Misc Rule Changes Poll

[TinCow]

This is a somewhat tardy poll to see how people feel about some of the rule changes that were proposed over the last couple weeks. Please vote yes or no for each one.

Change 1: Cool-Down Period on Oaths. This slows down reorganization of Houses and increases stability at the cost of some freedom. The general effect is likely to be that people do not leave powerful Houses unless they have the backing of another House. Implemented by adding the following line to Rule 2.5:

If a Vassal breaks an Oath of Fealty without the permission of his Lord, he cannot swear a new Oath of Fealty until 5 turns have passed.

Rule change can be balanced by fiddling with the number of turns (5) required. Vote on the general idea behind the rule, not the current number of turns.

Change 2: Branching Feudal Structure Draft. Baronet rank is abolished and Marquess rank requires 2 Counts. End result is significantly increased difficulty in achieving the ranks of Marquess, Duke, and Grand Duke.

Change 3: Time-in-Rank for High Ranks. Also slows down reorganization of Houses and increases stability at the cost of some freedom. No one will be able to go from Knight to Grand Duke in one turn. You'll have to put in time at the various levels before you can advance to the following level. To make the high levels achievable, though, once you've done your time you meet the requirement for the rest of your avatar's life. No need to re-do the time if you get demoted at some point. Implemented by adding the following generic line to Marquess, Duke, and Grand Duke:

Must have served X consecutive turns as a LOWER RANK at some point in time.

Rule change can be balanced by fiddling with the number of turns (X) required. Vote on the general idea behind the rule, not the current number of turns.

Change 4: Inheritance Approval. Generally, a nobleman' Will has to be approved by their Lord or the Faction Leader before it is considered valid, except for provisions of the Will that leave property to a 'natural son' or son-in-law. This re-introduces the in-game family tree structure into the rules, where as it is currently mostly absent. This will generally increase role-playing of hereditary families, but penalizes recruitable generals, who will rarely ever have children. It is an increase in historical accuracy at the cost of freedom. Implemented by adding the following line to Rule 2.4:

In order to be considered valid, all provisions of a nobleman's Will must be approved by nobleman's Lord. If the nobleman has no Lord, the provisions must be approved by the FACTION LEADER. Provisions which give provinces or retinue to natural sons or sons-in-law do not require the approval of the nobleman's Lord or the FACTION LEADER.

Change 5: Banishment. This draft power is still being tweaked, but generally, the Faction Leader is given the following power:

Power X:

The FACTION LEADER can banish noblemen from all FACTION controlled provinces. While Banished, a nobleman can be attacked by any other nobleman without the need for a Declaration of War, unless the Banished nobleman is not inside a FACTION controlled province. Any provinces owned by the Banished nobleman can also be attacked without the need for a Declaration of War. Any provinces conquered in this manner will become the property of the nobleman who conquered them. The Banished nobleman cannot be attacked on the same turn that the Banishment is ordered, unless he is in the same FACTION controlled province as the FACTION LEADER, or an adjacent FACTION controlled province to the FACTION LEADER. The Banished nobleman can defend himself, but cannot initiate an attack without making a Declaration of War. No units may be disbanded or removed from the Banished nobleman's armies or settlements without his permission. The FACTION LEADER will determine the fate of a Banished nobleman who is captured in battle. A Banishment can be ended by an Edict passed by the GOVERNING BODY. If the Banished nobleman is in a feudal chain at the time the Banishment is issued, the highest ranking nobleman in that feudal chain can call an Emergency GOVERNING BODY Session. This session can only be called on the same turn that the Banishment is issued.

The duration of the Banishment is determined by the FACTION LEADER's Authority. With an Authority of 5 or lower, this power may not be used. With an Authority of 6 or 7, one nobleman may be Banished for 5 turns. With an Authority of 8 or 9, one nobleman may be Banished for 10 turns. With an Authority of 10, two noblemen may be Banished for 10 turns each. Regardless of the level of Authority, this power cannot be used within 10 turns of a previous use. Banishment ends when a Banished nobleman is publicly pardoned by the FACTION LEADER, the time limit expires, an appropriate Edict is passed, or the FACTION LEADER dies.

[Ramses II CP]

I am not fond of change 1. I will tend to vote against anything that increases stability, because I think stability should be the IC goal of the high ranked players, not the goal of the rules.

I'm relatively indifferent to change 2.

