How about a VI PBM?

[Warmaster Horus]

I am, of course. PM me if ya want.
Me, I was thinking of one of the Italian states (Genoa, Venice) to use as a sort of Republic and from there... redo KotR or WotS.

[Innocentius]

I am, of course. PM me if ya want.
Me, I was thinking of one of the Italian states (Genoa, Venice) to use as a sort of Republic and from there... redo KotR or WotS.

I've sent you a PM about it

[Craterus]

I still want to do this, but I'm a little inactive at this forum from now on.
Nevermind, I'll check back as often as I can.

[Innocentius]

So, Warmaster Horus and I have worked out some basic ideas as for how to play. Really, it's all a simplified version of the KotR way of playing. Of course, these are just suggestions and everyone is free to come up with suggestions and alterations:

First, we have the Chancellor. A player who works as the "mod" and who does all the dirty work. The Chancellor will be the one who constructs buildings and recruit troops according to other player's suggestions (see below). The Chancellor also moves troops around. If there is a battle, the Chancellor will send the game (via e-mail, for example) to the player who's character or province is involved (see below) who then plays the battle. The game is then "returned" to the Chancellor who continues as above.
The Chancellor has some power however, and can be a provincial ruler (most likely the capital or whatever big city that is closest to the King's position, for more info see below). The Chancellor can also engineer domestic troubles if he wishes to; i.e. by spending a little extra on himself and his own province, which should likely provoke some disputes. The Chancellor can also engineer civil wars (this is done in-game) by being convinced (perhaps by bribery) by some prince or such to assassinate the King.

Then there is the King (or Doge, or whatever). The King is played by another player. The King is the one who makes all the final suggestions, but not without the influence of other players (see below). A King must be roleplayed (i.e. if the King has the vice "irritable", he will not be keen to settle with truces and such, and a king who is known for executing prisoners must continue to do so, even it earns him some nasty vices). More than just having the final word in financial matters and politics, the King is also responsible for the main army of the kingdom, and must command all larger, offensive, campaigns. Good commander or not.
When the King dies, he will be succeeded, so players who chose to play as the crown prince must consider that they will likely end up as Kings.

Then comes Princes or Heroes (as Heroes, all scripted heroes and random generals that spawn with 4+ command (unusual, but it happens) counts). Again, these must be roleplayed as above.
There is however a difference between Princes and Heroes. Princes can't be landowners, and are solely for military purposes. A Hero is more stationary, and if he is granted a provincial title by the King, he must remain in that province untill stripped of office.

Finally comes provincial rulers. These are not "seen" unless a provincial title is handed out. That is: I can play as Tuscany withouth there being an elected Duke of Tuscany, but if there is a hero who earns the title, these two will be merged into one (unless both players disagree to this of course, in which case the problem most be solved in other ways, like the Hero not earning the title in the first place). A provincial title can not be given to some random general with high acumen, only if he is a noble (i.e. a Hero, see above).

And finally a little bit about warfare: For the realism of it, we should keep our armies balanced, quite simply. A core of elite troops surrounded by lesser soldiers.
A good rule is two units of retainers (like Mounted Sergeants) per one unit of knights. This means: If a provincial ruler wishes to recruit one unit of knights in his province, he is forced to recruit twice as many retainers, as these provide the servants, squires and well...retainers for the knights. Of course, as the eras pass by, previous peak units will be conisidered as retainers (so we could use Feudal Knights as retainers in High).

[UltraWar]

Good luck with the PBM

[Innocentius]

This sounds like fun. I would be very interested in trying it out. I'm a bit unclear on the mechanics of it all, though. For example, you said a player can choose to play a single province. Does that mean that every time we take a province we recruit a new player, or can individual players have more than one province?

