The Glory of War

[Donegeal]

Ok, we are currently all Lords in our Empire. We all recieve one vote in the High Council. Theoreticly, we can vote for an Emperor now; or would you guys rather we wait until we establish a government first (or wait for more players)? Uber, you can PM me until you can post.

[Panzer32]

I think, if we open up voting to whenever someone (most likely the emperor) wants to have a poll to decide on some descision. To implement a system, there should be a support poll going on whenever any lord feels like it. If the emperor did not consult people before doing anything major, he would lose public support. I'm thinking that if any of the support polls showed the majority of the lords did not support the emperor, he would be deposed and a new elected one would come to power. This would encourage the emperors not to abuse their power.

I believe this is somewhat realistic, as the more emperors got public support by consulting with their lords, the more they supported them and did not think of rebellion.

If the poll came in favour of the emperor, I don't believe any consequenses should befall the person who started the poll. What does happen is that if someone is constanty opposing the other players, they tend to not favour him in descisions they make, and definately not support him during an emperor election.

[Donegeal]

I love this idea! Have no set term limits for the Emperor. Then any Lord or King can propose a vote of no-confidence at any time. If the vote (through the High Council only) succeeds, the king is disposed and a new one takes his place. We would have to amend this a little to prevent anarchy. A call of no confidence must also state who the Lord or King that proposed the call would support. Panzer, this is great!

[Donegeal]

Got some PM's from Uber.

He likes the Feudal system idea but wants to impose a members cap of 15. We have 7 right now.

A cap may be needed, however, what do we do with Trip and his team members after we take then over? Are two of his ten members just plain out of the game or do we modify any cap to accomodate for defeated human Civs?

[Panzer32]

Panzer, this is great!

It definately encourages good emperors.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by donegeal
Got some PM's from Uber.

He likes the Feudal system idea but wants to impose a members cap of 15. We have 7 right now.

A cap may be needed, however, what do we do with Trip and his team members after we take then over? Are two of his ten members just plain out of the game or do we modify any cap to accomodate for defeated human Civs?

I was thinking an initial member cap of 10, with new players having to be "knighted" as underlords to one of the ten original liegelords. Then we would have a economic ($MiniGame) and military combat (similiar to Lords of Conquest or Diplomacy) system that allowed lords to gain power and shift in influence.

I still feel everyone is giving the Emperor too much power, I like the idea of the Emperor (I prefer High King -Arthurian and Irish tendencies) being a King who has been chosen to lead a confederation of Kings for a period of time. There should be advantages and disadvantages to being High King.

I'm kinda thinking of making a leaderhead for each of the initial ten players and when our High King changes we have the other players overwrite the previous office holder with the current one.

Crud, I need to get back to work on my Veronica Zemanova leaderhead set.

[GeneralTacticus]

deleted.

[Donegeal]

Please send PM's to all members of this team if you send any out.

(Duh! This post is directed to Team members only. Now I can just see Trip or someone sending out PM after PM till the server breaks...)

[Donegeal]

here are some ideas Uber has:

hey all. my vacation to mingapulco is going fine. it's wonderful this time of year.

i need a link to the mechanics of the $mini-game, as i kinda didnt participate in it at all

anyway, i REALLY like the idea of the feudal system and how people get more votes based upon how much land they control (either by cities or tile count). This could make some interesting scenarios where one warlord has more than 30% of the votes and therefore a huge chunk of the decision making.

how would you settle inter-warlord disputes? IE tile overlapping or simple "the sistene chapel should be built in MY city!".

this is one major flaw in the feudal system, the stuggle between warlords can make a nation very strong, or tear it to pieces.

Also, what happens as we grow? should people's "dominions" be forced to be contigous? i think they should, but it could make for some weird scenarios.

the idea of the vote of no confindence for emperor is GREAT. what troubles me is that the emperor isn't a warlord himself. if he gets voted out, he'll have no land. and whoever gets voted in will probably be a warlord himself, will his territory be taken from him?

the obvious solution seems to be to give the shard of land from the new to old emperor, but that seems stupid to me. I think the Emperor should be a warlord as well as the "emperor" role we now have.

An interesting thing would be to have it so that the emperor is the "most powerful" warlord, where power is determined by TOTAL ALLIED votes, as in, votes for him at any given time.

Let's solidify that with a concrete (hypothetical) example.

UberKruX controls 20% of the empire.
GF Controls 15% of the empire.
Unortho controls 15% of the empire.
donegeal controls 30% of the empire.
panzer controls 20% of the empire.

