M2TW PBEMs possible?

[econ21]

One of the things that has "spoilt" TWOTS for me was the relentless rushing of our neighbours in the early game. So un-Roman, and resulted in us just blitzing the map.

It might be an idea to have a brief post-mortem on the WoS when it is done - what worked, what did not, how it could be improved.

Personally, I thought the pacing of conquest was about right. From a gameplay point of view, it gave each Consul - and many lower house generals - something to do. From a historical point of view, we were playing a 4TPY mod, but I think it would be roughly historical if viewed at about 0.25TPY speed[1]. I know that my reign was the most aggressive though. In retrospect, Carthage and Greece being unable to cope with the sea barrier did mean securing Italy left us in a very safe position. I probably should have been more cautious. Once we broke out into Illyria and Greece, all hell seemed to break loose and we were not really in control anymore.

Of course, missions from the Pope or CON would over-ride such a no-conquest rule?

If you are a Western Catholic, the Pope is a definite break on conquest as in MTW. I find the CON missions very appropriate - they do sometimes tell me to take the next logical settlement of my enemy but give you a generous time allowance.


[1]Personally, I don't see the big deal with 4TPY mods. As in WoS, the broad pace of the campaign often seems more historical when viewed at official or even faster. Interpreting TW too literally, like interpreting religious texts, seems hopeless. In that respect, I have some sympathy with M2TWs deliberately fuzzy treatment of time. I don't seem the "short" game length of M2TW being a problem - I am vague on the numbers, but I think it is twice as long as the WoS is likely to have lasted.

[Lucjan]

Actually M2TW has me completely entranced, skipped English class today to stay home and play. lol

I'm starting up a HRE game as I type this actually, so as to give it a go and see how it'd really work out.

[Lusted]

Just my suggestions if you guys do this.

I would suggest playing as Venice. It was ruled by a council so might be best for this sort of thing. It's in Italy which always has some interesting wars in M2TW from what i've seen, and it must conquer Constantinople as paet of its victory conditions so you'll end up fighting the Byzantine empire. Plus they get a good mix of units, including some good militia ones.

[redstar1]

One of the central powers would certainly be the best choice. It offers the widest range of possibilites for each player to make his mark. One player may prefer going after the Islamic world. Another player may just have a dislike for France:D

Venice or Sicily would be my choices for a central starting position.

[Lucjan]

I'm against all this trumping of Venice for the simple fact that I don't want to play another Italian faction, we're in the process of wrapping up 6 months worth of Roman-ness, lets move on to something different in Medieval.

Some notes on my HRE campaign so far. By turn 2, I had 7 Dukes available for play (equivilant to lower house generals), giving us almost exactly, if not a little more avatars than we'll need if the regulars from WotS all sign up.
They are, believe it or not, in a difficult starting position, money is tight early on and they're surrounded by just about everybody under the sun, this would make cooperation and argument very important in the passing of edicts, something WotS thrived on. Also, the thought of individual armies for each duke and the Imperial army for the emperor is already established for us from the start of the game. Each settlement has a significant garrison, and there's a mobile army directly north of the capital which would be feasible for the Imperial army. In a war with Venice that's not going so hot, lost Vienna but will be taking it back soon, failed in a siege of Venice itself but highly depleted their garrison, and have a significantly sized army on a crusade to Jerusalem comprised mostly of archers and armoured seargents with two units of mailed knights and some merc spearmen.

[econ21]

Thinking about how to proceed, I suggest we keep chewing over ideas and may be put a poll up to choose the faction for a WoS type M2TW PBM on 1st December? That gives us a fortnight to brainstorm and get more familiar with the game before committing ourselves.

[Lucjan]

I've been looking over the map very carefully every turn on my HRE campaign, and I feel very strongly that the ideas for having every player participate more actively in direct provincial controls would be very easy and satisfying for everybody.

