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Lucjan
11-25-2006, 00:17
Out of Character comments thread for the M2 pbem test. This test will largely determine the validity and ease of opperation for a more decentralised version of a Will of the Senate style pbem for use with Medieval 2, or even other TW pbem games, so questions, comments, and any other player or non-player concerns can be voiced here so we can work out the best possible way to see this through to a full fledged, operable pbem near January.

*****************************FAQ *****************************************

This is the beginning of the Medieval 2: Holy Roman Empire test pbem. This first post will outline current players and rules and will be updated accordingly.

Current Players and Status are as follows.
Lucjan - Chancellor Dietrich Von Saxony, Landless Duke
Econ21 - Otto von Kassel, Duke of Innsbruck
Ignoramus - Cardinel Peter Scherer (Only thing available at the moment, btw, do you have the game yet?)
Tamur - Leopold, Duke of Vienna
Braden - Maximillian Mandorf, Count of Nuremburg


An IC Deliberations thread, OOC thread, Imperial Diet thread and Archives thread will be started as well, and I will maintain the Archives thread.


Rules (A collective work by the current players and a few others, thank you also to Econ21 for taking the time to write up this well organised brief.)


How to play – in brief

Players are either Dukes or Counts (collectively “nobles”). Both will have an in-game character (typically a general) or avatar who will represent them.

A key difference between Dukes and Counts is that Dukes micromanage the movement of their avatar and any troops and settlements they control. For example, if he gets into a battle, the Duke is expected to download the savegame and fight the battle. Counts are suitable for players who cannot or do not want to do that.

Dukes will govern specific settlements – cities or castles. They will decide what buildings and troops to purchase, subject to their own resources. Counts may also do this, with some provisos.

Collectively, the nobles form the Imperial Diet where each has one vote.

Every tenth turn, the Imperial Diet will elect a Chancellor. The Chancellor will be the “reigning player” and execute the orders of the Dukes, as well as control central (“Imperial”) assets such as the capital (Frankfurt), the Imperial castle (Staufen) and the Imperial army.

Every five turns, the Imperial Diet will be in session. When in a session, nobles will vote on “edicts” that mandate the Chancellor to specific action. Crucially, these include authorising declarations of war and the setting of taxes.

Game settings

*MT2TW unmodded (but hopefully patched for the real thing).
*Hard campaigns, very hard battles.
*Large unit size.
*Battle timer on. Show CPU Moves, Manage all Settlements
Standard victory conditions (45 provinces, including Jerusalem).

Hard restrictions on play: * only two land units (including a general) may travel on each ship.

How to play - detailed rules


1. Logistical matters

1.1. When the Chancellor announces a new turn, he will post the savegame for the start of that turn. He will also post the current financial balance of each Duke.

1.2. During the 48 hours after posting the save, there will be an “orders phase.” During this time, each Duke can give orders for:
(a) troop movements
(b) construction and recruitment in his settlement(s) subject to his current balance.
(c) tax rates
Often they will have no changes to their prior orders. If no orders are received, the Duke’s forces cannot be moved and all their balance is saved. Players are to place any movement orders they have for their army or units in their army in the Ducal Commands thread. Orders should be clear and detailed enough to be understood.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucjan

Ex 1 - Duke of Staufen - I'm ordering the movement of my Avatar, 2 Mailed Knights, 3 Spear Militias, and 2 Peasant Archers from the Castle of Staufen to march westwards. Their target is the bridge on the river crossing between the Staufen Region and the Metz Region. Next turn, order them to Besiege Metz.

Ex 2 - I want to recruit 1 unit of Mailed Knights and 2 units of peasant militia from the Castle of Staufen.



1.3. The Chancellor will then execute these orders to the best of his abilities (this - and the management of accounts - must be done strictly ooc - no manipulating orders, fiddling the books etc).

1.4. If a Duke’s army gets into a battle, the Chancellor will upload the savegame and PM the Duke. The Duke will have 48 hours from the sending of the PM to play the battle and upload a new save, or the battle will be autoresolved.

1.5. Troop movements – Dukes may only have one army in the field. Reinforcements can be moved in separate stacks, but must not exceed five units. The Chancellor will control his own Ducal army and the Imperial army, both single stacks. Stacks may be merged but unless players are gifting units, the Chancellor must keep track of units. Armies 5 units or less in strength that are being transferred between players count as part of the receiving player's ducal army, draw income from the receiving player's total income, and do not penalise the receiving player while they are en route to the receiving player. Basically, until they reach the Ducal army, they count as part of it income wise, but not physically until they actually join up. This is to avoid contradicting the "1 standing army per player" rule.

1.6. If an army conquers a new settlement, that settlement belongs to the owner of the conquering army - i.e. a Duke or the Empire.

1.7. If there are players wishing to join the game as Dukes who do not have a settlement, any settlement conquered by an Imperial army will be offered to them. Any settlement conquered by a Ducal army may be offered to them at the discretion of the Duke. If such an offer is made, the new Duke owes a debt of gratitude to his patron. If such an offer is not made, other nobles may take a dim view of the conqueror.

1.8. A Duke who has not given orders and has not actively participated, without giving prior notice that they may be temporarily unavailable, can be dispossessed of his lands and relegated to the role of a Count. If they do not give orders for 10 consecutive terms, they may be removed from the game.


1.9. Dukes who are unable to play for a period of time may transfer management of their lands and armies to another Duke (e.g. the Chancellor), acting as their steward. However, the steward, not the absentee Count/Duke, will have authority over their lands and armies and battles led by their Count/Duke’s avatar must be autoresolved.

1.10. This is a cooperative game - Dukes cannot leave the Empire and become autonomous states.


2. Money matters

2.1. Purchases - Dukes, including the Chancellor, can spend up to their current balance in their own settlement(s) on buildings or troops; or they may save the balance. The Chancellor can also spend up to the Imperial balance on Imperial settlements, agents or ships, or may save the balance.

2.2 Only the Chancellor can purchase and move agents or fleets. He may buy them from other Duke’s settlements with Imperial funds, overriding their build orders if necessary.

2.3. Four Dukes will start the game with one settlement and its garrison each. Frankfurt (the capital) and Staufen are Imperial settlements. The leaderless army in the north is the Imperial army. Other players are landless Dukes or Counts until settlements (and, for all but two, avatars) become available for them.

2.4. The starting balance of 6000 florins is to be divided 1000 to each Duke and 2000 to the Imperial treasury. All florins from capturing a settlement are to be evenly divided between the Dukes, with the Empire receiving a share equivalent to two Dukes.

2.5. For Dukes, current balances are equal to previous balances plus net profits from their settlements. Net profits are gross profits minus Imperial taxes. Gross profits are settlement income minus corruption and minus Army support costs.

2.6. Imperial taxes are lump sums set by 5-turn edicts. They start fixed at gross profits at the start of the game. Only the Chancellor can propose a tax edict. If it is rejected by a Reichstag vote, taxes remain fixed at previous levels.

2.7. The Imperial treasury is to pay for the Imperial army, ships, agents and any sums spent on diplomacy. Revenue accrues to the Imperial treasury from Imperial settlements (just as with Dukes, but with zero tax) and from Imperial taxes. Any sums gained from diplomacy, from ransoms, from missions and from conquering settlements accrue to the Empire. Any troops given as rewards for missions also come under Imperial control. .

2.8. Dukes may pay others to recruit troops for them. The price is negotiable, but for troops bought from a castle, should be at least the recruitment price plus 25%. (This is to compensate castles which are poorer, as they have much less opportunity for economic buildings and cannot raise taxes, but have access to the best troops).

2.9. The Chancellor will keep separate track of his personal settlements and troops, and the Imperial settlements and troops. Imperial income goes straight to the Imperial Armies upkeep and straight into Imperial Coffers. The Chancellor cannot touch the Imperial Territory's income or men for his personal usage. Only his own ducal lands can help him maintain his ducal army and his own ducal strength.


3. The Imperial Diet

3.1. The Imperial Diet will meet in session every 5 turns. Out of session, there can be open debate and deliberations. Each session lasts 3 days.

3.2. At each session, nobles can propose edicts. These require one seconder to be put to the vote.

3.3. Edicts can cover the use of the Imperial army, budgets, fleets, agents and diplomacy. They can also cover the allocation of Imperial settlements (e.g. to landless Dukes) and the coordination of military campaigns (e.g. instructing Duke X to help the Imperial Army). Edicts can transfer Imperial assets to individual Dukes ("privatisation" or rebating surplus tax revenue etc) However, they cannot transfer resources from individual Dukes to Imperial control (no expropriation) except via the setting of taxes. Edicts cannot directly mandate the movement of Ducal armies or spending of Ducal budgets. They could conceivably try to do this - e.g. asking a Duke to help out somewhere. But Dukes can always defy the wishes of the Reichstag on the movement of their armies or spending of their budgets. Dukes would do so at their peril. Dukes cannot defy the taxman, however, and if unhappy with an uncooperative Duke, the Imperial Diet could impose punitive taxes.

3.4. Any declaration of war must be authorised by an Imperial edict. The Chancellor or any Duke is empowered to declare war on a non-allied army entering its lands.

*3.5. The rules of the game can be changed by a Noble Charter Amendments (2/3 majority required) except those marked with a *.

3.6. Tied edicts fail. If contradictory edicts are passed, the one with the most votes takes priority.

3.7. Edicts can only last for 5 turns.

3.8. Every 10 turns (or on the death or impeachment of the Chancellor), there is an election for the post of Chancellor. One noble one vote. Ties lead to a fresh ballot. A second tie is decided by seniority (avatar age). Voting is open for 2 days.

*3.9. The Chancellor can be impeached and removed from office by a 2/3 majority of the Imperial Diet.

*3.10. The Imperial Diet is presided over by the character controlling the Emperor. His rulings are final. The Prince can preside in the absence of the Emperor. The Emperor can call an emergency session of the Imperial Diet - freeze the game - at will. The Emperor can also resolve conflicts between players - for example, in a dispute over a division of the spoils - by decree. Although the Emperor will be a Duke, he will adjudicate ooc in an impartial manner. If he is personally involved in a dispute, he will delegate judgement to the Prince if the Prince is not party to a dispute.


4. Counts

4.1. Counts are suitable for players who would like to participate either do not have the game or do not want download savegames etc.

4.2. Counts have full voting rights in the Imperial Diet and are expected to make most of their contribution there. They should focus on debate and policymaking - since they do not download savegames, they should not get too involved in the minutae of orders etc.

4.3. However, a Count may be given a settlement by a Duke, who becomes the Count’s patron. The patron remains in formal control of the settlement. (He is the only one downloading the savegame and is best informed.) However, the Duke should try to accommodate the Count’s wishes. In return, the Count is expected to vote in accordance with the Duke’s wishes, unless given a free vote. The Count may always renounce his inheritance and seek a new patron if unsatisfied with the relationship; and the Duke may seek a new Count to run their settlement.

4.4. In addition, a Count may be given a settlement by the Empire although preference will be given to landless Dukes (players who will fight battles). The Chancellor (the office, not the man) then acts as the Duke’s patron. He has formal control of the settlement, but the Count can vote freely.

4.5. The movement of the Count’s avatar is decided by the Count’s patron or, if he has no patron, by the Chancellor. The Count may petition to be moved in a certain way, but lacking access to a savegame, this is neither expected nor binding. If frustrated, Counts may show their displeasure by voting or other political actions.

4.6. A Count can always become a Duke (if the player wants to start playing battles etc). A Duke can always become a Count (if the player has to be away for a while). But if the latter change is to be temporary, the Duke must identify another Duke to be steward of their lands.

4.7. A Count is normally given a general as an avatar. However, they could instead take on an agent (they can be “honorary Counts” sort of like the Bishops who sit in the UK House of Lords). I advise against players taking on roles of merchants, spies and assassins, they're all lost far too easily. However, I see no issues with a priestly, diplomatic or princess avatar. A Priestly avatar may actually be highly interesting if by chance the player actually finds himself sitting on the Papal throne.


5. Inter-character relations

5.1. Players are expected to role-play their avatars - act according to their stats and traits. For example, loyal generals should cooperate with the Consul. Chivalrous generals should cooperate with other nobles and be merciful with enemies (the player fighting the battle gets to decide what to do with prisoners, but any ransoms go to the Imperial treasury). Generals with high dread may be less amenable with other nobles and should be merciless with enemies. Pious generals should build religious buildings and agitate to go on crusades.

