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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8663005" data-attributes="member: 87792">The odd thing is that, as whitewashed as Rome is, Fantasy Romes never get why Rome worked and why it lasted a ludicrous amount of time and didn't just collapse after Cannae the way Hannibal expected. To get Rome right it has to be a lawful evil multicultural empire that manages to incorporate representatives of all the people conquered into its elites. And the Romans didn't collapse after Cannae because the elites in the rest of Italy considered themselves Roman Citizens and the middle class were also either Roman Citizens or people who could aspire to become Roman Citizens. (This, incidentally, is why the conservative Romans wrote so much about decadence). Rome itself was beseiged fifty years to the year after they stopped making their mercenaries Roman Citizens - and was sacked the next year. Also Rome had pretty absurd social mobility by the standards of the ancient world to the point there was an example of someone who was a captive in a Triumph as a baby who grew up to have one thrown in his honour. Rome assimilated.Sorry, pet rant.I don't draw a line - there's a gradient. My last megadungeon was being taken over by beings from the far realm; the top of the megadungeon just had orcs and goblins - but by the sixth level the floors were non-Euclidean with shifting gravity. The sixth floor would have been ridiculously gonzo as a start to the dungeon and probably turned people off - but each floor was deliberately slightly more warped than the previous one to the point that it worked wonderfully.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 8663005, member: 87792"] The odd thing is that, as whitewashed as Rome is, Fantasy Romes never get why Rome [I]worked[/I] and why it lasted a ludicrous amount of time and didn't just collapse after Cannae the way Hannibal expected. To get Rome right it has to be a lawful evil [I]multicultural[/I] empire that manages to incorporate representatives of all the people conquered into its elites. And the Romans didn't collapse after Cannae because the elites in the rest of Italy considered themselves Roman Citizens and the middle class were also either Roman Citizens or people who could aspire to become Roman Citizens. (This, incidentally, is why the conservative Romans wrote so much about decadence). Rome itself was beseiged fifty years to the year after they stopped making their mercenaries Roman Citizens - and was sacked the next year. Also Rome had pretty absurd social mobility by the standards of the ancient world to the point there was an example of someone who was a captive in a Triumph as a baby who grew up to have one thrown in his honour. Rome [I]assimilated[/I]. Sorry, pet rant. I don't draw a line - there's a gradient. My last megadungeon was being taken over by beings from the far realm; the top of the megadungeon just had orcs and goblins - but by the sixth level the floors were non-Euclidean with shifting gravity. The sixth floor would have been ridiculously gonzo as a start to the dungeon and probably turned people off - but each floor was deliberately slightly more warped than the previous one to the point that it worked wonderfully. [/QUOTE]

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