Machiavelli III: From Dawn to Decadence

[HolisticGod]

Juv,

Wholeheartedly agree.

I've always supported the use of random leaders based on DPs with a skew to "military tradition."

If we can get the LeaderGen running, I'm all for using it, even if it does fuck Prussia's single advantage. Alternatively, I can play around with leaders between sessions, but the last thing I want is to open up another realm of controversy.

To do this, we need someone to code it, a simple formula (Slarg and I had this worked out pretty well) and a collection of cultural names. Probably too late at this point, but if there's a miracle...

 

[HolisticGod]

All,

As an aside, I just took a long look at Venice and I'm very satisfied with the work Peter's done. She has half France's support limit, the largest navy in the Med., improved wealth and the ability to greaty and directly affect Italy, the Balkans and Greece.

However, that 2,000 ducat starting purse seems more tongue-in-cheek than anything, and it'll be reduced to 500. I was able to raise 100,000 men, cav heavy, with conservative use of mercenaries, by 1521. That is, in effect, sixty thousand more than marched against the hundred thousand League troops-a realistic figure if her resources are strained but not at this time without breaking the cache.

I don't want Venice and Austria sacking Constantinope in 1525.

Her starting army, as she no longer needs it to defend Istria, will be cut to 10,000, all infantry (as the civil guards were).

Also, her warships will be eliminated. She didn't have any, nor does she need any, and she's above the support limit. If Juv wants twenty galleys in return, so be it.

 

[Damocles]

Juv,

Wholeheartedly agree.

I've always supported the use of random leaders based on DPs with a skew to "military tradition."

If we can get the LeaderGen running, I'm all for using it, even if it does fuck Prussia's single advantage. Alternatively, I can play around with leaders between sessions, but the last thing I want is to open up another realm of controversy.

To do this, we need someone to code it, a simple formula (Slarg and I had this worked out pretty well) and a collection of cultural names. Probably too late at this point, but if there's a miracle...

I don't know about a leadergen. For some countries, thats the only thing they got going for them. *cough* sweden, prussia *cough* :rofl:

 

[Damocles]

Either I'm missing something or you are . If you reduce manpower and then reduce forts as seems to be the proposal then what are you actually realistically gaining from the exercise? Assaulting the now generally lower forts still becomes the order of the day, except now even more so.

The reduced fort rule is only going to make the assault approach even more prevalent before the Napoleonic times when normally it's only when your land tech passes land50 that assaulting against the larger forts becomes practical. I don't see how these changes are going to accomplish what you say you're aiming for.

Machiavelli was always about AAR's and roleplay, not straighjacketing things to history and trying to make everything historically accurate. I humbly think HG and yourself are getting carried away, though HG moreso than yourself .

Compare the first 100 years of fighting with the last 100 years of fighting in normal EUII campaigns.

 

[unmerged(10146)]

Barni,

Then you're missing the point of this entire discussion.

Forts, above a certain level, make war of maneuver and set battle impossible. This is evident in every single game in the history of EU II MP.

Moreso, however, when we're cutting manpower drastically through CC restrictions and inflation (and perhaps a tech change).

I hope I got it right . You want:

- more dinamic battles with smaller armies (war of manouvres)
- less trenched warfare
- as far as forts are concerned, more sieges, less assaults, but assaults still possible with MUCH effort - almost entire army or something like that

That's what I like also, so you have my full support (if I understood the goals well). My main concern is fort limits and fear that they could result with assaults still beeing too easy, possible even earlier than we withessed in Mach II.

My second concern is reduced armies and forts will mean land powers losing less money relativelly in wars comparing to naval powers... But let's hope money issue will be resolved with inflation.
BTW, I liked your former inflation model better: 0,1%/year.

 

[ForzaA]

Gee, only half a million troops and an awesome leader.

yes.. which they could support PRE-CC as well, and if CC's are dramatically cut down, there'll be noone to stop him. We seem to fail to understand each other

 

[juv95hrn]

All,

As an aside, I just took a long look at Venice and I'm very satisfied with the work Peter's done. She has half France's support limit, the largest navy in the Med., improved wealth and the ability to greaty and directly affect Italy, the Balkans and Greece.

