The (Holy Roman) Empire (Maybe) Strikes Back

[foolish_icarus]

Some cool stuff there.

A few thoughts about levies:

Perhaps they should be able to accumulate some level of experience--not as individual units, but as a sort of peasant militia culture. If one pays the price to call up levies frequently and in large numbers it seems that you are going to get some smallfolk in your armies that have been on campaign before. Maybe some kind of balance between experience and the morale penalty provoked by taking the same man off of his farm for the third time in ten years.

Armies have undergone some changes to more accurately simulate the temporary nature of medieval levies, which were usually called up for a season rather than years on end.

More accurate yes...but we are in alternate history now. Perhaps the events of HREnes part I could be considered to have been the first step in a gradual move towards more permanent standing armies...


With regards to arming one's soldiers...It seems I am in the minority, but I didn't like doing that. I'd be perfectly happy to say, "I want this force to be mobile and archery based, and this one to be heavy shield and axe guys" and throw an appropriate amount of denarii at it and let the generals sort out the details.
(I never put as much finesse into it as you guys did...my 'strategy' was to sullenly scroll back and forth over lists and posts in half a dozen tabs and end up just throwing as much gear onto every single soldier as he could carry, anyway.)

I like the retainer reorganization, defensive orders, and mercenaries. Ah, mercenaries. Tying into a previous point, frequent use of levies could breed a class of native sons who decide they like loot and bloodletting and form new merc bands for us to hire. This appeals to me very much. (You sold my 100% with 'Varangian guard' ).


Clarification: Where can castles and towns be built? Will it decrease demesne income? How big of a no-no would it be to charter a town on church or vassalized land?

Is it fitting for this setting to receive annual revenue from charters...A sort of 'investment' into a town or business? (Kind of like how mines are handled, but with any business in which the Duke has his greedy fingers in?
[one of the things I was looking into, before being derailed into a three hour wikipedia slog on modern commodity exchanges, manorialism, and everything in between, was subsuming mining into an overall 'commodities' statistic: It could feasibly include any source of ducal income which could benefit from improvement/investment. The bulk of demesne income, it seems, was largely outside the hands of the lord--farming and the like is rather static, but mining and industry can sometimes benefit from expenditures to increase output. The third source of income, as you suggested, could then be tolls and taxes and the like, which hopefully we wouldn't have to negotiate and engineer by hand.]

[foolish_icarus]

I'm also wary of being too specific about trade mechanics because I'm not an economist, much less a specialist on medieval economies. ****, I don't even really trust economists to figure out exactly what happens when we mess with tariffs and stuff like that.

Could we just say a duchy has a certain income from thelony and the like---through trial and error the lord has figured out that if he tries to squeeze too much out of the toll points, people just avoid paying by going somewhere else or smuggling?

And if a duke keeps his purse tight and wrings out less coin than he might be able to get away with--some other part of his realm (an therefore stats) could be a little healthier for it.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by foolish_icarus
Perhaps they should be able to accumulate some level of experience--not as individual units, but as a sort of peasant militia culture.

Seems reasonable, though it could work both ways - he might have seen combat before, but he also probably doesn't like being called up so many times.

More accurate yes...but we are in alternate history now. Perhaps the events of HREnes part I could be considered to have been the first step in a gradual move towards more permanent standing armies...

I understand we're in alternate history, but professional armies are a pretty glaring anachronism for this time. It's not just that nobody thought of it, but that it was untenable given feudalism and the agricultural economy. As I said, I wouldn't mind small corps of "standing" soldiers that followed the basic mechanics of mercenaries, but I don't want to expand that to make up the majority of the army. The whole idea is that you must be politic and diplomatic with your nobles, as they form the basis for most of your military strength.

With regards to arming one's soldiers...It seems I am in the minority, but I didn't like doing that.

The retainer idea may be a good compromise, then - if the Duke doesn't want to equip them, the local lords will. If the Duke wants them heavily armored, you can just purchase armor for your nobles (or loan it, expecting it back at the end of the campaign) and they will see to its use. It would allow you to micromanage or not depending on your desire.

Clarification: Where can castles and towns be built? Will it decrease demesne income? How big of a no-no would it be to charter a town on church or vassalized land?

Castles and towns can be built anywhere, though towns will only do well in good territory (rivers and farmlands are a plus). Neither require a substantial enough amount of land to subtract from demesne income.

I would hope that there would be no incentive to "town spam," but if this is problematic then I could make a new land use category, "urban," which is equal to 1% for each town in existence, so granting a Stadtrecht would require a little bite out of your demesne, the church land, or your enfeoffed land.

