Possible LotR Successor Game discussion thread

There has been a fair amount of talk about a possible new game after this is finished. I figured it was best to give the discussion its own thread. :yes:

Here's a link to where the bulk of the discussion thread started in the LotR OOC thread.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...06270&page=103

The main issues brought up so far, compiled by Woad, with the addition of the issue on mercenaries from YLC.

-easier names
-shorter distances [or possibly longer move rates]
-possibly axe the RBGs
-place more focus on inter-character conflict instead of on civil war conflict.
-possible changes in how mercenaries are hired to give some extra options to players

Other things discussed the change to a somewhat more familiar faction (largely resulted from issue 1 up there) and possibly a different mod, as move rates in SS are low and distances high (could also be a result of the region we chose for the last game, as the east has fewer, bigger provinces in general).

i think that if u play france for instance, the distance issue is far less than it was now.

Or else you can always introduce a system per console?

Say you request a move_character in turn A and then are prohibited to do anything for turn b & c.
turn D the admin or whatever moves you per console to the requested destination

Hmm...one of the Issues you brought up about England can be resolved pretty quickly actually since England can easily get to Scandinavia pretty quickly. Plus, the distance is not enormous either and is actually pretty reasonable. This would give England several fronts - France, Scotland, Scandinavia, Spain at least, if that doesn't rule out a crusade into Outremer. Also, take into account Russian expansion and possible trips to Pomeriania - I think the only people safe from the English are the Hungarians :idea2:

Plus, they have Longbowmen, stakes, Swordsmen galore, stakes, Halberds, stakes...um...yeah and stakes. I just like the semi-professional appeal of the English armies.

Is England to Scandinavia a shorter distance than Anatolia to Egypt?

Mostly I'm thinking of a "War of Words" situation. Say the "Count" (or whatever title he has) of Scandinavia has a conflict with the Duke of Edinburgh and starts a Civil War. Will it be less of a hassle for one to reach the other than when Tristan and Iggy wanted to fight it out?

I like England's roster as well, and think they work well with the rules as written (although I'm also fond of factions with muskets and other late era troops, like Spain and Venice). Maybe the issue of far flung territories could be partly resolved by toning down the 2 units per ship rule and making it easier for players to get their own ships that can't be taken away (at least not easily).

Could you explain your idea about mercenaries in greater detail? It sounded interesting...

England has some of the most incredible units in the game (And, yes, I know I complained about that with the Vards in LotR too, but SS 4.1 ripped the Vards down to size) with retinue longbowmen. I actually played a campaign where I used nothing but longbowmen for battles and beat the game. No generals, no cavalry, no artillery, no spears or infantry of any kind. Whipped the Mongols too, but didn't feel like playing all the way to the timurids, whose long range and elephants would've presented a problem.

IMHO we should consider the Danes. They have a very strong, fun cultural context and an unusual set of troops without any of the really broken types (Few lance cavalry units, no stakes, no early HA, etc.). Plus it's the right mindset to play a viking; a crafty, violent, over-the-top conqueror!

Oh, and if we do the Danes I promise to play a closet Odin worshipper. :laugh4:

I would also like to suggest that we consider changing a few things to encourage conflict more directly. Firstly I think voting should be tied directly to land and only to land. One province = one vote with the exception of the King (And perhaps prince?), who has a set number of votes on the presumption that all the lands are his in truth.

Second if you kill someone you should gain title to all the lands that were theirs when you declared war (Thus preventing someone giving their territory away to prevent it's loss during the war).

Third if you kill the Megas you should become Megas for the remainder of his term. It's not an easy thing to do given all his power, let's reward it handsomely.

Fourth if you kill the King you should become King. Ditto above. We can have the 'legitimate' heir become a rebel by default under these circumstances.

You can see where I'm going with all this. Conflict drives these games, let's generate a lot of it!

I would also like to see a rule put in where any two players who are amenable to fighting each other can ask for a teleport to a mutually agreed site for their battle immediately, or after a set number of turns.

One other suggestion that I have would be to create a 'blood feud' between two groups as the starting position of the game. Two veterans take characters and have them absolutely hate each other from turn one, which will tend to polarize those around them. We lacked that in LotR and it showed in how weak our early game 'fighting' was.

Some things to think about. :2thumbsup:

:egypt:

What are everyone's opinions about returning to vanilla? That would take care of both the distance and the name problems.

Also, are the Sicilians worthy of consideration?

That's a lot to take in, Ramses. :clown:

Nearly any half decent unit in player hands is a game killer, and some very weak ones. I can take out decent sized stacks with a Border Horse unit (or even a militia horse unit, if it has a spear or lance). I wouldn't put too much emphasis on whether the faction has very strong units, as we will cream the AI regardless. People capture settlements with just their general. Note the tiny, all heavily depleted army Tristan is going for Alexandria with. I bet everyone here is sure he can do it with that army, or even half that army.

RPing and having fun, on the other hand, should be paramount if we're talking units. I really like the Danes for that reason as well. :2thumbsup: I love Russia's units as well, although we'd have to expand westward if we didn't want to recreate the distance problem. Spain and the Italian factions have neat rosters as well.

I like a lot of the ideas to encourage pvp, although I would note there are players who dislike it, so would encourage the kind of interaction we had in KotR as well, with competition that didn't always result in war.

A way for opponents in a Civil War to meet each other right away is much needed. I like the idea of gaining land titles and preventing giving land away in the middle of the war.

With our Megas/Chancellor position being elected, I'm not sure you should gain their rank if you kill them. It seems odd from an rp standpoint. Titles and the crown, on the other hand, might work very well. :yes:

Starting an early IC conflict sounds great, although I'm not sure I'd mandate it. Talking to the people who get the starting avatars would probably be enough. :yes:

Woad I'm definitely up for vanilla with at most vanillamod, if other players are. Otherwise some sort of mod that doesn't change too much, like the one in Cecil's game (LTC). :yes:

Edit: I rather like the Sicilian roster as well (and no really overpowered units), and their central position will make things easier.

Well, first and foremost, I think we should move back to Western Europe. Possibly France (but I may be biased since I lobbied for that as our LotR faction), possibly one of the Italian factions, I'm thinking Milan, then Venice, then Sicily. The territories are small enough to provide, the names are pronounceable, and there's plenty of room to expand.

I'd also like to put more power in the hands of the executives, specifically the equivalent of the Chancellor/Megas Logothetes position. As Ignoramus posted in the OOC thread, I think it would provide a lot of incentive then the current game manager that the position pretty much is now.

I'm not sure how I feel on manufactured conflict. On one hand, it seems to go against the organic qualities that we look for. On the other hand, I know that I was personally very appreciative of having a background for all five of my avatars in KotR that I could use as a springboard as opposed to my brief avatar in LotR's total lack of direction. For example:

- Heinrich: I hate the Pope and will spend the rest of my life trying to get even with him
- Conrad Salier: I'm a religious dude and just found out that my parents were Mandorf and a female Cardinal that almost became Pope.
- Jens Hummel: I want to restore dignity to the Hummel family.
- Dietrich von Dassel: I must avenge the death of Jens Hummel by destroying the Illuminati's enemies.
- Herrmann Steffen: I came of age in the aftermath of the Cataclysm and am struggling with my Illuminati values.

In short, organic conflict is great, but manufactured conflict is a wonderful way to start things off. :yes:

Hmm, I'm torn between England and the Danes.

An England game would be feudal based, and has the potential for some lovely short and sharp minor civil wars.

The Danes have the tempting scenario of playing Viking-style, and raid all over the place, but it does present the problem of people being far away from each other.

In short, I'm really torn.

If anyone wants a small bite of what an English game might be like, have a look at Magna Carta. It was a short-lived KotR-styled game.

I like Ramses' suggestion of 1 province = 1 vote. It makes sense. If you own half the land of England, then why shouldn't you effectively decide what happens?

The problem I have with the Danes is that as far as I know they only start off with a King and a Prince. If they have another starting avatar or a family member that will come of age soon I'm fine with the Danes.

what I remember about the factions we've been discussing...

England
King
Prince
Princess(maybe 2?)
Other guy
4 territories

Spain
King
Prince
2 Princesses
Other guy
2 territories

Danes
King
Prince
Princess
1 territory

Sicilians
King
Prince
Princess
Other guy
2 territories

Sicily and the Danes sound great as faction choices in my books. For my part I'd probably be interested in starting off the same way I did in LotR, with a princess or another supporting type character, if everyone is agreeable to that. I promise to try to promote some sort of conflict. :smash:

Does anybody not have Kingdoms? I think a faction in the Britannia campaign would be very interesting.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

Does anybody not have Kingdoms? I think a faction in the Britannia campaign would be very interesting.

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:raises hand:

D'oh. Well, so much for that. Obviously, we can't leave anybody out.

I do have Kingdoms, but I have ample sympathy for those without it. I think we should stick with Vanilla-ish mods.

:egypt:

I don't have Kingdoms because of the DRM protection. I've heard some nasty things about it and since my TW computer is a family computer I don't want to risk putting anything like that on it. However, I'll get a shiny new Mac with both Vista and Leopard installed sometime in May/June. The vista portion would be almost soley for gaming so I'd be willing to put Kingdoms on that.

So in short, don't let me hold you guys up if you want a Kingdoms campaign. If you go that route I'll join later once some more avatars are available.

Milan and Venice have pretty good starting family trees, if I remember.

It's good to see the discussion going. :2thumbsup:

As a side note, what do people think of me being the gm? I have some experience doing so for hotseats, as well as experience with the console. I've had a taste of running pvp battles. I've also talked a bit with TinCow about it.

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Originally Posted by Ignoramus

Milan and Venice have pretty good starting family trees, if I remember.

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I think that Venice isn't a viable option because Crete is so far away from the rest of their provinces.

My issue with Milan is that I imagine all Milanese to be max dread backstabbing pschyco loons with a taste for assasins and human flesh. Also, their crossbowmen look like turtles. I would be willing to play them but they aren't at the top of my list.

I'm fine with Zim being GM:bow:

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Originally Posted by woad&fangs

My issue with Milan is that I imagine all Milanese to be max dread backstabbing pschyco loons with a taste for assasins and human flesh. Also, their crossbowmen look like turtles. I would be willing to play them but they aren't at the top of my list.

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:laugh4:

As for Zim being the GM, I trust him to be fair and creative enough for the job. :yes:

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Originally Posted by TheFlax

:laugh4:

As for Zim being the GM, I trust him to be fair and creative enough for the job. :yes:

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Seconded.

Also, I like the idea of playing as Milan. We'd be pretty good at annoying the crap out of the other factions. :laugh4:

back to mechanics for a second...

I like the idea of tying voting power to land. However, I think that having it purely like that would discourage the original house leaders from distributing their land to their vassals. I think it would be better if a house leader's voting power was based off of the total number of settlements that the house posesses. The members of the house would still have their voting power tied directly to the amount of land they personally own.

Zim definitely gets my stamp of approval as GM. For every lengthy PM you see in the Battle of Edessa thread there were three that you didn't see that was just us going back and forth, setting the exact guidelines. He is beyond acceptable. :yes:

Another thing about Milan is that it will nullify the professional army aspect. In the later game, when we should be steamrolling the AI, it'll still be a challenge because our militia units will have to deal with Feudal Knights.

How about basing it on the number of landed vassals? Or is that too complicated? It would give an incentive for house leaders to distribute land to as many vassals as possible.

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Originally Posted by TheFlax

How about basing it on the number of landed vassals? Or is that too complicated? It would give an incentive for house leaders to distribute land to as many vassals as possible.

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I'm also fine with this suggestion. I just want to try to avoid province hording as much as possible.

On another note, I think that 4 houses is probably the optimal number. Would we be willing to recruit 1 or 2 RBGs in the begining to get the ball rolling and then agree not to recruit anymore?

I have one major proposal to introduce: only family tree members may own land. Children are automatically vassals to their father unless they manage to gain their independence through some mechanic.

The power in LotR may have been a little diffuse and the system too democratic. I think the house structure in KotR made for more tightly knit (or bitterly split) houses. If you were born a Franconian, you were going to remain a Franconian. If you got on your Duke's bad side, you would be in serious trouble. It made the people at the top more powerful, but that meant that their personal conflicts would get amplified as the conflicts in the state. The house structure was not constantly shifting, which made it easier to remember.

We should certainly not do away with the RBGs, but they should be considered lower, non-royal nobles. They should be considered to have land, but only smaller fuedal feifs, not "visible" on the map. The provinces should go to the royals. We should also do away with independents, you should only be able to become a noble by being sponsored by an existing royal (this would be the equivalent of choosing one of the houses in KotR). That way, everyone has a patriarch. (In the alternative, they should all be independents, with adoption being the only way to enter a house).

Social mobility would be greatly reduced (not that it was very high in the middle ages), but beside Tagaris, there were few who were able to take much advantage of it in LotR. The people who started at the top remained at the top. The best service to provide to the serfs is not better social mobility, but more cohesive teams, so that they can participate in the grandoise plans of their Dukes.

I think we should stick with one province = one vote. If you give one to someone else you better feel pretty confident of their loyalty or of your ability to take it back. I didn't like the feudal system in LotR, I never had the foggiest clue what rank anyone was, including myself, and it didn't seem to make any difference in the play of the game. Quickly, without looking it up, name the rank of any of the house leaders at the 'end' of LotR and name one time they used one of their rank powers.

