Has anyone ever played as Remus?

[Ita Bear]

Hello folks,

Rome starts with two characters, Romulus and Remus. The player takes control of the former, but if you abdicate you can play as the Schemer twin Remus. Has anyone ever done this? Remus begins with 4 Wisdom and 1 Courage, so your technological advancement is off to a good start with him. Is it worth losing the early legitimacy though?

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[Solver]

Not worth it IMO.

Romulus is the founder so has 10 Legitimacy. If he abdicates, Remus inherits 5 (half of the previous ruler) and there's a -10 hit from abdication, so that's a total loss of 15 Legitimacy. On Turn 1, after founding the capital, you have 14 Legitimacy so abdicating takes Remus to negative legitimacy. A less harmful time might be upon building the second city, then Romulus should have 28 Legitimacy (Settler cognomen for 20 + two founded family seats). At that point, abdication results in 10 inherited and the -10 penalty, so a total loss of 20 but at least that gives you a positive Legitimacy. But that's still just 8 Legitimacy and it's pretty terrible, being less than the starting Legitimacy. Remus means that, with 2 cities, your Orders rate is 2 below Romulus and that is very punishing.

What do you get out of it? A couple extra science points is all, really. 4 Wisdom isn't that much better than 2, and Remus generates some outputs as heir as well. If Remus takes over, there's no heir and no heir yields. Not much good. The best early game scenario is if you get lucky as Romulus and actually manage to repair your relationship with Remus, in which case he becomes quite an asset.

It does sound like an interesting self-imposed challenge though!