Political power score

[Buffalkill]

Summary: The more vassals a noble has, the more power he holds. There should be a way to recognize and measure that power.
 
Details: A char gets his first point of political power by becoming a lord. It increases cumulatively with each knight he has under him, so for each additional knight, the increase in power in greater.

• Lordship + 1 knight = 3 points of political power.
• Lordship + 2 knights = 6 points of political power.
• Lordship + 3 knights = 10 points of political power.

 
The duke’s political power would be the sum total of all of his lords’ political power, and a ruler’s political power would be the sum total of all of his dukes’ and all of his lords’ political power. There would also be a bonus for holding government positions. The size of the bonus would depend on the size of the realm. A marshal bonus would depend on the size of his army. Those who sponsor armies and found religions/guilds should also receive an appropriate bonus.
 
Benefits: Easy to code and easy to understand. It recognizes the inherent strength of the team, thereby promoting teamwork. It gives value to vassals and encourages dukes and lords to attract knights to their regions. By making the increments cumulative, it recognizes that a team is more powerful than the sum of its parts, which in turn promotes increased density.
 
 Possible Downside: Once you get a taste of power, it changes you.


Here is a diagram to illustrate the concept. If you can't see it, click this link: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/File:Political_power_tree.png

[Zakilevo]

So what does this score supposed to do even? Will it do anything but display how many knights you have under your command? If that is the case, this is just meaningless.

Also what do you mean marshal bonus? If you are giving bonuses to marshals based on the size of his army, then no. It will strengthen big realms too much. Small realms already don't have a chance to deal with big realms. You don't want to crush them. Also, with the coming new war implementations, you want more smaller armies not one giant army so I doubt it would work well with the coming changes.

[Buffalkill]

So what does this score supposed to do even? Will it do anything but display how many knights you have under your command? If that is the case, this is just meaningless.


Also what do you mean marshal bonus? If you are giving bonuses to marshals based on the size of his army, then no. It will strengthen big realms too much. Small realms already don't have a chance to deal with big realms. You don't want to crush them. Also, with the coming new war implementations, you want more smaller armies not one giant army so I doubt it would work well with the coming changes.

Thanks for your feedback. It's intended for information, similar to HP but more relevant. It would not give large armies any added advantage. The marshal bonus is an increase in his political power score corresponding to the increased political power that comes with commanding an army.

[Zakilevo]

Oh so it is more like each title giving a certain number of points?

I think it would actually be nice to see the allegiance of each character beside their title whenever they send a message. Maybe that way whoever has a lot of knights will be recognized more - or someone with active nobles. That alone should give people an idea of how much influence one has in the realm since you will see more of that name.

[Anaris]

I both like this, and don't.

I like it because it provides an incentive for Lords to have Knights, and Dukes to have vassals.

I don't like it...because it provides an incentive for Lords and Dukes to fight amongst themselves for vassals, thus potentially wrecking any team spirit the realm had.

So, I'm conflicted on this for now.

If I were to implement it, I think I'd go whole hog and make the political power score actually do something, though I'm not entirely sure what just yet.

[vonGenf]

A version of this could be easily implemented by displaying the number of votes each character has in a representative system.

[Velax]

If I were to implement it, I think I'd go whole hog and make the political power score actually do something, though I'm not entirely sure what just yet.

Let nobles be able to spend these points on things, similar to how Mentors could spend their points. Everyone else would just see whatever your current maximum "score" was, but for you you'd see how many points you actually have left to spend that day/week/whatever. And they'd regenerate over time.

[Anaris]

Let nobles be able to spend these points on things, similar to how Mentors could spend their points. Everyone else would just see whatever your current maximum "score" was, but for you you'd see how many points you actually have left to spend that day/week/whatever. And they'd regenerate over time.

I dunno. I think rather than having a regenerating supply of spendable points and things to spend them on that went away (like extra hours or whatever), I'd prefer to have the points be allocatable to a set of bonuses or benefits that stuck around.  ...Not sure what yet.

[Indirik]

Without it dong anything tangible to benefit the player, I think this is a worthless idea. It is an interesting number that everyone will look at for a day or two, then forget about and ignore. Kind of like the top family rankings we already have.

