Successor game rules, draft one.

Overknight That's definitely a mistake. 5 units was intended. Thanks for pointing it out.

Ramses II CP I know what you meant. :clown: My thinking when I had made that rule was that it would be easiest to declare if you're refusing to hand over the province right away, since you have to stick around to keep it from defaulting to the king. Otherwise in the intervening turns something might take you away from that province, leaving the noble too far away to avoid the autodefault...

I hadn't taken into account that the King could then try something sneaky. I guess I had been thinking that the noble declaring he was keeping the province left it in a sort of limbo. If the issue would be resolved, ratification would be easy. If it wasn't, it would remain his through the session to the next one. Not only is the latter one not explicit in the rules, but the first assumption could very well prove incorrect in most instances. I'd add that to the list of things to change.

Editted rules to allow Nobles to choose any unit available in their settlements when choosing prioritized units.

Could someone point out to me which of points 5 or 15 do apply ? They seem redundant and specify different numbers

King:
Requirements: Must be the in-game faction leader.
Influence: Equal to Authority stat.
Powers:
(1) Can propose an unlimited number of Edicts or Amendments per Council Session.
(2) Can set the build queue and tax rate for all settlements in the King's Demesne. Can destroy any building in those settlements and can rename any of them at any time.
(3) Can call Emergency Council Sessions.
(4) Cannot be banned from a Council Session.
(5) If this rank is held during a Normal Council Session, can Prioritize a total of 8 units per full 10 turn Seneschal term.
(6) Can declare war on any faction at any time, for any reason.
(7) Can veto one Edict or Amendment per 3 ranks of Authority.
(8) Decides which noble, if any, a Princess should marry.
(9) Can allocate all newly conquered land, or let it remain within the King's Demesne if he wishes.
(10) Once during his reign, the King may automatically assume the post of Seneschal for a single term. The King must declare that he is exercising that right at a Council Session; He will then be appointed Seneschal with no election. This right can only be invoked once, but the King can also compete in normal Seneschal elections.
(11) Can ban Nobles from a Council Session. Banned Nobles cannot speak or propose legislations, but they are permitted to vote.
(12) Can adjudicate on disputes regarding Edicts and Codex Amendments. However, if a dispute directly involves the King or the Prince, the Seneschal will be the adjudicator.
(13) Can rename the faction at any time.
(14) Can move the Capital at any time, as long as the new Capital is within the King's Demesne.
(15) Can prioritize 5 units per term.
Penalties:
(1) Cannot hold any other feudal rank except that of Seneschal.
(2) Cannot swear an Oath of Fealty to another Senator and cannot have any Vassals.
Inheritance: On the death of a King, all Oaths of Fealty pertaining to the Noble who is now King are instantly broken, with no penalties. The new King takes control of any provinces in the King's Demesne, as well as retaining those under his control at the time of his ascension. If he was Duke of his House, his named heir for that post attains the rank. In the absence of a named heir, the second in charge of the House becomes Duke.

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Originally Posted by Tristan de Castelreng

Could someone point out to me which of points 5 or 15 do apply ? They seem redundant and specify different numbers

King:
Requirements: Must be the in-game faction leader.
Influence: Equal to Authority stat.
Powers:
(1) Can propose an unlimited number of Edicts or Amendments per Council Session.
(2) Can set the build queue and tax rate for all settlements in the King's Demesne. Can destroy any building in those settlements and can rename any of them at any time.
(3) Can call Emergency Council Sessions.
(4) Cannot be banned from a Council Session.
(5) If this rank is held during a Normal Council Session, can Prioritize a total of 8 units per full 10 turn Seneschal term.
(6) Can declare war on any faction at any time, for any reason.
(7) Can veto one Edict or Amendment per 3 ranks of Authority.
(8) Decides which noble, if any, a Princess should marry.
(9) Can allocate all newly conquered land, or let it remain within the King's Demesne if he wishes.
(10) Once during his reign, the King may automatically assume the post of Seneschal for a single term. The King must declare that he is exercising that right at a Council Session; He will then be appointed Seneschal with no election. This right can only be invoked once, but the King can also compete in normal Seneschal elections.
(11) Can ban Nobles from a Council Session. Banned Nobles cannot speak or propose legislations, but they are permitted to vote.
(12) Can adjudicate on disputes regarding Edicts and Codex Amendments. However, if a dispute directly involves the King or the Prince, the Seneschal will be the adjudicator.
(13) Can rename the faction at any time.
(14) Can move the Capital at any time, as long as the new Capital is within the King's Demesne.
(15) Can prioritize 5 units per term.
Penalties:
(1) Cannot hold any other feudal rank except that of Seneschal.
(2) Cannot swear an Oath of Fealty to another Senator and cannot have any Vassals.
Inheritance: On the death of a King, all Oaths of Fealty pertaining to the Noble who is now King are instantly broken, with no penalties. The new King takes control of any provinces in the King's Demesne, as well as retaining those under his control at the time of his ascension. If he was Duke of his House, his named heir for that post attains the rank. In the absence of a named heir, the second in charge of the House becomes Duke.