Besides, if you want a province go conquer one like the rest of us. :beam: Vassals shouldn't have land handed to them just because, they should have to ask for it, earn it, and be worthy of it.

I think the dynamic of the game will become very interesting very quickly if we let some players/houses accumulate voting power, at least as long as we give them interesting things to vote on.

:egypt:

Thank you for the vote of confidence, guys. :bow:

Tying voting influence to land is an interesting idea. We'd have to rewrite a lot of the influence rules from LotR.

I like the idea of tying it to number of landed vassals, as that would discourage not only single players hoarding tons of land solely for themselves but also reduce the advantage of grabbing a couple dozen provinces from the AI. We could achieve this by basing influence on number of provinces and having influence caps per rank, or just a specific rule specifying that influence = number of landed vassals.

We would have to work out a couple things, though. For one thing would all members of a House (assuming we use the current ranking and feudal chain system) benefit from the improved influence? So leader guy with 7 vassals has that much influence, his 2nd has 6 influence, and so on? This means if one House became marginally bigger than another it gains a ton of influence. Or perhaps only the leader would get the bonus and his vassals would be capped at a fairly low number. This would add incentive for stable Houses, while keeping the degrees by which Houses of fairly close member vary in influence fairly moderate.

And if we did do this, would we want to keep bonuses from being Chancellor or stats?

GH mentioned putting more power in the hands of the executives. The Megas in LotR is pretty powerful, and I recall the Chancellor being so as well. Would people be open to adding more power to them?

As for our King [or Doge if we play as Venice or Duke if we play Milan (although I think Doge is just Italian for Duke...)] perhaps he could distribute land as he did in KotR? If land and landed vassals is influence this would make him very strong.

I could see recruiting one or two rgbs early on, if we decide on a certain number of players we want the game to start with.

Edit: Gah! Missed a couple posts. It's sounding like people want something a little more like KotR in some ways. If people prefer some things from KotR (like the House stability) we could modify the rules in that direction.

Gah! Seems like I posted in the wrong thread. Here's my take on things which also entails some suggestions for a new game if anybody's interested:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...postcount=3083

And I approve of Zim being GM. Maybe this is the time for the disclaimer where it says that you become GM at your own risk, TinCow probaly knows best, but I can imagine it wasn't always easy to lead the frenzied mob. :2thumbsup:

A lot of good ideas here guy's but the level of complexity needs to be kept in check.

KotR was a much stronger role play experience. I think everyone agrees.

I'd base things off that and then cherry pick the 2 or 3 best things from this game and then perhaps add 2 or 3 news things...but not more.

It has to be playable.

It took a 5 way, pretty intense session of vets from KotR to rescue this game at one point, the reason, it was too complex.

Will comment in more detail in a few hours, but for now I heartily approve of Zim as GM. I cannot think of many people who would do a better job.

There are some very interesting comments being made, particularly on the static Houses and RBGs. Both of these were major complaints people had with KotR. The lack of avatars made the game somewhat inaccessible for many people in the beginning. While Northnovas is a sparkling example of someone who waited a long time for an avatar and thus enjoyed playing one even more, I think we lost about half a dozen players before then simply because they couldn't do anything but twiddle their thumbs for months waiting. This was why we introduced RBGs into KotR, and everyone thought those were an improvement at the time.

At the end of KotR, we had 19 players and it would have been difficult to accommodate many more than that for most of the game. LotR regularly exceeded that number. The problem in LotR was keeping everyone interested. I think the solution should be fixing that problem, not adopting a system that will reduce the player base back to its old level

Regarding the static Houses, this was a complaint as it limited peoples' freedom. First, it severely limited peoples' ability to choose which House they wanted to join. Austria was heavily handicapped for most of the game because the game simply doesn't spawn avatars evenly on the family tree. People wanted avatars, plain and simple, and if there wasn't one available in their House of choice, they weren't likely to join that House.

Second, the static Houses made it very difficult to handle RBGs when they were finally introduced (again, this was considered a massive improvement by most people at the time). Since Houses depended on the family tree, a RBG adoption into the wrong spot could pose serious RP problems.

Third, static Houses made a lot of internal conflict very difficult. There was almost no competition amongst the Houses throughout the game until the Illuminati came along. Prior to that time, we made various missions here or there and debated what to do, but there weren't really an repercussions outside of arguments in the Diet. We were just a large group of often-bickering individuals who were playing an elaborate version of a successor game, just like in WotS. Real internal conflict existed in only three circumstances: (1) Heinrich's attack on the Pope, (2) Ignoramus' Rebellion in Swabia, and (3) The Illuminati.

Of these, #2 doesn't even really count, because it was only possible due to the Cataclysm which broke all the rules and essentially introduced a prototype of the LotR PvP system. 1 and 3 had nothing to do with the rules at all, they had to do with various players making a determined attempt to rile things up.

In my opinion, LotR's failings are two-fold:

(1) Complexity. This was something I was afraid of when I created the rules and I tried to reign it in, but I totally failed. The current rules are a monstrosity, and they just kept getting bigger and more complex at nearly every Senate session. Initially, the biggest problem was the army system which made the job of Megas an extraordinary burden. Fortunately, this actually WAS solved with the improved army rules, which were much simpler and everyone has loved since then. However, by that time the damage had been done and we had already lost several veteran players due to the earlier complexity.

In my opinion, we need to vastly strip back the rule set, keeping the freedoms where we can, but restricting them elsewhere. The University and Rebellion systems were interesting ideas, but I think they caused more problems than they added in value. The PvP system also needs a total and complete overhaul. It needs to be re-written from the ground up and it needs to remove in-game movement from the equation. This has been properly identified as the major roadblock for PvP.

(2) The Players. We are responsible for what happened in LotR. For many different reasons, people just did not get into the game. They weren't passionate about it like in KotR, so for the majority of the game they didn't develop their characters and they didn't cause any conflicts. I do agree that Byzantium as a faction was a bit difficult to get into for most of us, especially with the names. It personally took me months just to remember a handful of them. The complexity issue was also a major cause of this in the beginning as well. The game was too hard to play, and this sapped the will of a lot of veterans who just drifted away.

However, regardless of the reasons, the lack of player interest in the game was its greatest failing. For most of the game, there was only one person willing to play the villain, the ever dependable Ignoramus. A game simply isn't entertaining when everyone is trying to get along. KotR was the exact same way. It was generally unexciting except when players went out of their way to cause problems and play the bad guy. In LotR, it took a long time before anyone really embraced that role and in the meantime the complexity problems were doing permanent damage. So, it was boring at the start, and hard to understand. Eventually people did realize the fun they could have being antagonistic, but they were hindered by the PvP rules which made the actual conflict difficult.

