Successor game rules, draft one.

[TinCow]

Here's something I didn't consider at all that TinCow posted in the old discussion thread. He had mentioned the vast majority of players never made it past 1 influence and that the influence rules didn't seem to impact the game much.

I think this is a good idea. It simplifies things for the purposes of record-keeping and makes pre-election vote counting easier for people who are trying to push through (or block) legislation. At the same time, I didn't feel like the stat-based influence really had any impact on role-playing, which is the most important part of the game.

What DID have an impact was influence earned by player actions. This was most notable in the bonuses for the Ex-Megas and for people who managed to marry a Princess. I think that it would work well to give everyone a base vote of 1, and only allow additional influence beyond that due to similar in-game actions. Other options along these lines that could be explored:

1) Influence granted by the consent of the Senate, such as a 'triumph' for a great military victory or some other significant achievement.
2) Influence granted to someone who has won a PvP battle.

I also think your truncated rank system is a big improvement. LotR ended up having too many ranks and it was too difficult to reach the highest ranks. Reaching a high rank should be hard, but not impossible which is how it turned out in LotR. I think your system will work better.

[AussieGiant]

I like the rules.

I like anything that is codified as game rules that refer to actions and things that can use the game engine to easily manage.

Also things that are simple.

[Zim]

I know I didn't pay much attention to stat influence, don't think I ever qualified for more than one until I became Megas.

It would simplify things greatly as long as the list of ways to gain influence was kept fairly small. The influence from marrying a Princess and ex-Megas/Chancellor ones you mentioned from LotR are a good start. I wonder if the Prince should get a boost if he marries a foreign princess..

Should Princes get 1 extra influence?

The Triumph idea is neat. I wonder if there's something similiar that would fit in with the likely more western faction I suspect will be picked...

I really like the idea of some kind of influence reward for successful pvp/civil wars. I would be at least partly concerned about an automatic +1 influence for winning a battle. If a Civil war went back and forth a fair deal that could be a lot of battles. Then again, that hasn't happened yet in two games (I guess the Swabian Civil War had the greatest number of battles, although the War of the Basileis had the potential for more). Do you think that would be an issue?

What do you think of the number of ranks? As it stands except for Duke the ranks listed are pretty easy to attain (A House that managed to get 5 people counting the Duke could have two counts), but I did want to make it fewer than LOTR. I've been thinking over whether one more might be appropriate. Definitely not any more than that.

I think this is a good idea. It simplifies things for the purposes of record-keeping and makes pre-election vote counting easier for people who are trying to push through (or block) legislation. At the same time, I didn't feel like the stat-based influence really had any impact on role-playing, which is the most important part of the game.

What DID have an impact was influence earned by player actions. This was most notable in the bonuses for the Ex-Megas and for people who managed to marry a Princess. I think that it would work well to give everyone a base vote of 1, and only allow additional influence beyond that due to similar in-game actions. Other options along these lines that could be explored:

1) Influence granted by the consent of the Senate, such as a 'triumph' for a great military victory or some other significant achievement.
2) Influence granted to someone who has won a PvP battle.

I also think your truncated rank system is a big improvement. LotR ended up having too many ranks and it was too difficult to reach the highest ranks. Reaching a high rank should be hard, but not impossible which is how it turned out in LotR. I think your system will work better.

[TinCow]

Note, I am reading the rules as they are posted at the moment, which I gather includes updates. However, I am responding to all comments I see which may include some what have since become irrelevant due to rule changes. Thus, disregard anything that is now moot.

Should Princes get 1 extra influence?

Princes already get a bonus to influence since their influence is on top of their normal rank influence. Remember that when determining balance.

I really like the idea of some kind of influence reward for successful pvp/civil wars. I would be at least partly concerned about an automatic +1 influence for winning a battle. If a Civil war went back and forth a fair deal that could be a lot of battles. Then again, that hasn't happened yet in two games (I guess the Swabian Civil War had the greatest number of battles, although the War of the Basileis had the potential for more). Do you think that would be an issue?

In hindsight, probably best to keep the rules simple and not put this in at the moment. If someone wins a civil war and something like this is felt to be warranted by the players at that time, it can always be added in with a rule change.

What do you think of the number of ranks? As it stands except for Duke the ranks listed are pretty easy to attain (A House that managed to get 5 people counting the Duke could have two counts), but I did want to make it fewer than LOTR. I've been thinking over whether one more might be appropriate. Definitely not any more than that.

