What "house rules" do you follow?

[Cryoshakespeare]

So, to come back to this after having played a bit of my first 2.35 campaign as Saba, 84 turns in, I have a few extra house rules I use.

For one, I try to emulate "casus belli", or the cause for a war, in what I can do during a war and after its conclusion. I emulate establishing various casus belli by sending a spy to a settlement and having them stay there for a lengthy period, after which I pounce on various random events and tie them to my target. A good example of this as Saba is how the Marib damn is occasionally damaged, in combination with a minor Eleutheroi stack that appeared, I was able to pin this to the settlement and determine that the ruler there was a tyrant (he had the heartless ruler trait) and had been raiding not only my lands but also his own.

After sending a diplomat there for some time, I figured I negotiated with certain local leaders that I could justly overthrow this regime. However, the man in charge is a good defender and excellent tactician, so for the last few years we've only been able to initiate sieges but not do anything decisive. In any case, when I do finally decide to take the settlement, no doubt I'll only install a tributary state government (the precursor to allied state governments) and leave it like that for 10-20 years (so between 40-80 turns in that state). We overthrew the regime, and have exacted a tribute from the leaders we put in charge, but it wouldn't be right in all likelihood to say we are allies yet. At some point after that 10-20 year mark, I'll send a high ranking diplomat to the settlement and have him establish an embassy there by staying for a while, and then we'll be able to work to create an allied state and appoint a local leader. I also don't let myself build any buildings or recruit in provinces without a governor, so this local leader is essential to me actually ever doing anything with the province. God help me that I got a dull, uncharismatic, languorous leader in one of my allied settlements, as for sure he won't build anything, or very rarely if he becomes an attuned governor.

[Rad]

My casus belli - I get attacked.
I am pretty much happy with sitting around and developing my lands after some initial expansion.

[Septentrionalis]

I really like Cryo's detailed roleplaying and story weaving in the game. Although I try to have some kind of story explanations for my actions, I myself have not got around to anything quite as elaborate because, just like Rad's, my peaceful attempts at building a functioning society are all the time interrupted by aggressive neighbors.

[Marvzilla]

I do the same type of "thought out" reasons, though not quite as indepth, super cool ideas Cryoshakespeare . I like to install small dynasties in cities if fitting for an faction, for example as KB, have other families as my army leaders if possible.

[nvm]

No new conquests as long as the number of FM's remains lower than number of held cities. In my experience it does not slow expansion that much to be honest, but it's a reliable number I can look at rather than contemplate if I do want to expand or not.
No too many of the same unit in armies. I will try to recruit armies varied with all units my empire can provide.
No foreign garrisons in client states. As soon as it becomes eligible to recruit it's own army, it's garrison should be composed almost entirely of units it can recruit.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Playing as Pritanoi I'm enticed to conduct sieges also during the winter. I find it pretty unrealistic and the mod already discourages winter fighting by giving -40% movement penalty. I'm considering introducing a following home rule (as I don't think it's possible to mod it):

You shall not hold a siege in the winter turn in the cold climate. You shall not begin such siege and if you have an ongoing siege started before, you must immediately conclude it either by storming the settlement or by dismantling the siege.

(I'm not sure how to define "cold climate". Or should it be for all climates?)

What do you think?

[Rosbjerg]

Seems realistic Jurand.

I generally also play with Casus Belli, in that the enemy must either attack an ally or me, before I declare war.

If I play Rome or one of the Diadochi, I also play with 'spheres of interest', in that I will attack a large nation (Top 5), if they attack a small nation that I have some designs on. I then declare a rather simple and historical war goal, like the Roman treaty with the Seleucid, separating their spheres of interests along the Taurus mountains. In terms of gameplay, this means I don't overextend or conquer entire nations at once. A huge war in these terms are 3-4 provinces.

