OOC Thread and Chatroom 2

[GeneralHankerchief]

Personally I think it all kind of grew together in an organic manner. I'm sure GH and TC already had something in mind when poor Vissa came begging to the Patriarch, but he fit the bill to get it started IC. I was not aware, during the mission to Cairo phase, of what was being put together although I might've picked up a little clue here and there.

Since then, of course, I've grabbed the bit between my teeth and pulled as hard as I can. :juggle2:

:egypt:

I think at that point, I had just petitioned TC to make a Crusade the next event in the game and he had given approval. It didn't seem like it was going to be anything more than just a run-of-the-mill Crusade, and then Vissa came about.

At the time, I planted you in Cairo, not sure if anything was going to happen or not, but I just figured that it would be convenient to use you if I thought of anything. A couple of days later, the full plan formulated.

My general strategy for plotting is to gather up all of your possible resources and then make your plan based off what you have to work with.

[flyd]

I would say that people are impressed at how he is able to lead such a laid back and lazy lifestyle in times of such turmoil, which gets him more influence.

I haven't decided which political alliance to follow yet. No need to assume it will be the Royals, remember Fritz the disenfranchised von Kastilien brother? Not saying it'll go that way. It's a toss up at this point. :beam:

It will be nice to play a spoiled and lazy brat for a change, all of my previous characters were virtuous:

1. One of the greatest Roman generals. About 30 traits, each one mightier than the last. Immortal.
2. Super-holy crusader. Almost died in battle like 10 times, getting much in the way of bravery traits. Could only be defeated by gravity.
3. Showed up, obliterated an uber-stack, died of the plague. The plague was probably the flu, which tends to kill people with strong immune systems.
4. The best Megas Logothetes you'll ever see at this rate. Killed many Turks, died exceedingly gloriously.

...

5. The prince from Swamp Castle, but less gay and more "fertile" as the traits say. :laugh4:

[Privateerkev]

I'm still eagerly anticipating the first "the Mad" character in any of these games.

I think ATPG's character already fit that description...


4. The best Megas Logothetes you'll ever see at this rate.

~;p

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Tristan.. that was nice story :yes:
But I don't think that Efstathios will believe that before he get to the city himself :laugh4:

[Northnovas]

Iggy even when he will be the man in charge he has to rebel. :laugh:
Somehow this really has no shock value! :rolleyes2:

[woad&fangs]

O yes, Solomon and Laskaris in the same city. This is going to be great. :laugh4:

[Ibn-Khaldun]

O yes, Solomon and Laskaris in the same city. This is going to be great. :laugh4:

That's what I thought too :laugh4:

[Privateerkev]

Bah, I forgot to add something to the Megas report. (A lot is happening lately...)

I accepted Stavros's MotH request. Motep said if KP didn't get online in time to talk about it, to just accept it.

There is now an Order member in the family tree. Armageddon is nigh... :laugh4:

[ULC]

Can someone please put up a list or mugshots of the new RBG's for me before 5:00 EST? RL is making it hard on me right now.

Oh, and anyone has my complete permission now to use the Organization in what ever misfortune may befall them :bow:

[TinCow]

Can someone please put up a list or mugshots of the new RBG's for me? RL is making it hard on me right now.

I will do so when I get home in a few hours. That will not be before 5:00pm EST.

[ULC]

I will do so when I get home in a few hours. That will not be before 5:00pm EST.

Yeah, but I won't have internet access later then that, and maybe not for the next week coming. I really have to see what happens...

[Privateerkev]

There would be no need for me to break an oath as Michail never accepted mine, so you would have no reason to come after me.

Just a nitpick but oaths are considered accepted unless said otherwise. Accepting them is done IC for various ceremonial reasons.

[Ferret]

Shhhhhh PK, I was hoping no one would notice :clown:

[TinCow]

Yeah, but I won't have internet access later then that, and maybe not for the next week coming. I really have to see what happens...

You gave me a basic description of the type of avatar you wanted before. If you want, I could pick the avatar for you according to what best fits your description.

[Ferret]

I just sent him the mugshots :2thumbsup:

[ULC]

I choose Nikolaos Aristenos, and I'd like to start in Scopia (If he isn't there already).

Thanks EF :bow:

[Motep]

Ignoramus, you refuse to answer my mail. A simple "no" would suffice!

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I have a question TC..

How do you kill those avatars?! :laugh4:

I mean.. I tried to use the move_character cheat once to move a general to sea but the game didn't allowed that..
So.. How do you do it???!!!

[TinCow]

It's a game bug that is remarkably convenient. If you hit backspace while an army is walking, it will stop immediately. So, all you have to do is move them to one of the land crossings over an ocean square, such as between Italy and Sicily and (for our purposes) right outside of Constantinople. Just use character_reset to march them over the the area, then plot a course across the water. When the units are directly over the water, hit backspace. Poof, no more army.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

And that's it?!:inquisitive:

And I expected some dark magic be part of this! :laugh4:

By the way.. Is it possible to do that in RTW too?? Not in Vanilla but in a mod where there are land bridges..

[TinCow]

I don't know, I never tried. I didn't become a master of the console until M2TW.

If it doesn't work, there's another method. Teleport the avatar to an island and have them attack a hostile army. When they lose, they will be unable to retreat and they will die. If there isn't an island with a hostile army available to do the dirty dead, you can teleport a rebel stack to the spot, attack it, then teleport it back to its original position. If that doesn't work, there's always the old fashioned way. March the guy into battle with an army that has ranged units. Move the avatar into range of the archers, then have him turn around so that the arrows are hitting him from the rear. Then speed up the time.

Yes, I have used all of these methods at various points in time.

[TinCow]

Also, I retract what I said before about Isaakios getting a bonus stat influence for being "the Lazy." That trait only reduces movement and tax income. It does not reduce any stat points, so it doesn't qualify for the Pity Point™.

[Ramses II CP]

Heh, the drowning thing is a classic, and it's really easy to do once you get the hang of it. I love the fact that you can eliminate bad avatars so easily. I had to knock off quite a few in the TE AAR (Why do the French always get such bad kings?).

:egypt:

[Ituralde]

Woot! Things are speeding up and I fear Ignoramus has not chosen a good time to be away from the game! :2thumbsup:

And since PK mentioned the Mafia games. I don't know how it's now, but back in the days the percentage of forged PMs and reveals was how high exactly? :wink3:

[Northnovas]

Ignoramus, you refuse to answer my mail. A simple "no" would suffice!

You won't get an answer till Monday.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=2000087&postcount=703

[TinCow]

And since PK mentioned the Mafia games. I don't know how it's now, but back in the days the percentage of forged PMs and reveals was how high exactly? :wink3:

Fake a PM? What kind of an animal would do such a thing?!

[Motep]

Thispm has been unanswered several times since the elections were concluding.

:brood:

[Ramses II CP]

Igno's trouble with PMs is a running joke (The most frequently repeated statement in the Throne Room is probably 'Clear your inbox Igno!'). It isn't aimed at you Motep, it's just one of his foibles.

:egypt:

[Zim]

Happy belated birthday to TinCow! :beam:

Sorry I've been away. My wife and I have been housesitting and have had some internet problems.

[deguerra]

yay Will is back! :balloon2:

[Privateerkev]

Woot! Things are speeding up and I fear Ignoramus has not chosen a good time to be away from the game! :2thumbsup:

I didn't choose that timing but it works out great for me IC. This morning was when I got the PM and I immediately posted it. Perhaps people will learn that the time to do something controversial is not when your about to go away from the internet for a few days... :laugh4:


Fake a PM? What kind of an animal would do such a thing?!

:brood:


Thispm has been unanswered several times since the elections were concluding.

:brood:

As Ramses said, do not take it personally. Your lucky the PM reached his inbox at all. Because he has run mafia games, Ig actually has more PM space than most people in this game. Maybe more than anyone now that Andres is gone. But, for some reason, his box is perpetually full. Luckily he now has a profile we can spam until he clears some space. :beam:

[OverKnight]

Ah, I've always wanted to say "Guards! Seize him!" in a PBM.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I don't know, I never tried. I didn't become a master of the console until M2TW.

If it doesn't work, there's another method. Teleport the avatar to an island and have them attack a hostile army. When they lose, they will be unable to retreat and they will die. If there isn't an island with a hostile army available to do the dirty dead, you can teleport a rebel stack to the spot, attack it, then teleport it back to its original position. If that doesn't work, there's always the old fashioned way. March the guy into battle with an army that has ranged units. Move the avatar into range of the archers, then have him turn around so that the arrows are hitting him from the rear. Then speed up the time.

Yes, I have used all of these methods at various points in time.

Thanks! Very useful hints! :yes: :beam:

[pevergreen]

I think he would have 500, like myself. :grin2:

1000 for mods, or is it 2000. I cant remember. :laugh4:

[deguerra]

muhahahah. executive power for the world!:clown:

[AussieGiant]

Ah, I've always wanted to say "Guards! Seize him!" in a PBM.

I must say that was pretty satisfying to hear.

GH, well done on playing such an anoying character. :beam:

[Ferret]

Fake a PM? What kind of an animal would do such a thing?!

I echo PK: :brood:

I also urge all mafia players to read the green text in my sig :clown:

edit: come on, would you trust someone who looks like this:

https://img176.imageshack.us/img176/9749/0525081244kw8.jpg

[Ituralde]

I'v come across an issue and would like to ask the involved factions OOC to help me shed some light on the situation.

There used to be a fort on the border between Yerevan and Tblisi. Now it is gone. The only ones that were allowed to move the garrison which was Turkoman Horse were Kagemusha and I. Now I know that I didn't move them and checking the save that Kagemusha uploaded they were still there then.
In fact it was there at the end of 1125-14 and was gone in 1126. I couldn't find anything about it in the Megas reports either. So if either Kagemusha or Privateerkev have done something with the garrison, just let me know.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[TinCow]

I'v come across an issue and would like to ask the involved factions OOC to help me shed some light on the situation.

There used to be a fort on the border between Yerevan and Tblisi. Now it is gone. The only ones that were allowed to move the garrison which was Turkoman Horse were Kagemusha and I. Now I know that I didn't move them and checking the save that Kagemusha uploaded they were still there then.
In fact it was there at the end of 1125-14 and was gone in 1126. I couldn't find anything about it in the Megas reports either. So if either Kagemusha or Privateerkev have done something with the garrison, just let me know.

Cheers!

Ituralde

This looks like PK's work, but it also could very well be legal. This is in your SOT post:


Owned Fort:N/A

The last time the SOT was changed was 08-25-2008 at 03:10, which is 4 hours after PK took the save and likely made this change. Did you have instructions about that fort before you made that edit? If not, then it was a legal move.

[Ituralde]

It's not my fort, since it is in the Yerevan region it belongs to Kagemusha. I know what his SoT says, but I don't know whether he has had any arrangements with PK about it. Since it is mentioned nowhere in the Megas thread I just wanted to ask the partys involved before I start pointing any fingers.

[TinCow]

Ah, that's different then.

[Kagemusha]

And my SOT says clearly that the garrisons of my forts are not to be moved by anyone other then me or Ituralde. If Makedonias gets cought now of breaking the rules, things get very interesting.:smash:

[AussieGiant]

This is not the direction I was hoping this game was going in.

[Kagemusha]

Me neither. And im going to propose some legistlation about garrisons in the next senate session, so things would be bit more clear and this kind of things would not happen.

[Dafuge]

I can assure that everything Makedonios has done is legal and checked with TinCow to my knowledge.

[Ramses II CP]

It's not my fort, since it is in the Yerevan region it belongs to Kagemusha. I know what his SoT says, but I don't know whether he has had any arrangements with PK about it. Since it is mentioned nowhere in the Megas thread I just wanted to ask the partys involved before I start pointing any fingers.

Heh, interestingly enough you just referred to it as 'my fort' in the Megas thread. Obviously the SoT should have priority over casual comments, but Kag's SoT was updated on the 26th, which would've been well after PK's first run at the save. What did it say before?

:egypt:

[TinCow]

Assuming this was done by PK (I have learned my lesson and will wait for a response before reacting) there is no need for legislation. It will be dealt with OOC as a rule violation in the manner I indicated before. First time is a warning. Further occurrances result in penalties. Knowing PK, I have no doubt that he will happily rebuild your fort and restore you unit if it was in fact his error.

[Kagemusha]

My SOT was last edited when i private army was available to me. The fort commands were there well before the elections were over.

[Rowan]

So your fort commands have not changed?

[Kagemusha]

Not since they were first posted bit after Itu gave me Yerevan. Hopefully this is just honest mistake of PK.

[AussieGiant]

Her yee her yee I gavel in LotR Court session #45.

Item on the docket today:

"Fort issues in the Yerevan region."

The court would like to hear the defense and prosecution cases by 04:00 Friday the 28th.

Observing proceedings will the District A-G and various judges from the First Circuit.

Also in the stands will be numerous Queen's Council Lawyers from the United Kingdom and Australia.


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


TC. Please know I'm not having a go at you.

But we need to sort this out fairly soon. There is no way in hell I would be Megas because I'd simply vet everything through you...that's not the way it should be.

If I don't do that, I'm leaving myself open to a multitude of issues, either perceived or otherwise.

In this particular case, what is plausible to me is that an interpretation was made, actions taken and all this will occur via PM behind the scene's.

I'm pretty sure PK is not going to come out, admit error and correct the issue. If he does who is to say it was intentional or not.

I have no solution at the moment and my attitude is not going to contribute to solving this so I'll shut myself down and watch some more. :shame:

[Ramses II CP]

I think I see what PK saw, which is that the units inside Yerevan's fort can't be moved according to your SoT, but they can be disbanded. So I'm guessing he did that, and that caused the fort to go poof. Highly recommended that you add a line specifically preventing disbandment to your SoT. :yes:

:egypt:

[_Tristan_]

Knowing PK, the King of loopholes, I'm sure this is it...

[Rowan]

I think we are still at the rules shakedown period. People are looking at the rules, finding new inconsistencies and loopholes, poking at things and sometimes braking them. When the game goes on we build the interpretations and precedents and things will calm down. Hopefully.

[AussieGiant]

and at what point does this become "Last of the Lawyers"?

if people want to be anal about things when the "meaning" and intention is disregarded at will then it's certainly starting to be frustrating.

I'm sure the defence council is comfortable in making their case that: "Well you weren't specific enough in your wording sir."

At which point the answer could quite comfortably be; "Why don't you shove your 'wording' up your fundamental orifice! You knew what the idea was."

And so it goes ad-nauseam, ad-infinitum...the best bit is...in the real world the lawyers just keep on charging by the minute. It's a vicious cycle and that is what I'm worried about.

[AussieGiant]

I think we are still at the rules shakedown period. People are looking at the rules, finding new inconsistencies and loopholes, poking at things and sometimes braking them. When the game goes on we build the interpretations and precedents and things will calm down. Hopefully.


I disagree with you there Rowan.

I'm surrounded by lawyers at work...if I felt motivated enough I'm sure I could scan through the whole rule set and still drive trucks through it that would blow people's mind.

More importantly I could drive whole planets through "other" peoples attempt in their own non-legal way, to write wording that tries to take into account the wording that TC has created, so they achieve, what they "think" they want to have happen.

My point is...it's not about how well TC has written things, because that will be written very well. It's what other people interpret about those words and what they write themselves that I would literally attack.

[TinCow]

I think I see what PK saw, which is that the units inside Yerevan's fort can't be moved according to your SoT, but they can be disbanded. So I'm guessing he did that, and that caused the fort to go poof. Highly recommended that you add a line specifically preventing disbandment to your SoT. :yes:

:egypt:

OOOOHHHHH... PK actually specifically asked me to make a ruling about "move" and "disband" in SOT language. I didn't know what he was talking about, but this must have been it. Here is the discussion:



I have "evil Megas" questions.

If someone's SOT post says, "Do not remove units from this army/settlement/fort" but does not say "do not disband," can I disband the units?