I like the number of ranks the way they are. Simple and stable. It's also easy to add more in later if they are found to be needed. Focus on getting the basic solid, the frills can be added in once it is found to be working well.

Hmmm...you mentioned another rank as a possibility...maybe we should have a rank that a King can bestow, that adds power and prestige to a House, or some other function, that another House would want, creating friction through sucking up and power gain? I keep thinking Archduke or Master of Arms as possible titles.

I think this would be best added in with a Rule Change if/when it is found to be needed.

I think limiting expansion is vital. If we get too big too quickly, then we end up with what happened to LotR - there was simply too much wealth and land to go around. Hence no one really bothered to pick a fight, because there was more to lose than to gain from doing so.

I agree completely. Internal interaction and competition is where the fun comes from, competition against the AI is always secondary to this. Gaining power should thus be focused mainly on internal politicking, with the wars with the AI being only an after-thought (since we're bound to win them).

Also, if possible, try to make the number of unchangeable rules as small as possible. That way most ammendments can be dealt in an IC fashion, avoiding personal disputes and animosities.

The old WOTS/KOTR system of * marked rules that couldnt be changed was done away with halfway through LotR. Zim's current system allows any rule to be changed, which I agree is how it should be.

I'm not too keen on two ideas posted here :

1 - Edict for annexation : while I understand the concern for fast expansion, I don't like the idea of having to battle in the Senate (or Council or whatever it will be called) to keep a Province in the bosom of the Empire. It makes no sense historically. Powerful vassals (and sometimes even less powerful ones) ignored the will of their King and conquered/annexed provinces for their own gain, often requiring military pressure of their Lord to release them and not some court order...

I see this is a balance between realism and gameplay. The simple fact is it is easy to conquer province, and easy expansion makes the game less enjoyable IMO. Thus, it would be best to require the conquest of provinces to not only necessitate military prowess, but also a run through the internal political system as well. If the players constantly stop a certain House or Houses from expanding, that makes for good RP conflicts.

2 - Possibility for FM only to create new Houses. With the limits and caps set by Zim rules, I don't think we'll see new Houses appear overnight so restricting the possibility of creating them to FM might be just a touch too much and might deter people who have had access to a RGB only from grasping power into their own hands.

I'll discuss this below with comments on RBGs.

Oh no, it's his period if he conquers it - but until he gets approval for it in the Council, the Chancellor can freely ignore the entire province, including taxes, prioritization, building queues, etc, without penalty.

This makes it difficult to hold onto - it cannot be properly reinforced except from within the kingdom/empire, is subject to higher levels of revolt and generates less income.

Despite my statements above, this is an interesting idea. A hostile Chancellor could pump the taxes to Very High and make it hard to hold onto. A friendly Chancellor could make it easy to hold on to an 'illegal' province. I'm not sure whether this is the best way to go or not, but it's worth more discussion. I will think on it more before commenting further.

Two final issues which I will address in greater detail later (have to run at the moment and can't finish this post in detail):

1) RBGs - I am in favor of allowing RBGs. I generally feel the same way I did at the start of LotR. Refer to my comments on the subject in the next-gen rules thread for more insight before I can finish this train of thought.

2) Civil Wars - These need a functional overhaul. In LotR most Civil Wars lasted for years with no fighting. The system needs to be changed to that wars result in battles quickly and a resolved within a short period of time. This will make civil war far more serious of a threat than it was in LotR, where it was something of a joke for most of the game. Civil Wars needs to result in battles every single time, unless one side surrenders. My suggestion in brief is that both sides get 1 turn to assemble their allies and forces, then they are all tossed into a PvP battle (or battles) as the GM sees fit, regardless of where the avatars are on the in-game map.

[TinCow]

On the RBG issue, here are my old comments on the issue after KOTR was over:

First, while it was nice to have a ‘family tree’ of avatars with each group descended from one of Heinrich’s four children, it turned out to be far more of a pain than it was worth IMO. Some people had to wait several months just get their first avatar and we suffered serious problems with supplying people with avatars in their desired Houses for most of the game. There were also some major problems with unbalanced Houses, since the game did not spawn avatars equally amongst our four custom-made divisions. The only positive side of maintaining the family tree was having it look nice in the Library. That seems like a small benefit to me, considering the major inconveniences.