So, I think the next game will be successful if we (1) dramatically simplify the rules, stripping out everything that isn't necessary and completely re-do the PvP system and (2) have people who join the game from the very beginning with the intention of being power-hungry villains who are going to cause chaos.

Will comment later, but for now:

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have people who join the game from the very beginning with the intention of being power-hungry villains who are going to cause chaos.

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I'd be happy to reprise that role. :bow:

Awww...I like being the good guy :embarassed:

In any case, Zim asked me about my mercenaries idea - the whole concept would solve a couple problems and easily be understandable.

One of the major issues with the game as a whole is that the Chancellor controls the funds for the Military - this usually is not an issue, except when we come to PvP conflict. It is much easier to be buddy buddy when you know you will suffer severe consequences for falling out of favor with someone or a an entire House. It creates a sense of fear about losing all you have worked for ingame and IC that makes anyone hesitant to commit oneself to either righteous rebellion or pure unadulterated villiany, and it keeps you from becoming attached to what otherwise might be an intriguing and amazing persona.

However, what if we allowed our little rebel to recruit mercenaries freely? This gives the incentive to rebel, because in many ways mercenaries are superior troops, and you can get a mass of them quickly and cheaply.

But what about the monetary aspect? I don't think it will detract really at all, and might even represent the tough time the Chancellor now has of properly collecting taxes and the sporadic raiding and theft from a rebellion or civil war.

Also, it provides incentive for people to quickly pick a side - this little rebel is taking YOUR money for that new stone wall, that new barracks, those shiny new troops, taking it from you and draining the coffers...unless you bring him to justice.

Just as well, we can limit the hiring of Mercenaries to edicts otherwise so as to make it something "special" for rebelling - if you want those Free Company soldiers, you might just want to rebel and nab them for yourself...

Also, we need (although we might have) rules for capturing an opponents men - if you can resupply yourself by taking from the defeated (land, men) then the incentive increases even more, possibly dragging others into it as your rebellion continues to grow in power.

On the note of Static versus Fliud Houses, we I think, need a mix. Static Houses allow someont to identify with (all LotR Houses looked the same to me except for the Order), but Fluid Houses allow the freedom to move about.

Possibly a fusion of the two would be best, including Flyd's suggestion - a true spilt between RBG's and Family Members. Family members create the House - if your Father was a Lancastarian, you are one as well. RBG's are "Houseless" nobles, providing incentive for players to rally around the house nobility for soldiers and land that would be otherwise be unobtainable. This allows fluidity and the recognition we need.

We could even designate by ranks - Earl or Duke for head of household, Count for family members that are within the House, and Baron for those RBG's who have been inducted into the House. This eliminates the vast numbers of ranks while still keeping them, and allows for some Upward Mobility - marrying into the family tree makes you a Count, being appionted Head of Household makes you Earl or Duke. Maybe allow for recruitable Princesses if possible for this?

New Houses could be founded, but only by Family Members I suppose.

And I still support England with VanillaMod as the game setup.

Really a lot of the failuers were due to the players and a villain is needed especially at the beginning. Or someone that wants to cause friction for the sake of it. I pretty much played Pavlos too close to the old Leopold. A moderate figure, too moderate for LotR, but then it probably helps me get into the game when I can relate more to the motivations of my character. This should be avoided in the next game and that's what my intention was for the House backgrounds. Set up some things in the beginning.

Previously we took this background from the history and there of course KotR was much more interesting with the Pope interaction, while in LotR we focused too much on Manzikert and by following the parole of "No more Manzikert" we drained a lot of conflict out of the game.

Regarding mercenaries and financing rebellions, I see this problem as a broader failure to plan properly. As has been noted, the Megas position is extremely powerful, and controlling it can bring massive advantages. A proper rebellion should take this into account and plan accordingly. Spontaneous rebellions should be highly likely to fail, while well-planned long-term rebellions have a much better chance of success. A good rebellion plan can take decades in game-time to organize. You play nice and buddy up with whoever you need to in order to either become Megas or get a Megas who is sympathetic to your devious goals. Then, once you have the power, you exploit it heavily to get what you want. You immediately use the time you have to build up your forces and conquer your enemies. If you do it properly, you can make sure that your armies are so strong that even if you lose the Megas position to other people, you will be too powerful to be defeated.

This was how LotR was designed, but in reality only two people actually did this. The first was Ignoramus, who intentionally exploited his first Megas term to his own advantages. No one was seriously prepared to block him in his moves though and his moves also involved some unfortunate difficulties with following the rules which resulted in a period of time in LotR that is best dumped in the East River and never spoken of again. The second was Zim, who did exactly what I imagined a person should do when I designed the game. Zim intentionally buffed the forces of the side he backed very heavily, giving them immense military power. At the same time, he intentionally bankrupted the Empire, thus preventing his successor from fixing the situation quickly. This was perfectly designed and executed to gain long-term power for a specific faction.

The lesson to be learned from this is that rebellions should be planned slowly and carefully. If you just randomly declare war one day and have no allies prepared to support you, the rules make it exceptionally difficult for you to be successful. You'd essentially have to be a military genius. IMO, this is proper, and the failing is not in the system's inability to accommodate player rebellions properly, but in the inability of players to plan a proper rebellion in the first place.

Heed the advice of Sun Tzu. "Every battle is won before it is ever fought." "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

Well, we need to make the Houses a rallying flag to gather around. Say we have one that still holds onto the Old English ideals before William (Me, please, oh please, pick me for this one!) One who wishes to strength French ties, another who wishes to soldify power in England by eliminating Scotland, etc.

It appears we have several villains available (does my Heroic need to go back to the Old ways count me as a real Villian? :laugh4:), and I might as well make a banner out of it - LETS PLAY AS ENGLAND!

I like Sicily and Denmakr as close seconds, leaning more towards Denmark. But the Issues with both are as summed up IMHO -

Denmark
Faces England, HRE, and Russia at most really, maybe Scotland as well. However, they have a rather linear path to fight that also results in a colony Empire - this would be counterproductive to PvP. They have nice units though.

Sicily
Again, many enemies to face, but a sharp dependcy on boats for ANYTHING unless we want togo at the Pope, whcih again reduces PvP because of distance, not really an issue with England.

I also would like the Vanilla mod as well, I've played it, and I like it.

-Edit: While I agree with your assertion that Rebellion should not truly be a dime a dozen, I am looking at it more from an emotional perspective and attachment perspective, not necessarily from a logical one. I want to eb able to rebel with a plan obviously, and limits based on rank could be imposed for recruiting mercenaries, but IMHO, the idea should be looked at first before being discarded entirely. I mean, what about those that simply do not wish to listen to a sudden mandate from their Lord that goes againt their principles? It's far to suddent to have planned anything, but by limiting their ability to repsond, you are eliminating the chance for players to dynamically choose HOW and for what reasons they wish to rebel, and thus reducing the opportunity for good fast paced story and PvP.

