A potentially controversial spicy hot take (maybe?) - Republics should drop Great Families.

[maxk94]

I would love to see a major improvement for republics someday.

atm Tribes need improvements much more - imho theyre unplayable.

 

[Decius]

atm Tribes need improvements much more - imho theyre unplayable.

Therefore I wrote "someday" - I wrote also many times in other threads, how important tribe improvements are. But I just want to see "someday" further improvements for republics (and monarchies) aswell.

 

[maxk94]

Therefore I wrote "someday" - I wrote also many times in other threads, how important tribe improvements are. But I just want to see "someday" further improvements for republics (and monarchies) aswell.

well "someday" every aspect of the game need an update to be balanced^^ But the splitted levy-thing for tribes are really bad right now.

That your ruler is always the general of your home-regions-levies is really bad as well.

 

[Kill_off1004]

I´m not completly sure on this, so just correct me if I´m wrong.
Weren´t the families way more important than some arbitrary factions ? I think we project our current understanding of political parties on to them.
The different families competed for power and tried to expand it, while factions in the senate were usually just a short term thing to push an agenda or law. They didn´t really have alligiance to those factions as they had to their families,

So getting rid of them in republics and focus much more on factions seems wrong for the time period. Just because it feels more correct from todays point of view won´t make it true.

 

[Chiron]

That is literally exactly what the major difference was lol. Patricians were the wealthy elites and aristocrats of Rome. The Plebs were the masses, everyone else. It took literally hundreds of years of political fighting for the Plebs to acquire equal rights as the Patricians. And in the end they never were fully equal with the Patricians. Rome's entire political and social history is one long drawn out battle between the wealthy conservative aristocratic Patricians and the Plebeians.

This is exceptionally simplistic and reductive

 

[Arthrodira]

atm Tribes need improvements much more - imho theyre unplayable.

India and the steppe nomads more than the settled European tribes.

I'm tired of seeing Buddhism and Jainism die in the cradle when this was their golden age. There's no Ajivikas - the other great religion of the era. The Mauryas never convert to Buddhism (or Jainism). There's no caste system at all. No Indo-Greek melting pot. Very few holy sites and almost no relics in India. No silk road. No real steppe nomads (should probably be a distinct pop type...). South India is too weak (should be able to withstand the Mauryas). No proper Yuezhi invasion from the northeastern steppes. Honestly the Scythians and Parthians never really become a major force either.

But I dream. I'm sure Eurocentism will win out and we'll see more content on the Celts and Germans, while the East languishes in obscurity...

 

[Arthrodira]

This is exceptionally simplistic and reductive

This endless debate. Look if professionals can't figure out exactly what the difference was, than it's not going to be resolved here.

Bottom line. Patricians started with political privileges that slowly eroded over time. They cannot become a tribune (this is the big reason the distinction matters!) and they make up most of the ruling class, Almost all of them were extremely wealthy. They were vastly outnumbered by the plebeians.

The plebeians include a full range of wealth - from super rich to dirt poor. Because there are obviously more poor than rich plebs and because pretty much all of the patricians are rich, the divide is often reduced to simply money. But it's not just money.

It almost seems like there was an ethnic division in the early history of the Republic, which was reinforced by the banning of intermarriage between the two groups in the 12 tables. Then again, maybe the patricians are simply the former nobility of the Roman Kingdom? Maybe it's both - maybe they were the old nobility and that nobility was ethnically distinct from the plebeians (this is personally my bet). Maybe the patricians were a ruling Etruscan class and the plebeians the indigenous Latins? It's fascinating stuff, but it won't be solved anytime soon.

As the game progresses, the patrician-plebian divided gradually becomes less important and the rich-poor divide more important. Patricians continued to snobbishly lord their pedigree over the plebs, but it increasingly meant less and less in terms of real power. All except for one issue: Tribunes (where plebeians have the power). So I'll say again, we need a cursus honorum, and we need tribunes. Next to the consuls, the tribunes held the most power in the whole government.

 

[Limak]

Honestly Republics should be overhauled. The fact that there is not a working cursus honorum is a big minus to the Republic gameplay.

 

[goodcigar]

Found a neat video about Rome.

 

[We Who Are About 2 Die]

I would rather re-introduction of minor families and the introduction of political-familia intrigue. I think tying major families to certain political parties would be the way to go.