V&V OOC/Signup Thread I

[phonicsmonkey]

It's not true to say that it was impossible to stop Zirn from taking Milan. I hope I had made this clear earlier to both parties, but if one had been at war with the other than it would have been decided via PVP Battle.

There seems to be three issues of contention:

1. Lothar taking control of settlements that haven't been granted to him.

2. Lothar refusing to pay money to other electors that is legally required of him.

3. Tristan being able to take Milan largely because he was able to get the save first.

Nothing about this is the fault of any of the players. I take resonsibility for any discontent for not acting early and decisively enough to avoid this, as none of these issues crept up out of nowhere.

Hey no worries Cecil, we can work it all out now.

Actually on point 3 I would say rather that my issue is that he was able to take Milan without having to go through me, despite the fact that IC I made it clear to him that I would stand in his way. On top of that he was able to waltz right back out again wtih 9k florins in loot which the Prinz had his eye on (the purpose for besieging Milan in the first place! I believe I should have been able to force him to show his hand by declaring war on me before he entered the city. The onus should have been on him to fight his way in.

However I'm happy to let this slide now if I get a chance to fight him for that cash now (as per my below comment).

1. Lothar did have control over Genoa, a regretable oversight on my part. However, it's now part of the Kaiser's desmense as per the rules (It was listed as his in the last turn's report) and he must take it by force if it is to be returned to him. Although it shouldn't have been necessary, personally I do like the idea that the Kaiser must manually assert his right to newly conquered provinces. This is the best solution I have seen to the conflicting interets of having a stable, understable system for allocating provinces while allowing for a rebel to appear and succeed if the system lacks defenders. Still, that was obviously not the orginal intent of the language. I think that in order to make it easier to understand how provinces are assigned it would be best to eliminate the part in rule 6.11 where new provinces are automatically given to the Kaiser and reconcile it into rule 3.4, which was supposed to be the sole rule dealing with new provinces. Right now they're both equal law despite their contridictions.

6.11 came out of the Kaiser's re-assertion of control after the civil war. IC he was able to assert more power and control over the process of distributing settlements because he had all-but vanquished his enemies. So I think 3.4 should give way to 6.11 and the Kaiser should have automatic right of decision over all new settlements, until such a time as we might pass a Diet vote to amend the rule. Not sure if that's what you meant...

2. Lothar refusing to hand over money means breaking a rule of the Diet, not a rule of the game. The money must first come into his posession before he can hand it over to the Reichmarshall fund. Although the law can make it mandatory for one Elector to give money to another, all electors have the option to simply not give up money that's in their posession to another Elector. If an Elector does this, and will not listen to reason, he must listen to force. This aspect of money is different from provinces and soldiers/agents/ships work because simply because money itself is different to those things. It also doesn't mean an Elector can avoid paying for recruitment and construction. Simply put, payment from one elector to another can be automatic, but never mandatory. This should be clearly stated in the rules, and currently it isn't, which is my fault.

I'm happy for the rules to be clarified in this way and it makes sense IC that a rebel can decide not to hand over income. However, I think that if a rebel decides to hold on to a settlement in defiance of the Kaiser or refuse to pay income he should be automatically viewed as having declared war on the Reich unless there are IC negotiations to the contrary.

3. Leopold couldn't stop Lothar because of a failure to provide a rule that eliminates the unfairness of who takes the save first, which is clearly an OOC issue. I was hesitant to do anthing about this because it would have made making up a new rule on the spot to resolve it, but in restrospect it might have been better to require a PVP fight. In anycase, the rules are definitely unfair in this regard and need to be fixed. Perhaps whoever is of the highest rank should get the right of first refusal, i.e. counts must respect Dukes unless they are willing to declare war.

It's an interesting philosophical question about temporal precedence. Do all the actions that take place during one turn happen simultaneously, or in the order that the players take the save? If the latter there is unfairness as to who grabs it first. If the former we need some kind of decision-making process to handle such things as competition for precedence at sieges etc.

I like your idea of first refusal according to rank - but what if two Dukes are in a stand-off with each other? Does it become influence-based? And then if equal perhaps the influence of their combined House members? Or maybe the Kaiser is a tie-breaker?

And I think that if IC a rebel decides to ignore the rule then that should place him in an automatic state of war with the Reich and the other player should have the option of giving battle before the rebel enters the city.

Now, regarding our imminent PVP battle. Frankly I did not anticipate a battle ever breaking out when both sides are in the city.

According to your first point above Lothar should not have had control of Genoa anyway, so maybe the best thing is to say that the Prinz' army caught him outside the city and gave battle, before he entered?

A separate question is where is Lothar's treasury if not in Genoa? And if I kill him do I get access to that cash?

Because if not I'm going to have to go back to my complaint about not being able to stop him getting in (and out of!) Milan to seize all that loot in the first place. It's the money I'm really worried about.