End of the Aedui

[captainpatch]

I really resent this particular quest. As given, the only ways to complete the quest is via self-mutilation or using one of your praetorians as a human sacrifice AND one of your servi just to drain his/her blood. The workaround, such as it is, has you running all over the map and bouncing back to Sextus like a yo-yo -- provided you happened to run into the right characters and asked the questions at the right time and place. This is gross MAKE-WORK in the middle of a military campaign. Can you imagine GENERAL PATTON being required to play step-and-fetch-it on this scale? This approach demeans the strategy part of the game in order to turn it into some kind of Fantasy CRPG.

[The Bored Architect]

Originally posted by raphoux69:

Tremere you read my post just halved. Heliogabal got killed because he replaced Jupiter. I said, unless you dismiss roman gods, you can do just fine. You even have some religion in the empire who do not have to be religious towards Roman gods like the Jews.
If you read Mary Beard or Scheid, you will see that Rome is very open to new gods, because they literally "invite" gods into their pantheon.

That I know. It's not my field of expertise, but I kind of remember that, after the roman conquest, celtic deities became associated with their roman-greek counterparts. A standard syncretism process, nothing to object to.

Fair enough. But what about druidic practices? As far as I know, most roman and greek sources make a big deal about human sacrifices performed by druids, and these practices were sistematically repressed whenever possible. Having a roman legate playing along because they need to forge a diplomatic relationship with a whacky gaulish chief seems still a bit of a stretch. I'm curious: what does De Bello Gallico say about this? How did Julius Caesar forge relationships with the Aeduii and other tribes willing to work with Rome? Even if this work is mostly a piece of propaganda, it is the only source I can think of.

Saying divitiacus has antics and that sacrificing someone is "insane" is just showing your wrong approach about the thing. Your mind is set in the 21th century, but the game isn't.

Maybe, but grant me that asserting that this game's mind is set in the 1st Century BCE is a difficult position. Lots of modern ideas and attitudes in the game's story: Julia Calida musing about her "comfort zone", Felix Hadrianus blathering about "lose-lose" scenarios, Cicero asserting that the Senate is the people of Rome (what?!), the narrator "Tacitus" waxing about the progress of democracy if the Republic is saved or about the smashing of roman patriarchy by a female legate declaring herself Empress… Just to name a few.

It seems the devs had no compunctions in injecting modern sensibilities in the narrative, so neither should I. Actually, we could agree on this: it is possible that this quest was designed this way, also because it would spark a little bit of controversy. Funny that.

And as i said, you have no supplies, it's either do or die unlike what captainpatch says who didn't listen to his Consul.

Sorry, I missed that. The Consul being Lurco? The treacherous weasel who left me high and dry when dealing with the Elvetii? The same one who is sitting in his camp doing absolutely nothing? Why would any sane legate take seriously his recommandations or orders? It's clear that he is trying very hard to get the legate killed. The legate knows this, the companions knows this too, but they still all go along with it to the bitter end. Impressive storytelling, indeed.

To answer where the supplies are, your ressources are only from your pocket to feed the special forces, not your entire legion.

Do you mean my praetorian guard is always travelling with 1.400 rations, 1.000 doses of medicine and 400 slaves on tow? How do they manage that? :-)

Jokes aside, the problem is not, again, you being forced to do Divitiacus' bidding. It is jarring, but I can get behind that. The real problem is the lack of real and serious consequences for most of your possible choices.

Do the devs want to allow me to sacrifice a fellow citizen to foreign gods? Ok, but they should show me the consequences, both positive and negative, of such a radical choice.

Should I take the coward's way out and dispose of a slave? Absolutely, but the game should show me the consequences of my cowardice. (And no, making Syneros sad only when and if he happens to witness the scene doesn't count).

In my honest opinion, having three different choices (one explicitly self-harming) which lead to the same generic and identical outcome ("Divitiacus is happy, now go find Lurco and have a nice chat with him") makes the moral dilemma moot. This is, in my opinion, the real sin of this quest.

