Cold Stones HS (6.4 SS)

[Matto16]

COLD STONES
Stainless Steel 6.4 Hotseat,
late Era, Savage AI and disabled RR (nothing else toggled)



We have seven players and seven factions around the Mediterranean Sea who fights for the dominance BUT the point of this hotseat will be in its slowliness and thoughtfulness. So whoever is searching for battles and action may be a little dissapoint as wars will come later. Most importantly we will concentrate on development of our factions and diplomacy.

GOAL: Rule the Meditteranean Sea alone or with your ally.

MAP:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Leader: Invicta

FACTIONS:

Republic of Genoa: n00bsky
Kingdom of Portugal: yuonyuon
Kingdom of Aragon: Dur3X
Kingdom of Sicily: Basileos Predator
Crown of Castille: Desley
Republic of Venice: Matto16
East Roman Empire: Mithridate


NEW RULES:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- You are not allowed to attack anyone in the first 10 turns. This is to prevent early wars and invasions and rather concentrate on the development of your faction, diplomatic deals and careful war plans for the future.
- After first 3 turns you are allowed to attack Rebel and AI settlements and conquer them.
- Spies are not allowed to open gates and they cannot be used to conquer enemy settlements or forts. This is to prevent blitz wars and rather concentrate on slow paced wars by using siege machines and siege weapons.
- You must honor your agreements. That means if you make a NAP or an alliance with other faction you must first inform them of your ill intentions and only then attack them. You can also inform them indirectly by sending your merchants, priests, princesess or armies on their territory (however armies cannot attack the same turn).
- Assassins can only kill: Priests /spies/assassins/merchants/ diplomats /generals". The have to have a min. of 90% of succed in their action if they wish to kill generals and a min. of 40% to kill other agents (must be shown by screenshot).
- Your agents are not allowed to linger on enemy territory for spying, except spies. This is to make things more realistic as diplomats, princesess, merchants and priests weren’t on enemy territory in times of war. This prohibition does not apply to a time of peace. If you won't respect that your agents can be killed on enemy territory by common soldiers (only in time of war).
- Castles and towns with stone walls can only be conquered by use of trebuchets, while wooden castles and small towns with wooden walls can be conquered by catapults. Forts can be conquered by catapults. (must be shown by screenshot).

Basic Rules:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- You have max. 36 hours to play your turn though it is desirable and recommended that you play it earlier.
- You are allowed to reaload your saves as many times you want to.
- Once you have finished your turn and uploaded the save, please PM and leave a Visitor message for the next person.- If you suspect one of the players have broken any rules or cheated, please contact the Admin and ask him to check it.
- You are not allowed to take any region beyond the white border shown on the map above.
- Genoa and East Roman Empire can begin with their settlements beyond the border on the map, however they are also not allowed to spread on other nearby regions beyond the white border.

Battle Rules:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- Armies that are defeated in battle by a player that comes after them in the turn list may not move the following turn. This is to make it fair for people who are defeated by players that come before them in the turn list. Attacking defeated armies the following turn is allowed.
- All Player vs Player battles must be auto-resolved. Battles against AI can be played. Note: Screenshots are to be posted as evidence of auto-resolve.
- No surrounding enemy armies with one stack armies, solely to deny any survivors a retreat. Blocks of landbridge ,bridges or similar, to cut the retreat is allowed if not in contact with the enemy army (which means the red zone around the enemy army)- No attacking ships inside a port. You cannot leave a blocked port without fighting the enemy ships first.
- You can build only two forts per region max (it is meant per faction, so if faction A builttwo forts in region 1 ,also faction B can build his fort in the same region).- No Heroic Victories.

Building Rules:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- You may not gift a region to another faction if the city is at risk of capture.
- No destroying of any buildings at all except Inns and Guilds.
- You are not allowed to exterminate a city. You must either sack it or occupy it. This is to prevent huge cities from turning into villages.

Diplomatic Rules:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- No allying Pope.
- No giving provinces in war zone to a faction controlled by the AI (it means regions bordering-by land- with a faction you're at war with). It's ok giving it to a human-controlled faction.
- Any new player taking command of a faction previously held by another player cannot attack a faction he's officially allied with for at least 5 turns, or until the allies of that faction break the deal.
- Any regions that are gifted, sold, traded with another Faction must have all units except one disbanded immediatly!

Agent Rules:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- Spies aren't allowed to spread plague.
- The use of Agents against AI factions is legitimate without any restrictions and the need of screenshots.
- No exploiting merchants in the form of merchant stack - (Putting several merchants in an army or fort/military-unit securing a resource).
- Assassins can sabotage everywhere. BUT they have to have a min. of 70% chance to succed in their action. (must be shown by screenshot)
- The amount of Assassins you are allowed to have is limited to 3. If a player is caught having more than 3 Assassins he will be heavily fined.

You are not allowed to call or join a Crusade.

[Mithridate]

Not sure if i have time... Hmmm

never played The ERE before... Hmmm

Already used my vacation... Hmmm

Its summer... Ere please

[Basileos Predator]

I will give it a try with :Sicily.

[n00bsky]

I'd like to try Genoa please

[Matto16]

Three more players and we are full.
Mithridate suggested that we should allow to fight rebels from the beginning but I am not so sure about this as some factions have more rebels nearby and others not. What do others think about it? It may be more interesting that way but I am not so sure.

[Basileos Predator]

Well, it is a two sided blade:On the one hand, the 5 turn idea of no battles will alow us to develop, but also it may have some factons stagnate due to too much army.On the other hand, expanding into rebel teritory from start will expand the nations, but , as Matt said, there are factons with many rebels around, and factions with few.

