The year is 395. You are Honorius, emperor of the Western Roman Empire. What would you do Veeky Forums?

and what might that be?

Restart the campaign until i start getting it right, fight a lot of boring siege battles and never finish the game

I giggled

By this time a lot of the Germans are Arian and not Pagan already.

The system you describe is very similar to what was already happening though; Germanic tribes being displaced and settled on Roman land, which they then set up their own kingdoms on.
In the cases where they were settled on the frontiers, they often times rose in revolt since it was clear they were being used as a buffer, and were serving in the Roman forces far away while their new homes were undefended.

>Not kill Stilicho
He was the best man for the job and probably wasn't going to betray me.
>Massive state propaganda
A town crier in every in every settlement and military installation promoting one God and one Emperor as well as telling every man that the Empire needs them.
>Burhs+Fyrd
Similar to what Alfred the great did to save his people from the vikings but on a larger scale. It protects the average rural person as well as if combined with a fyrd system could also be used for a large temporary army that can be supported by the professional one.
>Spread out German settlers and Romanize them
Don't let them all settle in one area. Try and spread them ou in smaller groups across the entire empire as well as blasting them with propaganda and trying to make them as Roman as possible.

I don't know what the issue was with the taxation and corruption but I would try and reduce taxes and corruption.

For starters, resolving as many food shortages as possible and getting rid of Honorius. Avoid war like the plague. Invite your neighbors to join your war against the saxons and whoever else you can convince to fight anyone but you. Get trade with whoever you can... I could go on.

have fun with your Muslim and Hunnic invasion of Europe

Frankly, fuck bitches.

So I would probably never have gotten to be emperor of anything.

Also, this is probably the real answer if you're meant to be Honorius. He was a figurehead. You should be Stilicho if you want to make a difference.

even as figurehead you can be a powerful symbol that inspires people or a walking joke.

Fortify the Alps and the Pyrenees. Leave Gaul to the barbarians.

I don't see how the public could have ever seen Honorius as anything but a walking joke. Regardless of tactical realities, they just see some kid sitting in Ravenna while they get overrun. Imagine how they felt in Britain.

I don't really know. "Just assimilate the germans :^)" means imposing my will on entire migrating german tribes, with an army made up of hired german tribes.

I'd need a more politically reliable roman core to the army, but that would mean prying farmers from senatorial estates, which would mean getting assassinated.

Abandoning Britain or pawning it off to as many Germans as I can like said is obligatory, as is keeping Stilicho alive. Trying to promote Christianity and using it as a tool to promote imperial loyalty also sounds logical.

>The year is 395. You are Honorius, emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
Baaaah ba baaa? *braaaaaaap*

I don't think there was any way to stop the fall by this point to be honest.

You can only act with hindsight 20/20:
>they didn't know that the Goths would Chimp out again (that soon at least)
>the 406 crossing of the Rhine was a surprise
>the Vandals, Goths, Alans etc. weren't reliable partners in negotiations, you couldn't have offered them anything they couldn't just take by force
>the differences between Latin and Arian Christianity made the negotiations even harder, if you see each other as heretics
even if all those points weren't the case, the Hun invasion was impossible to predict

Wait, sorry, 393 was the start of the his reign, 384 was his year of birth.

I guess I would be trying to figure out why my pee pee gets hard when I look at marble statues.

>Implying his fresh imperial boypussy hadn't already been plucked by some dirty old Romans.

>fresh imperial boypussy
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporus

Sodomizing the emperor seems like a high risk high reward strategy. I guess it worked with Elagabalus but other than that

Honorius was emperor only in name. The real rulers of the Western empire were the insanely conservative and overprotective Italian nobility in Ravenna/Milan who refused to allow the Goths to merge with Rome.

Honestly, people make out the Sack of Rome in 410 AD to be some kind of tragedy, when instead it was righteous karma for everything they caused to happen in the previous years.

Declare Stilicho co-emperor, then go attend to my roosters
They were never split

This. One of the main reasons for the disintegration in the West is because after being ruled by non-ethnic Romans/Italians, the people in Milan/Ravenna became insanely xenophobic (something that happened in the East, but not to the extent that it did in Italy - see Zeno's reign). This meant that people like Stilicho and later Flavius Aetius could never be emperors, because the Ravenna/Milan nobility would not allow it. It meant that mean like Alaric, etc weren't going to get what they want, which getting what they want would have stopped Rome from losing the West.

