So I've been doing some more thinking on how to run a democracyNES similar to SPQR, mostly because
I really want to run a democracyNES Its something that looks really interesting to run and play in, and I get the impression that the players loved KhaNES II when it was around too. The problem is that I'm dumb and lazy and burned out too fast, because KhaNES was so bloated in terms of ingame mechanics that I overstretched myself and died.
My rationale is, democracyNESes are about the voting and the intrigue more than they are about the ingame spending of money and things. So we can drastically reduce the labyrinthine stuff about movement rules and spending and units and whatnot, and replace it with a much simpler system based around 'points' which are less mathematically strict and more 'mod fiat' based, and nothing of value will be lost. Right?
So, each Senator will have, based on his or her traits, a set of Military Points, Administrative Points, and Intrigue Points which they can spend per turn on various actions (whatever they like). Depending on how many points you sink into each action, you have a variable chance of success. Say, for the following character;
Alice might send the following orders:
[SPOILER="Sample Orders]
-1 Military Point into raising an army
-1 Military Point into marching into Gaul and engaging Vercingetorix in battle
-2 Admin Points into forbidding cats in the forum
-2 Admin Points into building Forums in Cisalpine Gaul
-4 Intrigue Points into assassinating Gnaeus Pompey (Bob)[/SPOILER]
Armies and Legions would be abstractly represented. A Legion is just that - a legion, with no need to reinforce or resupply it (we can assume this happens automatically) though the Senate will be able to build new ones (I will have to work out how to limit this - perhaps give the Senate its own stock of Admin and Military points based on Consuls?). You don't have an army composed of x units, you have an army and a Legion. Really Legions would be the only one worth keeping track of, because they determine whether you can vote or not - the size of your personal army can be attributed to your military points, along with your ability to command, etc, and the military points you sink into a campaign would
partially determine your success.
I'm going to remove the thing about negotiating with foreign powers without senate backing, because that just got confusing and was probably what made me drop the NES.
Thoughts? Does anybody think this is a good or awful idea?
I will likely