Multiplayer rules thread

[Pharnakes]

HI all this is for suggesting rules for the E.B. multiplayer thread. Please register here.

[Griever14206]

I'd say go with a few base rules:

No More Than 4 units of Horse Archers
No More Than 6 units of calvary (including General)
Only 2 units per army with 2 or more HP
Only 1 unit of elephants (elephants have 2+HP and count as a calvary unit, so they limit other choices as well)
No more than 5 units of archers/slingers
No artillery

These prevent cheese-powergaming armies, such as all HA's or a large slinger/archer army that hugs the corner of the map, several of which I encountered playing Vanilla RTW MP.

Accepted 2:1 Money values for sieges (attackers get twice as much as defenders)

It would also be cool to keep records. I plan on in my signature. Posting some AAR's in the from would be awesome too.

[Fondor_Yards]

I must horribly disagree here. Your first two points make the Steppe factions either impossable to play, or force you to use a lot of non-factional units, so you might as well not even use them. Elephants in EB are absurbly easy to kill, even just a normal slinger unit can kill them, or fire arrows rout them. And peltasts destory them. Slingers I understand I suppose, but there's no reason to limit archers as well. Artillery is good but isn't that hard to deal with *ask Pharnakes from our 2 games*

This isn't normal rtw mp, full of idiots. Given how small this community is, we can trust each other to not pull loser strats like deploying at the edge.

Let's not turn into the RTW/BI/M2TW where there are so many rules you butcher half the faction rosters so that your forced basicly to play a few core factions.

[bovi]

Cavarly is not as horribly overpowered as in vanilla, there is no reason to limit them. Horse archer armies are good, but expensive. With limited funds this will balance itself.

It may be a good idea to disallow missile unit upgrades though, as 3-experience, 3-weapon slingers are cheap and overpowering (I've used them to great effect myself). How about it?

[Pharnakes]

hmm, so thats why your sphendonetai butchered my poor balearics...


Another thing I would like to suggest, would be to agree to a historical army for every faction that costs 50-65k. I personaly have a very nice imperial legion for 60k, and I think it would be fun to agree to one for every faction.

[LorDBulA]

I would say no Expiriance and Weapon upgrades.
This just thorows current stats off.
Expiriacne is already calculated in current stats.

[bovi]

Huh? I've only been on your side . If you're talking about our bridge battle, my sphendos massacred the enemy balearics mostly because those were busy hitting some phalanx dudes until half of them were gone. My sphendos got massacred in turn by the horse archers though.

Demulon got the worst of it once though, I had some 6 slinger units and maneuvered to the higher ground. He tried to use horse archers but was butchered, then barely arrived at my battle line before breaking.

[Griever14206]

The problem with a large army of horse archers is that if I chose to play the Romanii and I face an army full of say, 12 units of horse archers, it will be quite difficult to come to grips with the enemy. Even after the horse run out of arrows it will simply be a cat-and-mouse chase as the infantry chase the calvary all over the map to no avail, and I can assure you that is not very fun.

Point well made on the rest, seems as if all that mping with the pre-teens in M2TW has ruined my trust in people (pertaining to online gaming)

[bovi]

Again, I believe this particular crowd is unlikely to run around in circles just to make the opponent bored and give up.

[mAIOR]

Well, in vanilla a friend of mine was tired of fighting with a kid who was always deploying on the corner. He came up with a brilliant strat to counter that... Artillerie... lots of it. He forced the kids army out of the corner and then we saw all his mastery in warfare. Basically he rushed all his units against his army with no order at all, got surrounded and slaughtered in no time.
As for EB, I believe people here are deccent enough not to pull anything like that.
I believe one house rule for someone figting with a lot of HA against infantry would be that engagement is mandatory after the arrows are depleted.


Cheers...

[bovi]

Yes, although if the enemy infantry choose to pursue it's fair to string them along until they're exhausted and/or out of cohesion.

