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Thread: Fundamentally changing the game

  1. #1
    Quinn Inuit's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Fundamentally changing the game

    Today, while I was heating up my lunch, I was thinking about Poland's fine cavalry tradition. (I used to chat about it with one of my wing chun buddies, a Polish grad student, while we did our drills.) That got me thinking about what conditions help a country develop such a cavalry tradition. From there my mind wandered to an article I read arguing that enhanced economic opportunity after the Black Death killed Britain's longbow corps, and from there to the ExRM.

    I think we should make a change in unit recruitment for 3.4 (not 3.3.4, which is nearly done). Not just a little change, but a monster change.

    Europa Barborum has a few different governmental trees, but I'd like to take that in a different direction. I propose that land use was key to determining the military capabilities of a region, as follows:

    • Regions organized along a feudal system could produce good heavy cavalry, but crappy infantry
    • Desert feudal (possibly a subset of normal feudal): They didn't really do horses much in the desert, so this will focus on chariots and large numbers of cheap spearmen and archers.
    • Regions organized along a small farmer system could produce good heavy infantry
    • Regions organized along a barbarian tribal model could produce infantry and cavalry.
    • Regions organized along a nomadic system would produce primarily skirmisher infantry and missile cavalry

    I propose dramatically loosening the AoR rules to make this work. Invade Armenia and leave the social structure in place? You get cataphracts. Replace the social structure with small farmers? You get whatever your native small farmer unit is.

    Basically, this would give players the choice of either developing along a traditional track or simply taking over another faction's AoR. IMO, this will make conquest of certain regions more important, since they'll have different default styles. For instance, the Seleucids will want to try hard to hang onto Media, since it will have a feudal style allowing them quick access to heavy cavalry that they can't get in Babylonia and the Levant (desert feudal) or Ionia (small farmer).

    Alternatively, should the player be given a choice? I think so, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

    Faction-specific info:
    All factions start off with a default type. When they invade an area, they can convert it to that type or leave it. That's all. For instance, the Macedonians would be feudal, and the Greeks would be small farmer.

    Carthage's recruitment system actually wouldn't change that much, since it's pretty odd to start with.

    Romans would be small farmer pre-Marian and feudal post-Marian, if we can make that work. (Post-Marian they're really more corporate, but feudal's close enough.) However, their unique post-Marian legion system allows them to keep recruiting their heavy infantry instead of developing cavalry. Cavalry they would have to acquire from mercs or regions that are still barbarian or feudal. (If I were running this out to the late Empire, I would allow them to settle foederati and convert an area back to barbarian, but that's beyond our scope.)

    Parthians would be feudal, as opposed to nomadic.

    Pontus will start with two types: one small farmer, in Paphlagonia (on the coast) and one feudal (in Cappdocia, further inland). I'm not sure to which it will default, but I'm leaning toward feudal.


    Any thoughts?
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  2. #2

    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    That's a neat idea. I think it would be great if the player could chose how to develop different settlements. Being able to take over another faction's AoR would add a new realm of opportunities for the player (and hopefully the AI). It's a very good idea in my opinion.

  3. #3
    Delvecchio1975's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    I think if you try this you should give them a separate install folder. I love ExRM the way it is now, and I wouldn't mind trying something else, but I definitely want to keep playing the way it is (plus some perfections like I guess 3.3.4?). Would that be difficult? Call it ExRM II or something?

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    Wien1938's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    You are right about land uses, though wrong about the Black Death wiping out the English longbow corps.
    You're wrong on desert - nomads in the deserts use horses. Arabia and Numidia come to mind.
    I presume this is the AOR recruitment and not the state recruitment?

  5. #5
    Eat Meat Whale Meat
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    The multi-temples minimod might be an interesting model for this. Along with the main temples, there are also mini-temples that can be built to a more limited extent. This can be interpreted as a choice of main lines of societies, plus minor communities that can offer variety but not so much specialisation. The temples minimod also gives character traits for the main line of temples, but only ancillaries for minor temples.

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    Quinn Inuit's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Quote Originally Posted by horatius View Post
    That's a neat idea. I think it would be great if the player could chose how to develop different settlements. Being able to take over another faction's AoR would add a new realm of opportunities for the player (and hopefully the AI). It's a very good idea in my opinion.
    Thanks!

    Quote Originally Posted by Delvecchio1975 View Post
    I think if you try this you should give them a separate install folder. I love ExRM the way it is now, and I wouldn't mind trying something else, but I definitely want to keep playing the way it is (plus some perfections like I guess 3.3.4?). Would that be difficult? Call it ExRM II or something?
    Good point. That might be a better idea, although I think people will love this once they see it in action. What we could do is call that ExRM 4.0, and continue development of the 3.x line as is. Most of the bug fixes and upgrades would apply to both.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wien1938 View Post
    You are right about land uses, though wrong about the Black Death wiping out the English longbow corps.
    You're wrong on desert - nomads in the deserts use horses. Arabia and Numidia come to mind.
    I presume this is the AOR recruitment and not the state recruitment?
    I know nomads in the desert use horses, but you'll note that populations of those nomads were never too high. Lots of horses would put too much of a strain on the ecosystem.

    Feudal areas will promote the use of heavy cavalry, and I just can't see my way clear to making the Levant, Babylonia, or the Nile region heavy cavalry centers. That's just not what they were known for AFAIK. Although I would have to make the Alexandria area a normal feudal area so the Ptolies could recruit hetairoi.

