Out of Character thread

[Ituralde]

Well King Tamur is gone. Hail to King Braden. Or rather Duke as the other Houses tend to call him.
I just want to reaffirm that I'll be playing for the House of Austria as second elector. My desires for Italy will be noticable in my role-play, so no need to make any changes ooc.
I'd like to take this thread to introduce my cast as second elector of Austria. I have seen that we are supposed to play nameless electors but from a role-playing perspective giving my 'nameless elector' a name and a personality helps me a great deal. I hope this is not against the rules. If it is please notify me and I will return everything back to usual.

My 'nameless elector' will be the old retainer Conrad von Schüsselen, who has followed Emperor Heinrich in his recent campaigns to Italy, hence his obsession with the Italian City States and his disgust for the traitorous Milanese who will have to be brought back under Imperial control.
Once a suitable avatar within the game is found I'm planning on letting the already not very healthy Conrad die of natural causes and have my new avatar be a scholar of the late Conrad von Schüsselen, who may be influenced by his mentor but will be a whole new personality in all other aspects.

I would also like to apply for the post of the spy Rainald. I won't have too many requests right now I'd just like to take him for some Spy Diary I have been thinking of for the Roleplay thread. If no one else wants to act as him that is.
My only request to GH would be to not get him killed to quickly.
I would like to take him on as second avatar and still play my role as second elector of Austria. Please let me know whether you have any objections against this.

I have also PM'ed Braden as my landlord to outline some of my roleplay-ideas. So check your inbox Braden.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[pevergreen]

his disgust for the traitorous Milanese who will have to be brought back under Imperial control.

All Hail those who join me in hating Milan! (Check my sig)
Blood Relative of my House.

[Ignoramus]

I reckon that we're going to have some serious fun in the competition between the ducal houses.

Bavaria will look to conquer Venice and Milan. Austria also Venice and Hungary. Franconia Danes and Poland. Swabia, the best house, will have France.

Econ21, I think we should have a Duchy of Swabia meeting sometime. Any thoughts?

Also, when is the game starting? I can't wait to get stuck into this.

[pevergreen]

With the Houses, they should meet and the Head of Houses (if there are any) should be able to say something like

We need to stop Swabia, they are getting too powerful, ill give a general troops to take a settlement to stop Swabia's advances. It could add to the Roleplaying.

Also, in Beefeater's HRE AAR, the way he outlined the houses, that would be a really good idea.

[Warluster]

Swabia, too powerful? polish my shoes!!!! Your just jealous of our great and noble house!

[pevergreen]

Pah! It was for an example.

[Warluster]

lucky, dang,dang,dang. or was it? dang,dang,dang. You are forgiven

[OverKnight]

I think I should call my nameless elector: Rotes Hemd. According to babelfish that's german for Red Shirt.

[Lucjan]

Poland? Blasphemy. Why engage in hostilities against so noble a people? Besides..they'll be instrumental in preventing a strong Russia or Hungary and absorbing the initial wave of Mongols. Poland should be treated as a friend and ally.

On the other hand, perhaps Franconia could pick up where the saxons left off and turn a colonial eye to England.

[pevergreen]

I propose that the House of Pwnage..sorry Austria turn away from Hungary (getting trade rights etc) and snaps the %!*& of Milan. Failing that, i never liked france much... or england... but Portugal is uber!

[Grande Orso]

As much as I agree with the necessity of having a "name" for your nameless elector, won't you run into some issues down the road when you will be given a named avatar? Just my 2 cents.

[Lucjan]

We never had any problems with identity confusion in WotS when avatars died or switched, and having a name is really an integral part of rp. I think it'll be fine.

Nice observation though.

Just noticed that just about everybody from the old WotS game changed their avatar with the new year...I feel left out, but there's something to be said for tradition!

[Grande Orso]

Sorry for double posting, but since I am not allowed to edit posts as of yet, this is the only way I can add a question to my previous message.
We have all seen that the diet as been quite active in these last few days, with a large amount of edicts being proposed. In order to keep track of all of these, I have been copy and pasting them in a word document. Would it be acceptable for my "character" to provide a summary of what has happened so far, in order to create a bit of order in these proceedings?
Or perhaps, it would be best that I send a private message to somebody that has full member rights, so that he can use HTML scripting to make everything more readable?

GO

[econ21]

Grande Orso - in Wots, I used to periodically update a list of the edicts. I was planning to do one tonight (it's hard to believe, but the Diet's only been open a day!). If you PM me your list of motions, it would save me some work. I'll insert them into the first post with accompanying proposer and seconders. Cheers.

[SwordsMaster]

Actually, I also have a question: Which mods are we using and where can I get them?

[Lucjan]

*swoons over the number of new players and their activity*

Ahh, this is going to be an epic one econ. I can see it already.

To war!

[econ21]

Actually, I also have a question: Which mods are we using and where can I get them?

I'm still chewing over that one. We have until Friday - when GH can start playing - to decide.

Thinking about it, I am inclined to just stick to the patched game as it is. That way, it's less fuss for players and hopefully we can benefit from the patch that is coming in February - if it is savegame compatible, as the first patch was. (With WotS, we got locked into a version of the mod that became obsolete.)

We may encounter a few irritating bugs, but there may be ways round them. For example, using cheat codes if some vices and virtues get horribly messed up. If the two-handed weapon bug gets unbearable, players fighting battles could mod the EDU file to circumvent it.

I was tempted by mention of modding the diplomacy to make the AI less psychotic, but it may be easier just to accept that if we want good relations, it is going to cost us florins.

[Tamur]

Though I am out of commission for a good long while, I am definitely looking forward to reading and keeping up on this! Looks like it will be quite the adventure

[TinCow]

I'm still chewing over that one. We have until Friday - when GH can start playing - to decide.

Thinking about it, I am inclined to just stick to the patched game as it is. That way, it's less fuss for players and hopefully we can benefit from the patch that is coming in February - if it is savegame compatible, as the first patch was. (With WotS, we got locked into a version of the mod that became obsolete.)

We may encounter a few irritating bugs, but there may be ways round them. For example, using cheat codes if some vices and virtues get horribly messed up. If the two-handed weapon bug gets unbearable, players fighting battles could mod the EDU file to circumvent it.

I was tempted by mention of modding the diplomacy to make the AI less psychotic, but it may be easier just to accept that if we want good relations, it is going to cost us florins.

It would definitely be best if we used as few mods as possible. The extensive intallation routine limited our available Lower House members in WOTS. However, I would like you to give serious consideration to something modifying the V&Vs. Given how important they are to role-playing and how absurd they are in the vanilla game, we will all end up having to ignore our avatars' attributes and use them as mere portraits. I think that would be a shame.

We could certainly use the cheat codes to change the V&Vs, but that's going to get really messy. It will only take a few turns before we've all got Poor Taxman and other lovelies. Who decides which ones are legit and which to kill? Installing one mod is not a big deal, so I think if we can find a good V&V patch (I have no idea if there is one, haven't looked) we should use it. Everything else we can live with as is.

[Dutch_guy]

Plus, I think we should seriously consider installing a fix for the 2H animation bug. I daresay we'd want to miss out on the Dismounted Gothic knights, forlorn hope and Zweihanders - which are completely useless given the situation...

[TinCow]

Posting here rather than in the Diet, because my arguments are entirely OOC.

I think the PBM will suffer if we commit to a fair allocation of territories at all times. If we remove the ability of Houses to influence their own expansion, we're essentially taking away any competition between the Houses. I think that would dull the game down a great deal and make for far less interesting political intercourse. A game in which better strategy and deal-making results in more power for a House will keep people interested and interacting for far longer.

[Grande Orso]

@ Econ21: I will send you what I have shortly. It is my understanding that you are located in England, hence your concept of evening may be a little different from mine though

In regards to mods: I agree with the general concept that the more mods are added the more complex the situation is made. At the same time, I see the necessity for the 2h and the V&V, the former because of gameplay issues and the latter because of roleplaying ones.