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Great minds think alike:

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Originally Posted by OverKnight

The King has two powers related to unit priortisation:

(5) If this rank is held during a Normal Council Session, can prioritize a total of 8 units per full 10 turn Seneschal term.
and
(15) Can prioritize 5 units per term.

Is this as designed, ensuring that a new King can still priortize at least 5 units? Or is it a typo?

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Originally Posted by Zim

Overknight That's definitely a mistake. 5 units was intended. Thanks for pointing it out.

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Major rules edit:

-TinCow's edits incorporated.
-Additional minor proofreading and editting done.
-Draft system added
-Ability added for GM to recruit AI stacks, not meant to be used often (although AI factions will be buffed at the beginning of the game, mostly to offset the huge advantage in RGBs we have at the start...
-Dual prioritization lines under King's powers fixed.

The rules are in their more or less final draft. The Council is set to start Monday morning (sometime after 12 AM PST). The next two days, among other things, will be used to resolve and remaining rules issues.

Does anyone think I should just change all uses of the term "House" to "Duchy"? Or is that not generic enough in case someone tries to start a military order like in LOTR?

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Originally Posted by Zim

Does anyone think I should just change all uses of the term "House" to "Duchy"? Or is that not generic enough in case someone tries to start a military order like in LOTR?

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I think it is fine as is, for the reason you specified above if not others we may or may not foresee.

I agree, leave it as House. Nobles can swear oaths to non-Dukes. Thus, we could get groups of lords and vassals that have a feudal relationship, but are not in a Duchy. There are also many, many different roleplaying reasons that people would want to call their group something other than Duchy of XXXX.

I know it is last minute, but I think we need to add something to the rules to make our concept of who leads an army match the computers. Specifically, in 1 (c), we have:

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A player whose avatar leads an army that is involved in a battle will be expected to fight that battle.

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The problem is that the computer will assign army leadership to general with the highest command stars (let's call him player A), not the one who IC is the leader (typically the most senior feudal rank - player B). Consequently, player B will fight a battle, but player A will get any resulting traits. This just seems wrong - player B should get any traits from the victory. Furthermore, a dreadful/chivalrous player B may lower/raise player A's chivalry when deciding what to do with the prisoners/captured settlement etc. Again, this is topsy-turvey.

In the KotR rules, we let the computer's choice of the general be the one to fight the battle (ie player A). But later on we altered that to allow household armies be led by their politically designated leaders (player B). However, that did not cause much of an issue, as by the time we had household armies, our avatars were spread across many settlements and typically the politically more senior general also had a ton of command stars (so the player B was also the player A).

But with KotF, we are starting with many recruitable generals in a few settlements and the equivalent of five household armies, so we can expect a number of RBGs to be stacked in a given army. Furthermore, some of the politically more senior generals (the non-royal Dukes) have pretty mediocre command stats. IIRC, they typically have one star whereas a number of the RBGs have four stars. I'm also thinking of a possible Order of the Fleurs Lys stack in the future, where the general would be the one elected Captain for that term rather than the one with the highest command.

If we leave the rules as they are - with the IC leadership and the computer leadership mismatched - we may well get some undesirable player interactions whereby Dukes prefer to fight alone or kick high command subordinates from battles.

What I propose is that we use the console to make the computer's choice for who leads the army the same as ours. That is to say, we give the army stack leader (player B) sufficient traits to have more command stars than his subordinates. So I propose we add in to 1(b)

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The GM will use the console to give the avatar leading the army more command stars than any other avatar in the stack. Any bonus traits given this way will be withdrawn as soon as they are unnecessary.

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The way I suggest we do this is through the NaturalMilitarySkill trait, as this should be able to give most commanders up to 4 more stars, which should be enough. I suggest this trait rather than any other, as it seems to be largely triggered on birth, adoption, marriage and coming of age rather than through battle events. If we use some of the traits with battle-related triggers, we may have a problem messing up any post-battle traits awarded (e.g. making someone a great general pushes up the threshold for them to get another command star).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Trait NaturalMilitarySkill
Characters family

Level Talent_for_Command
Description Talent_for_Command_desc
EffectsDescription Talent_for_Command_effects_desc
Threshold 1

Effect Command 1

Level Natural_Commander
Description Natural_Commander_desc
EffectsDescription Natural_Commander_effects_desc
Threshold 2

Effect Command 2

Level Born_to_Command
Description Born_to_Command_desc
EffectsDescription Born_to_Command_effects_desc
Threshold 3

Effect Command 3

Level Born_Conqueror
Description Born_Conqueror_desc
EffectsDescription Born_Conqueror_effects_desc
Threshold 4

Effect Command 4

I realise doing this gives us a bit of an edge of the AI, but I understand that - outside of autocalc - command stars only affect morale in the locality of the general. They do not raise attack and defense stats like in some earlier TW games (e.g. MTW). Honestly, I don't think we need worry too much about the morale of our men near our generals - if we lose, typically it will be because we messed up and/or are grossly outmatched rather than because our troops' morale wavered at a critical point. I am much more worried about the implications of a player A vs player B mismatch than a small edge over the AI.

