Out of Character thread

[StoneCold]

One question, why not just let Bologna be permanently Emperor's territory? As you have already noted, once a Duke becomes the Emperor he will leave the family and acts in the best interest of the empire, but where will he be based then? Will he just be a free roaming agent then?

Regarding armies and generals. Who is deciding the composition of the Armies? I mean each house will be vying for powers, I would assume armies is an important means to do that, if the chancellor concentrated on building on one Duke's army, the land he conquered will be his, to the detriment of other houses or will that be decided by the Diet? Same thing goes to hiring and disbanding mercs, and the disbanding troops in time of relative peace to maintain budget?

Also how are we to decide on the general to send to the crusade to the Holy Land, how do we armed them? Do we create a new Duchy there? (I am thinking this will be a good way to role play the holy land politics as the I remember the Kingdom of Heaven is almost always begging for troops, crusade to rebuild his kingdom.)

With regards to rotation of generals, I was suggesting that an army unit composition be fixed such that once built, it cannot just rebuild it to full strength by adding new units transferred to the frontline, but instead have to rotate back to base city to rebuild? (R&R) It can only be rebuild using freshly trained units and merging the units to existing unit in the stack? This will remove the rebuilding cheat, which I think it is still there, right? Or is this system too complicated?

[econ21]

One question, why not just let Bologna be permanently Emperor's territory?

I think we can just leave it up to the Emperor. If he wants a nice Italian pad, he can keep it. But to be honest, I can't see why he would - using it to play power politics with the Dukes sounds much more fun.

Regarding armies and generals. Who is deciding the composition of the Armies? I mean each house will be vying for powers, I would assume armies is an important means to do that, if the chancellor concentrated on building on one Duke's army, the land he conquered will be his, to the detriment of other houses or will that be decided by the Diet? Same thing goes to hiring and disbanding mercs, and the disbanding troops in time of relative peace to maintain budget?

Army composition, recruitment of mercs etc are all decided by the Chancellor (although he should abide by the historical guidelines when finally agreed). Armies won't provide houses with powers, except indirectly through the influence boost for their commanders and the fact that a House which conquers a settlement might be more likely to be gifted it by the Emperor. But the Emperor is free to give it to whoever. I don't want people to begin thinking about civil wars and fighting each other - unlike WotS, we're not going to do that. We're going to fight the AI, not each other.

Also how are we to decide on the general to send to the crusade to the Holy Land, how do we armed them? Do we create a new Duchy there? (I am thinking this will be a good way to role play the holy land politics as the I remember the Kingdom of Heaven is almost always begging for troops, crusade to rebuild his kingdom.)

Good question. Let's say crusades, like declarations of war, must be authorised by the Diet EXCEPT when another faction starts one (it's a race, so the Chancellor should not have to wait to start running). We should send more than one general (bitter solo experience here), but let's leave that to the Chancellor as he picks army commanders. On reflection, I don't want the Kingdom of Heaven to be a Duchy (although it's a neat idea) - rather I want it to be the particular concern of the crusaders, the pious and the Chancellor (who presumably is aiming for Jerusalem as one of the victory conditions - as indeed should everyone).

With regards to rotation of generals, I was suggesting that an army unit composition be fixed such that once built, it cannot just rebuild it to full strength by adding new units transferred to the frontline, but instead have to rotate back to base city to rebuild? (R&R) It can only be rebuild using freshly trained units and merging the units to existing unit in the stack? This will remove the rebuilding cheat, which I think it is still there, right? Or is this system too complicated?

The rebuilding cheat is much less important now, as you can only build/retrain 3 units per settlement so your whole army can't be resurrected in a turn or two. Plus experience matters less - even at 9 experience, it's only a +3 to stats (which don't always seem to matter in the ways you might expect). Personally, I don't bother with the "no retraining" houserule in M2TW, whereas it was obligatory in RTW/RTR. I think a no reinforcement and compulsory R&R rule would be too much of a constraint on the Chancellor - I have a feeling we will be fighting for our lives here (unlike the Romans in RTR).

[Warluster]

I'll join!

[econ21]

I'll join!

