Dev Diary: Internal Politics, Part 1

Dev Diary – Internal Politics, Part 1

Let's talk internal politics of Rome! This diary presents Motions, focusing on two types: triumphs and trials. These were two mechanisms through which the internal politics of Rome rewarded and punished its representatives.

I will talk about the Stages that a Motion can go through, perhaps first being approved in the Senate before it can be ratified in an Assembly. Then the Clashes that happened, and the ultimate outcome of a motion. I’ve also included a couple of notes on my design philosophy, and what you can expect from future diaries.

Hope you enjoy. Thanks!

— Lucas

“Gaius Verres appears to stand his trial before you: a man already condemned, in the world's opinion, by his life and deeds; already acquitted, according to his own confident assertions, by his vast fortune.” — Cicero, in the speech In Verrem (Against Verres)

(Gaius Verres, former governor of Sicily, would later exile himself in Massilia to avoid condemnation — a common practice. Cicero, at this time a little-known young former Quaestor, would go on to become Aedile, and eventually Consul. Later yet, both men would be killed by the proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate).

The full Motions screen, where internal politics happen.

Motions

A Motion can be many things: awarding a Triumph to a general; prosecuting a governor for corruption; establishing a new law, etc. In this diary, I will focus on the first two: triumphs and trials.

Let’s first look at the roles in which the player (and all other characters) can appear in a Motion:

1. You can start a Motion and be its promulgator;
2. You can be the Target or Beneficiary of a Motion;
3. You can participate in a Motion either supporting or opposing it;

This means that you can be in many positions, such as:

- You’re the prosecutor trying to exile a corrupt governor.
- You’re the victorious general trying to get approval to celebrate a Triumph.
- You’re trying to enact a law, or perhaps you’re trying to stop it from being enacted.
- You’re a corrupt governor defending yourself!
- You’re defending a corrupt governor, perhaps because they’re your friend or family, or perhaps they aren’t corrupt at all — they were unjustly accused.

As you can see, there are many possible roles to play in Motions. Ultimately, a Motion either passes or it fails. But there is a lot that goes on inbetween, and how that happens.

A list of Motions.

Issues

Issues in Historia Realis are “things that a Motion can be about”. They occur naturally as the game progresses. The governor of Sicily was corrupt? An issue is created. Gaius bribed voters to get elected Praetor? New issue. Lucius won a great victory in Gaul? That’s an issue too. He’ll want a Triumph, and his enemies in the Senate might not want him to gain that glory. Issues are just a big list of things that can be acted upon through Motions.

Issues generally do nothing, just sit there waiting for a Motion to “pick them up”. But not always, and I’ll have more on that in a future diary.

Note On Game Design: Don’t Be Annoying

One of my design goals with Historia Realis is to create an annoyance-free experience, or as close to it as possible. Here are a few traps that I tried avoiding with this system:

ːsteamthumbsdownː Too much micro-management: There is some interaction which is natural and required, but I try to frontload most of the “clicks” and customization to the beginning of a Motion, and then things just run along. This is because you'll also be doing a bunch of other stuff while trying to pass a motion.
ːsteamthumbsdownː Feeling out of control or hopeless: I don’t want you to feel like there’s nothing you can do to pass your Motion and that it’s all up to RNG. Therefore, there are several ways to influence the outcome of a Motion. Calling on participants is the most basic one, so I’ll touch on that next.

Active Politicians

The Active Politicians list.

I’ve ran into a few problems when designing the experience of “being a Senator”. One major one was that you probably don’t want to be bothered about everything that’s going on in politics every single year, simply because there’s so much of it. You’re generally more concerned about advancing yourself, not about the prosecution of so-and-so, the triumph of a random guy, and so on. Although it’s a cool thing to simulate every little thing, they can also feel distant and repetitive, so they have to happen in the background, to some extent.

Unless, of course, you do want to care about what’s happening in a given year. Then you can become an Active Politician (I need a better name for this — I’ll take suggestions in the comments). You also automatically become one by being elected to office.

When you become an Active Politician, you can participate in Motions, and you’ll get invited to support or oppose this or that one, and you can start motions yourself, though some Motions are exclusive to specific offices like Consul or Plebeian Tribune.

The point is this: only a small percentage of Senators (and some non-Senators) will be Active Politicians each year. If you don’t care about the internal politics right now, you can just ignore them. Or you can become active if they become relevant to you.

There is some historical justification for this: the concept of pedarii is disputed, but it referred to senators who voted along with their “superiors”, and didn’t debate. It’s also well established that junior senators were generally less active, and spoke last, if at all (however, they were often more active as prosecutors).

There’s also some natural inactivity: those engaged in governing provinces, or being on the staff of a governor, or waging war, are naturally inactive in the Senate because they’re far from Rome.

The Clashes within each Motion are represented by little icons under the yellow/red bars.

Clashes

Roman politics were notoriously aggressive. However, I use the term Clash not just in a sense of violence, but also in the sense of political clashes.

What determines the outcome of a Motion is not only the number and quality of supporters and opposers, but also their performance as the two sides Clash. Delivering performances, either through speeches in the Senate or in a Contio (public meeting), or perhaps performing well in a street brawl, is vital.

When a Motion starts, a certain number of Clashes is expected to occur: let’s say 3. As time goes on, each Clash is set up and its slot gets filled. When they’re all filled, they get resolved and the outcome of the Motion is decided.

Clashes can generate interesting and unexpected outcomes, and I have some ideas to expand upon this simple mechanic — it will probably get its own diary in the future.

Stages

Look, Roman law was complicated. It was mostly based on tradition rather than well-defined procedures — and yet tradition was often interpreted differently, or force was used to establish new precedents. Especially in the Late Republic: see the Gracchi, Marcus Drusus, Sulla, etc.

So to represent the procedures of Roman politics, I needed a mechanic that was both structured and flexible. The result was Stages.

A Motion has to go through all of its Stages, and be approved in all of them, in order to pass. If it’s shot down at any Stage, it either becomes a weaker version of itself in order to try to pass, or it fails (unless it Escalates, but I’ll leave that for later).

A Triumph Motion.

Triumphs are simple. They have just one Stage: the Senate. Historically, triumphs were awarded by the Senate and required no ratification by any assembly.

A Prosecution Motion. Notice it has more slots for Clashes, and a separation between the icons to represent different Stages.

Prosecutions were historically very complicated, but I’ll try to keep it simple. A quaestio, or inquiry, had to be established to look into the matter and pass judgement on it. For that to happen, one of the governing bodies had to first approve of the establishment of the quaestio. This means there are at least two stages: deliberation and quaestio. For example, it might go:

- Tribal Assembly → Quaestio → End.
- Senate → Quaestio → End.

Two stages in either case, but different governing bodies establish the court.

But let’s make it a bit more complicated. In 149 BC, the plebeian tribune Lucius Calpurnius Piso created a law that established the quaestio perpetua, a permanent court for trials of corrupt governors. The composition of the jury of this court became a major political dispute for the next century, but that is a different matter. What matters here is that he simplified the procedure so that prosecutions could be completed in a single Stage:

- Quaestio → End.

So you see, Stages allow for both structure and flexibility. Here are a few other examples of Stages you might see:

- Senate → Senate → Centuriate Assembly → End: A law is rejected by the senate, but it’s rewritten and the weaker version passes, so it’s taken to be ratified by the Assembly.
- Centuriate Assembly → End: A law is taken directly to be voted on by the Assembly, bypassing the Senate. This will likely cause Legitimacy issues (see Upcoming Additions below).
- Senate → Tribal Assembly → Escalation → End: A motion passes in the Senate, but fails in the tribal assembly, perhaps being vetoed by a Tribune. But its promulgator doesn’t withdraw it, so it escalates into violence and leads to loss of Stability (see below).

Finished Motions.

Outcomes

The most severe outcome of a Motion would be the death or exile of a former governor. Another possible outcome was financial restitution, often a multiple of the amount known to have been stolen (2 times what was stolen or so, it changed throughout time).

But acquittal was far more often the case. And then the prosecutor might be themselves prosecuted in retaliation.

