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BattleMaster => Development => Feature Requests => Topic started by: Tom on March 09, 2012, 12:45:57 PM
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This is for the far future, after all the other changes we need to do first. But I'd like to throw it out there.
I'm not happy with the way Honour and Prestige work in the game anymore. So I am trying to re-think the system. And I was quite happy with the pie concept I once had. This is a very rough sketch, help me flesh it out:
- The attributes should be independent of each other
- They should have clear purposes
- They should balance against each other
Here's what I envision should be measured in attributes:- Actions befitting a knight - fighting, conquering, supporting your people, plundering the enemy, etc.
- Success or failure in battle.
- Reputation - a player-driven attribute
- how fearful/brutal you are, basically the equivalent of the fear/love part of the TO system
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Interesting... What kind of effects are you envisioning for those stats?
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So are we trying to implement the Paragon and Renegade system?
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For those of us not up to date on current games, how about some details on what that is?
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For those of us not up to date on current games, how about some details on what that is?
"Evil" actions contribute to the renegade score, "good" ones contribute to paragon (Mass Effect is pretty morally blurry though so maybe that's not the best description). The consequences of those actions are pretty negligible and only lead to more options in dialogues.
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No, that is not the same idea.
I am trying to build a judgement-free system. What it should record is facts, not judgements.
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Well yeah. If a character does something good - like helping peasants instead of looting them to death, he gains a paragon (or call it something else like Honourable or Chivalrous). Isn't that the idea?
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Tom,
So you want to track "facts" and not "opinions". With such attribute distributions one could roughly try to simulate either how the character is viewed by the others or then focus on reporting his inner growth and processes. Do I understand you correctly that the latter is the one you wish to do with the pie chart? But if this is so (as I am assuming now), then would this knowledge be there only for the player? If it does not become "reputation", ie. "judgements made by the others", then what functionality it can have, when the character is the only one who truly knows this data?
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Stats will be public, just like they are now.
But I want them more transparent. It should be more obvious what each stat means. Oh, and I'd like to have them go both up and down.
Example: A stat that tracks your combat experience.
It would consist of one value simply incrementing for every battle you've been in, maybe not 1:1 but with larger or longer battles giving more points.
And one value that tracks your success. Gets incremented for victories and decremented for defeats. Again, not necessarily 1:1, and in addition to size, it might als try to track the importance of battles (I don't yet know how).
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One element you mentioned is reputation as a player driven attribute. With such a thing we could get rid of the artificial "prestige" altogether and replace it with completely player driven prestige and infamy. You could give every character a pool of prestige that they can distribute to other characters on the continent. You can pick as many characters as you like, but the more you give, the less each individual gets, but the added total would be higher with many targets than with just one.
Then have that completely player driven prestige mean something. If a ruler has high prestige, it will have a realm wide effect of slightly easier control. With a low prestige the control gets a penalty. Same could work with dukes and region lords, though a region lord would not need that much prestige for somewhat optimal bonus. But this would give a good incentive for rulers to appoint lords that enjoy real prestige. And prestige would matter for individuals who need it for effective region control. Who you give the prestige would remain anonymous.
You could do the same with player driven infamy. Both infamy and prestige would act as both quick social guides to who's important and who's not, as well as have in game effects, though infamy might not need any further "bonuses", as it would be a stigma of its own. Infamy and prestige would not cancel each other out, but having high values in both would signify a controversial character, though perhaps infamy could give a very slight prestige reduction if it is high.
Prestige could be further defined as a stat that is kind of a vote of confidence for naming a noble that the character believes is an exemplary noble, both competent and trustworthy. RP explanation would be that prestige is an accumulation of all the plentiful rumors in the noble society.
Example 1: Someone gets really annoyed at Lord Evilstan. He has tagged many players with infamy, but now he cancels out all the rest of them and only leaves the mark of Lord Evilstan for maximum individual effect. The effect would still remain small, as it would take several hits for infamy to even be displayed at all.
Example 2: King Kepler breaks his promise and sues for peace despite of what he had promised to all the nobility in Keplerstan. Several nobles get slightly irritated and remove the prestige mark, causing a significant drop in prestige for the king.
Example 3: A lonely knight never writes to anyone, but diligently participates in the battles, follows orders but is somewhat invisible. He gains other stats, but nobody really gets to know him so he forever remains low on prestige. Other people around will know that he is somewhat of a loner, with no prestige and no infamy, and will not expect much of him. He gains no recognition, and would then be a bad candidate for lordship as well. If he wishes for more recognition, he will need to do something about it and become a bit more vocal.
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More points for battles in regions with TOs.
"how fearful/brutal you are, basically the equivalent of the fear/love part of the TO system."
We would need more posible actions in order for this to have much effect. We would need more "courtier type" actions that are brutal. Might be an interesting region maintenance options for warriors. There would need to be possible benefits to the region beyond the stats for the character.
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There could indeed be many stats tracking combat experience. What I would really like to see is something that we could call "valor", which would only be gained in very important battles, and would depend on both on the outcome and your role in the battle, as well as the existing valor you already have. This value would stick and be practically never reduced.
To encourage conflicts, you could for example gain it by participating in a battle where you are on the attacking side and defeat the defenders of a city or stronghold when not having a significant CS advantage. Or you could have it like current fame, where certain conditions give you a point, and if you do the same thing again, you don't get an additional point. A highly valorous character would be known to have participate in all kinds of adventurers.
But the bottom line is that "valor" should be something rare, and it could dramatically influence how many and what type of units you can command.
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If brutality is one stat to track, you could have it increase with looting, brutal takeovers, torture, assassinations and murderous setting in attacks. But you would also get it when holding harsh courts. This would be the mentioned "courtier type" action. The bonus would be that the higher your "ruthlessness" is, the more effective you are with that type of activities, and perhaps a very ruthless character could inspire his men to deal with more damage in melee, perhaps with an added risk to own casualties (more own casualties than added damage).
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My concern about torture and harsh courts being examples of how one could get brutality points is that you need to be a lord or judge. I would want regular knights to be able to do it too. I guess there is hanging rebels...
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Charles,
Yes, there is hanging rebels and there is also looting. And there is being brutal while takeover is in process. There are plenty of buttons to push in this idea.
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Rather than reinventing reputation tracking and distribution, it would do well to find a good algorithm or research paper and just implement that. There have been suggestions before, but I can't find the particular one that Tom was considering.
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Just as important as what the stats are is what they do. Right now H/P has the following effects:
-Unlock classes
-Unlock appointment possibilites
-Allow to command more troops
-Allow to command special forces and cavalry
Am I missing anything?