5.2. In the mid-term session of the Imperial Diet (only), the Chancellor receives bonus votes equal to half the Emperor’s authority, rounded up. This is to help them see through their agenda.

5.3. Nobles may enter binding contracts with each other. These should be posted in the Noble commands thread and agreed to by all sides. The Chancellor must enforce these contracts and there can be no reneging. Possible contracts include but are not limited to trades (e.g. men for florins) and loans (with a mutually agreed rate of interest and duration).

5.4. When a Duke dies, he will simply choose a spare avatar as an heir and continue to play with that land. If there is no spare avatar, the Chancellor will manage the Dukedom as a separate entity until one becomes available.

5.5. Ducal armies may work together to take a province. It is up to player to allow the borrowing of their armies.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucjan
Example 1 - Metz is heavily fortified by the French, the Duke of Staufen thinks with some help from Innsbruck he can take Metz. The Duke of Innsbruck agrees to lend the Duke of Staufen an additional 10 units (which still operate under Innsbruck's income, as the troops are not loan, not sale) This boosts Staufen's army significantly and the Duke of Staufen then controls these units until Metz falls, at which time they return to the Duke of Innsbruck's control, and the Duke of Staufen-Metz gives the Duke of Innsbruck whatever it was he wanted in exchange for the army loan, lets say the agreement was the first 3 turns worth of income from Metz go to Innsbruck in exchange for the army loan.

Example 2 - The Duke of Nuremburg and the Duke of Prague both have a ducal army in Stettin, both have just taken out equally sized Danish armies. Both are poised to besiege Stettin. This is a dilemma that is up to the two dukes to work out between each other. Or the Emperor may step in and use his power of decree to say that no matter who takes Stettin, Stettin will become Imperial Territory until the next edict session, at which point the conflict will be resolved in a vote.


5.6. When offered a guild, the Chancellor can use his discretion over whether to accept (I don't think we can save at this point). Dukes may specify in advance which guilds they would or would not want accepted - the Chancellor should honour those wishes, but these instructions must be clearly posted as standing orders.

5.7. Dukes cannot buy, borrow or receive troops from Imperial settlements; they cannot enter contracts with the Chancellor to borrow or gift money from Imperial assets etc. Imperial assets are strictly ringfenced for Imperial use (exception: edicts can transfer Imperial assets; this rule 5.7 is about private trades not extending to include Imperial settlements; it is not to limit edicts). But this is asymmetric - Dukes can gift or lend the Empire troops or money (e.g. in a crisis). They cannot receive payment or interest for such actions though (again a specific edict might include a quid pro quo and that would allowed; this is about private trades).

econ21
11-25-2006, 13:33
Just a holding post to say I am going to give this game some attention this evening - when the family are all in bed. Psychologically, it feels like I need to think a lot about this, as its a new campaign, although I suspect my Duke's decisions are rather simple.

Lucjan
11-25-2006, 14:33
Sounds good. I was wondering, I think we should try (whenever possible) to allow the Imperial Army (with no general) to take care of rebels and autoresolve the battles. That way we have a higher chance of getting some "Man of the Hour"s and upping our number of generals so we aren't so thin-stretched on potential avatars as we are now.

Tamur
11-25-2006, 14:43
The army/autoresolve plan sounds fine with me for now. I think once we get a few extra avatars that these should be battlemap-fought, though, since it's always exciting to read the battle reports.

One question: I'm confused on the separation between the Deliberations thread and the Imperial Diet thread. When I posted last night in both, I had assumed that the Deliberations thread was for local matters or Duke-to-Duke (or Count) agreements, while the Imperial Diet thread was more for the direction of the Empire (including use of the imperial army, etc).

Can someone clear this up for me? Thanks!

Lucjan
11-25-2006, 14:57
Consider the Imperial Diet the same thing as a "Motions Thread" from the WotS. And the Deliberations thread is for everything else. Err..that is, unless I myself misunderstood econ's intentions. :sweatdrop:

econ21
11-26-2006, 01:51
Consider the Imperial Diet the same thing as a "Motions Thread" from the WotS. And the Deliberations thread is for everything else. Err..that is, unless I myself misunderstood econ's intentions. :sweatdrop:

Um, well this is the kind of thing we are going to iron out through this trial. I've renamed the two threads so one is for "Orders" and the other for "Deliberations".

We need a thread to put in our individual orders each turn, and the Chancellor should also post our starting balances in that thread too. There is no real counterpart to this in the WoS. I suggest we keep it "clean" of as much other discussion as possible, so it is easy for the Chancellor to understand what Dukes are ordering be done. Ideally, it's little more than a list of orders - rather like Tamur's first post in it.

The deliberations thread, by contrast, is where we will debate strategy, politics and propose motions. This is just our old friend from WoS and should cover most public in character discussion.

On avatars, we don't seem to be using the King and Prince. For some reason, I assumed Lucjan would be King Heinrich (and as such also Duke of Bologna); and that Dietrich and the Prince would be landless Counts. But if we use their avatars, we have room for Ignoramus (and even one other?).

Lucjan
11-26-2006, 03:31
Ignoramus could take either of them, I guess a misinterpretation on my part led me to believe the emperor and prince would be unclaimed avatars.

econ21
11-27-2006, 01:56
A couple of works on taxes etc - I had envisaged they would be fixed for 5 turns at the initial levels, but it's not important. If Lucjan wants to propose changing them, that's fine.

On getting the numbers to add up, I suggest we just treat the Imperium as a residual. That's to say - let's work out each Duke's budgets in detail and the Imperium gets what is left. There's some funny stuff going on with "wages" that I don't understand (check the Citadel for my plea for enlightenment). Plus, I have a feeling that the budgets we see may be "projections" for next turn and may not exactly add up to what actually happens.

When it comes to each Duchy, we are starting with a balance of 1000 each. That's the most we can spend this turn. The Imperium can spend the residual 2000.

Lucjan should keep a record of this spending (e).

At the beginning of next turn, Lucjan should make a note of each non-Imperial settlements:

a) income
b) corruption
c) army upkeep (inc. gen's bodyguard)
d) Imperial taxes

(a)-(b)-(c)-(d)-(e) = (f) ie change to balance.

These calculations should be done before doing anything[1] - e.g. changing local taxes.

So next turn each Duke will be allowed to spend [1000 + (f)], their new balance.

The Imperium will get to spend the entire treasury for that turn minus the sum of each Dukes' balances, which must be set aside for them.

On merchants, I had proposed the Imperium pay for them. But I suspect if their benefits accrue to a specific settlement. Hence, I provisionally suggest that either the Imperium or a Duke can pay for them. If the latter, the Duke will control where they go (and have to check he's benefiting - not some other settlement). They have 0 upkeep, so that is one headache less. Let's keep other agents on the Imperium's books.

[1]The one thing that might mess things up is guild offers as these must be accepted or declined before you can do anything else that turn.

I suggest that these be turned down unless the Duke has stated a contingency that they be accepted.

If they are accepted they are added to last turn's expenditure (e). I think there probably should be a proviso that allows the Duchy to go into debt if they can't pay for the guild. Really good guilds are too good to turn down.

Lucjan
11-27-2006, 07:03
Ok, here's my thoughts.

I'll work out the initial financial craziness and find out how this is actually going to work out by playing a few turns in on my own game.

On guild houses, I think the choice of the guild type that should be allowed to be constructed should be left up to the duke, so they should outline prior to their settlement reaching minor city status what guilds would be acceptable to them. But the cost for guild houses specifically should come from the Imperial coffers, and payed back later by the duke in increments, because there's no real telling when the preferred guild house will pop up, and if the duke can't pay for it right then and there he's screwed for who knows how long on the guild house he wanted.

Two other things I noticed.

1 - Not sure I'm a fan of the chancellor being able to override a duke's build orders in order to make ships or agents...
2 - I know I initially pushed for large unit size, mostly because I was concerned about the 40 strong size of cavalry units being too powerful in comparison to the meager 75 spears. (I hadn't notice that the 40:75 and 60:112 are actually comparable ratios.)
But due to wanting to open the game up to people who might not be able to handle the large unit settings, and that the game has issues with unit movement inside cities now the way it is, I think it may actually be better to go with Econ's initial inclination of normal unit size settings. To my knowledge this doesn't change any upkeep costs, I'll check up on that now though.

EDIT - My reasoning for changing the initial tax levels is that drawing the full income from everybody for the first 5 turns really cripples anything we can accomplish for the first 5 turns in terms of independant duchies.

econ21
11-27-2006, 10:26
On guild houses, ...

Agreed.


1 - Not sure I'm a fan of the chancellor being able to override a duke's build orders in order to make ships or agents...

OK, we could make it that the Chancellor can do it without consent provided it does not crowd out any other build orders - ie if there is space in the buld queue. (AFAIK, recruitment does not deplete population in M2TW, unlike RTW.) And the Chancellor could be allowed to override through an edict (an exception to the usual "no messing with the Dukes' own stuff" rule.)


I think it may actually be better to go with Econ's initial inclination of normal unit size settings.

Agreed.


My reasoning for changing the initial tax levels is that drawing the full income from everybody for the first 5 turns really cripples anything we can accomplish for the first 5 turns in terms of independant duchies.

Agreed - this is the kind of thing this trial can get sorted out; ie what level of taxes should we start with.

EDIT: On the money side - I can now get the starting numbers to add up (at least for Scotland). Apparently each general costs 200 gold in wages per turn, on top of the upkeep for their bodyguard's. This will drive our castles into deficit. I propose we cover that money about of Imperial funds for now (we do get 1500 income just from the King's something or other), but for clarity, let's include it in each duchy's accounts.

I'm still struggling to think of how we balance castles and cities. One radical idea would be to make both initial castles non-playable. Staufen could provide for the Imperial army; Innsbruck could act as the provider for Ducal armies. Both could be run by the Chancellor from the Imperial budget.

If a Duke acquires a second settlement as a castle, I don't think that would cause problems and he could keep it. We could maybe use Lucjan's 25% mark-up idea to give people a reason to want their own castle rather than merely rely on Innsbruck.

Ignoramus
11-27-2006, 11:23
I just got the game today. However, my brother's computer's hard drive just died. So it may be a few days before I can play. And to make matters worse, I'll be away for a couple of weeks starting next week, so my imput into this test may be rather limited.

Strappy Horse
11-27-2006, 12:51
Looking very good, this new PBEM!
Although I am newcomer to the Throneroom, I've followed the Will of the Senate PBEM with quite some interest.

I'd like to express my interest in joining this game. I've had a quick glance at all the initial posts and rules, and though I'll need to read it more thoroughly, at first sight this looks like a superb experience.
Is there still room for a new convert? I have the game, so I'd like to play as a duke, but I understand that depends on available avatars.

econ21
11-27-2006, 13:11
Strappy Horse, it's up to Lucjan, but in the light of Ignoramus's post, I think we could use someone to play the Emperor (and as such, Duke of Bologna). Be aware, this is a test PBM and as such probably won't last though - maybe 10 or 20 turns, until we know the format is workable. Then we'll start it for real with a playlist to be decided.

Strappy Horse
11-27-2006, 15:12
I wouldn't mind participating in the test, actually it would give me an estimate as to how much work and time a full game would be as well.

econ21
11-27-2006, 16:44
Good point - don't be discouraged by my playlist comment; with the WoS game, everyone who wanted to play could (eventually) get avatars. It's just there is a squeeze at the beginning, since we start out with only 6.

On another matter, I've compiled the unit stats for the HRE:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1321120&postcount=8

As always, they don't tell the whole story but are better than nothing.

Lucjan
11-27-2006, 17:32
Ok, thank you Econ for your dealing with my silly indecisions on unit size. lol

I agree with your new proposals for fleet and agent recruitment.

And also have no problems with Strappy Horse coming into the test, I'd actually enjoy it, we need another active face or two around here to offer their opinion. Strappy Horse, the available avatars are either the Prince in Staufen (landless, but could lead the Imperial army), the Emperor in Bologna (Duke of Bologna), and Braden has been really tied up lately, so if he doesn't come around by the next edict session I'll open up Maxamillian in Nuremburg so you could switch out to him if you wanted to later on.

