Taking new regions becoming historically harder

[vonGenf]

Well, of course, but that's easily cancelled out: unit CS rapidly drops with increasing numbers. Even with the money of a whole realm, I doubt a unit could go far over 2-3K CS...

Excellent point.

[fodder]

multiple liege just doesn't make sense. easier to say a lord can maintain multiple subregions (thus regions of changing sizes) on their own with no pc knights (today's 70% is new map's 100% for example).. gets bonus for assigning subregions to knights.

is the estate overhaul a stopgap until new maps? or is it done with new map in mind?

[Anaris]

OK, I've skimmed the thread, and aside from the estate overhaul (which I will try to work with Foundation and the rest of the devs on getting started over the next few weeks), here are a couple of additional suggestions for relatively simple things that could help:

• Allow regions without Lords to have their base caravan offer settings changed by the Banker.  Or possibly by the Duke if they're in a Duchy; either could work.
• When a new region is taken, the army that the game calculates as having done "the most work" toward the TO (something like "has the most troops there for the most time") adds that region to the Duchy of its base region.
• Bedwyr suggested military presence preventing riots disrupting courts: this is a good idea.
• Only relevant for taking rogue regions, but if a region has been rogue for some time, it should be more willing to accept being taken over by any realm (Note: This should actually be happening already, to some degree, due to some bugs in sympathy calculation that were fixed a month or three ago. Take a look, you might be surprised.)
• Subsistence is probably something I should revisit.  It's supposed to maintain regions without food, and with very low population, but without other disruptions, in a steady state.  It may need some sort of "buffer zone," whereby if the population drops below (say) 100 in region X, it goes into subsistence mode, but it won't come out of it until it goes back above 200.  ...Also, it should be noted that subsistence won't be that helpful on Dwilight, with the constant monster attacks.

Finally, it's not something that's simple, but claims need a rework, and having a more sensible claims system might make it easier to get someone appointed that the Ruler/Duke actually wants as Lord faster.

[vonGenf]

When a new region is taken, the army that the game calculates as having done "the most work" toward the TO (something like "has the most troops there for the most time") adds that region to the Duchy of its base region.

Even if that duchy is not neighboring? That seems contrary to current practice. I would have gone for closest city.

[Anaris]

Even if that duchy is not neighboring? That seems contrary to current practice. I would have gone for closest city.

Not sure.  Bedwyr, Indirik and I were actually having a discussion about this last night; in general, I'm in favour of keeping duchies contiguous, but if this made a significant difference in the ability of a realm to take a region and not see it go straight rogue again, then I would be more than willing to consider it.

[Telrunya]

Yes, perhaps only consider Duchies the Region can actually join. Perhaps also give a bonus / decide on which Duchy starts the TO, if relevant. (or only allow neighbouring Duchies to TO, but thats more ducal level play and doesn't make things easier, so that perhaps isn't such a great idea in this light)

Bedwyr suggested military presence preventing riots disrupting courts: this is a good idea.

Perhaps lower the chance of a riot happening? And if having sufficient military presence prevents it, will the Court then fail without negative effects? If the Court is guaranteed to succeed with sufficient military forces, I'm wondering if that will make it too easy again.

[Indirik]

I think one of the biggest problems with keeping new regions in the realm and in good shape is estates. A region without any estates at all will go south pretty fast. In realms that elect lords, this is a several day wait to get a lord, then possibly longer to get a knight and estates. The estate revamp may help. But newly taken regions should probably have some short-term exemption from estate requirements. At least long enough to get a lord and knights.

[Bedwyr]

• When a new region is taken, the army that the game calculates as having done "the most work" toward the TO (something like "has the most troops there for the most time") adds that region to the Duchy of its base region.

This I have a bit of a problem with.  One of the few real sources of power Rulers have left is appointing lords to newly-conquered regions.  Auto-adding to a duchy takes that away and gives it to the already massively overpowered Dukes.