For change 3 I'd prefer a system which says, simply, 'A noble cannot rise more than 2 ranks in a given turn.' This slows advancement without making a rapid rise completely impossible. I think there are valid and fun reasons to see a rapid rise in ranks, but I agree we want to prevent it from being absurd. Remember that a turn is 2 years (Or maybe 1 in SS), which is a long time in the fairly short lives of our avatars.

I'm relatively indifferent to change 4. Who will the territories go to if the will is not approved?

In general I like the Banishment rule. I do think there should be some provision for the player in question's feelings on the matter. I would be annoyed if a banished avatar ended up becoming a banished player, who quit rather than put up with the situation.

[Privateerkev]

1.) Voted no because, like Ramses, I think this should be an IC matter. If you want things to be stable, RP with your vassals and make them stable.

2.) Voted no because I fear it makes the higher ranks too hard to get.

3.) Voted no for same reason and number 2. And if both 2 and 3 pass, it will be much harder to achieve higher rank.

4.) I am really really against this one. While I see some merit in finding some game mechanic that favors the family tree, I fear this goes too far and puts way too much power in the hands of the FL and House Leaders.

5.) I fear this might be too overpowered. And it might be "un-fun."

Votes for 1, 2, 3, and 5 are more of "my preferences". If they pass, I'm sure they'll work out ok. But I "prefer" that they don't pass.

I really don't like number 4 however.

[Privateerkev]

Upon further reflection, I believe there is an easy work-around to rule 4 if it passes.

When your avatar hits 60, simply hand all of your territory and retinue over to your heir. Even your last territory. Your House is going to take the hit when your avatar dies anyways so this just makes everyone deal with it a year or two early.

If your House Leader (or HL for short), this keeps you from needing the King's approval. In the Test Game, this is exactly what Guillemot would do if this rule was in effect. There is no way he'd give the King that kind of power over him.

You could even have your heir write his will the way you want it in exchange for the territory. Since your his lord, you could just approve it.

The only complication is un-forseen death. Which, if KotR is any indicator, will happen a lot. But, just keep your HL's holdings at 1 province. Give away extra territory the moment you get it. That way, the worse that happens is that the King has the power to veto how 1 province gets distributed. Plus this forces the HL to "share the wealth" because he wants to make sure land goes to who he wants it to.

So, I am no longer strongly against rule 4. I simply "prefer" that it not pass. ^_^

[FactionHeir]

Voted yes to all.

[TinCow]

Ok, it looks like Changes 1, 2, 3, and 5 will go through and only 4 (Inheritence) will be knocked off. I must say that I really don't think #2 is going to work very well and I'm surprised so many people like it. However, the old linear structure is easy to locate and it wouldnt be hard to restore it via an Amendment after we start playing. I predict right now that we'll get rid of the branching structure after we've been playing for upwards of 6 months without ever seeing more than one Duke and no Grand Dukes of any kind.

[Privateerkev]

What's interesting about the new system is the amount of cooperation it would take to reach Duke and Grand Duke.

Here is Marquess under the new system:

Marquess
-Count
--Viscount
---Baron
-Count
--Viscount
---Baron

Now, if the Marquess wants to be Duke, here is what he has to do. First, he needs an 8th vassal.

Marquess
-Count
--Viscount
---Baron
-Count
--Viscount
---Baron

lowly Knight

That person gets land and swears to one Baron. This pushes one branch up until there is another Count.

Marquess
-Count
--Viscount
---Baron
-Count
--Count <--former Viscount
---Viscount <-- former Baron
----Baron <--- former Knight

Now, the two original Counts need to figure out who will be the new Marquess. Because one will need to break with the original Marquess and swear to the other Count. This will push one Count to Marquess and elevate the Marquess to Duke.

Duke
-Marquess
--Count
---Viscount
----Baron
--Count
---Viscount
----Baron

For Grand Duke you'd have to repeat the process of having one Count agree to break with the Marquess and swear to the other Count.

I agree with TC. I do not think we will see many Dukes or Grand Dukes for awhile.

[TinCow]

The time-in-rank rules have also been added, further increasing the difficulty.

[Privateerkev]

I was hoping people would just vote for change 2 or 3, not both.

It brings me back to KotR when people voted for two separate CA's that gave the King of Outremer edicts.

So now everyone in the chain has to wait until everyone who is going to rise in rank, has met the time requirement.