All the "positive" ideas mentioned so far could easily replace H/P in that manner. However, what about the negative attributes? What would a high infamy score give, other than RP value? Also, the higher the number of different stats, the more effects will have to be found since we will not expect everyone to rise in all stats as we do with H/P.
One idea out there: people with a high brutality score could be more effective in TOs and police actions, while people with high victory score would have a CS bonus in open battles.
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I think it's important that one of the stats have some sort of player feedback, similar to medals but on a per-character basis and IC. Knowing what people think about my characters could be interesting.
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Perhaps infamy would be required to unlock the infiltrator class? The current honor requirement of 50 doesn't make any sense from an IC perspective. It makes sense from a 'keep out the wannabe ninjas' perspective, but replacing the honor requirement with a brutality/infamy requirement would make more sense.
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Infiltrators don't have to be brutal. There sre things they can do beside assassinate and murder.
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Maybe not brutal but definentally infamous.
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On the contrary, they have to be silent and look innocent.
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True though an infamy requirement makes sense because before someone became an infiltrator they would have done some infamous deeds and would not have focused on hiding all them.
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On the contrary, they have to be silent and look innocent.
An interesting twist would be if infamous infiltrators lost the invisibility of their class.
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Is that the invisibility that doesn't currently exist?
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No, their class invisibility. The fact that you don't know who is a infil and who isn't.
I don't want to bring back character invisibility.
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Is that the invisibility that doesn't currently exist?
And hasn't for...what, 2-3 years now?
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No, their class invisibility. The fact that you don't know who is a infil and who isn't.
I don't want to bring back character invisibility.
That would in essence mean anyone with too much infamy would not be able to be an infiltrator. I like it.
I still feel that nobles do not make good infils. But I think I remember Tom saying they would be changed somehow. That information might help this discussion.
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That would in essence mean anyone with too much infamy would not be able to be an infiltrator. I like it.
I still feel that nobles do not make good infils. But I think I remember Tom saying they would be changed somehow. That information might help this discussion.
The thought was to make them more of a "spymaster" class.
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Tom,
Was the idea that the new stats would be in a form of a pie chart so that you see the relative influences of each of your stat? Where, for example, increasing your valor would necessarily decrease the relative share of all the other stats? Or was that the idea, where you would also have a realm wide comparison without numerical values, that you could rank the nobility in accordance to their absolute values of ruthlessness instead of their relative values (pie chart)?
Or perhaps you are thinking of having some of the stats in a form of a pie chart and others in absolute values. Or you have not made your mind about it either way and we are supposed to discuss all these options as well? The reason I ask is that I do not want to get off the tangent here and would instead like to contribute something useful.
Also, what do you mean with "stats balancing each other out"? Does that mean that you can not have high stats in everything (the pie chart) or something else?
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The pie chart is just a display question. Even the old pie test had absolute values in the background. So that's something we can leave for later.
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Tom,
I suppose the trickiest part here is to measure just what exactly is "success and failure in battle". Several aspects should probably be measured in order to have an accurate picture of how any given character behaves in war. There could be a pie chart of its own about this, actually.
On one hand you could measure simple activity by increasing the stat every time the character goes to battle. We could call that "eagerness". Then you could measure the battles in which he is on the winning side and his unit is not retreated or wiped out. That could very easily be "prudence". Then you could measure battles where the character is on the side that has somewhat lower chance for success (CS and defenses taken into account) and/or when the unit of the character is on the front lines/leads a charge. We could call that "courage". What's left after all this is victories in important battles when the odds are against you, which we could call "valor".
Further, each stat diminishes by itself over time, but valor decays very slowly, and could even be measured in absolute terms in the pie chart while the rest of them would share what's left from valor in relative terms. Eagerness would drop the fastest.
Example 1: A noble only ever goes to battles when he is sure he is on the winning side. His eagerness hardly ever rises, while his prudence gets frequent marks. Thus he's always low on courage and never gets valor.
Example 2: Another noble always rushes to war, no matter what the odds are, so he gets high marks on eagerness and on courage, and if he is successful, also some valor. But he will remain very low on prudence.
Example 3: Yet another noble seldom goes to war, but only does so when there is a great need. He will not be very eager, but can be seen as courageous and even valorous if he succeeds.
Valor would be the most important statistics in determining what kind of troops you will be able to recruit. Only the top 20% most valorous nobles in a realm can recruit special forces. The top 30% could recruit cavalry and top 50% could recruit the best available standard units.
Prudence, on the other hand, would effect the morale of your troops. The more prudence you are reputed to have, the more the troops trust you not to get them killed. The less prudence you have, relatively speaking, the more your troops are likely to desert you.
Courage would gain you respect in the eyes of your troops, and would let you get away with lesser payments.
Eagerness on the other hand would determine how many you could recruit. The soldiers want to see battle.
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After a shower some of my thoughts realigned themselves:
Have two pies. One for warfare and another for social reputation. In the warfare pie "valor" gives bonuses to all of the other aspects, and in the social circle player given prestige gives bonuses to all the relevant fields, whereas player given "infamy" is sort of wasted space that is not useful at anything but reduces the relative impact of the other stats.
In warfare pie:
1) Courage affects the unit types you can recruit
2) Eagerness affects the number of men you can recruit
3) Prudence affects the unit morale
4) Valor gives bonuses to all above, so it is the most sought after stat (and hardest to gain)
In social pie:
1) Ruthlessness effects the strength of ruthless activities (harsh court, torture, looting, hang rebels etc.)
2) Gentleness effects mercy courts, courtier activities, priest activities, civil work etc.
3) Prestige gives bonus to both of them
4) Infamy wastes space in the pie
Prestige and infamy would take their player given shares, and the rest would be left for the balance between gentleness and ruthlessness (each prone to decay to the average position)
And there you have it.
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4) Infamy wastes space in the pie
Why should infamy hurt your character? Do we really want to discourage controversial behavior?
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Overcomplicated and over-thought.
Stats shouldn't be overly complicated.
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I actually like it, what would need to be simplified?
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Tom,
Ok, so I'll take out my simplification machete chop the idea to pieces:
1) One stat for brutality-gentleness continuum. Brutal characters get bonus for brutal actions and a slight damage bonus in melee combat. Gentle characters get bonus in courtier type activities. Brutal characters are not as efficient with courtier type work and vice versa.
