OOC Thread and Chatroom 2

[ULC]

It may have to do with people being more into their characters. The farther you get from your own culture, the harder it is to immerse yourself into it. Notice the number of people who are from Germany, Hungary, Russia, and Scandinavia (as retinue, or bloodline) - it's a distinct attempt to ground oneself in something one knows and undestands. And everytime I look at Ramses avatar, I keep thinking that Ioannis Erotikos is a Frenchman.

Ever going to get back to me on Sofia/Bucharest?

[AussieGiant]

I think your right YLC. It was hard to get into character and keep track of everyone when their names were hard to remember and pronounce.

And, no, you can't have either province.

[ULC]

[TinCow]

I'm still a little fixated on how the previous game managed to generate more conflict and interaction that this one has, especially when there was more freedom in this game to do just that.

Having stood back and seen the history of both editions, there was a lot more politics and activity in the German version.

I think a lack of Illumination may be part of the problem as well, though perhaps I'm biased.

[ULC]

I think a lack of Illumination may be part of the problem as well, though perhaps I'm biased.

Hey, I tried! (but failed terribly )

[AussieGiant]

I think a lack of Illumination may be part of the problem as well, though perhaps I'm biased.

Indeed TC!!

However there was still a lot of action going on all over the place. At least what I was aware of...

...of course given the nature of how we play the game you can never really tell what is happening with others.

Still, the level of engagement and motivation level seemed more than this edition. If you check the pace of the Chancellor threads in comparison to the Megas thread here, plus the Magnaura with the Diet...the difference is substantial.

There just seemed a little more richness, bad guy's, good guy's, religious guy's, sinful guy's, plenty of dead guy's, crazy guy's, weird guy's, did we have any gay guy's? French guy's, big guy's, small guy's,


really you had the works. It was like a play or a movie in some ways. The arguements in the Diet were impressive, not to mention the four way Duke fight in the tavern, now that was some heavy .

Hell even some of the retinue chaps got their own 5 minutes of fame.

Family feuds where also there...gosh darn it.

-edit-

You know what...the family tree had something to do with it. There was nothing like being distantly related to others or being an actual avatar that was born by the game. I think that needs to be looked at. If we are all royalty then it makes for a more intimate thing.

[ULC]

I agree with AG assertion the family tree has something to do with it, it seems to create more tension then normal. The pace of KotR plus the family tree created a working history that others could defer to when in doubt about their next action, or to reach back and create a more indepth history. To be honest, if we restart LotR, we might just capture that bit.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Personally, I believe the names had a lot to do with it. The things just looked all the same to start out with - mangled and unpronounceable. It's that much harder to get into RP if you don't like the name to start out with.

-edit- getting in obligatory "it's all Greek to me" statement before someone beats me to the punch.

[Northnovas]

Personally, I believe the names had a lot to do with it. The things just looked all the same to start out with - mangled and unpronounceable. It's that much harder to get into RP if you don't like the name to start out with.

-edit- getting in obligatory "it's all Greek to me" statement before someone beats me to the punch.

Thank you GH and AG for finding my words! I was not the only one. That was my main issue compared to a Western Faction I had to look to see if I was spelling my name correctly. I had to also cross reference members to their avatar. In KotR one worded names and you know who the player was in the game. Heinrich, Mandorf, Leopold, Matthias, Henry and of course Arnold.

The RBG was to get more players involved but I think the family tree concept is what brings the intimacy into the avatar to interact and RP. I remember how long I waited in kotR because it was a small house but once the avatar was active I was ready to get involved and let the character develop. I did not have that feel in this game.
Though some of the members could and did a great job creating some drama.

[Zim]

Perhaps it's because I came into KotR after its glory days, but I thought LotR was very busy for the first few months, especially behind the scenes. Players who came in on KotR long after its major plot points were established suddenly found themselves being able to affect the game, and Asteri had a very active group of new and semi new players (presumably the Order as well, although I'm not privy to their private forum).

