Creating and destroying fragmented states
There has probably been more discontent with the rules for fragmented states, particularly creating them and destroying them, during NWOL-1 and NWOL-2 than any other issue, and maybe more than all other issues put together. I am pretty well convinced some kind of changes are needed. I am open to just about anything as long as the actual historical experience is possible within the new rules. In particular, conversations with a couple of people have produced the following two-part suggestion:
1) Give only France the power to create new states, and then, only the power to create alternative (ie, revolutionary) governments for the existing states. That is, the game would start with, say, six states in Germany, as it has. If France captured enough cities of, say, Bavaria, then France could created a Revolutionary Bavarian government to administer those cities. It could only administer Bavarian cities; it its army captured non-Bavarian cities (say, Leipzig) then it could control them, but only under the same rules that France or Austria can control them. No other nation could do this (no other nation is revolutionary).
2) Keep the cities permanently associated with their original owners. Thus, Leipzig would always be a Saxon state. If it was occupied by a foreign power, the Saxon government could raise a rebellion there, but other German states (ie, Bavaria) could not. If the French managed to create a revolutionary Saxon government, then that state could also raise rebellions in Saxon cities, but could not do it in Bavarian cities. It too would be limited to governing the original Saxon cities.
3) Monarchical governments of German and Italian states could never be destroyed, but revolutionary governments would cease to exist if they lost their last city.
This suggestion would essentially turn the fragmented states into minor states. We'd probably still want them to compete against each other in a separate category, however, just because they are centrally located on the map, and the minors (with the partial exception of Holland) are not.
A variant of this suggestion allows France to also create revolutionary governments in minor states (as they did historically in Holland and Spain). I would not let them do that in major states because they did not do it in Austria and Prussia when they occupied those countries.
Another variant of this suggestion features a Bourbon alternative government for France, and this would exist at the start of the game but be under control of another nation (probably either Holland or Britain). The Bourbons would always exist but might not be able to do much until they captured a city in France (or more likely were given one by their major-power sponsor). Once they did, they could create rebellions in cities held by the French revolutionary government. This would allow Vendee rebellions in various formats.
This suggestion requires some code changes, but not very many. We could go right to NWOL-3 with it but we'd have to expect some bugs to crop up and need to be solved. Hopefully not too many.
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Creating and destroying fragmented states
I would like to hear more about the reasons for discontent with the current rules. I understand that 4 of the 12 frags disappeared but I also note that generally speaking those that allied with the eventual winning major power had a real good ride. I'm thinking particularly of Hannover and Wuerttemburg. Also, as far as I know, everybody who lost a state was able to find a meaningful billet elsewhere, if they wanted one.
So if we could have a bit more explanation on what is considered to currently be not the Right Thing.
Jim Voege
Frags
I am not sure where the discontentment came from, but I do think that the trick some of us pulled in NWOL2 is not only unrealistic but also had considerable game consequences. Iberia, for example, created a frag (Cagliari) when the island of Sardinia was taken, and then started to transfer Italian frag cities to Cagliari until the whole of Italy (except Naples and the Venetian cities) was unified under 'Italy'.
Well, this 'Italy' had an income of over 700 crowns per war turn. Everything was made too easy and profitable for us in the Italian campaign after we engineered this frag. At one point we had 7 active TRs walking around. We could have easily transfered points around so Portugal and Spain would be 1st and 2nd among minors, and Italia first in frags.
I just think things should have been a little harder. This 'frag' of ours should have been sponsored by another Italian state or a major to exist, or maybe only after we had occupied a city long enough.
About Steve's suggestion to allow only France to create minors, why not any major? Austria had enough influence in Italy to sponsor a minor noble house into being the kings of something, same with Austria and Prussia in Germany, etc.. We just need to make the requirements a little tougher like keeping at least 3 nearby cities for 6-10 war turns without militia revolts, etc..
Marcelo
Frags
Marcelo,
I guess I'm just getting a little dense with old age but I still don't get it. Your creation of Cagliari did nothing more than give to you the same advantages as the other Italian states had in relation to strategy and operations within Italy. How can that be unfair?
Surely the remedy to any perceived unfairness was for the aggrieved Italians/Germans to retake their cities. If they cannot do so then it is because they have been bested and in losing things get lost. Am I missing something? Bear in mind that the whole idea behind the frags was to create that historical buffer zone between France and the rest of the continental majors within which allegiances and politics in general were amazingly fluid. Historically, these zones were eventually more or less swallowed by France. Did the game not accurately reflect this?
BTW, you couldn't have transferred points around because you would have run afoul of RAR Rules 4.2 and 4.5. So don't worry about that aspect of things.
Jim Voege
Frags
Hi Jim, I did not say unfair, my words were 'too easy'.
France did what she did after the war was over, she had the upper hand, the influence, the strength, the time, etc.. to make some changes in the European map. So I am not questioning the ability of changing the frag landscape as the game proceeds, but it does need to follow different rules to prevent me from exploiting it next time .
What happened in Italy would only have happened if we were indeed seen as some kind of 'liberators', so cities would wholeheartdly (probably wrongly spelled) join our cause as we go.
Because no matter our common interest in history, we will behave in a way that allows us to win the game (this makes reference to Mark's comment in another post) exploiting rules if necessary, and leave historical accuracy in 2nd place. If we want to mimic some elements of history to make the game more interesting, then the rules need to support that.
Example...France starts at war with Austria and Prussia. Frags cannot be created/deleted except in a peace turn by a major, Etc..
Anyway...only my oppinion...maybe it wasn't too easy...I am too good
Marcelo
Too easy
I wasn't too dismayed when my frag (Lombardy) was swept aside (alright I was, but that isn't my point). I understand that is part of the game. I do have concerns, and they probably mimic Marcelo's, that it was all too easy for a frag to be conquered and turned into a new state.
The first of the Italians to fall this way was Sardinia when a city was taken and held for a single turn before becoming the new nation of Calagari. Part of this was timing, the last turn of the season, but in any case it denied the opportunity for Sardinian loyalists to rebel and effectively allowed the Iberians to do away with the need for garrison forces.
Marcelo’s suggested requirements to make it a little tougher ie holding at least 3 nearby cities for 6-10 war turns without militia revolts seems like a good way to go in addressing this particular point.
making new frags
The problem here is that it really was very easy for France to make a new state. Basically, every time they took a northern Italian state, they made little one-city frags. Within a year most of them got combined into one or two bigger frags, then they lost them all in 1799 anyway, then when they put Italy back together after 1800 they just made the Kingdom of Italy. By then Napoleon was dictator and monarch in all but name anyway.
I am a wizard. I make things using magic. SJS
Hey! The Spanish have left, lets be Sardinian again!
Yes, but could the Spanish achieved the same thing? and while the French certainly set up their own political structures - revolutionary ones initially. Did they really not require a garrison? This little snippet on the Papal States suggests that rebellion wasn't exactly unknown. Even against other 'Italians'
10 Feb 1798 - 27 Nov 1798 Rome occupied by France.
15 Feb 1798 - 30 Sep 1799 In rebellion: Roman Republic.
27 Nov 1798 - 12 Dec 1798 Rome occupied by "Sicily" (Naples).
11 Jul 1799 - 28 Sep 1799 Rome occupied France.
30 Sep 1799 - 23 Jun 1800 Rome occupied by "Sicily" (Naples).
23 Jun 1800 Papal State (restored)
2 Feb 1808 - 17 May 1809 French occupation.
Unfair
I don't think it was unfair for us to transfer all of the captured Italian cities into one new nation. We repeatedly approached members on the other side to accept peace and join the Coalition (I keep forgetting if it was a coalition or a confederation). They did not want to accept defeat. Iberia was all for getting one of the Italians to join us and then give them all of the captured Italian cities. Regardless of who owned them the only way this was going to happen is if we still controlled them and called the shots. The Coalition decided that we were not going to leave any un-aligned countries on our flanks or in our rear.
Somehow we forgot about Swedend/Pomerania. I thought you guys were out of the war and then bam, you take the cities in Holland. We were pissed. Then the scramble to raise troops. I was given command of a 5 unit cavalry and light artillery group to move from Italy and Spain to track you guys down and then you disappeared. Last I heard of you was around Dijon. If it had not been a distraction we were planning on invading Sweden. We finally decided that a push from the Crimea toward Moscow would get the game over quicker and chose to send ships to the Baltic to blockade Sweden and focus on Russia. The sea lift to ship more Iberian troops to the Crimea had just started when the game ended.