2) One stat for player given reputation. Good reputation would be beneficial in lordship positions and perhaps in the realm council (especially ruler). In essence good reputation would work towards making a statement about "who would you like to see in leadership positions". Comparisons would be made on realm level. Not sure what infamy would accomplish here, nor if more is even required than "negative or controversial stigma".
3) One stat for combat activity. The more you have it, the more troops you can command. Call it experience or whatever, but basically the more you march with you men, the better you are at commanding large groups of men. Reduces gradually when not gained regularly.
4) One stat for valor. You gain it when you assault cities and strongholds successfully. Valor levels are compared individually for each realm and are always relative values. Only top 50% valorous characters can recruit cavalry, and only top 20% can recruit special forces.
The good-evil continuum fleshes out some personality for the character, and here the ends balance out each other. You can't have it all. It's good to be a brutal lord on the fringe regions that need high control, but being nice has its benefits too. Player given reputation encourages rulers and dukes to appoint lords that the noble population in general sees as fit for leadership (if the candidates are otherwise equal). Infamy gives bad reputation which gives nice first impression effects for real social interaction. The two military stats encourage participation in war, and since they are reduced over time (especially combat activity), it works a little like "too much peace". Monsters and undead wouldn't count here.
There might be room here still for a third combat stat to measure the success of a character in battles, but as you said, that may be tricky to evaluate.
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With not only knowing the basic ideals/guidelines real medieval nobles strove to keep/follow, (although with some nobles being rather loose in their interpretations of them :) ) but also having written evidence of what deeds/acts they themselves perceived as worthy of either praise or reproach, would it not be possible have the new system based on the three ideals seen as most important to them, insomuch as Honour, Prowess and Largesse?, being as those took into consideration everything from tournaments to piety ect.
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have the new system based on the three ideals seen as most important to them, insomuch as Honour, Prowess and Largesse?, being as those took into consideration everything from tournaments to piety ect.
Please elaborate. That sounds like an interesting approach.
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It seems from what I've learnt about knights specifiably and medieval nobles in general they mostly all admired, and indeed attempted be admired for, three things in particular,....
1/ Honour such as that gained by various things like serving the realm/their liege dutifully, taking part in it's/his wars, behaving nobly and being of good character ect, as likewise that conferred by status, pious and chivalric acts or other deeds worthy of mention.
2/ Prowess as exemplified by that displayed in battle, tournaments or having accomplished some great feat of arms.
3/ Largaresse, part of the means that knights in particular used to elevate/distance different themselves from other classes, the bourgeois for example, insomuch as it's not how much gold ect you have, but how you use/display it that is the true proof of nobility.
So I thought that since many of the things BM nobles are able do come within those 3 brackets they could be used as a template for the new system of being rewarded for stuff.
A great understanding/insight on these things can be found by reading Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe by Richard W. Kaeuper, as not only details in full this kind of stuff, but also gives a damn good look into medieval society in general.
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It sounds like a good approach.
I also take inspiration from the system used in the Pendragon roleplaying game. There are a number of values there that are set on a continuum where no end is the "bad" one, as both ends have their advantages and disadvantages, and in fact some people might prefer a balance over either.
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Longmane,
This is a very appealing approach. Three stats is not overly complicated, yet it should be complex enough for the needs of a game. All of these three seem to be about appearances that are based on the choices an individual knight makes.
1) Honour, as you describe it here, would best be left with the players to decide. It is something quite intangible and hard to define exactly, with much room for debate. But it does sound very much like something that the noble society as a whole would know how to measure. You could give out "honor marks" (one / target character), where the ruler would have the most marks and a simple knight just a few. Foreign marks count for half, and marks received from your liege count as double.
2) Prowess, on the other hand, could be calculated by the game, and could gradually diminish over time. The game would keep a track of important events (winning a tournament or a duel, participating in a conquest of a city etc.) and have a base value calculated for that, which does not diminish (or does so very slowly). On top of that there would be the more fluctuating value calculated on more mundane battles and such. Add them together and we have your current prowess.
3) Largesse, however, is the trickiest of them all. Hosting a tournament and setting a decent prize for it would definitely count, as would family investments to a region - especially to one that is not where you have your estate. Or it could be doing civil or courtier work outside of your own region, if using your time could be included as well as using your gold. Maybe giving a unique item (in a good condition) to another noble could count as well (and once given out, the item would no longer give largesse bonuses). Still there is a strong feeling that an ordinary knight should be able to gain it as well, and I then need to again mention banquets and hunts held in his estate, where he can choose how much gold he spends on the arrangements.
Then there is the question of what these stats would actually accomplish. Right now honor and prestige become rather meaningless after a certain point, so I would really like to see all of them displayed in relative terms based on all the values in a realm (and when viewed individually, a comparison with your own stats). This would prevent all kinds of farming of a certain stat encouraged by the realm. If everyone displays much prowess, nobody stand out.
The effects of prowess might be the easiest to determine. Those with most prowess could recruit the largest number of men and also have access to all the types of units. Those with very little prowess (relatively speaking) can only dream of recruiting special forces and cavalry, and would not be able to have all that many archers or infantrymen either. Perhaps the very best archers and infantry units would be out of their reach as well. It's simple and intuitive.
Honour, on the other hand, could have a broader effect. Since it really is a statement about who you would like to succeed in his endeavors it could reflect that by giving a morale bonus to your unit and have your courtier activities be more efficient. Perhaps the peasants would be happier with a honorable lord as well, and all the peasants would be more loyal if the ruler of the realm was one of the most honorable nobles in the realm. Having a honorable general and marshal could have some positive effects, etc. This would encourage the characters to act in a way which would encourage the nobles with strong titles to value you more than the guy next to you.
Largesse is the true challenge here. If you spend your gold in ways not directly giving a benefit to the realm, the players will not appreciate that. Even if you manage to have a higher stat, it should not mean to the players that this is the one who wastes their gold and this is why they are losing the war. So whatever the activities are that gain you largesse, they should give real and tangible benefits to the others while nothing by itself to you.
The actual stat would tell the others what a nice guy you are, but what else would it give? Perhaps that by itself would be enough? High largesse might indirectly help you to get honor marks from the others. Or could it be that whatever you do to gain largesse gets more efficient with a high relative value? That in turn makes it a feedback loop, which is not nice. My mind is frozen here and I can think of nothing else but random benefits that you get here and there. "The reputation of your largesse gives you X."
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Larguesse was by it's very nature able be used mostly in a somewhat self-serving manner, as let's remember the whole idea behind it was to enable nobles show off their chivalric generosity big style.
And so while agreeing it might be a challenge in one way it would not only be an interesting one, but could also be an enjoyable one.
