Ideas to spice up hotseats

[spanish_emperor]

This are just some new ideas from the top of my head.

1. Instead of making all battles autoresolve why not make human vs human battles decided only if your general has greater command stars. Otherwise you cannot attack. This way players will make sure their best generals are in command of their best armies. If the battle includes an army without a general with one with a general then the army with a general can attack. If both generals have the same command stars or both armies have no generals then the attacker is the one who controls the province. If it is in the border so each army is in their controlled province then the one with more units in the stack gets to attack.

If the rule is broken the player is kicked out from the hotseat.

2. Capital cities require at least 30 units besieging the city before it can be stormed.

3. To declare war on another player there must be a valid reason. Reasons include:
- the enemy holding some of your homeland provinces
- the enemy breaking treaties which had yet not reached their valid expiration time (if any expiration date)
- the enemy at war with an ally of yours
- the enemy breaking trade rights agreement or alliance
- the enemy never giving land which was promised after a certain time or event
- you "liberating" a province which has more than 50% of the population following your religion and not that of the of the occupiant
- you "liberating" a province which is under revolt (has revolt sign)
- you "liberating" a territory that had once been under your rule and you never recognized it as being part of the other players domain.

4. To simulate supply lines somewhat all armies can only march through enemy territory for 5- 10 turns before they must return back to an owned province or allied province (only if they have military access). If someone stays for a longer period everyone except the general in the army will be disbanded by the headmaster.


What do you guys think?

[Commander Ruunu]

Ideas are good, but not all players would not agree with them..

[[Celtíbero]Mencey]

The less rules the better.

[Sarkiss]

1. why not try and attack a general with more command stars? and its way too complex.

2. that should depend on how many units of defenders there is. if you only got 1, 2 units of garrison bringing 30 units to bear with them is a bit over the top, imho.

3. forcing Casus Beli on everyone within this time period wouldnt really fit well. it is after all the age of Mongols and savage Turkic tribes...

4. good idea with supply and attrition. i really wish something could be done in that field. 5-10 turns seems very generous to me (5 years!). i dont think the method suggested by you to simulate supplies is very efficient though.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Spanish,

This is not meant as a personal attack and I have nothing against you, but these rules are so absurd, I will never play in a hotseat with them. Not only I find them unrealistic, but they are impossible to enforce.

Anyway, if you can find others that like those rules, there is nothing to prevent you from a starting a hotseat. All I am saying is that I will not be in it.

[spanish_emperor]

Spanish,

This is not meant as a personal attack and I have nothing against you, but these rules are so absurd, I will never play in a hotseat with them. Not only I find them unrealistic, but they are impossible to enforce.

Anyway, if you can find others that like those rules, there is nothing to prevent you from a starting a hotseat. All I am saying is that I will not be in it.

Yeah, i guess they could be a bit overboard but i am so bored with hotseats for some reason.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Yeah, i guess they could be a bit overboard but i am so bored with hotseats for some reason.

I actually think it is never a bad idea to think of rules that would make hotseats more interesting and fun. Obviously, no game is perfect, but most of your rules are actually modding issues, not hotseat ones. For example, there are army supply scripts in Deus Lo Vult that give penalties to armies that have been out there for too long, and in an auto-resolve campaign I can see similar scripts playing a huge role.

When it comes to hotseats, a good rule needs to have the following characteristics:
- It has to be necessary or make sense, and it has to help make the game more enjoyable. This is a war strategy game and restrictions on attacking kind of spoil the fun. It is the predictability of AI diplomacy that was one of the reasons for me to seek hotseats, and restricting causes of war, etc, will make the game quite boring.
- A rule has to be fair - it should not favor certain factions. According to your first rule, factions that start with one or more high command generals will have a significant advantage over those that don't, as those generals will be untouchable.
- It has to be clear and not exploitable. When you say 30 units need to siege a capital, it means nothing, because I can assemble an army where half of these 30 units consist of 10 men or less each. Besides, you either have a strong army able to take a settlement or not, and I do not see why players should be encouraged to leave important settlements with skeleton garrisons just by deisgnating them as a capital and leaving them exposed, knowing that they are pretty much invincible. With this rule, I can imagine how players will start designating border settlements as capitals to protect them if they fear an invasion.
- A rule does not create need for more rules, it has to be simple - in the above example of capital protection, eventually you will need to come up with rules about when a capital can be moved, which will probably lead to even more rules and soon the whole thing becomes too complicated to the point that people start losing interest, as they have a hard time reading and understanding all the rules.
- Finally, a rule has to be easy to enforce. There is no way we can keep track of which army started where and how far it could get, to determine who could attack or not. Counting turns of an army on campaign is even tougher. You would actually need a host, who does not play, but just watches everyone else, and nobody would want to be that guy. Again, this is a modding issue, not a hotseat one.

If you are bored with the mod or game itself, then this is something for the BOC team, and generally, little can be done. The game is what it is. The mod is what it is. The purpose of the hotseat is not to change it, but just to create conditions where players can test their skills for fun against other players as opposed to the predictable and easily exploitable AI.