That reminds me - I don't like how in the original HRE NES, church land was basically "dead weight" that you only kept around to prevent pissing off the pope and his guys. I want the amount of church land to be 1. required for religious buildings and 2. beneficial to those buildings. I'm working on reforms to the building system - for one thing, making fixed prices for things - and a church land reform will be part of that.

As for trade -

The idea behind the new trading system would be, again, the ability to micromanage or not micromanage at will. The actual commodities (butter, wine, etc.) are their only for your interest; it would be perfectly acceptable to slap a fixed X% thelony on everything and leave the traders to their own devices (they'd probably appreciate it). Profits would rise as trade prospered. One could also micromanage more by placing tariffs on specific goods, but this would not be necessary. In either case I think it makes for much less work than the previous system of trade deals.

Mining I want to keep like it was for the most part; it was a big turning point in King Heinrich's historical reign when a sizable silver vein was discovered on his territory (or was that Otto? Well, it doesn't matter). I may want to get rid of the "special bonuses" for commodities, however - the discounts for iron, leather, stone, and so on were unnecessarily difficult to keep track of.

I want to keep some investment in mines and so on, but it's difficult to model that precisely - what should the return be? When should returns start to diminish? Mining technology was rather limited and realistically there was only so much you could do to dig up precious ores before it was like squeezing blood from a stone. What about other industries on the Duke's land - Woad plantations, for instance, or wineries?

[Cyclotron]

I wouldn't have any objection to limiting taxes on trade to a simple Thelony (we can just call it "Tax" if it's the only tax) on all imports and exports. I don't know what Charlemagne's tariffs were, but Justinian levied something like 10% on goods and I think that's a fair "average" number for the Tax. Lower taxes would lower revenue but might encourage trade growth; higher taxes would raise revenue but could eventually drive merchants away. This might be a decent compromise between one set percentage from all trade and a whole gaggle of individual tariffs.

By the way, as for revenue from charters - this would be unseemly for a Zinnenrecht, because money isn't supposed to be part of the Lord-Vassal relationship, but some kind of payment plan could be worked out with a town. Of course, this assumes that they are able to pay; especially when it is first founded, this may not be true. I imagine this isn't something we need rules for, you could just negotiate it in-game with the town's Bürgermeister.

[Cyclotron]

More changes for your observation and comment -

Construction no longer has an unknown cost. Basic buildings have specific costs. The costs of other buildings will be assessed accordingly. You don’t have to pay the sum all at once – the amount you’ve added so far will be recorded – but the structure won’t be “functional” until it’s fully paid for.

These are temporary placeholder values and may not reflect final values.

Palisade (250d), Ring Wall (1,000d)
Monastery (1,000d), Abbey (2,500d)
Chapel (250d), Church (1,000d), Cathedral (3,000d)
Harbor (500d), Shipyard (1,000d)
Paths (1,000d), Roads (2,000d)

Buildings can only be built in towns, not castles. The exception to this is the Court. The Court is not really an actual building, it just indicates where the ducal court, treasury, and armory are located. It can be moved, once per year, free of charge. Of course, buildings could be constructed (a grand palace, for instance) to house these things; these, obviously, cannot be moved.

Some buildings – cathedrals, abbeys, and roads in particular – will take more than one year to build. The price of paths and roads will vary depending on the size of the territory. Stone roads are considerably beyond the technology and means of this time; the only Duchy-scale stone roads that exist are Roman roads, which are pre-existent in many areas once occupied by the Romans.

Major religious buildings require land to provide them with income. Monasteries and Churches can only be built with at least 5% church land. Cathedrals and Abbeys can only be built with at least 10% church land each, and Cathedrals can only be built in a city that is the seat of a bishop. Thus, a territory with four chapels, two monasteries, a church, and a cathedral must have at least 25% Church land (Chapels require no land). Land above the minimum will make a territory’s religious buildings more prosperous.

Some buildings benefit from additional funding. Churches and monasteries can become great centers of art and learning, and buildings like palaces and monuments can be made more grand by more funds. Some buildings, however, don’t benefit from more expenditures, such as harbors and roads – they either exist or they don’t. Alternately, religious buildings can be given more land rather than more funds, and will prosper accordingly.

[bipolarbear]

Posting to say I'm still down to play.

[appleciders]

So with the new trading system we're no longer haggling with other nations for trade deals? I'd slightly oppose that- I know I got a lot of benefit out of micromanaging that, and actively pursuing trade seems like a reasonable action for a Duke. Maybe we could set up some other way to encourage specific trade?

I also don't like the idea of dropping the bonuses for stone, leather, and iron income- being able to use these products directly actually supports the notion that our Duchy has very little income in actual cash and our wealth is primarily in products.

I love the notion of getting some benefit from the Church land- it really was just dead weight. What specifically do we gain from having a wealthy church instead of a poor one?

