[Discuss] An observation

[Greg McGlynn]

Lyle Esau wrote:
> Jonathon Taylor wrote:
>> On 10/06/07, *Tom Vogt* <tom at lemuria.org <mailto:tom at lemuria.org>> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>     Samuel Knowlton schrieb:
>>     > It's not the ruler or the Duke who's making us do it. It's the
>>     game. "Well,
>>     > civil work is boring, so let's just lose all the regions that
>>     need civil
>>     > work" is hardly a solution.
>>     >
>>
>>     Maybe I should add a lower threshold of "don't bother", essentially
>>     making things that give +1% into things that give nothing.
>>
>>     Really, I can understand why that's not fun. But still, there
>>     _are_ more
>>     effective ways than putting everyone to slave labour.
>>
>>
>> How about simply make it impossible to have above 90% in 
>> production/morale/loyalty?
>> The top 10% fluctuates at it's own will and can only be influenced 
>> negatively, or possibly positively, but only thrown the use of 
>> investments, heroes tails, festivals, holidays and tournaments?
>>
>> Now, a loss in 10% of production, morale and loyalty in all regions 
>> of a realm is going to do alot of harm, so to make it simpler, why 
>> not simply up the values (we are only shown percentages) of the 
>> actual figures which the percentages come off that are displayed by 
>> 10% which can only be attained at random and through means stated 
>> above, so Civil Work and Beurocratic duties cannot improve them? 
> I like the idea of having a maximum cap for the stats. But I'd think 
> it should depend on what the region is at the time. Be it Occupied, 
> Provincial, Main and Core.
>
> Now make it harder to change these stats for the positive, while in 
> turn making it easier to control a region. Of course Occupied and 
> Provincial regions are likely to need a steady garrison at all times.
>
If civil work is boring, perhaps the idea that every region should be at 
stats of 100-100-100-Core needs to go. As suggested above, make it 
easier to keep regions from revolting outright, but make optimal stats 
virtually impossible to achieve. Make it so that "Core" really only 
describes the few core regions of your realm, and "Main" really is the 
level of control you should expect over a typical region. Large realms 
should expect to have several outlying regions that are only Province. 
This should be affected by distance from the capital and tax rate, of 
course. I also think it should be strongly affected by militia presence: 
armed men work wonders in terms of keeping a region under control. This 
would provide a quick and dirty (if expensive) method of making sure a 
newly taken region doesn't revolt: just drop several hundred militia and 
even the most violent independence movement can be subdued.

For a given  realm control level, there should be a "set point" to which 
loyalty, morale and production will slowly drift--slowly enough that you 
might want to use civil and police and bureaucratic work to speed things 
up. Core regions might be expected to hold steady in the 90s, Main 
regions in the 70s-80s, and Provinces in the 50s and 60s. Because stats 
would only drift slowly, player actions to improve stats above these 
levels would have a real but temporary effect--a dedicated bureaucrat 
might maintain a Main or even a Province region in the 90s, but you can 
only have so many bureaucrats before the red tape starts to hurt. 
Bureaucrats are still relevant, for those that want to play them, but 
they're not required.

So, here's what might happen under this system: a medium-sized realm 
takes over a new region. It's not too far from the capital, so they can 
eventually expect to control it at "Main" status. However the region is 
not yet well integrated into the realm, and  it's only Occupied at the 
moment. So 200-300 militia are set up to keep things under control and 
most of the army moves on. The stats are devastated after a brutal 
takeover (or two, or three), but they'll rise on their own (though it 
will take a while). Maybe a few bureaucratic types stick around to speed 
the process up and get the region back on its feet faster. Over time, 
the presence of militia brings realm control up to Main. With minimal 
hassle for the players, the region is brought under control and no one 
has to stand around for weeks to keep it from going rogue.

I don't know whether something like this is desirable or easy to 
implement, but I think it's an interesting idea.

Greg McGlynn
(Xerxes, Jaarno, Phaedo, Indairo)