FAQ's
Q: If my clan misses the start date, can we still participate?
A: Yes! You can submit your anonymous names at any point. If you haven't submitted and someone attacks your Castle, you will be contacted in an effort to get you to defend your Realm.
Q: Will you post the total size of teh world? IE 20x20, or 200x200? Or is this something that also must be guessed?
A: When clans sign up, they will receive a link to their clans map. The "frame" (size) of the map will be clear at that time.
Q: If attacking diagonally from a watchtower to a enemy player would normally be considered an ambush. Will it be considered an ambush because you are attacking from a diagonal?
A: No, the intent is you would not be ambushed from a watchtower attack because you can see them from the structures benefits and its treated as a "direct assault" against a player.
Q: Can 1 player emulate more than 1 lord?
A: No, 1 player can only emluate 1 lord. This prevents top players from being used 15 times to the cap.
Q: Can you send more than 1 Lord to assault a Castles defenses simultaneously?
A: Yes, you can send as many Lords as you like. Each one is able to engage with one defensive Lord at a time.
Q: Who are the barbarians and nomads?
A: Various people have volunteered for these roles, and will become clearer once the game moves forward.
Q: Who are the bards? Where can we find them?
A: The singing bards are NPC who "travel" the Realm, they take no place on the map nor are they represented by any player. They cannot be attacked or silenced. They share their songs to all who listen, and provide some valuable information to the world. You can find their information in the supporting information area via the links.
Q: Can you only ransom someone once they've been kidnapped?
A: Yes, you must defeat and kidnap the Lord (rather then execute or release them)
(note: however using diplomacy, you could always threaten to attack a Lord and demand a payment not to do so. But this is not technically a ransom (just diplomacy). You can also negotiate those terms, get paid and then attack anyway, or negotiate any other terms you might want or use against other clans. But that is something the bards might pick up on, and you may earn a reputation with the other Houses.
- Its fairly opened ended and could be very cutthroat.
Q: Can a freemium player participate?
A: A freemium player can help plan and may lead the coordination of the clan etc, but can not participate as a Lord due to the required Poly games being premium only feature.
Q: Can you attack a castle with multiple siege assaults if there are multiple defenders?
defending Castle has 3 Lords inside defending, you can speed the siege up by bringing 3 Lords to assault. Then all 3 would be under siege @ once as opposed to taking 1 @ a time.
But 1 va 3 looks like:
Clan A Player A vs Clan B Player A
then; Clan A Player A then vs Clan B player B (if clan a won the first)
then; Clan A Player A then vs Clan B player C (Iditto)
But 3 vs 3 would look like:
Clan A Player A vs Clan B Player A
simultaneously Clan A player b vs clan b player b
simultaneously Clan A player c vs clan v player c
Q: Follow up regarding Castle sieges, if you attack 3 vs 3 does that mean to conquer the castle you have to defeat all lords? For instance:
Attacker A defeats Defender A
Attacker B is defeated by Defender B
Attacker C defeats Defender C
So does that then mean that Attacker A or C must defeat Defender B?
A: Correct, so defender B would still be defending the Castle in this scenario and would get to decide what to do w attacked B (execute, ransom, release).
In theory defender B could try to ransom attacker B for gold or cease fire, but if executed then you are correct attacker a or c must finish the job (or at that point, could stop the siege and leave)
Q: Is the game freemium friendly?
A: No, poly games by site requirement must be premium. However freemiums can participate in teh planning / pm parts, just not the active games as a Lord on the board.
Q: We don't know who we are attacking, but we do know the CR@W castle / lord names before we attack right?
A: That's correct, you will be informed of the names of the Castles / Lords you see on the map
Q: Do we know how many Lords are in a Castle / City / Watchtower before we attack?
A: Yes, Castles / Lords will have a legend on them for you and in a corner of the map I'll detail who is what (but not what castle or clan they are associated with).
L1 = Lord Mister of House Blah Blah
L2 = Lord Bulton of house Blah Blah
L3 = Lord Park of House Blah Blah
C1 = Castle Anthrax of House Blah Blah etc etc
Q: Can cities be built anywhere, for example next to Castle.
A: Yes, any legal space that does not have a structure already built, or sea. Space must be unoccupied by enemies troops when built.
Q: Will you create as many Castles as there are Clans regardless of who can participate?
A: Yes, there will be 29 Castles on the master map. I'll make efforts to spread out expected inactive clans throughout the map so that it's fairly equal (with benefits for low to mid ranked clans over high on placement).
