RoP armies should go from Esperanto to Volapük.

[Narwhal]

I would like to discuss about nationality in the game. I will make some proposals, but really I don't especially "want" them in the game - or more accurately they are at the bottom list of my wishlist, as they can be self-enforced fairly easily, and the developers don't have a lot of time to make this sort of change.

I believe RoP does not incitate you to keep different nationalities in separate armies, at it should, for two reasons :

A. There is no malus in most cases in mixing nationalities.

Supposedly, mixing nationalities in a stack increases the CP cost. This works well in BoA with its limited number of leaders, but not at all in RoP, because you can get rid of this modifier :

- By adding ONE leader of the "wrong" nationality, even though you have maybe 50 elements of said nationality.
- By combining elements of the "wrong"nationality in ANY brigade - the malus just disappears.

B. There is an advantage in having extremely mixed armies.

Apart from this non-existing CP issue, the only "main" impact of nationality is replacements. In many games, a player will be short on replacements for some nationalities (say : Prussian) and very long on replacements for another nationality (say : English). Thus, a good way to make sure the "consumption" of replacements is balanced and don't have this sort of gap is to mix different nationalities in a given column, and even in brigades.

The final result is that if you want to optimise your army, you will want to have very multinational armies / brigades. In any case, even without being gamey, you will never have a problem with multinational armies : you will always find the leaders needed. It is a problem IMHO as really multinational armies were rare and worked poorly (and still do).

I believe the following proposals could "solve" the issue and enhance the game :

- No multinational Brigades, except leaders with the International traits.

- More leaders with the International traits, for instance by all those dudes who start with a multinational brigade (there are several)

- Multinational armies have a malus which they cannot get rid of, except International leader. This malus can be (dunno which one would be best, and the percentage are for indication only) :

a. A flat 10% malus (like the malus you have when out of command) per additionnal nationality, up to 35% (cumulative with the normal out of command malus, but still not beyond 35%) or
b. An increase of 20% of the global CP needed by the stack, or
c. Lower chance of activation for all the leaders in the stack ("In what language is this map ? "And what sort of ammo do these English canons really need ?")

- Units with 0 command cost (including leaders) would not be concerned by those rules

- The nationality of the units in an (international) brigade are not considered when verifying whether the column have different nationalities or not).

- If we are extreme about this, mixing different langages could be even worse.

This would change the balance of the map :

- On the Bohemian / Austrian front, the Austrian would have more troubles organising his forces

- On the Rhineland / Hannover front, the Prussian would have slightly more difficulties in organising his forces

- On the Eastern Prussian front, no change.

- On the Nordic Front, the Austrian player will have an horrible time with his 50% imperial / 50% Swedish force. Throwing a couple international leaders up there could be good. The Prussian player would have a little more difficulty when trying an early Swedish KO, due to the coordination needed between the Prussian / Hannoverian / Braunschwicg forces.

- Making Ferdinand a 3-star leader would be much, much more tempting.


Overall, the balance would be a little less in favor of the Austrians, and the early Prussian blietzkrieg could be more difficult to slow down / stop.

In my next games, if my opponents accept, I will try to enforce a no multinational brigade / no multinational columns rule.

What are your inputs on these proposals ?

[PhilThib]

This could work quite well indeed... Nevertheless I am puzzled by the whole thing, because if you check the Factions file, none of the different factions can cooperate with everyone this easily.... in reality, the "coop" posisiblities are already quite limited

First column lists the nation, second the nations with which it can cooperate without penalty

FRA FRA
GBR GBR|HAN
RUS RUS
AUS AUS|SAX
PRU PRU|HAN|BRU
HAN HAN|PRU|HES|BRU
SAX SAX|AUS|PRU|HRE
SWE SWE
HRE HRE|HES|MEK|BAV|WUR|OLD|NAS|SAX
HES HES|HRE
SPA SPA|FRA
BAV BAV|HRE
WUR WUR|HRE
BRU BRU|PRU|HAN|HES|GBR
PAL PAL|HRE
NED NED
TUR TUR
POL POL
DEN DEN
RUP RUP

[Narwhal]

By penalty, do you mean anything more than just the needed CP malus when you mix the nationalities in the stack ? If it is the case, then it is very easily bypassed by having a leader of the good nationality, as I said. And leaders is not what is lacking in RoP.

I did not know the existence of this file. You really went very far in trying to make the game historical, with Hannover getting along well with UK for instance. Congratulations - yet again !

[Baris]

In our next game Narwhal ,promise that I wont move Daun to command French troops , It didnt make any difference anyway They all perish in winter.

About different nationalities commanding troops: If Hannover troops doesnt get penalty from Prussian and British commanders,maybe there shouldnt be seperate replacements for those nations. They should get replaced from 1 faction. It will easen the micromanagement spent to build depot bns for each faction. It will also prevent gamey tactics as 2 hannover+ 2 prussian units in a brigade for replacement reasons. Also when Austrian leader commanding French brigade there is no penalty at all. As a fact units always,mostly under brigader command not independent unit in a stack, CP rarely occur.

And most importantly maybe depot bns should give more replacements when built. It will be better to build other units as well provided there is some diplomatic options for Aus and Prussia(More manpower, more money)

[PhilThib]

The issue is that the Comand Penalty check works differently with combined units and there is no check of what a combined unit contains in terms of penalties...we'll see what can be done

[Narwhal]

The issue is that the Comand Penalty check works differently with combined units and there is no check of what a combined unit contains in terms of penalties...we'll see what can be done

It is no big deal, but yes, if there is a penalty for combined unit, it should be more apparent. I never noticed any in several games, and Baris was merely combining all his armies the whole game against me.

[Baris]

It is no big deal, but yes, if there is a penalty for combined unit, it should be more apparent. I never noticed any in several games, and Baris was merely combining all his armies the whole game against me.

Indeed I also sent Russian commander to command French troops near Kasel. After having some battles, in the battle report all French elements shown as green units(Russian units). You thought they were all Russian, but No way I have the chance to bring Russians there