Jerry Gouge
Unfair
Jerry, all,
> I don't think it was unfair for us to transfer all of the captured Italian cities into one new nation.
It certainly wasn't unfair...you did everything according to the rules (even though I had to actually pull the rules out a couple of times, myself, in order to keep you guys from "jumping the gun" concerning an earlier, preemptive claim to "Caligari" and, then again, on its subsequent, presumptive expansion onto the mainland without any "native" troops nearby)
Pesky rules...
Mainly, I question the timing and the criteria of the rules as they exist in order to claim a new "city-state" out of clay, so to speak...
Honestly, I don't know how we could recruit players to volunteer to "man" these mostly, one-man bands...without a clear understanding of what they're truly up against.
This is what you get when you mark "put me where you need me" on the recruitment form...
I think I have a pretty-good perspective now that I've played both the most-vulnerable minor closest to France (Holland) and also the "largest" (that's how it was "marketed" to me by JJ...I'll never forget it) frag adjacent to France (and that would be Sardinia). Yet, in NWOL II, with all of her "natural" frag allies, plus Austria behind her, this coalition lost, as well.
So, both times, I have "poked the bear" and lost, given my best efforts at forging a considerable coalition against the two-time winner, France.
I'm sensing a pattern, here...so, maybe that's where the real playtest-tweaking should be directed? Oh, wait, England siding with France screwed all of that up...
Hey, I'm just doing my own, noble share of playtesting NWOL...how was I supposed to know that, this last time around, that England had their own "playtesting" in mind?
--Back to the topic--
In any event, there's something inherently wrong with managing to capture a frag city on the final turn of a campaign and then being able to
declare it as the basis of a "new country"--simply because it happened on the "end-of-campaign" turn (which is an entirely artificial time-limit and bears no similarity, whatsoever, to an actual "end-of-campaign"). So, as it now stands, all you have to do is to capture a city on the final turn of a campaign, get somebody to stitch some scraps of cloth together and call it a flag, run it up a pole in the town square, and you now have a new "country"...in the span of less than a turn. By doing so, not only was the city (and new "country") "yours"...so was my former militia! This, of course, prevented me from being able to have any rightful opportunity to try to win MY city back through an uprising--or even to have an opportunity to enjoy or exploit the considerable side-benefit of your having to tie-down a portion of your troops by virtue of providing and maintaining a garrison due to the very existence of the threat of an uprising.
Presto! In the stroke of an "end-of-campaign" report from JJ, my citizenry were, somehow, immediately brainwashed, cajoled, or otherwise "neutered" and forced into being obedient servants of the brand-spanking new regime...from a land, far, far away...and they were absolutely powerless to do anything about it.
If you're going to say that there was no "national identity" among frags...unlike the Spanish partisans, for example...then, I say, go ahead and do away with the ability for frags to have an uprising, altogether. Come to think of it, that would be much simpler...and save my sanity (such that it is).
Can we not, instead, put into place some kind of "timer", before you actually get to declare a new country? I mean, shouldn't there have to be a period in which the occupier actually has to flex and consolidate their power, put in the "puppet" to run the place, change the official seal, re-decorate the bedrooms of the palace, and what-not?
Also, there are 44 frag cities. It's highly-unlikely, but still possible within the rules, that there could be 44 city-states in existence...that's how many frag cities there are. I know that Pomerania is an exception, but do you think that we could limit the scope of a new country to, maybe, a minimum of three cities before it's possible to create a new principality out of thin-air?
For Sardinia, the troubling fact that she has two-fifths of her cities which happen to be separated by the Med makes such a rule of being able to create an unfriendly, Italian frag country out of nowhere--and from a single city--an act of absolute suicide for her to oppose France (especially when you add the possibility of an Iberian alliance...but, that's another disturbing topic, altogether), because all it takes is for anyone to--just as they, themselves, finally figured out--sail to the city of Cagliari, on the isle of Sardinia, in order to make a state that was, for some reason, called "Caligari" (When you made that typo, Jerry, I can only think that you were thinking of your favorite Italian seafood?)
Hey, if the Brits want to use an entire game as an excuse to test their "economic theory"...then I can test my own of whether or not Sardinia can survive as an anti-French state (the first time around, they were solidly in France's right-hip pocket, which turns out to be the right call, Jim C.) This time, Sardinia had all of Italy--with Austrian help--but we hadn't counted on the Iberians being so "tight".
