Unofficial Chancellor eligibility poll

[FactionHeir]

As I said a long while back, I have already done a small draft for the next PBM as well. Should be interesting how many ideas overlap in the end.

[Warmaster Horus]

Well, we've got a good occasion right now to change the rules if we need to.

I voted no, because I couldn't in any case. CA 14.8 (the one about a time limit for the Chancellor) would not work with me. Also, I wouldn't like the responsibility. One mistake and it's *makes throat slash gesture*

[Ramses II CP]

Having recently read through a lot of old material what strikes me most about KotR is that it's been easy. The political squabbling and infighting developed because the HRE was never seriously threatened. That old historical truism; if your people have no enemies they create them. Even having a GM actively breaking up the empire is less about struggling to survive and more about trying to satisfy him that it's broken up enough.

I think if hotseat battles vs the AI were playable you could form an 'opposition team' (Perhaps formed of players who don't yet have an avatar, or recently lost theirs) who built some of the AI nations up intelligently, but didn't actively play them in the same sense as a multiplayer campaign. By switching AI control on and off during the turns you might even hide which other countries were controlled. As it stands now even during the Cataclysm and TC's best efforts the AI has no high star/dread/chivalry generals to supply for him, no decent army stacks of it's own, and no initiative or intelligence behind it's strategic advance. Imagine if the players were suddenly faced with a Mongol Invasion run well. Half of Europe (Or the Middle East) might fall in short order. Or if England surrendered to France or Scotland and became a vassal to survive?

I have a skewed view of things because I've participated in so little actual play, but to me it seems like TC, and some others helping, are putting out a lot of effort just to try to get the AI to do anything decent. If the game were more of a challenge I suspect there would be less politics and infighting.

All of that being said, I don't know that an OT is technically feasible, it's just the only thing I can think of that could force the player's nation into not automatically being the big dog on the map. Right now we can absolutely count on every other country being stupid and ultimately failing and because of that we feel we have the luxury to struggle amongst ourselves.

[TinCow]

I certainly think that all future PBMs should start with hotseat enabled, though with only one faction selected. That will let us play as we always have, but will enable far greater control over the AI if we ever decide it is needed.

[Stuperman]

I certainly think that all future PBMs should start with hotseat enabled, though with only one faction selected. That will let us play as we always have, but will enable far greater control over the AI if we ever decide it is needed.

I think that's a good Idea, even if it's only to force the AI to take settlements that we've 'abbandoned'

[FactionHeir]

I'm not sure whether that will work well or not. In M2TW, having hotseat enabled can lead to us being unable to fight any defensive battles and lose start of turn information.

[TinCow]

I thought enabling hotseat and only selecting one faction to play made the game run as normal. The only diffence would be that the "control" console command would work.

[FactionHeir]

I haven't tried it myself, but I would imagine that playing a hotseat with 1 player and then enabling another faction during the game could force it into no defensive battle mode. Might be worth trying out and testing extensively, as it can break a PBM completely or at least set it back many turns.
One thinking is that otherwise, why would any of the current running MP campaigns not do so.

[TinCow]

I think the difference is that using "control" is not actually enabling another faction. It just switches the player to that faction for that turn only. Since it's not a permanent activation of a second faction, it doesn't have the knock-on effect that results from running two factions in the same game. I don't know that for sure, though and it's really academic at this point anyway. Some quick experimentation before the next game should tell us the answer.

[Zim]

Well, we have 8 people voting "yes" so far, which is pretty healthy. (I agree it is a shame the poll is not public, as OOC I'd like to help interested players who have not been Chancellor get elected - with my mighty influence of two ) Most conventional PBMs struggle to find many players in the late game.

Really?

One interesting question is which would be more work - doing a late game stint in the Scottish PBM or as Chancellor in KotR? I am not sure what the answer is, but it would be different kind of work. In the Scottish PBM, you'd have to fight a lot of battles and face a more daunting write-up (I still have not written mine from a mid-game stint). In KotR, your battles would be more political and managerial with more bite sized episodes of tactical gaming and story writing. The nice thing is that both kinds of games are going on, so players can choose. (The Scottish game is re-cycling the old playlist so new entrants might be able to join and directly pick up a reign.)

I'm not sure how it compares to being a Chancelor, but it's certainly hard work playing a regular pbm in the end game. In my first reign in the game, it took me all of 1-2 hours to do 20 turns, fighting every battle and taking down notes . My first turn in this last reign took longer than that. Not only did I have to look over 30 provinces or so, but I faced multiple full stack defensive siege battles (one where the clock ran out!). I wrote a simple, character based narrative for my first writeup, but I dread doing so with this one(which of the dozen generals I've used to I focus on?). I'll probably end up doing more of an overview writeup.

Things calmed down a bit, but hours of playing later, I'm still only half done with my reign. I think being Chancelor would have the distinct advantage of moving more slowly. Turns seems to take at best several days in KOTR, so I'd have more time to assimulate all the information. Dukes make a lot of the decisions, and I wouldn't have to worry as much about where to move armies and build queues. I wouldn't be fighting most of the battles, either.

[econ21]

Yes, that's my impression, Zim. Being a Chancellor in KotR may be more complex, in terms of managaing rules and politics, than a regular late game PBM. But it may be less demanding in terms of time. (Unless you go to town on the politics and story telling, which is tempting...).

[AussieGiant]

Bottom line is that I would love to run.

But it wont be until the next election I think.

I'm scheduled to be back home by around the 18th of December.