[mAIOR]

Well, I speak of myself but when facing HA with heavy infantry, I always place my HI facing the enemy and standing their ground. I never pursue HA as it is futile... and only tires my infantry. I place my Light infantry in the middle of the heavy as this allows them to be somewhat safer and fire if the HA approach too much.


Cheers...

[[EB]Demulon]

I think Pharnakes had a good point about the historical battles (and 60k is the perfect amount). Before a battle it should be understood that it will be either a steppe battle or a western Euro. battle. With steppe you can expect lots of HA, while with successors you can count on lots of phalangites, and likewise with barbarian factions you can expect a lot of infantry.
I think by establishing the type of game, everyone will have a more enjoyable time, as opposed to having Casse fight Pahlava, which is neither historically possible but also annoying, as HAs can decimate half of the infantry army before contact is even made.

[bovi]

60k is a lot of money. Many elites cost somewhere around 3k, so you'll get pretty much a lot of elites along with a few regulars. Which I'm sure you're not alone in liking though. I like more around 15k-25k myself, so there's a hard choice between quality and quantity. Army funds is pretty much a matter of negotiation before the game, not something needing a rule.

[NeoSpartan]

60k is a lot of money. Many elites cost somewhere around 3k, so you'll get pretty much a lot of elites along with a few regulars. Which I'm sure you're not alone in liking though. I like more around 15k-25k myself, so there's a hard choice between quality and quantity. Army funds is pretty much a matter of negotiation before the game, not something needing a rule.

Agreed army funds should be negociated between players before the game.

The few rulz I see that should be implemented are:
1-) No waiting in a map corner.
2-) Once HA run out of arrows, you can't have them running around just to make the other person quit the battle since you won't engage.
3-)No unit upgrades, it messes up the Stats the EB team made.

p.s I am finished with EXAMS!!!! time to play MP and put my skills (or lack of them ) to the test.

[Pharnakes]

I think if you start signifigantly uphill, you should have to come down, rather than let the other player assaut you.

[king hannibal]

the money I think bested suits EB is 40k as it give mostly an even balance with elite and regulars

also I prefer none rules but for people to use the armys they want in reason although sometime unfair more realistic than any rule that can ever be made

of course there are people that say other wise with this but you've not got to play to try and win but more to the point have fun yes try and win but there's no tornament so if you lose no biggy just kick his ass next time

[Fondor_Yards]

Horse Archers ran away. That didn't stop the romans in RL from defeating them, and it should stop you either. The only rules I think we should use are to use historical style armies, IE no Averni armies with 8 units of persian archers or whatever.

[Gazius]

Me and a friend are playing out a Great War. Since it's just the two of use, we haven't developed any rules for 'cheats' or such, or other pathetic tactics, just go on and take your battle, if that's how it plays out, that's how it plays out. Here's a set of rules and equations.

1) The basic concept is to simulate a border conflict between two states.
The key factors are gaining initiative, capturing enemy territory and avoiding excess casualties.
The winner is whoever captures enemy settlements and/or reduces the enemy army to the point they can no longer fight.

The game is played with always even forces, on a random or mutually agreed set of maps, using calculated point victories to determine success.
Screenshots of the final result screen (win/lose, men fielded/men lost) must always be saved for stats.

2) BEGINNING: BORDER CLASH
The game begins with a small border incident where very small forces (1000 points) clash with each other sparking a war.
Whoever wins the border incident will take initiative and be on the offensive; the loser will take the defensive.

3) FORCE SIZES
For the next battle, and all subsequent battles, the size of forces is determined by the following formula:
[number of points used in previous battle] x [fraction of winning forces surviving during previous battle] x 2 + 1000 points.
So, for example, if the first battle was fought with 1000 points, and the winner started with 100 troops of which 60 survived...

