SGFNP--------> House Rules

[Xtiaan72]

We are trying to gather information on the 'House Rules' people use when they play DLV. If you come up with a good one it will be included in our 6.2 update of the guide and you will be listed as a contributor to the guide in our credits. ( And of course +Rep)... The idea is to create the ultimate 'IRON MAN' house rules for DLV 6.2. As always thanks for contributing! Here are some questions to get it going but the thread is intended to be 'Wide-open" to ideas or suggestions on ways to play that enhance the DLV experience.

1. Are there any 'house rules' that you use to enhance the role-playing aspects of the game?

2. Do you allow yourself to "reload" battles if you lose one?

3. Do you try to play in the 'foot steps' that your faction did historically?

4. Do you let the AI expand for 20 to 40 turns without being aggressive with other factions? ( as is recommended by Repman)

If you've got more....FIRE AWAY!

[Aneximanes]

1.
I build my armies and then keep them together. No retraining, only refilling the stack by merging newly trained units with the old ones.
No fullstacks, max 15-16 units per stack.
minimum one general (min. Knight) per stack. (In a crisis this rule can be broken)
When I decide it is time to build a new sort of army (higher tech), I disband the old ones and build complete new ones.
No attacking other factions, they need to attack first or "declare war" (moving stacks to my cities / forts)

2.
No reloading battles.

3.
Not intentionally.

4.
Yes, I use the time to build up economy and grabb the odd rebel settlement.

[Xtiaan72]

Aneximanes

Your rules for #1 are kick ass! There 'House Rules' are excellent.. (+rep)

2. Personally I don't reload during campaigns but sometimes I'll 'Save' a battle and label it if I get my ass kicked. Those are always fun to replay and see what you did wrong... Sometimes you figure out that winning the battle was impossible.

3. If I get a wild hare to do something crazy sometimes I do it... Also if I'm doing an AAR and my characters have certain traits I will let that influence my decisions.

4. Of Course.

Agistournas,

Your #1 is hard-core to the extreme!

[Agis Tournas]

This is something that I have done a long ago:

Try the following
(Tested and working)

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionIsLocal
and I_TurnNumber = 10
if I_LocalFaction elo
kill_character BAUDOUIN4
end_if
end_monitor

console_command is not needed for the command kill_character.
BAUDOUIN4 is the label I use in my games, for BAUDOUIN IV of Jerusalem in the descr_strat.txt

NOTE: label means that in descr_strat.txt (at the imperial_campaign folder of your game installation) your faction leader (Baudouin IV of Jerusalem) should look like this:
character Baudouin, named character, male, leader, age 19, x 440, y 91, label BAUDOUIN4
Cheers
Agis

[Agis Tournas]

My house rules depend on historical accuracy.
I always try to simulate a factions 'foot steps' along the starting years...
1. Are there any 'house rules' that you use to enhance the role-playing aspects of the game?
Sometimes I edit the descr_strat.txt making historicaly accurate family trees and/or make scripts for killing family members on the date they really died. I usually try to keep good relations with factions that historicaly were allies, etc etc...
2. Do you allow yourself to "reload" battles if you lose one?
Yes - sometimes...
3. Do you try to play in the 'foot steps' that your faction did historically?
Absolutely yes!
4. Do you let the AI expand for 20 to 40 turns without being aggressive with other factions? ( as is recommended by Repman)
I always try to expand economically before getting aggressive with other factions.

[Leonnidas]

1. Are there any 'house rules' that you use to enhance the role-playing aspects of the game?
2. Do you allow yourself to "reload" battles if you lose one?
3. Do you try to play in the 'foot steps' that your faction did historically?
4. Do you let the AI expand for 20 to 40 turns without being aggressive with other factions? ( as is recommended by Repman

1. The ones already in DLV, no adoptions, princesses always get maried with princes or family memebers from other factions.
2. Usually no
3. Only with Bizantines
4. Yes

[Xtiaan72]

Everybody is coming up with great rules

I'm going to find some time this week to update the opening post with the best ones and then we can all vote on them.... I'll set up a poll thread and 'Iron Man' rules that get a majority vote will be included in the next guide!

Then people can list in their threads or AAR's if they are playing 'Iron Man' or not!!!