I suffered from some major computer problems and when I had come back things had slowed considerably and many of the oldest players from the earlier games had become less active or left, as well as a couple of the newer guys.

I don't know what really happened in that period, although one very astute player here I talked to recently mentioned that a lot of the early activity rode on the backs of the veteran players. While I think new players could and did contribute greatly to the rp, I see his point. Most of the forward impetus of the early game did come from a fairly small number of players who had been in these games a long time.

In a way we manufactured the problem. We handed out family members, including most importantly the Basileus and Caesar, based on seniority. This was done (or at least I thought so) out of the very sensible idea that the more experienced players were more familiar with this type of game and would be able to push things forward more. It would also be unpleasant to have someone take the Basileus and then be inactive. There may have been some thought of reward for those who were active in prior games as well. I'd also note most of the vets declined family members to start at the bottom, while I greedily snatched up the remaining family member when I was shocked to find him still available.

We then handed out starting land to veteran players as well, which gave them an edge up starting Houses. In this case the emphasis seemed to be to give players who were active in prior games but had never run things a chance, also a very sensible idea.

I think the result might have been negative, though. Pressure was put on the vets to run things and keep them going, something they'd been at for a year or more in some cases in prior games. New players could be overwhelmed by the rules, and already reluctant to get too deep into the game early one. Without a position that required much interaction it was easy for them to fade into the background and finally into inactivity when there was nothing (not even rebel settlements to take) for them to do. Of course then we have certain Houses (well, one) that forbade their members from talking to people outside the House.

Veterans may have suffered burnout, or disappointment when they felt they were putting in a lot of work but the newer players were apparently not becoming deeply involved (I think there was more behind the scenes than some realized, at least I saw a lot)

Add in problems with the civil war system (low movement rates and vast distances for the faction we picked) and the apparent difficulty with names like the Greek versions of "John" and "Bartholomew" () and the game suffered quite a bit for it.

I'm beginning to think we need more than a reboot of LotR. Perhaps we should consider ending LotR with the coronation of the Basileus who wins (And perhaps give some extra movement points to other players who have been marching half the world to fight the Venetians since joining. ).

Then, if TinCow gives his permission, we could look at starting a new game. Take a look at factions and maybe pick something a little more familiar, like Spain or an Italian faction. Debate a bit on whether to start with fewer players and stick with the family tree, and what mod to pick (from the sound of it, any mod like SS which de-anglicizes names might be a problem). Edit the rules a bit (mostly the titles, maybe scrap the special secession rules for the early part of the game, talk about how to better facilitate Civil Wars), and start anew.

Current interest in ETW would help, since it seems starting with a smaller number of players and then growing slowly encourages interaction. Of course, whenever a new CA games comes out a few months later some players start to get nostalgic (or become more aggravated by the new bugs in the current game as opposed to the old bugs they're used to ) and start playing the last game more again.

What does everybody think?

[AussieGiant]

Good points Zim

Honestly the family tree thing needs to be in the next game and be the sole starting position. As a member of royalty you really must get involved otherwise you simply aren't doing the game justice and more importantly you get a "context" to work inside which is excellent.

Those players that come in using the in game adoption system also have context based on who they are adopted by. This seems to create a lot more motivation and impetus for contribution.

And yes the names seem to be a constant theme...a small issue but one that had a greater impact than anyone realised. I also had to cross reference players to avatars and that was just an immersion killer. Hell I had to double check my own family name for the first month, and I don't know how many times I had to double check Emperor, Diet and Chancellor in Greek...hell I just avoided them now because I didn't want to check

[woad&fangs]

Arintheos Voutoumis may be the most ridiculously hard to spell name in the history of PBMs

I agree with what most other people are saying. Names were always difficult for me. The hardest part was probably that with all the RBGs I had to remember every avatar's first and last name. I imagine that in KoTR everyone went on a first name basis for the most part.

The other problem was that I believe the civil war mechanic encourages action over words. Unfortunately, the distances in the SS mod prevent much significant action to take place.

So in short...

