Aftermath Reborn Rules Update Log

This is where all changes to the ruleset will be stored. This is primarily to save people sifting through the whole rule set each time a change is made, and to make those who do not read it routinely aware that those changes have been made.

18/0/13
Added Eastern Council Decree #8

25/06/13
Ancient Claim : 10% cheaper Baronial upgrades (Manors, Estates, Keeps, Castles)
Created Title : Begin with 2 personal Quirks.
Created Title : Modified description.
Scholar : Quirks for the main character cost 20 Prestige instead of 30. Quirks for captains remain at full price however. 
Added Quirks

Prestige Added
Royally Appointed : Titles cost 50 Prestige less.
Natural Commander renamed to Born to Command.
Bard : +10% Prestige gain.
Merchant Connections : +2 Wealth in home County.
Martial can hire Regular forces for 5 gold less.
Priest : 1 Free Manor in each County.

Foreigner and Mercenary Captain still need to be properly defined. They will definitely be something to do with hiring foreign troops and mercenaries respectively.

Marshall Quirk - Allows treble the Command ratio to units rather than double.
Captains now recruitable for Prestige.
Combat, Movement and Raiding added.
Unit statistics updated!
Unit definitions added.
Mercenary Captains; * Can hire "Common" Mercenaries without Prestige. May Bribe Mercenary companies for the base Prestige value rather than double.
Foreigner removed (Foreign mercenaries may appear later).

26/06/13
Added Character Template.
Added Orders and Commands (with weekly template).
Born to Command; *Main character +1 Command
Church Appointment clarified; * May hire two extra Levy units (without requiring Manors and without going against Manpower totals)
Ancient Claim; * 20% cheaper Baronial upgrades (Manors, Estates, Keeps, Castles)

Quirks; Inexperienced Commander added. All characters start with this, and it grants the base 1 Command.

28/06/13

Eastern Council
Overview rewritten a little to make its function clearer
Commandments 3. 4. added
Decress 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15. added

 Prestige
Owning Vassals - 5 Prestige a turn, per Vassal (Count rank or higher, value is regardless of rank). (clarified)

29/16/13
Edited Charismatic to make it clearer that a player begins with one Captain rather than an extra one.

Edited the Character Creation information;
All characters begin with one Background and two Traits. Those choices will then affect their other circumstances. Note; a character will not begin with any captains unless they choose the Charismatic trait. At the start of play therefore, the main character will be your primary general.


All main characters begin the game as a Count (ie, they will all own one County). Additional titles may be gained through play.

- Added "Victories" to the Character Templates (under the Captains).

03/07/13

Decrees 8 and 9 added (and the others shifted down 2).

03/07/13
Added Counties to better explain Wealth and Manpower values.

03/07/13

Recruitment rules added to the Prices section. I realised I had not clarified this at all, sorry!

Troop Recruitment

Note; Each County begins with 2 Manors already built, so everyone will get 2 units of 100 Peasants as a standard.

If your county has 3 Manpower, then 2 would have been used and you could built one more Manor to bring your total force size to 300 Peasants.

Manors are then upgraded to unlock better tiers of soldier, and those individual units of peasants can be upgraded to better types of soldier depending on the level of their Barony.

3 Manpower = 3 Manors = 300 maximum soldiers from that province.

If you have 2 Manors and 1 Estate, then you would be able to raise 2 Units of Levies, and 1 Unit of Militia.

When a unit is recruited, you may immediately use them.

If you later wish to switch between units of the same tier, you will have to pay 20% of the new unit recruitment cost of that unit. So changing a Spearmen to a Bowmen will cost 2 Gold. If you wish to do this, then you will need to withdraw that unit from active duty for a turn while they get their new equipment and undergo basic training (just as though they were healing). Units switching do NOT heal during this training period.

It is therefore possible, and in fact advantageous to begin with a unit of Men at Arms and then upgrade them to Heavy Horsemen for 8 Gold (saving 2 Gold).

The only exception to this rule is making Peasants into Spearmen or Bowmen. This occurs at full cost, and is instantaneous.

Updates 09/07/13

Peasant Tier added
Peasants are granted for free when a Manor is built. Manors still allow the upgrading of Peasants to Spearmen or Bowmen, but those are now required for further upgrades.

Priest Trait modified- it was virtually impossible to implement into excel as it existed without massive workarounds.

Priest
Blessed with blessedness, this character finds it easy to raise an army of the faithful.
* One free Manor in home County (Does not count against Manpower limit, so in essence this does provide +1 Manpower. If capital is moved, the bonus moves too).

Fixed grammar errors to clarify;
Raids can be announced from any owned (self or Vassal) hexes, or from hexes with whom the Player has an "Open Borders" style agreement with to any neighbouring one.

09/07/13

Removed the reference to starting with a Stockade in the Order Bastion description. All players actually begin with no defences (apart from the Bastions that is!).

09/07/13

**Order Knights must be upgraded from Knights or Dismounted Knights.

09/07/13

Merchant Connection wealth bonus reduced to 1 Wealth.

09/07/13

Raiding updated;
"Wealth bonuses from traits and quirks are ignored"

10/07/13

Combat rules updated with Prestige and Gold sharing rules;

Simultaneous Attacks

If the two armies are allied, they will attack at the same time (see Allied Attacks below).

If they are not allied with each other, then they are resolved one after the other following a random die roll deciding initiative.

Only the first gets the prestige.

