Diplomacy - The South, Turn 14 (Year 4, Months 4-6, Summer)

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Then you'll just move your troops out of the way to let the other guy pass.

[Lord Syv Aldlark]

Which would require more coordination and make it harder since the moving out of the way would require you to move one more extra space.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Then just march parallel to each other, or one after the other. Or everybody attacks another region.

In the end it will be just a very minor inconvenience at best.

[Leonardo]

Alliances are part of the game, they will definitely happen no matter what rule restrictions, and are key to the original game as well. It has a lot of allowance for strategy, but you can win every battle and still easily lose a war. Yes, the attacker has a lot of advantage, which is why diplomacy is so key early on. Its a bit like risk in that regard, except there is in reality no chance involved; if you can predict what your opponents will do, you can usually win even against 2 or 3 players, but you should already have sewn the seeds of alliances by the time it has come to swords.

Anyone foolish enough to wage war during the first turns instead of colonizing and building up can bring about what happened last game, the same is true for many other westeros diplomacy variants, though the combat system in this is a fair bit more complex in how you can move I'll grant you.

It really just depends on game length and such; the farther people are out the more time before the big wars. The closer the space the quicker the game will be and therefore people getting knocked out. Its a rough game, you can spend an hour plotting your first moves and another fleshing out your house, and you get surprise jumped by two neighbors on the second turn. There are also a lot more tools for diplomacy in this game than in the original, better ways to bind alliances and usurp regions.

In short, the its all about how long the game is supposed to last. On a map like the middle one with close to twenty players, it gets dicey and people will probably get knocked out early. On the full map it will be turn 10 before anything but skirmishes happen, and the wars will be huge and numerous, with multiple factions.

If anything, the part that can suck is the way you are forced to ally; the lone wolves die.

[Leonardo]

Also the fault may also lie with the battle system, which is just something I quickly came up with, we can always change it. In the series armies ALL have to be led by some sort of noble or captain, levied or hired, and are hosts of men rather than units, you can't just send men to die and expect results and no consequences.

I was trying to think of ways to add more in depth battle to battle strategy and create more large intricate battles rather than all the small skirmishes, but it always starts getting a bit complex and stat based. If that's the direction we want to go I'd be glad to give it a shot, but its gonna be a bit more wordy ;D

[Lord Syv Aldlark]

Haha getting the hang of the map editing..

19 player map..

Hard to get rid of every single 1 block difference between people..

4 vale

5 River

3 Kings

5 Western

2 Iron

http://i.imgur.com/MCIvgKi.png

[Lord Syv Aldlark]

I decided to keep Greywater watch, bramsfort and blackwater. Greywater will be counted as a riverland; brams/black as a kingland

[TheCrannogDweller]

Possible ways to limit big alliances:

1. A plot of land can only be gifted and returned once.

2. Limit resource trading to maybe 2/2 to one player a turn? One player can only receive 2/2 once a turn.

3. Limit the number of NAT's a player can have? 2 per player meaning the biggest alliance can be 3 at best?

4. No other player can be given another players troops unless that player has sworn fealty to the other player?

1. Modify the giving restriction to say "only once per turn"

2. Modify the resource trading to say "one player can only receive up to 2/2 per player per turn" - which means that if you have an ally who has 10/10, and another who has 4/4, each of them can send you up to 2/2, no more.

3. I think this one is just randomly restrictive. But it did remind me that we were talking about a separate alliance agreement, which includes a blanket permission for the players nobles to come and go from each others' castles.

4. This one I like.

Edit: Actually, make number 2 say "4 resource units per turn" - that way it will allow some flexibility and a player can send either 4 Gold or 4 Food, or any combination of the two that isn't more than 4 (3/1, 2/2, etc).

We could go as far to say that you can't order troops not to interact? It will make the NAT a more solid game mechanic in the fact you need an NAT in order not to fight another persons troops?

I don't think this is a good idea. NAT are a convenience, not a necessity. I think it is very important for players to be able to order their troops not to fight each other in their PMs. If anything, this restriction would limit small alliances, not the big ones.

4 vale

5 River

3 Kings

5 Western

2 Iron

http://i.imgur.com/MCIvgKi.png

For starters, the Blackwater river is supposed to be impossible to cross - so your set there has regions that cannot communicate. I don't like that - but if you want to allow such sets, you can also implement it on the Fingers in the Vale.

Speaking of which, I would argue against any starting sets that are a combination of islands and mainland regions, because they give an unfair advantage to the players there - namely, they can have a safe capital on the island, while also being able to levy troops on the mainland and threaten their neighbors there. So, you can create one set of the Sisters and one of Dragonstone/Driftmark/Claw Isle and then add Dyre Den to the two at Crackclaw and create another set.

