How on earth would you get favour with the faction you didn’t side with to 40?
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I think this will be difficult, given their strong sense of independence and transactional indifference to Iudia. We can make moves towards full integration like done centuries earlier for Hevernica or Attika, but I’m not sure how willing the foederati would be to join the legions proper. They haven’t thus far. Perhaps Antonius will help us?
Not only does the Senate hold a majority of the popular support (and Gaia knows Julia and I certainly aren’t getting it, with her city-destroying and my 15 mob favor) it also controls a lot of the cultural elite that are resistant to the foederati. Senatorial agreement to greater integration will quell a lot of the nativist backlash.
Right. But the Senate ordered the Seyetite legions to their posts in Seyet during their rebellion. Midyan, the province bordering Pharia, hasn’t seen any narrative mention. Ultimately, Consentia and Victoria don’t want to rule over the corpse of an Empire. The border legions will probably stay at their posts to guard against Pharia and Gruthungrian tribes. The problem is that with the Imperial core in civil war, those legions won’t have any reinforcements, or effective supply.
The Attikan legions and the legions of Iudia proper are unmentioned. The governor of Attika is in the Senate’s pocket, so Attika is probably against us, but Iudia proper is likely in our control. Ezperia is likely to sit this one out.
Oh, yes. The legions are only hard to get the support of if you don’t play as from their faction, which makes logical sense. As a Treasury prefect, I had to make every one of the three stat gain opportunities for the legion in their favor to get over 50.
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She also says this on the Barbarian Rebellion path, where she’ll have to march down all the way from the north.
Whatever scheme Victoria has won’t end the fighting, whether or not it succeeds. The way I see it going down: Even in the case Victoria takes Kyro, your faction can still retreat to the loyal western/eastern provinces. Either way, it’s a proper West vs East civil war, like Caesar’s. Whoever sits on an unstable Seyet will have problems.
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Wait you can get her to admit she is wrong? I really need to replay when I’m not totally shocked, lol.
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You kill them, liquidate their estates, and then redistribute it back to legionnaires and the plebs and people won’t mind because they are able to be small-holding farmers again.
You can also add more sources of income back to the Imperial Treasury through rent and lease agreements.
The Principate was built on Augusta murdering the upper class and redistributing their holdings. It’ll be a nice reset.
Also, the Foederati are adversarial because of the xenophobia of the senatorial class. Liquidate them in a new wave of proscriptions and make it more equitable by admitting wealthy Plebs and leaning on the equestrian orders while keeping them on lands that were once populated and fertile before the equivalent of the Flavian or Antonian Plague wiped them out will mean for the most part they don’t interact with the citizenry.
Augusta during her decade of rule celebration can even extend citizenship again as a gift to the populace.
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That’s what’s really bothering me. We’ve just done that same march, from the northern Imperial border to Kyro, and it took us two weeks, going at the fastest humanly possible pace, switching out horses like they’re going out of fashion. If Victoria has a plan to take Kyro in three days, there are forces far closer to us than Gruthungria.
I think she means that she’s secured troops inside the city to try to decapitate us in one go. Which is what our ally was trying to warn us about before we had to oversee the rite for a dying Empress.
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I just checked, and she actually says: “In three days, the Empire will be ours.” So I think she was boasting that her plan will be so effective, the Empire is as good as theirs when it goes off.
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There will definitely be quite a few paths for reforming the empire. I would assume, in broad strokes, an autocratic one based on legions/foederati, or a more consensual/representative one through the Senate and the People.
I will be very curious to see the consequences of the eventual changes the Prefect can bring. Most likely there will be routes with half-baked reforms and those with full-on change, which will inevitably be harder to achieve.
Sorry kiddo, but Iudia won’t see another Galerii on the throne if I have anything to do with it.
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Nooo, the replacement of senatorial governors with equestrian generalissimos was exactly what made the empire so prone to ruinous civil wars in the first place. And draining of manpower by endless civil war = dependency on foederati.
I’m with Consentia! The treasonous foederati need to be corralled and put in their place.
(I presume the side you don’t ally with ends up being treacherous)
Yes, get the Senate on side and we can talk. nods
Juvenal, is that you? The plebs don’t want to farm, they want to be fed and entertained! It’s a hard-scrabble existence, and small-holders had a difficult to acquiring enough surplus to maintain themselves. This is why even small-holders tended to consolidate holdings in late antiquity, and most individual farmers were actually tenant farmers. There’s a lot of good research out there on the agricultural economy of late antiquity, and it did not resemble the late republican period at all. There were large estates but they were manned by farmers and formed their own little complex economic units.
The name of the game was reducing transaction costs through scalability and forming specialized agricultural economies. The logic of a city-state giving public lands to its urban poor (at the expense of the conquered, remind) doesn’t apply to a mature, economically diversified empire.
Yes – I assume the former is the tyrant path, the latter is the paragon path. And the puppet path will… most likely be disastrous is my guess.
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You can have Paragon Augusta allied with the foederati, so it won’t be that clear cut. And there’s no reason the Prefect can’t run a competent government with a puppet Augusta.
