M2, HRE Tests PBEM

[Lucjan]

This thread is to test the possibility of a WotS style PBEM with Medieval 2, along with some new thoughts on players' governance of their avatars, cities, and overall WotS style mechanics.

Part 1 - Players and their Roles
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Participants - Roles
Lucjan - Emperor
Econ21 - N/A
Ignoramus - N/A
Tamur - N/A
Braden (Maybe, if he'd like to be our first Count.) - N/A

{{{Game Difficulties & General Restrictions
H/VH, No retraining except for already full units to give weapon/armor upgrades. Navies can only transport 1 land unit per 1 naval unit. No battle time limit. Show CPU Moves, Manage all Settlements.
Unit sizes Huge.

(Sorry but Large only gives you units of 60, 48, 20...these are ridiculously small.)

One completely eventless turn is given 24 hours for completion. (This is feasible, as most turns in the WotS due to battles and all kinds of other things took many days to complete.)

Battles are given 48 hours to complete before they are autoresolved.}}}

This Test PBEM will be using the HRE, all players (except for Braden, who I'll inform of his possible choices) have access to a H/VH, no battle time limit, show cpu moves, manage all settlements campaign.

This setup will allow the following three types of players.

Emperor -Will be elected by votes for a set period of time by majority rule once voting has been announced, closed in 48 hours, and votes have been tallied. Players who are successfully elected to this position must have the game, be able to carry out the orders of other players, follow edicts, manage his own ducal territory and armies, manage the Imperial army, manage all non-player owned territories, and send/receive save games to/from ducal players for battles to be faught, and speak his mind in the council room.

Duke - Players may choose an Imperial province, not already governed by a player, or have a city/castle bestowed upon them by a generous duke, in order to become a duke. Players choosing this title must have the game, be able to participate in the Edict sessions, Voting sessions, submit orders for their army movements and governed city tax levels, manage their army upkeep and be able to fight a battle (And fight honestly, if you lose, you lose, no real shame in that, it makes the game more challenging and more interesting for the group as a whole), return the saved game within 48 hours of having received it (we understand people have busy personal lives, but we must also keep the game moving at a reasonable rate, hence the 48 hour time limit), and speak their mind in the council room.

Count - Players who would like to participate but who do not have the game may join as Counts. Counts may choose to govern an ungoverned Imperial province, or a generous player with many territories but few governors may opt to bestow land on a Count pending his acceptance. Counts duties include participating in the Edict and Voting sessions, setting tax rates, and speaking their mind in the council room. A Count's income and garrison are controlled by whatever Duke his county belongs to, or if the county is part of Imperial Territory, these are controlled by the current emperor.

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Part 2 - The mechanics of Construction and Recruitment
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Construction - Construction can only be ordered during the Edict sessions, so players must think hard in advance on what the most important buildings will be for whom. Players must negotiate amongst themselves to strike deals on who will support what construction where. A construction edict looks like this. Money for construction comes from the treasury accrued from the previous 5 turns (in the case of turn 1, the first edict session uses money from whatever treasury you start out with.)

Ex 1 - "Duke of Nuremberg - Edict of Imperial Construction Issued for Nuremburg. The City of Nuremburg requires the construction of Roads, a Small Church, and Communical Farming within the next 10 years, in that order. The City of Nuremburg is to be alotted the amount of 2,400 florins for these expenses."

Ex 2 - "Duke of Staufen - Edict of Imperial Construction Issued for Staufen.
The Imperial Wooden Castle of Staufen requires the construction of Stables and a Castle within the next 10 years, in that order. The Imperial Wooden Castle of Staufen is to be alotted 3,600 florins for these expenses."

Recruitment - Recruitment can only be ordered 2 times throughout a 5 turn period for each player (Unless a player is fulfilling a recruitment request for another player who cannot create a specific unit). Recruitment cannot take more than the available number of recruitment spaces for one turn. Recruitment costs cannot exceed total player income x the number of turns passed since the edict session or the number of turns since the last recruitment (again, unless recruiting units for another player), and Army Upkeep cannot exceed the players total income for one turn.

Ex - Player A owns Vienna with 1,700 income. With a current Army Upkeep of 1,200. Edicts have just been passed and the player is now allowed to recruit any 2 times within the next five years. Player A wants to recruit right now. This gives Player A 500 florins to recruit with, as he'll make 500 florins proft this turn. He recruits two units of peasant archers, costing him 440. Player A then has an upkeep of 1,400. He only makes 300 florins a turn now, so he waits four turns. It is the final turn before the next edict session, and Player A wants to recruit again. He has accrued 1,200 florins, but knows his upkeep after the recruitment cannot exceed 1,700 florins. He requests the Duke of Staufen to recruit him one unit of mailed knights. The duke of Staufen agrees and recruits the knights for the Duke of Vienna (This has no effect on the Duke of Staufen's income or his number of recruitment orders for this 5 turn period). This brings Player A's total Army upkeep to 1,650. He cannot exceed 1,700 so he's still ok, but cannot recruit anything further.
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A Further Note on Edicts and Player Powers/Restrictions
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All Players must choose a city and an Avatar. They henceforth become Duke/Count "Whatever Avatar" of "Whatever City". I advise against players taking on roles of merchants, spies and assassins, they're all lost far too easily. However, I see no issues with a priestly, diplomatic or princess avatar. A Priestly avatar may actually be highly interesting if by chance the player actually finds himself sitting on the Papal throne.

Edicts are the equivilant of WotS Motions, they can entail anything, and are passed by majority vote.

Edicts that would change game rules must be marked with a *, as they'll be Noble Charter Ammendments.

The Emperor must place a note in the OOC thread of the pbem whenever a new turn is started. This is to inform players who may wish to make recruitment or movement orders.

The Emperor can make decrees in regards to edicts, over-ruling the edicts given orders, the Emperor can only make 1 of these per 5 turn session, and cannot force a decree on any specific player that would deny them of land they rightfully won. An Emperor cannot decree a duke to unwillingly relinquish control of military units to the Imperial Army or any other army.

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

The Capital is to be regarded as an "Imperial City", and cannot be controlled by any player other than the Emperor. Cities or Castles conquered by the Imperial Army also become regarded as "Imperial Territory", which can be used as the current emperor sees fit, or bestowed on new players to create a Dukedom or a County.

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

The Emperor controls his own ducal lands, and the Imperial Army. The Imperial Army's income is not allowed to exceed the income of the Capital city.

The Emperor may order a "Call to Arms" in a situation where the Imperial Army has been defeated and an immediate replacement is needed, 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 (if they choose to send any at all), and the Emperor must maintain that this new army does not exceed the total income of Imperial Territory.

Any Player may declare war with a 2/3 vote of support from the rest of the dukes, in which case the involved 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.

Players who conquer territory with their own Ducal army acquire that territory into their own lands. They receive the income from that new territory, and they are allowed to do with that territory as they see fit.

