[Discuss] Re: Proposed Marshal changes

[Christopher Subich]

Dorian Gray wrote:
> Remember it's also possible to spend gold to expand the size of your 
> estate - you may just have to invest some gold into your region and get 
> a few larger estates across fewer nobles going, if your region can't 
> support a large number of nobles.

I think much of the "paycut" analysis has factored that in. 
Additionally, a few nobles with large estates is a worse scenario from 
the point of view of a knight going on vacation or whatnot.

> Also, how about some food distribution politics? It might make sense 
> that rather than sending X gold to the duchy (which may be a large 
> city), send an amount of food instead. Or even sell it to the duchy or 
> to traders, making the income from the sale of food go towards the 

Nice idea, but there are several problems:

* Food isn't currently included in the oath mechanics, and it would have 
to be for there to be any semblance of automation.
* The poposed mechanism is entirely manual, meaning that it gets 
disrupted if the army's at war or someone even misses a turn.
* Food harvests don't work on the same schedule as taxation, and the 
math to convert between the two is somewhat annoying.
* Food harvests can vary greatly by weather, whilst tax incomes don't.
* The stronger solution is to have a realm-wide food distribution 
network.  While local bargaining for food is all political, there's no 
incentive to do it.

> overall amount of gold you have. This won't help the regions with low 
> gold or food, but that's life - there were areas that barely scraped by.

Feudal societies in Europe settled essentially the entire continent. 
Local fiefs had levies proportional to what resources they had, and so 
far as I am aware there was never a shortage of people willing to do the 
management.  The situation in Battlemaster where more management is 
(sometimes) required than is affordable is artificial, and 
gameplay-mechanic only.  Thus, "realism" arguments don't enter into it.