A series of proposals

[Pontifex Maximus]

I'm making these in no particular order.

1. Professional point caps should be based on relative lordly rank, not just whether you're a lord or not.

Royalty, 5,000 points : Includes anyone with the title Prince, King, Queen

Lord Paramount, 4,000 points: Includes all the lords paramount titles except any that can claim a royal title

High Lords, 3,500 points: Self explanatory

Minor Lords, 3,000: every other lordly house not having the above political distinctions

*These changes reflect relative strength/power in the ability to house larger household bodies of troops.

2. The economic investment system and edicts system are at extreme odds with one another. An investment in miltiia barracks for example grants 250 permanent militia points. An edict costs half of that and gives you four times the amount on a "temporary" basis that you can keep buying year after year. At the next militia barracks tier you get another 250. So 500 permanent militia points costs 60,000. That is 6x what the edict costs and grants only one half of what the edict grants. So let's double the militia points from the buildings or half the number from the edicts and increase the cost to 20,000.

2A. It's also ridiculous that instead of getting trade routes you can just "tax merchants" the equivalent of 40,000 per year via edicts. Either trade in the game is going to mean something or we're just going to grant everyone an extra 40k in income as a base.

2B. We need to limit the number of edicts purchased per year and maybe put a cooldown on how many can be purchased consecutively.

3. The soldiers for hire are not balanced well. Pretty much all the AOR units aren't worth hiring. I don't even know where to start with them, but increasing their cost and then making their bonuses contingent upon how large the army they're in is useless especially since the larger army wins no matter what 99% of the time. An army of 5k with half of them as elite infantry and going to lose against a 25k predonimanlty levy army.

3A. Instead of trying to nail down what units (AOR, elites, polearms, etc) can do by proportion and mathematical rolls, I propose this a system with more flexibility. Make the tiers of standard, elite or AOR come with the capability of adding modifiers dependent upon how they are used. Let's take infantry as an example.

Mercenary Heavy Infantry: no possible bonus, just be glad you have extra heavy infantry
Elite Heavy Infantry: Possible +1-2
Elite Heavy AOR Infantry: Possible +1-4

The number of bonus to be applied will be completely arbitrary, based on the orders given to those units, and subject to change. Elite infantry would be regarded as the best of the best fighters, the equivalent of special forces. They're simply capable of more: inspiring nearby troops, forming a crack corps of troops in the center of a line for a devestating charge, or a surprise attack from some woods that would cause a shock to the enemy line. The possibilities are almost endless but it is up to the person sending in orders to create a situation where a moderator could add modifiers based on how they are used. We can still keep in mind that a single 300 man unit in an army of 25,000 might not have as much of an impact in a fully pitched battle. But, maybe if they are posted in the rearguard in the event of a full rout, they could pull some 300 Spartans and keep the rout rolls from being too bad.

4. It's time to adjust the battle rolls to a 30 sided or random selection x/30 so we have more mathematical flexibility with bonuses. Might even be worth looking into an x/50.

[Pericles of Athens]

I don't think Queens or Princes should be able to have more professionals than LPs. LPs are where the real power lies in Westeros.

[Pontifex Maximus]

I don't think Queens or Princes should be able to have more professionals than LPs. LPs are where the real power lies in Westeros.

That's already reflected in the fact they can have (a larger, at the least) militia and levy, and not to mention command regional influence above the King. Every LP that has defected in this game, for example, has had a large majority of other lrods in their lands follow suit.

And if an LP wants to assert dominance and claim a royal title...what's stopping him?

[Lucius Malfoy]

I actually have to agree with Perry, LPs are where all the power is. The rules state that ALL lords get a 3k professional troop limit which I think is very fair.

[Lord Dread]

Thing is though, if we really do the professional cap like that, it will make the LPs too powerful in their doing.
Plus, the professional soldier system is already complex enough in my eyes and won't get used too much by minor lords anyways, due to the levy raiseing costs. We solely needed caps in the past so people couldn't rebell that easily for stupid reasons, provideing nothing to the RP at all - since that's not the case anymore, I don't see why we would need a change.
Oh and we also introduced unit caps, because of the Blackfyre system and by looks of how many troops the Westerlands could pump out without any sweat due to gold bonus.

