OOC Thread and Chatroom 2

[Cecil XIX]

Crossbows front where possible. At time index 1647, YLCs Cav did a rather casual march across the front of The Flax's lines, and those crossbows could have had a field day, much as the skythions did with the feudal knights.

So keep the crossbows in front, and stop the whole army for them to fire? I suppose that could be advisable in certain situations, using archers offensively isn't my strong suit. I suppose ideally you'd keep the crossbowmen to the side so they could stand still and be able to hit targets of opportunity without blocking the advance of the rest of the army.

[ULC]

Actually, that's how some armies used them, with some form of Cavalry support right next to them.

[TinCow]

Did the patch for LotR eliminate some of the supply traits? I just noticed a lack of "your army has x turns worth of food left" traits that were common at the start of LotR.

If it did, I didn't do it intentionally.

[rossahh]

So keep the crossbows in front, and stop the whole army for them to fire?

Why not? Fighting an uphill battle you want to preserve stamina as mush as possible.

A better (or more annoying, cowardly but ultimately successful) strategy would have been to wait well out of bow-shot. And wait. And wait. And wait. The AI would patiently wait for you to offer them something, but a human player would snap and do something rash like send their ranged units down to hill to pepper you with arrows.

[KnightnDay]

For sure we can easily find exceptions under the right conditions. If the opposition has 6 catapults lobbing flaming missiles at me, then no, I wouldn't likely stop my army to fire crossbows. And YLC brings up a good point that positioning them on the flank makes it a bit easier for them to keep firing.

The casualties at the end of the battle clearly showed how poorly the crossbows fared. They hit few targets and at the end themselves were hit by cav and it was pretty much endgame by then.

[Zim]

I wonder if there's something wrong with my install. Is anyone else not getting those traits? I still get the "troops weary" type ones just not the "starving" ones.

If it did, I didn't do it intentionally.

[_Tristan_]

Could someone quickly upload a screenshot of the treasury screen for this turn or any other turn for that matter ?

[Ramses II CP]

If I'm attacking the AI uphill I will often put my archers or crossbowmen right at the front and use them as a sink for enemy arrows or to take and trap a cavalry charge. Let them shoot once, to draw the AI's fire, then just march them into the hail of return fire. Better them getting it than some infantry that will be useful in the fight at the top.

If you're going to be charged by cavalry order the crossbowmen to run towards the charge to prevent it getting into your good troops, and run spearmen into the melee as soon as the charge is done. If you're attacking your foot archers and crossbowmen need to be in extremely superior numbers or they're just meat waiting to die, so try to find 'em a useful way to die.

The other thing I want to say is that, except for certain really extreme terrain types, I don't find preserving stamina works very well against the AI (I've got zilch experience against humans). It's better to get into the fight as soon as possible and start manipulating the other morale factors because the stamina progression appears linear. Which is to say, it always takes X amount of time to get up the hill and always expends X amount of stamina. You can't pause long enough in the middle of an attack under fire to recover any stamina of consequence, so you're better off pressing on.

I've fought battles against the stupid passive AI where I scaled that mountain west of Damascus and let my troops sit until the battle was almost over trying to recover stamina. At best, after half an hour or so, they might recover one degree of stamina. No player is going to give you that kind of time, and even if they did that extra bit of stamina won't affect the battle a tenth as much as the other morale factors you can control.

[_Tristan_]

Having checked this through the proper channels, I wanted to bring to your attention the following Rule Change.

This is a first draft and will be subject to your comments...

So fire away...
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As an Empire grows, retaining control grows ever more difficult. Resort to local governors becomes a prerequisite but this comes at a cost. Cut-off from central power, these men soon begin to look higher than their station. While some are daunted by the risks of rebelling against the central power of the Basileus, others are spurred by the challenge and look only to free themselves from the oppressive yoke of the Empire. This leads to …


SECESSION:

An avatar that fulfills the following requirements will be able to secede from the Empire and create its own kingdom.
(For the purpose of this rule, he will be called the secessionist avatar.)

1.1 Requirements: (red brackets are creator’s notes)

1.1.1/Must have personal ownership of three contiguous provinces, one of which must be a castle province or be turned into one as soon as possible.(The point being to create a sense of unity and provide elite military for the defense of the kingdom. Islands may be considered contiguous to the nearest landmass Rhodes-Smyrna, Heraklion-Corinth, Cyprus-Antioche).
Should the secessionist avatar be owner of a non-contiguous province at the moment of declaration, he will lose ownership and the province will pass to his liege (or to the Basileus if no liege lord exists).
Non-contiguous provinces conquered after the secession will be deemed added to the kingdom, though tenuously.
1.1.2/Must have had access to at least 5000 florins through conquest (occupy, sack or exterminate) personally or by way of a vassal in the turn of the declaration. (This is to enable the starting of an independent economy from the Empire.)


