Conceptual design of a Wars of the Roses game

[Duke John]

I am longtime fan of the Wars of the Roses and it has always been a wish to create a game that captures the atmosphere of the period. I tried it with M:TW, but after I finished a few units I abandoned it as soon as R:TW hit the shelves. Now I have learned a lot about scripting and I am beginning to believe that I can finally make my wish a reality.

However I am stuck in the conceptual design. I have a few ideas, but before I press on and make it a real project I need to have the ideas thought out resulting in a concept that should work. Below are a few of them:

Interface
I will eliminate the standard user interface of R:TW. Instead there will be 3D objects on which the player can click or which will display information. A book will show events or general information of nobles, a writing feather will show the diplomatic view/options while a sword will enable military view/options.

Game phases
There are no regular turns, in fact the whole game will be played within a single turn. However with the use of scripts there will be turns which probably are divided into phases; political, military

Campaign map
The R:TW map will be replaced with a map a la M:TW since I find the boardgame style much more suiting for the atmosphere. The map will get the look of a parchment map laying on a wooden table. There will be shires and some of them will be divided up to give more options in movement.

Armies
There will be no techtree. There was no real standing army during this period. Instead armies were mustered when needed and disbanded when the campaign ended, which only lasted for a few weeks at the most. If an army is ordered to be mustered it will be created in the shire of the noble, which can then be picked up. As a result of this the opposing factions will need to fight a strategic game in which they try to pick up as many friendly armies while preventing the opponent from doing the same (as it happened in history).
The composition of armies will be set (with perhaps a little randomization) with more powerfull armies having more and better equipped troops. Troops will have their own livery and banners so when you have several nobles you will see their personal regiments on the battlefield.

Fully scripted strategic AI
The strategic AI also gets ditched and I will make scripts that will ensure that the computer opponent can cope with these new rules.

Royal family
The game places you in the role of either the Lancastrian or Yorkist family. You have will have 4 or 5 heirs in your royal family and it is your aim to elimate the entire opposing royal family.

Nobles
The royal army is not very large so you need to depend on allied nobles. To attract the nobles you will need to play a political game. I was thinking that you receive a number of loyalty counters which you can give to the nobles. Once a noble has enough loyalty you can ask him to raise troops once you start a campaign. However the other faction can also place counters. As their loyalty changes they may decide to not answer your call-to-arms or switch sides.

Events
Coronation: to make your heir king you need to move him into the London area. The opposing faction can hinder you by blocking the way with an army. The coronation is important since kingship will you give more loyalty counters.
Alliance with France: this will give the Lancastrian faction the option to flee to the continent. You will also receive French mercenaries.
Alliance with Burgundy; this will give the Yorkist faction the option to flee to the continent. You will also receive Burgundian mercenaries.

Random events
Most boardgames have a stack of cards that introduce random events and this could be interesting to spice up the game a bit.

Evasion
When the situation in England has gone particularly bad, for example after a big battle leaving you with no forces it is possible to evade. The Yorkists can flee to Ireland or Burguny when allied. The Lancastrians can flee to Scotland or France when allied. When in these countries the heir/king can play a political game by encouraging revolts by loyal nobles and once the chance is there he will be given local troops and a single chance to return to England and reclaim the throne.

Battles
The auto-generated maps will also be removed (what am I keeping? ). Instead the battles will all be played on custom maps so they will be far more interesting than the barren wastelands of R:TW. Once a battle has ended a seperate script will tell which nobles have been captured or killed. Captured nobles can be executed (if possible to script). If a noble is dead then he will either be replaced by his son or by a new noble family who is loyal to your faction.
Since you cannot raise armies that easily your situation will be very uncomfortable when you lose a battle. This will make the battles more dramatic as the future of your faction can depend on the outcome.



Hopefully you now understand that this idea is to create something entirely different from the other mods, so you shouldn't compare them. I want to make gameplay similar to that of boardgames so the conceptual design is also different then of the other mods which are primarily about how to fill the factions slots and techtree. I need to create new rules and I ask for your help. Above you could read a few features but it still feels a bit empty and I am still not sure wether it would be worth the effort. So my question to you is wether you could come up with features, rules or other ideas to make this concept more appealing.


