Pretty in purple: the Senate.
Ah, the Senate. A bunch of old men in togas with the feebleminded and insulting delusion that they can order you about, that they are the true heart of the Roman Empire. What do we do with old men in togas, everybody? :everyone yells “kick their asses!”: No we do not, and Wayne, stop eating crayons! We are far more devious than that, oh yes, far more devious. Allow me to lapse off into my fictional writing and quote a character of mine, a spymaster by the abnormal name of Trempwick, here: “Love, fear, control of something or someone they care about; those are the three main ways to gain control over a person. Pick a person apart to see how they work, then apply that proverb and they are yours.” My Trempwick is one smart, sly, crafty, shifty beggar indeed and he has just summed up our dealings with the Senate in one bit of catchy dialogue, or at least I like to think so. The catchy, not the aim – I know about the aim, it’s the catchy that’s an issue. Maybe.
Love, ah yes, sweet, sweet love. You want the senate to love you; you want them to hang off your every word, to look after your interests, and to bend over backwards for you. What do you get if the Senate love you? Money, positions for your family, nice missions, support. If you are in good graces with the Senate then your job will be easier. How do you get the Senate to love you? There are two main ways:
1) Successfully complete at least some of the missions they give you. This also nets you a reward which can range from cash in hand, to a unit, to a guaranteed position in the next elections.
2) Conquer nasty people. To check who the Senate want bashed look at your faction screen (click on the round thing with your logo on it), then on the senate screen, finally on policy. Work your way through the factions that are convenient for you to attack and note the ones which the Senate has a hostile policy towards. Of course the old men like any conquest, so you can just pulp the lot nearest to you.
When you are in good grace with the Senate then you are more likely to have your family assigned Senate offices. These offices are a Good Thing; they give assorted bonuses depending on the post, but even the least of them gives a bit of prestige to the recipient. You have to work your way up the ladder; you can’t just jump right in to consul.
When the Senate like you they give you easy tasks, ones which are useful for you to accomplish and often have good rewards at the end of them.
Fear; now we are turning things up a notch. As your family expands and becomes more powerful the Senate’s love will begin to fade, festering away under suspicion and fear. This is a delicate phase; if you keep a low profile you can easy go back to being loved; if you push the envelope you will become truly feared. You can tell when the Senate fear you because it will say so on the Senate floor screen; check this often to find out public and Senate opinion of your family. Now, the Senate will begin to fear you for two reasons:
1)You are growing large and powerful. They hate seeing power concentrated in the hands of but one family.
2)You have become very popular with the people. Popularity with the plebs means they may offer you a chance to become emperor; the Senate fear this more than anything, an emperor is a king by another name and Rome hates kings.
When the Senate fear you then they begin to give you difficult, dangerous or downright impossible missions. They want you to fail. Yes, when they ask you to capture Londinium (London for those who don’t know) in 5 turns when all your armies are in Greece they want you to fail; they want to bring you down a peg or two and re-establish who is boss. If you actually manage to do the impossible and teleport your armies to Britain the Senate will be glad Rome has gained but they will hate you for being good enough to pull it off, so expect to see your rating with them get worse.
Note that the Senate can hate you; this is actually a different thing to fear. Hate is gained when you repeatedly fail missions and ignore the Senate completely; often you can counter this by conquering the odd place or two which you will probably be doing anyway. However if you do not conquer and do not accomplish the missions, essentially just sitting their picking your teeth, you have nothing to counter the growing dislike. Hate has nothing to do with you being strong or beloved of the smelly populace, and everything to do with you being a total loser.
Control of something they care about; ah yes, this one is the real jackpot. What does the Senate care about most? Rome. Control Rome and the Senate need no longer bother you. Well, usually. You see in my games the Senate has always been quite passive, supporting the other factions but never actually conquering any cities; it was just in control of Rome itself. Now in some games the Senate may go and conquer a bit, or they may be given a province or two as a gift. Even if they have more than Rome they will be essentially broken without it, so the point still stands, even if you have a little more tidying up to do after your triumphal entry into the city.
Generally speaking the average player will work their way from ambiguity to love, then slowly to fear. The civil war will begin (details later) and end, hopefully, with your faction victorious and in control of Rome. How do you deal with the Senate? Make them love you until you no longer need that love, then make them fear you until they play into your hands and begin the civil war. Then finally, and so very sweetly, wipe them out.
In my experience so far all I had needed to do to keep on the Senate’s good side is keep expanding slowly, taking down my designated enemies (e.g. the Gauls in my Julii game) and accomplishing the occasional mission. And my rating steady rose until they loved me, and then began to fear me a little. My rating with the people never did too well with this approach; the best I got was them swearing at me in the street. I shall kill them liberally for that later.
The Plebs.
Rumour, and logic, has it that the plebs will like Roman victories and expansion so conquering should help your rating. If this is so then the boost is very minor, to the tune of two faction icons for a 15 province empire and several famous victories. I suspect that holding games in any arenas you might own will boost your popularity; people always love a good gladiator show with plenty of split blood and freebies for scroungers. Certain Senate missions offer a set of free games in your honour if you succeed in the mission; these games will boost your standing amongst the plebs.
The Civil War (RTW style).
Because I have only played short campaigns thus far (something, such as this guide, has been sucking up my free time so a long game is impossible) I have not actually hit the civil war myself. This is all based on reading. :winces:
Ok, the civil war will begin when the Senate outlaws one of the three other Roman factions. If they really fear you they might ask for your faction leader to commit suicide. If you comply then they will calm down for a bit; if you refuse they will outlaw you. You do not have to let your leader commit suicide unless you want to avoid the war. There is usually a very good chance that the senate will request the suicide of the man who replaces your recently departed leader, and then the man after that, and the man after that, until you run out of people to kill. So suicide can only buy you a little bit of time at rather a high cost.
The civil war ends when only one Roman faction is left, and that had better be yours unless you want to lose.
Quite interestingly you can actually sometimes negotiate peace treaties with the individual Roman factions after the civil war begins. If you are very fortunate you can even be at peace with all the Romans while the civil war is officially still in progress.
The Civil War (BI style)
This doesn’t really belong here, but I guess this is as bad a place as any to put it (it gets next to impossible to decently compose a document this long with just MS Word and no way to actually look at what you are doing without the aid of a computer. My apologies), and it does have some relation to the RTW civil war. There’s no senate in BI, and the civil wars you encounter there are caused by disloyal Roman generals and/or cities rebelling. The wars can involve as little as one breakaway army and as much as most of your empire.
Mission Impossible.
Some Senate missions are pre-programmed and will always happen; these are the missions you are assigned right at the start of the campaign. After that I think it is a mix of pre-programmed and random, depending on the world state and your popularity with the Senate. Potential rewards are varied in their worth. If the reward is something like preferential consideration for an office then it may not be worth the effort, well not if they ask you to conquer a huge, dangerous city belonging to a neutral faction. However sometimes the Senate offer big rewards for easy missions, such as ‘will be well rewarded’ for blocking a port. Yes, you can get a huge pile of denarii for sailing a ship to the designated port and leaving it there for a turn. So, make sure you read the small print carefully and fully consider the implications of what they request before deciding what to do about the mission.