also known as EU IV in NES form
Name: England
King Henry VII* (Born 1457)/Tudor
Heirs: Arthur (b. 1486), Henry (b. 1491), Margaret (b. 1489)
Personal Treasury: 46,000
Prestige:45
Initiative Points:4
National Income-Expenses (Debt/Treasury):400,000-264,000 (0/10,000)
Army: 16 companies infantry, 4 companies horse
Navy: 10 ships
Factions (Loyalty/Power):
Henry VII (5/5)
English Nobles (3/2)
Catholic Church (2/2)
Anglo-Irish Lords (3/1)
English Peasants (1/0)
Irish Peasants (0/0)
Advisors:
Players: Players will of course, be taking “nations” with their claims, but it is not just the nation they are claiming; they are claiming the monarch of their nation. What this means is that you must consider the interests of your monarch and of your dynasty first and foremost, and the rest of your nation second. You are not playing as Austria; you’re playing as the Archduke and the Hapsburg family, and you must do what is in the dynasty’s interests, even if it might not necessarily be in Austria’s interests. That means things like reforms and curtailing of your monarch’s power will be seen as major attacks on you. Be careful about your heirs and anyone else who may have a claim to your throne, as they may very much strive to claim it for themselves through intrigue or war.
In the second line we have our King/Prime Minister/Shogun/Head Honcho, followed by his dynasty. This is your character, and who your interests work through. Dynasties are very important, and two nations that have the same ruling dynasty are generally very closely allied with one another.
After this, we have your heirs. Generally this will only include your children and grandchildren, though if you have no child, the next applicable potential heir will be placed her instead, as well as an additional note (such as “uncle” “cousin” or “brother”. I will put the children in the order they would succeed the throne, though it will be noted in many countries a woman cannot succeed the throne, and is put here to help you track your family members and who you can marry off (a * representing married).
As a side note, your ruler will do their best to produce as many heirs as possible! After all, we wouldn’t want all the heirs to die in infancy. If you would like to have names for your children specifically, you can let me know and I’ll keep them around. If not, I will use their closest real life self, and if not applicable, I will use common dynastic names (ie; for England, I would likely name a child Henry, Richard, or Edward)
Money:
First your income! This represents your yearly income! This was before the era of standardized taxes and budgets. Budgets would fluctuate wildly, with trade being better in some years than others, taxes needed to fight some years and others years of peace. Policies may change this, but for now this is what you’ve got!
Your income will come from taxes, trade, and more.
Expenses are your yearly expenditures. Around 15-20% of your income is dedicated to administration of your nation (more for larger, more centralized nations, less for smaller, decentralized nations). The rest of it, and your biggest expenses, will be your military spending. This was an era of tiny standing armies and fleets called up as needed, with mercenaries or levies covering the rest. As you can see in our example, England has 4,000 infantry, 1,000 mounted troops, and 10 ships; yet this, with the administration expenses, accounts for over half of England’s income!
Next we will talk about debt and treasury. First and foremost, it is not bad to go into debt. It is in fact, often necessary. What is bad is allowing the debt to fester. Depending on the nation you are, you will face various interest rates from either creditors or from foreign powers, and interest will accumulate. Of course, you may decide that your debt no longer exists (such as not paying them or defaulting) but then that will cause a host of problems; rampaging unpaid soldiers, rebellious nobles, furious merchants. If your lender was a foreign power, then it may cause a war! On the other side is your treasury. This is how much money you have accumulated from your nation’s income that was left unspent. While it is good for a rainy day fund, this gold is at risk; if you lose your capital, you may lose most or all of your treasury!
On a side note is your personal treasury. The personal treasury is the income you have at your direct disposal to do anything you so choose. You may buy stakes in a colonial company, invest it, loan it, buy an army, bribe your factions, buy clothes, whatever you want to do. Unless you have loans being repaid to you or you have holdings in a company, this stat will generally not replenish itself. Generally speaking, aside from investments, the way to increase your own treasury is to skim off the national treasury. In monarchies, 5% or so is considered perfectly acceptable; in a republic, it may be seen as an abuse of power. Take too much though, and your factions may begin turning on you. Aside from skimming off the top, one other way to do this is through war, with the captured loot (after your men take their shares of course) going directly to your personal treasury.
One thing to note is that people will know where they’re being paid from, and this knowledge may adjust their actions. An army paid by the state may turn on you in a civil war; an army paid by you will be loyal to you. An advisor being paid a state salary will do his best to entrench himself in the state so he cannot be removed easily; an advisor paid by you will be more likely to remain focused on his loyalty to you. Be careful!
Prestige is perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind, and what you as a player are trying to accumulate. Things that can benefit your prestige include winning battles and wars, holding colonies and other territories, impressive armies and navies, being Defender of the Faith or Holy Roman Emperor, royal marriages, vanity projects, and “kingly” actions (hosting tournaments and feasts and the like), but these are just examples. A good rule of thumb is that almost everything can affect prestige, either positively or negatively. Prestige is very fickle, and can go up and down on a wide variety of things, but overall is one of the most important stats. It not only affects things like morale, faction relations, and NPC diplomacy, but also players should note how much another prestige another player has. An alliance or royal marriage with a less prestigious nation’s monarch will have a negative effect on your prestige, while winning a war against a prestigious nation will do wonders for your own prestige.
On Historical realism and playability: The goal of a nes, of course, is to be playable, and to not have to follow a script of what you exactly have to do. No one wants to play EXACTLY as their entity did in reality, and I am not going to force you to do that. However, you will be constrained by reality, both in what you can do and what you would do. To give you the general gist of it, you may play as Ireland, and you can survive the years, and maybe you can even emerge as a middle level power, but you cannot become a global power with the economy to equal that of Spain. I will strive to create an enjoyable game for all players regardless of size.
Initiative Points are what we might consider “political capital”, namely what you can do. Actions may cost gold or armies, or anything in between, but they do all require initiative points. This is designed to show the limit of the power of your monarch’s hold over the nation: the more power they hold, the more political clout they have! Initiative points are made by how much power in your nation you have: one ‘power’ is equal to one ‘initiative point’ up to 3, and then afterwards, two power is equal to one initiative point. So if I was Henry VII with 5 power, I would have 4 Initiative Points.
Things that will cost Initiative Points!
-Declaring war! (One nation, one initiative point)
-Setting up a colony or trading post
-Issuing an edict
-Embarking on a reform (may need initiative points over several turns)
-Changing religions (takes 2 initiative points)
And much, much more!
Wars:
Casus Belli: Your cause for war. Unlike the wars of the later 19th and then the 20th century, there does not necessarily need to be a GOOD cause for war, but there has to be something. It can be claiming a throne, claiming colonial lands, border disputes, different religions, something. It can even be to cut down a major power that’s growing too strong. It’s not exactly difficult to make a reason for war, but keep in mind there are consequences; wars are expensive, and if you don’t have the money for them, it could stifle your ambitions. Furthermore, rebellious factions may see this as an opportune time to rise up against you. So be careful!
Calling the Banners: For the great majority of nations, there exists some form of landed class that has armies. While not to the extent of the days of old, generally most nations have nobles that can muster troops for you (the exact number depending on the nation and will have more or less depending on the relative power of the nobility. You may also conscript ships, generally from your merchants, and they will depend on the region where you are: Venice and Genoa will be using Galleys, while Portugal would be using Carracks.
The Prices for troops are as follows. Prices are per year,and there is no extra “hiring cost”. A company is 250 men.
For European Nations:
1 company of infantry-4,000 Ducats
1 company of cavalry-10,000 Ducats
1 ship-10,000 Ducats
For East Asian and Middle Eastern Nations:
1 company of infantry-2,000 Ducats
1 company of cavalry-5,000 Ducats
1 ship-10,000 ducats
For American Nations:
1 company of infantry-1,000 Ducats
This includes both recruitment and maintaining; so if I were France and I wanted 3 companies of infantry for 3 years, I would pay 12,000 ducats per year, for a total of 36,000 Ducats .
Paying for the War: As you can see in your stats, your armies make up the bulk of your expenses. You may decide to raise or disband at your leisure (even if it puts you into debt), though large scale disbandments can cause more trouble than money saved. In this era, European monarchs did not hold large standing armies, as the financial drain was particularly burdensome, and there was no standardized tax collection year in and year out.
Factions represent the various interest groups within your nation. There are dozens of different factions you may run into. The church, the army, the fleet, the nobility, the royal family, the bureaucrats and the merchantry are all common and powerful factions that can be found in your nation. There can also be peasantry, based off of either their nationality (Irish versus English), or religion (Catholic versus Sunni). If they grow powerful enough, even your advisors or other individuals may become powerful power brokers in their own right. Factions have two stats; loyalty and power.
Loyalty ranges from 0 (least loyal) to 5 (most loyal). The more loyal a faction, the more you can trust them with power. As a general rule of thumb, a loyalty of 3 is generally a “we are fine with being a part of the system” and can be trusted with some tasks in the nation, while a 4 or 5 is someone you can bring into your inner circle. A 2 is someone you may want to make ties with if they have sufficient power, and you should keep an eye on any 1 or 0, and reduce their power when it is prudent to do so. A faction reaching -1 is in rebellion. ‘Loyalty’ should not necessarily read as “how likely are they to rebel” ( though it definitely is a very strong indicator). Loyalty also shows how willing a faction is to go along with your decisions. Just because the Catholic Church has a loyalty of ‘2’ in England does not mean they’re about to start looking to ferment rebellion, it instead means they’re less likely to be willing to work with the monarch’s initiatives.
