[Discuss] Dukes and kings

[Timothy Collett]

On Mar 13, 2007, at 11:50 AM, Josiah Allen wrote:
> No one could be king without the support of the lords during the  
> feudal ages.  Dukes had powerful private armies.  They were  
> powerless only when the King's decision was supported by enough  
> other lords, power was what mattered, not title.  This is why kings  
> were either diplomatic enough to keep support or overthrown quickly.
>  Think 1200s, not 1600s.

But as it stands, even if the Duke is the *only person in the entire  
Kingdom* who disagrees with the King, he can still secede before  
*anything* can be done to him--because everything except for  
questioning nobility takes time to take effect, and leaves him the  
option to secede.

 From what I have seen--and I have, in fact, looked into this--the  
only ways within the game to remove a rogue Duke without giving him a  
chance to secede are

a) question his nobility (not something that should be done unless he  
really has been acting like a peasant)
b) find a highly skilled assassin who can take him down, and ban him  
while he's unconscious
c) hope he gets captured, seriously wounded, or killed by your enemies

This is even if he *bought* the title *that turn*.

Honestly, I'm not sure what a good solution is offhand.  I think it's  
important for the Duke to be able to secede in most cases--but I  
*also* think that it's important for the rest of the realm to have a  
way to prevent it, if they really want to (and I can tell you first- 
hand that the assassination option is really not practical, even with  
a half-dozen skilled infiltrators all eager to do the job...).

One possibility that comes to mind (since people have been mentioning  
"private armies") is making it impossible to secede if there are  
enough troops loyal to other Duchies (or Imperial troops) in your  
city.  That makes it quite possible to prevent a secession--but not  
trivial, not certain, as there doesn't need to be any obvious  
indication of how many troops are enough to prevent it (a 1000-man  
army certainly should be, and a 100-man group certainly shouldn't,  
but there's a lot of room in there), and definitely not immediate, if  
the army is all out on the front.

(Incidentally, I also think that it needs to be far, far harder to  
walk into a city, buy the title, and secede, all before anyone can do  
anything about it, but that's really another discussion)

Timothy Collett
Anaris Family

--

The world's richest 500 individuals have the same income as the  
world's poorest 416 million people.
  - NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF




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