Glorious French Empire PBM (GA) !!!

[Revenant69]

Well, after a long hiatus I am back and hungry for more PBM stuff. Since I participated in quite a few of them I feel that the next step is to run one myself (hopefully the community will support me on this).

Quite a few people supported the idea of French GA PBM campaign so I decided to make it happen.

So I shall lay down the parameters for the campaign and some of my own rules which I would like for people to at least try to abide by.


v2.01 (VI with patch)
French, Early, Expert
Glorious Achievement mode
The AI will possess modified treasury (see below)
writeups requested


Rules:

1. The emphasis is on the Glorious achievements, so it would have to be THE predominant driving force in making your decisions. Failure to comply with the GA goal(s) will be dealt with in the harshest manner possible
This does mean that you could start a war with the English in order to recover the Homeland provinces (or any other power for that matter). However, if you are fighting for homeland provinces, you must stop hostilities once you captured these provinces. This will stop overrunning factions just becuse they have your provinces.

2. You MUST roleplay your king. If he is a Coward, then shy away from battle; if he is Merciless, then slaughter everything that crosses your path no matter the consequences; if he is Strange, then do strange things in your empire. If he is Pious then build churches etc. Creativity with roleplaying your kings will be rewarded with warm congrats on my part plus many more people, this I do not doubt.

3. You must not be the sole aggressor all the time. Besides acomplishing GA goals and attacking rebels, attacking Catholic countries without provocation is a major NO-NO. You are, however, free to spread Catholicism whenever and wherever the Pope asks you to do. This means wars on muslims and excommunicated catholic states are deeply encouraged, but only when the Pope says so.

But if you are attacked by a catholic faction in a Pearl Harbor style, then you are free to unleash your whole mighty arsenal at them. Remember, wars of retaliation are OK, wars of aggression must follow strict rules.

4. As a forefront of Catholicism, you MUST listen to the Pope. This entails stopping wars on other catholics within 2 years and keeping the 10 year ceasefire. Exploiting the Pope warning bug is NOT allowed.

5. Lastly, to keep the campaign somewhat organised, i would request the zipped savegames at the end of each person's reign to be sent to me at this address:
xRevenant69x@hotmail.com

You could also upload your savegames to the Org so that people next on the list can proceed with the campaign.
The link is here:
PBM upload to the ORG

Well, this finishes the rules section

Some other Info

As I said above, the AI will possess modified starting treasury to offset the limitations of the Expert mode. This was suggested by Duke John in the following thread:
PBM Ideas

The exact ammount and details of this will be worked out when i get in touch with Duke John, however, you are free to post suggestions on the starting AI treasury.

You will not have to modify anything. Since I will be the first king of France, I will mod my game to give AI the starting treasury, after that everyone will play as normal.

Another thing, to keep things organised I shall have a list. If you are interested in playing as French in a very long PBM, post your expressed interest and your contact email address and I shall add you to the list.
Due to the length of the campaign I am willing to discuss the possiblity of playing multiple kings (just an idea).

Finally, LOL once the critical mass of players has gathered here and expressed their interest and I have the know-how from Duke John I shall begin the campaign.

Cheers and do not be daunted by all the rules - they are there to make the campaign more fun

Viv La France

[Mount Suribachi]

Hmmm, put me down for this one Revenant. I *still* need to download the patch, but this could be a good excuse for doing it I've not played MTW in a while......



Ugh I just volunteered to play as the French I feel so dirty

[Major^3]

sounds cool. count me in.

peterz@mags.net

[Revenant69]

Quote[/b] (Mount Suribachi @ Jan. 04 2004,12:55)]Ugh I just volunteered to play as the French I feel so dirty

LOL
Oh c'mon Mount, they are not so bad. In fact playing them is going to be quite difficult and fun. Besides, how come you do not have the 2.01 patch - it fixes the infamous plague that made the kings die at 56.

Well, I am missing your email, so if you could post it I would be very much pleased.

Major cubed, you have been added to the list, seeing your enthusiasm of joining multiple PBMs is very rewarding but at the same time you would have a lot of work on your hands

Ok so the list so far is:

Revenant69

Mount Suribachi

Major^3

[Mount Suribachi]

PM'd you my email Revenant.


As for the me and the patch, see Mount Suribachi and the Viking Invasion patch

[Major^3]

Quote[/b] (Revenant69 @ Jan. 04 2004,17:03)]
Major cubed, you have been added to the list, seeing your enthusiasm of joining multiple PBMs is very rewarding but at the same time you would have a lot of work on your hands

lol well whichever one i get first i will spend time on first. And im on winter break so i have plenty of time

[Drucius]

Add me please, I'm strangely intrigued.