[Agis Tournas]

Everybody is coming up with great rules
I'm going to find some time this week to update the opening post with the best ones and then we can all vote on them.... I'll set up a poll thread and 'Iron Man' rules that get a majority vote will be included in the next guide!
Then people can list in their threads or AAR's if they are playing 'Iron Man' or not!!!

Nice idea Xtiaan72
It will be fun to make something like a DLV campaign competition!

[Kjertesvein]

1. Are there any 'house rules' that you use to enhance the role-playing aspects of the game?
-If my princess gets seduced by another character, unloyalty among the ranks, etc. then I will follow up on that person; That means - "I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers & sister! And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you!" -Juleus Wille.
-If I face a poor king, just before the battle, then I will spare his life. Inspire to civil war, low authority, are all triats of a falling empire. For such a low fellow will only bring harm to his people, and for that I will not judge him.
-Turkey, atleast in my last campaign, the new Sultan doesn't need to crown him self. The nobles will not get angry, nor unloyal. This is only a signs of a new beurocratic society, the Köprülü era. (typical blackleaf-behavior when a bug strikes his game).

2. Do you allow yourself to "reload" battles if you lose one?
This is one of the great challenges I had in my early M2tw era. I have now found a complete cure for this. Now I never ever reload. Not even for the greatest "alexanders". NEVER.

So right after my "Ceaser" die in battle, I will pause, take a facepalm moment and remember...


7.7... Magistratus tips

• How to not be a bad looser: [spoiler]

  I played a whole game in the 'non-loader' style. It was in Rome: Total War and it was the most enjoyable campaign I had ever played. The reason I did not bother reloading after losing any battle, large or small, was because I was a tyrant. If my soldiers failed to win a battle that I was counting on them for, then they DESERVED to die. In fact, if I could see that they were failing I would retreat my general and archers but charge all infantry and cavalry.
  
  And when you know you are going to lose the battle, your goal is to make the enemy's victory very costly. When I looked at it in this perspective, losing a battle began to seem more and more acceptable.
  
  Stop being such a perfectionist! You should build an army with a general and throw him on a suicide run and deliberately save the game after you've lost.
  
  Don't be weak! Your soldiers have nothing better to do than to die for you. They are small, they are beneath you, and you are the boss of them.
  
  If you are afraid that you will lose ground because of defeat at a large battle, don't worry. After all, you were expecting this and have been assembling another army to destroy what was left of the enemy.
  
  Edit:
  By the way, I have OCD but was able to 'non-load' because deliberately saving after a defeat became a ritual and a reflex. I can't begin to tell you how much more fun Total War battles are when tons of your men die and you can't do anything else but mock their deaths. Once, I had to pause out of battle because it was TOO much fun and I couldn't handle it!

3. Do you try to play in the 'foot steps' that your faction did historically?
Allways, it is also very easy- If my knigdom gets stabel, then I will leave it, and expand. Historically colonize, example: Norway --> Greenland, america, raid western europe. France --> Middle east(with order units), Cypros, Florida(gunpowder units). Turkey -->http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...pireIn1683.pngEtc. Exeptions might be Lithuanian, TO - I normally migrate some where safe with socialist.

4. Do you let the AI expand for 20 to 40 turns without being aggressive with other factions? ( as is recommended by Repman)
Large factions = yes. Small factions = no time.

[Xtiaan72]

Ha...He's right....Think like a king, damn it!



Here's one;

EDIT:

*Do not recruit more than three units of each type for Knightly Order ( Templars...Ect) These should be special units, not a faction unto themselves. Two units for each unit type of Knightly Order troops can be used as front line troops...and the third unit must be garrisoned at all times ( It's your reserve and is only used as replacements for your front-line Knightly Order troops.

[Kjertesvein]

Does any one know how to Add/edit one of the starting pop-up in DLV. It would be pretty cool to make a House Rules-mini mod

[BamaToon]

1. Are there any 'house rules' that you use to enhance the role-playing aspects of the game?

2. Do you allow yourself to "reload" battles if you lose one?

3. Do you try to play in the 'foot steps' that your faction did historically?

4. Do you let the AI expand for 20 to 40 turns without being aggressive with other factions? ( as is recommended by Repman)

1. I have several house rules that I normally use. My most common ones are:

All armies are led by a general or a family member. The only exception to this is when transferring troops to a new post (settlement or fort).