1.2 Secession and Civil War:

A declaration of secession is considered as a declaration of civil war with the secessionist avatar as the declarer and all loyalist avatars as the targets.
Due to the turmoil created by such a political upheaval, a full turn of non-aggression on both sides will take effect, thus making an exception to Rule # 5.1.
During this turn, any loyalist avatar can declare neutrality in the secession war.

1.3 Lords and Vassals:

A declaration of secession automatically breaks any Oath of Fealty the declarer had to a higher Lord.
It does not break the oaths of his lower vassals, though they may choose to break their oaths at this point. This Breach of Oath of Fealty will not be considered as a declaration of war as per Rule #5.2.

All vassals choosing to keep their Oath of Fealty to the secessionist avatar will be considered part of the secession and part of the Civil War.


1.4 Treasury:

1.4.1/The secessionist faction will start with the sum derived from point #2 above (ie 5000 or more florins) which will serve as his starting treasury. Being an independent kingdom until brought back into the fold, all expenses will be paid from said treasury.
1.4.2/A separate thread will be created by Tincow for the duration of the secession which will be used to list the turn by turn revenue/expenses of the secessionist kingdom. (This to provide an easily accessible balance sheet for use by the Megas).
In this thread, the secessionist player will write a balance sheet for his kingdom each turn whose amount will be subtracted from the Empire treasury.

Example of balance sheet (to be added)

The principle being that every expenses on the Secession balance sheet should be added in the income of the Empire and any incomes from the secession should be substracted from the same column.

1.5 Bankruptcy:

If the secessionist kingdom treasury goes in the red, a state of bankruptcy will be declared.

Consequences of the bankruptcy are as follows:

a/ no recruitment and no building of any sort will be allowed for the duration of the bankruptcy.
b/ If at the end of three turns, the secessionist kingdom treasury has not gone back in the black, the secession will be considered over and the secessionist avatar will be considered to have surrendered.

Funds can be provided by reducing upkeep, destroying buildings or conquering. Ransoms acquired against AI opponents by the secessionist avatar (or his vassals) will be added to the secessionist kingdom treasury. Ransom can also be sought from the Empire for the release of any avatar/units captured through a PvP battle.

1.6 Failure of the secession:

1.6.1/The secession will be considered to have failed if:

a/ the leader of the secession is captured or killed in battle by the loyalists. Any other cause of death will simply bring the succession to the “heir” (ie, the player next avatar or the in-game heir or elected avatar among his vassals in order of preference).
b/ Bankruptcy (on the terms described above)

1.6.2/Whatever the cause of the failure of the secession (except the death in battle of the avatar), the secessionist avatar will be considered to have surrendered to the ruling Basileus. All vassals of the secessionist avatar will be considered to have surrendered (except if rule 1.6.7 comes into effect)

1.6.3/Upon failure of the secession, all lands belonging to the secessionist avatar will revert to the Empire and become property of the Basileus.
Exception : if the secessionist avatar is killed/captured in a siege, then the captured province is considered property of the capturing avatar.
All lands belonging to secessionist vassals will automatically revert to the Basileus (unless rule 1.6.7 comes into effect)

1.6.4/, all funds belonging to the secession will revert to the Empire treasury (except if the failure results of a bankruptcy or if rule 1.6.7 comes into effect)

1.6.5/The fate of the captured avatars will be put into the hands of the Basileus. The Basileus can apply any conditions upon the captured, including release, execution or banishment as per Basileus power #16 (without consideration of authority).

1.6.7/Continuation of the secession:

In the event of a failure through capture/death of the secessionist avatar, vassals may choose to continue the secession, under the following conditions :

1/One among them must be appointed as new leader of the secession.
2/Requirement #1 must be met. Gift of provinces among vassals is allowed under this rule but all lands must be contiguous.
3/The treasury must be in the black.

If the secession is continued, then all funds belonging to the secession prior to the capture of the secessionist avatar remain property of the secessionist treasury.

