Bay 12 Games Forum

I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if the Roman empire never split and never fell.

Answering this is a bit tricky, because you can either have Never Split, or have Never Fell. As for the never split part, Rome was just Too Damn Big to be governed by one emperor. If you lived on the eastern fringes of the government, the fastest you can expect a message to reach Constantinople and back would have been 6 weeks, while the average time would have been closer to 10 weeks. And Constantinople is a world away from Rome, which was not the political center of the western wing of the roman empire. That center was more to the top of Italy and changed from Emperor to Emperor. The second reason there were two emperors was that this wasn't your Caesar's Rome anymore. Caesar could depend on the heart of the roman empire to be Rome, where the senators were and therefore where the political capital was. This political power shifted more towards generals and other Oligarchs within the Empire, so you can imagine if official business took a shitload of time to get from one end of the empire to the other, then keeping all those folks appeased through gift giving and honors would have been even harder. So yeah, Rome would have fallen apart sooner likely if it hadn't split, unless they did something silly like invent and implement a semaphore system.

As for never falling, Rome didn't fall until the 16th century. If you mean, well, what about the Western Roman Empire, since that's where all the Latin speakers were, at that point Latin was quite... weird, and only really "properly" spoken among the upper class, though that list of upper class was expanding in terms of also including people from Gaul. Most common people spoke something closer to Romance, while the proper Latin of the time was basically you giving a speech all the time as the rules were based off of how famous orators spoke. Well, we can keep talking about the West at least. If that wing of the Roman empire didn't fall to a clusterfuck of an usurper and issues with their germanic and hunnic neighbors... I dunno, it might have still fallen in time anyway. If it doesn't fall until the beginning of the Renaissance though, Christianity might not have had as many Schisms as it did, given both Emperors kinda occupied a psudo-god emperor position still, and a favorite saying was that it was no coincidence that Jesus was around when Augustus was Emperor. By extension, there might not have been an Islam, but we're looking at some very muddy forecasts from that point of view.

However you cut it though, the empire was just too big and unable to really deal with how big it was.

Alright, forced a host just now. People should get their turns in.

Next turn they are off the list. They are unofficially dead now, their turn is effectively a you lose screen. I've been sitting over the game page more or less to force a host when vanarus turns in their turn.

There was also a possibility of astral for Marignon, maybe even air. Though yeah, seemed super basic knowledge of the game, but also a lot of potential seeing their tactics. A bless strategy carried them through backed with heavy crossbow recruitment. Though, well, undone by research.

I'll also have to say maybe for the next game I run whenever that would be we can use EA frequency and faster research. I figured the slower research would help newer players weight their options with each level better, but seems most walked in reading at least a guide somewhere. C'tis had skelespamming up, Mari focused on a bless and crowssbows, Ulm did what Ulm does best and seems to have gone with scales and rushing for magma eruption, Oceana did it's Oceana thing, I think. I am not sure about Vanarus, but seems as though whatever they're doing is working. And I'll leave people to guess what I'd been up to, but Elephant expansion worked.

That being said we're heading to a point where a lot of older strategies are going to fall apart. This should be interesting.

Hmm, is there anywhere I can find a description of what the various furniture do? I mean, what would be the difference between a wood stove and a fireplace for example? Plus some like the charcoal kiln and smoking rack I would have no idea how to use unless you get some sort of description after they are built. Constructions in general might benefit from having descriptions attached.

Yeah, it's just a case of both players having been brought down to one fort with no other province, and both gates are breached, but sounds fair enough. I just worry you folks are feeling this is dragging out a bit. Anyway, more or less won't check in on things until I'm awake again. If any of Jking or hatman need extensions I'm willing to provide if they get a word in before hosting kicks in. Which I think from here on out is going to be a default treatment unless someone has any special requests; a 6 hour/until I am next available extension, whichever comes later. During that time hopefully either a turn will come in or the player themselves would need an extension, so I will provide one if needed, but otherwise I can make no guarantees that during that six or so hour period I would actually be available, so consider it risky. That's more or less the main reason I hadn't put this as a 36 hour hosting instead, this way I'm hoping we hear from the people involved more often when they need some extra time.

tl;dr past 30 hours you get about 6 hours or a bit more to get a turn in or ask for an extension, but even if I do my best I can't make any promises that I will respond.

Honestly, the problem with c'tis unleashing burden of time is it would do very little to be honest. If their capital is under siege and is about to be stormed, then we can expect the spell to go down quite quick with no effort on my part. One way to dispel a global is to kill the mage that casted it.

Postponed hosting another 6 hours. Should be enough for marignon to get a turn in should they choose to do so after they get home from work if I know this schedule right. Then again, it's a Saturday.