[The Bored Architect]

Originally posted by captainpatch:

The effect of sacrificing someone that has entrusted his leader to make the death meaningful for a obviously trivial reason would be to start experiencing LOTS of desertions. The legionaries were essentially mercenaries -- they signed up for the prospect of loot... and other related things. You can't spend your loot and salary if your leader threw your life away for a trivial reason. So why stick around? You can see this pattern happening to the Consul's legion. The Consul is an incompetent commander and his legionaries see that, so there is a steady drain of desertions. The player character is NOT incompetent, and that engendered some intense loyalty among the rank and file. But that loyalty evaporates when the commander starts wasting lives on what Romans would consider to be stupid reasons. I think the legate would be VERY mindful of that situation.

This.

Defining the legionarii of Late Republic as mercenaries is partially imprecise, but you nailed it when you mentioned the importance of the bonds between soldiers and their commander.

In the late Republic, most legions were more loyal to their commander than to the Republic itself. This was the chief reason behind Caesar's decision to invade Gallia without any real reasons: he wanted both the political prestige of military conquest and a loyal army behind his back to deal with his political rivals in Rome. Did you know that, after the battle of Alesia, he gifted one slave to every single soldier of his legions? Talk about incentives…

Another example: Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus (who was a man way more interesting than the old codger we got with this game) started his military and political career during the 1st Roman Civil War just like Octavianus Augustus many years later: as a young private citizen raising three legions composed mostly of his father's veterans. Most of these soldiers were also his clientes and expected their patron to take good care of them.

Should the legate choose to sacrifice a fellow citizen, having a massive mutiny of Legio Victrix is not too much of a stretch, and it should not be something they can deal with by simply decimating the legion like in Act 2. The ramifications should be complex, with consequences both during the campaign and after the return to Rome. This is what I mean when I lament the lack of real consequences for the so called "choices" the plot forces upon me.

[captainpatch]

Part of the perception comes from Roman arrogance that was constantly impressed upon the people of Rome. Romans saw themselves as the elites of Humanity. There were all the Romans that lived in Rome (no matter the citizen's class). Then there were all the Romans living outside of Rome but in the Roman Empire (who were seen for the most part as provincial hicks). And then all of HUmanity living outside of the Roman Empire -- or had been conquered and absorbed by the Empire -- who were considered to be no better then poorly-educated barbarians. [When thinking of Romans and their attitudes, think of a MAGA rally.]

One of the important aspects of the Roman Military is that Rome itself didn't have a standing Army or Navy. They relied on the legions and ships provided by wealthy citizens, almost invariably Senators, who placed their units at Rome's service when the need arose. This made the rank and file intensely loyal to their unit commanders, first and foremost. And they were about as loyal to Rome as their paymaster was. [Or disloyal, if their commander was incompetent and/or a schemer bound to get his men killed.]

The Modern equivalent would be the "Independent Contractors" that the US hires, such as KBR, Inc. in Iraq.

In short, if you took away the soldiers' pay, there wouldn't have been ANY soldiers fighting for Roman glory. _Maybe_ you could squeak up some militia units in crisis periods, but without experienced soldiers, they wouldn't be worth much.

[RyanEX2000]

Originally posted by captainpatch:

Part of the perception comes from Roman arrogance that was constantly impressed upon the people of Rome. Romans saw themselves as the elites of Humanity. There were all the Romans that lived in Rome (no matter the citizen's class). Then there were all the Romans living outside of Rome but in the Roman Empire (who were seen for the most part as provincial hicks). And then all of HUmanity living outside of the Roman Empire -- or had been conquered and absorbed by the Empire -- who were considered to be no better then poorly-educated barbarians. [When thinking of Romans and their attitudes, think of a MAGA rally.]

One of the important aspects of the Roman Military is that Rome itself didn't have a standing Army or Navy. They relied on the legions and ships provided by wealthy citizens, almost invariably Senators, who placed their units at Rome's service when the need arose. This made the rank and file intensely loyal to their unit commanders, first and foremost. And they were about as loyal to Rome as their paymaster was. [Or disloyal, if their commander was incompetent and/or a schemer bound to get his men killed.]

The Modern equivalent would be the "Independent Contractors" that the US hires, such as KBR, Inc. in Iraq.

In short, if you took away the soldiers' pay, there wouldn't have been ANY soldiers fighting for Roman glory. _Maybe_ you could squeak up some militia units in crisis periods, but without experienced soldiers, they wouldn't be worth much.

Going to only say this. YOU brought recent politics into this. I'm not going to flag it as inappropriate since you did answer the question. But before I respond I'm going to share a little story. I'm from the West Indies. I do fishing as a pastime and as a way to make a little money. Fishermen typically wear fishing hats when they go out to avoid headaches and the sun. My favorite hat was red...I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. And I use the term "was" because after they were scared off by my accent (we and Jamaicans sound a lot alike) it was pretty much destroyed. If you think the MAGA crowd are the one's that think everyone else are "barbarians" then you're beyond help.

Roman soldiers were typically well paid through both general channels and through plunder. Each zone had that instance where you interacted with that soldier collecting "taxes". If you were to RP ER then he would technically be in the right since that IS was Roman soldiers tended to do. I think the saying was that once something disappeared under a Roman soldier's skirt it was gone forever.

Also, while Romans WERE elitist, once you became a Roman you were one in entirety, hence why you often had the option to offer citizenship as a reward. Also, I think the game actually has a load screen that tells you this but Roman's don't consider Greeks to be barbarians. Also I'd need to look up my history but I think the opinion on the Egyptians being barbarians depended on the Romans discussing them.

[captainpatch]

It helps if you think of "barbarian" from a Roman point of view as meaning, "NOT a Roman, and therefore a lesser human being." There were, of course different degrees of barbarism. Greeks were even to a large degree respectable -- but they still weren't Romans. Egyptians were viewed as an empire of laborers helping to keep Rome fed. Persians were even considered mostly civilized -- but still not Romans. And then there were the out and out barbarians -- that often seemed to have a common trait of being nomadic or semi-nomadic -- such as Gauls, Celts, Goths, Vandals, Huns, etc.

[Shogun]

I know that I am pretty late to this, but to give my two Denarii...

I don't like this mission inside an RPG (Role Playing Game) is forcing an aspect of your character. This is nothing new in RPGames, in order to tell a compelling story some aspects must be mandatory of the Protagonist. So some compromise between game writer and role-player is always required.
However, I feel that;
"MY character being okay with human sacrifice"
is a demand too high.

the fact that this mission is happening so close to Ambiorix Warning, a mission where the devs shove an idiot ball into our character's hand and make us play as the BBEG, makes this even more jarring.

[captainpatch]

As something of a parallel example, I refuse to play any of the Grand Theft Auto games. They all have the player character behaving as a sadistic, amoral, sociopath just as a matter of course. The player has no choice in the matter. OTOH, I _do_ play the Saints Row games, which are essentially the same situation, but executed in a satirical tongue-in-cheek approach. It's easy to overlook that I'm the bad guy when I'm soooo busy laughing all the time. This mission is MUCH more like GTA than it is SR. (Which is why I stopped playing the game here and moved over to ther games.)

[Sticky Wicket]

Seeing this thread is giving me serious pause wheither to continue playing it.

I almost didn't read it cause it looked like a spoiler, but I'm kind of glad I did.

I already have had some misgivings about the lack of choices so far, but nothing Iv'e come across yet seems as bad as what this appears to be. Some kind of dead-end (effectively no choice) scenario except to engage in some grotesque psychotic/paganistic bs.

Please tell me this *quest* is optional, otherwise I think I may well just quit now instead of investing any more time in this game.

~~~~

I am in accordance with Captainpatch's comments above, I also refuse to play games where I am forced to play amoral sadistic characters, and there are quite a growing number of them around unfortunately.

[RyanEX2000]

Originally posted by Sticky Wicket:

Seeing this thread is giving me serious pause wheither to continue playing it. :philosophizing:

I almost didn't read it cause it looked like a spoiler, but I'm kind of glad I did.

I already have had some misgivings about the lack of choices so far, but nothing Iv'e come across yet seems as bad as what this appears to be. Some kind of dead-end (effectively no choice) scenario except to engage in some grotesque psychotic/paganistic bs. :lookofdisapproval:

Please tell me this *quest* is optional, otherwise I think I may well just quit now instead of investing any more time in this game.

