M2TW PBEMs possible?

[Amon_Zeth]

I was reading some of the posts in the M2TW forums, and I saw that, apparently, the faction heir is the king's oldest son. I remember that one of the problems in the RTW PBEMs was that people had to play a set amount of turns, like 20 or so, instead of being able to play a king's entire reign before moving on to the next person. Since the mechanics of faction inheritance has been changed, perhaps there could be some M2TW PBEMs sometime soon, playing each king's reign just like in the first Medieval?

[Dutch_guy]

Hello Amon_Zeth,

We have discussed the option of doing such a M2 PBM, and decided that we will start one in the future.
The thing is, however, that we wish to finish our current WotS PBM first. Too much time has gone into that to simply ignore it and let it die.

[econ21]

My understanding of the turns/years thing is vague, but I believe that M2TW characters live as many turns as in RTW. The problem is that is a lot of turns - arguably too long for a PBM. The reigning player might get exhausted and everyone else may get be bored waiting. Hence the move from full reigns to 20 turns in RTW PBMs.

Having different players sequentially take on the role as the same king does weaken the role-playing aspect a bit but is not a killer. However, it might be a little problem for a "Will of the Senate" type game, where each player is permanently with a particular character. In that situation, you would have to "ignore" the fact that another character is the king (as we ignore the "faction leader" trait in the Will of the Senate game). You'd could say he was the king, but some other noble was the real power behind the throne (not uncommon in Medieval Europe). Or you might just pretend he's not really the King, as we might have to if we go with a HRE PBM with elected Emperors.

[Amon_Zeth]

Alright, I see. Maybe there is some way to make M2TW make each turn add a year to the king's life, so that it moves quicker, so that you don't have kings that age super slow?

[Lucjan]

I don't see why it'd be an issue to just ignore it. We had no problems whatsoever ignoring who was supposedly the faction ruler and faction heir in the WotS pbem, because everybody understood the Consul was elected and the 'faction heir' simply didn't matter as a trait.

[Ignoramus]

A good MTW2 PBEM would be on Venice. Because it's a republic, it could be done like the WoTS.

[Braden]

Question: What does a “Turn” in M2 equate too? Is it still an abstract concept of compressed time (as CA were originally doing) or are the turns actually labelled as years now (as the community wanted)?

I’m asking mainly as an unabstract concept of time is one quite essential thing in PBeM’s.

We have battles and reports and elections tied into Years and whilst the concept of a turn is ok for allocating a length of a “reign” isn’t it going to be somewhat unsatisfactory when we start transposing a game into a PBeM campaign with all its reports, write-ups, stories etc?

It won’t stop me taking a minor part in a campaign (I can’t run the game anyway) but I just wondered if we’d considered it before we get into this matter further.

(if you’re wondering, yes, I’m still concerned that whilst the game itself plays well and has better bits-n-bobs….it just doesn’t have the same campaign “feel” as M:TW and that in an effort to compress lots more “bling” such as the Americas into the game, CA have lost the soul of what made a campaign game truly absorbing for me.)

[TinCow]

I think we could actually incorporate the non-selectable heir into the game mechanics. It would be somewhat wrong IMO to completely ignore the monarch, but we could easily give him a legislative veto. Let's say he can veto any legislation he wants, unless it receieved a 2/3 majority of votes. (maybe 3/4?) Since we would know for sure exactly which characters are in line for the throne, I would say that the King would also have a veto over players taking control of his children. In order to assume the role of a Prince, you'll have to be on good terms with the King.

Also, we should consider what we are going to use in place of influence, since it no longer exists. Obviously Authority for the King (if he even gets a vote, perhaps keep him out of all votes and let him only veto.) Piety is a possibility, as is loyalty.

Just brainstorming, there are a lot of possibilities for improvements to a WoTS style game in M2TW.

Question: What does a “Turn” in M2 equate too? Is it still an abstract concept of compressed time (as CA were originally doing) or are the turns actually labelled as years now (as the community wanted)?

