[Discuss] Changing focus from Realm to Duchy

[John P. Murphy]

On Jan 14, 2008, at 2:09 PM, Tom Vogt wrote:

> So a quick question: How _does_ a new player (i.e. one who doesn't
> already have his mind made up) choose where to start playing? What
> information do we need to give him so he can choose?

Why not have two options: "I know exactly the duchy I want; show me  
the whole list." and "I don't know which duchy I want.  Show me a  
random five.  If I don't like those, I'll ask for another random five  
or the whole list."?

If I were joining a realm with a new character, I would want to know  
how large the Duchy is, how many knights it has, how much gold the  
average knight makes, and whether any of the region lords there is  
actively looking for knights.

That last bit is important: I've seen too many new players get stuck  
in regions whose commanders really think (rightly or wrongly) that  
they can't support any more knights.  If the whole point of starting  
new players off with a liege is to prevent being lost and having to  
shop around, then it's worth going to the effort to make sure they  
start off with a liege who wants knights and is willing to pay for  
them.  (You could sweeten the deal by paying region commanders  
according to the % they're willing to offer new knights: 20 gold per  
% would be very hard to pass up, and would greatly favor those small  
regions where a knight would need 10% of the region's income just to  
pay their unit)

John