M2TW PBEMs possible?

[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).

[econ21]

Interesting ideas, Lucjan. A few questions for clarification - as you envisage it:

1. What are the incentives for Dukes to give up their troops to the Imperial army (or to another Duke in need)? Or perhaps there could be an explicit quid pro quo that they would be returned, perhaps with some kind of interest (upgrades? extra troops? extra vote next Parliament session?).

2. And what are the incentives for the King to allow a Ducal army to seize a settlement, rather than an Imperial army? Or perhaps which settlement can be taken and by whom must be decided by Parliament?

3. Who decides whether to build troops? If it is the King, surely they would much prefer to recruit from their own castle, so they control the men? Perhaps this is not such a big deal, given the unit recruitment caps and given the King might be expected to bear the brunt of the cost of war? And perhaps Parliament could pass motions for given numbers of units to be built in given Dukedoms?

4. Why would any Duke want a city rather than a castle (which gives more troops)? I am wondering about pairing up cities and castles into a single Dukedom to avoid this problem.

5. Can you envisage playing the current WoS under your rules? If it would be easier under M2TW, why is that?

These are all just questions, BTW, not objections.

I am a worried that a provincial system would slow the game down to a crawl - the King needs to get a reply from each Duke before moving their army and presumably what the King wants to do with one Duke's forces depends on what is going to happen with another Dukes. So conceivably, playing out a single turn could take many days. How could we maintain a decent pace? (I'm thinking of requiring replies to the King within 24 hours, with non response taken as a positive reply to the King's requests. Having Dukes set out "standing orders" or agreeing contingency plans might also help.)

It would be good if other interested players could think about a provincial system. What exploits should we worry about? Presumably everyone would want to see as much action and take as many settlements as possible - how can we moderate such self-interest? If we go down the provincial path, it's very important we fashion rules to get the balance between Duke's self-interest and the national interest right.

[Tamur]

Not sure if it will help, but the fact that the "real" HRE never quite got the balance between imperial and local authority settled, I don't see us getting it set immediately either. But I think this struggle could actually add a lot to the game.

Although the emperor in the PBM cannot march the imperial army down the throat of a duke who is trying to take too much power (simply due to game mechanics), the initial conditions of the game could be such that there are certain rights that would be taken away from such a duke.

To name a few: revocation of voting priviledges, loss of priests in the region, lack of imperial military support. But the main one I have thought about is financial.

So, several related ideas follow on finances...

One: Regional Finances
Someone (a treasurer-librarian?) uses a spreadsheet to keep track of the per-turn income from the regions under control by each duke as well as the imperial regions for each season. A % tax is assessed per-turn by the emperor. This imperial tax rate can be set/changed *per region* by the emperor unilaterally, but he risks the rebellion of the dukes by raising it too high. An emperor could easily use this to squeeze a duke who refuses to send levied troops to the imperial army, or other types of rebellious behaviour.

This information (both per-turn income levels and imperial taxation levels) must be VERY easily visible at all times. If taxation changes, it needs to be announced previous to the season in which the tax is assessed.

The regional-level financing (minus imperial tax) is available to each duke to do with as he/she pleases.

The imperial treasury for that turn would be the emperor's own territories' incomes PLUS whatever tax amount is gained from the imperial tax.

Because of the game's mechanics, it is possible for a populous region to have a negative income. Though this could be viewed as a problem, I think it will add an interesting twist, forcing some dukes to either push for financial deals with the other dukes or the Emperor, or strike out on their own to conquer new territories.


Three possible exploits of this system:
1) The emperor simply decides he wants 100% of everything every duke produces.

2) A duke feels the tax is unfairly high, but cannot revolt against this (because the game doesn't allow it!)

3) A duke simply ignores having a negative income.

See below for possible balancing actions...


Two: Freedom of Movement
The duke of a region is free to order his/her units' and character's movement anywhere on the map, even if it is against the wishes of the Emperor.

Three: Unit Disbanding/Bulding Destruction
Any duke, at any time, can order the disbanding of any unit under his/her control, or the destruction of any building in a region under his/her control.

Four: Controls on Ducal Control
Two points here:

1) If a region is lost, the duke who was in charge of the region will usually gain control of it after it is retaken. The unusual part is this: if the Reichstag (council of dukes) vote in the majority that the duke in question was being irresponsible with his/her control of the region at the time it was lost, then the region will become an imperially-controlled region. Such an "impeachment" vote can only be called for by the Emperor. If this vote makes the duke region-less, then that duke will have to take whatever troops are currently under his/her control and conquer another or die trying.

2) If a duke has a negative total income for six seasons, then that duke can also be voted out of control in the negative-income region by the other dukes, and the region(s) in question becomes an imperial region. Income is NOT counted to be negative if the duke in question secures a loan from another duke or the Emperor.