ETW succession game - interested?

[GeneralHankerchief]

***CURRENT INFORMATION HERE (older information below)***

Game specifics: Spain, H/H with Normal unit size, set to "Prestige Victory". 20-turn reigns.

Objectives: Fourfold:

1. Catholic Hapsburg Empire. The United Provinces and all their territories must be destroyed and absorbed into Spain. In addition, Austria and all its territories must either become a protectorate of Spain or fall under direct Spanish rule. -edit- Not sure what to do about Portugal though. Anyone more historically knowledgeable than me have any suggestions?

2. The New World speaks only Spanish. Spain must achieve total control over the Carribbean and all her adjacent territories. This naturally includes the annexation of New Spain.

3. Phillip's Revenge. Spain is to do the impossible and complete what the Armada in 1588 could not: achieve naval domination in Europe and take over London. One of the prerequisites for completing this is that the Spanish Navy must meet and defeat whatever British fleet(s) there is/are in the area before the invasion of Britain starts.

4. Not just a military power. Put forth a serious effort and investment into maintaining high Prestige throughout.

Player list (tentative):

1. GeneralHankerchief
2. TinCow
3. TheFlax
4. Zim
5. Cecil XIX
6. seireikhaan
7. Ignoramus (maybe)
8. Chaotix27

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I figured I'd actually take the initiative and start a succession game after talking about it in the Think Tank thread.

For those who don't know, the Throne Room was abundant with succession games a few years ago until they were pretty much replaced by mega-PBMs and Hosteat campaigns. I figured that with the release of Empire, while we're thinking about the next major PBM, this would be a natural time to bring them back.

In a succession game, you have sole control over every aspect of the game for a certain period of time - usually 20 turns. You play the entire thing, take notes and screenshots, and then write up a report of what happened afterwords. Here is an excellent example of what write-ups can look like, although yours don't have to be that good. You then upload the save and pass it on to the next player, and thus the cycle continues until you either accomplish your objectives or decide to stop playing.

What we need to figure out, assuming people are interested, is the following:

- Difficulty. Considering the game's only been out for a week and people are still adjusting to it, I'd vote for H/M or H/H for the initial PBM. In future games we could upgrade it to VH/H.

- Faction. My vote goes to Spain. I figure that a reversal of their declining empire would make for good RP fodder.

- Reign length. Anything beyond 20 turns usually becomes taxing on the player, especially as we get later in the game when there's more to do.

- Objectives/House rules. This is in case we want to do something different besides the game's four "goals", or if we want to manufacture any impositions to make it harder on us. I think we'll work on this once we decide the faction.

Post if you're interested.

[mini]

i'll follow it, but the sucession style is not my favorite, so i'll just be watching :)

[TinCow]

Count me in. It's been too long since I actually participated in a Throne Room game. An ETW succession will be a nice break from the other, more involved games. Sometimes simple and (relatively) quick and can be fun too.

I do not care about the faction or the difficulty. For reign length, 20 turns is the succession standard. It works well.

- Objectives/House rules. This is in case we want to do something different besides the game's four "goals", or if we want to manufacture any impositions to make it harder on us. I think we'll work on this once we decide the faction.

I greatly encourage the use of the above. The rules preventing expansion beyond the old Roman borders for the WRE Re-unification game significantly enhanced its enjoyment. Basing these things on historical accuracy seems to work well. For instance, if Britain was chosen, we might want to mimic their historically small army size by restricting the number of military units that can be recruited in any particular year.

[TheFlax]

I'd be interested, if you are willing to have one of those 20 turn terms be a catastrophe.

As for faction choices, I don't really have a preference since I've barely played the game. This would be my first Grand Campaign in ETW.

[Zim]

I could play, provided the game isn't set to anything larger than normal unit scale (all my comp can handle. ).

Spain sounds great to me. I can't really say whether they're a hard or easy faction in ETW. They're certainly spread out, and fighting in different theaters would be fun.

I'd vote for H/H. Playing on VH/H and it's challenging but not extremely difficult, and I consider myself in the "mediocre" rank of players.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Okay, since we have four interested people (including myself), I think we can get started and then pick up additional players along the way.

Does anyone have a problem with Spain, H/H, and normal unit scales?

[TinCow]

Not I.

[Cecil XIX]

I'm in on those terms, GH.

EDIT: May I suggest the 'Prestige Victory' conditions? That way we'll still have to worry about Victory conditions until the game is over. Plus, it's a great way to compare yourself to the other major powers.

We could also make it a personal goal to capture all the provinces outlined in the 'Long Campaign' victory requirements.

Finally, how does everything feel about New Spain? I know we're still getting used to Empire, but it might be worthwhile to refuse to annex it via mission.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Haven't checked Spain's victory conditions yet, but I was thinking along the lines of the following. Prestige would also be good as an alternative.

1. Catholic Hapsburg Empire. The United Provinces and all their territories must be destroyed and absorbed into Spain. In addition, Austria and all its territories must either become a protectorate of Spain or fall under direct Spanish rule. -edit- Not sure what to do about Portugal though. Anyone more historically knowledgeable than me have any suggestions?

2. The New World speaks only Spanish. Spain must achieve total control over the Carribbean and all her adjacent territories. This naturally includes the annexation of New Spain.