Welcome on board - which "House" do you want to join? Franconia, Swabia, Austria or Bavaria?

[Warluster]

House of Swabia please

[OverKnight]

Having played M2 a bit and followed WoS, I'm curious how the Chancellor or the Diet will deal with the Pope. WoS with RTR platinum didn't have SPQR edicts but the HRE will have to cope with Papal "suggestions" and the possibility of excommunication. Considering the expansionistic bent of WoS this might pose some problems considering all its neighbors are Catholic (I believe). Also, I believe, the HRE begins the game with low papal standing. There is also the Council of Nobles with their own suggestions, though without the dire consequences for failure.

So will papal and council relation be left up to the Chancellor? Or will the Diet regulate relations with edicts? Will that be the same with Council of Nobles edicts? What would happen if a crusade is called? Could a Duke decide to embark on a crusade by himself with his own army, or would he need permission of the Emperor? If a player has a priest avatar would he direct the movement of the priest or would the Chancellor? Who decides which Cardinal to back in Papal elections?

[econ21]

So will papal and council relation be left up to the Chancellor? Or will the Diet regulate relations with edicts? Will that be the same with Council of Nobles edicts? What would happen if a crusade is called? Could a Duke decide to embark on a crusade by himself with his own army, or would he need permission of the Emperor? If a player has a priest avatar would he direct the movement of the priest or would the Chancellor? Who decides which Cardinal to back in Papal elections?

My personal preference is to follow the missions of the Pope, the Council of Nobles and others. The non-Papal missions provide some fun external direction and goals, while the Papal ones are a break on expansion. (Some people say M2TW is too easy, but I suspect they may be the types who ignore Papal "cease and desist" orders.) The problem is that the timing of the missions will not mesh with that of Diet votes - 10 turn intervals between votes is too long for us to say let the Diet decide. I propose we have a rule that the Chancellor should follow missions to the best of his ability, unless he has the Diet's authorisation to ignore them (which could be obtained in advance).

Thinking about when a crusade happens, perhaps a fun thing would be for the Chancellor to immediately PM all players with general avatars and ask them if they want to join? The Chancellor can appoint the army commander, but must take up to three other generals if there are sufficient volunteers replying within 48 hours. If there are more than three other volunteers, he should take the three most pious. He is allowed to exclude any general whose high command would usurp his pick as army commander. If the crusade is called by HRE, all this could be done during a Diet session and so not delay the game. AI crusades are infrequent enough that pausing the game for the PM exchange would not slow things down sufficiently.

On players who control agents, their deployment would be up to the Chancellor - as is the deployment of generals. I think the trial PBM showed we can't decentralise this PBM to the level of controlling your own avatar's movements without it slowing things to a crawl. But a wise Chancellor would listen to the controlling player's ideas if provided (send them PMs). The best usage of priests may be to form a holy hit squad - send a gang of priests to a godless province (Russia or better yet, the Holy Land), then their piety will shoot up through rapid conversion of the locals. This would give us lots of cardinals (as well as a more receptive Holy Land for crusaders to hold). I'd expect a player controlling a priest to think of this kind of idea and suggest it. Ditto a player controlling a merchant and agitating to go to Timbucku or something. We can put players controlling merchants into regional Houses. I guess we could even let them be made Counts (as we'll have more settlements than generals, eventually), but they would lose the right of refusal of being governor, as non-general avatars can't govern settlements in the game.

On who decides army composition - let's leave it to the Chancellor to keep things moving, but again a good Chancellor would listen to PMs from his generals - he wants them to win their battles. More generally, the Chancellor has to think of a lot of things, so having other players point out or remind him of a specific matter does not hurt.

EDIT: Looking at the troops HRE gets in the game:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...20&postcount=7

I'm inclined to revise our historical army composition rule slightly to put the halberd militia in with the unrestricted infantry (their stats don't look too hot & Terry Gore actually allows half his late feudal foot to have halberds).

Conversely, the Landsknecht pikemen look distinctly superior to other spears. Maybe we should have a class of "elite infantry", comprising dismounted knights, Zweihanders, Forlorn Hope and Landsknechts capped at 8. The dismounted knights are therefore subject to two caps - on total knights and on elite infantry.

