Prospective EU campaign - Signups started, see new thread. Seeking adjudicator.

[Plazek]

Yeah, though I'd be wary of making it too strict. I think generally people should be given a fairly free hand and a generous time frame to organize matches or otherwise resolve battles in the campaign. But yeah, if it doesn't seem to be happening, then the disadvantaged party should be forced to retreat. If the sides are even, it could perhaps either stalemate or the result could be random. Should maybe be up to the GM, though, and deliberate stalling might be punished with a default.

Agree 100% on free and and time frame points, also stalemates could be interesting!

 

[okiN]

My thoughts were that it would lessen the advantage, as other teams would see where their best players move.

Yeah, but big clans with lots of good players would be able to have a wider coverage much more effectively. I think this might end up just making things worse.

Also their percentage of good players would become lower when they get more land and more armies. If they are not tied to armies, the nation can use same good players in every battle. But this was just how I thought it would work, I have never played any clan match so I can't really know.

Yeah, the idea of some kind of rotation system occurred to me, but how would you make it balanced between bigger and smaller clans? How would you account for inactive members? And in the end, wouldn't it just make things much harder to organize, with very little net gain? Again, simplicity has to be kept in mind.

I will talk with my mates in HBS, we probably will be a mercenary knighthood due to our lack of numbers.

This campaign is for EU clans. Also, I think you guys have already signed up to play in the US one if it happens.

 

[RalliX]

Yes, but I am EU, and have two squires, so I will try to participate in both, hopefully dragging an ally along with me.

 

[okiN]

Ah, I see. Then I suppose you could be mercenaries, or maybe just ally yourself with some faction. We'll see.

 

[Marmalade]

As per PM - an alternative, and (I believe) very workable campaign system. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of the above suggestions, but I think this could actually work...


Simplex campaign rules for Warband:


The aim of this set of rules is to provide meaning and context to clan matchups, or similar non-clan organised play, with the minimum amount of overhead, book-keeping and similar difficulties. No real games master is required, simply someone to accept PM's and update a forum thread weekly.

Essentially, the ideal ruleset should provide a simple way of arranging Clan vs Clan matches, that also gives them a little more to play for.


Clan matches are arranged as and when the clans agree. Any clan can challenge any clan. There is no requirement to accept, and no time limit on when you can play, as we're all friends and adults here.


Clan matches are played with equal numbers of players (agreed between the clans) on a territory they mutally agree.


Clan matches are Battles, played first-to-seven, with a point clear (i.e. 7-5 or better). This means that clan matches will last up to an hour at most (6-6 with five minute rounds is 12 x 5 = 60 minutes)


A win nets you three points of Renown
A (6-6) draw nets both teams one point of Renown.
A loss gives you nothing.


When the results are reported on a forum thread such as this, the league is updated weekly, and the clans will move up and down the rankings accordingly. If you don't submit your results by that week, there is no problem, but if two clans are vying for victory, tardiness could mean you lose your place.

These rankings are put into tiers of three, which produces a handicap system:

Example, with Renown:

Clan A - 17
Clan B - 15
Clan C - 14

Clan D - 13
Clan E - 12
Clan F - 9

Clan G - 6
Clan H - 4
Clan I - 1

Clan J - 0

The clans are split into tiers of three from the top - each group distant gives the lesser clan +1 round in the bank for the matchup.

This will mean that, for example, if Clan B plays Clan I (a matchup which Clan B should win easily), then Clan I starts with a score of 2-0.

Any new clans join at the bottom with a score of zero.


Mercenaries and alliances are very possible. The total number of players would remain equal, but the main clan would earn three points for victory, and allies would earn a single point for helping out. Handicaps would be derived from the main clan, minus one (to a minimum of zero, the penalty is to reduce the possibility of enticing "ringers" to help you out, but still give you a reason for ganging up.

The purpose of a handicap system is to encourage challenging of the topmost clans, since otherwise the best may find themselves without matches to play.


The map:

There is a map, although it is abstracted. Each of the scores is turned into a percentage, and that percentage of the map is filled in with the clan's colour.

This means that, for example, the top most clan may have a Renown of 70, and the second could have a Renown of 20 - the topmost clan would have the largest section of the map.


The aim would be to control over 50% (? This could be raised or lowered) of the map, and thus establish your dominion over Calradia.


