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Fine by me. I'd settle for just Sicily, but if 40 counties is a bit bigger, I could have a bit of southern Italy too.

Guess where I'd like to be

What time are we assuming, BTW? And is there gonna be a cool backstory, like with sd.net world?

PeZook wrote:Guess where I'd like to be

In part of the Greater Sarmatian Empire? BTW here's my faction I hope to get the approximate land area too. A group of savage warriors who have warrior women with them too, especially one evil sorceress who ...

I'll stop there...

Norseman wrote: In part of the Greater Sarmatian Empire?

Yeah, I'm in charge of those guys you didn't bother conquering because goddammit they're fucking obtuse. I mean, you can slaughter and repress then and those fuckers will just breed and rebel again ten years later! What the fuck is wrong with them?!

And goddammit, their forests are spooky and full of strigas. Those things eat horses, for fuck's sake!

40 provinces. Assuming we want to keep the initial economy model but more spread out that's a multiplier of 200 and all provinces level 1. Which gives you a starting budget of 8000 5,000 of which is taken up with maintenance of existing armies and 3000 (a bit over a tenth of your initial purchase budget) is available to expand your army at the end of year 1.

Now do people want more built up provinces(reduce the multiplier) or simply a bigger budget? Either will increase the number of province levels to distribute.

Here's a preliminary map. Romulan Republic, I made your holdings dark green. My own are red. If anyone wants to be more specific about their holdings, I can update the map further.

Pezook, I'm sure you'll want to be ruler of your beloved Poland, but how should I fill it in? Go south from the coast or what?

Shinn, you can grab quite a bit of southern England and Ireland, but I'd like specifics.

And Sistermiriam, I gave you Iceland with one island south of it. I figure the little islands near it are freebies because they're so small.

Setzer wrote: Pezook, I'm sure you'll want to be ruler of your beloved Poland, but how should I fill it in? Go south from the coast or what?

Well, I'd think I would actually dump myself around the mountains in the south. Having sea ccess would be nice and all, but I prefer having mineral wealth (there's coal, iron and some silver there) and lots and lots of spooky monster-infested woods where Slavic witches can do their thing with hearty (and somewhat crazy) woodspeople. Plus, I can trade with primitive Pomeranian tribes for things like amber and salt (unless someone dumps himself on the Baltic coast )

So my provinces would begin around modern day Krakow and extend north along both banks of the Vistula river.

Setzer wrote: Here's a preliminary map. Romulan Republic, I made your holdings dark green. My own are red. If anyone wants to be more specific about their holdings, I can update the map further.

Pezook, I'm sure you'll want to be ruler of your beloved Poland, but how should I fill it in? Go south from the coast or what?

Shinn, you can grab quite a bit of southern England and Ireland, but I'd like specifics.

And Sistermiriam, I gave you Iceland with one island south of it. I figure the little islands near it are freebies because they're so small.

Damn you man, I said I wanted Crimea and the northern coast of the Black Sea!

To be more specific, I want a territory more or less like the Crimean Khanate in the first map on the page.

Akhlut, I've added your lands in Dark Blue. About as much Black Sea coast as I can give you without robbing your land of any real territorial depth.

Pezook, my knowledge of the land around Poland is sketchy, so if you wanted something different, please let me know. This map shows counties, but no geographical features but oceans, which makes things inconvenient if you're doing inland work.
I took a page from MTW and made you dark red.

Setzer wrote: Pezook, my knowledge of the land around Poland is sketchy, so if you wanted something different, please let me know. This map shows counties, but no geographical features but oceans, which makes things inconvenient if you're doing inland work.
I took a page from MTW and made you dark red.

That will do fine. I can overlay the river myself later.

I'm not sure if it encompasses Krakow, but what the hell. We have fucking unicorns here, so it's not like we need 100% super exact realism

And kewl color!

Akhlut wrote:How much time investment would this represent? It sounds like a wonderful idea, but I don't know how much I could play if it required, say, an hour or hour and a half per day.

Indeed, the setting sounds like fun, though if it's going to take a whole bunch of time I may not be able to play. SDN World is bad enough.

Still, having some space is good. Not so much that nothing happens, but hopefully enough that given our technological base, we won't suddenly find somebody has 10,000 soldiers beseiging their capital out of nowhere because they weren't on for a couple days?

Don't worry, ploink yourself at the Baltic shore and I will resolve any such problems by judicious and timely utilization of the Crazy Woodsman Horde

Of course, I won't participate with anywhere near the kind of vigor as I do in SD.net World, but then again - the player base seems way smaller, so less shit should be happening.

I have several thoughts and things i still believe we need to address.

1. there's going to be 'deadspace' unowned between players, assuming there's barbarians there whose in charge of barbarian reactions and how dangerous are the unwashed hordes?

2. Is a year too short a turn? I mean how far can a medieval army get in a year in comparison to the map size?

3. I still havent gotten opinions on my epic magic system and indeed whether people want magic on that scale.

Medieval tales talk about dragons, goblins, elves, etcetera. Right...
AND....
Yes.. a few neutral territories.

Setzer wrote:Shinn, you can grab quite a bit of southern England and Ireland, but I'd like specifics.

