A Rambling Response, Written Late At Night  [ Charles Hurst 1998 ]

I dare say I'm about to ramble, but in a hopefully interesting way for newer players. > No I have not tried to do things that I have found no indication in > the rules or in any of your previous writings were even possible. > Maybe it is a flaw of mine, but I, like Horton, expect the rules of > the game, as amended by each particular GM, to mean what they say > and say what they mean. I have no doubt that I can be creative > within the framework of the written rules, but what you and others > are now implying is that there is no prior limit to what can be > accomplished outside of the rules. I can deal with that. I know i, > and I suspect other new players, would appreciate your general > guidelines on how you would like such attempts submitted to you. If you were on the main lords mailing list a couple of months ago, the Danish and Swedish players in Lords One were relating bits of history from the very beginning of the game that were very interesting as history, but also in showing how loose the game structure was in the earliest days. A lot of things we take for granted now where once upon a time some player's neat new idea. I've always found it doesn't hurt (and is usually a good idea) to just ask the GM. The rules really don't mention much about DPing another nation (at least the 4th edition rules), so I never thought it possible (or that it was just done as a GM whim), until a brand-new player I introduced to lords asked the GM if he could DP an inactive nearby position and was told he could and what rules governed it. Surprise to me! I'd been playing for 6 years at that point. The bottom line is that it really depends on the GM. In one Thad Plate game, as the Japanese, my fleet of 100 elite warships trying to protect my nation was seriously outgunned by a chinese fleet of over 1000 elite warships. Because I had nothing to loose, I spent all my religious ops and bonus, my emperor's entire turn plus 2 leaders, tossed in 300 gold and had them pray to Kami-sama to send a Divine Wind to protect Japan from the invasion by foreigners. It was a complete flop of an action. On the other hand, the then Chinese player (Jonathan White, if I remember right, the epitome of a opportunist (i.e. slightly untrustworthy) Lords player (hey, I'm not knocking him, he managed to stay in power in China for something like 100+ turns, no small accomplishment!)) sent his entire fleet plus a large force of elite cavalry and cannon to India to help an ally try and deal with a DF. Then, he dropped from the campaign, and the position sat a turn without any orders being given. The leader was outside the CCR of the Chinese Emperor, and the leader failed his loyalty check. About 5% of the Chinese force made it back to the motherland, and fortunately for me, a new, nicer player who wanted to be good neighbors took over the position. The point is, you won't know if you don't try or at least ask. Caravans came about because some players made some srong arguements for land trade routes similar to sea trade routes existing across the Sahara, an idea that Thad Plate really liked and was the first GM to implement (I think), and many GMs have proceeded to allow this in their campaigns (and this all happened less than a year ago). Of course, lots more ideas get shot down than actually work, but sometimes a well written statement/history/notion will get the GM's nod of approval and you'll have something neat to play with. In Lords 4, for a while under one GM, I had a functional technocracy, where each King appointed the next based on their ability and not on the basis of heredity - but this was only because I pointed out that I had had 4 kings in a row with no children who had to pick their heirs - this set a precedent - another example is male/female leaders/rulers - patriarchies are the norm, and usually women can't rule, but I've always made a point of trying to appoint royal daughters as Princesses (Princes) to establish a basis for women being accepted as rulers in my nation, thus allowing me more freedom with what I can do with Royal children. Tip: Have lots of children, they have a tendency to die when you don't expect it, always are useful at the very least for marrying off (Lords 20 - I've married a prince or a princess into the ruling nobility of every region I've added to my nation - so all my regions are now one big happy family - of course, my DF odds are a little higher, but I have tons of government and am working on bumping my imperial size divisor up. Tip: For long term empire building, look at increasing this value from the normal 3 to 4 or 5 depending on what part of the world you are in - basically you can control 33% to 67% more regions for the same amount of gov't - so when you max out and hit your tech limits, you bump your imp size div and keep growing. GMs besides Thomas Harlan tend not to include the supernatural in their campaigns (not that Mr. Harlan actually includes the supernatural in his campaigns, I'm sure there's a most rational and scientific explanation for the large white Tower that apparently has been floating around in the sky all over the place, and the people running it appear to be able to do magic :) - note that the Investigate Location action might... [ Section Deleted Due To Security Concerns ]. If you want to have some truly strange fun, play a cult and talk the GM into letting you try something really bizarre, say awakening Godzilla and bringing the end of civilization, or building strange formations in the Andes that let them (our friends from the Great Out There) know where you are and when to pick you up. A good GM will have as much fun as you with your attempts to bring these about as you will - it allows him to put all sorts of weird things in his newsfax that will confuse and baffle the normals. For example, in Thad's campaign 11, strange critters wander out of the forest and eat people on a regular basis in Central America. :) Ack! Look at the time! I'm off to bed. Charles Hurst, Songhay (Lords Seventeen) Tip: Hey, if you're bored stiff in a campaign, why not build a big army and try and squish a nearby non-ally just for fun? You'll probably end up dead as a result, but think of the fun you'll have known just how sick to the stomach and p***ed off you've made some poor sod whose happily little dream world just got shattered into a million little pieces of glass and then spoon fed to him. Think of it as doing him a favor - he'll learn a lesson he'll never forget (always, always, always build a big army - I didn't and lost one of the sweetest positions I ever had in one turn). Always plan to have a nasty surprise for an invader in your homeland (say 30+ field fort units, and an army far larger than they thought you'd build after you told'em you just wanted to run a small, peaceful position that would focus on economics and not military, and big honking walls on all your cities, all your msp is provided by warships and transports, so you wax his ships trying to raid and burn your merchant shipping and can end-run your entire army into his homeland after he blows his army up on your defenses to burn loot sack and salt that sucker and get back to defend your own homeland, all in one turn - oh, I, of course, would NEVER do any of those, all my neighbors feel free to try and take my homeland (and remember to build lots of public works in your homeland so I can make a lot of gold when I loot it :). Just think, if he underestimates your defense badly enough he might blindly order his army to actively assault your walled capital! Oh joy, oh rapture! Hey, I watched one poor sod in Lords 7 blowing up 75% of his army taking a walled city of mine that had a garrison 1/4 his attacking army - he won, but the term pyrrhic comes to mind (he lost 80,000 men trying to take my nation - lesson #2 - never send your army into someone's country in 10,000+ chunks - his defending army will wax each and every one of them while taking minor losses - I now own all his regions :). Of course, I read this delightful passage only 2 days after sending in orders to send 120,000 men over the wall of an enemy city - thankfully my general decided to give up after 90,000+ bit it trying to scale a level 10 wall with 60,000 defenders behind it. There is always a new, nasty little lesson to learn in playing Lords, and it will almost always cost you dearly to learn. ^_^