~~~~

I am in accordance with Captainpatch's comments above, I also refuse to play games where I am forced to play amoral sadistic characters, and there are quite a growing number of them around unfortunately.

1)No it is not optional.
2)I believe it's already been pointed out that you DON'T need to sacrifice anyone. Just that most people that skip through the dialogue will probably not realize this.

[captainpatch]

Originally posted by RyanEX2000:

[quote=Sticky
1)No it is not optional.
2)I believe it's already been pointed out that you DON'T need to sacrifice anyone. Just that most people that skip through the dialogue will probably not realize this.

From what I've seen from responses to this thread, it seems that in the base game, the player MUST sacrifice at least a servant/slave (though steered towards sacrificing a Praetorian). If the player buys the the Gladiator DLC, _then_ he has a workaround available. (That approach feels like extortion to me.)

[Sticky Wicket]

Originally posted by captainpatch:

From what I've seen from responses to this thread, it seems that in the base game, the player MUST sacrifice at least a servant/slave (though steered towards sacrificing a Praetorian). If the player buys the the Gladiator DLC, _then_ he has a workaround available. (That approach feels like extortion to me.)

Yes it seems that way to me too.

[Sticky Wicket]

Originally posted by RyanEX2000:

Originally posted by Sticky Wicket:

Seeing this thread is giving me serious pause wheither to continue playing it.

I almost didn't read it cause it looked like a spoiler, but I'm kind of glad I did.

I already have had some misgivings about the lack of choices so far, but nothing Iv'e come across yet seems as bad as what this appears to be. Some kind of dead-end (effectively no choice) scenario except to engage in some grotesque psychotic/paganistic bs.

Please tell me this *quest* is optional, otherwise I think I may well just quit now instead of investing any more time in this game.

~~~~

I am in accordance with Captainpatch's comments above, I also refuse to play games where I am forced to play amoral sadistic characters, and there are quite a growing number of them around unfortunately.

1)No it is not optional.
2)I believe it's already been pointed out that you DON'T need to sacrifice anyone. Just that most people that skip through the dialogue will probably not realize this.

So what exactly are the choices available in this Quest?

Seems like its either sacrificing someone or self-mutiliation?

[RyanEX2000]

Originally posted by captainpatch:

Originally posted by RyanEX2000:

From what I've seen from responses to this thread, it seems that in the base game, the player MUST sacrifice at least a servant/slave (though steered towards sacrificing a Praetorian). If the player buys the the Gladiator DLC, _then_ he has a workaround available. (That approach feels like extortion to me.)

You can sacrifice an eye via a mini questline that involves a, to many, unwinnable battle in order to get a scythe.

And yes, it boils down to self mutilation or sacrifice, with many moaning about why would the Romans do this. You are stuck in war you can't back out of with a questionable ally and, I'm guessing ingame lorewise, food running out. The latter is something they really need to show since food for your army never really was an issue in previous campaigns.

You are basically stuck in a situation where you have to at least pay lip service to foreign gods to get the food your army needs to survive. And honestly it is something the developers could've used for the endgame if you choose the "peaceful route". If you sacrifice a Roman citizen it could be a point against you during the Senate hearing.

[Sticky Wicket]

I'm assuming there is no way to bypass this utter *hobsons choice* crap except by using some cheat code?

I have already asked elsewhere in a thread of my own enquiring about editing conversation choices game files but got no answer. So don't know if this can be done?

I've just noticed there is not one single comment from the developers in this thread. I'm guessing they just don't give a flying fig about any of this.

[captainpatch]

Originally posted by Sticky Wicket:

I've just noticed there is not one single comment from the developers in this thread. I'm guessing they just don't give a flying fig about any of this.

Or they're too embarrassed to admit that they DID mandate an unsavory decision point into the game, with no comfortable way for the player to get past it. And worse, it's the kind of mistake that can't be rectified just by creating a patch. The workaround needed a whole new set of code, which is why it appeared in the Gladiators DLC -- which to the players sounds like, "Give us more money and we'll adjust this for you." Extortion.