[Discuss] An observation

[Samuel Knowlton]

Everything on this list is opinion. The point of analyzing something like 
this is to present opinion with evidence to support your idea. The evidence 
should be factual as much as possible.

I have no problem with peacetime either. The point of the thread is not "war 
is great, everything else is dumb."

The point is that the reduced effectiveness of the region maintenance 
operations means you have to spend a disproportionate amount of time on it 
to get anywhere. This makes it more of a "grind" than it should be.

Your argument that "region maintenace is fun and war is dumb," in addition 
to being disingenuous, is beyond the scope of what I'm talking about. You 
are arguing that region maintenance as a gameplay aspect is justified. I 
agree with you entirely. However, your evidence for this justification is 
inaccurate. That isn't opinion; that's historical fact. There was no popular 
sovereignty in the middle ages. There were no "successful" peasant revolts 
unless you set the bar very, very low to define what a "successful" revolt 
was. I appreciate that your meta-critical attempt make light of this 
discussion, but if you are going to cite history, cite it correctly.

The following is a list of  just some of the reasonably important nobles 
from the middle ages who left their home turf, traveled abroad, and faced 
little or no consequences from the peasants back at home:

Dark Ages/Pre-Medieval:

Charles Martel, Duke of the Franks
Pepin the Short, the first Carolingian King
Charlemagne, the best Carolingian King (son and grandson of the previous 
two, also)

Crusades/Early Medieval:

Robert, Count of Flanders
Godfrey of Boullion, Defender of the Holy Sepulchre
Raymond, Count of Toulouse
Bohemond & Tancred of Taranto
Eustace & Baldwin of Boulogne
Robert of Normandy
Hugh de Vermandois
Alexius Commenus, Byzantine Emperor

My point in listing these people is that they're some of the most 
interesting characters from history precisely because they were able to 
decide on some crazy adventure they wanted to go on without worrying too 
much that their homeland was going to fall to bits. Now, that's not to say 
that nothing happened at home -- a very important distinction here, and one 
relevant to your own example of Robin Hood (as Richard I of England spent 
less time in England than he did abroad) is that *other nobles* caused 
problems for them while they were gone. Robin hood and the idealogy he 
represents (which is still not a historical picture of what things were like 
at the time) grew out of discontent under John Lackland's rule. That King 
Richard was absent in and of itself didn't make the peasants riotously 
unhappy.

As much as I prefer the historical aspect to most discussions, it was my 
impression that "because it was that way in history" is a nice perk, but not 
a reason for doing anything on its own. That's why this thread was 
originally focused on simple questions of game design (e.g. "Is a 1% gain 
for 8 hours of work a good idea? If so, why? If not, why?) I am certainly 
not suggesting we abolish region maintenace. I am suggesting that we lessen 
its now front-and-center influence on the game. 




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