As far as starting castles go.

This sounds like the best idea on the initial balancing act between cities and castles that I've heard yet. lol.

Innsbruck, Staufen and Frankfurt are Imperial territory, may be gifted at a later date if either Staufen or Innsbruck become cities, and generals should be paid for by the Imperial coffers. A generals bodyguard should be financed by the duke, but the general himself should be paid his wages by the empire.

How's that sound?

econ21
11-27-2006, 18:28
As far as starting castles go.

This sounds like the best idea on the initial balancing act between cities and castles that I've heard yet. lol.


Yes, but on reflection it's a counsel of despair. Let's see if we can make a Duke with a castle work during this trial, by adjusting taxes or collective payments etc.

It's worth trying to find a better solution because we may have a situation where we conquer castles and have landless players who would like to have them. In my English campaign, it seemed that almost half conquered settlements were castles (although I often switched them to cities, as there's a benefit from troop specialisation - apart from anything else, upgrading castles is pricey whereas cities often don't seem to need upgrading).

If everything fails, we can use "no starting castles" idea for the real thing.

Tamur
11-27-2006, 18:50
Let's just let it play out for a bit and see what sort of agreements we can come to. Pairing up one or two cities with a single castle for its maintenance should be no problem even at the start, since we've got four cities and two castles. It's just a matter of letting the "market" do its job, as well as allowing an Imperial town make a payment/protection agreement with a Ducal castle, or vice versa.

In future, as we conquer territory, I think this ought to be something that drives Imperial direction and deliberation in the Diet -- i.e. "why take that castle when the income from that town farther south is far more needed?"

Strappy Horse
11-27-2006, 19:58
Strappy Horse, the available avatars are either the Prince in Staufen (landless, but could lead the Imperial army), the Emperor in Bologna (Duke of Bologna)...

Thanks, from these to choices I'd prefer to play the Emperor/Duke of Bologna.
More to be able to play as a Duke, than for the added bonus of getting to play the Emperor.
But as I understand from the Start topic, it only comes into play during disputes between players/Dukes, only then Imperial intervention is needed, right? The rest of the time it is up to the elected Chancellor to rule the Reich.

Strappy Horse
11-27-2006, 20:55
I've been going through all the rule and start topics, but I am not sure how to deal with the role of Emperor/Duke of Bologna.

Do I roleplay the Duke of Bologna, and does the Chancellor speak with the Emperor's voice?
Or do I roleplay the Emperor, who's left all the tedious business of ruling an Empire to a capable 'servant' and only has to use his 'authority' as a judge, presiding over intra-Ducal conflicts?

I'll assume it's the later, for purposes of the first round. I'll post in the orders and deliberations thread as such.

TinCow
11-27-2006, 21:17
Just wanted to say that, despite my total lack of comments on the test campaign, I will be participating in the full one. I look forward to reading the results of the test.

Tamur
11-27-2006, 21:27
Good question Horse, anyone? As far as my understanding goes, I had thought that we would be ignoring the "Emperor" title entirely. However, as is always the case, I could be wrong!

Lucjan
11-27-2006, 22:15
The Emperor and Chancellor, from my understanding, are similar to the President/Prime Minister roles of many modern democracies.

The Emperor deals with internal diplomatic issues and has alot of pull in the deliberations based on his authority, but the actual day to day governance of the empire (finances, movements, construction, etc) is carried out by our elected Chancellor.

EDIT - It is also my understanding that there are only a few people allowed to lead the Imperial Army. They being the Emperor, the Crown Prince, or the Chancellor. Correct me if I'm wrong.

econ21
11-27-2006, 23:34
I like Lucjan's ideas about the Emperor (and Crown Prince's) roles. They should be given the highest respect, but have relatively little power in themselves (compared to the Chancellor). According to the draft constitution, what power they should have would essentially be arbitration over rules disputes - like the Senate speaker in WoS impeachment debate at the moment. In WoS the Speaker is apolitical and divorced from a specific partisan avatar, but in this game, I think we can ask players to ride two horses. Ideally, in the full game, I'd like the Emperor to be the First Chancellor (no election) - sort of to get the "politics" out of his system, so he can be impartial thereafter.

The touch about the Emperor, Crown Prince and Chancellor only being allowed to lead the Imperial army is a nice one.

Tamur
11-27-2006, 23:55
Good. It is agreed then. ~:)

Ignoramus
11-28-2006, 00:23
I think that the the Emperor ought to have a fair bit of power. It wasn't until the death of Frederick II that the Emperor lost his influence and power.

Braden
11-28-2006, 13:12
Ok, have to say that my commitments have reached a peak now and I can’t devote the time I’d like to this test. Please open Max Count of Nuremburg up for anyone else to use in my stead.

Sorry guys, need to allocate time to new University course (damn you Algebra!), WotS PBeM and World of Warcraft……oh! And spending time with my family….all too much to add anything else to at the moment.

Tamur
11-28-2006, 19:20
aye, I'd say that sounds busy Braden, well done having the courage to say no to something ~:) And good luck balancing it all!

Braden
11-29-2006, 14:54
Thanks for the support..........

....and hands up who can help with Quadratic Equations? (lol)

Lucjan
11-29-2006, 16:12
Depends on what a quadratic equation is. It sounds familiar but I haven't had algebra in about 3 years, if it is what I think it is, I could help.

Braden
11-29-2006, 16:18
and my main problem is that I'm 36 and haven't done Algebra for 20 years!!

Anyway, hope this test goes well as I'm aiming for a new PC in about 10 months time.

Lucjan
11-29-2006, 16:45
send me a pm with one of your problems I'll see if I can help when I wake up in a few hours.

Braden
11-29-2006, 17:23
...it's ok. I don't think its something that I should be using the forum for and besides...

...why spread my misery? :laugh4:

(hmmm...might send you one anyway :clown: )

Lucjan
11-29-2006, 22:04
:laugh4:

Good luck with that, either way. :2thumbsup:

Tamur
11-29-2006, 23:33
on the knights you wanted, I suggested that we formalise contracts in the orders phase. So you could type something like:

"Contract Vienna 1: Duke Leopold offers Duke Otto X florins for one unit of mailed knights, to be trained immediately."

And I would reply

"Contract Vienna 1: accepted."

And at the same time, I would give orders for the unit to be training.

Sounds ideal. I will do that from now on. And sorry for missing your post about formalising the contract, I think I lost it in the discussion of finances, etc.

I think the major problem with this PBEM for me so far has been clarity. Part of this is because of the crossover that's happened with the ooc/non-ooc thread(s), part is because we're simply working things out and there is a lot of discussion on non-clear points. At times I log on only to be pulled away a minute later, leaving threads marked as read but in reality unread, which hasn't helped.

Should inter-ducal contracts be haggled out in public? or should they be via in-character PMs?

econ21
11-30-2006, 00:24
I think the major problem with this PBEM for me so far has been clarity.

I know, but that's why I think this trial is such a good idea. It would be a major pain to have a full blown PBM with 12+ players be unclear. But hopefully we can hammer out the complexities and get something streamlined in this test. :smash:


Should inter-ducal contracts be haggled out in public? or should they be via in-character PMs?

Good question. I guess in the real thing we should use in-character PMs for bilateral issues, saving the deliberations for general issues. But in the trial I would prefer to use the in-character "deliberations" thread. Apart from anything else, it would be useful to see the kind of interactions that go on between other players so we might learn from them.

With contracts, you could always make an offer in the orders thread and I could accept or make a counter-offer. (We can keep editing our single orders post until Lucjan shouts "orders phase closed!")

Tamur
11-30-2006, 04:37
We can keep editing our single orders post until Lucjan shouts "orders phase closed!"

Eh, good point, had not thought of that. I was wondering where to put the formal language of a proposal, since it isn't actually an order until it's agreed to. But the possibility of edits (combined with the very definite "Starting Orders for turn 2" you mentioned earlier to Lucjan) would make it all very clear.

I'll give that a go now.

Ignoramus
11-30-2006, 06:37
I'm sorry I'll have to pull out of the test. I'm going away for a couple of weeks in a few days, and so I won't be able to participate. However, I do hope that I can contribute to the final version of rules. Will I be able to?

Also, when is the real thing starting?

TinCow
11-30-2006, 13:20
If needed, I will step in to fill a vacated spot.

econ21
11-30-2006, 13:35
I'll leave it to Lucjan to decide, but AFAIK, we do have Count Maximillian of Nuremburg unassigned. I offered him to FLYdude, but in his reply, he did not bite:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1323798&postcount=16

Plus, we have the Crown Prince, who could perhaps be given Hamburg as his settlement.

Lucjan
11-30-2006, 14:26
Ok, I like the idea of the 1 post per player each turn in the orders thread. Continually edited as necessary until I yell "orders phase closed." So let's go with that.


As for your questions Ignoramus, no definate date on a full start time yet but you'd be welcome to join when it opens.

econ21
11-30-2006, 14:30
And is it ok for TinCow to join as Maximllian of Nuremburg? (sorry, I realise you have a lot on your plate, right now, Lucjan.)

Lucjan
11-30-2006, 21:19
Of course it is! :2thumbsup:

StoneCold
11-30-2006, 23:18
Lucjan, I am just reading through, but I thought there was going to be a provision that only dukes of castle can build forts or is that not going to be implemented?

econ21
11-30-2006, 23:31
Lucjan, I am just reading through, but I thought there was going to be a provision that only dukes of castle can build forts or is that not going to be implemented?

I did not put that in these trial rules, as I think it's just an extra complication and given the complexity of Ducal accounts, I think every simplification we can get is welcome. The rule aimed to address the balancing of castles and cities, but I don't think it gets to the heart of the problem. We can bear it in mind and think about the balancing problem throughout this trial.

TinCow
12-01-2006, 13:14
I am concerned about the lack of a reward for the Chancellor. In WOTS, being Consul meant you could fight many more battles with your avatar, thus gaining a great deal of influence and other positive traits. As far as I can tell, there is nothing here that makes the Chancellor position advantageous. Given the extremely complicated work (especially financial) required by the Chancellor position, I am afraid that we might have difficulty getting contenders for the position every 5 turns if we don't offer something in return.

From what we have seen so far, it appears that the ultimate power in this game will be wealth. This is a good thing, because it is VERY realistic, especially for the nobility of the time period. It also adds a very different aspect to differentiate it from WOTS. So, let's give some kind of monetary reward for the Chancellor.

So, here's my proposal:
The Chancellor is allowed to spend up to 1/3 of each turn's Imperial net profits on his own possessions. This amount will be known as the Chancellor's Purse. This is strictly limited to net profits and does not include any Imperial monies carried forward from a previous turn. Any monies from the Chancellor's Purse which are not spent by the Chancellor are immediately returned to the Imperial treasury; the monies do not belong to the Chancellor, they are simply made available to him for use if he should require them each turn. The Chancellor's Purse cannot be accessed by the Chancellor until his own Ducal funds reach 0.*

*The purpose of this last line is to make sure the Chancellor's Purse is used for 'extra' building, recruiting, or business, not used to allow the Chancellor to get free stuff every turn. In order to access it, the Chancellor will have to blow through all accumulated wealth, which may well be a bad thing.

Example of use:

Chancellor has Ducal income of 811. Chancellor's Purse is 400. Chancellor spends 600 on a grain exchange. Chancellor accesses Chancellor's Purse to pay for a merchant (cost 550). The remainder of the Ducal income (211) is spent on the merchant first, then the Chancellor's Purse is accessed to make up the remainder (339). If, the remaining 61 in the Chancellor's Purse is unspent, it is immediately available for Imperial purchases that turn and becomes carried over monies if unspent by anyone.

Tamur
12-01-2006, 15:46
Great suggestion TC, I will agree entirely with this. I had wondered if Lucjan's feeling of success on the accounting front was payment enough. :laugh4:

Lucjan
12-01-2006, 16:23
Tamur, *speaks in ominous emperor palpatine-ish tone* Do no doubt how easily I can be amused. OOH! SHINY RED BALL!
:jumping: ~:handball: :jumping:

EDIT - As for the judgement on this, I'll leave it up to the general concensus.