If someone's SOT post says, "Do not disband units from this army/settlement/fort" but does not say "do not remove," can I move the unit out of the army/settlement/fort and then disband it?

If someone's SOT post says, "Do not remove or disband any units from this army/settlement/fort," is that "loop-hole proof?"

While I see where you are going with this, I think there are limits on how much we should exploit SOT language. Still, I'm a friend to chaos and encourage PvP, so there's a balance in everything.

If a post says "do not remove" I would say there's a very strong argument that it covers disbanding as well. The word remove means to change the location of, but it can also mean to eliminate altogether (i.e. remove a threat). For reference, see definition #4:



Main Entry:
1re·move Listen to the pronunciation of 1remove
Pronunciation:
\ri-ˈmüv\
Function:
verb
Inflected Form(s):
re·moved; re·mov·ing
Etymology:
Middle English remeven, removen, from Anglo-French remuver, removeir, from Latin removēre, from re- + movēre to move
Date:
14th century

transitive verb
1 a: to change the location, position, station, or residence of <remove soldiers to the front> b: to transfer (a legal proceeding) from one court to another
2: to move by lifting, pushing aside, or taking away or off <remove your hat>
3: to dismiss from office
4: to get rid of : eliminate <remove a tumor surgically>

So, I would say remove covers both movement and disbanding.

A post that specifically says only "do not disband" is different, though. Disband has a very specific connotation which is not broad enough to cover movement. However, a unit that starts a turn inside a settlement is under the control of the owner of that settlement. So, if you move the unit outside the city and then immediately disband it on the same turn, you're still disbanding a unit that was inside that city and that the person had control over. That said, "disband" still would allow you to move the unit out of the city... and once that unit starts a turn outside the city, it is no longer covered by that SOT post and you could do whatever you want with it, including disbanding. So, I think it would be perfectly fair for a "do not disband" order to move the units out of the city on one turn, then on the next turn just disband them (or keep them, if that's what you want to do).

If this fort situation is what PK was referring to in his question, then he did ask me about it and I gave him permission because he was able to find a perfectly reasonable (IMO) hole in the language used in the SOT post. I am open to having a discussion about how much the Megas can exploit language in the SOT post, but in this particular case I may have given PK specific permission to do what he did.

[Privateerkev]

I certainly did do it using the rules as I read them.


(4) The Megas Logothetes cannot disband a unit in a Private Army, Royal Army, city garrison, fort, or controlled fleet if the owner of the a Private Army, Royal Army, city garrison, fort, or controlled fleet gives orders which prevent such a disbanding. This Limitation does not apply to merging depleted units, which the Megas Logothetes may do freely.

Sorry, but to me, "do not move" does not mean "do not disband." I will accept "do not remove" as meaning "do not disband." Or "leave 2 units" when there are only 2.

"Do not move" means... do not move.

We're encouraged to find loopholes in the SOT.

The Megas has full disband powers unless he is specifically forbidden in the SOT. He can disband every single unit in the Empire in one turn if the SOT doesn't stop him. Therefore, it is the player's responsibility to protect their units from disbanding.

An airtight SOT post would be "Do not move or disband." If you want to be redundant, say "do not remove or disband."

So, as I see it, I didn't break an OOC rule. If I did, TC can let me know and I'll forever treat "do not move" as "do not disband." Though, I did talk to TC when I started my term and asked him his opinion on SOT language. So while the move in question was not done with his express permission, it was done with the aid of his advice. In fact, he's the one who told me to treat "do not remove" just like "do not disband" since removing something can be seen as getting rid of it. An example he used was "removing a tumor."

I await judgment. :bow:

*edit*

nevermind, TC just posted.

[TinCow]

Based on that, I can find nothing wrong with what PK did. If there is general consensus that the SOT posts need to be more strictly obeyed and not subjected to loopholing of language, that can be changed. Let's talk about this on a general scale though, not on an attack-PK level, since what he did was vetted by me first.

I have noticed that while the rules are making for a very interesting and enjoyable game, they can also be extremely onerous to implement. I am very eager to hear suggestions on how to improve the rules to make the game more user friendly.

[AussieGiant]

*ding ding*

So there you have it ladies and gents.

Court adjourned ruling will be posted shortly.

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

Please use a Dictionary's for any future queries on the meaning of words.

Please keep in mind the type of dictionary you use as the definitions of these words can vary.

If you are not using the same dictionary as someone else please ensure you PM each other to ratify the language or words used to give meaning to the words you wish to write.

That took me 7 minutes...I'll bill you all accordingly.

Someone let me know if I’m starting to become a pain in the arse.

*EDIT*

I say this because I'd be perfectly able to interpret things in a different way, clear it through TC and then have you all try and guess my "perfectly" reasonable definition of various words ina SOT and anywhere else for that matter.

There is NO one "right" way to define just about anything...the current "version" outlined by PK is HIS current version as vetted by TC. That is until I for example make my case, have it vetted and reach a slightly different definition.

As an example: Take any constitution written for any country and investigate the "different" interpretations of the same words over the course of time!! Sometime there is a pretty substantial impact, to say the least.

[Privateerkev]

Exploiting loopholes in the SOT is one of the powers a Megas has. So I am hesitant to get rid of it as long as there is an airtight way to set your SOT.

I am worried overall about decreasing the power of the Megas position. It is turning out to be a lot of work. And that will probably only increase when we get bigger. If the work increases, but the power decreases, you will have an increasingly hard time finding people to take the job.

[TinCow]

I very much apologize for making this such an absurdly complicated game. My only defense is that it's been my job to think like this for so long that it's almost impossible for me to do otherwise. I am very much open to suggestions on how to make this easier to play.

[Kagemusha]

Ding dong last of the lawyers here we go. Maybe as not native speaker of english language i now on need an interpretor and a lawyer to play this game. Maybe next in rules we also need the correct formulations for each and every command we give, so it cant be intentionally misinterpreted.:shame:

[Privateerkev]

In my opinion, it gets more complicated the higher up you go in rank. If you come in on the ground floor, your life is really quite simple. Go, talk to someone, kiss up, follow orders. Pretty basic.

The higher you rise up the ranks, the more rules you need to have clear in your head. And if your Megas, you quite simply have to have a near-perfect understanding of the rules or you will suffer IC consequences and possibly OOC ones.

If you weren't here TC, I'd be lost. But since you can tell us what you meant, it makes it easier.

So, yeah it is complicated but we're chewing through it. Once we all have a basic understanding of the rules, moments like this will become fewer and farther between.

[TinCow]

True, but if the extra responsibilities of higher rank start to make the game actively annoying or unpleasant, there's a real problem there. I grew concerned with the complexity under Igno's term and while you have so far done a sterling job of being Megas (IMO) it has also been very clear that it is a HUGE amount of work for you and very, very difficult to do properly. That isn't good for the game. If people are avoiding the position of Megas (or other ranks) simply because it's too complex or too much work, we should try to fix that.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Because of the 'moving' and 'disbanding' thing I updated my SOT like this..

Garrison: Not to be moved, removed or disbanded.

Now.. I think that this wording does make clear that the garrison can not be touched?

[Rowan]

Thanks PK for clearly wording what I was trying to say. Building a common basic understanding of the rules. Moments like this will become fewer and farther between. (Spent the last 20 minutes trying to answer to AG)

[Privateerkev]

One of the reasons the job of Megas is so much work, is because other players get power. They get private armies and their own settlements and so on.

But, this isn't a bad thing. It is good that players feel like they "own" something in the game. But it does cause the Megas a whole lot of work. Because every turn you have to put a magnifying glass on every single PA/RA (we're up to ten now...) just to make sure it is "up to code." Then you have to look at every person's SOT to check their build queues, tax levels, and garrison accessibility.

Throw in forts, edicts, and the 4392 "small favors" you get asked for every turn and it takes me hours to do my moves. Luckily I am no longer in school. My girlfriend and I actually plan our dates around our free move periods... :dizzy2:

So, the question becomes, how do we make things easier on the Megas and House Leaders, without taking away anything from the players?

*edit*

To IK: yes I would consider those orders to be "airtight." But there is a flip side, if you want the Megas to do things for you, it helps him out if you actually leave your orders open to him. If you have a friendly Megas, you might want to consider leaving the orders open. If you have an unfriendly Megas, close them.

[Kagemusha]

Well hopefully there will be situations where technicalities are not the main aspect of the game. Your character can be certain that this slight against Kantakouzinos and Komnenodoukai wont be forgotten.:yes:

[TinCow]

As a stopgap measure until a better solution can be found, I have added the following to the top SOT post:

The proper language for making sure the Megas Logothetes does not even think about touching your units is: "...not to be moved or disbanded."


So, the question becomes, how do we make things easier on the Megas and House Leaders, without taking away anything from the players?

I sympathize with this greatly and I definitely think it's a serious problem. I personally experienced it during the Catalysm. I had to spend so much time on the game that my wife called herself a Total War Widow and I had to promise her that I wouldn't undertake something with that much of a time commitment again. (You may be surprised to know that being GM of LotR is still far less work than running the Cataclysm.) It was interesting, but it completely exhausted me for a while and it does NOT make for a desirable job for most people.

I will try and think about ways to simplify the job without reducing the Megas' power or the freedom of the other ranks, but it may be difficult to do. Since I wrote these rules, I may be locked into a certain mindset about how to approach them and could be missing some possible solutions. Outside suggestions are very welcome.

[AussieGiant]

This is not a one way street.

I've got TC on record as saying that violations of the rules will be dealt with in a certain way, and it relates to the Megas and that position and the actions that position can take as a result of Igno's behaviour.

In PK's opinion, he has spent the time to check things and conduct actions based on the procedure put in place and the agreement obtained with TC.

I, as a player could do exactly that but from the reverse position.

Systematic scanning through the SOT in relation to any action at all taken by the Megas and then upon finding "inconsistencies" or potential issues, report them and see what happens. In fact this is not even just the SOT

Given TC's outline on the dim view about repeated failure to comply with the rules it could seem to be both an IC and OOC double charge with clear consequences in "both" worlds.

I could begin a very nice process of pinning anyone holding the Megas position to a series of "charges" based on disagreement on wording and their definition OR simple oversight.

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

TC, there is no reason to apologies.

I'm simply saying that if people wish to relate to these rules and this game in a certain way then you better believe that it can get pretty adversarial in my opinion.

If people need a "Gaming Advocate" just to have a chance of functioning then the approach is becoming inequitable.

-EDIT-

Therefore ANY definition of a word MUST be done in the open in order to give players the chance to react before any Megas or anyone with any postion of consequence uses the new found but UNDISCLOSED NEW meaning of the words to their advantage.

Like I said...if "hardball" is the way to go then fine, just let me know first so I can prepare for it. Because this is getting pertty "hardballish" in my view.

[Ferret]

:no:

Isn't disbanding technically moving it anyway? You are moving the soldiers back to their homes. I think that was just SOT abuse, it was obvious what he meant and creating a loophole because one dictionary says that the meaning of that word was not adequate is BS to me, Kag isn't even a native English speaker ffs, you can't expect him to look in every English (US and UK) dictionary just to make sure the word he used is adequate to make his garrison safe. IMO the word he used was fine, disbanding is moving those soldiers out of the fort so PK has disobeyed the SOT post and broken the rules if you ask me.

[Kagemusha]

Maybe there is a need for a new house, with political agenda something like: "Kill every nitpicking Megas immediately". Maybe then we can play more based on the spirit of the rules, rather then the letter of the rules.:smash:

[TinCow]

Again, PK asked me first and I game him permission. If you think my decision was wrong, that is perfectly fine and we can discuss that, but under no circumstances did PK violate any rule in this situation. Please do not accuse him of that, as he was being very responsible by checking with me first. This is a problem with the game itself and possibly with me, but not PK.

[Privateerkev]

Systematic scanning through the SOT in relation to any action at all taken by the Megas and then upon finding "inconsistencies" or potential issues, report them and see what happens. In fact this is not even just the SOT

That's exactly what I did last term. It got to where I had a badly drawn map of the Empire on my desk and little numbers that marked exactly what units were where. I would use this to find problems with recruiting. It's how I found at least one case of "rule breaking."

One consequence of the rules being so complicated is that it is absurdly easy for the Megas to slip up. I'd actually be shocked if I haven't broken the "rules" already. I don't think I have. And I certainly haven't on purpose. But some things are fuzzy and you make a call and you are not sure what side of the line it's going to come down on.

So, if your willing to go through the work, you can find a bunch of nitpicking stuff to pin on any Megas. The question then becomes whether you present it IC, OOC, or both. And I guess that depends on the situation. I took some IC hits for bringing stuff up IC that I probably should have left OOC. But, if we weren't going to impose OOC consequences, then I wanted to at least try to impose IC ones. I got my IC behind handed to me pretty hard on that one.

Not sure where I'm going with all of this...

[Ferret]

Again, PK asked me first and I game him permission. If you think my decision was wrong, that is perfectly fine and we can discuss that, but under no circumstances did PK violate any rule in this situation. Please do not accuse him of that, as he was being very responsible by checking with me first. This is a problem with the game itself and possibly with me, but not PK.

Well in future can we have a rule that means the Megas actually has to follow the SOT? That would be nice. Nitpicking all the time just takes the fun out of the game :no:

[Ramses II CP]

Well hopefully there will be situations where technicalities are not the main aspect of the game. Your character can be certain that this slight against Kantakouzinos and Komnenodoukai wont be forgotten.:yes:

Kag you realize that your Lord, Igno, did this a minimum of three times to the Order without so much as running it by TC first during his Megas term? Your room for complaint is, well, none. Before Igno, during the first two Megas terms, there were no such issues, so go thank your boss for kicking it all off and getting your SoT abused.

:egypt:

[Kagemusha]

Again, PK asked me first and I game him permission. If you think my decision was wrong, that is perfectly fine and we can discuss that, but under no circumstances did PK violate any rule in this situation. Please do not accuse him of that, as he was being very responsible by checking with me first. This is a problem with the game itself and possibly with me, but not PK.

Well im only accusing him off nitpicking and if that is not nitpicking, i dont know what is. Also isnt Elite Ferrets opinion a valid one if we want to nitpick? Disbanding units is moving units, since they are not killed inside the fortress, but they have to leave in order to disband. Personally if nitpicking will be the focus of the game, it will make it lot less fun for me. But thats just my personal opinion.

[Kagemusha]

Kag you realize that your Lord, Igno, did this a minimum of three times to the Order without so much as running it by TC first during his Megas term? Your room for complaint is, well, none. Before Igno, during the first two Megas terms, there were no such issues, so go thank your boss for kicking it all off and getting your SoT abused.

:egypt:

I am here complaining as myself, not as Ioannis Kantakouzinos you do realize. If it would be IC complaint id do it at Magnaura. Dont mix these two sides of the game. But now i will stop and think the matter as concluded. What PK did hardly hurted my Character at all, but nitpicking words gets on my nerves. I will not comment this thing further.

[Privateerkev]

Well in future can we have a rule that means the Megas actually has to follow the SOT? That would be nice. Nitpicking all the time just takes the fun out of the game :no:

:brood:

Ok, I am going to try very hard to not get angry...

Do you have any idea how many hours a day I spend reading the SOT? I print out all of your SOTs. I mark them up with updates. I flip through them constantly during my turn. I even go through and double check just to make sure I didn't screw something up. It takes me hours to do my turn mainly because I have to keep flipping through these printouts I have and doublechecking their info to what I have done in the game.

This part of the job is very hard. Because I have to simutaneously follow the SOT while I am actively encouraged by the rules and TinCow to find loopholes in the SOT.

There is a way to make your SOT "loophole" proof. If you fail to do so, it is your fault.

So, you can complain IC about how I'm doing as Megas. But never again do I want to hear OOC that I am not following the SOT... :no:

[Ramses II CP]

Well im only accusing him off nitpicking and if that is not nitpicking, i dont know what is. Also isnt Elite Ferrets opinion a valid one if we want to nitpick? Disbanding units is moving units, since they are not killed inside the fortress, but they have to leave in order to disband. Personally if nitpicking will be the focus of the game, it will make it lot less fun for me. But thats just my personal opinion.

