A bunch of silly newbie questions part 2

Hi guys and happy new year!

After Jason so kindly explained the amusement of playing tGoK in far east position, a new set of questions has come to my mind. Please be patient and remember i'm a newbie


1) On the Country Building: which is your approach? do you manage to work a long term plan? how do you manage the lack of Honor reward that usually is associated with building the kingdom and avoiding wars?

2) On the Army: You've builded a great army and trained well, also perfectly equipped! now it's time to war! how do you handle it? Do you provide a regulation to your army and a general gol to your commander or do you plan every single tactical step? how much detailing the tactic is rewarded in your experience instead of just saying "do your best general"?

3) On Ministers: How exactly do you use them? Jason asked his emperor to control a second province and got a quest in order to be rewarded of that prize. Do you ask your ministers with weakness afflict the kingdom, which steps are suggested to improve a situation? in other terms, how do you try to interact with Richard to secure your goals? Has anyone ever asked to his minister how to increment his Honor score?

thanks folks!

Nexus06 wrote:Hi guys and happy new year!
1) On the Country Building: which is your approach? do you manage to work a long term plan? how do you manage the lack of Honor reward that usually is associated with building the kingdom and avoiding wars?

Kingmaker's advice when I joined the game has stuck with me. Make a 5 year plan. I don't exactly follow that, but I do figure out what my priorities are, and what objectives I'd like to achieve over the next several game years.

I think it pays to look at your position and think about how you want to grow it. I think the big choices is peaceful economic or military. If your key path forward is military, then it pays to focus almost exclusively on that. It's a higher risk, higher return strategy and you want to make sure you don't stint on that. If economic, then I'd point to other comments on figuring out where best to invest. But even if economic, you probably want to ensure you have enough military that a neighbor doesn't decide you are easy pickings.

I like to think about how and when I will do the bigger economic investments like canals, roads, and the norfolk system versus my other investments.

As I've said elsewhere, Honour is rarely a reward for game success. Honour is more the reward for playing the "character" of your leader well. Note, for instance, the comment that Honour score will dip when your leader dies and is replaced by his heir. It's a reward for doing the things a king would and should do. Being a public leader, hosting parties for the nobles, endowing churches, giving alms to the poor. My advice is to make sure that you submit something to the paper every turn if you care about honour.

Nexus06 wrote:Hi guys and happy new year!
3) On Ministers: How exactly do you use them? Jason asked his emperor to control a second province and got a quest in order to be rewarded of that prize. Do you ask your ministers with weakness afflict the kingdom, which steps are suggested to improve a situation? in other terms, how do you try to interact with Richard to secure your goals? Has anyone ever asked to his minister how to increment his Honor score?

My view is that ministers are helpful and self-interested. They tend to give self-serving answers so you need to take what they say with a grain of salt. They are far better used when asked specific questions than general ones (though if you're really struggling, then start with general ones).

Ministers also regularly give you traditional advice. If you're looking to make big changes, they are probably not the best to help you unless you've specifically recruited them for that purpose so that you know that they're big thinkers.

I did have excellent advice from some of my ministers in one game by giving a detailed view of what I wanted to achieve and then asking them for advice on how to achieve it.

I'd go with everything Deacon said.

I always start by developing a 5 year plan for any position, including plans for annual military developments, estimates of numbers of recruits put aside for trade, to train at doctors, etc. I also tend to review the plan at the end of each year and revise if needbe to allow for changes in recruit numbers, income levels.

I don't tend to find my honour suffers due to nation building and avoiding wars. I tend to do well, honour wise, in my European positions despite being a peaceful chap. I do a lot of banquets, alms giving, even supporting some 'good works' like street lighting when I can avoid it from personal wealth. As explained elsewhere find honour in a position such as China is completely different but also unrelated to how warlike I am.

Ministers-I've found if I follow their advice I tend to have more success than ignoring it! I find them very useful for advice on trade investements for example. As Deacon says, they aren't open to big changes but perhaps that reflects the early 1700s to a degree. I find them useful as a sounding board, 'someone' to run ideas by and see what the 'in-game' attitude to them is.