I hope the possibilities for the empire will be much more complicated and dynamic. The liberal dichotomy between authoritarian and liberal is tiring, and doesn’t make for good stories. I’m interested in empowering the commonfolk, but Consentia and Ceto are just too slimy to work with. As I see it, the foederati are only interested in their gibs, leaving you with more space to organize the empire as you wished.
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Happy to see another join the club 
, if you need help you can ask me
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And I was wondering if the Senate’s Nr. 1 Defender would chime in. You didn’t let me wait for long @Iello
Palace emperors, no matter the age or place, are not particularly beneficial to their state’s long-term well-being. The Prefect could very well be a well-intentioned gray eminence during Augusta’s time, but the 90% of other such powers-behind-the-throne will not be. The precedent alone would doom Iudia in the future.
Small landowners doing subsistence farming is certainly not conducive to prosperity, that’s for sure. On the other hand, too powerful of a landed aristocracy is not good for cohesive state policy.
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Augusta’s alignment doesn’t control who you ally with, but choosing military/dictatorial options gives you tyrant points. I don’t think you could be specifically autocratic as posited above and still be a paragon. I assume a paragon Augusta aligned with the foederati would be someone who gives them a fair deal?
I’m sure it won’t be simple. Like you said in your example with Consentia and Ceto – this isn’t a good guy vs bad guy story. Those two represent the Senate and People, but they represent them in – well – a very late antique Roman way, which is partly what this story is inspired by. Institutional corruption was one of those old Greco-Roman aristocratic values seen in both the senatorial elite of the capital, but also the civic elite of the provincial city-states.
When I talk about the republic, I don’t mean a modern republic that professes equality before the law and minimizes corruption. That’s not our setting. I mean the Greco-Roman inspired republic that ancient Iudia – before the empresses – professed to be.
It took me a few days to play chapter 5 but I’m around now! Although – in the interests of being a nuanced character myself – I will note that Consentia gave me some bad vibes this last chapter after all the drama. I will not hesitate to remind Consentia of her place if she threatens Augusta.
I want Augusta to be a nice and proper senatorial first citizen, but I’m not setting her up as a sacrificial lamb for Consentia and her cronies to slaughter.
Yes, the turn towards hereditary emperorship and child emperors is part of what doomed the Western Roman Empire, even more so than the military emperors I despise. Once the emperor became just a puppet, and power resided elsewhere, the whole imperial apparatus was easier to wind down and ignore: after all, they’d already been doing it.
This is why the prefect taking such a close hand in educating Augusta and letting her make her own decisions is important. Earlier Roman emperors had to take offices and commands and gain experience before they took the throne, even if they were in a family dynasty. It’s only when they are coddled from birth that you get your Commoduses and your Scillas/Invidias/Aites.
Oh, sure. You don’t want them doing what the 5th century Roman senate did: putting their own specific financial interests ahead of the Empire’s. Emperors like Majorian etc. were strongly hobbled by the Italian senatorial aristocracy who fought any attempt to reform policy if it affected their interests. But I’d argue the Senate only ended up that way because they were turned into an ineffectual rich men’s club who had no job but to gain money. The original Augustan idea was to have them serve as governors and administrators. Once Gallienus, Diocletian, and Constantine narrowed the prospects of senatorial careers to a handful of posts, the vast majority of the senate became idle, obstructionist rich men. You want the Senate as partners in empire, not folks standing in its way.
It’s a balancing act. Everything I said above can be edited slightly to apply to any interest group: the legions, the foederati, the Church of Gaia, etc.
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Choosing cruel options in front of Augusta can give you tyrant points, yes, but favoring the foederati or the legions is not inherently associated with tyranny or cruelty. Iudia is an autocratic state, and picking one faction or another is not inherently more autocratic than if you picked the other. I do tend to side more with the foederati, who simply want equal treatment and recognition for their service, over Consentia’s self-serving Res Publica shtick, but I am also raising a Paragon Augusta who will be fair and respect the people, while maintaining the support of the legions and the foederati.
Absolutely. My Augusta is already in the 60s for willfulness, and it’s only that low because I try not to make decisions that hurt her trust value too much. Now that she’s Empress, I want to get that to at least the 80s as quick as possible, giving her practical experience with governing.
I’ve been instructing her in rhetoric, so she can be commanding and persuasive, as an Empress needs to be. I assume that will also help her compromise with the Senate. She has a firm handle on the foederati, through me, and I have over 50 relations with the legions. But I’m concerned with her lack of military knowledge. It’s something I’ve avoided as a charismatic administrator type, but it’s a key trait for an Empress. She will have scholars, spies, and economic administrators, but she needs to be able to wage war successfully. I’d previously leaned on Julia for that, but she’s off getting more cybernetic implants or something.
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They will be. Paragon/Tyrant/Puppet won’t be the sole defining factors for Augusta, but her baseline personality. A Tyrant Augusta aligned with the Senate might play the game of politics more and lean on learning intrigue compared to a Paragon Augusta aligned with the foederati, who would seek to burnish her militaristic reputation to garner the respect of her new allies, just as two counter examples.
