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    Bureaucratically Efficient Senior Member TinCow's Avatar
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    Default Guide to Playing the Megas Logothetes

    So You Want To Be A Megas

    NOTE: Due to CA 5.1, large portions of this guide are now obsolete. Until it is updated to deal with the new army rules, use the guide at your own risk.

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    The rank of Megas Logothetes is by far the most powerful and rewarding rank in the game. If you are elected to this position, you will be able to greatly strengthen yourself and your allies, as well as hinder your enemies. It also comes with an impressive permanent boost to both your absolute Influence and Stat Influence, which can make you a formidable person during Senate Sessions. However, the role of Megas is very complex and can be both time consuming and difficult to play. This guide is designed to help players understand how to properly play as the Megas Logothetes.

    Remember, if at any time in the game you have any questions whatsoever, ASK THEM. You can either post them in the OOC thread for general help, or you can send a PM to TinCow for a more official ruling.

    Pre-term Preparations

    So, you’ve just won the election and are ready to start playing. How do you begin? The answer is by reading three specific threads:

    1. The Rules – Even if you’ve read them before, read them again. You may have forgotten something since the last time, or skimmed over a section that didn’t apply to you because you weren’t the Megas. Knowing the Rules is vitally important for any player, but especially the Megas. If you aren’t sure about something, just ask and it will be clarified.

    2. The Senate Library – This is your main point of reference for determining the current feudal hierarchy. As will be explained later, it is very important that you know who is what rank and who owns what settlement. These things determine whether a person is entitled to a Private or Royal Army, or has other abilities to which you need to pay attention. If you do not know what someone’s rank currently is or who owns a particular settlement, you may accidentally violate a Rule. It may be useful to take notes or print out the Overview of the Senators and Imperial Family post. If you do not think that post is up-to-date, pester TinCow until he gets it fixed.

    3. The Status and Orders Thread (SOT) – This thread is your friend, get to know it. You will be checking this thread regularly and understanding what information it contains is critical. It is a good idea to print out the entire thing as a convenient reference when you begin your term as Megas, so that you do not have to tab out and check the forums constantly. However, if you do this, make sure you check the SOT thread before you make any changes to the game. The easiest way to do this is simply to look at the bottom of each post. If you see a line like this "Last edited by XXXX; MM-DD-YYYY at HH:MM" AND the date is after the time when you printed out the thread, then something about that post has changed and you need to pay attention to it. If you do not see that, you can ignore it, because nothing has changed since you printed out the SOT thread.


    Playing a turn as Megas

    Every turn you play as Megas should be approached in a systematic manner. Use the following outline of suggestions and you will probably have a relatively easy time.

    1) Wait for everyone else to make their moves. If this is the very first turn of your Megas term, you will have to ‘open’ the save for people to begin playing it. This simply means posting that the save is available for people to download. It is very helpful to also post the time at which the save will be ‘closed.’ At a minimum this is 24 hours from the time when you open it, but you can make it longer if you want to. Regardless of how long you leave the save open, unless you really need to do something before another player, you should wait until everyone else has completed their actions before making your own. If this is not the first turn of your Megas term, this is the easiest step of all, because you don't have to do anything! Just wait until the time limit you previously set expires, then move on to the next step.

    2) Mandatory Duties. So, now everyone else is done with their moves and you have the save. Your initial instinct may be to start moving your avatar, fighting battles, and helping your allies. DO NOT DO THIS YET! First, you need to make sure that you are properly obeying all the Rules. You can violate Edicts whenever you want (assuming you can get away with it) but the Rules are set in stone and you absolutely must follow them or risk being removed from office. So, to make sure that everything is done properly, it is a good idea to deal with your mandatory duties before you do anything else. So, what are the mandatory duties? There are three of them, and you should do them in the following order:

    1. Royal Armies - Make sure all Royal Armies are up to their minimum strength. You’ve been checking the Senate Library, so you know who is at what rank. Remember that the ranks of Megas Dux/Exarch, Caesar, and Basileus control a Royal Army each. Keep track of all players who are at these ranks and where their Armies are located. Now check each one to make sure they all meet the minimum requirements. If they do not, immediately figure out a way to increase their strength so that they meet these minimum requirements. If you run out of money in the process of doing this, DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON ANYTHING ELSE THIS TURN. Keep in mind that it is possible to temporarily have a Royal Army legally under minimum strength, but only if you get permission from the Senator who owns it first. For ease of reference, the minimum requirements for a Royal Army are: 4 infantry regiments, 3 ranged regiments, and 2 cavalry regiments and Generals’ Bodyguard units do not count as cavalry regiments.

