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Amadeus, also if you install Gotthard to the throne does that make France a republic?
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Nov 14, 2013 21:29
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LordGugs posted:Amadeus, also if you install Gotthard to the throne does that make France a republic? Not to my knowledge. Made for problems in my republic games when I push for duke-level claims and get feudal vassals instead of city vassals.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:31
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Gotthard is by far the gooniest choice, both in stats, traits, and appearance. Clearly he is the only one fit to lead the von Goon family.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:38
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TheMcD posted:Not to my knowledge. Made for problems in my republic games when I push for duke-level claims and get feudal vassals instead of city vassals. To elaborate on that, Gotthard would be a king if we pushed his claim at the moment. He would turn France into a republic if he had a republican title already, such as a city or a republic of his own, but that is a very remote possibility, as his is a weak claim, which can only be pressed in very specific situations, so we'd have to wait for the stars to align. I mean, it would be possible to declare war now, as France is facing a succession crisis against Aragón, but we don't really have the manpower to make the attempt without control of the Hansa, so this is more of a long-term strategy/hope. Edit: If I by any chance end up grabbing France as a republic in the future I would most likely release the First French Republic as its own independent state instead. It is too early in the game for us to be that powerful, and this is still a LP about the Hansa. ZearothK fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 21:42
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For some reason I didn't check this thread until now. Just wanted to add that I'm really enjoying this LP. Anyways, my vote goes to Gotthard.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:46
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ZearothK posted:Edit: If I by any chance end up grabbing France as a republic in the future I would most likely release the First French Republic as its own independent state instead. It is too early in the game for us to be that powerful, and this is still a LP about the Hansa. France would always be independent if we push a claim unless we somehow manage to get an Empire title (which isn't likely).
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Nov 14, 2013 21:48
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Zeroisanumber posted:Rock me Amadeus! My weakness for corny german stuff compels me to vote for Amadeus.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:48
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TheMcD posted:France would always be independent if we push a claim unless we somehow manage to get an Empire title (which isn't likely). In the remote possibility of a Hansa led by Gotthard at a time when the conditions to enforce a weak claim on France are applicable, a victory in the war would add it as one of his titles. But yes, it still isn't a likely scenario, specially considering Gotthard's diplomatic competence.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:56
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Gotthard is the only choice here. He's the only one amongst these three that actually has tolerable stats (besides the whole "it's painful to talk to him" thing), and he has a claim.
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Nov 14, 2013 22:18
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Amadeus, truly loved by God.
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Nov 14, 2013 22:18
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ZearothK posted:In the remote possibility of a Hansa led by Gotthard at a time when the conditions to enforce a weak claim on France are applicable, a victory in the war would add it as one of his titles. But yes, it still isn't a likely scenario, specially considering Gotthard's diplomatic competence. Completely forgot about the option of Gotthard getting the leadership. Honestly, this coup should be pretty easy to pull off if you're not roleplaying. Some assassinations can easily place a child on the throne, and then the Kaiser can win the war for you. Of course, that's not going to happen, since it's pretty gamey.
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Nov 14, 2013 22:22
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POOPO YOU FOOLS.
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Nov 14, 2013 23:58
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ZearothK posted:b) The third son of Victor the Great was a strong-willed man, with a great sense of justice and a full beard. And a very attractive beard she is too! Mathias would be a fine leader, though I fear we may have a repeat of this issue a few decades from now if we pick him. Still, he seems quite competent. I have no idea how to read the character sheet...
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Nov 15, 2013 01:25
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I'll be honest I chuckled a bit at the von Goon-meet. Also, come on. How are you people passing up Poopo? I swear I am not a literal child.