We have already concluded long ago that allowing recruitable generals is a good thing. By scrapping any formal House system, we also eliminate the risk that the adoption of a recruitable general will screw up the family tree. If the position on the family tree has no real purpose other than for role-playing, it won’t create any major problems if the general is added on in the wrong spot.

IMO, all of the above remains true. I do not doubt that AG valued Arnold a lot more once he got his hands on him because of the wait required for the avatar. However my recollection of KOTR is that there weren't many people who reacted in the same way. As far as I remember, most people simply found it annoying to have to wait and did not like being unable to pick which House they could join. If you need any more proof about how unpopular it was, keep in mind that in KotR we actually enabled RBGs about 2/3 of the way through the game. This was not a LotR-only thing.

I think the current trend towards reminiscing about the old system is more due to the inability of many people to get into their LotR characters. I think the RBGs are getting slandered by these legitimate complaints when I think LotR's failures were in other areas. I strongly urge that RBGs be kept, though I do support the idea of making it more difficult to leave a House once you join one. Not using RBGs would be particularly bad if we also use a system that restricts expansion. The game spawns avatars based on the number of provinces controlled by the faction. If we achieve our goal of limiting expansion, there will be almost no new faction member spawns which will essentially wreck the game by leaving it depopulated.

[AussieGiant]

Well I'm in total legal negotiation mode right now.

If we go with RGB's then I would reiterate the massive significance of how the KotR system handled land, its acquisition and its distribution.

To quote TC:

*** I agree completely. Internal interaction and competition is where the fun comes from, competition against the AI is always secondary to this. Gaining power should thus be focused mainly on internal politicking, with the wars with the AI being only an after-thought (since we're bound to win them).

*** I see this is a balance between realism and gameplay. The simple fact is it is easy to conquer province, and easy expansion makes the game less enjoyable IMO. Thus, it would be best to require the conquest of provinces to not only necessitate military prowess, but also a run through the internal political system as well. If the players constantly stop a certain House or Houses from expanding, that makes for good RP conflicts.

The way it functioned in KotR was very impressive in my view.

And finally, the rule set should be kept as basic as possible and be structured that we find in the first instance an IC solution and in the second instance, another IC solution and then perhaps finally an OOC rule change. Make the formulation and rule set part of the legislation process, which is essentially what we are all doing as nobles of a Empire.

in this vein, ranks should be short, simple and few. If we need more then lets IC the thing. That in itself creates interest and action.

[TinCow]

The KotR system was simple: the Emperor gets the provinces and hands them out as he pleases, though once given to a House they cannot be taken back without war. This worked fine in the game, though I do recall the people playing the Kaiser handing them out rather evenly instead of exploiting the system for partisan benefits. Since paritsan play by the King may be more likely in the new game (it was specifically stated in the KotR rules that it should not occur there), it makes sense to allow for an alternate route around the King. This fits historically as well, since the French Kings were pretty weak in 1080 AD and took a long time to consolidate their power. The simplest solution is to allow a 'Council of Nobles' vote to override the King. If the King allocates a province and a Duke protests this allocation, a Council of Nobles vote is called and can veto the allocation by a 2/3 vote. The Nobles can't pick WHO gets the provinces, but they can block it until the King gives it to someone they approve of.

[ULC]

The KotR system was simple: the Emperor gets the provinces and hands them out as he pleases, though once given to a House they cannot be taken back without war. This worked fine in the game, though I do recall the people playing the Kaiser handing them out rather evenly instead of exploiting the system for partisan benefits. Since paritsan play by the King may be more likely in the new game (it was specifically stated in the KotR rules that it should not occur there), it makes sense to allow for an alternate route around the King. This fits historically as well, since the French Kings were pretty weak in 1080 AD and took a long time to consolidate their power. The simplest solution is to allow a 'Council of Nobles' vote to override the King. If the King allocates a province and a Duke protests this allocation, a Council of Nobles vote is called and can veto the allocation by a 2/3 vote. The Nobles can't pick WHO gets the provinces, but they can block it until the King gives it to someone they approve of.

Which is essentially my suggestion, although the province immediately goes to the conquer instead of the King in my suggestion, and mine increases the Chancellors power - however, this may make for a more heated debate as to whom gets elected, and if at any point the King is the Chancellor, then the situation becomes pretty hopeless.