M2TW PBEMs possible?

I was reading some of the posts in the M2TW forums, and I saw that, apparently, the faction heir is the king's oldest son. I remember that one of the problems in the RTW PBEMs was that people had to play a set amount of turns, like 20 or so, instead of being able to play a king's entire reign before moving on to the next person. Since the mechanics of faction inheritance has been changed, perhaps there could be some M2TW PBEMs sometime soon, playing each king's reign just like in the first Medieval?

Hello Amon_Zeth,

We have discussed the option of doing such a M2 PBM, and decided that we will start one in the future.
The thing is, however, that we wish to finish our current WotS PBM first. Too much time has gone into that to simply ignore it and let it die.

:balloon2:

My understanding of the turns/years thing is vague, but I believe that M2TW characters live as many turns as in RTW. The problem is that is a lot of turns - arguably too long for a PBM. The reigning player might get exhausted and everyone else may get be bored waiting. Hence the move from full reigns to 20 turns in RTW PBMs.

Having different players sequentially take on the role as the same king does weaken the role-playing aspect a bit but is not a killer. However, it might be a little problem for a "Will of the Senate" type game, where each player is permanently with a particular character. In that situation, you would have to "ignore" the fact that another character is the king (as we ignore the "faction leader" trait in the Will of the Senate game). You'd could say he was the king, but some other noble was the real power behind the throne (not uncommon in Medieval Europe). Or you might just pretend he's not really the King, as we might have to if we go with a HRE PBM with elected Emperors.

Alright, I see. Maybe there is some way to make M2TW make each turn add a year to the king's life, so that it moves quicker, so that you don't have kings that age super slow?

I don't see why it'd be an issue to just ignore it. We had no problems whatsoever ignoring who was supposedly the faction ruler and faction heir in the WotS pbem, because everybody understood the Consul was elected and the 'faction heir' simply didn't matter as a trait.

A good MTW2 PBEM would be on Venice. Because it's a republic, it could be done like the WoTS.

Question: What does a “Turn” in M2 equate too? Is it still an abstract concept of compressed time (as CA were originally doing) or are the turns actually labelled as years now (as the community wanted)?

I’m asking mainly as an unabstract concept of time is one quite essential thing in PBeM’s.

We have battles and reports and elections tied into Years and whilst the concept of a turn is ok for allocating a length of a “reign” isn’t it going to be somewhat unsatisfactory when we start transposing a game into a PBeM campaign with all its reports, write-ups, stories etc?

It won’t stop me taking a minor part in a campaign (I can’t run the game anyway) but I just wondered if we’d considered it before we get into this matter further.

(if you’re wondering, yes, I’m still concerned that whilst the game itself plays well and has better bits-n-bobs….it just doesn’t have the same campaign “feel” as M:TW and that in an effort to compress lots more “bling” such as the Americas into the game, CA have lost the soul of what made a campaign game truly absorbing for me.)

I think we could actually incorporate the non-selectable heir into the game mechanics. It would be somewhat wrong IMO to completely ignore the monarch, but we could easily give him a legislative veto. Let's say he can veto any legislation he wants, unless it receieved a 2/3 majority of votes. (maybe 3/4?) Since we would know for sure exactly which characters are in line for the throne, I would say that the King would also have a veto over players taking control of his children. In order to assume the role of a Prince, you'll have to be on good terms with the King.

Also, we should consider what we are going to use in place of influence, since it no longer exists. Obviously Authority for the King (if he even gets a vote, perhaps keep him out of all votes and let him only veto.) Piety is a possibility, as is loyalty.

Just brainstorming, there are a lot of possibilities for improvements to a WoTS style game in M2TW.

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Originally Posted by Braden

Question: What does a “Turn” in M2 equate too? Is it still an abstract concept of compressed time (as CA were originally doing) or are the turns actually labelled as years now (as the community wanted)?

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It's labeled as turns on the main campaign screen, but the year is displayed inside the information panel. Each turn is currently 2 years. Apparently people have already found a way to alter the amount of time that a turn takes though, so 2 or 4 turns per year shouldn't be a problem.

I see. My main concern was with keeping track of Avatars ages and how long they had to live etc. Obviously very difficult if you have an abstract "turn".

The method of government in the Medieval era leads to problems for a communual PBeM such as we have with the Senate one.


Perhaps we could figure out some form of Baronial based Government? With the King as a figurehead only (never to be used as a player Avatar).

However, that would also mean that the whole bloodline of the Royal house would have to be excluded as player Avatars (except Princesses perhaps).

Certainly Englands and Frances strong “Baronial” base would be a good starting point, but I can’t comment on the other factions.

Is Venice still a Republic in the actual game, can someone check?


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Actually I disagree with England and France.

The electoral counts of the Holy Roman Empire or the Diet of Poland would be much more relative to a senatorial style of play.

I suppose so, but I’m not familiar with those systems so just commented on what I knew.

HRE would be ok.

Besides, Lucjan, we’ve already been discussing what I may be doing……:yes:

Yes, intrigueing it is. :beam:

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Yes, intrigueing it is.

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Sorry, did I miss something? :stare:

I can't comment intelligently on the Diet, but the HRE system had (has?) a tremendous amount of sophistication to it: the Electors, the Reichsvikarien/King/Emperor system for ruling, the electoral capitulation the king and emperor agreed to before assuming power, etc. Lots to play with as far as game mechanics, and lots to balance just as with the Senate.

More broadly, I would say three things:

1) A good discussion of game mechanics need not lead to complexity. However, I think the senate-style PBEM has a load of unexplored possibilities. Since we're not starting for a few weeks, we may have a great chance to carve out a design for this round.

2) The unexplored possibilities I'm most interested in are in the case where someone besides the Head-of-State (whoever that turns out to be) takes control of the campaign on a periodic basis -- not to do whatever he/she wishes, but instead to take care of specific segments of the campaign: economic activity, agent activity, etc. For example, what if, even though the Pope has nothing to do with the HRE itself, the HRE's religious affairs were controlled by someone playing the Pope? I'm not particularly stuck on that idea, I just give it as an example of what I'm talking about.

