Large flaws in estate and tax system

[Indirik]

Several people, myself among them, have asked for this.

[Stabbity]

The most important thing in a solution to this is to not punish realms for having a lack of knights, but to reward those who have them in abundance. If a change is implemented that starts penalizing realms that have been struggling to keep regions filled, but has an active player base (they exist) then you will see more players leave the game, the same as with the ice age event.

[Lorgan]

The rewards for having knights are already huge though, speaking as one who plays in realms that have an abundance.  Giving even more benefits to having knights would make it even harder for realms like you describe to resist them.

[Indirik]

The most important thing in a solution to this is to not punish realms for having a lack of knights, but to reward those who have them in abundance.

What would you suggest?

Alos, keep in mind that withholding a benefit is usually seen as being a punishment.

[Stue (DC)]

You guys do realize that your suggestions would worsen the problems you want to address? Realms with extra regions would refuse to appoint lords to them, because losing the city knights would result in much too great wealth loss. Realms with 15 regions, but 15 nobles spread over only 10, would be stronger than realms with 15 nobles spread over 15 regions.

Also, Indirik, I fail to see how it's legitimate to dismiss cases to the contrary when trying to prove a point. Even without the dramatic tax tolerance reduction, tax efficiency alone, in its current form, is enough to remove all monetary incentive to expand.

If dukes cannot be punished some way for gluing their knights to city estates rather than appointing them as lords, than it's something wrong with game atmosphere in such realm, not in game mechanics.

What you describe would be great scenario to motivate nobles to get rid of such duke. To me, this is exactly how game mechanics would work best: game mechanics would provide some "medieval common sense", those who go against it would go against what is deemed by most as reasonable.

in any case, penalties for not having lords should be larger than for not having knights.

i intentionally use term penalty out of my personal belief that there is nothing wrong if those who have too little nobles be small.

i think focusing on concept that best gaming experience is to offer easy expansion for the realms is wrong. this game has already shown to be deeper than that, and if most of current rulers tend to be oriented to the very same stereotype manner, that's another subject i would title "problems with diplomacy"

let me offer number of ways how it can be interesting in realm though possibilities for expansion are somewhat reduced:
- creating a feud with other realm and fighting for mere honor and glory rather than stereotype grabbing the lands
- focus on open plundering of other realms and sharing the plunder among realm mates
- act as mercenaries for other realms
- focus on tournaments, permanent competition, even having realms where nobles are overly proud and tend to duel to death for every minor justification (yet always with in-game justification, not just "for sport")

i proposed number of opportunities which are allowed by current mechanics, while its number could be tripled by minor tweaks. my point is that focusing on taking regions as ultimate fun in bm is degradation of bm.

[Chenier]

My point was two-fold:

First that the realm size tax code *cannot* produce the effect you're describing. If what you are describing happened, (I don't know, I wasn't there), then it was not produced by the realm size code. Therefore, pointing out IVF as the poster child for your point is invalid. It does not illustrate the point you're trying to make.

Second: Rare edge cases are not useful when describing the behavior of the system overall. BattleMaster is not a game of single-region city states. Nor are they especially common, nor often very long-lived. Using their behavior to set overall game policy is a poor choice. You don't optimize for edge cases. It may be desirable at some point to implement some code to handle them through various exceptions. Holding them up as examples for how the overall system may discourage desired behavior is not useful.


Also, you keep talking about both a "tax tolerance" and a "tax efficiency". The game calculates a "tax tolerance". The game does not calculate or use any kind of "tax efficiency". If you're assuming that this is a game mechanic, then you're mistaken and should stop using the term. If this is some definition you've created, then I have no idea what you're talking about. (Are you perhaps talking about estate efficiency or something?)

By tax efficiency, I refer to estate (tax) efficiency. The only thing estates do is collect taxes, as such, that is the only thing their efficiency applies to. Hence, "tax efficiency", a region or realm's capacity to collect maximal taxes.

Moving a city knight to become outland rural lord will decrease tax efficiency in the city and result in poor tax efficiency in the rural region. In another thread, I've illustrated how a realm can be poorer overall by expanding, because in many cases, having a 20% city estate vacated, thus resulting in a 10% efficiency loss for the city, is not compensated by the 60% efficiency of the new rural lord (Xolotl currently has a tax efficiency of 62.8% in Mokut, for example, which will only decrease as population returns to normal levels). This is amplified by the fact that most cities are in the realm's heartland (on average), and thus can afford higher tax rates, while new expansions are always on the borders, and thus can't afford the same tax rate. How would you reckon that moving a noble from a 100% efficiency estate in a 15% tax rate big city to instead be lord with rougly 60% efficiency in a mediocre border rural region that can only afford 8% tax rates?

[De-Legro]

With no lord, how do you get the food out of the region? Does the last Lords setting about banker access still work? If it does, I believe it should not. I see two ways of handling it, first would be to simply make the region provide no income or food to the realm at all until a Lord is in charge again. The second would be to allow some of it to be passed directly to the Duke, a very small amount but the idea here would be to maintain the Dukes "tithe" in some respects. Troops from the RC's should also not be available for recruitment, nor paraphernalia buildings open.

You could extend this it have the region slowly go rogue if for some reason a realm persists in having a region with no Lord.