If we implement this change, then over time, console usage should be less important. The Dukes will quickly gain command stars and overtake the RBGs without requiring extra traits from the GM. The natural military strategy trait can then be clawed back using the console. But unless we initially rig it so that they are treated as the commanding general by the computer, the Dukes will not be able to pick up command stars from battles involving more talented subordinates and will never take off as avatars despite their players having to fight all the battles.

An alternative workaround might be to make any players in a stack with a higher command than the leader enter as reinforcements (ie kick them from the stack but leave them adjacent). But given our willingness to use the console for stuff like getting rid of unwanted ancillaries, I think resorting to the console may be a neater fix. (Separating out some RBGs may only be possible in offensive battles - in defensive ones, we may be taken by surprise and unable to organise it.)

We could agree to stay with the status quo and resolve the player A/player B discrepancies in character - initially mediocre Dukes may decide to sideline talented commanders and keep them out of battles. That's historically not unprecedented. It's plausible that sometimes a talented subordinate might get the praise (traits) for a victory rather than their mediocre boss. However, on balance, I think a little console usage might be better than such role-playing contortions. Certainly, I can't see much of a rationale for the talented subordinate rather than the commander getting chivalry/dread from the commander's post battle acts.

I think you've misunderstood the rule. The "player whose avatar leads an army that is involved in a battle" IS the player that the game chooses as the leader. There is no IC/OOC split in that rule, the person who shows up as the leader when the battle appears in-game is always the person that fights the battle. That's how it worked in LotR, and KotF 1(c) is a direct copy of the same rule in LotR, marked there as 1.3.

On reread, I see I misread your post. However, I dislike using the console for all of this. There is a very simple solution to this problem: if you want to fight the battle yourself, don't merge your army with an avatar that has a higher command rating. If you absolutely MUST have that other avatar coming along, just park them outside of the stack before the battle so that they join in as reinforcements.

Yes but I guess that means we will remove RBG's and have them coming on as reinforcements to ensure the correct person is "leading".

I was just going to have all the young bucks in a stack by themselves, which is option 2 in your system econ. If we get attacked and are on the defensive then simply let the AI decide and hand over the battles to the appropriate player.

In this way at least on the defensive some of the guy's will get a shot at battles.

I would prefer not to use the console as you suggested econ.

I want to unstrike TinCow's initial reply:

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Originally Posted by TinCow

I think you've misunderstood the rule. The "player whose avatar leads an army that is involved in a battle" IS the player that the game chooses as the leader. There is no IC/OOC split in that rule, the person who shows up as the leader when the battle appears in-game is always the person that fights the battle. That's how it worked in LotR, and KotF 1(c) is a direct copy of the same rule in LotR, marked there as 1.3.

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OK, thanks - I think I did misunderstand the rule - so 1(c) should be interpreted such that the person leading the army is the player the game chooses as the leader? I'd assumed that since one player owned a stack, he would also be the one to fight the battle. But if we are going with the computer's pick, then there is no issue of one avatar getting traits or chivalry/dread for another player's actions. If there is a resistance to using the console - and I understand that - Dukes will have to use reinforcements as AG says.

I honestly do not see an issue with the computer selecting the person with the highest command as the one to fight the battle. Again, instead of making another rule for it, I'd rather go for handling it IC - maybe the Duke decided that he would have another act as his Adjutant General for the battle, or that the Duke decides that one of his officers could be used "elsewhere" and promptly removes him from the stack, creating IC tension as to why.

Using the reserve stack for RGB's, while not sexy is a much simpler way than the level of intervention needed to overcome this in game mechanism.

It balances out very soon with a few battles and creates some interesting IC relations.

I would say one more thing.

These rules need to be ratified and posted formally before the council starts.

The rules are finished.

Also, the Council already started. :clown:

I'll do the rules/faq thread right now.

Yeah I saw that after I posted. :egypt:

I'm not fast enough.

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Originally Posted by TinCow

On reread, I see I misread your post. However, I dislike using the console for all of this. There is a very simple solution to this problem: if you want to fight the battle yourself, don't merge your army with an avatar that has a higher command rating. If you absolutely MUST have that other avatar coming along, just park them outside of the stack before the battle so that they join in as reinforcements.

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That's my suggestion as well. It will be a while before we have armies of 20 units.