Q: Are there any neutral or unfilled cities on the map not associated with any clan?
A: No, all Castles will be associated with a Clan. No empty neutral castles will be placed.
Q: What does E1 mean on your example turns map?
A: E1, E2, E,3 etc signifies an ongoing engagement (battle).
Q: Will Castles be regularly placed on a grid or on same horizontal / vertical lines like in your sample or a bit more random?
A: The Castles are not on a regular placement. It follows what you would expect a regular map to look like, the grid type look was just for the example to not give away the real map.
Q: Will the real map be of similar size (speaking of distance between opponents Castles), or bigger.
A: I would say it's approx similar size, some locations might be a little tighter even. This is due to one movement taking 2 days (1 day for move, 1 day for update) so having an extremely large map would take years to complete. This also encourages diplomacy and the threat of battle.
Q: Was bruceswar (or his clan) allowed to conduct Diplomacy w/ the other Lord/Clan once they saw it from the watchtower? Why didn't they?
A: Yes, you are allowed to engage in diplomacy anytime you wish when you:
1) see a new Lord / Castle
2) anytime you wish once you've established communication w an opposing Clan / Castle (regardless of distance on the map)
- in the example bruceswar did not engage in diplomacy because I was merely trying to show some of the basic functions of the map / turns, but they could have engaged in diplomacy.
Q: Can map selections be discussed or are they locked / fixed? I understand some of the map selections (Feudal, etc) but don't understand others (Roman ones).
A: Yes these can be discussed. My goal was 25 maps or so, with focus being on medival themed maps. I also looked for a variety of map types so they weren't all conquer style (example: feudal) but had different options for clan strengths & weaknesses. During the Middle Ages, Rome & the Papacy was a large influence which is why I included some of those.
Q: What about expanding map selections for castles & cities?
A: I'm less inclined to change this, which was selected for multiple purposes. But as with anything if you have some suggestions I can consider it before we start.
Q: Can you have more then one Lord on the same square?
A: Yes, you can have multiple Lords on the same squares. You can only have one structure per square (castle, city, watchtower).
If you have formal friendly relations with another clan, you can also share a square. Or if you enter a square that normally would be an ambush, but the defender / ambusher has their defeault selection set to not ambush, you could theoretically share that square as well.
Q; What if I move on a square and there is already 2 lord on this square ?
A: If you move to a square and there are two engaged Lords already there, you will just be a third occupant. You will be able to see the battle (I will provide you the info, such as Lord X is Bruceswar of House Stark and Lord Y is hjelp of House Antrax). You can decide to stay in the square, which if you stay in the square when their engagement ends would result in a direct assault by you, or you can choose to continue on after learning your intel and leave the square. If those two parties are neutral or friendly, and sharing the same space and you are not neutral or friendly and normally would be an ambush, then you will still get ambushed per the normal rules.
Q: If I have no more lords, I can't get anymore GP, so even if I still have my original Castle, unless I can recruit another lord, I am defeated anyway, right ?
A; From your perspective, you would essentially be out of the game yes. However, you can still influence the game if you have gold left in your castle, whether by declaring yourself a bannermen to another clan in order for them to take their revenge on your killer, or I suppose if you can convince someone to be your bannermen etc...But for the game, you wont be completely vanquished until you are completely removed from the board (and thats when someone will earn the fame from your vanquishment) not just killing of your Lords. Or as you said, if you haven't used your maximum 15 Lords and have enough gold, or can get enough gold somehow, to get another Lord on the board.
Q: If a Lord is in a city or a castle, and the city/castle is attacked. Can the Lord decide to retreat and abandon the castle/city ?
A: No, the defender is being attacked. So its up to the attacker to start the engagement or not. If you want to retreat, you'll have to leave the castle prior to the engagement or use diplomacy to delay until you leave.
Q: When the actual games are played, how do you prevent it being obvious who a Lord is? Are the Lord names actually used as the player names in the games? That would be SO awesome!
A: Well, the two who are engaged will learn who each other are. This is part of the way to gain intel (by engaging other clans in battle). You'll learn at who the Lord is, and by process of elimination you will now know all his clan mates (though you still wont know who the active clan mates are...you'll be able to recognize them by "Lord X of Castle Antrax" and you know you just beat Lord Y of Castle Antrax, and Lord Y was IcePack, so anyone under Castle Antrax banner is a Fallen member, for example.