Players can have a garrison for every city/castle/fort they own, but they cannot have more than one standing army. This is for the simple facet of trying to maintain a significant balance between large and small duchies, and the typical Medieval paranoia involved with giving an underling, no matter how loyal, too much control over too large an army.

Armies stationed in forts, that amount to 5 units or less, are counted as garrisons, but draw money from the duchies total income as if they were a standing army. Armies with more than 5 units in a fort count as the Ducal Army, of which each player may only have one.

Armies 5 units or less in strength that are being transferred between players count as part of the receiving player's ducal army, draw income from the receiving player's total income, and do not penalise the receiving player while they are en route to the receiving player. Basically, until they reach the Ducal army, they count as part of it income wise, but not physically until they actually join up. This is to avoid contradicting the "1 standing army per player" rule.

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Taxes and Movement Orders
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Players with an avatar in a city may tell the emperor to set that city's tax for whatever level the player wishes. Any cities the player has with no avatar (either their own or a non-player avatar) in them are required to be set to "Normal" taxes. This is to indicate the lack of any high authority there in the gathering of taxes for the duchy, and the typical evasion of taxation that would be apparent with no immediate threat of reprisal for doing so.

Players are to place any movement orders they have for their army or units in their army in the Ducal Commands thread. Movement orders should be clear and detailed enough to be understood.

Ex - Duke of Staufen - I'm ordering the movement of my Avatar, 2 Mailed Knights, 3 Spear Militias, and 2 Peasant Archers from the Castle of Staufen to march westwards. Their target is the bridge on the river crossing between the Staufen Region and the Metz Region. Next turn, order them to Besiege Metz.

The message is short and to the point. I really don't think anybody would misunderstand this.

Here's a recruitment order example. Disbandment orders should be the exact same thing just..with..disband in their, instead of recruit.

Ex - I want to recruit 1 unit of Mailed Knights and 2 units of peasant militia from the Castle of Staufen.

Again it's short, clear, and really pretty hard to mess up.
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I think that's everything, if I forgot anything or there are any suggestions let me know.

What I need from the current players now are the avatars they want, and the city/castle they want.

I'll be assuming Dietrich von Saxony at Frankfurt and operate as Emperor, as I've really outlined the bulk of this abomination and won't try to push administrative test issues on somebody else. Frankfurt will be the Imperial Capital, whatever city remains un-chosen by our three other Ducal players - Econ21, Tamur, Ignoramus - and Braden our Count, I will take as my Ducal territory. The Imperial army will be considered that wandering regiment up north by Hamburg.

We can start as soon as I hear back from you guys. Good luck everybody, and happy argueing over avatars in the other thread.

[Tamur]

I have three questions:

1) How are we handling acession to the throne? Vote? Let the game decide? Some other mechanic?

2) There are a couple of florin-per-Duke rules (a moving armies' upkeep coming from the receiving Duke's budget, and conquered territory income going to the conquering duke, for example). Does this mean that someone (the Emperor?) will keep track of ducal budgets?

3) In the Construction/Recruitment section, the rules state that "Money for construction comes from the treasury accrued from the previous 5 turns". I am assuming this is the imperial treasury, rather than the ducal treasury mentioned in my question #2, but just want to be sure.

Thanks. If these questions are confusing I'm sorry!

[Tamur]

As for choice of character, I'd like to request Leopold in Vienna.

[Glaucus]

Say Econ21 is elected emperor for a set numeber of years. He therefore controls the Imperial Army and any Imperial lands. I have a few questions regarding this:

1) Does he still have personal control over the land / armies that were his before he was elected Emperor?

2) If the Imperial Army conquers settlement X, what is to stop the Emperor from simply giving that land to his Duchy, else it will no longer be his to control when his time is up as emperor. I think you should add a rule that says: No Duke may conquer or be given any land that does not border the land he already controls. Since this obviously will disallow amphibious assualts, I also think a Duke may only attack a region that is within one season's travel by ship from one of his settlements.

What do you think?

[Lucjan]

Not confusing questions at all, if anything I could have possibly worded the clauses better.

1 - Voting from the dukes and counts decides the new emperor in an election every...I don't know, 15 turns seems fair. That's 30 years game time and allows more oppertunities for different emperors than our 20 turn consular games did.

2 - Each duke is expected to know what cities are his. There will be a library thread I'd be willing to update with this info. But you, as duke of Vienna, well, if you conquer Prague with your own ducal army I would expect you to know you're duke of Prague & Vienna. I'll exemplify both situations for you.

Situation 1 - You control only Vienna, after subtracting your total army upkeep (ignoring free garrison militia) from the city's total income, you get 300 florins. You wait long enough (2 or 3 turns I think) to have the money needed to buy mailed knights from Staufen, who has offered to make them for you. You post that you have the money and Staufen agrees to make them. When Staufen acknowledges this, the emperor can order the mailed knights to be recruited in Staufen and sends them to you the turn they come into play. Because Staufen has made the knights for you, and not for himself, you pay the upkeep cost. So the 300 florins a turn you had been accrueing before the mailed knights were made for you is now reduced to 50 (by the mailed knights 250 upkeep cost)

Situation 2 - You, as duke of Vienna, which has a total income of 1,300, conquer Prague early in the game. You then become Duke of Vienna and Prague. Prague has a total income of 1,000. So as Duke of Vienna and Prague, your total income becomes 2,300. This means you accrue 2,300 florins - your total army upkeep every turn. For the sake of argument, lets say your upkeep is 800. So you make 1,500 a turn because you combine the income of both cities you own.

My original intention in this regard was that keeping track of these small figures for one, two, maybe even three cities would be no issue for individual players. However, if there is large objection to this, I would be willing to do this myself and take on the position of Treasurer/Archivist, keeping track of all the important game issues. Primarily total incomes-upkeeps=net incomes.

EDIT - #3 Yes, Construction money comes from the Imperial treasury, which in essence is the unspent remainder of the Ducal treasury from the previous 5 turns combined. There may be moments when the empire is tight of cash and dukes may have to opt to not recruit, or recruit cheapper units, in order to have more cash flow into the Imperial Coffers. Yet another way teamwork will be key.

EDIT 2 - Glaucus

1 - Yes, a Duke elected to emperor retains control of his ducal territory throughout his Imperial reign.

2 - If an Imperial Army conquers a settlement, it becomes Imperial lands, and is therefore untouchable by any currently established duke, even the emperor himself, to claim as personal lands. With 2 exceptions. A current duke's whole territory is conquered and he needs new lands, he can be granted Imperial territory by the emperor to keep him in the game as a landed player and not just a wandering avatar. A new player comes into the game and needs land, he will be granted a portion of Imperial Territory before any other players would be requested to make a concession in good faith and sportsmanship.

This means that the emperor really has no greater personal wealth than any other duke unless he uses his own ducal army to conquer. Let me clarify one thing.
The Emperor must keep his personal cities and the Imperial Territories seperate during his reign. Imperial Territory income goes straight to the Imperial Armies upkeep and straight into Imperial Coffers. The Emperor cannot touch the Imperial Territory's income for his personal usage. Only his own ducal lands can help him maintain his ducal army and his own ducal strength.