The thing is we need also remember that point about it I said earlier, it's was "how you used and displayed" your wealth that mattered, insomuch as it was not simply a matter of dressing in the finest robes and dripping with gold and silver or building yourself a magnificent dwelling ect, as those kind of things could be done by anyone with wealth, no the thing with Largesse is that it had to be unselfish and for the betterment of others, or at the least was mostly able to be portrayed that way. (even if most of the other nobles themselves knew/suspected otherwise :)
So you would be talking about such stuff as tournaments and gifts, sponsorships and donations, grand banquets when funds and time allowed them or small feasts for a dozen or so companions otherwise.
That was Largesse, basic snobbery attempting to be high chivalric generosity.
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Perhaps giving a unique item to another noble for 0 gold could grant Largesse? There'd have to be something preventing two nobles from just passing items back and forth all the time for the stats.
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Or passing it around in a big circle.
Not that we've ever seen that happen before...
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Could put in stuff to prevent that. Eg:
1. Can't gain Largesse from giving away the same item, ever (the game has code in it to stop advies receiving recommendations from the same person - it'd be similar, I think).
2. A particular item can only grant Largesse once per week (fortnight? month?). Not a coder, but I'd imagine it would just need a field added to each unique item that shows the last time it granted Largesse and add one to it each day. Less than 7? No Largesse. >=7? Gives Largesse and resets the counter.
Those would stop most abuses, I'd think.
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You'd definitely need safeguards in place to prevent players gaming the system, but then again with acts of Largesse mostly being something needing being known about widely, (I mean who wants to spend generously ect unless most people know about it? :D) something like that couldn't or shouldn't be able be done unnoticed.
It would also need a way of keeping everything always on a level playing field when it comes to banquets/gifts/feasts and what have you, insomuch as you'd need the code take into account the wealth of the family concerned compared to whats spent, ie a noble with a family wealth of 3K spending 300 gold would be counted as doing nothing better then a noble with a family wealth of 1k spending 100 gold.
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It would also need a way of keeping everything always on a level playing field when it comes to banquets/gifts/feasts and what have you, insomuch as you'd need the code take into account the wealth of the family concerned compared to whats spent, ie a noble with a family wealth of 3K spending 300 gold would be counted as doing nothing better then a noble with a family wealth of 1k spending 100 gold.
That's a good point. Also, the amount of Largesse you got for any particular action should also consider how much Largesse you already have. Doing the same thing over and over and over shouldn't continue to keep gaining you more and more Largesse.
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Could put in stuff to prevent that. Eg:
1. Can't gain Largesse from giving away the same item, ever (the game has code in it to stop advies receiving recommendations from the same person - it'd be similar, I think).
2. A particular item can only grant Largesse once per week (fortnight? month?). Not a coder, but I'd imagine it would just need a field added to each unique item that shows the last time it granted Largesse and add one to it each day. Less than 7? No Largesse. >=7? Gives Largesse and resets the counter.
Those would stop most abuses, I'd think.
That would be quite a bit of data to keep track of.
Should not Largesse be a publicly available value? i.e. private gifts should not count towards it? Having private transactions affect a trait is bound to be optimally exploited regardless of these restrictions on the item or player.
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That follows my line of reasoning somewhat about acts of Largesse being made public knowledge, excepting mine is mostly because it simply only makes sense a noble would "want" such a thing known far and wide, otherwise it's a waste of time and effort as it gains you no brownie points :)
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What about the mystery and intrigue of the "anonymous benefactor"? :)
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2. A particular item can only grant Largesse once per week (fortnight? month?). Not a coder, but I'd imagine it would just need a field added to each unique item that shows the last time it granted Largesse and add one to it each day. Less than 7? No Largesse. >=7? Gives Largesse and resets the counter.
Better way--create a field for each item called LastLargesseGrant (or whatever) and have it store a DateTime stamp of the last time the Largesse was granted. No counter necessary--just whenever the person goes to do a grant, deny it if the time isn't expired, or allow it if it has (and update the field).
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Better way--create a field for each item called LastLargesseGrant (or whatever) and have it store a DateTime stamp of the last time the Largesse was granted. No counter necessary--just whenever the person goes to do a grant, deny it if the time isn't expired, or allow it if it has (and update the field).
So you can still pass the item around, you just need to wait longer for it. It slows the exploit down but the exploit remains.
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Just give the item one Largesse point that is spent if a noble gives it to another noble without cost. If the item does not have it, it's already "second hand". Or leave the items out of Largesse completely.
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Should not Largesse be a publicly available value? i.e. private gifts should not count towards it? Having private transactions affect a trait is bound to be optimally exploited regardless of these restrictions on the item or player.
So make it public. Have it announced as a realm-wide event when a noble gifts another noble an item. If my ruler gave another ruler a unique and powerful item, he'd certainly be making it public knowledge, with or without game mechanics.
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That's right. With largesse you need to have such mechanics. It is, after all, all about making a fuss about something. It could be as simple as choosing between "trading" and "gifting", where gifting always generates a message, while trading never does, even with 0 "price".
The same could work with handing out gold for whatever reason. If you donate to the temple, you could do it discreetly or with trumpets and trinkets. If you choose the trumpet, it does not count towards your balance in a guild or religion. The game should not follow exact numerical amounts with largesse when choosing whether to give an increase in a stat or not, but would rather make a comparison with the weekly income average for several previous weeks. It's not the total gold at hand which counts, but the income.
It gets a bit trickier with gold transfers between nobles. Again, you could either do it discreetly or with a great pomp. Or to do it the other way around, an individual could declare a need for a certain amount of gold with reasons as to towards which end the gold is needed. Then whoever in the vicinity of a bank could make that transfer and it would be made public. Again, if a knight needs 100 gold for refit, it is peanuts for a duke, but if another knight chooses to hand it out, it would give him a much greater stats bonus.
Sure, this could be gamed such that a wealthy duke gives 1000 gold to a knight who in turn proceeds to hand it out lavishly. But such behavior would be eyed with suspicion by the players, and a corresponding hit to honor would follow. Besides, if largesse was tracked as a value relative to the largesse of the other realm members, you could never increase largesse benefits for all the members of the realm.
Actually all of the three stats could be seen as PvP within a realm, where someone making a gain causes someone else to gain a loss. Largesse would be one way for a new knight to begin to make a name for himself, which would alert the other nobles to outbid him with more largesse. "No no no, I insist, I want to pay for the enlargement of the guild hall! - Very well, you do that, but I will enlarge it even further!!" Which in real life is ridiculous, but for us in BM it could be fun.