    2. Private Armies – Make sure all Private Armies are up to their minimum strength. The ranks of Hypatos, Antypatos, Patrikios, and Dux control a Private Army each. Do the exact same thing you did with the Royal Armies, checking to make sure each one meets minimum strength requirements. If you run out of money in the process of doing this, DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON ANYTHING ELSE THIS TURN. Keep in mind that it is temporarily possible to have a Private Army legally under minimum strength, but only if you get permission from the Senator who owns it first. For ease of reference, the minimum requirements for a Royal Army are: 3 infantry regiments, 2 ranged regiments, and 1 cavalry regiment and Generals’ Bodyguard units do not count as cavalry regiments.

    3. Prioritized Buildings - Make sure all Prioritized Buildings have been built or are being built. There are not likely to be many Prioritized Buildings in any single Megas term, as a House has to have a Senator at rank Antypatos or higher to use this ability and even then there can only be one per House per term. However, the Basileus always gets two Prioritized Buildings per term, so there will likely be at least a couple of these. If you run out of money before all Prioritized Buildings are completed, DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON ANY OTHER BUILDINGS THIS TURN. If you cannot afford to build all of the Prioritized Buildings at once, you can choose which one to start with on your own. Keep in mind that it is possible to temporarily skip over construction of a Prioritized Building, but only if you get permission from the Senator who owns it first.


    3) Optional Powers. Now you’ve completed the ‘chores’ and it’s time to start doing what YOU want to do. This part is the reason you ran for election in the first place, but there are still Rules to be followed and you need to make sure you help your allies and destroy your enemies legally. If you're not sure exactly how you should go about helping an ally or hurting an enemy, PM TinCow for advice. He is always eager to help create more conflict between the players. The following is a suggestion of a good, well-organized way to approach this.

    1. Spending Money – If you have money left over after the Mandatory Duties, you can finally start doing what you want to do, rather than what the Rules require you to do.


      • Buildings - Building construction can only be done if you have completed ALL Prioritized Buildings. You are generally restricted to building what is listed in the build queue of the Senator who owns each settlement (check the SOT thread), but it is entirely up to you which settlements you fund. You could spend your entire term only building in settlements of allies if you want while letting your enemies' settlements stay poor and undeveloped. You could horde all the money for yourself and make your city a rival of Constantinople! You could even refuse to build anything at all if that is what you want. Just make sure you follow the build queues posted in the SOT.

      • Military Units - Military recruitment can only be done if all Royal and Private Armies have been brought up to the the minimum strength requirements. If this is done, there are no restrictions on what you can recruit, but you need to pay attention to where you recruit it. Senators can prevent any units in their settlements from being removed with a proper post in the SOT. If you’re not careful, you could find the armies you are building seized by greedy Senators. Make sure that if you want to remove the unit from the settlement it was built in next turn, that the SOT post by that settlement’s owner will allow it. If it doesn’t, you should either build the unit somewhere else or negotiate with the owner of the settlement. It is much harder for a Senator to seize control of ships in this manner, but remember that it can be done by those with the rank of Dux, Megas Dux/Exarch, and Basileus. Mercenaries can be a useful way of getting around the bottleneck of recruiting in an area where all the settlement owners are hostile to you. Since mercenaries are not recruited in cities, they cannot be ‘seized’ in this manner. Just make sure you’re not recruiting the mercenaries into a Royal or Private Army where the same thing could occur!

      • Everything Else - This is also the time to do other, miscellaneous things that cost money, such as building watch towers and forts, recruiting agents, and using money in diplomacy.


    2. Moving Armies – Now that you’ve gotten all of the financial details out of the way, it’s a good time to start moving things around and fighting battles. Some units will have movement restrictions on them, and some will not. Units that will never have any restrictions on them are: Units your avatar controls in his own stack, all Captain led army stacks, and all naval units except for extremely rare circumstances when a Dux, Megas Dux/Exarch, or the Basileus has seized control of some ships. For all other units, you need to check the SOT before moving them. You may also remove any unit from a stack commanded by another player’s avatar, as long as that stack is not a Royal or Private Army. Avatars in commands like this are essentially serving at your pleasure, and you can use their units however you want.

