Army Rule Change Proposal

[TinCow]

Tristan is right about Senators seizing Captain-led stacks. There is a lot of room with this new system for people to be nasty, uncooperative, and abusive of their powers. However, the game still has boatloads of ways to stop this. The Senate can take action against the culpirt via Edicts and CAs. The Megas can starve them of resources in numerous ways. Individual Senators and Houses can also simply declare war and punish the person themselves. This last point in particular is something that I think people need to consider far more seriously in the future, particularly as inividual military power is likely to increase as a result of these changes.

[_Tristan_]

Yes, I think we might some more PvP now with this new set of rules...

[Warmaster Horus]

Yes, I think we might some more PvP now with this new set of rules...

Oh yeah... Civil wars are now more... fair, I guess. It's all a matter of grabbing captain stacks first (if I understood correctly).

[Privateerkev]

What hasn't been mentioned during the discussion is that this makes the timing of when a new save is released, really really important. If you get the new save first, your avatar gets to go and snag captain stacks. If you get it later, your left with the left overs.

This is an observation, not a complaint. There are plenty of IC ways to deal with this.

*edit*

Tincow gave me permission to post the QT link:

Army rules QuickTopic

Now you can see the discussion that led to the rules you see above.

[TinCow]

I actually doubt Captain stacks will be seized often, simply because I don't expect to see a whole lot of Captain stacks. You have to keep in mind that the only way a Captain stack can be created is if someone voluntarily gives up units they own. All units have to be spawned into a settlement of some kind, and as such they instantly are owned by a Senator. Not even the Basileus can seize a unit inside a settlement or fort, so that units are 100% safe. In order for a Captain stack to be created, the owner of that settlement will have to voluntarily remove them from his city or give permission to someone else to do so.

I think this is unlikely to happen, and will only occur when there's a friendly Megas in power who will move the Captain stack to wherever it is supposed to go. That means that most Captain stacks are going to exist only as a pre-arranged agreement between the Megas and the person who created it. If a third party runs in and grabs that stack, they're going to piss off some very powerful people. More likely, units will only be removed from cities when the avatar that owns them is nearby and can instantly incorporate them into his own army, or an army of an ally.

In general, I expect people to start relying on their provinces a lot more than they used to. This system really makes your province your lifeblood. It is your base of power and the thing that allows you to accumulate military strength. Poor towns that can only produce town militia will generally limit a person to owning a poor quality army, unless they can make powerful friends who will give them better units that were produced elsewhere. As a result, not all provinces are going to be the same anymore. Heavily upgraded castles like Corinth will be very valuable because they will provide a means for private production of good armies without relying on anyone else. A House that has only poor town/city provinces will not be able to get any good military units unless they can convince the Megas to hire Mercs for them or can get them from other Senators.

I like this because it opens up the door for unaligned Senators and small Houses to play interesting roles. An unaligned Senator with a good army could sell his military units to other Houses who don't have good militaries. A Strator or Comes who somehow got a strong army could even act as a mercenary, fighting for whoever will pay his fees. Small Houses and unaligned Senators will still have far less influence during votes, but they will have interesting options available to them. It's no longer going to be a situation where you have to join a big House in order to have power.

[AussieGiant]

While it is a first come first serve on the save there are a variety of mechanism to combat this:

* Recruit near where your armies are located. This will reduce the time regiment(s) spent not being "under command"

* House's with more avatars can managing the reinforcing process much easier. Going it alone will make this rather difficult.

* And always remember, IC group dynamics. If you annoy people, you'll find yourself being annoyed back.

* If you own a settlement and recruit forces in it, no one can come into your castle or city and take them, i.e. your SOT. But as soon as you move them outside without anyone in command then they are fair game.

* This is a bullet point of all the way's I haven't thought of managing this.

Plus honestly;

------------

Forcing marching his 4000 billmen from Cornwall to London, the regimental captain always thought to himself just what a risk it was for his liege, the Earl of Cornwall, for not sending one of his nobles or coming himself to lead such a large reinforcement division.

Reports were very clear that Prince Edward Plantagenet was in the areas after returning from Wales after shafting a few Welshmen as a bit of summer sport. The Earl of Cornwall who's oath belonged to Edward was in desperate need of the troops for his expedition into France.

Some time later.

Low and behold up ahead the colours of Edward's personal guard could be seen riding towards the now unsure captain.

"Ah ha, my dear Captain, it's good to see you. You have quite a small army here hey. I'm giving you new orders. You're to accompany me to Oxford and then we are heading north to Scotland."

"But my lord, we're ordered to London on the Earl's behalf, and then off to France, here take a look. He paid a mighty fortune for equipping us and training." The regimental captain hands the official orders to the Prince.

Ripping them up expertly Edward sighs in frustration and at the naivety of the young captain.

"My dear Captain. I'm sure the Earl will understand, I'll send word he has to make other arrangements. It's good to be the Prince no?"