There is still the question as to what high largesse would gain for a character in addition to his reputation. One possibility could be that high largesse would have a positive influence on the "honor marks" I have mentioned earlier. You could not influence your own honor directly, but you could influence how much honor you can give to the others.
Or you could see the stats as a threefold split where each stat represents how different groups see you. Honor tells you your reputation among the nobility. Prowess is how the soldiers see you, and largesse is how the peasants value you. With high largesse then you would get morale bonus for the peasants under your control. Ie. if your estate covers 30%, your largesse would influence the 30% of the peasant morale in the region. If you are a lord, you influence the whole region. If you are a duke, your largesse influences the entire duchy. And if you are a ruler, it is the whole realm.
Additionally it could be that knights with high largesse would be somehow better able to deal with the peasants. Their police work would be more effective, as the peasants would help them. Their civil work would be more effective. They would get quite detailed information from the peasants, and perhaps some useful rumors as well. Perhaps they would occasionally even gain volunteers from the peasants to join their units.
Granted this is not entirely logical, as the actions that gain you largesse might not necessarily have any benefit towards the peasants. But it could work the other way around in such a way that looting, harsh courts and such could get you a negative largesse hit. Perhaps characters with low largesse would be more effective in such harsh actions. Again, not entirely related here, but largesse could fill that role.
Perhaps, indeed, having average largesse would also give some benefits. Or rather, having largesse in the extreme in either way would give some very specific benefits, but more penalties the other way around. You could either be loved by the common folk or have them in your iron grip, but not both.
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My turn:
We will have one and only one player-driven attribute. It will be called "Reputation". It will work a bit like the medals do, i.e. you can give other players points for good or bad reputation. They will be counted seperately so that you have a "total reputation" and then that total reputation is either good or bad depending on which value is higher. There will be limits so it can't be easily gamed.
Prowess sounds a lot like the battle experience attribute I already proposed. I will merge some ideas. Basically, the game could track a few simple statistics about a character. In fact, after thinking about it, I believe that six numbers will allow us to calculate everything else from there, namely the number of battles fought and the number of battles won in three categories: outnumbering the enemy, evenly-matched, being outnumbered. From that we can calculate the total number of battles as well as the total number of victories, and also whether the guy likes to take a risk or plays it save.
Largesse I would base on actions that cost gold, but are not strictly necessary. Spending money for extra stuff because you can. Family investments, donations to temples, entertainment for your men when their morale is already good, throwing rounds of drinks at the tournament, etc. etc. Potentially also for future actions relating to improving your estate, etc.
But we also need an attribute to capture things like civil work, trading, looting, etc. I don't yet have a name, but I am still thinking along the lines of the love/fear principle - a stat that captures how your character treats peasants. Not in a morally judging way, in fact both oppressing and aiding them would have advantages on related actions, but make the opposites more difficult. So if you are known for oppressing people, then they will give up their gold more readily when you loot them, but you would have a more difficult time doing civil work. And vice versa.
And finally - and I think 5 really is the upper limit - I would like to retain something like "prestige" as a simple measure of how well you are known. Basically, an attribute that gets a boost whenever your name is mentioned. Whenever you do something that is reported to others. It would automatically drop slowly if you don't do anything.
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Will some of this will also be available for priests?
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Will some of this will also be available for priests?
It would seem from the looks of it that priests would have most everything except of course prowess. They would be tagged for reputation just like everyone else, and could very well perform actions that gained them largesse. They already have a variety of way they can influence the peasants. So scaring them and badmouthing some realm might be seen as generating fear, as well as persecuting infidels. Improving morale and lauding a realm do the opposite. And priests are frequently mentioned, as they preach frequently, so prestige is there for them to grab as well.
At least this is how it could be done, and I don't see why not.
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Sounds good Tom, as not offers plenty of scope for being able encompass everything required game-wise "and" what most players could want/need right from the off, but also with just as much scope, if not more, for future tweaking/add ons :)
I do think it would be neat if we could have a few extra options added for actions that gain Largesse in it though, as likewise a few that can gain nobles points toward something via Piety, stuff like pilgrimages to where a religion founder was born or/and had their vision, donating to their faith, sponsoring one of it's temples upkeep ect, as not only spot on for those who play priests, but might also hopefully help push the religion part of the game more, as might encourage other players to want their own chars "be more pious" what with cookies (points) being up for grabs 8)
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We will have one and only one player-driven attribute. It will be called "Reputation". It will work a bit like the medals do, i.e. you can give other players points for good or bad reputation. They will be counted seperately so that you have a "total reputation" and then that total reputation is either good or bad depending on which value is higher. There will be limits so it can't be easily gamed.
Would reputation actually change any ingame attributes, or would it simply be something visible about your character that others can form a first impression off of?
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Would reputation actually change any ingame attributes, or would it simply be something visible about your character that others can form a first impression off of?
Likely the latter to reduce ways of gaming the system.
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I prefer the latter, its more of a roleplay stat in my mind. Do they have that character roleplaying someone evil or is it someone good. The negating is good because some people might do something that is evil but looks like a good thing to do. Or if a player is know for betrayal they will have lots of evil. Another scenario is a duke/lord combo doesn't get himself a giant unit but spreads the wealth among more than just his knights perhaps giving his entire tax away to help the army during a refit would earn him good marks showing he is a kind character.
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Likely the latter to reduce ways of gaming the system.
In that case, I think it would be better to tally both sides, rather than having them negate eachother. Someone who had lots of both would be seen as a controversial figure, while someone with a flat 0 would be seen as a nobody.
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In that case, I think it would be better to tally both sides, rather than having them negate eachother. Someone who had lots of both would be seen as a controversial figure, while someone with a flat 0 would be seen as a nobody.
When implemented, it would not be a simple tally. It would need to be more than that to be robust. I've seen a few research papers of trust models, including one Tom has on the dev wiki. Don't worry about this value, it will be accurate. :)
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In that case, I think it would be better to tally both sides, rather than having them negate eachother. Someone who had lots of both would be seen as a controversial figure, while someone with a flat 0 would be seen as a nobody.
That's exactly what I have in mind.
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Could it be such that if the good and bad reputation were quite close to one another, it could be displayed as "controversial" instead of "good" or "bad"? It would seem rather strange if one or two votes were enough to change bad reputation to good.
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Could it be such that if the good and bad reputation were quite close to one another, it could be displayed as "controversial" instead of "good" or "bad"? It would seem rather strange if one or two votes were enough to change bad reputation to good.