Afraid not the best person to ask on military matters...except on how not to do them

I agree with Jason. Ministers make great sounding boards. If you have plans, run it by them for their feedback. If the plan is completely cocked, they'll tell you (probably!).

I totally agree with what both Deacon and Jason say...

I create what I call a three point action plan, really sad but its the retail management coming out. In that I detail everything what I need to do to achieve that plan and get right into the detail of how, who, how long potentially each one might take and what it will look like if it is a success. I would review my plan every game year to see how well I have progressed. Some positions take quite long term planning to really achieve real success.

In terms of the army I generally like to send ahead units under the command of NPC's giving them very specific goals and orders, be wary of ambiguity I reckon because that has hurt me quite badly in the past. One thing I do do is make sure my spies in foreign lands have given me every tactical advantage I could possibly have, such as providing accurate maps, the best routes, the generals most likely to turn so on and so forth.

On ministers, these can be both very effective, very painful and loads of fun, I have found much like Deacon and Jason that the more detail you ask for the better the reply may be. Most will only react based on their personality and their hidden agendas.

Finally I find playing your position historically or simply pandering to your national nobilities leanings I got MANY! honour points for what I like to call French bashing as the English. As the Hungarians I got 10 honour points for just declaring war on the French and joining my brother in law the Kaiser of Prussia to take Strassbourg.

MarkTurner26 wrote:I totally agree with what both Deacon and Jason say...

Finally I find playing your position historically or simply pandering to your national nobilities leanings I got MANY! honour points for what I like to call French bashing as the English. As the Hungarians I got 10 honour points for just declaring war on the French and joining my brother in law the Kaiser of Prussia to take Strassbourg.

10 Honour points for declaring war on a non historic foe and holding the HRE coat some people have all the luck.

I have declared war on lots of evil and nasty foes of the true faith and historic foes and no one gave any character of mine ten honour points.

I got zero honor as Pedro when I ascended the Spanish throne in game 8 uniting Portugal and Spain. No change at all. Nothing military has gotten me any honour that I can tell. I retook Zanzibar from the Omani and nothing to notice.

But, throw a banquet and give your courtiers/nobles a few roast pigs and trimmings, and they will tell the world what a jolly good fellow you are!

I think that word "pandering" is very germaine. For old En Garde players, gaining honour is toadying in reverse. You suck up to your courtiers

Honour is mostly the velvet glove if you will. Frippery and finery, flash and dazzle for your courtiers and people to win it. The iron glove is Richard who can and will hammer your honour score if you act too out of character for your people. I think honour's primary role in game is to be the carrot and the stick that Richard uses to keep people from throwing 18th century protocols to the wind and doing really odd-ball things that would seriously change the character of the game.

Honour does not equal 'game score!' It is not a proxy for who is considered the most influential or powerful. It is a measure of how well your kingdom is united behind you because you are a good chap who takes care of the people who matter. (in general, anyways). I think because it's reported each turn people have ended up placing more importance on it than it really has in-game. (Though it is fun to compete on these kinds of things)

I can imagine that if you started on turn 1 to make your court only about the military and only about battle and victory that you might be able to somewhat change the honour calculations for your court, so that you gained more from won battles and less from banquets and the like.

Personally, though, why not just follow the traditional routes to honour? It isn't hard. A bit tedious to some, perhaps, but not hard.

In game 8, Pedro is fond of his food and drink. He likes banquets and parties and bull fights. He has given the Empress a 10K a month stipend to ensure she always has the gowns and necessities of court life. From a wargamer perspective, it is probably money wasted, but shouldn't the hostess of your court have the money she needs to drive court life?  I roleplay a bit her fancies versus Pedro's. When the crown prince was younger, he had a set of pet pygmy slaves that were a running joke for a while.  I make a point to submit something to the paper every month, and slowly my honour score rises. I've had a few blips down for things I've done, but mostly it has been very small bumps that have gotten me to the top of the honour rolls. I have a sense of Pedro's public face and I use these things to show it to the world. Sometimes I do some googling and find a neat old cathedral that he can refurbish for his people.