So we have, for full stack armies (15+ units):

Generals - max 2
Knights - cavalry or foot, max 8 units inc. generals
[The class of knights is therefore: Dismtd Feudal knights; Dismtd Imperial knights; Dismtd Gothic knights; Mailed knights; Feudal knights; Imperial knights; Teutonic knights; General’s bodyguard; Gothic knights; plus any mercenary knights included those great dismounted knights you get in the Holy Land.)

Total cavalry - maximum 8 units, inc mounted knights and generals
[Non-knightly cavalry includes: Mounted crossbowmen ; Reiters; Merchant cavalry; Mounted sergeants]

Artillery - maximum 2 units (5 in a siege)
Foot missiles - maximum 6 units including artillery
[Foot missiles include: Peasant archers; Peasant crossbowmen; Crossbow militia; Pavisse crossbowmen; Arquebusiers; Handgunners ]

Total elite heavy infantry - max 8
[Elite infantry comprises Zweihander; Forlorn Hope; Landsknechts; dismounted knights and equivalent mercs - e.g. Galllowglass?]

Other spears & feudal foot - unlimited
[This includes: Peasants; Town militia; Halberd militia; Spear militia; Sergeant spearmen; Armoured spearmen; Crusader sergeants; Pike militia]

[Lucjan]

For full stack armies (15+ units):

Generals - max 2
Knights - cavalry or foot, max 8 units inc. generals
Total cavalry - maximum 8 units, inc mounted knights and generals

Artillery - maximum 2 units (5 in a siege)
Foot missiles - maximum 6 units including artillery

Zweihanders, halberdiers & other heavy infantry, max 4 units

Spears, pikes, peasants, town militia etc - unlimited


For half stack armies (7-14 units), we just halve the above.

I like this idea much better. My biggest concerns were that generals were not included in knights, artillery had their own extra slots outside of other missiles, and that "other cavalry" section that could have potentially put an army at 14 units of cavalry if it had 2 generals, all mounted knights and then 4 of those "other" cavalry.

Ok, I'm happy with this. Let the gaming commence!

Oh, one more idea though, regarding who decides the composition of new armies.

When an army needs to be raised for offensive action against an enemy. Who should really determine the whole composition of the army?

For this, I think the best idea would be to first of all decide which duke or field marshall is going to be directing the campaign, and then for the duke or field marshall involved to work out the desired army composition with the chancellor. I don't think this would be too difficult, nor would it slow the game. It's a simple exchange of "Chancellor - Ok, we can afford two half stacks, whats your preferable unit list for both in this invasion?" "Duke/Field Marshall - Ok, it's Italy, lots of better quality militia than our own, little cavalry...Give me a solid core of 6 armoured spearmen, 1 general, 3 militia crossbows, 3 mailed knights, and 1 catapult."

Or, alternatively, the dukes/field marshalls of each individual Ducal House can deliberate quietly with each other to develop a "Standard" army composition for their House. That way each Ducal House has a unique army composition and the chancellor, when creating an army to be lead by that house, can simply refer directly to already established doctrine and put an army together according to their standard.

[Lucjan]

Double post, sorry.

Dlain brings up some interesting questions.

As far as the Council of Nobles and Papal suggestions. I imagine these things will simple be brought up in the deliberations and the general concensus will make the decision.

Historically kingly or imperial "permission" mattered little in regards to who went on crusade. I'd imagine it would also be something worked out in the deliberations. Crusades carry a heavy risk and a heavy burden. It's not something I think too many players will take lightly and the decision will mostly likely be decided by consensus.

As far as players with priest avatars, I'd imagine they'd be tied to ducal Houses just like everybody else, and their interests would be in maintaining the religion and purging heresy in their home duchy, so movement wouldn't be highly involved with a priestly avatar.

In regards to Papal Elections, I think our chancellors will all have enough sense to back our allies rather than our enemies in the papal elections. Or, at the very least, back whoever looks most likely to win -i.e. the faction with the best standing, most cardinals and the most friends.-