Controversy should be abs(good-bad)-(good+bad) (assuming that good is positive and bad is negative).
Thus, if someone is mostly good or bad, their controversy will be low, but the more of both they have, the more controversial they will be.
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Frankly, that's details.
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Tom,
So you do not want very defined details at this point. What we have now is a set of five stats (combat experience, fame, love-fear, largesse and then some sort of prestige). But what each of them accomplish is not at all clear. Combat experience helps you with the troops, and love-fear defines your success in related activities. But the rest of it seems to be hanging in the air still.
Are you aiming at all of them having an effect in the game? I suppose fame could be the one that did not have an effect (though I still hope it would have some), but what I am most concerned with is largesse and prestige. Would you like us to throw ideas about them at this time?
Also you mentioned that you wanted to have the stats "balance each other". What does that mean?
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Yes, the next step is to have some kind of logical system for what each attribute gains you.
And I do think combinations are powerful. While troop things would be largely determined by the combat experience thing, some other attribute could also play in. Say, men are willing to sign up with an inexperienced but famous leader.
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So you want stats effects to have a bit of an overlap with other stat's effects?
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I'm wondering if Largesse or/and Prestige could be used boost any action/circumstance involving swaying others, ie more chance of engendering/maintaining loyalty of a regions population if it's lord and things involving diplomacy or leading/recruiting troops ect, as while the latter shows what a renowned noble you are, the former shows what a damn generous and all round nice sort you are.
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I can definently see how being generous would result in being able to have a larger recruitment size. The soldiers hope you will be generous with them and give them extra money.
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Largesse could have disadvantages too if you have "too much" of it. If you have such reputation, it could very well be that most everything you do will cost you a little extra. Troops expect a little more in the ways of payment, buildings cost more etc. But then benefits would need to outweigh the disadvantage. Low largesse should have disadvantages too. It could be that your men start to get worried about their payments sooner and are more likely to desert. Someone with high largesse could get away with delayed payments longer.
There could be some minor disadvantage for having a high number in any of the stats, but so that the advantages still generally outweigh them. An experienced warrior could inspire too much fear at times, and being too famous sometimes closes some opportunities.
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Largesse could have disadvantages too if you have "too much" of it.
Let me stop this before it goes off the deep again. Absolutely nothing like this is going to happen to attributes, period. Too complicated, too intransparent, not enough positive gameplay effect, this is being realistic for realism sake, nor for gameplay advantages. It's a cute idea, but utterly unplayable.
If you want to discuss it, open a new topic. Any further discussion of this particular point will be immediately deleted so this topic doesn't go off on tangents.
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Tom,
I suppose the feature requests sub-forum is like an organic garden. If you want some fruit, someone needs to be constantly weeding it. So, positive effects only then, except for the love-fear continuum.
The stats could be beneficial in a number of ways in addition to their most obvious bonuses. It would be nice if lords sought and competed over the best knights in the realm based on their stats, and those knights with the most beneficial stats would generally be given the largest and most important estates. The character stats could effect the regional stats with some slight positive influence where the size of the estate (number of peasants covered) acted as a multiplier. With a 40% estate your stats influence 40% of the peasants.
A knight (or lord) with high combat experience would make the peasants proud of him, thus increasing realm loyalty a little. With high largesse it would be assumed you would behave in the same jovial way towards the peasants in your estate, thus improving morale slightly. There could be similar benefit for the rest of the stats as well, where one character stat matches with one regional stat in a rather straightforward and easy-got-grasp manner.
Granted, this would be more like a side-effect than the main benefit you get from the stat. But this is one way the stats would complement one another, and would thus all be sought after qualities when looking for a vassal.
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So, positive effects only then, except for the love-fear continuum.
I said positive gameplay effect. That doesn't have to be beneficial for the character.
And I don't want to turn this into an attributes-heavy game. People should compete on roleplaying, the attributes are nice and should provide incentives, but they should not be too important.
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I think it would be nice if whatever replacing Presitge/Honour could show how you play and RP your character. Giving others who they are dealing with.
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I said positive gameplay effect. That doesn't have to be beneficial for the character.
And I don't want to turn this into an attributes-heavy game. People should compete on roleplaying, the attributes are nice and should provide incentives, but they should not be too important.
Ok. It just seems that largesse, while an interesting aspect of chivalric life, does not easily find its role with game mechanics. Thus I am throwing in ideas and concepts that might give some flesh around the bones, or perhaps help someone else do it better than I do. Just to check if I have understood your purpose here, would something like this be positive for gameplay:
High largesse:
- Recruit more men (not as many as with high combat experience but still some)
- When you are unable to pay them in time, they wait for your payment more patiently, but still demand the full pay at the end OR
- With high largesse, you get a button in troop payment options that says "delay payment, promise to pay +50% wages later" which lets you get away with not paying them for a little longer, but if you fail to pay them full within a week, they desert you in bloc and you get severe largesse penalty hit.
- With very low (next to zero) largesse you get a discount in recruiting (perhaps in payments too), but a severe penalty in the number of men you get. This would help poor knights to at least get some men, and encourage to maintain at least a minimal level of largesse for the others. Donating just a few coins to a temple here and there could help you beyond that threshold, so it would essentially be a choice if you had zero largesse - if you really are that poor. And if you are, you would not be recruiting that many men anyway.
By themselves these proposals are not enough to make largesse meaningful, but it's a step. I am especially fond of the idea that zero (or next to zero) largesse gives penalties and thus directs the players automatically towards behavior that gains largesse, even if the gestures in themselves are rather symbolic. But for this it would need to be very easy to get past the zero largesse threshold and so that giving something like 10 gold to a temple should keep you safely above the limit for quite some time for it not become an annoyance.
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Do I understand correctly that you're saying Largesse would be something the player sets for his character, instead of an attribute the game calculates?
Basically, characters with high largesse pay more for everything, but get assorted advantages in return. Characters with low largesse pay less for everything, but are seen as cheap with associated penalties?
That's an interesting approach of reversing things, I like it.
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Do I understand correctly that you're saying Largesse would be something the player sets for his character, instead of an attribute the game calculates?
Well, yes and no. I am not proposing that you could set the Largesse value in some menu, but rather that there are some pretty obvious ways for you to bump it higher, but you could also, if you so desired, to refrain from these "bumps" which would let your largesse either remain low or gradually fall to zero. So, not total control, but predictable ways for either raising or maintaining it, or letting it drop. The higher the value, the more you need to maintain it with frequent donations and such.