Each nation has 10 possible ‘power’ and is divided among your various factions. The more a faction has, the more powerful it is. Ideally, you should be the most powerful faction in your realm. If not, you may be dominated by the more powerful factions and be unable to achieve your goals, or worse, deposed from your seat of power!
Factions will make their desires (or demands) known to you, and depending on your actions, can make them more or less loyal, and potentially more or less powerful. While a powerful faction, if loyal, can be useful, you don’t want anyone to grow too powerful, and it may be necessary to act against them. You should not see factions unilaterally as opponents though. You may actually use your factions for your own advantage, and they may in fact be willing to carry out a task when you may not have the initiative needed to do so.
The question is, is it better to be feared or loved? You may try to overwhelm your factions, keeping them in line with your strength, but when your blackest hour comes, the factions you once bullied will be the ones to swing down the ax on your head. On the reverse side, being loved by the factions is not impossible, but if your power is too fragmented, then you will be unable to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. Every nation has its own unique path, and it is up to you on how you wish to tread that path.
Your factions can be dealt with in a variety of ways. For those of you who have the need to assert yourself, you may decide to simply execute anyone who opposes you, like Henry VIII of England. The Machiavelli in you may derive pleasure from causing fighting between factions, or even more deliciously, faction infighting. The coalition builder may invite a faction leader or member to be one of their advisors, or the Sultan in you may decide to slaughter a faction wholesale! You may even decide to exile a faction (such as those who are not of your religion). There are so many possibilities!
The one thing to remember is that in most cases, faction loyalty and strength is not an overnight thing. Do not expect to have 7 power and full loyalty from your factions in a few turns. Though your decrees and actions will have nuanced effects, unless your action is extreme, you will not see huge shifts overnight. In many cases, be prepared for a waiting game. Patience is a virtue after all.
Advisors are those of your court that will help you rule your nation. These advisors are talented and will help your nation thrive with their skills; some are efficient tax men, some are great explorers, others priests or taxmen. Some may even have multiple jobs! Advisors can be recruited from a general pool throughout your region, though if a new advisor “manifests”, then the nation that he was born in will have exclusive hiring rights for 5 years before he joins the general pool. You may have up to three advisors at a time, so make them count, but be careful! Advisors have personalities and can upset members of the court (or charm them!) and can actually develop into powerful players on their own right.
Updates will be done in the style of “Point of View” Characters , along with some moderator narration on the side. Generally I would recommend reading the entire update, as the characters will often comment on happenings of the region. Of course, all major events will be discussed in the update, and EVERYTHING you do will be recorded. Just because it isn’t in the update does not mean it didn’t happen, it’s just not particularly newsworthy. For example, we NESers have a fetish for universities (despite it creating an educated class that will likely cause problems in the future), and while this IS an appropriate time to charter universities, schools, ect. ect., if that was one of the only things you did this turn, it might not make it into the update, especially if this was the year that twelve other universities were founded in Europe.
That being said, while some of the characters I hope to maintain as permanent characters as we see their stories evolve, many characters will be temporary, one time update POV’s (though they may resurface again). I will try to include many nations, and if I notice I’ve been slacking on your nation on one update, I’ll try to give it more screen time next update, provided you give me something to work with. If you have a suggestion for a POV character, I would like to hear it in a PM (maybe with your orders). Also, one definite way to increase your screentime is writing good stories
Updates are not a predetermined written length. If I need more characters and more time to devote to some turns I will, and if in some turns, little of note happens, then the update will reflect that.
Updates will encompass three years for now, though after a few updates I might see about increasing or decreasing the length of time per update, depending on how things are going.
If you have complaints, questions or concerns about the update, PLEASE Private message them to me
REQUIRED READING:
I do NOT require you to have huge amounts of knowledge about this era. Some people have history degrees or access to huge libraries or whatever, but I know not everyone has that. What I WILL require that you at the very minimum read the wikipedia page of your ruler. In addition I would highly advise clicking around, finding more about who you are and what your country is going through.
Writing Orders
Please remember in your incomes that these are your YEARLY incomes, not your per TURN Incomes. Also remember your Initiatives are your PER TURN
Remember that your incomes will WILDLY fluctuate in this period. Because of this, I do not need specific spending orders. Instead, I would recommend budgets for those more controlling, and and general priorities for those who are more open.
For the love of all that is holy please put your actions in what year you are doing them (ie; 1493, raise a fleet, 1494 invade Burgundy, 1495 leave Burgundy).