New Estate System

[fodder]

slightly different. old estates, stats drop. new estates, stats don't drop (but they don't rise either...), you just get crap gold. relatively speaking. i'm rather interested in what acceptable tax rate means in practice..

let's take avengmil, 15% gives 570 before expenses and for 3 people atm. so let's say there'll be only 1 lord who's also the knight.. let's say 40% max in estates (don't know what the max is for town). that means 228+171=399 @15%, which is obviously unlikely. let's say 8% 213 gold or perhaps 5% 133. that said, expenses (~100 gold, including militia) will be eating up a big chunk of that, and not counting duke's share. mind you, food sales (let's say 100 bushels) would probably gain more, since there's no such excuse as money transfer from cities to food sellers via realm share anymore.

[Ramiel]

Isn't that exactly the problem that we tried to fix with the new system? There are many realms which cannot expand even though they have land in which they can expand. Telling them they should get rid of a region or two won't incite them to go to war.

Hmmm that is something... am trying to get Luria to expand but we need nobles under the old system... and seems we still need the same amount under the new system...

[LilWolf]

Frankly, if your realm has less than 2-3 characters per region, it is trying to hold more land than it can and should get rid of a region or two.

Heh..that statement implies about half the realms on Atamara should give up some regions.

[Chenier]

Heh..that statement implies about half the realms on Atamara should give up some regions.

And that 90% of realms of Dwilight and BT do as well, and I imagine a high percentage on most other continents as well.

Isn't that exactly the problem that we tried to fix with the new system? There are many realms which cannot expand even though they have land in which they can expand. Telling them they should get rid of a region or two won't incite them to go to war.

My thoughts exactly. Say we got 10 nobles and 5 regions. In the old regions, we possible could not hold onto any more regions, as it would cause them to revolt due to lack of estates, meaning many realms had very little reason to go to war (other than because TMP ordered them to). If with the new system we'd gain more gold with 10 nobles in 5 regions than with 10 nobles in 10 regions (because realm size penalties, lack of knight tax tolerance penalties, and 50% tax loss penalties for wildlands), then we really aren't improving anything at all.

I really deeply believe that a realm should grow richer every time it expands. The benefits should be smaller as you grow larger and larger, but acquiring a region should never, ever be a net loss for the realm. Otherwise, all the complaints about the old system will apply to the new one, and people won't be going to war for IC reasons and ambitions, but will mostly get into lame wars because of TMP.

The game took a wrong turn when it was decided that we would discourage peace as a band-aid solution for having removed the biggest incentives for war. Until we make it so that acquiring a region will always make the realm richer as it used to be the case, gameplay will continue to deteriorate.

[vonGenf]

And that 90% of realms of Dwilight and BT do as well, and I imagine a high percentage on most other continents as well.

My thoughts exactly. Say we got 10 nobles and 5 regions. In the old regions, we possible could not hold onto any more regions, as it would cause them to revolt due to lack of estates, meaning many realms had very little reason to go to war (other than because TMP ordered them to). If with the new system we'd gain more gold with 10 nobles in 5 regions than with 10 nobles in 10 regions (because realm size penalties, lack of knight tax tolerance penalties, and 50% tax loss penalties for wildlands), then we really aren't improving anything at all.

I really deeply believe that a realm should grow richer every time it expands. The benefits should be smaller as you grow larger and larger, but acquiring a region should never, ever be a net loss for the realm. Otherwise, all the complaints about the old system will apply to the new one, and people won't be going to war for IC reasons and ambitions, but will mostly get into lame wars because of TMP.

I fully agree. You should gain more gold with 20 nobles in 5 regions than with 10 nobles; but whatever the noble count, there should always be an incentive to gain more regions.

[Anaris]

My thoughts exactly. Say we got 10 nobles and 5 regions. In the old regions, we possible could not hold onto any more regions, as it would cause them to revolt due to lack of estates, meaning many realms had very little reason to go to war (other than because TMP ordered them to). If with the new system we'd gain more gold with 10 nobles in 5 regions than with 10 nobles in 10 regions (because realm size penalties, lack of knight tax tolerance penalties, and 50% tax loss penalties for wildlands), then we really aren't improving anything at all.

Don't be absurd.

There's an enormous difference between "if we expand, we will lose the regions we already have, and won't be able to support the new ones" and "if we expand, we won't make quite as much gold from the regions we already have, but we'll add another region that also doesn't produce its full potential".

BattleMaster is never going back to the days when you could have a half-dozen people running a 15-region realm, and I can't see any rational argument for why it should.

[Ramiel]

Don't be absurd.

There's an enormous difference between "if we expand, we will lose the regions we already have, and won't be able to support the new ones" and "if we expand, we won't make quite as much gold from the regions we already have, but we'll add another region that also doesn't produce its full potential".

BattleMaster is never going back to the days when you could have a half-dozen people running a 15-region realm, and I can't see any rational argument for why it should.

How can 6 people run 15 regions? Doesnt make sense...

But 6 people running 5 regions? Would be incredibly beneficial for the War aspect...

I mean the New Estates are to try and fix the problems we all have with the current set up and to force us (when combined with TMP) to do more wars correct?

[Anaris]

How can 6 people run 15 regions? Doesnt make sense...

Used to be, there wasn't any particular incentive to have a Lord of a region.  And, of course, there were no Knights of regions.

But 6 people running 5 regions? Would be incredibly beneficial for the War aspect...

And with the New Estates, you'll be able to do that.

I mean the New Estates are to try and fix the problems we all have with the current set up and to force us (when combined with TMP) to do more wars correct?

Er...well, not exactly.

The New Estate System is intended to fix many shortcomings of the old one, and make it much easier for us to tweak things to find the right balance between preventing people from running huge realms with tiny noble populations, and not being able to expand.

TMP is intended to prevent ruling classes from locking a realm into peace against the wishes of the regular knights.  (And the ideas that currently have the most traction in our discussions of how to fix TMP look very little like the current TMP.)

[Anaris]

I fully agree. You should gain more gold with 20 nobles in 5 regions than with 10 nobles; but whatever the noble count, there should always be an incentive to gain more regions.

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.

[vonGenf]

Don't be absurd.

There's an enormous difference between "if we expand, we will lose the regions we already have, and won't be able to support the new ones" and "if we expand, we won't make quite as much gold from the regions we already have, but we'll add another region that also doesn't produce its full potential".

That's what I originally understood too, but seeing the Word of Tom being contrary to that got me worried.

[vonGenf]

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.

That's alright. As long as nobles think their income is likely too increase, expansion will occur. You can expect a reasonable rate of failure.....

[LilWolf]

BattleMaster is never going back to the days when you could have a half-dozen people running a 15-region realm, and I can't see any rational argument for why it should.

The game was more fun and much, much more care free that way. Just saying   

[fodder]

If with the new system we'd gain more gold with 10 nobles in 5 regions than with 10 nobles in 10 regions (because realm size penalties, lack of knight tax tolerance penalties, and 50% tax loss penalties for wildlands), then we really aren't improving anything at all.

you get more food though.

[Chenier]

BattleMaster is never going back to the days when you could have a half-dozen people running a 15-region realm, and I can't see any rational argument for why it should.

Because 1) the main reason to go to war is expansion, 2) the player base is declining, and therefore 3) less and less realms are having a reason to go to war, other than to deal with TMP. Are you seriously arguing that wars are better now than they were before the estates system, that there are more and they are of higher quality? 'cause I would totally disagree.

And nobody's talking about 6 nobles maintaining 15 regions. But if a 12 region realm with 12 nobles makes less than a 6 region realm with the same amount of nobles, then you've got a serious design problem, and we may as well stick with the old system as the new one isn't offering any better. Realms with few nobles will still be penalized, whereas realms with many won't be advantaged anymore. That's the sole difference.

This does nothing to reward expansionist realms. This only helps realm with huge food deficits, which other than D'Hara on Dwilight (which doesn't have any rurals to expand to anymore anyways), are rather rare.

That's alright. As long as nobles think their income is likely too increase, expansion will occur. You can expect a reasonable rate of failure.....

Uhm, no. As long as the gain from expansion isn't obvious, many will refrain from taking the risks of fighting an enemy at the border. Just like right now.

you get more food though.

For 99% of the realms, food isn't an issue. Since food is sold dirt cheap on most continent, I can't see any realm saying "well, if we gain this new rural, we'll lose gold overall, plus all the war expenses, damages, and risks, but hey, we'll make 200 more bushels of food every harvest!". No.

[fodder]

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?