1000 x 0.6 x 2 + 1000 = 2200 points
if in the next battle 40% of the winner's troops survive -
2200 x 0.4 x 2 + 1000 = 2760 points

the logic behind this: since we're playing a border war and not an empire-killing war, if the forces are successful then the winning side would be inclined to escalate the conflict, but if they fail they won't be very eager. The losing side, of course, would always send enough forces to match.
There's also a nice balance, because unless the battles are hugely decimating pyrrhic victories (which should be discouraged), the war will grow gradually.

4) SUBSEQUENT BATTLES: OFFENSE/DEFENSE/ASSAULT
As noted above, the winner of the initial border clash goes on offensive.

If the attacker wins this battle, he goes on to assault an enemy village, to be captured as the first step to victory. If the defender wins, it goes back to a field battle with both sides attacking to decide initiative.
This is true of all field battles in game: if the attacker wins them, he advances. If the defender wins them, it reverts to a meeting fight to decide initiative.

The game's "map", if the attacker should advance) is as follows:

field battle (border clash)
field battle (advance)
SMALL VILLAGE (no defenses)
field battle (advance)
LARGE VILLAGE (no defenses)
field battle (advance)
FORT (light wall)
field battle (advance)
SMALL TOWN (palisade)
field battle (advance)
LARGE TOWN (palisade)
field battle (advance)
SMALL CITY (wooden wall)
field battle (advance)
LARGE CITY (wooden wall)
field battle (advance)
CAPITAL (stone walls, time for siege etc.)

Once a village/town/etc. is taken, it has to be recaptured. A defending player has to go back through the list and recapture any settlements lost before advancing into the enemy's territory the same way.
In actuality, of course, unless one side sucks - the war isn't likely to get very far, which is kind of the point.

THERE IS ONE CAVEAT - RETREATING:
A defender may decide to not face the enemy in open terrain and instead retreat to the nearest village/fort/city to force the enemy into an assault - that way the field battle is skipped. Not recommended but possible for strategic reasons (making the fight more costly for the enemy).
Likewise, when an attacker captures a village/town etc., he may choose not to advance and stay in the village/town - in which case the defender automatically reverts to assault and tries to recapture it. May also be strategic - again, to try and inflict more casualties on the enemy army.

5) CASUALTIES
For every 'war', there will be a casualty limit for the player.
This limit can be agreed on between the players - the recommended number is 10,000. If a player (or both players) runs out of this limit, victory can be decided...

6) VICTORY
Winning the 'war' can be done in one of the following ways:

-Capturing the enemy capital (unlikely)
-Advancing into enemy territory (i.e. capturing villages/towns) or remaining on neutral ground and killing more than the limit (e.g. 10,000) enemy troops while losing less than that

otherwise, the conflict is considered a draw if both players run out of troops on neutral ground, or the attacker runs out of troops on enemy ground, in which case victory can be achieved by...
-Winning a final battle

7) FINAL BATTLE
The final battle is a tie-breaking measure that occurs when either the battle is a draw on neutral ground or an attacker runs out of troops but has captured enemy settlements.
In this case, a final battle is triggered. A final battle will always be a meeting engagement in a field, with maximum forces committed - to be specific, the force setup for the final battle will always be [number of points in previous battle] + 15,000.

Whoever wins the final battle will be declared the winner of the war, irrespective of settlements lost or captured - a peace agreement will be signed in their favour.

[Pharnakes]

I like this, very nice

[NeoSpartan]

Hey at what time do you guys usually are available to play?????? I usually play EB from 12am-3am Eastern Standard Time (US).


It will change next month when I start working a late-night shift for UPS.

[bovi]

I'm not very often on, but when I am it's usually 19-23 CET.

[NeoSpartan]

I'm not very often on, but when I am it's usually 19-23 CET.

dumb question.... What is CET???

[Pharnakes]

Centeral european time?

[Pharnakes]

Hmm, could do with a bump, I think, and possibly even sticky if some moderator is in a good mood for once.

[bovi]

I don't think so, it's mere discussion, suits fine where it is.