Out of Character thread

As I feared, it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to free up the spare time I need to participate here to the extent that I want to. I'll try to get around to writing up an excuse for Dietrich suddenly dropping out of public life as soon as I can. I'll poke my head in from time to time to check up on things. But as for now, real life just dictates that I need to lessen my involvement somewhat.

I hope I've helped our newer players push off to a fresh start, and I'll be looking forward to coming back full swing later on when school either calms down or the semester ends. Until then, Dietrich and I are heading backstage.

That's a shame Lucjan, I looked forward to a few more sparring matches between Dietrich and Otto in the Diet. :duel: Hope it can still happen.

If you're following the Diet though, I think the Duke of Franconia will have company building watchtowers. :laugh4:

Mother of God!!

This Diet session is like standing on the bridge of the Titanic looking at some giant iceberg!!!

LMAO.

I can't say it's dull, but this whole POPE bashing thing is nuts.

Well, keep in mind that Rome is one of our victory conditions. We have to take it at some point.

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Originally Posted by TinCow

Well, keep in mind that Rome is one of our victory conditions. We have to take it at some point.

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What!! I didn't know that!!

What are the rest of the victory condition TC??

I dont have access to the game from work, so I can't check, but I believe the Long Campaign victory for HRE requires 50 territories and Rome. It's pretty much the same as for most Catholic factions, except Rome is substituted for Jerusalem.

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Originally Posted by TinCow

I dont have access to the game from work, so I can't check, but I believe the Long Campaign victory for HRE requires 50 territories and Rome. It's pretty much the same as for most Catholic factions, except Rome is substituted for Jerusalem.

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Yeah I also thought that the conditions were similar...BUT there's a big difference between ROME and JERUSALEM!!

Bloody Hell...that's changed everything.:dizzy2:

Don't just change your role-playing simply based on that info. We've got to justify it properly in-game, even if it's a victory condition. Even if we don't do it now, we'll get around to it somehow at some point, so no worries.

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Originally Posted by AussieGiant

Yeah I also thought that the conditions were similar...BUT there's a big difference between ROME and JERUSALEM!!

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I had the same confusion before, but, like TinCow said, I'm not switching my role-playing. I want us to go to Jerusalem too - crusading in the Holy Land is just too interesting to pass on. Especially with the prospect of the Mongols and Timurids coming to call on it. Rome sounds rather parochial by comparison. :coffeenews:

I have to agree with TC, OOC of course :beam: , just because Rome is the eventual goal doesn't mean we have to move in lockstep toward it. I would prefer it if Rome was our 45th and final territory, not number 12.

As for the Titanic comparison, I'm getting the impression that some of our veteran PBMers want to play a campaign that'll put hair on our chests.

I mean why fight Timurids 400 years from now, when you can fight all of Europe right now! :laugh4:

TinCow, I think you can leave the thing with the House of Austria for now.
DMu has pmed me and I will see how much his participation increases in the next days. Otherwise I would promote AussieGiant to the post of Second Elector as I think activity in the game should be rewarded with an avatar.

Does anybody here have any experience with conquering Rome? I have never done this and while I have heard that the Pope can be given another settlement and thus never ceases to exist, I am a bit unclear on what happens exactly.
The important thing is whether it's weven within the boundaries of the game that the Papacy would actually ask the sam country by whom it was just conquered to allocate a settlement to them? Is it even guaranteed that we will be asked to sacrifice a settlement or does the Pope chosse beforehand? How high is the chance that an AI controlled faction offers the Pope a new refuge?

I'd like clarification on those points OOC, before I talk too much about them IC, so if anyone has definite knowledge, share it with us. Otherwise I'm completely fine with everyone of us just guessing at the game mechanics and deliberate those consequences IC.

I've never actually taken Rome, so I've been operating on what I've read here on how it works. My understanding is that if you take Rome and kill the Pope, a new Pope will spawn the next turn alone (just bodyguard unit) and next to Rome.

I am unclear on whether or not the Pope will actually request a territory from a faction, like a mission or something, but you can definitely just give him territory via normal diplomacy. I was thinking we could have a diplomat ready next to Rome to immediately gift him a territory when he respawns. That should be a big boost to our popularity, probably enough to get peace and be reconciled. Even if it isn't, a few turns of cash should do the trick.

