Promised Iron Man Rules

This is actually a "re: house rules for MTW." These are the rules I promised. I couldn't find them again to make a link. So, I type them here.

GENERAL RULES THAT APPLY THROUGHOUT THE GAME:

A) You must accept all offers to ceasefire.

B) You must accept all alliances unless it will violate an existing one. However, see C.

C) You must show deference to your religion in all matters regarding alliance. Ex: You are Byz. Novgorod goes to war with Poland. You are allied to both. You must stay allied with fellow Orthys, rejecting catholic fool Poles. Ex: You are Spain allied to Eggy. Crusading French are at war with Eggy and ask to ally with you. You must do so and cancel your alliance with Eggy.

D) You may not voluntarily break alliances unless it has to do with acheiving a GA goal.

E) If you are Catholic you must be a good one. You must under all circumstances not get excommunicated. If you do, GAME OVER.

F) You must try to acheive all GA goals even if it will possibly be detrimental or leave you weak somewhere else. Have some integrity about this.

G) You may not inbreed (Strangely, I've found this is a rather painless solution to the fact that factions refuse to marry you in mid to late game....the inbred vices are random).

H) You must build up provinces equally, meaning militarily. IOW, no specializing provinces. You cannot build a certain level troop building until ALL (other than gun stuff not available at first) lower levels are built. Ex: No Bowyer's workshop until Spearmaker, Swordsmith, Horse Farmer, 1st level militia (I forget what it's called), and Siege engineer are built in that particular province. Armorers and Metalsmiths are different and do not apply.

I) You may not employ scorched earth against the AI, nor raid, slash, and burn.

J) Crusades may only be employed against GA goal provinces or against any faction the Pope calls for one against. You may only keep the target province and of course may not slash and burn a passed through one, nor stop to besiege the fortification. EXCEPTION: When crusading against an excommunicated leader, the idea is to kill or remove him. The target must be the one he is in. If not there when you take it, you must then pursue him with the "Crusaders" (now a regular army) until he is killed, captured or dies. You keep the LAST province, not the necessarily the target province. If you kill or remove him before you capture the target, you may still continue to and keep only the target province. Oh yeah, almost forgot....if catholic, you must always allow a crusade to pass, even an enemy's.

EARLY ERA RULES:

K) You may only attack provinces that are in your GA goals to own or take (Crusades). Period. If you lose one you had at first and it is not in your GA goals after you've lost it. You may NOT retake it...though you can try to relieve a seige still underway.

HIGH ERA RULES:

L) You may now attack rebels if they are adjacent with your empire...by water does NOT count. Ex: Egypt cannot take Norway unless they already own Sweden.

M) You may now "retaliate" against aggressors, capturing provinces he invades you from if you repell an attack. However, you cannot practice defensive aggression. If you take their province, you do not have the right to counterattack when he attempts to liberate his lost province until either (a) you hold it 50 years, (b) it's one of you GA goals to own either province, or (c) you return to a state of peace with that factions. If any of these apply, then you can now "counterattack" if that province is attacked.

N) You may still attempt to fulfill any GA without regard to these limitations.

O) You may no longer crusade UNLESS it is one called for by the Pope.

LATE ERA RULES:

P) Gloves are off. None apply accept the ones listed as applying throughout the game.


I think that's it. If I find I've left out something, I'll edit it. It's really interesting, but almost impossible for landlocked factions or factions with no trade goods in starting provinces. Try playing Poland, Turkey, or Aragon like this and your hair will turn gray.

Too many rules lol.

A). I can't say no to that rule unless it's a crusade then I don't see the point of cease-fire. Also, I try to be a good ally so if my ally doesn't forgive you then I'm not forgiving you especially you're winning.

B). I "violate" an existing alliance if the existing one doesn't offer marriage and the new one does. I guess it's pretty fair.

C). Yeah, people of same faith are your friends and infidels are enemies by default.

D). Since I got XL I never play on GA mode anymore. I kinda make up my own lol.

E). I wouldn't call it quit cus the best part is when my neighbors crusade on me. I did become a nice catholic in my previous German campaign. I never went to war with my fellow catholics until I became hated. Pope invaded Sardinia from Genoese (long time ally) and then he attacked me first for no reason so I kicked him off Italy and sunk his fleets. I couldn't justify my action any better. Nobody crusaded to my land luckily but I couldn't attack French (currently at war) in return. I don't think my huge empire could afford civil war. Pope got her back. I had become HRE_STAGNANT. French King led an army to Flanders and got killed. They become rebels. I haven't continued playing since then.

Interesting rules you got here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weebeast

Too many rules lol.

A). I can't say no to that rule unless it's a crusade then I don't see the point of cease-fire. Also, I try to be a good ally so if my ally doesn't forgive you then I'm not forgiving you especially you're winning.

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Actually you are correct. Oops. I left that out, but then again...it's basically covered by the idea that nothing gets in the way of GA I guess.


...I was thinking of downloading XL. CAN you play GA with it?...

Wow, I thought I was masochistic! I play with some of them, or something simialr, already, but the whole lot!? I'll be giving them a spin when I fix MTW.

Download XL definitely. You can play the GA goals, unfortunateley there is no way to add new ones, so the extra factions are stuck with the "2 points per province conquered" ones. The regular factions still have their unique goals though.

I play with my own variant of Iron Man rules, including some of the above.

One I use is that I only personally fight battles were my King or Princes are the general leading the army. The rest I auto-resolve. Makes the game tougher, quicker(!) and a bit more realistic.