Out of Character thread

[Lucjan]

In regards to three castles, I have to say absolutely yes. To expect Franconia to have wait multiple turns in the event that they would need to rely on Swab and Bavarian soldiery to provide strong reinforcements or cavalry to a depleted force in the north would be placing the north in some serious risk. <--- (blatant display of House loyalties mixed with logic )

If anything I think it would be wiser to advocate turning Metz into a city, building a fort on our side of the river crossing south of Metz, and keeping our western border with France secure that way. It's really not necessary to have three castles in such close proximity to each other and Swabia could use the income.

Can't remember right now if Florence is a city or a castle.

If Magdeburg can be voted for as an acquisition in the next diet and several turns spent on bringing it moderately up to date in regards to military infrastructure, I'll advocate turning Magdeburg into Franconia's key fortress and turning Hamburg into a city. But Hamburg sits at too important of a location for Franconia to turn it into a city right now. Coastal or not, it's our key block against the Danes, it's the only castle in the north that won't take us 4-5 turns to get troops from, and we can always switch to more cross-compatible pursuits (like ports, churches, etc) in the meantime of bringing Magdeburg up to speed with its military infrastructure. Then we can make the switch afterwards.

[pevergreen]

I say that you give Austria a huge army and let us run rampant.

[Ignoramus]

Surely it would make more sense to change Staufen to a city and keep Metz as a border castle on the French border. However, as Staufen is already a Wooden Castle, I would not like to limit the Swabian forces.

[Lucjan]

My reasoning behind keeping Swabia as the castle and turning Metz into the city is simple. Current infrastructure and cost effectiveness, as well as proximity to our core.

Staufen is already significantly more developed as a military structure than Metz, and still close enough to the river crossing I'm talking about that changing it to a city and spending the money to rebuild everything that is in Staufen, later in Metz simply isn't worth the time or the money. Having a castle on your direct border isn't always cost effective when a simple fort could do the same defensive job and the castle is a short enough distance away to receive reinforcements with little difficulty. Moving the castle to Metz would also place any potential help that could need to go east or north even further away than it already is. That's not really an appealling prospect.

Just my two cents.

By the way, short little epilogue of the Hamburg battle now up for reading in the Short Stories thread.

[Ignoramus]

It's a good write-up. I hope that I'll get to fight a battle soon. But if the Burgundians sally forth from Metz econ21 will get the battle, so I guess I will have to wiat for a while.

[OverKnight]

I'm not sure if anyone has stumbled on this, but Generals like Max, Dietrich, and Otto can be Men of the Hour and accepted into the family tree. I'm playing my own test bed game off of the original save and Otto fought some Swiss Pikemen brigands, dispatched them and I got the man of the hour screen after the battle. At first I was confused because the army already had a leader, but then I realized that Otto himself was up for adoption as MotH:



So there's more than one way for Generals to become real boys.

Edit: As for conversion of castles to cities or vice versa, should that be voted on in the Diet, up to a governor (if applicable), or the Chancellor's decision after hearing petitions from involved parties?

2nd Edit: Also another reason for caution when adopting is that I think each family member has four slots for kids, and if they are filled with adoptees then the family member can't have biological kids. Just a thought.

[Lucjan]

Staufen is the property of Swabia, and Swabia can decide what to do with it as it pleases. Metz has not yet been conquered or allocated to a house yet, but assuming it's given to Swabia, then the Swabian governors of Staufen and Metz decide how to develop the settlement.

EDIT - Basically cities and castles are the property of the Ducal House they belong to, and can't be touched by anyone but the governor.

[econ21]

The castle vs city issue is rather a big one to leave to a 10 turn governor. Perhaps the Duke of the House owning it (or the Chancellor, if it is not assigned) should have a veto on it?

Also, on adoptions and marriages - players should be able to give the Chancellor standing orders for whether to accept or reject candidates (e.g. no more adoptees!). We can't let them scrutinise individual candidates though - the player (Chancellor) has to decide immediately when offered; the game does not save the offers and it would slow things down too much even if it did. While we still have players without avatars, though, I would be fairly liberal about accepting new generals etc.

It's interesting that Otto could get adopted. The Chancellor might want to bear that in mind when assigning commands - I'd like to see Otto and Maximillan join the family tree.

[Ituralde]

I agree with Lucjan that the development of cities and or castles falls into the jurisdiction of the Houses. Of course the Emperor or Chancellor or even other Electors can try to influence them, but not more.

Also concerning Hamburg, has it been officially assigned to the House of Franconia yet? Just wondering, as it seems obvious but I haven't read anything about it yet and settlemenst were supposed to be allocated upon conquest.