Everyone in DC is freaking out over the winter storm that's coming through (this place is nuts when it comes to weather, every rain storm is the end of the world) so we may get sent home from work early. If so, I might have enough time when I get home to load up an old Venice game I have an knock the Pope off to see what happens.

Ah, I see what you mean.
I always though that the Pope would apprach some faction randomly and they would be asked in a mission to be the new home of the Papacy. If you could find out how it worked, that would be superb!

I took Rome once in a previous HRE campaign. I am pretty sure that it was the only Papal territory, so this may be accurate.

- Large apocalyptic battle, we win, Pope dies, Rome falls, etc.

- We immediately elect a new Pope (an HRE cardinal won).

- Pope respawns as a single bodyguard unit outside of Rome. Since he's my puppet I let him be.

- Later on, Sicily besieged and took Rome, giving it back to the Papal States. Pope moved back in and started to operate as normal.

Hi Guy`s,

I won’t change the way I am playing. No problems there. Basically I still think some of you are on drugs :)

I was just shocked to hear that is the objective for the HRE. I was under the impression that everyone was just role playing very much like actual history...well I suppose it is designed that way.

I have another question though.

Exactly how many of you here are actually afraid of the AI in a battle?

What I`m getting at is that if everyone`s skill here is very high then I get the impression we would start to play as if we could never be beaten. That to me is not very realistic. I don`t want to take away from everyone`s skill at the game but I hope you know what I mean.

I remember the old days of Dice based RPG`s. The impression of watch and participating in games in which you were so powerful that you could never die is still with me. In reality they were boring and predictable.

It wasn`t until sometime late that these games became really enjoyable when the guy running them made you realise that it was going to be pretty "real" in his games and you could lose, and you could make huge mistakes and you could die. Once that was established everyone played far more realistically and it was far more enjoyable.

For example and honestly. What are the odds you need to have against you to seriously consider that fact that you could lose?

First off, I want to make it clear that I'm pushing for a Papal war due to the background I developed for Max. I originally adopted that position based exclusively on history and that hasn't changed.

That said, I do think putting the Empire in danger would be good for the PBM. The best times for the WOTS game were when there were serious losses or threats of losses. M2TW definitely has a stronger AI and it's easier to lose to, but we still need to be pressed pretty hard for it to happen. If we suddenly found ourselves at war and attacked on all sides, the Diet would definitely see some fun discussions. If it's just victories all around, it's far less fun.

*edit* Looks like the US Goverment can't handle a quarter inch of ice. I'm on my way home, will test the Pope thing and report back.

Ok, Papal Smackdown 2007 is over and here's what happened.

In the game I loaded from, the Pope was in Rome (their only city), which was lightly defended, and the Papacy also had two full stacks next to Rome. I attacked and auto-resolved the battle to take Rome, killing the Pope. Massacred Rome for good measure, Papal standing drops to 0, as expected. The next turn there was a Papal election. I had 80% of votes, so whoever I chose was going to be Pope. I actually voted for HRE instead of myself (Venice) as I thought it would be more realistic to our situation. My standing shot up to 2 from the top, obviously due to voting for the right guy. However, I was still excommed. The new Pope appeared in one of the two existing Papal stacks, which did not die when I took Rome. I sent three diplomats to speak with the Papacy and could not get ANY kind of response out of them. I offered ceasefire, Genoa, and 100,000 gold and they refused. I even tried to gift 100,000 and they refused, even though we had good relations.

Since they decided to be grumpy, I squashed the stack the new Pope was in. I captured the Pope (nice ransom for those guys, btw!) and executed him to make sure I got a new round. Next turn, Papal elections again. I vote for myself this time. Pope spawns in remaining stack, my Papal standing is at max, and I am notified that I have been reconciled. I then send a diplomat to the Papal stack and offer them Genoa as a gift. They accept, Papacy now has Genoa as their capital.

Never saw any 'mission' to give the Pope a territory, but that could have been because I was at war with them and/or the situation only lasted 2 turns anyway, too soon for the mission to spawn. Regardless, it worked in the end. It looks like the Pope will spawn in an existing Papal stack if one exists. I suspect if no stack exists, he will appear next to Rome by himself, as I have read elsewhere. Then it appears to be a simple matter of getting back in his good graces and gifting him the right province. I suspect that I could have reconciled with the first 'new' Pope if I had simply given it a few turns and waited for him to accept my gifts. Worst case scenario is that we cannot get him to reconcile us, in which case he won't accept a territory from us. In that situation, it appears the guaranteed reconciliation comes from electing your own Cardinal to the throne. If we can't manage to swing that vote, we could always whack the solo new Pope by Rome each turn until our Cardinal is the only one left, thus guaranteeing us the vote... LOL.