I have to say that I am very excited to partake in this PBEM. In the last few months following my discovery of this site, I have been reading all the WotS material, and I loved it. I hope this will be just as good, if not better.

GO

[econ21]

I see the necessity for the 2h and the V&V,

OK, that seems to be the consensus and that was my initial proposal, so let's go with that. I'll post some details on Thursday.

[pevergreen]

I do happen to have the leading VnV fix, is much more fun, as now i can have brothels and not be a womanizer.

In fact, spending 20 turns in a tavern has only given my faction leader Heavy Drinker, and that may have something to do with the upwards of 15 attempts on his life.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75326
{download link}http://files.filefront.com//;6476123;;/
Just those two text files would make the RP so much better.

Fixes: (taken from https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75326)
V1.2
===

*The foreign fruitcake (adultress_she_man) only appears if you are actually homosexual (having atleast 4 points of Arse).
*Strategic skill can be increased by successful battles.
*Princesses can, even if their dad lacked the prerequisites, gain a few traits besides the standard two.
*Generals that always push the movement limit to the max has a slight slight chance of being better
at LogisticalSkill. Only for land movement ofcourse, so shuttling them around in ships shouldn't work... :D


V1.1
====


*Fools could cling on to anyone, including agents, since they don't have Command skill. Only for generals now.

*Removed an odd bug regarding the disaster-trigger; appearantly it triggers for much more than disasters as
removing the randomness made everyone get superstitious and conforming at certain events.




V1.0
====

Ancillaries
----------

*Most Witch-related triggers are not properly implemented. To compensate until the problem is fixed,
witches have a slightly higher % of gaining ancillaries when created. (Brooms etc.)

*Adultress now only join generals when they stay at a coaching house or above.

*Foreign adultress appears less often.

*Fools sometimes join lesser generals that linger in Castles (or above).

*Heralds sometimes join generals staying in Citadels.

*The Pagan Magician now requires a fairly high heresey % of the population if he is to join the general.
(he joins much, much less and only for those who travel across high heresey lands)

*The tracking dog is implemented! Pet_bloodhound. The trigger was completly broken. The fearsome
dog, +2 agent skill, +1 Line of Sight and +1 personal security, now has a small chance of appearing
along spies from pleasure palaces.


Triggers for VnV's
-------------------

*The base religion value of 3 for everyone is fixed. It now works properly for everyone that joins
your family.

*Corruption-triggers are doubled to 100k, 150k and 200k.

*Vast overhaul of the vices inluding drinking, gambling, girls etc. Much toned down .
You no longer start getting drunk at brothels. You get a slight chance to drink at taverns and upwards.

*Your generals no longer pick up negative traits for doing nothing in settlements: drink, gambling, arse, girls.
However: Generals stuck in a settlement without a brothel has a very small chance of turning to the arse.

*Luxurious lifestyles toned down. Coaching houses and pleasure palaces can still corrupt your general though.

*If a general survives a disaster, he has a much larger chance of turning to superstition or religion.

*Merchants no longer pick up the selfserving merchant trait unless they actually trade something far away.

*Generals that survive an inquisition become more religious, not just a chance of becoming.

*Diplomats not as quick to be religious intolerant and so on.

*Bishops now come from both cathedrals and huge cathedrals, not just cathedrals.

*Sitting around in the wilderness now has a higher chance of increasing certain traits, such as hale & hearty.

*Generals born in cities with high level religious buildings now have higher chance of being religious.

*You become more cultured at the theatres, but do not start drinking because of it.

*Sanitation: A bit easier to get good health, chances for vices are lowered.

*You will no longer become a bad taxman for governing a castle.

Traits
------

*BoringSpeaker actually does something now, it used to have 0 effect for all 3 levels. A general that is a poor
speaker has a negative effect on authority and morale, if he ends up really boring.

*Inspiring speaker tweaked to give you a slight morale boost at the highest level.