Move the capital to Carthage.
Feed African grain to the chickens.
Defend the Pyrenees.

it's a pretty delicious irony that the xenophobia made their worst nightmares inevitable

>His victorious rival, Vitellius intended using Sporus as victim in a public entertainment; a fatal "re-enactment" of the Rape of Proserpina at a gladiator show. Sporus avoided this public humiliation by committing suicide.
So he was going to get raped to death in the middle of the arena?

>Sail to Britain with all my armies, money and important reliable people
>Leave mainland Europe to the ERE, Muslims and Germanics
>Trade with them but not much else
>Build a big ass navy
>Annex everything in the Isles
>Sail to the Americas, name them Honorias(north Honoria and south Honoria)
>Colonize them
>Invade Asia, colonize Australia and Africa
>Leave Europe last
>Name an asian commander Attila the Chink and invade from the east with the asian legions
>I now rule the world and am immortal because I drank from the fountain of life in the Honorias
>Spend the rest of eternity like a true roman, fucking my slaves and watching the people I conquered fight to the death in my Colosseum.

first reich best reich

>send soldiers to Germany and Britain
>task them with kidnapping the cutest sissyboys
>harem
easy

But they were merged to the very end.

Removing Germanic people in high positions, just make them nobles or somethin like that.

>395
>muslims

Incorporate the Germanic tribes in the empire and make them allies. Use them as the main base of the army, the frontline of the empire. Reform the administration and economy, focus on fixing the imperial system that led various plebs claiming to be the emperor - in other words, make it more feudal. Work with the senate the same way Augustus did. If things get bad anyway, abandon Britain and focus my efforts in defending the rest. Request more support from the emperor in the East and try to have good releations with the Sassanids.

Finally, use Byzantine-Roman diplomacy of divide and conquering against those who refuse to

3 things would have saved Rome:

1- Create a military establishment from the nomadic invaders. Use Huns, Turkics, steppe nomads for the vanguard, Germanics for the inner territories.

2- Abolish all republican taxation and introduce levies. Start regression into a Feudal system with vassal governors

3- Exterminate all slavs and settle whites in the Balkans

>>Sail to Britain with all my armies, money and important reliable people
>>Leave mainland Europe to the ERE, Muslims and Germanics
>get brutally assassinated within 5 minutes of basically anyone finding out what your plans are

FTFY

The Balkans weren't SLAV'd as much as people think, it was a cultural shift more than an ethnic one, similar to Britain, Austria and Switzerland.

395 is probably too late OP, all of the events for the collapse were well in motion. You'd probably need to go pre-crisis of the 3rd century to have a solid chance of saving the Empire.

Not to mention the fact that your successor is probably just gonna get killed by an ambitious general and fuck it up all over again anyway.

Wasn't Goebbels his BFF?

stop entrusting critical tasks to treacherous G*rmanics

what happens in the future if you genocide the Germanic peoples?

World peace at least 1000 years

Rape didn't always mean a violent sexual act. it literally means something like ''kidnap'' or ''carry away''

Literally what Honorius tried to do which directly led to Alaric's rebellion and the sack of Rome

set up a perpetual ring of assassins that's purpose it to kill anyone on the throne by the name of Valentinianus III

So what does a fatal reenactment of the Rape of Persephone mean?

ask my wife to geld me, so I can concentrate on the empire

spare stilicho.

1. Abandon Britain, pull all Romans out of there, tell the natives they're on their own.

2. Set up a vassalage system for Goths/Huns/etc to try and keep them from murdering us. I give them some lands, a noble princess so their children can be
Romans too, and some slaves, in return they pledge their fealty to The empire and only The Empire. This should hopefully keep them from killing us.

3. Take as many wives as possible, fuck them, make them birth as many children as I can. Firstborn Son is going to be the next Emperor, all his brothers and sisters are going to be married out into other nobles in other empires. Now we have someone on the inside to try and discourage people from invading us.

