I was more referring to the idea of Novae as being more socially conservative due to their close ties to the Church, which is generally socially conservative, especially when it comes to gender, relative to other institutions like the army. Say what you will about the Church, it’s undeniable they preach a certain natural order and defend it vigorously against all who might seek to defy it. I don’t mean to suggest that because of their pursuit of womanhood, Novae are going to inherently elevate women above men (the ‘pulling up the ladder’ argument).
I would argue that Consentia is far closer to the Galeriae than the Vitalliae, especially the Hevernican branch from which Julia hails. The Galeriae are the epitome, the quintessence, of a connected, historic Iudian family. Consentia’s senatorial pedigree, close ties to positions of power and influence across Iudia’s core regions, and familial connections resemble them far more than Julia’s outsider status. There are no close relatives in influential positions, from what we have seen. Julia does not appear to be close to or fond of the other branches of the Vitalliae, and given that they look down upon her, I doubt she can count on their backing. Julia is a barracks empress, in power by the loyalty of the soldiery and the Church, and is largely opposed by the entrenched network of matricians across the Empire.
Ok, maybe i has a bias because until now in my mind there were her biological children whit her late husband and was slow to change that, but in retrospective if she was treating to occult what she was, adoption of children and say it was bilogical was a good idea
Being one of the options for.dibine gift a full trasition i don’t descart uet the option of a more advance metod
I use my cell mostly so don’t know if in pc is different but in the icon of (+) one of the options is blur spoiler
I know you don’t want to promote hate, but I’m genuinely curious why Consentia being trans ruins her for you? It doesn’t change any of the things that made you fall in love with her, and it’s certainly nothing that paints her in a worse light. I assume you just really hate the Church of Gaia?
Note that the Senate route doesn’t lock you out of allying Darius, getting the best result in the Battle of Kyro or saving Augusta from getting burned. It requires different planning from a Foederati route, but it can achieve equal results.
The context of this scene is you cheating on Julia by starting a romance with Ceto in Chapter 4, and then telling Ceto you genuinely fell in love with Julia and that you’re not using her. Of course this is going to sound ridiculous, if you really loved Julia why would you cheat on her lol? Ceto’s justified for clowning on you in this scene, and if you continued with her romance you’ll find out that Ceto is definitely not using you for political gain considering she’s willing to open up to you about an incredibly traumatic period of her life where she was repeatedly raped by a matrician who treated her like a pet.
The compromise path is choosing the options that are lenient (letting Hadat remain an autonomous client state, reconvening the Senate / keeping the Foederati treaties intact). You can’t really negotiate a peace with Victoria without letting Iblin return as King of Hadat, and if the Senate/Foederati hate your guts they won’t let Victoria negotiate anyway.
You would be missing out on a lot of opportunities for Augusta to boost Empire Stats though since a lot of aug_rhetoric and aug_econ checks require her strength to be at least 50, and to prepare the expedition with aug_strategy she also needs 50 strength as well.
She’s a flawed person, and she clearly also sometimes thinks I’m a flawed person (read: weak and soft) but I think the allure of Julia is that there’s a personal affection beyond politics. You can only romance Consentia if you like the Senate, and same for Antonius and the foederati or Ceto and the popular mobs. You can romance Julia with any of those inclinations, or none of them. You can raise a puppet or paragon Augusta, and she will still love you. There is an affection for us even if we act against her; indeed, a therapist might call it a codependency.
I don’t like that she burned Cadanu, or that she tried to do the same to Gruthungia. I don’t like that she tried to kill Tristitia and Victoria, and that she neglected Augusta and wanted to see her turn into a woman like herself. But just like Julia does for us, there is an affection beyond policy and politics. She cares so deeply, loves so strongly despite her stoic demeanor. My Prefect doesn’t love Julia’s politics; he loves Julia, for her identity as a woman, not as an Empress. The most interesting thing about the Julia romance for me is how you have the chance to separate the personal and the political, how you can swear your life to Julia and still defy her orders, only to reconcile and cuddle to sleep at night. It’s messy and codependent, but it’s immensely entertaining to play. Dare I say, it’s very real?
i mean go and try and disapoint her in politics and check how that plays out. Fundamental difrence between julia and others is not that she somhow separates personal and political. its that Perfect ALWAYS helps julia get her political wishs it is how game starts by defult. At the start of game we are one of people that helped her topple the empire she already got what she whanted. for her politics are just mainly cynycal power plays nothing more only thing she really cares about is goddes. I would say without us literaly helping her overthrowing empire she would have much less afection for us if she would have any at all.
so no julia is not any difrent from any other Ro its just we already granted her wish im sure other Ros will also be so magniminius after we grant there deapest wish.
