Successor game rules, draft one.

[Zim]

Those changes seem reasonable. I hadn't really expected many rules disputes to happen, I think about that one...

2 Dukes to call an emergency session makes sense.

Impeachment does indeed require an emergency session.

A garrison is any units inside of a settlement, at least for the purposes of the rules.

EDIT:


On other matters, a few minor points on the rules:

3 (d) Wills and inheritance: insert Wills must be deposited with Zim before the character's death to be considered valid.
Ducal succession was an issue in KotR and personally I don't like players making key decisions after their avatar is dead. Do we explicitly allow Dukes to resign? If not, I think we should.

3 )(f) Rules disputes : maybe state that Zim's ruling can over turn that of the King/Prince/Chancellor? this is to avoid a player who really abuses this power in an OOC way. Also, I am leery of giving the Chancellor sole power over the disputes involving the King/Prince. Wouldn't a council of Dukes plus the Chancellor be better?

3(f) Emergency sessions I am leery about allowing Dukes to call these. They really slow the game down and I would rather not let one partisan player do this. Maybe require a second Duke to agree? Two Dukes shouting stop sounds like an emergency - one not so much.

On impeachment, presumably it requires an emergency session, if it is to be done out of full session?

5 (b) army ownership: what's a garrison? any pre-existing stack in a settlement? or just free upkeep militia?

French terminology - now we have selected our faction, does that mean we should change some terminology to fit the context? e.g. do we need titles for some of our concepts, e.g. should it be Senate or Parliament or Assembly or what? What are our 4 Houses going to be called and which provinces will be in which? My preference is for something regional, roughly corresponding to east, west, north, south, but I don't know the details.

[Zim]

I think befriending the Chancellor or making careful use of prioritized units before a Civil War should give some advantages. I should note my case in LOTR was somewhat exaggerated. Nobody seemed to pay attention to my gross overspending and recruitment of troops in the middle of the Empire where they weren't needed (or if they did noone objected) and noone but Rossahh called in any prioritized units, which would have made things tougher.

I'm not sure about artificially buffing the defending side... maybe due to civil unrest units can't be recruited in provinces involved in a Civil War? This would have the side benefit of punishing anyone engaged in a long war, and mean that once it began, the advantage of having a Chancellor friend decrease greatly.

GH I fear that might be getting too complicated. I'd like the deciding phase for battles to go quickly, especially since a day or so of voting could easily take longer than many of the pvp battle methods (excepting tabletop of course). It is something to think about though...

[ULC]

I'm not sure about artificially buffing the defending side... maybe due to civil unrest units can't be recruited in provinces involved in a Civil War? This would have the side benefit of punishing anyone engaged in a long war, and mean that once it began, the advantage of having a Chancellor friend decrease greatly.

That sounds like a fair compromise, and actually stresses House alliances more, who can give units from their lands, where they can still be recruited. It can also setup another House, such as those who prepared the whole thing, to suddenly be backstabbed and lose another Houses support who had been supplying them with troops.

I just don;t want our civil wars to all be "coups"

[econ21]

I'm not sure about artificially buffing the defending side... maybe due to civil unrest units can't be recruited in provinces involved in a Civil War? This would have the side benefit of punishing anyone engaged in a long war, and mean that once it began, the advantage of having a Chancellor friend decrease greatly.

From what I understood from TC, the issue is not so much what the Chancellor does during the civil war - although that is an issue - but what he has done before. You recruit a big army and then declare civil war, not declare first and then recruit. If anything, freezing recruitment during the civil war could aggravate that, not address it as it makes permanent the initial advantage. (If the attackers were very unpopular, an emergency diet could impeach the Chancellor and the defenders could then use their own Chancellor to start recruiting troops). It would also seem wholly ahistoric - in the ECW, ACW etc, the starting armies were rather pitiful in size and quality. It was during the war that the sides recruited and trained masses to their side.

One step might be to say that Civil Wars are always "events" in which the gamemaster has the right to intervene by conjuring up and moving forces as he sees fit. That would remove the need to have complex rules to cover a tricky area, but by puts a lot of responsibility/pressure on Zim (and potentially turns it into a game of who has Zim's ear).

