M2, HRE Tests PBEM

[econ21]

Good suggestions, Tamur. For simiplicity, let's give the mission rewards to the Empire, rather than divide them. Sacking a settlement can give serious money - 20k or more sometimes. But missions tend to be smaller sums - 1k or so - and not really worth the bother of dividing.

I dislike the Reichstag and Chancellor names. It makes this sound like WWII Germany, not Germany in the Middle Ages. I think "Imperial Diet" and "Emperor" are far more fitting.

OK - let's compromise; keep the Chancellor name but switch to Imperial Diet.

I got "Reichstag" from the Wikipedia entry on the HRE, but going back to it, it appears the name only arose in the late 15th century, so we are not beholden to it. Reich is German for Empire, but maybe in the PBM we just use the word Empire, not Reich, to avoid sounding like we are doing cheap Basil Fawlty-type Hitler impressions?

The Reichstag (German for "Imperial/National Diet") ....However, until the late 15th century, the Reichstag was not actually formalized as an institution. Instead, the dukes and other princes would irregularly convene at the court of the king; these assemblies were usually referred to as Hoftage (from German Hof "court").

You are right, that Emperor should be what we call the reigning player to be true to history. The problem is that we have an avatar walking around called "Emperor X". He and his son are going to be called Emperor for most of the game while the reigning player is swapped around very regularly. It's personal taste, but I just find ignoring the fact that another general is called Emperor hard. Plus we need a fairly permanent Senate Speaker type authority figure and it struck me that could be the use we put the Emperor avatar to (I'm not reserving that avatar for myself, BTW). We are deviating from history a little, I know, but it's a game not a simulation. I think Chancellor has pretty good associations - it's a fairly old term, not just WW2; it's clearly distinct from Emperor/royalty and will avoid confusion; and nowadays its got monetary associations (at least to Brits) which fit with the spreadsheet management duties of the role.

For information, some other terminology from Wikipedia:

An entity was considered Reichsstand (imperial estate) if, according to feudal law, it had no authority above it except the Holy Roman Emperor himself.

Earlier, the Empire's strength (and finances) greatly relied on the Empire's own lands, the so-called Reichsgut, which always belonged to the respective king (and included many Imperial Cities).

WW2 associations not withstanding, I think we can use Reichsstand to refer to each Duke's settlements (Duchy is an ugly word) and Reichsgut to refer to the Imperial settlements. English terminology would be fine as an alternative though.

The "kurfursten" - the elector-princes were the electors for the Emperor. They sat in the Council of Electors.

Initially, there were seven electors: the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the Archbishops of Köln, Mainz, and Trier. During the Thirty Years' War, the Duke of Bavaria was given the right to vote as the eighth elector. In order to be elected king, a candidate had to first win over the electors, usually with bribes or promises of land.

BTW - on the issue of bribes for votes etc. I think it is ok (although not advocated) BUT unlike the real world, in our game, the Chancellor cannot loot the Imperial treasury to get his investment back! (Which we will greatly reduce the incentive for vote buying).