Well, I just ordered my copy of MTW2 with my Christmas money so time for me to join in

I gotta say, reading some of the proposals here, my eyes start to glaze over....to complicated for a simpleton like me!

What I liked about TWOTS was that it enabled me to participate in a PBEM without the large amount of time playing a reign involves (especially in the mid-late game). Now, as it turned out, I played very few battles (and managed to lose most of them, but lets not go there!)

I certainly think that the concept of having one player fighting all the battles during his reign has been superceded by the much superior system of having various characters fight their battles themselves. But then having come to the conclusion that the system you're running for the HRE game is too complicated, all the proposals since them seem to be just as complicated.

I would like to see a hybrid game run under the following system:

Replacing the lower and Upper houses, you have the Royal and non-Royal players. Royals belong to the line of direct descendants of the King. non-royals are all those in the family tree who are not directly in line for the throne. At first there may not be many "non-royals" until the family tree expands.

Those who are Royals get to to play their reigns as and when they come to the throne - note, not all Royals will gain the throne, depending on the vagaries of succession. Non-Royals will form the council of nobles, or if we play as say, England, Parliament. They will have the authority to table motions making requests of the King, decide upon taxes etc. Foreign wars may not be undertaken without the consent of parliament etc.

Like I say, I think England would be an ideal candidate for this. It strikes a balance between a ruler controlling the game, and all the other players having an input as to how the kingdom is run.

The other option is to go the Venetian route, and elect a Doge - in effect a monarch for life. I'm not as informed about how much power the Venetian Great Council had compared to the English Parliament, so I can't make suggestions as to what they can and can't do.

My other suggestion is that those with the most time to play the game (eg econ21) have reigns in the mid-late game when it takes a lot of time, and those of us with less time get a stab at things early on.