Out of Character thread

[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]

[StoneCold]

So what happen's when a player's priest finally got elected to Pope? I am guessing the player's avartar is considered as dead and have to choose another avatar?

[Lucjan]

I'm fine with letting the halberd militia into the infinite column, but I still think our "elite" heavies should be reflected as being of such a high status by being restricted to a lesser prevalance in the army. I'll meet you half way at 5 for a full stack, 3 for a half stack, as opposed to 8 and 4.

Also -

Just as a historical note, here's the old german titles of nobility and our equivilants.

Political
Elector = Kurfurst
Count = Graf
Duke = Herzog
Prince = Prinz
Emperor = Kaiser

Military
Knight = Ritter
Field Marshal = Generalfeldmarshal

[econ21]

I'll meet you half way at 5 for a full stack, 3 for a half stack, as opposed to 8 and 4.

Make it 6 and 3, and we have a deal. (5 would be fine for swords, but shoe-horning the Landsknecht pikemen in makes it a little tight). Six would also allow all our knights to be dismounted, except the generals (who can't be).

Just as a historical note, here's the old german titles of nobility and our equivilants.

Great, thanks. I'll put them in the rules (when I get around to editing them). I guess they should be optional. Personally, I like Ritter, Graf, GeneralFeldmarshall, Prinz and Kaiser. But I prefer Elector to Kurfurst and especially Duke to Herzog (makes me think of Zionism for some reason...). Kanzler for Chancellor would not sound good, either.

In terms of mods, there seem to be at least three for the vices and virtues:

Seneschal.the’s Medifix 1.2
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...37&postcount=1

kobal.fr’s CherryVanilla mod:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...37&postcount=1

Sarastro’s Vice and Virtues fixes 1.1
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...85&postcount=1

I haven't tried any, although reading about them, I'm inclined to Medifix. It seems to fix more than CherryVanilla, but seems to have less new traits "to be beta-tested" than Sarastro's mod. I think it is a priority to get the vices and virtues in good shape, as they will be very important in role-playing our characters (we don't want a mob of pagan magicians etc).

The other modding thing I am looking into are the two-handed weapon fixes, but twcenter is down right now so I haven't got much further than a recommendation for zxiang's 2h fix (with some saying it is overpowered). I think with battle map tweaks like this, we can mod as we go (the stats are loaded fresh each time you load the game). By contrast, change vices and virtues files mid-game could mess up somethings (the triggers are set in the savegame).

We only need to fix on mods by Friday when the first Chancellor actually starts playing - the political rules though we should agree on by Monday 6pm, when the Diet opens.

[TinCow]

So what happen's when a player's priest finally got elected to Pope? I am guessing the player's avartar is considered as dead and have to choose another avatar?

Actually, I think that would make for a great roleplaying experience. The person playing the Pope would just have to make his or her story fit in with Papal actions.

[IvarrWolfsong]

Is there a complete roster of who is who and what house they are from somewhere on these boards? As a new fellow, it is not easy keeping all the Wolfgang Von Warstormingburgenhoffs straight!

[TinCow]

Is there a complete roster of who is who and what house they are from somewhere on these boards? As a new fellow, it is not easy keeping all the Wolfgang Von Warstormingburgenhoffs straight!

Indeed there is. It can be found in the first post in the Chancellor and governor reports thread. The same information can also be found in the in the Royal Family Information section (Post #4) of the Imperial Library. The Library itself is stickied at the very top of the forum.

[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.-