3) It took me a little while, even though the WoS is quite simple, to understand where and how I could contribute. Whatever we decide, I would very much like a straightforward document describing the function and duties of each position (or class of positions). It would go a long way toward bringing more people into the game.

Hmm I still stand by my earlier statement, I'd much prefer a non-European faction for a change. No doubt we'd have fun whichever faction we chose, but an Eastern/ Muslim faction would be good for the variation. Plus, destroying crusader armies does sound fun...

A system like we have now would probably be a bit less easy to implement, but I daresay that if we put our minds to it we'll work out something.

:balloon2:

Maybe we could play as the Turks? Each general would be partially independent but subject to the Sultan.

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Originally Posted by Ignoramus

Maybe we could play as the Turks? Each general would be partially independent but subject to the Sultan.

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Indeed, Either the Turks or the Byzantines would be my first choice.

:balloon2:

Byzantian would be a good choice and quite a neat run through from the current WotS....

.....after all the Byzantian Empire is basically the remains of the Eastern Roman Empire isn't it. We could even quote occurances from our own pre-made history (i.e. what happened in the WotS).

Sorry, but I wouldn't play a muslim faction, though I see no reason why running two games at the same time would be an issue.

As far as what Tamur is talking about, I was toying with the idea of having each individual player in charge of their own duchy infrastructure and military wise, but subordinate to the requests of the Emperor.

First, let me say this is all speculation. But here's what I had in mind for the duties and regulations of being Emperor.

1 - Announce the current treasury and open discussion for edicts on the 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th turn of the emperor's reign (thereby meeting once a year for the emperor's five year term, people already know how to alter the game's time to do this). Players then make edicts in the same way the motions were made. Except, construction and recruitment for the Empire as a whole can only be planned and ordered with the passing of edicts. This forces everybody to try and think more critically with every edict session. What is going to be the most important over the course of the next four seasons? Any units recruited in a province are the property of that duke, unless said duke willingly gives that unit over to the Imperial Army, a joint force led by the Emperor consisting of units from throughout the different dukedoms of the Empire. A player who does not have his own city is a Count, and is subordinate to the Duke he serves under.

Example - Edicts urged through by the Duke of Bavaria require the Emperor to commission the recruitment of three units of halberdiers in Bavaria. These halberdiers are the property of the Duke of Bavaria and his to use as he sees fit unless he willingly transfers one or more of these units to the banner of the Imperial Army, which is under the Emperor's control, or to another duke. However, the Duke of Bavaria willingly gives these three units of halberdiers to the Count of Bayern, who moves them to a Bavarian fortification in the Alps to protect from Italy.

2 - Emperor can make decrees in regards to edicts, over-ruling the edicts given orders, the Emperor can only make 1 of these per year, and cannot force a decree on any specific player that would last for more than a year (unless the decree is to construct something in their duchy which requires more than a year to build). An Emperor cannot decree a duke to unwillingly relinquish control of military units to the Imperial Army or any other army.

3 - Dukes with 2/3 support from the other dukes can ignore an Imperial decree with impunity.

4 - The Emperor cannot force the cancelation of any work in progress or an edict passed in an edict session prior to the current year through Imperial decree.

5 - The Emperor, like all the other dukes, has the right to control the military of his own dukedom, and the Imperial Army.

6 - The Emperor may order a "Call to Arms" in a situation where Imperial lands have been invaded, or simply in peace time to ensure stability, in which all dukes are requested to provide military support to bolster the Imperial Army for the defense of the Empire. The dukes choose the number and type of units to be sent.

7 - The Emperor may declare war with a 2/3 vote of support from the rest of the dukes, in which case the dukes order the moves of their ducal army in any way they see beneficial to the Empire or whatever way an Imperial decree may command them.

I think these ideas would be good to make everybody really develop some strong internal alliances and to work together for a greatter good, while also maintaining the naturally argumentative and treacherous state of affairs we all loved so dearly in the WotS game.

Ideas? Comments?

EDIT - Never really played as Byzantium, I was kind of hoping to get away from the Roman feel with this next game.

Lucjan,

That all sounds good to me but I’ll break it down.

1 – I like this generally and you’ve accommodated the fact that we can have two tiers of players taking part: Dukes and Counts. My assumption is that Dukes will be “game active” avatars, able to take control of the avatars and play battles whilst Counts will be “free” avatars of various types (i.e. those players unable to install M2).

Generally it’s a good idea, though I can see that so many sessions within one Emperors reign might get confusing.

However, I particularly like the self allocation and control of troops and the interaction between Dukes and the Emperor this will cause (and the arguments!).

2 – Can’t see a major issue with this as it just expands on the points put forward in 1.

3 – Sensible, and clear. I don’t know what “influence” mechanism is in M2 but we’ll have to decide if such a mechanism would be a factor or if such things would be a plain 1-man-1-vote thing.

4 – An emergency system, one that’ll be needed.

5 – This makes the Emperor (rightfully) able to field more “muscle” than any one Duke. Makes sense.

6 – This would be a worthwhile mechanism, you haven’t put any limits no how many times the Emperor could use this but my assumption again is that this is intentional as you’ll never know how many times it would be needed. Obviously, if it was the 4th time in a term that such a call was made the Emperor would have to be very explicit as to why he was doing this and garner the support of the Dukedoms.

7 – Tricky one this. Ok, first off is the issue of weighting or unweighted voting. However, the most tricky issue would be that each Duke actively moves their own forces; I can’t really comment on the potential complexity of this as I don’t know what facility M2 has that could make this easier. Certainly in Rome it would be virtually impossible as a Save file would be rushing over to a dozen or so players and it would take weeks to resolve one turn! That’s not counting all the automatic encounters/battles that could happen during each persons move.

