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.
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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.
The PK/Kage situation will also be resolved privately. Move along, nothing to see here.
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.
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:
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:
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...
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.
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.
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.
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...Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
flyd.. and who would control diplomats?? Basileus??
But other ideas you proposed are pretty good :yes:
Easy to follow and easy to understand..
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"?
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.
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.
I still like my idea 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.
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.
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..
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! I'm sure nothing exciting will happen during the weekend.
Have fun. Some things need to take priority. :yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ituralde
*edit*
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. ^_^Quote:
Moved Ioannis towards Iconion according to his OOC request to me.
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.
The feudal system and all the ranks are definitely staying.
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 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Privateerkev
My thought:
"I personally liked the other style better where we were basically working together and manufactured the tension to a greater extent."
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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.
You're such a tease GH!!!:laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief
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.
I agree with...
...but it's simply not working out that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kagemusha
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGiant