Should characters be able to buy majorities?

[Ymbert Montgomery]

I'm generally not in favour of it, for reasons I've outlined but I know some people strongly disagree.

If the vote goes for allowing it, I'll be doing so after this turn (including for people already in regiments!) as it's unfair to do so at the last moment before the turn.

[Renald De La Azur]

Buying the Majority after some time in the regiment 3 months etc should be allowed.

[Adam de la Bassée]

Time gating Majority purchase negatively effects Military play in a huge way. As we have seen, it vastly increases character churn, reduces the ability of military characters to gain appointments and as an overall game impacting side effect, slows down SP gain and financial stability.

[Ymbert Montgomery]

Just as a point of information, the Major death mods would have made no difference to character churn this time. (Maybe in the long turn). That was entirely down to a combo of bad die rolls and bad results for regimental commanders.

[Gabriel Lannes]

Guys, this is my first time playing En Garde! so I've not formed an opinion to vote, yet. I'm willing to listen to more arguments. Louis XIII I haven't seen your concerns previously. Historically, what is the most accurate?

Thanks,

[Ymbert Montgomery]

Nov 7, 2019 2:13:10 GMT Gabriel Lannes said:

Guys, this is my first time playing En Garde! so I've not formed an opinion to vote, yet. I'm willing to listen to more arguments. Louis XIII I haven't seen your concerns previously. Historically, what is the most accurate?

Thanks,

Concerns is probably overstating it. (The original rules do allow people to buy up to major with no

My general view on this is that it's unnecessary to allow people to buy that high. I think things like higher military positions, appointments etc. are mostly best left as something for characters to have as goals to work towards rather then something you just buy if you get good dice rolls in character gen. Especially as (and I think even the players who were more cautious on this score are now inclined to agree ) I think it's valid to say Liminal doesn't look like it's going anywhere any time soon.

As you can see, there's also a body of thought that strongly believes that being able to get those positions on your arrival in Paris adds to the game.

The "3 month waiting period" that's been suggested is something of a compromise position between those two poles.

In terms of historical accuracy, the entire army rules are entirely anachronistic! But I see En Garde! as genre emulation, not strict historical simulation. (So, unlike Advanced Squad Leader, I'm afraid we will likely never have a "sewer emergence" table). So a lot of concessions have already been made for playability. In particular, France didn't actually have any permanet regiments in 1630. That came later with Louis XIV. But obviously having regiments that disband after every campaign would be near unplayable.

[gaston]

My view is that with the 6 month wait at Major before being able to purchase the Lt.Colonelcy plus the fact that full Colonelcies cannot be bought but must be gained through promotion, progress up the military ladder is already slow enough. 

Because it's not possible to buy majorities characters can't volunteer their own units for the front, and there is so little influence around at the moment that it is difficult to persuade NPC Majors/Lt Colonels to do it for them.  Consequently, at the moment, characters are forced to fight with Frontier Regiments to repay their debts to the Shylocks, hence the 66% casualty rate.

Sorry, but I don't feel that a 66% casualty rate is good for the game.

People wanting to find out more about the historical French army of this period may find the article below of interest.


French Army.doc (76 KB)

[Yves Eau]

The current rules as written actually allow us to purchase a majority in our second month; a fairly pointless delay, in my opinion. Requiring three months' service as captain would encourage a period of socialisation in Paris before heading to the front, whilst allowing a character who borrows in his first month to achieve battalion command before the loan falls due, and volunteer his unit in search of lucre. I agree that six months would be too long.

As an alternative to a time served requirement, you could pack out the higher ranks with NPCs, to make them inaccessible without the use of influence, but I think that would be worse.

[huillaume]

Several points here:

As for the literature of the time (e.g. Dumas novels), I don't see there people raising quick in the ranks (IIRC d'Artagnan is still a Captain after 20 years in the Musketeers), while in this game reaching generalship in the first year after joining a Regiment is not something unseen...

As for a more "In Character" vision, I see the step from Captain to Major a true major one, as it allows to take your battalion (so is 1/3 of the Regiment) to the front. As Colonel (or higher), I don't like it would be liked the idea of some unkown entering the Regiment and directly buying the Major Rank and taking so large a slice of your troops to the front. I guess some time to know the officer would be preferred before allowing him to do so. In fact, I see a greater step the pass fro mCaptain to Major than from Major to Lt Colonel ,as their roles in the Regiment are quite alike (Battalion Commander).

OTOH, buying a Majorship for a new character is not cheap, as you must addto its cost proper the cost of 3 horses, but a character coming from a wealthy family is likely to be able to afford it...

So, all of this seen, I'd suggest to force some time (3-6 months) in the Regiment (not necessarly as Captain, if things come to it) before being allowed to buy a Majorship, representing the time needed to gain the trust of other officers in the Regiment (and up), maybe with a reduction of the time as Major needed to buy the Lt Colonel Rank (as their roles are more alike).

I'm not sure if this is enough to be countes as a "yes" vote or an "other" one would be more fitting, so I don't vote for now. Count it as you see more fitting.

[Ymbert Montgomery]

Nov 7, 2019 9:50:30 GMT gaston said:

My view is that with the 6 month wait at Major before being able to purchase the Lt.Colonelcy plus the fact that full Colonelcies cannot be bought but must be gained through promotion, progress up the military ladder is already slow enough. 

Because it's not possible to buy majorities characters can't volunteer their own units for the front, and there is so little influence around at the moment that it is difficult to persuade NPC Majors/Lt Colonels to do it for them.  Consequently, at the moment, characters are forced to fight with Frontier Regiments to repay their debts to the Shylocks, hence the 66% casualty rate.

Sorry, but I don't feel that a 66% casualty rate is good for the game.

A few thoughts on that, partly because I obviously have the advantage of a more general overview that players don't have in terms of what's been happening overall.

The main thing that sent people to the frontier regiments this time was actually the army organisation rolls. I know a handful of players are of the view I should have fixed those the first year. But as a general principle I'm of the view that unhelpful die rolls are better than fudging. And from what I can tell at least, that seems to be widely supported in the player base. People don't want that kind of thing decided by GM fiat.

In terms of influence being used to persuade Majors/Lt Colonels to volunteer, that did happen at least a bit a few months ago. One thing that rule did do is encourage players to work together, which is a good thing. But there's a strong counterargument that only happens at the higher echelons of SL which is less useful.

In the specific instance of this campaign, I'm not sure that not being in a Frontier regiment would have helped in most cases (partly because of the lack of higher status regiments). It might have, but anyone in the 13th or 53rd Fusiliers would definitely have got the same result. Also, while part of me is inclined to agree with you that 66% is too high, I am obviously aware that half the players were given the chance of a better chance of not dying and went "wahey, the bloody and fatal option it is then!". So going by that at least, it actually seems that a significant number of people think I'm already too soft on death rolls (Poltroonery is technically an option, but the consequences are so nasty I can't recall ever having seen it in play)

A question for anyone good at crunching numbers. Assuming a Well-to-Do Gentleman, how much more likely would having a majority (instead of a Captain) make survival likely? On the flipside, how much longer would people be forced to stay at the front?

Nov 7, 2019 10:03:14 GMT Yves Eau said:

The current rules as written actually allow us to purchase a majority in our second month; a fairly pointless delay, in my opinion.

Agreed. I think we change it in one direction or another.

Requiring three months' service as captain would encourage a period of socialisation in Paris before heading to the front, whilst allowing a character who borrows in his first month to achieve battalion command before the loan falls due, and volunteer his unit in search of lucre. I agree that six months would be too long.

I'm inclined to go with this one as a compromise.

Especially as it seems like most of the people voting "no" would actually prefer something like this. (It also seems closest to Hullaume's view).

What do people think? As a further concession to those who prefer reasonably rapid progression through the ranks I'm thinking of reducing the Lt. Colonel requirements to 3 months as part of this.

As an alternative to a time served requirement, you could pack out the higher ranks with NPCs, to make them inaccessible without the use of influence, but I think that would be worse.

Agreed that's not great.

As a few people have been curious how I worked out vacancies, here's the system used before the game started:

Every position had a 1 in 6 chance of being vacant.

Now I'm just going with campaign results, plus making promotion rolls to shift the regiments around after campaign.

[Yves Eau]

A question for anyone good at crunching numbers. Assuming a Well-to-Do Gentleman, how much more likely would having a majority (instead of a Captain) make survival likely? On the flipside, how much longer would people be forced to stay at the front?

JPM is from a poor family, but could probably have borrowed sufficient to purchase a majority in the 4th Arquebusiers had he not spent money improving his rapier technique and playing with the Marines.

Ignoring house rules, such as natural 12 death rolls and regimental surgeons, by my reckoning this would have improved his chances of survival in July's assault from 72% to 83% (helped by his MA5 - would be 79% with MA1).  My calculations have not been rigorously tested, and I know my battalion commander version has missed a few recent updates, but this seems reasonable.

His expectation of loot would have increased by 130, sufficient to repay the additional loan used to purchase the majority, though not the horses.

[gaston]

The main thing that sent people to the frontier regiments this time was actually the army organisation rolls.

I appreciate that, but even so, outside the Summer Campaign if characters need loot to pay off the Shylocks and can't go to the front with their regular regiments, then serving with a Frontier Regiment will still be their only option.

In terms of influence being used to persuade Majors/Lt Colonels to volunteer, that did happen at least a bit a few months ago

Yes, but so long as influence is so thin on the ground and NPC commanders only volunteer on 6+ that's going to be the exception that proves the rule.

The current rules as written actually allow us to purchase a majority in our second month; a fairly pointless delay, in my opinion.

Agreed. I think we change it in one direction or another.

Well, I can't help but feel that increasing it to three months would be a huge step backwards, even if the waiting time for the Lt.Colonel was reduced to three months. The rank of Major is the 'tipping point' regards survivability, not only for the extra +1 death modifier, but because it avoids the Frontier Regiments -1 death modifier too. (Obviously, the higher ranking the regiment the better too).

Requiring three months' service as captain would encourage a period of socialisation in Paris before heading to the front, whilst allowing a character who borrows in his first month to achieve battalion command before the loan falls due, and volunteer his unit in search of lucre. I agree that six months would be too long.

Yes, but would it be wise for a Captain who has borrowed to purchase his commission and horse to spend three months in Paris at the expense of an extra three months' chances to garner the wherewithal to pay it back at the front ?

At this juncture I'd like to point out that I have no personal axe to grind on this question - Helen Bacque will not be joining the army any time soon. The only issue for me is that it's difficult to strike up a long term RP relationship with characters whose life expectancy is only three months...

[Ymbert Montgomery]

Nov 7, 2019 15:13:47 GMT gaston said:

Yes, but would it be wise for a Captain who has borrowed to purchase his commission and horse to spend three months in Paris at the expense of an extra three months' chances to garner the wherewithal to pay it back at the front ?

So far at least,that's pretty much what has happened. Nobody has bought rank then headed straight to the front.

A few people have sent their new characters straight to the front but that's generally characters where "die and get a new character" or "come back to Paris showered in glory" has been the best option.

At this juncture I'd like to point out that I have no personal axe to grind on this question - Helen Bacque will not be joining the army any time soon. The only issue for me is that it's difficult to strike up a long term RP relationship with characters whose life expectancy is only three months...

That's actually one of the things that makes this complex!

Obviously, it's pretty easy to work out how people are voting in a small game.

And while anyone is encouraged to give feedback on this, if you remove the votes of those unlikely to be directly affected by this (including mine), I make it a 50/50 split.

Which means there's no consensus on this. As you can imagine, it's actually easier for me if there's an overwhelming majority either way, even if I disagree with it.

[Yves Eau]

it's difficult to strike up a long term RP relationship with characters whose life expectancy is only three months...

The increased mortality should only affect new characters.  Raw recruits arrive, are sent ill-prepared into the crucible of war, and most perish.  Those who survive are likely to return with promotions, MIDs, and coin.  I have no problem at all with severe losses in the ranks, so long as some emerge stronger, wiser, and better-equipped to continue up the greasy pole.

I realise it could be frustrating for someone whose repeated bad luck means he spends a year playing without ever reaching senior ranks, but I think En Garde! is better with a good spread of levels all the way up from humble peasant arriving in the city with nothing to his name to government minister helping or hindering at whim.  Unless we see turnover of players, I think the best way to achieve this is turnover of characters.

For me, the rule which has introduced great danger is the one about loans.  If we were able to maintain debt by paying interest, we could continue longer without marching to war by extending our credit as our social level rises.  We would then have time to rise through the ranks, join better regiments, and increase our chances of victory.  However, I think this will force me to play differently to other games; I am happy for the variety.

[Jacques D'Mestos]

Personally I don't think changes or suggestions considered in isolation make much good. What are you hoping to achieve with the game overall? If it's lots of IC press and player interaction then having players join a regiment, go to front almost immediately significantly detracts from that IMO. If you want the game to be 90% characters waiting on a single die roll to discover if they've survived then obviously that avenue has merit. For me this game is too small in terms of players, with too many "side shoots", to generate the kind of atmosphere I've experienced in other games. That may change with more players over time, are you actively recruiting? (I kinda stumbled on this by total chance).