Some editing of the bolded borders on the map would also be a good idea, I think. For starters, the Westerlands need a better outside border and you can get rid of the internal bolded borders of the Vale - those make no sense to me. I think the Westerlands should look like this.

Mind you, I think the southern part can use some tweaking - so you can get rid of the bold around Red Bramble and instead just close off Payne Hall from the east and North, leaving it open only to Deep Denn and Red Bramble. Also, note that on that map I've switched Golden Tooth - Nunn's Deep and Drox Castle - Deep Denn.

Edit 4: Another idea for the Vale would be to switch the places of Darkmoor and Bloody Gate and move the bold line accordingly. This would also allow to open up Ninestars even further to the interior of the Vale and lower the pressure BBE was talking about. It can look somewhat like this.

Edit 2: Also, where are we with the regional traits and bonuses? Will there be automatic ports for the island-based players and buildable gold mines for the Westerlanders?

I think we can go about this two ways.

1. Each region has a set of traits and the players in it are given those in addition to the ones they choose. So, The Westerlands will be Silverfingered/Fearfull Smallfolk, the Riverlanders will have Greenthumbs/Upjumped Stewards and the Iron Islanders will be Seafarers/Feeble.

2. As an addition to that (or separately) we can have each castle in a given region produce a bonus unit (on top of its trait) of a certain resource. So, any castle in the West will give off +1 Gold; any castle in the Rivers - +1 Food and the castles on the Islands could have a +1 turn of siege.

Edit 3: Also, let's settle on a final army cap. I say that it should be 1000 per region and 500 per castle - so the starting limit for each player will be 3500.

[Lord Syv Aldlark]

1. Modify the giving restriction to say "only once per turn"

2. Modify the resource trading to say "one player can only receive up to 2/2 per player per turn" - which means that if you have an ally who has 10/10, and another who has 4/4, each of them can send you up to 2/2, no more.

3. I think this one is just randomly restrictive. But it did remind me that we were talking about a separate alliance agreement, which includes a blanket permission for the players nobles to come and go from each others' castles.

4. This one I like.

Edit: Actually, make number 2 say "4 resource units per turn" - that way it will allow some flexibility and a player can send either 4 Gold or 4 Food, or any combination of the two that isn't more than 4 (3/1, 2/2, etc).

I don't think this is a good idea. NAT are a convenience, not a necessity. I think it is very important for players to be able to order their troops not to fight each other in their PMs. If anything, this restriction would limit small alliances, not the big ones.

Okay, we won't limit NAT's but with the edits 1,2,4 I think that will be pretty solid for big alliance and gameplay fairness.

For starters, the Blackwater river is supposed to be impossible to cross - so your set there has regions that cannot communicate. I don't like that - but if you want to allow such sets, you can also implement it on the Fingers in the Vale.

Speaking of which, I would argue against any starting sets that are a combination of islands and mainland regions, because they give an unfair advantage to the players there - namely, they can have a safe capital on the island, while also being able to levy troops on the mainland and threaten their neighbors there. So, you can create one set of the Sisters and one of Dragonstone/Driftmark/Claw Isle and then add Dyre Den to the two at Crackclaw and create another set.

I added Blackwater and Bramsfort to give a bit more room in the kingsland. I could just edit out the river and we can forget it's there for the sake of the game. Also okay with the islands/mainland combos will tweek those.

Some editing of the bolded borders on the map would also be a good idea, I think. For starters, the Westerlands need a better outside border and you can get rid of the internal bolded borders of the Vale - those make no sense to me. I think the Westerlands should look like this.

Mind you, I think the southern part can use some tweaking - so you can get rid of the bold around Red Bramble and instead just close off Payne Hall from the east and North, leaving it open only to Deep Denn and Red Bramble. Also, note that on that map I've switched Golden Tooth - Nunn's Deep and Drox Castle - Deep Denn.

I agree with removing the extra bolded areas in the vale; I already got rid of the one in the northern part. Let me work on the borders and will see how it looks.

Edit 4: Another idea for the Vale would be to switch the places of Darkmoor and Bloody Gate and move the bold line accordingly. This would also allow to open up Ninestars even further to the interior of the Vale and lower the pressure BBE was talking about. It can look somewhat like this.

Edit 2: Also, where are we with the regional traits and bonuses? Will there be automatic ports for the island-based players and buildable gold mines for the Westerlanders?

I think we can go about this two ways.

1. Each region has a set of traits and the players in it are given those in addition to the ones they choose. So, The Westerlands will be Silverfingered/Fearfull Smallfolk, the Riverlanders will have Greenthumbs/Upjumped Stewards and the Iron Islanders will be Seafarers/Feeble.