If we really need to raise the cap of professional troops getting trained, it should be 5,000 for all.

[Pontifex Maximus]

The points cap as proposed will not even double the amount of professional troops you can field. If you invest in the cheapest "professional" unit right now you can field an additional 3,000 light infantry or archers. Barely a drop in the bucket compared to how many you could get from a levy. LPs essentially stay the same relative to everyone but the King, who will have a slight advantage.

This proposal isn't making anything more complex. All that happens is your points increase.

The purpose of the cap isn't to keep people from rebelling for no reason, it is to avoid people from using their full incomes to soliders to avoid raising armies of 30,000-50,000 man professional armies. You really don't understand the system for professional soldiers at all if you think a kingdom that makes more money can produce any more professional soldiers than a poor one. The Lannisters can field just as many profesisonals as the Arryns starting week 1. Both houses could invest all their starting income in elite heavy cavalry and have some left over because of the point cap. Personally I think this is stupid but I'm in the minority.

I'll end with this: Not every Kingdom, lordly house, or noble rank in this game is the same. If we are going to stay at all true to the lroe we have to recognize that a Kingdom like the Vale simply will never be as powerful as the Westerlands or the Reach. This game isn't interesting if we balance it out perfectly.

[The Mad Skylord]

I see Ponti's point. I'd b in agreement with it, tbh.

[Honors Bastion]

1. No comment yet as we might be discussing changing some of the levy numbers and raising the militia and professional soldier caps. I do however support a bit more distinction between King/Prince/LP vs High Lord vs Minor Lord/Knight.

2. Interesting points but I must add that the edict system isn't a one time payment. The edicts should be paid yearly so in the long run of things, the edicts would ultimately cost more than the buildings would. In addition, the buildings versus the edicts is supposed to highlight the difference between having something permanent that is always in effect for the buildings over something that should be used only when it's needed (which is not how it actually works) for the edicts. Definitely some re-balancing is needed there.

3. As far as I know, the professional soldier types has not been touched in a long while and aren't really balanced to how we are doing things now, partly because there was never a great need to do that before. It might be worth it to take a look at them again.

4. No comment on this as I have no clue on what the effect will be.

[Pontifex Maximus]

2. Interesting points but I must add that the edict system isn't a one time payment. The edicts should be paid yearly so in the long run of things, the edicts would ultimately cost more than the buildings would. In addition, the buildings versus the edicts is supposed to highlight the difference between having something permanent that is always in effect for the buildings over something that should be used only when it's needed (which is not how it actually works) for the edicts. Definitely some re-balancing is needed there.

Point taken but when it takes seven weeks to start dipping into the red with edicts all the while enjoying a 3:1 or 2:1 ratio on building militia points and we might need to retool it.

[Poach]

I'm making these in no particular order.

1. Professional point caps should be based on relative lordly rank, not just whether you're a lord or not.

Royalty, 5,000 points : Includes anyone with the title Prince, King, Queen

Lord Paramount, 4,000 points: Includes all the lords paramount titles except any that can claim a royal title

High Lords, 3,500 points: Self explanatory

Minor Lords, 3,000: every other lordly house not having the above political distinctions

*These changes reflect relative strength/power in the ability to house larger household bodies of troops.

2. The economic investment system and edicts system are at extreme odds with one another. An investment in miltiia barracks for example grants 250 permanent militia points. An edict costs half of that and gives you four times the amount on a "temporary" basis that you can keep buying year after year. At the next militia barracks tier you get another 250. So 500 permanent militia points costs 60,000. That is 6x what the edict costs and grants only one half of what the edict grants. So let's double the militia points from the buildings or half the number from the edicts and increase the cost to 20,000.