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Nov 15, 2013 01:36
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OwlFancier posted:And a very attractive beard she is too! It's fairly simple. Let's take Mathias' sheet for a second:  The important parts are the five colored boxes to the right, which are (in order) the stats for Diplomacy (blue, how good you are at making people like you), Martial (red, how good you are at warfare and personal combat), Stewardship (green, how good you are with money), Intrigue (violet, how good you are at scheming and stabbing people - or having people stabbed by other people), and Learning (white, these are cleric and teacher skills, basically the most important part is the impact on technology process). For a republic, the most important stats are Diplomacy, Stewardship and Intrigue, although the specific need changes over time. To the right of the stats are (from the top down) his money, prestige, piety, and score (which is completely irrelevant as far as judging a character goes). Below the stats are his traits, starting with his education (tier 2 intrigue (of a maximum of 4), noticeable by the violet color and the two dots at the bottom), which is the most important trait as far as impact on stats goes, and then his other traits he has acquired over time, which are fairly self-explanatory. So if we analyze Mathias, he is a competent steward and intriguer and is at least capable in diplomacy, which is an alright skillset for a republic leader. His Homosexual trait would be a problem if we were a monarchy (less chance of an heir), but as a republic the direct line of succession doesn't exist, so it's mostly a non-issue. And finally, his Ambitious trait will cause his AI to try and gain power much more aggressively, which could cause problems if he will not turn out leader.
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Nov 15, 2013 01:37
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Amadeus is the gooniest choice, and we can fix the diplomacy, intrigue, and learning if we need to.
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Nov 15, 2013 02:33
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Can we pick Matthias and then support Gotthardt's claim on France to make an independent, but friendly Republic?
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Nov 15, 2013 02:38
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TheMcD posted:It's fairly simple. Let's take Mathias' sheet for a second: Thankyou! That's most helpful, and that's good to know about the republican mechanics. If I have it right, as long as someone in the family is popping out the babies, we're alright, because we can pick whoever we want to be our protagonist when the old one dies? Seems like a really good way to ensure the best person in the generation gets to be useful. Also, the colours on the sheet are, for me, in order: blue, red, red, blue, green, which at least explains why I was having trouble figuring out what their significance was...
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Nov 15, 2013 02:52
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OwlFancier posted:Thankyou! That's most helpful, and that's good to know about the republican mechanics. If I have it right, as long as someone in the family is popping out the babies, we're alright, because we can pick whoever we want to be our protagonist when the old one dies? Might be a good time to also explain how succession works in republics too. Merchant Republics use two succession laws, one for the leadership election, and one for the head of family. The latter is simpler, let's go for that. Patrician families use Agnatic Seniority as their succession law. Essentially what this means is that on the death of the current patrician, the successor is the oldest man who is a member of the family. There are some small caveats to this (no bishops, for example), but as a general rule for any family not just getting started, succession is almost always to brothers, uncles or cousins, rather than down the line to sons. So how does the vonGoon-meet work? Patricians have access to a title they can bestow on any male member of the family, that of designated heir. Essentially the ruling patrician can override the general law of succession by deciding ahead of time who will receive leadership after his death. It might seem like a no-brainer to do this as you can pick the best candidate, but there a few reasons you might not want to. First of all, the designated heir title cannot be revoked. If you designate your son as heir and he develops Schizophrenia and gets on conversational terms with the voice of Satan he hears in his head, that's your family's future leader and nothing short of stabbing him to death will prevent it. Poor heirs under seniority take care of themselves quite quickly due to the large number of buckets underfoot in your mansion, designated heirs not always so much. Second, it has important implications for how elections work in republics. The leadership election has a special succession law called Patrician Elective. essentially, when the current Serene Doge/Prince Mayor dies, his successor is chosen from amongst the heads of the five patrician families, including the new head of the outgoing leader's family. The election has various factors which impact upon it, but at the end of the day, it comes down to whether the other patricians respect you. Age is one of the most important factors. The other patricians in the republic will invariably be middle-aged or elderly men, and a young patrician will simply not be respected as a competent or proven leader by the other patricians. And since the election is for life, nobody wants a to elect a boy who might end up incompetently leading the city for 60 years or more. The older a patrician is, the more respect they get for their works, and the more they are seen as electable (because even if they suck, the palace of the Prince Mayor is carpeted in buckets, with very sharp edges). Your prestige is another factor, this is added to your pot of respect. Finally, your campaign fund represents the money your family has invested in The actual formula for respect is [Age in years]^2+[Prestige points]+([gold spent on campaigning]x5). So as an example, let's imagine we have two possible candidates. Both candidates have 400 prestige, Candidate A is age 20, B is age 60. A gets 400 respect from his age and 400 from prestige, giving him 800 respect. B gets 3600 respect from his age and 400 from presige giving him 4000 respect. So there's a differece of 3200. Since each piece of gold is worth 5 respect, 3200 respect is equivalent to 640 gold. So candidate B will win the election unless candidate A spends 640 gold more than him on campaigning. That's not a huge sum in a merchant republic, but it's 640 more than the other guy, who will be spending their own money on campaigning, and things only get worse if the oldest patrician is 80, which is not at all uncommon. Winning the election with a young person is hard, especially if you are preferring to play to role rather than gaming to win. Of our four candidates, Mathias is both the oldest and most prestigious, and therefore the most electable according to the election processes of the Hansa. He is still young, but will regardless not become patrician for at least 10 more years barring a sudden death of the current patrician, at which point he will be a respectable 40 and coming into an age in which he might be able to credibly run for Mayor. Reveilled fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 03:29
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Thanks! Also, I dig this LP in general, but I don't make a lot of "yeah sweet update" posts, I just am along for the ride.
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Nov 15, 2013 04:29
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c. Pushing the claim to France and getting a big blue republican blob on our side might be amusing, but we'd probably just end up in trade wars with them.
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Nov 15, 2013 04:48
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Reveilled posted:Might be a good time to also explain how succession works in republics too. Neato. That all makes sense, out of curiosity though, who are the electors in our republic? I assume this is a time period where only proper people get to vote, but I'm wondering how oligarchical the system is? As in, could we significantly reduce the turnout rate by stabbing a couple of people? Or would populist appeal be more worthwhile? I ask because I'm wondering just how much our prospective Just heir would benefit from upholding virtues which are beloved by the masses but which may be seen as somewhat stupid by the nobility.
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Nov 15, 2013 07:58
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OwlFancier posted:That all makes sense, out of curiosity though, who are the electors in our republic? I assume this is a time period where only proper people get to vote, but I'm wondering how oligarchical the system is? If it's anything like the Venetian system, there is probably no sense in trying to make heads or tails of it: quote:New regulations for the elections of the doge introduced in 1268 remained in force until the end of the republic in 1797. Their object was to minimize as far as possible the influence of individual great families, and this was effected by a complex elective machinery. Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine and the nine elected forty-five. Then the forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who actually elected the doge. None could be elected but by at least twenty-five votes out of forty-one, nine votes out of eleven or twelve, or seven votes out of nine electors.[1]
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Nov 15, 2013 09:31
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YF-23 posted:If it's anything like the Venetian system, there is probably no sense in trying to make heads or tails of it: What the everloving Christ... Is that literally just to try and annoy/confuse people from making any kind of sensible decision?
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Nov 15, 2013 09:44
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OwlFancier posted:What the everloving Christ... Well, the selection process is there so only worthy people can be elected to doge. The random lots are there to avoid one faction taking complete control. The assorted layers are there because gently caress trusting anyone who goes into government. Of course, the Venetian system wound up failing anyway when they limited Great Council seats to hereditary families only, thus starting the slow but inexorable process of crushing the life and innovation out of the state.
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Nov 15, 2013 10:05
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Venice is a big fat bag of dicks.
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Nov 15, 2013 10:12
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OwlFancier posted:Neato. The election is a purely mathematical function, person with the most points from age, prestige and campaigning wins. The electors are in theory the patrician families (both the 5 primary families and all the smaller ones not represented by the game itself), but this is abstracted by the game. As mentioned, the template for this was Venetian elections, which were too confusing too understand on purpose, to make stealing the election through bribery too hard or too costly to achieve, as Bobbin mentioned.
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Nov 15, 2013 11:44
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Amadeus seems like a fun choice.
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Nov 15, 2013 12:35
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It's helpful to remember when marvelling at the complexity of the venetian election system that our elections today and the venetian elections then were not intended to produce similar outcomes. To understand that you need to know how pre-enlightenment peoples viewed the concepts of meritocracy and chance differently from us. Let's look at meritocracy first. The western world is very much run on the principles of meritocracy. We believe that the best people for the job should be the ones who get the job, and we (say we) believe that the smartest and most athletic people should rise to the top of our society, unimpeded by the circumstances of their birth, class, race or creed. To most of us, this is so uncontroversial that it can be difficult to conceive of why people would have a problem with that, but surprisingly pre-enlightenment people were very distrustful of the notion of meritocracy, from the most ardent monarchist right across to the most feverant democrat. To illustrate this, look at modern democracies and how we justify our system vis-a-vis an older system like a monarchy. We argue that a problem with monarchies is that because you get the position by virtue of bith, there is no guarantee that the leader so chosen has any competency to lead or any interest in governing for the good of the rest of us. This is an argument from merit, and it shows that the democratic principle is tied to a meritocratic one. The people whom we elect as rulers in our current system should at least in theory be the persons most qualified for the job in terms of technical competency at governing, and an interest in the well-being of others. Pre-enlightenment peoples would reject that concept wholesale. They would look at our system and see that most people don't believe our rulers successfully govern in our best interests (look at, say, congressional approval in the US where less than 10% approve of the job they are doing), so in that sense our elections fail to elect people who goven in our interests. At the same time however, they would observe that those who are elected do seem to do a very good job of governing in some sense, insofar as they keep the political system relatively stable and make a career our of politics. They become rich and powerful, and never surrender that power, instead forming factions which pass that power down through patronage. The argument they would form from this is that our system is meritorcratic in that the most technically competent people generally get chosen for leadership, but that those people govern in their own interests rather than the interests of anyone else. For democrats of the pre-enlightenment era that's a big issue with the idea what we call "representative democracy" (and what I understand American civics classes call "a republic"), how can you have government by the people when you choose only the most politically savvy to rule? They will manipulate and fool the common folk and create a class no different than a plutocracy or an aristocracy, and the fact that some lucky few who are born smart can join that class regardless of where they came from is meaningless to the millions of people who possess no such gift. The might even go further (and here most other pre-enlightenment ideologies would agree) and say that a meritocracy is worse than other systems. At least Monarchs are raised with the idea that they have a responsibility to their people, and because they are not expected to be the best qualified to rule, they can safely receive counsel on actions without people questioning their right to rule. They might use, as an example, a legislator who denies climate change despite the scientific community's unanimous agreement that it is occuring. In another system such things would not happen because being a leader says nothing about how smart you are, so the leader would be expected to fix the problem, not offer opinions on whether it really was a problem or not. I hope that even if you don't agree with the hypothetical pre-enlightenment person, you can see why they might reject the notion that the person picked as ruler should always be the person best at ruling. This will help you understand why Venetian elections were so complex, they were not necessarily looking to find the best person to elect as Doge, they were looking for something else. The other element of the equation is chance. Chance was not well understood pre-enlightenment, and in fact trying to understand it was seen as disruptive to the social order. Chance was the best connection humans had to God's will. Any act that humans ever make can be contrary to what god would want for us to do. We are sinful and have free will, so we can very easily gently caress poo poo up. When something is left entirely to chance, humans are not interfering and therefore God's will should come through. Trying to understand probability theory means that you could potentially be looking to manipulate it, and if you are able to do that you can pass your will off as God's. Side note but you can see here why gambling was seen as sinful, as commodifying God's will by, say, betting on a game of dice, was not really seen much different from using the Anyway, this means that drawing of lots is a good way to remove a corruptive human element. Even if the decision you end up turns out to be a poor one, at least you know it was independent of nefarious human forces, and presumably advanced God's plan in some way. So in that context the use of constant lot drawing in the Venetian election is perfectly straightforward. They Venetians were super paranoid about the elections being bought, and wanted to make it as hard as possible to steal the election through threats and bribery. The best way to do that is to draw lots, over and over and over again. And as mentioned before, if you end up with someone who is not really that great at governing, to most people back then who were not on board with meritocracy, that wasn't actually as much of an issue for them as it would be for us now.
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Nov 15, 2013 13:32
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Speaking of the designated heir, how does that work anyway? I never noticed the option anywhere (so I probably must be blind, but whatever), and it would have come in real handy that one time I maneuvered a claim on the HRE on a family member.
