Game 9 Start Up

You really want G2 to end up like G7 ? Besides, I don't think Hessian would cope with me in G2, unless you're hoping that if I joined it would immediately cause him to turn his entire attention towards me to distract from his other enemies? We may be only a short while from G9 starting anyway. Good things come to those who wait


I've been wanting to use that smiley for ages!

Jason, if I did join G2, I'd have to be very clear on the moral cause behind the war. If France was at fault, broke treaties, betrayed its allies or made pre-emptive attacks then I would find it very difficult to side with France. For all I know the Emperor in G2 could be a very honourable fellow. It is the moral dimension to G7 which made it such a fascinating game, and I seem to enjoy things more with that added depth. I don't think players should join in simply to wreck the balance in an existing game or to gang up on a long term player. I can't remember who mentioned it before, but it does seem like a good idea to have a summary for each game detailing what is happening (and why). Joining G2 as a Swashbuckler character whilst I sniff out what is happening is perhaps a more likely introductory step, but if I did that I might find it difficult not to get dragged in to other aspects?

Deacon, you'd make a great Louis! Full of fire and spirit, with good historical knowledge and a sympathy for the Catholic faith. You sound ideally qualified! I'm sure you'd beat back the opposition far more effectively than I did without making my mistakes. And you could design lots of new uniforms!

You might be right about G9 being delayed, I don't know. I just thought it made sense to issue the new rules before starting a new game, and now the new rules have come out, that is one less hurdle?

It is a rather odd intellectual problem.

In the rules the Emperor does not have to be crowned in Rome or by the Pope. He can be crowned somewhere in Germany by a Catholic Archbishop or higher. There is also a note on modifying the Coronation Oaths and I don’t know whether this has been done in G2 or not. The distinction may in practice be meaningless because an Emperor cannot be overthrown, but must resign or die to cause an election. Such an event also dissolves the Aulic Council so there is no mechanism for an Empire to run without an Emperor. Further proof that the powers rest with the states rather than the Emperor! By controlling sufficient electoral votes to be the only candidate who can be elected then such a candidate can be the only Emperor. A rival cannot bypass the need to be elected, so there can be no challengers.

If most of his lands were built up by marriage or purchase (i.e. through consensual means) and this amounts to around 50% of the whole Empire then that just sounds like good play to me. This kind of thing wouldn’t have happened overnight, but after many years of game play.

What happens then depends on how the Imperial rules were altered. By old powers the Emperor has the right to call on states for all kinds of things, but he cannot demand them and he cannot force decisions through by majority votes. The sovereignty and independence of individual states is absolute. By 1700 … “The Imperial Diet had become a congress of representatives of independent states … which would not dare to deal with anything greatly significant such as levying taxes or raising armies since any decision it took would be ignored with impunity by member states, making the whole exercise fairly pointless. Such powers (since 1667) rested with the Diet of each principality.”

So although I am wary of commenting based on just one side, it appears that although the Emperor can ask the Catholic princes in the west to “pay up, sign up and shut up”, he would be rather unwise to do so as a refusal would make him look rather silly. He cannot view their refusal to comply as any offence against himself or the Reich as he has no legal right to force compliance or to stop those princes leaving the Empire.

You cannot rebel against an authority which does not exist. So the question of whether France or anyone else should support the Catholic princes doesn’t arise. They are free to choose France as an ally irrespective of whether they are within or outside the Empire. This was always the case.

Perhaps the problem is in the use of the title which seems to bring rather a lot of baggage with it? If the title of Kaiser was simply granted to the ruler of Prussia (which he can probably do himself), all Imperial institutions disbanded and the ‘Empire’ ceased to exist then there would simply be a straight forward disagreement between France and Prussia? France could not fight to re-establish the ‘empire’ as it had been legitimately dissolved by the last emperor. Catholic bishops would surely be suspicious of any supra-national authority which sought to limit their own powers, but for convenience there would be nothing to stop those Catholic bishops from merging together to form their own state if that is what they freely decided to do?

I’ve probably unintentionally upset lots of applecarts with this analysis and I’m sorry if I’ve offended any of the players involved in this, but reducing Stuart’s explanation to its essentials there seem to be some quite obvious ways to break the circle.