-easier names
-shorter distances
-possibly axe the RBGs
-place more focus on inter-character conflict instead of on civil war conflict.

A couple more thoughts...

-Where were the dread avatars in this game?
-It appeared to me that the game was geared more towards house vs. house competition. Instead, the main conflict throughout the game appeared to be komneni supports vs komneni haters.

[Zim]

Hmmm, I never really thought much about the names of positions (It did take me a while to get Megas Logothetes down). I did mix up Caesar and Basileus once or twice. I think it was assumed using those names would add to the immersion, but I can see how it confused people as well.

For some more embarrassing admissions I had trouble with surnames in KotR, to the point that I could not pronounce the one of my first character, and don't remember any others except Kastilien (spelled wrong?) and Hummel. The word Diet in the context of the game was also completely foreign to me, although I picked it up quickly enough.

I didn't have much trouble with character names in LotR, but it's quite possible that that's only because medieval German culture is as foreign to me as medieval Greek.

The fact that relatively few of the Greek names could be easily shortened might have added to issues (Theo being an exception and a name I always remembered).

If it looks as if LotR is going to end and I can get permission from TinCow to use his rule-set, I would be open to gming a new game. We'd need some discussion first, especially regarding mod and faction choice. Since familiarity seems to have been a big issue I imagine moving back west would be needed, and/or specifically choosing a mod that keeps the anglicized names from vanilla (where, for instance, "Ioannis" is "John"). England could actually be a very interesting setting for a game, especially as we haven't played that far north before, and ranks and titles would be easy. Or maybe and Italian faction or Spain.

[TheFlax]

Enough with the names please!

In Vanilla all the names are anglicized, making Ioannis Komnenos, John Komnenos. Most of the odder family names probably also come from SS. So most people would probably have the same trouble with France, Germany or Italy when using SS or a similar mod that changes names.

[Zim]

Woad: Yeah, I just noticed I had my character's name spelled wrong in my user title.

So as a hypothetical let's say we're thinking of starting a new game.

I'd say you've hit on the main issues brought up so far, although bringing rgbs back when we've become bigger might be a good idea.

We had one or two dread avatars early on, but reactions were so negative (including ostracizing and legislation) people might have been afraid to be dread later on.

There was some House competition early on, but it certainly weakened as time progressed.

Does everyone feel comfortable enough with the thought of a new game after this one is worked out to have a separate thread for it?

[Cecil XIX]

Enough with the names please!

In Vanilla all the names are anglicized, making Ioannis Komnenos, John Komnenos. Most of the odder family names probably also come from SS. So most people would probably have the same trouble with France, Germany or Italy when using SS or a similar mod that changes names.

Am I the only one who didn't have a problem with the Greek? Right now I rather prefer Ioannis to John. In any case, I don't think it would be as important to anglicize German or Romance Languages since they're closer to English.

Other than that, I find myself in general agreement with what's been said today. Especially the parts about RBGs. I also think one of the problems is that we put an emphasis on acquiring land, but once you have land there's really not much to do with it. If the Order had ever been successful in acquiring the Holy Land, defeating the Turks, and if it was surrounded by other Roman lands with no chance of expansion or conflict with the AI, most people wouldn't bother to join it. There wouldn't really be anything to do.

[ULC]

I would be open to playing in England I suppose, but I see only one issue that may not be a big one, but we have basically France, Denmark, and Scotland to contsantly fight, and not a lot of room between us at all, limiting growth unless we realy wanted to annihlate enemy factions. However, the sheer number of enemies we might have to face in such a cramped area could keep things nice and tense, making someone's little castle or town that much more important.

Another thing is the mercenaries - I really think we need a better system to handle them, rather then shoving them under the same rug as normal troops and under the powers of the Megas to recruit. I think it might spark others to turn against ther "betters" if say the "Ringleader" had the ability to recruit mercenaries rather then the Chancellor. Of course, one might say thats a bit ahistoric, but I think you can see what I am driving at - the ability to make it easier for others to jump to one side or the other.