Again, IHMO.

If you wanna play england, Ignoramus is considering starting an england PBM in the throne room

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Originally Posted by YLC

-Edit: While I agree with your assertion that Rebellion should not truly be a dime a dozen, I am looking at it more from an emotional perspective and attachment perspective, not necessarily from a logical one. I want to eb able to rebel with a plan obviously, and limits based on rank could be imposed for recruiting mercenaries, but IMHO, the idea should be looked at first before being discarded entirely. I mean, what about those that simply do not wish to listen to a sudden mandate from their Lord that goes againt their principles? It's far to suddent to have planned anything, but by limiting their ability to repsond, you are eliminating the chance for players to dynamically choose HOW and for what reasons they wish to rebel, and thus reducing the opportunity for good fast paced story and PvP.

Again, IHMO.

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There's nothing that limits that currently, it only makes success in that situation difficult. It just doesn't seem right to me that we should make a system where someone who rebels spontaneously and without any other support would have just as much of a chance of succeeding as someone who planned their rebellion for a long time and enlisted the support of many people.

This is just my opinion. I will NOT be running the next game, so these decisions are up to whoever takes on that job.

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Originally Posted by TinCow

There's nothing that limits that currently, it only makes success in that situation difficult. It just doesn't seem right to me that we should make a system where someone who rebels spontaneously and without any other support would have just as much of a chance of succeeding as someone who planned their rebellion for a long time and enlisted the support of many people.

This is just my opinion. I will NOT be running the next game, so these decisions are up to whoever takes on that job.

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True, and I would wish to reward said players just as much, but I found that one of the main reason I never openly rebelled - I had nothing to do it with, no resources, and could never gain any. Having only a bodyguard the vast majority of the time limitd me being threatening at all.

A possible cap on the number of Mercenaries you can keep would limit it's impact without making someone feel...well, utterly impotent. We need to give people the initiative to start to rebel and the power to do so without making it rather depressing when you are constantly denied even the ability to try to gain advantage and utterly slant the game in anothers favor.

I'd like to see 3-4 sides actively battle each other out in the Council sessions for control, and the ability of one side to tip things in their favor without it being utterly one sided - a dynamic civil war, rather then a brutally crushing one, makes people want to play them more. Nothing should be certain - one could have planned the whole thing, set it all up, and have everything go according to plan - one side loses out horribly and the other side dances on their graves. Not really exciting.

However, lets say that one side did prepare, and attacks - giving the otherside a slight ability to repsond dynamically, and possibly changing the tide, makes for a much more exciting and dynamic game.

However, one has to watch out for civil wars that go on forever - Dynamic can turn to static pretty quickly if it dissolves into constant warfare. This is why I think mercearies answer that problem. They are few in number usually, and with Caps on recruitment, one can make sure you can't get a full stack. They replenish slowly, making them a bit one shot. They are expensive, prompting one side to try and destroy the enemy faster. They are available everywhere. They lack the ability to build them up.

I just see it as a good compromise, and if anyone is willing, I will gladly test it out, to see if it works well or as intended. If not, then I drop it.

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Originally Posted by TinCow

The second was Zim, who did exactly what I imagined a person should do when I designed the game. Zim intentionally buffed the forces of the side he backed very heavily, giving them immense military power. At the same time, he intentionally bankrupted the Empire, thus preventing his successor from fixing the situation quickly. This was perfectly designed and executed to gain long-term power for a specific faction.

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Shhh, that was supposed to become known after the game officially ended. :laugh4:

The funny thing was Iggy was able to make peace with TheFlax surprisingly easily removing most fears about the next Megas. I spent the last few turns of my term trying to fix things but with the capital in Jerusalem we couldn't make any money until some of those massive armies finally ran into and depleted eachother (well, that or all of us suddenly deciding we could get along).

I really like the fluidity of the LotR rules. Personally I didn't find the House structures to be much of a problem, and loss of members did provide some interesting results (the Asteri-Tagamata alliance).

On the other hand I see a lot of calls to make Houses more stable, and even some suggestions to make them more like KotR.

I agree with TinCow that tying Houses completely to families could cause problems, as fickle as the AI is about where new births go. It gets even worse when rgbs are thrown into the mix, since you never know where they'll be adopted to.

So, some possible changes for Houses:

1. Fewer ranks: I think this would encourage a larger number of smaller Houses. I think smaller Houses would also work better for the number of players we're likely to have, and be more stable.

2. One thing somebody mentioned was only having family members be able to start a House. I think this could provide some interesting interaction between likely related House leaders. On the other hand, I don't think House spam was a problem in LotR, so it might be a case of limiting options when they don't need to be.

3. Strengthen penalties for leaving Houses.

One other thing I've been thinking about that's been suggested a couple times is strengthening the monarch (and one poster also thought the Megas could use a boost). I think this would be a pretty good idea. Early on Houses are likely to be smaller and weak, but as they strengthen they can challenge an unpopular monarch. In the meantime he could provide a good counter balance to the Megas. If a faction was out of favor with the Megas he could curry favor from the Monarch, although possibly at a high price. Of course, if both monarch and Megas dislike you you better be very well prepared for any ensuing war. ~;p


Lastly, regarding rgbs, I think at the very start of the game we should remain small. Maybe hire enough to bump us up to 4 or 5 starting characters. We could call this early stage the test game for the new rules, but instead of starting over at the end of the test, we open it up to all the rgbs that wish to join and use that save for the real game.

This would allow for a semi established setting for when the bulk of players join and prevent the oddity of a 2-5 province nation with 20 generals.

As far as mercenaries go, perhaps they could be tied to money gained for winning battles and taking settlements, as had been done for Helarionas.

Edit: As far as a lack of villains I think we inadvertently discouraged them. Edicts legislating whether settlements could be exterminated, the penalties faced by Hypatios, etc. likely had a strong impact. Coupled with the vast majority of those of us who had played KotR going for more cooperative characters, and I think the early game had a strong impact on the lack of development of more villainous characters.

Hmmm...I like Zim's idea a lot, which is better then mine actually, because it avoids the need decide who should get the mercenaries in the middle of a war. I think we should also include captured soldiers if the enemy general is also killed as well as reinforcements. The number that is gained could be based upon the charisma of the person - authority, dread, or chivalry, whichever is higher. How about 1 unit per 2 points of Authority/Dread/Chivalry? With an additional unit for every 5 Command?

