Iron Man House Rules

[Tamur]

Four is right out!

To add something constructive...

Battles

Thou shalt view the battlefield only once fully at the start of the battle, write down thine battle orders, give them, and then shalt thou lock thine holy General Cam. At three minutes of real time thou mayest pause and take a battle overview and alter thine orders, writing a new set of orders to be executed immediately. But only once mayest thou doest this.

Four times is right out!

[alpaca]

Four is right out!

To add something constructive...

Battles

Thou shalt view the battlefield only once fully at the start of the battle, write down thine battle orders, give them, and then shalt thou lock thine holy General Cam. At three minutes of real time thou mayest pause and take a battle overview and alter thine orders, writing a new set of orders to be executed immediately. But only once mayest thou doest this.

Four times is right out!

Yeah we all love the Holy Hand-grenade of Antioch. Besides, I still have to add a certain relic to the game... ahem.


I thought of another one I frequently use:

Thou shalt campaign on your esteemed foe's territory only if your campaign is led by a member of the royal family.

[Daveybaby]

Thou shalt view the battlefield only once fully at the start of the battle, write down thine battle orders, give them, and then shalt thou lock thine holy General Cam. At three minutes of real time thou mayest pause and take a battle overview and alter thine orders, writing a new set of orders to be executed immediately. But only once mayest thou doest this.

Not sure i could handle this as it would take too much fun out of the battles for me. I might consider locking the camera on my general for the entire battle but still issue orders at any time. Hmmmm....

Another set of rules which i've considered but never actually played is: capture every territory by only taking rebel held provinces. Which means, in other words, that you have to assassinate the royal families of all of the other factions into extinction (although i guess you could incite individual provinces to rebel in other ways). No attacking non-rebel factions is allowed in any way, youre only allowed to fight defensive battles.

Anyone ever tried this?

[alpaca]

Not sure i could handle this as it would take too much fun out of the battles for me. I might consider locking the camera on my general for the entire battle but still issue orders at any time. Hmmmm....

Another set of rules which i've considered but never actually played is: capture every territory by only taking rebel held provinces. Which means, in other words, that you have to assassinate the royal families of all of the other factions into extinction (although i guess you could incite individual provinces to rebel in other ways). No attacking non-rebel factions is allowed in any way, youre only allowed to fight defensive battles.

Anyone ever tried this?

I think somebody did but I don't know what happened. I always had the problem that it's extremely hard to assassinate all living family members because the AI can adopt pretty much every turn.

[_Tristan_]

capture every territory by only taking rebel held provinces.
Anyone ever tried this?

I'm doing it in my current campaign (The Long Road H/VH), playing as the Danes...

It's tough as the mod makes rebel much stronger than Vanilla (with a General in each rebel-held province...)...

However, it still is possible to destroy factions by assassination...

Making cities rebel is doable (mainly if far away from the capital or if of a different religion, otherwise, it can be very difficult or even impossible in the case of castles...)

[Grog]

Guilty as charged, yer honour!

Seriously though, I have just finished a french campaign (m/vh vanilla 1.2) roughly along these lines, although I forgot the 'giveth thy enemy all of thine florins as each turn endeth, good Sire' clause.

My houserules were similar, ie: max chivalry, occupy/release. I'd also balance armies and fight field battles most of the time. Although, general + weak garrison siege defence vs strong AI stack attackers is always fun.

Crusades I had similar houserules, although the 'uber chivalry convert the world and keep pope happy' soon means you own the college of cardinals and spend the next 100 turns supplying the world with well funded expansionist dread-popes *whistle*

You will also be surprised with the economic picture long term, especially when you lose all ransom/sack florins short term.

Reputation-wise, all I can say is I found its a fairly long walk to immaculate. I made it by turn 164, could have been much earlier If I had chosen some early alliances more carefully..

Whilst some people are dismissive of the chivalry style, I found it a very rewarding long game to play. I was mainly influenced by both the Kobal guides and other tales of chivalry on this forum; but mainly I was fed up of having every king turn into a dreadlord, and despicable global rep by turn 80 etc..

Finally, you do generate some nice characters with this style, although the last of the Timurids really didnt expect the Chivalric Crusade powered cannon stack ramming them open field:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Shahed]

I think the GenCAM lock is the best. That will be a completely new ballgame.

[Grog]

Yes, I didn't go that far in my game either, Generalcam is a fairly hefty restriction. Not so bad on flat areas, not too pleasant in mountains/forests though, or sieges for that matter. I often play at 'eye' level though, just to hear the clash of steel and cries of battle. Eye level cavalry charge into an unsupecting unit always brings a wolfish grin.