Anything the two competing clans agree about a matchup (different match types, alternative match rules) would be fine, as long as this will result in a clear win/loss/draw situation.



There are many possible things to bolt onto this framework - including inter clan tournaments, champion duels (which could be 1 vs 1 Battles for a round, on agreement) and so forth, but this should provide a workable, minimum fuss system, that doesn't try to do too much, and should give us some meaningful and interesting clan matches so that we can all enjoy this amazing game.

 

[okiN]

Okay, that's certainly a workable system, but I have one major problem with it: it doesn't seem to really be a campaign. Rather, unless I'm missing something, it's just a ladder using a map as a score indicator. And even with that I see a possible issue: what happens if a match is fought between two clans that don't have adjacent territories? I guess you'd have to call it a naval invasion, since the territory for the winner would have to appear inside the loser's lands.

Basically, the strategic aspect seems to be missing entirely. It sounds even more vanilla than the Oceanic ruleset.

 

[MaHuD]

I don't like it.

Btw okiN, just write what you  had in mind so we can either aggree, discuss or not join.
Everyone has its own view and plans so... 

 

[okiN]

Yeah, that's what I figured as well. I'll try to find time in the coming days to just sit down and pull together a coherent system. I guess it shouldn't take that long, I just need to devote a specific time to it rather than thinking about it a little here or there.

 

[Plazek]

Yeah, the idea of some kind of rotation system occurred to me, but how would you make it balanced between bigger and smaller clans? How would you account for inactive members? And in the end, wouldn't it just make things much harder to organize, with very little net gain? Again, simplicity has to be kept in mind.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/

Please do not go in the same direction as TBFC, I thought this was going to be an opportunity for something awesomer.

1) Bigger, more skilled clans are more powerful:
This is NOT a problem, bigger, more skilled countries are more powerful in real life! So you know what happens axis vs allies, powerful alliances are formed. Or things such as the union between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland! Would this have ever happened if all countries had an artificially created level playing field? Hell no! Artificially levelling the playing field WILL harm diplomacy and will prevent exactly what I want to see as a result of this game. Nations and Empires formed by a co-operative actions between clans reacting dynamicly to the in game threats. If you make an artificially level playing field this will not happen! These alliances and contracts and the power plays within and outside of them will be the most interesting part of the game! want to see stagnation? Then create a level playing field.

If your a weak clan it does not mean you will stay weak forever, get good at politicking! Make deals with clans form alliances maybe in the end you will find yourself at the top if you play your cards right, or maybe you will be crushed and forced to work as a low paid mercenary band. This is where almost all of the excitement lies for me. I would just love to see a bunch of small individually weak clans band together to take down a behemoth that has been terrorising half the map due to the crazy real life size and skill of the clan. I would hate to see a small clan be able to beat a better clan because of artificially created advantages made by the game, where is the fun in that?!

2) Players should be represented on the map:
Firstly this is extremely simple, in fact it is arguably much simpler than having some roation system or other artificial means of working out who goes where. You have a general character and his troops, they are on a list, people on that list are allowed to fight in his battles. The list can only be changed when (a) the general is in town and (b) the troops he is tranferring into his army are in town. I mean that is NOT complex by any means! Sure you might have problems with inactive players, deal with it if you have people who will not be available when they say they will then that is not a problem with the game but a problem with the players! They obviously do not care enough if they are unable to make a match at a pre-arranged time and date. Why structure the rules of the game around lazy and incompetent people who obviously are not taking it seriously enough if they will not even turn up to play!


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I will reiterate, the main hope I have is that nations will be formed by co-operative agreements between clans, it will not matter if one clans particularly inactive for a week, or if a clan is individually weak because that will be just one army and lord within a greater system. If we have a 3 clan alliance a 4 clan alliance and a 2 clan alliance in the game (very possible IMO) it will not matter if a few players are inactvie for one battle or even a few. That will be just one fight in a much greater war. Each clan might have 1 or 2 armies (perhaps more if they are particularly large) so having a load of guys in one army suddenly unavailable for a match is not the end of the world. Just retreat and make sure they are ready when it is time for the o****er attack!
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PS yea I know I have strong opinions please try not to take offence

 

[kingofnoobia]

Don't know whether this has been suggested yet - but how about making an army on the campaign map represent a number of players on the battlefield (we'll use 5 as an example)? If you invade an enemy region with 3 armies and he has 2 defending forces, you'd have a 15 vs 10 player fight. In this case, the defenders may hire any mercenary that has subscribed for the game, which costs a ridiculous amount of money compared to an army, but gives them a decent chance. The attackers may do so too, but they probably don't want to spend their denars on it.