So, my analysis: definitely doable. Could be complex and annoying, could be quick and easy. Impossible to say without trying in our actual game.

I was thinking that perhaps we could dump the Pope on an island somewhere. The last thing we want is for the Pope to have a fine city in the middle of our empire. He could then just build up a large army and strike when we're weakest.

Oh, I decided to change my username, the old one lacked panache. I hope that doesn't gum up the works for everyone.

Hi TC,

Thanks for the heads up on the Papal situation.

I do believe we should avoid this type of preemptive "checking" in future as it seems to be cheating a little :beam: Although in this case it is very informative.

Given your explanation, the situation is shaky at best. The role playing issues are very large as we are essentially putting our own puppet in.

By proclaiming the current Pope as false and then conducting this type of mechanism to take over Rome...I can't see this working IC and maintaining the empire in a civil state.

Just my 2 cents.

I still think the Pope Bashing Lobby are totally nuts :beam:

That's not a bad thing though LOL

I mean nuts in a good way.:yes:

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Originally Posted by AussieGiant

I do believe we should avoid this type of preemptive "checking" in future as it seems to be cheating a little :beam: Although in this case it is very informative.

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It wasn't checking because I didn't test in our game. I tested it from a Venice game where I was 1 territory from victory A lot faster that way because I had huge armies sitting around available to squash the Pope quickly.

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Originally Posted by TinCow

It wasn't checking because I didn't test in our game. I tested it from a Venice game where I was 1 territory from victory A lot faster that way because I had huge armies sitting around available to squash the Pope quickly.

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Ok good point.

I'm posting to let everyone know that I'll be on vacation from the evening of Monday Feb 19 to the night of Friday Feb 23. I will have internet access, at a surcharge, but as I do not have a laptop, I won't have access to the game.

I hope that this won't effect the PBM, but I need to escape the snow blasted hell-scape that is my home for a while.

Let me assure you that until I leave and when I return home, I will be fully active in the PBM.

Edit: Accidental double post, sorry, feel free to delete.

Hi TC,

Thanks for the information link. I'm refreshing my memory from 2nd year History classes now.

Now, I know why Otto doesn't want to fight any battles. :smash:

Have fun during your holiday and enjoy the trip!

I will enjoy my vacation thanks!

Otto is perfectly willing to fight between now and Monday, he just feels that Leopold, in attaching his name to 3.7, is drawing him into some Machiavellian scheme hatched by the dear departed Conrad. :juggle2:

Also 3.7 would violate the spirit of 3.4. . .but I digress.

I need Dukes to set their building queues, otherwise, I'll be forced to start anyway.

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Originally Posted by Ignoramus

I need Dukes to set their building queues, otherwise, I'll be forced to start anyway.

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Yes, do start - you can always pick up on build queues as and when they are sent in.

It would be good to have a master list of provinces and Counts.

This is my understanding so far:

Swabia:
Staufen - Prinz Henri
Metz - Count Sigismund der Stolze
Bern

Austria
Vienna - Duke Leopold
Prague

Franconia
Frankfurt - Duke Dietrich von Saxony
Hamburg
Stettin

Bavaria
Nuremburg - Sir Maximillan Mandorf
Innsbruck
Bologna

Imperial
Florence - Emperor Heinrich

I think TinCow may want to appoint Otto von Kassel as a Count. Also, Lucjan did not vote so it looks like he has effectively pulled out of this PBM, at least for a while. I don't mind keeping Dietrich for him in case he returns, but we can't leave Franconia leaderless. I propose FLYdude be appointed Steward of Franconia (by the Emperor); then he can make himself and Dutch_guy Counts, as well as manage Frankfurt in Lucjan's absence.

On the question of FeldMarshalls, didn't Bern have 8 units in it? Surely that would mean that OverKnight(dlain) would have one major victory.

AussieGiant: Sorry about the maps. I will post lost of maps in my Chancellor Reports.