Another recommendation I would add is a chivalric general should prove himself worthy in battle whenever the oppurtunity should arise, such as supporting a weakened unit, bravely protecting your footmen from enemy cavalry or seeking a chivalrous 1v1 duel with the enemy general (and if I choose to flank charge with DNK during said duel, it will be in a noble manner)

[Ramses II CP]

Crusades are one of the most broken parts of the game against the AI, if ya ask me. You need some additional rules around crusades, otherwise they're a huge advantage.

1. You can only attack the crusade target.
2. No crusade mercenaries (They're stupidly powerful and cheap, even after the crusade ends).
3. Only one stack can go on crusade at a time.

If you can smash everything in your path with cheap-uber units and 6 stacks of no upkeep house troops then the game is pretty much over after the first crusade.

I'm considering a general cam campaign as my next one. I think it would make for an interesting AAR, as your character might often have no idea what exactly caused him to win or lose.

[phonicsmonkey]

capture every territory by only taking rebel held provinces. Anyone ever tried this?

I tried it and succeeded - check out my thread

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87178

[Daveybaby]

I tried it and succeeded - check out my thread

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87178

Nice work. Think i might have to try that at some point (might make an extra rule to disallow buying provinces though - sounds to me like it makes it a bit too easy).

So your saying, that you must attack timurid elephants, or mongol horse archers, in the open, you know what, I don't fancy it.

Well, obviously it's going to be difficult - that's the whole point. The reason the mongols and timurids are in the game in the first place is to provide a challenge. If you avoid that challenge then you could be missing out on one of the most fun parts of the game.

So, meet them head on - and get your arse handed back to you a couple of times. Try and find some (non-cheesy) tactics that work. Have fun!

[sprucemoose]

Daveybaby

i was looking for a new challenge but you are obviously mad as king George!!


no seriously.....good set of rules

im gonna try some of em to start off with,regarding giving your money to the AI

would it not be better to give it to his holiness to distribute to his followers??

im gonna do that with my funds.


many thanks for the insperation

Moose

[Daveybaby]

@Ramses II CP: nice additions there regarding crusades, especially regarding mercs. Think i might add those to the OP.

And i look forward to that AAR.

@sprucemoose Cheers. I think the really difficult rule for me personally will be the '50% militia in each stack' one. Gonna really have to think hard about my stack construction now.

Also, I think giving all my cash to the pope might be a bit of a cop-out, cos the papacy isn't (usually) expansionist. Better to give it to potential enemies, cos that way youre hopefully going to be facing better enemy stacks later on.

Having said that, IIRC - if you give the pope too much money, he suddenly becomes VERY expansionist, and will take over large chunks of the map.

And I'm actually considering a rule banning the giving of gifts to the pope outright, as this makes it far too easy to stay in his good books. If youre going to be a good catholic, do it by doing good deeds rather than just buying your way in (has to be a first time in history for everything, right?)



A couple more rules to add:

Once the pope has ordered you to cease hosilities against a faction, you may not attack them again until they attack you, even once the decree has expired. In effect, treat a papal nonagression decree as a formal ceasefire, even though the game still says youre at war.

Respect other faction's borders : you may not enter another faction's lands unless you are at war with them (and also bear in mind the papal decree rule above), or (obviously) have an alliance/military access. Thus you are not allowed to park a small stack next to somebody's capital in order to provoke them in starting a war.



Unfortunately I'm not gona have a chance to try this out for a bit. Off to munich tonight for a few days, as i have an important... um... business meeting. Yes, that's it, a business meeting. Although if anyone else here is going to be at the oktoberfest over the next few days, I apologise in advance if i throw up on you.

[Shahed]

Once i finally get Kingdoms I'm gonna have a game like this. BTW I always hit the Hordes in the open, it's just waaay more fun.

ENJOY ! the business meeting at the Oktoberfest! ;)

[Ciaran]

Four is right out!

To add something constructive...

Battles

Thou shalt view the battlefield only once fully at the start of the battle, write down thine battle orders, give them, and then shalt thou lock thine holy General Cam. At three minutes of real time thou mayest pause and take a battle overview and alter thine orders, writing a new set of orders to be executed immediately. But only once mayest thou doest this.

Four times is right out!

Wow, I suppose that makes it real hard. I´ve settled to giving orders only to units not engaged in combat.