New Estate System

[Chenier]

food is dirt cheap, because people rely on a few odd ducks at the top handing gold out manually. or via realm share.

obviously this won't change anything, because the few odd ducks will try to hoard everything and hand gold out manually.

do d'hara and riombara count as only 1% of all the realms around?

come to think of it, does a region even need a lord? or is it one of those no lord around and you get unrest?

D'Hara doesn't have any rurals to expand to anyways. As for Riombara, these are regions that it would have annexed anyways because they have the nobles for it and because that seems to be their strategy against Enweil. Let's be honest here, you didn't wage war on Enweil because you wanted that food.

I can't say with certainty that there will never be a situation where taking one more region would cause your total income to dip (slightly), but in the vast majority of cases, it should not happen.

Don't forget that any new penalties will stack with existing penalties, such as realm size penalties. Now, I don't have access to your numbers, so I can't make any calculations to view at which point it would start doing a difference, but you are mentioning two new penalties, lack of knights on tax tolerance and wildlands on tax collection, in a manner that seems rather harsh. Not to mention that while more region increases infrastructure potential, it also increases costs in terms of upkeep, defense (against rogues and enemies), and maintenance (to clean up whenever something happens, or quite simply to bring the region back to shape after you take it over), which are all soft dissuasive issues that stack with the hard dissuasive ones on tax. I for one would very much love to be able to run the numbers myself, though since I don't expect that to happen, I would really like for test calculations to be done with various realms to see how many regions they could gain, without increasing their nobles, before a new region results in a net loss. Because while I can't affirm anything for a fact, I'm worried by what I have read.

[Anaris]

...but you are mentioning two new penalties, lack of knights on tax tolerance and wildlands on tax collection, in a manner that seems rather harsh.

No, Chénier, these are not "new penalties": these are replacing the penalties for lack of estates.

Furthermore, there is no increase in the penalties for running higher tax rates if you have fewer knights.  Tom just meant (unless he's changed something dramatic without telling us) that you'd need at least a lord and a knight to be able to run what you would consider an acceptable rate when averaged over the whole region.

So the only thing you lose by having just a lord in the region with his estate, rather than 2-4 knights with estates, is the extra income that they could generate from their estates.

As opposed to now, where having insufficient estate coverage means your region slides slowly (or, depending on just how insufficient it is, quickly) into ruin.

[Bedwyr]

Let's also not forget the (in my mind) most important difference.

Right now, if you want to do some serious expansion or a colony, you have to gather all the nobles first with promises of future benefits if you are successful, which is extraordinarily difficult.

Under the new system, you can seriously expand or colonize and then send word out that people who join will get benefits right away.  Being able to expand and then fill your noble numbers will help a lot, I think.

[Chenier]

No, Chénier, these are not "new penalties": these are replacing the penalties for lack of estates.

Furthermore, there is no increase in the penalties for running higher tax rates if you have fewer knights.  Tom just meant (unless he's changed something dramatic without telling us) that you'd need at least a lord and a knight to be able to run what you would consider an acceptable rate when averaged over the whole region.

So the only thing you lose by having just a lord in the region with his estate, rather than 2-4 knights with estates, is the extra income that they could generate from their estates.

As opposed to now, where having insufficient estate coverage means your region slides slowly (or, depending on just how insufficient it is, quickly) into ruin.

New penalties that replace the old ones. You are arguing that it won't be worse than what we currently have, that it will be basically equivalent,

I thought the consensus was that what we currently have is bad, because people already hold out on expansion. What's the difference if that's because of lowered income instead of increased unrest, if as you seem to say the end result is the same? We are currently hammering people with harsh TMP mechanics *because* we have taken away their incentives to go to war with the old estate system. The new estate system doesn't seem like it will change the fundamental problem the old one had. It'll be much more possible to expand now, but this changes little if its not any more desirable to do so.

Let's also not forget the (in my mind) most important difference.

Right now, if you want to do some serious expansion or a colony, you have to gather all the nobles first with promises of future benefits if you are successful, which is extraordinarily difficult.

Under the new system, you can seriously expand or colonize and then send word out that people who join will get benefits right away.  Being able to expand and then fill your noble numbers will help a lot, I think.

While this is true, most wars aren't for the creation of colonies. And if you get all of the lords in place before the would-be colonists join, then you will have some troubles forming the colony, as the lords might want to remain in the realm, and many people would likely not want to see these regions taken from loyal lords to be given to whatever new opportunists show up. One of the advantages of having to recruit people before a colony is that you get to know them, and therefore get some assurances that the new realm will not backstab you on the next day.