As for the prospect of not being able to conquer land not bordering yours, that would isolate internal dukes and isn't realistically coherent with Medieval politics. Prime examples are Prussia, the Habsburg's Austria-Hungary, Spain, and the many counties and duchies inside the Holy Roman Empire.

And with the ships...this is the middle ages. Crusades Crusades!

[El Diablo]

Couple of questions...

What happens to your provences when your character dies?
Are they to be assisgned to a "new prince" or "man of the hour" type person on the death of a character??? Is this done by the Emperor or would it be voted on?

For example you take over three provences and then get a blade in the back from an assassin - who gets the proviences??? Especially if there is no "free agents" at the time.

Secondly there will often be times when your own troops will not suffice. For example a heavily fortified province that would require a significant army to budge - can the emperor call a sort of HRE "crusade" to take that province. Who then owns it. Also if/when we get excommed and some large army(s) come a hunting we may require to merge some armies to stand against them.

It seems to me that perhaps the Emperor would need to have a bit more power to make these things happen???

Please dont think this critisim as I think this is a great idea I was just trying to work the mechanics of it all....

[Lucjan]

When a player who has gained alot of land has his avatar die, he'll simply choose an heir and continue to play with that land.

As far as multiple armies working together to take a province. It is up to player to allow the borrowing of their armies.

Example 1 - Metz is heavily fortified by the French, the Duke of Staufen thinks with some help from Innsbruck he can take Metz. The Duke of Innsbruck agrees to lend the Duke of Staufen an additional 10 units (which still operate under Innsbruck's income, as the troops are not loan, not sale) This boosts Staufen's army significantly and the Duke of Staufen then controls these units until Metz falls, at which time they return to the Duke of Innsbruck's contol, and the Duke of Staufen-Metz gives the Duke of Innsbruck whatever it was he wanted in exchange for the army loan, lets say the agreement was the first 3 turns worth of income from Metz go to Innsbruck in exchange for the army loan.

Example 2 - The Duke of Nuremburg and the Duke of Prague both have a ducal army in Stettin, both have just taken out equally sized Danish armies. Both are poised to besiege Stettin. This is a dillemma that is up to the two dukes to work out between each other. Or the Emperor may step in and use his power of decree to say that no matter who takes Stettin, Stettin will become Imperial Territory until the next edict session, at which point the conflict will be resolved in a vote.

[Ignoramus]

I'm hoping my copy of MTW2 arrives today. It's due to arrive sometime this week.

[Lucjan]

The sooner the better.

[econ21]

Thanks for those ideas, Lucjan - you put a lot of work into them and I think they are a good basis for a game. I confess I found them quite a lot to digest - if this is what WoS players felt in the past reading my WoS FAQ, they have my apologies.

To be honest, some of the rules seem a little ungainly - e.g. you may recruit only 2 out of 5 turns and can only afford memory starts to faze out... Other rules - players pay for troops, the Empire for buildings out of a residual - seem very problematic from a gameplay point of view: investment in buildings is arguably the key thing early on and players need the right incentives to invest.

I have been wondering how to simplify things and have come up with the following: if we are going to go for a decentralised PBM, we should just go the whole hog - let everyone manage their own armies and their settlements on a yearly basis. This is conceptually simple, although it requires a significant amount of recordkeeping by the reigning player (who I am calling the Chancellor, not the Emperor).


The basic idea

It would go like this:

Every even numbered day is the "orders phase". Each Duke has 24 hours to give orders (a) for troop movements
(b) for construction and recruitment
Often they will have no changes to their prior orders.

Every odd numbered day is the "execution phase". The Chancellor (player) has 24 hours to implement those orders and then posts the savegame either:
(a) at the end of the turn, so the Dukes can download it and prepare their orders for the new turn
or (b) for a battle, in which case he announces a two day postponement for the orders phase.

[Given the different time zones and real life commitments, we might want to extend the two 24 hours limits to 48 hours each.]

How much can the Dukes spend? The principle is that they get to keep - spend or save - all their settlements income, minus corruption, upkeep and Imperial taxes. Let us call income net of corruption and minus upkeep "gross profit". Gross profit net of Imperial taxes is "net profit". So basically, a Count's lands and armies imply a certain gross profit, but the Count only gets to spend net profit.

Imperial taxes are spent by the Chancellor to pay for the Imperial army and agents. They can also be used to invest in the Imperial capital (+castle, more anon) and fleets. [We could let Dukes buy and control their own agents and fleets, but I think that's too fiddly - let's restrict them to one field army.]

At the beginning of the game, the Empire starts with effectively zero gross profit. Therefore, I suggest that Imperial taxes start as lumpsums exactly equal to each Duke's starting gross profit. ie each Duke has zero net profit.

[Note: Bologna is actually in deficit, so it effectively receives an Imperial subsidy at the start of the game, rather than pays an Imperial tax.]

This sounds bleak, but the Empire does start with a treasury of 6000. I suggest that with 6 settlements, each receives a gift of 1000. So each of the four Dukes can spend or bank the 1000; the Chancellor gets the remaining 2000 to invest in Imperial settlements and the Imperial army.

However, any further Ducal spending or saving much come from growth of gross profits in his settlements. This will happen naturally from (a) population growth; (b) raising taxes; (c) disbanding units; (d) investing in economic buildings. Imperial taxes are fixed initially and so won't immediately rise to take a share of that growth.


Some extras

These are some additions/modifications to Lucjan's proposals:

1. Let's make Staufen castle an Imperial settlement too, so the Imperial army can train good troops without begging too much. Consequently, the Empire budget includes the gross profits from these two settlements plus Imperial taxes.

2. Towns make money; castles make good troops. Let them trade, at a mutually agreed price (not necessarily the face value price, as this means the castle loses out - they have less money than the towns, but towns can get all the good troops they can afford.)

3. There are periodic sessions of Parliament (or whatever we want to call the Senate). These vote on wars (2/3 majority); the size, composition and deployment of the Imperial army, agents and fleets; building programs in Imperial cities; on the level of Imperial taxes etc. I think one session every 5 turns would be sensible.

4. Imperial taxes should be lump sum amounts - not percentages - but could be non-uniform. Settlements with bigger gross profits, could get bigger tax bills (and de facto do at the start of the game). The Chancellor must propose a budget (a set of Imperial taxes for each settlement) and Parliament must approve it; if it is rejected, taxes stay at their historic levels.

5. The reigning player with the savegame is called the Chancellor and elected every X turns. Lucjan suggests 15 turns, but given the additional accounts burden I am imposing, I think 10 might be best.

6. The main duty of the Chancellor is to execute orders on the map, as in WoS. As in WoS, this means it makes sense that he is a leading politican and usually someone who wants to lead his men on an active campaign.