The system was supposed to be tested by the Ironborn game but that flopped hard, so I agree with your findings and have said elsewhere in the forum that both professional and militia points values might need adjusted, probably upwards. By the same token people are far too willing to summon their levies than I'd anticipated. The whole point was to have people fighting with standing/militia troops and a mass levy to look more like the last days of the Third Reich, not the go-to way to form an army. So in conjunction with giving people more of an ability to form professional and semi-professional fighting forces I want to explore making levies less attractive except as a desperate measure.

2A. It's also ridiculous that instead of getting trade routes you can just "tax merchants" the equivalent of 40,000 per year via edicts. Either trade in the game is going to mean something or we're just going to grant everyone an extra 40k in income as a base.

Edicts cost 10k to maintain so you're getting a 20k boost in return for foregoing two trade good bonuses. This is possibly lucrative for poor houses, which was the point. Do you feel +10k for -1 trade route is too good a deal?

2B. We need to limit the number of edicts purchased per year and maybe put a cooldown on how many can be purchased consecutively.

Many of the edicts are only actionable if others aren't already in operation. What further restrictions do you have in mind? Really only the "Land Edicts" are unrestricted.

3. The soldiers for hire are not balanced well. Pretty much all the AOR units aren't worth hiring. I don't even know where to start with them, but increasing their cost and then making their bonuses contingent upon how large the army they're in is useless especially since the larger army wins no matter what 99% of the time. An army of 5k with half of them as elite infantry and going to lose against a 25k predonimanlty levy army.

AOR Elite Infantry, 900 points, 12k hire and 2,500 upkeep. Per point that's 13 Dragons to hire and 2.8 Dragons to keep.

Heavy Infantry, 600 points, 8k hire and 1,700 upkeep. Per point that's 13 Dragons to hire and 2.8 Dragons to keep.

Light Infantry and Archers, 300 points, 5k hire and 1k upkeep. 16.6 Dragons and 3.3 Dragons per point.

AOR Cavalry, 700 points, 14k hire, 3k upkeep. 20 Dragons and 4.3 Dragons per point.

Heavy Cavalry, same as AOR Cavalry, making AOR Cavalry the better hire, it's effectively 100 free extra points.

Light Cavalry, 300 points, 8k hire, 3k upkeep. 26.6 Dragons and 10 Dragons per point. If anything, Light Cavalry is the overpriced unit, but you could argue it has a utility premium as a scouting unit and the fastest unit on the map, so groups of them are uncatchable.

I would argue AOR units are, in fact, the most desirable hire.

3A. Instead of trying to nail down what units (AOR, elites, polearms, etc) can do by proportion and mathematical rolls, I propose this a system with more flexibility. Make the tiers of standard, elite or AOR come with the capability of adding modifiers dependent upon how they are used. Let's take infantry as an example.

Mercenary Heavy Infantry: no possible bonus, just be glad you have extra heavy infantry
Elite Heavy Infantry: Possible +1-2
Elite Heavy AOR Infantry: Possible +1-4

The number of bonus to be applied will be completely arbitrary, based on the orders given to those units, and subject to change. Elite infantry would be regarded as the best of the best fighters, the equivalent of special forces. They're simply capable of more: inspiring nearby troops, forming a crack corps of troops in the center of a line for a devestating charge, or a surprise attack from some woods that would cause a shock to the enemy line. The possibilities are almost endless but it is up to the person sending in orders to create a situation where a moderator could add modifiers based on how they are used. We can still keep in mind that a single 300 man unit in an army of 25,000 might not have as much of an impact in a fully pitched battle. But, maybe if they are posted in the rearguard in the event of a full rout, they could pull some 300 Spartans and keep the rout rolls from being too bad.

This can be handled by in-battle modifiers by the sounds of it, no? I do apply modifiers to individual battle rounds depending on the orders I'm given and how I think they would fare relative to the opposing orders.

4. It's time to adjust the battle rolls to a 30 sided or random selection x/30 so we have more mathematical flexibility with bonuses. Might even be worth looking into an x/50.

That would need the entire battle formula system reworked which, though possible, isn't something I'm keen to do in the middle of a war, perhaps even in the middle of a game. Last time I reworked battles I dug into the archives and re-rolled half a dozen battles to see what the new system would do to the outcome, in order to make sure it wasn't retarded. It's a big effort.