Strappy Horse
12-01-2006, 18:33
I agree with a financial reward for the Chancellor. High offices were often accompanied with a substantial reward.

I think we should keep it simple though, just an extra income, with the saved florins remaining in the ducal treasury seems fine with me.

Some more things about the role of the emperor, historically Kings travelled alot through their lands, 'honouring' their dukes with a prolonged visit on the duke's costs ofcourse.
This way they could keep their lords in check a bit, mostly by draining his financial scources to pay for the royal entourage.

This might be an interesting idea for this pbem as well. Let the Duke who's hosting the Emperor pay for the bodyguard upkeep.
I am not yet sure how it plays out, or if it gives the Emperor too much power?
What do you think about this?

Tamur
12-01-2006, 19:35
I like the idea of visiting to honour someone from a gameplay perspective. This could be extended of course to dukes visiting other dukes, or a cardinal visiting a town, etc. And it is very true that hosts footed the bill for anyone who happened to come calling of high rank.

However, with the financial realm already a bit complex, I hesitate to add another financial rule that the Chancellor would need to be aware of and enforce each round. It's not completely out of the question, but I think we will need to be cautious when adding financial rules.

Lucjan
12-02-2006, 00:51
Lets take note of that then and come back to it later on, when everything financially is more definately stable.

TinCow
12-02-2006, 01:22
If we want something far less complex for the Chancellor, we can simply give him a salary. Something like 200 to 400 per turn from the Imperial income.

Tamur
12-02-2006, 19:19
Just a quick note here: weekends are always fairly bad for me to participate due to time with the kids' activities, etc (lots of snow, skiing season has starting up here).

I did at least want to say that I've noted the rebels and would like to make an agreement with at least one other Duke to attack together, even if it is next turn.

However, if this turn needs to be completed by tomorrow (given the 48 hour limit), I won't be able to fight any battles. So if no one else can commit troops to the battle, I would like the sergeants to avoid the rebels for now and move to Vienna in whatever way is possible. If, on the other hand, some other Duke wishes to join forces with me, I will send out both of my spear militia and one unit of archers (but not Leopold) to fight the rebels, and whomever has sent reinforcements can control the battle, including my units.

Sorry for the brief and sketchy orders, but I've got to be running!

Lucjan
12-03-2006, 01:38
I looked into it, and troops from Vienna couldn't reach the rebel army until the second turn anyway. I'll have the sargeants avoid them and go around, we'll deal with the rebels in the deliberations.

TinCow
12-03-2006, 04:59
The rebels on on my territory and I am interested in disposing of them, but I can't do it what my current garrison and I do not want to hire more troops for a couple more turns yet. I will certainly help dispose of them and I'll even take responsibility for the battle myself, but I need time to develop Nuremburg before I start increasing my military upkeep.

Strappy Horse
12-03-2006, 23:29
Just noticed that the free upkeep units only count for the ones you can recruit in your city. So for the Dukes among us with militia spearmen in their army, the most economical building at this time is to build a barracks (1200 florins), and save 250-375 florins per turn on upkeep.

Lucjan
12-03-2006, 23:47
I thought you all knew that. :sweatdrop:

Strappy Horse
12-04-2006, 00:09
Hehe, I never paid much attention to it, I just noticed that sometimes spear militia were free of upkeep, while at other times I had to pay them.

Lucjan
12-04-2006, 15:14
Just for the record, the way cities work in regards to free upkeep is that any unit stationed in the city that the city is able to recruit, can remain there as a garrison unit free of upkeep charge, up to the number specified under the cities walls description. If they leave the city they start costing upkeep. I believe this applies to any units that the city can build itself. So any spear militia, ranged militia, even the merchant cavalry militia, once constructable in your city, become upkeep free so long as they don't leave the city.

TinCow
12-05-2006, 12:52
Are we positive that it applies to anything the city can build? I'm almost certain that in the games I have played, artillery units and the Venetian 'standard' unit did not get free upkeep. I was under the impression that only units with the word "Militia" in their title could get free upkeep, and then only when the city could build them.

econ21
12-05-2006, 13:31
I think that's right, TinCow.

BTW, what do people (esp. TinCow and Tamur) think ooc about the composition of the putative South German army. I proposed hiring some merc crossbows and spears, as they are distinctly superior to the peasant archers and spear militia. But Lucjan has a point that they are more costly (almost twice the upkeep) and with three general's knights units, we may not need to rely on quality infantry. Maybe form an army of our own units and go for the mercs in a crisis? (We may need quality infantry if the Italians comes for us.)

What should be the initial composition of the force?
3 archers - so we have a chance of missile superiority
3 spears - to protect the archers & be the anvil
3 generals - the hammer
1 mounted sergeant? - backup for the hammer

I guess we should do this in character, but ooc is easier.

Lucjan
12-05-2006, 14:04
Sorry, yes, TinCow is correct. Any militia the city can recruit are upkeep free.

As for army comp, it's going to be a coalition of the southern dukes, so I'll keep out of that, just wanted to say that it may be preferable to drop one archer for a spear. With so much cavalry I'm not sure if you should really be worried about missile superiority, and more with holding the line. Spears die really quickly in m2 if faced with even a slightly better foe, so you may want a reserve, as opposed to extra missiles, who if your initial line breaks are a guaranteed flight risk.

econ21
12-05-2006, 15:18
Lucjan I am a little confused about the accounts for Innsbruck this season - I built a road, but I can't see it being deducted from my balance anywhere. (This may relate to the earlier discussion about putting in a column for building costs etc - the WoS has been preoccupying me, so I am not following this as closely as I should be).

Tamur
12-05-2006, 16:38
Agreed with Lucjan on more spears, less archers. Two units of archers plus three generals and the mounted sergeants gives us a strong force in the pre-melee and very strong force in the pinned stages of any battle.

I think we need that stronger spear line to avoid losing the advantage that a solid pin/flank maneuver gives us.

Turn 4, I could train units of Town Militia and that would allow me to move Leopold & company halfway to the rebels this turn. I contribute two units of Spear Militia plus an Archer unit to the combined force.

Lucjan
12-05-2006, 22:59
Whoever commands that battle make sure you use your generals to max effect against their crossbows, they have Hussites, which, although they're ranged, are absolute beasts in early period melee too. (I believe they have 11 attack and 14 defence, superior to any infantry we can field right now)

TinCow
12-06-2006, 04:09
From Orders thread:


OOC - Just a note...are merchants really worth it? They die really quickly when encountered by enemy merchants and cost 550 to build, but only bring in very meager amounts in trade, only around 22 florins for the highest of trade goods. Maybe I'm missing something and they contribute to something other than "merchants income" in the treasury window. But if they don't, they seem like wasted cash. Could somebody more knowledgable on how they work fill us in?

Merchants start making a lot of money when you use them to 'defeat' other merchants. The higher the skill of the defeated merchant, the more money you get. Even a level 0 or 1 merchant will reward you with a good 500 to 1000, and high level merchants can net you upwards of 5000. Of course, this only pays off if you succeed. If you fail, you lose your merchant and your investment.

I find it is best to 'train' merchants by letting them sit on resources for a while. It seems that they work best in groups when they are all sitting on the same kind of resource. This helps them gain points in the monopoly trait line. Once a merchant is around level 4-6, it's time to go hunting with them. Try to take down easy targets first to gain experience, then work your way up to the tough ones.

Also, other merchants will not 'attack' your merchant unless he is sitting on a resource. If you do not want to be attacked, do not end your turn on a resource.

Strappy Horse
12-06-2006, 07:45
From Orders thread:
Also, other merchants will not 'attack' your merchant unless he is sitting on a resource. If you do not want to be attacked, do not end your turn on a resource.

I hadn't noticed this, but that does make it easier to micromanage them into real economical big guns.

Strappy Horse
12-06-2006, 09:04
One more thing about agents though, some of them have an agent limit on the number of agents one can recruit. Priests and merchants are the best examples of this ofcourse (I never reached the agent limit for spies and diplomats).

IIRC the first three levels of a church only allow for 1 priest in total.
I thought with the construction of a cathedral I could build an extra priest in my Milan save.
I guess it works the same way with merchants, one per city untill at least the level 4 market.

In that case it does not seem right for a Duke to profit from other Duke's mercantile buildings, unless its in consultation with the other Duke.

Tamur
12-06-2006, 18:04
Eh, good point Strappy Horse. I had not thought of the faction-wide limit on merchants. That alone is reason enough for Vienna not to recruit anymore until the market gets to a higher level.

TinCow
12-07-2006, 00:28
I think all provinces should have ownership of the merchant slots they generate. For instance, if Nuremburg generates 1 merchant slot, I can maintain up to 1 merchant at any time without consulting anyone else. This would also allow for more trade between Dukes, as I could very well sell the rights to my slot to Vienna.

Lucjan
12-07-2006, 22:03
I would avoid selling agent slot rights for anything to other players for the sole purpose of keeping an organised record of things without having to update three pages worth of changes every turn, because even now we're starting to get into a situation where multiple dukes are lending forces to a conglomeration of units and it's going to be impossible, with several dukes lending the same unit types, to keep track of the upkeep from which duke's spears died and which didn't.

I recommend you all chip in exactly 1/3 of the cost, as you all equally benefit from the protection of the army and whatever potential offensive maneouvers it may make. Or come up with some other way, but once losses start to set in, it's not going to be possible to keep track of all the individual units. Any ideas?

flyd
12-07-2006, 23:39
Another issue I could see coming up is if the army gets disbanded after it has performed its tasks. As an unrelated example, say three dukes each contribute one unit of spear militia to an army. The army engages in battle, and one unit of spear militia suffers serious casualties, and the other two just a few. Who gets what back when the army is disbanded? Also, dukes may contribute unevenly to an army, so splitting the upkeep evenly might be unfair. Here is what I propose.

I think it would be possible to split these things up fairly with the application of the appropriate amount of math. I understand the chancellor may already be getting overwhelmed with the number of computations needed. However, unlike the end-turn accounting, these computations would only have to be performed twice: when the army is assembled, and when the army is disbanded.

1. Each duke will pay a constant fraction of upkeep.

The fraction of upkeep can easily be computed at the begining, when the army is formed. Just add the upkeep of all the units a duke is contributing, and divide it by the upkeep of the enitre army. This fraction remains constant. As the army loses men, the upkeep of the army goes down, but each duke still pays the same fraction of the upkeep, regardless of if the units he contributed were the ones that died or not. The fraction need be calculated once for each duke, when the army is formed. The fractions of all dukes need add up to 1. Round-off error is possible, in which case the discrepancy could be added/subtracted from imperial coffers.

2. When the army is disbanded, each duke will: a) receive back any unique units he contributed, and b) will take an equal number of casualties in non-unique units.

This is one is more tricky. Part A is easy. If there is only one unit of mounted sergeants in the army, then the duke that contributed them will get whatever of them are left alive at the end.

Part B applies when there are multiple units of the same type in one army. It's impossible to tell which duke's unit is which on the battlefield. Ideally, they would all take the same number of casualties, and each duke would get back the number of units he contributed. But, they'll take uneven casualties, so unless there is some way to evenly split up the remaining troops among the dukes (is there?), there'll have to be an equivalent way of doing this.

I'll illustrate one equivalent way using an example. Say 2 dukes each contribute 1 unit of town militia to an army. Town militia has 75 men and costs 290 florins to recruit, and 125 florins to upkeep (as an exercise, each duke would have to pay an upkeep fraction of 0.50 for this army). Now suppose these units take some casualties, such that when you recombine them you have one full unit (75 men), and one depleted unit of say 30 men. Total number of casualties was 75 - 30 = 45 men. That is 22.5 men/duke. So, each duke should, ideally, receive 52.5 men. However, one of them will receive 75 men, while the other receives just 30. The discrepancy is 52.5 - 30 = 22.5 men. The idea is to make the difference up with money. The militia costs 3.87 florins/man to recruit. So, the duke that is receiving extra men should pay 3.87*22.5 = 87 florins to the duke that is receiving fewer men. This idea can be extended easily to multiple dukes and units. This computation need only be performed once, when the army is disbanded. It need not even be done by the chancellor, just keep a record of who contributed what.

TinCow
12-08-2006, 00:33
I agree with FLYdude's #1.

