Aftermath Reborn Rules Discussion

This will move to where-ever we decide to host this eventually. I'd like to keep you guys in on the process so you can see how its done, and more importantly yell "NOOOO, TOO COMPLICATED YOU SADISTIC GENIUS!" if it gets you know, overwhelming.

That's it for tonight, let me know how it looks. I must admit many mechanics are as yet unknown, so those traits (and their effects) are liable to change at any time. If there are any traits / backgrounds which you want to see added, let me know.

A good question someone asked; are you playing as just one character or a dynasty? 

Answer; Either really! The character traits mentioned above would have those of the "Head of the Family" to keep it simple, though you can certainly interact with other players as other members of the dynasty. Some caveats however, there will be a system of military control, so if you want them to be military commanders, you will have to buy them as "Captains" like everyone else. Likewise marriages are difficult as I don't want to just conjure daughters and sons with which to secure alliances ala EU3. There will be a system created to balance this, but I've not worked on it yet. One possible method would be by granting each family a number of characters they can marry off, or else creating another political currency that can be "spent" to generate them. The timeline and scope of this game just doesn't really allow for massively expanded dynasties, sorry.

* More on Captains later, but basically each player gets 1 Military Action per Captain, per turn.

I guess Traits can be Roleplayed whatever way we like? let's say i want merchant and order member trait, my character is a merchant, but he is never was order member. However he got his connections with order of XXX trough one of his captains(and those connections growed so much that even should captain die they would remain)

Another way around it is that your Merchant has made large donations to that Order in the past, a debt that they are keen to repay (through service).

Ok, so i've been thinking about how economics should work in this, I want to make it as simplified as possible but expansive to allow different play styles. As such each hex will have 2 resources, wealth and manpower.

Wealth - This will be multiplied by something (probably 10) and indicate your monthly gold income (each turn is 1 month game time). Characters with a gold bonus will either increase the base wealth of their home province OR grant a monthly gold stipend. This will probably be on a scale from 1-5.

Manpower - This is the MAXIMUM number of troops that province can manage, some backgrounds and traits give free troops - these do not count towards this total.  This will probably be on a scale of 1-10.

In addition to this each province will have a fortification level from 1-4, these basically give free troops and / or a command bonus when defending. 

No Walls = 0 Defence
Stockade = 1 Defence
Hill Fort = 2 Defence
Stronghold = 3 Defence
Fortress = 4 Defence

Each character begins with a Stockade.

All three of these will be indicated on the map, so you can see at a glance how lucrative a province is against how tough the defences will probably be.

Now I stated that manpower is the maximum limit. All characters can raise a levy of 3 units as a standard, and will need to convert the manpower to serfs in order to unlock the other potential slots. They do this by attracting barons to their lands by building Manors. Basically 1 Manor = 1 Manpower -> Levy. 

A Count with three manors and 9 Manpower could therefore raise;
3x Units - Count
3x Units - Manors
3x Manpower untapped. 

Each Unit is then given a set of gear which defines their stats in raids and battles. Units themselves can be upgraded to Militia, Regular and eventually Elite strength though additional upgrades to the Manor.

Manor = Levy level
Estate = Militia level
Keep = Regular level
Castle = Elite level

(note; these do NOT affect the fortification of your lands, attacks are on your "capital")

A province could then have 2 Manors, 1 Estate and a Castle. This would unlock 5 Levies, 1 Militia and 1 Elite unit.

		Raiding Strength	Garrison Strength	Attack Strength	Defence Strength	Abilities
Levy	Peasants	2	2	1	0
	Spearmen	3	1	2	1	First Strike
	Archers	1	3	2	0	Ranged
Militia	Footmen	3	4	3	2
	Archers	2	5	3	0	Ranged
	Spearmen	4	3	3	1	First Strike
	Light Horsemen	5	2	5	0	Mounted
Regular	Men at Arms	5	5	4	4
	Halbardiers	6	4	6	2	First Strike
	Crossbowmen	1	9	5	3	First Strike
	Longbowmen	4	6	5	1	Ranged
	Heavy Horsemen	9	1	7	4	Mounted
	Adventurer	7	5	8	6	Mounted
Elite	Knights	10	5	9	6	Mounted
	Dismounted Knights	5	10	8	5	First Strike
	Order Knights	10	10	13	9	First Strike, Mounted

To simplify raiding to just 1 die roll per raid, each unit has a "Raid Strength" and "Garrison Strength", therefore you will want Light Horsemen units to raid others, and Archers or Crossbows to garrison your own lands. Unit abilities are ignored at this stage.

In proper battles we will be using a full Attack / Defence / Hitpoints system which I have not yet created.

Ranged units fire first
Then First Strike
Then everyone else at the same time.

Not sure what Mounted will do yet, but it'll be something.

How does this sound? I'll add these to the rules once they get vetted, I just wanted to give you an overview of my ideas.

Updated map, using Kharads random asymmetrical rolling system;

Spoiler:

Black - Hex Number
Yellow - Wealth
Green - Manpower

I'm not sure if this counts as a rule, but I'll ask here anyway!

In the Order member trait, it mentions the Lions.  IIRC, the Lions were wiped out by Darlion and King Mordred when old Sarleon fell.  The new Lions were secretly reformed around the time of this RP, and were a secret society for nobles concerned with the Orders, rather than a Knighthood Order proper.  I like the Lions and all, so I'm fine either way, but which version of Lions will exist (or not exist) for this RP?

The secretly reformed ones, being so close to Marleons there is a good chance they would be active in this area.