However, that 2,000 ducat starting purse seems more tongue-in-cheek than anything, and it'll be reduced to 500. I was able to raise 100,000 men, cav heavy, with conservative use of mercenaries, by 1521. That is, in effect, sixty thousand more than marched against the hundred thousand League troops-a realistic figure if her resources are strained but not at this time without breaking the cache.

I don't want Venice and Austria sacking Constantinope in 1525.

Her starting army, as she no longer needs it to defend Istria, will be cut to 10,000, all infantry (as the civil guards were).

Also, her warships will be eliminated. She didn't have any, nor does she need any, and she's above the support limit. If Juv wants twenty galleys in return, so be it.

Guess I should have waited with initiating diplomacy after all...

20 more galleys would be unneccessary since Venice is already way over her maintenance level fleetwise, which is artificially high due to venetian merchants placed in COTs that will disappear sooner or later due to competition. If nothing else I would suggest adjusting Venice starting fleet to around her maintenance limit since keeping ships in surplus of this very quickly gets counter productive and they should/will be disbanded anyway.

 

[ForzaA]

All right. Slowdown proposals gathered up and presented for easy listening. Read the discussion, though, if you're just tuning in. Don't want to go back over the same ground:

Tech
All Latin to Orthodox
All Orthodox to Moslem
Ottoman Empire to Chinese in 1615

Inflation
-Base 5% inflation will be added after every session. It cannot go below this and will be restored as necessary at rehosts and between sessions.
-In 1740, a one-shot increase of 15% will be added, making the total at that time 40%
-If necessary, the base will be readjusted up or down if I feel it isn't having the desired effect

CCs
-Limited to 10

Fortifications
-Medium everywhere in Europe
-Unlimited in the Low Countries
-Large in mountains
-Unlimited in capitals and COTs
-Small in the colonies

Do we even want to bother with a base tax scale?

ehm.. we don't want stone age armies under napoleon, do we?

I think the FIRST alone should be plenty. don't know the %ages out of hand.. but I'll assume techslowing for Orthodox is 1.2 compared to Latin.. Taking Holland, ASSUMING they start in 1520 with 11/10/3/3 or so, they have 49/50/7/7 to go, I reached trade and infra 10 both by 1730 or so.. meaning some 210 years used for that, but with tech 20% slower, it takes 20% longer, some 40 years extra, so I would have both by 1770.. fairly reasonable.. especially considering that Land and Navy tech were quite a bit later.. and that CC's were constructed in part because there was plenty money (and little or no CRT's more to be gained => threshold for minting lower) So this should be enough.

still don't like the "fixed" inflation at all. Imagine someone staying on the low side (close, or on, the minimum) getting a 5% deflation.. they WILL mint for 5*4/3 years to get back to the official minimum (as it would otherwise be edited up anyway) meaning, for a somewhat rich country, an extra 16.000 ducats, at no cost except not investing it in research.. talk about overpowered events. Now, adding inflation sounds fine, but people *should* be allowed to go below it.

 

[ForzaA]

After the 1740 adjustment, inflation is 65%. This seems like a doable figure to me, others may disagree... I certainly want to see base inflation over 50 by Napoleon.

France in 1795(Nappy's ambition) has 50% by the official scenario

 

[ForzaA]

Guess I should have waited with initiating diplomacy after all...

all proposed changes to current agreements will be considered, if they are of mutual benefit.

 

[Slargos]

still don't like the "fixed" inflation at all. Imagine someone staying on the low side (close, or on, the minimum) getting a 5% deflation.. they WILL mint for 5*4/3 years to get back to the official minimum (as it would otherwise be edited up anyway) meaning, for a somewhat rich country, an extra 16.000 ducats, at no cost except not investing it in research.. talk about overpowered events. Now, adding inflation sounds fine, but people *should* be allowed to go below it.

Uhm. Any clever player already does this and stays at 5% inflation if they can.