Good point raised there. I was thinking we should try to balance the number of princes and provincial owners to be as equal as possible. As the game passes by however, we will clearly have a lot more provinces than princes. What we could do to solve this is:
When a new province is conquered, we leave it open for a certain amount of time (let's say 24 hours or something) for anyone wishing to join to grab. Once that time has expired and no one has grabbed the province, the king will quite simply chose a provincial lord whos province borders to this province and give the province to him. Of course, giving it to a non-bordering provincial ruler would give an interesting feudal patchwork touch.

Also, I realised I was a bit unclear about the real power of the king. His words are final, but he is not to make a decision if 2/3 or more of the princes and provincial lords are against him.

Again, these are only suggestions so feel free to come up with improvements. And who is interested in joining in?

[Kavhan Isbul]

I think this is a great idea and would love to join in, especially if we use the excellent XL mod with its variety of factions, but I too am somewhat unclear about the mechanics. Why couldn't a provincial ruler be both a provincial ruler and a general at the same time? In other words, when the King decodes to launch a campaign (or a Crusade), shouldn't this provincial ruler be expected to join the army/Crusade/Jihad with a certain amount of troops, and if he happens to be the highest ranking general in the kingdom, shouldn't he lead the army himself? In other words, I am not quite clear of the difference between heroes and provincial owners.
Back to gunslinger's question, I am wondering if getting new players may be a good idea actually. If the PBM starts and somebody misses out, why not create a waiting list of peope who want to join and get them in once a province is conquered or a new hero is born (such as Nur al Din for the Fatimids for example). Also I guess heroes will die from time to time, and I wonder if in such a case the player whose hero just died should be given a choice of a new one from a list of remaining generals. This brings up the question whether the green generals command should be used for a better sense of realism.
And a final question - when a battle is e-mailed to a player, then how do we make sure the player plays it only once, in other words that he or she does not replay the battle until a favorable outcome?

[gunslinger]

A provincial title can not be given to some random general with high acumen, only if he is a noble (i.e. a Hero, see above).

Since there aren't that many heros, and princes can't hold titles, wouldn't we be forced to hand out titles to "common" generals?

[Innocentius]

Since there aren't that many heros, and princes can't hold titles, wouldn't we be forced to hand out titles to "common" generals?

Well, you don't need to hand out titles at all really...Like I said, for the realism of it, we should only give titles to nobles (aka heroes).

I think this is a great idea and would love to join in, especially if we use the excellent XL mod with its variety of factions, but I too am somewhat unclear about the mechanics. Why couldn't a provincial ruler be both a provincial ruler and a general at the same time? In other words, when the King decodes to launch a campaign (or a Crusade), shouldn't this provincial ruler be expected to join the army/Crusade/Jihad with a certain amount of troops, and if he happens to be the highest ranking general in the kingdom, shouldn't he lead the army himself? In other words, I am not quite clear of the difference between heroes and provincial owners.
Back to gunslinger's question, I am wondering if getting new players may be a good idea actually. If the PBM starts and somebody misses out, why not create a waiting list of peope who want to join and get them in once a province is conquered or a new hero is born (such as Nur al Din for the Fatimids for example). Also I guess heroes will die from time to time, and I wonder if in such a case the player whose hero just died should be given a choice of a new one from a list of remaining generals. This brings up the question whether the green generals command should be used for a better
sense of realism.
And a final question - when a battle is e-mailed to a player, then how do we make sure the player plays it only once, in other words that he or she does not replay the battle until a favorable outcome?

To get the feel of a truly feudal system, all provincial rulers should muster a number of units for each campaign, yes. However there need to be no "effective" provincial ruler i.e. the title can remain idle untill someone suitable to take the tile appears. We should of course strive to have heroes with plenty of command stars in each province (or just good generals), but untill that is possible the titles will "stay put".
If a hero is indeed the best general in the kingdom he could of course lead an offensive army himself, but only unless the king has a few cowardly vices or for some reason can't command the army himself.

To put it straight:
Hero: A scripted hero or any general with 4+ starts.
Provincial ruler: No one really (except a player of course) untill a suitable hero/general appears.
So the system of these two being split will only really be used early on, as things change and we get more heroes and generals who can take the roles as provincial rulers or...er...I'm confusing myself right now. Like I said, if you know a better (and smoother) way of running this, please post it.

