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Another idea is to limit the number of claims on foreign Dukes and Kings we're allowed. Say to one King title and 5 Duke titles.

Well, do people agree with this or should we have only a timespan? I personally don't like to waste too much prestige grabbing expensive titles so that's an unwritten rule for me in all my games. But say, what if a claim holder joins your court? You will accidentaly break the rules sometimes.


Catholics may not heathen bash outside Europe unless they are in a Crusade, and it must aimed at taking Crusade goals and whatever is needed to secure them and make peace offers. Keep in mind that you should offer peace immediately after taking Crusade goals until the enemy accepts.

Thanks for clarifying :).

Orthadox may not heathen bash outside the old Roman Empire (i.e. no further east than Mesopotamia) and Eastern Europe.

I think this can be somewhat of a radical change, but considering that the Roman Empire didn't go that far in the East, then there might be no problems. Any thoughts?

I don't understand what you mean by this one. Could you elucidate on it?

It means that we will help a player that has not enough piety to conclude peace with a heathen in case the heathen is isolated and can't be conquered (shipping costs are too high). I don't think we need this rule, and maybe I will erase it unless people here found it necessary.



My worry has been that without AAR rewards we'll end up with a tragedy of the commons... As Manstein says though, we don't need to decide with finallity on the AAR rules right now. In fact that goes for any of the rules. It's our game, and we can see how it goes.

Thinking about it, basing the reward content on word count is probably the worst thing to do... As Manstein said, some people can't write as much as others and some people like to put up more screenies, rather than using words. We've already discussed voting for AARs, well, perhaps we could base the rewards on on votes, rather than word count. Let's say people would get these options with each AAR:

I thought fasquardon's AAR was:

Great! 3x bonus.
Good! 2x bonus.
Worthy! 1x bonus.
Unowrthy! Have a tomato.

Also, some ideas for other rewards could be:

Convert a province to culture X (unless it is a non-European Muslim province)
Convert a province to religion X (unless it is a non-European Muslim province)
Convert a province to or from heresy
Generate a random courtier of a certain type (eg. martial, clerical etc.)

As before, any such changes would have to be justified by events in the AAR and/or the character of your ruler.

fasquardon

Many people here, for now, will write the AAR's without any rewards. Maybe rewards can be an alternative thing, say, if a person has written an excellent AAR's and all or most of the other players say so, then it can choose to receive an in-game reward such as money, prestige or whatever we agree upon giving them. There shall be not any rigid criteria about writing "an excellent AAR", like word counting, but this would rather depend just on the personal choices of the players.
 
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Two questions:

1st: at what time will the game start? Saturday, 4 PM (GMT)?

2nd: how can i grab screenshot without alt+tab? DOes the Print Screen button takes shots and stores them somewhere?

Cheers
 
So Spain is fair game like Russia?

If you don't go on a conquering rampage outside your areas, then it is ok.

fasquadron said:
Personally I'd prefer to deal with this kind of thing in a balance-of-power way within the game, so if some player used "unChristian" tactics against another player, we organise a coalition against them, and restore the counrty they hurt. Or not, as the case may be.

Shuma said:
Hmm, as a compromise, let's say you can mobilize, but you can not move your armies outside your territory. As in, if I'm playing Tulouse and I wan't to attack Apulia, I can't set up my army in Rome and Spoleto and then declare war, but I can ready them for shipping in France, declare war, and be on my way.

That way it is not blitzing, and the player who is attacked has time to respond, and the attacker does have some advantage from being aware that the war is going to start.

fasquadron, in the Middle Ages there was the so-called "Peace of God" instituted by the Pope during Crusade times. It meant that no Christians could attack themselves in Europe during a Crusade and had to concentrate their efforts to conquer heathens. This can be applied in a different way to CK. I like your ideas about forming a coalition against anyone who blitzes a human or even any Catholic nation when going to or returning from Crusade, and it would be nice to institute a rule telling players to immediately disband their soldiers after they make peace with heathens. But the coalition against anyone who disrespects this rule is still a good idea, and we could apply it along with penalties...

I think we can postpone ths discussion for next week. I'm sure for the 2nd session we'll all still be motivated to write.

These points aside, I agree with rsobota's draft.

Of course, the rules can change with time if players decide so :).