7. However, he also has to look maintain the accounts (no roleplaying on the accounts please - they are ooc and must be strictly maintained, no fiddling). This will be a major pain. I just did it for the starting situation and it was not fun (e.g. generals must be moved out of settlements in order to see their upkeep). I suggest it be done through excel or something, with the results posted in a table. I am happy to help set this up.

8. The Emperor and the heir are largely figureheads. I think the Emperor should be like the WoS Senate speaker, keeping Parliament to order and adjudicating of rules. The heir can be the deputy (maybe the librarian?). The Emperor can be Chancellor. The reason for not making the reigning player the Emperor, is that we will have an avatar on the map who is called Emperor but often is not the reigning player. Ignoring that fact is a little ugly, IMO.

9. Let each Duke freely set their own taxes regardless of whether they are stationed in the settlement. With zero net profit at the start of the game, they are going to want to!

10. No limit on the size of settlement garrisons (I doubt 5 can fend off a serious AI army). The settlement budget constraint will limit this. I agree only one field army per Duke though. Also Dukes can temporarily combine armies with other Dukes and/or the Imperial army; the Chancellor will keep track of units and the players can agree who fights the battle (or, perhaps more likely, agree not to combine!).

11. No limit on retraining - it's not such a big deal in M2TW (3 retrained per settlement max; 9 experience = only +3 att/def). One ship can carry two land units (we may want to crusade by sea and 10 ships is a decent enough fleet).

12. Let's play on normal unit size: the unit sizes are 75 spears; 60 swords/missiles and 40 cav which are fine, IMO. The terrain (e.g. buildings) are scaled for that - it's hard enough fitting a normal sized army in a small castle - and bigger units put a strain on older computers.

13. Let's play with timer on, please. Time - "give me night or give me Blucher" - is an important part of war and I don't want to wait around for some quirky/buggy AI behaviour as I've heard happens.


Bottomline

The main downside of a fully decentralised system such as the above is just record-keeping of settlement net profits. That's the price of being Chancellor. But you only have to do it 10 times.

The main upside is that each Duke has a lot to do - they can decide their own building and recruitment priorities, subject to the fundamental "guns or butter" trade-off. If the Chancellor keeps them informed of their net profit, the Dukes decisions should be fairly straightforward - they download the savegame and see what they want to do with their net profit. At the beginning, we each think about spending our intial 1000 gold, then pray for economic grow.

The Imperial taxes should make a nice role-playing issue - the Emperor is going to want to raise them to pay for a fleet, a bigger army etc. The Dukes seemingly have little incentive to agree. But by being selfish, they risk the Empire collapsing or stagnating. A classic Prisoner's Dilemma.

I am not sure how the political incentives regarding conquest will play out, following Lucjan's rules about Imperial vs Duchal conquests. However, I am happy to try them and see.


PS: In terms of avatars - for this trial, let's make Henry and Dietrich NPCs (or Counts) as they are in Imperial settlements. I am happy if Lucjan fights their battles - in the full game, they will be player controlled Counts in need of their own settlements.

PPS: I'd like to I take Otto (Innsbruck castle) for this trial.

[Braden]

Ok guys,

Sign me up for this trial as your first (and only?) Count. Maximilian Mandorf will be my first choice as Avatar.

BTW – having issues on the boards still but these have progressed from my “Edit doesn’t work” phase to my PM saying I’ve got 65,535 Unread Messages!!

I don’t have any unread messages fortunately so can still receive (I think) and certainly send PM’s.

Have put a post in the WatchTower section……hmmmm

[Ignoramus]

I dislike econ21's idea. While a decentralised PBeM is nice, the Emperor is, after all, the Emperor. I think the Emperor ought to have a fair bit of power, but for the rest of his power, he must gain the obedience of the dukes. This seems to be the most enjoyable system to me.

[econ21]

I dislike econ21's idea. While a decentralised PBeM is nice, the Emperor is, after all, the Emperor. I think the Emperor ought to have a fair bit of power, but for the rest of his power, he must gain the obedience of the dukes. .

Are you just disliking the Chancellor/Emperor nomeclature? That's an RP thing and not a big deal.

Because if we think about the reigning player (Chancellor/Emperor/whatever name you want to give him), I am not sure he has less power under my proposals than under Lucjan's.

What my proposal does is reduce the power of Parliament (the Dukes collectively) and increase the power of the Dukes individually. The key change is that Dukes, not edicts, will decide what to build in their settlements. And they will have to confront the choice between troops or buildings individually, rather than collectively. I don't like the original proposal of buildings being decided by edicts - collective decision-making (voting) is not best suited for such minutae. The information and coordination problems are too large - as the Empire grows there will be too many decisions, too often to be manageable (do we really want to have votes on what to build in 44 settlements?!). By contrast, a Duke managing their own settlement or even half a dozen settlements is not a big deal.

And I think there's a big problem allowing Dukes to spend all of their income on troops (ie there could be no budget for buildings). By giving Dukes their own budgets, we internalise this choice.

The reigning player probably has more power under my proposals, because he gets taxes from the Dukes and uses that to pay for the Imperial army, in addition to gross profits from his settlements. AFAIK, that's pretty historical.

OT: one other thing occurred to me last night - what do we do with income from sacking? In my game, this is a massive money earner - in fact, it is the one thing that allows you to make major building investments. I think it is too much to just give to the conquering Duke. He already gets to keep the settlement. I would put it in the Imperial budget or find some other way of sharing it out more.

[econ21]

Just to make things concrete, here are some rough starting budgets, working from some notes of a hard campaign, medium units sized game:

Ducal budgets

Note:
[4]=[1]-[2]-[3]
[5]=[4] in first period; fixed thereafter for 5 turns
[6]=[4]-[5]
[9]=[6]+[7]-[8]

Imperial budget

The numbers don't match exactly with my game (I'm vague on agent costs) - I'll check things add up tonight.

But basically, according to these figures, the HRE is only making a profit of 129 florins. Not much of an income, once we've blown the starting balance of 6000 florins.

On the first turn, Duke's could each spend up to their 1000 share of the starting pot of 6000 to purchase buildings or troops. The "carried forward" column assumes they purchase nothing.

By changing taxes or disbanding troops, Dukes could increase their net profits this turn.

The Chancellor would revise the table on the basis of any purchases and any changes to net profit. This net profit, together with anything left of the 1000, would be carried forward to next period. It would be available for them to spend or save next period.

Note also that gross profits are very unequal across Duchies. Innsbruck (& Staufen), as a castle, gets much less and has much less potential for profitable investments. This is why we need to think about the balance between castles and cities. In a solo game, I would invest nearly all my money in upgrading Innsbruck and Staufen to get good troops. We currently don't have good incentives for that in a decentralised game. Letting castle owners "sell" troops for above cost price might be one mechanism.