Once again, PK isn't the one to start this. The Order spent all the years of Igno's reign defending itself from his nitpicking, and he wasn't nice enough to ask TC first when he decided to do something. TC ruled. He ruled before PK acted, he's ruled since PK acted, and everything PK did was fair and checked out beforehand.

You can't be the one to start this stuff, totally ignore it because it isn't hurting you at that moment, and then complain endlessly when it goes against you.

:egypt:

Edit: Posted after Kag's last comment, so consider it retracted please. I'll refrain from further comments on this situation as well.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

To IK: yes I would consider those orders to be "airtight." But there is a flip side, if you want the Megas to do things for you, it helps him out if you actually leave your orders open to him. If you have a friendly Megas, you might want to consider leaving the orders open. If you have an unfriendly Megas, close them.

Since I am just the governor of the Asteri settlements then I can not make my SOT post more open. These are not my settlements after all. But I did added this to my post:


Since I have been given powers over the settlements and their garrisons then if the Megas want to move or disband some garrison units then he can just send me word. I will help friendly Megas in any way that is possible.

:2thumbsup:

[TinCow]

Ok, I have had a thought about how to improve this situation. We could simply transform the Megas into a budget management position. This is what would happen:

The Megas is reduced to controlling all monetary expenditures in the game. Because of this, he is still responsible for construction (prioritized or otherwise) and recruitment (PA, RA, or otherwise). However, he has no movement control over anything other than his own forces and he cannot disband anything. If recruiting for PAs or RAs is needed, he simply recruits them in a settlement owned by the person with the PA/RA. It is up to the person who owns the army to go and pick them up or have them delivered.

Advantages:
1) Vastly simpler. The Megas just has to check the build queues, prioritized buildings, and whether the PAs/RAs are up to their proper level. Beyond that, he just spends money where he wants and doesn't need to think about anything else.
2) Still allows the Megas great power. He supports his allies by simply directing a larger amount of the money towards them.
3) Prevents the Megas from exploiting PAs/RAs/garrisons, etc. as moving or disbanding them is entirely beyond his control.
4) Gives ultimate freedom to people to command whatever armies they can get their grubby hands on. Since the Megas can't move or disband your units, you can grab anything in your garrison and march to France and back without worrying about what will happen to you.

Disadvantages:
1) Reduces the importance of PAs/RAs. If anyone can walk around with garrison units without them being confiscated, armies are no longer the domain of the elite alone. (Perhaps this is partially a good thing? Makes high rank more reliant upon politicking.)
2) Doesn't provide any system for the movement of Captain led armies or the fleets. Maybe fleets are commanded by the first avatar that boards them, and by the Megas if no one is aboard? Captain led stacks are completely forbidden (gives Strators something to do, ferrying units from important castles to the front lines).
3) Reduces the power of the Megas. He is no longer controlling the entire Empire, he just pumps up his friends and starves his enemies.

[Kagemusha]

Once again, PK isn't the one to start this. The Order spent all the years of Igno's reign defending itself from his nitpicking, and he wasn't nice enough to ask TC first when he decided to do something. TC ruled. He ruled before PK acted, he's ruled since PK acted, and everything PK did was fair and checked out beforehand.

You can't be the one to start this stuff, totally ignore it because it isn't hurting you at that moment, and then complain endlessly when it goes against you.

:egypt:

Like i said before, for my part the issue is concluded, but lets not go into debates about who started and what.I think we are bit more mature then that. Hopefully we will have more Megas like Flyd and Overknight and i will take that path if i ever will be one.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

:brood:

Ok, I am going to try very hard to not get angry...

Do you have any idea how many hours a day I spend reading the SOT? I print out all of your SOTs. I mark them up with updates. I flip through them constantly during my turn. I even go through and double check just to make sure I didn't screw something up. It takes me hours to do my turn mainly because I have to keep flipping through these printouts I have and doublechecking their info to what I have done in the game.

This part of the job is very hard. Because I have to simutaneously follow the SOT while I am actively encouraged by the rules and TinCow to find loopholes in the SOT.

There is a way to make your SOT "loophole" proof. If you fail to do so, it is your fault.

So, you can complain IC about how I'm doing as Megas. But never again do I want to hear OOC that I am not following the SOT... :no:

Perhaps we should add to the rules that SOT changes 1-2 hours before the Megas takes the save will not be valid until the next turn.

Things will be easier for the Megas then. The minimum turn length is 24 hours I think so.. there is plenty of time to make your changes..

[AussieGiant]

To anyone reading please note PK and I have more than enough 'clashes' to be able to call a time out via PM if things are getting out of hand. :balloon2:

TC, we did this a few times in the last game and if anyone wants me to back off then just say so. You've done a hell of a job getting this game up and running but it's reached a point where the important thing now is how players behave rather than any further clarification of legislation or words.

Right now I'm in "attack" mode because I've seen enough to allocate part of my "work" brain to this game and what I am perceiving as inequality due to certain characteristics.

Those characteristics need to be clearly addressed in my view.

If discussion of word definition is undisclosed I'm pretty sure I can crush a whole bunch of stuff systematically.

Sure I can check it with TC, hell he's a lawyer and I can present cases and advisories until my eye's bleed. Once I get his permission then boom, you poor guy's are toast. Half my job is to manage regulations and their relation to the real world and what lawyers decide in "unreal world" courts.

If that is what this is about then I don't know.

As PK just said...I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I've seen enough legalised arguments in this game so far to simply want to blow up various assumption and shake things up. I've seen a few entities start to get comfortable with how things are being handled and how things can be "manipulated" or "managed" to their liking and I can't say I like it.

Playing power politics which in the context of this game is very much like meta gaming them I'm not an advocate for that.

I'll fight the opposite under dog position just to pull it all down to a more equal footing.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

TC.. in the WotB rules I made we have the Basileus as the person who controls all those Captain led armies and navies and the Chancellor is the one who recruit/build things..
Did you had something similar in mind?

[Ramses II CP]

If we remove the power of the Megas to disband units then we're one step closer to the total economic freeze-out that, IMHO, is going to be one of the first stages of the Civil War. That being said, I think that's already going to happen with garrison dumping during the 'cold war' before an actual outbreak of war, so it may not be a big deal.

Two other concerns; Won't this lead to a potentially dramatic accumulation of power under a friendly Megas? PK has 8 turns left on his Megas period, so let's say he constructs the bare minimum of buildings and spends every other florin beefing up Order armies... which the next Megas can do nothing about. He can paralyze the economy with massive upkeep and then declare war even with an unfriendly Megas and maintain an advantage. Just to give you some idea, I've had games where I built up tens of thousands of florins in debt due to upkeep costs. I don't think the next Megas could get out of it.

Also of concern is the RA/PA system where units under captains are being sent to their RA/PA. Given that those units can be recruited anywhere any avatar along their path can then just ride out and take them anywhere, even to battle against the RA/PA they were on the way to join. Seems like this would provide a complete path around the RA/PA requirements if heavily abused.

Perhaps a balance could be to split the power of disbandment? Make it so that the Megas alone can implement it, but the Emperor alone can order it? I suppose that makes a Megas/Emp combo more powerful, but it forces compromise in every other situation.

:egypt:

[Privateerkev]

Like i said before, for my part the issue is concluded, but lets not go into debates about who started and what.I think we are bit more mature then that. Hopefully we will have more Megas like Flyd and Overknight and i will take that path if i ever will be one.

You do know that those two broke Rules and Edicts left and right don't you?

It was never brought up IC because people didn't want to rock the boat. And things they did were relatively minor compared to what Ig did so nothing was said OOC.

Ig's term opened up the loophole floodgates to absurd proportions. He flagrently sought out every loophole he could find to devastate the Order so he could later kill all of our avatars and take our land.

Sorry, but when you take the game to that level, you can't complain when it's done back to you. You, and all of the players in his House were cheering Ig on both IC and OOC the whole time. Ig either broke, or came very close to breaking, no less than three "Rules" during his term and while he suffered politically, not one single IC or OOC sanction was ever imposed on him.

If we're going to sit here and gripe OOC about loopholes, then we should at least be consistent. Some of you seemed just fine with loopholes as long as it benefitted your own avatars. What I am doing to the Caesar's House is mild compared to what we suffered under during Ig's illegal term.

It took pretty much a whole term to get our proper legal armies because Ig sat and exploited every single spending loophole he could find. And in doing so, he broke the rules of the game. That delay put our avatars at risk since we had to fight with less forces than we legally should have had. During that time, the Caesar's House benefitted quite well from Ig's illegal actions.

So I hope you excuse me if I have zero sympathy for people who complain that I disbanded a few units that were not legally protected in the owner's SOT.

[AussieGiant]

My one thought right now is...

what was 'IT', in the last game that had us focusing on IC relations and playing rather than what is being discussed here? :inquisitive:

[TinCow]

what was 'IT', in the last game that had us focusing no IC relations and playing rather than what is being discussed here? :inquisitive:

I think the stakes are ramped up when PvP is introduced. People get a lot more wary about the rules when their enemies can kill them and take their land instead of just beating them down in the Diet.

[Privateerkev]

I think the stakes are ramped up when PvP is introduced. People get a lot more wary about the rules when their enemies can kill them and take their land instead of just beating them down in the Diet.

Exactly.

And now that I know my avatar's death is being plotted, things have become more "dire." If I'm going to lose my avatar, it better not be because someone broke the rules... :brood:

[Kagemusha]

You do know that those two broke Rules and Edicts left and right don't you?

It was never brought up IC because people didn't want to rock the boat. And things they did were relatively minor compared to what Ig did so nothing was said OOC.

Ig's term opened up the loophole floodgates to absurd proportions. He flagrently sought out every loophole he could find to devastate the Order so he could later kill all of our avatars and take our land.

Sorry, but when you take the game to that level, you can't complain when it's done back to you. You, and all of the players in his House were cheering Ig on both IC and OOC the whole time. Ig either broke, or came very close to breaking, no less than three "Rules" during his term and while he suffered politically, not one single IC or OOC sanction was ever imposed on him.

If we're going to sit here and gripe OOC about loopholes, then we should at least be consistent. Some of you seemed just fine with loopholes as long as it benefitted your own avatars. What I am doing to the Caesar's House is mild compared to what we suffered under during Ig's illegal term.

It took pretty much a whole term to get our proper legal armies because Ig sat and exploited every single spending loophole he could find. And in doing so, he broke the rules of the game. That delay put our avatars at risk since we had to fight with less forces than we legally should have had. During that time, the Caesar's House benefitted quite well from Ig's illegal actions.

So I hope you excuse me if I have zero sympathy for people who complain that I disbanded a few units that were not legally protected in the owner's SOT.

Show one point where i cheered Igno for braking the rules OOC. I am roleplaying here. Dont confuse my character with real me. I will not start commenting about anyones leadership or other qualities, when the players are role playing.

And to be honest if Flyd and Overknight broke the rules, then at least it didnt have any effect on my gaming experience. I am here to play a role playing game with historical setting. Not to be a part of some court of law about rules of a role playing game. The best solution for this would be that instead of finding ways to bend and twist the rules, megas should honour the spirit of the rules. But then again that is only my personal opinion.

[_Tristan_]

Frankly, from the start of this game (and before that in the test game), we saw that the wording of your SoT could have dire consequences on what could be done to your avatar or his forces...

And EF, neither am I a English native speaker but that doesn't prevent me from posting an SoT that is as "airtight" as possible...

This game is competitive... While it adds a lot, it also generates much more hard feelings than KotR did, where everybody "almost" worked together (barring some exceptions)...

This competition also requires from all parties to exploit all weaknesses, be they the result of bad placement in-game or wrongly worded SoT...

I fully support PK in his approach of the game as Megas... We as players have only our SoT to polish, while he (and any other Megas) has to go through lots of data so if we (the players) are not able to do our work, we have to stand corrected...

Please note that barring some player's forgetfulness, things like this shouldn't happen again... I'm sure most people will make their SoT as "airtight" as possible from now on...

If only for the sake of this, I think we should thank PK for pointing that out :2thumbsup:

Anyway jst my :2cents:

[Dafuge]

Yes, but you didn't exactly say that you didn't like what Ig was doing.

Edit: Intended at Kag.

[Privateerkev]

Show one point where i cheered Igno for braking the rules OOC. I am roleplaying here. Dont confuse my character with real me. I will not start commenting about anyones leadership or other qualities, when the players are role playing.

If you didn't cheer, I certainly didn't see you complain...


And to be honest if Flyd and Overknight broke the rules, then at least it didnt have any effect on my gaming experience. I am here to play a role playing game with historical setting. Not to be a part of some court of law about rules of a role playing game. The best solution for this would be that instead of finding ways to bend and twist the rules, megas should honour the spirit of the rules. But then again that is only my personal opinion.

That's the thing. All rule-breaking effects "someone's" gaming experience.

Ig's rule breaking now makes it more likely that he can kill my avatar. That does not make me happy...

But at least your gaming experience has not been effected...

[Ramses II CP]

Okay, since we're still commenting here, I'll address this one more time.

You hit the nail on the head just there Kag, it didn't have any effect on you before, but for the seven of us in the Order it was life or death for our avatars. And Igno didn't check things out with the GM beforehand, he just did it. Staying silent when that happens, repeatedly, is exactly the same thing as cheering it on. Especially since now, when PK did check it out and it's an incredibly minor effect that doesn't place your IC avatar in danger, and only slightly inconveniences you OOC, you're pitching a massive fit despite the fact that TC signed off on it.

You said above that we should avoid pointing fingers about who started what, well, let's also avoid only wanting the rules to benefit ourselves. If you don't care when someone else is abused you lose the right to cry when you get loopholed.

:egypt:

[Kagemusha]

Well if everyone is happy about the splendid and witty move of PK, then that must be the spirit of the game. I better consult someone who is far more talented at nitpicking in English and lawyering then me and leave my humble and simple self to handle things in the game.

[Privateerkev]

If you don't care when someone else is abused you lose the right to cry when you get loopholed.

"Don't loophole me bro!"

:laugh4:

PS: Loopholed has now just become my new favorite word. I just hope it doesn't mean anything like "cornholed." :clown:

[TinCow]

Thread is locked temporarily to effect a ceasefire. I am still a mod for this forum and will not permit this to degenerate into personal attacks. Perhaps in a few hours we can discuss the actual game itself again.

[TinCow]

Thread re-opened. Please keep the discussion productive.

[Privateerkev]

:creep:


Ok it's not very productive. But at least it's not destructive...

[flyd]

I don't think we should go with a wild reform of the Megas position, but it might be useful to reduce the reliance on the SOT thread. Most of the garrison orders are don't move/disband already, which makes them pretty redundant. Still, the Megas should be able to recruit. So, I propose:

Newly recruited units can be freely removed by the Megas on the turn after they are recruited. Otherwise, no units may be removed from any city/fort/legal army, without permission from the owner. Avatars may never be moved without permission.

This way, the Megas doesn't have to check the SOT just to recruit some units. He has to ask to remove units, but he has to ask for that these days too, as SOTs generally forbid it. There could be no more "seizing" of recruited units, but the Megas probably wouldn't recruit things in your towns if you were the type to seize things from him. The SOT becomes a build-queue thing, which is what it was in KotR.

[TinCow]

I got this PM from Ramses, with some interesting ideas.


More and more I like your suggested Megas change (Ties in with the no destruction of structures nicely), and I'd like to suggest some things that might help make it work.

First I think the RA/PA system may need a complete overhaul with this change. Since anyone can carry around any number of units it will be more important to assure the quality of units for a House than the quantity, and perhaps tie that to settlement owned in the House as well. Get rid of the idea of PAs entirely, and instead have 'House Armies' where each unit is designated to be owned by House XX and distributed to the members of the House by it's Lord. House Army XX under Dux XY must have a set number of XZ type units, selectable by Dux XY only from the units available to be trained in his House's settlements.

