Online Campaign

[LadyAnn]

I am starting a thread here to let it evolves, with help from the community. Here is how the process works:

1. I'll post the rules of the campaign in the next post and will edit the rules as it evolves.

2. Opinion from the community is appreciated and will be incorporated, but there is no guaranteed they will make it to the final rules. This is to keep the rules simple and lift the process off the ground. We will refine the rules further later.

3. This is not to compete with any other online campaign in formation or in progress out there. I encourage people to participate in other campaigns and tournements so that we can gain insight on how things will work out.

PBEM Diplomacy is Play-by-email Diplomacy. Diplomacy is a board game that is over half a century old. PBEM uses modern email technology to bring people together.

Here is a short run-down of the Diplomacy game play by email.

Diplomacy is played over a map with provinces, similar to MTW strategic map.

Diplomacy is turn-base, again, like MTW. The turns are usually 4 per year, with 2 turns Spring and Autumn are moves turn (order the armies to move around) and 2 others are adjustment turns (Winter and Summer). Armies are created or destroyed on purpose (other than destroyed during battle) only in winter turn, and provinces change hands in winter turn.

The map has two kind of "spaces": province is land, sea is water. Provinces could be coastal (adjaccent to a sea), inland (non-coastal) or impassable (mountain too high armies cannot go through). Provinces also has two attributes: have supply center (SC) or not. Some supply centers are home supply centers of a power, others are neutral.

In Diplomacy, there is only two kind of combat units: a fleet or an army. An army only goes on land (except being transported via fleets). A fleet can go on coastal provinces or on sea. A fleet can "transport" an army.

Rules to fight on Diplomacy is very simple and usually is based on numerical superiority. You gang 3 armies on a province and the defenders only have 2, then you win the province. Am not going into the intricacy of the Diplomacy rules for battle, because we are replacing that with MTW online Multiplayer battle. I'll retain some of the aspects of the Diplomacy army movement rules to make it a strategic game, not just a tactical one (reserve the tactical to the MP battlefield).

The economic model of Diplomacy is also very simple. Control of a supply center allow you to field a unit (a fleet or an army). At the end of the year, you will count how many SC you have and build more army or disband army to adjust your military might.

Everyone begins at 3 or 4 home supply centers. There are 34 supply centers in total, 12 neutral SC, 22 home SC.

OK, enough of the Diplomacy game so you get the basic idea. next posts will be the rules.

Annie

[LadyAnn]

PBEM MEDIEVAL TOTAL WAR RULES Version 0.1 (unstable proposal)

MAP
Campaign Map is TBD
Battle Maps are TBD

FEATURES OF CAMPAIGN MAP
1. TYPES
There are the following types: SEA, PROVINCE.
PROVINCE could be: COASTAL, INLAND, IMPASSABLE.
PROVINCE could have: MAJOR SUPPLY CENTER, MINOR SUPPLY CENTER, NO SUPPLY CENTER.
PROVINCE could be: HOME, NEUTRAL.

2. NUMBER OF NEIGHBORS
Each province has no more than 7 adjaccent neighbors. This is to limit the battles to maximum 8 armies (an MTW limitation).


TURNS AND SEASONS

1. YEAR
A year has 4 SEASONS: SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER.
Tax is collected once a year after harvest (end of AUTUMN), in WINTER. Conscript levy and mercenaries are hired at the same time.

2. SEASONS
Major campaign movement is done in SPRING and AUTUMN. Battles will be waged across 4 seasons.

3. START DATE
The start date is 1100, WINTER.

4. ERAS
The era are: 1100-1200: early, 1201-1300: high, 1301-... late.


FACTIONS

1. ACTIVE FACTIONS

There are 12 factions: ALMOHADS, BYZANTINES, DANES, EGYPTIANS, ENGLISH, FRANKS, GERMANS, ITALIANS, POLES, SPAIN, RUSSIANS and TURKS. Group of players control a faction.

Although there is no Russian state as such in early era, there is a power at the Northeast corner.

2. NEUTRALS
Neutrals are defended by individuals not part of the groups in factions above (rebels).

The following is the list of NEUTRAL powers and their army types: TBD.

Papacy has no real power and is like any other neutrals. There won't be excommunication nor crusade/jihads.

There is no Golden Horde.

NEUTRAL cannot attack and can only defend. Factions can help neutral defend against attack from another faction.


ARMY TYPES

1. FACTION'S TYPE
An army of a particular faction must use their respective faction army to fight battle, except Russia.

In early era, Russian can chose to use a Polish army or a Danish army (due to restriction of MTW).

2. ARMY WITHOUT BOATS
Army without boats, or ARMY, can move on COASTAL and INLAND provinces.

3. ARMY WITH BOATS
Army with boats or FLEET can move on SEA and COASTAL.

4. CONVERSION FROM FLEET TO ARMY
FLEET can abandon boats in order to move INLAND. When boat is abandoned, the FLEET becomes an ARMY.
Abandoned boats could be DESTROYED or LEFT-ON-SHORE. LEFT-ON-SHORE boats could be picked up by any ARMY including the enemies.

5. CONVERSION FROM ARMY TO FLEET
ARMY can become FLEET when pick up boats on a coastal province.

6. BUILD BOATS

ARMY COMPOSITION
An army strength is determined by the number of Florins it is assigned to. There is no predetermined troops nor units. Within a given florin amount, the general will spend on troops in battlefield.
The costs of the boats are not part the fleet strength in battle.

CONTROL OF A PROVINCE

ARMY ACTIVITIES
Army can do the following:
1. INVADE A PROVINCE
An army invade a province by moving from the current province to an adjaccent province.
Multiple armies of same faction move to the same province will be merged to become 1 army of the combined florin strength.

2. SUPPORT AN INVASION
An army can lend support of another army's invasion of a province. In this case, the army that lends support stays in the current province after the battle and cannot claim control of the invaded province.
Support invasion is void if:
1. the supporting army cannot go to the province itself;
2. the current province where the supporting army is based is attacked by another army. The supporting army needs to defend its base, thus voiding the support to another army.
Support of invasion is not limitted to same faction: any faction can lend support to another faction to invade a province.


SETUP BATTLE

[Sjakihata]

I have a question.

Let us say I have province X (non-costal/inland), and want to invade pronince Y (costal province). The defender has 2 units (one army one fleet garrisoned at province Y. When I invade I will face a fleet and an army, how will the fleet be incoporated?

Well, I have a suggestion that follow the Diplomacy battle system apparently. For every ship in the feet, the opponent should remove one army unit (MTW unit).

EDIT:
and by the way, good initiative...

[LadyAnn]

Fleet will be fought on coastal as army. I'll come to that in the army type section. But here is a preview:

Fleet is a short-hand notation for "army-with-boats". A fleet will fight on a coastal province. Two fleets will fight on a near by beach.

Rationale of this is:
1. Since there is no real naval battle in MTW, all battle must happen on a land map.
2. It is not uncommon to have armies using boats to transport, but fight on land.
3. We don't want the simplistic "boat" system of MTW. We may want a system where the sea is controlled the same way as the land is controlled by army, to fully use the entire map for strategic purpose.

I will not follow strictly the Diplomacy's naval rules either, because it may not be suitable for MTW. But the idea of "army-with-boats" is borrowed from a variant of Diplomacy.

EDIT: to clarify further: a fleet is a real army, not a single boat. It only differs with regular army in the ability to go on water and the restriction of not able to support or attack inland province.

Annie

[LadyAnn]

Ideas on compressing play time.

As you could see, to use up all 300+ years with 4 seasons (although there is only 2 major movement turns per year) means a lot of time spending doing nothing, or war is constantly waged and the domination is achieved over within 20 years or so.

I am thinking about a rule that permits compression of time. The period between major campaigns where nothing happens should be compressed. Doing it fairly is another matter.

If anyone has any good idea, please ...

Annie