Cheers,
Duke John


P.S. Please do not question/comment on the technical issues. I am not really troubled with them as most of them are already tested.

[King Ragnar]

Just wondering, you say all the technical issues are tested, is there any screenshots just to prove it, im not doubting you i just would like to see.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

If you do half of that, I'll name my next dog after you. And perhaps my children.

[Duke John]

King Ragnar, I don't have the bits modded into the game anymore. And you wouldn't have seen much anyway.

Alexander the Pretty Good, what do you like especially? From your reaction I gather that you like the concept, but what makes it so appealing to you? If I know that then I could strengthen it. At the moment I have only myself and I really need more input to continue.

[GrimSta]

just a little idea for the nobles, perhaps when you win a battle in whihc you are outnumberd, say 2:1 or more, and there is a noble nearby, it could increase their loyalty (they will start to see you as a "proper englishman" and a good leader too)
eg:

2:1 +1.5% loyalty
3:1 +2.5% loyalty
4:1 +3.5% loyalty
etc etc

[Geoffrey S]

Sounds good. I particularly like the way it lends itself to a more structured game, allowing you more freedom as to what the AI can get up to and hence allowing a more capable strategic AI to be implemented.

Best of luck!

[dclare4]

Dang? That sounds like a whole new game! Yeah if even half of that is possible... wow!

You're right about the need for the game to be fought over a more boardgamey style map. The battles were less for land and conquest as they were for political power.

Was thinking for the minor nobles/leaders you could make specially recruitable retinues that would only be available in that leader's particular area like Bonville, Roos, Scrope, Devreaux.

If you can find a way to make factions more loyal and not have them change sides every two turns you could take advantage of more factions probably. Then again it will be easier, office and title wise to have just two factions and regional-recruitable nobility.

If you know enough about scripting you got it all over the rest of us. I'm limited to thinking 'within the box'.

Was thinking of having a 'Parliament section' - you create a landmass surrounded by mountains or other impassable terrain and within you have nothing but diplomats of the various factions. Thus you always have diplomatic channels open because they can't kill each other and wheeling and dealing becomes more important than battlefield victories.

Thinking of factions based on BI:

Lancaster - WRE
Tudor - WRR (the rebel factions would function not as rebels but as a sort of emergent faction that comes into play on the faction's demise or plays second fiddle to the main faction and takes over the rights of the faction when it disappears)

York - ERE
de la Pole - ERR

Mowbray/Howard of Norfolk (Earl Marshal who would start out neutral and is courted by both sides for his potential power)
Stafford of Buckingham (could head the 'moderate' Lancs w/c can come to an accomodation with the Yorkists)
Beaufort of Somerset (alternately he could be in command of the diehard Lancs and the Lanc party, dudes like Clifford, de Vere and Holland)
Neville of Warwick (this faction would technically be split up into something like three - old Neville of Salisbury should be Richard Duke of York's loyal compatriot, young Neville of Warwick should be the leader of the main Neville faction with his brothers as 'heirs' and ancient Neville of Westmorland would be a pretty weak but present rival)
Percy of Northumberland (leader of the northern Lancs)
Talbot of Shrewsbury (leader of the Welsh Lancs)
Courtenay of Devon (leader of the West Country Lancs)
Fitzalan of Arundel (leader of the moderates and minor nobility)
Stanley
Herbert (along with Devreaux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, leader of the Yorkist Welsh)
Hastings
Audley/Touchet (leader of the north midland lords)

Foreigners and Irish
Scotland - under king James
Douglas - his main rival
France - under king Louis. Burgundy could be abstracted.
Butler of Ormonde - chief Lanc lord in Ireland
Fitzgerald of Desmond - chief York lord in Ireland

One model I can probably point to is the Paradox game Crusader Kings. It's got the best (to my knowledge) noble-vassal and inheritance and family relationship system in computer gaming today. I was trying to mod a War of the Roses game in it but the project was WAY over my head and no one was interested so I threw in the towel (I did get as far as modding in the Courtenay and Bonville families from the west country - which surprisingly are cousins!!) The lovely thing here was you DID NOT gain power by gaining land - you needed to break up your holdings and give away stuff to vassals to keep them happy and to maintain effective control cuz if you controlled too much territory you got a management penalty. So vassalage as well as granting titles (and I modded some titles into offices) was key to the game. Now if you can figure out a way to replicate this in RTW then I'll play Lord Stanley and crown you king at Bosworth!

