Possible LotR Successor Game discussion thread

[TheFlax]

How about basing it on the number of landed vassals? Or is that too complicated? It would give an incentive for house leaders to distribute land to as many vassals as possible.

[woad&fangs]

How about basing it on the number of landed vassals? Or is that too complicated? It would give an incentive for house leaders to distribute land to as many vassals as possible.

I'm also fine with this suggestion. I just want to try to avoid province hording as much as possible.

On another note, I think that 4 houses is probably the optimal number. Would we be willing to recruit 1 or 2 RBGs in the begining to get the ball rolling and then agree not to recruit anymore?

[flyd]

I have one major proposal to introduce: only family tree members may own land. Children are automatically vassals to their father unless they manage to gain their independence through some mechanic.

The power in LotR may have been a little diffuse and the system too democratic. I think the house structure in KotR made for more tightly knit (or bitterly split) houses. If you were born a Franconian, you were going to remain a Franconian. If you got on your Duke's bad side, you would be in serious trouble. It made the people at the top more powerful, but that meant that their personal conflicts would get amplified as the conflicts in the state. The house structure was not constantly shifting, which made it easier to remember.

We should certainly not do away with the RBGs, but they should be considered lower, non-royal nobles. They should be considered to have land, but only smaller fuedal feifs, not "visible" on the map. The provinces should go to the royals. We should also do away with independents, you should only be able to become a noble by being sponsored by an existing royal (this would be the equivalent of choosing one of the houses in KotR). That way, everyone has a patriarch. (In the alternative, they should all be independents, with adoption being the only way to enter a house).

Social mobility would be greatly reduced (not that it was very high in the middle ages), but beside Tagaris, there were few who were able to take much advantage of it in LotR. The people who started at the top remained at the top. The best service to provide to the serfs is not better social mobility, but more cohesive teams, so that they can participate in the grandoise plans of their Dukes.

[Ramses II CP]

I think we should stick with one province = one vote. If you give one to someone else you better feel pretty confident of their loyalty or of your ability to take it back. I didn't like the feudal system in LotR, I never had the foggiest clue what rank anyone was, including myself, and it didn't seem to make any difference in the play of the game. Quickly, without looking it up, name the rank of any of the house leaders at the 'end' of LotR and name one time they used one of their rank powers.

Besides, if you want a province go conquer one like the rest of us. Vassals shouldn't have land handed to them just because, they should have to ask for it, earn it, and be worthy of it.

I think the dynamic of the game will become very interesting very quickly if we let some players/houses accumulate voting power, at least as long as we give them interesting things to vote on.

[Zim]

Thank you for the vote of confidence, guys.

Tying voting influence to land is an interesting idea. We'd have to rewrite a lot of the influence rules from LotR.

I like the idea of tying it to number of landed vassals, as that would discourage not only single players hoarding tons of land solely for themselves but also reduce the advantage of grabbing a couple dozen provinces from the AI. We could achieve this by basing influence on number of provinces and having influence caps per rank, or just a specific rule specifying that influence = number of landed vassals.

We would have to work out a couple things, though. For one thing would all members of a House (assuming we use the current ranking and feudal chain system) benefit from the improved influence? So leader guy with 7 vassals has that much influence, his 2nd has 6 influence, and so on? This means if one House became marginally bigger than another it gains a ton of influence. Or perhaps only the leader would get the bonus and his vassals would be capped at a fairly low number. This would add incentive for stable Houses, while keeping the degrees by which Houses of fairly close member vary in influence fairly moderate.

And if we did do this, would we want to keep bonuses from being Chancellor or stats?

GH mentioned putting more power in the hands of the executives. The Megas in LotR is pretty powerful, and I recall the Chancellor being so as well. Would people be open to adding more power to them?

As for our King [or Doge if we play as Venice or Duke if we play Milan (although I think Doge is just Italian for Duke...)] perhaps he could distribute land as he did in KotR? If land and landed vassals is influence this would make him very strong.

I could see recruiting one or two rgbs early on, if we decide on a certain number of players we want the game to start with.