If the Marquess has met his requirement, he still has to wait until at least one of his Counts has met his requirement. And if a Duke wants to be Grand Duke, he needs to not only wait for his own time requirement, but he has to make sure his Marquess and one Count meet theirs. If the Marquess or Count dies, then the Duke is stuck there waiting for the new Marquess/Count to start over even though he has met his requirement. In fact, the Marquess dying might even cause the Duke to drop because one of the Counts might not have had the "time served" to immediately rise up even if they find a new knight to join the House.

[TinCow]

Ah, you've made me realize a flaw in the structure that I never intended to be there. Because of the time-in-rank change, I need to alter the rank requirements to mandate a minimum vassal level, but not a maximum. For instance, the Count level requirement should read:

Must have personal control of a province. Must have at least one nobleman of the rank of Viscount or higher as a vassal.

Once this is done, there's no reason for promotion to stagnate because the top dog is in his waiting period. For instance, let's take the situation where a Duke is trying to become a Grand Duke.

On Turn 1, the requirements are finally met for one person to become Duke, thus creating the following situation:

Duke
-Marquess
--Count
---Viscount
----Baron
--Count
---Viscount
----Baron

Now, in order to become Grand Duke, the Duke has to sit at his current rank for 10 turns. However, in order to become Grand Duke, the House also needs another nobleman. One option would be simply to wait until everyone has met their requirements, then recruit a new bottom-rung Baron and bump everyone up at the same time. That's unlikely to happen, though, because the House will probably want to secure their new recruit as soon as possible. So, let's say that they take the extreme step of recruiting their new Baron on the exact same turn (Turn 1). If neither of the current Counts have done their 5 turns, they can't be promoted to Marquess. However, that shouldn't slow down the promotion of the lower ranks. Thus the new structure would be:

Duke
-Marquess
--Count
---Viscount
----Baron
--Count
---Count
----Viscount
-----Baron

You actually have one Count sworn to another. As soon as the 'top' Count hits his 5 turn mark, he automatically goes up to Marquess without further changes. Let's assume that on Year 1, though, that one of the Counts did meet his 5 turn. That would result in a similar situation, but with two Marquesses instead of two Counts:

Duke
-Marquess
--Marquess
---Count
----Viscount
-----Baron
---Count
----Viscount
-----Baron

Now, we wait 5 turns until Turn 6. At this point, the Marquesses have met their time-in-rank requirements for Duke, but the Duke still has 5 more turns to go. The structure alters to bump the top Marquess to Duke, resulting in two Dukes:

Duke
-Duke
--Marquess
---Count
----Viscount
-----Baron
---Count
----Viscount
-----Baron

We then wait another 5 turns, until the original Duke has met his 10 turn requirement, thus resulting in another auto-promotion to the final state:

Grand Duke
-Duke
--Marquess
---Count
----Viscount
-----Baron
---Count
----Viscount
-----Baron

All of these promotions occurred despite no recruitment since Turn 1. There was simply a period of time with multiple of the same rank sworn to one another. Perhaps a bit confusing at first, but not entirely nonsensical.

I'll go change the requirements text now to reflect this, as that is what I intended it to be in the first place.

[Ramses II CP]

Good grief, stability at the cost of complexity! Argh, I think I'm going to have to get myself exiled just so I don't have to deal with the feudal system.

[Privateerkev]

I'm not sure how the new system is more stable. Losing one person still drops the top people a rank. Branches are only more stable is they are not required. Now if a Marquess wants stability, he would have 3 Counts. Where in the linear system, having 2 would make him more stable. Now a Marquess has 6 people to keep happy rather than 4 under the old system.

And now, I can see a whole lot of negotiation going on when the noble is just one turn from hitting their "time requirement". If your a lower ranking vassal, turn 9 of your Duke's term would be a great time to ask him for some land.

[TinCow]

The branching structure is definitely less stable, not more. The added stability comes from the time-in-rank and cool-down rules, not the branching structure.

[Ramses II CP]

Precisely, the poll resulted in a total of more stability and more complexity, which was my point. If we'd only adopted the branching it would've been a net negative in stability.

[_Tristan_]

My main gripe with the branching system is that it requires much more players, thus probably concentrating the power into two or three "chains" at the max whre I would prefer smaller and more numerous "chains" to compete for prevalence...

[Privateerkev]

The branching structure is definitely less stable, not more. The added stability comes from the time-in-rank and cool-down rules, not the branching structure.

Ah ok, I guess I assumed that those who voted for change 2 did it for the perceived stability of branches but upon further thought, they probably did it to make the higher ranks harder to get.