As an alternative to simplify the casualty problem even further, how about this:

All casualties are deducted initially from the units owned by the player who actually fights the battle. Any extra casualties beyond that are allocated to the person whose contribution to the army has the lowest upkeep, followed by the next lowest, etc. Arrangements can be made for rearranging the casualty deduction order, but this must be completed before the time the army is constituted. If no arrangements are made, the above order is default.

Reasoning behind this: The general in command should take responsibility for the majority of the casualties, since it is his own actions that result in the losses. If he has to bear the brunt of the losses, he will be wary about taking risks. After that, the person who contributes the LEAST to the army will take the losses. This will encourage people to contribute larger amounts to their allies, rather than smaller.

Tamur
12-08-2006, 14:26
I would agree with TinCow's emmendations, except that I'm unclear how the deductions from the commanding general would work?

Lucjan
12-08-2006, 14:28
Or, alternatively, maintain them as three seperate standing armies and move them in unison, so as to surround the opponent, that way upkeep doesn't need any awkward mathematical divisions and everybody loses what they're supposed to.

As, reviewing the rules, this united army conflicts with the 1 army per duke rule, as you would all have standing units in one large army, you'd be unable to create a second one.

econ21
12-15-2006, 11:32
I am still not seeing a big mechanics problem with combined armies (as opposed to equity or political problems). The only mechanics problem I can see is identifying whose unit is whose, so we can keep tabs on the upkeep and casualties. When units get battleworn, this may be less of an issue - my peasant archers may have 58 men, Tamur's have 59, so we will know whose is whose before battle starts and should be able to keep track of them - hopefully the order of the units on the units tab is the same as that in the detailed post-battle casualties report.

The identification problem will only arise when units are full strength or otherwise are identical through coincidence[1]. In that case, I like TinCow's idea: in the case of units that are identical at the start of a battle, then after the battle, the unit with the highest casualties will be said to be that of the commanding general; the others will then assigned to other contributing Dukes with the ones contributing the least in upkeep taking the biggest hit.

I think the Duke commanding the combined army should take care of the record keeping concerning the assignment and upkeep of units, to ease the Chancellor's burden.

In-game, players could agree on more radical solutions: e.g. treat the units as common property, with pooled upkeep; require equal contributions etc. But I'd be inclined to leave those to emerge as political solutions to the equity problem rather than ones imposed by the game rules to solve recordkeeping or identification problems.


[1]I am assuming the commanding general will be honest and scrupulous in keeping track of unit casualties - so if his unit gets wiped out, he won't say it was another players unit. But conversely, if it genuinely happens that another player's unit that gets wiped out, I don't think the commanding general should be forced to adopt that unit ex post and take the hit. In my experience, M2TW combat is a lot bloodier than RTW (or at least Roman RTR) so we have to accept significant casualties.

Lucjan
12-15-2006, 14:29
Perhaps we should leave this casualty issue up to players to decide amongst themselves, and relay how they want their upkeep to be dealt with to the chancellor.

I've got enough things to keep track of the way it is, so I'm just going to keep them as all seperate stacks, and work out the upkeep regularly.

Also, to accomodate the idea of dukes holding more than one settlement, the spreadsheet is going to go by overall ducal holdings rather than individual settlements.

Rather than keeping track of the spreadsheet stuff for 3 seperate settlements all held by one duke, I'll just add his three settlements together into a single row named Duke "whatever".

econ21
12-15-2006, 14:35
I've got enough things to keep track of the way it is, so I'm just going to keep them as all seperate stacks, and work out the upkeep regularly.

But if they are three separate stacks, in what way are they a single army? :inquisitive: If you merge them together, I'll keep track of the upkeep and which unit is which. (At the moment, it's pretty simple - everything would be Tamur's except for two generals and one archer.)

Lucjan
12-15-2006, 15:51
At the moment it's simple yes, but I'm thinking about what should be done in the future, if this were to be attempted with, say, a full stack crusader army or something of that ilk.

EDIT - Also, what does everybody think of the 1.1 patch? I'be played three custom battles with it and so far I am very, very pleased with the changes. This is the game as it should have been released to begin with.

I will say though, it's gotten very, very costly comparison to Rome in regards to manpower. We should be ready to take a much larger number of casualties than we're accustomed to, and yes...to lose more than once in a great while. Of the three battles I fought, Poland vs HRE was a severe loss, Poland vs Hungary was a decisive win, and Poland vs Byzantium was a pyhric victory, I had virtually nothing left, but luckily they had even less.

Tamur
12-15-2006, 17:29
We should be ready to take a much larger number of casualties than we're accustomed to, and yes...to lose more than once in a great while.

Battles in M2 are *much* more difficult, no more rolling over enemies as if they didn't exist.

I'm interested to see what this does to the PBM, since there is a very real danger of a battle-naive or overconfident character (which is what I'm playing Leopold as) dying pretty quickly, unlike RTW. Or getting himself captured, that should be fun.


If you merge them together, I'll keep track of the upkeep and which unit is which.

Thanks econ, time is a miser here so I wouldn't be able to do it. In future, it might be good to have the one designated as commanding general be responsible for this, but ATM I can't do a good job of it.

TinCow
12-16-2006, 00:19
Ok, I've got a simple idea for determining who takes the casualties:

The casualties go to whomever the General says they go to. Don't loan military units to someone who doesn't like you!

Tamur
12-16-2006, 07:00
eh, I like this! Very simple, and it gives even more possibilities for RP and character relations. Besides, with the amount of altruism running about in the test so far I'm not worried at all.

*begins to worry after saying that*

Lucjan
12-16-2006, 14:34
I can agree with this. Actually, now that I think about it, I could see some players possibly opting to take casualties earlier than others to lower their upkeep.

EDIT - Now that we've bumbled through that issue, on to the next turn!

econ21
12-17-2006, 13:50
The casualties go to whomever the General says they go to.

That would work, but I would add a couple of riders:

(1) Where possible, the General should keep track of people's units - the identification problem should only arise with full strength or coincidentally identical units. (I think the detailed after battle casualty screen should be enough to track all units that are not identical).
(2) The player controlling the General cannot merge units (to alter the immediate post-battle situation).

Lucjan
12-17-2006, 15:59
To be honest I think the whole merging of individual armies is placing too much of a rules-heavy outlook on the game. All the technical garbage should, at least the way I see it, be restricted to the chancellor, otherwise we run the risk of having lesser dukes than we potentially could. And nobody has still answered how we go about sneaking around the "1 army per duke" rule if you have a combined army from multiple dukes that exists as one entity on the campaign map.

Just voicing some concerns, but I'll continue as requested, and we'll see how it works out.

Ignoramus
12-19-2006, 10:28
Hello guys. I have finally been able to play MTW2. However, as I was able to go from low graphical settings to high, I don't regret the wait.

I see the test has been quite successful in compiling a list of rules and finding solutions to various problems, but as I have been away for 10 days I have missed all the reasons and actual changes taking place. Are you going to collate the rules for the proper game? And speaking of the proper game, when do you propose we start it?

TinCow
12-19-2006, 13:24
We'll definitely compile a detailed list of rules for the proper game.

Personally, I would prefer if we wait until the Civil War is over before we start the full version of this. Most of our potential players are involved in that as well and it's a major workload to do both at once. I would be afraid that starting before the end of the Civil War would result in either a poor start here or a poor ending there. Besides, I can't imagine it will go much beyond the New Year.

econ21
12-19-2006, 13:41
To be honest I think the whole merging of individual armies is placing too much of a rules-heavy outlook on the game.

I can't see how we can play the game without merging armies. I don't know about other people, but by turn 100 of my English campaign, I only had around 4 full stack armies. The rest were placeholder garrisons. Unless we are only ever going to have 3 dukes, I don't see how we can compete with the AI with Duke-only stacks. My experience of M2TW so far suggests that it is not safe to go to war with half stacks or less. It's not like Romans in RTR - a human half stack against an AI full stack will lose. (At least if I am the human.)


And nobody has still answered how we go about sneaking around the "1 army per duke" rule if you have a combined army from multiple dukes that exists as one entity on the campaign map.

Surely that's only a problem if we have more combined armies than Dukes? Which is unlikely for the same reason that I think combined armies are inevitable - one settlement alone just won't cut it.


I see the test has been quite successful in compiling a list of rules and finding solutions to various problems, but as I have been away for 10 days I have missed all the reasons and actual changes taking place. Are you going to collate the rules for the proper game? And speaking of the proper game, when do you propose we start it?

I confess this decentralised test so far has made me doubt about whether this is the right model for a PBM. It's too slow and clunky. I think by lowering it to the level of the settlement and general, we're going more micro than the game will support. The test shows it can be done, but personally I am not sure it the most fun way to play. I think the WotS model[1] probably strikes a better balance between pacing and player interaction.

[1]ie just let the reigning player play the game, subject to collectively decided motions and delegate battles to the individuals involved.

Lucjan
12-19-2006, 14:45
I am starting to agree with econ's last comment regarding the game going too slowly. It's taken us quite some time with only a few players just to get to turn 5.

However, I would like to see something done on at least a slightly more decentralised level. Perhaps footnotes of ducal control giving them more influence and imperial "privelages", individual players working out deals with the emperor for control of their own armies/agents and simply giving the emperor the orders for those agents via the cursor location command and a brief description. Dukes could request specific buildings be commissioned in their territories.

Example -
Duke Leopold of Vienna & Prague. Because Duke Leopold controls two cities he gets +2 influence, if Leopold's suggestions make these cities particularly prosperous the emperor may gift him some special troops or x number of florins from the Imperial treasury to spend whatever way he wishes.

Duke Leopold, while having no immediate control over the building of structures or recruitment of troops/agents in his land, can be bestowed these things by the emperor upon request or simply by the emperor's good graces.

Basically Leopold is required to fund the imperial coffers and in return he gains his rank, privelages, and must be trusted to lead an army or direct agents against his foes upon the emperor's request.

--------------------------

In the long run I think this would be the better idea for a decentralised wots pbem, as it doesn't require we wait a certain time for orders to be placed and gives the emperor much of the same freedoms he had in the wots, but at the same time gives players more direct interest and potential control in specific regions that would be important to them. This was one of the drawbacks of the wots, senators who may have been born in Massillia could have been pushing for much more protection and action against Gaul when instead they were all barking about Macedon because they had no realistic, vested interest in Massillia at the time, if Massillia was lost, they lost nothing. A player who begins with land, rank, influences and privelages that are attached to something tangible however, will be more inclined to try and direct Imperial attention to his lands and do less trans-imperial campaigning because of the very real risk of his station actually being threatened.

What I mean is - if all your power is connected to ownership of a city/castle, your interests will focus there, rather than the other side of the empire if your privelages are threatened because your lands are at some kind of risk or in some kind of need.

Think about it. Maybe we should run the actual game that way?
Perhaps we should run the next couple turns of our test run this way?

Tamur
12-19-2006, 14:55
I confess this decentralised test so far has made me doubt about whether this is the right model for a PBM.

Though I remain a strong supporter of giving the decentralised play a go, it does make the game move at a crawl. Trying to imagine what it would be like with even 10 dukes and 20 territories is a bit unnerving.

On the other hand, 1) we've been working through rules, breaking and reforming them, which is not a quick process, and 2) I think that book on the Roman civil war that's been floating around has had a certain effect on the speed with which things move in the test.

Since we're all involved to a greater or lesser degree in that *other* PBM, would everyone consider bringing this to a stop till Rome be resolved? In the meantime I'd like to take econ's initial rule set and modify it to fit what we've changed and discussed. Then we can argue, trim, and modify with some experience to back up our arguments -- all while Rome burns... err, I mean while the Rome PBM wraps up.

Then we can come back here fresh and give it another go at a more spritely pace, with a more streamlined ruleset.

What say ye?

TinCow
12-20-2006, 00:50
I don't mind pausing the test game until the Civil War is over, but I would like to at least keep discussing potential rules. It would be great if we could jump right into a full version of this game shortly after WOTS is done.