What does everyone think of a Knight(Unaligned RBG)->Baron(Aligned RBG)->Count(Family Member)->Earl/Duke(Head of House)? Obviously, some refinement, but I like the possibilities of it.

The House system needs to be looked at a little more IMO. I think sticking to Family members won't be to much of an issue, but I think Houses need to be commissioned by edicts at the very least.

I would be concerned about simply strengthening the Monarch - things could simply devolve into Monarch Versus Chancellor wars.

One suggestion which in retrospect should have applied here, large deficits should not be allowed. At some point, soldiers who are not paid will desert, so some sort of mandatory disbanding should be implemented.

The primary issue with that is it makes it unecessarily complex - since the deficiet is shared by all, who's soldiers should be disbanded? How many?

I like the interest and passion that is going into this thread. For this reason I am inclined to say that LotR come to a final end after the impending 'Tabletop Campaign' to end the Civil War. Instead of rebooting LotR, I think more could be accomplished by having the game restart with a new faction and improved rules.

I may have to leave just so said rules can be implemented :laugh4:

I'll fight tooth in nail for increased civil wars (even petty ones) and to make them more dynamic, that what I really want. I mean, if were going to play the Danes, why can't I take out my loathing for someone the good, oldfashioned, right way?

There definitely needs to be a mechanism for civil wars/rebellions/whatever. The key is to do it in a manner that is easier to implement than the current system. In my opinion, the best solution is to remove all or most of the in-game movement from the PvP situation. Instead of forcing people to march on each other and encounter each other on the in-game map, I think a declaration of war should result in a battle between both sides either instantly or within a turn or two. A 1 turn lag seems like a good period. Both sides have 1 turn to gather their allies and decide which of their armies and garrisons will show up at the battle. Then a single battle occurs with all allies and all armies appearing on the field together, regardless of where they are on the game map.

This battle could resolve the war completely if all players on one side are defeated then and there. If other allies do not show up to the battle or if the Umpire decides that part of the losing army escapes intact, another battle would be fought the following turn. This would continue with a battle every turn until one side was defeated or surrendered.

I also agree that the rank system needs an overhaul. No one ever achieved the rank of Exarch and many of the rank powers were never used by anyone. While the 'time in rank' option was designed to encourage stability, it made the rank system hard to keep track of and difficult to understand at times. I think a lot of this could be removed without harming the game at all.

Sorry had edited my above post just as TC replied, better to repost it I suppose :shrug:

Hmmm...names for things as well would be nice. I am sure our senate would become an Althing, correct, for the Danes, and a Council for the English? Should we stick with "Knight-Baron-Count-Earl/Duke"? Is there any consensus about Houses, such as requiing an Edict to create them? Mercenaries as well - should they fall under the Chancellor's power, the Kings, the Earl's and Dukes (my preference)? Should we impose a cap? Should none Civil War hiring of mercenaries be relegated to Edicts as well? Should we change how ships are managed? Could they be instantly created, but for Edicts only?

I will say that I dislike the idea of simply instantly resolving it - it removes part of the fun of laying siege and facing down a specific opponent of yours. Small, intermittent Civil wars are okay, and I'd rather see a mchanic that says that speed is doubled for thos in a civil war as long as it is towards a civil war target, and that if two avatars who are engaged in civil war are within one turns movement of each other, a battle is fought.

Otherwise, why not simply whole up in my castle, or aviod fighting if outnumbered? Only a madman would want to fight against an enemy who has been preparing for a long time.

Hmmm....it just came to me.

What would everyone think about letting the Head of a House recruit mercenaries, but no more then 1 per turn, with either a maximum limit, or better yet require them to pass legislation to keep their mercenaries (up to 3?)?

Edicts in their current shape are only in effect for one turn if I'm not mistaken. If you need an edict to create a House, do you need to make a new one each term? (That could get tedious)

I think its best for civil war to have a mix of options, but if both side want to fight, there should be a battle right away. There should also be an option for strategical maneuvering before the battle, giving more movement to civil war armies like YLC proposed could be a fix for parts of the problems we had in LotR.

Thats a good point - Admendments then? In effect until nullified later?

Why vote for Houses in the Senate though? To prevent the creation of too many Houses? For more stability? I'm sorry but I simply don't get it.

Most people seem to want some sort of semi stable House structure, but if we look at LotR, most instability in the Houses were not caused by members leaving but by player inactivity. Asteri waxed and waned throughout the game due to new players arriving and then some of those new players disappearing a few weeks later.

Oh well, maybe not then, I am really just throwing ideas out there to see what is thought of them.

Yes, the basica idea was for House Stability - something the Houses had to fight for, kind of like someone who is working towards your political extermination.

The original idea came from wanting to keep every last person from creating a House, and restricting it to family members for realism I suppose, or to a rank. But I suppose that would be achiveed ingame either way.

Since we have no way of keeping people from dropping out, what is your suggestion for improved House stability?

Less ranks, which was already proposed, so we don't have to recalculate ever 5 minutes who is what rank.

Start small, like Zim proposed. Establish the foundations of the game with a core group of dedicated players and then build upon that to expand the player base.

Personally, I'm talking with Zim about making sure every player is involved in some way and I'm dedicating myself to that objective for this game. Hopefully this will help in maintaining a more stable player base.

I feel sad because I no longer can get on MSN to talk to you guys.

I really hope I manage to squeak in on the successor game, and I'd like to volunteer to do the history for the game as well.

I'm curious to see how the next game is going to look!

Hmmm, we've covered quite a bit of ground in just a couple pages.

It sounds like most people agree on going west faction wise and changing up the ranks a bit (and possibly having fewer).

There also seems to be strong agreement that Civil Wars need an overhaul, specifically to make them easier on the players. I'm torn between TinCow's idea of fighting it swiftly in rounds, and something more like YLC's idea or the way the current event is being done where maneuvering still counts for something. I'd be interested to hear any preferences people have on this subject.

One issue people have disagreed on (with one of the main opinions mostly expressed in the Throne Room so far) is whether to keep the system in LotR or go back to something more like KotR. I personally like the system in LotR, although I sympathize with people who liked it when the family tree was more relevant to the game. I wouldn't be completely adverse to making Houses harder to leave or more stable in other ways, but I'd not that the most interesting developments Housewise in LotR were when players used their freedom and a decent amount of scheming to create entirely new Houses, like the Egyptian one or Woad's Order.

If people strongly prefer KotR's House structure we should figure it out now, since that's the change brought up that would likely result in the biggest rules overhaul. :yes:

I strongly agree with TinCow on cutting down the rules a bit, likely starting with the University (sadly) and secession rules, at least for now.

I still believe we should start smallish, with a one term length test with 4 or 5 players opening up into the full game. I'll probably push that idea until such a time as I decide a strong majority hates it. :clown:

If we're starting to come together on the types of changes we want it might not be a bad idea to start with rules proposals. I'll be looking the rules over this weekend.