[Lucjan]

After reading over Econ's suggestions, some of these were actually my own thoughts as well which I had altered substantially for 2 reasons. I Hadn't thought of making the chancellor do all the work..I thought the players would do it themselves, and this extra paper work would scare people off. I also hadn't thought of what would happen with the construction edicts when we got so many settlements...lol

In light of reading all of econ's rewritten proposals. I am in favor of all of them, and If econ would care to make a short, basic right up of his rules, I'll follow that with a short list of the rules I suggested which we're going to keep.

The only issue I would have is with the speadsheet, if this could somehow be kept in a post online that would be fantastic. Because, well, I don't have excel. I know, my computer is great for gaming, but really old school on the clerical stuff. I'm still running "Microsoft Works Spreadsheet", Excel's grandpappy. (Though to my understanding this along with all ''microsoft works'' tools are available on any windows os)

Econ, would you mind if I still ran the first 10 turns? Or would you prefer to, for the sake of making sure all the clerical duties work nicely? (The spreadsheet and stuff).

[econ21]

After reading over Econ's suggestions, some of these were actually my own thoughts as well ...

I know - you proposed this a while back in the WoS and ever seen I've been periodically wondering how to make it operational. In the end, the only way I can see is to go the whole hog and make it "Medieval Total Spreadsheet".

I Hadn't thought of making the chancellor do all the work..I thought the players would do it themselves, and this extra paper work would scare people off.

I think the Chancellors are probably happy to do the work - you, TinCow, DDW, FLYdude etc have all gone above and beyond the call of duty in the WoS game, computing kill rates, writing libraries, uploading patches etc. In a way, if Dukes control their own armies and settlements individually, and set HRE policy collectively, the Chancellor is almost reduced to this coordination role. And they only have to do it ten times.

The upside is that Dukes don't have to do any paper work - they just need to upload the annual saves and see what they want to do with the balance the Chancellor has posted they have for that year.

In light of reading all of econ's rewritten proposals. I am in favor of all of them, and If econ would care to make a short, basic right up of his rules, I'll follow that with a short list of the rules I suggested which we're going to keep.

Great - I will draft a synthesis of our proposals and you can revise it. I'll aim for tonight, but no promises.

The only issue I would have is with the speadsheet, if this could somehow be kept in a post online that would be fantastic.

I'll investigate this. I don't think there will be a problem getting Excel and Works to work together:

http://www.microsoft.com/products/wo...ktogether.mspx

Ideally the files will be so small, we can post them as attachments. But the sums involved will be fairly easy (at least for the first few Chancellors - God help the last) so they could even be done by hand.

Econ, would you mind if I still ran the first 10 turns? Or would you prefer to, for the sake of making sure all the clerical duties work nicely? (The spreadsheet and stuff).

No problem.

[Tamur]

The only issue I would have is with the speadsheet, if this could somehow be kept in a post online that would be fantastic.

I have to do spreadsheet-to-web conversions fairly often with my job. If the Chancellor-in-residence wants to send me whatever spreadsheet they have, I could make it web-accessible with just a little bit of work, regardless of the format.

I do like the autonomy of this setup a lot. At first I was concerned about the fixed (rather than percentage) tax rates, but that does make sense. I guess with the test run we can see which tax levels work and which don't.

Saying of which, with the test run are we playing nicely and not trying to break the system? Or are we testing the limits?

[econ21]

Thanks for the offer, Tamur.

Saying of which, with the test run are we playing nicely and not trying to break the system? Or are we testing the limits?

I would say play nice - let's get the game up and running before we try to stick something in the wheels. But you should look for and raise for discussion any ways in which the system could be broken if you did not play nice.

For example, inheriting the impoverished castle at Innsbruck, I am already wondering about disbanding my army and converting to a town to get an income stream going. I won't necessary do it, but I will think about what would happen if I did and whether it would require new rules etc.

[Tamur]

...I am already wondering about disbanding my army and converting to a town to get an income stream going. I won't necessary do it, but I will think about what would happen if I did and whether it would require new rules etc.

Yes, that was my first thought after seeing the income spreadsheet -- the difference between cities and castles is hugely apparent.

However, I tend to think that this will foster cooperation between city-holders and castle-holders. i.e. city-holders have got the cash but have low-quality troops, they could benefit from making an agreement with a castle-holder to pay a certain amount for protection or some sort of overhead-bonus for the hiring of castle-quality troops.

Obviously a capitalistic approach. Hmm, one of these economics professors I work with could get some fun out of making a study of this little experiment.

[Lucjan]

Well, here are my ideas for balancing city economic power with castle military power.

Castle Perks

1 - Cities have to pay an additional 25% rounded to the nearest tens place for units they must recruit from a castle, and + 1 florin for every two men in the unit for compensation in the castle player's population loss. This additional recruitment cost goes to the castle holder as his payment for providing a service. For example. On huge settings a mailed knights unit costs 650 to recruit, and consists of 80 men. So the math looks like this.

Additional Base Cost: 650 x .25 = 162.5 rounded to 160.
Population Loss Compensation: 160 + 40 for the cost of eighty men = 200
Total Cost for Mailed Knights purchased from Castle: 650+200 = 850

Or for Spear Militia.
Additional Base Cost: 310 x .25 = 77.5 rounded to 80.
Population Loss Compensation: 80 + 60(provided a unit is 120 men, which I think it is, but I'm not sure) = 140
Total Cost for Spear Militia purchased from Castle: 310+140 = 450

While the total unit cost is still spent on building the unit itself, the extra funds are kept by the castle lord for compensation for his time and manpower. So ordering a unit of mailed knights and two spear militia from Staufen would cost Staufen 320 population, they would gain 480 florins profit.

These recruitment costs might look large, but take into consideration from an RP perspective that this castle is giving up significant portions of its population to fill the ranks of another duke's army, and they still have to make a profit over the initial base cost of the recruitment.

Hmm..oh, and castles cannot charge extra if they have armor or weapon upgrades, as these don't actually raise the initial base cost of recruitment, and the castle would make them as part of the standard procedure if they were recruiting the unit for themselves anyway.

2 - Only players with a castle can build watch towers and forts. This would reflect the availability of people with the knowledge of proper terrain use and strategic military placement in castles as compared to the more domestic or urban based construction skills of engineers and architects available in cities.



Hmm...not sure on too much of anything besides that. In the spirit of balancing castles with cities, I don't want to overbalance anything, as players will undoubtedly gain control of territories encompassing both a castle and a city, or could alter their lands to be so, these balancing works are really for earlier game balance issues.

[econ21]

Here is a "synthesis" set of rules. Apologies for the length. If I have left out some ideas, it is deliberate - usually for simplicity. Lucjan and any others can suggest amendments.

BTW, on the castle thing - it's worse than it looks from my table, as cities can raise taxes to VH and castles can't. Personally, in my solo English game, I tend to think that only castles are (almost) worth building in - most of the city buildings seem unexciting compared to investing to get the better troops of the castle. The last clause in these rules is a possible workaround - I've decided to restrict obtaining Ducal troops to Ducal castles, not the Imperial castle at Staufen. This should help ensure that at least in the early game, Dukes with castles are well treated by their richer peers in cities.