Also, the names are easy to remember and the culture is at least familiar to half of the Org, correct?

[Zim]

I think pretty much the only downside to England is that their home provinces are pretty out of the way. Once Scotland is taken care of there isn't much to do in England (barring civil conflicts). We'd need a navy to ship troops until our foothold in Europe was larger (either good in that it would provide more of a challenge or bad in that it means more micromanagement of troop movements, which seemed to bother people in LotR).

It wouldn't bother me but it's something to think about.

In KotR we were pretty centrally located which did have some advantages. If that were a factor some other factions to consider would be the Italian factions, France, and Denmark.

In the end I'm guessing faction choice (as long as it's one the players are comfortable with) will matter less than some of the other things we've hit on so far.

Are there any other issues we should add to the list?

I'm going to start a new thread presently with Woad's list (and add mercenaries to it).

Started a thread specifically to discuss the chance of a possible new game.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=114637

[GeneralHankerchief]

Well, if my opinion counts for anything since I was kind of treading water throughout the entire game, I think that we should just start fresh. Let's send LotR off in style and then, as YLC mentioned, try to capture the magic with the new one.

We know what works and we know what doesn't work from two games. I think that knowledge can be used to achieve maximum fun for the next one.

[Ramses II CP]

I've had a couple of thoughts about how to generate in game conflict for the next attempt at this style of PBM. A large part of my boredom and frustration grew out of the fact that the storylines I tried to create for Vissa were all aborted by player inactivity and out of game problems. Over the course of LotR I had, literally, half a dozen coops that I started working on with other people only to have them get dumped. That's hard to recover from on an interest level.

I also want to be clear that I didn't plan for Ero-whatever's story to run quite as it has gone either. I had a much simpler idea, just to jump into the game, grab an army, and declare war on the nearest house so I could start gobbling up territory. I though we needed a very simple kind of spark, someone to rally against, a bad guy. I'm pretty comfortable playing the bad guy.

Then Cecil wanted to team up, and his idea was much grander and involved more players by far, so I figured we'd give that a shot, but it took an incredible amount of time to develop and I didn't have the energy to keep track of what all was going on, so I let things sort of whimper out again.

[Zim]

You should have asked me to participate in one of those coups, I wouldn't drop out on you.

I'm thinking one thing that might help with distances in the next game is is making ship access easier for Civil conflicts and possibly doing away with the two units per ship rule. Ammonathas' march to Italy and Erotikos' trip to Const would have been much quicker if they could have gone by sea...

[Ignoramus]

I think the major reasons that KotR was so immersive and fun were the fixed Houses, family members(as opposed to RBG's), and the fact that the Diet was far, far more important than the Manaura in LotR.

1.) Fixed Houses:

I feel that the greatest reason of KotR's success, was the fixed Duchies of Swabia, Bavaria, Austria, and Franconia. It created a stable environment for conflict, and prevented the game degenerating into one side versus the other. Adding to that, the fact that you were stuck with your House for life meant that you tended to work together as team. I have fond memories of the first 60 years of KotR, before the idea of House armies, when the empire was in a lot of difficulty, and the Houses came together to bring the Empire out of a messy situation in Italy.

2.) Family members:

Roleplaying family members, instead of generals, added the great bonus that most avatars were related to each other, which allowed a much deeper level of storytelling and intrigue. Also, it meant that everyone could become Kaiser, and everyone could get married and produce an heir for them to roleplay after their deaths.

Using family members also makes battles far, far more important. Losing your avatar in battle could mean you would have to wait 40 years for a new character, meaning that you were very careful about when you went into battle.

3.) The Importance of the Imperial Diet.

In KotR, the Imperial Diet was the only way your house could achieve any of its ambitions. This meant that people were usually much more involved, and deals with other houses in order to get legislation passed were the norm. Ceing elected Chancellor allowed you to do pretty much anything you wanted to do, so you could disband a rival's troops, or send him on a mission deep into enemy territory to "get rid of him".