The HA then could be distributed any way he wanted among his vassals. This removes some of the importance of being a high vassal since you won't have your own PA, but it also allows us to dispense with any confusing multiple designations of who commands whose PA/RA. There may need to be some additions to the 'locality' of these powers, so that House Armies aren't tramping through other House's lands without permission.

Second I would suggest that power over fleets be given by title by the Emperor to a player of his choice. Perhaps make it so that the title can be revoked by the Emperor or a 2/3rds vote of the Senate; the Senate being able to reassign the title if they muster the votes to have it taken.

Thirdly I think captain led stacks are very hard to dispense with, but we could give their movement over to the man whose lands they are moving through. Thus the Megas might order that stack YY head from Constantinople to Antioch, but every man along the road in whose lands that army stops has to accede to that plan by actually doing the movement. If the army moves into another's lands during the movement that's fine, they are still under the orders of the person whose province they began in (Thus if the army can move through a province without stopping in one turn that man has no say).

All of these things tied together make Houses more like true Feudal structures, and limits the powers of the Megas to being an accountant, while also (Hopefully) simplifying his job.

I know it's still just a rough idea, but maybe there's something in it that could work. :2thumbsup:

:egypt:

[Ramses II CP]

To expand on the House Army idea, which is probably the more radical of the suggestions, my thought is like this:

1. The number of units in the HA is dependant on the highest rank in the house. That man can assign those troops to any vassal in any numbers (Consistent with the army restrictions in the rules of course) as he desires.

2. The types of units are dependant on what units can be trained in the provinces owned by that House. Thus the leader of the House could instruct the Megas that he requires the cavalry in his House Army to be composed of Kataphraktoi as long as that unit is available to be trained in one of his castles. If all he can train is peasants, all he gets are peasants. This makes the prioritization of construction more powerful, and it also reduces the number of variables the Megas has to deal with as training will almost always take place 'in house.' The only real choice the Megas gets is, in the event of insufficient funds, which Houses get troops and which don't.

In short the training of units becomes more like the building of structures, and House armies become more like provinces in terms of ownership. This does have the effect of weakening the 'upper middle' ranks of the chain because they no longer automatically get a PA, but it also removes the complication of juggling of PAs to other commanders within the House as now the House owns a certain number of units within their own lands as their HA, rather than a certain number of stacks and/or armies.

3. Captain led stacks passing between regions are, per TC's suggestions, not at the discretion of the Megas to move. Instead each Feudal Lord of each province they start a turn in must consent to order them to move on in the direction the Megas requests.

The other thing, having an Admiral or Captain of the Fleets assigned by title seems pretty reasonable to me. Logically the Emperor would assign that title, though I think it's reasonable to allow a 2/3rds or 3/4th majority of the Senate to overrule him.

Now, poke some holes in it! Personally I've been horribly dreading reaching a position where I'd feel obligated to run for Megas. Chancellor in KotR was bad enough, but Megas in LotR seems like a bloody nightmare. Maybe this can help simplify it a little...

edit: I forgot to mention that this could also be used to eliminate garrison dumping by forcing the House to draw their garrisons from their HA. The size of the HA might have to be larger than the current PA system to ensure sufficient troops, but it could still work.

:egypt:

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I like the first two ideas made by Ramses but not the third one.
What if the Captain led army have to stop on a land of player who will be gone for a week or so. What will happen then? Will that army stay there just there until the person comes back? And what if those are some very important reinforcements? And who can stop us wasting the movement points of that stack by simply moving them back and forth in our provinces?
I think that Megas should be able to move those Captain led armies himself and no one else.

[Kagemusha]

That idea would just make the houses top heavy.The idea behind feudalism is that the smaller lords can raise against their masters if they see it necessary.I dont see any problems assigning house armies to different players inside vassal chain. In matter of fact that is one of the ways to award and motivate vassals that does not have their own armies.
If you want to change the house armies towards more realistic direction. You should assign small forces to each land owning senator, with increasing size, more land they have themselves. So the large armies would be comprised of lots of smaller detachments, like the armies were in reality.

[_Tristan_]

Yes and I can already see a loophole in this captain-stack idea :

Say I'm the lord of province X and a captain-led stack starts in my lands. Then it is up to me to move it per the Megas' request but what is there to prevent me from moving them around my province, not setting one foot out...

I understand there may be some pressure applied by unaligned characters may remain deaf to entreaties...

[woad&fangs]

I assume that in the SOT thread people most people would have

All captain led armies have permission to pass through my land

and the provinces that don't have that would probably be avoided anyways.

edit: actually an order like this might be better

The megas has permission to move all captain-led stacks in my province except those in *city name*

[Ramses II CP]

TC's original idea was to remove the movement power from the default abilities of the Megas. If you want to let him move an army through your lands, then you can, but if you don't want him to do so you don't have to change your SoT every turn to deny him.

Tristan that's a feature, not a loophole. :beam: Remember the Megas is losing the ability to disband and move troops by default, so he has to secure the cooperation of landholders in order to transfer them long distances.

Regarding the top heavy structure, I absolutely agree, it's not ideal at all, but the way PAs are handled right now is generating a lot of trouble for the Megas and the players, and garrison dumping is going to become a huge problem as soon as someone thinks it's worthwhile to do it. I'm open to suggestions to correct it.

:egypt:

[TinCow]

Another option for Captain stacks:

Don't let the Megas move or disband any units in the entire game that are in an avatar led army or in a garrison. Then let the Megas be the only person who can move Captain stacks. This means that anything that says "Captain" on it (very easy to spot for the Megas) is his to do with as he wants, but he can't create them unless he creates them from his own avatar's army or garrisons. Essentially, if you move units out of your garrison or army without an escort, you're giving the units to the Megas. If he's friendly, he might do what you want. If he's hostile, he'll probably confiscate or disband them.

This would still require a rethink of the PAs/RAa because anyone with a province could tramp around with their garrison, but I'm growing fonder of that notion the more I think about it. I am almost inclined to abolish mandatory PAs/RAs altogether and simply make people rely on their settlements to get their military power. This would make the choice of which settlement you get far more important. Giving a vassal a fortress is going mean a hell of a lot more than giving them a small town. It would also increase peoples' connection to their provinces. If your province is poor and isn't being upgraded, you're going to be weak militarily, even if you are of high rank. If you own a massively upgraded citadel, you could be a one man mercenary army for hire, even if you're just an unaligned Comes. You won't be able to sway an election, but you can win a war.

[Privateerkev]

While the idea of being the Empire's official CPA doesn't exactly sound fun, I see the merits in the proposed ideas.

We basically have two choices.

Disempower players or empower players even more. I am very much against disempowering players.

So, how do empower players more in a way that still makes the ranks balanced and the game fun?

Getting the Megas out of the unit business might help. Someone has to control the purse in this game. And it shouldn't automatically be the Emperor because that takes away the best part of having an elected Megas. Which is the politicking.

If it was always the Emperor, that would be simple, but wouldn't help the game. So, the question becomes, what powers should a Megas have.

I see the point in giving players and Houses full control over all units in the game. It would certainly eliminate the problems were having. But it causes a whole set of new problems. For one, player activity. We keep having players drop out without warning. If we do this, we need safeguards in place so we don't have another TLG situation. Where an army is locked in his castle for years simply because the player dropped off the face of the .org.

Also, I said earlier that the fun/power of being Megas has to offest the work. With the ideas presented, we're lowering the work but were also lowering the fun/power. We might still have trouble finding people to be the Empire's official Comptroller.

I don't really have a solution. Despite some anxiety, I am having fun and working within the rules. But I can see how others would really not like this job as it currently is designed. I would be fine operating under the current rules for the rest of my term. If we want to overhaul the position, we could do it at the next Senate session.

(I just started getting the hang of these rules so please don't make me learn a whole new set of rules in the middle of my term... :laugh4:)

[Kagemusha]

I think we could get rid of garrison dumping with simple charter amendment i have been thinking to propose the next senate session. All we need to do is to name the maximum amount of garrison for each city size and the quality of it, for example only militia can be counted as city garrison. Of course the charter amendment then needs a clause about private armies in the cities and some other things, but if we can regulate garrisons by simple law, garrison dumping wont be a problem anymore.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

The vassal should be able to 'support' his liege by sending him some soldiers.
If a vassal have a castle but his Lord have just a town the the Lord can ask his vassal to send him better units than the ones he can recruit.

[TinCow]

FYI, for the coming Senate session, I will propose any CA submitted to me that is desgined to improve the mechanics of the game. If you think you've got a good idea that isn't embodied in someone else's suggestion, draft it up and send it to me. I'll make sure it gets voted on even if your rank doesn't let you propose CAs.

[GeneralHankerchief]

We need to keep a fine line between abiding by the general theme of this game (free-for-all) and still making it playable. After all: No Megas, no game. The day may very well come where this is the case, and that won't be a fun day.

I see the major Throne Room PBMs as kind of following the Total War aspect of games as in sets of twos: Revolution, then Evolution. WotS was the first Revolution, and KotR was its Evolution. Now, we're experimenting again with some seriously complicated rules in Revolution and, I think at this point, LotR is just becoming a massive test game for its successor once everything has been refined. Harsh, but true. We're in our fourth Megas term and still ironing out the kinks - not a good sign. I think that by the time we get things the way we want them to be, LotR will be finished.

Clearly, the most pressing step now is to figure out how to streamline the Megas role without making things unmanageable.

[Rowan]

I like Flyd's idea. At this point in the game the fewer radical chances we make the better. (Besides I've almost got my PA :yes:)

And if we require PA/RAs to be a single stack that helps a bit with the paperwork (or did we do that already?)

[Ramses II CP]

So basically we need a method to refine or revise the PA system so that both the players and the Megas can use it simply. RAs are a bit more complicated since the Emperor can't join a House, but shouldn't be left without any troops at all. Let me see if I can lay out the complications and some of the solutions semi-organized for discussion:

Garrisons. Right now because the Megas can move anything, garrisons have to be 'locked,' but the power to lock in concert with PAs creates the potential for garrison dumping.

1. If we remove the power of the Megas to disband or move troops inside a city or under an avatar then garrison dumping isn't necessary, but PAs are much, much less important. Captain led stacks in the open are still under his control.

2. If remove the power of the Megas to disband or move any troops anywhere garrison dumping is gone and PAs are really just a technicality. Captain led stacks in the open require further explanation and rules.

3. If we cap garrison size we have to build in overhead rules to determine what size is allowed at what time and what does or doesn't comprise a garrison, possibly adding complications when we want to remove them. PAs could remain as they are, preserving the middle ranks.

Private Armies. Currently tracking and refilling PAs is a major source of complication for the Megas, and a frequent source of contention for the players.

1. If we eliminate PAs for House Armies, as in my idea, the middle ranks once again potentially lose power in exchange for simplification of the system. Garrisons could be drawn from the HA to eliminate garrison dumping, and control of the quality of troops in the HA would depend on the quality of settlements in the House. Houses would be top heavy, but tracking the HA by total number of units should be simpler and recruitment would be 'in House,' which cuts down on potential abuses of the Megas' requirement to fill the HA.

2. What else can be done about PAs? Maybe a system that puts more emphasis on the rights of those middle ranks without denying the top ranks their due? Say:

Rank 1: No army except your BG
Rank 2: One unit army drawn from the type of units available at your owned settlement. Can be SoT'd to your Lord to form a larger army.
Rank 3: 2 units to be drawn from your owned settlements or the settlements of your vassals. Can be SoT'd to your Lord.
Rank 4: 4 units and ditto
Rank 5: 7 units and ditto

etc?

Since the Megas cannot move troops we could then make it the responsibility of the individual players to track their unit and, when units are merged, decide who it belongs or inform the Megas of the need to replace it? The Megas would still make the decision as to where the available funds were spent.

Simplifcation and loopholing preventing. What's the worst part of being the Megas? Checking the SoT every turn and before every decision? The worst part of being a player, in my experience, is having to wait around to see what bit of trickery the Megas has concocted to **** you. TC has cracked down on the latter, and I know PK has been checking his path before he treads it, but it may not always be that way.

1. Taking the power to move or disband troops should greatly simplify the Megas position IMHO. The Megas will still control agents, expenditures, (And possibly ships depending on the title idea's passage) and be the one to hit 'end turn,' etc. but armies and movement won't be a matter of figuring out loophole, but a matter of having a player's explicit permission.

2. I've decided I dislike my captain led stacks movement rule because it's complicated and requires potentially new permission every turn. There are some good alternatives, like letting the Megas move anything on land, out of a city, which starts with 'Captain.' This may significantly expand the power of the Megas, but he'll still have to be wary not to let those men wander into range to be siezed by an avatar.

That didn't seem to clear things up much for me while I was typing it, but... at least I tried? :laugh4:

:egypt:

[Privateerkev]

I prefer to see things move in baby steps. Big steps tend to come with big problems no one thought of. I propose three small changes:

1.) Garrisons/forts/armies are always "locked" as a default. The person doesn't even have to post a SOT. In case of player activity, these things can be unlocked by the head of that person's feudal chain. Or, if there is no head of chain, in 2 terms of no voting.

2.) Garrisons are capped at the settlement's free-upkeep level. This should prevent "garrison dumping."

3.) Only the first "insert fair number here" of units can be "locked" in a fort. This should minimize "fort dumping."

Leave the rest of the rules as is and see how these do first. If bigger changes are needed, make them then. I believe this would simplify the Megas job while helping to relieve the anxiety of the players.

[Dafuge]

I think even that would be quite a big step. Maybe just the first one next Senate session, then the next two after that ect ect.

[Rowan]

I prefer to see things move in baby steps. Big steps tend to come with big problems no one thought of. I propose three small changes:

1.) Garrisons/forts/armies are always "locked" as a default. The person doesn't even have to post a SOT. In case of player activity, these things can be unlocked by the head of that person's feudal chain. Or, if there is no head of chain, in 2 terms of no voting.

2.) Garrisons are capped at the settlement's free-upkeep level. This should prevent "garrison dumping."

3.) Only the first "insert fair number here" of units can be "locked" in a fort. This should minimize "fort dumping."

Leave the rest of the rules as is and see how these do first. If bigger changes are needed, make them then. I believe this would simplify the Megas job while helping to relieve the anxiety of the players.

Wouldn't 2. and 3. lead to SOT being littered with "Unit SuperX and DuperY are the garrison of Megatown" where Megas would still have to check SOT to determine which units belong to the garrison?

And what would locking an army mean in this context? Every strator walking around with huge armies?

Other than that, I like it.

[Cecil XIX]

So basically we need a method to refine or revise the PA system so that both the players and the Megas can use it simply. RAs are a bit more complicated since the Emperor can't join a House, but shouldn't be left without any troops at all. Let me see if I can lay out the complications and some of the solutions semi-organized for discussion:

Garrisons. Right now because the Megas can move anything, garrisons have to be 'locked,' but the power to lock in concert with PAs creates the potential for garrison dumping.

1. If we remove the power of the Megas to disband or move troops inside a city or under an avatar then garrison dumping isn't necessary, but PAs are much, much less important. Captain led stacks in the open are still under his control.

2. If remove the power of the Megas to disband or move any troops anywhere garrison dumping is gone and PAs are really just a technicality. Captain led stacks in the open require further explanation and rules.

3. If we cap garrison size we have to build in overhead rules to determine what size is allowed at what time and what does or doesn't comprise a garrison, possibly adding complications when we want to remove them. PAs could remain as they are, preserving the middle ranks.

Private Armies. Currently tracking and refilling PAs is a major source of complication for the Megas, and a frequent source of contention for the players.

1. If we eliminate PAs for House Armies, as in my idea, the middle ranks once again potentially lose power in exchange for simplification of the system. Garrisons could be drawn from the HA to eliminate garrison dumping, and control of the quality of troops in the HA would depend on the quality of settlements in the House. Houses would be top heavy, but tracking the HA by total number of units should be simpler and recruitment would be 'in House,' which cuts down on potential abuses of the Megas' requirement to fill the HA.