It's labeled as turns on the main campaign screen, but the year is displayed inside the information panel. Each turn is currently 2 years. Apparently people have already found a way to alter the amount of time that a turn takes though, so 2 or 4 turns per year shouldn't be a problem.

[Braden]

I see. My main concern was with keeping track of Avatars ages and how long they had to live etc. Obviously very difficult if you have an abstract "turn".

The method of government in the Medieval era leads to problems for a communual PBeM such as we have with the Senate one.


Perhaps we could figure out some form of Baronial based Government? With the King as a figurehead only (never to be used as a player Avatar).

However, that would also mean that the whole bloodline of the Royal house would have to be excluded as player Avatars (except Princesses perhaps).

Certainly Englands and Frances strong “Baronial” base would be a good starting point, but I can’t comment on the other factions.

Is Venice still a Republic in the actual game, can someone check?


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[Lucjan]

Actually I disagree with England and France.

The electoral counts of the Holy Roman Empire or the Diet of Poland would be much more relative to a senatorial style of play.

[Braden]

I suppose so, but I’m not familiar with those systems so just commented on what I knew.

HRE would be ok.

Besides, Lucjan, we’ve already been discussing what I may be doing……

[Lucjan]

Yes, intrigueing it is.

[Tamur]

Yes, intrigueing it is.

Sorry, did I miss something?

I can't comment intelligently on the Diet, but the HRE system had (has?) a tremendous amount of sophistication to it: the Electors, the Reichsvikarien/King/Emperor system for ruling, the electoral capitulation the king and emperor agreed to before assuming power, etc. Lots to play with as far as game mechanics, and lots to balance just as with the Senate.

More broadly, I would say three things:

1) A good discussion of game mechanics need not lead to complexity. However, I think the senate-style PBEM has a load of unexplored possibilities. Since we're not starting for a few weeks, we may have a great chance to carve out a design for this round.

2) The unexplored possibilities I'm most interested in are in the case where someone besides the Head-of-State (whoever that turns out to be) takes control of the campaign on a periodic basis -- not to do whatever he/she wishes, but instead to take care of specific segments of the campaign: economic activity, agent activity, etc. For example, what if, even though the Pope has nothing to do with the HRE itself, the HRE's religious affairs were controlled by someone playing the Pope? I'm not particularly stuck on that idea, I just give it as an example of what I'm talking about.

3) It took me a little while, even though the WoS is quite simple, to understand where and how I could contribute. Whatever we decide, I would very much like a straightforward document describing the function and duties of each position (or class of positions). It would go a long way toward bringing more people into the game.

[Dutch_guy]

Hmm I still stand by my earlier statement, I'd much prefer a non-European faction for a change. No doubt we'd have fun whichever faction we chose, but an Eastern/ Muslim faction would be good for the variation. Plus, destroying crusader armies does sound fun...

A system like we have now would probably be a bit less easy to implement, but I daresay that if we put our minds to it we'll work out something.

[Ignoramus]

Maybe we could play as the Turks? Each general would be partially independent but subject to the Sultan.

[Dutch_guy]

Maybe we could play as the Turks? Each general would be partially independent but subject to the Sultan.

Indeed, Either the Turks or the Byzantines would be my first choice.

[Braden]

Byzantian would be a good choice and quite a neat run through from the current WotS....

.....after all the Byzantian Empire is basically the remains of the Eastern Roman Empire isn't it. We could even quote occurances from our own pre-made history (i.e. what happened in the WotS).

[Lucjan]

Sorry, but I wouldn't play a muslim faction, though I see no reason why running two games at the same time would be an issue.

As far as what Tamur is talking about, I was toying with the idea of having each individual player in charge of their own duchy infrastructure and military wise, but subordinate to the requests of the Emperor.

First, let me say this is all speculation. But here's what I had in mind for the duties and regulations of being Emperor.