2. As an addition to that (or separately) we can have each castle in a given region produce a bonus unit (on top of its trait) of a certain resource. So, any castle in the West will give off +1 Gold; any castle in the Rivers - +1 Food and the castles on the Islands could have a +1 turn of siege.

Edit 3: Also, let's settle on a final army cap. I say that it should be 1000 per region and 500 per castle - so the starting limit for each player will be 3500.

[Lord Syv Aldlark]

Edited some boundaries.

Still 19 players

http://i.imgur.com/UEGJiMZ.png

5 Vale

3 Crown

5 River

4 Western

2 Iron

Also lowered the number of only 1 space per people to 3 on the map

[Leonardo]

Gold mines and farms need their own cost, it shouldn't just stack with a castle, otherwise crafstmen will rule the west and middle even faster.

Each region needs its own economic and military related bonus, and they all need to be somewhat equal.

Give the vale men trading posts on the coast; with it they can trade two of either food or gold for one of the other. Its nice if you're in a jam or need more of a certain resource, and helps balance the gold and food boons of the other areas.

Question is what to do with the iron isles, some ideas:

1) a unique general trait related to drowning; at an 80% chance they can be drowned, with 20% chance of death. With it either their armies act as they're 500 stronger or they get some economic bonus.

2) their lands are totalled and divided by 3 every turn; they raise that many levies for free that turn

Both are short term and tie economy and war together; they will help counter balance their issues early on while the westerners and riverlords are raking in resources by turn 4 and 5

[Leonardo]

Also if you don't want people fighting early, just don't give anyone starting armies. Problem solved

[Nox Irradiata]

Regional traits could also be dropped altogether, and just revamp the available options for house traits instead, if that's easier.

[Leonardo]

Well the regions should definitely have their differences, that's part of the fun ;D

[Deadwood]

The no armies thing sounds more practical than some of the more elaborate stuff.

[Leonardo]

The no armies thing sounds more practical than some of the more elaborate stuff.

Aye, standing armies don't exist in westeros. If someone is calling their banners, it means war and they should be getting the evil eye from everyone else

[Nox Irradiata]

Well the regions should definitely have their differences, that's part of the fun ;D

Yeah, but with separate economic bonuses, plus separate military bonuses for each region (in addition to unique buildable items for each), I think it's getting a little more elaborate than I was originally thinking...and may just end up being a hassle for the host to keep track of. It's supposed to be fun and add some flavor, but not be so much stuff that it causes a headache for him.

[Et Cetera the Mouse]

I'm against an army cap, but I'd be fine with no starting armies. An army cap seems like it would favor big alliances who can spread their total men between defending and attacking. Smaller alliances would have a difficult time attacking with a capped army without leaving their home territories entirely undefended. It'd also give small alliances no chance of beating a big one without banding together and creating a full-on war.

[Leonardo]

Yeah, but with separate economic bonuses, plus separate military bonuses for each region (in addition to unique buildable items for each), I think it's getting a little more elaborate than I was originally thinking...and may just end up being a hassle for the host to keep track of. It's supposed to be fun and add some flavor, but not be so much stuff that it causes a headache for him.

The south was the same though, it had its own movement rules to keep in mind the whole time.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Gold mines and farms need their own cost, it shouldn't just stack with a castle, otherwise crafstmen will rule the west and middle even faster.

Each region needs its own economic and military related bonus, and they all need to be somewhat equal.

Give the vale men trading posts on the coast; with it they can trade two of either food or gold for one of the other. Its nice if you're in a jam or need more of a certain resource, and helps balance the gold and food boons of the other areas.

Question is what to do with the iron isles, some ideas:

1) a unique general trait related to drowning; at an 80% chance they can be drowned, with 20% chance of death. With it either their armies act as they're 500 stronger or they get some economic bonus.

2) their lands are totalled and divided by 3 every turn; they raise that many levies for free that turn

Both are short term and tie economy and war together; they will help counter balance their issues early on while the westerners and riverlords are raking in resources by turn 4 and 5

Just have the ports of the Ironborn produce one food per turn. And maybe have them skip the "one full turn to embark" rule.

I'm against an army cap, but I'd be fine with no starting armies. An army cap seems like it would favor big alliances who can spread their total men between defending and attacking. Smaller alliances would have a difficult time attacking with a capped army without leaving their home territories entirely undefended. It'd also give small alliances no chance of beating a big one without banding together and creating a full-on war.

We'll have an army cap anyway: upkeep during winter. That's going to matter this turn.

What we really need is an incentive to surrender and swear fealty. And to accept that of course.