[Discuss] New Tax System.

[Rob Croson]

On 15 Aug 2007 at 19:27, Lyman Stone wrote:

> > Of course they should. They're lords after all. They're the ones who
> > *own* the land.
> 
> It's a mutual trade system. The knight and lord trade equally. The  
> knight receives land and gold, the lord receives service and  
> assistance in land management.

Trade, yes. Equally, no.

> Look at it this way. Imagine you have a region with a lord and two  
> knights, thus, three estates. Imagine these are pretty long-standing  
> knights, thus have pretty large estates. Maybe they aren't doing  
> quite as much land management, but it's close.

Not even close. The absolute best a knight can do is 2/3rds the 
estate points that a lord's estate produces. That's not close. The 
lord produces half again what the largest knight's estate does.

> If they wanted, they  
> could withhold the produce from that land. The money produced by that  
> land is as good as theirs.

Well, no. It's not "as good as theirs". The gold is the lord's. He 
gives it to the knights in exchange for services. If the knight's 
aren't rendering the service, through the assigning of estates, then 
they aren't upholding their end of their oath.

> Heck, if I were a knight, and wasn't getting a proportion of income  
> roughly equal to what percentage of management was being done by my  
> estate, you bet I'd go idle, and I'd get my fellow knights to also go  
> idle.
> 
> The lord receives the land from the duke (or king I guess), yet the  
> lord probably keeps more than he sends to the duke. The knight  
> receives the land from the lord, and suddenly we're reversing the  
> system?

No, that's really not correct. the land is still the region lord's 
land. It does not belong to the knight, whereas the region belongs to 
the lord. For example: The region lord can take his region and go to 
another duchy. The knight cannot take his estate and go to a 
different region. If he does so, he surrenders his estate back to the 
region lord.

> The relationship of knight to lord is strikingly similar to  
> that of a lord to a duke.

Well, no. Not really. The knight is a middle manager. The region lord 
is the owner of the business.

> It's a service for goods deal in both. Due  
> to game mechanics, the knights can't just decide to keep the produce  
> directly like they did in real feudal systems... but, if we're trying  
> to mimic a feudal system, we should be assuming a knight will be able  
> to keep almost as much as his estate manages.
> 
> Now, of course, if the lord's estate is twice the size of the  
> knight's, then the lord would, logically, have about twice the income.
> 
> I just don't see why lords should get much more gold. They have a  
> better currency: power.

The land belongs to the lords. It's a capitalistic scenario that has 
been set up. Both sides are encouraged to be selfish in the deal by 
apportioning gold according to the oaths they have to negotiate. If 
the region lord allows the knights to control the equation, then he's 
going to get less gold left voer. If the knight allows the region 
lord to control the equation, then he gets less. It can easily go 
either way. Who has the more power in the equation depends on where 
the surplus is: Knights or Regions that need knights?



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