[Discuss] Oaths of fealty and their confliction with other orders

[Robert Croson, Jr]

On 4 Mar 2008 at 21:00, Rob McDonald wrote:

> Although I agree that the region lords hand over authority to a marshal
> when they assign knights to the army, it is also impossible for them to
> see into the future to such a time where orders may conflict between
> them and said marshal. Removing knights from the army and setting up a
> new army and marshals and putting them into it seems very cumbersome to
> simple avoid the fallout that would otherwise ensue. 

Not at all. It's, what, two clicks per knight? Is two clicks per knight worth 
avoiding all the hassle and arguments that result when you don't? How many 
clicks and keypresses resulted from the desire to save those two clicks per 
knight?

> If the region lords have the right to pull their knights from the army and
> order them around themselves, then that should just be taken as implied when
> they order a knight to deviate from a marshal's order, in my opinion.
> Removing them from the army and setting up a new one just seems like a few
> extra button clicks to achieve the same end.
> 
> Also, it's not quite like the duke is countering his own orders. Giving
> someone the authority to order your men for now does not mean he orders them
> as you, but with your blessing. If you decide that for now you want to order
> them in a different way you are just exercising your right over your men and
> temporarily revoking the other guy's powers over them.

You signify that you don't want them to follow the marshal's authority by... 
Removing them from the army. For so long as they are in the army, the 
marshal is empowered to issue them orders. So you set the knights up in a 
situation where they *have* to disobey someone, by giving them contradictory 
orders.

Also, it's common courtesy to remove them from the army. Otherwise you have 
a marshal who has no idea how many of the 10,000 CS in his army is really his 
to command. So he *thinks* he has 20 nobles and 10,000 CS, but in reality he 
only has 3 nobles and 1,500 CS. In addition to setting up your knights to be 
disobeyong orders no matter what they are doing, you are setting up your 
marshal for failure by not giving him the forces he is counting on to engage the 
enemy.


-- 
Rob

Mom taught me irony:
'Keep laughing and I'll give you something to cry about.'