Byzantian – I used to like playing them in M:TW but never finished with them as they always ran out of “decent” units late on. And the interest with them ebbed, I can certainly see a valid point for moving away from “Romano” influenced games though.

I think it is good to explore the idea of decentralised PBM - each player being associated with a province or provinces, and with some military force. We've chewed it over several times with the WoS but never really done anything about it. I think that is because of the technicalities of keeping track of budgets & troops; and reconciling the needs of the faction as a whole with the whims of individual players.

However, I am not sure decentralisation is necessarily the right direction to go with a M2TW PBM, as at least playing it as England, it feels less "provincial" than Roman RTW games. Maybe for a faction like HRE, where there are many borders, it may make more sense (like the east vs west tensions in WoS at the moment).

A few observations about relevant aspects of M2TW:

(a) With M2TW, there seem to be no titles to speak of, so there's no simple "in-game" representation like those wonderful legion banners we enjoy in WoS. A shame, but I guess it gives us some freedom. However, I have a feeling that trying out a decentralised PBM might work better say with EBs Greek cities, where the division between cities is represented by in-game ethnicities.

(b) I'd be reluctant to do 4TPY with M2TW. Out of the box it is 0.5TPY and we'll start doing violence to history (Gothic knights at Hastings etc) if we deviate too much from that.

(c) The ratio of generals to provinces feels like RTW - ie slightly more provinces than generals. So the provinceless Counts may be necessary at the beginning but would not be an important game mechanic.

(d) We have to bear in mind the castle/town distinction. Dukes of towns may feel shortchanged but towns at the margin are arguably best for the kingdom as a whole (specialise troop production in a few upgraded places; let the rest be cash cows).

My instinct would be to fix on a faction first and then sort out suitable arrangements. I think it's a given that we want some WoS type elements - notably elections of players; "motions" constraining them; and delegation of battles to the "lower house" generals on the ground - although the nomenclature may change. How we package this for role-player purposes and whether we need to add extra elements, such as provincial decentralisation, may depend on the faction we choose. Personally, I don't think we could run two WoS type games simultaneously, although multiple traditional PBMs would be possible.

For now, let's keep brainstorming and chewing over ideas. I think we probably should have a poll or something to choose the faction in a fortnight or so. (I'd like someone to actually make a go of HRE in soloplay before I was confident to vote for it for a PBM, for example.) Ideally, we could choose between different "proposals" - someone develops a concept for a particular faction, someone does the same for another and we see which has the widest appeal. I am toying with the idea of restricting the poll to players of the WoS PBM. Not because we'd exclude others, but because this hardcore of players is probably more reliable and should have more "influence". :wink:

Honestly and looking at Econ21’s comments, has the community and those potentially “ready” to take part in a M2 PBeM actually played the game sufficiently yet?

I looking at comments such as “I'd like someone to actually make a go of HRE in soloplay before I was confident to vote for it for a PBM” as a pointer that perhaps we haven’t.

Has anyone here completed a full single player campaign yet? Fully, until the very end?

Whilst I fully appreciate peoples excitement at the new game and their enthusiasm to bring it to PBeM are we not just letting ourselves up for major falls later when we…..I dunno….hit a bug that makes the game unplayable perhaps, or realise that we can’t enact a certain point of the PBeM within the game mechanics.

No titles – ok, that makes things a bit confusing (and is just something else for me to wonder if I actually want the game)

TPY issue – what is best? Can we say that 4TPY is better or worse than 0.5TPY (or any other version) without some playtesting?

I’m willing to be on board for this as I’ll only be a “Count” anyway, my concern is we’re rushing into this without knowing what beast we’re rushing to use.

All I'll say on the next PBEM is I really think we need to keep TWOTS system of each player being assigned a family member and playing all the battles of that character. Its worked tremendously well in keeping all the participants interested in the game.

People who want to fight the odd battle but don't fancy a full reign can be given a character far from the royal bloodline ~:)

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Originally Posted by Braden

Honestly and looking at Econ21’s comments, has the community and those potentially “ready” to take part in a M2 PBeM actually played the game sufficiently yet?

Has anyone here completed a full single player campaign yet? Fully, until the very end?

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Well, the game was only out in Europe on Friday, so I doubt any of PBMers here have. I'm on turn 60 and it is starting to crawl in pace - typical midgame slowdown, as we've all seen in the WoS. However, someone has posted an end-game screen in the M2TW forum and I gather TinCow is ahead of me in his English game - or maybe just being more successful at it. :embarassed:

But to be fair, we are not proposing starting a WoS style game until we have brought the original article to a fitting resolution - hopefully just around Christmas. (How's it going, Lucjan? How you've not been completely seduced by that new young M2TW hussy ...? :wink:)

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Originally Posted by Braden

an effort to compress lots more “bling” into the game

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:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Econ

A few observations about relevant aspects of M2TW:

(a) With M2TW, there seem to be no titles to speak of, so there's no simple "in-game" representation like those wonderful legion banners we enjoy in WoS. A shame, but I guess it gives us some freedom. However, I have a feeling that trying out a decentralised PBM might work better say with EBs Greek cities, where the division between cities is represented by in-game ethnicities.

(b) I'd be reluctant to do 4TPY with M2TW. Out of the box it is 0.5TPY and we'll start doing violence to history (Gothic knights at Hastings etc) if we deviate too much from that.

(c) The ratio of generals to provinces feels like RTW - ie slightly more provinces than generals. So the provinceless Counts may be necessary at the beginning but would not be an important game mechanic.

(d) We have to bear in mind the castle/town distinction. Dukes of towns may feel shortchanged but towns at the margin are arguably best for the kingdom as a whole (specialise troop production in a few upgraded places; let the rest be cash cows).