Shuma, as long as you don't obviously move all your troops to the border of your future foe, then it is ok. You know that in RL, moving a lot of troops around would certainly trigger a diplomatic incident and even an undesirable war. As there is no such thing in CK and most of the time the AI doesn't bother, then this rule might be the best we can have to avoid blitzing.
 
Also, another question, do I require any savegame or something?
 
Two questions:

1st: at what time will the game start? Saturday, 4 PM (GMT)?

2nd: how can i grab screenshot without alt+tab? DOes the Print Screen button takes shots and stores them somewhere?

Cheers


Yes, and to take a screenshot, press F11 and it will store the screenie in your CK folder without any further interference needed ;).

Also, another question, do I require any savegame or something?

The host, fasquadron, already has the save. Supposing that he has the best computer and connection speed to host the next game, then we can start it without loading saves in our computers.
 
Thanks. Ye be fearin' Albany, ach!
 
Shuma said:
I'd like to move this up to 10 mins. In case someone's system crashes, it certainly takes longer than 5 mins, and it isn't such a big difference for those who wait. You can do your toilet pitstop and stuff during that time.


Five minutes seems enough for me, do other players agree with the 10 min change?

Discussing rules is an exhaustive thing :( .
 
rsobota said:
fasquadron, in the Middle Ages there was the so-called "Peace of God" instituted by the Pope during Crusade times. It meant that no Christians could attack themselves in Europe during a Crusade and had to concentrate their efforts to conquer heathens. This can be applied in a different way to CK. I like your ideas about forming a coalition against anyone who blitzes a human or even any Catholic nation when going to or returning from Crusade, and it would be nice to institute a rule telling players to immediately disband their soldiers after they make peace with heathens. But the coalition against anyone who disrespects this rule is still a good idea, and we could apply it along with penalties...

I like it. After all, in a close-knit community like Catholic Europe most members don't want one member to expand by backstabbing another member because that puts them all at risk. I'm not sure that we'll need a rule regarding this as I have a hunch most players will quickly realize the necessity of enforcing a balance of power.

rsobota said:
Five minutes seems enough for me, do other players agree with the 10 min change?

I think 10 minutes would be a good idea. My copy of CK tends to experience vastly different loading times. If I only experience a CTD 5 minutes is more than enough; that being said, if I have to do a total reboot and experience a slow CK load, I'd probably go over the 5 minute limit by a bit. Ultimately, I think most players will get to the rehost site fairly quickly, so it should only be the odd occasion in which we find ourselves waiting for a player.
 
rsobota said:
Well, do people agree with this or should we have only a timespan? I personally don't like to waste too much prestige grabbing expensive titles so that's an unwritten rule for me in all my games. But say, what if a claim holder joins your court? You will accidentaly break the rules sometimes.
A timespan is ok, but in this I would say you may only claim 1 Kingdom title and 5 Duchy titles or 2 Kingdom titles or 10 Duchy titles. Ok?

rsobota said:
I think this can be somewhat of a radical change, but considering that the Roman Empire didn't go that far in the East, then there might be no problems. Any thoughts?
I think Alania has personal reasons to attack Derbent. After all they destroyed the historical realm of Georgia. The Kings of Georgia were bound to Alania by blood.

Personally for Orthodox I think it's best we say nothing south and east of the Kingdom of Armenia. In Russia all is allowed though.

rsobota said:
Many people here, for now, will write the AAR's without any rewards. Maybe rewards can be an alternative thing, say, if a person has written an excellent AAR's and all or most of the other players say so, then it can choose to receive an in-game reward such as money, prestige or whatever we agree upon giving them. There shall be not any rigid criteria about writing "an excellent AAR", like word counting, but this would rather depend just on the personal choices of the players.
I'm ok with this. If the readers choose an AAR to be good there should be a reward, if not, then you'll get none. How the AAR has to look like is unimportant. I think it's important we could get something for our AAR, we don't have too though.

rsobota said:
Five minutes seems enough for me, do other players agree with the 10 min change?

Discussing rules is an exhaustive thing :( .

10 mins.

And that's nearly nothing, only a few sites. In the Great Game II we had something about ten sites rule changes and so on.
 
Shuma said:
So Spain is fair game like Russia?

That was my thought. The same with the Baltic & Sicily.

Shuma said:
Hmm, as a compromise, let's say you can mobilize, but you can not move your armies outside your territory. As in, if I'm playing Tulouse and I wan't to attack Apulia, I can't set up my army in Rome and Spoleto and then declare war, but I can ready them for shipping in France, declare war, and be on my way.