This generally tends to lead to historical expansions.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Honestly, none, apart from not saving an re-loading to make sure rng-based mechanics, such as spy infiltration attempts or naval battles work in my favor, and obviously not using some of the known bugs such as increasing recruitment pools, etc.. I find that this mod the best balanced and thought out in Kingdoms M2TW and therefore not much additional handicaps are necessary for a campaign on VH/VH settings. Also, so far I have played almost exclusively with the Getae and the Sarmatians. With the Sarmatians, trying to impose house rules would be impractical, especially as they are very different from a traditional settled faction:
- Cavalry stacks - well, what other choices do I have but to use cavalry with a steppe nomad faction?
- Family members - almost all of them have to go on Bala, and at some point here are only so many places I can send them to complete a Bala, unless I intend to fight all of my neighbors at the same time, which forces me into sending a few of them in a stack. The good news is that I find the Sarmatian bodyguard unit to be not all that great (it is not a bunch of heavy lancers that will run over anything);
- Elites - the Sarmatian faction can really only build Royal Lands in 4 regions, of which Tyragetia does not really provide any elite units of note. The best units I normally have access to are various Sarmatian lancers, including one elite unit that can only be recruited in the Khsai region and has a low replenishment rate, and the Saka kataphrakts, who can only be recruited in Sakhastane, at the other end of the map. The Scythian nobles and the Alan nobles are also nice, but also limited to a single region each. Even if the weak Sarmatian economy can somehow support it, the time and logistics it would take to put a stack of elites together makes it impractical.
- Only FM recruiting units and building things? I am not sure I see this as historical, especially for a tribal nomadic society: the Sarmatians are really a loose federation of tribes. As such, I really do not have a family tree, just a bunch of noblemen from various tribes, with a Khsai noble family ruling them all. The tribes are really in charge of their own lands, with some tribute and military service duties to the ruling family. If a local tribal leader is away on a raid, does that mean that younger warriors that remained behind all of a sudden stop growing and practicing their skills and just wait for a nobleman to come over and give them their weapons and training? Same applies to herds (represented as a building in the mod) - the locals will not stop growing their livestock whether or not they are supervised by the ruling elite.

With single player games, one of the advantages is that you can play with whatever rules you have the most fun with. But I feel that this mod is challenging enough to where the additional handicaps simply are not necessary, with the mechanics implemented by the mod doing a great job of providing a somewhat historically realistic experience. To me, in my Sarmatian campaigns, the mid and late games are harder than the early game due to the economic, unrest and pure military challenges that arise once my borders start stretching from the Baltic to the Altai.

[Roma_Victrix]

Contrary to what I've said before, I actually am following a set of rules about limiting my expansion. For instance, I am not going to invade Greece or the Eastern Mediterranean until about the middle of the 2nd century BC, coinciding with Rome's conquest of Macedonia in 168 BC (and again in 148 BC against the pretender Andriscus) and the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC. Even though the Romans were already doing imperial power projection as far as Anatolia by defeating the Seleucids in a Hellenistic coalition with Pergamon as allies in 190 BC, I won't even bother with West Asia for a long time, but perhaps much earlier than Pompey's conquests in Anatolia and the Levant.

I will, however, do whatever I want in Northwest Africa and Western Europe. I'll even invade the British Isles a hundred years before Julius Caesar even did, and conquer it two hundred years before that was done historically. The Pritanoi are my allies against Aedui and Auernoi at the moment in Gaul, but our alliance will undoubtedly break over something, perhaps an attack on my Boii allies in the future.

It is only 202 BC, but it looks to be a Roman century for Northwestern Africa and Western Europe going forward. That's especially the case since I just took Carthage and allied with the Ptolemaic Empire to ensure they won't screw around with my North African domains as I expand further into Iberia and Gaul. I've even got Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Illyria under my belt, but I won't expand further into the Balkans until many decades from now. I'll probably save the Ptolemies for last, as Egypt was historically the last region of the Mediterranean to be swallowed by the Romans. I'll do that significantly earlier than 30 BC, though, perhaps in 60 or even 70 BC instead.

[Septentrionalis]

I actually have one house rule that makes the game easier in addition the regular ones that make it more challenging. I detest the gameplay mechanism that forces one to make a decision about what to do with a newly acquired region without the possibility of getting to know the place and observe how the sentiment develops.

In game terms, it is so frustrating to have to fight a long battle and then have the lottery produce a revolting town that you cannot do anything about. I do not consider abandoning it, having it whip up a full stack out of nothing, then go through the grinding battle again only to get to choose differently next time as a satisfying option. So before the battle, I autoresolve to see if the most lenient approach with low taxes will be produce something else than the red face, then reload and actually play the battle. To be honest, I do not even now what kind of historical or real-life scenario the whole business is based on. Enslaving or killing people is not the best way to make friends anyway.

[Raiuga]

Do you tend to dissolve units after several years of service or campaign? I'm trying to do that in my campaign with the troops that went on with several years of service but not the garrisons. Its a bit troublesome to keep up with time each units has, but seams a reasonable house rule.

[Rosbjerg]

My approach with experienced troops, is simply that they cannot be retrained in a city, but must be merged with fresh troops (thus loosing experience). If they do not engage in fighting, I simply imagine that the experiences are passed on through training.

[Septentrionalis]

Do you tend to dissolve units after several years of service or campaign? I'm trying to do that in my campaign with the troops that went on with several years of service but not the garrisons. Its a bit troublesome to keep up with time each units has, but seams a reasonable house rule.

I agree that it is a reasonable house rule, but I find the whole recruiting and, if used, retraining process so alien to reality that I imagine roleplaying explanations to almost everything that takes place. I am happy that a unit exists forever, as I imagine that in the background individual soldiers get discharged and replaced with new ones even if the unit itself stays in settlements far away. There are trade caravans moving and ships sailing all the time anyway, although that kind of thinking suits perhaps better to the "more sophisticated" factions such as Romani. For the Romans, many legions existed for very long times. Wikipedia lists the third legion being garrisoned in a single location in the Middle East for 245 years.

At any rate, we can recruit fresh units that are of the "experienced" or "elite" unit type while the junior unit types never become anything else no matter how long they serve. So we can just as well think that the junior units are being replenished in the background from the general population and the senior units from the junior ones. Then the experience chevrons can be interpreted as strong esprit de corps and efficient transmission of experience from battle-hardened soldiers to new additions, which I do not find unrealistic at all.

[Jurand of Cracow]

To sum up my opinions, in my Pritanoi campaign (vh/vh) I've observed the following rules:

1) armies larger than 2 units must be lead by a general. This includes any transfer of troops from recruiting settlements to the frontline. To initiate any battle a general must be present.
2) no sieging during winter north of the line Mare Internum - Mesopotamia. It means: no new sieges can be started, and all current sieges must be resolved instantly - either through storming the walls or through abandoning the siege. (the case for such a rule is three entries below).
3) recruitment and initiating building only with a general present in the settlement (he can leave the settlement during building though) (I wish such a rule would be implemented in the mod by the EBII team (so that I don' need to make it a home rule...), this is rather easy to do).
4) no retraining of units in less-than-half-strength: the heavily depleted units are always merged (this is a good compromise between no-retraining rule and no rule at all: 1) units over 50% of men should be IMO realistically considered to have retained cohesion so they can be replenished; 2) this rule enables the melee units to get higher chevrons (silver, perhaps even gold), 3) it also keeps buildings giving retraining costs bonus useful, WHILE it removes the glaring retraining exploit (when the player merges units, keeps the last few guys with golden chevrons and then retrains them to get a full-golden-unit).
5) no suicidal actions by generals: any bad one must live to the end of his day (such actions are unrealistic as nobody would die voluntarily, and it also makes player's life much easier: bad general - kill him at no cost as the game engine gives another one).
6) balanced army composition: always with a few light units, use of the tribal / lower tier factional units, if possible. Never more than 3 bodyguards in an army (and if so, then at least one must be a young, learning general).
7) any battle fought personally should be a challenge: this means leaving some units deliberately behind while initiating a battle (this rule doesn't impact on the cleaning exercises - like getting rid of two-unit rebellion - as it's done by autocalc).
8) sieges are resolved either personally or by starving the enemy out (autocalc is usually the best way for resolving the sieges so it can be exploited by the player).
9) trading settlements is not allowed with the AI, unless it is included as a part of a peace treaty.
10) trading maps is not allowed at all (it is both very un-historical (nothing like this existed in the ancient times, the knowledge of geography spread with the movement of the people) and bad for the gameplay (AI pays too much for them).
11) armies may embark only on the navy docked in a port (except for a lone general - he can do it anywhere). Disembarking anywhere.

(I've hesitated with another one: any settlement must build a temple asap. This is because I've found that building temples for a few British settlements (Alauna, Dunopalator, Isamnion) unnecessary: they've got good public order and there's no point to pay upkeep for these buildings)

(There should also be a rule concerning Forced Diplomacy, but I haven't used it so I don't know yet how it should be)

[Rad]

Do you tend to dissolve units after several years of service or campaign? I'm trying to do that in my campaign with the troops that went on with several years of service but not the garrisons. Its a bit troublesome to keep up with time each units has, but seams a reasonable house rule.