[Ituralde]

A lot of good points have been touched upon here. I agree that somewho LotR couldn't quite reach the potential it had in comparison to KotR and always wondered about the reasons a bit. I haven't said too much about the future of LotR, mainly because come April I will have my hands busy with an internship, so I will probably be out of the loop all Summer anyways.

I think one thing that was important for KotR was the stable background it had that really gave nourishment to conflicts. With Houses falling left and right and becoming empty shells it was difficult to focus on them. Another problem was that there was little conflict between the Houses right at the start. Most were just content to grab whatever was available, the only friction zone might have been Anatolia, but it was nothing compared to the fighting over Italy between Austria and Bavaria.

In my opinion a new game would need some preset Houses. You could set them up with short story piecies, similar to what was done in the Test Game for these rules. You can set animosities and ambitions for Houses, which would make it easier for people to identify themselves with their House and give new players an immediate goal. House Awesome hates the Pope, because it has always done so, House Beautiful follows the Popes every word because they're pious.

In an additional move you could tie these preset Houses to certain provinces, that make up the core of the House. That way you have the chance of these Houses disappearing and becoming unimportant over time or even be eliminated in a Civil War.


Another important thing I think is that we have to turn around the Action vs. Talk ratio. The inactivity in the Magnaura is due to the fact that it has become soo unimportant. Edicts mean very little now and everybody can just do their own thing once they have an army. Edicts need to be important again. The only simple solution that comes to mind, without a major rewrite of powers and rules, is to have Edicts be able to contradict the Charter and Rules. Give Edicts full power. As long as a simple majority is reached you can do anything and it will finally be important again to barter for votes.

With the freedom introduced in LotR came the freedom to ignore the Magnaura and the Megas and it was used too often and did not help in producing a feeling of politics and intrigue.

That's all from me.
Cheers!

Ituralde

[AussieGiant]

The more I think about it the more KotR and the set up should be used.

The family's are set up and houses formed around members of the Royal house. Rather than have preset back grounds let the House Lords set it based on their pre-eminent characters that will influence the generations to come...perhaps.

While there was a lot more freedom in LotR it lead to a vague and undefined path that eventually lost it's way.

Use Romeo and Juliet as an example.

4 Great houses, four families, four structures, the King and Prince set up as in KotR. The balance was excellent. The structures created the frictions, the political system and legislation systems worked and caused huge issues. They were also a main source of discussion.

Again, KotR seems to have been just quietly a better set up overall. The limitations we thought we had, which were changed in LotR became disadvantages, not advantages in the end.

[Ignoramus]

I agree with both Ituralde and AG on this point. Civil wars should only happen in extreme cases. Although I was the main pusher of civil wars, it seems that it's basically rendered all the rules useless. If you declare civil war, all those rules are suspended and brute force wins the day. That kills most of the politics.

I definitely propose we model the next game largely on KotR.

[Ituralde]

I have to disagree on the Civil War thing. The situation we have right now in LotR is in my eyes quite good as far as the conflicts go. If we had this much tension and opposition at the start when Aleksios was Basileus it would have helped the game a great deal I think.

[Prince Cobra]

It's great fun to see history repeating itself. I would say this Civil War is one of the most interesting things in this story and I feel only sorry the LotR will end soon. I hoped to see a proper solution and the appeasing of the Empire (or new Manzikert as an alternative )... but anyway... Great work!

[Ibn-Khaldun]

A lot of support for Ioannis Tagaris. In MP with all those generals .. well.. the other side just don't have a chance!
In Tabletop battle however this means nothing!

[Rowan]

A lot of support for Ioannis Tagaris. In MP with all those generals .. well.. the other side just don't have a chance!
In Tabletop battle however this means nothing!

Well, if we have multiple generals on the tabletop then it would make sense that the units closest to each general wouldn't be subject to the orders test. Orders from the overall commander to the division commanders however...

[TinCow]

The finer points of the Battle of the Iron Bridge are being ironed out (HA!) and it will begin once they are completed.