The Four Kings (Kingdoms Teutonic HS) [ENDED]

[Errichto]

The Four Kings HS

The Teutonic campaign with only four human-played factions (listed below). Choose yours and I will take the last remaining one. Other factions are AI (campaign difficulty VH). Please note the very unusual rules.

admin - Captainnorway

Novgorod - CelivalTheGreat
HRE - LordPureLegacy
Denmark - cowcow
Poland - Errichto

(special Denmark rule: needs 20% chance to kill the Norway king and form the Kalmar Union)

All battles are auto-resolved. You have 36 hours for a turn.

It's ALLOWED to: have heroic wins, surround an enemy to deny retreat, block agents with walls of armies (but NOT allowed to kill them), besiege in order to deny the garrison from reinforcing or to deny some other army from retreating to this settlement/fort, attack anybody on the first turn. You also can stomp on an agent if he blocks you from building a fort.

Forbidden:

• exploits and bugs, e.g. movement bug, naval attack spam, merchant stack/fort, killing agents by stomping, armies on ships to go through the enemy zone of control (brown tiles where armies should stop), spies spreading the plague, leaving blocked ports or attacking ships in a port, etc.
• winning naval battles with odds worse than 1:2 (exactly 1:2 is allowed)
• build watchtowers
• luring the ambushing army into ZoC of forts\settlement's as such robbing them of their movement points
• sally out and lose (to deny sacking)
• diplomacy with AI, except for maps and trade rights

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. Armies standing in settlement/fort when defeated are excluded from this rule.

The maximum of 2 forts per region. A fort can be occupied even by 1 unit only (but read the open-gates rule below).

You can block a port with ground units. 2 units required for every ship.

A unit of siege equipment can be used only once per turn. A ballista can attack wooden walls. A catapult can attack basic stone walls/castles. A trebuchet can attack fortresses and all cities. A citadel can't be taken with a siege equipment.

Agents

• Agents can do everything against AI. The only exceptions are diplomacy (only trade rights and maps allowed) and killing the Norway king (20% needed, as mentioned above).
• It's allowed to open gates with wooden walls. For that, you need the number of spies equal to at least the number of units inside. E.g. if there are 3 units inside, you need at least 3 spies (otherwise you aren't allowed to open the gates).
• Spies need 30% to infiltrate a fort/settlement. A spy needs to re-enter if he was already inside in the previous turn.
• Limit of 2 assassins per faction. +1 Assassin for every 15 regions you control.
• Assassins can't sabotage and can't kill family members. At least 50% needed to kill a general, 30% for an enemy assassin, 50% for other agents.
• Princesses can marry anybody with at least 30% chance.
• Merchants need 50% to acquire other merchant's assets. Only allowed in your own regions, rebel regions, or regions you have acquired trade rights to.
• Bribed units/agents can't move for one turn.

Settlement rules

• Can't destroy buildings in a settlement if: a far superior army is one turn away (exception: starting regions), or under siege, or you haven't yet held it for 3 turns.
• Can't exterminate.
• You must disband all but 1 unit in a settlement gained through diplomacy.

You DON'T HAVE TO post screenshots but it's recommended to make and save them. If you think someone broke rules (you don't know how he could achieve something), the suspected person must send privately to admin screenshots (with explanation if necessary).

The last living faction wins.

Feel free to discuss the rules. I can change them if given good reasons for that (maybe I should change some numbers/percentages?). Please note that the small number of players means that turns should be quite frequent, so don't join if you don't have time. Remember that the rules are very unusual so read them carefully again before making your first turn.

EDIT: starting from turn 2, you can't attack and lose a battle.

EDIT2: clarified the rule about destroying buildings by adding "or" in 2 places.

[saleska2]

I'd recommend you copy as much rules as possible from as recent possible AR HotSeats from TWC. It looks solid thus far but people here will find any breakthrough in the rules. For example I see nothing that forbids players to lose battles on purpose, this has in the past led to quite some impressive people abusing this. You may want those rules tho as it does look solid but I'd check anyway.

Aside from that campaign and battle difficulty should be on medium as you will otherwise be impacting AR(no changes to AR with medium settings).

I doubt ill be joining unless some other veterans join tho but I do recommend you try to get an admin asap.

EDIT: Should mention that I dont mean stricly copy/pasting the rules but mentioning as much of the rules that are mentioned in other HotSeats aswell

[Errichto]

I followed the rules from your AR HS from this year (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...World-SS6-4-HS). I think I misunderstood the rule "You are not allowed to post a defeat". English isn't my first language. I thought it means "you can't post screenshots on the forum" what sounds stupid. So it means "you can't attack and loose"? Makes sense. I guess it's against losing a sally-out and luring an ambushing army. Something else? Killing a general maybe after quickloading many times?

I would very much appreciate the discussion about the rules and I'm willing to fix them. I generally tried to allow a lot of things that don't seem bad to me and just add more thinking and tactics to the game (like besieging a settlement for a moment - btw. I played with this allowed in Polish TW and it was fine).

[Captainnorway]

I'll be admining the hs

[cowcow]

I'm interested in Denmark but I'm okay with taking any faction

[Mergor]

"surround an enemy to deny retreat"

imo this should only be allowed if you can only surrond an enemy with generals to deny retreat. Killing off entire armies in AR within a single turn is OP

[CelivalTheGreat]

Im in i want novgorod

[Errichto]

Hmm. For me, it's like saying "taking empty settlements is OP". One should not leave empty settlements. (though, I understand that many people will agree with you).

