Greetings!

I hope all is well with the players. I have lots of important information to go out to all of you this turn so LISTEN UP! (spoken of course in my best drill sergeant tones).

NO FRACTIONAL NFP!

I had said the above in the rules update, but I guess some of you aren’t paying attention to it. Since all the previous turn letters (and the rules update) are still posted to the web page I would highly suggest that you peruse their contents. This may stop you from making embarrassing mistakes like this in the future. It wouldn’t be so bad, but this has happened with 5 different players over the last 3 turns. This in turn forces the GM to correct gold and NFP expenditures. Please try to read the rules so as not to frazzle your already frazzled GM. And his wife would like to see her husband on occasion. If incidents like these continue to happen, I may be forced to not process parts of turns connected with the action.

The next is a suggestion to players of my game and for those especially who play in multiple games. Don’t use “spotcheck” diplomacy or exploration to get the job done. What I mean is hitting several regions in a turn for either action severely reduces the overall effectiveness. Without going into too much detail, when an explorer checks out a region for a year or less his base chance to succeed is about 5%, for each value that needs to be explored. When staying in a single region his chances go up to about 50% (in a 5 year turn). And that’s not all. When the explorer stays in the region the next turn, the chance to succeed goes higher yet (as all time spent goes into the formula) to a roughly 90% chance. Diplomacy works somewhat differently, but more of the same applies. If a player goes all out for 1 region, multiple diplomats, gold, diplomatic marriages etc. you can normally get a region to friendly in two turns. A number of different factors go into the diplomacy rolls: resistence value, leaders diplomacy stat, religion, terrain, presence of a city in the region (if you’re used to diplomicizing cities separately, as it normally is supposed to work, I’ve decided that for my campaign it adds a level of complexity that I don’t want to deal with), and time. Time is one major thing that players can control. By spending more time on a single region, you may make as much as a 2 level jump more than you would have otherwise. While you may get control of several regions at once, 3 regions at feudal ally level yield NO GOLD OR NFP to your empire. Even worse, you will then “pick up the tab” on supporting regionally generated troops; and you won’t get full control of those troops, not until full allied status or greater is achieved. You could have gained a region up to full allied status in one turn, gaining full agro, gold and NFP for the region. Not to mention making it easier for the GM to do his job. BTW, spotcheck diplomacy is what caused the first two wars in this game.

Since this was turn 6 you all know what that means...turn costs have gone up to $2 a turn. Probably still the lowest charge per turn in any campaign. If you have a zero account balance (at the top of your turn sheet) then you will need to send money.

MERC POOLS Inf Cav Sge Wrs/Ts

Brittania: 11 - - 13/9

West Europe: 7 2, 2Li 5 5/1

Central Europe: 8 6 - 2/3

East Europe: 11 15 - 6/6

Middle East: 12 1 8 3/3

North Africa: 5 3 - 7/8

Central Asia: 10 10 5 5/5

The turn is due as always, the last day of the month, in this case 30 April. CYA!