That way it is not blitzing, and the player who is attacked has time to respond, and the attacker does have some advantage from being aware that the war is going to start.

Sounds like a good compromise, though I'd still prefer we didn't have a rule for this...

Shuma said:
I think we can postpone ths discussion for next week. I'm sure for the 2nd session we'll all still be motivated to write.

These points aside, I agree with rsobota's draft.

Indeed, no need to rush decisions. Speaking of which, can people wait until there're other things to vote for, before voting?

fasquardon
 
rsobota said:
fasquadron, in the Middle Ages there was the so-called "Peace of God" instituted by the Pope during Crusade times. It meant that no Christians could attack themselves in Europe during a Crusade and had to concentrate their efforts to conquer heathens. This can be applied in a different way to CK. I like your ideas about forming a coalition against anyone who blitzes a human or even any Catholic nation when going to or returning from Crusade, and it would be nice to institute a rule telling players to immediately disband their soldiers after they make peace with heathens. But the coalition against anyone who disrespects this rule is still a good idea, and we could apply it along with penalties...

Hmm, I didn't know about the Peace of God...

I don't think we should institute both rules penalties _and_ the in-game we're-gonna-fight-you-and-enforce-the-will-of-the-Pope type. Personally I think a rule on this would be overzealous.

fasquardon
 
Uhm, what other way than in game would you use anyway with the rules? If one does not agree to the rules, will you kick him? No. You go and get an alliance to show him what happens if he mistreats the rules.
 
rsobota said:
Well, do people agree with this or should we have only a timespan? I personally don't like to waste too much prestige grabbing expensive titles so that's an unwritten rule for me in all my games. But say, what if a claim holder joins your court? You will accidentaly break the rules sometimes.

The claim limit would have to be enforced by edits I think. So basically, you wouldn't be allowed to start the session with claims over the limit. But while playing the session, claims by event would happen, and players should be allowed to take advantage of them.

rsobota said:
I think this can be somewhat of a radical change, but considering that the Roman Empire didn't go that far in the East, then there might be no problems. Any thoughts?

Well, saying that Alania in particular was limited to Europe didn't seem to make much sense, and the old roman empire seemed like a good compromise limitation.

rsobota said:
There shall be not any rigid criteria about writing "an excellent AAR", like word counting, but this would rather depend just on the personal choices of the players.

Yes, full agreement on that.

fasquardon
 
O.K., here's my rules updated according to the suggestions people have been making. I've included most of rsbota's changes, edited for better English. The only change in part (1) is to relax the re-host time limit.

fasquardon

Rules & Recommendations:

Part (1) - stability of the game and the players.

i) Re-hosts & starting:

a) We will wait for no more than 5 minutes after game start (by the host's watch) for players to arrive. If you aren't here by then, tough cookies. Likewise, we will not wait more than 10 minutes before re-starting the game after a crash.​
b) Do not select your state before the host.​
c) Do not leave the game set-up if someone is downloading.​
d) Do not go afk without warning. Try to avoid unnecessary afks. When going afk, an estimated time for your absence would be appreciated. Remember to say when you are back.​
e) Do not alt-tab away from CK.​
f) If the game is being really unstable, don't take out your frustration on other players, we're gonna be as pissed as you.​
g) If a player crashes, the game is rehosted at the start of the next year unless he is in war in which case an immediate rehost.​
h) If you know you will be away for a game session, either find yourself a sub, or accept that you will be AI'd.​


ii) While the game is running:

a) When the game starts, say "in". Do absolutely nothing with the mouse until the host tells everybody "start". If you click on *anything* before everybody has joined, the game might crash. You *may* chat with others, including private-messages, but as everybody is reporting in, your message might go unnoticed in the plethora of messages.​
b) Do not go afk without warning. Try to avoid unnecessary afks. When going afk, an estimated time for your absence would be appreciated. Remember to say when you are back.​
c) Do not alt-tab away from CK.​
d) DO NOT PAUSE. If you urgently need to get the game paused, ask the host to pause. If the host is temporally AFK or is not able to see your messages, then pause until the situation is cleared with the host. While paused, make sure someone is still manipulating the game.​
e) Let a few seconds pass before accepting an annexation offer.​
f) Remember to be courteous at all times when speaking out of character. In-character insults are, of course, part of the game.​
g) It helps if CK is the only program running, particularly when you are the host. Also, it helps to de-fragment your hard-disk regularly.​


