M2 HRE Test OOC Thread

[Tamur]

The army/autoresolve plan sounds fine with me for now. I think once we get a few extra avatars that these should be battlemap-fought, though, since it's always exciting to read the battle reports.

One question: I'm confused on the separation between the Deliberations thread and the Imperial Diet thread. When I posted last night in both, I had assumed that the Deliberations thread was for local matters or Duke-to-Duke (or Count) agreements, while the Imperial Diet thread was more for the direction of the Empire (including use of the imperial army, etc).

Can someone clear this up for me? Thanks!

[Lucjan]

Consider the Imperial Diet the same thing as a "Motions Thread" from the WotS. And the Deliberations thread is for everything else. Err..that is, unless I myself misunderstood econ's intentions.

[econ21]

Consider the Imperial Diet the same thing as a "Motions Thread" from the WotS. And the Deliberations thread is for everything else. Err..that is, unless I myself misunderstood econ's intentions.

Um, well this is the kind of thing we are going to iron out through this trial. I've renamed the two threads so one is for "Orders" and the other for "Deliberations".

We need a thread to put in our individual orders each turn, and the Chancellor should also post our starting balances in that thread too. There is no real counterpart to this in the WoS. I suggest we keep it "clean" of as much other discussion as possible, so it is easy for the Chancellor to understand what Dukes are ordering be done. Ideally, it's little more than a list of orders - rather like Tamur's first post in it.

The deliberations thread, by contrast, is where we will debate strategy, politics and propose motions. This is just our old friend from WoS and should cover most public in character discussion.

On avatars, we don't seem to be using the King and Prince. For some reason, I assumed Lucjan would be King Heinrich (and as such also Duke of Bologna); and that Dietrich and the Prince would be landless Counts. But if we use their avatars, we have room for Ignoramus (and even one other?).

[Lucjan]

Ignoramus could take either of them, I guess a misinterpretation on my part led me to believe the emperor and prince would be unclaimed avatars.

[econ21]

A couple of works on taxes etc - I had envisaged they would be fixed for 5 turns at the initial levels, but it's not important. If Lucjan wants to propose changing them, that's fine.

On getting the numbers to add up, I suggest we just treat the Imperium as a residual. That's to say - let's work out each Duke's budgets in detail and the Imperium gets what is left. There's some funny stuff going on with "wages" that I don't understand (check the Citadel for my plea for enlightenment). Plus, I have a feeling that the budgets we see may be "projections" for next turn and may not exactly add up to what actually happens.

When it comes to each Duchy, we are starting with a balance of 1000 each. That's the most we can spend this turn. The Imperium can spend the residual 2000.

Lucjan should keep a record of this spending (e).

At the beginning of next turn, Lucjan should make a note of each non-Imperial settlements:

a) income
b) corruption
c) army upkeep (inc. gen's bodyguard)
d) Imperial taxes

(a)-(b)-(c)-(d)-(e) = (f) ie change to balance.

These calculations should be done before doing anything[1] - e.g. changing local taxes.

So next turn each Duke will be allowed to spend [1000 + (f)], their new balance.

The Imperium will get to spend the entire treasury for that turn minus the sum of each Dukes' balances, which must be set aside for them.

On merchants, I had proposed the Imperium pay for them. But I suspect if their benefits accrue to a specific settlement. Hence, I provisionally suggest that either the Imperium or a Duke can pay for them. If the latter, the Duke will control where they go (and have to check he's benefiting - not some other settlement). They have 0 upkeep, so that is one headache less. Let's keep other agents on the Imperium's books.

[1]The one thing that might mess things up is guild offers as these must be accepted or declined before you can do anything else that turn.

I suggest that these be turned down unless the Duke has stated a contingency that they be accepted.

If they are accepted they are added to last turn's expenditure (e). I think there probably should be a proviso that allows the Duchy to go into debt if they can't pay for the guild. Really good guilds are too good to turn down.

[Lucjan]

Ok, here's my thoughts.

I'll work out the initial financial craziness and find out how this is actually going to work out by playing a few turns in on my own game.

On guild houses, I think the choice of the guild type that should be allowed to be constructed should be left up to the duke, so they should outline prior to their settlement reaching minor city status what guilds would be acceptable to them. But the cost for guild houses specifically should come from the Imperial coffers, and payed back later by the duke in increments, because there's no real telling when the preferred guild house will pop up, and if the duke can't pay for it right then and there he's screwed for who knows how long on the guild house he wanted.

Two other things I noticed.

1 - Not sure I'm a fan of the chancellor being able to override a duke's build orders in order to make ships or agents...
2 - I know I initially pushed for large unit size, mostly because I was concerned about the 40 strong size of cavalry units being too powerful in comparison to the meager 75 spears. (I hadn't notice that the 40:75 and 60:112 are actually comparable ratios.)
But due to wanting to open the game up to people who might not be able to handle the large unit settings, and that the game has issues with unit movement inside cities now the way it is, I think it may actually be better to go with Econ's initial inclination of normal unit size settings. To my knowledge this doesn't change any upkeep costs, I'll check up on that now though.

EDIT - My reasoning for changing the initial tax levels is that drawing the full income from everybody for the first 5 turns really cripples anything we can accomplish for the first 5 turns in terms of independant duchies.

[econ21]

On guild houses, ...

Agreed.

1 - Not sure I'm a fan of the chancellor being able to override a duke's build orders in order to make ships or agents...

OK, we could make it that the Chancellor can do it without consent provided it does not crowd out any other build orders - ie if there is space in the buld queue. (AFAIK, recruitment does not deplete population in M2TW, unlike RTW.) And the Chancellor could be allowed to override through an edict (an exception to the usual "no messing with the Dukes' own stuff" rule.)

I think it may actually be better to go with Econ's initial inclination of normal unit size settings.

Agreed.

My reasoning for changing the initial tax levels is that drawing the full income from everybody for the first 5 turns really cripples anything we can accomplish for the first 5 turns in terms of independant duchies.

Agreed - this is the kind of thing this trial can get sorted out; ie what level of taxes should we start with.

EDIT: On the money side - I can now get the starting numbers to add up (at least for Scotland). Apparently each general costs 200 gold in wages per turn, on top of the upkeep for their bodyguard's. This will drive our castles into deficit. I propose we cover that money about of Imperial funds for now (we do get 1500 income just from the King's something or other), but for clarity, let's include it in each duchy's accounts.

I'm still struggling to think of how we balance castles and cities. One radical idea would be to make both initial castles non-playable. Staufen could provide for the Imperial army; Innsbruck could act as the provider for Ducal armies. Both could be run by the Chancellor from the Imperial budget.

If a Duke acquires a second settlement as a castle, I don't think that would cause problems and he could keep it. We could maybe use Lucjan's 25% mark-up idea to give people a reason to want their own castle rather than merely rely on Innsbruck.