Edit: Gah! Missed a couple posts. It's sounding like people want something a little more like KotR in some ways. If people prefer some things from KotR (like the House stability) we could modify the rules in that direction.

[Ituralde]

Gah! Seems like I posted in the wrong thread. Here's my take on things which also entails some suggestions for a new game if anybody's interested:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...postcount=3083

And I approve of Zim being GM. Maybe this is the time for the disclaimer where it says that you become GM at your own risk, TinCow probaly knows best, but I can imagine it wasn't always easy to lead the frenzied mob.

[AussieGiant]

A lot of good ideas here guy's but the level of complexity needs to be kept in check.

KotR was a much stronger role play experience. I think everyone agrees.

I'd base things off that and then cherry pick the 2 or 3 best things from this game and then perhaps add 2 or 3 news things...but not more.

It has to be playable.

It took a 5 way, pretty intense session of vets from KotR to rescue this game at one point, the reason, it was too complex.

[TinCow]

Will comment in more detail in a few hours, but for now I heartily approve of Zim as GM. I cannot think of many people who would do a better job.

[TinCow]

There are some very interesting comments being made, particularly on the static Houses and RBGs. Both of these were major complaints people had with KotR. The lack of avatars made the game somewhat inaccessible for many people in the beginning. While Northnovas is a sparkling example of someone who waited a long time for an avatar and thus enjoyed playing one even more, I think we lost about half a dozen players before then simply because they couldn't do anything but twiddle their thumbs for months waiting. This was why we introduced RBGs into KotR, and everyone thought those were an improvement at the time.

At the end of KotR, we had 19 players and it would have been difficult to accommodate many more than that for most of the game. LotR regularly exceeded that number. The problem in LotR was keeping everyone interested. I think the solution should be fixing that problem, not adopting a system that will reduce the player base back to its old level

Regarding the static Houses, this was a complaint as it limited peoples' freedom. First, it severely limited peoples' ability to choose which House they wanted to join. Austria was heavily handicapped for most of the game because the game simply doesn't spawn avatars evenly on the family tree. People wanted avatars, plain and simple, and if there wasn't one available in their House of choice, they weren't likely to join that House.

Second, the static Houses made it very difficult to handle RBGs when they were finally introduced (again, this was considered a massive improvement by most people at the time). Since Houses depended on the family tree, a RBG adoption into the wrong spot could pose serious RP problems.

Third, static Houses made a lot of internal conflict very difficult. There was almost no competition amongst the Houses throughout the game until the Illuminati came along. Prior to that time, we made various missions here or there and debated what to do, but there weren't really an repercussions outside of arguments in the Diet. We were just a large group of often-bickering individuals who were playing an elaborate version of a successor game, just like in WotS. Real internal conflict existed in only three circumstances: (1) Heinrich's attack on the Pope, (2) Ignoramus' Rebellion in Swabia, and (3) The Illuminati.

Of these, #2 doesn't even really count, because it was only possible due to the Cataclysm which broke all the rules and essentially introduced a prototype of the LotR PvP system. 1 and 3 had nothing to do with the rules at all, they had to do with various players making a determined attempt to rile things up.

In my opinion, LotR's failings are two-fold:

(1) Complexity. This was something I was afraid of when I created the rules and I tried to reign it in, but I totally failed. The current rules are a monstrosity, and they just kept getting bigger and more complex at nearly every Senate session. Initially, the biggest problem was the army system which made the job of Megas an extraordinary burden. Fortunately, this actually WAS solved with the improved army rules, which were much simpler and everyone has loved since then. However, by that time the damage had been done and we had already lost several veteran players due to the earlier complexity.

In my opinion, we need to vastly strip back the rule set, keeping the freedoms where we can, but restricting them elsewhere. The University and Rebellion systems were interesting ideas, but I think they caused more problems than they added in value. The PvP system also needs a total and complete overhaul. It needs to be re-written from the ground up and it needs to remove in-game movement from the equation. This has been properly identified as the major roadblock for PvP.

