Vandal PBM - out of character thread

~:cheers: Hello everyone! Longtime lurker, first...er..second time poster here. I read the last few PBEM campaign writeups a while back, and was struck by what an incredible idea doing such a thing was. Since then I've been lurking around the throne room to see if a new one started up, but most of the new stuff seems to be mp or The Will of the Senate game, so I figured it was about time I quit lurking, signed up on the forums, and just posted here to find out if there's any interest in a new tradition PBEM campaign(that is, the kind where each player controls the entire reign of one leader or just a set number of terms a faction).

Would anyone like to give one a try? I see that for BI both of the Roman factions have already been done, as well as the Alemani. Maybe another barbarian faction, like the Saxons or Franks, or maybe the Celts could reclaim the lands stolen from them by the Romans, Gaul, Iberia, Britain, and the Po Valley(which would certainly be a challenge, given their rather limited unit lineup). Or the Romano British could establish a new Roman empire. I'm thinking Hard/Medium or Very Hard/Medium, to give a challenge but prevent computer limitanei from kicking the crap out of, say player Saxon Hearth Troops.

I'm open to house rules to make the campaign more challenging/longer (no peasant garrisons, no retraining, added campaign goals, etc.), and/or other factions. I'd also be happy to host the PBEM.

Any takers? :viking:

Sorry to be first to post and to say that I'm not interested. But I think if you used Goth's Mod for BI, which replaces the units with more realistic ones in some areas and better skins. It should improve gameplay as well.

For the R-B you'll certainly need a mod, and for the celts you probably want one too, to increase your choice in units. You could try playing Saxons as well, and establish your hold on the British Isles and then create an overseas colonial empire and war the Germanics ~;p

Welcome to the .Org Zimfan, and to the Throne Room of course ! :2thumbsup:

As you're playing Vanilla Rome, you might try advertising this in the Entrance Hall, or the Colosseum - they're both more active than the Throne Room is most of the time.And I'm sure at least a couple of the locals, or lurkers, are interested in a PBM which doesn't require tons of extra work that needs to be done to get the game working.

I don't think you've got anything to lose really, so give it a try.

PS: As for me....I'm busy with the RTRPE campaign as is Tiberius, and seeing that I'm not even that active (sadly) in that PBM it wouldn't be the smartest action to join another PBM. That said, I'm going on vacation in a couple of days , which means no Total War for three weeks....

:balloon2:

I'd be interested.

How about a Vandal campaign? It seems like they have a tough time for a Nomad faction, since they need to go from way out in the Steppes to Spain/Africa? The theme could be The Long March or something similar.

Mao-style long march?

:dizzy2:

:wall: Completely forgot.

Still, you get my drift.

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Originally Posted by Tiberius

Sorry to be first to post and to say that I'm not interested. But I think if you used Goth's Mod for BI, which replaces the units with more realistic ones in some areas and better skins. It should improve gameplay as well.

For the R-B you'll certainly need a mod, and for the celts you probably want one too, to increase your choice in units. You could try playing Saxons as well, and establish your hold on the British Isles and then create an overseas colonial empire and war the Germanics ~;p

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I'll have to take a look at that one. The only BI mod I've tried so faris Professor Spatula's Extra Horde and Romano-British mod. Well, that and the bug fixer.

I love playing the Saxons. The limited cavalry and archers, and knowing I can't horde always make them interesting. :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Dutch_guy

Welcome to the .Org Zimfan, and to the Throne Room of course ! :2thumbsup:

As you're playing Vanilla Rome, you might try advertising this in the Entrance Hall, or the Colosseum - they're both more active than the Throne Room is most of the time.And I'm sure at least a couple of the locals, or lurkers, are interested in a PBM which doesn't require tons of extra work that needs to be done to get the game working.

I don't think you've got anything to lose really, so give it a try.

PS: As for me....I'm busy with the RTRPE campaign as is Tiberius, and seeing that I'm not even that active (sadly) in that PBM it wouldn't be the smartest action to join another PBM. That said, I'm going on vacation in a couple of days , which means no Total War for three weeks....

:balloon2:

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I'll probably try that. I had been under the impression that I had to post this kind of thing in the Throne room.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

I'd be interested.

How about a Vandal campaign? It seems like they have a tough time for a Nomad faction, since they need to go from way out in the Steppes to Spain/Africa? The theme could be The Long March or something similar.

