Preview - Britannia! - Rebellion against Rome

I'm thinking of putting together a new scenario. It's at a pretty early stage, and I don't know if it'll get finished, but I thought I'd throw it into the forum.

The setting? One of the most extraordinary but little-known episodes in British history. In around 286, the island of Britannia rebelled against the rule of the Roman empire. Under the mysterious and charismatic Belgian sailor Carausius, the whole of Britain broke away from Rome, set up its own government, and minted its own coins (the best Roman coins for over two centuries). It even maintained an empire in northern Gaul as Carausius styled himself "emperor of Britain" and built the first British navy to defend his realm.

Most amazing of all, the first British empire lasted for ten years before finally being crushed by the forces of Rome.

Today, Carausius and his rebellion have been almost forgotten except to coin experts. Very little is known about Carausius' Britannia except for what can be gleaned from his coinage. Everyone has heard of Boudicca, but Carausius' rebellion is consigned to obscurity. Yet it was far more successful and had far more important long-term consequences. For the man who finally brought it to an end was Constantius Chlorus, Caesar of the western empire, and father of Constantine the Great. And that is why Constantine would later be acclaimed emperor in York - in the province where his father won the loyalty of his army.

I've created a thread all about Carausius and his breakaway state here, for those who want more on the historical background.

So this scenario will begin in AD 286. Turns will probably be on a month-by-month basis, giving 120 turns for a ten-year campaign. The civs are likely to be:

Rome
Britannia
Germania
Pictavia
Ireland

All will probably be playable, for the sake of completeness, although I'm not sure what Pictavia and Ireland will be able to do.

As Carausius, emperor of Britannia, the player must build up his forces and prepare for the inevitable wrath of Rome! The player is massively outnumbered but has a number of factors in his favour: a happy population, low corruption, many loyal troops, and control of the Channel. Perhaps an alliance with the German barbarians could see the threat from Rome permanently neutralised...

As Maximian, emperor of the western Roman empire, the player must work fast to secure the crumbling territories under his control. Corruption and dissatisfaction are rampant. The German barbarians continue to threaten the border at the Rhine. Beating them back, and reconquering Britannia, are the priorities. Rome still possesses a mighty military force, but the past fifty years have seen it stretched almost to breaking point. The player must prioritise targets and find new ways of governing to regain the support of the people - for he cannot rely on any help from the eastern half of the empire, where Diocletian is beating back the Persians and Balkan barbarians.

As the Germanic tribes, the player needs to make as much trouble as possible. Civil war between Rome and London could be the opportunity the Germans need to seize Gaul and even march into Italy...

I'm adapting and clipping Yoda Power's map of Western Europe for this scenario, and nicking lots of information from PinkTilapia's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Of the Roman empire, only Spain, Gaul, and northern Italy are present on the map - for the other parts of the empire were facing their own problems at this time. That is still enough to leave Britannia massively outgunned.

Here is a screenshot of work in progress...



This scenario will feature a custom tech tree, but only a small one. Both main sides will need to research new governments, including (for Rome) the Tetrarchy, which was instituted during this period. Most important will be financial and monetary reform: massive inflation during the third century had crippled the trade routes and brought the economy to its knees. One of Carausius' first acts as British emperor was to set up a mint and begin making good coins to a proper standard - something which helped to stamp his authority over his new domains.

So there might be half a dozen techs or so - not a complete tree. The plan is to have a fairly small and quick scenario with a lot of fighting! Anyone with any ideas, this is the place to pitch them.

Plotinus said:

All will probably be playable, for the sake of completeness, although I'm not sure what Pictavia and Ireland will be able to do.

Click to expand...

Answer: Pillage! Sacking!!

Sounds very interesting!

Ok, it's a double post. But i was thinking about our northen and western friends. Pillage is indeed a good option for them. They are attracted by all the treasures left behind by the Romans and the weak new Empire. All those promesses of gold!!

The could work like the western civs in the Desert scenario, but with the victory points at their capital and the luxury ressources in Britannia territories.
Or it could be normal capture the flag...

Just suggestions...

I`m interested

Looks very good to me.

But I hope you won't keep that terrain, right?
I'm actually hoping for a lot of awesome unit & city graphics...