But I still like the "desert-deflect" mechanic I suggested. The idea would be that, whenever a noble joins a civil war, each of their units are subject to a "loyalty" test, which would be harder if the noble's side lacks political support. It would not be to artificially buff the defending side, but to allow for the fact that not all troops could be relied upon to fight against their brothers - especially if the cause was unpopular. (I am thinking of Russia in 1917 and also in the failed "coup" against Gorbachev amongst countless other examples here). The tricky part would be to gauge the degree of political support. What I would suggest is a secret ballot made at the start of the hostility where people voted for side A, B or abstained. The results would modify the loyalty test. This ballot would be a one shot affair, so it would be in civil warrior's interests to build up the popularity before the war - a good thing, IMO, because it would encourage "big" divisive civil wars as opposed to small coup like grabs for power. It would be secret so that people can declare their true sympathies, even if at the start of the war they are remaining neutral (or even playing a double game).

The test could be something simple - e.g. roll a D6.

0 or less defect
1 desert
2 desert
4+ pass

Modifiers could be:

If you have 75% or more support: +2
If you have 50% or more support: +1
If your opponent has 40% or more support: -1
If your opponent has 60% or more support: -2

Note these are percentages of all votes cast - including neutrals.

So in a balanced civil war, both sides would lose 1/3 of their starting units to desertion - making initially massing of a force a bit less effective. Defection would only occur when your opponent has considerable political support. Desertion would not be a problem if a strong majority rally around you.

This mechanic could either be formally in the rules or just one option open to the gamesmaster when running the civil war event. My preference would be for the former, so people can make informed plays and not be tempted to work behind the scenes to influence game mechanics, but adherents of KISS would prefer the latter.

[ULC]

From what I understood from TC, the issue is not so much what the Chancellor does during the civil war - although that is an issue - but what he has done before. You recruit a big army and then declare civil war, not declare first and then recruit. If anything, freezing recruitment during the civil war could aggravate that, not address it as it makes permanent the initial advantage. (If the attackers were very unpopular, an emergency diet could impeach the Chancellor and the defenders could then use their own Chancellor to start recruiting troops). It would also seem wholly ahistoric - in the ECW, ACW etc, the starting armies were rather pitiful in size and quality. It was during the war that the sides recruited and trained masses to their side.

One step might be to say that Civil Wars are always "events" in which the gamemaster has the right to intervene by conjuring up and moving forces as he sees fit. That would remove the need to have complex rules to cover a tricky area, but by puts a lot of responsibility/pressure on Zim (and potentially turns it into a game of who has Zim's ear).

But I still like the "desert-deflect" mechanic I suggested. The idea would be that, whenever a noble joins a civil war, each of their units are subject to a "loyalty" test, which would be harder if the noble's side lacks political support. It would not be to artificially buff the defending side, but to allow for the fact that not all troops could be relied upon to fight against their brothers - especially if the cause was unpopular. (I am thinking of Russia in 1917 and also in the failed "coup" against Gorbachev amongst countless other examples here). The tricky part would be to gauge the degree of political support. What I would suggest is a secret ballot made at the start of the hostility where people voted for side A, B or abstained. The results would modify the loyalty test. This ballot would be a one shot affair, so it would be in civil warrior's interests to build up the popularity before the war - a good thing, IMO, because it would encourage "big" divisive civil wars as opposed to small coup like grabs for power. It would be secret so that people can declare their true sympathies, even if at the start of the war they are remaining neutral (or even playing a double game).

The test could be something simple - e.g. roll a D6.

0 or less defect
1 desert
2 desert
4+ pass

Modifiers could be:

If you have 75% or more support: +2
If you have 50% or more support: +1
If your opponent has 40% or more support: -1
If your opponent has 60% or more support: -2

Note these are percentages of all votes cast - including neutrals.

So in a balanced civil war, both sides would lose 1/3 of their starting units to desertion - making initially massing of a force a bit less effective. Defection would only occur when your opponent has considerable political support. Desertion would not be a problem if a strong majority rally around you.

This mechanic could either be formally in the rules or just one option open to the gamesmaster when running the civil war event. My preference would be for the former, so people can make informed plays and not be tempted to work behind the scenes to influence game mechanics, but adherents of KISS would prefer the latter.

Yes, but the system is comparativly complex compared to ceasing all unit production within the provinces directly controlled by those involved in the civil war.

I swear, there is a non-complex way to solve this, without overburdening the GM, without overpowering the Chancellor, and I will find it!

Wait! What if we allow for the possibility of having those whom war is being declared upon be able to call an emergency session?