*Governors that stay in settlements with farms, mines and trade will slowly increase their knowledge and skill
in that area. Building the specific buildings still gives you points, but it is now actually possible to become good farmers,
miners and traders if you spend your career doing just that.

[pevergreen]

Once a foreign campaign edict passes, Field Marshalls and generals could then place their bid for involvement in the campaign, with the chancellor either constructing or delegating the number and type of armies to be used in the campaign. So if the chancellor delegates three armies to be used, the field marshall who gets chosen to lead the campaign would be able to direct the tactical movements of three generals, who would lead their individual armies into battle when an engagement occurs.

They would be bound to fulfill this campaign to the best of their abilities, and may only offensively target settlements directly outlined in the campaign goals, but may attack any enemy army , regardless of whether it is outlined in the campaign goals, if it is deemed a threat or beneficial to engage at that time, so long as this does not involve leaving the theatre of the campaigns operations. (I.E. they couldn't chase a French army into Toulouse, as that's beyond the Dijon region and out of the campaign's theatre.) These decisions are up to the field marshall to make, and the generals to carry out to the best of their ability.

if this idea isnt implemented already, do it, sounds much easier to understand.
The Diet says "Yes we agree to that edict"

The Chanceller receives people saying "I want in"
Picks Field Marshal

Field Marshal/Chanceller picks generals

So the field marshal would have control of an army, and direct the generals movements, but the generals would control their armies on the battlefield?

Sounds awsome. To me at least.

[Grande Orso]

I agree completely that it sounds great that way. Since multiple stack attacks are definately more common in M2TW than before (at least I found myself using multiple armies in the same areas all the time), I think this adds a lot of strategic depth to the game, not to mention the roleplaying possiblities. Looking forward to actually being able to use this.

[pevergreen]

Id love to see the Chanceller appoint a Mad Field Marshal!

Men! Charge the Pikes!

"But that will destroy our cavalry"

Jump over the pikes, DUh!

[Kagemusha]

If possible.I would like to humbly apply for position of fifth elector of Swabia. I have been reading the both out of character and inside character threads through and this game sounds very intresting.

[Ituralde]

I'd also like to make some OOC comments on the pledge posted by GH, before I write anything about it in the Diet.

In my opinion the settlement allocation shouldn't be limited to geographical proximity. Of course certain preferences should be made. But what if a prolonged war with Hungary forces us to take several provinces from Hungary? Surely they wouldn't all fall to the House of Austria, just because they happen to border on Hungary. I think the allocation of some territories a little bit off the main lands of a House will add a lot of role-play opportunities, while keeping every house focused on the overall advance of the Empire instead of just focusing east, north, south or west.
Also the famous German Kleinstaaterei (small states) is much better represented that way. Historically, for example the Wittelsbachs ruling over large parts of Bavaria also had holdings in the Netherlands.

Regarding TinCows comments I'd like to add that although his ideas sound good in theory, I fear they may soon lead to frustration when applied within the game. After all the purpose of this game is to have fun for everyone. I fear that discussions would become a little too intense if the prospering of the own House depends too much on the acting in the Diet.
Of course a small incentive could be given, but I think no single House should control two provinces more than any other House. It's also from a IC standpoint in the best interest of the Kaiser to not let any single House become too powerful.
Your proposition could also get out of hand once Kaisers belong to a certain House and suddenly start to allocate settlements exclusively to their House.


Also, has someone heard of Braden lately? The House of Austria is a little bit headless at the moment.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[pevergreen]

We need our head

I hope my avatar is mad, would be so much fun.

In my opinion the settlement allocation shouldn't be limited to geographical proximity. Of course certain preferences should be made. But what if a prolonged war with Hungary forces us to take several provinces from Hungary? Surely they wouldn't all fall to the House of Austria, just because they happen to border on Hungary

Yes, but then the Diet could reject requests of Forming the Armies, if the familt members...

I propose that if, for example, the House of Austria partitions the Diet for an army to conquer a town, it must be seconed by people from other houses. Would stop 5 Austrian people seconding every edict
(or am i misinterpreting edict, we still have to vote them yes?)