Each attack after the first earns 1/2 gold from the raiding (cumulative, so if there was a 3rd attack, they only get 1/4). This is done by doing the normal raided gold roll, then applying the penalty, rounding up.

Victorious commanders will each earn a "Victory" as normal.

Allied Attacks (and Mercenaries)

Prestige earned in battle will be shared just as though they were allied forces, and this is shared depending on combat score contribution.

So an Army A of 500 peasants (500 points) allied with Army B of 200 Footmen (400 points) being rewarded with a typical 20 prestige from a raid would earn;

900 Points total.
Army A : 55% = 11 Prestige
Army B : 45% = 9 Prestige

Surplus prestige goes to the highest contributor, with evens determined by die roll.

Gold is shared in the same way.

Victorious commanders will each earn a "Victory" as normal.

Ok, new CombatCalc is up;
http://stormwind.co.uk/image1/CombatCalc.xlsx

I am sure there are still bugs, I was finding errors right up to when I published it, but it's nearly 4-AM and I am beginning to look (and feel) like Mordred the Mad.

Changes are... substantial. Turns out the ghost warrior syndrome was quite a lot worse than I had initially realised.

The army make up remained the same regardless of casualties, and there was rampant overkill.

Each phase (Ranged / First Strike and Melee) is now broken down into 2 cycles. Damage is issued as normal, with overkill surplus being returned to a central pool and then allocated again. In this 2nd cycle the % composition of the army is calculated once again too, so unit types that have been wiped out do not get damaged further, and the smaller units which might have been hiding behind hordes of peasants are suddenly vulnerable...

There is still some chance of lost overkill damage, but you'd need to hit like 500 archers with 10,000 light horsemen to do it, and armies like that would be REALLY easy to counter.

All that is purely mechanical but is now working as intended.

Another noticeable effect is higher tier units don't seem to fare quite so well any more, as they lose their shielding earlier. This means that Manpower suddenly became far more important (and hordes are now a viable tactic... if you can command them!)

Big Gameplay Changes;
Damage is now modified based on the "Battle Modifier". Raids cause less casualties than a field battle. Raiders are usually too busy stealing stuff and not being hit, while field battles tended to be pretty climactic.

Light Horsemen were too good, so i've reduced their melee resistance by 1. Other units might also be overpowered, so please do test and give me some feedback.

It IS possible to give units decimal attack or resistances, I just couldn't be bothered to tweak that much. So archers could (and perhaps should) have 2.5 instead of 3 attack.

The Score system has also been revamped. Now the "Army Value" is calculated at the beginning of the fight, and then again when the battle is over. Highest value wins, simple.

I've also added a "Damage Inflicted" column on the Reports page. This is actually really interesting, as it clearly reveals the offensive Vs defensive troops. Bear in mind that higher tier defensive troops are worth more score points (because they actually survive battles), so just killing the enemy en-mass isn't always a sure victory.

Combat Calculator;
Changed Order Knight score value from 7 to 8.

11/07/13
Raiding info tweaked for clarification. Made a note that it is move 2 OR raid per turn.

Added;
Raids can only be announced against adjacent hexes to where the captain is stationed at that time. An army with open borders does not need to return home each time with the loot, just being successful is enough (they will fall back to their starting hex automatically after the raid).

12/07/13
Combat Calculator Update;

I ran several test games using fortifications and while defenders would inflict pretty decent casualties they would still ultimately lose due to being outnumbered. This was not as intended.

Fortifications and Command will now modify Combat Score by the same factor as they do damage inflicted (5% per command, same % as the Fortification bonus).

This means that Command has become more valuable as you can realistically take down much stronger armies with small, elite groups.

It also means, that to take a Fortress you will need to quite significantly outnumber them! (100 Crossbows, 100 Longbows and 25 Adventurers now defeats 200 Footmen, 200 Archers and 200 Pikemen!)

15/07/13

Added to Recruitment;
When hiring troops that have been destroyed, or where you have neglected to upgrade immediately, then the following rules are in force;

Turn 1; Peasants -> Levy (10 gold, instant) -> Militia (20 gold)
Turn 2; Militia -> Regular (30-40 gold)
Turn 3; Regular -> Elite (60-100 gold)

In each instance, the upgraded units will not be available for that turn, and should be marked with an (in training) on the weekly orders.

***

Changed the Raiding Rules so that you get the base Wealth x5 in loot, not 1 to (Base Wealth) x5.

15/07/13

Significant updates to the Troop Stats (primarily Regular and Elite). Neither had been balanced... at all really. Turns out there was absolutely no counter for Dismounted Knights, they even tore through Order Knights.

Heavy Horsemen damage increased
Adventurer damage significantly decreased, armour decreased a little.
Knights damage increased
Dismounted Knights damage decreased significantly
Rangers added (new Elite ranged unit type) - these guys tear through earlier units! They will suffer against fellow Elites though.
Order Knights boosted to be made more deadly.

One note, if a unit has First Strike or Ranged, then you can essentially double their Attack. Ranged units tend to be the highest damage, followed by First Strikers.

Levy / Militia is very rock-paper-scissors. Regulars require real tactics with Crossbows and Adventurers mixing things up a little.

Elite units are dominant, but should be ultra rare due to their cost. 

Order Knights are (again) the masters of the battlefield.

((Combat Calculator updated))

16/07/13

Successful Raid Defence - Each successful defence against a raid will earn 5 Prestige.