By tax efficiency, I refer to estate (tax) efficiency. The only thing estates do is collect taxes, as such, that is the only thing their efficiency applies to. Hence, "tax efficiency", a region or realm's capacity to collect maximal taxes.

Moving a city knight to become outland rural lord will decrease tax efficiency in the city and result in poor tax efficiency in the rural region. In another thread, I've illustrated how a realm can be poorer overall by expanding, because in many cases, having a 20% city estate vacated, thus resulting in a 10% efficiency loss for the city, is not compensated by the 60% efficiency of the new rural lord (Xolotl currently has a tax efficiency of 62.8% in Mokut, for example, which will only decrease as population returns to normal levels). This is amplified by the fact that most cities are in the realm's heartland (on average), and thus can afford higher tax rates, while new expansions are always on the borders, and thus can't afford the same tax rate. How would you reckon that moving a noble from a 100% efficiency estate in a 15% tax rate big city to instead be lord with rougly 60% efficiency in a mediocre border rural region that can only afford 8% tax rates?

That is life. I have no problem with there being circumstances where expansion is bad. It will ultimately depend on what regions are available to expand into and the current structure of the realm. We also have to remember that money is not everything, sometimes you need those rural regions in order to produce food to feed the cities after all.

[Anaris]

With no lord, how do you get the food out of the region? Does the last Lords setting about banker access still work? If it does, I believe it should not.

With no Lord, Banker access is automatically set to "yes", and I will not be changing that. I'm not about to add extra frustration to feeding a region you've just taken over purely for the sake of encouraging people to appoint Lords.

I'm quite sure we can come up with plenty of other incentives to put Lords over every region in a realm without that.

[De-Legro]

With no Lord, Banker access is automatically set to "yes", and I will not be changing that. I'm not about to add extra frustration to feeding a region you've just taken over purely for the sake of encouraging people to appoint Lords.

I'm quite sure we can come up with plenty of other incentives to put Lords over every region in a realm without that.

True, just that as it stands that allows people to run Rural without a Lord with no disadvantage in terms of food production. If the intent is to allow a region to be feed while a Lord is found, then perhaps the system can be modified such that the Banker can make buy orders and or accept sell orders for the region, while not allowing food to be imported out of the region.

[Buffalkill]

You can't give an advantage to Realm A without giving a disadvantage to Realm B. Likewise, you can't make it advantageous to have knights without penalizing not having knights. Besides, if a realm has too few knights, that's just another way of saying they have too many regions. Make it so that regions with a full complement of lords and knights have an advantage over those that don't, and the issue will be self-correcting. As it stands, it's advantageous for realms to have a 1:1 nobles-to-regions ratio (or close to that) compared to a 3:1 ratio. The reverse should be true.

[Zakilevo]

Maybe instead of trying to give disadvantages, why not focus more on giving advantages of having more knights. To be honest, having knights is already advantageous enough, being able to field more men, more interactions etc but why not give more \o/

[De-Legro]

You can't give an advantage to Realm A without giving a disadvantage to Realm B. Likewise, you can't make it advantageous to have knights without penalizing not having knights. Besides, if a realm has too few knights, that's just another way of saying they have too many regions. Make it so that regions with a full complement of lords and knights have an advantage over those that don't, and the issue will be self-correcting. As it stands, it's advantageous for realms to have a 1:1 nobles-to-regions ratio (or close to that) compared to a 3:1 ratio. The reverse should be true.

You missunderstand when people say reward don't punish. Obviously not getting the bonus is a disadvantage, players don't want the system for example to reduce gold generation below what it currently produces, or have negative effects on control/production and the like. I have said before that in competitive games the concept of punishment or bonus is relative and about perspective, still the fact remains that people will view changes that reduce their current outcomes as a penalty and have a negative response to it, where as something that achieves the same net result but boosts things from the current levels will be viewed better. When you are dealing with player retention this matters.

Making knights more valuable to their Lords and their realm is a good thing, but its not going to fix the issues with knight density on its own. For that we need to actually increase the number of players/characters relative to the land that is available

[Jens Namtrah]

Making knights more valuable to their Lords and their realm is a good thing, but its not going to fix the issues with knight density on its own. For that we need to actually increase the number of players/characters relative to the land that is available

This.

The problem lies ultimately in the "fact" (IMHO) that the Ice was a good idea, but it stopped way to early and so had little effect other than to piss a few folks off and make them quit.

You need to squeeze the sea in all around the islands and push until it is hard for knights to find a decent estate, and lordships have value, and the "common" nobles are clamoring for war so they can finally get some land & titles of their own.

Look to the SE corner of Dwilight for an example to study.

[Buffalkill]

Making knights more valuable to their Lords and their realm is a good thing, but its not going to fix the issues with knight density on its own. For that we need to actually increase the number of players/characters relative to the land that is available

Indeed, that's why I also think improvements should be made to make the knight game more interesting.

[vonGenf]

The second would be to allow some of it to be passed directly to the Duke, a very small amount but the idea here would be to maintain the Dukes "tithe" in some respects.

In any case, the amount the Duke gets when the region is without Lord should be smaller than the amount he gets from taxation when a Lord is appointed.

Troops from the RC's should also not be available for recruitment, nor paraphernalia buildings open.

That's a very good idea, but doesn't it already happen most of the time? RCs and paraphernalia buildings are not always open depending on, I guess, morale and control which is tied with the presence of a Lord.