I like the rules so far. I especially like the backgrounds and traits, you really got everything Mordred.

I have a question though, would the counts be able to make their own vassals?

I liked the system back in Aftermath, with the free knights/landed knights/bannerets we had.

Kind of... the baronies you create from the Manors and other nobles from Captains can be used as vassals though outside of their actual in-game use their primary use will be RP flavour.

Other players can be vassalised too if you manage to conquer their holdings, or make them swear fealty through diplomacy. Just how to manage this though will need to be a mix of good roleplay and game mechanics (for instance costing prestige to break away). My intention is that the Player will remain in control of their holdings, just that the liege will be able to call on their armies and demand taxes.

I don't want to include too many playable levels though, else it gets complicated really quickly and I would rather that all players are at least equal in status at the start, if not in actual resources.

I didn't mean the lower levels were playable. Just really for my own tendencies of involving my vassals in things.

Ah then yes, certainly. I do actually mean for people to name their Units (or at least the commander) and certainly the Captains. Armies would then be written up as something like this;

Adalhard First Banneret

Captain; Valdemarr Adalhard, heir to the County of Strongshire. 17 Experience, 2 Command.

1st Middlescomb Archers, Baron Rufold. 100/100
2nd Middlescomb Archers, Baron Richard. 100/100
1st Strongshire Heavy Cavalry, Baron Ruppert 100/100
Dungerwall Adventuring Company, Commander Roger. 73/100

Orders; Raiding the County of Wintersett

Valdemarr, Rufold, Richard, Ruppert and Roger could then be used in RP as envoys or soldiers, whatever really.

Okay I see.

From what I saw with the update on order member, does this mean that all counts can hire order members?

Still refining it, but at the moment yes, but Order Members can get them sooner and in larger numbers.

For battle calculation, I have a feeling that we could probably use the espionage system, with a few tweaks.

Here is my suggestion:

Quote :

1. Determine Attacker Damage
(Soldiers x Raiding Strength / Attack Strength)
(Command Skill* multiplied by result)
divide by four for total damage

2. Determine Defender Damage
(Soldiers x Raiding Strength / Attack Strength)
(Command Skill* multiplied by result)
divide by four for total damage

3. Determine Attacker Wounds
Work out the % composition of the Attackers (so if they have 10 Knights, 20 Archers, and 70 Spearmen, then they are 10%, 20%, 70%)
Apply Damage to Attackers depending on their composition (so the 10 Knights take 10% of the Total Damage)
Divide the wounds by the defense strength for each section. Rounding down, these are the lost troops.

4. Determine Defender Wounds
Work out the % composition of the Defenders (so if they have 10 men at arms, 20 crossbowmen, 30 spearmen, 40 peasants, then they are 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%)
Apply Damage to Attackers depending on their composition (so the 10 men at arms take 10% of the Total Damage)
Divide the wounds by the garrison/defense strength for each section. Rounding down, these are the lost troops.

*: command is a skill that all players would have. It would influence the engagement for npc captains and small engagements for casualties. The System would be 0-5.

0- incompentant commander = 0.75
Given to those who lose many battles or never have been trained in warfare
1- Normal commander = 1.0
Given to average commanders, who know what they are doing
2- Tested commander = 1.15
Commanders who have  at least 5 battles and come out on top
3- Experianced commander = 1.30
Commanders who have won 15 engagements without numerical odds exceeding 1-1.5
4- Brilliant strategist = 1.45
Commanders who have won 30 engagements
5. Tactical Genius = 1.60
Commanders who have won 60 engagements

Prone to change, we would want to make players work for the higher commander skills.


An example for a battle:

Earl Bran, a tested commander of Ravenstern (Command 2), is leading 20 Knights and 30 Heavy horsemen to answer the call of a messenger who had reported a force of Ravenstern deserters.

The Deserters are led by an unimportant Captain (command 1), and number 80. Let's say that they are represented by 80 footmen.

1. Determine attack damage, multiplying by attack strength in this instance
Knights- 20 X 9 = 180
Heavy Horsemen- 30 X 7 = 210
Multiply by command (rounding down)= 210 X 1.15 = 241
Divide by 4 (rounding down)= 60

2. Determine defender damage, multiplying by attack strength in this instance
Footmen- 80 X 3 = 240
Multiply by command= 240 X 1.0 = 240
Divide by 4= 60

As we can see here, the command made enough of an effect to match the strength of the knights against the vanskerries

3. Determine attacker wounds, using defense strength
Knights (40% wounds)(60*.40) =  24/9 rounding down = 2 knights lost
Heavy Horsemen (60% wounds)(60*.6) = 36/4 = 9 heavy horsemen lost

4. Determine defense wounds, using defense strength
Footmen (100% wounds)= 60/2 = 30 footmen lost

A charge of 50 heavy cavalry, sustaining about 20% losses, inflicted 37.5% losses on a force of 80 footmen. This is without accounting for any special abilities or other circumstances.

We could make a separate die roll for whether or not the losses were wounded or dead, but I decided to leave that out for this test.

Based on this example, what do you guys think?

I have a clarification question.  The Lesser Vassal background states that it allows the purchase of men-at-arms from an estate rather than a keep as usual.  (Now for the dumb part!)  Should this read 'regulars' or is it specifically/exclusively for the men-at-arms unit type as it currently reads?

Just Men at Arms. Basically they can raise 1 specific unit (general all-rounders) earlier than other Players, but still need the proper infrastructure in place for the others. Basically they've asked their liege for supplies to arm some troops.

It makes sense, I just wanted to be sure.  Thank you!