My instinct would be to fix on a faction first and then sort out suitable arrangements. I think it's a given that we want some WoS type elements - notably elections of players; "motions" constraining them; and delegation of battles to the "lower house" generals on the ground - although the nomenclature may change. How we package this for role-player purposes and whether we need to add extra elements, such as provincial decentralisation, may depend on the faction we choose. Personally, I don't think we could run two WoS type games simultaneously, although multiple traditional PBMs would be possible.

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a ) I don't quite understand what it is you mean with 'in game representation', the legion banners are still here but then again I must be missing something here ~;)

b ) I agree, the balance is OK as it is now. Although the amount of turns (~225) may be a bit low.

c ) Well, I guess this differs per game. In my current English campaign ( turn 75 or so ) I can field armies with two family members an army. That said, Rennes and Caen do need a governor.

d ) Indeed, personally I wouldn't want to be used solely to govern a town, but who would ? If we decide to incorporate the Upper / Lower house concepts, then we could have the upper house members governing the towns and cities.

Now if we wish to start a M2 PBM in the current WotS theme, we should chose a faction in which this is easy to incorporate. This would severely reduce the possibilities since only the HRE and the Byzantines are empires...

The Idea allocating a province to a player is a good one, although it would require a ton of micromanagement and communication with the faction leader. ..

:balloon2:

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Originally Posted by Ignoramus

A good MTW2 PBEM would be on Venice. Because it's a republic, it could be done like the WoTS.

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I second this.

In addition to being a Republic, Venice might offer some interesting gameplay options. Rather than the expand in every direction as quickly as possible thing, we could instead establish a maritime trade empire. Perhaps we could have a rule that, outside of northern Italy, we would only capture littoral provinces.

One of the things that has "spoilt" TWOTS for me was the relentless rushing of our neighbours in the early game. So un-Roman, and resulted in us just blitzing the map.

Of course, missions from the Pope or CON would over-ride such a no-conquest rule?

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Originally Posted by Mount Suribachi

One of the things that has "spoilt" TWOTS for me was the relentless rushing of our neighbours in the early game. So un-Roman, and resulted in us just blitzing the map.

Of course, missions from the Pope or CON would over-ride such a no-conquest rule?

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Not necessarily, the only conquest missions the pope gives are crusade missions. Which is probably only good for the storyline. The pope has never, as of yet, asked me to conquer anything other than a crusading target. It has only asked me to stop the destruction, albeit of a fellow catholic ~;)

The HoN missions are varied, and don't only contain missions which favor the blitz. Blocking ports, engaging in diplomacy, and subterfuge missions are the usual types you get.

:balloon2:

Regarding the TPY, I am hopful that by the time this is ready there will be a mod that increases the TPY and also scales the construction costs, construction times, and recruitment costs directly in proportion to the increased TPY.

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Originally Posted by Mount Suribachi

One of the things that has "spoilt" TWOTS for me was the relentless rushing of our neighbours in the early game. So un-Roman, and resulted in us just blitzing the map.

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It might be an idea to have a brief post-mortem on the WoS when it is done - what worked, what did not, how it could be improved.

Personally, I thought the pacing of conquest was about right. From a gameplay point of view, it gave each Consul - and many lower house generals - something to do. From a historical point of view, we were playing a 4TPY mod, but I think it would be roughly historical if viewed at about 0.25TPY speed[1]. I know that my reign was the most aggressive though. In retrospect, Carthage and Greece being unable to cope with the sea barrier did mean securing Italy left us in a very safe position. I probably should have been more cautious. Once we broke out into Illyria and Greece, all hell seemed to break loose and we were not really in control anymore.

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Of course, missions from the Pope or CON would over-ride such a no-conquest rule?

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If you are a Western Catholic, the Pope is a definite break on conquest as in MTW. I find the CON missions very appropriate - they do sometimes tell me to take the next logical settlement of my enemy but give you a generous time allowance.


[1]Personally, I don't see the big deal with 4TPY mods. As in WoS, the broad pace of the campaign often seems more historical when viewed at official or even faster. Interpreting TW too literally, like interpreting religious texts, seems hopeless. In that respect, I have some sympathy with M2TWs deliberately fuzzy treatment of time. I don't seem the "short" game length of M2TW being a problem - I am vague on the numbers, but I think it is twice as long as the WoS is likely to have lasted.

Actually M2TW has me completely entranced, skipped English class today to stay home and play. lol

I'm starting up a HRE game as I type this actually, so as to give it a go and see how it'd really work out.

Just my suggestions if you guys do this.

I would suggest playing as Venice. It was ruled by a council so might be best for this sort of thing. It's in Italy which always has some interesting wars in M2TW from what i've seen, and it must conquer Constantinople as paet of its victory conditions so you'll end up fighting the Byzantine empire. Plus they get a good mix of units, including some good militia ones.

One of the central powers would certainly be the best choice. It offers the widest range of possibilites for each player to make his mark. One player may prefer going after the Islamic world. Another player may just have a dislike for France:D

Venice or Sicily would be my choices for a central starting position.

I'm against all this trumping of Venice for the simple fact that I don't want to play another Italian faction, we're in the process of wrapping up 6 months worth of Roman-ness, lets move on to something different in Medieval.

Some notes on my HRE campaign so far. By turn 2, I had 7 Dukes available for play (equivilant to lower house generals), giving us almost exactly, if not a little more avatars than we'll need if the regulars from WotS all sign up.
They are, believe it or not, in a difficult starting position, money is tight early on and they're surrounded by just about everybody under the sun, this would make cooperation and argument very important in the passing of edicts, something WotS thrived on. Also, the thought of individual armies for each duke and the Imperial army for the emperor is already established for us from the start of the game. Each settlement has a significant garrison, and there's a mobile army directly north of the capital which would be feasible for the Imperial army. In a war with Venice that's not going so hot, lost Vienna but will be taking it back soon, failed in a siege of Venice itself but highly depleted their garrison, and have a significantly sized army on a crusade to Jerusalem comprised mostly of archers and armoured seargents with two units of mailed knights and some merc spearmen.