If it is somehow turned into some kind of system with a tangible bonus, then it will need to be tightly researched, designed, and controlled so as to prevent abuses. Some kind of continuous bonus like Anaris mentions is infinitely more balance-able and less prone to abuse than a point-spending idea.

However, you also need to evaluate the possible negative effects this could have, too. Off the top of my head, this provides big incentives to not create new duchies, and thus centralize power into the government to a greater extent. A single duchy realm with everyone together would provide the largest number of nobles for the duke, thus giving the duke the highest possible continuous bonus to spread across his duchy, and thus the biggest benefit to everyone in his duchy (i.e. the realm). So, why make more duchies? Reduced duchies leads to reduce intrigue, reduced opportunities for secession and allegiance changes, betrayals, etc.

[Buffalkill]

If we want it to have a tangible benefit, the first thing that comes to mind is increased loyalty, since power & loyalty go hand-in-hand. Another idea, increased prestige for those under you, because when you align yourself to powerful people, you enhance your prestige. Another attribute of powerful people is the ability to influence elections, so the votes of high-power nobles have more weight.

[Bhranthan]

Another attribute of powerful people is the ability to influence elections, so the votes of high-power nobles have more weight.

Isnt that basically already in place under some government system elections?
check here: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Election

Things like number of knights aligned and prestige matter in elections for most or certain government positions.
Depending on your government type.

[Buffalkill]

I’m sympathetic to the reality that the dev team aka Anaris has limited resources and time is precious. Coding the scoring index should be relatively quick and easy. The practical effects require more thought. Since Anaris has expressed some openness to this idea, I propose breaking this FR into small steps. Step 1: create the scoring index. In the meantime, we can have a constructive discussion about what the tangible effects should be and roll those out 1-by-1. Otherwise, if you try to do it all at once, I can see it getting bogged down with debate and it will never get done. I think this would be a good approach for any FR that shows some promise. Anaris has a tremendous task being the only developer, and it seems like all of his time gets consumed with big ambitious tasks like the war improvements package, and smaller things that might have a positive impact on the game get sidelined indefinitely.

[Anaris]

You can decide what things you think would be good for this all you like, but my dev priorities are all set for at least the next couple of months.

I might be able to make a visible indication of this (simply stealing the representative votes code, as I think von Genf suggested), but there's basically no chance of me coding up tangible effects of this in the near future.

[Buffalkill]

This is bull!@#$. Political power is not measured by number of vassals or any other number, really. It's measured by your ability to make other people do what you want them to do, and since you can do that by force or by manipulation or by a dozen other means, it is intrinsically very hard to measure.

I don't think it's bull!@#$. In fact, it's easier to measure than fame, honour, prestige, loyalty, morale, etc. etc. I'm sure political power means many things to many people, but if it's measured by your ability to make other people do what you want them to do, then certainly getting people to follow you, swear loyalty to you, vote for you, and appoint you to powerful offices, are all evidence of political power. No metric is perfect, maybe there are other IG hallmarks of power. If so, they should be factored in too.

[Penchant]

I don't think it's bull!@#$. In fact, it's easier to measure than fame, honour, prestige, loyalty, morale, etc. etc. I'm sure political power means many things to many people, but if it's measured by your ability to make other people do what you want them to do, then certainly getting people to follow you, swear loyalty to you, vote for you, and appoint you to powerful offices, are all evidence of political power. No metric is perfect, maybe there are other IG hallmarks of power. If so, they should be factored in too.

Its evidence, but not actually meaning there is political power. Just like there is evidence in a case, but it doesn't mean the person is guilty. Political power is the power to influence politics, which means that high-level positions it is easier to do generally, but does not mean that ruler always actually has the most political power or that a knight can't be powerful politically either.

How many vassals they have doesn't give them political power. One of my characters is very often on opposite sides on issues so the fact that I am his vassal does not add to his political power. Another character of mine is only a knight albeit an ambassador as well, and has a pretty decent amount of political power. More vassals /= more political power. For some it will, because they have very good  relationships with their vassal, but it doesn't apply to everyone.