Sort of like a barrel with many holes in it. The higher you want the water level to be, the more you need to keep filling it. Your income (or average income of past 4 weeks or so) determines the size of the barrel.
Basically, characters with high largesse pay more for everything, but get assorted advantages in return. Characters with low largesse pay less for everything, but are seen as cheap with associated penalties?
Yes, basically so. New characters with little income probably should refrain from donations until they have sufficient weekly gold flow. They get their little bonuses for being poor and really do not miss out the advantages of high largesse, as all of them would require extra gold at hand - which is just the thing the poor knight does not have anyway. The penalties, however, should be such that they would severely limit those characters who have the gold, while being next to meaningless to the truly poor.
The largesse bonuses could could generally be the kind that you can ask your men or your peasants or lower nobility to put up with some nasty condition right now, but later on you will make it worth their while. It would be sort of like credit with interest, like in my example of delayed troop payment. Those with a reputation of generosity are trusted to both have the ability and willingness to pay for what they have promised. Scrooges on the other hand are viewed with suspicion.
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That kind of solves the problem I had with this being player-controlled - the ability to game it.
So it would be a value that can be changed not as a button, but via doing a few well-known actions. Which means changing it takes time and possibly gold.
I like it.
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That kind of solves the problem I had with this being player-controlled - the ability to game it.
So it would be a value that can be changed not as a button, but via doing a few well-known actions. Which means changing it takes time and possibly gold.
Well yeah, in this model you basically need gold to raise it and time to lower it, so no instant changes back and forth there. There could also be a sort of a cap where you can not increase it dramatically, but have to increase it over time. You would need to give away more than you have to increase Largesse, but if you give ridiculous amounts, it helps you to gain it faster but not in the proportion of gold given. Diminishing returns and all that.
Those limited ways of increasing Largesse could be:
- Donations to temple
- Investing in regions not your own
- Offer drinks at tournaments
It would be good if donations to a temple were the most typical way of gaining and maintaining largesse. This would create a stronger bond between religion and character. If a character were dissatisfied with the dominant religion in the realm, he could go out of his way to have at least one temple of a more suitable religion nearby.
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That kind of solves the problem I had with this being player-controlled - the ability to game it.
So it would be a value that can be changed not as a button, but via doing a few well-known actions. Which means changing it takes time and possibly gold.
I like it.
Sounds like I envision it would somehow be back then in all truth, insomuch as the more your willing spread around proving what a jolly good sort you are, especially if it's in the right circles, the more your likely gain from it in other ways!!
So definitely get's my vote as well :)
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Also a plus to having donating to temples being a main way of gaining a little largesse so your not too low it encourages players to actually be in a religion.
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I think one way of having nobles being able raise their Largesse that's hopefully relatively easy to code, (apologies to developers in advance if I'm wrong :) ) might be in having a Largesse button added to actions that shows a list of ones possible at that time, ie if one of their temples is in the region they can donate to it ect, as doing that it would not only allow the game easily log it as an act of Largesse, but also take into consideration places/situations they could or couldn't do certain things, ie can't throw a hunt if not in a rural, don't have enough gold throw a feast ect.
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How will this all be implemented? I hope you won't just wipe out everyone's Honour and Prestige and make everyone start from scratch. Everyone will be forced to have tiny units until they build up whatever the relevant stat is and no one will be able to be appointed to positions until they build up that stat.
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Its a good question but if you think about it, really hard to answer.
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And here was I thinking ye oldie question about the chicken and the egg was a difficult one :-\
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I don't know if it is in the scope of this discussion, but you could use current honor values as base figures for the future combat experience and use the old prestige as a base value for the new prestige. Give everyone average largesse value to begin with and zero fame/infamy and zero love-hate score. I don't know why it would be a problem at all.
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Its a problem because of the stats actually effecting things, so if a courtier never stepped foot in a battle yet using honor as a base which through his many ventures he has gained a lot of honor he can field a massive unit yet a stat like largesse which there are several ways that a courtier could have easily gained he will be equal to everyone else, and thats just one scenario.
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We will not start everyone at zero, but the transition will be painful for some, simply because it can't be perfect. The new attributes represent things we did not record, or not record seperately, before. So we have no way of knowing the correct new values and lots will be guesswork.
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So far there has been discussion about combat experience, love-hate, reputation and largesse, but not so much about the "new prestige", which according to Tom would be something that you get whenever the game mentions your name. It is a nice stat to have, but what would it gain you?
If combat experience influences the quality and the amount of troops you can have, and if largesse influences the amount of troops, and if Tom wants to make the stats more separate of one another, the new prestige does not seem to fit in with either increasing your troop size or their quality/type. What else is there that a stat could have an effect on?
Another limit that I think Tom has mentioned is that the stats should not have too strong a role either.
So, what benefits do the truly prestigious people have over us ordinary people? They get better service wherever they go, and what they say gains more visibility. Their opinions seem to count more. But how would something like this be modeled in a game? I do not know, so I ask all of you.
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Perhaps if we loosely equate BM's Prestige with RL Respect it might help, as just like how much respect an employer, politician, lecturer or general ect has can often affect how successful they are in their own spheres, ie who the hell would give their best/trust/take real notice of/ follow one of those if don't have much respect for them?
So it might be worth looking at what effects Respect would have in BM term, ie would a court held by a judge/lord be more effective relative to how much the locals respected them ect.
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Perhaps if we loosely equate BM's Prestige with RL Respect it might help, as just like how much respect an employer, politician, lecturer or general ect has can often affect how successful they are in their own spheres, ie who the hell would give their best/trust/take real notice of/ follow one of those if don't have much respect for them?
So it might be worth looking at what effects Respect would have in BM term, ie would a court held by a judge/lord be more effective relative to how much the locals respected them ect.
This could work. The efficiency of holding courts is certainly something that the new prestige could influence. Another one that comes to mind is investing to a region. For a successful investment you need both the gold and you also need to know the right people and have these people believe in you. So prestige would open the right doors for you to make the most of the investment. Investing in itself makes your name visible, so there's a loop there. I am not sure if that's good or bad. "Do more and get better at it" is at least a concept that is easy to grasp.
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As I do not really play the religion part of the game and usually can't join tournaments as most of my characters are in govt, I would like to see more options for gaining largess.
I like the family investments in other regions option, perhaps family investments in your own region can add to a lesser degree.
Being a sponsor of an army could add largess, so long as the treasury is kept from emptying.
I would like to see a way of sponsoring poorer region lords as getting points in this as well.