I've seen some people overcomplicate this by bringing up save games being passed around. This is unnecessary. In order for multiple players to play one faction each with a seperate garrison or army or whatnot, all you need is the following.

1 - Players to keep track of the location of their own units.

2 - Players to send the necessary movement requests to whoever is the emperor by a certain time. The emperor will handle all of the actual movements, but cannot move armies (except his own and the imperial army) without the order being given by the controlling duke.

Example - The duke of Innsbruck wants his army moved south to block Venician armies from using the pass. So he would send the emperor a message telling him this. The emperor could then carry out this movement.

3 - Players to understand that giving up units to the Imperial Army or a Crusade means they no longer own this unit. The duke of Innsbruck may own 6 spear militias, 2 peasant archers and 3 mounted sargeants, but if he gives up 2 mounted sargeants and 1 spear militia during a Call to Arms by the Emperor, he can no longer give orders to those relinquished units and they become the property of the Imperial Army, therefore whoever the elected emperor is at that time. This then leaves the duke of Innsbruck with 5 militias, 2 archers and 1 mounted sargeant, he would have to petition during the next edict session to have more troops recruited at Innsbruck.

This brings about another idea. Players who conquer territory through the use of their own Ducal army become Duke of both territories, whereas territory conquered by the Imperial army becomes a general part of the HRE and can be claimed by new players as their duchy or remains a part of the territory under direct control of the elected emperor's authority. Players with more than one duchy may opt to give up some of their posessions to new players to have that player join their ducal house (like the family ties of Rome. This is very possible, as M2 allows generals who are not actually tied to royal family. I.E, generals exist in the campaign that do not appear in the family tree, allowing the roleplay of alternate family ties to be a very feasible possibility).

[Lucjan]

Ok, as for Econ's questions.

1 - Any incentives between players to exchange soldiery would have to be done between themselves. If the Duke of Nuremburg needs two halberdiers and can't build them, maybe the Duke of Magdeburg would loan them in exchange for a vote next session in support of having a cavalry stables commissioned in Magdeburg for example.

As for incentives to giving troops to the Imperial Army. Well, this is the HRE, any duke who continually refuses to lend service to the empire in times of need would be considered by his fellow dukes to be abandoning the empire, and in that respect, abandoning them, and would not be kindly looked upon by the others. This is not to say however that the emperor isn't necessarily abusing his power, in which case the majority of the dukes may opt not to relinquish any of their soldiery, and the emperor might find himself out on a limb if it's his own ducal territory that's in trouble. The whole system forces cooperation and communication between players on a personal level.

2a - Firstly, only 1 standing Imperial army should be allowed, the rest will all be ducal, and only 1 standing army will be allowed per duke. No duke may attack any faction that the HRE is not at war with, the HRE can declare war at the behest of the Emperor if the Emperor has 2/3 support from the dukes in favor of the war. Or, obviously, if war is declared on the HRE by another faction.

2b -The Emperor himself controls only two armies, his own ducal force, and the Imperial Army. This is as close to being historically accurate as we can get without overcomplicating things. The emperor of the HRE, at any given time, really only held any real power when the elector states beneath him agreed with his policy, it wasn't uncommon for infighting between dukes to occur and for states inside the HRE to mount their own offensives on states outside of the HRE (although they usually did request help later from their fellow HRE members if things weren't looking great), or even for independant dukes in the HRE to ally with foreign powers, against the common opinion amongst the other dukes. The emperor's two forces alone is not enough to fight a war against a powerful opponent, particularly since the state of the imperial army itself is heavily dependant on the support for the emperor from the other dukes. So the emperor won't have a choice but to allow ducal forces to sieze settlements.

Therefore, when a war is ongoing, it is really up to the dukes to come up with a collective strategy in which your questions would be adressed.

