The Syndicate

Please make sure you have your spreadsheets ready by Saturday afternoon.

It is Winter of 1272.

Merchants in Weathervane and North Charlotte.

It is now Autumn, 1271.

You have 48 hours to submit your actions on your spreadsheets.

Merchants in Vermouth and Queensbury.

It is now Summer, 1271.

You have 48 hours to submit your actions on your spreadsheets.

For real this time.

Merchants in Tavershire and Monteshire.

I'm missing three players.

It is now Spring, 1271.

You have 48 hours to submit your actions on your spreadsheet.

Merchants in Monteshire and Dunn.

Let's get this back to a regular pace.

I am running the season, but may have some questions for people, so depending on when I hear back, this season may finish tonight or tomorrow.

If no one objects, I am going to have us be on a 48 hour schedule for each season. Although I'm very busy with work and other projects, I need a solid deadline in place to keep things running smoothly.

Golden wrote:I'm missing this!!!

I haven't forgotten it. Just busy and things keep coming up.

I'll run the season tomorrow- promise.

Spreadsheets are updated, but I have PMs to send FYI. Expect these within the next few hours.

It is now Winter, 1271 AD. Merchants in Zachriel and Faldarshire.

Also, if you want to plant grain, just copy and paste a brown cell into whichever field you want to use.

I'll be running the season today, so make sure you have your turn submitted.

It is Autumn, 1270.

Merchants in Halifax and Queensbury.

I ran the season earlier this week, but didn't note the damn merchants again. Sorry. Merchants are in Baldwin and Faldarshire.

Have everything ready by tomorrow, noon, EST.

Just to let you know, I'll be running the season this afternoon, so make sure your spreadsheets are set.

It is now Spring, 1270 AD. Merchants in Claiborne and North Charlotte.

Stand by for your spiffy new Google spreadsheets.

When you receive it, you will submit your turn by filling in the bordered cells. Do not edit any other information. If you want to build a harbor or boats, enter that info in the "Castles" spot.

The number at the very bottom (under the turn) is a formula that is your population less agricultural needs. That shows you at a glance how many serfs you can put to work in your industries, etc.

Messages to other nobles should still be submitted by PM, but from now on, just send one PM with all of them if there is more than one missive. You will still receive messages and spy reports by PM.

If you have any questions, you can ask here (if it pertains to everyone) or in the Google chat function.

I didn't get a chance to work on this at all today.

Six-tier cake, already paid in full.

Refrigerator retired on us.

No one delivering appliances today.

Thank God for Deb, another English teacher who owns a big truck and has a big enough heart to pick up the thing and help us unload it. She gets a free cake.

I'll set this up tomorrow, and we'll see how it looks. I'll send your Spring results that way.

Golden wrote:Will we be able to edit?

In my mind, it would be great if this spreadsheet is also one where I can put the season by season history of my county, have a separate tab for each county, have a separate tab for messages etc...

It seems like this would be a really good tool, I keep having to write things down or copy them in to word documents so that I can do my maths each season.

Yeah, that's what I have in mind. Baby steps and all though.

It's tough coming home from teaching school all day, cooking supper, trying to interact with your kids, hosting Mafia (I host all the time), and rolling 14 times to find out who has how many cows and who died of dysentery.

Keeping the spreadsheet is easy, like I said. If we can communicate IN a spreadsheet, then there's little PM writing and if there's a mistake, you'll be able to see why right away.

Attention nobles!

Having run two years worth of seasons, I find that I can roll things out in less than 30 minutes. However, composing private messages is what is most time consuming, still taking me at least an hour each season.

My proposal is to create five Google spreadsheets, one for each noble. You will be able to view your counties at a glance, and you will be able to simply fill in the column to the right to make adjustments, set tax rates, etc. I'll post the results to the right of your requests, and after a season, delete the first column and replace it with the third (to keep it from being messy).

If you had any questions or concerns, you could use the chat feature.

In this way, I don't have to trawl through my inbox for PMs, I don't have to spend my time composing PMs, and I could copy and paste from my master Excel document. You would not have to fill out the usual form- instead you just make adjustments to the right of each county you control.