Thinking about how to proceed, I suggest we keep chewing over ideas and may be put a poll up to choose the faction for a WoS type M2TW PBM on 1st December? That gives us a fortnight to brainstorm and get more familiar with the game before committing ourselves.

I've been looking over the map very carefully every turn on my HRE campaign, and I feel very strongly that the ideas for having every player participate more actively in direct provincial controls would be very easy and satisfying for everybody.

I've seen some people overcomplicate this by bringing up save games being passed around. This is unnecessary. In order for multiple players to play one faction each with a seperate garrison or army or whatnot, all you need is the following.

1 - Players to keep track of the location of their own units.

2 - Players to send the necessary movement requests to whoever is the emperor by a certain time. The emperor will handle all of the actual movements, but cannot move armies (except his own and the imperial army) without the order being given by the controlling duke.

Example - The duke of Innsbruck wants his army moved south to block Venician armies from using the pass. So he would send the emperor a message telling him this. The emperor could then carry out this movement.

3 - Players to understand that giving up units to the Imperial Army or a Crusade means they no longer own this unit. The duke of Innsbruck may own 6 spear militias, 2 peasant archers and 3 mounted sargeants, but if he gives up 2 mounted sargeants and 1 spear militia during a Call to Arms by the Emperor, he can no longer give orders to those relinquished units and they become the property of the Imperial Army, therefore whoever the elected emperor is at that time. This then leaves the duke of Innsbruck with 5 militias, 2 archers and 1 mounted sargeant, he would have to petition during the next edict session to have more troops recruited at Innsbruck.

This brings about another idea. Players who conquer territory through the use of their own Ducal army become Duke of both territories, whereas territory conquered by the Imperial army becomes a general part of the HRE and can be claimed by new players as their duchy or remains a part of the territory under direct control of the elected emperor's authority. Players with more than one duchy may opt to give up some of their posessions to new players to have that player join their ducal house (like the family ties of Rome. This is very possible, as M2 allows generals who are not actually tied to royal family. I.E, generals exist in the campaign that do not appear in the family tree, allowing the roleplay of alternate family ties to be a very feasible possibility).

Interesting ideas, Lucjan. A few questions for clarification - as you envisage it:

1. What are the incentives for Dukes to give up their troops to the Imperial army (or to another Duke in need)? Or perhaps there could be an explicit quid pro quo that they would be returned, perhaps with some kind of interest (upgrades? extra troops? extra vote next Parliament session?).

2. And what are the incentives for the King to allow a Ducal army to seize a settlement, rather than an Imperial army? Or perhaps which settlement can be taken and by whom must be decided by Parliament?

3. Who decides whether to build troops? If it is the King, surely they would much prefer to recruit from their own castle, so they control the men? Perhaps this is not such a big deal, given the unit recruitment caps and given the King might be expected to bear the brunt of the cost of war? And perhaps Parliament could pass motions for given numbers of units to be built in given Dukedoms?

4. Why would any Duke want a city rather than a castle (which gives more troops)? I am wondering about pairing up cities and castles into a single Dukedom to avoid this problem.

5. Can you envisage playing the current WoS under your rules? If it would be easier under M2TW, why is that?

These are all just questions, BTW, not objections.

I am a worried that a provincial system would slow the game down to a crawl - the King needs to get a reply from each Duke before moving their army and presumably what the King wants to do with one Duke's forces depends on what is going to happen with another Dukes. So conceivably, playing out a single turn could take many days. How could we maintain a decent pace? (I'm thinking of requiring replies to the King within 24 hours, with non response taken as a positive reply to the King's requests. Having Dukes set out "standing orders" or agreeing contingency plans might also help.)

It would be good if other interested players could think about a provincial system. What exploits should we worry about? Presumably everyone would want to see as much action and take as many settlements as possible - how can we moderate such self-interest? If we go down the provincial path, it's very important we fashion rules to get the balance between Duke's self-interest and the national interest right.

Not sure if it will help, but the fact that the "real" HRE never quite got the balance between imperial and local authority settled, I don't see us getting it set immediately either. But I think this struggle could actually add a lot to the game.

Although the emperor in the PBM cannot march the imperial army down the throat of a duke who is trying to take too much power (simply due to game mechanics), the initial conditions of the game could be such that there are certain rights that would be taken away from such a duke.

To name a few: revocation of voting priviledges, loss of priests in the region, lack of imperial military support. But the main one I have thought about is financial.

So, several related ideas follow on finances...

One: Regional Finances
Someone (a treasurer-librarian?) uses a spreadsheet to keep track of the per-turn income from the regions under control by each duke as well as the imperial regions for each season. A % tax is assessed per-turn by the emperor. This imperial tax rate can be set/changed *per region* by the emperor unilaterally, but he risks the rebellion of the dukes by raising it too high. An emperor could easily use this to squeeze a duke who refuses to send levied troops to the imperial army, or other types of rebellious behaviour.

This information (both per-turn income levels and imperial taxation levels) must be VERY easily visible at all times. If taxation changes, it needs to be announced previous to the season in which the tax is assessed.

The regional-level financing (minus imperial tax) is available to each duke to do with as he/she pleases.

The imperial treasury for that turn would be the emperor's own territories' incomes PLUS whatever tax amount is gained from the imperial tax.

Because of the game's mechanics, it is possible for a populous region to have a negative income. Though this could be viewed as a problem, I think it will add an interesting twist, forcing some dukes to either push for financial deals with the other dukes or the Emperor, or strike out on their own to conquer new territories.


Three possible exploits of this system:
1) The emperor simply decides he wants 100% of everything every duke produces.

2) A duke feels the tax is unfairly high, but cannot revolt against this (because the game doesn't allow it!)

3) A duke simply ignores having a negative income.

See below for possible balancing actions...