Example - HRE votes unanimously in favor of war with France, who is excommunicated by the pope. The dukes of Staufen and Innsbruck both have a strong army near the French border. The Imperial Army in Frankfurt is also sizeable. The forces in the east would be foolish to commit the strength of their armies westward with Poland and Hungary both growing in the east. So the dukes work out a plan where the eastern dukes will provide spies and assassins and some spare militia, things the western dukes don't have, while Staufen attacks Metz, Innsbruck attacks Bern, and the Imperial army takes to the field to defeat any French forces that may attempt a counterattack. In exchange for this aid, the dukes of Staufen and Innsbruck offer each participating eastern duke two units of mounted sargeants, things the eastern dukes don't have.

3 - I have 2 ideas for this situation.

3a - Troop recruitment as well as building construction has to be pushed for in public edicts throughout the course of the emperor's reign. Perhaps we won't need a motions type period for this, they may be on-going and proposed whenever an issue arises, voting on the issue will commence 24 hours following the edicts proposal, and must pass by a 2/3 majority.

Example - Three dukes submit edicts for recruitment in their territory. Frankfurt wants to recruit an assassin and a merchant. Vienna wants to recruit peasant archers and spear militia. Innsbruck wants to recruit peasant archers and mounted sargeants.

Frankfurt's request is seen as potentially beneficial for the whole of the HRE and so is voted on and passes. Vienna, who has already managed to amass the largest army of all the dukes, is seen as a threat and is voted against. Innsbruck, who has recently fought a battle with Venice and lost a large number of men, is sympathised with and their edict passes.

3b - Don't know if anybody else noticed this yet, but M2's income isn't displayed the same as Rome's was. M2 displays the total net income brought in by that specific city, and not some silly "this settlement pays this much percentage of everything" fractal like Rome did. So...we could do recruitment and construction in seperate phases, recruitment arbitrarily and construction based on edicts.

That essentially means that each duke knows exactly how much money his territory is pulling in each turn because of how the game displays it, and he may recruit accordingly up to a certain percentage of his income minus his upkeep.

Example - The duke of Frankfurt makes 2,450 gold a turn, and has a garrison upkeep of 700. We set the game rules to say that 50% of a duke's upkeep must go to HRE combined coffers unless recruiting. The duke of Frankfurt wants to recruit more soldiers. He currently puts out 1,750 gold profit for the HRE, and so could use that much money to recruit with, but the upkeep costs of whatever he recruits cannot exceed 50% of his total income. So he could recruit until the upkeep costs of his army reach 1,225 a turn, then he can no longer recruit until Frankfurt becomes more prosperous or he takes another settlement and his income climbs.

4 - Cities and Castles both have benefits over each other. Castles provide more types of soldiers earlier, but have less income and less supporting characters. Cities have supporting role characters like merchants, assassins, spies, and higher income, allowing more units to be recruited in total, or for better units to purchased from neighboring dukes who own castles in exchange for something else.

Example - City of Nuremburg wants mounted sargeants, Castle of Staufen wants merchants. They offer each other a trade and both players accept. Staufen now pulls in extra income from the trade items in it's borders, and Nuremburg has cavalry.

Example - Alternatively, Nuremburg has a merchants guild, and can build Merchant Cavalry Militia, but Staufen focuses on better armor and ranged units. Nuremburg offers two units of Merchant cavalry in exchange for two units of archers and upgrading the armor of two of it's spear militia.

5 - The only reason I can't envision playing WotS as it stands now with these rules is because the only places we have where we can recruit anything are in the heartlands of the Italian Peninsula. M2 allows recruitment from every city or castle in relatively little time, and at a much faster pace (2 to 3 units recruitable a turn) than Rome does.