I don't retrain units. Instead, I merge them to make up for losses. However, I never bothered with this. In my mind, the individual soldiers come and go, but the "company/regiment" goes on. It keeps its combat readiness through passing knowledge down the line, drilling, transfer of capable replacements etc.

[Fahnat]

Whend i do a campaign i always role-play.
I never do what most let's players do of conquering the entire map.
I try to follow the characters traits and ancillaries to do my steps in each campaign, and also do units and buildings if a governor is in the city.

[Tasty Leaf]

To sum up my opinions, in my Pritanoi campaign (vh/vh) I've followed the following rules:

2) no sieging during winter (perhaps north of the line Mare Internum - Mesopotamia, but never got so south ;-). No new sieges shall be started, all current sieges must be resolved instantly - either through storming the walls or through abandoning the siege.

(I've hesitated with another one: any settlement must build a temple asap. This is because I've found that building temples for a few British settlements (Alauna, Dunopalator, Isamnion) unnecessary: they've got good public order and there's no point to pay upkeep for these buildings)

I don't see why you follow this rule; surely, resisting a siege must be as difficult for the defenders as it is as hard for the attackers to maintain an encirclement. The main role of the sieging force is to prevent freedom of movement and cut off the settlement from being resupplied. Supplying a city is hard enough as it is in winter, especially in underdeveloped and agricultural areas where they rely on themselves having a good harvest in order to keep themselves well fed over the cold months. I don't see any reason why you'd have to cut off a siege in winter. The patrolling soldiers on the blockade may suffer a few casualties from hypothermia and such but these are unavoidable in conflicts (although this is not reflected in m2tw). Moreover, why would you allow yourself to assault the settlement in winter when your entire premise is based off the notion that the attackers can't even sustain themselves outside the city due to logistical difficulties and the general hardships of bitter weather with no permanent shelter. In my opinion it doesn't make sense that a half-starved army of celts with frozen toes are able to attack a fortress but not sit by a fire outside it.
The attacking army should be able to maintain the siege outside a city in winter. I don't really think it's a terrible problem for the force.
This is only my idea. I don't know if I've fully understood why you impose this rule on yourself, but be sure to reply with your counter-argument or whatevz.

[Jurand of Cracow]

The attacking army should be able to maintain the siege outside a city in winter. I don't really think it's a terrible problem for the force.

It would have suffered enormous attrition. I don't think military forces would ever spent any longer time in enemy territories in this climate in this period of history in winter. No food, clothes too thin, shoes are sandal-like, death is imminent in such a situation. Flee, everybody flees! Most of the armies got back home and dissolved for winter, I think.
Another question is: in which part of the oikumene this phenomenon would have started? Italy, were there winter sieges? I got bad cold in April just walking through Rome. Greece is really cold in winter, isn't. I recall that according to Herodotus Sardis fell in 547 as nobody had foreseen that Kyros would have continued a campaign in December (otherwise, with troops inside, Sardis wouldn't have fallen). So I'd extend it to Anatolia as well.

Whend i do a campaign i always role-play.
I never do what most let's players do of conquering the entire map.
I try to follow the characters traits and ancillaries to do my steps in each campaign, and also do units and buildings if a governor is in the city.

Neither do I conquer the entire map (ehm, one exception happened).
However, I do optimize. I follow the traits closely - but it has to be of use for the game. I think this is still the game and I'm supposed to do maximum out of it. And what I want from the game designers (in this case: the modding team) is to impose such constraints on my game-behaviour so that I use the least home-rules possible. But still - M2TW has its limits, therefore a few home-rules are needed.

[Rad]

Here's a quirky one

I fought a battle that ended up being something of a Pyrrhic victory. Due to some rl stuff, I quit and did not save the game.
Naturally, I had to refight the battle. I tried get the same results, but no matter what I did, I trashed the AI. After re-fighting the same battle five times, I picked the least damaging outcome for the AI and barely convinced myself to go on with the campaign.

[tentaku]

I do not charge repeatedly with my cavalry. Once charged, I let them stay and fight, never pull out