Roman classes and plebians and patricians

[SchwarzKatze]

This thread is about the patrician/plebeian divide, which is why I believe stratigos honed in on that. The use of 'Free Men' and 'Servile Men' would be incorrect as well for the reasons you mention, however they weren't the focus of this thread so no one is commenting on it.

I understand what you're trying to say - that there was a difference between simply being 'wealthy' and being 'senatorial' - but the objection is purely to do with your use of the word 'plebeian', since that category of your list would have also included patricians.

Back to the topic, though. IMHO, if you want a system that works for as many cultures as possible within this time period, this is what I would suggest.

Aristocrats - represents philosophers, lawyers, statesmen etc - anyone who can afford to think rather than work. Provides research points and trade income.
Commoners - represents the vast majority of the free populace. Provides manpower.
Proletariat - represents free populace that owns little or no property. Provides only a small amount of manpower and tax income.
Slaves - represents slaves as well as any other servile position. Provides tax income.

Then you could have laws, traditions, events, etc which provide modifiers to the above. For example, aristocrats could seize public lands for their own use, converting some of your Commoner pops to Slaves and Proletariat. You could then enact laws to reverse this at the cost of reducing Aristocrat output. And/or you could enact laws to increase the manpower output of the Proletariat...

I think you can see where this is going.

I like the terms Aristocrats and Commoners, though not Proletariat, because even though it sounds better than "tribesmen", it doesn't really fit the role. It's supposed to represent "barbarians and uncivilized parts", not "dirt poor populace".

I would choose something like "villagers" or "countrymen" for this type of pop.

 

[Cheexsta]

I like the terms Aristocrats and Commoners, though not Proletariat, because even though it sounds better than "tribesmen", it doesn't really fit the role. It's supposed to represent "barbarians and uncivilized parts", not "dirt poor populace".

I would choose something like "villagers" or "countrymen" for this type of pop.

I should have specified: my previous list would replace the vanilla one. Tribesmen wouldn't exist.

But this is just spitballing ideas - I'd need to know more about how the Tribesmen pop works first.

 

[Captain Frakas]

I should have specified: my previous list would replace the vanilla one. Tribesmen wouldn't exist.

But this is just spitballing ideas - I'd need to know more about how the Tribesmen pop works first.

Free foreigners would be useful pops, in provinces, for example.

I still think that, in a modification point of view, my divide make things more sensible, not only for Romans, but for the whole Hellenic world:

Aristocrats (senators, pentacosiomedimnoi...)
Knights (equites, hippeis...)
Decurions (vanquished aristocrats and knights)
Wealthy Civilians (triarii, principes, hoplites/zeugitae/homoioi...)
Poor Civilians (hastatii, leves, velites, accensi...)
Miserable Civilians (proletarians, turba, thetes...)
Free Aliens (peregrines, socials, Latins, federated, freed men, free barbarians, metic, isotels, perioeci, neodamodes, hypomeion, sciritae...)
Servile Men (colons, public slaves, imperial slaves, urban slaves, agriculture slaves, mining slaves, helots, penestae...)
​

Linked to those kind of buildings:

Aristocrats -> Metropolitan curia
Knights -> Administrative efficiency's building
Decurions -> Provincial curia (revolt risk reduction)
Wealthy civilians -> trading buildings
Poor Civilians -> production buildings (artisan)
Miserable civilians -> revolt risk reduction buildings
Free Aliens -> trading buildings
Servile Men -> production buildings (agriculture and ressources)
​

there also, better name could be found

​

It make sense if it is possible to link pops to military units (I don't know if we could)
something like:

aristocrats -> cavalry
knights -> cavalry
decurions -> light cavalry, horse archers
wealthy civilians -> heavy infantry
poor civilians -> light infantry, archers
miserable civilians -> galleys
Free Aliens -> light infantry, archers
Servile Men -> nothing​

With laws being able to change that... Servile men might give manpower for galleys or for light infantry as in Sparta.
Laws like Marian reforms might disconnect armies from the kind of pops...