Hi, cowcow. Sure, take Denmark

[cowcow]

"surround an enemy to deny retreat"

imo this should only be allowed if you can only surrond an enemy with generals to deny retreat. Killing off entire armies in AR within a single turn is OP

I like the idea of being able to surround armies, but I agree it can't be allowed to get out of hand. My idea is if you want to surround an enemy to deny a retreat, each surrounding army needs 5 units and you need 2 generals present to perform the maneuver, or somethin like that.

[Errichto]

My reasoning is that one should avoid being surrounded at all costs, what is very life-like. A surrounded army should be in disadvantage. This rule makes a lot of sense in Vanilla. For example, when you are between mountains you should try to secure at least one side (to avoid enemies behind you). If no one agrees with me, maybe the following fix is good: each surrounding stack needs at least one infantry unit. The cavalry has insane MP in Kingdoms and this fix makes it much harder to surround anyone. An other idea: it's possible to surround and destroy only if odds are 2:1 or better. Still, I prefer to allow everything here and to make people think during their turn "I shouldn't put a valuable army at risk".

Cowcow's proposal makes things extremely hard in the open field (with 8 cells around you) and when armies are small. It allows annihilating a big army with your big army, while doesn't allow annihilating a small army with your small army.

Mergor's proposal makes sense but I personally don't like it. I don't think we should reward for having a lot of generals nearby.

[cowcow]

yea, thinking about it a flat number restriction was a silly idea.

i think the infantry rule is a good idea. Needing 2:1 seems too restrictive, though. Maybe just need better than 1:1? If you win the battle when you had an advantage to begin with, it seems fair to me that destroying the army should be allowed.

[saleska2]

Imo its too hard punishing on a single mistake. You cant always and at all times prevent being surrounded and someone is bound to outplay another sometime, and the one time it happens you can completely destroy the enemy army with all of his elite units and generals. this would mean that even if you get an "Average Victory" you still get a huge advantage. It would likely improve the defenders chances even more. Personally I would just wait for the 1 single mistake from my opponent, destroy his entire stack and then push forward without being contested.

[Errichto]

Announcement: the campaign difficulty will be MEDIUM instead of VH, as saleska2 suggested (thanks). I assume it doesn't affect anybody's faction choice.

"Personally I would just wait for the 1 single mistake from my opponent" - I would happily play against someone who sits and waits (yeah, I know I'm exaggerating and waiting doesn't mean doing nothing).

Defeating an army kills the half of it anyway (or something like that), so we're talking about destroying the other half, not about suddenly destroying the whole stack. Also, the defeated army retreats and can't move in the same turn, what makes them less valuable (for two reasons: almost can't use them in battle and they are at risk). One more thing: please note that an army in settlement/fort also gets destroyed completely, while also you lose a settlement/ground. How is surrounding more hardcore than that? Losing a settlement with army hurts more already.

Also, welcome CelivalTheGreat! So we have one more spot - Poland or Germany.

[Mergor]

I do like the idea of lifting some rules which are really common to give a new taste to the game, but as cowcow says, it can't be allowed to get out of hand. But again, you are the admin Errichto

Also, I wish to be some kind of reserve player, if noone else joins = count me in, if someone leaves = count me in. I promised myself that I wouldn't take any more HS but this is something I'm interested in.

[LordPureLegacy]

I will take HRE but can someone tell me how i can re download my dlc's without having to reinstall my whole medieval two total war.

[Errichto]

Novgorod - CelivalTheGreat
HRE - LordPureLegacy
Denmark - cowcow (remember the special rule about assassinating the Norwegian king!)
Poland - Errichto

Captainnorway will take create a starting save.

Have fun, everybody!

[LordPureLegacy]

I know i said i was taking HRE errichot but i still need to know how to install my dlcs without installing my whole medieval two total war.

[Captainnorway]

I know i said i was taking HRE errichot but i still need to know how to install my dlcs without installing my whole medieval two total war.

I'll send you the file

[Captainnorway]

Let's get this hs started, Good Luck to all the players

Novgorod https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5a...ew?usp=sharing

[saleska2]

Defeating an army kills the half of it anyway (or something like that), so we're talking about destroying the other half, not about suddenly destroying the whole stack. Also, the defeated army retreats and can't move in the same turn, what makes them less valuable (for two reasons: almost can't use them in battle and they are at risk). One more thing: please note that an army in settlement/fort also gets destroyed completely, while also you lose a settlement/ground. How is surrounding more hardcore than that? Losing a settlement with army hurts more already.

I think you are missing a few key points.

1. You immediatly kill the general, some generals are crazy good and also get alot of hitpoint traits making it harder to kill them in battle, this way you just instakill even the best general.
2. Close victories become easy victories. There are plenty of average and close victories in which you lose 30-40% of your army and the opponent loses around 60%. Now you lose 30-40% but he loses 100% of his army.
3. Even tho the army cant move next turn it can still be protected, the player can still fort the army.
4. The point about settlements is quite useless Yes you lose the whole army but you dont nearly lose it as easily as on land. Settlements/forts provide wall bonusses making battles harder, especially in AR. You also need a way to enter a settlement/fort which is either with spies or catapults, spies can be countered and you have a movement range advantage against catapults. So while you lose the whole stack in a settlement/fort the enemy actually has to get in plenty of work to destroy that whole stack while in theory one doesnt even need a single extra unit than he would normally use to completely destroy the stack on land.

Now im not saying you must forbid this rule, it wont make the HS crazy unbalanced or something like that but there are very good reasons the rule isnt allowed normally as it quite anti-fun.