Two: Freedom of Movement
The duke of a region is free to order his/her units' and character's movement anywhere on the map, even if it is against the wishes of the Emperor.

Three: Unit Disbanding/Bulding Destruction
Any duke, at any time, can order the disbanding of any unit under his/her control, or the destruction of any building in a region under his/her control.

Four: Controls on Ducal Control
Two points here:

1) If a region is lost, the duke who was in charge of the region will usually gain control of it after it is retaken. The unusual part is this: if the Reichstag (council of dukes) vote in the majority that the duke in question was being irresponsible with his/her control of the region at the time it was lost, then the region will become an imperially-controlled region. Such an "impeachment" vote can only be called for by the Emperor. If this vote makes the duke region-less, then that duke will have to take whatever troops are currently under his/her control and conquer another or die trying.

2) If a duke has a negative total income for six seasons, then that duke can also be voted out of control in the negative-income region by the other dukes, and the region(s) in question becomes an imperial region. Income is NOT counted to be negative if the duke in question secures a loan from another duke or the Emperor.

Ok, as for Econ's questions.

1 - Any incentives between players to exchange soldiery would have to be done between themselves. If the Duke of Nuremburg needs two halberdiers and can't build them, maybe the Duke of Magdeburg would loan them in exchange for a vote next session in support of having a cavalry stables commissioned in Magdeburg for example.

As for incentives to giving troops to the Imperial Army. Well, this is the HRE, any duke who continually refuses to lend service to the empire in times of need would be considered by his fellow dukes to be abandoning the empire, and in that respect, abandoning them, and would not be kindly looked upon by the others. This is not to say however that the emperor isn't necessarily abusing his power, in which case the majority of the dukes may opt not to relinquish any of their soldiery, and the emperor might find himself out on a limb if it's his own ducal territory that's in trouble. The whole system forces cooperation and communication between players on a personal level.

2a - Firstly, only 1 standing Imperial army should be allowed, the rest will all be ducal, and only 1 standing army will be allowed per duke. No duke may attack any faction that the HRE is not at war with, the HRE can declare war at the behest of the Emperor if the Emperor has 2/3 support from the dukes in favor of the war. Or, obviously, if war is declared on the HRE by another faction.

2b -The Emperor himself controls only two armies, his own ducal force, and the Imperial Army. This is as close to being historically accurate as we can get without overcomplicating things. The emperor of the HRE, at any given time, really only held any real power when the elector states beneath him agreed with his policy, it wasn't uncommon for infighting between dukes to occur and for states inside the HRE to mount their own offensives on states outside of the HRE (although they usually did request help later from their fellow HRE members if things weren't looking great), or even for independant dukes in the HRE to ally with foreign powers, against the common opinion amongst the other dukes. The emperor's two forces alone is not enough to fight a war against a powerful opponent, particularly since the state of the imperial army itself is heavily dependant on the support for the emperor from the other dukes. So the emperor won't have a choice but to allow ducal forces to sieze settlements.

Therefore, when a war is ongoing, it is really up to the dukes to come up with a collective strategy in which your questions would be adressed.

Example - HRE votes unanimously in favor of war with France, who is excommunicated by the pope. The dukes of Staufen and Innsbruck both have a strong army near the French border. The Imperial Army in Frankfurt is also sizeable. The forces in the east would be foolish to commit the strength of their armies westward with Poland and Hungary both growing in the east. So the dukes work out a plan where the eastern dukes will provide spies and assassins and some spare militia, things the western dukes don't have, while Staufen attacks Metz, Innsbruck attacks Bern, and the Imperial army takes to the field to defeat any French forces that may attempt a counterattack. In exchange for this aid, the dukes of Staufen and Innsbruck offer each participating eastern duke two units of mounted sargeants, things the eastern dukes don't have.

3 - I have 2 ideas for this situation.

3a - Troop recruitment as well as building construction has to be pushed for in public edicts throughout the course of the emperor's reign. Perhaps we won't need a motions type period for this, they may be on-going and proposed whenever an issue arises, voting on the issue will commence 24 hours following the edicts proposal, and must pass by a 2/3 majority.

Example - Three dukes submit edicts for recruitment in their territory. Frankfurt wants to recruit an assassin and a merchant. Vienna wants to recruit peasant archers and spear militia. Innsbruck wants to recruit peasant archers and mounted sargeants.

Frankfurt's request is seen as potentially beneficial for the whole of the HRE and so is voted on and passes. Vienna, who has already managed to amass the largest army of all the dukes, is seen as a threat and is voted against. Innsbruck, who has recently fought a battle with Venice and lost a large number of men, is sympathised with and their edict passes.

3b - Don't know if anybody else noticed this yet, but M2's income isn't displayed the same as Rome's was. M2 displays the total net income brought in by that specific city, and not some silly "this settlement pays this much percentage of everything" fractal like Rome did. So...we could do recruitment and construction in seperate phases, recruitment arbitrarily and construction based on edicts.

That essentially means that each duke knows exactly how much money his territory is pulling in each turn because of how the game displays it, and he may recruit accordingly up to a certain percentage of his income minus his upkeep.

Example - The duke of Frankfurt makes 2,450 gold a turn, and has a garrison upkeep of 700. We set the game rules to say that 50% of a duke's upkeep must go to HRE combined coffers unless recruiting. The duke of Frankfurt wants to recruit more soldiers. He currently puts out 1,750 gold profit for the HRE, and so could use that much money to recruit with, but the upkeep costs of whatever he recruits cannot exceed 50% of his total income. So he could recruit until the upkeep costs of his army reach 1,225 a turn, then he can no longer recruit until Frankfurt becomes more prosperous or he takes another settlement and his income climbs.

4 - Cities and Castles both have benefits over each other. Castles provide more types of soldiers earlier, but have less income and less supporting characters. Cities have supporting role characters like merchants, assassins, spies, and higher income, allowing more units to be recruited in total, or for better units to purchased from neighboring dukes who own castles in exchange for something else.