    Sorry, I must have been unclear about the longbowmen. Here's a precis of the article:
    England has a large longbow corps made up of its yeoman farmers, who practice in their spare time.
    Black Death hits.
    Survivors are able to acquire more land and apply newly-developed farming techniques to it.
    Suddenly, the English yeoman are making vastly more money than before, and additional work yields substantial additional reward.
    This creates an incentive to work one's fields as opposed to practicing the longbow.
    The longbow requires substantial training to use effectively, so without practicing longbowmen, fielding a longbow corps in wartime became almost impossible.

    Quote Originally Posted by pannonian View Post
    The multi-temples minimod might be an interesting model for this. Along with the main temples, there are also mini-temples that can be built to a more limited extent. This can be interpreted as a choice of main lines of societies, plus minor communities that can offer variety but not so much specialisation. The temples minimod also gives character traits for the main line of temples, but only ancillaries for minor temples.
    That's a good idea. Thanks for suggesting it!
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    Eat Meat Whale Meat
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Quote Originally Posted by Quinn Inuit View Post
    Sorry, I must have been unclear about the longbowmen. Here's a precis of the article:
    England has a large longbow corps made up of its yeoman farmers, who practice in their spare time.
    Black Death hits.
    Survivors are able to acquire more land and apply newly-developed farming techniques to it.
    Suddenly, the English yeoman are making vastly more money than before, and additional work yields substantial additional reward.
    This creates an incentive to work one's fields as opposed to practicing the longbow.
    The longbow requires substantial training to use effectively, so without practicing longbowmen, fielding a longbow corps in wartime became almost impossible.
    The economic effects of the Black Death, as I've heard it, was that fields were left unworked because of severe shortages in manpower. With the supply of work remaining constant but the supply of workers drastically reduced, peasants who were maltreated by their lords or otherwise not content with their lot could move elsewhere, and the employers would offer greater incentives and protection in order to hold on to their workers. I'm not sure what this would mean in game terms, but then not everything can be modelled by the RTW engine anyway.

    The supply of longbowmen disappeared because it was deemed more efficient to train musketmen instead, some time during the Tudor-Stuart period. Once the shift was made to muskets, bows were neglected, and the supply of trained archers disappeared. In game terms, there were two mutually exclusive recruitment trees for longbows and muskets, and after the faction switched to the musket tree, it wasn't possible to recruit longbowmen again without a lengthy readjustment period.

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    Delvecchio1975's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Quote Originally Posted by Quinn Inuit View Post
    Good point. That might be a better idea, although I think people will love this once they see it in action. What we could do is call that ExRM 4.0, and continue development of the 3.x line as is. Most of the bug fixes and upgrades would apply to both.
    yes, just so you can play both versions of the game without uninstallinng the other ....

  9. #9
    Quinn Inuit's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Pannonian: That's interesting. I didn't know that. I must've either misread that article or found a bad one--that era is _not_ my specialty.

    Here's my current plan for regions:
    Desert Feudal: Babylonia, the Levant, and the Nile Valley
    Feudal: Macedonia, Armenia, Media (all of it), Bactria/Sogdiana, India, Pontus, non-AoR Greece Greek colonies, Nile Delta, Epirus, and most of Asia Minor
    Small Farmer: Greece, Ionia, Italy/Sicily, North Africa, AoR Greece Greek colonies
    Nomadic: Numidia and most of NW Africa, Arabia, most of the Iranian plateau, Russia
    Tribal: Most of Europe
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  10. #10
    Wien1938's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    As far as I'm aware, the longbow does not come into widespread English use before the reign of Edward I (late 13th century). And the Black Death did not have an effect upon the composition of the English armies other than size, other factors were at work.
    Also archers were not full time professionals but English law, enacted under Edward I, banned all sports on Sundays except for archery practise. It took years of practise to produce a longbowman; hence Pannonian is right about about the economic reasons for replacing longbows with muskets. There was no conflict between fields and bow, because Sunday was the day of rest, so the men would be practising then. It was probably similar to Greek hoplite militias.
    There is an additional factor at work, in that the longbow could not penetrate the "white" metal plate armour from the fifteenth century onwards - it could not generate the weight/velocity equation to defeat the resistance from well-milled steel. The muskets could and did - there are some excellent literary complaints in the late 15th century about the "bloody commoners who could kill a noble lord with a single shot", how unchivalric!

  11. #11

    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Was this implemented or not?

  12. #12
    Carados's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Not seen anything to suggest it. It could feasibly find it's way in 4.0 which is currently in the works.

  13. #13
    Quinn Inuit's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    I'm working on it for 4.0. I've been pondering it this week while I've been away from the board. The ideas above have been developed a great deal, and I think I'll have something good to present later once I've written it all down. Or I may show it just to Carados and surprise you all.
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

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    Caesar Augustus's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Ooh, I like surprises!

    EDIT: Wow, was there ever a less masculine post?!

  15. #15
    Carados's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Quote Originally Posted by Ceasar Augustus View Post
    Ooh, I like surprises!

    EDIT: Wow, was there ever a less masculine post?!
    Oh! I sooo like the pink on that bag.

  16. #16
    Caesar Augustus's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Yeah, really not my finest hour there haha

    But I am very much looking forward to seeing EXRM 4.0 when it's ready. It's sounding really good.

  17. #17
    Quinn Inuit's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Fundamentally changing the game

    Thanks. I think we've got some good stuff going on. Carados has done some excellent work so far.
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

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