3. Phillip's Revenge. Spain is to do the impossible and complete what the Armada in 1588 could not: achieve naval domination in Europe and take over London. One of the prerequisites for completing this is that the Spanish Navy must meet and defeat whatever British fleet(s) there is/are in the area before the invasion of Britain starts.

Ambitious? Oh yeah. Is there a chance of us spectacularly failing, especially considering none of us are even close to mastering the game yet? Yes, and a very large one at that. But remember, victory isn't important so much as telling a good story is. And I think one way or another, this is gonna be a good story.

Comments? Alternatives? Does anyone have any proposed House rules, or do you guys think this is hard enough as is?

[TheFlax]

I like #1 personally, so my vote goes for that. Not being a great player, I think it will be hard enough as it is, but I won't complain if you apply house rules that make things harder. (Just don't expect anything stellar from my part. )

[GeneralHankerchief]

I was going for all three simultaneously, but if you guys don't agree then we'll of course modify it. And don't worry, I think we're all kind of stumbling around in the dark at this moment.

[TheFlax]

Oh, all three?! Heh, I misunderstood. That's fine with me, it just seems a bit overwhelming.

[Cecil XIX]

I do like the idea of doing all three concurrently. I think we could do that and have Prestige rankings at the same time. We can always decide how seriously to take prestige as we go along, or on a person-by-person basis.

[TinCow]

I agree, let's aim for all 3. Certain people might choose to focus on different objectives at different times during the campaign. It should be fun.

I've been reading that the battle AI works better with medium sized units. I'm currently playing with Large unit size with Hard difficulty and while the battle AI isn't horrible, it could still use a lot of improvement. Can anyone comment on whether the AI is better with smaller units?

[Zim]

I've played with small and medium units. Casualties seem to be pretty high. Sometimes the AI pulls off something wonderful, and they do seem to manage individual units well. Other times...

The AI also seems pretty bad at defending unfortified towns, dividing themselves up among the houses in each town so it's easy to concentrate forces on one at a time (if you don't feel like just blasting them apart with cannons).

[GeneralHankerchief]

Okay, since it looks like nobody has any problems, I'll edit the information into the first post.

As far as turn order goes, I'll take the first 20 turns. I believe that tradition has the next line going in order of people who showed interest, but if that doesn't work out for you/you'd prefer a different order, that's fine.

Will start up the game later today. Wish me luck.

[TinCow]

I'm fine with taking the second turn. I'm certainly not going to have the time to put out write-ups like I did for the WRE or ERE games, but I'll try and produce something worth reading.

[Zim]

I'm fine taking any number turn. The Rules look good to me.

I could go either way regarding Portugal. Roleplaying reasons for Spain wanting to control the entire peninsula would be easy enough to come up with, although I'm not sure Spain ever tried in this period.

On the other hand, not being allowed to take a relatively rich province (I'm guessing, it is a capital) right next door would add a little to the challenge.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Personally, I'm going to play it as if Portugal attacks me, they're fair game, but otherwise I'll leave them alone.

They're allied with Britain, IIRC, which means that once we go for Objective #3 the conquest might be inevitable.

[TinCow]

Just treat Portugal like any other faction. They're fair game for a bit of the old ultra-violence, but it is not required by the special rules. Historically, neither Hapsburg Spain or non-Hapsburg Spain had any legitimate claim to the Portuguese throne.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I've just had a look at our King, Charles II. This could be fun.

[Zim]

Well, as long as he's alive it will serve as a good rationalization for why the King's strategy changes every ten years.

[TinCow]

Is it just me, or does he look a bit like Marv?

[Zim]

From the ETW thinktank thread.

The last such PBM before Will of the Senate came out, Re-unification, is an excellent read of a bunch of players doing the Western Roman Empire campaign for BI and is what drew me to the Throne Room in the first place. I'm sure that we can produce a couple of PBMs of similar quality while we work out the kinks and either CA or a mod gives us better material to work with.

Reading the writeups for that game is what got me to join the Org. That, and some of the MTW pbm writeups.

I'm looking forward to playing a succession game. Can't remember the last one I was in, although there was a vanilla Julii one that was really fun.

Maybe if this works well a few more could be done?

[seireikhaan]

As I find ETW thus far to be immensely more enjoyable than the previous two titles...

I shall join.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I'm looking forward to playing a succession game. Can't remember the last one I was in, although there was a vanilla Julii one that was really fun.

Are you the same person as Zimfan? I remember doing a Vandal BI one with you. We almost made it all the way.

And thanks for joining khaan, I'll put you on the list.

[seireikhaan]

At the current lineup, things should be interesting for me when it becomes my turn. I've only played a prestige game as the Dutch so far, and they're already a republic. I haven't had to deal with revolutions yet.

[Zim]

That's me.

I don't remember completely, but I think it might be my fault we didn't finish, and so close to taking Rome.

I always appreciated that you guys were willing to do a vanilla BI succession game with me. I remember it was just you and one other person.

Are you the same person as Zimfan? I remember doing a Vandal BI one with you. We almost made it all the way.

And thanks for joining khaan, I'll put you on the list.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Quick initial update: I've played two turns so far, with some interesting results. Had a fun battle for St. Augustine. Spain is just too friggin' spread out. I'm probably going to just see if I can sell off my possessions in Italy before someone takes them.

[Ignoramus]

If only my computer could run Empire...

Edit: Put me on the list just in case the unthinkable happens, and I can get Empire. You can keep skipping me until I manage to get it.