Lords #2:

Additional RUles

 

As of 12/15/04, and effective Turn 95

 

Game Payments:  Thomas Harlan is responsible for accepting payments. Please contact him about ordering turn credit orders if paying by US check or postal money order via lords2pmts@throneworld.com or you may order online with a credit card or paypal transfer.

 

Game Balances: This is elementary.  Please keep your balance up to date.  The GMs’ reserve the right to drop you if balance reaches -10.00 or more.  Thank you.

 

Tax Rate, Admin Ratings, Harvests, and Censuses: Be aware that a bad harvest may reduce your tax rate, even if you have a census in effect (in fact, a Famine may eliminate an existing Census status, entailing the player to conduct another one.  Furthermore, I may shut down an existing Census if I feel that it has been in place too long and requires a new one to be conducted.  Also, if a leader with a poor Admin rating is on Administrate, his incompetence will drive the tax rate down, again regardless of whether or not a Census is in place.  However, it would not eliminate an existing Census. 

 

Bombards:  This rule has been dropped.  All existing bombards will be converted to Heavy artillery.

 

Banks: All banks are CLOSED and may only be used for internal loans only, however.

 

Changes to Hands-Off Trade (NEW):   HOT is not as restrictive as it used to be.  If the King (only!) conducts an Intervene in Merchant Affairs (IMA) for 6AP he may rearrange MSP between existing merchant fleets (and any routes he opens that turn).  CLARIFICATION: This applies to all merchant fleets, regardless of type.

 

Inter-nation Trade Fleet:   May be freely initiated, starting MSPs determined by computer.  To add or move MSPs requires an IMA action.

 

Internal Trade/Fishing Fleets:  May be freely initiated, starting MSPs are added by the player.  Additional new MSPs may be added to an existing fleet.  To move MSPs between existing fleets requires an IMA action.

 

Merchant Conduits: For all of you Seafaring types out there, remember that the conduit limit per trade route is one.  Also, please, please write out your routes that use conduits when you fill in your orders

 

Claimed Regions and Cities: These regions and cities will be noted by a dot in your color, not a full color shading of the region..

 

Map Change: Jungles and Deserts will no longer appear as different colors on the map unless controlled by a nation.

 

Religion:

 

Primates and Open Empires: From this point onward, ANY construction (city, colony, project, etc) that one player desires to erect, raise or settle in the regions controlled by the other requires the written permission of that player (i.e. in their orders).  “Controlled” in this case refers to non-Primate statuses.  So, if the Omnetian Order decides to build a road link in Dai Viet territory, he’d better have the Viet player’s permission to do so.  Conversely, if the Indonesians wish to add a city level to an Omnetian city, they’d better have the Grand Dragon’s permission.  Again, the first time this is not done, gold and NFP will be put in saved.  After that, they will be lost.

 

Primate Influence: Primate players should be aware that Influence in a country must be maintained (similar to an Intel infiltration) by use of the Maintain Influence Religious Operation.  Failure to do so leads to a loss of levels of Influence.

 

Exact Tithe:   A Primate needs to have an Influence in the country where the EXT operation is taking place.  If you do, you can exact a tithe % equal to or less than the influence value.  So if a primate had a two influence in a nation, the primate player could attempt to exact a one or two percent tithe.  This makes establishing and maintaining influence extremely important.  The maximum influence a primate can have in a given country cannot exceed the latter’s RS.

 

Religions:  Two Christian faiths, Nestorian and Arian are now identical for all purposes (they both use the Arian symbol on the map). Afro-pagan, Euro-pagan and Asia-pagan all have organized religions that have branched off from their original roots.  These are the Aeseri (OD), the Church of Anansi (AN) and the Church of Tengri (TE).  Basically they have lost the negative tech modifier of their pagan antecedents and can have higher religious strengths. They are identical to their base religions on the religion interaction table and are tolerant of their base religions.

 

Religious Monoliths: A nation’s RS may not be increased above 5 through the construction of religious megaliths.  The rate of 2 levels per point of RS is the same, however, the levels need not be all in one site, you can distribute them among various sites as you wish.

 

Leader Actions:

 

Action Points: Please make a note of the action points expended when writing leader actions.  While most of you do this, some don’t.

 

Diplomacy on Pacified & Pacified Tributary:  Diplomacy can be conducted on these regions with the success number being added to the Years from Conquest (YfC) number on your stat sheet.  It is still a long process.

 

Rule & Admin Actions: Only the King, Regent or Heir may conduct a Rule action.  Only an Heir, Prince or Lieutenant may conduct an Admin action.

 

Having Children (HC): A leader conducting either Rule, Defend (not React), or Admin in the Capital or Homeland region may also perform Have Children actions at the same time.  Please indicate how many actions your King, Queen, Heir, etc, is using for Have Children.  Unless, it’s not specified, we will assume the HC action is being done for the entire turn.  Finally, if the individual doing the HC is female, there is a chance that they may die in childbirth, which can throw a really a crimp into your plans.

 

Aging: Any male Royal personages attempting to Have children (HC) after the age of 50 has a severely reduced chance of siring any new bundles of joy due to general age and decrepitude.

 

Leaders as Espionage Points: If you’re using a leader for an espionage operation or bonus point, they must be located in the region or city where the operation is occurring.  If the op is a spectacular failure, there is a chance that any leader assigned to the operation may be caught or killed, which can be embarrassing.

 

Female Leaders: Primates and Military Orders may never have female leaders of any kind.  Other countries may get a female leader only in exceptional times determined by GMs’.

 

Order Sheet Reminders:

 

Mercenaries: Remember that you MUST specify a city where you are hiring the Mercs.  Failure to do this will result in no Mercs and the money being lost. Also, mercenaries may not be hired for more than one turn at a time.  This may change when the Years per Turn reduces sufficiently enough for a contract to carry over to multiple turns. PLEASE put where you are hiring any mercenaries AND how many you are trying to hire AND how much you are willing to pay per point of troops in your builds section on the order form.  PLEASE DO NOT put this information in the notes section at the end of your orders or within the orders section of a given leader.  If it persists, you will not get the mercenaries and the GPs bid on them will be lost.

 

Agro Transfers Reminder:  Remember, even if you are giving surplus agro away, it must be put into reserves (at a cost of 1GP per agro) before it can be transferred (See rule 2.11.5.2 in the Medieval Rulebook).

 

Transferring Gold, NFP and Agro: To transfer these commodities between non-trading Empires requires a leader to move them with all the risks this entails.  FURTHERMORE: Regardless of how they’re transported BOTH parties to the exchange MUST note the exchange in their orders.  The first time this is not done will result in the items being returned to the sending player.  Subsequent failure to follow this rule will result in the loss of the commodities in question.

 

Transfers:  Matt Holy’s new order sheet is pretty clear where transfers go.  Please be equally clear who and where your transfers are going.  Also, both incoming and outgoing transfers should be noted.

 

Please note, no transfer may be used by the recipient until the following turn.  Whatever amount is sent will be put in your respective saved GPs, saved NFP, or agro reserves.  Note: this may not be the amount you are expecting as the prospective donor may have sent less (or more), may have forgotten entirely, or some of the transfer may have been lost or stolen.  For GM ease of record keeping, both Nations should record incoming or outgoing transfers.

 

Megalithic Projects: the costs on various projects imposed by border terrain are in addition to the regular cost and are not effected by the cost multiple.  For example:  A postal road between a cultivated and wilderness region for civilized cultures costs 37.5 GPs and 19 NFP (.5 base x 1.5 for the wilderness multiple).  If there’s a type one mountain range between the regions, which will add one level to the project for a cost of 87.5 GPs and 44 NFP. 

 

Cultivation Projects: There is no terrain multiple for cultivating wilderness and steppe regions to cultivated.   It will be assessed for Intensive cultivation and Jungle cultivation project terrain costs however.

 

NEW: Cultivating a wilderness or steppe region is now a level one Megalith with no modifier for terrain.  Intensive cultivation costs and modifiers are unchanged.

 

AP reminder:  please remember that it is the slowest unit of a given force that determines which unit modifiers apply to determining APs/year.  So if your army of light, elite cavalry includes even one heavy infantry unit, the footsloggers are slowing everyone down.  Also if a leader has a combat rating of four or less, he has a –1 AP per year modifier regardless of what he’s doing.

 

Building in Neutral and Claimed Areas and Cities: If an area or city begins the turn uncontrolled or claimed you may not build cities, city levels, projects, or invest in PWB points in those locations.

 

INTEL STUFF: When performing Infiltration and Counter Infiltration Intel Operations, it is always best to specify which sector of your nation you are trying to protect or subvert.  The sectors are listed in rule 8.3.11 in the basic rulebook but I will repeat them here:  Espionage Service, Government, Royal Family, Military, Populace, University and Religion.  Players who order an op against an unspecified target will have a SEVERELY reduced chance of success.

 

Yard Capacity: Although the new rules allow for Yard Capacity for sanity reasons of the new GMs,  we are choosing not to implement this set of rules.  However, the GMs’ do reserve the right to reject such order requests as building 100 HEW in a level 1 port city.