[Discuss] Estates

[Sandra Goen]

The number of estates is already limited. There really are "only so many
plots of land to dish out". You might remember that a region can only
support so many knights - that is essentially the same thing. It's already
coded into the game that many smaller plots are.. healthier? for the region
than a few huge plots (Quote from Wiki '- "However, there are diminishing
returns on investment - two small estates are more effective than one large
estate.").

You've already mentioned that estates refer to the people you hire to run
the land. What else is on the land? Peasants. Taxes come from peasants. Tax
shares do seem to be linked to the estates. If the knights run the estate on
production setting then "the estate servants aid in keeping the regions
production running and the tax collection working" - Wiki. If region lord
has no knights, there's no infrastructure to support region production and
tax collection. That means there's no tax income for that region. Knights
with estates are a necessity.

Because the liege lord really owns the land, he gets all the gold and based
on the oath of fealty, his vassals get a percentage. The liege owns the
land, the knights serve and get a portion of the prosperity they help to
make. What you get from being chummy with the lord is a bigger slice of his
income - more gold.

Re: having estate options like "entertain the locals" or "rebel against the
liege"
Interesting ideas. If I were you, I'd start a new thread that deals with
those topics and has nothing to do with keeping estates in one family.

Re: estates are in the family, knights have claims to estates, and etc
Timothy has already written most of  my response to that. Right now the game
is based on the vassal system. Vassalage makes the worlds go 'round. If you
changed that system, for me, the game will no longer feel medieval. I don't
like that idea. I'm just fine with how complicated the game is now. Tom
already has loads of ideas for ways to make the game more complex, more
challenging, more intriguing. Enough of the game is "un-medieval" for me.
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