Turn 1: Arat, Year 61

MIDWINTER COURT
Year 60 of the Second Imperium;
12th Year of the Reign of His Imperial Majesty, Nikovar I, Ninth Emperor of the Second Imperium

By Act of Imperium, Evrefritz, Elector Duke of Eszerthagn, is confirmed in the title of Marquis of Niksmund. He is also confirmed in the title of Count of Grichfeng, his by right of conquest. In recognition of his achievements on the behalf of the Empire, by Act of Imperium Eszerthagn is elevated to the rank of Archduchy.

The Emperor offers his condolaces to Sazomir, Prince Apparent of Maritsdor, and his mother and regent, Nestreza, and hopes that they will be able to call on His Summer Court.

By Act of Imperium, Viscount Ergon of Sakvikvegn is elevated to the office of Secretary of the Imperial Privy Council.

The Emperor is pleased to confirm Wininga in her title of Duchess of Gyrfalconsrest. [A lenghty list of similar confirmations of counts, viscounts and barons has been omitted here.]

In the dispute over the County of Trebovilje between the Duke of Vahir-Dascu and the Marquis of Cantrescu, dominion is confirmed to remain with Cantrescu. The Emperor observes that he should also be well pleased if the County of Merchureadu were recovered in the coming campaign season.

In recognition of the service done by Mercha, Countess of Gramanstadt, that realm shall be regarded as a County Peculiar. The claim of the Marquis of Hesjedal, based on the historical inclusion of Gramanstadt in the Duchy of Sondehagn, is not allowed, as the marquis is not that duke.

By Act of Imperium, a Charter is granted to the city of Esling.

The Lord Admiral is commended for the suppression of piracy by the Esteros Islands. A remission of taxes is declared for nobles who provided ships to the Lord Admiral.

The law regarding collective responsibility for murder is hereby abolished, save where the murdered is the Emperor’s man.

The Imperial Progress of Year 61 is announced; His Majesty’s court will depart the Winter Capital on the 3rd day of Forlu, and shall visit his Duchies of Upper Fulgau, Elgau, Gyrfalconsrest, Alstein, Evanstad and Meinerthagn–wherein His Birthday Celebration shall be held–and shall take up residence at the Summer Capital on the 11th day of Inghitsi.

The Imperial Prize is awarded to the drama “Six Parts Water,” by the playwright Miersen.

It has been confirmed that Her Majesty is with child once more.

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Midwinter Court rumor mill:

The Duke–make that Archduke–of Eszerthagn has, by his conquests of the previous year, positioned himself to strike any of three possible directions into the Kingdom of Lorthegnar, and it is expected that he will take advantage of at least one of these. Two of the three directions would be almost impossible for the king to resist: defense of those regions would fall almost entirely to local troops. Grichfeng, by the way, was conquered from Lorthegnar; Niksmund was already part of the empire.

The Lord Marshal has been canvassing support for a campaign to retake Merchureadu from the Kingdom of Kereszney. The Duke of Vahir-Dascu does not show much enthusiasm for undertaking such a campaign–not if the county is just going to be returned to the March of Cantrescu. If he thinks he might get it, and Trebovilje as well (which was cut off from the rest of Cantrescu by Merchureadu’s defection), he may “discover” that his lands aren’t as wearied from last year’s fighting as he presently makes them out to be.

Meinerthagn had not originally been planned to be part of this year’s Progress; it was added toward the last minute–and the Duchy of Bergeheim removed.

Hlunegrid, Duchess of Alstein, is elderly and said to be near death, and the emperor is very keen to see her once more before she passes. Prior to the change in the Progress, his birthday was to take place during this visit… though it’s likely the emperor’s eagerness has at least a little to do with the fact that she has no heir.

For that matter, Duke Geserich of Evanstad isn’t much younger, though he’s said to retain much of the vitality of his earlier days. And Duke Graudiger of Elgau was actually born in the days of the First Empire–more than eighty years ago. At least both of them have successors.

Members of the regency council for Elislet, the Duchess Apparent of Upper Fulgau, have begun actively scouting for likely husbands, though she is only nine at the moment. Seems they want her married as soon as legally possible so that she can inherit promptly. Some say they might even request a dispensation to allow a wedding to take place before her fifteenth birthday.

The Marchioness of Sjaermund, Siguving, attended Midwinter Court without her husband for the first time ever. A noted expert on fortifications, he is said to be visiting the Count of Kasselberg… who was likewise absent, pleading “a touch of catarrh.”

Her Majesty will not be traveling on the Progress, as her due date is expected to fall sometime in the month of Atsantu. The second wife of Nikovar, she is entering her 41st year, and has had two stillbirths and is believed to have had at least one miscarriage; the only child she bore, a daughter, died at the age of two. Nikovar’s first wife died without issue. Nikovar is presently 52 years old. It has been bandied about that if an heir is not born, Nikovar will name his two-year-old nephew Kaledy, only child of his sister Kalinda (who died bearing him) as Heir Apparent–and in either the emperor case will seek to appoint a regency council to oversee the empire should he fall prey to misfortune before the child reaches maturity. The unofficial next in line to the throne right now is Nikovar’s brother, Sebeschar.

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TURN 1: Arat, Year 61

It was certainly an eventful Midwinter Court… though, in fairness, these are rarely dull. Perhaps that’s just your relative youth speaking, though much older and theoretically wiser heads seem to hold the same opinion. You have recovered from your hangover and returned to your lands–in whichever order–and now it’s time to break out the plows, haul the seed up from the storerooms, and get with the spring planting.

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From here on out, it will probably be more convenient for players to post their activites to the forum, apart from any they feel a need to keep secret. After a few months, I imagine the main changes in economic activity will mostly involve moving peasants around to whatever harvest is taking place, so they shouldn’t be nearly as complex as the setup has been. I will post the results each month’s activities to the same thread, again barring any “secret” activity; then I will open a new thread for the next month. Each month will begin with “news of the empire” and other major events. You may (probably will) still get PMs from me most turns, at least until things settle into a rhythm, regarding happenings specific to your lands or decisions you have to make. Note that things will continue to be updated and expanded, and occasionally changed, for some time to come, but I want to set the game in motion rather than keep you all waiting.

Speaking of changes: I’m considering making this an open forum, so that I don’t have to approve every single post, as I do now–something that would ease communication amongst yourselves considerably, and probably with me as well. I would keep the various informational threads closed, so that only I can post in them. The open ones, however, anybody will be able to post in, whether they’re playing or not. I can always go through and delete irrelevant posts if necessary, but other than that the only way I can control access is to keep it fully moderated: that wasn’t the way I was hoping to set things up, but there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground. I don’t expect us to get spammed with non-player posts, of course; I’m hoping the maturity level on this board is beyond that. So let me know your thoughts on which way strikes you as preferable, and if opening things up seems the way to go, we’ll give it a try.

And with that… let the game commence.

 

[Putting response here so others may be guided by it as well.]

You don't assign the craftsmen–that's something I need to do (and soon!). They already have jobs, which are a lot better than working in the fields. One of them, at least, will indeed be working in the smokehouse, probably more. Other than that, the only thing I see is that you can't have more than five peasants working in a single tract for the time being. So you'll need to pull one out of tract 10 and also pull one off fishing (which is tract 9). Any that you don't use up, I'll assign for you: believe me, none of them are going to be allowed to just sit around.

There will also be a slight change to how the "Game" resource works, but don't worry about it for this turn. It will show up when I finally get around to posting descriptions of the resources. A couple others will have different limits than the norm, too.

And thank you for naming the villages. I'd do it, but I can only come up with so many names so quickly.…

 

Turn 1 Wrap-up:

Well, from a game design standpoint, things seemed to go fairly well. For those of you who haven't done game design before, this might not be apparent–but going from nothing to beta-test in a single turn (and two weeks) and only having to change half of everything was, to me, quite reassuring. You may have confidence that from here on out things will be smoother–once you settle on a general idea of what you want to produce, you'll be making few if any changes, most months–and that most of the changes that I will be making will be with that goal in mind. That having been said: there are a few points it will probably be useful to cover here.

Those looking at what seems to be unacceptably low returns on livestock: don’t panic. This isn’t the season for them–this is when they’re all making little baby livestock, which is not the time you go slaughtering them. They’ll pick up during the summertime.

Those of you looking at what seems to be an unacceptable amount of grain import–panic. Or at least plant more grain. You all began with 20 grain in storage, and it is gone. (Admittedly, a large factor in that was the extra peasant units I handed out. If you don’t want to keep them, you can always shove ‘em across a border.) This means next month’s profits aren’t going to look nearly as good as this month’s, either because you’re pulling workers off other things to grow grain, or because you’re buying that much more–not to put too fine a point on it, but 20 units of grain costs 6,000 thalers… at this month’s prices. You can imagine what will happen to those if you’re buying it hand over fist for months at a stretch. It is cheaper for you to grow your own; on the other hand, it may still be more economical for you to import it, if you can produce something else that brings in more than the grain does. Which isn’t too difficult.

This is even more true for flesh (fish and livestock, along with what little you can supplement from game, plus dairy) and produce (berries, fruit, vegetables), as they’re more expensive. If you have to import those, you might not be able to find them at all, since they’re perishable and don’t transport well–in which case, you’re looking at bringing in cheese and salted meats, or pickles and preserves. Or else giving up your health bonuses. Or both. So if you have to make a choice, definitely go for meat and dairy production over grain, at least until your needs are met.

Speaking of which: it is possible to cut down on food costs, as long as you don’t care what happens to your health. All the food distribution this month assumes you want to provide your peasants with a diet that doesn’t cause a health penalty, so they’re all eating produce and flesh. Shortfalls in any category are made up first by buying goods from your vassals–the cheapest source–followed by looting your storage; imports take place only after these are exhausted. This also means that if you want to build your stores up again, you’ll have to tell me you’re diverting some of your product there. If you made hay/straw, I added it to your stores: see “Care and Feeding” thread for possible uses other than selling. You can always sell it next month.

This also means that you are selling everything else. Again, if you want to hang on to something, let me know. Especially let me know if it’s something your craftsmen use, because they’ll use up as much of it as they are able to. If they have to go outside of the barony too often for the resources they need, they might just stay there someday.

Note that the money your vassals and craftsmen make from whatever it is they produce is not a part of your bottom line. You’ll have to find other ways to pry it out of their strongboxes. (A portion will be showing up as part of regular taxes, of course. If the craftsmen are working in an improvement you built, then you do get a portion of their profit; I just haven't calculated it yet.)

Everybody for whom I did not get labor assignments (and have not already processed) will be handled by the new method, so what you’ll see is slightly different from what I’m sending everyone else; the results should be about the same. (Or else I need to change the new method.)

On the first turn, your keep staff cost you both money and food; I’m just going to add the food cost into the maintenance cost from here out. (I already did that with the soldiers, but by the time I realized I should have been doing that for the staff, too, it was just one more thing I didn’t want to go back and change.) Note that the diets of both assume that you are providing produce, flesh and dairy: if you want to change that, fine, but health will drop.

You can't mine an underground resource if you don't have a mine. This was the only mistake anyone made that actually bugged me; all the rest I take on myself. (I may be to blame for that one, too, but since this got mentioned in one form or another in about four different places, I feel licensed to mention it.) Your revised production capabilities will leave no question about whether or not you can produce a resource, or if you just know you have it.

Please be sure to read the new sections mentioned in the Updates, especially the ones that explain where your money's going–so that you can start putting that part of the game on autopilot. I will get revised baronial production capabilities out to you… uhm, let's call it "tomorrow," but don't hold me to that; may be the day after. Until you get these, don't bother trying to assign labor, as it will look different from what you did last month. Unless I forget it again, these will also tell you if you have draft animals and/or horses in your fief, along with any miscellaneous details I haven't been able to address yet.

This Turn is now closed. On to Turn 2.