2. What else can be done about PAs? Maybe a system that puts more emphasis on the rights of those middle ranks without denying the top ranks their due? Say:

Rank 1: No army except your BG
Rank 2: One unit army drawn from the type of units available at your owned settlement. Can be SoT'd to your Lord to form a larger army.
Rank 3: 2 units to be drawn from your owned settlements or the settlements of your vassals. Can be SoT'd to your Lord.
Rank 4: 4 units and ditto
Rank 5: 7 units and ditto

etc?

Since the Megas cannot move troops we could then make it the responsibility of the individual players to track their unit and, when units are merged, decide who it belongs or inform the Megas of the need to replace it? The Megas would still make the decision as to where the available funds were spent.

Simplifcation and loopholing preventing. What's the worst part of being the Megas? Checking the SoT every turn and before every decision? The worst part of being a player, in my experience, is having to wait around to see what bit of trickery the Megas has concocted to **** you. TC has cracked down on the latter, and I know PK has been checking his path before he treads it, but it may not always be that way.

1. Taking the power to move or disband troops should greatly simplify the Megas position IMHO. The Megas will still control agents, expenditures, (And possibly ships depending on the title idea's passage) and be the one to hit 'end turn,' etc. but armies and movement won't be a matter of figuring out loophole, but a matter of having a player's explicit permission.

2. I've decided I dislike my captain led stacks movement rule because it's complicated and requires potentially new permission every turn. There are some good alternatives, like letting the Megas move anything on land, out of a city, which starts with 'Captain.' This may significantly expand the power of the Megas, but he'll still have to be wary not to let those men wander into range to be siezed by an avatar.

That didn't seem to clear things up much for me while I was typing it, but... at least I tried? :laugh4:
:egypt:


In regards to Garrisons, I like Option 1. For PAs, I prefer option 2. The House Leader has a certain amount of soldiers he can theoretically call up, but many(most?) require the permission of his vassals before they can be called. Overall I think such a change would be monumentally for the better.

I also like the idea of letting the Basileus appoint a Naval commander. Perhaps we could make a retinue for the title?

I also like the idea of intermediary steps, but out of the ones PK proposed I think only one qualifies. I would definitely like to see that proposed next session, at least.

[Ramses II CP]

If you cap garrisons at the free upkeep point you're going to see some settlements rebel I'm afraid. Towns often have no free upkeep point until upgraded. Chivalry characters who want to occupy are going to have serious problems, especially under an unfriendly Megas.

:egypt:

[TinCow]

Regarding loopholing, a player who wishes to remain anonymous has suggested a solution to me. The problem isn't so much that people find loopholes in the rules, it's that they exploit these loopholes when no one else is aware that they exist. The proposal that has been presented to me is as follows:

1) I create a 'Rule Interpreation' thread. If you have a question about whether something is legal or not, you post it in a proper format in that thread. (i.e. Question: Can I shave my head and dress up like a clown?) I will then answer your question, and that will be that. There will be no rebutals or debate unless I specifically request further dialog on the topic. No one else may post a response to the thread, it is simply a direct Q&A session.

2) If the answer I give has the potential of causing harm to someone's avatar (such as the proper language for a SOT post), then I will pause the game for 24 hours to let people adjust anything that needs to be adjusted before the new 'ruling' starts to impact them. I will be the only person who will determine if something has the potential to cause harm.

3) If you exploit a loophole or unclear part of the rules WITHOUT posting a quesiton about it in this thread first, it will be considered an OOC rule violation, even if I agree that what you did was acceptable.

This has several advantages. First, all rule interpretation issues are publicly available for everyone to read. Second, every rule interpretation or loophole that has a potential to cause harm to a player will result in a short pause to allow that player to prepare themselves in whatever way necessary before it occurs. Third, OOC thread debates on rules will be reduced, because it will simply be a Q&A session between the poster and myself, with no further discussion.

The main disadvantage is that it's yet another info thread for people to read to understand how the game works. This would also be a U-turn on the game policy of "exploit it if you can find it." This may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. At this point, I'm inclined to toss loophole exploitation out the window and make following the rules (and the spirit of the rules) mandatory.

Please comment on this idea.

[Privateerkev]

Wouldn't 2. and 3. lead to SOT being littered with "Unit SuperX and DuperY are the garrison of Megatown" where Megas would still have to check SOT to determine which units belong to the garrison?

And what would locking an army mean in this context? Every strator walking around with huge armies?

Other than that, I like it.

Yeah, people would have to say in their SOT which are their garrisons. I didn't think of that...

Seems even my baby steps have unintended consequences.

What about:

1.) A garrison is what is recruited in the settlement. Any unit moved in is not a garrison.

This would still prevent dumping but would require less book keeping. It's not perfect but I welcome suggestions.

2.) The first 4 (or 3, 5 ect..) units of forts can be locked but that is it.

As for locking an army, I mean only PA/RA's since I am not proposing changing anything else.


If you cap garrisons at the free upkeep point you're going to see some settlements rebel I'm afraid. Towns often have no free upkeep point until upgraded. Chivalry characters who want to occupy are going to have serious problems, especially under an unfriendly Megas.

:egypt:

Could make it free upkeep +1 or +2. Or go with a "garrison is only what is recruited from that settlement" rule.

*edit*

I whole heartedly endorse TC's idea. (or technically, the idea of the anonymous person.)

Basically, loopholing is like nuclear weapons. You have em because the other side has em. No one really wants to use em but no one wants to give em up unless the other guy does too.

TC is basically asking us to all disarm. I am very much in favor of this. Especially since the Rules have become sacrosanct, we should get away from blatant "loopholing."

[Cecil XIX]

TC, I think that's a fine idea. Bringing things out in the open like that helps keep everyone on the same page, and that will help with the tension. Perhaps people should be able to submit questions anonymously, with the answer posted in the thread?

[TinCow]

Loopholing was interesting in KotR, because it gave us stuff like Heinrich's Popapalooza. I think LotR has enough freedom in it now that it no longer needs the extra excitement caused by loopholing. Unless someone's got a really good argument to the contrary, I think I'm just going to slam the door on this one.


TC, I think that's a fine idea. Bringing things out in the open like that helps keep everyone on the same page, and that will help with the tension. Perhaps people should be able to submit questions anonymously, with the answer posted in the thread?

That has merit as well. As long as the question and answer are public, the purpose will have been served.

[Ramses II CP]

:2thumbsup: to the loophole question thread. Call it the START IV thread, per PK's joke. :laugh4:

:egypt:

[Rowan]

Yeah, people would have to say in their SOT which are their garrisons. I didn't think of that...

Seems even my baby steps have unintended consequences.

What about:

1.) A garrison is what is recruited in the settlement. Any unit moved in is not a garrison.

This would still prevent dumping but would require less book keeping. It's not perfect but I welcome suggestions.

2.) The first 4 (or 3, 5 ect..) units of forts can be locked but that is it.

As for locking an army, I mean only PA/RA's since I am not proposing changing anything else.



Could make it free upkeep +1 or +2. Or go with a "garrison is only what is recruited from that settlement" rule.

*edit*

I whole heartedly endorse TC's idea. (or technically, the idea of the anonymous person.)

Basically, loopholing is like nuclear weapons. You have em because the other side has em. No one really wants to use em but no one wants to give em up unless the other guy does too.

TC is basically asking us to all disarm. I am very much in favor of this. Especially since the Rules have become sacrosanct, we should get away from blatant "loopholing."

I was thinking along your #2 for determining garrisons for forts and settlements. Although that would then require the owner of the settlement to juggle units in and out of the settlement, using movement points with potentially fatal consequences.

I'd like to include Flyds anything-just-recruited-is-free-for-megas-to-move rule. The game even does the bookkeeping for you. But that's quite incompatible with #1.
EDIT: And potentially game-breaking during a civil-war with Megas taking sides: recruit troops from defending city, move to opposing army, siege.

[Privateerkev]

I wonder how the game would go if we only implemented TC's "no loopholing" rule. The other rules are more or less proposed because people are afraid of being "loopholed."

If we take away the fear of being "loopholed," I suspect it will lower the tension and anxiety in this game quite a bit.

What would people think of only implementing TC's "no loophole" idea and seeing how it goes for a term? Since the next term will most likely be Ig's, I can't think of a better way to test it...

[TinCow]

Well, that's almost certainly what we'll be doing anyway. I have absolutely no intention of calling an emergency session to institute any rule changes before the next Senate session. We need time to think and talk about this and knee-jerk votes are not the right way to do it. The Loophole thread will go up soon and will be present for the rest of the term. We can keep talking about ways to simplify the game for the rest of the term and propose any potential changes in 1140.

[Privateerkev]

Well, that's almost certainly what we'll be doing anyway. I have absolutely no intention of calling an emergency session to institute any rule changes before the next Senate session. We need time to think and talk about this and knee-jerk votes are not the right way to do it. The Loophole thread will go up soon and will be present for the rest of the term. We can keep talking about ways to simplify the game for the rest of the term and propose any potential changes in 1140.

Well, I meant for next term but your way works too.

Alright, time to throw out all those evil ideas I had... :clown:

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Well, I meant for next term but your way works too.

Alright, time to throw out all those evil ideas I had... :clown:

As long as they are not against me then don't :clown:

[Rowan]

Regarding loopholing, a player who wishes to remain anonymous has suggested a solution to me. The problem isn't so much that people find loopholes in the rules, it's that they exploit these loopholes when no one else is aware that they exist. The proposal that has been presented to me is as follows:

1) I create a 'Rule Interpreation' thread. If you have a question about whether something is legal or not, you post it in a proper format in that thread. (i.e. Question: Can I shave my head and dress up like a clown?) I will then answer your question, and that will be that. There will be no rebutals or debate unless I specifically request further dialog on the topic. No one else may post a response to the thread, it is simply a direct Q&A session.

2) If the answer I give has the potential of causing harm to someone's avatar (such as the proper language for a SOT post), then I will pause the game for 24 hours to let people adjust anything that needs to be adjusted before the new 'ruling' starts to impact them. I will be the only person who will determine if something has the potential to cause harm.

3) If you exploit a loophole or unclear part of the rules WITHOUT posting a quesiton about it in this thread first, it will be considered an OOC rule violation, even if I agree that what you did was acceptable.

This has several advantages. First, all rule interpretation issues are publicly available for everyone to read. Second, every rule interpretation or loophole that has a potential to cause harm to a player will result in a short pause to allow that player to prepare themselves in whatever way necessary before it occurs. Third, OOC thread debates on rules will be reduced, because it will simply be a Q&A session between the poster and myself, with no further discussion.

The main disadvantage is that it's yet another info thread for people to read to understand how the game works. This would also be a U-turn on the game policy of "exploit it if you can find it." This may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. At this point, I'm inclined to toss loophole exploitation out the window and make following the rules (and the spirit of the rules) mandatory.

Please comment on this idea.

I very much like the idea, but what about a situation like the one we had during Ig's megasy where people were interpreting a sentence of text in two different ways. One mans only possible interpretation is another mans loophole ;)

EDIT: The spending priorities controversy, RA > PA > PB > other

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Also I have to say that this 'loophole' and rules talk gave me a headache..

So can we go on with the game and take down the Basileus-wannabe's head??:clown:

[Privateerkev]

I very much like the idea, but what about a situation like the one we had during Ig's megasy where people were interpreting a sentence of text in two different ways. One mans only possible interpretation is another mans loophole ;)

EDIT: The spending priorities controversy, RA > PA > PB > other

The rule of thumb I've been using is, "If I have a question, ask it." The only thing that will change for me with this, is that I'll be asking the questions in public.

[AussieGiant]

Regarding loopholing, a player who wishes to remain anonymous has suggested a solution to me. The problem isn't so much that people find loopholes in the rules, it's that they exploit these loopholes when no one else is aware that they exist. The proposal that has been presented to me is as follows:

1) I create a 'Rule Interpreation' thread. If you have a question about whether something is legal or not, you post it in a proper format in that thread. (i.e. Question: Can I shave my head and dress up like a clown?) I will then answer your question, and that will be that. There will be no rebutals or debate unless I specifically request further dialog on the topic. No one else may post a response to the thread, it is simply a direct Q&A session.

2) If the answer I give has the potential of causing harm to someone's avatar (such as the proper language for a SOT post), then I will pause the game for 24 hours to let people adjust anything that needs to be adjusted before the new 'ruling' starts to impact them. I will be the only person who will determine if something has the potential to cause harm.

3) If you exploit a loophole or unclear part of the rules WITHOUT posting a quesiton about it in this thread first, it will be considered an OOC rule violation, even if I agree that what you did was acceptable.

This has several advantages. First, all rule interpretation issues are publicly available for everyone to read. Second, every rule interpretation or loophole that has a potential to cause harm to a player will result in a short pause to allow that player to prepare themselves in whatever way necessary before it occurs. Third, OOC thread debates on rules will be reduced, because it will simply be a Q&A session between the poster and myself, with no further discussion.

The main disadvantage is that it's yet another info thread for people to read to understand how the game works. This would also be a U-turn on the game policy of "exploit it if you can find it." This may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. At this point, I'm inclined to toss loophole exploitation out the window and make following the rules (and the spirit of the rules) mandatory.

Please comment on this idea.

A main part of my point way exactly this.

If there is any change in the "meaning" of a word in relation to the game it has to be publicly made available. I know this seems somewhat anti-competitive but it's the only way to avoid total verbiage warfare. The spirit of the game is more important in my view than a mental pissing competition.

I PM'd PK with this as an example:

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

"My default setting is to play this game in good faith and in the spirit of gaming as it is generally understood. If someone wants to go "adversarial" on me, then please note I'll decide that personally, let the person know directly, and then persecute them to the best of my ability until they are dead or withdraw from the game."

That's just me though.

I'm not sure I can even be like that, and I think you are going to have to be like that to get ahead in this game.

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

Simplify. It's the hardest thing to do on the planet.

Smart people can understand complex things and discuss them in complex ways.

Really smart people understand complex things but can discuss and present them in ways that just about everyone can comprehend.

i.e. Einstein.

The trick we need to accomplish is provide a framework for the game but make it as simple as possible, i.e. as few words as needed.

[Ituralde]

Phew, that's one hornets nest I kicked, haven't I.

I haven't read all of your suggestiont yet and I must say they are a lot. I had already figured that the moving portion my not have been enough and that in this way a loophole was created. Just skimming over the text I would have preferred it if something like that would have been made available to the public and everyone would have had the chance to adress this. I don't think anyone has ever explicitly forbidden disbanding in his SoT and thus whole garrison could have been wiped out without actually breaking the rules.

When I started my OOC inquiry this was all that I was after. Is it necessary to add even more language to the SoT to make it loophole-proof? I guess my question is answered. Aside from that I don't see any more reason to change the game right now. A new precedent has been made and we will now follow it.

Like GH mentioned this is the first game of its kind so there are a thousand situations waiting for us to be solved. Like AussieGiant I would prefer for these things to be handled on a mutual OOC basis.

Since it has been mentioned a few times and I know that many players still have a problem with this, I think we need a better way to overcome OOC rule violations. I haven't spoken about the things done during Ignos term, because I was on holiday during the time and only devoted as little time as possible to playing this game. I do not want people to interpret my silence as approval! It is not. I am completely against OOC rule breaking in any form!

Still I see that people feel the need to protect their IC characters by acting OOC. I am honestly sick of people pointing out Ignos rule abuse as an excuse for their playstyle. And though you may fear the death of your IC avatar, it is only that. An IC thing! I really hope that people learn to keep IC fears for their characters out of OOC discussions.

I think that this is the root of the problem. People are so used to plotting and scheming IC that many carry this over into the OOC. I would really appreciate if the suggestion of an official rule discussion thread is put into effect! That way everybody in the game can benefit from the newest developments in rule interpretation.

That's the way I have always tried to handle it. Once I saw something that gave me a headache and where I wasn't sure how it should be handled in relation to the rules I just went ahead and asked my questions within this thread. In public so that everyone knows what possibilities there are and what the rules say about them.