1 - Announce the current treasury and open discussion for edicts on the 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th turn of the emperor's reign (thereby meeting once a year for the emperor's five year term, people already know how to alter the game's time to do this). Players then make edicts in the same way the motions were made. Except, construction and recruitment for the Empire as a whole can only be planned and ordered with the passing of edicts. This forces everybody to try and think more critically with every edict session. What is going to be the most important over the course of the next four seasons? Any units recruited in a province are the property of that duke, unless said duke willingly gives that unit over to the Imperial Army, a joint force led by the Emperor consisting of units from throughout the different dukedoms of the Empire. A player who does not have his own city is a Count, and is subordinate to the Duke he serves under.

Example - Edicts urged through by the Duke of Bavaria require the Emperor to commission the recruitment of three units of halberdiers in Bavaria. These halberdiers are the property of the Duke of Bavaria and his to use as he sees fit unless he willingly transfers one or more of these units to the banner of the Imperial Army, which is under the Emperor's control, or to another duke. However, the Duke of Bavaria willingly gives these three units of halberdiers to the Count of Bayern, who moves them to a Bavarian fortification in the Alps to protect from Italy.

2 - Emperor can make decrees in regards to edicts, over-ruling the edicts given orders, the Emperor can only make 1 of these per year, and cannot force a decree on any specific player that would last for more than a year (unless the decree is to construct something in their duchy which requires more than a year to build). An Emperor cannot decree a duke to unwillingly relinquish control of military units to the Imperial Army or any other army.

3 - Dukes with 2/3 support from the other dukes can ignore an Imperial decree with impunity.

4 - The Emperor cannot force the cancelation of any work in progress or an edict passed in an edict session prior to the current year through Imperial decree.

5 - The Emperor, like all the other dukes, has the right to control the military of his own dukedom, and the Imperial Army.

6 - The Emperor may order a "Call to Arms" in a situation where Imperial lands have been invaded, or simply in peace time to ensure stability, in which all dukes are requested to provide military support to bolster the Imperial Army for the defense of the Empire. The dukes choose the number and type of units to be sent.

7 - The Emperor may declare war with a 2/3 vote of support from the rest of the dukes, in which case the dukes order the moves of their ducal army in any way they see beneficial to the Empire or whatever way an Imperial decree may command them.

I think these ideas would be good to make everybody really develop some strong internal alliances and to work together for a greatter good, while also maintaining the naturally argumentative and treacherous state of affairs we all loved so dearly in the WotS game.

Ideas? Comments?

EDIT - Never really played as Byzantium, I was kind of hoping to get away from the Roman feel with this next game.

[Braden]

Lucjan,

That all sounds good to me but I’ll break it down.

1 – I like this generally and you’ve accommodated the fact that we can have two tiers of players taking part: Dukes and Counts. My assumption is that Dukes will be “game active” avatars, able to take control of the avatars and play battles whilst Counts will be “free” avatars of various types (i.e. those players unable to install M2).

Generally it’s a good idea, though I can see that so many sessions within one Emperors reign might get confusing.

However, I particularly like the self allocation and control of troops and the interaction between Dukes and the Emperor this will cause (and the arguments!).

2 – Can’t see a major issue with this as it just expands on the points put forward in 1.

3 – Sensible, and clear. I don’t know what “influence” mechanism is in M2 but we’ll have to decide if such a mechanism would be a factor or if such things would be a plain 1-man-1-vote thing.

4 – An emergency system, one that’ll be needed.

5 – This makes the Emperor (rightfully) able to field more “muscle” than any one Duke. Makes sense.

6 – This would be a worthwhile mechanism, you haven’t put any limits no how many times the Emperor could use this but my assumption again is that this is intentional as you’ll never know how many times it would be needed. Obviously, if it was the 4th time in a term that such a call was made the Emperor would have to be very explicit as to why he was doing this and garner the support of the Dukedoms.

7 – Tricky one this. Ok, first off is the issue of weighting or unweighted voting. However, the most tricky issue would be that each Duke actively moves their own forces; I can’t really comment on the potential complexity of this as I don’t know what facility M2 has that could make this easier. Certainly in Rome it would be virtually impossible as a Save file would be rushing over to a dozen or so players and it would take weeks to resolve one turn! That’s not counting all the automatic encounters/battles that could happen during each persons move.