Probably not enough but it's a start.

Teach germ theory. I win history.

>Now we have someone on the inside to try and discourage people from invading us.
Now we have a billion nations with potential emperors inside them and they're all gonna invade us to put one of them on the throne*

>potentially three, concurrent Roman Empires
Noice.

and then get instantly deposed for being a huge pussy

Britain was already abandoned.

I'd just guard the Rhine and Danube frontier sending there the g*rmanic generals with most of g*rmanic mercenaries with them. Far away from Rome. Let them rot there or use them in wars against their own kin so that their number continously goes down.

Simultaneously, fix the economy and reinstate good old republican draft, bringing back the heavy infantry.

Proclaim a edict to replace all lead pipes in the empire with pipes made out of other materials

>make it more feudal
And yet, it was that very same inherited titles that also helped the West fall. Meanwhile it was the so-called "pleb" emperors that kept it alive and kicking.

Purge the army of Germanics like they did in the Eastern Roman Empire.

Stop Stilicho going full autist and destroying relations with the East.

Murder Arcadius.

When did the east get Germanic Mercs?

Initially the Goths made up a major component of the Eastern army, after they were recruited en masse by Theodosius to fight against western usurpers. Gainas was a senior military commander who conspired with Stilicho and one of the top men in the east to bring down the de facto ruler Rufinius. He became unofficial ruler in all but name as master of soldiers. He was like Stilicho in the west, ruling briefly with an iron fist. He was hated as an Arian Christian and kept in power solely by thousands of his own personal Gothic troops.

Eventually the people of Constantinople broke out in riot and there was a massive revolt against him, thousands of his troops were killed in the city by angry Constantinopolitans. Pretty much all remaining Germanic barbarians in Eastern service lost all their power or were killed in the following year or two.

The main Gothic contingent began to coalesce under a man called Alaric, but the ERE was wealthy and smart enough to bribe him to fuck off and leave them alone. They went into the Western Empire and ended up trashing it.

What could have happened if they managed to finish him and his Goths off?

>Stilcho
>Bonafactius
>Aetius
>Majorian

They tried so hard...

It's very hard to say actually.

The Visigoths sacking Rome in 410 had a massive psychological impact that might have precipitated the end of the empire in the west somewhat, but their wholesale settlement in Aquitaine as a distinct non-Roman group was probably where the end can be seen. As seen as it became clear to others that they could enjoy the fruits of Roman territory, titles, wealth and land, without having to disperse around the empire or lose their powerbases in their tribes, every two bit chieftain from beyond the frontier came running. In that sort of sense, Alaric's Goths that founded the Visigothic Kingdom were probably the one single group (other than the Romans themselves) that led to the collapse of the Western Empire.

Now that being said, and somewhat paradoxically, the Visigoths were also stalwart Roman allies. While their very existence posed a dangerous threat to the Roman state and they lost all that sweet sweet taxable land, the Visigoths served the Empire well in terms of fighting. They brought the Suevi to heel in Hispania, they annihilated the Alans, they led to the Vandals fleeing to Africa and they were the most important members of the coalition that defended Rome from Attila the Hun, losing their king Theoderic in the process.

It's far too easy to blame the barbarians for the fall of the empire, they were both its death and its saviour at the same time. There was a reason that they were hired as troops, and it wasn't because they were cheap.

Stilicho had the chance to wipe out Alaric and his Goths on multiple occasions actually. He refused to do so because he saw them as useful for the defence of the empire, and for his own personal power in his intriguing with the ERE. If he actually had gone ahead and slaughtered the Goths on the shores of Greece as he was supposed to, the world would look very different today. I'm not sure it would have led to the WRE surviving much longer but perhaps for a few more years.

Bonifacius was a fucking retard.