As for the decentralized aspect... I love it, but agree that it is making the game far too slow. I very much liked the idea of Dukes having control of individual territories and I really liked the idea of a feudal hierarchy where some Dukes owe their possessions to others. I think it would be ideal if we could figure out a way to do this without having to have the 'player' ask for new orders from the Dukes every single turn.

econ21
12-20-2006, 03:49
I don't mind if we continue the trial - it does not take much of my time - but I can't see us overcoming the pacing problem with anything like our decentralised rules. Maybe some players will like that kind of pace, but I don't think it's for me.

It might be useful to think of alternative rules. But also, the trial is making me think about what it is I or others like about PBMs - and WotS in particular.

Just of the top of my head:

1) It's nice to be "King" - to play the game, for a period of time. It has to be long enough to be involving but short enough to give others a chance. 20 turns seemed right for the early game; maybe it was too long for the late game, I don't know.

2) Having the motions and voting added spice, for the same reason that playing the game in a PBM rather than solo is fun - because you are not doing the "same old, same old" strategies and ploys you do in your solo game. You might be given objectives or targets that are quite different from what you are used to.

3) Playing battles with your general was fun - you get to play the game, if only for a night, even when you are not king. The incentive of getting battles also was perhaps the strongest driver behind the politics in the PBM.

4) Writing - and reading - stories was fun. We maybe did not do that enough in the WotS but some good stuff has come up with the Civil War.

5) Roleplaying your character was fun - some people created very memorable characters, as evidenced in the HoF nominations.

6) Watching your character grow and climb up the ladder of Roman leadership traits (tribune => legate => praetor etc) was fun. (Although we did rather jump over that towards the end).

Decentralisation does not seem "central" to any of the above. I can see Lucjan's point that tying you to a place may help you roleplay your character and shape the politics. But it is only one dimension that could define your character - and not even a dimension explicit in the game (there are no titles per se). We could device an age/rank mechanic like the Roman leadership traits; we could emphasise the piety/chivalry/loyalty stats and try to build on them.

Perhaps we should brainstorm ideas that enhance the half a dozen fun things I've listed about PBMs (and any other desirable aspects of PBMs that people identify). For example, how could we encourage more story writing or more vivide characters?

If a key driver in WotS was the chance for your general to fight battles, perhaps we should focus ideas around that, rather than around somewhat arbitrary attachments to place. For example, could we work out a system of promotions: squire => knight => Duke => Chancellor or something? The expectation would be that younger generals would hang out with an older one (like the Tribunes in WotS) and gradually inherit their commands? (Vices and virtues seem to conspire to cripple governors who stay at home). Promotions could even be things people voted on, so you would have to make a case for your promotion. They could be based on your tactical skills, on your writing skills (bard?), on your wisdom in guiding the discussion of statecraft, as well as on your lobbying and the power of your sponsor(s).

Basically, I think we should continue to explore the decentralisation issue but also think about alternative or supplementary means to improve on WotS.

Ignoramus
12-20-2006, 06:47
Personally, I liked the way the WotS was set up. Although it was created for purely practical reasons, the two-tiered House(Upper and Lower) added diversity to the Senate. And the thought of getting oneself elected as consul to play the game how you wanted to was a huge incentive for roleplay and participation.

In the Middle Ages, however, we obviously cannot do this. Therefore we decided that we would opt for a more decentralised game using the feudal system which also would increase player participation. However, what I see to be the problem is a question of too much participation. To put it quite simply, there is no incentive to "cooperate to gain power". There is no advantage to be "emperor", so why should you listen to others? In a sense this is no longer one PBeM played by many people; it is many PBeMs played each by one person. Due to game mechanics Dukes cannot fight other Dukes, so who's to stop them doing what they want?

Tamur
12-20-2006, 08:10
A few ideas from my bus ride home today...

First, I like the feudal idea. I like the simplicity of the lord-vassal relationship and think it creates an easy-to-weild political structure. I think a creative use of it solves a lot of the problems we're running into.

That said, here are a couple of possibilities...

Council of Nobles

The Council of Nobles becomes an integral part of the game, being composed of a 3-5 member group (depending on how many players we have). Each Council member is the top Duke of a feudal "tree" made up of his vassals and his vassals' vassals, etc. More below on this...

Staying In Office

The immediate problem with the feudal system is that the people on top will tend to stay on top for a long time if there isn't a mechanism for knocking them off (besides them dying). I'd suggest that a modified version of econ's idea for advancement be used for recycling leadership as well.

Periodically (every 10 or 20 turns?) an OOC poll goes up asking for votes on who has been the best writer, or general, or wisdom-giver, or politician, etc since the last vote. Only one of these categories would be voted on per poll (i.e. best writer one week, best general two weeks later, etc).

The votes are simply tallied and added to each Duke's total for the category in question -- that is, there is no "grand total" of vote points, only totals for each category. Then the top 3-5 of these Dukes for this category get swung up to the top of their feudal "tree", and each tree is re-ordered based on the vote points for that vote category.

A vote for Chancellor is taken between these top Dukes, and then a new reign begins.

Simplicity

I suggest two major simplifications to the current system, and a single clarification:


The top duke in each feudal tree executes orders for his tree (i.e. actually plays the game, trading the save with other Council of Nobles dukes). The Chancellor is one of these Council of Nobles dukes, and so executes orders for both his vassal tree as well as the Empire.
The spendable finances of the Empire are split evenly each turn amongst all Council members, regardless of local earnings. The Chancellor receives a double share, ostensibly to be used for the Empire's dealings (though it might be interesting to allow the Chancellor to fix the books a bit).
The Council members will work out what part of their finances goes to which of their vassal Dukes on a periodic basis (perhaps every turn, but most likely every few turns).


Fun

econ's list is ideal on this point. I think the suggestions above fit nicely with most of the areas he mentioned.

1) being "king" -- having the Council members all share control of the game distributes this so that even more players have the chance to play the game, as well as feel like they are truly in control of part of the world.

2) motions and voting -- while completely different from the Senate version of this, voting on player performance rather than motions will I think be empowering to players, giving each a chance for fame. Also, motions could be proposed and voted on for the Empire, and/or within each lord-vassal tree, to give each player a chance to show their political savvy, or wisdom.

3) playing battles -- each Duke can of course strike out on his/her own and fight, but the above also gives each Duke a greater chance to control larger feudal or imperial forces.

4) encouraging writing -- if one of the categories is indeed "best writer", then we have an encouragement of writing as an integral part of the game, determining who will sit at the top of the feudal chain.

5) encouraging roleplaying -- perhaps one of the categories could be "best character"? Even if not, the voting system gives a lot of drive to be a strongly typed character.

6) climbing the ladder of success -- again, the voting mechanic handles this well.

Egads, that was long.

Ignoramus
12-20-2006, 10:28
That sounds good, but I think that voting for the people in the Council of Nobles seems to be a bit strange.

What I suggest is that we have 5 core Dukes: Swabia, Bavaria, Saxony, Lotharingia, and Franconia.

"Will continue later"

TinCow
12-20-2006, 13:25
Hmmm... I very much like the idea of a system where the Dukes are feudal heads who make the decisions for their vassals. I think that adds some variety to keep this from just being WOTS in castles. Let's explore this some more.

Lucjan
12-20-2006, 17:22
I also like the idea of dukes being feudal heads of territory who lead their vassals towards their collective goals. But I think Econ hit the nail on the head with how I feel the decentralisation should be played out with this statement.


Perhaps we should brainstorm ideas that enhance the half a dozen fun things I've listed about PBMs (and any other desirable aspects of PBMs that people identify). For example, how could we encourage more story writing or more vivide characters?

If a key driver in WotS was the chance for your general to fight battles, perhaps we should focus ideas around that, rather than around somewhat arbitrary attachments to place. For example, could we work out a system of promotions: squire => knight => Duke => Chancellor or something? The expectation would be that younger generals would hang out with an older one (like the Tribunes in WotS) and gradually inherit their commands? (Vices and virtues seem to conspire to cripple governors who stay at home). Promotions could even be things people voted on, so you would have to make a case for your promotion. They could be based on your tactical skills, on your writing skills (bard?), on your wisdom in guiding the discussion of statecraft, as well as on your lobbying and the power of your sponsor(s).

Perhaps a system where the chancellor's authority is alternated between the leading dukes of the era, whose own power is based on the influence of themselves and their vassals. Influence could be measured by vote acquired traits.

Here are some ideas.

Vote Acquired Title Heirarchies and their effects, and some other situational ideas. (These will all be voted on with an OOC vote, based on IC character's actions and performance.)

Duke of "" = +3 Influence (+4 for administrative edicts)
Count of "" = +2 Influence (+3 "")
Baron of "" = +1 Influence (+2 "")
Landless Vassals
(Based on IC player connections to other players. Heck, if enough people think you're worthy of being a count, you'll get voted to be a count. However, I feel there should be a "population cap" for dukes, say, 1 duke for every x number of provinces.)

General = Lead a full stack army. +3 Influence (+4 for military edicts)
Knight = Lead an army up to 3/4 stack size. +2 Influence (+3 "")
Marshall = Lead an army up to half-stack size. +1 Influence (+2 "")
Sheriff = Lead an army up to 1/4 stack size. (+1 "")
Squire = Can only accompany a hirer ranking officer.
(Based on strategic/tactical skills/suggestions)

Beurocrat = +3 Influence (+4 for legislative edicts)
Councilman = +2 Influence (+3 "")
Public Speaker = +1 Influence (+2 "")
(Based on persuasion skills.)

Eloquent = +3 Influence
Bardic = +2 Influence
Taleteller = +1 Influence
(Based on stories and writeups.)

Prophetic = +3 Influence
Wise = +2 Influence
Intuitive = +1 Influence
(Just generally wisdom related. For example, characters who suggest marching a half stack army into battle against two full stacks and a castle won't be seeing these traits. :laugh4: )

Defender of the Faith - Can give orders to priests/cardinals/inquisitors (would require certain traits/piety). +1 Influence
Monopolist - Can give merchants missions (would require certain management virtues). +1 Influence
Dread Practicioner - Can give assassins missions (would require a certain level of dread). +1 Influence
"Informed" - Can give spies missions (would require certain scouting virtues).
{*} +1 Influence

Crusades = In order to lead a crusade a character must be of a certain level of piety.

Princesses = In order to wed a princess and enter the royal line a character must be in good standing with the emperor, must be at least a count, and must be at least a knight.

* - These agents would be given their order when they are in the same city/army stack as the commanding player, the agent must then go and attempt to carry out that task, if they succeed, or they fail and survive, they must return to the player before the player can give them further orders. If they die, they die... This allows some players to have direct control over private agents while not inundating the chancellor with constant orders for agents all the time because it requires the agent to go perform the task and then return before new orders can be issued. Of course, all agents will have to be commissioned by the chancellor, and assigned to the player after an ooc vote deemed his IC character worthy of such a title. Just an idea, but one worth looking into.

What does everybody think?

I think this would be a great way to combine a push for more IC stories and character development, make use of the feudal system, and maintain the simplicity of the wots's original idea while still putting a stronger sense of decentralisation out there. What I mean by putting a stronger sense of decentralisation out there is that a player's influence in passing motions and such will no longer be dictated by the game mechanics, but rather by the way they play their character.

Mount Suribachi
12-28-2006, 12:37
Well, I just ordered my copy of MTW2 with my Christmas money so time for me to join in ~:)

I gotta say, reading some of the proposals here, my eyes start to glaze over....to complicated for a simpleton like me!

What I liked about TWOTS was that it enabled me to participate in a PBEM without the large amount of time playing a reign involves (especially in the mid-late game). Now, as it turned out, I played very few battles (and managed to lose most of them, but lets not go there!)

I certainly think that the concept of having one player fighting all the battles during his reign has been superceded by the much superior system of having various characters fight their battles themselves. But then having come to the conclusion that the system you're running for the HRE game is too complicated, all the proposals since them seem to be just as complicated.

I would like to see a hybrid game run under the following system:

Replacing the lower and Upper houses, you have the Royal and non-Royal players. Royals belong to the line of direct descendants of the King. non-royals are all those in the family tree who are not directly in line for the throne. At first there may not be many "non-royals" until the family tree expands.

Those who are Royals get to to play their reigns as and when they come to the throne - note, not all Royals will gain the throne, depending on the vagaries of succession. Non-Royals will form the council of nobles, or if we play as say, England, Parliament. They will have the authority to table motions making requests of the King, decide upon taxes etc. Foreign wars may not be undertaken without the consent of parliament etc.