1.7 The Magnaura and Voting :

The secessionist avatar loses automatically his power to vote upon his declaration of secession. For the purpose of the game, he should still cast his vote as “abstain on all proposals” to record his activity.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Wow!

That's a fine idea!!

Only how do I get those 5000 florins?

Does that mean that the towns should provide together income at least 5000 florins??

[_Tristan_]

As I see it you will need to find them on your own or with your vassals by conquering and occupying/sacking/exterminating and declaring the secession at the same time...

Only then would the taxes from the city you own go to your treasury instead of into the Basileus' coffers...

[TinCow]

Wait, do you want to actually try and calculate the income and expenses of each individual city in the separate kingdom? If so, I'm almost positive that is way, way too complicated to implement. The first time I read this I thought all income was just via conquering/sacking/ransoming from battles. That's relatively easy to keep track of. However, in the very old HRE Test game, we tried to figure out an actual income and expense breakdown for each city in the game, which seems to be what you're talking about now. It was extremely complicated, required an excel spreadsheet that few people even understood, and in the end turned out to be completely inaccurate anyway. IMO, if you want to do this you have to figure out a way to deal with the economics without doing major number crunching.

[_Tristan_]

Maybe use some approximate number depending on variables such as number of cities and size, upkeep of units and agents, recruitment and building orders.

Expenses of the secession wouldn't be subtracted from the Empire treasury but from the secession treasury but Taxes from the Secessionist cities shouldn't be added to the Empire treasury neither.

Working with an approximation seems best and should only require some small adjustment at the start or end of each turn.

The secession shouldn't have to be on the offensive to remain alive, hence it needs some kind of regular income. The sacking bounty is just to egt it started so that the upkeep of the secessionist armies doesn't drag its treasury in the red right from the start.

I'm open to any suggestion about how to handle this in the best way.

[woad&fangs]

Cool idea

A simple formula could probably be developed with # of cities, # of castles, market/port/agriculture upgrades all as variables. How much they would be worth would be determined by a consensus of what kind of army a nation with that kind of economy could field.

For example, using the above variables on my 4 settlements we could come to an agreemant(when this rule is created) that a reasonable army for the Woadistan Empire could be 3 units of militia, 2 skythikons, and 1 Trebizond archer. I could then have an army which costs up to the equivalent of the before mentioned army.

Does that make any sense?

[Zim]

That's a great idea.

I'd volunteer to handle the math for at least one secession if necessary, although I can see the desire for simplification for very large ones.

[TinCow]

I very highly encourage anyone discussing this rule to read the HRE Test OOC Thread and the HRE Test Imperial Orders Thread. The former is the discussion of what we were trying to do with the rules. The latter is the proof of how impossible it was to keep track of the financial information, and why the idea was completely abandoned for KotR.

Unless the financial information is extremely easy to keep track of, I will not volunteer to do it. Someone else will have to do the math.

[ULC]

Actually, the math could be rounded off I suppose, from the base treasury - X settlements of Y total settlements = Z amount of income. So, say we have 4/30 settlements, then that player receives 4/30ths of the total amount of the factional income. If the Total faction income is 20,000 per turn, then that player receives 2,667 Florins per turn. This automatically takes into account wages and upkeep as well. As a possible bonus, the player then receives a "Princes Purse" of 250 florins per settlement, thus increasing total income by the above formula by 3,667 per turn - this should be more then adequate.

Is that easy enough?

[Zim]

Ooooh, spreadsheets.

I see the potential nightmare in the accounting of a rebel state, even for a fairly small secession.

I take it a secession could result in a semi-stable splinter state (assuming the new state and one they're rebelling from reach a point where they are too powerful/unwilling to absorb eachother in a war). If so infrastructure improvement is likely to become a concern to the rebels after the defeat of any immediate threats (i.e. large loyalist armies).

Maybe as far as the armies go we could use the same rules we currently have for how many troops a House are entitled to. If the rebel armies fall below this point they can retrain or recruit troops to top off. Sackings, ransoms, etc. would allow one time expenditures on troops and infrastructure.

Assuming a successful secession, available money for infrastructure improvements could be figured out with a similar system, or maybe just give the secession leader the ability to prioritize, say, 1 building twice a term for every 4 settlements he owns (the exact ratio used would likely need tweaking ,trying to strike a balance between allowing the new state to spend some funds on buildings without favoring them so the real empire is getting cheated out of florins).

It would still add work but wouldn't be as hellish as having to constantly monitor wages, corruption, income, etc.

[ULC]

What am I, chopped liver?

