Diplomacy Royale - 7/7

[EpicDim]

When playing it's not really that complicated. The negotiations are more around the marriage writs instead of orders. These can be very simple and in fact become very simple after playing for a while since you realize that doing anything complicated just makes it longer to write up and most of the time never gets agreed to.

Since it's broken down by phase really well, as a player you only need to decide the following:

During Winter:
1.Builds and Disbands (16x0 years only)
2.Number of childen attempted for each couple (Generally this will be 1 or 2 for each couple unless you want a writ to go away then you breed her as much as possible)

If there's a vote for Pope and you have a Cardinal+ (Very infrequent)
1. Votes

Each marriage phase:
1.Marriage Writs and acceptances of Marriage Writs (This happens only when you have eligible members of your family and is what makes this variant so different)
2.Assignment of Titles (Only when you have males who are of age and not in the clergy)
3.Assignment of Nobles to Units (Only when you have males who are of age and not in the clergy)
4.Disposition of Captured Nobles (Only if you've captured some)
5.Names of newborns. (Always having kids)
6.Assignment of Priests (When you want males to enter the clergy)
7.Granting of archbishoprics (When a clergy advances to this level)
8.Archbishops and Cardinals can attempt to arrest a leader (You'll have few of these if any)
9.Cardinals and Popes can protect a leader (Even fewer of these)
10.Cardinals can cause a succession skip from the most recent turn (Very seldom used and mostly just for fun)
11.Popes can annul a marriage with consent from one side of the marriage (Very, very rare)

Moves and Retreat phases:
1.Moves or Retreats for all units

The GM really takes care of all the book keeping, and that's mostly what it is, a bunch of book keeping and randomization.

The best part of the game is the ability to really seal up those DMZ's and KNOW that the other player can't breach it. And the risk of knowing that some of your units just might transition to another power when you made that deal, but in the end the risk was worth it.

All in all, after playing one of these, I thouroughly enjoyed it and would play again if given the chance. I'm looking forward to GMing it once I can get 3 more players.

[pjkon]

I would love to play. I do not however know if I would be able to keep track of all of the rules. I'm not sure, but it might be a really great help if something could be done to simplify the births/deaths rules. THey seem to add the most in the way of complication in exchange for the least in the way of game improvement. Either way though, it looks like a great game, sort of a cross between nomic and dip.

[EpicDim]

Glad to have you. 2 more and we can start this thing.

For the players, deaths are easy: some of your people die, fairly randomly.

For the players, the strategy around birth orders is the tricky part. If you want to guarantee children and don't want to overtax your women, you can order 2A which means only try for the second one if you don't have a first one. If you want more kids and take a risk at killing off your women you can order 2 or 3A/S. Sometimes you will want to try and kill off your women if you want a writ to go away. There is actually some strategy with regard to birth orders.

[sinnybee]

Sometimes you will want to try and kill off your women

[pjkon]

One more rule question: Say in spring 01 a french duchess marries an English duke. The nations spell out in the writ that England gets control of the charecters, but FRance gets control of their children. In fall 01 these charecters have a son. If the english duke, who is duke of, say, clyde, controls an englsh fleet raised there, and dies, then his son, who is FRench takes over his title, and the fleet control goes to France. Yet France does not have an additional sc with which to support the fleet. What happens? Does France, in leiu of further sc captures need to disband the next winter? Does an English sc continue to support the unit? If so, can England choose to disband the french unit whenever he is a center short? In the former case taking over titles seems to matter to little, nd in the latter case you will have nations who want to lose scs in order to cut their enemies supply, which is very unrealistic. THe logical answer would seem to be that whenever a unit is built in a barony then that an sc must also be added to the barony to supply it, so centers=units for any title. This does not seem to be in the rules though. What is the real answer?

[FortressDoor]

Oh god this is complex.... interested!

[EpicDim]

One more rule question: Say in spring 01 a french duchess marries an English duke. The nations spell out in the writ that England gets control of the charecters,

Control of the characters remains with the original dynasty for that character. (Minor technicality)

but FRance gets control of their children. In fall 01 these charecters have a son.

Which dynasty the children will belong to affects who makes the birth orders for that couple.

If the english duke, who is duke of, say, clyde, controls an englsh fleet raised there, and dies, then his son, who is FRench takes over his title, and the fleet control goes to France. Yet France does not have an additional sc with which to support the fleet. What happens? Does France, in leiu of further sc captures need to disband the next winter? [...] In the former case taking over titles seems to matter too little, and in the latter case you will have nations who want to lose scs in order to cut their enemies supply, which is very unrealistic. THe logical answer would seem to be that whenever a unit is built in a barony then that an sc must also be added to the barony to supply it, so centers=units for any title. This does not seem to be in the rules though. What is the real answer?

SC control would remain the same, so France would need to disband a unit, not necessarily that one and England would be able to build. Now remember that Clyde becomes a build site for France AND is French owned (as long as it was English before the title transfer). Also remember that there may be 3 English fleets that were built in Clyde that occupy Sweden and St. Petes. France would gain all those fleets and after the Fall would also own those SCs as well because they were occupied.

In your example, is England going to freak out if all of a sudden the French could build Armies in Clyde?

Title transfer with units (or even without units and just the space) could be a huge game changer. France at war with Italy all of a sudden gained a title to Albania and could build fleets there because of a writ with Austria... Many, many options.

[marsman57]

Wow this is insane.

[EpicDim]

marsman, so does that mean you're interested? Hint, hint...

[marsman57]

Who are the other 6 players?