Like I say, I think England would be an ideal candidate for this. It strikes a balance between a ruler controlling the game, and all the other players having an input as to how the kingdom is run.

The other option is to go the Venetian route, and elect a Doge - in effect a monarch for life. I'm not as informed about how much power the Venetian Great Council had compared to the English Parliament, so I can't make suggestions as to what they can and can't do.

My other suggestion is that those with the most time to play the game (eg econ21) have reigns in the mid-late game when it takes a lot of time, and those of us with less time get a stab at things early on.

Lucjan
12-28-2006, 16:05
I think our test run demonstrated a need to stick more closely to the original WotS idea, but I would still like to make the idea of character development and personally developed influence an important part of the new pbem. So, does anybody have any further opinion to add to what I suggested last, with the influence points being distributed by votes on personal accomplishments and such, and the options I put forth?

Tamur
12-28-2006, 17:44
I think it's great Lucjan, sorry I did not post up earlier. I think it's solid enough to be understandable without being over-done. Well thought out.

Mount brings up a good point -- if we're going to pull in people not already involved (or even keep the ones already here), these mechanisms need to be transparent to a new player. Whenever we get to the end of this definition road, someone will need to write up a guide for new players, detailing in very clear terms what is expected of the different levels of players on a single turn, how influence is determined, how they can climb the "feudal" ladder, etc.

Ignoramus
12-29-2006, 01:24
I think that Mount Suribachi has come up with a good idea. I think that we should also divide the non-Royal generals into Dukes and Knights. Dukes govern a province, while Knights are in control of the King's armies.

TinCow
12-29-2006, 03:01
I agree with Mount's suggestions about simplicity. However, I see a problem with the Monarch playing the game for the duration of his reign. That problem is simply that family members live for a bloody long time! It would be entirely possible to play most of the game with only 1 monarch and actively likely that we would only get through 2 or 3. The entire WOTS has lasted only about 120 in-game turns, which equates to 60 years of character aging for M2TW. With a single monarch playing for their entire reign, there won't be much variety at all.

This could be checked if there was an set internal system for overthrowing an unpopular monarch, but even then I think it would result in too much focus on 1 or 2 players. The WOTS elections provided for a great deal of role-playing for the game and I think the game will suffer if we don't allow it.

I think the system we've been working with already for supreme control over the game would be best. Let there be an election for 'Chancellor' or some other titled position which then controls the game. To mimic the power of the monarch, we can give him a veto power over legislation or some other type of perk.

Ignoramus
12-29-2006, 03:03
Perhaps we could make a rule that the King must not hold back in battle, but be the first to charge, the last to retreat etc. That way the rule should exchange hands quite often.

Mount Suribachi
12-29-2006, 10:53
Its a fair point about only 2 or 3 monarchs per MTW2 game. A way round it would be the suggested Venice game - the Doge was meant to be an eldery man. So if we have a min age = 55 requirement for the Doge, that should increase the turnover at the top.

Also, aren't there mods out already to fix the years thing? How does that impact the lifespans of monarchs?

TinCow
12-29-2006, 23:32
AFAIK, changing the length of the turns has no effect on the aging of family members. They age at the rate of 1 year per 2 turns, no matter how long the turns are. That's why they live so ridiculously long in the vanilla game, because they only age 1 year for every 4 years of in-game time. If you changed the timespan to 4 turns per year, they would age 1 year in half a year of in-game time.

econ21
01-03-2007, 02:00
I've been thinking a bit about how to build on, or in some cases mimic, the Will of the Senate model, without leading to excessive complexity.

So far, I've come up with the following (I'm still thinking HRE):

Base model: Everything the same as the Will of the Senate (except nomenclature) unless altered below.

Fighting battles: I think parcelling out battles to players may be the core feature of the WotS model. It gives non-reigning players something to do and connects you with your avatar. But I wonder if we should share them out more equally? One mechanic would be:
Each avatar should have a 10 turn "tour of duty", followed by a 10 turn period of "leave".
This overlaps nicely with a 10 turn mid-turn. Typically, avatars on leave should govern "their" settlements. I am not sure if leave should extend to Chancellors.

Governors govern: forget about decentralisation, except that:
Governors (who remain in a settlement for more than 2 turns) should have the power to set taxes and build queues for the settlement they are in. The Chancellor should explicitly appoint governors - notifying them of their appointment or removal.
The reigning player (I am going to call him Chancellor still), can always decide not to build anything or remove the governor. To make it less problematic to administer, every 10 turns, the governor should specify a tax rate and a build queue. The Chancellor can micromanage it in consultation (ie with the assent of) with the governor if he wishes, and the governor can delegate all decisionmaking to the Chancellor if he wishes.

Mimic "influence"
Voting will be influence weighted with influence being equal to maximum military influence plus maximum civic influence.
Military titles give military influence; civic ones give civic influence; both are capped at 3. But only one military title and one civic one may count to influence; so maximum influence is +6.
Chancellors get +3 civic influence; ex-Chancellors have +2 civic influence.
Emperors have +3 civic influence; Princes +2 civic influence.

Mimic the "Roman leadership" traits
A knight (think Tribune) is an avatar that has participated honorably in a battle (e.g. his escort did a valiant charge) - he is knighted by the general leading the battle (battlefield promotion) and gets +1 military influence
A general is an avatar that leads a stack of 5+ units, ie an army, in the field and can fight a battle. He must first be a knight and is appointed by the Chancellor, getting +2 military influence. Generals can decide what to do with captured prisoners, but not whether to sack etc settlements (Chancellor decides).
A field marshall is an avatar that leads a "standing army" in the field (think legion). He must be a general who has won five major battles (each against >10 enemy units) and is appointed by the Chancellor. His army should be named and should be kept up to strength by the Chancellor, unless the field marshall agrees. The Field Marshall cannot be removed from command of the army except by going on leave - it is "his" (in his absence, his army can only be commanded by a general - it cannot be appropriated by another Field Marshall). He gets +3 military influence. Field Marshalls can decide whether to occupy, sack or exterminate settlements they capture.
Note - all promotions are permanent and irreversible (generals without armies still get the +3 influence, rather like "former legates").

The Emperor is the PBM overlord (think Senate Speaker)
He has the powers of the WotS Senate Speaker, plus:
He has the option to be Chancellor for 20 turns once in his lifetime, at a time of his choosing (the expectation is that he should do it immediately on coming to power, to get it "out of his blood" and allow him to be more disinterested & impartial).
He creates Counts and Dukesby granting settlements to avatars.
He has a son - the Prince - who deputises and succeeds him.
He gets +3 civic influence.

Counts and Dukes
The Emperor can reward an avatar with a settlement, making him a "free hold Count". Counts have first refusal on being the settlement governor. They have +1 civic influence.
If the Emperor rewards an avatar with a second (or more) settlement, that makes him into a Duke. Dukes have +2 civic influence. Dukes can give settlements to other players, making them "bonded Counts".
Bonded Counts have the powers for regular (freehold) Counts, but may have their settlement removed at the discretion of the supervising Duke.
First born natural sons inherit their fathers titles on death; if there are no natural sons, then adopted ones inherit; if no adopted ones, then sons-in-laws
I hope these powers of Dukes will create feudal "factions". Bonded counts may be expected to vote with Dukes or fear for their tenure. Inheritance laws may make players pay more attention to the family tree.

No Upper House
I don't think this worked well. All players should have M2TW and be able to download savegames to make informed decisions.
Avatars of players who don't want to fight battles within 48 hours can go on "leave", even indefinitely.

Difficulty
Hard campaigns, very hard battles? To try to get less pyschotic AI diplomacy (I am even tempted by medium campaigns for that reason, but Lucjan says its too easy).

I think the above, integrated with the standard Will of the Senate rules, should provide a simple and fun basis for a PBM. The Chancellor and Emperor will both have considerable powers of patronage, which should make for some interesting politics and provide some characterful touches. (Although hopefully restrained - I don't want this PBM to collapse into a civil war for at least 6 months!).

What the above does not really tackle is how to increase role-playing and story-telling beyond what we had in the WotS. But I am not sure trying to do it mechanically by votes or influence is the way to go. Role-playing and story-telling is a creative process and I am not sure we can force it too much in advance. Based on our experience with WotS we probably have a better sense of the opportunity for these things. And we probably don't need in-game rewards for doing them - doing them is fun, it's its own reward[1]. The best thing is probably just for players to lobby the Chancellor or Diet to try to get their avatar into fun situations; or even go out of character to other players and set up some scenario that is conducive to that.

[1]On reflection, perhaps the Emperor could hand out settlements based partly on such considerations? I envisage the Emperor being a rather disinterested character, rather like the Senate Speaker, and should hand out settlements for the general good of the PBM rather than for political patronage.

Patriarch of Constantinople
01-03-2007, 03:21
Yay! I can join this! I have MTW2! Err, can I?

:beam:

flyd
01-03-2007, 03:33
One thing I don't much like is not having an in-character excuse to do something. 10-turn forced leave falls under this category. "Oh, the French are marching on Frankfurt with a giant army, but our greatest general was in the field only 8 turns ago! Let's entrust the defense to this inexperienced general instead." Doesn't make sense. ~:)

Of course, we just need to develop proper excuses. In case of an invasion, the leave rules should not be in effect. In fact, we shouldn't call it "leave" at all, but simply a reassignment to a reserve command. I don't think this should be a fixed 10 turns active, 10 turns reserve rule, but instead that rule should be followed only if there are enough generals in the active command. The chancellor should be able to activate reserve generals when he needs more active generals. But, under normal circumstances, he should be encouraged to rotate generals. We may run into a situation where we don't actually have enough generals, just as easily as the opposite. The rules should remain flexible.

My suggestions, made in the TWOS post-mortem thread, focused more on permanently getting older generals with many battles out of the way if there are young generals without commands. But, instead of forcing them to go on leave (a bad thing), they can be given even more important commands (a good thing). It really comes down to a slight decentralization of the army structure. This particularly applies as the Empire gets big. The army as a whole could be divided into a few commands, which could be given to older generals. Those generals would not fight battles, but only give specific orders to subordinate generals. This is what I'm thinking:

Back when Servius became Consul, and the Seleucids invaded Thrace, I believe it was Cornelius Saturnius who sat out of that fight because much of his army had been used to reinforce mine. We only had enough troops for two armies. What could have happened instead is that I could have been assigned to be the Commander of all the Army in the East, or something equally fancy that really means that it would be my character sitting in the town nearby, while the two younger generals command the armies. I expect that Servius would give me an order like "Expel the Seleucids from Thrace, you have this and that unit under your command." I would then take a good look at the map, come up with a super great plan, and then give the orders to the armies, which really meant sending orders to Servius, who would make the little men on the map dance as I said, and pass around savegames. That way, the two younger generals get to fight the battles, and I get all the glory. :laugh4:

So, my point is that there can be a structure of rank beyond a single-stack commander. There should, of course, be a limited number of these, and I suspect that the Senate should be the one to appoint generals to those positions. That only need happen once the starting generals start to get too experienced, and if younger generals are lacking field assignments.

Patriarch of Constantinople
01-03-2007, 03:48
Actually, I won't be able to. Need to work on this mod.

Warluster
01-03-2007, 04:01
@ Hannibal99
What is this mod you are working on?

Warluster
01-03-2007, 04:04
Also, can I join this? Can I please play as an Duke?

Patriarch of Constantinople
01-03-2007, 04:22
Err, mod is on hold, so I'm joining.

Could I be duke as well?

Ituralde
01-03-2007, 12:54
All the ideas gathered here sound very interesting. I especially like the approached taken by Sasaki and the addition FLYdude made to them.
I would like to join in this game once an avatar becomes available.
In my opinion the focus should be on the HRE as it lends itself well to have a mixture between feudal and hereditary structures while also having the Reichstag and elected offices.

I was wondering if there are any plans concerning the version of M2:TW you want to play the game with. Patch 1.1 obviously? Or maybe use one mod or another. Especially the ProvinceTitleProject comes to mind, which would also assist with the appointment of governors/Dukes/Counts.

Cheers!