No wonder my password for this game was "kamikazee" (true story...Stephen and JJ can confirm).
I've heard those that say that a 'Unified Italy' that we forged was "too far" ahead of its time...fine. Show me anything else about this game that, in any stretch of the imagination, simulated the actual events of the Napoleonic Era...
Still, we Italians valiantly held-off the two, early French drives and the initial Iberian "probe" (which "helped themselves" into Italy until we requested that they leave, by the way)...so, it wasn't until the rest of the "Iberian Mafia" finally came into play, invaded the desolate isle of Sardinia, and created "Cagliwhatyoucallit", that the numbers started to eventually tell. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that we held our own for so long is the high-note that we Italians will take away from NWOL II...
> We repeatedly approached members on the other side to accept peace and join the Coalition (I keep forgetting if it was a coalition or a confederation). They did not want to accept defeat. Iberia was all for getting one of the Italians to join us and then give them all of the captured Italian cities.
Jerry, you're a great player--you were my mentor from way back in CWOL III--but, diplomacy is not your strong suit...I've heard you admit as much before.
The final straw was that you also offered Neopolitan cities to me as part of the deal! (which are absolutely not transferable...I gotta tell ya, it made me crazy hearing you guys say that "Saxon cities WILL be English" and that you thought that you could deal Naples' cities like they were yours to hand out...it was a bit much to take).
I don't want to speak for all of us, but I think that our mind-set was that we would rather just play out the string instead of joining the bandwagon/steamroller...
I mean, what fun is that?
Now, Stephen, you may never be able to entirely prevent such a similar "Götterdämmerung attitude" in further iterations, but Jim mentioned that such "players-in-exile" as myself were still able to play after losing and, yes, I still enjoyed playing, of course...I just chose to keep joining what I thought was the more "righteous" side, even if it ultimately lost.
What if, instead, you made it a stipulation that frag players whose state had "ceased to exist" followed much of the same criteria as a major?
1. All "vanquished" frag players (or, for that matter, minor countries and players) must pledge allegiance to the victor and immediately begin playing for the victor if a majority of your cities are "occupied". If you choose not to do so, see rule 2.
(That way, it doesn't matter if it's the first turn of a campaign or the last turn of a campaign if that final city was captured--except for Pomerania, granted, since it's one city...but, screw 'em, they won last game--did I say that last part out loud?).
After all, majors can be "vanquished" and suffer the consequences of said "losing", yet keep their points and remain in a position to still recover. Admittedly, in theory, this has yet to be practiced in a "real" game, since a vanquished major has yet to have an opportunity to "rise up", but why not make "losing" also have less of a meaning to frags--and minors--instead of being "erased" from the game (in the case of frags)?
2. Or, otherwise, as a condition of surrender...have a country pledge (by rule) to sit out a campaign or so--agreed by treaty, of course. The losing side transfers authority to the victor and gets to play somewhere else. I pro-sports' terms, he is a "free agent".
In short, give the frag--or minor--even a slim hope of getting back into the game by retaining their country, their status quo, and a chance of improving upon their points.
This whole notion of carving out new frag nations out of "thin air" just galls me. I simply detest the idea of any new country being able to join the game (possibly, at the last minute) and entering the arena with a clean slate--after we've been "fighting and dying" with the backing of a major (or minor, for that matter).
> Regardless of who owned them the only way this was going to happen is if we still controlled them and called the shots. The Coalition decided that we were not going to leave any un-aligned countries on our flanks or in our rear.
Fair enough. That's pragmatic...and a perfectly-understandable strategy--very Napoleonic. But, you must also understand, our alliance was as strong as the one that the British describe and that you guys were so proud of.
We were just as solid.
Again, I can only speak for myself, but it was particularly difficult for me to be the first to "cave", since I was the one that had, after all, convinced all of Italy to unify in the first place.
I mean, how could I have been the first to bail after all of my allies had contributed so much?
I'd rather lose.
Steven
Steven Mathena
I am in marketing. I make you buy things you don't need. SGM
Salute
Many valid points.
I will say that the main reasons we created the Italian state was to one get full income and two to reduce the need for large garrisons. We were focused on managing the economic aspect.
I agree that there should be a waiting period for a city to be absorbed or have flag changed. I am not sure that the chance of a revolution should ever disappear.