Example - City of Nuremburg wants mounted sargeants, Castle of Staufen wants merchants. They offer each other a trade and both players accept. Staufen now pulls in extra income from the trade items in it's borders, and Nuremburg has cavalry.

Example - Alternatively, Nuremburg has a merchants guild, and can build Merchant Cavalry Militia, but Staufen focuses on better armor and ranged units. Nuremburg offers two units of Merchant cavalry in exchange for two units of archers and upgrading the armor of two of it's spear militia.

5 - The only reason I can't envision playing WotS as it stands now with these rules is because the only places we have where we can recruit anything are in the heartlands of the Italian Peninsula. M2 allows recruitment from every city or castle in relatively little time, and at a much faster pace (2 to 3 units recruitable a turn) than Rome does.

6 - Your concerns about the emperor moving ducal armies.. Here's the beautiful simplicity of that. The emperor is not allowed to move any ducal army unless directly ordered to by the duke. If he doesn't get an order from the player that day, he doesn't need to worry about it. If the emperor wants to move an army but the Duke in charge of that army doesn't agree, too bad for the emperor, he needs to move his own or the Imperial army. Alternatively, if a Duke wants to move his army but the emperor disagrees, the emperor can't do anything about it, he has to move the duke's army if the duke orders it. Also, 1 turn, unless a battle occurs, should be given 24 hours, 48 hours for battle return as usual. This way, even if something happens and a player doesn't issue orders on a turn, it's no big deal, if the worst happens and they get attacked they have the typical allotted time to deal with it. This is feasible in the middle ages, armies got bogged down because of logistic problems, messengers didn't always make it. We could rp a player not posting orders for an army in the field as the messenger getting jumped and killed on the road there by highwaymen or a patrol from the enemy. I also think we should cut the Emperor's term to 15 turns (20 is slightly grueling after a while), and that way we can keep the game moving smoothly, with a decent number of transitions for everybody who wants to get around to being emperor to be able to. As M2 stands now, 15 turns is equal to 30 years, and that's a decent Imperial reign if you ask me.


As for Tamur's suggestion with the regional finances. I don't like the idea of the emperor having control over ducal taxes. I think we should maintain something along the lines of full income must be sent to national coffers unless used for recruitment, and upkeep costs of ducal armies can't exceed 50% of the duke's total income per turn. (Please note, garrison structures in M2 provide free upkeep for a set number of units.) This allows a garrison and standing army to be maintained at only the cost of the standing army.

I also don't like the 'voting out' of dukes. Dukes bear hereditary titles they can't just be voted out of. The whole voting thing comes from the emperor being elected rather than hereditary like the men who serve beneath him. Voting out individual dukes for anything could only instigate bad blood and player frustration both in and out of character, and I don't agree with it. On the other side though, if you're running for emperor, you should be prepared to be criticised, disagreed with and threatened with everything under the sun because you're the ultimate power and nobody liked to have less power than somebody else. Heck, look at my WotS reign, I've been threatened with impeachment probably 3-4 times, but I'm still there, and I understand it's all in fun with the game. But voting individual dukes out of their chosen duchy just doesn't seem fair personally to the people playing the character.

I do, however, agree with Tamur's freedom of movement and disbanding/destruction ideas, with the exception that a duke cannot declare war on another faction in the process of moving it's army. Only the emperor can declare war, and it must be done with a 2/3 majority support.

I vote for playing Venice. I just played a campaign as them on VH/VH... and lost. That's the first time I've lost a TW campaign since the very first time I played MTW. It wasn't even close either, I got steamrolled.

Time to go back and give it another go. :2thumbsup:

I thnk Dukes should be allowed to declare war by themselves. The Dukes of Bavaria and Swabia interfered in Italy A.D. 955, compelling the Emperor Otto to annex the Kinddom of Italy. It will also create the feeling of the Dukes not being all that loyal to the emperor.

Also, is inter-faction marriage possible? If it is, then dukes could expand their territory apart from war. For instance, if the Duke of Bavaria marries the Duke of Swabia's daughter, and if she is the Duke's only child, then when the Duke of Swabia died, Bavaria would inherit Swabia.

I might be persuaded to agree with duke's being able to declare war. The only problem with that is what kind of effect will individual player's choices have on the Empire if their own greed is in fact a bad decision for the empire as a whole. How do you stop such a player from doing these things? Civil war isn't a possibility due to game mechanics.

Inter-ducal marriages seem fine by me.

Intriguing ideas guys. Shame I wasnt around much when RTW was about so I missed out the WotS. Having made some good experiences with the board game Diplomacy I'd like to have a go with this one.

I'd prefer the HRE or Byzantine Empire since both are central and allow many choices for the pbmn. An more straightforward campaign like the moors or russians would be rather boring for the majority of participants at the beginning.

I would like for 2 people to help me try and put some of my suggestions to the test with a discreet attempt at a mini-pbem. Just passing some turns and save files around using a summary of what I've suggested to see its workability. Anybody game? We'll be using the HRE.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lucjan

I would like for 2 people to help me try and put some of my suggestions to the test with a discreet attempt at a mini-pbem. Just passing some turns and save files around using a summary of what I've suggested to see its workability. Anybody game? We'll be using the HRE.

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That's a good idea. I would like to help with this. I suggest that you start a new thread "Test M2TW PBM: HRE" and systematically list all the rules in the first post. Then we can refine or clarify them a bit before kicking off.

I think I have a pretty good idea of what you are intending, but - for example - am vague on the financial side - how much of the "total spreadsheet" idea we should go for with handling budgets; how we should handle Duke's orders etc. My inclination is to try to do as much as possible of the routine stuff - budgets, orders for the turn - in the thread, rather than by PBMs. Reserve the PBMs for secret politicking.

I think it would be good to do the test publically, rather than be too discreet, as the other Wos players - and other Orgahs - may want to see how it works before committing 6 months of their PBMing time to it.

