Westphalia Discord--1792 standard

[Mus]

Austria is fine. Although I noticed Carl Rugenstein originally requested Austria but is down for Russia. I wouldnt mind playing Russia either, Carl could take Austria and you would play England.

Dont get me wrong, England is fun to play, its just I have two games as Britain already and the economic/naval strategy of GB gets a little predictable/boring if you play too much of it. I also already have a game as Austria, so wouldnt mind playing Russia for flavor.

Anyways, will pay attention to the thread until we have figured out who is who.

[evwalt]

Carl had originally asked for Austria because he was playing Russia in Denmark Anyone? He took one for the team in that game and switched to Spain. I'd feel pretty bad asking him to move again this game

You are welcome in Austria and/or Spain. I certainly don't mind England at all.

If you took Austria, that would leave aqui with Spain and we would be ready to roll.

[Mus]

Ah OK, Austria it is then.

[evwalt]

Anyone have any thoughts on some restrictions on insurrections as per the thread mentioned above?

For my two cents I would say 1) no insurrections against allies, 2) no insurrections during the 18 month period of enforced peace by the LOSER of the war during the period of enforced peace (neither side during ceasefire).

I would also say the above rules do NOT apply if the NM of a target country is below a certain number, perhaps -100? I would think when a country is "collapsing" anyone should get a shot at insurrections. Indeed, computer "rebels" can appear in your country proper as NM drops really low. <<Yeah, kicking them while they are down, but it IS what would happen>>

Thoughts?

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: evwalt

Anyone have any thoughts on some restrictions on insurrections as per the thread mentioned above?

For my two cents I would say 1) no insurrections against allies, 2) no insurrections during the 18 month period of enforced peace by the LOSER of the war during the period of enforced peace (neither side during ceasefire).

Ideally I believe the use of insurrection against a human player should just flat out be banned as a house rule until its addressed by WCS. The happenings in "Another PBEM" have convinced me as well as several other first hand witnesses that this particular aspect of dipomacy is completely unbalanced. We had about 10 major insurrections in a 1 year period.

[evwalt]

If no insurrections ever, does this mean that the only way for a minor to return to neutral is to be forced in a treaty? Is that right?

Not sure about that but I would be willing to bow to those with more experience.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: evwalt

If no insurrections ever, does this mean that the only way for a minor to return to neutral is to be forced in a treaty? Is that right?

Not sure about that but I would be willing to bow to those with more experience.

No. Spontaneous insurrections still occur at very low national morale levels.

In my first PBEM (ended up being abandoned due to nasty prepatch glory bugs) I lost control of Wallachia and Bessarabia as Turkey when my morale went very low as a result of back to back military defeats at the hands of France.

Anyways, Im merely suggesting a vote on a house rule. I think somebody already linked to the observations from other games about the perceived imbalances involved.

[and2]

Concerning the matter of the insurrection missions, my vote would be a yes to making a house rule that states "No insurrection missions against a human power. Insurrections and coups are still permitted against AI controlled minors."

It seems unbalanced at the moment and a potential game spoiler in a PBEM game.

[evwalt]

I would vote yes also on the no insurrections house rule.

In addition, I would be willing to play Spain rather the Britain, though I do have some concern my machine may not be able to merge files properly. If it can, then aqui can have Britain

[Ironclad]

post deleted.

[aqui]

I agree to always ban insurrections and coups against player's Nations (and lallow them only against minor country)
cya
aqui

[evwalt]

aqui he doesn't mind either Spain or Britain. Since that is the case, I think I'll take Britain. If for some reason he can't merge the first turn we can switch out.

[evwalt]

I think we are about ready to go.

First, Do we start another thread like we have on Danish Too to keep track of turns (those not in the game can go look at that thread)?

As that is a minor point, we simply need Mus email and for and2 as France to create the game using the settings in the first post and send it to everyone

Also, aqui I would go edit your post to remove your email address as written. Don't want a bot snatching it up.

[Mus]

my email is tubit at comcast dot net.

Hope we can get going soon. We should firmly decide on the insurrection house rule by majority vote before the game starts though.

[evwalt]

For this game for the house rule,

Kingmaker, ironclad--AGAINST in this game

aqui, mus, and2--FOR in this game

evwalt--abstain at this point

deerslayer & carl--agreed on the same rule for Danish Too. Please sound off if you do NOT want to play with the house rule in this game, otherwise I will assume you are FOR

[and2]

Evwalt, I can&nbsp;start the game up this evening and mail turn 0 to everyone.
&nbsp;
ok?

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Fraid I'm the odd one out, but obviously I will go along with the majority decision.

However my own personal opinion is dead set against the introduction of ‘House rules’ except where it involves a recognised Bug or involves an issue that gives clear advantage to 1 nation.

My reasoning is this is “a game” and any problems with game play that do occur should be flagged for the Devs to sort out in the next patch, in the meantime the probs affect everybody so just get on with it, faults and all.

As I understand it, there are random elements built into the game whereby seemingly shocking events do take place, eg Movement will not always go as you plan, Trade deals will not always go as you plan, Ships will not always go to sea when you order them to, Diplomatic actions will not always come off as planned etc. etc.etc.

But, because there is a random element in the game some events may well come on top of each other, in the case of Insurrections & Coups nobody has seen fit to mention that there is also long, long periods where Diplomats fail time after time after time to pull anything off, also it is simply not true that there is no defence against it, eg set a Diplo to Expel/capture in sensitive provinces, of course that does mean that they can’t be used elsewhere doing glamorous stuff to ‘Reduce Moral’ or ‘Charm’, but then IMO diplomatic actions should not only be seen as offensive but defensive as well, cope with it it’s part of the Game.

But, and it’s a big But, my biggest objection to setting unnecessary ‘House Rules’ is that you set president for the introduction of HR’s further down the line when someone finds their craftily conceived concept doesn’t work, then they too want a HR as well, and then you have gaming time taken up by various discussions for & against till it devolves to the ludicrous situation of, “Voting”, on who is to be ‘Judge’ to monitor the new HR; some of you may think this farfetched, well, it’s already happened once!

Again merely my personal opinion but I want to play the game, warts and all, not get involved in time wasting bickering ‘Rule by Committee’.

Right folks, Rant over, ... guess it's now time for me to get a new nickname, how about ... “Lonely” [:D]

PS, from the 'No Frills thread, ... Though it places the peaceful non conquering Turkish peoples at a disadvantage in not being able to use this function! Monte raises a good point here in that it is again the smaller nations that get disadvantaged ie the complete opposite of what this game (No Frills)was trying to do, give the little guys a chance.


All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

PPS to the above, just found this from ericbabe on another Thread, it maybe helps put the Inserection thing in perspective, note the penelties involved.

I like the idea of only one insurrection per turn per minor -- it's just a little tricky to figure out which diplomat to allow to have that chance. I suppose we could search all the diplomats in the region and only allow the one with the best stats to have a roll.

Remember there is a penalty of -50 attitude with every minor power in the game for a failed insurrection attempt. We've been talking about adding a glory penalty on top of this, and possibly of giving the attempt itself a monetary cost, or perhaps a chance of one.

I think there's enough precedent in the period to justify diplomatically-motivated insurrections, though they shouldn't be as common as some people are describing on this thread -- I'd originally had in mind maybe 3 or 4 successful insurrections per game.

For instance, the insurrection attempt in Amsterdam in 1794 was motivated by French revolutionaries and organized with French assistance.

Stein and Gneisenau planned Prussian insurrection attempts against the French with British assistance in 1808, and engaged in "most careful and secret diplomatic preparations" with Austria, and they received secret funds from the British Foreign Secretary toward this. George Canning also tried to engage Russia to provide secret support for the Prussian insurrection. Stein was impressed with the Spanish resistance against French occupation and was attempting to replicate Spanish guerrilla-style insurgency against French occupied Prussia.

The British gave assistance to the insurgents in the Vendee for years.

Hofer's Tyrolian insurrection started with secret talks between Hofer and Archduke Johann in January of 1809.

I believe that Schill, who lead the 1809 insurrection attempt in Westphalia, had been in secret communication with Austria as well.

I'd also classify Murat's defection following an agreement with Austria in 1813 as a COG:EE-style insurrection. Murat also tried to regain power by holding an insurrection in Calabria.

William Hill, the British minister in Cagliari, worked with Alessandro Turri to promote insurrection in Sardinia.

The British and the Austrians had many clandestine plans for fomenting insurrection in Italy. The British funded many insurrection attempts in Italy, Dalmatia, and Tyrolia that came to no effect. They had so many failed attempts that the British began to give up home of funding a successful insurrection in Italy. Lord Bentinck, a British general, was dispatched as a diplomat to Sicily with the secret mission of attempting to foment an insurrection there. Bentinck traveled all around the Mediterranean, officially as a British diplomat, but all the while secretly engaged in attempting to foment anti-French insurrection. In 1810 Bentinck provided Francis d'Este with £100,000 (which I believe is about .5% of the entire British GDP for that year) to support an insurrection in Illyria and Corfu.

The 1813 Dutch insurrection was supported by 25,000 muskets smuggled from England and propaganda printed in Prussia.

Anyway, I don't think it's at all a-historical to have diplomats attempting to foment coups in conquered territory. A diplomat with a box of cash and maybe some smuggled muskets could, in fact, do what "special forces" often could not do.

All the Best
Peter

[Ironclad]

Drats, you beat me to it. I saw this when I decided to have a closer look at the issue. Your "rant" makes some very good points and Eric's post highlights the strong case for an insurrection rule applying directly to the powers. Frankly I went with the flow when voting in Danish Too without giving it too much thought although I did note that a large country like Russia was likely to benefit.

On reflection I would like to see how the normal rule works out in pbem play so for this game I am voting No, but of course will abide by the majority view.

(Danish Too I will leave as yes - so that I don't mess up the arrangements there and it would be useful to compare how it works with the house rule exclusion.)

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Ah, right, ... maybe that had better be "Lonley (ish)" then [:)] as Tom has also raised concerns on 'No Frills'.

All the Best
Peter