I want to ask.. is it possible to ally with Otha in our own faction to overthrow and install ourselves as monarch when negotiating with her ?or if we won war with her? @Azan
What I mean by compromise is different. I mean a compromise for the situation itself not the grand compromise so you could mellow Victoria. For example for the situation of foderati compromise a middle ground that if you take up arm for us we keep true to what was agreed to you only but the already traitors will burn. Or for haddat a new Meliq but still independent as it is. Compromise as this sort for all situations.
If you’re romancing her? Sure, some options to convince her in political matters become unavailable, but she doesn’t break up with you. You can still pick any of the dialogue options with her as normal. You still can keep quarters with her after the assassination attempt against you.
I go with Duty but more or less a similar path for my prefect here with the initial attraction to Julia. Here’s someone who has earned dignity for her achievements and instead was shamed by the empress, paralleling the unworthy treatment at our own hands by the princesses. It’s interesting that the responses where you can call them unfit actually hurt your dutifulness and go towards pridefulness, because I always envisioned it as a duty-bound person disappointed that their leaders are not living up to their own duties and thereby empowering someone who will.
And similarly duty requires us to counsel the new empress Julia against folly and cruelty, to do the right thing to uphold the stability of the empire AND the standards of the office she holds.
This is where love and duty intersect for me. I’ve made both choices of course, and in the universes where I stab Julia, my character then has to live with taking his daughter’s beloved (if unworthy) mother from her. In that universe, he’d never know she would die regardless: he just knows he is the one that did it and has to live with that.
Need subterfuge for that and I only had subterfuge 2!
There definitely seem to be risks in having Augusta’s strength TOO high – she can become too wilfull and then resistant to advice in those circumstances. A wise prefect would rein her in a bit. But here’s where the love bit you mentioned earlier about failing to take action against Julia comes in. Julia, a grown woman, made her bed and I could justify taking action against her. I do not feel as comfortable in, say, cutting my teenage daughter down to size a bit to make her more manageable even if it’s for the greater good. I boost her strength as high as it will go and then wipe a tear from my eye as I say “that’s my girl,” haha.
Oh, see here’s another blind spot of mine then. I don’t know anything about the Church. My character is a born skeptic and doesn’t believe in all that nonsense. At least until CacophonyOS shows up and he simply cannot explain it with the information he has at hand (no Darius!) so he’s forced to resort to faith. But by then I’ve already glazed over all the Church lore,
I think all three are in different situations. I think yes, to some extent the Galeriae and the Pliniae seem similar but they really are not. The Galerian autocracy has been established so long that they can have palace-raised heirs who are simply born to power. That is different from a senatorial elite that, though privileged, still has to vie for office and prove themselves through command of legions and governance of provinces. And in turn each are different from Julia’s branch of her own family.
I disagree with the contention that Julia is a barracks empress though. In this particular setting, she’s a matrician. She’s part of the upper echelons of power. She’s a lot more like Vespasian than Claudius Gothicus. She’s considered slightly déclassé by fellow members of the 1%. This is not remotely the same as people who rise up through the ranks of the legions – who aren’t even equestrian by birth and have to earn it by hitting centurion status. The cultural gulf between the barracks emperors and the senatorial elite was huge. In contrast, Julia may despise the senate and its ways but she knows how to dress the part and act the part when needs be because she’s still a part of that culture. She wears a toga and laurels. She does not wear pants like some sort of… I can’t even say it. My mind shudders at the concept of pants. Truly. How do pants not give you all nightmares? I myself wear pants and I am horrified every single day at how we could have come to such a travail.
This is correct unless you insist on Treasury + library + rhetoric because then your options are much more limited. You can’t get everything.
I mean, I’ll be honest. Julia’s at her best (imo) when she lets herself be weak and soft in return. When my prefect can ask her if she’s OK and she can drop her mask. As far as personal affection beyond politics – it’s hard to say for me. I must imagine that surely existed for my prefect and Julia, but if it did, it was between the flashbacks and the start of the game. Certainly there’s care there – I picked those caring options for a reason – but some of it is also because they’ve been together for so long they can’t imagine any other way. Or, as you put it, codependency.
And of course there’s the Augusta factor. But we all agree on that, so I needn’t explain (it is still the FUNNIEST thing that Azan was worried that players wouldn’t like the kid, and she’s everyone’s absolute fav)
Definitely. But I think a lot of this nuance is because the story inherently gives us so much more time with Julia to explore these ramifications. Exactly as you say: our relationship with the other ROs is through the lens of politics. That’s how we meet. There’s a quid pro quo. For Julia, we had that too: we embarked on this imperial project together. But that’s backstory, we’re past that. We can focus on the human AND the political. We don’t know the other ROs well enough to do that.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the Julia romance is bad. Far from it. I blocked myself out from Consentia my last run by accident by getting myself into the true love path for Julia (down to losing my composure with Julia’s urn! very touching scene).
I get the romance, I’m involved in it too. I’m just saying Julia is bad. Like, really, really bad. And sadly, while I once thought “I can fix her” that was probably before Chapter 1 of the story even started.
The beauty of Julia is if you go for a manipulation path she still lose the cold facade and show vulnerability and even go as far as to call you her weakness. That’s what love means in pure form and she has it. That’s why most of us love her back!
That actually doesn’t block for ever. If you have enough subterfuge to start her romance with manipulation , you will reach where you could say at first it was manipulation but now real and go for it In the recent chapter. But short lived as it is cause there isn’t long after that the content ends for now.
You kinda do if you could convince her. Like Gruthungia plan scene. You can’t change her world view of 50 years. But case by case if you convince her, that’s a win itself in my opinion
It’s not locked behind any decisions or anything. From the very first screen of the game, it’s clear that women rule Iudia. In Chapter I, the guards at the library give you a side eye, since men cannot enter their facilities without royal permission. The male submission to women is one of the major themes, arguably the central point, of the creation story in the sermon we hear at the beginning of Chapter II. This goes all the way to Chapter VI and when the High Matron refuses us entry to the Axis Mundi on account of our gender, until Gaia personally intervenes.
And the matricians haven’t spent even longer in their decadent villas, only somewhat smaller and slightly less opulent than the Palace? These are dynastic lines that stretch back farther than the Empire. I acknowledge your point about it being competitive, but the situation of the Pliniae remind me of, say, the gens Aemilia in the Principate. Sure, they’re not the Imperial House and immediately gifted lavish commands like Lucius and Gaius Caesar, Augustus’ grandchildren, but to say they aren’t born to some level of power by virtue of their family’s influence is also wrong. They are the richest people in the Empire short of the purple.
I agree, she’s a matrician. Vespasian is a good analogue, ending an entrenched dynasty in a civil war. We Still, she’s a bit less ‘old-guard’ than her predecessors, and the first one, it seems, with some known provincial ancestry (or at the very least the first one from Hevernica). I like to think of barracks emperors as a sliding scale or spectrum, and she’s certainly no Antonius Pius. Julia’s Senate is almost entirely sidelined, after her accession which she not-so-subtly forced them into by eliminating all competition and surrounding them with an army. It’s not as if she rose through the senatorial ranks. As far as we know, she exclusively held legionary posts up until legate.
Oh, Julia is definitely at her best when you can break through her shell and touch the human part of her, metaphorically and literally. The Prefect isn’t just her lover, they are essentially her only friend, only person she trusts at all. There is an immense amount of codependency here, in that she is clearly wanting our validation and emotional support despite her stunted relationship to emotion.
I guess for my Prefect, he truly loves her, despite her evil behavior. He saw the traumatized young woman within and just couldn’t unsee it, despite the lengths her vengefulness and paranoia take her. There’s probably some codependency here; after all, he would still be languishing, mostly unappreciated, if Julia had not plucked him out for elevation. He depends on her validation too. But I also want him to mirror Leta, to some extent, whose love blinded her to prudence. When it comes to her, my Prefect just always will separate ‘her’ from ‘her actions’ in a dissociative way that’s not particularly healthy. She takes care of him, she cherishes him, and for that he could never betray her, even when he feels she makes grave errors. Sure, he’d love it if she learned to give more powers to the Senate and be more merciful. But he’s not going to topple her for it. Act in what he believes to be her interests, even if she disagrees? Sure. But really harm her? Never.