Rules


How to play – in brief

Players are either Dukes or Counts (collectively “nobles”). Both will have an in-game character (typically a general) or avatar who will represent them.

A key difference between Dukes and Counts is that Dukes micromanage the movement of their avatar and any troops and settlements they control. For example, if he gets into a battle, the Duke is expected to download the savegame and fight the battle. Counts are suitable for players who cannot or do not want to do that.

Dukes will govern specific settlements – cities or castles. They will decide what buildings and troops to purchase, subject to their own resources. Counts may also do this, with some provisos.

Collectively, the nobles form the Imperial Diet where each has one vote.

Every tenth turn, the Imperial Diet will elect a Chancellor. The Chancellor will be the “reigning player” and execute the orders of the Dukes, as well as control central (“Imperial”) assets such as the capital (Frankfurt), the Imperial castle (Staufen) and the Imperial army.

Every five turns, the Imperial Diet will be in session. When in a session, nobles will vote on “edicts” that mandate the Chancellor to specific action. Crucially, these include authorising declarations of war and the setting of taxes.

Game settings

*MT2TW unmodded (but hopefully patched for the real thing).
*Hard campaigns, very hard battles.
*Large unit size.
*Battle timer on. Show CPU Moves, Manage all Settlements
Standard victory conditions (45 provinces, including Jerusalem).

Hard restrictions on play: * only two land units (including a general) may travel on each ship.

How to play - detailed rules


1. Logistical matters

1.1. When the Chancellor announces a new turn, he will post the savegame for the start of that turn. He will also post the current financial balance of each Duke.

1.2. During the 48 hours after posting the save, there will be an “orders phase.” During this time, each Duke can give orders for:
(a) troop movements
(b) construction and recruitment in his settlement(s) subject to his current balance.
(c) tax rates
Often they will have no changes to their prior orders. If no orders are received, the Duke’s forces cannot be moved and all their balance is saved. Players are to place any movement orders they have for their army or units in their army in the Ducal Commands thread. Orders should be clear and detailed enough to be understood.

Ex 1 - Duke of Staufen - I'm ordering the movement of my Avatar, 2 Mailed Knights, 3 Spear Militias, and 2 Peasant Archers from the Castle of Staufen to march westwards. Their target is the bridge on the river crossing between the Staufen Region and the Metz Region. Next turn, order them to Besiege Metz.

Ex 2 - I want to recruit 1 unit of Mailed Knights and 2 units of peasant militia from the Castle of Staufen.

1.3. The Chancellor will then execute these orders to the best of his abilities (this - and the management of accounts - must be done strictly ooc - no manipulating orders, fiddling the books etc).

1.4. If a Duke’s army gets into a battle, the Chancellor will upload the savegame and PM the Duke. The Duke will have 48 hours from the sending of the PM to play the battle and upload a new save, or the battle will be autoresolved.

1.5. Troop movements – Dukes may only have one army in the field. Reinforcements can be moved in separate stacks, but must not exceed five units. The Chancellor will control his own Ducal army and the Imperial army, both single stacks. Stacks may be merged but unless players are gifting units, the Chancellor must keep track of units. Armies 5 units or less in strength that are being transferred between players count as part of the receiving player's ducal army, draw income from the receiving player's total income, and do not penalise the receiving player while they are en route to the receiving player. Basically, until they reach the Ducal army, they count as part of it income wise, but not physically until they actually join up. This is to avoid contradicting the "1 standing army per player" rule.

1.6. If an army conquers a new settlement, that settlement belongs to the owner of the conquering army - i.e. a Duke or the Empire.

1.7. If there are players wishing to join the game as Dukes who do not have a settlement, any settlement conquered by an Imperial army will be offered to them. Any settlement conquered by a Ducal army may be offered to them at the discretion of the Duke. If such an offer is made, the new Duke owes a debt of gratitude to his patron. If such an offer is not made, other nobles may take a dim view of the conqueror.

1.8. A Duke who has not given orders and has not actively participated, without giving prior notice that they may be temporarily unavailable, can be dispossessed of his lands and relegated to the role of a Count. If they do not give orders for 10 consecutive terms, they may be removed from the game.


1.9. Dukes who are unable to play for a period of time may transfer management of their lands and armies to another Duke (e.g. the Chancellor), acting as their steward. However, the steward, not the absentee Count/Duke, will have authority over their lands and armies and battles led by their Count/Duke’s avatar must be autoresolved.

1.10. This is a cooperative game - Dukes cannot leave the Empire and become autonomous states.


2. Money matters

2.1. Purchases - Dukes, including the Chancellor, can spend up to their current balance in their own settlement(s) on buildings or troops; or they may save the balance. The Chancellor can also spend up to the Imperial balance on Imperial settlements, agents or ships, or may save the balance.

2.2 Only the Chancellor can purchase and move agents or fleets. He may buy them from other Duke’s settlements with Imperial funds, overriding their build orders if necessary.

2.3. Four Dukes will start the game with one settlement and its garrison each. Frankfurt (the capital) and Staufen are Imperial settlements. The leaderless army in the north is the Imperial army. Other players are landless Dukes or Counts until settlements (and, for all but two, avatars) become available for them.

2.4. The starting balance of 6000 florins is to be divided 1000 to each Duke and 2000 to the Imperial treasury. All florins from capturing a settlement are to be evenly divided between the Dukes, with the Empire receiving a share equivalent to two Dukes.

2.5. For Dukes, current balances are equal to previous balances plus net profits from their settlements. Net profits are gross profits minus Imperial taxes. Gross profits are settlement income minus corruption and minus Army support costs.

2.6. Imperial taxes are lump sums set by 5-turn edicts. They start fixed at gross profits at the start of the game. Only the Chancellor can propose a tax edict. If it is rejected by a Reichstag vote, taxes remain fixed at previous levels.

2.7. The Imperial treasury is to pay for the Imperial army, ships, agents and any sums spent on diplomacy. Revenue accrues to the Imperial treasury from Imperial settlements (just as with Dukes, but with zero tax) and from Imperial taxes. Any sums gained from diplomacy, from ransoms, from missions and from conquering settlements accrue to the Empire. Any troops given as rewards for missions also come under Imperial control. .

2.8. Dukes may pay others to recruit troops for them. The price is negotiable, but for troops bought from a castle, should be at least the recruitment price plus 25%. (This is to compensate castles which are poorer, as they have much less opportunity for economic buildings and cannot raise taxes, but have access to the best troops).

2.9. The Chancellor will keep separate track of his personal settlements and troops, and the Imperial settlements and troops. Imperial income goes straight to the Imperial Armies upkeep and straight into Imperial Coffers. The Chancellor cannot touch the Imperial Territory's income or men for his personal usage. Only his own ducal lands can help him maintain his ducal army and his own ducal strength.


