been. This does incidentally include firefighting, but I haven’t needed to write about that just yet.
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Rather than arguing “autocracy for stability’s sake” (ala Thomas Hobbes), it is my opinion that periods of instability are fertile ground for autocracy. We all know some very famous examples of cases where a state failed to “take care” of its people, so to speak, and said failure lead to the disillusionment of the people. Said disillusionment led to the desire of “stability”. And well, the rest is history.
To take the more famous examples, no one (except the ignorant) argue that a certain German dictatorship was a good thing just because it brought stability to a certain unstable republic. The same could be said of the contemporary Spanish situation. Or French. Or Austrian. Or Russian etc etc etc.
It is in this prism that I see the Republic->Principate->Dominate situation unfold. Was it the correct response to instability? I have no idea. We could say it did/didn’t, but counterfactual history, while fun, is inherently unrealistic because, well, it didn’t happen.
What?! How can’t you love a man who travels a lot? Yes, it was at the expense of the treasury and local economy, but it was for the good of the Empire!
I have talked about this previously, but there is this factor that if the Senators didn’t like you, you automatically weren’t a good emperor. Hadrian didn’t have the most…pleasant personality, to put it mildly.
Yes, he wasn’t particularly fond of listening to others. He was rather authoritarian aka didn’t like the Senate. Rather petty and plain mean guy, true. But you can be a jerk and still be a good emperor. No one can deny his consolidation of the Empire (I mean, just look at that nice wall, talk about solid consolidation, after 2000 years still standing). Or his legal undertakings. Or his improvement of the slaves’ condition (which were still bad but oh well).
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No! Not my Augy! How dare my late Roman politics game include torturous mistreatment of an imperial heir? That never happened - blatantly ahistorical! :0
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I’m going to go out of my way just so I won’t have to read that. No, Sir. I want a damn happy ending (within Iudian boundaries of course).
I can’t wait to see a Paragon Augusta confront Julia. There will be literal sparks shooting off from that “discussion”. We will have a Paragon Augusta+Prefect team vs. Julia.
I’m very much interested to see how would our dear Tyrant react to her right hand/lover and daughter putting down their foot and say “No. Enough is enough”. Will she be able to change her ways? To actually acknowledge different opinions and visions for the Empire, and admit some kind of fault in hers? I suppose it would depend on the “Imperial Favor” stat.
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I can’t promise that this game will end happily, but there are multiple endings. Whether you consider them happy, bittersweet or outright bad will depend on your perspective, I think.
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I have a question about Augusta. Will tyrant choices affect paragon Augusta and vice versa? Like telling her a leader don’t spent all their money on peasants and saves it for later which I can’t remember but I’m assuming that’s the tyrant choice. Or is it just a choice for points?
It’s a Tyrant choice, yes. That choice comes up again at the end of Chapter I when the Empress asks Augusta about her lessons, to which she expresses her approval or disapproval for what you taught her (and corresponding change in Imperial Favor), but other than that thus far it only changes Tyrant/Paragon points, and which is highest will determine what kind of Augusta you eventually get.
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