Byzantian – I used to like playing them in M:TW but never finished with them as they always ran out of “decent” units late on. And the interest with them ebbed, I can certainly see a valid point for moving away from “Romano” influenced games though.

[econ21]

I think it is good to explore the idea of decentralised PBM - each player being associated with a province or provinces, and with some military force. We've chewed it over several times with the WoS but never really done anything about it. I think that is because of the technicalities of keeping track of budgets & troops; and reconciling the needs of the faction as a whole with the whims of individual players.

However, I am not sure decentralisation is necessarily the right direction to go with a M2TW PBM, as at least playing it as England, it feels less "provincial" than Roman RTW games. Maybe for a faction like HRE, where there are many borders, it may make more sense (like the east vs west tensions in WoS at the moment).

A few observations about relevant aspects of M2TW:

(a) With M2TW, there seem to be no titles to speak of, so there's no simple "in-game" representation like those wonderful legion banners we enjoy in WoS. A shame, but I guess it gives us some freedom. However, I have a feeling that trying out a decentralised PBM might work better say with EBs Greek cities, where the division between cities is represented by in-game ethnicities.

(b) I'd be reluctant to do 4TPY with M2TW. Out of the box it is 0.5TPY and we'll start doing violence to history (Gothic knights at Hastings etc) if we deviate too much from that.

(c) The ratio of generals to provinces feels like RTW - ie slightly more provinces than generals. So the provinceless Counts may be necessary at the beginning but would not be an important game mechanic.

(d) We have to bear in mind the castle/town distinction. Dukes of towns may feel shortchanged but towns at the margin are arguably best for the kingdom as a whole (specialise troop production in a few upgraded places; let the rest be cash cows).

My instinct would be to fix on a faction first and then sort out suitable arrangements. I think it's a given that we want some WoS type elements - notably elections of players; "motions" constraining them; and delegation of battles to the "lower house" generals on the ground - although the nomenclature may change. How we package this for role-player purposes and whether we need to add extra elements, such as provincial decentralisation, may depend on the faction we choose. Personally, I don't think we could run two WoS type games simultaneously, although multiple traditional PBMs would be possible.

For now, let's keep brainstorming and chewing over ideas. I think we probably should have a poll or something to choose the faction in a fortnight or so. (I'd like someone to actually make a go of HRE in soloplay before I was confident to vote for it for a PBM, for example.) Ideally, we could choose between different "proposals" - someone develops a concept for a particular faction, someone does the same for another and we see which has the widest appeal. I am toying with the idea of restricting the poll to players of the WoS PBM. Not because we'd exclude others, but because this hardcore of players is probably more reliable and should have more "influence".

[Braden]

Honestly and looking at Econ21’s comments, has the community and those potentially “ready” to take part in a M2 PBeM actually played the game sufficiently yet?

I looking at comments such as “I'd like someone to actually make a go of HRE in soloplay before I was confident to vote for it for a PBM” as a pointer that perhaps we haven’t.

Has anyone here completed a full single player campaign yet? Fully, until the very end?

Whilst I fully appreciate peoples excitement at the new game and their enthusiasm to bring it to PBeM are we not just letting ourselves up for major falls later when we…..I dunno….hit a bug that makes the game unplayable perhaps, or realise that we can’t enact a certain point of the PBeM within the game mechanics.

No titles – ok, that makes things a bit confusing (and is just something else for me to wonder if I actually want the game)

TPY issue – what is best? Can we say that 4TPY is better or worse than 0.5TPY (or any other version) without some playtesting?

I’m willing to be on board for this as I’ll only be a “Count” anyway, my concern is we’re rushing into this without knowing what beast we’re rushing to use.

[Mount Suribachi]

All I'll say on the next PBEM is I really think we need to keep TWOTS system of each player being assigned a family member and playing all the battles of that character. Its worked tremendously well in keeping all the participants interested in the game.

People who want to fight the odd battle but don't fancy a full reign can be given a character far from the royal bloodline

[econ21]

Honestly and looking at Econ21’s comments, has the community and those potentially “ready” to take part in a M2 PBeM actually played the game sufficiently yet?