Q: if losing a castle deprives a clan of all of their gold, how will anyone accumulate enough to score an economic victory? It seems like the structure incentivizes teams to spend (almost) all of their gold every turn, especially since castles don't seem too hard to capture. Other than the possibility of having multiple lords in a castle (and thereby increasing the number of wins required to capture it) there don't seem to be many advantages to the defender.
A: Yeah, the economic victory is meant as a way to speed up the games end eventually. It will be difficult to achieve, but you are correct here.
Q: Also, I have a quick question for clarification on battle outcomes. You state the results if the attacker wins attacking a city or castle. They capture the defending lord and decide what to do with him/her. What happens should the defender win. Do they capture the attacking lord in question? Or does the attacking lord retreat with their tail between their legs?
A: The defender gets the same decision, at the end of engagement one of the Lords will end up in custody of the other and a decision will be made.
In my first edition of the draft rules, I actually had ambushes a little stronger in which there was a 1/10 chance that the ambush was so successful you kidnapped the opposing Lord without a game battle. However, I deemed it to strong due to the other rules that go timplimented regarding the limit of how many Lords per game (15). In just one of my play tests, i actually landed x3 ambushes this way and realized while that was very lucky and unusual, it could really impact the game to much. The pro to idea was that less skilled clans would have a 1/10 chance to possible kidnap a very valuble Lord that the other clans would be very keen on seeing returned and have negotiating power.
Q: If you end up battling a lord and lose, then you can either be kidnapped, executed, or can negotiate your return.
If your return is negotiated, then that specific lord is still in the game. If you are executed, that lord is removed from the game never to return (and that player cannot become a new lord). If kidnapped, does the lord basically just do nothing until he is either executed or a return is negotiated?
A: Simple answer: Correct
TL:DR answer: dead lords can still help the clan plan, negotiate, coordinate other lords removal, do the daily pm to ice pack, etc. really anything and everything except be represented for the clan on the map and fight games.
Kidnapped lords can do the same as above, they can do nothing until the other clan chooses, actively engage in diplomacy w them every turn, trying to use new Intel or info to their advantage, whatever. Up to them. Or they can do nothing. Whatever works
Q: Can we have players not associated with our clan play for our House?
A: Not at this time.
Q: What do the colors on the map mean?
A: Blue is water
Green, tan, light grey, white are all used as different map colors for grass, dessert, mountains, snow etc.
This is just to give the map some features, allow clans to use different terrain as possible map markers etc and doesn't impact gameplay. Just for visualization so it's not a big green & blue blob
Rivers are impassible.
Q: Will we know our initiative order in respect to the other clans?
A: Yes, there will be a link provided in the supporting info area that will have intiative each turn listed by house.
Q: Since we are all sending in our directions to you at the same time, is it possible our moves are countered by someone with a higher initiative? For example, Lord A sees Lord B and vice versa. Lord A wants to move away from Lord B avoiding contact. However, Lord B has a higher initiative and wants a fight. In that case, would Lord A's retreat be blocked by an attack?
A: Yes, if Lord B has higher initiative and wants to fight, he will get to engage before Lord A's movement with no retreat possible.
Q: If 2 Lords are more than one space away (can't see each other) and move into the same space during the turn, would the Lord with the higher initiative dictate action? Would the team with the higher initiative pick the map if there is a fight? If the team with higher initiative wants to negotiate, but the other Lord wants a fight, does he get to pick the map? If the space between them is on a diagonal, will the Lord with higher initiative get an ambush? What if 3 Lords move into a diagonal at the same time? Will the Lord with the highest initiative automatically ambush the 2nd lord or could he pick (assuming he is at war with everyone).
A: Higher initiatve would dictate action first, yes. If he chooses to negotiate, then I would probably list it as "engaged" during the negotiation, and then the 2nd lord would get to choose whether or not he will engage in battle with his choice of map etc. (since the 1st intiative was used as negotiation).
If its a diagonal, then yes it wiould be an ambush.
3 Lords diagonal, highest iniatiive goes first. He would choose who to battle if hes willing to war both, if he favors one clan over the other (bannermen etc) then he would just auto go into war with the other.
Q: What happens when you lose to an "inactive clan's" castle?
A: I (IcePack) will roll a 1d10 to determine what happens with the losing Lord.
1-3: Execute
4-6: Ransom
7-9: Kidnap
10: Release
Ransom Requests to the opposing House will be 2d4 (2-8 GP).
Q: Do you have to have a lord in the square you want to build a city or watch tower?
A: Yes
Q: Can you only move one square away, or can you move anywhere within your sight on the map?
A: One square each turn, per lord.