-----------------

It is the middle ages guy's. This was exactly what it was like.

[Cecil XIX]

Well, I finally got around to reading this thing. Figures it wasn't fifty posts of multi-paragraph rules discussion like I thought. I'm not even surprised, as the rules are very strong as-is.

In general, I expect people to start relying on their provinces a lot more than they used to. This system really makes your province your lifeblood. It is your base of power and the thing that allows you to accumulate military strength. Poor towns that can only produce town militia will generally limit a person to owning a poor quality army, unless they can make powerful friends who will give them better units that were produced elsewhere. As a result, not all provinces are going to be the same anymore. Heavily upgraded castles like Corinth will be very valuable because they will provide a means for private production of good armies without relying on anyone else.

It's like I'm back in Prague during The Cataclysm. That's a very good thing, because I never enjoyed KOTR more than I did then, and basically for the reasons you listed. The sense of accomplishment you get by surviving only with what is yours is like nothing else.

I do have a few ideas, however.

1. All land-owning ranks should have be able to prioritize some units, to represent that any land-owning noble could and did raise soldiers for his own defense, both in the feudal-system the rules were modelled after and in the faction we're actually actually playing. I would suggest that vassals should only be able to prioritize half as many units as they would otherwise, or each vassal can prioritize only one or two units regardless of rank.

2. Nobles should be able to choose specific units to prioritize, so long as those units are trained in a settlement that the noble in question owns. This would shift the IC haggling over prioritization, while at the same time representing the fact that during the time period land-owning nobles were able to raise soldiers independent of central authority. This and my last suggestion tie in to Tincow's belief that nobles should be attached to the provinces they own, and I can say from experience that if every Senator has one or two units that they can raised themselves, in their own lands, they will cherish those units like their own bodyguard. And they'll have a lot of fun.

3. Fleets owned by a Senator should remain in his possession when they are
docked inside a province he owns. If I read the new rules correctly, they abandoned the idea of powerful nobles having a 'standing navy' to go along with their armies. Why not give only Dukes and Exarchs this ability, since before it was one of the best abilities they gained?

[TinCow]

1. All land-owning ranks should have be able to prioritize some units, to represent that any land-owning noble could and did raise soldiers for his own defense, both in the feudal-system the rules were modelled after and in the faction we're actually actually playing. I would suggest that vassals should only be able to prioritize half as many units as they would otherwise, or each vassal can prioritize only one or two units regardless of rank.

2. Nobles should be able to choose specific units to prioritize, so long as those units are trained in a settlement that the noble in question owns. This would shift the IC haggling over prioritization, while at the same time representing the fact that during the time period land-owning nobles were able to raise soldiers independent of central authority. This and my last suggestion tie in to Tincow's belief that nobles should be attached to the provinces they own, and I can say from experience that if every Senator has one or two units that they can raised themselves, in their own lands, they will cherish those units like their own bodyguard. And they'll have a lot of fun.

These two suggestion mimic some of my own thoughts on ways to improve the system. However, I'm afraid of making it too complex and thus screwing it all up. I would very much like to explore more with tweaking the exact recruitment abilities of the various nobles, but I would personally like to see us get one term under our belts with just the basic system. After one term, we'll have a better idea of how well the system works and whether further complexities can be added without slowing it down.

3. Fleets owned by a Senator should remain in his possession when they are
docked inside a province he owns. If I read the new rules correctly, they abandoned the idea of powerful nobles having a 'standing navy' to go along with their armies. Why not give only Dukes and Exarchs this ability, since before it was one of the best abilities they gained?

This is very interesting and is essentially applying the auto-seizing rule about garrison units to fleets. This would probably work very well and I don't think it would add any further confusion to the game. We could just make it like garrisons, so that if a ship starts a turn inside a port, the owner of that port controls the ships. The Megas would need to get permission to remove them, but once removed they would be his. I would, however, not include the garrison rule about other people being unable to seize the fleet. I think no matter what happens, whoever is on board should be in control of the ships. So, you could accumulate a small personal fleet for yourself, but any yahoo could come along and gank it if they wanted to.

This could be accomplished with the following simple changes (in bold) which are essentially just a c&p of the 4.1 rule language:

4.3 – Naval Fleets: All Senators own all fleets that begin a turn in the port of a settlement they own, regardless of how the fleet got there, unless a Senator is aboard. Otherwise, naval fleets are owned by the Senator with the highest feudal rank who is onboard the fleet. If there are multiple Senators of the same rank, the eldest Senator will own the fleet. No one may move or disband any ships in a fleet owned by a Senator without his permission.

[_Tristan_]

About the "fleet rule", if I read it right, it should be necessary to make possible for a port owner to forbid a fleet to enter his port because of the "merging of fleets" mechanism, otherwise if there was an avatar on board, he could then add any ships in the port to his own fleet and go wherever he likes with it, thus limiting somewhat the scope of the rule.