Slitherine

After your 1st or 2nd victory Amaz_Ed could have withdrawn into a city (he has to fight at least one battle).

You are then faced with besieging him which includes options to attempt to storm the city, take it through treachery, or starve it out. However he may, assuming he has an ally, call for a relief army. You may then have to face a new army with your own possibly reduced one. Alternatively you can withdraw from the area all together.

I think this is where it gets interesting - can you take a city before the relieving army arrives - can you outwit an ally of your opponent & force his army into the city as well - much depends on your army strength & your choices at the time of declaring the siege.

The siege tables will be posted this weekend on the guidance thread.

TheGrayMouser wrote:
Ok I understand, not to specifically use my own real example as if I want the new rule clarifications to favour me, but I wouldnt have needed nor wanted to retreat into a city.... I have 3 victorries vs armenia and my ap advantage if we continue both battles would be enough i feel to give me 2 more victories, odds being very much in my favor... I dont think the cost of being allowed to top off the 2 armies into the next season and the maintamce costs are enough of an incentive to armenia(or any other nation) to ever give up and come to terms, just keep fighting additional battle at a disadvantage until you can top off and try again next season on equal terms...
This is just my opinion and i will play according to the spirit of the new clarification

Remember that every time he loses a battle his national morale goes down.

You may also want to say that once an army gets below a certain level from casualties (maybe whatever the minimum army size is) you automatically lose the campaign and cede the province.

Deeter Magnus of Utopia is pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached between his nation and the Canaanites who have agreed to withdraw from Rhodes and enter into a state of peace.

Deeter Magnus

If challenges are issued now for battle so they cannot be refused, what is the timing of those compared to the maintenance phase for the change of seasons? I have an on going invasion of Amaz_Ed and am defending my territory versus Panther Boy. So if challenges are issued now would the battles be fought before maintenance or after? Still need official revised point totals for these battles form you at any rate before challenges can be issues.

Bessos
Shahanshah Phanagoria

batesmotel wrote:If challenges are issued now for battle so they cannot be refused, what is the timing of those compared to the maintenance phase for the change of seasons? I have an on going invasion of Amaz_Ed and am defending my territory versus Panther Boy. So if challenges are issued now would the battles be fought before maintenance or after? Still need official revised point totals for these battles form you at any rate before challenges can be issues.

Bessos
Shahanshah Phanagoria

Ditto

I think that when a war is declared you have to pay upkeep for the army(armies) involved regardless if it's an ongoing game or you is waiting for a challenge.
That's how I understand it:

All armies involved in battles on the go at the time a season ends, including ones where the challenge has been issued but not accepted as yet, must be maintained - you cannot disband an army standing on the battlefield which is effectively what a challenge is.

That probably does not apply to your 2 armies deadtorius but on some of the earlier posts about delaying until the season ends players may not have understood this - a challenge is a battle and cannot be avoided. If you don't want to fight then use diplomacy to end the campaign. If you don't want your opponent to end the campaign & disband his army then fight him - issue the challenge.

batesmotel wrote:If challenges are issued now for battle so they cannot be refused, what is the timing of those compared to the maintenance phase for the change of seasons? I have an on going invasion of Amaz_Ed and am defending my territory versus Panther Boy. So if challenges are issued now would the battles be fought before maintenance or after? Still need official revised point totals for these battles form you at any rate before challenges can be issues.

Bessos
Shahanshah Phanagoria

From what I understand I'll be getting more cracks at you with the current depleted armies. You can top up once you've taken some more defeats

PS: What is the auto defeat level for an army?

Tiganes of the Armenian Empire humbly agrees with General Maximus of Rome to
respectively leave each others bloodied lands and never to return under pain of death.

Is the morale hit for a loss the same whether the defeat takes place on home territory or foreign soil? Is there and additional moral effect for gaining or losing territory?

Thanks, X

It's losing a battle - lose of an area effects future income.

Hey Peter, can you expand upon your post about being able to switch armies during the maintanance part of the season, including those in SOA?
I dont know how I feel about that nor how other players feel.... Not many people have commented either way so far....