6 - Your concerns about the emperor moving ducal armies.. Here's the beautiful simplicity of that. The emperor is not allowed to move any ducal army unless directly ordered to by the duke. If he doesn't get an order from the player that day, he doesn't need to worry about it. If the emperor wants to move an army but the Duke in charge of that army doesn't agree, too bad for the emperor, he needs to move his own or the Imperial army. Alternatively, if a Duke wants to move his army but the emperor disagrees, the emperor can't do anything about it, he has to move the duke's army if the duke orders it. Also, 1 turn, unless a battle occurs, should be given 24 hours, 48 hours for battle return as usual. This way, even if something happens and a player doesn't issue orders on a turn, it's no big deal, if the worst happens and they get attacked they have the typical allotted time to deal with it. This is feasible in the middle ages, armies got bogged down because of logistic problems, messengers didn't always make it. We could rp a player not posting orders for an army in the field as the messenger getting jumped and killed on the road there by highwaymen or a patrol from the enemy. I also think we should cut the Emperor's term to 15 turns (20 is slightly grueling after a while), and that way we can keep the game moving smoothly, with a decent number of transitions for everybody who wants to get around to being emperor to be able to. As M2 stands now, 15 turns is equal to 30 years, and that's a decent Imperial reign if you ask me.


As for Tamur's suggestion with the regional finances. I don't like the idea of the emperor having control over ducal taxes. I think we should maintain something along the lines of full income must be sent to national coffers unless used for recruitment, and upkeep costs of ducal armies can't exceed 50% of the duke's total income per turn. (Please note, garrison structures in M2 provide free upkeep for a set number of units.) This allows a garrison and standing army to be maintained at only the cost of the standing army.

I also don't like the 'voting out' of dukes. Dukes bear hereditary titles they can't just be voted out of. The whole voting thing comes from the emperor being elected rather than hereditary like the men who serve beneath him. Voting out individual dukes for anything could only instigate bad blood and player frustration both in and out of character, and I don't agree with it. On the other side though, if you're running for emperor, you should be prepared to be criticised, disagreed with and threatened with everything under the sun because you're the ultimate power and nobody liked to have less power than somebody else. Heck, look at my WotS reign, I've been threatened with impeachment probably 3-4 times, but I'm still there, and I understand it's all in fun with the game. But voting individual dukes out of their chosen duchy just doesn't seem fair personally to the people playing the character.

I do, however, agree with Tamur's freedom of movement and disbanding/destruction ideas, with the exception that a duke cannot declare war on another faction in the process of moving it's army. Only the emperor can declare war, and it must be done with a 2/3 majority support.

[TinCow]

I vote for playing Venice. I just played a campaign as them on VH/VH... and lost. That's the first time I've lost a TW campaign since the very first time I played MTW. It wasn't even close either, I got steamrolled.

Time to go back and give it another go.

[Ignoramus]

I thnk Dukes should be allowed to declare war by themselves. The Dukes of Bavaria and Swabia interfered in Italy A.D. 955, compelling the Emperor Otto to annex the Kinddom of Italy. It will also create the feeling of the Dukes not being all that loyal to the emperor.

Also, is inter-faction marriage possible? If it is, then dukes could expand their territory apart from war. For instance, if the Duke of Bavaria marries the Duke of Swabia's daughter, and if she is the Duke's only child, then when the Duke of Swabia died, Bavaria would inherit Swabia.

[Lucjan]

I might be persuaded to agree with duke's being able to declare war. The only problem with that is what kind of effect will individual player's choices have on the Empire if their own greed is in fact a bad decision for the empire as a whole. How do you stop such a player from doing these things? Civil war isn't a possibility due to game mechanics.

Inter-ducal marriages seem fine by me.

[lecnac]

Intriguing ideas guys. Shame I wasnt around much when RTW was about so I missed out the WotS. Having made some good experiences with the board game Diplomacy I'd like to have a go with this one.

I'd prefer the HRE or Byzantine Empire since both are central and allow many choices for the pbmn. An more straightforward campaign like the moors or russians would be rather boring for the majority of participants at the beginning.

[Lucjan]

I would like for 2 people to help me try and put some of my suggestions to the test with a discreet attempt at a mini-pbem. Just passing some turns and save files around using a summary of what I've suggested to see its workability. Anybody game? We'll be using the HRE.