But also, who hasn’t burned a city or two in their day? She’s just a bit hangry. Maybe give her a Snickers bar.
And if Leta wouldn’t have also went ahead with her original plan to recruit the Prefect. As she says, her plan fell apart because our cutie patootie tyrant got to them first. We can easily imagine that if Julia didn’t come to recruit the Prefect, Leta would’ve told the latter her grand design for Iudia and would’ve had a '“Join me” moment.
Unfortunately, she gave up that opportunity and we got stuck on the Julia route, which has a distinct smell of BBQ.
Prefect: “Julia, you’re not yourself when you’re hungry. Have a Snickers.”
Well, the Prefect didn’t know that for fourteen years, until their meeting in the Grand Cathedral in Chapter VII. So from his perspective, Julia was the only one who noticed.
You can still get the best result in the Battle of Kyro even with 1 warfare and all compromise choices as long as you ally Darius (saves 4 victory_clock), have at least 25 public favor (saves 2 victory_clock), have at least 50 in all empire stats, and have high strength paragon or tyrant Augusta. Darius will automatically save the watch, you can send Marcella to relieve the castra, and then once you reach the palace in time you can send your full strength Arcanii + Darius to relieve the palace without your leadership. And then you can still start your romance with Consentia after you win the battle!
You can start a romance with Darius, Ceto, Consentia, or Antonius in Chapter VI, so long as you aren’t true romancing another character or have a requisite level of Subterfuge.
There is a path to reaching eventual compromise with the rival faction, but it requires refusing a personal alliance in Chapter I and keeping the rival factions’ favor from dropping too low, as well as not killing both Titus and Tristitia.
In such a scenario, the Prefect could adopt an heir from amongst their closer relations. Depending on your choices for how the Prefect sees a future family life, their gender, and what character they’ve romanced, it is possible they could have a child biologically, but even if either path is taken, it will only eventuate in the epilogue.
It’s something Consentia only explains during her Chapter VII romance scene, but fake!romances will require another Subterfuge check to continue onto it.
If the Prefect is intent on working with Consentia, it would absolutely burn any bridges between them, and in the Prefect’s eyes, make much more likely that the Consul could betray or secretly sabotage them. It would be counterproductive for a short term gain in the form of whatever they sought to blackmail her for.
If the Prefect is intent on working against Consentia to side with Ceto, there’s a reason why despite their rivalry, Ceto has not revealed this fact despite knowing it and does not intend to. Conversely, it is why Consentia has not and does not intend to reveal the subjugation and torment Ceto experienced at the hands of Gabinia, even though that would damage the Tribune’s political credibility greatly.
Still, a Prefect fake!romancing Consentia or Ceto will be able to leverage their manipulative relationship in the future for gain nonetheless.
Her two sons, Horatius and Nicon, were her cousin’s children who she adopted after they were orphaned at a young age. She is blood related to them, but she is not their biological mother.
I imagine Consentia would have a fit if the comparison were made before her eyes! But the Galeriae are something of a new phenomenon to come across Iudia, before then there had never been a sustained and stable Royal Dynasty who embraced the label, much less one that ruled for over a century. The idea of palace born princesses born from palace born empresses born from palace born empresses…etc, had truly begun to transform the foundations of Iudian political culture and is a major reason why Consentia and her bloc are so desperate to roll back the autocracy, to the point of potentially rebelling.
Depending on your choices dealing with Otha and your character themself, an ambitious Prefect could be able to bring allies such as her on board with a future usurpation.
It is still very funny to me, but I have seen many a child character earn the enmity of the readership/audience! Either by being too ‘annoying/useless’ or too ‘mini-adult.’
I ran tests and couldn’t see what the error is here that you could be getting. The number values seem to be formatted correctly to my eyes.
Sure, I could try and see if there’s something wrong. The only two variables here that could be affected are “mismatch” and “bastardry_suspicion,” and I believe this problem would exist if one was set to a value that wasn’t a number?
(it is still the FUNNIEST thing that Azan was worried that players wouldn’t like the kid, and she’s everyone’s absolute fav)