I'd argue that things are now less stable overall. The time-in-rank and cool-down don't do enough to balance out the fact that you now need more people to hit higher ranks and that one person can still drop you if your at the top.

My beef with change 2 is not the increased instability because I like a little instability. But like Tristan, I don't like that it requires more people. We'll probably average around 20 players at any given time and if you want to be a Grand Duke, you'd pretty much have to get half of them to join you.

[_Tristan_]

Yes, the way I see it as it stands and unless we suddenly get a bigger player basis, is that we will either have one large house and one fighting to take its place or multiple small houses all competing together with no true hope of having access to higher ranks...

But if we can get 50+ players in, then no problemo...

[Ramses II CP]

I'd argue just the opposite, given that higher ranks are going to be extremely rare what we've done is make 1% of the system slightly less stable, while the 99% below the double rank requirement is vastly more stable.

Plus the coordination required to get that double rank is going to incorporate it's own inherent stability and momentum. Technically people could, if they're willing to risk Civil War, X turns without being able to move up in rank, and X turns without being able to alter their oath again, knock a top rank off, but who below that rank is going to have the type of incentives to provide that would make it likely? We can rest assured there won't be two Grand Dukes in the game, so if you're trying to prevent someone from becoming a Grand Duke (Or etc.) you have to offer their vassals something more than the Grand Duke's new powers can, which is... what? More land I suppose, if it's someone greedy, but certainly not more power.

[Privateerkev]

Yes, the way I see it as it stands and unless we suddenly get a bigger player basis, is that we will either have one large house and one fighting to take its place or multiple small houses all competing together with no true hope of having access to higher ranks...

But if we can get 50+ players in, then no problemo...

Yeah I noticed in KotR that 20 seemed to be the "sweet" spot. If it's less, things drag a little and seem quiet. If it's more, then we run into logistical problems with lots of battles and lots of savegame traffic jams.

I'm not saying more people wouldn't be fun, but it does cause its own set of problems.

So I think the House structure will be as you predicted. One big one and then maybe one almost-as-big one or just a few little ones.

[TinCow]

For the record, this game needs more than 20 people to run well. I hope to recruit around 30 to start off and I would hope that we could expand to upwards of 40. 20 people is too few for any serious interplayer competition under the current rule set. This is specifically designed to accomodate far more players than KOTR.

[Zim]

I have to echo PK's concern that both rules 2 and 3 had passed. I think either of them alone would have solved the problem by themselves.

I think a lot hinges on how many players join. With no disrespect meant to Tincow's hopes to get a lot of people in, I see 20 or so "active" players as being a likely average, as in KOTR. In that case rule 2 might limit the number of viable Houses if anyone wants to make it to Grand Duke. If we can get 30-40 as Tincow hopes the new rules changes will probably work fine.

[Privateerkev]

I seriously doubt we'll get 40 people. I doubt we'll even get 30 active people. I think we might hover around 20 active people at any one time. More than that and we'll be able to accomadate them up to a point by expanding the time limits.

But I fear we will reach "critical mass" at a certain point. If we get a lot of people, I think many of them will just be empty province holders for a period of time. Which is good that we have the inactivity limit for Baronets but we might want to consider expanding it in the future.

I'm not against a big game or anything. I just doubt that we could comfortably accomodate 40+ people without something giving.

[TinCow]

We've got 16 people just in the test game, and there are easily another 10 just sitting on the sidelines commenting in these threads without playing. That's 25+ without even doing much advertising. I think the probability of us starting with fewer than 30 people is essentially 0%. Sure, they may not all turn out to be very active, but that's just the starting number. More will join up later, and the game will be able to support an increasing number as it progresses anyway.

Activity will depend on how interested people are in the game. A lot of the late-game interest in KOTR was due to the general increase in traffic that the Throne Room started experiencing. Now, due in large part to the Hotseat games, it's a very active place. There are a lot of hotseat players who were not in KOTR, and all of them are 'active' because the Hotseat games require it in order to run properly. If we can drag a few of the Gameroom mafia fans in here as well, we could easily end up with 30 active people for a sustained period of time.

[AussieGiant]

Gentlemen,

Good discussions. Two general points about the rules and a third regarding participation.

It seems we've out done ourselves with rules 2 and 3.

* Taking a page from OK's book on practicality, lets not act as if these polls mean rules 2 and 3 are set in stone. We've found a few issues upon further investigation, so lets just have TC rebalance them by removing the branching structure altogether?