Finally, it's not something that's simple, but claims need a rework, and having a more sensible claims system might make it easier to get someone appointed that the Ruler/Duke actually wants as Lord faster.

This.

(fixed quote for you. ;) )

[De-Legro]

I think we need to revist how Estates and other issues related to it work - the mistake I think in the changes made, as poined out already, is that to "encourage" desired behaviours huge negative effects were applied to things.   Whether it was TMP or Estates, the failure is that negative punishment is used.   Not getting Knights?  BAM bad things happen.  Not fighting wars?  BAM bad things happen.

This is the wrong mentality to be enforcing - we should be reenforcing the desired effects by providing positive things when you have knights and war.   Taking over regions becomes extremely difficult because the negatives applied to them due to the inability to get food, knights, lords, and a duchy given to them.  Much like holding onto any region - it becomes a fight just to manage the region with police work and courtier work.

To make this easier - and to encourage more war and expansion (along with smaller realms being viable again) we need to place positive benefits to having Lords, Knights, Duchies etc applied to a region - rather than negatives (which are what happen when you lack them, and most Realms do).

Estates should provide bonuses to the region's stats, rather than be required to KEEP the region stable.    Duchy allegiances could provide control, loyalty, production, etc style bonuses (perhaps chosen by the Duke or based on the City/Ducal centre type).    Perhaps Estates allow for higher taxes to be extracted without a negative influence?   Or reduce the upkeep of buildings, or the cost to construct new buildings?   There are a large number of in game mechanics that Estates could provide as bonuses to a region where they are - Ducal Knight Estates could even be created to give Duchy wide bonuses.   This would make having Ducal knights something desirable.   Estates could influence religious beliefs, effect TO functions, and even increase the range/weapon/armour of units recruited from them (by small amounts obviously).    Increase wood/metal etc production for when those are implemented.

The key here is to make having Knights and Estates beneficial to a region, something the players will WANT to have, but that will not destroy a Realm if they don't have enough knights (or lose players to attrition).

Obviously though there would be diminishing returns - having one estate supporting something would provide good effects, but as you stack the same type of estate you see a smaller and smaller gain.   This would encourage diversity and provide a wider range of uses for Estates.

Regardless - the idea here is that too many of the in game mechanics punish - reducing the enjoyability of the game and making players focus on meeting game mechanic requirements (which is tedious and boring), rather than focus on other players and the enjoyability of the game.

This is basically what the new estate system will provide to my understanding. The nominal region production/control level will be under 100%, but will reach a steady state without knights instead of collapsing like it does now. Adding knights with estates will help boost you towards 100%. The main thing to adapt to is under the new system, 100% production is not meant to be the "normal" level that all regions should run at.

[De-Legro]

Their efforts are useless when all stats reset to 1% at TC. I'm an ambassador with excellent oratory skill, and using those tools is a waste of time. I'm better off using my dozen or so men to do police raids, anything else before a lord is chosen is a waste of time.

Enweil is surrounded by rogue regions. But we can't really expand because we lack the nobles. But so does everyone else, so nobody is taking these regions. And since we can't increase our income by expanding to compensate for the loss of two cities during the invasion, we can't restore our economy, meaning a stalemate is the best we could wish of any war. It's rather stupid. And the region is question was taken in order to increase my duchy. It was taken by the western army for the western duchies, without the support of the main army and without the ruler being there to appoint anyone. How are dukes to gain greater independence if they suffer so many penalties from being part of a realm? And even if we had been sponsored and it was organized by the whole realm, I've seen enough times how even that is way more difficult than it should be. This particular case just made me realize how tired I was of how this issue evolved and how nobody was saying anything about it yet.

One thing that is clearly needed is for a way for bankers to control the markets of lordless regions and for new lords to be able to switch duchies immediately. One week of being imperial is just aggravating, when you consider that this first week is when it'd be most useful.