[The_Emperor]

Though it goes against every natural Instinct in my being, put me down for this

It should be interesting to play the other side of the coin for once...

Quote[/b] ]Ugh I just volunteered to play as the French I feel so dirty

My feelings exactly Mount, oh well just close your eyes and imagine your an English guy who stole the Throne and is surrounded by hordes of beautiful French Women

I think you still have my email don'tcha Rev?

[Revenant69]

Emperor, glad to see you on board

Quote[/b] ]It should be interesting to play the other side of the coin for once...

Haha, it was exactly my thought. And yes, I still have your email.

Allright, the updated list is:

Revenant69

Mount Suribachi

Major^3

Drucius need email address

The_Emperor

All right. So I think we are all set and ready to go. But before we start, any ideas on what the AI starting treasury should be? I currently have it set at 10000 and ours as normal at 4000.

I shall begin my reign in a day or so, once the details for changing AI treasury are clarified.

Cheers


PS As an afterthought, what do you guys think of my rules? Are they sensible, are they Draconian?

[Mount Suribachi]

I like 'em

[Kongamato]

I like to read these sort of things and I'd like to throw in a small suggestion for roleplaying this game if none of you mind.

I suggest that one of the challenge guidelines of the game described earlier ought to be not allowing the king to die an excommunicated man. It might prove fun to race against the clock trying to prevent your eternal damnation.

I just thought I'd suggest that.

[fruitfly]

If everyone plays by the rules, the King should never be excommunicated anyway. I like the idea though - I think I'll give it a try the next time I play as a Catholic.

I'd like to give this a bash, and it looks like the tricky Crac des Chevaliers GA will have been and gone by my reign.

I've PMd my email address to Revenant69.

[TC27]

This sounds absolutely fascinating and very challenging, sign me up

tcollin2@lineone.net

[Revenant69]

Wow, I am impressed by the speed that this campaign is filling up with people I thought noone would want to play French. Heh, I guess I was wrong.

Kongamato, as far as your suggestion goes - it is definitely a great suggestion and I will start observing it in my SP games cuz it will be more fun. However, fruitfly has picked up the essense of this campaign and answered it right on the mark.

Quote[/b] ]If everyone plays by the rules, the King should never be excommunicated anyway.

Short of his Excellency the Pope invading France, the king should never be excommunicated.

So thats that.

[Revenant69]

Allright, the updated list is:

Revenant69
King Philippe I (1087 - ???)

Mount Suribachi

Major^3

Drucius

The_Emperor

fruitfly

TC27


I have received sufficient councelling from Duke John about changing the AI treasury (for this i owe him a pint of his favorite beer) and modded all AI factions to start with 10000 florins and us start with 4000 (as we would on Expert anyway).

Seeing the enormous interest that people have exhibited in this campaign, and in order to keep the momentum going, I have started the campaign.

All hail King Philippe the First

I just had an idea I think it would be kind of kool to have each kings achievements listed next to them on the list, by this i mean the Glorious achievements of course. It would give the kings more personality. What do you guys think?

[Mount Suribachi]

I was thinking that along with the end of reign map we should also post an end of reign screenie of the GA points scroll.

[Revenant69]

Quote[/b] (Mount Suribachi @ Jan. 07 2004,15:28)]I was thinking that along with the end of reign map we should also post an end of reign screenie of the GA points scroll.

Absolutely wicked idea, me like very much I am also going to post a screenie of the next king in line with virtues and vices that sort of stuff

[Revenant69]

Allrighty ladies and gents,

My reign as king Philippe the First of France is officially over. It wasnt a particularly successful reign, in fact it had so many ominous signs that i was terrified to continue, and thought to myself that maybe I bit more than I can chew, that perhaps these rules are too strict. Hopefully France can persevere in the face of many a problem.

Mount Suribachi, the campaign file has been uploaded to the ORG PBM space, you can find it here
PBM directory
Let me know if you experience any problems with the savegame. If you do then i may be able to help you fix it, but hopefully you won't

A wake up call has also been sent to Major^3.

Ladies and gentlemen, the question of infamous Krak des Chevalier is a very tough one. It is already 1114 and France is still unable to launch a crusade to even capture Tripoli. From my experience the AI never ever builds more than a fort in Tripoli (something to do with the province bonus and the horse breeder), so I am afraid that it will remain a fort for a very long long time.