I would personally sugest for a 5 turn initial non-agresion.

[Mithridate]

I would very much like to fight rebels indeed, ERE is surrounded by fullstacks of rebels and it will take time...
If i weaken myself too much by this then so be it, indeed same for everyone^^

Also, could we use disable RR? This will be especially good for Venice and Genoa whom lack units early on if not.
I bet invicta have some suggestions on that, he is much better versed on the italians than I

Lastly: I have invading Seljuks in my lands on turn 1, I have to assume i can attack AI in my own lands. ( i start at war )

[n00bsky]

Btw, what is with provinces, that are after the line from start (Trabzon for ERE, Crimea for me)?

[Basileos Predator]

Also, we should have Savage AI and disabled RR so that we have the same settings as in other HS, so , we won't have to change launcher settings all the time.

[invicta]

My 2cents: the map is unbalanced. ERE has too many AI regions available for him, compared to others (and even better quality a Huge city,3 city and 2 Fortresses, and 3 of those cities are among the richest in the game-Byzantium{the richest in the whole game]/Thessalonica/Iconium).
It should vey much be reduced imo excluding from the conquerable area all the Turk's regions with exception of Sinop, as also Cyrpus should be excluded. Otherwise Spanish factions in particular will be at too much disadvantage, as Byzantines with the current map would have on their hands up to 12 regions to grab form the AI quite easily. Also to balance a bit Bordeaux should be included imo. If you think about, it's not a coincidence that no one chose a spanish faction yet with this setup..

-about the turns when start to expand: for rebel do you include the Moors? Because whatever you decide (about starting on turn 1,5 or 10), there should not be difference between Moors or rebel, otherwise again, Spanish faction would be at too much disadvantage.
Capturing rebel settlements with Byzantines, is very easy, as there are easy trick to do that. I'm warning you before you get all disappointed.

About setting: Disable RR is a must., otherwise ERE would get a huge advantage (byzantines get all theit best units available even with Real recruitment enabled, while all the other factions do not)

I suggest to order the faction order form the weaker to the stronger: Portugal starts already at disadvantage, it needs that.

Last but not least: an AI needs to be selected anyway, afaik. Savage AI is the standard.

[Mithridate]

*Snip*

Agreed, these units are pretty beastly and numerous
id like isparta to be allowed however, its by the coast and a wooden castle. Will be helpful against the Seljuk invasions.

Pain taking all the fullstack rebel cities and castles though, but once my steam is up in a couple turns it wont be a biggie.

[jemdkyl]

You leave another hotseat on turn 1 to make this? Have fun.

[Matto16]

- We will have Savage AI and disabled RR, this is something I forgot to add.
- Provinces beyond the white line can be used by Genoa and ERE however they are not allowed to take any nearby provinces beyond the line. Moving your forces beyond the line is allowed, but you are not allowed do conquer anything there (except Genoa and ERE who already have their settlements in that area).
- Changing faction order is a very good idea. You can do this Invicta when posting a first save.
- About the map, I agree that ERE is in advantage comparing to Spanish factions. I will draw a new map in which Turk's regions will be excluding from the conquerable area except Sinop and Isparta.Bordeaux will be add to conquerable area to balance a things a little bit.
- And yes, rebels include Moors and all other AI factions. I will change this.

Then let's say 3 turns noagression against rebels and AI factions and 10 turns against other players.

[totalwar_legend]

Castile please.

[Bcman]

Not sure if ill join

[Matto16]

Maybe I will add a rule that every player has 36 hours to play his turn instead of 24. There are only 7 players so this hotseat will run faster than others and 36 hours would be the limit.

[yuonyuon]

Maybe I will add a rule that every player has 36 hours to play his turn instead of 24. There are only 7 players so this hotseat will run faster than others and 36 hours would be the limit.

i think hotseats run faster when u have a good admin and a balanced campaign,with some nice players


i wait to see ur map maybe i can chose a faction too

i really like the idea that spies can t open the gates , i mean all agents power should be reduced like u said, maybe ad some realism in this campaign like if u want to take a city u need two catapults and if u wan t castle u need more , that should make the difference between castle an cities

[Matto16]

New map added.

You can take Portugal or Aragon, those two are still empty. I really like your idea, we should make things a little more realistic than in other hotseats and castles were really more difficult to conquer than normal towns. We can add this to the rules.

[yuonyuon]

"""- Your agents are not allowed to linger on enemy territory for spying, except spies. This is to make things more realistic as diplomats, princesess, merchants and priests weren’t on enemy territory in times of war. This prohibition does not apply to a time of peace.""" this rule is pointless. because in time of war they got killed anyway . but in other hand 3 assassins is to much , i can destroy other factions buildings all day with 70%-- lets change a little bit , maybe two i enough and when sieging two or more catapults are needed ,is more realistic i think .by the way i chose Portugal !

[Mithridate]

Much as the idea is interesting and have only been attempted in westeros, id rather not complicate things too much. One cata/treb is enough but possibly the rule that catapults can only be used vs forts and wooden walls while you need trebs for any stone walls. Realistic, and less complicated than a list of how many sieges you need vs whatever wall. This makes early era campaigns damn interesting i should add, while it may not make that much of a difference in late era.

Id also like to suggest tweaking the assassination rule, 60% is too high ( assassin vs assassin at least ). High level assassins will be unkillable unless changed.

heres an old list,

subterfuge skill v subterfuge skill and odds
9v7 52%
5v6 36%
5v5 42%
9v8 37%
9v9 42%

As to sabotage i dont know, 70% may seem high but sabotaging is relatively easy and defensive spies does little unless of high talent