Another game of Royale, folks?

[Victor Galis]

I was more particularly reffering to Midshipman's request to play. No offense intended, but Royale just isn't for newbies. I also suggest the collection of all the Saxony rules into one set, for easier refference, and so that we can have a named sub-variant that originated at Apolyton

[SnowFire]

Indeed, I would be in favor of Saxony again, simply because it's a more historical map and for color. Heptarchy would certainly work though, the only thing is that some nations on the Heptarchy map have rather few neighbors while pretty much everybody on the Saxony map has at the very least 3, leading for lots of fun diplomacy.

The one warning I will give is that Victor is correct about the early alliances bit. I pretty well offered Stefu whatever terms he wanted for Russia to keep off my back, and I was reasonably nice to Mao as Denmark too, which insured I would only have a one-front war, something psychotically important to Saxony since you can almost insure it.

As for the lying bit, well, you can lie, but it's only really believable early on or for very barren households. Any compotent player will ask for a marriage to cement your promises, so really your only excuse is "I don't have anybody available right now."

I would be interested in playing, but fevrenetly hope that we won't have this start until the middle of May when I get out of college and have more time for Dip.

[Stefu]

I still favor the normal Dip map. It is seven-player map, and unlike Heptarchy, the nations are quite near each other, leading to game getting diplomatical right from beginning. Plus, I've wanted to have a game of Royale with normal map for some time now.

[RUFFHAUS8]

Well, I was afraid that LordStone was going to take that position. Ultimately it's his time being spent, and it's difficult to criticize him for that. Although I have to chuckle at the "ONE HOUR" comment. I know all too well how long it takes to adjudicate some of these variant maps with 10-13 players. I wish it only took an hour to do these things.

Can we have a look at the oft-mentioned Heptarcy map?

This is just a recommendation, but I think LS should consider soliciting interest in the game and then selecting the players that he feels most comfrtable with. As has been mentioned this is a very complicated variant, and requires a lot of committment and effort. Even though I have not played Royale before, I folowed Saxony the game. And I would be willing to stand aside or act as an advisor/mentor to a less experienced player. Or if invited to play, I would accept a protoge player that could watch and assist me. This way if someone who's genuinely interested is left out, we might be able to accomodate them. I'm a little overwhelmed with things right now as it is. A start up in late may would work better for me too.

Gerwald, in Victor's defense I raised the crossgaming issue, not him. It's not that big a deal. Royale's treaties will in effect create some mandatory alliances. And as previously mentioned, the wording of the alliance treaties will add some interesting twists.

[LordStone1]

Oops. Once again, here's the Royale rules. http://w1.132.telia.com/~u13206915/ROYRULES.htm

As for playing on the Heptarchy map, I have indeed GM'ed a game with that map before (Dip9) after taking over from Stewart Spink. http://web.libertysurf.se/baches/heptarch.htm I used the Heptarchy III Map, and to be honest I think Heptarchy IV is an improvement because all the powers are made more equal.

Yes, I'll admit, Heptarchy isn't that great for the diplomacy aspect -- Scotland will rarely ever need to talk to Mercuria or Anglia until the very end of the game. Moreover, this is a game where everyone's pretty much Anglo-Saxon, and for me, if it was used for Royale it'd lose much of its international dynastic flavor.

If we used the Standard Map, each dynasty could really adopt a distinctive national character with use of names and titles (just compare the Albayraks to the Ahponovs). For me, that makes the game more exciting. And with 7 players, I think it'd force everyone to talk to each other cuz everyone's in each other's way. With the 1600 map, people could ignore the Castilles or the Vasas and just walk over them.

But one thing I'm concerned about the Standard Map is that it actually has too few provinces. What do you think? How do you feel about a game on the Modern map? It's been used a lot...

[Victor Galis]

That'd be interesting. Perhaps you could post a link to a modern map (yes, I know, but I'm doing some serious downloading and it's hard for me to do a search through dip resources... if only I had high-speed access.)

[LordStone1]

Modern Map: http://devel.diplom.org/Online/maps/modern.gif

One prob is that this has 10 players, and will result in a longer game. (Remember, Royale is three times slower than a regular game). And the map itself doesn't lend itself well to additions of build sites and archbishoprics.

[Victor Galis]

In that case, the 1600 map would be better. Same number of players, and more historic.

[LordStone1]

Actually, 1600 has 9 players. Modern has 10.

[Gibsie]

I could be up for a game of Royale, if you're still looking for players. I've never reaaly plyed a game with more than the regular rules, but I expect I could follow...

[LordStone1]

So..what do you think?

[Victor Galis]

I vote for game of Royale on 1600, named after a German province which will prove a key battleground in the mid to late game

[RUFFHAUS8]

Baden?
Bayern?
Brandenburg?


How about Bayern Munchen in honor of the soon to be European Champions?

LS has some neat ideas too. Saxony II would be fine with me, but I guess I'm not all that picky.

[SnowFire]

Westphalia and Mecklenburg are too much of a mouthful. Hesse is a bit too short, but works, I suppose. My votes would be for Silesia, which as we all know was a pretty important province in history, or Tuscany, which while not German certainly is an interesting province and rolls off the tounge pretty well too.

And oh yes, one extra restriction: you can't play the same country you played in Saxony. So no Sweden for me.

[LordStone1]

How about Styria? That has a nice ring to it. I thought about "The Concert of Europe" as the new title but that's a bit off the beaten track. Styria, I like it. Makes me think of Slytherin. Go Gryffindor! Go Hufflepuff! Go Ravenclaw!