We viewed Naples as our key compeition for the game honors. We might not have been able to change the flag of the Naples cities, but we could still have got you the income from them via transfers and let you manage them as part of the administrative new-Italy state. I totally understand the mentality of sticking with your alliance. If we were able to chip away at the opposition it would have only accelerated the steamroller.
It will be interesting to see what the new rules bring.
Jerry Gouge
some responses
Long post! Some quick replies:
1) Certainly in Germany, and to a lesser extent in Italy, yes, France really could just set up a new state pretty much immediately. The reason is that it offered liberation to the populace which therefore supported the new French-backed government. Where there was resistance (almost never in Italy and literally never in Germany) it was from the dispossessed nobles, but their rebellions never got very far because they never had popular support. There was one brief rebellion in northern Italy in 1798 that France put down with one brigade. There was also never any rebellion against the Dutch republican government, even in 1813 when France was very clearly tanking. Same reasons. Rebellion against French rule occurred only in those parts of Europe where liberal thinking had not spread - Naples and of course Spain.
Now, no other nation could do that, no other nation being republican - another reason to limit creation of new frag governments to France. Requiring France to respect the existing state borders (ie, they can create a revolutionary Saxon government but they can't make up a new state entirely) and requiring them to capture, say, half the cities of that nation solves some of the other problems Steven and others have discussed. They can still create a Kingdom of Italy or Confederation of the Rhine by placing several republican governments under the same leader. They can aggregate pre-war states together, but can't chop them up or recombine them.
2) It is understood, and I thought the NWOL rules mentioned this, that at the end of each campaign is an implicit period of real time, perhaps a month, in which the armies are resting and no combat can occur. That month is what allows reinforcements to come up, new states to be created, etc. Even in the Civil War 60 years later, these long and frequent pauses were a necessary part of 19th century warfare.
3) Sardinia can oppose France only if she has both Austrian and British support; the former for land-side defense, the latter for water-side defense. In the real wars she had both. We do not, I think want to require that she will always get them in the game. If she is missing either one, I concur that resisting France is suicidal. Of all the diplomatic facts, perhaps the most odd is that two games running, we have not seen an alliance between Britain and Austria. In NWOL-2 it's clear why, France is an attractive ally if Britain is not effectively dissuaded by a fear of French hegemony on the Continent. (Which she should be, but she should fear Austrian hegemony also.) In NWOL-1 it's much less clear to me why that alliance never appeared.
4) I am pretty sure no major would ever trust a pledge of allegience made by a defeated frag owner, and I think it's not hard to see why they wouldn't.
5) As I've said before, and will again, minors and frags are way, way too reluctant to change alliances. I picked the losing side in both NWOLs, managed to finish in the middle of the pack in NWOL-1 and second in NWOL-2 because I changed sides when circumstances called for it. I'm not doing anything that anyone else couldn't do, if they could get over this excessive loyalty to defeated allies. (Or, in the case of Britain and France, excessive loyalty to undefeated allies ;) As I said somewhere upthread, I think the small number of players makes it hard to confine one's loyalty to one's own country, and that's not really a solvable problem. I'm just not affected by it personally.
I am a wizard. I make things using magic. SJS
Sardinia can oppose France only if ...
Sounds like the RAR module is simple for Sardinia.
1. Sit back, have a few bottles of wine.
2. Wait....wait....let the dust settle.....wait.
OK, how are the majors aligned?
Britain is with Austria - Ok Sardinia is against France.
Britain is not with Austria - OK Sardinia is with France.
John Vanvark
And, if Britain is with
And, if Britain is with France, drink everything that's in the cellar...
Steven Mathena
I am in marketing. I make you buy things you don't need. SGM
I can assure you...
that no such offer was ever given to Venice and that once the hostilities started the offers that came to us were absolutely nothing like what the Iberians were "all for." Beyond that, I wonder if resolution on another issue (England/France) may have prevented some of this from ever happening in the first place. After all, if France and Iberia had picked on Italy with an England that was even somewhat antagonistic to them, then the naval situation might have been very different and the whole frag creation process would have been limited a great deal.
Many countries in this game chose to join a historically unrealistic French alliance at a very early point in this game (because they saw an opportunity to "win at all costs" based on the existing rules), and that is what set the course for almost everything else including the frag situation. The decision by Italian frags to resist to the end is a peripheral issue to that main one. As soon as the ink was signed and you guys decided to go all Kumbayah on everyone, the fate of the game was sealed. Everyone knew it was a simple matter of time. So some frag leaders said "forget it, this game is doomed already, and I'd rather fight on with nothing to lose then join a side that was equally unhistoric."