It also make sense from a political point of view... to say it fast:
-monarchic regimes would ground on aristocrats
-aristocratic on aristocrats and a bit on knights
-timocratic regimes on aristocrats and knights and a bit on wealthy civilians
-ploutocratic regimes, on aristocrats, knights and wealthy civilians
-republican regimes, on aristocrats, knights, wealthy civilians and a bit on poor and miserable civilians
-democratic regimes on aristocrats, knights, wealthy, poor and miserable civilians
-ochlocratic on poor and miserable civilians and a bit on wealthy civilians and free aliens

There again we do not know if possible...

It also make sense from an economic, merchant and fiscal point of view...
aristocrats -> lot of taxes, no production, some trade
knights -> lot of taxes, no production, some trade
decurions -> many taxes, no production, some trade
wealthy civilians -> some taxes, few production, many trade
poor civilians -> few taxes, some production, few trade
miserable civilians -> no taxes or negative ones, many production, few trade
Free Aliens -> some taxes, some production, some trade
Servile Men -> no taxes, many production, no trade

 

[Dysydent]

Basing it on wealth would make the most sense. Captain Frakas’ idea is good but peobably too complicated for the engine to model. A simpler one would be like this:

Elite - senators, rich equites, nobility and landowners in various states, most powerful warriors etc. etc.
Artisans - the middle class, produces goods and generates revenue
Poor - manpower and some minor production
Slaves - as is
Barbarians

Not much different from the current one but makes much more sense I think.

 

[Imnotwhatiam]

My main concern with the proposed system (and any modification proposal I have read, I have not read all of them though...) does not lie on the number of classes or the labels put onto them.
These things can be easily modified or updated in future Patches, DLCs, users' mods etc.

What I am afraid of is its "monodimensionality".
There is a list of classes and there is some criteria to distinguish them (or better: the list of classes is supposed to represent the difference among the population according to some criteria).
Population can move up or down (or back and forth depending on which way you want to look at things) and that is it.

Ancient society (and I think almost all societies in general) was not that simple.
I would rather see some more dimensions into the pops categorization.
Any categorization is going to be inaccurate and inevitably biased by several considerations (chief among them "game enjoyability") but I honestly hoped for at least a two-dimensional categorisation e.g. based on civilian rights on one side and wealth on the other (these seem just the first two most likely "dimensions" that come to mind).
A little more would have been to make the system moddable to expand these dimensions (e.g. adding political alignment).

Some of the factors might be directly under government control (i.e. the player) like civil rights, other might be only indirectly controlled like wealth.

I know from pre-release info that at least religion and culture will be represented somehow, but I am yet to understand how.

 

[agus92]

My main concern with the proposed system (and any modification proposal I have read, I have not read all of them though...) does not lie on the number of classes or the labels put onto them.
These things can be easily modified or updated in future Patches, DLCs, users' mods etc.

What I am afraid of is its "monodimensionality".
There is a list of classes and there is some criteria to distinguish them (or better: the list of classes is supposed to represent the difference among the population according to some criteria).
Population can move up or down (or back and forth depending on which way you want to look at things) and that is it.

Ancient society (and I think almost all societies in general) was not that simple.
I would rather see some more dimensions into the pops categorization.
Any categorization is going to be inaccurate and inevitably biased by several considerations (chief among them "game enjoyability") but I honestly hoped for at least a two-dimensional categorisation e.g. based on civilian rights on one side and wealth on the other (these seem just the first two most likely "dimensions" that come to mind).
A little more would have been to make the system moddable to expand these dimensions (e.g. adding political alignment).

Some of the factors might be directly under government control (i.e. the player) like civil rights, other might be only indirectly controlled like wealth.

I know from pre-release info that at least religion and culture will be represented somehow, but I am yet to understand how.