(2) The Players. We are responsible for what happened in LotR. For many different reasons, people just did not get into the game. They weren't passionate about it like in KotR, so for the majority of the game they didn't develop their characters and they didn't cause any conflicts. I do agree that Byzantium as a faction was a bit difficult to get into for most of us, especially with the names. It personally took me months just to remember a handful of them. The complexity issue was also a major cause of this in the beginning as well. The game was too hard to play, and this sapped the will of a lot of veterans who just drifted away.

However, regardless of the reasons, the lack of player interest in the game was its greatest failing. For most of the game, there was only one person willing to play the villain, the ever dependable Ignoramus. A game simply isn't entertaining when everyone is trying to get along. KotR was the exact same way. It was generally unexciting except when players went out of their way to cause problems and play the bad guy. In LotR, it took a long time before anyone really embraced that role and in the meantime the complexity problems were doing permanent damage. So, it was boring at the start, and hard to understand. Eventually people did realize the fun they could have being antagonistic, but they were hindered by the PvP rules which made the actual conflict difficult.

So, I think the next game will be successful if we (1) dramatically simplify the rules, stripping out everything that isn't necessary and completely re-do the PvP system and (2) have people who join the game from the very beginning with the intention of being power-hungry villains who are going to cause chaos.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Will comment later, but for now:

have people who join the game from the very beginning with the intention of being power-hungry villains who are going to cause chaos.

I'd be happy to reprise that role.

[ULC]

Awww...I like being the good guy

In any case, Zim asked me about my mercenaries idea - the whole concept would solve a couple problems and easily be understandable.

One of the major issues with the game as a whole is that the Chancellor controls the funds for the Military - this usually is not an issue, except when we come to PvP conflict. It is much easier to be buddy buddy when you know you will suffer severe consequences for falling out of favor with someone or a an entire House. It creates a sense of fear about losing all you have worked for ingame and IC that makes anyone hesitant to commit oneself to either righteous rebellion or pure unadulterated villiany, and it keeps you from becoming attached to what otherwise might be an intriguing and amazing persona.

However, what if we allowed our little rebel to recruit mercenaries freely? This gives the incentive to rebel, because in many ways mercenaries are superior troops, and you can get a mass of them quickly and cheaply.

But what about the monetary aspect? I don't think it will detract really at all, and might even represent the tough time the Chancellor now has of properly collecting taxes and the sporadic raiding and theft from a rebellion or civil war.

Also, it provides incentive for people to quickly pick a side - this little rebel is taking YOUR money for that new stone wall, that new barracks, those shiny new troops, taking it from you and draining the coffers...unless you bring him to justice.

Just as well, we can limit the hiring of Mercenaries to edicts otherwise so as to make it something "special" for rebelling - if you want those Free Company soldiers, you might just want to rebel and nab them for yourself...

Also, we need (although we might have) rules for capturing an opponents men - if you can resupply yourself by taking from the defeated (land, men) then the incentive increases even more, possibly dragging others into it as your rebellion continues to grow in power.

On the note of Static versus Fliud Houses, we I think, need a mix. Static Houses allow someont to identify with (all LotR Houses looked the same to me except for the Order), but Fluid Houses allow the freedom to move about.

Possibly a fusion of the two would be best, including Flyd's suggestion - a true spilt between RBG's and Family Members. Family members create the House - if your Father was a Lancastarian, you are one as well. RBG's are "Houseless" nobles, providing incentive for players to rally around the house nobility for soldiers and land that would be otherwise be unobtainable. This allows fluidity and the recognition we need.

We could even designate by ranks - Earl or Duke for head of household, Count for family members that are within the House, and Baron for those RBG's who have been inducted into the House. This eliminates the vast numbers of ranks while still keeping them, and allows for some Upward Mobility - marrying into the family tree makes you a Count, being appionted Head of Household makes you Earl or Duke. Maybe allow for recruitable Princesses if possible for this?

New Houses could be founded, but only by Family Members I suppose.

And I still support England with VanillaMod as the game setup.