Since it will take 40 years to build all the way up to a citadel [fort - 4(if it is destroyed in invasion), keep - 8, castle - 12, citadel - 16]; this puts our deadline to hold Tripoli in the firm grip of our hand to be at 1160.

So it will fall unto Mount Suribachi and Major^3 to get the job done.

My campaign writeups will follow shortly.

Here is the updated list...

Revenant69
King Philippe I (1087 - 1113)

Mount Suribachi
King Philippe II (1114 - ???) Current King

Major^3

Drucius

The_Emperor

fruitfly

TC27

and finally...
All hail King Philippe the Second

[fruitfly]

I figured that boosting the AI factions starting treasury would make things much harder for whoever went first. With any luck the natural wealth of the French kingdom will see us catch up over time.

Here's hoping Philippe II has a long and successful reign.

[Mount Suribachi]

OK, I gotta dash and watch John Nichol fly in the last airworthy Lightning in the world on Discovery Wings in 5 minutes

VRRRRRRROOOOMMMMMMMM

But hopefully I can d'load this later tonight and get started

[Mount Suribachi]

Oh man, this is hilarious.

Can you believe that King Phillipe II died at 55???????



I double checked that my startup screen said v2.01 (it did)....


Anyway, its 1130 and King Jean II is on the throne. I had a very peaceful 14 year reign - I did have to stop myself launching an attack on the English at the start, but now Aquitane/Anjou have been added to the French homelands GAs, so Major^3 can take 'em out - though I would secure Tripoli first. My king was a sadistic pervent, a Killer Queen if you will so maybe thats why no-one would marry their daughters to him.....

In the end he took a nobles wife, but I think he was more interested in his young squires cos she never got pregnant.......


I have just produced my first ship in Aragorn, and Toulouse is just a finished castle & shipwright away from producing ships. If you keep turning ships out from those 2 provinces you should get to Tripoli well before 1160 (I think its 10 seas away and it takes 3 years to build a ship). I've also started Flanders and Brittany on the road to shipbuilding. In Ile de France I've just built a church, the first step towards building Notre Dame Catherdral and I've started building a chapter house in Aragon, though you might want to build that somewhere else - as long as its built and ready to be launched the second you get a sea lane to tripoli, I just chose Aragon cos it had the highest zeal.

In order to kick start my economy I disbanded a load of Revenants peasants, increasing my annual surplus from 400 to 800 florins and enabling me to start building some infrastructure.

Slava, how do I upload the savegame? Do you just want me to email it to you?

BTW, we're on 16 points, Byz lead with 26 & Italy, HRE & England are on 25.

[Revenant69]

Quote[/b] ]Oh man, this is hilarious.

Can you believe that King Phillipe II died at 55???????

Damn, king dead at 55 - thats really young. Oh well, thats the way the cookie crumbles.

So I gather you didnt have any problems with the savegame Mount? I was afraid that the fact that i changed one of the files (on my machine) may screw up the game on your machine; however, it seems that things went really well in terms of playing around with AI treasury. I now have the necessary know-how to reimplement it many times over MUAHAHAHAHA

Quote[/b] ]I had a very peaceful 14 year reign - I did have to stop myself launching an attack on the English at the start, but now Aquitane/Anjou have been added to the French homelands GAs, so Major^3 can take 'em out - though I would secure Tripoli first.

Yeah I had a similar almost peaceful reign LOL. Ditto on the English, I couldnt wipe them out because their provinces were not in the GA homelands thing. Hehe, what did you think of the german armies on our borders, when i saw those viking i got really scared. Also, when i saw 1700+ peasants in Tripoli i almost laughed - the AIs spending is erratic.

But yes Tripoli is a biggie, hopefully we can reach it (or very close to it) by sea by the time 1150 arrives or so. We dont have to arrive there (although it would be nice), for example, if we can land in Cyrenacia or something and then march onto Tripoli - not a big walk.

Quote[/b] ] Slava, how do I upload the savegame? Do you just want me to email it to you?

Well, I would rather you email it to me, BUT, you can just upload it to the ORG, so that way Major^3 and I can both grab it, two birds with one stone . The link is here (just follow the instructions)
PBM Upload to the Org

Well, Major^3, the fate of Krak des Chevalier is in your hands. This may be the first time you are participating in the PBM, but that doesnt mean that you cannot achieve glory and victory. My prayers are with you. God bless.

PS Remember, we now have a reason to start a war with the English, as they possess our homelands.

