Empire Battlegame

Battlegame: Empire

A multi-kingdom game.

The goal of this overly-massive long convoluted series of battlegames is to be the winning kingdom. Pretty simple, right???

Starting the game:

Someone in the two kingdoms decides they want to try this out. First they have to convince enough people in both kingdoms that such a game is worthwhile. Second, both kingdoms have to agree to fight each other for the title of empire. This can be done by a kingdom-wide vote, or just an officers vote based on public reaction (generally considered a good idea to tell the populace exactly what you may be getting them into and letting them have their say first).

Typical scenarios: There are two ways to score points in this game.

Officer scenario: The first is that all officers in the kingdoms are targets. The first kingdom to shatter 75% of the enemy officers in battle (raids, events, etc that take place on pre-agreed dates) is declared the winner. Each officer can only be shattered ONCE during the entire game, {Note: an officer who is shattered and then leaves the post in the middle of their reign does not erase the shatter. The new officer can potentially be shattered as well, adding to the total}

Points scenario: The second is to assign each park a set of tribute points: Shire: 1 point Barony: 3 points Duchy: 5 points Principality: 7 points Kingdom Seat (capital park): 10 points

(In cases where a kingdom is a "Floating Crown", the largest chapter will serve as the Kingdom Seat). Every week in the "playing cycle", each park has their points to assign either to their own kingdom or to the enemy. If a park is successfully raided, their tribute points go to the victors. [While raiding the same little shire 3 times will get you three points, your enemy will only need a single successful raid on a duchy to take the upper hand.} At the end of six months, the kingdom with the most tribute points wins! No NEW parks can be added, and all park sizes stay the same for points from start to finish. {A Shire may grow to a Barony in 3 months, but will still only give shire points when raided. Gives an incentive to recruit heavily.}.

Playing the game:

Once the game is agreed upon by both kingdoms, the Rules Of Engagement are set. Not every park in every kingdom is suitable for massive battles, so an assessment of designated "battlegrounds" may be needed. For example: a 2 acre park cannot host a three-principality battle. Make sure that every park is able to either hold a battle or has a nearby site that large scale battles may take place.

Next, set the timing of the war. Is combat allowed between parks every weekend? Every other weekend? Once a month? Only on weekends when the chapter has no "corpora" events scheduled (weaponmaster, quals, etc)? This needs to be settled before the war begins, to avoid sore feelings and malaise when, as an example, a park is raided during a feast. Every other weekend gives 26 weeks in a year to make this war happen, and should be PLENTY of time.

Third, set up 4 "event" weekends in the year you plan on doing combat. These can be pre-planned weekends (coronation, mid-reign, etc) or unique times and places. These 4 weekends are for the largest possible number of players to come out and alter the course of the war. In the Officer scoring scenario, an equal number of officers from each kingdom should be present (or as close as possible). In the Points scenario, each park that is represented (if even by a single member!) has it's points on the line. A possible twist with the Point system: a three-day event yields up 5 times the points, making a victory worth more, and encouraging massive turnout. Also encourages parks to wear garb with their heraldry on it, which encourages garbing, arts & sciences, teamwork, etc.

Fourth, rectify any differences between corporas for the duration of the war. This is a small thing, but WHOLLY needed before it ruins the entire war.

Fifth (and finally), agree on the role of mercenaries. It may seem like a minor point, but what if a small shire hires a mercenary army from a far-flung kingdom, and then raids the hell out of a Principality/Grand Duchy and wins? Now, normally the shire would get killed, but the mercs turned the tide. Are mercenaries allowed? If so, how are they paid? Do successful mercs get a special title from the winning Emperor? Can you ban a merc group from your kingdom if they turn traitor or fail horribly? A most important question to be asked before the next stage . . .

FOR THE EMPIRE!!!

Battle begins! Pretty straightforward, really: it is a HUGE shatter game. All sorts of twists can be thrown in at the Rules of Engagement meeting:

MONSTERS! Each park may have a monster equal to it's level of points/level of chapter size (a barony in the Points scenario gets a level 3 monster, but in the Officer scenario, the monster is only level 2).

MAGICAL UPGRADES! Along with raising park money, this helps turn the tide a little sometimes. Allow everyone at the park when battle begins to go to a central table (headed by a member from each Kingdom), and pay $1 per level they wish to upgrade for the day in a SINGLE class (a 1st level druid becomes a sixth level druid by donating $5 to the cause, noted by both Kingdoms).

LEAVE YOUR MARK! Any knight that leads a chapter and has his chapter successfully raided by an enemy must get a belt favor of the triumphant park and wear it for the duration of the entire game. This encourages players to target the leaders as well as attempt to take out the knight, making all sides better stick-jocks.

MAGICAL KINGS! Any time a King is in battle, every person in his army gets an extra life to their class for the day. This encourages Kings to visit all his parks and to fight with his men that are defending his honor.

MAKE UP YOUR OWN TWIST! Anything that an equal (majority) number of officers can agree upon at the Rules of Engagement meeting should be considered and allowed, provided it is beneficial to both sides, as well as within Burning Lands Corpora lines (which is all of AmtGard's default setting).

Sweet victory and crushing defeat.

The battlegame of empire puts everything on the line: bragging rights, titles, respect, dignity, loyalty, and a mark in either the "W" or the "L" column forever. The loser is subjugated for the remainder of the year that the war takes place in, and may even be held longer under the extended rules (more on those later). The winner gets some nifty prizes besides the ego boost:

1) The Emperor may grant the title of "Overlord" to 1 person in his empire who he feels did more for the success of acheiving empire than all others. This can be his best fighter, his top tactical genius, his strategic advisor, etc. This person now answers ONLY to the Emperor. Once the status of empire is lost, the Overlord keeps the title, but not the power (until he helps a new empire rise!). Overlord is equal to Warlord for seating purposes.

2) The Emperor may grant a single royal title of "Lord" to each order (total of 8 ). The receipient shall be the person who did the most and the best in that order to help achieve the status of Empire (ie: the guy who once a month loaded up 6 people in his mini-van, drove them a couple of hundred miles one-way to kill a couple of low-rank officers, and never asked for anything while always pitching in might be a good pick for "Lord of the Lions"). This is the equivilent of Masterhood.

3) The Emperor may demand "tribute" from that vanquished kingdom. This may NEVER be monetary. Instead he may ask for a painting, a poem, a song and dance routine, something you would likely see at Quals. The vanquished King must meet this demand and assign someone to carry this out within a month of the demand being made (adds a flair of realism to the situation).

4) The Emperor may travel to Clan, sit within the Circle of Monarchs, and be addressed as Emperor (not much, but it's kinda cool).

5) The Emperor is responsible for overseeing the lands he has conquered for six months or until he is deposed (by another emperor besting him, the agreed upon end of the war, or mundane interferance). The oversight is PURELY flurb and RolePlay. Example: the Emperor can order that every Sunday a certain game must be played in his honor (warlord, Militia, etc), and a record of the results must be submitted, etc. An Emperor may NEVER step down and may not name a replacement. Once the game concludes, that's it: the empire is no more and two kingdoms resume normal business.

Extended Rules.

Well, that was fun, but it only took two months! Not quite what everyone envisioned. Cheer up! With a little luck, you can keep going: a quick meeting with another Kingdom, go through the set-up proccess again, and WAR!!! Here's the good parts:

1: The previously conquered lands MAY rebel, on a majority vote. However, this has it's drawbacks: as rebels, you may grant no titles, accept no titles, nor even get them from your new sponsors. You are also a target for your empire-mates: once the rebels are "vanquished" in a single battlegame that kills ALL of the officers or ALL of the players present that day, the rebel park must forever be loyal to the empire (until the empire dies out).

2: Should the kingdom that won the first empire war also win the second, BOTH losing kingdoms must remain subjugated until the end of the NEW time limit (see example B below).

3: If the kingdom that won the first war loses the second, the losers of the first war are now subjugated to the NEW empire for the NEW time limit. In this way, the battlegame of empire can be spread out over many years (potentially) and involve most if not all of AmtGard.

Examples:

The following examples show how an Empire Battlegame can play out, and how the extended rules come into effect.

A:

Two Kingdoms (Western Sluffers and Eastern Flurbies) discuss the idea of becoming an empire with the Members In Good Standing (MIGS). A vote is taken (in this example, everyone loves the idea), and both Kingdoms are now prepared to make empires. The officers from both Kingdoms meet (in person, online in a chat room, etc). They set a date for the empire push to begin (1st Sunday in November, January 18th, etc) and a fixed date for empire activities to take place (last Sunday of each month, every other week, etc). They then return to inform their populations of the details. Everyone is made ready, and the fun commences!

Now, the ulitimate goal is for one kingdom to subdue the other within 1 calendar years worth of time. So, the Western Sluffers decide that since they have 1 kingdom park, 4 duchies, 8 baronies, and 2 shires that they are sitting pretty good as far as defense goes. Size alone of the parks should protect them from the Eastern Flurbies, who only have 1 kingdom park, a single duchy, 5 baronies, and 15 shires.

Western Sluffers detail out one of their baronies to go raid a pair of Eastern Flurbie shires. The overwhelming numbers carry the day and the officers of the EF shires are shattered in the first weekend of Empire Activities!

Now, no good king will sit still for this. Knowing that Eastern Flurbies don't have the manpower to withstand that kind of onslaught, the king makes a few changes to his strategy and begins to recruit assassins inside of Western Sluffers. The next weekend that the kingdoms may interact comes and a vast uprising of assassins kills half of the barony officers in Western Sluffers! The Western Sluffer attacks against the Eastern Flurbie shires fail because the dastardly assassins filled EF in and the parks (or just the officers) went to other shires that day as defense.

The Western Sluffers regroup, consider executing and banning all assassins, and then decide to use a multi-prong attack. On the next available date, they send 4 of their best (but least known) warriors to an Eastern Flurbie barony. The 4 warriors will pretend to be newbies who drove by and wanted to see what it was like to play. They get in, mark the officers, get close, and kill them in a suicide run. Meanwhile, 3 baronies and a shire join forces and launch wave after wave of attacks on the single duchy of EF and decimate it, slaughtering the officers. Western Sluffers wins the day!

The King of Eastern Flurbies has a panicked populace on his hands, but he has an ace up his sleeve: the next time the two Kingdoms can interact is a joint event planned for three days. He has friends in a very competent fighting company (The Dark Horses) based in Western Sluffers. During the event when the armies meet on the field, The Dark Horses turn on the king and his court, killing them all! The kingdom forces are now led by a duke from Western Sluffers, who must see if he can save this situation in the time remaining of that year.

B:

WS takes the 1 year to take over EF (or less, depending on they're awesome), which means they have a 6 month rule. Well, as they are finishing up with EF, they decide that Northern Camp Rats (NCR) will be their next target. If they can defeat NCR before the 6 months of their rule over EF, they get an additional 6 months to their rule.

F.A.Q.:

Q: How do elected terms fit in with this battlegame?

A: If both kingdoms agree to fight from July 1st 2009 until July 1st, 2010, then that is the duration of the war. If the monarch of one kingdom is replaced by elections on October 15, 2009, the new monarch will still be the new emperor should his Kingdom win. On July 1st, 2010, the empire ceases to function (unless the Extended Rules are used) regardless of who has the thrones in either kingdom.

Q: Explain the Extended Rules better please:

A: In the above scenario, the date the empire SHOULD end is July 1st, 2010. However, if the game is won quickly (say December 3rd, 2009), then the victors may engage in another war for empire. The next Kingdom is approached, the deal is made, and they agree to fight from February 9, 2010 until February 9, 2011. IF the original victors win again BEFORE July 1st, 2010, the original losers are still subjugated, but now until February 9, 2011.

I think this battle game proposal has the potential to breathe some new life into the corners of AmtGard that for far too long we have heard are suffering (roleplay, inter-kingdom interaction, fighting companies, lack of a "goal", lack of direction). I hope enough other people do too, and choose to act upon it.