 

[ForzaA]

Uhm. Any clever player already does this and stays at 5% inflation if they can.

only difference is that you can mint AFTER the event, to gain the most of it, assuming that incomes grow over time.
Still, I think it should be an OR, not an AND. and imho the techgroup change would be the best, and least open to possible exploit.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

However, that 2,000 ducat starting purse seems more tongue-in-cheek than anything, and it'll be reduced to 500. I was able to raise 100,000 men, cav heavy, with conservative use of mercenaries, by 1521. That is, in effect, sixty thousand more than marched against the hundred thousand League troops-a realistic figure if her resources are strained but not at this time without breaking the cache.

I don't want Venice and Austria sacking Constantinope in 1525.

If Venice and Austria - with the addition of a mere 2,000d - are able to reliably beat Süleyman I and his substantial starting armies, treasury, income, leaders, and tech advantage, then the Ottoman player must truly have played atrociously or been immensely unlucky.

After all, it is not unusual for the OE to beat off Austria+Venice+Poland (with halfhearted financial support from one or two other nations) at this point in time of MP games, which comes to much, much, more than a 2,000d advantage.

 

[unmerged(18425)]

Bah, after every significant upgrade of a country, people are cyring

 

[Norrefeldt]

:rofl: Denmark is richer than Venice!!! Brandenburg have 30% of the fortune of Venice, and Sweden is as rich as Venice! History yeah!! Come on!
Venice is actually weaker, remember less provinces, 1500d lost on fortresses.

 

[Slargos]

Editing of venice is bollocks.

SLARGOS HAS SPOKEN.

 

[Wyvern]

Mach II was a step in the right direction, but if you take a look at the vast majority (including the GM, for instance, or me, when I got fed up with things) it was played at the core like any other EU II game. I don't want this to be any other EU II game, because any other EU II game means the following:

I sincerely hope I didn't play Mach2 just like any other game. Well I know I didn't. I went to considerable effort as France to roleplay and not just powergame and grab provinces whenever I could. I'm sure the regular players will all acknowledge that I could easily on several occasions have grabbed swathes more European territory but instead went the vassalisation route, fullfilling the role of terrorising Europe without actually upsetting the BoP with any of my victories as my victims could always break vassalage a few years later, which they all did on regular occasion .

There is a great responsibility on the GM I felt and still feel in such a game as we aim for in Machiavelli to see that things don't get silly. I hope I did my share to make sure we kept more or less on track.

I'll butt out now , my comments last night were made sincerely because I think some of the rules being proposed here could see the game severely hurt further down the line due to the workload they'll place on the GM and complications for subs. I could be wrong and hope I am, but please be careful HG not to take on more than you can handle. If the GM were to leave or just not have enough time to do all the edits required each week (and with Barnius playing there'll be a lot of them ) then the game will suffer badly more so than doing without some of these proposals. Just my view and now I'll leave you all to enjoy your game whilst keeping somewhat of a parental eye on proceedings .

 

[Slargos]

When's that weekend game coming anyway, Wyvern?

Mach 3 will be good Power Game practice, but for those of us who'd like a little more RP-focused play? :rofl:

 

[Norrefeldt]

and I still don't like all this talk of limiting buildings.. now if we all just could *pretend* that 1000 troops are actually 100 troops, you will have fairly accurate figures FOR THE WHOLE PERIOD.

Absolutely, at least up North, in Scandinavia.
Sweden 1520 can field as many Swedes as a much reformed and strengthened Sweden could put up in the TYW.
I don't think that minimising forts will make the game better, at least not in Europe. In Napoleonic times most fortifications in Europe were obsolete and should be very easily taken, with little loss. Also, they are a great drain to the economies, one of the few things without great pay-off. Will there be more wars with less forts? I cannot see why? You will be even more scared to turn your back.

 

[Wyvern]

When's that weekend game coming anyway, Wyvern?

Mach 3 will be good Power Game practice, but for those of us who'd like a little more RP-focused play? :rofl:

The new game is being worked on by Peter and myself. Give us both a couple more weeks and hopefully you'll see something. RL is delaying it at the moment, the game framework and scenario is all more or less ready and just needs tweaking.