The game has been going on for a while, and donegeal is the current emperor. GF feels that donegeal's decisions as Emperor have been a little too favorable to donegeal's dominion and not his. GF calls for a vote of no confidence, and announces his rebelling group, and attempts to gain support from the other warlords.

the methods for gaining support could be quite interesting. GF could give some of his tiles (if we go tile-based) to nearby Warlords to "buy" their vote (he could give cities as well, but that would be giving away too much power). there are other things too, for example, if we work out a "budget" system for the dominions (ie you get x% of the GPT for your dominion, with a little left aside for a national budget), people could give gold for votes.

even production could be used as a means to buy votes. GF could rally support by promising to build several units for other warlords, (see: how is our military going to work?) or promising to give several units to be disbanded in other's cities (for shields), etc. The dominions could be treated almost like other civs tightly bound together (and with the inability to attack eachother).

Anyway, GF goes up to panzer and offers him 300 gold for his votes. panzer accepts and wishes him well on his attempts to dethrone the infidel, donegeal. GF goes up to me, UberKruX, and promises to commit troops to my aforementioned asault on Trip's western borders. I gladly agree to vote for him after settling on him commiting 10 knights and 5 pikemen, the pikemen being given to me as a gift to defend the conquered cities, while the knights remain under GF's control after the battle is over.

GF now has 45% of the empire behind him in his efforts. you see how it works now.

and those trades will go on thought the game, not just for ascension to emperor, warlords could pay eachother to do many things, from committing troops, to building public works, units, etc.

how is our military going to work?
obviously, the most fun and realistic way for our military to function would be for each dominion to have it's own. this might not be feasible in a civ like game though. what do you all think about this? I'm willing to give it a chance, personally, and i think that most warlords would be able to see a "greater good" for the empire, IE they wont keep troops from a battle against a strong enemy, they'll work to defend warlords under siege, etc.

but, there is always the darker side. warlords may not help SPECIFIC assaults on an enemy if they believe another warlord will prosper at the expense of another's troops.

perhaps military strength should apply to how many votes a dominion gets as well. i could see a system rigged up based on population points, tiles, military units, infastructure, etc.

also, this system would make an interesting scenario for leaders. namely, whoever makes them, gets them. there's definately going to have to be a rule about that. but imagine the inter-dominion trade for a leader "up for grabs"

i suppose they could also be a national commodity, and everyone bids for them or something.

what about internal war
the easiest way is to just disallow it, and to punish anyone who tries to order it. you're probably thinking, "but i cant declare war on another warlord", and you're right. but you CAN pillage, and that could have an effect on their power / happiness / resources to city / city sizes, and that can get very annoying / stupid. i say disallow it now before anyone even thinks about it (oops, i just did, im confused).

Will there be any way to overthrow a warlord? To siege tiles from them? Etc? I don’t think there should be.

anyway, if you're going for emperor donegeal, make sure to grant me some choice cities early on

[korn469]

i dunno, call me a spoil sport or whatever, but i am just not very enthused, by either super powerful emperors, or a feudalistic society

if for example we are still only going to vote on
Great Leaders.
City Names (High Council only).
The next King

then only wake me up when it comes time to vote for the next king, because personally i could care less about city names, and at most we'll get maybe 10 GLs in the entire game, but i think more realistically we'll get 2-5

as far as the mini game goes, my time is limited so i doubt i'll spend that much time on it, if i'm assigned a city in the game i'll do my best to manage it and make it prosperous, but i doubt i'll have too much time to spend on the minigame

one thing though, if ANYONE starts an internal war, and pillages prosperous tiles for the minigame then i will immeadiately resign from the game...my primary goal in this game is to win (as i hope the rest of your are), not to simulate a feudal society, secondly i wanna have fun, and see if a group makes better choices than an individual

i just hope we can design a government that makes it fun for all of us

[UnOrthOdOx]

Korn469,

I can understand some of your hesitation, and agree that a few advisors need to be in place as well as the emperor. There is really no way to impliment a vote on every detail of the game, however. What will happen is that plans will be made, discussed, and perhaps voted on, but the turn by turn decisions will be left to the Emperor/advisors. Nothing is stopping someone from posting a plan, and gaining wide acceptance for it even if he is not the emperor, or and advisor. As for the in fighting, and such in the mini game, that is more something to keep us active in the day or two or three? till we get the save again. No one is going to want any of the others to control a monopoly of the votes, so if someone is becoming too powerfull, of course the rest would vote in a way to limit that power.