Even small positions can do this and gain honour. Pick a hobby or a characteristic and make a point of playing it out. Visit your nobles and go to church. Just remember that honour is hard to gain and easy to lose and that it is a grind that you need to attend to every turn if you really want to build it up.

Also, if you're starting out very low in a game that has been going for a while, doing even small things will get you huge bumps as you move to catch up with the pack. Over time as you catch up, those same things will give you smaller and smaller gains. I noticed this a lot in game 3 when I joined. I was Waaay behind others, but I also got a ton of honour out of a lot of things. So if you're new to a game, don't feel like you are hopelessly behind.

Some good stuff in there, I cant quite remember why I got that massive honour spike in Game 2 there was something added to my declaration of war on France as well but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

But moving on from what Deacon said around holding banquets, perhaps even a soiree helps you in other ways too. I have found things out through these events that have enabled me to halt mistakes or strengthen a position, or quite possibly given away, way too much information ha ha ha!

Deacon wrote:I got zero honor as Pedro when I ascended the Spanish throne in game 8 uniting Portugal and Spain. No change at all. Nothing military has gotten me any honour that I can tell. I retook Zanzibar from the Omani and nothing to notice.

But, throw a banquet and give your courtiers/nobles a few roast pigs and trimmings, and they will tell the world what a jolly good fellow you are!

I think that word "pandering" is very germaine. For old En Garde players, gaining honour is toadying in reverse. You suck up to your courtiers

Honour is mostly the velvet glove if you will. Frippery and finery, flash and dazzle for your courtiers and people to win it. The iron glove is Richard who can and will hammer your honour score if you act too out of character for your people. I think honour's primary role in game is to be the carrot and the stick that Richard uses to keep people from throwing 18th century protocols to the wind and doing really odd-ball things that would seriously change the character of the game.

Honour does not equal 'game score!' It is not a proxy for who is considered the most influential or powerful. It is a measure of how well your kingdom is united behind you because you are a good chap who takes care of the people who matter. (in general, anyways). I think because it's reported each turn people have ended up placing more importance on it than it really has in-game. (Though it is fun to compete on these kinds of things)

I can imagine that if you started on turn 1 to make your court only about the military and only about battle and victory that you might be able to somewhat change the honour calculations for your court, so that you gained more from won battles and less from banquets and the like.

Personally, though, why not just follow the traditional routes to honour? It isn't hard. A bit tedious to some, perhaps, but not hard.

In game 8, Pedro is fond of his food and drink. He likes banquets and parties and bull fights. He has given the Empress a 10K a month stipend to ensure she always has the gowns and necessities of court life. From a wargamer perspective, it is probably money wasted, but shouldn't the hostess of your court have the money she needs to drive court life?  I roleplay a bit her fancies versus Pedro's. When the crown prince was younger, he had a set of pet pygmy slaves that were a running joke for a while.  I make a point to submit something to the paper every month, and slowly my honour score rises. I've had a few blips down for things I've done, but mostly it has been very small bumps that have gotten me to the top of the honour rolls. I have a sense of Pedro's public face and I use these things to show it to the world. Sometimes I do some googling and find a neat old cathedral that he can refurbish for his people.

Even small positions can do this and gain honour. Pick a hobby or a characteristic and make a point of playing it out. Visit your nobles and go to church. Just remember that honour is hard to gain and easy to lose and that it is a grind that you need to attend to every turn if you really want to build it up.

Also, if you're starting out very low in a game that has been going for a while, doing even small things will get you huge bumps as you move to catch up with the pack. Over time as you catch up, those same things will give you smaller and smaller gains. I noticed this a lot in game 3 when I joined. I was Waaay behind others, but I also got a ton of honour out of a lot of things. So if you're new to a game, don't feel like you are hopelessly behind.

Honour is something that the average player cannot avoid to look at, and i say it without any intention of being desplicable. Seems to be the hardest reward for gaming correctly, and missing a global player score, it is intended as the GPS of the game.

But i agree woth you, it is a mean Richard use to force the player to play correctly. AN it works!

BUT

I cannot avoid to notice that Mr. Kingmaker has not jet shared his vision with us. And i consider his opinion highly.