I mod my family tree so that princesses either retire after just a few years after coming of age or mod them out entirely. I hate having a family tree full of girls and then having to adopt some loser just to keep my faction from dying out.

Related to the above rule is a strict "no adoption" and "no suitor" policy unless it's absolutely necessary. If I keep princesses in the game, I save them to marry them off to their uncles/cousins, or to rival factions to seal an alliance (as was done historically throughout the time period represented in the game).

I almost always play defensively, only going to war when I am attacked by a rival faction, rather than just steamrolling everyone around me.

I only take provinces as and when they are dictated to me by my council of nobles. Sometimes this means that I sit around and let the CPU take the surrounding lands, but that's how it goes sometimes. This is actually not a bad thing since it means the CPU gets stronger.

2. The only time I reload a battle is if it's one that I was fighting manually and the CPU crashes, and the issue was still in doubt. Usually I will just reload the game and use the "auto_win" command to make sure the appropriate results are reflected. Sometimes this means I lose battles that I might win if I replayed them manually, but that's how it goes. Nobody wins every battle.

3. I try to roleplay historically. For example, if I am playing as a Muslim faction, I will not ally with Catholic or Orthodox factions, and vice versa. If I'm Catholic, I always try to listen to the pope and do what he says, unless he's playing political games (like when I'm attacked by a rival nation that the pope likes, and he wants ME to not attack THEM, but says nothing about them attacking me).

4. I always do this by default due to my cautious playing style. I'm a builder, not a warmonger.

[Kjertesvein]

The best thing would be to create mini mod that had the house rules in the starting pupup, next to the other questions.

[Xtiaan72]

One step at a time buddy... We need to establish what the rules are first... But you are right... And "Iron Man' pop-up would be pretty sick!!!

[Xtiaan72]

1. The Player can only start offensive campaigns during summer turns.. If invaders are within your borders you can do whatever you have to do to defend yourself.

2. The player cannot look at an enemies 'Army Composition' in the 'Army Deployment' screen unless he has a spy in his stack to check out the enemy 'Encampment'

3. The player has 'Causus Belle' with any country as long as that foreign nations 'Blood' flows through your king's veins... In other words, your king has a claim to a country's crown as long as he is a descendant of that country's nobility. ( More reason to find Princess' foreign suitors)

[Grimblade]

1. Are there any 'house rules' that you use to enhance the role-playing aspects of the game?

I NEVER EVER Exterminate.
I don't execute prisoners with chivarlious generals, always use assasins on people that annoy me, I don't assasinate princesses unless I am bored, I like to steal foreign generals with my princesses (when they are youn and they have good stats). I don't like brute characters and I try to avoid them. I also like collecting crowns . I don't usually break treaties but everyone always hates me so there are always new enemies.

2. Do you allow yourself to "reload" battles if you lose one?

Yes, though I hate reloading I still do it (though you have to be a drunk smurf to lose against M2:TW AI ) but then again I haven't really lost a battle I cared about in ages (if I lose 1-2 stack I am sending back for "repair" I don't really reload). Loosing a siege is really something though I guess I would reload but then I haven't lost even one yet in DLV (siege AI am cry even with mods )

3. Do you try to play in the 'foot steps' that your faction did historically?

NO, I like added historical detail in mod (thanks DLV creators ), but since first time I played I won with HRE and 2nd time (now( I am playing with Kingdom of Jerusalem I am not sure how I would do that and still win (especially KOJ campaign ). Also fun is much more important to me then historic foot steps (but I like extra historical "stuff" added to game).

4. Do you let the AI expand for 20 to 40 turns without being aggressive with other factions? ( as is recommended by Repman)

First time I played I started with HRE (hard campaing, not historical) and didn't even read that advice. Needless to say I started blitz on first turn but I was always more or less broke until I crushed Lithuania.
With KOJ historical campaing Turks and Egypt wanted to cut my head from turn one and Desert tribes from turn 5, so I didn't have much choice . I did accept peace treaty when Desert Tribes offered it but they were too weak at that point. It is hard to play peacfully with some factions but they actually seem more fun to me .