From: "Peter M. White" Subject: Republic of Rome 101 In response to my statement that 90% of the RoR rules are reasonably easy to learn, at least through the course of play, I got the email request "specify the very difficult '10%' so I can ignore these first time around..." Well, I will see what I can do by outlining what I think is important for beginners and giving hints on good house rules. The following is geared towards the raw new beginner. I will assume you have read through the RoR rules once and tore out a little of your hair. First thing to do is go to a clear table top, with a printout of this article in hand, and spread the game out to become familiar with the parts. Ignore the chits for now, they are your basic bookkeeping markers. RoR is an abstract game, so the board is "nothing more" than a handy reference sheet plus recordkeeping aid. The FORUM (The braid bordered zone), not to be confused with the Forum Phase, is subdivided into different spaces to help keep tract of the status of cards in play. For example, a senator card in the Forum is alive and presently unaligned to any faction. A province card in the Forum does not yet have an assigned senator to be its govenor. Cards are pulled off the Forum and placed in front of particular players when acquired by a player faction or individual senator. The Forum itself is neutral ground and any card "in play" or otherwise affecting Rome will be in one of the subdivisions. A dead (out of play) senator card also goes to the Forum, but it is placed upside down in the Repopulating Rome box to show its status, for example. Now look at the cards. There are Event cards and Province cards. The Early Republic cards are white-white, some printed red and other black. Put aside the Middle (pink-white) and Late (gray-white) cards. The next important thing is to get a feel for the general flow of the game. Read the Sequence of Play on a faction card. The real action takes place during the Forum Phase and Senate Phase. Lets go through the SoP. I. Mortality Phase Easy. II. Revenue Phase For beginners assume everything occurs simultaneously; stop and negotiate as necessary. If someone insists on a precise order, start with the HRAO and go clockwise. (This is the default order for all phases.) III. Forum Phase This phase is generally straight forward although a lot takes places. Each player will individually go through steps 1-4 in turn, starting with the HRAO. 1. For a Random Event just pull the respective card and follow the instructions on the gray side. If the same event happens twice, use the pink side. In general, an event is in effect until the beginning of the next turn's Forum phase (with niggling exceptions). Just read the cards and do your best. Drawn Black cards go to the Forum. Red cards are held in secret and played at the player's discretion. 2. Persuasion attempts are the best way to boost your faction and make enemies. You can attempt to take someone else's senator or just take a neutral one sitting in the Forum, if any are available. If you just drew a senator card in step 1, be nice and try and take it. A persuasion attempt is made by a particular senator card against another senator card. The base chance for the offense is the particular senator's Oratory Rating plus Influence, minus the base defense. The base value for defense is the Loyalty rating of the target, plus 7 if "owned"/aligned, plus number of Talents sitting in the senator's personal treasury. Now spend on bribes to alter the chances of success. The offense spends only from the persuading senator's personal treasury, not the faction treasury or any other senator. The defense spends from his own faction treasury, or gets help from the faction treasury of any generous ally. Note the assymetry! Also, note that bribes do not go to the bank like Illuminati, they go to the target senator: winner take all. Whee! [IMPORTANT: the official bribe rules as written make no sense, the r.g.b consensus is to do as above.] 3. & 4. Easy Note that bids on extra initiatives come from only from a senator's personal treasury. See 7.2 and 3.III. IV. Population Phase Easy. V. Senate Phase I cannot help you a lot here but these rules you do need to know backwards and forwards. The Highest Ranking Available Officer (HRAO) seems like a needless complication when first reading the rules, but in time you will learn to appreciate that the much subtle and spectacular game play often involves shifts in the HRAO (through murder, luck, or subterfuge). Usually the HRAO is the present Rome Consul. There is actually a completely spelled out hierarchy. A typical turn begins by this turn's HRAO, usually last turn's Rome Consul, proposing two senators for the new Consuls. This will often involve a lot of wheeling and dealing, especially if the player controlling the previous Rome Consul wants another of his senator's to be consul. Offices are the plums in this game, they gain you Influence and power. Influence is what will usually win the game. So, most negotiating is over who gets to hold office. The two new consuls with either agree on who is RC and FC or dice for it. The new RC runs the rest of the Senate Phase. The player who controls the HRAO runs the Senate Phase. He can make proposals as he wishes, within certain restrictions. Other players can only interfere with his agenda by using a precious Tribune card. The HRAO is allowed to bully other players to an extent: he can state a proposal and immediately start forcing players to vote, if they do not answer they are assumed to abstain. All other players can do in defense is vote Naye, or Tribune/veto a proposal (or remember a certain player is a jerk and prevent him from gaining office again). A good player as HRAO will generally spends a few short minutes negotiating with and assessing potential allies and quickly puts out a favorable proposal and force a quick vote. Beginning players should just try and discuss things in a friendly fashion and spread the offices around. Do follow the given order of business to the letter. The differences between Field Consul and Rome Consul: (1) RC is higher rank and therefore the HRAO (2) the FC must be sent out first to fight a war. Usually the RC is the better office. But on turns when Rome will only be tackling one war, the FC is usually better. Note that the RC is much better on turns that there are two wars to fight. OTOH, the RC may get stuck in a stalemated war or killed, in which case the FC may get the glory and control over next turns consul elections. You must completely understand how to use a Tribune card. You must understand how a Landbill vote works, and why they are almost never voted down, although they are sometimes vetoed. Exiling a Statesman is rare, so ignore those rules for now. 7.37 and subsections: very important for wheeling and dealing in the Senate Phase, although the rules apply at all time. Note that money can only be exchanged during the Revenue Phase, and Red card traded during the Revolution Phase, while binding agreements can be put in place at any time. The Senate Phase is over when the HRAO leaves Rome to fight a war, or he declares it over. Other players can still interject with Tribune cards. V. Combat Phase Strightforward. VI. Revolution Phase Assuming you are playing the Early Republic scenario, beginners have no business declaring civil wars; ignore those rules for now. Bizarrely enough, the win/lose condition are actually rather difficult to interpret. Things are much smoother if we ignore civil wars. To boil it down, _everyone_ loses if: 1) Rome faces 4 active wars at the end of any turn 2) The People Revolt during the Population phase. 3) The State treasury goes bankrupt (negative) at any time. Players should watch to make sure a Disaster or Evil Omens event does not bankrupt Rome; Rome will gladly accept donations. For finding a victor, just look at 12.1 A, C, and E. Do note that Influence is the way to win the game. Also note that a high Influence senator must _survive the turn_ to seal a victory. With foresight "unfortunate" accidents can sometimes be arranged. The Early Republic scenario is very tough, especially if you play with with 5 or 6 players. I do not reccomend playing with fewer, except as a trial game. There is something to be said for new players to have a couple quick games where Rome collapses so they will know how to protect Rome in later tighter games. After you tire of watching Rome burn, I recommend these kinder house rules: 1) "Correct" Statesmen nullify _all_ D/S numbers. 2) Matching wars do not increase fleet battle strength, although enemy leaders do. There is a pbem replay in The General volumes 27-4 & 27-5. Pbem rules are somewhat different, but the replay is very enlightening nevertheless. The first issue also has pbem rules. Also, Roberto Ullfig has a very nice RoR page at http://www.suba.com/~robo/ The page includes some pbem games in progress. Once you have the basic rules under your belt, I recommend the Provincial Forces advanced rules. If you do not want to add such complexity to civil wars, just the garrison and provincial war rules work pretty nicely. Hope all this helps. Anyone else have any advice for new players wanting to learn? --Peter p-white@accesscom.com