We could also do it like this: Let's say we play as England, and I play as Normandie. I could then (quite naturally) claim Tancred de Normandie as soon as he spawns. And later on in the campaign, when we've conquered a bit and a new player is granted with, let's say, Navarre, this player could have first dibs on any hero/general that becomes available if there is no spare general already as the player enters. Creating a joining list sounds like a good idea too.
I don't really know about green generals. It would indeed be more realistic, but might cause a lot of trouble if only high-command boys can be provincial rulers. So if use green generals we'll have to come up with another system for this.

Of course we can't control how many times a player plays through a battle, we'll just have to trust them. Although we could set up the following time limits:
The player must confirm that he/she has recieved the savegame within 24 hours after it being e-mailed.
If the player makes no report on the battle within 24 hours after the confirmation, it will be auto-calculated. The player's character will be held with the same responsibilty for the outcome of the battle as if he had played it for himself. If the player does not answer to the e-mail containing the savegame in the first place, the battle will also be auto-calculated.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Innocentius, thanks for the answers. I personally like the rules you propiosed, just needed some clarification. I really like the idea and appreciate all your efforts, and I just want to help with figuring out exactly how it will all work.

Here is what I propose, along the lines of the already suggested rules - the King should be the one who determines who gets what province and initial troops. He should do that on the basis of whom he likes, and he would probably like people that follow his suggestions more than people who have a tendency to express strong differences in opinion. I think the King should interfere only rarely in determining what is built and trained in the separate provinces, and leave that mostly to the Duke he has chosen, to give the game a sense of realism and make it harder. I also think the Chancellor will need to keep calculations for each hero's income (if that hero has a province as a fief) - in other words let's say I start the game as a unit of peasants and get Tuscany as my fief, plus an allocation of the kingdom's coffers. Just for the purpose of this example, let's say my puny acumen skills make Tuscany yield only 200 florints per turn (keeping taxes high, also my decision). My unit's upkeep is 25, therefore my annual income would be 175 florints. If we agree on a King's share of one fifth, then I am left with 140 florints. If I built a watchtower the first turn, I would have a total of 540 florints in my coffers, with which to build buildings and eventually train troops in my province. I can always ask the King to transfer troops to my province (in which case I would be expected to take their expenses or split them with the King, whatever we agree), or ask for a gift fromt he royal coffers if it is decided that a Cathedral is needed in Tuscany (would be a valid request if we play GA mode). I just think such rules would make it tougher and slower to develop empires and blaze through the entire map in a few turns.

I wonder how do we limit the King's interference in one's inner matters. I think the King should probably have a say when it comes to offensive military matters - he calls the invasions and the Crusades, because otherwise, if we go back to my example with Tuscany, I may decide that I dislike my King and as a result launch an invasion on Rome, getting him excommunicated. At the same time, I think that for the King to interfere with what I build in Tuscany and make me build a border fort instead of that farm improvement I actually want, he needs to have the suppor of the other heroes, let's say 2 thirds of it.

There should also be a specified military obligation - I would be granted Tuscany in exchange for promising to supply two units of Urban Militian and a unit of Mounted Sergeants to the King whenever he deems it necessary for a campaign he intends or for the defense of another province. These troops or whatever is left of them are to be returned to me though, once the campaign ends or the threat disappears, unless of course I am given a newly conquered province and decide to keep them there (and this new province will of course come with a new obligation). One the troops are returned, I will still have the obligation to supply them for future campaigns, and therefore I should be responsible for retraining them as quickly as reasonably possible.

Finally, here is a potentially complicated situation. If a civil war breaks out for some reason, as unlikely as this is, who decides whether the rebels or the loyalists should be supported, and, what happens in case my hero falls with the rebels? This is a difficult situation to figure out.

This was a lengthy post and I appologize if I have gone into too much detail. I guess I am just excited about the PBM.