IOT Developmental Thread

[JohannaK]

That? It was just a minor skirmish lasting for a few years...

 

[NedimNapoleon]

You know nothing...you cant imagine how many times orders were changed, EPs were sent, armies were sent, it was chaos...

 

[JohannaK]

Prove it.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

I've deleted most of my Valk PMs. Also even if i had them, I would have to post a megaload of PMs. No war is easy on the GM. Only the players see the end of war.

 

[JohannaK]

My point stands.

 

[Tani Coyote]

The problem really is that orders are made after the fact. As it stands, the current orders formula is everyone basically takes a gamble: they do this and that, and then the sum of all the orders determines the update.

If no orders are set in stone, it means you can quickly develop a tangled web of conditions in each set of orders. The best compromise is to require that you actually have access to information before you can act on it.

For example, I've seen more than one order that gives an attack, but to pull all armies back if someone else attacks them. This just strikes me as rather gamey... if doable the player should at least suffer a penalty for switching from offensive to defensive posture.

Granted, orders often take place in the span of one-two years, but ultimately keeping complexity down is as much a goal as logic.

 

[JohannaK]

I like Sone's system, precisely because it allows for greater tactical and strategical flexibility in war.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

My point stands.

I fail to see it.

 

[JohannaK]

Shush! You weren't supposed to reply!

 

[NedimNapoleon]

We shall continue this conversation on Skype.

 

[Sonereal]

Oh, certainly. I did not express myself properly. I mean that I waste too many hours on maps for my main plans to do the same for every contingency.

But that isn't too different from any other IOT.

I'll just add that "If x does this, do y" type orders are something I seriously frown upon and I encourage every GM to outlaw them to avoid the massive headache they generate.

The exception of course is if you had some sort of espionage network tipping you off to large moves, in which case they'd be valid. As stands they strike me as somewhat gamey.

I like IF() orders. Realistically, war plans are based on variables. For instance, if you're attacking someone and driving forward their heavily fortified capital, you're not going to want to do that if the defenders didn't lose X amount of units on the front, or if your ally didn't jump into the war to open a second front.

-snip-

The casus belli system specifies outcomes in wars. Say that King Baldy Bald of Catalonia attacked King Jack Morgan of England and the casus belli/war goal is to take a duchy, it wouldn't work out well if Duke Urist McBackstab of England (whose duchy isn't being aimed for) took King Baldly Bald's side because at the conclusion of the war, Duke Urist McBackstab would still be a vassal.

Of course, if Duke Urist McBackstab declare independence, all bets are off in that regard. Baldly Bald and Urist wouldn't be de jure allies in that case, but since they both have a common enemy in the war, they would be de facto allies, which is really good enough. There is nothing forbidden cooperation between Baldly Bald and Urist, or even Baldly Bald and vassals of Jack Morgan (who can drag their feet with their own levies, provide intelligence support, etc). Jack Morgan's vassals can only actively go to war with their liege through a civil war CB like lower crown authority, depose, independence, marriage alliance with Baldly Bald, etc.

Though, there are exceptions. I'm still working on CBs so they're flexible when need be, but still rigid enough to make strategic marriages and titles matter.

For example, I've seen more than one order that gives an attack, but to pull all armies back if someone else attacks them. This just strikes me as rather gamey... if doable the player should at least suffer a penalty for switching from offensive to defensive posture.

The penalty would be the initial losses. If Egypt sent 20 out of 20 armies against the Holy Land and Yugoslavia lands in Northern Egypt at the same time, after the first round of battles Egypt would have lost troops/maybe gain territory in the Holy Land but would have lost ground in its core. Pulling back armies to defend/retake territory as an IF() isn't really gamey in that position, especially if the Holy Land was competent and had its own plans to counterattack.

Wars are typically a jumble of IF statements, which should be encouraged since the alternative as I've seen it is wars that last a lot longer conventionally than they have any right to be.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

The IF system is rather abused. Because I often here these orders:
Player X:
Attack Y nation, if Y attacks somewhere else, pullback and defend
Player Y:
Attack X nation, if X attacks somewhere else, pullback and defend

Now I really dont know what to do. Its rather confusing.

 

[Sonereal]

I don't see the abuse there. Just make it so the "checking to see if X does Y" takes a "step", meaning it isn't done RIGHT as the target is doing whatever they're doing to trigger the IF.

 

[Tyo]

Yeah, to be entirely fair that IS how an actual military works in the most basic levels.

 

[Sonereal]

Good news everybody!

Originally, I was going to use the Crusader Kings 2 method of units for levy makeup. That mean buildings would do things like give 120 light infantry, 30 archers, etc. That looks cool on paper, but I ran into mucho problems figuring how to reduce the number of rolls between two levies.

Think of it this way. If you have 120 Light Infantry, 30 Heavy Infantry, 30 Archers, and 10 Light Cavalry, and you attack, how would the casualties be calculated? The original answer would've resulted up to 14 rolls to make each unit type "target" a random unit target.

Not entirely fun, and it made the combat tactic rolls almost meaningless if you weren't able to capitalize on it.

So, I dusted off something that worked from an old game of mine. Levies, when raised, have the holding they're from already tracked. So, instead of making the military-unit buildings produce units, they produce a point toward a "unit upgrade" that increases the attack and defense power of the stack, as well as increasing the troop size of the levy. The morale system needs tweaked a tiny bit (which shouldn't take that long), but I feel that the new system is sound.

For starters, it reduces the number of rolls from 14-16 to only 2+1 per flank. Since the number of armies actively moving around during wars are low, this shouldn't be a problem. Secondly, it makes the two rolls I DO need to do more important, since they determine the tactic used by your force that gives you bonuses for some upgrades, penalties for others. The actual casualties are deterministic after those rolls.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Yeah, to be entirely fair that IS how an actual military works in the most basic levels.

No, obviously Alaska will send its whole army to get butchered in the States without buying back its losses.

 

[Sonereal]

No, obviously Alaska will send its whole army to get butchered in the States without buying back its losses.

The reason the Alaskans allowed themselves to be surrounded was because they really didn't want to ask command for new directions.

 

[CivOasis]

Alright, I'm interested in running an IOT set in a nation undergoing a revolution/civil war.

Perhaps most notably, you'd be fighting not over provinces, but over cities and resources - the map would be dynamic, so to speak.

Anyways, who would be interested in a game? Possible maps include:

Spoiler :

Though most popular countries could be considered, assuming I could find a map. I am not, however, interested in running a game set in the US.

Ideas and thoughts?

 

[Red_Spy]

Prove it.

I sent several AS and EP to Venezuela and Brazil every two or three years.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Alright, I'm interested in running an IOT set in a nation undergoing a revolution/civil war.
...
Though most popular countries could be considered, assuming I could find a map.

Yugoslavia?