Lodging System

[pcw27]

This was an idea that got tossed around a bit in the past. If I recall it showed promise but tended to get put on the back burner due to being such a complicated new feature.

I think I might have a way to simplify one of those ideas to create a system which will drive player interaction and brew in game conflicts. I wanted to discuss it here before making a feature request.

A huge part of medieval culture was the tradition of offering hospitality to traveling nobles and their entourage. Everyone with an estate will have the ability to decide who if anyone is allowed to stay there. This will be set in their command tab. I'd suggest the options as "No Lodging", "No lodging for enemies" "No Lodging for foreigners", "No lodging for members of other duchies", and "Lodging is open for everyone" in addition you have a list of nobles, similar to your ignore list, who are forbidden to lodge at your estate. Each day players will get a report of who has tried to stay at their estate.

For the traveler's end of things, each player will have a "select lodging" option in their actions tab. This action takes no time. Here you'll see the primary settings of the estate and if you are personally forbidden from staying there it will show up as well. You can't however see every single noble that is personally forbidden to visit.

If a character fails to find lodging, they lose an hour and receive the message "you are unable to find comfortable lodgings and instead stay in your field tent which leaves you unrested. You lose one hour as a result". This wont come into play if they've spent the turn traveling, this hour is instead considered to be accounted for in over all travel time.

I think this could do a lot for driving character interactions especially for new players. It gives players a moment to think about where their allegiances lie, and who they trust.

[Kwanstein]

The old estate system, where Lords were to individually send out oaths, was a feature similar in intent. Rather than promoting interaction, it merely annoyed people, and it wasn't even very repetitious.

The lesson to be learned, I guess, is that if you have to do something a lot, it becomes a hassle. People will roleplay this kind of stuff if they want, so obligating them to do so with these type of features is unnecessary and heavy handed.

[pcw27]

I don't think it would cause to much annoyance if people have the option to allow anyone to lodge. That way people can use and ignore the feature at their leisure, the default can also be allowing anyone to lodge.

Oaths became pointless and annoying because eventually there were so few knights that no lord in his right mind would reject an oath.

[Foxglove]

I'm not really understanding what the point of gaining lodgings would be. Does a travelling noble being able to lodge actually give them something in material terms? Or does the estate holder gain something when a traveller lodges there? If not, it seems like a pointless feature.

[Indirik]

I don't see any particular usee for this.i it's essentially just forcing all characters to hit several more clicks each turn, or get penalized by losing hours.

Having an RP option to visit an estate, and send letters to the owner, might be interesting, but not any kind of penalty for *not*noing so.

[pcw27]

Something like this was also discussed as a way to gain or lose prestige. Being denied a visit to a manor would make you look bad to the rest of the noble high society.

[Chenier]

So basically, every turn, if you don't want to waste an hour, you'd be forced to go click on some links to find lodging? Extra clicks for no gain?

[Sarwell]

I echo the "pointless clicks" complaint.

If this were to be implemented, I would rather just have the character automatically sent to the largest estate possible.

[pcw27]

So basically, every turn, if you don't want to waste an hour, you'd be forced to go click on some links to find lodging? Extra clicks for no gain?

It could instead be totally passive with the character automatically choosing an estate at random.  Also instead of losing an hour you could gain one.