[Zim]

If that's a reference to me, I was writing my post when you posted your own. I was trying to run with Woad's idea and add a way to allow infrastructure improvements as well as armies for the new state.

[ULC]

And I was trying to take care of the financial situation

Thoughts?

[TheFlax]

A static amount, while simple makes every province absolutely equal, let's say in the example above you have the three worst provinces of the Empire, you shouldn't be able to pull out as much troops as if you had the three best. Also it makes building any economic improvement buildings largely irrelevant for their cost.

Then again, if we don't implement something static like YLC's proposes then we risk over complication for nothing. I don't think we should need an accountant to make this rule work.

[Ignoramus]

Why don't we rank the income on the level of the settlement, with city settlements generating more than castles?

For example:

Village: 300 florins
Small Town: 500 florins
Large Town: 750 florins
City: 1000
Large City: 1500
Huge City: 2000

Castles:

Motte and Bailey: 200
Wooden Castle: 450
Castle: 600
Fortress: 900
Citadel: 1250

Something like that. It would mean the secessionist didn't get as much value as the real in-game income, but that's the price for being a rebel.

[TheFlax]

I like that better than a plain static income.

Could economic structures give a % bonus on the settlement's income?

Then there is the matter of setting taxes, why set them at anything but low in this system?

[Zim]

And I was trying to take care of the financial situation

Thoughts?

I think that pretty much what we all are doing.

A static amount, while simple makes every province absolutely equal, let's say in the example above you have the three worst provinces of the Empire, you shouldn't be able to pull out as much troops as if you had the three best. Also it makes building any economic improvement buildings largely irrelevant for their cost.

Then again, if we don't implement something static like YLC's proposes then we risk over complication for nothing. I don't think we should need an accountant to make this rule work.

That's pretty much the my biggest concern with my plan.

As far as the armies, Houses already get their required armies without concern to settlement quality, and poorly developed settlements would make weak armies. They also have cheaper upgrades, which may balance things out a bit (more developed settlements generally making more money, but also having more expensive upgrades).

YLC's plan greatly simplifies figuring out the secessionist's income, and is reasonably fair (slightly less so if their settlements contribute very little income or are richer than average, but I'd imagine most decently sized groups of contiguous settlements would average out as, well, average).

I could see some problems. For example if Woadistan was lucky enough to secede with several full stacks under their control (perhaps after getting a friendly Megas or offering to join a war important to him) they'd be costing an upkeep far out of line with the contribution of their fairly small number of settlements to the faction's coffers, and they'd still be getting the same percentage of the faction's income. In a way they'd be taking money from loyalist settlement contributions to pay their upkeep.

[Zim]

Bah, I'm posting too slowly.

Iggy, under your plan would the secessionists have to use that money to pay upkeep on their units or would they always make a profit?

[Ignoramus]

They would have to pay the upkeep of their units. Maybe there could be a reduction, considering the secessionists would obviously command a lot of local loyalty and prestige.

[KnightnDay]

As a newcomer, I have to tell you honestly I think this is not a good idea.

Getting into the game in the first place with the SS Mod and LOTR patching and all, then figuring out who's active, who is not, what are the houses, etc... it's a pretty daunting exercise. Really, look who has come on board lately. They're not exactly lining up now, and if you add this in, my feeling is you'll be hard pressed to get any fresh interest by adding in more complex rule sets.

I realize that many of you HRE vets are dying for more civil war action and PvP battles. Personally, that's not why I joined but I understand that it may be the price of admission. IMO, TC has done a phenomenal job in running this game and the active players do a great job doing what they do.

If my count is right, there are about 14-15 people currently active in the game. About 8 for one reason or another are essentially inactive. If you want to go down this path, I'd just ask you to consider exactly what the game might look like down the road in terms of participation if you want to substantially modify the game to include a brand new set of rules with a whole layer of accounting to the mix.

[Ignoramus]

I understand where you're coming from, KnightnDay. But I think that secession will be like civil wars - they aren't that common due to the huge risks involved. And if you throw in these juicy wars then people will try to recruit new players to increase their power. Zim and deguerra joined the HRE KotR in the Swabian Civil war, and immediately got picked up the rebel(me) and because things were a bit elastic they quickly learnt the rules.

[woad&fangs]

KnD does bring up a good point. Also, with the rules we currently have in place, and a Megas who isn't adverse to giving the secessionist a bit of supplies for roleplaying's sake I think we can get by just fine.