* I think we need to keep in mind that with these "time in rank" issues we have a "tracking" requirement.

Who is going to keep track of these in order to ensure the ranking structure works? Will it be one person in a centralised format (ie PK and his voting influence tracking system in KotR) or will it be a player requirement to keep track of your own situation...assuming of course no one makes a mistake and 20 years later a Duke should not have been a Duke because someone made a small error in the ranking rules? In the decentralised format you have to assume that all players understand the ranking rules entirely and make no errors.

* Total numbers I think will surprise us. As TC mentioned there is about 25 people in here already without doing any advertising.

God knows how many people actually "tuned in" to watch our little medieval version of "The Truman Show" but I get the impression there was a few...perhaps we can conduct a little poll here and ask the watching audience who would be interested in playing? Not advertising as such, but a questioning poll...we'd be looking to exclude all KotR player plus the new guy's that have already put their hands up.

Thoughts?

[Privateerkev]

* I think we need to keep in mind that with these "time in rank" issues we have a "tracking" requirement.

Who is going to keep track of these in order to ensure the ranking structure works? Will it be one person in a centralised format (ie PK and his voting influence tracking system in KotR) or will it be a player requirement to keep track of your own situation...assuming of course no one makes a mistake and 20 years later a Duke should not have been a Duke because someone made a small error in the ranking rules? In the decentralised format you have to assume that all players understand the ranking rules entirely and make no errors.

I recommend we require people to put the turn that they raise in rank in the SOT. That way, you can just glance at the SOT and see who has "served their time".

[TinCow]

It seems we've out done ourselves with rules 2 and 3.

* Taking a page from OK's book on practicality, lets not act as if these polls mean rules 2 and 3 are set in stone. We've found a few issues upon further investigation, so lets just have TC rebalance them by removing the branching structure altogether?

I would like to try and convince people to go back to the linear system, but I don't want to do it unless there's at least a 50% split on the issue. 8 of the 10 people who voted yes on #2 are KOTR veterans, and they know how these changes will effect the game as much as any of us do. I am taking the lead in organizing this game, but I absolutely do not want to be any kind of dictator. We are all playing this game, and we all need to reach a consensus on how it should work. If, after more discussion, the consensus is that the branching structure should remain, then I think we have to keep it.

* I think we need to keep in mind that with these "time in rank" issues we have a "tracking" requirement.

Who is going to keep track of these in order to ensure the ranking structure works?

I will. I am going to make a consolidated information thread. It will combine the Library, and the information in the first posts of the OOC thread and the Chancellor's Reports from KOTR. It will be a one-stop-shop for all general information about the game, including rules, mugshots, links, etc.

[AussieGiant]

I'm certainly then going to advocate strongly for the simplified linear system from now on then.

Have seen the discussion here I think all of us from KotR should make an effort to support that...given we had no system before and things worked well, this level of complexity will bring with it it's own set of follow on issues and characteristics.

And thanks for the admin work as usual TC.

[Privateerkev]

If people really want more stability, we can keep change 1 and 3. (I'm not forgetting about change 5 but it does not really have to do with stability so I won't mention it further.)

If we really insist on keeping change 2, could we at least consider dropping change 3. While not ideal, that would at least be better than keeping both.

Out don't know how to "tweak" change 2 in any meaningful way. Moving the split up will make the chain bigger. Moving the split down will make it harder to get that all important private army.

Or, if we keep 2 and 3, then maybe we can "tweak" 3. We can remove the "consecutive" turn requirement. While doing so would add a measure of stability (which I tend to be against), it would make achieving rank a little easier (which I am for).

[Cecil XIX]

Looking back, the issue to me isn't whether the system should be linear or branching. We should have the option of going either way in our feudal chains, where a linear chain is more powerful but a branching chain is more stable for the one on top. As long as it's merely an option, it can be done without weakening the current, mandatory structure. If one type of chain is better than the other, that's what we'll get regardless. If they're relatively balanced, then having options is the better choice.

From my experience so far with the test game I've found it extremely discouraging to know that if I want to increase my rank and power it is against my interest to have another noble swear fealty to me directly. I'd like to have the choice between a linear, more powerful house and a branched out house that's more stable for the person at the top. The way things are now, many people will end up swearing fealty to a person they have no loyalty to just to benefit the person to whom they are loyal. I'd like to see the structure of the feudal trees be motivated more by the actual relationships between characters and less by the need to push everybody up the ranks as much as possible.