Some quick WIki research reveals that England proper has 42 counties; Wales has 22 counties, while Ireland as a whole has 32 counties. If we're going with a starting limit of around 40 counties, then I'll just have to settle for England; I can conquer Wales, Scotland, and Ireland later on if I so desire.

Darkevil, I think we should have bigger budgets.

As for barbarians, I'm thinking that however many provinces are left over, we create a budget like for the other countries and have each player distribute the barbarians sequentially (so, say, PeZook puts 500 points worth of good horsemen barbarians in northern Italy and develops the land as just steppe; then Setzer puts 500 points worth of barbarians little better than peasants in Ireland and makes Ireland woodland, etc.). However, depending on how much neutral territory there is, this could get exceptionally tedious. As for controlling them, I'm not sure how to do that.

Your magic system sounds good. I'd like to keep it pretty simple, and yours seems simple enough to work here.

For turns, I think they should be about a week or a month long. A week should be long enough to get to within 3 or 4 counties' distance from where an army is currently at, and a month should get you halfway across Europe, I'd think.

Year long production turns make sense as we're reliant on agriculture for our prosperity and agriculture is kinda an annual thing. And did medieval armies really move that fast? impressive.

If they can move comfortably inside a month then production turns should be annual i think to match the harvest cycle.

Course now we have to agree on how far an army moves each month or week.
Also how are we treating hero units if they're still going to be a fixture of this game?
Merely high point individuals or something more complex?

Does anyone else want more prosperous provinces, ie a bigger budget?

The thing about a bigger budget is to be fair 2/3rds of the excess budget going to maintenance is i feel a typical level of militarization when surrounded by barbarian hordes, child butchering goblins and the odd dragon. I could be wrong though, i just feel its a good ratio of in game income to the budget for starting purchases.

Darkevilme wrote:And did medieval armies really move that fast? impressive.

If they can move comfortably inside a month then production turns should be annual i think to match the harvest cycle.

Course now we have to agree on how far an army moves each month or week.

Actually, when I think about it, I'm gauging the movement times more on individual movement rather than an army. An army is going to move slower because it only moves as fast as its slowest members and it takes a lot longer to set up and eat and so on than a single person.

This site says a medieval sort of army could travel between 5 and 20 miles per day, depending on if it were foraging or being supplied by ships. However, that is still a minimum of 35 miles per week, and up to 1,820 miles in a year at the minimum, with a maximum of 7,300 miles when supplied by ship. So, obviously, we have a bit of variation to work with.

I'd say that nations that start on the ocean and that build their own ships (once they acquire coastal counties) can get double army movement on coasts, whereas all inland travel comes to the rough equivalent of 10 miles per day. This means we're moving about 300 miles a month or 3,600 miles a year.

Now the question is, how much should ships cost for a given amount of transport capacity be it tradegoods, supplies or troops?

I like the "Dynasty Warriors" approach, where heroes are champion fighters or generals. We can take the RPG approach, have them start out with a minimum number of points, which can later be upgraded.

Regarding travle times, I've heard that one could go 100 miles in a day on horse back. Obviously an army would move slower, but if one wanted to send a messenger, scout, or emissary on a mission, would such a pace be possible?

And here's the latest map. I'm not sure these are conventionally sized counties, since I didn't have nearly enough to cover all England. Ah well, it gives us room to expand.

Darkevilme wrote:Now the question is, how much should ships cost for a given amount of transport capacity be it tradegoods, supplies or troops?

I'd be interested in knowing that as well. Given my possision, I expect ships will be integral to any strategy I might employ.

Maybe the same points as the number of troops they can carry? I don't know if that's realistic, or if it would work, but just an idea.

Well, according to my book "Warfare in the Ancient world", it varied from ship to ship, but they could carry several hundred at most.

http://www.garylovelace.com/roman_deceres.htm

A Deceres, the ancient world's equivalent of a Battleship, had 672 rowers, 30 sailors, and 250 marines. These were expensive, and after Octavian crushed Antony, they were never used again.

The Septireme, another large warship, had 350 rowers, 20 sailors, and 150-200 marines.

The Quinquereme, workhorse of the Punic wars, had 170 rowers, 30 sailors, and 40-120 marines. The marine contingent was dependent on peace or wartime mobilization.

The Greek Triremes of Battle of Salamis fame had 170 rowers, 17 crew, including the captains and a flautist to keep time, and a marine contingent of 14-40 hoplites and archers.

Setzer wrote:Well, according to my book "Warfare in the Ancient world", it varied from ship to ship, but they could carry several hundred at most.

http://www.garylovelace.com/roman_deceres.htm

A Deceres, the ancient world's equivalent of a Battleship, had 672 rowers, 30 sailors, and 250 marines. These were expensive, and after Octavian crushed Antony, they were never used again.

The Septireme, another large warship, had 350 rowers, 20 sailors, and 150-200 marines.

The Quinquereme, workhorse of the Punic wars, had 170 rowers, 30 sailors, and 40-120 marines. The marine contingent was dependent on peace or wartime mobilization.

The Greek Triremes of Battle of Salamis fame had 170 rowers, 17 crew, including the captains and a flautist to keep time, and a marine contingent of 14-40 hoplites and archers.

I was under the impression that this was a Medieval more than (or as well as) an ancient setting. What kind of ships did they have during the high middle ages? I'm not really familliar with navel warfare before the age of gunpowder.