Also, we can always continue discussing some of the "lighter" subjects like faction and mod choice. They have a much bigger effect on the game (especially the former) than I had ever expected.

Personally, I like Milan and Spain, although I'm partial too all of the factions suggested. :clown:

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Originally Posted by Zim

Personally, I like Milan and Spain.

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Likewise for me, although I have a clear preference for Spain.

milan does have better options concerning expansion.. spain can only go north or south


milan can go all directions and meet a different faction everywhere.

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Originally Posted by Zim

I still believe we should start smallish, with a one term length test with 4 or 5 players opening up into the full game. I'll probably push that idea until such a time as I decide a strong majority hates it. :clown:

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Don't decide on a test game until you've hammered out the rules. If there's nothing radically different in the way the game operates from LotR, you probably don't need one. Test games are necessary when you're not sure whether a rule system is going to function properly in the short term. If the only changes you are making are non-mechanical in nature or would take a long time to evaluate, a test game isn't going to provide you with much insight. The LotR test was done mainly due to the new PvP rules.

I'm still going to push for Denmark or England - I dislike Milan too much, but Spain might be okay. However, I see Denmark and England having more Fronts while each front is very close at hand.

I always like cranking up the Mare Nostrum tune when attacking with the Spanish.

Allright, I've got a few more ideas...

Tie voting influence heavily to land. Have all avatars start with an allegiance to a house when they spawn. All avatars must always be part of a house. Avatars can change houses at any point. New houses can be formed in one of two ways. The first way is that when a crusader captures the crusading target, he may choose to keep it for himself and start a house instead of the land going to his lord. The second way to start a new house would be if a player had two adjacent provinces he could "secede" from his current house and start a new one. If the player only has 1 city, he could ally with another player with an adjacent city and they could secede together (with a previous agreement about which one would become Duke).

I'm thinking of houses in terms of geography. An avatar would orignally hail from a certain house's territory. He would likely be aqcuainted with the higher ranking members of that area. This provides a role playing "springboard" similar to the family relations in KOTR while still allowing RBGs and House creation like in LOTR. I believe it would provide more PvP conflict because Dukes obviously won't want to lose influence because some scheming vassal ran off with a province.

I believe the ranks should be...

Baron- voting power is equal to 1+ # of provinces in his control
Duke- voting power equal to 1+ # of landed vassals
Prince- voting power equal to that of his other rank +1
King- voting power equal to authority

Any opinions?:balloon3:

I still favor the simplest system when it comes to voting. One province = one vote. Kill someone and you get all the provinces they had when you declared war. We don't have to give people a reason to distribute land to their vassals, let's keep the game heavy at the top and new avatars will have something to do... steal from the old generation.

Ranks and provinces never really meant much in LotR. We almost immediately had more land than active players. It'll mean more in the next version if a successful field general can hoard some of it and build himself into a threatening powerhouse. No matter how powerful someone gets in the end they can only control one stack of troops, can only attack in one direction at a time. If you want more than that you've got to trust someone, and if you don't want more than that then you will quickly find that younger players are just as happy to siege your cities with just their bodyguards as they are the AI's cities.

It's a simple scenario, right? One big player with 5-6 provinces, well established, powerful, and 3-4 new players with just what they can scrape together. If they want to advance they need land, and the big guy can't protect it all. Let's give each other motive and opportunity to be distrustful and aggressive.

We still have one other thing to fix, however, which is what we vote on! Voting sessions in LotR tended to be rather dull. The edicts were rarely impactful on gameplay. This has to be solved in the game by the players that start off with powerful avatars IMHO.

:egypt:

I see some very good ideas here to discuss. I just finished a test and have spring break this week (seems odd for someone of the ripe old age of 25... :laugh4:). I will be making some rules proposals this coming week. We've got a lot of ideas now, it seems a good time to start thinking about how to implement them.

In the meantime I'm thinking of moving the faction choice discussion to a poll. So far I've seen the following factions brought up:

England
Denmark
Sicily
Spain
Milan

Am I missing any? We might want to think a little bit more about whether we're using Kingdoms, since there are some fairly light mods that add Kingdoms specific factions we might consider (like the Order of other crusader factions).

Kingdoms is fine by me.
What does it cost nowadays in stores?
I picked it up for 3 euro few weeks ago.

England and Milan are my favourites.


Just one Q: why aren't we considering France? The tensions between the king and all the barons could be easily translated into the game, it's quite central in Europe and pretty much has enemies on every border. It can expand in a lot of directions, and has a nice troop roster.

Since we're playing a christian faction, it will be a matter of not expanding too much to keep our papal relation in check?

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Originally Posted by Ramses II CP

Ranks and provinces never really meant much in LotR. We almost immediately had more land than active players. It'll mean more in the next version if a successful field general can hoard some of it and build himself into a threatening powerhouse. No matter how powerful someone gets in the end they can only control one stack of troops, can only attack in one direction at a time. If you want more than that you've got to trust someone, and if you don't want more than that then you will quickly find that younger players are just as happy to siege your cities with just their bodyguards as they are the AI's cities.

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I agree that it would be good to find a way to give more significance to provinces. When writing the LotR rules, I tried to make it so that people would become invested in their provinces and work towards improving them. I very much wanted to encourage the type of thing that Cecil did during the KotR Cataclysm, but it simply didn't work out in LotR. For LotR, the problem is accurately identified as being way too many provinces. This wouldn't have been an issue if the player base was higher, but despite consistently having a much larger base than KotR, LotR still had too few players to make province ownership competitive.

Making provinces more valuable is definitely one area that should be explored. However, I also think there should also be some focus on slowing down expansion a bit. If provinces can be kept somewhat scarce, their value will naturally increase and people will be more concerned with keeping and improving what they have. I'm not sure how to slow down expansion without imposing rules that feel artificial, but if a method can be discovered for doing this it would be a good idea IMO.

Like I said, if we play France for instance, we cannot lash out in all directions because of papal relations.
We can snatch a few rebel provinces, and then it's waiting until the AI triggers war with us so we can justify snatchign a few christian provinces.
Also France is big enough to give us atleast a few starting provinces, since we will have a serious starting player base.
I wouldn't be suprised if we are 10+ to start with, and if we play milan/denmark for instance, and we slow expansion, we might be too tight for such a player base.

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Originally Posted by mini

Like I said, if we play France for instance, we cannot lash out in all directions because of papal relations.
We can snatch a few rebel provinces, and then it's waiting until the AI triggers war with us so we can justify snatchign a few christian provinces.
Also France is big enough to give us atleast a few starting provinces, since we will have a serious starting player base.
I wouldn't be suprised if we are 10+ to start with, and if we play milan/denmark for instance, and we slow expansion, we might be too tight for such a player base.