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:charge: A Vandal campaign works for me. They can be a bit quick, though, with only a ten province goal. If we want to make the campaign last more than one or two people's turns, maybe we should add a few house campaign goals, like Christianization of the Vandal empire and control of the mediterranean(signified perhaps by placing all of the islands in it under Vandal control. What do you think?

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Originally Posted by Zimfan

I'll probably try that. I had been under the impression that I had to post this kind of thing in the Throne room.

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You're absolutely right on that, however, a bit of advertising never hurts :2thumbsup:

:balloon2:

I would be in for a Vandal campaign.

I'm interested. A vanilla BI campaign would probably open up the widest pool of players. But I'd second the idea of Goth's mod - the units are so much better looking while the gameplay is largely unchanged (a little more challenging and RTRish but not dramatically).

I would be in, only of it is vanilla BI.. Mods for WotS are already eating my disk drive..

Just a few notes if we are indeed doing a Vandal campaign:

-When compared with the Huns, the Vandals need to go farther with less troops (The Huns have 9 stacks compared to the six given to the Vandals, and the Hunnic cavalry has more than the usual 54 horses).

-Ideally their target area is the former territories of Carthage and Numidia, as well as Rome.

-The starting faction leader, Visimar, is extremely young (37 to be exact), which I think calls for an unorthodox reign system. Perhaps when certain areas have been entered play switches off. Once the Vandals have settled then we can resume the normal rule.

A few rules I am proposing:

-The route taken should be roughly what happened in history (Steppes-Germania-Gaul-Iberia-Africa).

-Corduba, when taken, is to be settled for a small amount of turns. Eventually, however, the player must horde up again and continue to Africa. Obviously the time taken when settled should be directed to building a navy.

-Carthage is to be settled and made the permanent capital. The Vandals must then work from there.

-No mercenaries while in horde mode.

That's all I can think of right now, do you guys approve/want to add more?

Maybe one person can have the migration to the Iberian peninsula and building of a navy, then the next can take Vandal migration number two, to Carthage. The first would be focused on gaining money through sacking settlements, and, of course, building up the navy, and the second on establishing a more permanant Vandal empire in Northern Africa, and building up their economy and regular military.

All of those rules sound fine to me. The only other thing I'd suggest is maybe changing the win conditions. 10 provinces seems like it would make for a very short post migration game.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

Just a few notes if we are indeed doing a Vandal campaign:

-When compared with the Huns, the Vandals need to go farther with less troops (The Huns have 9 stacks compared to the six given to the Vandals, and the Hunnic cavalry has more than the usual 54 horses).

-Ideally their target area is the former territories of Carthage and Numidia, as well as Rome.

-The starting faction leader, Visimar, is extremely young (37 to be exact), which I think calls for an unorthodox reign system. Perhaps when certain areas have been entered play switches off. Once the Vandals have settled then we can resume the normal rule.

A few rules I am proposing:

-The route taken should be roughly what happened in history (Steppes-Germania-Gaul-Iberia-Africa).

-Corduba, when taken, is to be settled for a small amount of turns. Eventually, however, the player must horde up again and continue to Africa. Obviously the time taken when settled should be directed to building a navy.

-Carthage is to be settled and made the permanent capital. The Vandals must then work from there.

-No mercenaries while in horde mode.

That's all I can think of right now, do you guys approve/want to add more?

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State of the PBEM:

Tentative list of players, in no particular order:
-General Hankerchief
-Ignoramus
-econ21
-x-dANGEr, so long as we're playing Vanilla BI
-And, of course, me, Zimfan

Proposed rules, most courtesy of General Hankerchief:
-The route taken should be roughly what happened in history (Steppes-Germania-Gaul-Iberia-Africa).

-Corduba, when taken, is to be settled for a small amount of turns. Eventually, however, the player must horde up again and continue to Africa. Obviously the time taken when settled should be directed to building a navy.

-Carthage is to be settled and made the permanent capital. The Vandals must then work from there.

-No mercenaries while in horde mode.

-As the faction leader is young, Division of first reign into the Migration to Iberia, and The Migration to Carthage

-Possibly some kind change to the victory conditions, as the Vandals only require 10 provinces to win.

I'm thinking VH/M and large unit size or medium. I'm visiting my fiancee for the summer and playing on her laptop, so huge unit size is out for me(too much lag).

-One reccomendation for Goth's mod and one player who can't play unless it's vanilla BI.

Anyone have any ideas on the proposed rules(or new ones) or other things?

On the idea of making things more difficult:

Perhaps on the initial journey there would be target cities to sack (i.e. everything in our path) in order to give the player a sense of preserving his forces. If we want to wreak as much havoc as we can during the game, I suggest we really go after the settlements that can make some factions go and horde.

