Proposal for house-rules

[notger]

Incited by a discussion in the "what do you guys want"-thread (page 9), I hereby propose a set of house-rules to improve immersion and have someone left to play with during mid- and end-game.

1. Do not attack anyone before 1710 (unless there is a historical reason).

2. If fighting a one-prov minor, do not go around his main army and take his unprotected capital. Fight his field army, then his capital.
(Turn-based movement makes possible what would have been prevented in these times by the counter-movement of the defender: A sneak attack at the heart. Besides, historically, losing the capital would not automatically kill the faction. So we have to make up for that.)

3. When going for peace deals, extract money and tech and do not extract more than one province out of every war (exceptions: If you want to replay the Spanish War of Succession or the Seven Years War). Use captured provinces to buy peace.

4. Auto-Resolve all siege battles (you might want to play the attacks, but never play the defense, since AI attacking is bugged).

5. When finished with researching a tech, you do not choose the next one, but you let the dices decide. You throw two dices.
First dice: 1-2 = military tech, 3-4 = econ tech, 5-6 = social tech.
Second dice: 1-2 = left branch, 3-4 = middle branch, 5-6 = right branch.
A throw of 3-4 would mean you would have to research the next iron manufacturing tech.
You may repeat a throw, if the result is not possible (e.g. no research can be done in this particular branch).

6. At the start of the war, you decide on your objectives and stick to them. You will not annihilate a faction, unless that faction declared war on you for at least the third time.
The objectives you define have to be limited and not crippling to the other faction.
Good choices could be: Kick Spain out of the Caribbean islands. Kick Spain out of Italy (or Austria/France). Kick Spain out of the football championship. Liberate Ireland (by inciting a rebellion, after capturing it, hopefully).
Bad choices could be: Reduce Prussia to one province. Reduce Austria to Croatia. Conquer London and hold it.

7. The Grimlin-rule: "Never use Quicklime Shot, Carcass Shot, Shrapnel and Percussion Shells because the former were never used on a battlefield afaik and the latter were invented after 1800." I would say 1770 instead of 1800, as a compromise, though.

8. The Herb-rule: "If an enemy fleet is in a trade theatre and you have a trade node, you have to attack this fleet. (As the AI cannot attack trade nodes)". You have to attack with whichever ship you have. Tough luck. If you have a war-fleet nearby, you can attack with this fleet first, though.

9. The AlphaDelta-rule (modified): Thou shalt not field more than one artillery unit per FULL stack before 1730, not more than two artillery units per FULL stack before 1770, three units thereafter.

10. The Arctander-rule (modified): Thou shalt never occupy trade nodes with war-ships to block other nations until you can occupy them with merchants yourself. Thou shalt not have more than one node per theater. You can acquire more nodes later on by means of war, but initally, only one node is allowed, until all nodes are filled.

11. Jamiam-rule (modified): Do not retrain your units, if it is unlikely that the fresh men could reach your army unharmed. You may retrain your units when in a controlled province or reasonably close to one, but not if your Grande Armee is just before Moscow. Use merging instead.

12. The Immanuel Kant / Jesus of Nazareth-rule (paraphrased, their approval is pending ): Never offer any deal to the AI, that you would not accept when you the player where in his position.



(Wow, got quite long, this list of house-rules.)



Actually, I like rule #5.
After all, research is like a box of candy: You never know, what you get. Or more precise: If we knew, what we were doing, we would not call it research. (Einstein)
I will try that rule tonight.

[Grimlin]

I like those, will make the game more entertaining without actually change a thing in the game.

The 5th rule is particulary nice because in the first announcements of the techtree system CA said that research would be more like a "pour money in it and hope it works" thing full of surprises.

I'd like to propose another rule:
Never use Quicklime Shot, Carcass Shot, Shrapnel and Percussion Shells because the former were never used on a battlefield afaik and the latter were invented after 1800.

[herb0815]

I would like to propose 2 rules:

1. Do not destroy the pirate faction.

2. If an enemy fleet is in a trade theatre and you have a trade node, you have to attack this fleet. (As the AI cannot attack trade nodes)

[Arctander]

Techs: I'm not super keen on 5, but it is an interesting twist. Personally I've played by a personal house rule that limits me to 3 schools. And I was debating trying it with 2. The dice rule might make it more interesting. Perhaps limiting it to 2 gents in a school too - since stealing tech gets you killed at least as often as it gets you a tech...

Trade: I also limit myself to a total of 12 trade ships, and 1 node per region.

The idea of not taking out the pirates is intriguing. And I definitely like the idea of "have to fight" if an enemy is in an trade area.

Regarding point 1 - I assume it'd be ok to defend yourself, right? I'm in a GC in 1754 as Prussia and I still have never started a single war. I'll have to in order to win the final, but the AI keeps falling on their saber for me.

