Reworking Prestige/Honour, etc.

[Tom]

Largesse could have disadvantages too if you have "too much" of it.

Let me stop this before it goes off the deep again. Absolutely nothing like this is going to happen to attributes, period. Too complicated, too intransparent, not enough positive gameplay effect, this is being realistic for realism sake, nor for gameplay advantages. It's a cute idea, but utterly unplayable.

If you want to discuss it, open a new topic. Any further discussion of this particular point will be immediately deleted so this topic doesn't go off on tangents.

[Duvaille]

Tom,

I suppose the feature requests sub-forum is like an organic garden. If you want some fruit, someone needs to be constantly weeding it. So, positive effects only then, except for the love-fear continuum.

The stats could be beneficial in a number of ways in addition to their most obvious bonuses. It would be nice if lords sought and competed over the best knights in the realm based on their stats, and those knights with the most beneficial stats would generally be given the largest and most important estates. The character stats could effect the regional stats with some slight positive influence where the size of the estate (number of peasants covered) acted as a multiplier. With a 40% estate your stats influence 40% of the peasants.

A knight (or lord) with high combat experience would make the peasants proud of him, thus increasing realm loyalty a little. With high largesse it would be assumed you would behave in the same jovial way towards the peasants in your estate, thus improving morale slightly. There could be similar benefit for the rest of the stats as well, where one character stat matches with one regional stat in a rather straightforward and easy-got-grasp manner.

Granted, this would be more like a side-effect than the main benefit you get from the stat. But this is one way the stats would complement one another, and would thus all be sought after qualities when looking for a vassal.

[Tom]

So, positive effects only then, except for the love-fear continuum.

I said positive gameplay effect. That doesn't have to be beneficial for the character.


And I don't want to turn this into an attributes-heavy game. People should compete on roleplaying, the attributes are nice and should provide incentives, but they should not be too important.

[Zakilevo]

I think it would be nice if whatever replacing Presitge/Honour could show how you play and RP your character. Giving others who they are dealing with.

[Duvaille]

I said positive gameplay effect. That doesn't have to be beneficial for the character.


And I don't want to turn this into an attributes-heavy game. People should compete on roleplaying, the attributes are nice and should provide incentives, but they should not be too important.

Ok. It just seems that largesse, while an interesting aspect of chivalric life, does not easily find its role with game mechanics. Thus I am throwing in ideas and concepts that might give some flesh around the bones, or perhaps help someone else do it better than I do. Just to check if I have understood  your purpose here, would something like this be positive for gameplay:

High largesse:
- Recruit more men (not as many as with high combat experience but still some)
- When you are unable to pay them in time, they wait for your payment more patiently, but still demand the full pay at the end OR
- With high largesse, you get a button in troop payment options that says "delay payment, promise to pay +50% wages later" which lets you get away with not paying them for a little longer, but if you fail to pay them full within a week, they desert you in bloc and you get severe largesse penalty hit.

- With very low (next to zero) largesse you get a discount in recruiting (perhaps in payments too), but a severe penalty in the number of men you get. This would help poor knights to at least get some men, and encourage to maintain at least a minimal level of largesse for the others. Donating just a few coins to a temple here and there could help you beyond that threshold, so it would essentially be a choice if you had zero largesse - if you really are that poor. And if you are, you would not be recruiting that many men anyway.

By themselves these proposals are not enough to make largesse meaningful, but it's a step. I am especially fond of the idea that zero (or next to zero) largesse gives penalties and thus directs the players automatically towards behavior that gains largesse, even if the gestures in themselves are rather symbolic. But for this it would need to be very easy to get past the zero largesse threshold and so that giving something like 10 gold to a temple should keep you safely above the limit for quite some time for it not become an annoyance.

[Tom]

Do I understand correctly that you're saying Largesse would be something the player sets for his character, instead of an attribute the game calculates?

Basically, characters with high largesse pay more for everything, but get assorted advantages in return. Characters with low largesse pay less for everything, but are seen as cheap with associated penalties?

That's an interesting approach of reversing things, I like it.

