Conceptual design of a Wars of the Roses game

[Duke John]

You can certainly help! I need the coat-of-arms of the nobles controlling the following shires around 1460:
Durham
Lincoln
Cambridge
Sussex
Surrey
Northampton
Leicester
Cumbria
Hampshire
Clwyd
Gwynedd
Powys
Dyfed
Hereford
Bristol
Exeter

A link towards a image or description of the coat-of-arms will suffice.

Thanks,
Duke John

[tutankamon]

sure be right back..

[Duke John]

I have streamlined the concept of counters a bit more. I hope to get screenshots soon enough to explain it a bit more, but if all goes well then it will be very easy to understand for the player. Each element on the strategic map will have one function and some functions use Power Counters to work while others simply require the presence of a certain amount of Loyalty or Popular Support Counters. You will read something about the coat-of-arms section of the strategic map. This is a column of all nobles and heirs with their own heraldic shield. Nobles have next to them their loyalty rating, while heirs have space for Power Counters and Popular Support Counters. Anyway, here is a piece of the Design Document:

COUNTERS

Power Counters
These are placed under the heirs of a faction at the coat-of-arms section of the strategic map. The player can this way see how many he has left. They are placed at the beginning of the political phase and any unspent counters can be kept up to a certain maximum. The player can thus save for an all-out attack.

The amount of Power Counters that a faction receives depends on the following:
Total Popular Support Counters:
1; -2
2; -2
3; -1
4; -1
7; +1
8; +1
9; +2
10; +2
Each Noble with a loyalty of 4; +1

Loyalty Counters
These are placed right next to the noble's Heraldic Shield on the Coat-of-arms section of the map. They represent the loyalty of a noble towards either the Lancastrians (red rose) or Yorkists (white rose). A noble can have up to 4 counters of one kind. If no counters are present then the noble is neutral. The amount of loyalty gives the following effects:
4 LCs; 100% chance that the noble will raise troops, +1 Power Counter
3 LCs; 100% chance that the noble will raise troops
2 LCs; 80% chance that the noble will raise troops
1 LC; 50% chance that the noble will raise troops, 10% chance per turn that the noble will chance sides.
0 LCs; 5% chance per turn that the region rebels, 10% chance that it will randomly choose a side.

The loyalty of a noble can be influenced the following way:
Faction spends 3 Power Counters; +1
Total Popular Support Counters:
1; -2 per turn*
2; -1 per turn*
9; +1 per turn
10; +2 per turn
* Does not affect nobles with 3 or 4 loyalty counters.

Popular Support Counters
These are placed under the heirs of a faction at the coat-of-arms section of the strategic map. Kings and heirs need to be supported by population as without it they can hardly claim to be the rightful king of England. This idea is represented by Popular Support Counters. A faction can have at the most 10 counters.

The amount of Popular Support Counters is influenced by the following:
Killed king; +4
Killed heir; +2
Won major battle; +2
Won minor battle; +1
Rebellion surpressed; +1
Every turn a rebellion is not surpressed; -1
Evades country; -1
Lost minor battle; -1
Lost major battle; -2
Lost heir; -2
Lost king; -4

SPENDING POWER COUNTERS
The player can do the following things with Power Counters:
Incite a revolt
Cost: 5 PC
Description: A very costly action but it might divert the opponent or even decrease his popular support if not removed. This action is only possible when the faction has evaded the country.
Increase loyalty of nobles
Cost: 3 PC
Description: By clicking on a coat-of-arms the player increases the loyalty of a noble by one loyalty counter.
Raise a noble's army
Cost: 3 PCs
Description: By clicking on a heraldic shield of a powerfull noble the player issues a command to the noble to raise an army. Only 3 noble controlled armies can be present per faction.
Raise troops
Cost: 2 PCs
Description: By clicking on a heraldic shield of a lesser noble the player issues a command to the shire to raise troops. If the province becomes occupied by the opposing faction then the raised troops will disappear.
Set rendez-vous
Cost: 1 PCs
Description: By clicking on the rendez-vous flag the player can set a new rendez-vous.


I hope that you start to see the strategic possibilities that this system offers. Will you try to keep many nobles loyal or will you focus on a just a few very loyal? Losing a big battle will mean that you have lost control and the only way of regaining the throne might be evading the country and hire mercenaries.
Of course it will be a big challenge to write a challenging AI for it, but that won't stop me from trying.

Cheers,
Duke John

[dclare4]

Sounds good (have NO idea how you'll make it work but then again you've done magic before) and it's really the way that loyalty/recruitment should work in this time period.

Harlechman

[Geoffrey S]

I really hope this works out, as the system sounds very promising; if done well it should present plenty of interesting choices.

[tutankamon]

Sorry for taking so long with finding the CoA for the shires but i have to get past my exam so be patient... Duke John do you want CoA from exactly 1460- or will modern CoA do?.. i can give you the historically right CoA's but it's will take a bit more time to find it...

[Duke John]

Only the historical ones please. I have searched a bit myself and the list is now a bit shorter. During my search I learned that some titles did not exist at all times and I'm getting the idea that not all shires had dukes or earls and some shires might even share a noble.

I had the idea that each shire had its own heraldic shield which could nicely function as an interface element. But what if we can't find the heraldry of a duke simply because there was no duke? Shall we take the heraldry of a famous Lord?

I'm not from England so this is all new from, but the heir of the English King gets the Duke of Cornwall plus the Prince of Wales titles. I read a few times about Edward, the Prince of Wales recruiting the men from the West and I always thought that it would mean men from Wales, but it probably means Cornish men. Richard Neville was Earl of Salisbury and Warwick. What to do with nobles who have two titles?

What to do with the titles of dead heirs? Should they become regular nobles? Or remain vacant?

[King of Atlantis]

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.

If you do this alone I will dowload the mod. That would be unbelievable.

Looks like very much work tough, hope you can pull it off.

[menander]

Or you could read the rest of the thread and realise this has been abandoned :(

A mod might wanty to close this