Ituralde

Lucjan
01-03-2007, 14:33
I agree 100% with everything econ has proposed, and I like flydude's suggestions for revision as well.

I think we've got our golden project with this one gentlemen. Maybe econ could grace us with running a second test using these rules and flydudes suggested ammendments?

Edit - As far as increased roleplaying goes. I think the best of this happened naturally, creatively, as with the rather random idea of the servius/marcellus/oppius meeting, and then the great stories that came about with the civil war stories thread, which were all creative, unique and interesting in their own right. And might I add, unprovoked and rather numerous. Let's just try this new idea out and see where it flies.

econ21
01-03-2007, 21:41
I agree 100% with everything econ has proposed, and I like flydude's suggestions for revision as well.

I think we've got our golden project with this one gentlemen. Maybe econ could grace us with running a second test using these rules and flydudes suggested ammendments?

Good, I am glad we are moving towards a consensus. Let's chew this over a couple of days more - I would like to hear TinCow's reaction, for example. Then I'll start a new thread. I think we should just start the real thing. The WotS is over and I don't think we need another test as we are probably avoiding anything too radical like settlement level accounting.

When I start a new thread, there will be two main orders of business:
(a) finalising the rules
(b) fixing a play list
I think done a lot on (a); on (b), I just don't know how many players will want to join. If there are too many, we may even want to think about a second simultaneous M2TW PBM. We lost a lot of WotS players who were frustrated waiting around for avatars.

I wonder how far has anyone got with HRE in solo play? It would be good if someone who has got quite far could upload a savegame. I'd like to see how things look - esp. the family tree - to see how many players we could accommodate.

Patriarch of Constantinople
01-04-2007, 02:07
Well, the HRE is quite the hard faction. I only had one campaign as them, but were attacked by everyone, and threatened excommunication. It should be a challenge. Heres an HRE game I played (using cheats, it was my first game, so bear with me :laugh4: )

https://img524.imageshack.us/img524/995/scouttroopersa7.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

econ21
01-04-2007, 02:29
Yikes! Thanks for that, Patriach of Constantinople.

How many generals did you have by turn 50, just out of interest? You seem to have about 15 provinces (anyone know the typical ratio of provinces to generals? I'm guessing it's around 3:2.) I'm thinking of player numbers and avatars here.

Can anyone else report on HRE solo games? Is medium campaigns too easy? If it is not, I would like to try that as the diplomacy may be more interesting.

Patriarch of Constantinople
01-04-2007, 02:34
Family tree (that should include generals I guess)

https://img175.imageshack.us/img175/4492/scouttroopertv5.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

https://img412.imageshack.us/img412/6025/scouttroopercn4.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

econ21
01-04-2007, 02:39
Thanks, so we may have about 9 living generals after 50 turns (ratio of generals to provinces is 50% in this instance).

Patriarch of Constantinople
01-04-2007, 02:47
Yes, it really matters. Put your general in constant dangers, BAM, they're all dead. However, keep them safe and use them in know-you-are-winning battles. Heres my top general:

https://img407.imageshack.us/img407/8522/scouttrooperur4.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

With a full stack at the Danish border.

Patriarch of Constantinople
01-04-2007, 02:56
I really do like the whole Feudalism idea, I just want to see if it can be acted out in MTW2. I think France and the HRE are the best to try and show this.

Lucjan
01-04-2007, 15:47
9 Living generals in the family tree mind you. Don't forget there are non-royal generals in M2, I would place the real number of living generals by turn 50 (according my own run through the hre) at 10-12.

Mind you though this all depends on how we play it. On turn 70 in my spanish campaign I have a general for every town (all of iberia, four towns in afrika, and toulouse) and 3 free roaming generals. So 16 in all, not to mention I've lost 2 kings already to natural deaths and 3 generals to battles.

So within a 70 turn time frame I've had 21 general avatars, and I play very, very picky with my avatars. So this number, for a less scrutinous player, could have been much higher.

econ21
01-04-2007, 19:07
Thanks, Lucjan, 16 generals sounds fine for a WotS type campaign.

Can you or anyone explain this non-Royal vs Royal distinction to me a little bit more? How do you get non-Royals? It might be important for me to understand this when starting a new PBM.

Lucjan
01-04-2007, 20:25
Royal generals are either born into the royal family or marry into the royal family by marrying a royal princess.

Non-royal generals are captains who have proven their worth and are appointed as "man of the hour" to general status or who have for whatever reason proven to be of significant worth to a royal family member and have been proposed as a candidate for adoption (adoptees are non-royal because of a lack of a real blood tie to the royal line). Non-royals can become part of the royal family by marrying a royal princess. But IIRC, non-royals cannot marry or have children unless they become part of the royal family.

econ21
01-04-2007, 21:02
OK, thanks, so I guess the main role-playing distinction for the PBM would be that non-royals shouldn't inherit their father's estate(s) and can't found dynasties. Sort of like the non-hereditary members of the House of Lords we have in the UK today.

Patriarch of Constantinople
01-05-2007, 01:41
I would like to suggest something.

A duke/count/whatever can decide to make a "man of the hour" general his heir. Thus this heir will inherit his "fathers" land when the "father" dies.

Wizzie
01-05-2007, 03:48
Royal generals are either born into the royal family or marry into the royal family by marrying a royal princess.

Non-royal generals are captains who have proven their worth and are appointed as "man of the hour" to general status or who have for whatever reason proven to be of significant worth to a royal family member and have been proposed as a candidate for adoption (adoptees are non-royal because of a lack of a real blood tie to the royal line). Non-royals can become part of the royal family by marrying a royal princess. But IIRC, non-royals cannot marry or have children unless they become part of the royal family.

You're a bit off the mark concerning adoptees. Adoptees are placed in the family tree as a "child" of their sponsor. This can lead to some annoying consequences in-game, where you accept a candidate for adoption, only to find your heir has adopted him and he is in direct line for the throne (despite not being of the family). Or, in another case, your heir adopts him but already has a young son (not come of age). In this case, the adoptees avatar goes in place of the second son. But in the case that the current King dies, and the heir (i.e. the one that sponsored the adoption) becomes King before his natural son has come-of-age, the adoptee will become the heir to the throne. And since it is no longer possible to choose heirs in M2, you are stuck with him.

The only way I can see getting around it is the reject any offers for adoption, but that may be slightly draconian.

Also, the same is true of men-of-the-hour. They too are automatically added to your family tree under their sponsor, and can marry and procreate. In fact, the only avatars I have seen in M2TW where they are not in the actual family tree have been the free generals you start with in the campaign.

[Major Edit] Actually, upon rereading your post, I thought maybe when you said "Royal family" you meant the branch of the family tree containing the King and the heir? Rather than the entire family tree?

But in any case, an adoptee will still be a part of this "Royal Branch" as far as the game is concerned if he is adopted by the heir to the throne. And Medieval " has a slightly warped way of choosing heirs...

econ21
01-05-2007, 11:48
OK, I'm starting to dimly understand this. I don't mind too much about the Royal vs non-Royal distinction, nor the possible oddities Wizzie mentions. We can just live with them and role-play any surprise they engender. I think Lucjan was talking about the family tree in general, not just those under the King's line.

What I am more concerned about are "dead-end" generals who never appear on the family tree at all. Wizzie says they are not the adoptees, nor the men of the hour, but the "free" generals you get at the beginning.

Can anyone explain this to me - who are the "free generals"? Are they the offers you get for garrison commanders when you have a lot of settlements relative to generals? Lucjan suggests he has around 3 or so of those 50 turns in. They might just be a little disappointing to have as an avatar, as they don't get to procreate. (Although this also raises interesting roleplay possibilities - these are the men forever doomed to be of too low status to be accepted into nobility.)

Lucjan
01-05-2007, 15:05
Ok, revision to what I said as I didn't quite explain myself clearly and did, indeed, make a mistake. Here's a more in depth explanation of what I meant.

1 - Royals
Have the "Royal Ties" trait, are part of the royal family, exist in the entire family tree. Can inherit the throne. Can marry and have children, who all receive Royal Ties trait.

2 - Non Royals
Do not have the "Royal Ties" trait, are NOT part of the royal family. DO exist in the entire family tree. To my knowledge can not inherit the throne as they have no Royal Ties. Definately included Men-of-the-Hour and Garrison Commanders. To my knowledge, also includes Adoptees, unless those adoptees marry a princess to acquire the Royal Ties trait. All can apparently marry and have children regardless of whether they have the Royal Ties trait or not (guess I just never noticed this).

Ituralde
01-05-2007, 15:35
Not that I posses very deep knowledge of Medieval 2: Total War but having played some games I think I may be able to help here:

@econ21

Those 'free' generals are only available at the beginning of a game. I recently started playing with Hungary and they have a fellow named Istvan as their starting general. As long as the general is not offered for adoption he will eventually die and that will be it. As far as I know there is now way of getting them later in the game. All other generals gained by birth, adoption or Man of Honour will be incorporated in your family tree.

@Lucjan

My play experiences contradict your statements, I'm afraid. There really is no distinction between a royal blood line and a non-royal blood line. Every male member of your family tree as a whole is an eligible heir and can become king at some point, be he adopted or born to the family.
For a special variant refer to this thread of mine about my French succession:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75035

To my knowledge the Royal Ties trait is given to generals when they marry princesses. For example my Hungarian heir just gained the Royal Ties trait through marrying a Polish princess. Don't ask me about the logic behind that. He's even more loyal to me now.

Because of anomalies like that I think one should play with a slightly modified version of M2:TW as there is a certain limit to role-playing inconsistencies. A modified AI and a modified VnV file is a must!


I just started a new game as HRE to confirm my assertions and neither Prince Henry nor Leopold the sons of Emperor Heinrich have a Royal Ties trait or any other indication of being royal besides the fact that they appear in the family tree. The 3 'free' generals for the HRE are Otto von Kassel, Maximilian Mandorf and Dietrich von Saxony. Once they're dead you won't have any more 'free' generals.

Cheers!

Ituralde

econ21
01-05-2007, 15:53
Thanks for the advice, Ituralde.


The 3 'free' generals for the HRE are Otto von Kassel, Maximilian Mandorf and Dietrich von Saxony. Once they're dead you won't have any more 'free' generals.

So most of the starting generals can't found dynasties? That's a bit awkward, as they would be the natural Dukes - I was even thinking that all new settlements must go to them and then to "bonded" counts. Maybe it is moddable?


A modified AI and a modified VnV file is a must!

Any recommendations? I've heard about VnV fixes - what are you thinking of in terms of the AI?

This brings up a general point - what, if any, mods should we use?

I'm inclined to think:
(a) fix VnVs
(b) fix 2 handed weapons (& if I am doing that, I'd be inclined to give spears some kind of boost too)
(c) give last chancers 2 HP

Anything else?

I'm not inclined to change the turns to years ratio, although I realise I may be in a minority here.

Lucjan
01-05-2007, 15:56
They can form dynasties, you just need to marry them to a princess, and then they show up in the family tree.

Ituralde
01-05-2007, 16:44
They can also be adopted, especially if you fight a lot with them. The French start with three 'free' generals also and I managed to adopt two of them without trying very hard or marrying my princess to them.

Regarding the mods I'm all for them, but I haven't really tested any of them for myself. Maybe another one can share some experiences on that field.
Personally I would go for a 1 year per turn time scale similar to M:TW mixed with a mod that makes characters also age 1 year per turn. Don't know what other people think about it but the separate timescales in vanilla M2:TW really mess up role-playing for me.
I've seen a mini-mod that adjusts the game for a 1year per turn timescale adjusting population growth and build times, but as before I haven't tested it myself yet.

Cheers!

Ituralde

Lucjan
01-06-2007, 13:40
Using any mod at all prompts me to request, nay, suggest, well, no, more like demand that the following be done.

Working Links to all necessary mods be maintained in the library thread (if someone could be as kind as to keep one like TinCow did for wots) or the main post of every deliberations thread and be for a file sharing site other than rapidshare, as those of us without rapid share accounts or the willingness to pay for one were forced to wait multiple hours to download sections to a mod that we ended up having a very difficult time unzipping in the case of the wots.

My personal suggestion would be megaupload.com.

econ21
01-06-2007, 13:44
Good point about mods. Let's move all discussion over to the new OOC thread:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76931