New estates effect on looting and TOs

[Gustav Kuriga]

*finds Chenier to be lacking in the realm loyalty department*

[Tom]

But as a knight, there's no incentive to go to a peripheral region as opposed to a core region. You are almost guaranteed a better income in the core area, and that's where incomes can be maximized the the realm average. That is, unless the core lords are greedy and don't want you...

Hm, last I checked, 25% of 100 gold was still more than 5% of 400 gold...

[Chenier]

Hm, last I checked, 25% of 100 gold was still more than 5% of 400 gold...

Obviously, but 25% of 400 gold is better than 25% of 100 gold, which is my point all along. If you can cram 4 nobles into a 2500 population fringe rural at 25% each, then there is absolutely nothing stopping you from cramming 5 nobles into a 2500 core rural. The only difference is that the core rural will have a higher tax tolerance, and therefore everyone will get a bigger income.

That is, after all, why I added "unless lords are greedy and don't want you".

You could always distribute them evenly, but that's not what this guy was talking about. He was talking about intentionally stuffing more knights in the peripherals instead of the core, in order to give these regions better looting resilience (in order to make sure as many people are hurt when these regions do get looted, if you ask me). So my statement always was "If you are going to stuff people into certain regions, you'd be much better off in the core than in the fringe". Never said we should stuff people instead of evenly distributing them, though.

[Indirik]

He was talking about intentionally stuffing more knights in the peripherals instead of the core, in order to give these regions better looting resilience

Does anyone really do this? "OMG, they're going to take this burned out, heavily looted badlands, quick, I want 8 people to go swear oaths to this lord, and set their estates to authority, NAOW!" This sounds like the worst plan, ever.

[Tom]

You could always distribute them evenly, but that's not what this guy was talking about. He was talking about intentionally stuffing

Am I the only one who didn't miss the obvious?

You can not "stuff" anyone, intentionally or otherwise. Unless they want to take the estate, it's not going to happen.

"Ah!", you're going to say next, "core regions will simply not be offering estates! Ha! Stuffed 'em!".

Not so fast. Core regions will suffer, if they don't have enough knights. So they will offer estates, until they are full. And as long as they do, the deals at the border better be good deals, or people will take the other ones.


I think one of the main problems people have in conceptualizing BattleMaster is that you approach it like your average computer strategy game, where one player is making all the decisions. But that's not how it works. And that means that other people in your realm think differently. Maybe you wouldn't be offering 25% when you can get away with 20% - but they do. And that's why they get knights and you don't. Hypothetically speaking.

What I mean is that you can't approach the whole thing with a mini-max attitude, because doing so you make a fundamental erroneous assumption: That everyone always behaves rationally, and in the way you think a rational person would. Don't feel bad, it's the same mistake economic theorists make all the time, which is one of the reasons most 1st world economic politics are !@#$ed up, but that's a different topic.


There are many, many reasons why a lord would do something seemingly "sub-optimal". Maybe he doesn't want to be bothered with running an estate of his own? So he cuts large estates with a good tax rate, but a high lords share. Or he is aiming for political power within the realm and wants to attract as many knights as possible, so he makes better deals than strictly necessary. Or he wants to share the region income with his good friend, and thus cuts it in two 40% (max for his region) estates and leaves the rest as wild lands, even though that's wasteful.

[Chenier]

Indeed, we don't have total control over the nobles, they can chose to go where they wish, though nobles in authority can take measures against lords not wanting to share their wealth with new knights and can therefore greatly influence distribution.

My point was mostly in reaction to the guy that said "But... we won't be able to put all of our excess nobles in the border regions to make them more resilient!", by arguing that all other things being equal, one shouldn't even want to do so anyways, even under the current system.

And I'm well aware that not all lords are motivated by min-maxing the realm-wide averages. Indeed, I myself, as duke of a far-off city that would complain about taxes being too high at 7% despite great estate support, lured almost all of the new nobles to my city for a while. Then, with the army I funded despite my pitiful income, I had them takeover ajdacent rogue regions even if there were others closer to the capital, making them all swear allegiance to my city. Eventually, then all was right, I decided to cash in my investment and seceded, further increasing the attractivity of my lands as now we were both independant and rich.

[vonGenf]

Just to clarify, I'm not complaining. I wanted to open the floor to discussions about the new estates effect on war strategy, because I think it's likely there will be an effect. I'm pretty neutral at the moment about whether it's good or bad.