Expanding a dimension is very costly both in terms of CPU and AI, though.

 

[Imnotwhatiam]

Expanding a dimension is very costly both in terms of CPU and AI, though.

True, I am aware of this.
Let us say that this is another consideration to be added among the factors limiting the accuracy of any categorization.

Anyway considering previous games where exactly the same structure (albeit with different names and probably different numbers) have been applied I had some hope that the next generation of paradox titles would be able to handle a somewhat more refined system.

 

[jenkins222]

Honestly I have a completly different approach.

First Class: Aristocrats or Nobles (Patricians)
Second Class: Citizens (Like the Plebejans in Rome or the citizens of Athen -> not based on their social status)
Third Class: Freemen (In Ancient Athens this would the metics or in roman society the Latins)
Fourth Class: Tribesmen
Fifth Class: Slaves

My personal problem with the system at the moment is, that there is no dofference between normal population with citizenship and without citizenship. Esepecially in the Mid-Roman republic (Think at the Gracchus Brothers) the question of citizenship for the socii was extremly important. This conflict would be completly unimportant with the current system. I think this is much more important, than fighting about the wealth of different part of society. This system can not model a important slave or a wealthy Freemen. The system is not complicated enough, but at least we could have the struggle for citizenship and the difference between those different types of citizenship.

 

[stratigo]

This thread is about the patrician/plebeian divide, which is why I believe stratigos honed in on that. The use of 'Free Men' and 'Servile Men' would be incorrect as well for the reasons you mention, however they weren't the focus of this thread so no one is commenting on it.

I understand what you're trying to say - that there was a difference between simply being 'wealthy' and being 'senatorial' - but the objection is purely to do with your use of the word 'plebeian', since that category of your list would have also included patricians.

Back to the topic, though. IMHO, if you want a system that works for as many cultures as possible within this time period, this is what I would suggest.

Aristocrats - represents philosophers, lawyers, statesmen etc - anyone who can afford to think rather than work. Provides research points and trade income.
Commoners - represents the vast majority of the free populace. Provides manpower.
Proletariat - represents free populace that owns little or no property. Provides only a small amount of manpower and tax income.
Slaves - represents slaves as well as any other servile position. Provides tax income.

Then you could have laws, traditions, events, etc which provide modifiers to the above. For example, aristocrats could seize public lands for their own use, converting some of your Commoner pops to Slaves and Proletariat. You could then enact laws to reverse this at the cost of reducing Aristocrat output. And/or you could enact laws to increase the manpower output of the Proletariat...

I think you can see where this is going.

Indeed. I get... very frustrated watching people talk about plebians and patricians like serfs and middle age nobility. The divide between patrician and plebian had ceased to matter, functionally, in the period that the game is set, and on through the empire (though eventually all Romans of a certain standing were made patricians and the concept actually evolved heavily and lost its association with the aristocratic families of the kingdom and early republic). While there was still a certain amount of prestige associated with being a patrician, and a number of positions, primarily religious, remain reserved for a patrician, the leadership of Rome would very much be based on, essentially, wealth and military excellence, regardlest of ancestry. Now, the romans were not egalitarian. The system was set up deliberately so that the rich stayed rich and the poor stayed poor (and, disastrously for the republic, the rich would get richer and the poor poorer, while the middle class would start to become the poor. A lesson to take there for today maybe)

That said, while the proposed civs you've mentioned would work great for Rome, it has to be able to model all societies. A generic commoner class, in my opinion, shouldn't provide much manpower. Rome was unique in its ability to mobilize a significant portion of its population. On the other hand, the successors like the Ptlomies and Seleukids were heavily reliant on a very small population of hellenic migrants and largely mistrustful of their native populations and would have been resistant to mobilizing them on any large scale except in very desperate circumstance. And even a state without the particulars of the successors, it is extremely difficult for a premodern society to track it's population and know who, exactly, is available to fight, and most did not try. There is usually a small group (citizens, men at arms, companions, there are a variety of terms for this) that would provide the bulk of a pre modern society's fighting force, and any numbers in excess would be impressed to fight in an ad hoc manner best represented by the 'tribes' population that Imperator proposes.