      You can move another player’s avatar as long as their SOT post doesn't say otherwise, but they usually will. You can remove a unit from a settlement owned by another player as long as their SOT post doesn't say otherwise. Often times they WILL say otherwise, but you can try and find loopholes in the way they have worded their SOT. For example, if the post says that no Militia may be removed from the city, then any unit that doesn't have Militia in the name is free for you to grab. Removing a unit from a Royal or Private Army owned by another player is a bit trickier. First, you have to make sure that doing so would not drop the army below the minimum strength requirement. Then, if that won't happen, you can remove the unit as long as the relevant SOT post doesn't say otherwise, though it usually will. As with the settlement garrisons, try and find loopholes in the SOT posts you can exploit. Before you do ANY of these things, make sure you check the applicable SOT posts to make sure it is legal. If it isn’t, but you really want to do it, you can always negotiate with the other player to get him to change his SOT post.

    3. Moving Agents – There are absolutely no Rule restrictions on this whatsoever. Do whatever you want, whenever you want.


    4) Ending the Turn. Now you’ve done everything you want to do and it’s time to move the game onwards. There are a few final steps to take to make sure this is done properly.

    1. Make sure the 24 hour timer has expired – If you want to give people more time to do various things, you can extend the timer for as long as you want. However, you cannot end the turn less than 24 hours before you opened it.

    2. Save the game – The previous steps might have only taken you 5 minutes, but they also might have taken you an hour. Create a backup save UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME to make sure you don’t lose all your work in case you encounter an unexpected problem.

    3. Hit End Turn – Now you get to sit back and watch the AI do its thing. If defensive battles pop up and they are for your avatar, you can fight them. If they are for fleets or Captain lead stacks, autoresolve them. If they are for armies with other players' avatars in them, save the game at the battle popup screen and get the players concerned to resolve the battle in some manner. Once all defensive battles are done, the new turn will pop up and you’ll get the usual start of turn information scrolls. Guilds are up to you to accept or reject, but keep in mind that you have to fund EVERYTHING in the Mandatory Duties section before you can accept them. As such, if the Guild is something you want to accept, it's a good idea to keep the scroll open until you've completed the Mandatory Duties. Don't worry, the scroll will not disappear if you save the game while it is up. Just minimize it by clicking on the small square icon in the bottom left of the screen and save it for later. If you know instantly that you will not want to pay for the Guild, you can just instantly reject it. Adoption and marriage offers should only be accepted if the player concerned agrees. Minimize them as with the Guild offers and give people time to decide what to do. All other scrolls are for your own personal information and you can do whatever you want with them. DO NOT DO ANYTHING WITH THE SAVE OTHER THAN READING THESE SCROLLS.

    4. Open the Turn for Play – You’re done! Save the game, post the new file in the Megas Logothetes' and Senators' Reports Thread along with at least a brief summary of the things you did. Then post the time at which the turn will end. Now return to #1 and start it all over again!


    OPTIONAL - Using the Console.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Sometimes the console will need to be used deal with avatars’ retinues. If you are not comfortable with using the console, notify TinCow of what needs to be done, and he will do it for you. Generally, the command to add a retinue to an avatar is:

    give_ancillary “AVATARNAME” “ANCILLARY”

    The command to remove a retinue from an avatar is:

    remove_ancillary “AVATARNAME” “ANCILLARY”

    For both of these commands, AVATARNAME is the first and last name of the avatar. Avatars with two words in their names just have a space between the words (e.g. “Aleksios Komnenos”). Avatars with three words in their names have a space between the first and second names and an underscore between the second and third names (e.g. “Aleksios ek_Ikoniou”). Capitalization does matter.

    For both of these commands, ANCILLARY is the game code for the particular retinue title you are trying to add or remove. This can be found in the export_descr_ancillaries.txt file in your /M2TW/Stainless_Steel_Mod/data/ directory (e.g. “dearmad_corinth”).
    Last edited by TinCow; 10-08-2008 at 16:33.


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