What say ye, nobles?

I'm going to run the next season tomorrow some time. Mondays are going to be my busiest days most weeks, and there are two Tuesdays a month I won't be likely to run seasons (tomorrow isn't one of them though). So if you haven't submitted a PM, please do so before tomorrow afternoon.

Now that two years have passed, mercenaries will begin offering their services. If you receive a PM from me in the next thirty minutes, you will have mercenaries available for hire.

From here on out, this information will be included in your seasonal report.

Note that all bands of mercenaries come in groups of 100 men.

I forgot to mention: It is now Winter, 1270.

Merchants in Weathervane and North Charlotte.

It is now Autumn, 1269.

Merchants in Vermouth and South Charlotte.

It is now Summer, 1269. Thank you for waiting. Week's been crazy.

Merchants in Queensbury and Tavershire.

I'm still working on this, folks. Baby brother turned another year older so grilled out at his place. Got a few more PMs to send. Thanks for your patience.

Just a note to my players: I have all PMs, but I can't get to things until the morning. I'm tired as balls.

Roxy wrote:How did I miss this?

You didn't miss it. Just New England. Would love to have Roxy on New Iceland.

I'll end the season when I have all required PMs.

And I didn't even announce where the merchants were.

Merchants in Monteshire and Faldarshire.

It's now Spring, 1269 A.D.

OK, working out the next season now. Expect PMs in a little while.

Golden wrote:When you extend a season, will that mean 24 hours?

Not necessarily- just whatever works for everyone.

I added rules for battle and sieges.

I added a section on sending supplies to another county.

AceofSpaces wrote:How does grain work as a resource? I assume it's consumed every season. For example, if I had 100 grain and needed to feed 180 peasants, I'd subtract 30 grain from my stores? Do I have to specify how much grain I am using to feed people?

Whatever population your livestock doesn't feed comes out of your grain stores automatically.

It is now Winter, 1269 A.D. You have until 6pm EST to submit your actions.

Merchants in Monteshire and Queensbury.

Oh, hey DH.

I won.

My meaning is that I'm tired. I only have two of your counties done. Tomorrow we just have the usual bullshit and then it's work in your classrooms.

I'll get things done then.

I just finished endgame in my first civilian full game win ever in my life, so you all will have to wait.

Sorry for the delay folks- I go back to work tomorrow, and I'm trying to streamline a few things for myself.

Just a head's up- I'll be getting to things after supper. From here on out, I'll set the deadline(ish) to 6pm EST (I start work back tomorrow), and I will get results some time that evening.

Two things:

First, please double check your math before submitting.

Second, if you need extra time for a given season, let me know. I won't fuss. The deadline is there to keep things running, not to make things stressful.

I'm almost done with this season. I had to stop though because I was cooking like a boss, and eating like a Japanese Emperor born in California circa 1999.

OK. I think I have everyone's season together. I'll be sending out PMs throughout the next half hour.

Important: Please use the following methods for submitting PMs. I'm having five players submit PMs five different ways using multiple formats and it's making things a little harder than they should be.

If you are submitting a PM for a county, please submit the following form, with the subject in this format: "Season, Year." You may omit the questions in parentheses, as they are for your guidance only. A form you can copy and paste without the questions follows.

County Name:
Field Usage (What are you doing with each field? How many serfs are working livestock / crops/ fish?):
Industries (How many serfs are working?):
Tax Rate (What is your tax rate?):
Rations (How are your people eating?):
Weapons (Are you making any?):
Armies (Are you raising any?):
Castles / Harbors / Boats (Are you building any?):
Spies (Are you hiring any? Where are they spying?):
Merchant (If one is present in your county, are you buying / selling anything?):

++++

County Name:
Field Usage:
Industries:
Tax Rate:
Rations:
Weapons:
Armies:
Castles / Harbors / Boats:
Spies:
Merchant:

++++

If you think of anything else that should be on this, please let me know.

If you wish to send a message to someone, please use a separate PM per message and include this as the subject line: "Message to [PERSON]."

This will cut down on my time rummaging through my inbox.

I'm extending the season half an hour. Thanks for your patience.