I understand
I understand you position.
What was very unusual was that everyone in the Coalition stuck with it. Iberia did not want France nor Britain as an enemy. So reneging on the agreement would have been problematic. If we had been unable to join forces with them both we would have had to join forces with one or the other.
I do not think we seriously considered offering Venice or Naples a peace offering. It seemed to us that you guys were very into the Italian solidarity thing. I had heard that there were talks between France an Italy regarding turning on Austria but I heard that Italy would not hear of it. Iberia did approach the Papal States regarding joining us but nothing came of it.
Jerry Gouge
Unfair
Jerry,
I too see no unfairness. I expect someone will explain it to me. Patiently. ;-)
I'm sure glad to hear we got your attention. But it's probably best for you that you didn't find us. You would have had to take on hand-picked German and Swedish dragoons (2 "Good", 2 "Excellent") and it probably would have been ugly for you.
The flip side was that we had a real big problem in that everything we did had to be done in cities where cavalry, regardless of their quality, are just barely on the shiny side of useless.
Jim
Jim Voege
Finding you
Oh, all I was going to do was put out videttes. If we could pin you down in a city then perhaps the French or others could have handled the heavy lifting.
Jerry Gouge
Also
Also with almost no exception, each of the frags was approached with peace treaties and offers to join the Confederation but they chose to fight on til the bitter end (somewhat unrealistic). And thus the thought was to whipe them out. Actions have consequences.
Jerry Gouge
Frags states
I like all of these proposals including the Bourbon option (I usually do). In a way I think it provides some incentive for nations to actually work with France. If Venice (for instance) controls two Sardinian cities and transfers them to their French allies, France can just create the state, put a Venetian player back in control, and then have that player assume defacto control of the newly created "revolutionary state." Only an ally of France would receive this benefit if I am understanding the rule change proposals correctly.
re: Frag states
Players are doing something unhistorical (creating little mini state that aren’t really viable) because the rules encourage unhistorical behavior. If Austria controls an Italian city they get ½ the income, can’t raise troops there and have to maintain a garrison of at least 8k so any old Italian state doesn’t pull it out from under them. If they create Austria Jr they get full income and can raise troops in the city. They may lose 100 VPs but they could pay for that in the extra income they get. So you would be a fool not to.
Instead of restricting who can or can’t create new states maybe you should disincentive the creation of a new state. One option I think would be fair would to have some sort of cost associated with the creation of a new state. It should cost should probably be both in terms of cash and VPs. Thus it will force an actual cost benefit analysis of whether it is worth it is create Austria Jr.
As to Steve's proposed ideas.
1- I disagree with the idea that only France should be able to create new states. The other Major powers had been meddling in Germany and Italy for centuries for eons, determining who controls what. France just did it much bigger, since they were more successful militarily and they had that whole revolution thing.
2- This is unhistorical, since you can’t recreate the Confederation of the Rhine or Kingdom of Italy if you are limited to the original borders of any given state.
3- I am unsure how this would work in practice. If this option could be explained more I would appreciate it. My only comment at this time is that France did create new states out of majors, e.g. Grand Duchy of Warsaw. If the 1796 Irish invasion had occurred they probably would have made Ireland an independent revolutionary state as well. This sort of thing should be allowed if the option of creating new states out of minor territory.
-Nick
Austria Jr., Spain Jr., and France Jr.
Currently France takes a city from a German or Italian frag. They get 1/2 of the income if they stay that way and full if they create a new puppet nation. France likes this, the previous owner of the puppet does not. Often the previous owner of the puppet is approached with an entreaty to join the France's side as an ally. If this occured then the alliance would get full income. However the previous owner of the conquered city is damned and determined not to let those nefarious French guys win the game and thus anything that hurts France is better for "their side" (the side opposed to France). So rather than taking a more historical approach and attempting to maintain the entegrity of their nation they basically declare total war and win at all costs. The result is what we saw in the last game. The only means of making the frags play historically is the current means of creating new countries. Unless there is another means implemented to make players act in the best interests of their throne and their nation, then an artificial one must be in place.
Jerry Gouge