Cities and civil wars

[nijis]

Hi -- in general, this is a great application of a great system to a fascinating set of strategic situations.

However, some of the mechanics related to civil wars seem to me a bit underdeveloped. I say this on the basis of a play-through of the Septimius Severus scenario.

It seems odd to me that area loyalties tend to be 100% toward one faction or another. Surely the provincial elites could not be so polarized between one contender or another.

Furthermore, it seems odd to me that most garrisons would fight so hard to defend a city against one or another feuding imperator. If there's a leader from the defending side in the city, than of course he would muster a defense. But if there were no such leader, it would make sense for the city to capitulate -- in most cases -- to acknowledge the claim of whichever army was outside its gate.

I don't know as much about the Roman civil wars as I do about other periods of military history, but I don't recall any episodes where a pretender would fight as hard to subdue an imperial province as he would fight to subdue, say, a Cantabrian or Gallic region.

Perhaps cities that don't have a leader or legion present would only close its gates to a civil war army if loyalty and national morale are high. This perhaps would add more to the political side of the game -- propaganda, subversion and the like.

[pantsukki]

Great suggestions. Although the militia garrisons are pretty useless (other than as speed bumps) anyway, they almost always lose assaults to one legion in normal circumstances.

[PJJ]

That's definitely an interesting suggestion. Another scenario with very divided loyalties is the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 69). Perhaps something could be done to make the defend / surrender mechanics of cities more complex?

Sometimes it even happened that some traitors within a besieged city opened the gates and let in the attacking forces, putting a quick end to an otherwise prolonged siege. Maybe there could be such an option during a siege, at the cost of some EP or something?

[pantsukki]

Sometimes it even happened that some traitors within a besieged city opened the gates and let in the attacking forces, putting a quick end to an otherwise prolonged siege. Maybe there could be such an option during a siege, at the cost of some EP or something?

That's already an option, albeit a rare one. At least in Caesar vs. Pompeius in the beginning Caesar has one "Traitor"-decision available, and random chances of getting more. It gives you the needed amount of breaches for an assault.

[PJJ]

Ah, so it's already there. I haven't played as Caesar yet so I didn't know about it.

[wryun]

It seems like garrisons should fight harder when they do fight, but have a much higher chance of surrendering to 'friendly' sides if there's an NM disadvantage (e.g. surrender to apparent winners in civil war).

[Jagger2013]

Caesar talked of capturing cities in his book. Basically if a city closed its gates and forced a seige, once he took the city, he let his troops plunder the city. If a city surrendered on approach or with some negotiation, he did not plunder the city. Basically he made an example of the first city that resisted, so that future cities would not resist. And it worked.

In game terms, if a city resisted and was stormed, the player should receive money from plundering the city. If the city surrenders, no plunder and possibly unhappy troops. Once a city is conquered and plundered, much more likely the next cities in a state or area, without a significant commanded force, will simply surrender rather than fight.

I also agree on the problems of 100% loyalty. I just don't think loyalty was 100 percent anywhere. And I imagine in many places outside of Italy, dominate loyalty in the countryside was to their non-roman selfs. While cities might have higher loyalty with roman families and adminstration and troops to their particular emperor. So a region in the dalmatia countryside might have perhaps a loyalty of 60 percent to dalmatia and 40% loyalty to Severus. While in the cities, it might be the opposite, 40% dalmatia and 60% Severus. And even possibility of some loyalty to opposing emperors.

In game terms, if you advance into enemy territory, you are almost completely blind except in your immediate location due to 100 percent enemy loyalty just about everywhere. No idea where enemy armies are located except through cavalry recce while the defender always knows the location of the attacker's army. Huge fog of war advantage to the defender due to loyalty which I find unlikely in a civil war.

I also think all of these civil war scenarios should have spies available. I know they are available in one scenario.