The idea of champion duels is also a neat one, but could be implemented in a better way than in the OP, in my opinion. Say, if you invade an enemy region with 3 armies, and the defender only has 2, the attackers will probably win. However, if they lose a round, they might lose one of the armies they have used in the battle. The attackers are quite confident they have the better duelist than the other party though, yet their armies in that region are very precious. So they decide to challenge the defenders to a duel. The defenders know they are going to lose that region, and a duel does give them a higher chance to keep it. Another advantage is that they will be allowed to retreat the army that occupied the region, and won't lose anything. The loser of the duel is not allowed to move the armies he 'attacked' with the following turn.

The diplomacy ruleset looks simple enough to me, and a very good base to start from. Actually, it's almost perfect as it is, I'd only suggest one change: you should be able to station more armies than 1 in a region. An army would not cost too much to upkeep, and most kingdoms will have a fine number of armies in their territories. The armies would each represent a fairly small number of players, say, 2 or 3. This way, not half of the battles would be 15 vs 5, 20 vs 15, ... It's just to make sure that the differences between forces don't get too big and the Warband fights remain challenging.

Basically, I'd say this campaign could simply be an only slightly modified version of Diplomacy, with battles fought out in-game. No need for any more complex rulesets in my opinion.

For simplicity, I'd say that each clan/group simply controls one faction and sticks with it for the duration of the game.

I would also volunteer to be game master, but I'm not sure yet. I don't know whether I want the responsability or not. I'll see once all the rules are made up.

 

[Plazek]

In my opinion armies should simply be a list of players under a general. They should be however many players the clan decided to put under his command. Not a set amount per army.

 

[kingofnoobia]

In my opinion armies should simply be a list of players under a general. They should be however many players the clan decided to put under his command. Not a set amount per army.

I don't really agree there. The strength of a nation/clan should be based on how well their tactical and diplomatic decisions are on the campaign map, not based on the number of members they have IRL. In any case, the clan with the best players would still have a huge advantage on the battlefield. Only their sheer numerical advantage wouldn't count.

Following the Diplomacy ruleset, most nations start off rather equally anyway. Only the Russians get one extra unit, iirc, and the British trade one starting unit for an extra fleet. While we all know that there were serious differences in power between these nations.

 

[okiN]

I'm just gonna throw this one out there: I really think tying players to game pieces in any way is just plain a bad idea. I think it would hurt both functionality and gameplay. Army movement and management can determine force multipliers for the matches, but the players taking part should be freely up to the clans.

Basically, I'd say this campaign could simply be an only slightly modified version of Diplomacy, with battles fought out in-game. No need for any more complex rulesets in my opinion.

My thoughts exactly.

For simplicity, I'd say that each clan/group simply controls one faction and sticks with it for the duration of the game.

Yeah, it could also be thematic etc. However, I'm a bit worried that people might end up getting bored of playing the same faction in all their games. It should probably be voted on.

I would also volunteer to be game master, but I'm not sure yet. I don't know whether I want the responsability or not. I'll see once all the rules are made up.

Mm. You're sure your clan mightn't want to take part as well? If not, I certainly would be happy with you as the adjudicator.

 

[MaHuD]

there should be a max though. Only reason why you don't want a  max is because you have a lot of members

But your other ideas are fine, and I like them.

 

[okiN]

Well, the number of players to a match has to be agreed on by the clans doing the fighting. A large clan certainly shouldn't be able to force a smaller one to field more players than they're comfortable with -- the number there should be a mutual decision, made within the limits of reason. But again, no reason to tie it to game pieces in any more precise way.

 

[kingofnoobia]

I would also volunteer to be game master, but I'm not sure yet. I don't know whether I want the responsability or not. I'll see once all the rules are made up.

Mm. You're sure your clan mightn't want to take part as well? If not, I certainly would be happy with you as the adjudicator.