A few of these settlements/factions are:
-Vicus Sarmatae/Sarmatians (while it's not technically in our route, we can give it a break and unleash the Sarmies on the ERE)
-Vicus Franki/Franks (probably will have expanded by the time we get there)
-Campus Burgundii
-Campus Lombardi

If we are successful, these four peoples will be bearing down on the civilized world, not to mention the Huns, and possibly the Roxolani/Slavs. Enough destruction to make worlds shake.

What do you think of this? And VH/M, Large is fine with me as long as I don't go first.

I think you have a very good set of groundrules, Zimfan. :2thumbsup:

Anyone have an idea how long it would take to get to Iberia? And from Iberia to Carthage? The first leg, in particular, sounds long. If it is significantly longer than 20 turns, I would advocate 20 turn reigns instead. Traditional PBEMs can get exhausting and BI games immediately start off pretty "big" (lots of factions are ready to go) compared to RTW ones where you slowly build up your land.

One house rule I like is no retraining units unless they are full strength (except ships). This stops the player instanteously replenishing losses and also prevents them creating full strength uber experienced units from a few lucky surivors.

I also like a "no extermination" rule as exterminating is too easy a solution to money and loyalty problems. Hordes can always sack settlements anyway.

Finally, I would reduce the bandit and pirate spawn rate. I find bandits tedious to fight while pirates can become overly powerful.

I guess we should play vanilla given that not doing so would be a deal breaker for x-dANGEr whereas doing so is not a deal breaker for anyone else.

General Hankerchief,
A quick check of the last save in a Vandal campaign of mine showed that it took me about 30 years/60 turns to sack all of Gaul and Italy, settle in Spain, convert Spain to Christianity, build up a full stack army and a navy, take Tingi, and march that stack halfway to Carthage. I think I beat that game within the next 10 years or so.

Sacking all of the horde factions capitals sounds like fun to me. Should we add Rome to the sacking list?

If noone else wants to, I can go first, but if the Huns attack me I may need to settle and rehorde(in my WRE game I had to force them to fight at rivers and in woods to beat them off, and they still killed as many of my men as I did their's).

econ21,
Thanks, but General Hankerchief came up with most of them. :)
20 turns works for me.
I don't mind no extermination, but given the Vandal's lack of happiness buildings maybe we should make an exception for WRE "Huge" cities(or allow the sacking of Carthage before settling it).

Does everybody have to reduce the spawn rates to the same level to make the game compatible for everyone, or is that only a problem with major mods? This is my first PBEM.

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Originally Posted by Zimfan

I don't mind no extermination, but given the Vandal's lack of happiness buildings maybe we should make an exception for WRE "Huge" cities(or allow the sacking of Carthage before settling it).

Does everybody have to reduce the spawn rates to the same level to make the game compatible for everyone, or is that only a problem with major mods? This is my first PBEM.

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OK, let's forget about a no extermination rule - I had not thought about the lack of happiness buildings. I believe only the first player needs to reduce the spawn rates - the relevant file is only read once, at the start of a campaign.

Regarding extermination, I don't think it's necesscary. I'm pretty sure that you settling as a horde faction automatically converts that city to your culture, so it completely eliminates the culture and capital distance penalties. We can eliminate it if we want, but after sacking so many cities it really won't matter to the Vandals from a role-playing point of view.

As for the first reign being over 20 turns, you forget that being a horde, there's really no administrative duties involved. Many of the turns will consist of clicking on a stack, clicking on its destination, repeat five times. In the later stages when our boys reach Gaul and Iberia, then there will be a bit more siegework.

I'll do a test to see about how long we're talking about until the Vandals hit Corduba in the meantime.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

Regarding extermination, I don't think it's necesscary. I'm pretty sure that you settling as a horde faction automatically converts that city to your culture, so it completely eliminates the culture and capital distance penalties. We can eliminate it if we want, but after sacking so many cities it really won't matter to the Vandals from a role-playing point of view.

As for the first reign being over 20 turns, you forget that being a horde, there's really no administrative duties involved. Many of the turns will consist of clicking on a stack, clicking on its destination, repeat five times. In the later stages when our boys reach Gaul and Iberia, then there will be a bit more siegework.

I'll do a test to see about how long we're talking about until the Vandals hit Corduba in the meantime.

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That's true, but only for the very first city you settle. Cordoba gave me trouble the whole game because of the culture penalty and high population.