People who would like to see an alternative WoS type campaign, with a different faction or perhaps without the provincial governor idea complication, could also do a similar mini-trial PBM and we could choose among the alternatives in a couple of weeks (more than one WoS type game running concurrently is possible, but I think given the relatively small numbers of players, it might work better if there was just one).

Sounds good, I'll go about that tomorrow morning when I get home from work, have to leave in an hour and a half, and still have to shower and make my lunch for the night.

Besides myself and Econ I'd like one, maybe two more people. Any takers?

I'm very interested in seeing how this all plays out, so I'd be glad to join if I can... if only to have a good excuse for playing M2TW a bit more ~:) No more steamrolling the enemy, I'm finding expansion to be a major challenge on H/H.

I'd volunteer for this test game.

Sounds good. I'll go start on the other thread now.

Other thread is up, it's titled M2, HRE Test PBEM.

This planned game sounds awesome, but as a non WoS and really a TW newbie I have a couple of questions about the PBEM M2TW mechanics...

You mention that Dukes can attack other factions of their own free will. This could seriously hamper the entire game with a papal excomm.

I have been following the WoS for a while (and enjoyed it very much :2thumbsup: ) but I did notice that some senators were very agreesive in their desire for conquest. They were often only stopped by the voting from the rest of the senate. One of these types of people starting a rash war could cause a flood of crusades and a rapid end to a good campaign???

It is not as though you could offer the life of the general to the pope in exchange for being recommunicated??

Is there a possible way to have a "senate" style rulership to the game???

We could just do an emperor/council setup with no local control. However, I think what everyone sees in this more independent setup is a really excellent chance for some strong roleplaying. Plus we've all been around for a while and know that none of the regulars (at least) would do something childish and stupid for no good reason -- doing something childish and stupid for an in-character reason is a completely different matter ~:)

Actually El Diablo. I put a test run up with a few players and the rules outlined, they're a little disorganised as some came to me later than others and they weren't incredibly well organised by us here either, but to answer your concerns about over aggressive generals. Here's the clause from the rules passage in the other post I made to adress that.

"Any Player may declare war with a 2/3 vote of support from the rest of the dukes, in which case the involved dukes order the moves of their ducal army in any way they see beneficial to the Empire or whatever way an Imperial decree may command them."

This allows war to break out without Imperial Declaration, as it often did occur, but still requires a strong margin of support and doesn't guarantee Imperial aid unless the Emperor feels Imperial lands themselves are threatened (or, naturally, unless he supports the war to begin with). Heck, it doesn't even guarantee that the "supporting" dukes will actually send any soldiers to war, they just need to vote in favor, the instigator may get trashed and have to clambor amongst his "supporters" for aid.

My point exactly. If your general is a "raving loon" etc. and thinks that the papal armies to the south are full of easter bunny wannabes then....

"To war, to war, these bunnies are no match for our armies, even that one in the back with the tall hat on... oh hello Mr Pope"

EXCOM'ed.

But then again if the armies of the pope are made up of Easter Bunnies then hey... easy pickings :clown:

But would the point of this game be to only have experianced people in it??

I would like to particpate but not in the general leading army sence.
The picking of when and where to pick fights/retreat has never been my strong point and I am sure I could learn alot for some of the more experianced members here.

Well El Diablo we've reserved a place for players like you!

Let me try to readress your concerns though.

With a 2/3 requirement of support from all the other players for a duke to go to war with one of his neighbors, it will be highly unlikely that war-hawk mighty joe down in whereverland is going to convince another 5 players out of the 9 playing (these figures are solely for the sake of argument) that it's a good idea to go to war with those bunnies, risk excommunication, defeat if they don't want to actually send military aid, and the shame of being defeated by bunnies..just to make mighty joe feel good about himself. Now on the other hand, I could see players, specifically those close to the region with a chance of taking it with their ducal army, hopping on the oppertunity to take a trade rich Venice that's been weakened and isolate by Hungary or Milan. I don't however see everybody rallying behind mighty joe's bunny war.

This game is for everybody, not just for experienced players. But it's largely about politicing too not just the medieval game itself. It's about working together, compromising, and when necessary butting heads with others to get your way. A weak Hamburg won't support a war with a mighty Denmark because some warmonger in Vienna thinks it's a good idea, and the players will usually listen to the person closest to the area in that kind of a situation. Particularly with movement distances for armies being as short as they are in M2 (which I prefer to the immensely long travelling distances of rome's armies). Hamburg is more likely to try to boost support for an attack on rebel Magdeburg, which would gain Hamburg more strength if he can take Magdeburg with his army, and form a better protection against Denmark for the whole of the HRE if Hamburg gets stronger.


As for you!

We can put you in the game as a count. :beam: Count's participate in the game by voting yes or no on passing edicts, voting for the emperor, setting the tax rate in their towns and offering their opinion in the council. But be ready to argue, we're a roudy bunch. Typical senate "discussions" usually looked a little something like this. :furious3: :whip: :laugh4: :help: :smash: :yes: :wall: :juggle2: :skull: :dizzy2: :2thumbsup:

Please "Count" me in then. Sorry that was poor...

Ohh and as a further to the Papal Easter Bunnies. They had full armour upgrades and armour piercing marshmellow eggs.

There was fur and chocolate everywhere...:laugh4: :laugh4:

Alright, once our test run is over and the full game officially starts, we'll put you in as a Count!

Just let me know what kind of avatar you'd like. For a count it's preferable you'd be taking something like a diplomat or a bishop, maybe even a spy for counterspying if you'd like. Just so we can leave Generals open for the Dukes.

I suggest he be a bishop. The HRE often had bishops ruling over principalities and duchies. In fact, Lotharingia was governed by a bishop.

I am cool with what ever is around.

Although as a warning if they are anything like my generals then they may need some life insurance. :skull: :skull: :skull: