Rome

The Allies Demand Rights

Allied and subject towns you hold for a long time build resentment among the allies; allies faster than subjects. Each citizen town eases it. There is no meter: three decisions are your warning, one at a time and in this order. None of them costs money.

1. Allies Petition for Rights: agreeing calms the allies, refusing angers them.
2. Allied Delegations Demand Citizenship: the same, with larger effects.
3. Threats of Armed Revolt: agreeing passes the Lex Julia and calms the allies a great deal. Refusing brings war closer.

An unanswered decision returns the next turn.

The Lex Julia takes effect at the start of your next turn. Every subject and allied town you have held continuously for twenty turns becomes a citizen town, once. Losing a town resets its clock. Each new citizen town pays the citizen upkeep of 400, and your old citizens may resent the newcomers.

Bellum Sociale

If resentment boils over, your long-held allied and subject towns rise, wherever they are. Rome and citizen towns stay loyal. The rebels found Res Publica Sociorum, each town with a garrison of ten Italic units, at war with every Roman family and the Senate.

As the war breaks out, each of your citizen towns receives three loyal units: Hastati and Velites, or cohorts and Light Auxilia after the reforms. They are lost if the garrison is full.

While the allies stand, the families quarrel. Tensions Among the Families comes in the third turn of the war, Civil War Looms in the seventh. Agreeing calms the families and makes a civil war less likely; refusing raises the risk, and refusing the second brings the families to the brink. From the tenth turn the civil war can break out on any turn: Julii, Brutii, Scipii and the Senate all at war with one another.

The Republic Is Dead

You become the Roman Empire when you own Rome and the other two families and the Senate are destroyed. Res Publica Sociorum does not count, and neither war is needed: conquering your rivals works too.

Rome briefly revolts, the Empire is proclaimed, and on your next turn every town, army, character and your treasury, debt included, pass to it. If a foreign power takes Rome in between, the handover waits.

The Empire recruits through the normal queue. Muster orders end; a completed but undelivered order is refunded once.

Regional auxiliaries need a strong local culture and arrive with experience: Cretan Archers among Greeks, Barbarian Noble Cavalry in Gaul, Cataphracts in Armenia, Numidian horse in Africa.

The Gladiator Rising

In some Roman campaigns, decided at the start, the gladiatorial schools are a slow fuse. Every arena city you hold breeds resentment; the more arenas, the faster. Four decisions come one at a time:

Every Yes is paid at once, even into debt. The first two buy time; the last one makes any revolt smaller and worse armed.

If the schools rise, an arena city becomes the Servile Rebels, with a twenty-unit army beside it. Other arena cities may follow in later turns, each with its own army; citizenship is no protection. The war is permanent, even after you become the Empire. It ends with The Broken Chain when the rebels hold no town and no army.

The Imperial Pretender

A great empire breeds ambitious generals. In some campaigns, once you are the Empire, from turn 40 and with 40 settlements, the legions of one frontier grow restless: Gaul, Germania, Hispania, Africa or Anatolia.

Three demands come, three turns apart, each naming the region: The Soldiers' Donative, The Provincial Purse and A Command Grown Too Powerful. Agreeing costs nothing now but deepens the Army Donative Levy in every town (-20%, -40%, then -60% tax) for twenty turns after the latest agreement. Refusing makes the commander bolder.

After the third answer he either renews his oath (The Purple Refused) or is proclaimed (The Legions' Emperor). Agreements make rebellion less likely; nothing rules it out.

The Imperial Pretenders take up to four cities on that front, never Rome or your leader's city. Every character of yours inside a defecting city, your heir included, goes over with it. Each city receives ten Legionary Cohorts and ten auxiliaries, and the pretender a large war chest. Destroy him for One Emperor Remains.

The Peoples in Motion

Two great crises wait beyond the frontier: the barbarian kingdoms and the Huns. Which comes first is decided when the campaign starts. The first can come from turn 60 once you hold 75 settlements; in some campaigns it comes at turn 90 whatever your size, and by turn 180 it comes regardless. The second follows at least 35 turns after the first arrives.

The Franks rise first. Their chiefs offer three bargains, each open for three turns; ignoring one is a refusal, and every payment is taken even into debt:

1. The Price of Friendship (50,000): the rising comes later and weaker.
2. Keep the Roads Open (80,000): one of your towns does not join them.
3. A Confederation Divided (100,000): their last reserve army never comes.

The larger your realm, the more towns, armies and gold they gain. In the turns after them the Saxons, Alemanni, Burgundii, Lombardi, Vandals and Goths rise along the Rhine and Danube, all at war with you.

The Huns announce themselves with rumours and Horsemen on the Horizon, then appear as a migrating horde beside Tanais with two million in gold and a stream of twenty-unit armies for twelve turns. Peace with them stops the flow. Thirty turns after they arrive, the sealed lands at the edges of the map open.

Jerusalem

In some campaigns, from turn 150, Jerusalem (Hierosolyma) stirs. If you hold the city, three petitions come three turns apart. Each stays open four turns; ignoring one counts as a refusal.

1. The Elders' Petition: pay 50,000 in restitution.
2. The Customs of Jerusalem: grant a charter: -50% tax, +25% public order, and the city no longer raises troops or contributes to musters.
3. The Council's Terms: grant privileges: -25% tax, -10% law.

Each agreement makes the rising smaller; all three settle it peacefully. Otherwise Judaea rises with a garrison, armies and gold. Its fall is permanent.