I know it is last minute, but I think we need to add something to the rules to make our concept of who leads an army match the computers. Specifically, in 1 (c), we have:
A player whose avatar leads an army that is involved in a battle will be expected to fight that battle.
The problem is that the computer will assign army leadership to general with the highest command stars (let's call him player A), not the one who IC is the leader (typically the most senior feudal rank - player B). Consequently, player B will fight a battle, but player A will get any resulting traits. This just seems wrong - player B should get any traits from the victory. Furthermore, a dreadful/chivalrous player B may lower/raise player A's chivalry when deciding what to do with the prisoners/captured settlement etc. Again, this is topsy-turvey.
In the KotR rules, we let the computer's choice of the general be the one to fight the battle (ie player A). But later on we altered that to allow household armies be led by their politically designated leaders (player B). However, that did not cause much of an issue, as by the time we had household armies, our avatars were spread across many settlements and typically the politically more senior general also had a ton of command stars (so the player B was also the player A).
But with KotF, we are starting with many recruitable generals in a few settlements and the equivalent of five household armies, so we can expect a number of RBGs to be stacked in a given army. Furthermore, some of the politically more senior generals (the non-royal Dukes) have pretty mediocre command stats. IIRC, they typically have one star whereas a number of the RBGs have four stars. I'm also thinking of a possible Order of the Fleurs Lys stack in the future, where the general would be the one elected Captain for that term rather than the one with the highest command.
If we leave the rules as they are - with the IC leadership and the computer leadership mismatched - we may well get some undesirable player interactions whereby Dukes prefer to fight alone or kick high command subordinates from battles.
What I propose is that we use the console to make the computer's choice for who leads the army the same as ours. That is to say, we give the army stack leader (player B) sufficient traits to have more command stars than his subordinates. So I propose we add in to 1(b)
The GM will use the console to give the avatar leading the army more command stars than any other avatar in the stack. Any bonus traits given this way will be withdrawn as soon as they are unnecessary.
The way I suggest we do this is through the NaturalMilitarySkill trait, as this should be able to give most commanders up to 4 more stars, which should be enough. I suggest this trait rather than any other, as it seems to be largely triggered on birth, adoption, marriage and coming of age rather than through battle events. If we use some of the traits with battle-related triggers, we may have a problem messing up any post-battle traits awarded (e.g. making someone a great general pushes up the threshold for them to get another command star).
I realise doing this gives us a bit of an edge of the AI, but I understand that - outside of autocalc - command stars only affect morale in the locality of the general. They do not raise attack and defense stats like in some earlier TW games (e.g. MTW). Honestly, I don't think we need worry too much about the morale of our men near our generals - if we lose, typically it will be because we messed up and/or are grossly outmatched rather than because our troops' morale wavered at a critical point. I am much more worried about the implications of a player A vs player B mismatch than a small edge over the AI.
If we implement this change, then over time, console usage should be less important. The Dukes will quickly gain command stars and overtake the RBGs without requiring extra traits from the GM. The natural military strategy trait can then be clawed back using the console. But unless we initially rig it so that they are treated as the commanding general by the computer, the Dukes will not be able to pick up command stars from battles involving more talented subordinates and will never take off as avatars despite their players having to fight all the battles.
An alternative workaround might be to make any players in a stack with a higher command than the leader enter as reinforcements (ie kick them from the stack but leave them adjacent). But given our willingness to use the console for stuff like getting rid of unwanted ancillaries, I think resorting to the console may be a neater fix. (Separating out some RBGs may only be possible in offensive battles - in defensive ones, we may be taken by surprise and unable to organise it.)
We could agree to stay with the status quo and resolve the player A/player B discrepancies in character - initially mediocre Dukes may decide to sideline talented commanders and keep them out of battles. That's historically not unprecedented. It's plausible that sometimes a talented subordinate might get the praise (traits) for a victory rather than their mediocre boss. However, on balance, I think a little console usage might be better than such role-playing contortions. Certainly, I can't see much of a rationale for the talented subordinate rather than the commander getting chivalry/dread from the commander's post battle acts.
Re: Successor game rules, draft one.
My thinking when I had made that rule was that it would be easiest to declare if you're refusing to hand over the province right away, since you have to stick around to keep it from defaulting to the king. Otherwise in the intervening turns something might take you away from that province, leaving the noble too far away to avoid the autodefault...
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Originally Posted by Tristan de Castelreng
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