These are all counter-moves to somebody who is actively working against you. They each have pretty serious repurcussions for someone who isn't guilty of anything but who just isn't playing the game at all.
Of course he's guilty! He's guilty of negligence, dereliction of duty, possibly even outright sabotage of the war effort. Why, the scoundrel should be hung immediately, if not sooner!
You're essentially asking some combination of the ruler or the other lords or the realm itself to undergo pretty significant strife as a workaround.
You're addressing a pretty significant change. Removing a *duke* from their office? This isn't something that you want to be able to do on a whim. Of course it involves pretty significant strife. If it was simple, easy, and could be done without much of a mess, then the position of duke would be nothing more than a fancy title you wear at the sufferance of the ruler.
And appear to be the bad guy for sending a murderer after a Duke who, just as you said, hasn't done something blatantly wrong and people don't like acting against folks who haven't done anything blatantly wrong. The 'offense' in this case warrants removal from some high office - not a knife in the back.
See above. What he's doing, from an IC perspective *is* blatantly wrong. He's sabotaging the war effort, and endangering the very existence of the realm.
It's only from an OOC perspective that he hasn't done anything blatantly wrong. And that's where the hang-up is. OOC the player just doesn't have time to play very much, or to deal with the responsibilities of office. And we, as players, have sympathy for that.
A huge amount of political jockeying that is dependent upon the geography supporting the solution. "Everybody switch to Duchy B! Now a month later when we have a new Duke, switch back to Duchy A!" If that's not gamey, I don't know what is.
Who says they have to switch back? Convincing a lord to leave one duchy for another is a perfectly legitimate IC power play. IMO, this is perhaps your best bet in most situations. Work to turn the lords against the duke and get them to move out. Combine this with elected region lords, and you can, given time, empty the duchy relatively painlessly. Except for the Duke's region, if they are indeed a lord themselves.
And give up a huge piece of your realm's wealth as well as the time and energy of its players to restore the region afterwards. "Stop buying his food" won't even hurt him: it'll hurt everybody who isn't him.
Yep. I agree, it will be messy. Too bad. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
The only option I ever had as a diplomat/ambassador was to badmouth a realm, not a person. This would impact all future Dukes as well and you're tied up undoing all of the work you laboriously did to remove the guy who doesn't play the game.
Yes, badmouth the realm is the game mechanic involved. And yes, it is damaging. Nevertheless, it is possible, and can be done.
Sure - destabilize the whole realm and change your entire government to accommodate Duke won't read his mail?
Didn't I say some of these options were a bit messy? You are, after all, trying to unseat a very powerful character from their office. It
shouldn't be painless.
This whole thread exists because the mechanisms that are there don't deal with this situation. Maybe the balance we have is as good as it gets -- royal Dukes who are inactive are pretty rare, after all, and as you pointed out if they're not royal then you just give them the boot (as we did with the Toupellonian Duke).
The entire purpose of royal rank is to provide someone in the realm who is intentionally difficult to deal with, and who provides a very powerful potential for anti-establishment. When that character becomes detrimental to the game, for whatever reason, then it
will be messy to get rid of them. I have been lucky in that none of my realms have yet had the need to get rid of one. The few times where this has become an issue, the character has eventually lost the office due to inactivity. (And I nearly choked when the ruler re-appointed them the next day... Luckily the autopaused not long after.)
Alternatively, provide some other solution that you think would be acceptable, and that can't be used whenever the ruler think it would be convenient to get rid of a troublesome duke.