I've been heavily involved in military affairs on a different occasions, and this is *exactly* how I adapted my strategy. "Kill Riombara and DoA first, then we can slowly think about setting up friendly colonies there, when everything is rogue and no one is left to bother us and interrupt repair efforts".

I love looting, and was not the least sad to pick this as the general strategy, but as others have said, it sucked that no alternative was viable. Hell, we even tried a colony takeover in Rines, but they are so bloody difficult to pull off. Does anyone know why they are so frigging difficult? Colonies should be encouraged, if you ask me, but that's a different discussion altogether...

We too are taking rogue regions. Athios was taken using only 1 TO attempt, had 1 police unit supporting it and took a little less then a week to reach the point where it was stable in stats. Most the heavy lifting was done by a priest and a diplomat. One of the things that might have made it easier, was we did a RTO, so we had a lord instantly.

[De-Legro]

I think one of the biggest problems with keeping new regions in the realm and in good shape is estates. A region without any estates at all will go south pretty fast. In realms that elect lords, this is a several day wait to get a lord, then possibly longer to get a knight and estates. The estate revamp may help. But newly taken regions should probably have some short-term exemption from estate requirements. At least long enough to get a lord and knights.

I think this would be a great help. Not only for realms that elect Lords either. A few turns grace to get a region established after a take over might remedy the currently, rebel after one day TO again syndrome.

[Chenier]

We too are taking rogue regions. Athios was taken using only 1 TO attempt, had 1 police unit supporting it and took a little less then a week to reach the point where it was stable in stats. Most the heavy lifting was done by a priest and a diplomat. One of the things that might have made it easier, was we did a RTO, so we had a lord instantly.
[/quote

Having a lord immediately is what changes the situation. All of the regions we RTOed were stabilized rather easily, it's the ones taken by the good old military means that are godawfully hard.

What's the reason why a lord can't change allegiance before a week in office? It's useless delays. A week between subsequent changes, sure, but if the region is imperial you ought to be allowed to swear fealty to a duchy right away, imo.

I like that regions be automatically be given to duchies. This would eventually mean that there would no longer ever be any imperial regions. Not sure if this is intended or not. I do understand the point of rulers being weakened even more, though, but it makes little sense that if a duke sponsors an attempt to take a region, it be up to the whole realm what happens there.

Perhaps it could be part of the realm government options? To make it that regions automaticly join the conquering duchy, and maybe even add the option for region elections to be run within the duchy only while at it?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

So the "conquering duchy" would be calculated based on...the guy who starts the takeover, or the duchy to which the majority of forces in the region belong? They can be different, and that can definitely matter. On one hand there's the initiating party, and on the other hand there's the majority stakeholder. When those two are at odds, how would game mechanics solve that? Would it be arbitrarily one over the other?

[vonGenf]

So the "conquering duchy" would be calculated based on...the guy who starts the takeover, or the duchy to which the majority of forces in the region belong? They can be different, and that can definitely matter. On one hand there's the initiating party, and on the other hand there's the majority stakeholder. When those two are at odds, how would game mechanics solve that? Would it be arbitrarily one over the other?

It makes sense that it would be the initiating party. If you don't support his claim, leave the region and don't support him.

[Chenier]

It makes sense that it would be the initiating party. If you don't support his claim, leave the region and don't support him.

I kinda agree with your logic, but a failed TO attempt can seriously hamper following ones. If someone from another duchy goes and starts the TO before any of your men in a region that could only switch to your duchy, you wouldn't really want to let him ruin the region's sympathy for your realm.

I kinda like the idea of it being calculated by the army with the more men present.

Somewhat unrelated, but this makes me think that ducal sympathy might be an interesting stat to add to the game. Regions with high ducal loyalty and low realm loyalty would get nice stat boosts in a secession, and vice versa. Regions TOs and maintenance could run on an average of both stats. I dunno, just some crazy idea off the top of my head. More stats could just mean more maintenance, though...