I'm not sure, but I don't really expect them to join, seeing as we are no match for the larger and better clans. I'll ask them right now.

I have to admit that I'm not very familiar with the Diplomacy rules yet, I've never played it. But I've read the Wikipedia article on it, and it doesn't seem to be too complex.

 

[Zoltanus]

I'm just gonna throw this one out there: I really think tying players to game pieces in any way is just plain a bad idea. I think it would hurt both functionality and gameplay. Army movement and management can determine force multipliers for the matches, but the players taking part should be freely up to the clans.

Totally agree. It makes no sense whatsoever to represent specific players with specific game piece. Of course that can work in some smaller campaigns, but for first and big campaign it won't work.

 

[Plazek]

In my opinion armies should simply be a list of players under a general. They should be however many players the clan decided to put under his command. Not a set amount per army.

I don't really agree there. The strength of a nation/clan should be based on how well their tactical and diplomatic decisions are on the campaign map, not based on the number of members they have IRL. In any case, the clan with the best players would still have a huge advantage on the battlefield. Only their sheer numerical advantage wouldn't count.

Following the Diplomacy ruleset, most nations start off rather equally anyway. Only the Russians get one extra unit, iirc, and the British trade one starting unit for an extra fleet. While we all know that there were serious differences in power between these nations.

But nation =/= clan. As I said I want to see nations formed from co-operatives! If a clan is to weak to function alone they join a group of clans working together for the greater good and even combine into the same armies or share towns.

Just because you are a seperate entity on the taleworlds forums does not mean you will be in the game!

When you see how this can happen and clans could be part of much larger groups you see how a few players not being able to make a match is not going to be a problem. There may be 200 players within an alliance. 10 of them or even 50 of them being unabailable for a weekend is not going to cause big problems!

Why bother with multipliers and non-simple stuff like that? Why not just keep it real? Why not let each p;layer have a real position on the map. Why stop powerful clans being powerful in the game?

And please answer this one cause it aint rhetorical!
In what way does it hurt functionality and gameplay?

I really am interested because I see it as the obvious choice in any game like this and have tried to push it in TBFC for months with no avail and now it seems like it wont work here as well which is disapoitning to say the least, especially as it seems to me to be the natural way to do this!



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edit oh and with Okin's last post how does a clan FORCE a clan t play more units? How in fact do they even have a choice or say in what the opposing team does? Surely a clan takes their army of X guys and the defenders who have X guys nearby field them (or less if they choose some to retreat). I mean why is this a problem?

@ Zoltanus WHY?!?!
Please don't just bash my idea saying it will fail and not say why.

 

[okiN]

I'm not sure, but I don't really expect them to join, seeing as we are no match for the larger and better clans. I'll ask them right now.

Well, if it was just in terms of raw power I think 22nd would win automatically -- not only do they have some of the best players anywhere, they also have a lot of members with quite a high skill level overall. However, I'd expect the strategic aspect of the game to even things out somewhat; even 22nd might have trouble winning if they were always outnumbered. I think we might have some surprising turns of events once the game really gets started!

But nation =/= clan. As I said I want to see nations formed from co-operatives! If a clan is to weak to function alone they join a group of clans working together for the greater good and even combine into the same armies or share towns.

Just because you are a seperate entity on the taleworlds forums does not mean you will be in the game!

Also very true. No reason why there couldn't be amalgam factions of smaller clans.

Why bother with multipliers and non-simple stuff like that? Why not just keep it real? Why not let each p;layer have a real position on the map. Why stop powerful clans being powerful in the game?

I think keeping it functional, fun and balanced is more important than keeping it "real". Not only would keeping track of specific player movement be a huge hassle, I'm sure a lot of the smaller clans would object to a scenario where they're inherently disadvantaged in a massive way. I don't think they should be forced to form coalitions if they don't want to, either. You have to keep in mind that even in a scenario where teams are more or less balanced, clans like 22nd will still have a huge advantage simply because they have a much larger and overall more skilled pool of players to draw from. There's no need to skew that even further.

 

[Plazek]

Exactly!

I fear some people think I am pushing this idea because I am head of a powerful clan, but I would LOVE to see weaker clans band together and force us to fight a war we cannot hope to win and find us relegated to the murky dephs of mercenary life having fallen from our once idylic pedestal of power.

It would be awesome!