[Discuss] An observation

[Samuel Knowlton]

In any realm I've been in that has been at war where regions change hands on 
any kind of regular basis, here is what I am spending my time doing:

- Civil work for 1% (I'm not in the region of my lord, and probably not in 
my Duchy, either)
- Police work that gets 1 guy, where it takes 10-15 of us to get from 
"Occupied" to "Province"
- Not hanging rebels, since Cavaliers can't do that for some reason not 
known to me
- Fighting the occasional battle so we can take turns on whose turn it is to 
do all the above

I don't know about anyone else, but other than the battle part, it's not 
fun. I don't mind some region maintenance and it's a good aspect of the 
game. But the peasants in BM are now so influential, that, assuming a 3:1 
IC:RL time ratio:

- After two weeks of having a large army in a region (after defeating the 
garrison), you can actually raise your banner over the region. It only takes 
two hours to kill or rout all the enemy soldiers in a battle, but it takes 
two weeks to kill or rout or bribe the local bureaucrat
- After that two weeks, there are still enough peasants willing to oppose 
you that they will happily interrupt your attempts to hold court
- They'll also steal and embezzle money -- that is, assuming they make 
anything to steal, since production will have stopped

The way BM is now, the local peasantry is far more powerful than an army of 
two thousand and a hundred nobles.

Game-wise, I understand the reason for region maintenance, and again, I 
don't disagree with it as one of many aspects of BM.

Historically, there is no basis at all for the sheer level of region 
maintenance required. Lords were very rarely "at home" at usually left 
seneschals or castellans to manage things for them. Things were set up so 
that, if you were actually there yourself, you would get even more benefit 
from your land because, wow, the lord actually left the (King's/Duke's) 
court to come all the way out here. But if you weren't there, you may not 
get the benefit, but you wouldn't be as penalized as you are in BM.

Land also changed hands fairly regularly, and not always was it burnt to the 
ground. Most "takeovers" were, in fact, friendly, because the last thing the 
peasants want after a big war has been fought is to do some more fighting. 
They want to get on with their lives and pray that they aren't conscripted. 
The luckier peasants served under lords like Charlemagne or Charles Martel 
or one of the pioneers of the professional army, who kept and paid an army 
year-round rather than just recruiting one after harvest season and having 
to let them all go before the next harvest season.

My only point in making this observation is that I don't find regular 
bureaucratic work to be that fun, but even then, I find some enjoyment when 
I can see the effect of it. When it's 1 percent, I wonder why I bother.