I don't have any ideas for the moment, but there are some strange things about the map.


BTW beboy, your posts are separated by 17 minutes but in my timezone they show in different days.

[beboy] You could be on to something there. I shall think about it. Problem is, of course, that very little is known of the Picts and Irish alike during this period. It seems that Carausius probably engaged in constructive diplomacy with the Picts and kept them on-side, though he did repair Hadrian's Wall, which had got a bit tatty during the third century. The Irish, of course, were disunited and thoroughly rural.

[Mirc] I hadn't been planning on using any custom terrain, although no doubt I'll find some better city graphics. One good thing about doing a Roman scenario is that there should be no shortage of unit graphics and the like.

I haven't done anything to the map yet other than crop it. I'm just putting in cities based on the rough locations in PinkTilapia's AD 325 map for RFRE. Once I've got the basic shape of it, I'll fiddle with the details. I chose this map because the area I wanted fitted in quite nicely - it doesn't bother me too much if it's a bit distorted. Although Iberia does look like it's been knocked west a bit, somehow.

Will you prevent settling? It could be a boring game, all civs trying to squeeze in extra cities in Scandinavia and portugal...
Or will you fill the whole map from the start, including those areas?

As to the map, you might think about adding all those fearful Gallic (and British, and Scandinavian, and Germanic, and...) forests.
Wouldn't Britain at this point be something like 90% forest?

Could be a fun scenario.

And spice up the forest defense value!

Scenario idea, yes! Thicker & tougher forests, yes!

ireland would really be one big forest.

looking forward to it

sounds cool, like Braveheart.

Will it have a regicide option?

Kill Carausias or kill all the Roman generals sent against him?

Yes, I like the idea of making forests more strategically useful, and having lots of them.

Regicide: I don't think I'll have that. Carausius was actually murdered in 293, but that did not end the rebellion - he was succeeded by his finance minister, Allectus, who continued to rule Britain for another two or three years before Rome finally managed to invade.

I'm not sure what will happen with settling. If you turn it off you have the problem of the AI razing cities. I suspect that I will allow settling but try to have everywhere either already settled or unsuitable. And I might just remove Scandinavia altogether.

It looks good, Plotinus!

Going along with beboy's suggestion, how about letting the picts and the Irish troops enslave into flag units, which would be worth very little value, but would be the only way to gain a Victory Point victory?

Also, you could make a lot of units "Wheeled", but the Irish, Picts, and maybe Germanics, could have many more un-wheeled units, allowing them to "sneak up" on the Romans/Brits and raid.

Hi Plotinus,

A very interesting idea indeed Sounds like fun.

Don't forget that other major Roman reforms occurred during this time frame besides the introduction of the Tetrarchy (which proved unwieldy, if for no other reason than it provided an unnecessary - if politically expedient - Augustus for North Africa).

In 285 CE Diocletian made the first official semi-division of the Empire into two, with Diocletian governing the East and Maximian the West. In 293 CE he added two "junior emperors" ("Caesars" instead of "Augusti") as strategic military commanders.

Also, by the end of the 3rd century the old Imperial Roman army was extinct. Septimus Severus had decreed that a legionary could both marry and work a small bit of land; legions thereafter became sufficiently attached to the areas in which they were encamped that to move them was to risk rebellion. Mobility for threatened sectors was generally obtained by (temporarily) relocating a single, double-strength cohort from each legion. So the legions were largely startegically immobile -- which necessitated the raising of cavalry units for strategic mobile responses. My limited sources on hand covering this suggest that the new "garrison army" was about the same size as the pre-existing army, and the new cavalry/mobile forces equalled some 100,000 men -- quite a strain on the Tetrarchy's treasury.

Also, as I'm sure you know, there were never more than 3 legions in Britain (most of the 25-28 being deployed either alongthe Rhine or Parthian frontiers). The mobile forces were - as near as I can tell - pretty much divided into 5 ca. 20,000 man units (sorry, I'm embarassed not to know the proper Latin appellation) stretched fairly evenly from the western Rhenish frontier to the by then Persian (not Parthian) Empire. Perhaps each Legion should have MF=1 with a double-strength cohort=2 and cavalry MF=3 -- and the rebels ignore movement cost for woods.