Trust will play a role in how readily she accepts the MC’s advice, even if it runs counter to her initial impulse. Strength may lead her to new heights of independence and willpower, but it will also make her more resistant to attempts to change her mind, for good or ill. The presence of Titus or a true parent MC will certainly add layers to this (the latter especially, as MCs in that route have seen if the truth was divulged to her.)
The skill the MC has trained her in will have a significant effect, serving as her speciality and the best means she can use to contribute to her burgeoning rulership. Alternatively, while not directly key to imperial management, training her in combat may help her defend herself in case of danger, and training her in sorcery will have consequences you might not expect.
Augusta is intended to be a very customizable character, all of which I have begun to show through the text, and which will become apparent in the next chapter.
Of course, she can also be made a Puppet, which will allow the MC step in themselves and take on the burden of leadership alone. A forty year old advisor is certainly more experienced and skilled at rulership than a teenager. History provides examples of both competent puppet masters who excelled at their role and those whose actions have led to the doom of both their charges and even the nations themselves…
I don’t think that was my intention in Chapter V (at least not in the Senate&People alliance route, obviously she can betray Augusta in the other route), so I’ll go back and see if I need to fiddle with anything.
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i train my Augusta in economy. i would say it is one of biggest threats to empire in long term and in short term my prefect has plans with dealing with other ones.
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Folks, remember that I was replying to this: “I would assume, in broad strokes, an autocratic one based on legions/foederati, or a more consensual/representative one through the Senate and the People.”
Autocratic was Oreven’s wording. I was going off of what they said.
With respect to tyrant points, I am referring specifically to things like the chapter 3 council scene where sending in legions to deal with issues gives you tyrant points. I don’t mean who you ally with.
Yes, I agree that it does appear that allying with the foederati as a paragon probably involves giving them more rights.
I think I ended with her at 80 willfullness, but still had about 80 trust at the end too (and honestly it would have been higher if I had not been deliberately trying to see what happened if her parentage got exposed publicly). Definitely seems doable!
Ha, sounds like aside from our choice of ally we’re playing pretty similarly. I favored the rhetoric path too, I think it’s the most important skill in the training of an ideal stateswoman and empress (Quintilian, Pliny, Symmachus, and all the rest would be proud, lol).
The Senate loves me and the legions and foederati hate me, but I was also going on a nakedly pro-senatorial run. I want to try a compromise run to see if I can balance interests better, as that may actually suit Augusta’s interests better. I feel like a fully pro-senatorial Augusta will end up like Alexander Severus: loved by the senatorial historians, but face a military coup d’etat.
And I fully agree about the lack of military experience. My MC was a treasurer who pumped the rhetoric skill, so I can train Augusta in those matters but she’s going to need military experience to hold the throne. Especially knowing what is heading her way.
Ooo, I do really like the way that those two alignments can mix and match – even if I’m going with a more conventional (probably?) senatorial paragon. I think that has its fun aspects too.
Yeahhhh… complex is definitely how I’d describe it. I love that she knows the truth and I’m not sure I’d have it any other way, but it’s also going to be a lot for Augusta to work through and it probably impacts how she listens to him in the future.
Oh, I like this a LOT. I’ve been focusing rhetoric as mentioned above, so I am very eager to see how that impacts her rulership – and what the differences are with that as her speciality versus the other skills!
I am probably more excited for this than anything else hahaha. I can’t wait to see how Augusta’s development unfolds.
Oh, phew! Thanks – yeah I think she just seemed very… caught up in her own interests and playing things close to the chest, and that was after an alliance, 90%+ senatorial approach, and a romance to boot. I would have thought she’d have something supportive to say about her new empress at the very least, since she’s seen how MC has been shaping her (and in my paragon route, very differently from Julia to boot). As mentioned above, the relationship between the Senate and Alexander Severus (a young, pro-senatorial scion of a military dynasty) was sort of how I was imagining things with Augusta and the Senate in the Senate & People route… going back to the days of the principate and collegiality etc.
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Personally my somewhat-naive MC would like his daughter-Paragon Augusta to be remembered as the Empress of the People, ideally as an enlightened autocrat who actually cares for the masses but has the military power to thrive in this cruel world, so that’s why in most playthroughs I prefer her to have the support of Amalrik and his auxiliaries.
I also can’t deny the fact that my MC definitely feels a kinship with the Legate, moreso than he does with the Consul and the Senate power players, who hate his guts. Doesn’t help that he’s a former watchman and Cato just screams trouble to him, so he is very much opposed to her.
@Azan don’t know if anyone asked already, but will the issue of “male rights” (sounds kinda funny to the ears but in this world sure is a issue), ever be raised by the sufficiently powerful and influential MC? As in, will reform of the religion be possible, or will we have to handle “fighting” (hopefully not literally) the Goddess & fire sorceresses for that to even be possible?
Also curious if fighting for something at least approaching equality would be possible for my “other MC”, a female sorceress, considering all the circumstances…
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