[Pontifex Maximus]

The system was supposed to be tested by the Ironborn game but that flopped hard, so I agree with your findings and have said elsewhere in the forum that both professional and militia points values might need adjusted, probably upwards. By the same token people are far too willing to summon their levies than I'd anticipated. The whole point was to have people fighting with standing/militia troops and a mass levy to look more like the last days of the Third Reich, not the go-to way to form an army. So in conjunction with giving people more of an ability to form professional and semi-professional fighting forces I want to explore making levies less attractive except as a desperate measure.

It's the only way to field a large number of troops quickly. If I was relying on my militia and professionals solely for years 1 and 2 Frey, a High Lord, would barely be able to field about 2,000 men total. And I'd be bankrupt. That being said, by turns 5 or 6 that number could potentially be closer to 8k militia and professionals, making it about as desirable as the levy.

Edicts cost 10k to maintain so you're getting a 20k boost in return for foregoing two trade good bonuses. This is possibly lucrative for poor houses, which was the point. Do you feel +10k for -1 trade route is too good a deal?

It isn't clear to me that is reflected in the bulls wares? Did I miss something?

Many of the edicts are only actionable if others aren't already in operation. What further restrictions do you have in mind? Really only the "Land Edicts" are unrestricted.

Maybe one per category per year.

snip
Light Cavalry, 300 points, 8k hire, 3k upkeep. 26.6 Dragons and 10 Dragons per point. If anything, Light Cavalry is the overpriced unit, but you could argue it has a utility premium as a scouting unit and the fastest unit on the map, so groups of them are uncatchable.

I would argue AOR units are, in fact, the most desirable hire.

You can hire at at least one or two more of the downgraded version and end up with more points in your army total though. Based on the numbers game that seems to be an advantage. I'm only like 75% sure about that, math not being my strong suit, but the AOR units seem a bit overpriced for what they actually do and how many of them total you can field.

This can be handled by in-battle modifiers by the sounds of it, no? I do apply modifiers to individual battle rounds depending on the orders I'm given and how I think they would fare relative to the opposing orders.

Yes exactly. And hopefully place a bit more importance on actually thinking through a battle plan instead of just primarily worrying about positioning.

That would need the entire battle formula system reworked which, though possible, isn't something I'm keen to do in the middle of a war, perhaps even in the middle of a game. Last time I reworked battles I dug into the archives and re-rolled half a dozen battles to see what the new system would do to the outcome, in order to make sure it wasn't retarded. It's a big effort.

I agree, we shouldn't change the system mid stream.

[Poach]

Levies/Militia: Fair enough, this does seem to be an issue of starting off at war from day 1.

Edicts: Bull's Wares says it gives you +20k income, and that Edicts are temporary effects. You need to re-buy every edict you want every week, none are permanent.

AOR Troops: Being that armies are limited to 25,000 men surely more troops of higher points is the optimum? Get as many Elite units in there as you can and pad out the rest with militia or levy troops to bring the numbers up, meaning your average points per soldier is higher.

Battle modifiers and system: We seem to agree on these, then.

[Pontifex Maximus]

For edicts, does the trade edict cost money to buy that you recoup in the +20k?

AOR troops: Yes, but if I can stick 1500 heavy infantry in my army and knock out 1500 light infantry or archers, I think that is gross army optimization as opposed to 900 elite infantry?

[Honors Bastion]

For edicts, does the trade edict cost money to buy that you recoup in the +20k?

AOR troops: Yes, but if I can stick 1500 heavy infantry in my army and knock out 1500 light infantry or archers, I think that is gross army optimization as opposed to 900 elite infantry?

Yep, the trade edict costs 10,000 to buy to get 20,000 additional income so it only appears to be a net 10k. However, you also need to take into account any bonus income that you would get from traits and bonus income modifiers since it is technically land income now. Depending on how good your bonuses are, let's say 50%, that's an additional 10k income on that 20k making it a net profit of 20k in the end.