3. The Imperial Diet

3.1. The Imperial Diet will meet in session every 5 turns. Out of session, there can be open debate and deliberations. Each session lasts 3 days.

3.2. At each session, nobles can propose edicts. These require one seconder to be put to the vote.

3.3. Edicts can cover the use of the Imperial army, budgets, fleets, agents and diplomacy. They can also cover the allocation of Imperial settlements (e.g. to landless Dukes) and the coordination of military campaigns (e.g. instructing Duke X to help the Imperial Army). Edicts can transfer Imperial assets to individual Dukes ("privatisation" or rebating surplus tax revenue etc) However, they cannot transfer resources from individual Dukes to Imperial control (no expropriation) except via the setting of taxes. Edicts cannot directly mandate the movement of Ducal armies or spending of Ducal budgets. They could conceivably try to do this - e.g. asking a Duke to help out somewhere. But Dukes can always defy the wishes of the Reichstag on the movement of their armies or spending of their budgets. Dukes would do so at their peril. Dukes cannot defy the taxman, however, and if unhappy with an uncooperative Duke, the Imperial Diet could impose punitive taxes.

3.4. Any declaration of war must be authorised by an Imperial edict. The Chancellor or any Duke is empowered to declare war on a non-allied army entering its lands.

*3.5. The rules of the game can be changed by a Noble Charter Amendments (2/3 majority required) except those marked with a *.

3.6. Tied edicts fail. If contradictory edicts are passed, the one with the most votes takes priority.

3.7. Edicts can only last for 5 turns.

3.8. Every 10 turns (or on the death or impeachment of the Chancellor), there is an election for the post of Chancellor. One noble one vote. Ties lead to a fresh ballot. A second tie is decided by seniority (avatar age). Voting is open for 2 days.

*3.9. The Chancellor can be impeached and removed from office by a 2/3 majority of the Imperial Diet.

*3.10. The Imperial Diet is presided over by the character controlling the Emperor. His rulings are final. The Prince can preside in the absence of the Emperor. The Emperor can call an emergency session of the Imperial Diet - freeze the game - at will. The Emperor can also resolve conflicts between players - for example, in a dispute over a division of the spoils - by decree. Although the Emperor will be a Duke, he will adjudicate ooc in an impartial manner. If he is personally involved in a dispute, he will delegate judgement to the Prince if the Prince is not party to a dispute.


4. Counts

4.1. Counts are suitable for players who would like to participate either do not have the game or do not want download savegames etc.

4.2. Counts have full voting rights in the Imperial Diet and are expected to make most of their contribution there. They should focus on debate and policymaking - since they do not download savegames, they should not get too involved in the minutae of orders etc.

4.3. However, a Count may be given a settlement by a Duke, who becomes the Count’s patron. The patron remains in formal control of the settlement. (He is the only one downloading the savegame and is best informed.) However, the Duke should try to accommodate the Count’s wishes. In return, the Count is expected to vote in accordance with the Duke’s wishes, unless given a free vote. The Count may always renounce his inheritance and seek a new patron if unsatisfied with the relationship; and the Duke may seek a new Count to run their settlement.

4.4. In addition, a Count may be given a settlement by the Empire although preference will be given to landless Dukes (players who will fight battles). The Chancellor (the office, not the man) then acts as the Duke’s patron. He has formal control of the settlement, but the Count can vote freely.

4.5. The movement of the Count’s avatar is decided by the Count’s patron or, if he has no patron, by the Chancellor. The Count may petition to be moved in a certain way, but lacking access to a savegame, this is neither expected nor binding. If frustrated, Counts may show their displeasure by voting or other political actions.

4.6. A Count can always become a Duke (if the player wants to start playing battles etc). A Duke can always become a Count (if the player has to be away for a while). But if the latter change is to be temporary, the Duke must identify another Duke to be steward of their lands.

4.7. A Count is normally given a general as an avatar. However, they could instead take on an agent (they can be “honorary Counts” sort of like the Bishops who sit in the UK House of Lords). I advise against players taking on roles of merchants, spies and assassins, they're all lost far too easily. However, I see no issues with a priestly, diplomatic or princess avatar. A Priestly avatar may actually be highly interesting if by chance the player actually finds himself sitting on the Papal throne.


5. Inter-character relations

5.1. Players are expected to role-play their avatars - act according to their stats and traits. For example, loyal generals should cooperate with the Consul. Chivalrous generals should cooperate with other nobles and be merciful with enemies (the player fighting the battle gets to decide what to do with prisoners, but any ransoms go to the Imperial treasury). Generals with high dread may be less amenable with other nobles and should be merciless with enemies. Pious generals should build religious buildings and agitate to go on crusades.

5.2. In the mid-term session of the Imperial Diet (only), the Chancellor receives bonus votes equal to half the Emperor’s authority, rounded up. This is to help them see through their agenda.

5.3. Nobles may enter binding contracts with each other. These should be posted in the Noble commands thread and agreed to by all sides. The Chancellor must enforce these contracts and there can be no reneging. Possible contracts include but are not limited to trades (e.g. men for florins) and loans (with a mutually agreed rate of interest and duration).

5.4. When a Duke dies, he will simply choose a spare avatar as an heir and continue to play with that land. If there is no spare avatar, the Chancellor will manage the Dukedom as a separate entity until one becomes available.

5.5. Ducal armies may work together to take a province. It is up to player to allow the borrowing of their armies.

Example 1 - Metz is heavily fortified by the French, the Duke of Staufen thinks with some help from Innsbruck he can take Metz. The Duke of Innsbruck agrees to lend the Duke of Staufen an additional 10 units (which still operate under Innsbruck's income, as the troops are not loan, not sale) This boosts Staufen's army significantly and the Duke of Staufen then controls these units until Metz falls, at which time they return to the Duke of Innsbruck's control, and the Duke of Staufen-Metz gives the Duke of Innsbruck whatever it was he wanted in exchange for the army loan, lets say the agreement was the first 3 turns worth of income from Metz go to Innsbruck in exchange for the army loan.

Example 2 - The Duke of Nuremburg and the Duke of Prague both have a ducal army in Stettin, both have just taken out equally sized Danish armies. Both are poised to besiege Stettin. This is a dilemma that is up to the two dukes to work out between each other. Or the Emperor may step in and use his power of decree to say that no matter who takes Stettin, Stettin will become Imperial Territory until the next edict session, at which point the conflict will be resolved in a vote.

5.6. When offered a guild, the Chancellor can use his discretion over whether to accept (I don't think we can save at this point). Dukes may specify in advance which guilds they would or would not want accepted - the Chancellor should honour those wishes, but these instructions must be clearly posted as standing orders.

5.7. Dukes cannot buy, borrow or receive troops from Imperial settlements; they cannot enter contracts with the Chancellor to borrow or gift money from Imperial assets etc. Imperial assets are strictly ringfenced for Imperial use (exception: edicts can transfer Imperial assets; this rule 5.7 is about private trades not extending to include Imperial settlements; it is not to limit edicts). But this is asymmetric - Dukes can gift or lend the Empire troops or money (e.g. in a crisis). They cannot receive payment or interest for such actions though (again a specific edict might include a quid pro quo and that would allowed; this is about private trades).