For this game to work there needs to be a strong OOC commitment amongs the playerbase. For me it is important to have a laugh together with the guy who I am currently pummeling IC. If this is not given this kind of game just does not work for me.

After all we're here to have fun as our primary goal. Maybe this is just a mad rant from me, but I hope that you find things to agree with. I will now start reading all of your posts thouroughly, so I'm sorry if some of this seems repetitive or redundant to you.

I hope we can find an amiable solution for our problems and enjoy this game together!

Cheers!

Ituralde

[Ramses II CP]

Phew, that's one hornets nest I kicked, haven't I.

I haven't read all of your suggestiont yet and I must say they are a lot. I had already figured that the moving portion my not have been enough and that in this way a loophole was created. Just skimming over the text I would have preferred it if something like that would have been made available to the public and everyone would have had the chance to adress this. I don't think anyone has ever explicitly forbidden disbanding in his SoT and thus whole garrison could have been wiped out without actually breaking the rules.

When I started my OOC inquiry this was all that I was after. Is it necessary to add even more language to the SoT to make it loophole-proof? I guess my question is answered. Aside from that I don't see any more reason to change the game right now. A new precedent has been made and we will now follow it.

Like GH mentioned this is the first game of its kind so there are a thousand situations waiting for us to be solved. Like AussieGiant I would prefer for these things to be handled on a mutual OOC basis.

Since it has been mentioned a few times and I know that many players still have a problem with this, I think we need a better way to overcome OOC rule violations. I haven't spoken about the things done during Ignos term, because I was on holiday during the time and only devoted as little time as possible to playing this game. I do not want people to interpret my silence as approval! It is not. I am completely against OOC rule breaking in any form!

Still I see that people feel the need to protect their IC characters by acting OOC. I am honestly sick of people pointing out Ignos rule abuse as an excuse for their playstyle. And though you may fear the death of your IC avatar, it is only that. An IC thing! I really hope that people learn to keep IC fears for their characters out of OOC discussions.

I think that this is the root of the problem. People are so used to plotting and scheming IC that many carry this over into the OOC. I would really appreciate if the suggestion of an official rule discussion thread is put into effect! That way everybody in the game can benefit from the newest developments in rule interpretation.

That's the way I have always tried to handle it. Once I saw something that gave me a headache and where I wasn't sure how it should be handled in relation to the rules I just went ahead and asked my questions within this thread. In public so that everyone knows what possibilities there are and what the rules say about them.

For this game to work there needs to be a strong OOC commitment amongs the playerbase. For me it is important to have a laugh together with the guy who I am currently pummeling IC. If this is not given this kind of game just does not work for me.

After all we're here to have fun as our primary goal. Maybe this is just a mad rant from me, but I hope that you find things to agree with. I will now start reading all of your posts thouroughly, so I'm sorry if some of this seems repetitive or redundant to you.

I hope we can find an amiable solution for our problems and enjoy this game together!

Cheers!

Ituralde

This sounds almost exactly like what I posted about keeping IC and OOC apart back when the whole mess started (Bottom of page 42 of the old thread) and it still seemed like a friendly little discussion could resolve it. I hope you get a better response than the one I did, which was absolutely none, private or public, followed by two more abuses.

I've said this in various place before and I'll say it here too, I've never had a problem with Igno before. He invited me to the MPC hotseat game, my first one and, as far as I know, the first one at The Org, 'way back when' so to speak, and was the first guy to speak to me IC in KotR. I have no idea what's gone on behind the scenes because I don't take part in it, but I was dissappointed to come to a public thread and raise an important issue in a lighthearted way and be completely ignored. I went out of my way to concede my own faults and point out that it was a hard job, and make every other excuse for the first time. The consensus was to handle it IC, and that's what I've done since despite the incidents being repeated just as I warned.

So if anyone has anything to say to me, please believe that I'm not going to rip you one if you drop me a PM. I have a (hopefully) well deserved reputation for in game viciousness, but IRL I'm just a dude like any other. I absolutely promise I'll have space in my inbox and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. :2thumbsup:

And with that I am well and truly done. Nothing more to say on the subject in the OOC thread, even if we get more drama thrown around. Anyone at all is welcome to contact me anytime. :yes:

:egypt:

[Privateerkev]

Still I see that people feel the need to protect their IC characters by acting OOC. I am honestly sick of people pointing out Ignos rule abuse as an excuse for their playstyle. And though you may fear the death of your IC avatar, it is only that. An IC thing! I really hope that people learn to keep IC fears for their characters out of OOC discussions.

I hope that one wasn't directed at me. I've never used Ig's actions as an excuse for my own. I checked with TC, and based on his advice, I made some moves that people now find questionable. I didn't do it because Ig did his. If we haven't had an aboveboard loophole discussion thread before, that certainly isn't my fault. My playstyle is my own and I don't need Ig's rule breaking to justify it.

As for our avatars, many of us have put a lot of time and energy into them. So, I hope people forgive me if I get a little miffed when I find out that the same guy who broke the rules to hurt my avatar is also plotting my avatar's death. If the rules are OOC, and the avatars are IC, then Ig did something OOC to hurt me IC.

I am absolutely amazed that my disbanding of a fort is causing an uproar from the same people that sat by silently as their House Leader broke the rules to withhold building legally mandated armies just so he could then funnel the money into the settlements and armies of the same people who stayed silent.

I'm sorry but the timing of some of you is mighty "convenient."

During Ig's term there was plenty of opportunity to talk about "loopholing" since me and a few other players were getting reamed up the arse with loopholes. But I go and do something relatively minor and I hear complaining that loopholing will ruin the game.

WELL WHY DIDN'T THE SAME PEOPLE SAY SOMETHING WHEN IT WAS BEING DONE TO US!?!?!

:brood:

Ok, I feel better now...

I'm done. I had my angry rant and got it out of my system. If anyone wants to discuss it further in PM's, I'll be more than happy to. :medievalcheers:

[OverKnight]

An idea I've been kicking around for a bit is this:

Each House would have a minimum number of units determined by adding together their various mandated armies and the garrison capacity of their settlements (Free upkeep level plus +1 or +2 units for each city, castles would be a number (TBD) determined by it size).

The House would have the right to apportion this minimum number of units among it's garrisons and armies. So if the House has some settlements in the interior and some needing heavy garrisoning on the frontier, it could move manpower to the frontier to keep rebellious cities under control. Anything left over could be added to the field armies.

The ranks would stay the same, so only nobles with a certain rank would be able to command the field armies.

The House could petition for forces above the minimum, if they have a friendly Megas or such, but these units would not be guaranteed.

At each non-emergency Senate Session, the force minimum would be recalculated for each house. The house would then decide where to apportion these forces. Any extra units over the minimum would be ranked by level of priority, ie which extra units would be disbanded or transferred first.

The new elected Megas would have the authority to disband or transfer extra units for each house using the priority list, but he could never reduce a House below it's minimum unit level. If a House fell below its minimum unit level, due to battle and such, the Megas would be obliged to restore it by recruiting within that House's settlements, or if need be by mercs. It would then be up to the House to deploy these reinforcments. If a house was in a civil war, this would not apply.

Units recruited for a House would be under that House's control, avatar led or no, as long as they were part of the minimum required manpower. Any surplus units could be used by the Megas as he sees fit.

This keeps some of the Megas's power, while leaving the nitty gritty of deployment to the House.

[Privateerkev]

I like it. Seems like a good "middle ground."

I want the Megas to still control things but for the Houses to take some of the paperwork off his hands. This idea does both. :2thumbsup:

[deguerra]

Hmm. One issue I have with it is that it actually changes the role of lower ranking House members. Currently, while they cannot own Private armies, they can command them, which IMO is useful of keeping things interesting for everyone. Under your new rules, you can only command Private Armies if you have the necessary rank to own them. I can see what that is necessary under your rules, but I am not sure it is a good change.

Beyond that, I like the plan. :2thumbsup:

[OverKnight]

Huh, I could have sworn that Strators couldn't command armies. In that case, I'd just keep the ranks the way they are.

One of the reasons I'm kicking this around is that at a certain point, which I think we've reached, we'll be creating mandated armies at a greater rate than the economy develops. With the various garrisoning loopholes and such, this could spell perennial bankruptcy. Hopefully by having a "salary cap" for each House this can be avoided while keeping compeititve balance.

[Privateerkev]

One of the reasons I'm kicking this around is that at a certain point, which I think we've reached, we'll be creating mandated armies at a greater rate than the economy develops.

Now that the Crusade is no longer self-funded, we are definitely there. We have 10 armies and I can see 3 or 4 more on the horizon.

[Motep]

No way in hell I am reading that many pages right now.

[deguerra]

No way in hell I am reading that many pages right now.
:laugh4:

BURN HIM! :clown:

OK, that is the way I always thought the rules worked. I think it came up in TC's Exarch guide that you can give command of armies to "lesser" vassals, and I think it is mentioned in the rules somewhere.

*runs to have a look*

[deguerra]

found it


The owner of a Private Army will determine who commands the Army, where it is to move (if at all), and whom to attack.

[Privateerkev]

Moved closer to the capital, where I hope to catch a ship to egypt. (where do I make this request...here?)

You simply ask your friendly neighborhood Megas. A man who is infinitely reasonable and remembers well what it is like to need a ship.

Or, if you have a lord, or someone who will be your lord, you can have him ask the Megas for you.

Simply send a PM, or have someone send one for you if your afraid you'll get ignored.

:beam:

[Motep]

Oh...

Well...

Can I request a ship in here, then? Oh, grand Megas!

(I am not meant to be a brown-noser...:shame:)

[Privateerkev]

Oh...

Well...

Can I request a ship in here, then? Oh, grand Megas!

(I am not meant to be a brown-noser...:shame:)

Well TC banned official IC stuff in here since he didn't want it getting lost in the spam.

But you can ask nicely by PM. And Mak likes mint tea. And back rubs. :beam:

[Motep]

No tea for you!

:brood:

[Privateerkev]

No tea for you!

:brood:

~:mecry:

[Motep]

~:mecry:


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

:grin2:

[Cecil XIX]

I find it interesting that between mint tea and backrubs, Andronikos wholeheatedly reject the tea. :inquisitive:

[Privateerkev]

I find it interesting that between mint tea and backrubs, Andronikos wholeheatedly reject the tea. :inquisitive:

o_O

[Motep]

*sigh*

No backrubs, either!

[Privateerkev]

*sigh*

No backrubs, either!

You sound disappointed... :inquisitive:

And we should probably abandon this line of joking before ATPG wanders in here...

[Motep]

*shivers*

Good idea

[Privateerkev]

*shivers*

Good idea

Ah, I see you've learned the first rule of survival in LotR...

[Motep]

Ah, I see you've learned the first rule of survival in LotR...

:laugh4:

[Privateerkev]

Love the story Ramses.

And I have never seen a better use of the pharaoh smiley at the end. :beam:

[rossahh]

What the...???

I come and check the forum 1 day later and now there's 6 new pages of discussion to sift through.


Someone's been a naughty boy... :inquisitive:



Actually I see nothing wrong with what PK did. English is a terribly complex language.My favourite example is when my students ask me a question and I say negative/no/incorrect. They are all different with both different meanings and conentations, but they are all perfectly acceptable responses to indicate an incorrect answer.

[Privateerkev]

Kag...

I am not pleased.

Please do not ever do that again.

Guys, me "reclaiming" things is not something you can test me on. It isn't up for OOC debate. It is a "rule" and can not be defied.

Kag moved units I specifically forbid him from moving and then tried to creatively get around it by claiming HA were archers. I guess he thought if the HA weren't cav, he could legally hold onto the Alan Cav. Well, he can't. If a Megas reclaims something that is not in a locked army at the beginning of the turn, it is reclaimed. If it was meant for an army, and it's absence leaves the army understrength, the Megas only needs to recruit something to bring the army up to code. Which I did.

I am getting sick and tired of the rule breaking in this game. This wasn't a "loophole." Kag knew it was against the rules because he obeyed them a couple turns ago when I asked him to leave behind something reclaimed.

So, since a rule was broken, I retook the save and fixed it.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Since Efstathios died unexpectedly then I'll use this and take some time off.
Hope this doesn't cause any problems for you.
Tristan should be happy.. He can keep Efstathios' army since.. well.. Efstathios is dead :beam:

[_Tristan_]

In fact I'm sorry for your loss...

Who will call me a killer now ? :yes:

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I kind of miss Efstathios already :beam:

I think Annios will have a big big party in Alexandria once he hear the death of Laskaris :laugh4:

[Privateerkev]

IK, our men are Jedi but they aren't "that" Jedi...

Sorry for your avatar's loss. It sucks when they go unexpected...

[_Tristan_]

Perhaps Methodios set a bad example, going alone against numbers plenty of times... The fact is I chose my fights well...

A bit too reckless, IK ?

[Privateerkev]

I hope you enjoy your time off and come back to us IK. :yes:

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Actually.. I almost won the battle the next time I fought it.. it was after I posted the save..
If those mamluks weren't there then I would've won.. I managed to rout those Nubians and kill the archers but after that I didn't had enough men to finish the mamluks..
I'm talking about the second time I tried that battle of course..

I just thought that reloading the save,after Efstathios died, is bad bad bad and I didn't do it..

[Privateerkev]

Actually.. I almost won the battle the next time I fought it.. it was after I posted the save..
If those mamluks weren't there then I would've won.. I managed to rout those Nubians and kill the archers but after that I didn't had enough men to finish the mamluks..
I'm talking about the second time I tried that battle of course..

I just thought that reloading the save,after Efstathios died, is bad bad bad and I didn't do it..

I know it's easy to "monday morning battle report" this but why didn't you retreat?

[OverKnight]

Tough break, I hope you decide to play again.

Maybe when you come back we'll have cannons, :hmg:. God I loved having cannons.

[Privateerkev]

You didn't seem to love the elephants having cannons...

:clown:

[OverKnight]

Yes, but I had my own cannons. :evilgrin: When you make Elephants run amok at range, they have nothing to trample but their own army.

:elephant: :hmg:

[Privateerkev]

Very true... :2thumbsup:

Thats why I try to get cannon towers by the time the Timurids show up.

[pevergreen]

Just a note, I may not be functiong rationally for a while. Lets see if I can keep myself under control.

Coming close to stopping play. Hope I dont.

[_Tristan_]

I've just seen I never posted the battle report for Belgrade, so many yeras ago bacause I waited on TLG to give his permission to use Neokaisareitis in the report..

Now he is gone, the report (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1961881&postcount=15) is up for those who want to check...

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I know it's easy to "monday morning battle report" this but why didn't you retreat?

Because the bodyguard unit was stuck in those archers and then those nubians came and the bodyguards just could move.. And then the Mamluks came..:sweatdrop:
At least I saved the Skythikons by ordering them to retreat :yes:

[Rowan]

Sorry to hear about Efstathios. The crusade wasn't kind to the Asteri...

The Jedi BG are a fickle beast. They can be completely awesome one minute and swamped by spear militia the next. I started an SP Byzantine campaign a while ago and decided to start with a blitz ala LotR. End result: 2 out of 5 generals dead in AI sallies.

[rossahh]

Where's Broken Crescent when you need it? The GBs in that are indestructable killing machines. They reduced the size of units to compensate, but an army of generals will wipe out any stack that comes near it, hands down.



Who needs one god when you can have 200 of them charging over the battlefield for you?

[TinCow]

The Code of Conduct (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=2002042&postcount=7) has been posted and it goes into effect immediately and in some cases retroactively.

[woad&fangs]

stupid question, but how do you upload a file on the .Org? I know I've done it before but I can't remember now.:shame:

[deguerra]

sigh. my ship is more akin to a swiss cheese these days.

[_Tristan_]

Use this

http://www.mizus.com/files/pbmupload.php

[Privateerkev]

stupid question, but how do you upload a file on the .Org? I know I've done it before but I can't remember now.:shame:

Go here. (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local_links.php?catid=193)

Click "add entry"

Enter a name. Like: LOTR-1129-6

Go to "upload file" and click on "browse". Find your file, make sure it is zipped or rarred, and hit "submit." You'll get a message that it worked but you can't make a thread. That is fine. Click on it to ok it.

You'll now see your file. Click on it to get the URL. (If you have Firefox, just send it to a new tab.)

Copy and paste the URL into the Megas thread.

Your done! :beam:

*edit*

Or, do what Tristan said.

BTW, why do so few people use the .org's own uploader? It works just fine...

[TinCow]

If you forget, the Uploader links will always be located in Q&A #4 in the FAQ.

[Privateerkev]

Annios got a MoH. I didn't know if it was up to me to accept it so I've left it up. If the descision is only up to me then I accept.


You need to go to the save, accept the MoH, see who the adopter is, and then not save it.

Then, go to the person who is the adopter and tell them about it. It is totally their decision on whether to accept.

[_Tristan_]

One last thing you had no right to use those units... there were Methodios and locked...:furious3:

You could have used your own crusaders for this....

Rules, people, rules... :furious3:

[Privateerkev]

One last thing you had no right to use those units... there were Methodios and locked...:furious3:

You could have used your own crusaders for this....

Rules, people, rules... :furious3:

Yeah but Methodios said this in the Magnaura:


Turning to Annios Solomon

Avenge Laskaris...

I know he was no friend of yours but he died doing something just and true and died a true warrior's death...

Show these brigands what it costs to defy the power of the Empire.

Bring them down.

I can see how he thought that was permission.

[_Tristan_]

Permission to use his own units maybe but my SOT is clear about mine...

Or any other in the city...

[woad&fangs]

Also, this was your reply via PM. Sorry, I thought you were giving me permission to use the garrison as well. I really didn't mean to use your soldiers without permission.:shame:



A message is delivered to you via messenger pidgeon. You open the letter and begin to read...

Quote:I can't stand being cooped up with that scum any longer. I humbly request your permission to take the garrison(minus Laskaris' ilk) and eliminate the army of rebels outside of the city. While I can beat them with only my crusaders, I would prefer to use overwhelming force so we take fewer casualties. I can easily eliminate them and return to city before riots occur.(ooc: in the same turn)



You have my permission but be advised that if you remain out of the city with your men by the end of the season, the Megas could do away with them.

[Privateerkev]

Permission to use his own units maybe but my SOT is clear about mine...

Or any other in the city...

I'm not saying he didn't break the rule. But you weren't exactly clear. You should have told him what he could use and he should have asked what he could use.

From your SOT, it actually is illegal for him to use his own units since you've basically claimed them as a garrison.

Therefore, from your blanket permission, how was he to know what you meant? Unless you guys worked it out in PM's and we couldn't see?

In Houses, communication is everything. That's one of the reasons we all have our own boards. I try to be very specific with what I give people permission to do. Don't assume your vassals can read your mind.

[_Tristan_]

Also, this was your reply via PM. Sorry, I thought you were giving me permission to use the garrison as well. I really didn't mean to use your soldiers without permission.:shame:

This was before they were reduced by Laskaris...

Let this rest... What's done cannot be undone...

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Btw.. Andronikos Komnenos(Motep) is the one who should accept the MoH offer..

And I only used 1 unit of Skythikon that lost 7 men. And that's it..
All other units that belonged to me are full units.

[woad&fangs]

thanks IK.

[Privateerkev]

Btw.. Andronikos Komnenos(Motep) is the one who should accept the MoH offer..

Ok, then it's up to Motep whether Annios gets adopted. W&F might want to send Motep a nice IC and/or OOC PM about it.

[_Tristan_]

One last thing : I can grant you the fact that my answer authorized you to use my men to engage the rebels but also made clear that you had to reintegrate the city in the terms of you're asking that permission.


Originally Posted by TdC
You have my permission but be advised that if you remain out of the city with your men by the end of the season, the Megas could do away with them.


So why do you still have one unit of Byzantine infantry that belongs to Methodios with you ? And on whose authority did you send that unit of lancers to Cairo ?

I surely did not give permission for that...

EDIT : PK, when you take the save, would you please send that 28-men unit of lancers back to Alexandria ?

[Privateerkev]

EDIT : PK, when you take the save, would you please send that 28-men unit of lancers back to Alexandria ?

No problem. Can you do me a favor and send me a PM? I save them and refer to them before I play my turn.

I'm always afraid I'll forget and saving PM's in a seperate folder gives me a good way to keep track.

[Ramses II CP]

My sympathies on your loss IK. Man, the Crusaders are falling like flies, even if Efstathios never got to the target.

:egypt:

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Efstathios almost did.. Methodios just got there first :beam:
And the sabotages didn't help him either :laugh4:

[woad&fangs]

Advising and ordering are two different things. I see now that by "your men" you meant my ex-crusaders but at the time I thought it meant the army I took to kill the rebels.

As for the lancers I sent to Cairo. That was a dumb move and one I would have taken back if I had remembered to save after my battle(I will save frequently from now on).

My logic for my action with them was this.

-Once I left the settlment the soldiers with me were "my army" unless the Megas confiscated them.
-I could send units out of "my army" but if they ended the turn as captains they would become property of the Megas.
-Cairo could be reached this turn
-Cairo was rioting, Alexandria was yellow. Extra troops would help Cairo.

[Ramses II CP]

Where's Broken Crescent when you need it? The GBs in that are indestructable killing machines. They reduced the size of units to compensate, but an army of generals will wipe out any stack that comes near it, hands down.



Who needs one god when you can have 200 of them charging over the battlefield for you?

Unless you're the Rajputs, in which case the awe inpsiring armored elephant that carries your general just happens to have 1 HP and die at the slightest touch. :laugh4:

Actually only some of the generals are high HP slaugher machines in BC, some of them are weaker than the SS ones.

:egypt:

[Privateerkev]

As for the lancers I sent to Cairo. That was a dumb move and one I would have taken back if I had remembered to save after my battle(I will save frequently from now on).

My logic for my action with them was this.

-Once I left the settlment the soldiers with me were "my army" unless the Megas confiscated them.
-I could send units out of "my army" but if they ended the turn as captains they would become property of the Megas.
-Cairo could be reached this turn
-Cairo was rioting, Alexandria was yellow. Extra troops would help Cairo.

If they have any MP left, I'll simply send them back out into the field so they don't get caught up in the inevitable rioting. If they don't have any MP left, well, they will take losses. Sorry. Cairo is a powder keg right now. I can do a couple things to shore it up but I doubt it will get up to 70% by the beginning of next turn.

[TinCow]

The Tristan/w&f sitation will be dealt with by me privately.

[Kagemusha]

Sorry PK, but you cant disband anything from my private army.So the next turn my private army bertter should have that Alan cavalry.I acted completely through the rules.It was you who wanted to start this pissing contest.:2thumbsup:

[Kagemusha]

This is a deal braker PK.You cant disband anything from private army.Im not home now and cant view the save, but if you really disbanded units from my private army.You broke the rules clearly OC and you should face the consecuences.Tincow haver to punish you, this is far too intentional.

[Privateerkev]

This is a deal braker PK.You cant disband anything from private army.Im not home now and cant view the save, but if you really disbanded units from my private army.You broke the rules clearly OC and you should face the consecuences.Tincow haver to punish you, this is far too intentional.

Sorry, but you are incorrect.

You moved a unit I had clearly reclaimed. Because you broke the rules, I went in and disbanded that Alan Cavalry. I was going to do it when I made my moves anyways. I simply did it earlier than normal to put the issue to rest.

Do not ever move something I reclaim again.

[Kagemusha]

Cant you understand.You cant seize anything from my private army and the only problem is interpration of mine that HA are archers and yours that they are cavalry.But disbanding unit from PA is a clear braking of rules.You cant get anywhere from that.

[Privateerkev]

Cant you understand.You cant seize anything from my private army and the only problem is interpration of mine that HA are archers and yours that they are cavalry.But disbanding unit from PA is a clear braking of rules.You cant get anywhere from that.

You have no ground to stand on.

1.) The moment I reclaimed that Alan Cav, they stopped being reinforcements for your army. They became "frozen" until I took the save back. This is totally acceptable for me to do within the rules.

2.) You then went and moved them in clear violation of the rules.

3.) I took the save and did something early that I was going to do anyways.

4.) Even if they were part of your army, it wasn't locked. So, either way, what I did was perfectly fine.

5.) As an aside, horse archers are not archers. They are cavalry. I know we fudged this in the beginning of the game but it is getting ridiculous. Archers are on foot. Horse archers are on... horses.

So, you have broken the rules and I have fixed the situation. Your army is now up to code and with you. You can lock it at your leisure.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Do you guys mind taking this to PM as a courtesy? Both sides have now made their points and I'd prefer it if the thread wasn't locked again.

[TinCow]

The PK/Kage situation will also be resolved privately. Move along, nothing to see here.

[TinCow]

FYI, the situations between Kage/PK and Tristan/w&f make it clear to me that the current method of allocating management of armies is way too complex for this game. Since I am now implementing a strict policy on rule violation, I very firmly believe that this game will eventually result in everyone being permanently banned due to these kinds of errors. It is therefore my intention to radically reform the entire army/unit ownership system. The current system will remain in effect until the end of this term. I would like to continue the discussion on alternative methods, but this situation absolutely must be resolved in the 1140 AD session. If none of the proposals which are eventually put foward pass the 2/3 requirement, I will simply keep extending the debate and voting period until one is passed.

This situation is going to be fixed and it is going to be fixed before we get much further into the game.

[Ramses II CP]

I want to say, as an OOC matter, that I won't be trying to take any units that were moved into Cairo due to a misunderstanding, even if the matter isn't resolved in some other format. Vissa wouldn't do it to a fellow Crusader IC either.

:egypt:

[Ramses II CP]

Okay, so as I see it these are some of the issues we're facing, especially with regards to complexity, and some potential solutions from the 'House Army' idea.

1. Having 10+ PA/RAs and 30+ SoTs is extremely complex for the Megas to keep track of, and is resulting in a lot of OOC friction.

My suggestion, a slight modification of the House Army idea, is to place the OOC responsibilities of the Megas at the funding/recruitment level on a whole House basis and to give the responsibility for distribution of troops to the House Leader and move it In Character. To explain:

a. The Megas loses the ability to move and disband troops, period. In the event of insufficient funds he still controls which Houses have their HAs filled first.

b. The House Leader sets, in his SoT, exactly what units comprise his House Army based on what the lands in his House can train, and to whom they are assigned. In Character he has a requirement to provide his vassals with a minimum level of soldiers dependant on their rank, but if he fails to do so the resolution is to break your vow, not to appeal to the OOC rules. This has the effect of reducing the number of SoTs that the Megas has to constantly check while redistributing the OOC authority he had to IC means (It also, incidentally, makes the structure less stable IMHO, which is one of my goals :laugh4:) The House Leader will also need some additional ability to disband troops under limited circumstances, limited to prevent abuse equal to garrison dumping.

c. Garrison troops come out of the House Army. In the event of a vassal breaking his oath the garrison in his owned province, assuming the oath break is accepted and war isn't declared, belong to him, even if they are not available to be trained in his province and/or represent more men than he should have according to his new House size. (I'm open to auto-disbandment rules of some sort since this could lead to massive overgrowth of armies and shrinking budget, but that's essentially an IC problem to be solved by politics IMHO)

d. House Leaders control all captain led stacks in their territory. Captain led stacks in enemy or neutral territory belong to the Emperor.

e. The Megas retains responsibility for all agents, diplomacy, recruitment, and construction. A Lord of the Fleets is assigned by title to control ships (By the senate or Emperor).

Problems:

Middle ranks are still somewhat reduced in power because they now have to politic IC for their proper armies. Not ideal, but if we want to reduce SoT checking we may have to make this move. Believe me, I don't like a top heavy structure, but I dislike the fuss over PAs and a lot less.

The Emp's ability to push captain stacks in enemy territory may be complicated (What happens when the territory is captured with a stack in the province?), but I don't know a better resolution off the top of my head.

What else? Am I the only one who likes the HA idea; I'm not going to be offended if this is totally shot down, I just want the game to work.

:egypt:

[Privateerkev]

Given how insane this is getting, and given that this will only get worse when we get bigger, something has got to give.

If we want to keep players empowered with personal "armies," then the Megas simply has to get out of the army business. It's fun to move the little captain stacks around but it is simply maddening to not only keep track of who owns what, but to make sure people don't take the wrong stuff. :dizzy2:

I don't care what system we move to, as long as it ends up with players moving and disbanding their own stuff. If players want to be empowered, then they can start taking over the responsibilty and paperwork...

[TinCow]

I think the best way to do this is to focus everyone on the provinces and the avatars. It is very, very clear when a unit is inside a settlement or in an army with someone's avatar at the head of it. Whatever we do, I think we need to simply make it so that people always have 100% control over everything inside their settlement and their avatar's army, no matter what rank they are. This is the simplest possible unit control system, and I think at this point that all other parts of the game need to give way to allow that to be brought to the most efficient possible system.

However, this means that anyone with a province can accumulate an army. I am fine with this change and I think it might actually be kind of fun, but it will require a radical rebalancing of the entire feudal structure. What I am thinking about is as follows:

1) All units in a settlement are exclusively controlled by the owner of that settlement. They can never be moved or disbanded without the owner's permission.
2) All units in an avatar's stack are exclusively controlled by that avatar. They can never be moved or disbanded without the avatar's permission.
3) If multiple avatars combine into a single stack, they must make a post somewhere indicating which units belonged to who when they merged. If the avatars split up later, the survivors go with their respective avatars unless stated otherwise. No merging of depleted units will be allowed between comingled armies unless both owners agree to who will own the combined units.
4) PAs/RAs will be completely abolished.
5) Every rank will gain a power to confiscate X units per full Megas term from any vassal that is underneath them in their feudal chain. Confiscation can take units from any garrison owned by the vassal or from the vassal's own stack. The higher the rank, the more units that can be confiscated per term. The Basileus will have the power to confiscate from ANYONE in the entire game.
6) All ship movement will be done by the Lord Admiral (or similar title) who will either be appointed by the Basileus during every Senate session, or elected by the Senate.
7) The ship 'seizing' power will be abolished.
8) The Megas will have absolute control over all monetary expenditures. Prioritized Buildings and construction queues will remain unchanged, but he will never have any limits on where and when he must recruit military units. The Megas will have no control over any movement beyond what other players can do.
9) Captain Led Stacks - Unresolved, still looking for good options on this one.

[flyd]

I think at this point, we need rules that are simple to follow above all other considerations. We need to look for a set of rules that treat different types of stacks uniformly and have no special cases. You should never have (for example) a captain-led stack that is under one set of rules in one situation, and under another in another. All captain stacks should be equivalent. So, I would propose something like this, split according to type:

Type 1: General-led stack. Owned by in-game designated stack leader. Only the owner can move, split, or disband stack.
Type 2: Captain-led stack. Owned by the Megas Logothetes. Only the owner can move, split, or disband stack.
Type 3: City/Castle garrison. Owned by feudal lord. Only the owner can remove, split, or disband garrison.*
Type 4: Fort garrison. Owned by fedual lord of the city in whose region the fort is in. Only the owner can remove, split, or disband garrison.
Type 5: Fleet. Owned by the Megas Logothetes. Only the owner can move, split, or disband stack.

That's the base. Every type has one clear owner. Those are the owner's troops, if he wants to give them away, he can disassocate them from his stack. Now we can introduce a handful of special rules for gameplay purposes, like this:

Rule 1: Private/Royal armies. Minimum requirements as they are now, but the Megas is not required to keep track of them. A stack-owner whose stack is below legal requirements can make a public request for reinforcement, which the Megas can refuse if the sum of that House's stacks and garrisons exceeds the total number of legally required units for the House. Otherwise, the Megas must fund recruitment according to current priority rules.
Rule 2: Generals may not enter stacks of lower-command-star generals (i.e. steal the stack), without permission of the stack commander. Generals may not enter captain-led stacks without permission of the Megas Logothetes.
Rule 3: *The Megas Logothes can remove newly recruited units from cities/castles without permission.

Rule 1 makes the Megas' job easier, as he doesn't have to keep track of the strength of every army. That is the job of every army commander for himself. The requests/refusals should be public, so we can tell the rules are being followed. I would recommend yet another thread because only the Megas would have to read it, and only when there are new posts in it.
Rule 2 combined with Type 1 implements a "you own what you command" policy. Very simple.
Rule 3 is an exception to Type 3, used as a headache reliever for the Megas.

Note: TC posted his proposal while I was typing mine. They are pretty similar.

[flyd]

TC's proposal about a Lord Admiral is good, and might be expanded upon. We could split the power of the Megas into three elected offices, which I will call the Accountant, the Army Guy, and the Navy Guy, for the purpose of the example.

The Accountant will have the purse, and will be the one to open/close the save, and end the turn.
The Army Guy will be move all the captain stacks, spies, assassins, and priests (in his role as a logistician).
The Navy Guy will move all the fleets.
If either the Army Guy or the Navy Guy fail to take the save in the 24 hour period, the Accountant may exercise their powers before ending the turn.

This leaves the lower ranked players the chance to get into some lower offices, and reduces the workload of the Megas. It would require more people to run for offices, but if no one runs for AG and NG, when we can assign their powers to the Accountant for that term.

[Privateerkev]

Please do not post in this thread yet.

Sorry, as I read your conception of that thread in here, it was supposed to be a question and answer session between a player and you. So I thought it was ok to ask questions. I didn't know others would use it to throw comments in though...

[TinCow]

Hmm... giving the Captain stacks to a Lord of the Army type role is a very interesting idea. The question is whether we're going to have enough people interested in running for the roles every election.

I am against maintaining any system which has a 'minimum' requirement for a PA/RA of any kind, even if the Megas doesn't have to keep track of it. Keeping track of units is the main thing that's making the game too complex, so we need to get rid of it completely. You can command whatever it is that you can get your hands on. The 'confiscation' power of increasing magnitude for the feudal ranks would allow for high ranks to draw off of the armies held by their vassals, which makes sense to me both from a gameplay perspective and from a historical perspectice. They can always give these units back whenever they want to, and there's nothing stopping the vassals from giving their units to their Lords voluntarily anyway, thus avoiding the use of the power. This will put more of an emphasis on House unity and cooperation, and will give both advantages and disadvantages to being in a House. If you're in a House, you get potential access to the units owned by your vassals, but your units can also be siphoned off by your lord.

Seems like an easy system to me, and probably self-balancing.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

flyd.. and who would control diplomats?? Basileus??

But other ideas you proposed are pretty good :yes:

Easy to follow and easy to understand..

[Ferret]

Oops, yeah sorry about that, I saw the "do not post" when you first put it up and then went back later and you had put other posts in there, I assumed it was open after that without thinking to scroll up...now I realise I shouldn't have posted in there anyway seeing as I didn't have a question...:embarassed:

In other news I like FD latest post, it is kinda similar to what I had in mind, with the addition of the "navy guy". I'm not sure they're entirely neccesary due to the lack of importance fleets have, perhaps giving him control of agents as well, or merging that role with the "army guy"?

[OverKnight]

Under TC's proposed system, couldn't the Megas just stop recruiting units for a House he didn't like? Without a minimum requirement, he could just throw people to the wolves.

Unless I'm missing something, which is very possible.

[TinCow]

Yes, that could easily happen. The question is whether letting the Megas starve a House like this is a bad thing. If they've prepared well enough in advance, they should be able to survive until the next election. If they have multiple hostile Megas' in a row... well, perhaps they need to rethink their stance on politics.

I just can't think of a way to give Houses a minimum level of defense without making it a complex system. The best I can come up with is giving certain ranks the ability to require X units to be recruit somewhere within their House. Say, let the Hypatos be able to require 5 units within his House per Megas term, so the Megas at least has to give those. The Hypatos could blow all 5 on the first turn, do 1 per turn for the first 5 turns, save them till the last turn, not use them at all, etc. This power would only be available to the highest ranked Lord, to keep it simple.

This would give each House the ability to essentially 'Prioritize' a minimum level of recruitment, which might work.

[OverKnight]

I still like my idea (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=2001572&postcount=891) for a minimum force pool. Perhaps if the requirement was dropped for armies, and the Houses were just given a number of units do with as they pleased it would be simpler.

[flyd]

I won't argue very strongly on a minumum army vs. confiscation system, either way is fine with me. The main thing I would want to avoid would be "remote" ownership of units, which is a problem that comes up in either system, when units are confiscated/recruited far away. That is something that would be nice to do away with, so there is no counting of who owns what. The confiscation power could be a more general reassignment power. That is, you should not be entiteld to remote ownership, but you can transfer X units per term between and out of stacks/garrisons of your vassals. So, you should have to send a trustworthy vassal to pick the units up for you, or rely on the captain-commander to get them to you, but nobody should be bound by the rules to make specific movements.

As far as the multi-office thing goes, we can make them optional. At least two people must always run for Megas/Accountant. If they do, people can run for the Land and Sea Commander offices, but elections will only be held if enough people run. If they don't, then the powers of extra offices fall back to the main officer holder.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Why can't we make it like this..

Castles/Cities and below will give 6 units to the House
Fortress/Large Cities will give 8 units to the House
Citadel/Huge City will give 10 units to the House

So.. if House have 1 City and 1 Fortress then the House will get min 14 units for their use. Whether they use them for garrison duties or conquering the world is their business. This way the settlement size actually is a good thing.

Also.. Every rank should give +1 or +2 extra units to the House...

This should be combined with the things that FD proposed..

[Ituralde]

Alright guys. I'm still stuck on page 32 and my girlfriend was so nice to surprise me by visiting me this weekend. This will of course limit my time until Sunday. So don't wonder if I don't respond too quickly or stay quiet about topics that touch me.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[OverKnight]

Have fun! I'm sure nothing exciting will happen during the weekend.

[Privateerkev]

Alright guys. I'm still stuck on page 32 and my girlfriend was so nice to surprise me by visiting me this weekend. This will of course limit my time until Sunday. So don't wonder if I don't respond too quickly or stay quiet about topics that touch me.

Cheers!

Ituralde

Have fun. Some things need to take priority. :yes:

*edit*


Moved Ioannis towards Iconion according to his OOC request to me.

You do know that there are no less than 3 Ioannis's in the game right now. (with more on the way.) All of which are in range of Iconium. ^_^

[Cecil XIX]

Right now I'd still like to preserve the 'Feudal System' style that was originally intended, but if we're going to make big changes that doesn't have to stay. I think that if we're revamping the way armies work, we should attempt to model it after whatever the Byzantines actually did.

[TinCow]

The feudal system and all the ranks are definitely staying.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Sorry to leave all of you guys hanging BTW, but it's past 2 AM here and I need my sleep. Just pretend it's a long carriage ride to the Magnaura.

[Kagemusha]

Given how insane this is getting, and given that this will only get worse when we get bigger, something has got to give.

If we want to keep players empowered with personal "armies," then the Megas simply has to get out of the army business. It's fun to move the little captain stacks around but it is simply maddening to not only keep track of who owns what, but to make sure people don't take the wrong stuff. :dizzy2:

I don't care what system we move to, as long as it ends up with players moving and disbanding their own stuff. If players want to be empowered, then they can start taking over the responsibilty and paperwork...

You started this and now im being warned because of thing you never complained about at all when i gathered my army under your permission. You wanted to play by technicalities and i showed you what kind of hell this game can turn by playing it like you want it.Im now ready to continue playing this game like its meant to play, but im really starting to dislike you behaviour.

[AussieGiant]

My thought:

"I personally liked the other style better where we were basically working together and manufactured the tension to a greater extent."

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

The LAST thing we need now is anymore rules. I see proposal's going back and forth and it's simply rules to chew on and crunch through.

If I was to step back and take a look at this, I'd say we have evolved and little too fast and too far from KotR's.

PK outlined to me that the main difference between this game and the last was the level of empowerment and the robust, potentially lethal, civil war mechanism. That's fine, but the cost of this to the game is simply not panning out at this time.

And honestly there were plenty of opportunities to do things in the last game, and we did do quite a bit of "Civil Warring" if I'm not mistaken.

So again I'd like to recommend a revisit to the vastly more workable KotR concept and take perhaps a few basic and smaller step forward from that position.

[AussieGiant]

Sorry to leave all of you guys hanging BTW, but it's past 2 AM here and I need my sleep. Just pretend it's a long carriage ride to the Magnaura.

You're such a tease GH!!!:laugh4:

[Kagemusha]

I would like to once again bring up that im not Ioannis Kantakouzinos. But we dont have to revert back to KOTR rules, but stop these bloody technicalities and play by the spirit.Good game cant be regulated by rules, but good will and respect for the rules by the players.

[AussieGiant]

I agree with...


Good game cant be regulated by rules, but good will and respect for the rules by the players.

...but it's simply not working out that way.

We essentially have a Dispute Resolution Chamber or DRC mechanism in this game...good god I feel like I'm at work. We were so far from needing this in the last game it not even funny.

[TinCow]

The LAST thing we need now is anymore rules. I see proposal's going back and forth and it's simply rules to chew on and crunch through.

I tend to agree, but I'm looking for changes that make the game simpler, not more complex. The changes I'm still rolling around in my head involve a significant reduction in rule text, not an increase in it. If a proposed change cannot be written in a manner that is significantly more concise than the current version, then it's too complex for us.

[AussieGiant]

I tend to agree, but I'm looking for changes that make the game simpler, not more complex. The changes I'm still rolling around in my head involve a significant reduction in rule text, not an increase in it. If a proposed change cannot be written in a manner that is significantly more concise than the current version, then it's too complex for us.

Crunching now TC.

I'll write soon.

[Motep]

You people write too much, and, once more, this thing will go unread. Anywho, I am racking up on the children

[GeneralHankerchief]

Just so this gets addressed now, the events that just took place in the Magnaura are entirely legal:



TC,

I was kind of cryptic with you on asking for my previous clarification and you did deliver a satisfying response, but with the time fast approaching and considering the events of the OOC thread today, I thought I'd level with you:

The Basileus and I are going to bring down YLC's second Organization character, Symeon. We are going to do so by tricking him to make an appearance in the Magnaura. He has already agreed to do so, as evidenced by this exchange:




Symeon,

The time has come for me to make a personal appearance. I will be speaking in front of the Magnaura before the Basileus has time to deal with me; everyone will be distracted by the uproar over the Caesar. I would prefer it if I had your personal protection there. Enclosed is hooded Patriarchal Guard garb so that your identity is not questioned and your face goes unrecognized. You will, along with two of my real Guards, accompany me to the Magnaura.

Patriarch Nicholas III

You are delivered a letter quickly scrawled in Symeons handwriting.

Aleksander himself sits within the Magnaura...I am unsure of this, but I will not waver in my duty. I will be among your men, but all must be hooded, and you will not know which of them I am. I am sorry for taking this precaition, I know I am far more open with you, but...I cannot take a chance when we are so close to our goal.

Understandable.

We will be making a quick pit-stop first (OOC: check the Stories Thread in about an hour or so) and then head to the Magnaura.

Due to YLC's one cavaet, I forwarded the exchange to OK, IC, with the following addition:


Basileus,

We got him.

Have your guards simply surround all three of mine when the time comes. Numbers should prevail.

Patriarch Nicholas III

To which OK then responded:


Your Eminence,

I believe I will relish the oppurtunity to say, "Guards, seize them!" I will double the Guard, a precaution that will go along with our ruse, and take Aleksander into custody the same time as Symeon.

I will await your speech in the Magnaura before unleashing my men and our Edict.

Regards,

Basileus Aleksios

We set up a time (probably 5PM tomorrow ET) in which I would make the Patriarch's personal appearance, ending with Symeon. OK will then, immediately after, post the guards surrounding my three Patriarchal guards (since they're under his control). Preferably this will all take place within a minute so there will be no wriggle room for YLC to react/Symeon to escape.

Basically, I'm telling you this because I want your full understanding and approval. I believe that, the way this has been planned, this move will be perfectly legal. If you agree, I will also post this exchange in the OOC thread once the deed has been done to show that there will be no dispute.

GH

The Rules do not apply to IC storylines. Since you're not writing a story about Symeon, I can't see any way this could be wrong. This is just clever roleplaying, nothing more. You do not need to worry about the rules.

[AussieGiant]

ohhh.

[Cecil XIX]

Don't know how many of you browse the Empire forum (I know LOTR players tend to be more jaded when it comes to CA), but there's a couple of new articles posted that are very interesting.

http://www.gamersglobal.com/news/1208
http://www.totalvideogames.com/articles/GC08_-_Empire_Total_War_QA_13681.htm

The first one is especially interesting, there they talk about how the Battle AI and Diplomacy are undergoing a massive refit.


Battle AI linked to Campaign AI: Kieran Bridgen told us that the withdrawing of the British Forces may be what the AI had planned from the beginning: The new strategic AI is linked to the battle AI, and it could be that the battle we've witnessed was not about holding the town (for the AI general), but about inflicting losses on our troops. Think about "losing a battle, but winning the war". If this really works out in the game, it might be the single most important improvement for all dedicated fans of the Total War series: How often have we given battle in a "bridge region", only to withdraw once the ammo of our ranged units was depleted? If the AI finally understands and uses such tactics, too, the overall gaming experience will profit.

Battle AI: The Battle AI will be improved in another way: So far, the Total War AI was "stage based": There were certain steps the AI general would follow, for example, to take a city: First stage, approach the gate and destroy it. Second stage, enter the town, and so on. If one of those stage goals was interrupted by the human player, the enemy AI would stall, which lead to heavy losses (e.g. in Medieval 2, when cavalry would remain in range of defenders' ranged weapons). Now, we learned, the AI will be goal oriented (for example: "inflict losses on the enemy", or "get into the city somehow"), which should make it act more flexibly.

Promises are cheap, of course, but if they're really taking the passive AI bug seriously we could be seeing a substantially improved product. That goes double if the Tactical AI can think strategically.

That's just the part most relevent to our purposes, there's a lot of good stuff in those articles and I'd advise everyone to take a look. Looks like we'll finally get something like a 'Get off my land!" feature, and the campaign map is pixel-based instead of tile-based. So instead of having to march into an army's tile in order to bring it to battle, each town, fort and army has a (presumably circular) ZoC.


When two zones meet, a battle occurs. This also help with hindering movement. Because you will be able to place forts anywhere you want, it should now be possible to actually have a "Limes" or a "Great Wall" along your border, with the enemy having to fight at least once in order to enter your country.

Don't know if 'meet' means when they overlap, or if when one army itself is inside an enemy ZoC, but either way it looks like it'll be easier to intercept armies. Good stuff.

[pevergreen]

Don't worry, I've been following ETW.

Yay bandwagon!

[ULC]

Aw c'mon GH, you didn't actually think I'd fall for the same blunder twice, did you? Credit me with some intelligence and cunning. The whole "I need your protection" thing was extremely fishy, but just saying no would have aroused suspicion, so I accepted, with the intent of Symeon being an observer to the Patriarch's loyalty, which you promptly betrayed. Try again folks ~;p.

[pevergreen]

Leave "justice" alone.

Thats the underlying message i got. :laugh4:

[GeneralHankerchief]

If we don't resolve this thing now, there's just going to be an eternal runaround (I think I mentioned to OK in a PM once about it being similar to two kids playing war with imaginary guns). Besides, I thought you said we had your permission to use the Organization however we wanted.

[ULC]

Sorry, wasn't clear on that I guess. I meant that you have permission to "blame it on the Organization". And it essentially resolved, since Symeon has no power at all anymore. I'm just leaving it open ended enough for a possible "return". Plus, Aleksander got to laugh at you all ~;p.