[ULC]

Wait! What if we allow for the possibility of having those whom war is being declared upon be able to call an emergency session?

To say, try to impeach or get forced support for troops?

[Zim]

*reaction to Econ's last post, YLC hadn't posted yet when I wrote this...

I guess I'm a little confused. Given that the Chancellor is the guy who can recruit soldiers (true in KOTR and LOTR, although the former didn't have a regular civil war system) it makes sense that getting him to recruit troops for you before declaring war is a good idea.

If after the war the winner succeeded because he managed to ensure he had more troops at the outset...well, that also makes sense to me.

I suppose there are a lot of conditions that maybe should effect how loyal the instigator's troops are. Whether he's seen as a legitimate authority figure, the popularity and perceived righteousness of his cause, his personal charisma and likelihood of attracting supporters... heck, I spent a good time in college studying civil wars and what affects their perceived legitimacy, it's part of earning a degree in Political Science, but I can't see representing those accurately without making things too complicated.

If such a system as suggested were put in place and it was up to me to decide I'd likely make the chances of desertion equal on both sides. If left to the players....well, I'm not sure whether or not that would be a good measure of the popularity of noble x's cause among the common people, who are the majority of the army, not the nobles voting (not to mention that more votes means more time with the game frozen, something I'm trying to avoid in deciding in both this and choosing the Civil War method...).

[econ21]

I guess I'm a little confused. Given that the Chancellor is the guy who can recruit soldiers (true in KOTR and LOTR, although the former didn't have a regular civil war system) it makes sense that getting him to recruit troops for you before declaring war is a good idea.

If after the war the winner succeeded because he managed to ensure he had more troops at the outset...well, that also makes sense to me.

It makes sense from the point of view of rational player behaviour given our rules. I am just questioning whether the game played by those rules is the most fun. "Get a Chancellor elected; recruit; win civil war" sounds a less interesting game than "Get a lot of powerful players on your side; win civil war." But that's just my opinion.

One thing I would like to explore is what we want the PvP system to be for. What kinds of conflicts do we want to lead to PvP action? Then we can review what rules would make them play out the best. Perhaps we could brainstorm on that question and see where it leaves?

Let's start with a few possibilities:

EDIT: 0. War of secession: one party wages war to break away from the faction. This is very historical, but does not really fit M2TW. We don't have a good way to split up the finances etc of a single faction. So I think we should allow this only if it marks the end of the game, ie is of the next type...

1. Terminal civil war: a climactic struggle to end the game, leaving one side utterly victorious and the other dead or exiled. This is the WotS and KotR civil war. Given that such a conflict will be a one off, I think we don't need to worry too much about it - we could improvise as we have done and it would be pretty ok.

2. A grab for power: maybe to depose a King? or a Chancellor? The difference from the terminal war is that it is expected that the game continue after the war is won. In this case, we might want to work out clear rules as it will happen several times. Also, we might want to consider safeguards so that the losers are willing to play on. Perhaps limits on the fate of their avatars or their lands?

3. A war of principle: to me this would be the most fun kind of war to play, where there is a cause beyond self-advancement. An example might be the American Civil War. I am not sure what the principle might be with us - republicanism is what we fixed on in WotS and KotR, but religion and foreign entanglements were also themes. Functionally, this kind of war would look rather like the grab for power. But it would be different in that the "coup" type mechanics we currently have don't feel very right for it. The war of principle should depend more on the allegiances of the many - hence the loyalty test mechanic etc.

4. A war between Duchies: one or more Duchies wanting to weaken a rival Duchy, by taking their land. This might lead to a lot of neutrals or interesting "semi-neutrals. Personally, I am leery about allowing this kind of war. It seems both too big and too messy. I'd rather a civil war was national or limited wtihin a Duchy. Otherwise, we could end up playing 4 or more factions rather than one, and M2TW is just not set up for such decentralisation.

5. A grab for power within a Duchy: this would be like the Swabian Civil war, where different players fight to be Duke. This might lead to some interesting meddling from outside, like Lothar helping the Swabian rebels. But there might have to be some constraints if we are ruling out wars between Duchies - like no noble from another House can fight.

6. An attempt to break away from a Duchy: like Becker in KotR. Again, this seems interesting but perhaps hard to balance.

7. A war between minor nobles. Personally, I would not want to see this - too much effort OOC for too little gain IC.


Anyone have anything to add to this list?

If we identify what kind of wars we want, we can choose rulesets to deal with them.