[Tamur]

Looks superb econ, thanks for spending the amount of time this must have taken, very well worth it to have it all lined out so well. And that last para (5.7) is exactly what's needed to foster cooperation. If there's no source but castle-endowed Dukes for good troops, then those castles will be highly prized.

A couple of amendment suggestions...

2.4. The starting balance of 6000 florins is to be divided 1000 to each Duke and 2000 to the Imperial treasury. All florins from capturing a settlement are to be evenly divided between the Dukes, with the Empire receiving a share equivalent to two Dukes.

I think this paragraph ought also to mention

1. the division of income from the completion of missions, probably in the same vein as the split mentioned for capturing a settlement (equal parts to Dukes, with double-Duke portion to the Empire), and...
2. some sort of rule about who controls troops given as reward for mission completion. I would suggest that these come under imperial control rather than trying to split them amongst four+ Ducal armies.

5.3. Nobles may enter binding contracts with each other. These should be posted in the Noble commands thread and agreed to by all sides. The Chancellor must enforce these contracts and there can be no reneging. Possible contracts include trades (e.g. men for florins) and loans (with a mutually agreed rate of interest and duration).

A small amendment here: the last line "Possible contracts include..." could be changed to "Possible contracts include, but are not limited to, ..." since Dukes should be able to enter into any sort of contract with each other (i.e. lending of troops for X number of turns, formal agreements of long-term military assistance, etc).

[Ignoramus]

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.

[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).

[econ21]

One suggestion - let's trial this game at Medium - not hard - campaign difficulty, very hard battles.

The reason is I am curious about diplomacy. I think most WoS players would like more amenable AI diplomacy - alliances that matter, not always being attacked by neighbours - and I suspect we are more likely to get that on medium than on hard difficulty. The only question is whether that setting would make the game too easy. A trial should show that. If we feel unchallenged, we do the real thing on hard.

AFAIK, M2TW is already hardwired so that the AI gangs up on the human when he becomes the strongest, so even on medium, we probably will get a fairly challenging experience.

HRE is probably not easy anyway, especially with the potential inter-Duke coordination issues.

[Ignoramus]

Ah ok. It seems a shame that Reich sounds so modern. I suppose that's because all of our history books are written in English and naturally use English rather than German words. I see now that there's nothing wrong with Reichstag, but the very word throws me; especially considering that it's Germany's House of Parliament.

[Lucjan]

A few minor issues.

1.8 should read - "A player who has not given orders and has not actively participated, without giving prior notice that they may be temporarily unavailable"

3.9 - I have issues with players being able to demote or expel other players who may be active members of the campaign, just unpopular...we've never had to do this in the WotS and I feel the inclusion of such a clause without having any prior evidence of a necessity is a bit faulty. I do support impeachment of the chancellor at 2/3 vote though.

I would prefer keeping the trial on H campaign difficulty, as I played two games with Spain for 60 turns. One on M camp and one on H camp difficulty, and the smaller size of enemy armies on M made the game too easy. Some other opinions may differ though.

I'll accept normal sized unit settings if I can't try to nudge you guys towards large.

Other than this, I see no problems, and would be happy to start as soon as everybody is ready.

[econ21]

OK, Lucjan, I'll make the changes. I'm ok with hard and large.

In terms of starting, we are waiting for Ignoramus to get the game, although I think we should press on by Friday at the latest even if he has not. His avatar can be a Count until he gets the game and you can be his "patron".

BTW - how are you getting on with the "passive AI bug"? Indeed can anyone explain it to me? One thing I have observed in my English campaign, is that often I can shoot the AI to death and it often does nothing - it advances into range and then stalls. This is even if it is supposed to be the attacker and has better melee troops. Are you finding that?

Maybe a patch will fix things, although I am sceptical, but if it is a genuine problem, I suggest that we cap the number of missiles (bow + crossbow) per army as we did in WoS. Say two maximum? Unlike the English, I don't think this would be too much of a constraint for the HRE as historically, they did not rely heavily on missiles, AFAIK.

Not sure about artillery, as we might want a siege train for a big assault. Maybe we leave them out of the cap for now. But we should not exploit artillery too much in field battles.

EDIT: It might be useful for giving orders if we use the following RTW cheat:

show_cursorstat

Then we will get (x,y) coordinates for the cursor. If you want to fine tune movement, you could tell the Chancellor to move your Duke to location (x,y).

I am guessing you access cheats by ~ or whatever it was people used to get Romeshell.

I need to try it though.

[Lucjan]

As far as the passive AI bug, I have only seen this in one battle, it was a custom battle I set up between the Polish and the French, and from what I remember of the battle, I can guess it occurred because the following sequence took place.

1 - Both sides began the battle advancing towards each other, France was supposed to be on the offensive.
2 - France lost the cavalry it had placed on its flanks to missile fire and the units began to route before they actually reached my lines, breaking France's ability to flank.
3 - We both began to pull back and reform our lines to something more suitable for the new situation.
4 - I never advanced afterwards, just shot the French to death.

From what I saw, the French suffered an early defeat that they didn't expect when I took out their cavalry and defeated their ability to flank my lines, so they pulled back and rather than going on the offensive, started playing defence, but I never actually went ahead and switched my strategy to a more offensive role, and just sat back shooting them to death.

My hypothesis, then, is that if the enemy is on the offence and suffers severe unexpected losses before they actually reach your line for melee, they will switch to a defensive role and let you make the first move. However, if all you do is sit back and shoot, the computer doesn't recognize this as something that should be prompting it to return to it's offensive stance.

Not sure if this is even remotely correct in regards to actual game mechanics, but it's all I can gather from my singular run in with this bug.

Oh, and starting Friday sounds good.

As far as unit restrictions... I played two battles to test the effects of an overkill archer/crossbowman army with a large siege train against a regular, randomized french army. I had 3 archers with 5 pavise Crossbowmen, 3 grand bombards and a trebuchet, the rest was sargeant spearmen, dismounted knights and the general. Even with 3/5ths of the army being made of armor piercing and fast firing missiles, with mass-casualty inflicting artillery, I lost both battles. The french infantry of the line had enough staying power to push through my much smaller melee line and route the missiles no problem.

So..I don't really think we need to worry about restricting large missile armies. The first drastic loss because someone thought they could win this way will make for an interesting rp situation and let the other players who thought about trying it see it's not a good idea the hard way.

[econ21]

So..I don't really think we need to worry about restricting large missile armies. The first drastic loss because someone thought they could win this way will make for an interesting rp situation and let the other players who thought about trying it see it's not a good idea the hard way.

OK, I'll take out the 2 missile rule. But missile heavy works like a charm in my English campaign on VH (I guess those longbows do their stuff, then?).