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France was used for the test game I believe, and was voted fairly high - However, their unit roster is very similiar to the HRE's, where as the Danes and English unit rosters are much more unique.

I too like Ramses system, it's simple, and well thought out. However, can I suggest a vote cap? Thus, the guy with 5-6 provinces needs a few vassals to gain a little bit more power. Not sure how that would work out, but it at least begins to force the creation of Houses - you gain power from doing so, but your vassals also have a lot of indepedence as well.

As for slowing expansion, EDICTS! We could need an edict to capture a settlement, and another to commission the units to be trained. This should help I should think :bow:

May I suggest something. It's not something new and was in LotR as well..
Well, I propose "Rules-Constitution-Edicts" system something like this:

• Rules - They will always be OOC and they are .. well.. Rules! :beam:
• Constitution - IC laws that are discussed and accepted before the game starts. These are laws that must be followed all times. Only high ranking player can propose Constitution Amendment. Here can be mentioned what settlements England(example) considers theirs and thus those settlements become fair game for players to take from AI or another player.
• Edicts - Laws that are in effect only between two Council Sessions. Penalties for braking them could be mentioned in the Constitution. Edicts can not contradict Constitution.

This way you can slow down expansion and make all those settlements be worthy and most of all.. there will be lot of fighting for taking/keeping those settlements. :2thumbsup:

Hope that what I just said makes sense! :juggle2:

KotR was fairly effective at using edicts and CA's as a means to limit expansion.

It's down to resources and game balance.

If it costs too much to have more than one war going then the internal fighting over who could expand and who had to wait was a big part of KotR's balance mechanism. The problem is that some players can take on whole armies with little or no support except GB units. Likewise an ingenious piece of legislation was that all provinces taken had to be "ratified" and officially absorbed into the Empire. Because this was further legislation it became very political, which was very effective. If you set out expansion in the “constitution” of the game it can be role played as such and allows land to be the centre of political manoeuvring and voting.

I think it was fairly realistic that you had to decide as a group of Baron's and nobles in the Diet about who to attack and who not to.

-EDIT-

I honestly think CA and Edict that are "in-game" need to be policed and enforced in the game and not outside it. If you don't do this you will need a babysitter for all the toys that get thrown out of the pram. *grin*

Let's definitely add France to the "probable" list. I advocated that to be our faction for LotR, and I will continue to advocate it in this next game. :yes:

As far as the rules/CAs/Edicts go, I think TC's three-tiered system implemented midway through LotR was a very good solution to a somewhat flawed system and we should continue it.

Hmmm...if we combine 1 province = 1 vote with edicts and amendments being required for troops and land, we might run into one House gaining all the power.

We might also get some very heated Council sessions, since edicts and amendments literally mean power. Such a system makes the IC rp aspect seem more signifigant, and I'd vote for such a system, hands down.

I think LotR encouraged expansion because of the finders-keepers rule. In Kotr, the Emperor always got new provinces, and Edicts were later required for that too. This provided little incentive to go out and risk your bodyguard in the early game. It also gave more power to the Emperor (and Diet). It might be worth bringing something like that back; after all, if it was the Imperial treasury that paid for the armies, who are you to take the settlement.

It would be a good way to give extra strength to the legislative body and bring back the debates, if each new conquest had to be absorbed by an Edict. Then another Edict could be necessary to give the province to somebody. If the body could not agree on whom to give it to, it could remain unpossessed, with the current Chancellor having control of it. Maybe it would even require 2/3 majority to assign a permanent ownership; a simple Edict could, perhaps, only grant the kind of ownership that could be taken away by another simple Edict.

These kinds of things would really make people seek out votings blocs, and feces would once again be flung across the blood-stained marble floors. It would also reduce the benefits of expansion, or at least make you do a lot of politicking beforehand.

I like the idea of tying expansion to edicts again. If land is going to be so important. It would certainly encourage less anemic Senate sessions. :yes:

So if a province was taken in war an edict would be required to keep it, and yet another to give it to a specific player.

How far would we want to go in tying land to influence? I would say there should be some sort of cap, or diminishing returns. Would landed vassals count? Would the King's authority be tied to the size of his "demesne"?

I think it's pretty much certain we're keeping the rule/edict/etc. enforcement system from LotR. :2thumbsup: However, how would this mesh with edicts to keep land. If someone takes a settlement and decides to keep it against an edict (say, by squatting in it) would it be his for purposes of counting influence until the powers that be enforce the law?

Edit: Will add France when it comes time to poll for faction choices. They do have some advantages like being able to absorb a larger number of players early on. So far probably France, Spain, and England have the most room to "grow" without coming into conflict with the pope for attacking christian factions.

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Originally Posted by Zim

So far probably France, Spain, and England have the most room to "grow" without coming into conflict with the pope for attacking christian factions.

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Where's the fun in that?

If we're starting without the smaller scale test game it would make the beginning game (with at least ten or so players) smoother. ~;p

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

Where's the fun in that?

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plus if we play a christian faction, we should RP to curry favour with the pope, or atleast avoid excomm.

Another incentive not to expand too much.

YLC: I agree england has better roster than france, which is why I will vote england.
I just proposed france as it has the best starting conditions for a larger playerbase.

If we start out with the Danes, you can only start off with a handful of player max.
I can't imagine the SS map right away, but the Dane starting position gives for some serious distances aswel?
Wehereas france/england are right in the middle of western europe.

the process that flyd outlined is exactly what I was talking about.

Zim, honestly, I would get the rule set from KotR and make that a base. Controlling land is what KotR was all about and the Kaiser controlling it's distribution was well done and realistic.

YLC mentioned the idea of council sessions being heated and meaning something.

I can tell you, I never walked into the Diet in KotR without getting up to date on everything. If you didn't have your head screwed on straight you were going to get a pasting very quickly.

My impression was that most of the players were against switching back to the KotR rules set, at least going by posts here after it was brought up.

Is it just the House structure which you think would make for a better game?

I thought the way new Houses were set up midgame in LotR had great potential to be interesting. Sadly, we all decided to get along. Forcing people into certain Houses based on where they get adopted/born to wouldn't necessarily fix that problem if it were to repeat.

If we do bring back the older rules we'd need to think about what we'd do with rgbs. Would adoptions be banned unless they were to join the House of their potential adopter? Would someone marrying one of the King's daughter's get the chance to start a new House?

Perhaps we could do a poll to see which rule set people prefer.

Edit: I walked into a few Diets without really knowing what was happening, partly because I was new and many of the character dynamics escaped me. In fact, given what the Illuminati were doing behind the scenes the whole game, I can safely say I had no idea at all what was really going on. :laugh4: