KotR cataclysmic event discussion thread

[RoadKill]

Second, every game turn will use a modified system of the battle-list postings that Chancellors have been making in the OOC thread for some time. This will include the current status of each avatar in the game, a brief description of the challenges they find themselves in, and a short multiple choice description of possible actions. These multiple choice descriptions will not be definitive by any means, they will merely provide examples of options that are open to you. For example:

Johnny von Hindenburg:
You are the Count of Pfarphenplatz. The city is rioting and half of the garrison has been killed or deserted. You have two groups of knights with you and a large Polish army is nearby. There is no way to hire mercenaries or recruit new garrison units.

(A) Garrison Pfarphenplatz with your knights and attempt to restore order and hold the city.
(B) Ride to Pfarphenplatz and rescue the garrison before they are overwhelmed, then attempt to flee to the safety of Somewhatnearbyville. This will slow you down and you may be caught in the field by the Polish army.
(C) Abandon Pfarphenplatz and ride immediately for Somewhatnearbyville.


People may tell me they want to follow one of these paths or give a path of their own. If a person gives me no information for a particular turn, I will always choose the path that I deem to be best for keeping them alive. If an avatar's situation has not changed much from before, I will likely not give any info on them or simply write a "Proceeding as before" type note. Please note that since I cannot find a way to control the enemy AI, I will sometimes artificially create battles for you. Thus, if in the above example you chose (B) but the AI did not attack you and I want it to, I will move the Polish army near you and have you attack it. Even though the battle will be setup as you attacking, it will be roleplayed as a defensive battle and you will still have to fight it.

Also, the results of every action will not be guaranteed. If you chose (B) you could be attacked in the field, but you could also get lucky and escape without a battle. If you chose (A) you could be successful and restore order, perhaps opening up a new possibility to recruit one new garrison regiment. On the otherhand, you could fail to restore order, and rioting could continue, resulting in the destruction of a further garrison regiment and one of your knight regiments. I will be using a combination of factors to determine the results, including your character traits (i.e. avatars with "popular" traits will have a better chance at restoring order than ones with "unpopular" traits), the arrangement of the armies and the Reich, and my own imagination. I am even toying with the idea of actually rolling a die to determine the result (i.e. "unpopular" avatar succeeds in restoring order on a 1 or 2 on a d6. "popular" avatar suceeds in restoring order on a 1 to 4 on a d6). econ21 did something similar to this with the WOTS Civil War battles and it was excellent.

Finally, the last area will be Chancellor's reports. These will be the only real interaction Lothar has with the game. I will summarize any previous events of significance not covered by the previous areas here. This will also be where Lothar's decisions about how to allocate resources will be made. I do not anticipate there being many resources available to allocate for the majority of the event, so the decisions Lothar has to make will likely be minimal and infrequent. I want to concentrate mainly on the story (the first section) and the 'choose your own adventure' style actions for the players (the second section) rather than a traditional Chancellorship.

Please marry me Tincow, I love your ideas.

[Stig]

Even tho I like the idea of people changing houses it may be dangerous, what if Karl Zirn leaves Austria? No more kids for it.

[Northnovas]

Even tho I like the idea of people changing houses it may be dangerous, what if Karl Zirn leaves Austria? No more kids for it.

Never, I can't it's somehow in my blood. Never been there but it is...

[Ignoramus]

Perhaps also we could make it "first come, first served" regarding rebellious provinces. Throw away the Kaiser's right to assign provinces and instead make it that whichever House take a settlement keeps it. That knock down the geographical assigning of the provinces.

[RoadKill]

A good way for the player to select how he wants his story to run is to, make the player be able to lower his loyal (if he wants to) slowly and slowly till his loyalty is really low, then the avatar can go gather other revolting generals and demand the downfall of king or something along the lines of that.

[AussieGiant]

In real time what is the likely start point for all this.

[FactionHeir]

Depends on how long it takes for people to pick up saves and play them and the chancellor's game speed in general.

OK's term seems to be dragging out for a very long time due to having to wait the full 48 (if not 96 at times) and other stuff.
May I suggest that minor battles be autoresolved where possible? During my term, if there were rebel stacks or small enemy stacks somewhere, I didn't bother sending a player avatar to fight it if a garrison or captain led stack could still get to it on the same turn. Saved a lot of time.

[AussieGiant]

I'm asking because I don't get back to Zurich until the 2nd of October.

I assume it will start before then?

[econ21]

Perhaps also we could make it "first come, first served" regarding rebellious provinces. Throw away the Kaiser's right to assign provinces and instead make it that whichever House take a settlement keeps it. That knock down the geographical assigning of the provinces.

We have an unwritten convention that when a province is lost and retaken, it automatically returns to the House that held it. I think we should end that convention and make things more up for grabs. The Kaiser can allocate them afresh - and rewarding their liberators would no doubt be one consideration. It will add spice to the game. Just destroying and exactly recreating what we have now is not so interesting.

[FactionHeir]

Quite.
Although with all those events, maybe the house taking the settlement gets to keep it rather than it being assigned.

[econ21]

Although with all those events, maybe the house taking the settlement gets to keep it rather than it being assigned.

I think central authority will break down for a while - so they could keep it during the Chaos. Afterwards, I would like the Kaiser to decide - keeping things ambiguous increases the role of politics and I don't want the event to just lead to a House vs House land grab (although some unscrupulous generals are free to push it in that direction).