[AlphaDelta]

Nice house rules I'll try to use them tonight.

About point 4. I tend to find the auto-resolve gives the player a big advantage. If you have superior numbers then the auto-calc doesnt take into consideration the withering fire the enemy force can still put up before it is beaten. If I have a 2:1 advantage and I play the battle, I may still lose 30% of my men, whereas with auto calc I'll lose less than 10%.

Another house rule. Only take 1 artillery unit per stack. 4 artillery pieces (1 unit) for an army of 2000 is about the right ratio for this period.

Cheers

[Daergar]

Afaik you can alter the auto-calc difficulty factor in the script file. I know I looked in there while playing a VH/VH vanilla campaign and the value was still set to "normal". So if you wish to make the auto-calc odds and outcome worse for the player, go ahead and fiddle.

I assume it works anyway, not bothered to test it myself since when I auto-calc it's due to boredom and I don't fancy a magical penalty when I know I could win a battle with next to no casualties.

[gord96]

good stuff. house rules make all the difference. i main one is declaring war. I always try to have a reason. how will the world react to my actions?

[notger]

Herb: Why not destroy the pirate faction? After all, they have been destroyed historically (more or less, as we see in tonights news flash).
And do you have to fight the enemy fleet with your own fleet, even if it consists of merchantmen, solely? That is a tough one ...
I like it.

AlphaDelta: You are right, there are certain drawbacks when using auto-calc, but still better than manually fighting the defensive siege battle. Auto-calc in the field ... well, up to ones liking, I guess.
Concerning the artillery idea ... interesting. But for me, one infantry unit compromises a whole regiment, which would be way more than 250 men. What do you think about two guns maximum before 1770 and three guns after 1770?

Arctander: With your kind permission, I proposed a slightly altered version of your rule.
And yes, if you are attacked, you are free to defend yourself. You may bring the war to the attacker to force him to make peace. After all, your opponent is a king, invested by the lord to govern, so he has to be respected and preserved. (Destroying the other kingdom would set a terrible precedence. Lo and behold, those pesky peasants could come to strange ideas like ... choosing their leader. Brrr, what a nightmare that would be, wouldn't it? )

[AlphaDelta]

Concerning the artillery idea ... interesting. But for me, one infantry unit compromises a whole regiment, which would be way more than 250 men. What do you think about two guns maximum before 1770 and three guns after 1770?

Well actually a unit is really a company being that a company was around 120-150 men. 4 or 5 companies per regiment. But anyway it's inconsiquential to the question of artillery pieces per man as it's just a ratio. If we have a battlefield with 2000 men, and 1 artillery unit (4 pieces), we have 500 men per 1 gun. It's about right for this period I think.

For example. At the Battle of Blenheim:

Austria/Prussia/Britain/UP had an army of 52,000 men and 66 guns. That's 788 men per gun.
France/Bavaria had an army of 56,000 men and 90 guns. Thats 622 men per gun.

By the time of the 7 years war, there were a lot more guns in an army though. 250 men per gun was about average.

For example. At the Battle of Zorndorf:

Prussia had an army of 36,000 and 167 guns. That's 215 men per gun.
Russia had an army of 43,500 and 210 guns. That's 207 men per gun.

So I'd say from 1700 - 1730, have 1 artillery unit per 2000 man army. From 1730 - 1760 have 2 artillery units per 2000 man army. And possibly from 1760 - 1800 have 3 artillery units per 2000 man army.

Cheers

[Arctander]

Works for me notger. I'm not sold on 8b (have to attack) but I definitely like the idea of not ignoring that they're there.

[JAMiAM]

I usually try to roleplay my factions, so many of my "house rules" flow from the specific nation that I'm playing and developing circumstances. Also, I always play Prestige Victory conditions, usually at the H/N difficulty level. My favorite role is that of the "enlightened despot" when one of the monarchies, or "commercial powerhouse" as a republic

In general, I try to spend as much time with my empire in peace as I possibly can. Thus, I will usually only fight wars of defense. Normally, there are only two times that I declare war on a nation. The first is when honoring an alliance. Secondly, in the last 20-30 years of the game, and only as necessary to fulfill my territorial prerequisites for the Prestige Victory.

When at war with a nation, unless they've only got a single region, I will try to snatch one, or two territories, and then quickly offer a Peace Treaty/Trade Agreement. Sometimes, if the territory I seized is neither a prequisite for victory, nor a defensible part of my "historical" sphere of influence, I will cede back the territory for some other consideration.

One thing that I'm thinking of incorporating into my playstyle, is a strict limit on rebuilding forces in the field. Given how small the general units are, they can be rebuilt anywhere, but with the rest of the forces, I try to rebuild only in my home territories, with a few exceptions. Most depleted units get merged. Militia type units can also be rebuilt anywhere, since I consider them more of a local levy. The rest of the regular army type units, need to either be recruited from scratch, in a home nation city and sent to the front, or if in a home nation city, rebuilt.

