Conceptual design of a Wars of the Roses game

**dclare4** · 11-25-2005, 01:35

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** · 11-25-2005, 07:52

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** · 11-25-2005, 17:11

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** · 11-25-2005, 18:45

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** · 11-25-2005, 20:28

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.

**Duke John** · 11-26-2005, 19:11

Thanks for the comments on what you like, Alexander. However, you cannot really train armies. It goes like this: you play some kind of political game with loyalty counters/offices. Then when you think the time is ripe to strike you start a military campaign. You can then choose a certain number of nobles who you wish to back you up. Wether they actually listen to your call of arms depends on their loyalty. If they do then their armies will be visible on the campmap. You cannot control them (part of the excitement) but they will follow logical paths towards a rendez-vous which you can set. You control the royal army and while en route to the rendez-vous you will pick up more regiments depending on how loyal the region is.

Meanwhile the enemy is doing the same and at some point you may decide that you do not wait for your allies but confront the enemy sooner. The enemy may of course do the same as the aim is not so much getting the biggest army as preventing the enemy from doing the same. Your allies may also fight a battle prematurely or even dissolve as the opposing forces make them rethink their allegiance.

You will not fight that many battles as there is a big chance that a heir will be lost during a battle and you only have 4 or 5 heirs. My aim is to give the player a short campaign from which he can remember all battles. When finished it should give the player the feeling that he has rewritten the Wars of the Roses.

I'll take that as a challenge then Adherbal

Cheers,
Duke John