[Discuss] duchy system rework

[Tessa]

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>You've lost me with this explanation. We're splitting each region up 
into mini-
realms and making a whole slew of new positions which we acknowledge 
will be
completely ineffectual, just we can make a bunch of meaningless titles?

RESPONSE: It is an means to an end. The end being a much less limiting 
fealty
system. The means being that these positions on low levels may be 
pointless, but
there is little reason to make things inconsistent or rely on a game 
mechanic to
make that judgment.
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You totally lost me in your Response. If you know such positions are 
pointless why do you still want them?

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>Only to the point that the army sponsors let them be the realm's 
armies. If the
sponsor staffs the army with people loyal to him, then it *is* his 
army.

RESPONSE: As stated, that is not within his direct power. With the 
diplomatic
system I am proposing keeping such an arbitrary military set up would 
be cause
for enormous problems.
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Maybe some Sponsors don't make use of their power over their army but I 
assure you, I've seen with my own eyes a Sponser use *his* army for 
*his* gains. The Sponsor controls who the marshal is, and with that 
comes some control over the marshal himself ("you want to stay marshal? 
move us to regionX and bring me some riches") There are Sponsors who 
let the Realm use their army but I would have to say that the army does 
indeed belong to its Sponsor and by extension, his whims. It's not 
really a question of game mechanics, it's a question of non-coded 
character. I happen to like such roleplayed choices. It allows for the 
hard-core-personal-gain choice, or the best-for-the-Duchy choice, or 
the best-for-the-realm-and-therefor-my-region choice, or the ever 
present take-'em-cause-I-really-don't-have-time-to-care choice, and so 
many other lovely subdivisions of choices.

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>All the marshal needs is the ability to give the army orders. He's the 
only one
that can do so. So long as the army members are willing to follow his 
orders, it
's the sponsor's army.

RESPONSE: No, it is the realms army. Neither the sponsor nor the 
martial have
any direct power over the army. It is all based on the willingness to 
follow by
its members and the cooperation of other lords assigning knights to it. 
The
marshal running the army should run the army and not have to ask 
completely
disconnected lords(who may be rivals) for management.
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I have to disagree that the lords are disconnected. Many lords are in 
the army that the majority of their knights are in. And a Lord has 
little to gain by keeping his knights out of every army in the realm 
(while the lord may chose one army over another, once the knight is 
assigned the Marshal does have control. Although that control can be 
overridden by the lord, if it happens on any sort of regular basis then 
I would assume that the Lord would simply form his *own* army instead 
of dealing with the hassle of messing around with separate Marshals). I 
do not see how "the realm" controls any of that, seeing how "the realm" 
is   essentially the collection of regions and their armies consisting 
of their lords and knights, all surrendering small pieces of their 
power to a council of four higher powers for the sake of simplicity and 
order. "The realm" doesn't control anything.

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>The question of who divides the spoils is a separate question, that 
really
can't be addressed by just giving the spoilt to the person that 
sponsored the
army. What if the sponsor is someone who can't hold a position, such as 
an
infiltrator? Or if the sponsor is a region lord in a duchy that has no
connection to that region?

RESPONSE: I have mentioned before that armies should be region based, 
meaning
the region lord is the sponcer. I have also mentioned that should a 
region lord
conquers another region, it becomes his vassal one way or another. 
Technically,
even if the liege did not have land he would still be his liege, though 
the
means to enforce vassal-hood would certainly be lacking unless he had 
political
weight.
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Armies *are* region based (though I believe the council members can 
form an army as well?). But due to the fact that each region having its 
own 3-man army is impractical, most realms opt for having their armies 
based in cities, essentially creating Duchy armies (which also 
solidifies the Duchy-first mentality over the Realm-first mentality). 
And having specialized armies based in the smaller regions, such as a 
home defense force, or a buro-army, or what have you. I'm not sure 
about your vassal idea, what if two armies collaborate (especially if 
you want to see 8 or so 3-7 man armies running around trying to 
accomplish different tasks)? How would the game decide who gets the 
spoils?

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RESPONSE: turnover would be achieved by:

Vassal title revoking: this already exists on a superficial level. But 
I can
imagine a liege reconquering a vassal who is disloyal and replacing him 
with a
less fettered system.

Knightly coups against region lords.

Regional coups against overlords(other than the current system's realm 
rulers)

Conquering rival vassals and reinstating new lords for the conquered.
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I need a little clarification on that last one. How does one conquer 
his rival's vassals? And where would these knights get this new lord? 
Where would this new get *his* title?

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RESPONSE: I have already considered this problem as well as already 
proposing an
inbuilt solution in the proposal. I mentioned that a marshal could pay 
homage to
another marshal. (it must be mentioned that because all regions have a 
general,
the two positions would be the same). What this means is the the armies
converge, the troops of the inferior taking on the diplomatic state of 
the
superior, commands of the lead marshal, as well as the warchest. The 
army could
leave just the same, taking all tertiary armies that payed homage to it 
with it.
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That seems overly complicated for no reason, no? How is it better than 
what we have? I really appreciated you coming up with such an extensive 
plan but that part seems overly complicated when you consider how 
armies operate now.