>fighting civil war with Aetius, Felix and Galla Placidia while barbarians are all over the place ravaging the empire
>pushed into north Africa
>i know what'll be a good idea
>invite the fucking Vandals into Africa
>give them boats so they can cross over
>i'll go ahead and fight Aetius in Italy, you guys wait here
>get killed like a retard
>Vandals chimp out and take Africa, the richest and most urbanised province in the west
>seal the fate of the Western Roman Empire that can now not even afford to pay its own troops

Fall down on the floor crying as I realize the empire is beyond saving

but it will be a civil war, not the downfall of rome

>but it will be a civil war, not the downfall of rome

Civil wars WERE the downfall of the Rome. The barbarians barely defeated them in battle. They simply walked in when the Roman army wiped itself out in the civil wars of the 400s-430s.

>I'd just guard the Rhine and Danube frontier sending there the g*rmanic generals with most of g*rmanic mercenaries with them.

This was exactly what actually happened.

>Simultaneously, fix the economy
How? Magic?

>bringing back the heavy infantry.
Good luck with that in an age of cavalry and improved armor/metallurgy. Short-sword heavy infantry died out for a reason

>Rename it Gallic Empire
>Burn rome to the ground and kill every Romans
>Abandon anything that isn't populated by Celts(Italy and North Africa)
>Promote Gaulish language as the lingua franca of the Gallic Empire
>Watch the Non-Celtic World burn, then reconquer our former land through the genocide of Latins, Germans, and so on

>>"At that time they say that the Emperor Honorius in Ravenna received the message from one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of the poultry, that Rome had perished. And he cried out and said, 'And yet it has just eaten from my hands!' For he had a very large cock, Rome by name; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Rome which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: 'But I thought that my fowl Rome had perished.' So great, they say, was the folly with which this emperor was possessed." Procopius, The Vandalic War (III.2.25–26)

I play with my cock, apparently

Same thing I always do in these scenarios. Take the money and run, I don't know how to rule a country

This pretty much
use my power to get laid and then duck out

Why would moving the capital to Londinium want people to kill you?

what if germans tribes were splitted so they can't make those tribal bonds develop in a national identity?

Imagine if the UK decided to move its capital to Australia or New Zealand. Or if the USA decided to move theirs to one of their territories, Puerto Rico for example.

Now imagine both countries are full of wealthy nobility whose power is based in the areas you plan on abandoning. Also imagine that this nobility is responsible for the murder of previous leaders.

You plan to take the money they give you for protection, take all the wealth of their cities too and flee to some isolated backwater.

Its a fun/funny plan but its not going to happen.

That's largely why he's one of the shittiest emperors in Roman history though.

God is there any dynasty worse than the Theodosians? Theodosius I is probably the single most undeserving person to ever have "the Great" appended to their name.

just delegate, see the ruling class has their rights maintained, distract the plebs, don't waste the public trust on too many parties and horse senators

Take the money and run. The ship of the Roman state sunk long ago.

where would you run to, the East?

Probably Greece, or western Anatolia. I'd take enough money to ensure my total security and buy a farm. I'd keep the money and my identity secret, and draw on it as needed but otherwise just live as any other free landowner. Anything else will just get me dragged back and held for ransom or killed to secure my successor's position.

Slowly build up my power base among the senatorial class. Replace as many commanders and governors, with members of the senatorial class as opposed to the equites.

Win eventual civil war when the current military/governor equites revolt. Slowly return government to the style of the early Princiapte and give some powers to the Senate to make them feel useful ala Augustus,

Fuck bitches

>that was exactly what happened

No. What happened is that the Visigoths entered Italy, the germanic mercenaries betrayed the Empire, and Rome and Italy were sacked the Visigoths. Then they settled in Aquitaine and there was nothing the Empire could do about it. Almost simultaneously Vandals, Suebi and Alans crossed the Rhine and plundered Gaul for years because the northern army was a joke, and then moved to Hispania. And there was nothing the Empire could do about it. Except making a deal with the Visigoths effectively recognising their de facto dominion over southern Gaul in exchange for them wiping out the Vandals and Alans from Hispania. Who ironically then move to North Africa and take the only province that was left intact and that was of maximum economic importance to the Empire. GG.

So, yes I would send the germanics to guard the Rhine and defend Italia's borders with proper Roman Legions. I would also recognize the Visigoths dominion in the Northern Balkans as to not provoke them.

>How? Magic?

Going back to the roots. I would lower taxation significatively within the Empire and submit germanic tribes in the Rhine border to pay tributes in exchange for protection.