I thought this would just be an ancient battles. I may have to quietly abdicate, will see. I think I much prefer a simple campaign with one army and such, as opposed to this with seemingly endless rounds. Not that that is bad or anything...just not my thing. I like the wheeling-dealing-back-stabbing where you need to keep alive with that one army.

Well, I guess I feel the same as Mr Blathergut, and although I will stay in, it certainly will change the feel of things... More of a league as opposed to a nation vs nation campaign.... I wouldnt mind if players who dont like their army, feel no affinity for it or relaize that it is outclassed according to their play style should be allowed to switch from the ROR list, just not any/every turn... Just my 2 C....

The expansions should allow you more choice of armies but you don't have to change (unless you are unlucky on the random events - there is one for a military coup).

If most of you don't want this to happen now is the time to say so.

However may I ask you to consider if you'd still feel the same way if it was Immortal Fire just released & you had a chance to campaign with Bactrian Greeks or Scythians against Romans & Illyrians.

I guess I'm just used to TT play where as long as it's a legal army list you have to face it.

I would prefer that we keep it RoR armies only for now and maybe make it much more expensive to swap to a new army list. What I really would like to see is a map that allows us to have geographical boundaries to our lands so that one could concentrate ones efforts (initially anyway) on the immediate neighbours in terms of diplomacy, alliances and wars. I suppose that would also involve a reduction in the number of armies or total units that could be deployed by a power.

TheGrayMouser wrote:Hey Peter, can you expand upon your post about being able to switch armies during the maintanance part of the season, including those in SOA?
I dont know how I feel about that nor how other players feel.... Not many people have commented either way so far....

I have chosen to switch to a different army. Although I love my Ptolemaic Romans, the maximum useful size of this army is only 588pts and it just gets swamped by larger 650pt armies unless I get lucky!

I have chosen to withdraw all Ptolemaic armies from where ever they were fighting so I can start afresh with the new army at the begining of the next season. Even though I am giving away territory cheaply it seems the fairest and less cheesy way to do things. The new army is still in keeping with the 'personality' of the King of Rhodes, and I have a storyline to back up my new choice.

I think it would be good to change armies once in a while in a very long running and extremely active campaign like this. I dont want to play the same army everyday for month after month!

Perhaps there should be a penalty?

1) Total withdraw of all armies.
2) Justify the change with a story.
£) Pay a small cash penalty.

At the moment it costs 1000 (I think) to change army so I was suggesting a higher figure.

Next steps:-

In the order of battles reported, I'm now doing the reduced army points & PM'ing to players.
You then can issue any challenges - I already know the exact point at which spring finished and will inform you accordingly tomorrow evening - that should give enough time for challenges to be issued.

Also adding the Random Events to the players guide - it takes ages as my old xp system doesn't agree with the Slitherine forum and any post over about 10 lines is a pain to type in. So please bear with me - it should be up tonight.

I also need to type in the Siege stuff so that you know the benefits of having a city but also know the pro's & con's of alliances.

We can then do the Summer phases. At least 2 new players join us for the summer onwards.

All posts have been read. I was already making alliances meaningful via sieges but we can review how that has worked in this thread once you have read the guidance.

However I really don't want to take on anything that adds to the admin time - been some good ideas posted but that week away of mine has proved timing is all important. Not sure why I'm surprised at that as my wife has been telling me so for 17 years now

FoW I leave to players - you decide as each battle comes please.

One post is spot on - the rush to bury your dead in the lands of the panthers has placed Steve in a very strong position especially as he counter invaded & won a new area off many of you. I don't feel he should be penalised for this. However if the combination of the siege rules and alliances doesn't work we may have to consider other ways to have a chance, even a small chance, of players being able to resist a strong power. Thankfully at no point has the Empire of the Panthers attacked another without being attacked first.

Changing armies

Ianiow is right IMO. I hope this will be a long term FoG campaign & we have to find a way of allowing players to switch if they are losing too much or get bored. Plus cater for a player who may not have RoR.

I also deliberately wanted a campaign outside of a historical setting and one that tried to push players out of their comfort zone by fighting armies at different total points. So one that also allows any army to potentially have to face it's nemesis may help achieve this.

However if most players would prefer we stick to RoR only then I'll go with that.