PPS Mount can you please wait till i post my writeup before posting yuors? Id like to keep things in the chronological order

PPPS Hehehe, those hordes of peasants that i had were a deterrent for the Germans. I neede to beef up my armies with numbers so that the HRE would not make a move on me. Seems they have done their job

[Major^3]

i would rather it be uploaded as not to strain the email server.
and yes, its first time, but if i do poorly i can blame it on roleplaying.
well, i playever everyturn piss drunk, but it was just to emulate my king i swear


ill check the upload directory sometime tomorrow for it as its not there now. if all else fails, just email it on over.

and just to clarify, it is ok to declare war on the english,yes, if they have our homelands?

[Mount Suribachi]

Revenant, I've tried several times to email you the savegame, but me email keeps dropping the connection halfway through. I've never had a problem before. I'll keep trying - my internet connection has been slow all day mind, stupid dialup

[Mount Suribachi]

right, I think I managed to send it OK.....

[The_Emperor]

Good good good... Sounds like this campaign is progressing nicely.

[econ21]

Revenant - please put me down on the list; I really like your groundrules. My e-mail address is:
simon.appleton@nottingham.ac.uk

[Revenant69]

Woooooooot....new smilies

Ahem, back to the point. Mount Suribachi, your savegame was succesfully downloaded and viewed. It has now been uploaded to the PBM space on the ORG, so Major^3, you can download it from here (the file is TheFrench1130.zip)

A wake up call has been sent to Drucius.

Quote[/b] ]Revenant - please put me down on the list; I really like your groundrules.

Consider it done and thanks for the compliment, the rules are there to make the campaign more fun.

Ok so the updated list is....

Revenant69
King Philippe I (1087 - 1113) The Damned

Mount Suribachi
King Philippe II (1114 - 1129) Killer Queen

Major^3
King Jean II (1130- ???) Current King

Drucius

The_Emperor

fruitfly

TC27

Simon Appleton

[Revenant69]

Quote[/b] ]and just to clarify, it is ok to declare war on the english,yes, if they have our homelands?

Yes, Major^3, it is OK, but only if they have our homelands. This goes for any power that has our homelands. Later on it's going to be Byzantines with their island of Rhodes, if memory serves correctly.
However, you must remember that if you start a war with the English because they have our homelands, then you must restrict your conquest to those homelands ONLY.
Well, let me know if you need some other clarifications.

I took a look at the current situation of French Kingdom, and not all is bad. In fact we are doing OK, or so it seems. We are somewhat behind on the GA scale with only 16 points. Byzantines and numerous other countries lead the GA race with 26 points. However all that is about to change once we start acomplishing some GA goals.

A remarkable thing was observed by one of our princesses. Tripoli is currently controlled by Rebels. It may seem very exciting at first as the thought of bribing them is very very very tempting; however, this would violate the Crusade to Tripoli GA goal. Bottom line is that Tripoli must be captured by a crusade. On the positive side, if Tripoli does remain in rebel hands before it is captured by a crusade, then we would not have to fear the reprisals and massive build up of AI armies in that province as the factions normally do. But I think that this scenario is unlikely.

I must say Mount Suribachi did a commendable job on developing the infrastructure of France. I did some calculations, and we can reach the coast of Tripoli in 13 years assuming nonstop production and calm seas. Oh yes, we would have to make some sacrifices to Poseidon to keep the seas calm as a loss of even a single ship can put us back by 3 years.

Germans are still ready to pounce on us, their massive armies on our borders are not gathered there for a picnic. however, so far they havent done it so maybe we will be spared, who knows.

Finally, Aquitaine is in our GA homelands. So this gives us a reason to declare war on the Brits and take our province. It would link up Brittany and Toulouse and also cut off the Brits in Navarre. Hopefully that will make the small garrison in there rebel, in which case we can take it, thus having impenetrable and the most secure border on the south with Navarre and Aragon as border provinces.

Enough of my musings.
Cheers,
Rev

[Revenant69]

Great Chronicle of King Philippe's reign


Where to begin....This question always looms when I write. To start a chronicle is the most difficult thing to do, compared only to predicting the future, which has its own ghastly difficulties. But predicting the future is easier in some ways as you do not really need to know the past. In order to start a sensible and complete chronicle one must know the past of the person or persons that he is writing about.

But I feel tired and currently feel the effects of opium, so as I take my quill I have decided to only give a brief account of Philippe's history before he was crowned King of France.
..........
Philippe was not a very religious man. Surely he believed in God, but his beliefs were sometimes misguided. Perhaps this explains why I was such a central person in his court. He was only dimly aware of the omnipotent forces that guide our daily lives. Ignorance will not save this man from his fate when the Day of Judgement is at hand

However, for all his religious incompetence and deficiencies, Philippe was a calculating personality and had excellent educational background that honed him into a person destined to hold the title of King of France. It was said by many nobles in the court that there was no wiser man than King Philippe when it came to the matters of finance. And indeed there was no better man than Philippe. He was remarkable and able to set up such complex financial schemes that it would probably take even the most adept monk a matter of years to develop. This financial zeal has gained the Kingdom thousands of florins and the Royal Treasury always had a sizeable stockpile of gold, silver and other precious metals.

Needless to say, I took a fair advantage of the financial well-being of the Kingdom. To do my part I was able to convince Philippe that as supreme astrologer I required various silks, large quantities of opium, large quantities of rare metals (including gold), ink, quills, my own library of rare and ancient books, barrels of whiskey, wine from Champagne for my meditations, 3 rooms in the royal castle, different animal skins, ivory, encrusted jeweled daggers to perform exsorcism, 5 servants, annual salary worthy of a decent nobleman and various other small items not worth mentioning here. Philippe was very generous and accomodated every one of my requests. And so I remained his loyal man of the occult as he liked to call me.

Philippe was crowned King of France at the age of 36. He inherited a fractured kingdom with both Brittany and Toulouse being cut off from the seat of government in Paris. Well, see, techically they were not cut off as the King of England was a nominal vassal of the King of France, but the reality was much different. English king openly flouted Philippe's authority and was increasingly hostile, imposing large taxes on all those who wished to travel between the French heartland and the provinces of Brittany and Toulouse. This irritated Philippe greatly. But for all his ingenuity, he was unable to find a single pretext of rectifying the situation.



I remember Philippe's coronation. It was a very splendid ceremony and it seemed that entire Paris was invited. Thousands, no tens of thousands, no hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets to see and greet the new King as the Royal procession neared the church of Saint Jacques. There the Archbishop of France himself placed the beautiful jeweled crown on Philippe's head proclaiming him to be the King of France and Savior of the Church. Little did the archbishop know about Philippe's religious faults but that did not matter. Afterwards there followed a great banquet, all nobility was invited, me included. Sometime during the banquet Philippe turned to me and asked me if I could see how successfull his reign would be. I reassured him that I would do as he asked but that it may take some time, gazing into the future is a very strenuous excercise. I requested the usual supply of wine, whiskey, opium, ink and parchment to do the gazing.

It took me a week to do the apropriate preparations and meditations. After a gruelling 24 hours of gazing into the future I emerged from my room severely shaken and distraught so much so that my servant thought I was Satan himself. I sent word to Philippe to let him know that I had finished my predictions. When I arrived at the Royal Chamber I saw Philippe sitting in his office chair, writing something with a gold covered quill pen.

So, my man of the occult, have you attended to the service that I have requested of you? he asked.
I have, Your Majesty said I.
Well, tell me then what did you foresee? asked the King again.

To highten the effect of what I was about to say I wore my dark priestly robe and spoke in an unusally high voice, I do not doubt that people halfway across the palace could hear me. This is what I had to say.

HEED MY WARNING KING OF FRANCE,
GREAT FAMINE SHALL ENGULF YOUR REALM
THIS WILL BE NO PURE CHANCE
ENTIRE FRANCE WILL IT OVERWHELM

GREAT FLOOD WILL CLEANSE THE WICKED
AND THEIR CRIES SHALL BE HEARD
IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED
LIKE A SLAUGHTERED HERD

GREAT PLAGUE WILL EAT AWAY
AT THE MULTITUDE DISMAYED
BY THE COUNTRY IN DECAY
BY THOSE OF A FAILED CRUSADE

WAR SHALL GRIP YOU LIKE A VICE
MOUNTAINS WILL FILL UP WITH BLOOD
AND YOU WILL ROLL DAMNATION DICE
TO SEE YOUR MEN KILLED IN MUD

THIS WARNNG I BEQUETH ON YOU
TO IGNORE AT YOUR PERIL
AND NOW I MUST BID ADIEU
LEST I BE MISTAKEN FOR A DEVIL

My speech seemed to have had an enormous impact on the king. He was visibly shaken and pale, with his mouth hanging open and eyes wide with a grimace of fright on his face. Time will tell if the warning had any effect or not. It did, however have an effect on the nobility in Philippe's court. Strange rumours began circulating and different versions of my speech were secretly discussed by many a nobleman.
..........

PS More to follow. Pics will be added later on as well.