For example, my preference would be to have one set of rules for "real" civil wars of type 1-3; rules to deal with intra-Duchy conflicts of type 5-6; and not allow 0, 4 or 7.

With real civil wars, we might consider:
(a) there can only be two sides: you are with us or against us. A three or more sided war would just be complicated and ahistorical. This would imply the war would have to be resolved before any other civil wars and indeed intra-Duchy fights.
(b) the Chancellor should not be the only player recruiting units: it just feels utterly wrong. In the ACW, only Washington DC could recruit units...; or worse, IMO, no one could recruit units.
(c) strategic movement could be of the first type TC listed - using in-game restrictions on movement. The war is big enough and important enough that we can take our time.

With intra-Duchy civil wars, we could consider:
(a) there could be multiple conflicts coexisting and inter-mingling: neutrality would make more sense than in a real civil war, where soldiers would probably end up taking sides.
(b) again, the Chancellor recruiting all units does not feel right to me: we could introduce rules to allow local recruitment based on lands and perhaps mercs.
(c) given that these wars are more local, I still think strategic movement of the first type TC listed would be fine. The distances woudl presumably be short, so there would be less risk of a war of words.

Any thoughts? I think if we clarify what we want to simulate, we will be able to identify suitable rules. I am not terribly sympathetic to the KISS argument here, as I think at the moment it's not a question of rule complexity but us not having any rules to cover some of the issues.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I'm not really sure we need to limit PvP here. Eventually, the concept becomes pretty self-policing. LotR, while an extraordinarily lethal game, was especially so when it came to matters of PvP. As a matter of fact, the climatic Battle of Antioch actually stands out in my mind because, if memory serves, every general was actually able to come out alive, and this was only because the dice were exceptionally kind.

If you get into PvP, avatars *will* die, that's a fact of life. I think that concept alone will prevent people from engaging in a war just because they feel like it and compel them to work in more subtle channels to get what they want.

[Cecil XIX]

An interesting categorization of possibilities econ. I actually like the idea of having seperate rule sets for different kinds of conflict, since you'd only have to consider one set of rules at the time it'd still allow us to keep things simple.

Since PVP is the one major issue we have left to resolve, perhaps it should have it's own thread?

[TinCow]

I'm not really sure we need to limit PvP here. Eventually, the concept becomes pretty self-policing. LotR, while an extraordinarily lethal game, was especially so when it came to matters of PvP. As a matter of fact, the climatic Battle of Antioch actually stands out in my mind because, if memory serves, every general was actually able to come out alive, and this was only because the dice were exceptionally kind.

If you get into PvP, avatars *will* die, that's a fact of life. I think that concept alone will prevent people from engaging in a war just because they feel like it and compel them to work in more subtle channels to get what they want.

I completely agree. LotR had total freedom on PvP, and people were still very wary of engaging in it. I think there's too much thought going into when and why it should occur. Just let it occur as it will, the risks involved themselves are enough to keep it from getting out of hand. Most players are not interested in upsetting the system in this manner, which results in a powerful collective security system where aggressors quickly find themselves opposed by a large number of people. PvP is thus more of a risk for the attacker, not the defender. Let those who want to take the risk do so when they feel like it. It's mainly their own necks on the line and it makes the game more interesting for everyone.

[TinCow]

From what I understood from TC, the issue is not so much what the Chancellor does during the civil war - although that is an issue - but what he has done before. You recruit a big army and then declare civil war, not declare first and then recruit. If anything, freezing recruitment during the civil war could aggravate that, not address it as it makes permanent the initial advantage. (If the attackers were very unpopular, an emergency diet could impeach the Chancellor and the defenders could then use their own Chancellor to start recruiting troops). It would also seem wholly ahistoric - in the ECW, ACW etc, the starting armies were rather pitiful in size and quality. It was during the war that the sides recruited and trained masses to their side.

I have no better response to the first bit except Sun Tzu:

"The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."

As for the second part, what you say is true about historical accuracy. However, it is also historically inaccurate during these time periods to have standing armies of any kind. I have no ideas about how to solve this problem that do not make the game too complex. After LotR, I am very wary of complicated rule systems.

[KnightnDay]

Couldn't agree more.

[Cecil XIX]

"The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."

That's very true, but to me seeking battle after victory is really boring. Perhaps I'm the only one who thinks that way, but since this is first and foremost a game what's boring or not is a concern.