Again, this does need some work to ensure the mini game does not become a detriment to the actual game, but it can also be allot of fun, providing for multiple situations and RP oportunities. Continuous kingdoms may be hard to impliment, especially at first. Perhaps there can be some incentive to form them later, though.

And I agree that pillaging will only become a detriment to the nation.


Iter Warlord disputes:

Which city gets which wonder, or ANYTHING that we can only build one of, should be voted on by the House of Kings. Each warlord can make an arguement for their city, IE, "mine has the most production, and will finish the quickest" or, " mine will grow in pop faster to make up the production later". Then the vote is most likely to be what is best for our nation.

Tiles overlapping is a good question. Ideally, it would be split 50/50. Or, give the cow to one and the two grassland to another. Don't know how we would decide that fairly, keeping in mind that the best tile for each city MAY actually change at different times, each city needing a different one...

[Donegeal]

I'm working on a re-write/upgrade to my government outline. Taking away power from the Emperor and giving some to High Kings and some to the Lords.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Aparantly we also need an Icon. I can't get anything to look decent that small...

Just some very BASIC thoughts would be a coat of arms...

Something like these:

[Donegeal]

Very good Unortho! Send these in a PM to Aro. I already asked him to see what he could come up with.

[Donegeal]

Governmental Outline Re-write/Update

THIS IS NOT A BINDING DOCUMENT
Article I: Citizens

A. Emperor

1. Plays the game.
2. Must appoint High Kings (described in Article I:B).
   a. High King of Forgien Affairs. Required.
   b. High King of Military Affairs. Required.
   c. Others as needed.
   d. Orders of High Kings must be followed.
3. Sole power over the Slider.
4. Sells cities to Lords and Kings.
   a. Allowed to pick who gets what city and doesn't have to go with highest bid.
   b. Gets 10% commision of the purchase price for his own use.
   c. Must sell to Lords First.
5. Acts as King for all cities not assigned to someone else.
   - Exception in case of Article I:A10.
6. Controls all settlers.
7. May make build damands of Kings.
8. Sells captured workers to Kings.
   - does not get a commision.
9. Controls the Treasury.
10. Does NOT vote in High Council.
11. Votes in House of Kings only with cities that are actually his.
12. Has deciding vote in case of a tie between the Council and the House.

B. High Kings

1. Either a King or Lord.
   - A person can hold only one position of High King at a time.
2. Appointment to any postition of High King must be approved by the High Council.
3. Orders of all High Kings must be followed by the Emperor.
4. High King of Forgien Affairs.
   a. May make trade deals with forgien AI Civs.
   b. May propose trade deals with forgien Human Civs.
   - Proposed deals must get voted on.
5. High King of Military Affairs.
   a. Controls all units that have a deffensive/offensive value.
   - Except for Garison units.
   b. May remand Garison units.
6. Other High Kings may be apointed as the Emperor needs them.
7. No High King may go to war.
8. May remand any worker at anytime to complete task nessecary.

B. Kings

1. Lords who have purchased a city/cities.
2. Names their city (and geographical areas in city radius) with 50% approval from High Council.
3. Controls WF of their city.
4. Controls build and queue of their city.
5. Controls Garrison units.
   a. No more than three per city.
   b. Garrison units do not need to be kept in the city.
6. Votes in the High Council.
7. Votes in the House of Kings.
8. It is the Kings responsibility to keep track of which units are his when they are remanded by a High King.

C. Lords

1. Members of our team.
2. Votes in the High Council.

Article II: Government

A. High Council

1. Composed of all Kings and Lords except the Emperor.
2. One vote for each member.

B. House of Kings

1. Composed of all Kings, including the Emperor.
2. One vote for each population point in city controled by King.
3. Kingless cities are not represented.

C. Matters that get voted on.

1. Great Leaders.
2. City Names (High Council only).
3. Appointment of High Kings (High Council Only).
4. No-Confidence (High Council Only).
   a. Anybody (Emperor, High King, King and Lords) can make a call of No-Confidence of any elected or appointed Official.
   b. Must coinside with a person to take the place of deposed official.
   - Emperors cannot take the place of High Kings and vise versa.
   - Example: "I call a vote of No-Confidence on blah-blah and blah-blah to take his place!
5. War and Peace.
6. What we research.
7. Forgien trade deals with Human Civs.
8. Unforseen matters (High Council Only).
   - to include matter of Law.

And here it is as a text file: