Game 10

Stuart Bailey wrote:

Marshal Bombast wrote:Anyone any ideas how much effect Town Watches have on banditry in above sorts of circumstances?  I know road patrols should help reduce the chance and/or impact

Think you will find that Town Watches operate in towns.  In game terms they seem to make it more difficult for hostile agents to put up posters attacking the government, steal blue prints and other documents from your treasury etc, set fires etc etc.  They may also give a slight help with honour as the public see their rulers working to keep law and order but this probably varies with position.

While bandits operate in the countryside and really need to he countered with police patrols of Lt Cav, Dragoons and Light Infantry.

The only circumstances in which a town watch may be of value is if your bandit problem is not purely home grown and is being helped by town based foreign agents and smuggled gold/firearms.

If you have both Town Watches, Patrols and a Bandit ptroblem might be worth a order to Agema saying that bandits need to sale loot and obtain supplies.  And that your town watches are ordered to gather information on such movements of loot and supplies and track them back to locations of Bandit camps.  Which are then attacked by your Dragoons.  Assume Agema may give your patrols a bit of a bonus to their chance of finding and attacking bandits in such circumstances.

Banditry seems a particular problem for Rumelia and some other eastern positions esp if life gets boring.  In G2 I found that best solution to possible bandit problem was to export it elsewhere.  Compared to other games Rumelia in G2 never had a bandit problem perhaps because 20,000 to 50,000 of the worst potential bandits were now in Venice etc with orders to "Burn, loot and plunder".  All they wanted was an opportunity in life !!

Likewise in G7 do you ever read of Banditary in Ottoman Empire, Persia, India? No the Shah of Persia has hired all the bad men and sent them too sea.  For a life of Jihad and Plunder on the high sea's.

For players who do not fancy this type of full employment/social scheme for potential bad elements in their society.  Can I suggest you send them out to the colonies?  I mean no one cares what the poor, adventurous and daring do in North America just so long as they are not holding up coaches outside Madrid, Paris, London, Moscow etc

Cheers Stuart, suspected they'd be better with hostile agents etc than tackling banditry but good suggestion re tracks sales etc.

Love the idea of exporting them but given next G10 batch are likely in central Europe I'll leave that to others unless they try to export to Russia lol

Suspect town watch dogs are good for tracking spies when they get caught breaking in and for breaking up crowds too

Game 10 arrived with the King of Portugal making the only change on the honour table, moving past the King of Sweden.

1. London saw calls for parliament to have a place to sit, and a discussion was started about sending food to Spain to counter their bad harvest.

2. More ministers arrived in Amsterdam for the trade minister’s conference, though the Tuscan representative may have been pranked as he went to Westminster Palace only to find it wasn’t there.

3. Scotland sent a naval squadron to New Caledonia, let’s hope they’re fairing better than the Darien colony, though in a land where everything’s out to kill you…

4. Vienna saw another happy addition to the royal family, which may have drowned out the request from Denmark. That or translation meant the wrong kind of stud for Denmark’s needs was provided.

A, presumably, Spanish gentleman arrived at the Austrian court requesting immediate entrance. Not sure these days whether he’s part of the Austrian diplomatic corps or someone else’s.

5. For a war that ended a while ago it seems a long time before some of the forces started to leave for home. Maybe it’s because they were so tired from campaigning, they slept for months.

There was also some swapping of control in a few Polish towns between the Royalist and Regency factions. Let’s see who has the most forces to allocate to garrisoning.

6. Clarification was given that Italian states aren’t part of the Reichstag and given past reluctance to admit any new states to this august body it probably wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

7. A Co-Regent of Courland was overheard to say he trusted the wisdom of King Augustus, but let’s see what the duke, who reaches his majority next month, has to say about it.

8. Spain is set to open a banking organisation using bullion from her empire’s mines. However it was agreed that it might be better to only trust the people with a picture of a gold bar with an illegible signature underneath that may or may not hold up in a court of law.

It does seem from the response to the way the Cortez’s opinions are being treated that not all is well in the Spanish homeland. Luckily the only blood shed this month was that from the multiple bull fights across their empire.

9. Portugal saw the new young King is his finest and most virile character as he performed with many of his friends for the shocked enjoyment of the court.

As another sign of spreading his largesse a Portuguese mission arrived in Venice to teach them how to build East Indiamen. While in Khami, His Majesty’s gifts were well received and now a frigate is requested be given.

A feast to marking midsummer saw many important dignitaries and foreign training missions invited, and one conversation turned to the best shape for ship design. It would have been good to know what shape the Russian mission advocated for – on 2nd thoughts maybe I don’t want to know!

10. Sweden saw the faerie bear was actually a man in a bear suit, or was it?

Riga saw wrecks blocking the River Daugava cleared.

11. Denmark saw many important artisans take up posts in government facilities, though with some stipulation to only work for their host nation. This was reinforced by the appointment of many magistrates who would surely find one guilty if they tried to work for another nation now.

12. Danzig saw multiple fires break out across the city with little lasting damage, though we don’t know what happened in the fortress interior.

13. Graudenz saw a small Lithuanian force under Royalist control enter and demand the surrender of Regency forces. Given the previous response from the town it’s unsurprising the Royalists were given short shrift at the live end of multiple muskets before realising they weren’t welcome.

14. The Tuscan Embassy in Genoa held a reception at which the Tuscan Minister for War laid down some red lines, though stated he didn’t think there would be war with Spain. Which maybe partly why the Tuscan navy left Rappallo’s vicinity, though a nearby fort was reinforced with heavy artillery pieces.

15. Spezia saw Neopolitan forces presently there offered for the defence of the town. Seems like many units have left the Italian peninsula as Austrian troops happily travelled from there to Trieste.

Is it usual to see so many happy infantrymen? Even Russian infantry have been seen smiling and that’s most out of character, maybe there’s something in the vodka!

16. Malta saw the Monastery of St Ursula restored in another sign of a cultural and religious revival across Europe in recent months and years.

17. In Venice the Doge showed he listens to the Senate and reduced the fines proposed in recent legislation, all he needs do now is enact it.

And talk about sandwiching bad news between good, the new tax collectors seem to be taking a burden from the nobles that they didn’t see as an issue.

The Doge then went on to say how Venice would make it’s own mind up about who they’d support in any war and that actually Austria and Spain should not involve Venice at all. Adding that surely more diplomacy is required than threats and provocative language. He then went on to ask questions about the Russian troops in Trieste, before we then heard that Venice had claimed the island of Cerigo.

18. Not normally one to comment about letters in the paper but the one from His Holiness in Rome laid down the expectation of good Catholics everywhere.

While the Chancellery’s letter welcomed Russians in Trieste, it may have added further questions in Venice as to why they’re there. Though possibly not as many as the Crimean Khan offering to send Tartar squadrons to aid Saxony – what propaganda will the Regency Council make of that?

19. Cairo saw a project to build aqueducts linked to the Nile begin, while Constantinople took the Wali’s concerns about the recent trade edict to a postal vote.

Constantinople also saw a theological academy open to train clerics to spread the word of Allah more widely.

20. The expedition to Cape Disappointment found it to lived up to its name in comparison to the relative paradise they’ve found and quickly settled into at the Seattle site.

21. Blackbeard has personally paid the prize money owed to the Scottish Kidd’s sailors.

22. It appears the Dutch hired 30,000 recruits from Moghul India last year and are asking to do the same again. This may explain why Dutch trade is top in India.