Part (2) - game play considerations.


i) Avoiding gamey-ness:

a) We encourage roleplaying. Try to get into the headspace of your ruler, rather than doing things just because they will increase your power.​
b) You are only allowed claims on one foreign King-level title and 5 Duke-level titles at any one time. Claims gained by event during the session may be used, but after the session should be edited to within the limit.​
c) Catholic states may not heathen bash outside Europe unless they are in a Crusade, and it must aimed at taking Crusade goals and whatever is needed to secure them and make peace offers. Keep in mind that you should offer peace immediately after taking Crusade goals until the enemy accepts.​
d)Orthadox states may not heathen bash outside the old Roman Empire (i.e. no further east than Mesopotamia) and Eastern Europe (i.e. no further west than Poland).​
e) Players shall not assassinate courtiers inside their own court without stating a good in-character reason to do so first. It is forbidden to assassinate characters inside your court just for reducing badboy.​


ii) War and Peace:

a) When declaring war against another player, or an AI controlling the state of a player who has warned the group that they will be absent, the player must publicly declare their war-aims. These may change during the course of the war, but again, they must be publicly declared. If a player is absent for longer than they said they would be, their state is considered an AI one, and other players may declare war without stating their aims.​
b) When making peace with an AI controlled player state, be lenient. The definition of "lenient" varing depending on the relative power between you and the AI'd player.​
c) When declaring war against non-heathens, the player must give a role-played reason (though it doesn't have to be a good one).​
d) It is, as a general rule forbidden to annex another player's vassal, unless he has given you permission - either explicit, by agreeing to it out loud, or implicit, by not DOWing you when you DOW the vassal. However, if you have been at war with someone for three years, and they refuse to make peace, you are permitted to annex vassals. There is no other force-peace rule, apart from occupying someone's demesne entirely.​
e) If a war starts, and a player ally is AI'd, it is O.K. to call on them.​
f) If you and your allies have no further war-making capacity, make peace. Do not refuse peace-offers simply out of spite.​
g) You may not move your troops beyond your borders and toward an enemy *before* you declare war on them.​



Part (3) - AARs and Edits.


a) We strongly encourage AARs, as these greatly add to the atmosphere of a game.​
b) AARs that are particularly enjoyable *may* recieve a some in-game bonus.​
c) Edits to compensate for AI mismanagment may be granted on request. PM the GM with your request at least 24 hours before game start Edits that are granted should get posted to the boards, so that all players may see what was changed.​

All rules may be changed according to the will of the majority of the players.
 
CSK said:
Uhm, what other way than in game would you use anyway with the rules? If one does not agree to the rules, will you kick him? No. You go and get an alliance to show him what happens if he mistreats the rules.

CK's right. Massive expansion or exploitation by one player will impact all other players negatively, whether directly or indirectly. Therefore it is an all player's best interests to counter such actions. After all, this is a zero-sum game and the game effectively ends when one player wields more power than the rest of the player's combined. I think we'll find that infractions of the rules will work themselves out in-game. It is in every player's best interest (with the exception of the infractor) to enforce the rules and, in the absence of an in-game UN, enforcement will ultimately be the job of the military.
 
Why not a "roleplay" approach to the whole subject of expansion? Instead of trying to impose strict rules that might even reduce the game to a exercise of bending the rules one could try to find a middle ground.
 
Your new draft seems very good, fasquadron, and you clarified many of the new rules. A brilliant work.

Originally Posted by CSK
Uhm, what other way than in game would you use anyway with the rules? If one does not agree to the rules, will you kick him? No. You go and get an alliance to show him what happens if he mistreats the rules.


I agree with you, CSK. Strict obedience to the rules may not be enforced, but we must play within them and use in-game military intervention in case someone goes radically against them, except if the player excuses himself later and does not disobey the rules again.

Why not a "roleplay" approach to the whole subject of expansion? Instead of trying to impose strict rules that might even reduce the game to a exercise of bending the rules one could try to find a middle ground.


Well, we should try to have a roleplay expansion and each one limit ourselves to preserve fun, but rules are just a necessary guidance, not something harsh to be strictly obeyed under severe penalties.

So, are these the definite rules of the game? Anyone against them?