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by appleciders
So with the new trading system we're no longer haggling with other nations for trade deals? I'd slightly oppose that- I know I got a lot of benefit out of micromanaging that, and actively pursuing trade seems like a reasonable action for a Duke. Maybe we could set up some other way to encourage specific trade?

I understand your support of the idea, but it was my least favorite thing about this NES and I really, really, don't want it in any more.

That said, there should be other indirect ways to promote trade in this system. Building towns will do it, if they have access to rivers and coastlines (as sea trade is far more profitable) or command key routes or passes. Local industries can be promoted through investment. Because the tax is on exports and imports, if another country imports a lot of stuff from you, you could undercut their income (and yours, a bit) by prohibiting sales to them.

The point is that many actions can be taken that aren't specifically enumerated in the rules.

I also don't like the idea of dropping the bonuses for stone, leather, and iron income- being able to use these products directly actually supports the notion that our Duchy has very little income in actual cash and our wealth is primarily in products.

That's true. I'll consider that. I'm considering restricting the bonus to "native" products only, however - those you produce yourself. Buying large-bulk items like timber and iron abroad would be expensive, and Dukes would be encouraged to build up their home industries. After all, historically Germany was a significant exporter of iron and a bountiful source of timber.

So far, these are the relationships:

Castles – Stone
Ships – Timber
Wooden buildings (palisade, chapel, harbor, shipyard) – Timber
Stone buildings (ring wall, monastery, abbey, church, cathedral) – Stone
Weapons – Iron
Light Armor – Iron or Leather
Heavy Armor – Iron

I love the notion of getting some benefit from the Church land- it really was just dead weight. What specifically do we gain from having a wealthy church instead of a poor one?

First of all, conversion happens a lot faster with a well-funded church. This would be of interest to Saxony and Bohemia especially, who have a lot of non-Christian subjects that could be feudalized once converted.

Secondly, the well-funded church likes you more, and will be more willing to cooperate with you - if you want an edict passed, or something.

Thirdly, the church keeps granaries for the peasants in times of need; a well-funded church will go a long way towards neutralizing the effects of famine and poor harvests.

Fourthly, monasteries with funding are more likely to develop the sort of art and learning that enhances your prestige as a Christian ruler. This prestige will increase your reputation not only with the Pope, but with other Christian nobles and kings, making diplomacy easier.

If you have other ideas I'd be happy to hear them.

[appleciders]

Just one suggestion on monasteries, actually- the Church was a major source of learning (really the major source) in the Dark Ages. I had been having trouble in the past getting well-trained mathematicians and engineers, and the primary reason I founded a monastery was to try to provide a German source for such learning, instead of purchasing such knowledge from the Byzantines or Venetians.

Obviously stone is never going to be a major trade good, though leather and iron are quite portable. I do feel as though non-native trade goods should be usable if we can get them- I could, for instance, declare that imports of leather are not subject to taxation and so encourage an influx of usable leather to my Duchy. The difference is that since trading is now less user-controlled, it is now much more difficult to access such material.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by appleciders
Obviously stone is never going to be a major trade good, though leather and iron are quite portable.

It's not so much about portability as price. When you buy things from merchants, you pay retail. With products from your demesne, there is no middleman to pay. This is what the special commodities are supposed to represent - a supply of raw materials rather than the need to purchase materials from others.

I think Dukes could still exchange goods among themselves as per their own agreements, but international imports of such things misses the point of commodity discounts.

[Cyclotron]

I like where these reforms are headed so far, and I'm working on combining the previous game data into unified excel sheets (previously, things like mercenaries and generals were spread over 20-30 random word files).

It may take some time to organize all the info properly to resume the game; my hope is that the work I'm putting in now will lead to easier, faster, better, easier, and more frequent updates when the game resumes. Until then, keep giving me your comments and criticisms - now is the best time to change stuff about the game, since I'll be more reluctant to do so once we get started.

[Cyclotron]

By the way, if anyone has a large-scale, blank map of Europe (preferably with rivers), I'd love to have it. The present map is acceptable, but it would be nice to get one with a better coastline and fewer jpeg artifacts. I've poked around CFC for a new map, but none of them are large enough to give the resolution we need.

[Cyclotron]

I have a nice new map now, but there is a drawback - there isn't enough room on it to have the names of towns and such. The same problem may have arisen on the old map however, as the addition of Castles would probably have turned it into a wall of text anyway. If that's not a major problem then I'll go ahead and use the new one.

I'm working on a new, complete rules document in my occasional spare time. If everything goes well it will probably be done in the next week.

[Cyclotron]

So here's the rule document at present.

[Cyclotron]

Seems like I'm posting in an echo chamber here, but my work on this is approaching completion. If there really is a demand for this it might be up in a few days.