Can't wait to hear the results of the test. :2thumbsup:

Well, my test is complete. I wanted to see roughly how long it took to get from the Steppes to Corduba, using this general route:

http://home.comcast.net/~general_han...al_pbm_000.JPG

During my test (Easy/Easy just to be quick), I besieged no cities aside from Corduba, and fought no battles unless the enemy was directly in my way. Although Vicus Sarmatae was out of the way, I simulated the army moving there. In addition, I also made the effort to keep my horde together. While Visimar, the leader, could have probably reached Corduba somewhat earlier I kept him close to the rest of the horde.

My route was divided into 3 sections.

Section 1
Vicus Sarmatae - no wall
Campus Lombardi - wooden wall
Campus Burgundii - wooden wall
Campus Chatti - wooden wall
Vicus Franki - stone wall

Section 2
Since you must go through Vicus Franki in order to pass, I split my horde up. Half went north, half south. Obviously in the actual game it will be sacked then we'll decide what to do from there.

North: (three stacks)
Colonia Agrippina - wooden wall
Samarobrive - stone wall
Avaricum - large stone wall (374 AD at this point)

South: (three stacks)
Augusta Treverorum - stone wall
Army then went south following road until bridge, where it went west and crossed a roadless plain, leading to Avaricum while North Section was "sieging"

Section 3 (reunified horde)
Burdigala - wooden wall
Tarraco - stone wall (passable if you don't wish to sack it- take the ford to the west)
Corduba - stone wall
NOTE: Carthago Nova is impassable if you want to stay on the road. I went west through Southern Iberia to hit Corduba.

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The horde settled Corduba in the Summer of 380 AD, seventeen years and thirty four turns in. Taking in the fact that there are eleven settlements along the way, plus adding some time for reorganization, I'd estimate the march taking about fifty turns or so. Visimar should have a few years left in him by the time that happens. Pretty long for a first leg, even if it's just moving six stacks and fighting a siege battle every once in a while.

This is a rough sketch of the journey I took (keyword being rough, because of my dumb mouse wheel getting in the way). My route is in green, with split and all (FOW was on for most of my journey so I could see if there were enemies ahead).

http://home.comcast.net/~general_han...al_pbm_001.JPG

Oh, and in case anybody was wondering, the Huns horded the poor Sarmatians twice. They were milling around the area between their original land and the Roxolani capital at the end. The Romano-British had emerged due to Celtic takeover and had captured Londinium. The Huns were sieging Ravenna for a second time, after being repulsed before. The WRE had destroyed the Alemanni by about Turn 3, and was actually pretty stable. The ERE had lost Athens, about half of Turkey, and some other place in the Middle East due to rebels.

That's an interesting test run - I think it confirms that the march to Iberia is rather long for one player to do. If we have five players, I think cutting the PBM into bite sized 20 turn pieces might be the best way to share it out.

~:cheers: Very impressive General Hankerchief.

That means that at 20 turns per person the first three will most likely handle the migration to Iberia(The Long Ma...er...Lengthy Stroll) and establishment of a fleet and the last two the setting up of a permanant base in Carthage and taking of the needed territories for the win.

We should probably start thinking about the play order now. Does anyone have any preferences? I can go first if nobody else wants to.

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Originally Posted by Zimfan

We should probably start thinking about the play order now. Does anyone have any preferences? I can go first if nobody else wants to.

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Seconded. :2thumbsup: I think it's good if the creator of a PBM goes first - he can set the tone, so to speak. I suggest starting with the order people expressed interest in this thread and then letting people request alterations depending on their availability and prefences.

I make that:

Zimfan
GeneralHankerchief
Ignoramus
x-dANGEr
econ21

Dutch_guy was 2nd to post interest but is away for 3 weeks, so could be slotted in somewhere on the list depending how far the campaign gets in the next 3 weeks.

Good, I get to invade Spain!

I have one more rule to add: We are allowed to exterminate the population of cities we sack.

What do you think?

There are two choices when you take a city as a horde: Sack or Settle.

If you sack it it's pretty much extermination, although you kill even more people, get even more gold, and destroy a lot of the buildings in the city. So extermination would fall under the category of "sacking."

Ah ok. Also, I think we should make it a rule that we must cross at the Strait of Gibraltar, and march along the African coast to Carthage.

What I had in mind was Corduba being a pit stop of sorts - what's left of the horde settles down and refreshes for five turns or so. The player then clicks the horde button, and the Vandals cross the Strait, proceed across Africa, and permanently settle at Carthage.