Obviously, the definition of a "home nation city" is slightly nebulous, and can change over the course of time. For example, if Prussia conquers Silesia, then in another 5-10 years, it might be considered part of the Prussian home region. If it were to capture Istanbul, that would never become a home region for Prussia. At least within the time frame covered by this game. This forces some semblence of a supply line from the home regions. Sort of a self-imposed AoR system, I suppose.

[herb0815]

@notger

If you don´t have a real fleet protecting your trade nodes, you have to fight with your merchant ships.

As you said right, pirates are still a thread to modern trade. In history "free-lancing" pirate presents just became less tue to the use of letters of marque (I would like to have those in the game).

If you want to get rid of pirates, you can try to get rid of all bandits or other anarchic susbects as well.
Even with the dead of some well known pirates, everyone can be a pirate, you just need a ship, a parrot and rum.

[notger]

And an eye-patch!
Do not forget the eye-patch!

Alpha: I updated your rule.
Of course, you are right on the numbers, but I do not see these units as companies. I see them as symbols for regiments and every soldier comprises rather ten actual soldiers. Ok, then I would have to see every cannon as ten cannons ... hmm ... kind of stuck there. Your rule proposition sounds fine.
Damn, now I will have to scrap my fine artillery pieces.

Jamiam: I like your idea. Got an own rule. Do you agree to this version?
I know what you mean with your play-style. I play the same way. This list though, should be general. Everyone is free to invent his personal campaign rules for his faction, role-play his faction as he likes. Things in this list are more intended to be a kind of soft bug-fixing an improve immersion.

[Arctander]

I'll throw out another... no cheesy small unit rampages. It's far too easy to just take a single beaten up cavalry unit and rampage an enemy in wartime, then retreat anytime you caught for a battle. With regards to rampaging, I do unto the AI as it would do unto me.

[Arctander]

good stuff. house rules make all the difference. i main one is declaring war. I always try to have a reason. how will the world react to my actions?

Interesting... I'm curious how you find a way to justify stuff. Is it all slightly forged letters appearing in the news?

I'm not sure what nation you have played, but I'm into an GC as Prussia and by 1754 I still haven't declared on anyone, they keep asking me to come and take their cities and slaughter their armies.

[cherryfunk]

Rule #5 (random tech) is quite interesting; it's true that the AI doesn't deal with the tech tree very well, and it's also true that technical advancement was often fairly ad hoc and not due to any government program but more to inventive individuals. Although rather than rolling dice, one could simply accept whatever tech the game selects as the next in line....

[Arctander]

Cherry, I'm pretty sure that the game selects the next tech in the line (and doesn't ever vary out) So you would be quite stuck to whatever it started on.

I'm liking the random tech idea more and more. So many inventions were just dumb stumbled on too.

[Kolath]

Very interesting rules! Two questions...

1. What sorts of rules would be good for research stealing? Perhaps, if your gentlemen is "caught" you have to return him to your territory before you can try to steal again? Or you have to wait 4 turns?

2. How would you apply the war rules to one-region factions (like the german states or the crimean khanate) that the nearby empire would want to annex?

[notger]

Cherry, the games takes the next in line, for sure. No variation there, sorry.

Kolath: The stealing of tech ... well I guess I would roll the dice here, too. Spread the dice numbers as appropriate (quite often, you will only have a few techs that can be stolen). If you have a 100-sided dice (or two ten-siders, for that matter), you can pretty much generate every seeding needed.
Concerning the annexation of one-state-minors ... don't go actively for it. It was highly unusual. What I wrote in post #8 still applies: Rulers need never question each others right to rule. They might disagree on political matters and little swaths of land might change hands, still, rulers need never be de-throned because that would set a dangerous precedent. Of course, that only applies to absolute monarchies. When and abs. mon. faces a republic, both may question the others right of existence and thus, both are free to do as they deem right.
But monarchs never dethrone other monarchs and republics never kill other republics (only a guide-line, remember that!).

Arctander: There are various possible reasons ... a rake, someone you believed to be a saboteur, troops near your border (hey, they overstepped and looted my lands!), a marriage that was not honored and a whole bunch of other things not depicted in the game.

To play it out, you could do some diplo action, demanding what you want in that war. When they do not heed, war is the result. Then the goal of the war would be what you asked for in the diplo action beforehand (trade rights, money, tech, one certain province that belongs to your people, colonies, ... ).

[cherryfunk]

Cherry, I'm pretty sure that the game selects the next tech in the line (and doesn't ever vary out) So you would be quite stuck to whatever it started on.

I'm liking the random tech idea more and more. So many inventions were just dumb stumbled on too.

Ah, true, good point...