Best of luck!
Clare

[Duke John]

GeoffreyS
The AI will only be as clever as I can script it, but I have confidence that it can be a bigger threat than the R:TW AI that sends in armies in pieces.


GrimSta
I cannot use percentages but I am tinkering with the idea to implement some kind of "critical mass". After Towton and Tewkesbury the Lancastrians were severely beaten and they had no hope of recruiting new armies anywhere in uthe near future. A few uprisings faded away once they heard of a major victory. So in the game your aim is to set up a big battle and win it so you can make a statement saying: "I am the rightfull king!". But if you lose then run fast since England won't be a safe place anymore. And that will make battles quite a bit more dramatic.


Ah, I was expecting you already Clare

Was thinking for the minor nobles/leaders you could make specially recruitable retinues that would only be available in that leader's particular area like Bonville, Roos, Scrope, Devreaux.

Each noble will get retinues with their own livery and banners. And the retinues will only be available in the shire that the noble controls.

Was thinking of having a 'Parliament section' - you create a landmass surrounded by mountains or other impassable terrain and within you have nothing but diplomats of the various factions.

Diplomats or other agents are not used in this game since the diplomatic system would not work. However, do you know wether parliament can be put in the mod somehow? In Kingmaker parliament could be called and depending on the number of votes a player has he could assign empty offices (noble died).

So vassalage as well as granting titles (and I modded some titles into offices) was key to the game. Now if you can figure out a way to replicate this in RTW then I'll play Lord Stanley and crown you king at Bosworth!

Perhaps it would have added more replay value if you could control a noble, but that would also mean that there would let's say 15 factions. Since the AI is entirely scripted and the scripting commands are far from flexible it would quickly result in hundred thousands of script lines... which perhaps isn't impossible after all...
Do you know the boardgame Kingmaker? In that game you control a group of nobles (which vary during the game) and the goal is to be the one that controls the sole king at the end of the game.
I did think about wether the mod should take the noble point of view. But then you would be stuck with playing mostly with just the noble's retinues. When playing the king you can control many nobles and seeing all their colours on the battlefield is one of the main attractions of this mod.

I don't think that I could script vassalage. And even then it would probably mean using not user-friendly solutions since my tools are limited. But I might be able to include granting titles.

I'm limited to thinking 'within the box'.

Try thinking in terms of boardgames; counters, cards, pieces and a limited amount of them. It's less flexible than a computergame but that doesn't always mean less fun or challenge. Don't think in variables, tons of names/titles/nobles or complicated formulas since I cannot script that.

Cheers,
Duke John

[King Ragnar]

SO are you going for a type of Risk campaign? But with RTW battles, if so will be cool if made. Good Luck

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Duke John - some of the things I like are:

Shiny New Stuff - if possible, make this mod as different from RTW as possible. New interfaces, new concepts, new campaign map, all make this a new experiance.

Less Micromanagement - it sounds like armies are created very differently. I've always wanted to generate a full-fledged army in less than a year for use in game - as long as it is historically balanced (meaning painfully expensive). Also, adjusting the movement ala MTW reduces micromanagement (I would think; I don't know how you plan on doing this).

More Macromanagement - if that isn't a word, I'll patent it. I like the ideas of a bigger world with things like real, working allies, coronations, places to flee to, more dynamic-sounding families. Give me more to do than conquer, conquer, build, conquer.

[Lord Adherbal]

no offence, but after what happened to Sengoku Jidai I think you should either try to get your feet back on the ground and actualy make a mod instead of trying to come up with insane ideas that I doubt you'll ever pull off - or you should program your own game instead of trying to turn RTW into a completly different game.

Either way, good luck with this. I think you may need it.