How far to go when role-playing a position?

On addressing foreign visitors to the royal court


"Kneel in submission when in the presence of the Great King.

He, that is akin to the ferocious lion. He, that charges like the mighty elephant. He, who strikes fear into the hearts of man like the deadly leopard.

Ruler of the lands and people of the Rozwi. Descended from great kings; Those that dwell with the ancestor chiefs who guide our hands.

Chosen of Mwari. Created from the dreams of Musikavanhu. Speaker-chief to mudzimu. Dzivaguru, bringer of rains and good harvest.

Wene we Rozwi!

Karigamombe Changamire!

Those that come before the Great King; Bringers of gifts to the Royal Spear; Tremble in the presence of his shadow. Lest his eyes fall upon you like the eagle on its prey."


Do you think it's a bit much?

And the first nation to take exception when their ambassador is refused an audience, on the grounds that he failed to bring the required gift, will be...?

Still, I bet my Honour score would go up for good role playing

Sounds reasonable standards to expect of your visiting ambassadors   

I mean, you're not going to go around cutting bits off them if they don't bring a gift...

Post's on the forum keep saying that good role playing and staying close to a historic character is good for your honour score.

But every time I try it seems to have the opposite effect! Where am I going wrong?

- Played Augustus the Strong fairly close to the historic model and I am sure every time a lady friend got with child it cost another honour point.

- My Rumelian Grand Vizier stayed ultra loyal to his "Turkisk Notable/Saphi class" roots......fully respresenting their hatred of Papists esp Venice & Hapsburgs historic foes, Cossacks, Shia Heretics, Jannissary Heretics etc. But I even suffered loss of honour for burning Venice to the ground, calling the Grand Mufti a senile old goat & a heretic and trying to purify the Empire of Janissary Heretic's.

All actions which were fully in character.

When I played Prussia, I initially went for the Soldier king method( Frederichs father) Basically stripped out all the pomp & ceremony out of court life. Saved money on government & went for austerity. Basically because the position was bankrupt.

It actually worked quite well, threw in a few taunts at the Catholics & honour soared.

Basically played the Spartan card to the full.

Well, I was once an Englishman who refused to leave his harem when the British Crown's agent came calling. Same bloke shot a Spaniard down in cold blood in the middle of Havana harbour. This same blackguard was in the paper a couple of times roaring drunk and leering at bosom serving wenches, if memory serves me correct that is.

Obviously, I was playing a pirate.

Play bad and get rewarded! Play good and the Court of St. James plays hell that I've set myself up as the Governor of Jamaica.

I'm looking forward to playing in Africa

Stuart Bailey wrote:Post's on the forum keep saying that good role playing and staying close to a historic character is good for your honour score.

But every time I try it seems to have the opposite effect!  Where am I going wrong?

- Played Augustus the Strong fairly close to the historic model and I am sure every time a lady friend got with child it cost another honour point.

- My Rumelian Grand Vizier stayed ultra loyal to his "Turkisk Notable/Saphi class" roots......fully respresenting their hatred of Papists esp Venice & Hapsburgs historic foes, Cossacks, Shia Heretics, Jannissary Heretics etc.  But I even suffered loss of honour for burning Venice to the ground, calling the Grand Mufti a senile old goat & a heretic and trying to purify the Empire of Janissary Heretic's.

All actions which were fully in character.  

Well, I'm sure Augustus did have a lot of lady friends, it didn't mean polite society approved!

And burning cities to the ground is much frowned upon pretty much everywhere, as is insulting religious leaders.

I think the above RP looks great! Course if you whack off the parts of a European power's ambassador, you might suffer consequences down the road when the army arrives. But it's harder to beat the natives than it first might appear...

well, i'm sure that keeping the highest possible level of roleplaying is good for the quality of the game, push the other players to do the same and indirectly helps with honor. The doubt comes when you are playing in a position that historically needs to be more autocrat and reform against existing nobility. i don't know what happens then to the honor point...

Honour is always a tradeoff. Being an autocrat is trading honour or potential honour for real in game power. Seems a fair trade.

There is an old joke that diplomacy is telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip. I think that applies to honour and nobles too.

Deacon wrote:Honour is always a tradeoff. Being an autocrat is trading honour or potential honour for real in game power.  Seems a fair trade.

There is an old joke that diplomacy is telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip. I think that applies to honour and nobles too.

that a beautiful quote Deacon, and seems legit too. Anyway honor still remains a game mystery to me

Ha yeah, honor does seem to be very much a mystery, although I have noticed playing historically to your national position helps that and doing things that will keep your nobles in line/happy. Only based on what I have experienced, passing decrees in a parliament/cortez/diet and the like definitely gets you honor. Also being very vocal in the newspaper also gets you there, opening/reconsecrating churches and giving a speech or having your priest preach a passage from your national gospel. All of these have worked and still work.

To be honest I also like the fact that I don't truly know how honor works, because like your nobles you can only guess what they are thinking or how they are truly feeling. Yes you can get your spies in tow getting them working for you which does help to get a true feel of your own internal politics.