Has anyone here completed a full single player campaign yet? Fully, until the very end?

Well, the game was only out in Europe on Friday, so I doubt any of PBMers here have. I'm on turn 60 and it is starting to crawl in pace - typical midgame slowdown, as we've all seen in the WoS. However, someone has posted an end-game screen in the M2TW forum and I gather TinCow is ahead of me in his English game - or maybe just being more successful at it.

But to be fair, we are not proposing starting a WoS style game until we have brought the original article to a fitting resolution - hopefully just around Christmas. (How's it going, Lucjan? How you've not been completely seduced by that new young M2TW hussy ...? )

[Avicenna]

an effort to compress lots more “bling” into the game

[Dutch_guy]

A few observations about relevant aspects of M2TW:

(a) With M2TW, there seem to be no titles to speak of, so there's no simple "in-game" representation like those wonderful legion banners we enjoy in WoS. A shame, but I guess it gives us some freedom. However, I have a feeling that trying out a decentralised PBM might work better say with EBs Greek cities, where the division between cities is represented by in-game ethnicities.

(b) I'd be reluctant to do 4TPY with M2TW. Out of the box it is 0.5TPY and we'll start doing violence to history (Gothic knights at Hastings etc) if we deviate too much from that.

(c) The ratio of generals to provinces feels like RTW - ie slightly more provinces than generals. So the provinceless Counts may be necessary at the beginning but would not be an important game mechanic.

(d) We have to bear in mind the castle/town distinction. Dukes of towns may feel shortchanged but towns at the margin are arguably best for the kingdom as a whole (specialise troop production in a few upgraded places; let the rest be cash cows).

My instinct would be to fix on a faction first and then sort out suitable arrangements. I think it's a given that we want some WoS type elements - notably elections of players; "motions" constraining them; and delegation of battles to the "lower house" generals on the ground - although the nomenclature may change. How we package this for role-player purposes and whether we need to add extra elements, such as provincial decentralisation, may depend on the faction we choose. Personally, I don't think we could run two WoS type games simultaneously, although multiple traditional PBMs would be possible.

a ) I don't quite understand what it is you mean with 'in game representation', the legion banners are still here but then again I must be missing something here

b ) I agree, the balance is OK as it is now. Although the amount of turns (~225) may be a bit low.

c ) Well, I guess this differs per game. In my current English campaign ( turn 75 or so ) I can field armies with two family members an army. That said, Rennes and Caen do need a governor.

d ) Indeed, personally I wouldn't want to be used solely to govern a town, but who would ? If we decide to incorporate the Upper / Lower house concepts, then we could have the upper house members governing the towns and cities.

Now if we wish to start a M2 PBM in the current WotS theme, we should chose a faction in which this is easy to incorporate. This would severely reduce the possibilities since only the HRE and the Byzantines are empires...

The Idea allocating a province to a player is a good one, although it would require a ton of micromanagement and communication with the faction leader. ..

[Amon_Zeth]

A good MTW2 PBEM would be on Venice. Because it's a republic, it could be done like the WoTS.

I second this.

[flyd]

In addition to being a Republic, Venice might offer some interesting gameplay options. Rather than the expand in every direction as quickly as possible thing, we could instead establish a maritime trade empire. Perhaps we could have a rule that, outside of northern Italy, we would only capture littoral provinces.

[Mount Suribachi]

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.

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

[Dutch_guy]

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.

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

Not necessarily, the only conquest missions the pope gives are crusade missions. Which is probably only good for the storyline. The pope has never, as of yet, asked me to conquer anything other than a crusading target. It has only asked me to stop the destruction, albeit of a fellow catholic

The HoN missions are varied, and don't only contain missions which favor the blitz. Blocking ports, engaging in diplomacy, and subterfuge missions are the usual types you get.

[TinCow]

Regarding the TPY, I am hopful that by the time this is ready there will be a mod that increases the TPY and also scales the construction costs, construction times, and recruitment costs directly in proportion to the increased TPY.