>Good luck with that in an age of cavalry

Heavy Infantry was always the pillar of ancient empires because its strenght as a cohesive, disciplined unit. During the next 500 years or more, infantry is going the remain the core of medieval european forces, notably the Carolingian heavy infantry, scoring wins against the saracen cavalry in Poitiers and fending off the magyar raiders. If it eventually gave way to feudal chivalry, it wasn't because of purely military reasons, as the rise of pike and shot legion-style units later proved.

-keep allying with the huns

-divide the emperor's administrative powers. Give proconsuls more power. aka satrapies

-defend rhine-danube limes

-try to destroy serfdom asap

When Alaric is holed up behind his wagons in Thessaly in 395, force Stillicho to join battle and kill him, rather than letting him withdraw.

If he doesn't then, either replace him or try to force him to fight when he traps Alaric at Pholoe in 397.

If that doesn't work, bring Alaric in and have him kill Stillicho because obviously he's totally unreliable and if Alaric was basically one of the most powerful men in the government with all of the nice titles he wanted he'd be much less likely to ruin and destroy it.

Adrianople was really the turning point though, this seems a bit late.

There was no assimilating the Germans. That was put in doubt when Valens couldn't stop them from crossing the Danube en masse and then got rekt at Adrianople and pretty much completely died when retard Theodosius decided to conclude a peace with them that saw them not only not disarmed but not broken up and dispersed.

There was no Romanizing the Germans at that point. Once Theodosius allowed them essentially exist as a state within the state that was it.

That's why you spread them out, a few hundred in each settlement, forcing them to interact with their neighbours instead of creating their own nation inside the Empire.

Doing this also makes it easier to genocide them all if they decide to get uppity.

German tribes can be assimilated, many of them were Romanboos, Odacer/the Ostrogoths is proof of this, the same can be said of the Franks, the Visigoths and Burgundians who all later adopted Latin.

It takes time, the population of Rome would ensure that they adopt the local language and culture.

The odd cases are Britain, the Alps and the Balkans (Areas with less Romanization). France, Spain and Italy all remained Latin.

the whole reason they went with equites over senators was because they decided that promoting people of merit was a better idea than promoting some idle shlub with the right parents who was probably dreaming of overthrowing you.

How do you intent on funding a gigantic military capable of repelling multiple mass migrations while cutting taxes at the same time? By cutting the grain dole? I'm sure that'll go over well among the citizenry you can no longer afford to police.

Best bet is not treating Germanics like disposable toy soldiers, and sperg out when they exert the slightest resentment towards your blatantly exploitative rule. Reforming the citizenship process, giving Germanics a path to Roman citizenship is probably the only choice which would give future generations of them a reason to want to preserve the Roman state.

Give all power to Stilicho and eventually the throne itself.
Proclaim Germans the master race and spread them all around the imperial cities.
Fuck a chicken and kys.

You're missing the point. They COULDN'T be spread at that point. They were in the empire and settled then, able to exist as their own tribes with their own tribal structures in the borders of the empire. That should've been done at the conclusion of the Gothic War; you guys can settle here but you have to do it in X, Y and Z manner.

That wasn't done and the consequences were dire. By the time of Honorius' reign that would've been simply impossible to do.

Except the Equites were no more loyal than the senatorial class. Spetimus Severus started pushing the power out to these, mostly provincial equities, and Gallienus completed it so that you know have 0 power base in Italy and now every military officer can potentially be emperor as opposed to the extremely small number of senators.

>By the time of Honorius' reign that would've been simply impossible to do.

Actually that's not true. The Visigoths wouldn't be settled for another two decades. The Goths in the late 4th century were not quite as unified and protected as you make out. It was life on Roman soil surrounded by potential enemies that hardened them.

>Except the Equites were no more loyal than the senatorial class.
That's true. Still though, who would you rather promote: some guy who clawed his way to the top through a combination of competence and self-promotion, or some guy who was born in the lap of luxury and never amounted to anything unless it involves raping slaves in his daddy's house?

> Spetimus Severus started pushing the power out to these
He did that for a reason though, the man he deposed was a senator who had literally bought the throne at an auction.