And let's not fool ourselves into thinking that great promotion opportunities suddenly create a large flux of nobles. Noble mobility is relatively small, most are attached to their realm and/or continent. The only time you get significant mobility rates are when a realm dies, but if you are the one doing the killing, these nationless nobles aren't likely to be friendly to your cause.

[Anaris]

New penalties that replace the old ones. You are arguing that it won't be worse than what we currently have, that it will be basically equivalent,

I thought the consensus was that what we currently have is bad, because people already hold out on expansion. What's the difference if that's because of lowered income instead of increased unrest, if as you seem to say the end result is the same?

Seriously?

If that's what you think I've been saying, then you have not been listening. At all. For months.

The new penalties should be massively less severe than the current ones.  They will not make it impossible to hold a region with insufficient estate support without legions of courtiers stationed in the region. 

No, they will not make a region with no knights equivalent to a region with 8.  That would be stupid.

We are currently hammering people with harsh TMP mechanics *because* we have taken away their incentives to go to war with the old estate system.

If you're saying, "we implemented TMP to fight the peace problem caused by the current estate system," that's not true.  TMP was implemented because of the Great Peace on EC and more localized incidents in various places in the game, most of which predated the estate system.

The new estate system doesn't seem like it will change the fundamental problem the old one had. It'll be much more possible to expand now, but this changes little if its not any more desirable to do so.

If you don't want to expand once the new estate system comes online, you're welcome to sit on your hands and do nothing.  However, I predict that most of your neighbours will not see it nearly as pessimistically as you do.

While this is true, most wars aren't for the creation of colonies.

Congratulations!

You managed to fixate on the least important part of his post by far.

It's not about colonies, Dominic.  It's about all kinds of expansion.  Colonies are just one kind of expansion.

Let me illustrate this for you with a brief example, because you seem unable to grasp it:

Current system:

Your realm has exactly enough nobles to provide 100% estate support to all 10 of its regions.  You want to take five more regions, so you try to attract more nobles to be able to staff them.  By the time you get half of these nobles, however, two other realms have already taken all five of the regions you wanted.  Your realm is frustrated by the stagnation and inability to do anything, and half the new nobles leave.

OR

You take the five regions, and install a Lord in each one.  You now have ~60% estate support in 2/3 of your regions, and your region stats start to slip.  You try to attract more nobles to staff these regions, and get a few, but the rest are still in trouble.  A month and a half later, two of the regions you took have gone rogue, along with two that you held before, and you're only four nobles up from where you were before.  The new nobles are frustrated that they came here, to a realm that was just expanding, and they can't actually do anything but maintenance.  Two of them, and three of your longtime nobles, leave.

New system:

You take five regions, put a Lord on each one, and have no problem keeping all 15 of your regions under control.  Sure, you don't get full gold out of all of them, but you're still taking in some more gold than you were before you took them, plus the extra food.  Over the next few weeks, you attract a few more nobles.  When each of them joins, he gets to take an estate on one of the 10 short-staffed regions, which gives him an instant decent income, and increases the overall income of your realm.  The general upward trend in the realm makes the old and new nobles alike feel good about its future, and new players who join are more likely to stick around, thus increasing its population and income further.

Are these contrived examples, meant to prove my point? Sure.

But I think that the gist of them is pretty accurate.

So instead of insisting that everything is doomed, the dev team is a bunch of morons who couldn't code their way out of a wet paper sack, and the only way to save BattleMaster from total imminent destruction is to let every realm control all the regions they want with no effort at all, why don't you shut the hell up and try out the changes when they arrive, and make your judgement then?

[Norrel]

You take five regions, put a Lord on each one, and have no problem keeping all 15 of your regions under control.  Sure, you don't get full gold out of all of them, but you're still taking in some more gold than you were before you took them, plus the extra food. 

Does this mean that a realm would always have an incentive to take additional regions, with diminishing returns, or does there reach a point where taking additional regions would actually harm your realm, as it does in some cases under the current system? If so, at what nobles:region ratio does taking additional regions start doing damage, overall?

[Anaris]

Does this mean that a realm would always have an incentive to take additional regions, with diminishing returns, or does there reach a point where taking additional regions would actually harm your realm, as it does in some cases under the current system? If so, at what nobles:region ratio does taking additional regions start doing damage, overall?

As I said earlier, I can't say for certain, offhand, that there would never be a point at which taking an additional region would make you less money than before.  Tom wrote the code, not me, so I'd have to study it and run some numbers to check on that. 

However, if there is such a point, I am certain that it's a very rare one to reach.