So several techs re: Roman political and military reorganization and the units which can thereby be built do present themselves.

You also mention Bronze coins at some point - recall that Cornwall is the only area outside Iberia where tin can be found in Europe. VLs? Special resource for a Mint improvement?

Also recall that, Londinium aside, the only really commercially important city in the region (from an Imperial perspective anyway) was Trier. The former covered about 330 acres, the latter some 700+ (well, these were the walled areas anyway). Provincial Capitals were subordinate to these; IIRC, only about half are known (ah: there: I checked: 2 out of 4 for Britain, 4 out of 6 for Gallia -- or is my source out of date, and e.g. the British cities on your map are these?).

Each of these Provinicial Capitals also had (by Civ scale standards) ca. 20-40minuscule, and subordinate, Provincial Towns.

Anyway, sorry, up way too early with too little sleep; just some nearly random yet hopefully helpful thoughts.

Best Regards,

Oz


EDIT/ P.S. This brief piece on the Imperial Roman Navy might be of some minor interest.

-O.

What? No room for Serbia!?

@Partizanac: LMAO!

Um... I'm now speechless...

[ozymandias] Thanks very much for the information, all of which is much appreciated. I can, for once, give you some too - the smaller, mobile units into which legions were divided during this time were called vexillationes. At the start of his rebellion, Carausius apparently commanded a number of these - drawn from nine different legions - in addition to an entire legion which allied itself to him when the rebellion began. Now, as you point out, there were three legions in Britain and Carausius seems to have experienced no difficulty in claiming authority over the whole of Britain, which suggests that all three of those legions were loyal to him from the start. That means that the "one legion" he had right from the start (ie, before he even crossed the Channel and entered Britain) was actually a fourth legion stationed somewhere on the continent. One of my sources suggests Legio XXX Ulpia Traiana, based at Xanten on the Rhine, as the most likely candidate. Also, from the beginning of the rebellion, Carausius had the support of a number of Germanic troops too. These would have been in addition to the Germanic cavalry troops which he already commanded as part of his anti-piracy force. It seems that the cavalry forces attached to legions at this time were usually barbarians fighting for Rome.

So I'm not sure what the best way is to represent all this. I'm thinking of giving the barbarians (ie, everyone except Rome and Britannia) movement bonuses in forests, and perhaps hills too for the Picts. I suspect that this will help to simulate the warfare of the Rhine area, at least.

Another idea: I'm thinking of using the "mercenary system", which exploits the fact that you can trade only the second unit in the unit list (normally Workers). It's been suggested that you can make this a "mercenary" unit, which doesn't do much, but which different civs can upgrade to different units. Having this system in the scenario might help to convey the idea of, for example, barbarian troops fighting for Rome. It could also mean that artful diplomacy could really help with building up one's forces.

I was wondering what to do with the Tin - of course it hadn't struck me that you need tin for bronze! Very good. I believe that Wales was also an important source of Lead.

Thanks too for the info on Trier. Apparently this was the capital of the short-lived Gallic Empire, another breakaway state of the third century which preceded Carausius'. One big difference is that the Gallic Empire issued really bad coins!

interesting ideas Plotinus. and good to see you're still in business

i don't really have too much to contribute but i can say that there's definitely a cure to the alleged problem of AI city razing in connection w/ not having settlers.

assuming your city count is not too high, 'phony wonders' can be created and preplaced in any or all of the cites which may be problematic wrt razing. i've noticed a humongous drop in razing when there are 'phony wonders' in place. just some thoughts...

[El Justo] Yes, the "dummy Wonder" method is always a possibility. I'd rather avoid it if possible since it feels a bit clumsy, but we shall see!

A brainwave: what if I made legions not units at all, but pre-placed Wonders which periodically churn out vexillationes? Would that be a good representation of the legion system of the late third century? I don't want to unbalance the game by having too great a proportion of units being auto-spawned, but it might be interesting given that the player would also have to build cavalry units etc too.

Alternatively, perhaps I could have a system where legions are represented by resources. Then you'd still have to build the troops.

Looks great Plotinus.
Too bad i can't play scenarios.