[Duvaille]

Do I understand correctly that you're saying Largesse would be something the player sets for his character, instead of an attribute the game calculates?

Well, yes and no. I am not proposing that you could set the Largesse value in some menu, but rather that there are some pretty obvious ways for you to bump it higher, but you could also, if you so desired, to refrain from these "bumps" which would let your largesse either remain low or gradually fall to zero. So, not total control, but predictable ways for either raising or maintaining it, or letting it drop. The higher the value, the more you need to maintain it with frequent donations and such.

Sort of like a barrel with many holes in it. The higher you want the water level to be, the more you need to keep filling it. Your income (or average income of past 4 weeks or so) determines the size of the barrel.

Basically, characters with high largesse pay more for everything, but get assorted advantages in return. Characters with low largesse pay less for everything, but are seen as cheap with associated penalties?

Yes, basically so. New characters with little income probably should refrain from donations until they have sufficient weekly gold flow. They get their little bonuses for being poor and really do not miss out the advantages of high largesse, as all of them would require extra gold at hand - which is just the thing the poor knight does not have anyway. The penalties, however, should be such that they would severely limit those characters who have the gold, while being next to meaningless to the truly poor.

The largesse bonuses could could generally be the kind that you can ask your men or your peasants  or lower nobility to put up with some nasty condition right now, but later on you will make it worth their while. It would be sort of like credit with interest, like in my example of delayed troop payment. Those with a reputation of generosity are trusted to both have the ability and willingness to pay for what they have promised. Scrooges on the other hand are viewed with suspicion.

[Tom]

That kind of solves the problem I had with this being player-controlled - the ability to game it.

So it would be a value that can be changed not as a button, but via doing a few well-known actions. Which means changing it takes time and possibly gold.

I like it.

[Duvaille]

That kind of solves the problem I had with this being player-controlled - the ability to game it.

So it would be a value that can be changed not as a button, but via doing a few well-known actions. Which means changing it takes time and possibly gold.

Well yeah, in this model you basically need gold to raise it and time to lower it, so no instant changes back and forth there. There could also be a sort of a cap where you can not increase it dramatically, but have to increase it over time. You would need to give away more than you have to increase Largesse, but if you give ridiculous amounts, it helps you to gain it faster but not in the proportion of gold given. Diminishing returns and all that.

Those limited ways of increasing Largesse could be:
- Donations to temple
- Investing in regions not your own
- Offer drinks at tournaments

It would be good if donations to a temple were the most typical way of gaining and maintaining largesse. This would create a stronger bond between religion and character. If a character were dissatisfied with the dominant religion in the realm, he could go out of his way to have at least one temple of a more suitable religion nearby.

[Longmane]

That kind of solves the problem I had with this being player-controlled - the ability to game it.

So it would be a value that can be changed not as a button, but via doing a few well-known actions. Which means changing it takes time and possibly gold.

I like it.

Sounds like I envision it would somehow be back then in all truth, insomuch as the more your willing spread around proving what a jolly good sort you are, especially if it's in the right circles, the more your likely gain from it in other ways!!

So definitely get's my vote as well 

[Penchant]

Also a plus to having donating to temples being a main way of gaining a little largesse so your not too low it encourages players to actually be in a religion.

[Longmane]

I think one way of having nobles being able raise their Largesse that's hopefully relatively easy to code, (apologies to developers in advance if I'm wrong  ) might be in having a Largesse button added to actions that shows a list of ones possible at that time, ie if one of their temples is in the region they can donate to it ect, as doing that it would not only allow the game easily log it as an act of Largesse, but also take into consideration places/situations they could or couldn't do certain things, ie can't throw a hunt if not in a rural, don't have enough gold throw a feast ect.

[Velax]

How will this all be implemented? I hope you won't just wipe out everyone's Honour and Prestige and make everyone start from scratch. Everyone will be forced to have tiny units until they build up whatever the relevant stat is and no one will be able to be appointed to positions until they build up that stat.

[Penchant]

Its a good question but if you think about it, really hard to answer.

[Longmane]

And here was I thinking ye oldie question about the chicken and the egg was a difficult one