[egamma]

New system:

You take five regions, put a Lord on each one, and have no problem keeping all 15 of your regions under control.  Sure, you don't get full gold out of all of them, but you're still taking in some more gold than you were before you took them, plus the extra food.  Over the next few weeks, you attract a few more nobles.  When each of them joins, he gets to take an estate on one of the 10 short-staffed regions, which gives him an instant decent income, and increases the overall income of your realm.  The general upward trend in the realm makes the old and new nobles alike feel good about its future, and new players who join are more likely to stick around, thus increasing its population and income further.

Example for the new system:
10 regions with 20 nobles: 100% coverage, 100 gold each region,  50 gold for each noble:1000 gold total for the realm

expand by 5 regions:15 regions with 20 nobles:
5 regions with 100% coverage, 100 gold each region, 50 gold for each noble:500 gold
10 regions with 50% coverage, 65 gold each (remember, additional penalties), 65 gold for each noble:650 gold
total for realm:  1150 gold

See? a 50% increase in regions should lead to a 15% increase in gold income. That number could be anywhere between 5% and 25%, of course, but it would be hard to find a scenario where expanding leads to less gold.

Actually, I can think of one--city/townsland/stronghold estate coverage. But you can probably free up one noble from each of those region types.

[Bedwyr]

Does this mean that a realm would always have an incentive to take additional regions, with diminishing returns, or does there reach a point where taking additional regions would actually harm your realm, as it does in some cases under the current system? If so, at what nobles:region ratio does taking additional regions start doing damage, overall?

I would argue that even if there is, at the time you take the region, a small decrease in gold output that you would never actually face a deficit for any length of time in practice because even a small increase in your noble numbers would make it profitable, and there are more reasons to hold regions than just gold.

What I do expect to see with this new system is that realms will suddenly be more interested in rural regions.  Currently, you're much better off taking cities or townslands because the way estates work favours them.  But, under the new system, you can take a few rural regions for their food and see a major benefit with only a lord, where you need full knights for a city to see the true benefit of the gold, and you have to feed the whole populace regardless of your inefficiency numbers.

[LilWolf]

Example for the new system:
10 regions with 20 nobles: 100% coverage, 100 gold each region,  50 gold for each noble:1000 gold total for the realm

expand by 5 regions:15 regions with 20 nobles:
5 regions with 100% coverage, 100 gold each region, 50 gold for each noble:500 gold
10 regions with 50% coverage, 65 gold each (remember, additional penalties), 65 gold for each noble:650 gold
total for realm:  1150 gold

See? a 50% increase in regions should lead to a 15% increase in gold income. That number could be anywhere between 5% and 25%, of course, but it would be hard to find a scenario where expanding leads to less gold.

Actually, I can think of one--city/townsland/stronghold estate coverage. But you can probably free up one noble from each of those region types.

You ignore the fact that a larger realms has to run a lower tax rate, which pretty much eats away the gold benefit.

[Norrel]

You ignore the fact that a larger realms has to run a lower tax rate, which pretty much eats away the gold benefit.

Even then, you get more gold in this system since estates aren't tied to efficiency any more, which means you can just sell the surplus food and you'll come out ahead regardless.

[Anaris]

You ignore the fact that a larger realms has to run a lower tax rate, which pretty much eats away the gold benefit.

That's a pretty big assumption.  I wouldn't think that the tax rate decrease required by taking an additional region would come close to offsetting the amount of gold you gain from taking it.

In fact, I'm nearly positive (haven't run the numbers, but don't feel like it's necessary) that under either the old or the new system, it wouldn't come close at all.

[LilWolf]

That's a pretty big assumption.  I wouldn't think that the tax rate decrease required by taking an additional region would come close to offsetting the amount of gold you gain from taking it.

In fact, I'm nearly positive (haven't run the numbers, but don't feel like it's necessary) that under either the old or the new system, it wouldn't come close at all.

Not really a big assumption. If the region forces a 1% drop in tax rate all around, that can easily add up to eating away any gain the region provides. Especially true if you have big cities(1% drop is easily 100 gold lost in such cases, add the other regions and you quickly eat away any gain from a normal rural region).

[egamma]

Not really a big assumption. If the region forces a 1% drop in tax rate all around, that can easily add up to eating away any gain the region provides. Especially true if you have big cities(1% drop is easily 100 gold lost in such cases, add the other regions and you quickly eat away any gain from a normal rural region).

Then you can have your 1-region realm, and I'll have my 20 region realm, and we'll see who comes out ahead.

[Vellos]

What I do expect to see with this new system is that realms will suddenly be more interested in rural regions.  Currently, you're much better off taking cities or townslands because the way estates work favours them.  But, under the new system, you can take a few rural regions for their food and see a major benefit with only a lord, where you need full knights for a city to see the true benefit of the gold, and you have to feed the whole populace regardless of your inefficiency numbers.

Shhhh... don't tell them.