Ah... ideas...

I too was worried about the balance when it came to battes, given the current state of the AI in RTW, and at the moment I tend to agree with the idea of having battles auto-resolved - a bit of a shame, as it means you lose about half of the game. But battles already have an MP mode of their own, damnit

I'm not sure how many players are involved in the Civ3 demogame, or how long each turn takes, but I'd like to think we could get it to about two turns per week if we stick to dedicated players (as part of this, I suggest that only people on this forum who have been promoted above Junior Member level be allowed to take part.)

My initial thoughts on structure were as follows: (Where I refer to governors, I mean humans playing as the leader of the town, not AI)

Faction Leader: Actually plays the turn - although there should be rules to ensure that they play it fairly. Obviously the Total War games are not based around democracies, so it doesn't strike me as being proper that the community should, but the Faction Leader should be listening to advisors, and control over towns and armies should be played according to the desires of whoever is in charge of that town or army. Characters such as assassins would be controlled by the Faction Leader - I can't imagine a sane, sensible Faction Leader having it any other way!

Family Members, Generals, Captains and Governors: Any army or town has a person in charge of it (if we run out of people, I would suggest assigning it to a Family Member until more players join). I would suggest that the towns keep the same person/committee in charge of them as long as the town is in the empire, although perhaps adding rules whereby visiting family-members have some say might be fun, and there should be the possibility of removing governors from power... If two armies merge, the highest-ranking (command) family member or general takes priority, although other generals act as advisors for that army. Family members always take priority over generals, if this is how it works in the game. If the generals are of equal rank, the Leader decides. What happens when armies split up needs deeper thought, and I've not the time for that now I'm afraid

Heirs would know enough about the Kingdom to advise the Leader in all matters. Governors would have ultimate say over their province and city, although their weight beyond this should be limited or perhaps non-existant. Anybody (general, leader, family member, captain, admiral...) in charge of an army has ultimate say over that army. With armies on ships, I would say the general in charge of the army has the final say - he has enough manpower to threaten the admiral An army in a town is governed by the commander of the army, but the town is still governed by the governors (exceptions may include things like extermination - I don't know enough about that yet!)

So although it is only the Faction Leader who plays the turn out, I think that he should be forced to move armies and perform construction, recruitment, taxation etc according to the person in charge of those entities. If he wants to remove them, perhaps he should build some assassins? (Suddenly, I can see all the governors refusing to build assassins!) The faction heir may give orders, but that does not mean his subordinates have to follow them!

When a faction leader dies, his job obviously passes to the next faction heir. Factions heirs can be made by the adoption event from existing generals, but when new ones are born they would have to be chosen from the community - here, I'm wondering if a semi-formal election procedure might be appropriate (it doesn't fit historically, but then nothing could as far as I can tell...)

I guess it's a bit of a moot point, but any thoughts on names for this monster we have created?!

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Bob, I seem to recall there being a number of TETurkhan maps in the PTW expansion, and I think I saw the words Test of Time in there with them at least once - I guess that's a yes Did you ever take part in the Demogames? I'm not sure if I made it clear in my previous thread, but I do not have experience with them - anybody with experience of such things would be really welcome at this stage :)

Also, don't forget that I'm also looking at starting these up for Medieval and Shogun (in fact, since I still can't run Rome...)