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Nov 15, 2013 13:43
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TheMcD posted:Speaking of the designated heir, how does that work anyway? I never noticed the option anywhere (so I probably must be blind, but whatever), and it would have come in real handy that one time I maneuvered a claim on the HRE on a family member. You'd pick the character, go to their diplomacy screen, and then "award honorary title", whcih would list designated heir as one to grant.
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Nov 15, 2013 13:45
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This is really interesting, and many of these pre-enlightenment arguments against democracy do have merit. It is just that we find the trade-offs in other systems even worse. But because representative democracy has so many flaws, I suspect future societies will most likely be quite different from the political systems in out time. Advanced artificial intelligence will probably have a big influence. But I don't want to derail the thread. To return to topic, so the electoral system was the exact opposite of the CK2 system, where buying the election is actually the norm if you don't roleplay.
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Nov 15, 2013 14:19
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Reveilled posted:You'd pick the character, go to their diplomacy screen, and then "award honorary title", whcih would list designated heir as one to grant. Cheers. I usually reserve honorary titles for unruly patricians (and later dukes), not my own family members, so I guess that's why I never noticed that.
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Nov 15, 2013 14:23
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Thanks for that Reveiled, also for explaining the in-game election mechanics for the audience. That Venetian system sounds surprisingly... Logically consistent now, and I have to admit it does have some merits.
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Nov 15, 2013 15:06
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Posting to say that I am thoroughly enjoying this and to encourage you to keep up the good work, even though you whiffed by not naming the thread "Cash Rules Everything Around Me"
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Nov 15, 2013 17:36
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uberkeyzer posted:Posting to say that I am thoroughly enjoying this and to encourage you to keep up the good work, even though you whiffed by not naming the thread "Cash Rules Everything Around Me" drat. Anyway, voting's closed! The von Goons have chosen to appoint Amadeus as successor to the family, mostly because he's so friggin' tall.
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Nov 15, 2013 18:46
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Reveilled posted:Fun stuff This was really cool. I've been working on a story taking place in a society where the leader is chosen by drawing lots. I just thought of it as a precaution to keep one dynasty from becoming too powerful, but all the stuff you said about meritocracy and chance gives me some more concepts to consider.
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Nov 15, 2013 19:54
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Mu Cow posted:This was really cool. I've been working on a story taking place in a society where the leader is chosen by drawing lots. I just thought of it as a precaution to keep one dynasty from becoming too powerful, but all the stuff you said about meritocracy and chance gives me some more concepts to consider. Perhaps worth mentioning as a few caveats is that the Venetians themselves would not have considered themselves democrats, so their arguments against Meritocracy might have been slightly different, coming from a different philosophical position. But it's much easier to understand a pre-enlightenment democrat's view of meritocracy because we and they would be looking to achieve the same goal of vesting control of government into the hands of the people. You'd more likely hear my argument against meritocracy from an Ancient Athenian than a Venetian of the Middle Ages. Also, it's probably worth mentioning (though I imagine virtually everyone will get this anyway) that people back then would still consider "being good at the job" to be a good quality for a leader to have, it was more that the purpose of their society's system was not to order society in descending order of their charisma and intelligence scores. Reveilled fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 20:12
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CK2 threads are great because it draws all the history goons out of hiding.
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Nov 15, 2013 20:16
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Here's sort of a follow-up to the whole "never lose leadership of the republic" thing: It turns out there is one small use for losing the leadership of the republic, and it can be summed up in one word: Invasions.  Here, I played Venice from 1066. Started with the standard republican build-up (trade posts, palace expansion, more trade posts, trade post expansion, make loadsamoney). Then I invaded a double duchy in the south of Italy, then invaded Apulia for domination of what would be known as Naples. That made me too big to really expand further in Italy using invasions, and then it happened - I lost the leadership of the republic, which cut my realm size roughly by two thirds. That enabled me to invade Provence and take that, although during the invasion I got the leadership back, so I couldn't follow with another invasion. But after then intentionally losing the leadership again, I could invade a powerful superduke in the middle of Italy, leading to my current expansion, currently at 1180. So that's a very specific use for losing the leadership of the republic, although it comes with the caveat that you need to be powerful enough so that the AI doesn't poo poo its pants and screws everything up (surprisingly, the AI took the entirety of Sicily while I was faffing about and lost nothing).
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Nov 15, 2013 20:18
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