Council of Nobles challenge.

**Sir Louis** · 04-16-2008, 02:25

I'm always looking for new house rule challenges to make a campaign more interesting.

It occurred to me that it might be fun to play a campaign where you have to follow the exact dictates of the council of nobles without exception. Not only that, but you cannot even take a settlement unless you are given the mission. This could be frustrating waiting to take all those juicy rebel cities near by - You just have to be patient and deal with it.

This will be challenging especially if you play a Christian nation. Eventually you will have to blockade a port or take a settlement that might get you excommunicated. You just have to deal with it.

If the council of Nobles mission contradicts a Papal mission, you must comply with the council of Nobles and risk Papal wrath.

You also can't buy settlements from other factions, but could accept them as part of a peace treaty.

You can't call a crusade or Jihad, but if one is called - you must join it. You must run your crusade/Jihad honourably - get there as quickly as possible, take the target and have no "late-joiners" that are just trying to get the free experience.

Basically, if it's a mission from the council of Nobles, the Pope - or just a call for Jihad from a Muslim brother, you must comply as quickly as possible. Your campaign will be slow expanding. Sometimes it will be frustrating because you will have to take a settlement that's more of pain to defend than it's worth. Sometimes there will be a city you want to take badly, but the mission never comes. Too bad. Deal with it.

I plan on starting a new campaign tonight. I think I'll try England on VH/VH and see how it goes. I'll give an update soon. Anybody else want to give this one a try?

**Duke Bart** · 04-16-2008, 03:17

I like restrictions but this seems like a bit too much. Especially considering that the council of nobles only gives advice, not orders to the king that are designed to help a struggling player or offer a missions that has a good risk/reward balance. They are added to either give you basic direction or to tempt you with potentially dangerous missions. (Unless you have a mod of course)

I think it will result in an interesting game for a few turns but i personally dont think it would do it for me in the end...

**PBI** · 04-16-2008, 13:43

Welcome to the Org, Sir Louis.

I am basically playing with the houserule you suggest in my current defensive Byzantine campaign, though not quite as extreme as your idea: I chickened out and let myself blitz the nearby rebels at the start, but I only take settlements from the other factions when the Council orders me to. It does make the campaign much more challenging, as it forces you to simply soak up wave after wave when the AI attacks, rather than immediately going on a counter-blitz after a major victory and snapping up all their territory while their forces are depleted. However, I think the Council missions dry up after a while, I haven't had any in about 50 years, and since the AI cities always seem to grow faster, I am now starting to get badly left behind in terms of economic growth. The last mission I had was from the Merchants' Guild, wanting me to send a diplomat all the way to England!

**Sir Louis** · 04-17-2008, 03:26

Originally Posted by Poor Bloody Infantry

Welcome to the Org, Sir Louis.

... However, I think the Council missions dry up after a while, I haven't had any in about 50 years!...

Thanks!

Alas... this was the fatal flaw in my idea. I had fun last night trying this until the missions started becoming fewer and far between. It started out great. I quickly got missions to take York - then Rennes. I had to wait about 5 more turns for Bruges. Then I had to wait about ten more turns for Caernarvon. I never got the Antwerp mission - The Danes beat me to it.

The French finally attacked me, but instead of missions to take their cities - I most often got the blockade port requests. It was still fun playing a very defensive campaign, but the big picture clearly showed I would never get enough settlements in time to win the game.

Oh well... It was fun to try. I'm still looking for ways to spice up the game. After you've won the game blitzing with every faction, there's not a lot left to do.

I do have another idea... There's something else I've always wanted to try - but I'll test it out first before I post a new thread.

**Duke Bart** · 04-17-2008, 03:30

Keep the ideas flowing, any new way to play the game would be great!

**Askthepizzaguy** · 04-17-2008, 06:14

You guys have heard of my All-vassal challenge and my War for Independence challenge?

**PBI** · 04-17-2008, 12:21

I'm thinking of trying the War for Independence challenge soon; I think I may try another defensive campaign as a Western faction first though, I think on LTC since the various AI bugs in vanilla are really starting to irritate me (funny how I never used to notice them but now they really annoy me.)

The War for Independence sounds fun, and seems to follw similar principles to a defensive campaign (i.e., basically trolling the AI and limiting the number of settlements that can be used for recruitment), but it is still essentially an attacking campaign since the aim is to conquer all settlements. I was trying to make a campaign where I would be fighting mostly defensive battles since it seems to me these are a relative rarity in M2TW. However, after all the exercising of self-restraint in my defensive campaign, of not simply marching into the defenceless enemy cities and burning them to the ground after every victory, I'm starting to feel the urge for a bit of blitzing again. Would you recommend vanilla or LTC for the War of Independence? IIRC LTC made the challenge insanely hard.