Terry, what kind of credit do you mean? You talk about Victory Points way too much for someone who complains about “ratings chasers”. Impact play is key, agreed. The credit you get for such play is in the game itself and from within the community.
yes but this thread is about One wish changes to increase the quality of play…
By not rewarding hoarding of resources would make the game more competitive over the longhaul…
Did I not get to the heart of the matter why nations don’t bother to equipe troops… Hoard resources that somes changes suggested would have no effect in the game with addressing those issues first…
My reputation as a player is know by the players I have played with and against… As well as all my defects of my character…
I would like to throw in another vote for refiguring combat values so that there is actually a point to recruiting things other than HC & HI. I am nto a game designer, so I don’t have much in the way of specific suggestions, but I tend to agree witht he earlier poster that it should work in a rock/paper/scissors fashion with Infantry/Cavalry/Archers, thus making it in one’s best interest to have a mix of all three in battle.
How about 2 new orders
a Steal resources order…
a Downgrade PC order against enemy pc’s… Thase nasty emmy’s attempting downgrade a pc by inciting riots LOL…
One wish for MEPBM: A killer client app, team-capable, tracks everything. Enter orders in it, click save or send, done.
This of course carries a subrequirement of the XMLs being both accurate and complete, neither of which is currently the case.
Gee marinersk, there is such a thing, it’s just not being released. Really wish it would - I’ve been looking at it for months now and I don’t think I can see anything more - more eyes the merrier… Clint…??
Brad
We’re working on 2 of them at present. Majorly we’re aiming to get them both finished for when we get the process code sorted (which is going very well, thanks to the playtesters there - down to 7+2 bugs which means we’re withing sight of the end!)
Joverseer is one, the other is MEAssist (yet to have the order bit though it’s on the drawing board). We do have others but we’ve prioritised these.
Clint
Why 2 programs, both attempting to do the same thing??
Brad
Cos two players are creating their own versions with slightly different applications and we’re supporting it. 
Clint
Sounds like a waste of time when the 1 is cross-platform and far advanced in both design, testing, and functionality.
Brad
Not really, I find that keeping a few of these projects running means that there’s an overall benefit to the game. Different people come up with different solutions (eg Automagic, why develop MEOW?!) and different apps. From our perspective we just to be able to look after the guys doing the programming.
At some point in the future I hope that we can get a GUI for the Encounter editor, that might be fun for players to play with. Another option might be a game editor as well, but that’s more fraught with Licencing issues.
For example I like the simplicity of Palantir, the utility of Joverseer and the potential of MEAssist… 
Clint
Brad without Ameow I would have to submit my orders the old email hand write them in and someone manually input them… Automagic from everything I heard about seems more capatable and less prone to errors by either the player or in submission… But it requires everyone to buy excell… from my end I would rather play more games with the money Excell costs than to buy it for a better order writing capability… Just my 2 cents
I don’t like simplifing the troops… I do like the possibilties of making a Nations unique troop type . this would add complexity to the game… Simply cutting it down 2 3 troop types simplifies the game for those who can spent 10 minutes after each turn and write good orders…
The Loyalty aspects of Dave’s suggestion for making hoardes on the pc recruiting them as a negative was thoughtful… but maybe if some sort of random plus according to the types of armor and weapons applied … or could be a larger random chance of a plus 1 loyalty being additive for both weapons and armor… example bronze add’s 30% more to weapons or armor rank… is applied to both with give to 30% chances to pc loyalty where recruited… meaning if both was successful that pc would go up +2 loyalty or if failed 0… this would make it non devasting effect on the game… But a chance for that PC to take pride in fact it’s mustering more effective troops to the nation.
If national troops was recruited if use… They should have a basic effect of doing a small increase for making troops of the National pride…
All these minor tweaks do add complexity but not make it overly difficult for new players to grasp… And does not give a serve advantage for the Veteran players… 
Sorry for the confusion Terry and anyone else, I was referring to ME programs that aren’t actually available yet - still in testing and development. I’ve taken that conversation off list to avoid any further confusion as such. Shame you don’t have excel, though - between Autominister and Automagic, Mike Mulka has done some excellent work that allows you to not only enter orders, but see the information in a much more organized way. Absolute necessity for those looking at the whole map as opposed to their individual pdfs.
Cheers,
Brad
I have no knowlege of that program… I certianly look forward to seeing all the improvements in the future… I am quite pleased with the efforts to improve this game… I believe once any new player gets to taste the beauty and relative closeness to Tolkiens Middlearth world in any of these scenerios they are hooked… The fact the computers are more powerful today and the intellegence of this community to handle more complexity in the game makes for a situation where this game can grow and be alot more fun!
A few thoughts about the relationship of army to PC - have it be a two-way interaction:
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When a new army is recruited, it gets the loyalty of the PC as morale (if greater than 10 / nation minimum).
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If an army moves onto one of its own PCs, and the PC loyalty is higher than the army morale, the army morale improves each turn. If the PC loyalty is lower than the army morale, the army morale reduces each turn.
OR conversely . . .
If an army moves onto one of its own PCs, and the army morale is higher than the PC, it improves the PC loyalty each turn. If the army morale is lower then the PC, it reduces the PC loyalty each turn.
- I like the idea that someone brought up where a sufficiently-sized high-loyalty enemy army could reduce an enemy PC’s loyalty (through the seige order!!) thus giving some much needed utility to this order, and giving more options to army/PC interactions.
Mark F.
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I don’t agree at all. I would contend that the higher the loyalty of the pop, the greater the overall citizen happiness, the lower the morale of conscripted soldiers…
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Presence of an army should increase loyalty period. Or at least reduce loyalty loss. Not happy with linking Moral to Loyalty, though. Once you’re in the army, you’re in the army. Note, you aren’t necessarily “in the Pop”. It’s a 2-5 day march across the hex. The army is camped around there somewhere, they’re not at a hotel mingling.
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You mean a high-morale enemy army acts as a 525 order? But only when using the seige order? Now, doesn’t the seige order lower loyalty already…? In fact, isn’t that what it does? You mean, accelerate the process - but only for high morale armies?
Brad
I would like to see an order where an emmy joined with the army could influence the army moral… just another nice option… maybe they would need com skill also… but the are plenty of com emmy’s … Just more food for thought.
I also aggree just having Com commanding an army garrisoning in effect a pc should have a chance to increase loyalty of a pc… but again maybe just a minor increase… based on the com skill for chance of success… Neting a 1 point increase… and Or maybe giving a random effect like a 30 com if succesful 1-3 a 60 1-6…
These of course would be reflective of the Nations considering that PC more vital by garrisoning it and would be reflected in the PC loyalty…
If i had to pick one thing here it would be the specific nation troops types such that the Eothraim had great cavalry, the Dwarves maybe had super tough but maybe slightly slower heavy infantry. Elven archers would be super efficient.
Also more impact of terrain on troop effectiveness, eg archers and light troops having much higher constitution in forest and mountain settings due to increased cover and their superior mobility, heavy cavalry being much stronger on the plains but hampered in the forests.
I think this would add real depth to the war mechanics and variety to military planning.
Slightly lower down the list would be greater fog of war . . . such as randomised starting armies etc.
I just wish I could get one of those programs (Meow , automagic , palintir ) to work for me – I have tried everything and so has my wife and this computer was top of the line two years ago by Dell !!
But still say there should be more impact on troops types as i have stated everyone just raises HI or HC once original troops have been used up !!
Or how about giving an army on a pop center with fortification some kind of bump as it would be assumed they are defending from behind the walls of the fortification !!