One such historical case of retaliations went like this:

- The elder Caepio was exiled and fined for losing the Battle of Arausio, against the Cimbri. The prosecutors were the tribunes Saturninus and Norbanus.
- Caepio’s son, whom we will call Caepio the Younger, wrecked the voting proceedings of a law that Saturninus was trying to pass. It passed anyway.
- Eight years later, as the political landscape shifted, Caepio was prosecuted for that disruption.
- Caepio and his allies prosecuted Norbanus for his tribuneship. Saturninus was dead by now.
- In the end, the jury of equites acquitted both Caepio and Norbanus, ignoring their petty squabbles.

To me, all this maneuvering had two goals: 1) increasing the standing of oneself (and one’s allies) and 2) decreseaing the standing of one’s enemies (and their allies). But this was also wrapped around a complex political landscape, which I will talk in a future dev diary about Interest Groups.

Triumphs and Ovations were also a part of the same apparatus: you try to get them for yourself and your friends, and avoid your enemies from doing so. As such, the main outcome of Motions is changes to Prominence, either positive or negative. Look forward to a future dev diary about social status.

Right now I haven’t yet implemented gaining an Agnomen, the nickname that victorious generals often got: Africanus, Macedonicus, Numidicus, Asiaticus and so on. But fear not, this is coming!

Motions screen with both current and finished motions.

Note On Game Design: Depth vs Complexity

I am following the thesis that depth comes from simple yet interconnected systems. I’m trying to avoid “complex” systems as much as possible, because they’re hard to understand and to interact with for the player, and hard to change and improve for the developer.

This means that, instead of designing complex and convoluted systems, I’m trying to design a few simple yet meaningful and effective systems that create depth not so much within themselves, but in the overall experience, through the interactions between all systems.

Within a single system, what I want is at least one core tension. That is, one “hard choice” (or “interesting decision”, to use Sid Meier’s term) that comes up often.

The hard choice for Motions is often this: do I want a small guaranteed reward, or a big risky reward? For example, you can go after a corrupt governor. But he has lots of friends in the Senate, so you’ll likely fail. But if you succeed, you’ll gain a lot of prominence!

It's a single interesting choice. However, due to interconnected system, this choice also overlaps with others. What if the corrupt governor is a friend of your father-in-law? Do you want to take that relationship hit?

With these overlapping systems, depth emerges.

What's Next

"That man is GUILTY!" Sketch for a painting representing a prosecution in the Forum.

There’s a lot more to talk about, but this is all for today. I'm going to mention a few of the things you can expect in upcoming diaries:

Additions to Motions:

Some things you can expect to see in future dev diaries:

- Lawmaking: In addition to trials and triumphs, you’ll be able to propose laws.
- Voting: You’ll be able to see the voting process in the Senate and Assemblies.
- Escalation and Vetos: Violence can erupt and extreme measures like vetos can be taken.
- Retaliation: Accusing someone could lead to them accusing you, justly or unjustly.
- Legitimacy and Due Process: Some motions will be more legitimate than others, depending on whether they were seen as just and if they followed the due process or not.
- Revoking, Weakening and Strengthening Motions: Laws and even motions like exiles can be revoked in the following years, creating a very dynamic society. Or they can sometimes be weakened or strengthened, creating links between past and present.

Interconnected Systems

Here are some upcoming or current systems that interact with the Motions system:

- Interest Groups: Groups like Equites, Urban Populace, Soldiers, etc, will be dynamic and demand more rights through laws.
- Factions: Characters will be able to ally each other and cooperate in elections, their year in office and beyond.
- Favors and Grudges: Gain favors by helping others in their Motions, and spend those favors to pass your own.
- Tiers and Prominence: Rise in the ranks of society by prosecuting and defending others, and passing laws, gaining prominence through the courts (see the dev diary on hierarchy & marriage).
- Vice: Become more vicious by pursuing unjust convictions (see the dev diary on Vice).
- Magistracies & Provinces: Only some office holders can start some Motions, and only former provincial governors and their staff can be prosecuted for corruption in the provinces.
- Stability & Civil War: Violence and escalation in the courts can lead to the destabilization of Rome, and eventually to civil war.

All that said, please note that everything I said here might change. And it probably will! That's the iterative nature of making games, you just keep changing and improving things.

Wishlist Historia Realis:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2560540/Historia_Realis_Rome/
Thank you!
— Lucas