Honestly I have a completly different approach.

First Class: Aristocrats or Nobles (Patricians)
Second Class: Citizens (Like the Plebejans in Rome or the citizens of Athen -> not based on their social status)
Third Class: Freemen (In Ancient Athens this would the metics or in roman society the Latins)
Fourth Class: Tribesmen
Fifth Class: Slaves

My personal problem with the system at the moment is, that there is no dofference between normal population with citizenship and without citizenship. Esepecially in the Mid-Roman republic (Think at the Gracchus Brothers) the question of citizenship for the socii was extremly important. This conflict would be completly unimportant with the current system. I think this is much more important, than fighting about the wealth of different part of society. This system can not model a important slave or a wealthy Freemen. The system is not complicated enough, but at least we could have the struggle for citizenship and the difference between those different types of citizenship.

The Gracchi were plebs.

There is no first of second class divide between patricians and plebians. That's the point. Patricians had no special hold on power that Plebians were barred from, both participated in the rule of the city and sat in its highest offices and, importantly, in the senate. Roman citizens literally had classes. A richer roman was literally a more important citizen. He had more rights (and supposedly more duties) than his poorer fellows.

 

[sebcool]

Honestly, aside from the silly names, the current categories are pretty decent. There's not really any reason to have more detail when pops aren't actually tied to military units. As it is now, the "citizens" seem to represent the educated elite, the "freemen" represent the body of citizens that form the bulk of the military, "tribesmen" represent non-citizens (who don't fight), and slaves form the bulk of the labour force. A lot of historical details are lost in the abstraction, but it does a good enough job of differentiating the pops in a somewhat thematic way.

Now, an "ideal" and more simulationist pop system would require a much more detailed military system, in order to allow for pops to be integrated into that system. Pops would be ranked according to wealth, with the richest providing cav, those below heavy infantry, then light infantry/skirmishers, and finally the poorest who provide none. This would accurately represent the Greek and early Roman systems - and to an extent most other systems (regardless of culture, the richest people will always have the best gear) - while providing room for depth such as with the Diadochi having a limited citizen pool and the Marian reforms hugely expanding the manpower pool by allowing the proletariat to fight as heavy infantry. But again, that would require much more intricate systems, which we don't have

 

[7ED]

Aristocrats - represents philosophers, lawyers, statesmen etc - anyone who can afford to think rather than work. Provides research points and trade income.
Commoners - represents the vast majority of the free populace. Provides manpower.
Proletariat - represents free populace that owns little or no property. Provides only a small amount of manpower and tax income.
Slaves - represents slaves as well as any other servile position. Provides tax income.

The best part about this is that it doesn't require devs to do anything except change the names of the classes, which, like for OP, is an eye sore that grates on my nerves every time I see it. I think ideally we would have a fifth category, "Merchants" or whatever, that would map on pretty closely to the landowner/commercial social divide among rich folks that was pretty common in a lot of these societies (they're both rich, but they're not both equal. Just because you're a knight with an oyster farm who is as rich as croesus doesn't mean you're as respected as a barely-enough-property-to-make-the-senate member of the Cornelii).

Honestly, aside from the silly names, the current categories are pretty decent. There's not really any reason to have more detail when pops aren't actually tied to military units. As it is now, the "citizens" seem to represent the educated elite, the "freemen" represent the body of citizens that form the bulk of the military, "tribesmen" represent non-citizens (who don't fight), and slaves form the bulk of the labour force. A lot of historical details are lost in the abstraction, but it does a good enough job of differentiating the pops in a somewhat thematic way.

I think the issue for me is that this is a super easy fix. See new names that Cheexsta came up with above.