As for points for giving an item away, I have used unique items as a portable bank. Sell the item to a noble in need of gold for 0 gold, and buy it back from them at a higher price. I would therefore not want too much restriction on getting largess from giving away an item, but I recognize that there needs to be enough to keep people from gaming the system. I can think of a variety of restrictions that accomplish this without being too restrictive. They all do require saving more information with an item. I have no idea how much work this would be. How much information is saved with each item? How difficult would it be to keep track of who the previous owners are? How much they payed for the item? etc.
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I'm of the opinion that anything (or at least mostly) concerning Largesse should avoid direct personal interaction between chars, ie giving items/gold, as doing that should hopefully make if far easier prevent anybody attempting some shenanigans.
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As I do not really play the religion part of the game and usually can't join tournaments as most of my characters are in govt, I would like to see more options for gaining largess.
Why don't you play the religion game even if just as a noble doing the formalities required from him, not out of piety but out of social convention?
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I don't find it interesting. And I choose not to. Any Lord character always joins the faith of the majority of peasants, but that is where I now stop. I tried to involve myself more a few times, shortly after I did the religions died.
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Any Lord character always joins the faith of the majority of peasants,
That's something I've never done, personally. Never found a reason to do so.
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+1 for Rob. I see no need to change my RP to suit the needs of the lowly peasants. ;)
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I'm of the opinion that anything (or at least mostly) concerning Largesse should avoid direct personal interaction between chars, ie giving items/gold, as doing that should hopefully make if far easier prevent anybody attempting some shenanigans.
I am with you in this. The possibilities for exploits should be minimal. As far as I understand, making a donation to a temple is one way transaction. Sure, you could then have a rank that gives you high income as a member, and you could keep "laundering the money" with that by first donating and then drawing the gold. But having such a rank would be a risk for the religion, as you could just keep drawing the gold without donating.
I don't find it interesting. And I choose not to. Any Lord character always joins the faith of the majority of peasants, but that is where I now stop. I tried to involve myself more a few times, shortly after I did the religions died.
Perhaps, then, having Largesse to be mostly about religion is a way to encourage better religions. If people are going to be donating to some religions anyway, you need to make sure that your religion is the more interesting one.
There is also a problem with having family investments effect Largesse. Essentially it is family gold that might be generated by wealthy characters on other continents. If you are a poor knight, and if gaining largesse is tied to income (as I think it should), family investments may screw this balance. In my opinion it would be much better to tie the investments to prestige.
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Lords giving a higher percentage of their income to their knights relative to their realmmates could get a constant largesse boost?
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+1 for Rob. I see no need to change my RP to suit the needs of the lowly peasants. ;)
Also don't forget that it also works the other way around - the lord's faith does have a positive effect on his chosen religion. Peasants do change their belief in order to match the lord, over time.
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As for points for giving an item away, I have used unique items as a portable bank. Sell the item to a noble in need of gold for 0 gold, and buy it back from them at a higher price.
I'm sorry, how do you not see this as abusing mechanics? The bank restriction is there for a reason, using other systems in rather odd ways to try and circumvent it should be raising big red flags.
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And there are much better ways to get gold to people away from banks. Guildhouses, temples and secret societies all have treasuries that can be drawn from by anyone in the region with access. I've used secret societies as forward banks of sorts, allowing people to stay in the field for weeks on end without seeing a bank.
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I don't find it interesting. And I choose not to. Any Lord character always joins the faith of the majority of peasants, but that is where I now stop. I tried to involve myself more a few times, shortly after I did the religions died.
So you tried to make something interesting out of some religions, and they failed, and now refuse to even join one, or give any other religion a shot?
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I join religions still, they are just part of the game that I tried and did not interest me.
As for the items, if getting gold to someone by using an item is frowned uppon I will stop (I don't think I came up with the idea, so somewhere it is being used by others). Guilds etc. only work to get gold to people if there is a guild. In newly conquered regions with very low production no guilds and 80+ hours away from a bank (think Desert of Silhouettes in D'Hara), the item exchange seems like a perfect option.
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Try other religions, I'd say, if yours suck.
On using items, it's not a risk-free method, so it's not so bad in my opinion.
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Perhaps, then, having Largesse to be mostly about religion is a way to encourage better religions. If people are going to be donating to some religions anyway, you need to make sure that your religion is the more interesting one.
I'm thinking that such actions as donating to temples/religions should gain a char points towards both Largesse AND something tied to piety, perhaps honor, as that way your not only able still get Largesse through other means, but also something else to hopefully help encourage players make their chars more interested in religion.
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There is also a problem with having family investments effect Largesse. Essentially it is family gold that might be generated by wealthy characters on other continents. If you are a poor knight, and if gaining largesse is tied to income (as I think it should), family investments may screw this balance. In my opinion it would be much better to tie the investments to prestige.
My own preference would be that you can only perform acts of Largesse with gold actually on hand, thereby both dealing with the possible unfair advantage of those with more wealthy families, but also meaning it would sometimes take a while for a char get the gold together to perform one.
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Tom,
You said you would prefer to see actions related to Largesse to only deal with that, and not have actions that influence many different stats at the time. This makes for an easier to grasp and more intuitive gameplay. Does this also mean that the stats should not influence the same things? Right now, I believe, you have suggested that both combat experience and Largesse would influence the number of troops one can recruit. Is this an exception or a rule?
You originally said that the stats are to balance each other. If you can gain some goodie from both stat A and B, it gives the characters more options to gain the same thing (and put together, an amplified effect). But it does make it a little bit more fuzzy. So which of them do you prefer? Or have I misunderstood something?
It's important to know this distinction in order to make suggestions that are in line with what you want for the stats to accomplish.
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Despite my inexperience with this game relative to all of you, I'd like to offer some suggestions, if I could. Hopefully you like at least some of what I wrote here, and that at least some of it is new. Each stat could be represented by a blue/red bar that has a total fixed width with a small icon on either side of it.
Reputation (icons: +/-) - The "player-driven" stat; much like medals, each player can rate the "reputation" of the character. Whether he upholds his bargains, follows his superiors and values his subordinates, or uses people as far as he can and kicks them to the curb. This is a roleplay statistic without mechanical effects. The blue is "positive" reputation, and the red is "negative" reputation; each bar would be sized to reflect the % of positive and negative votes. So, someone with 10 votes positive and 10 negative would have a bar that is half red and half blue, but someone with 10 positive and 5 negative votes would have a bar that is two-thirds blue and one-third red.
Prowess (icons: shield/shield with crossed swords in front)- The "military stat" which increases as your character gains combat experience, this represents a noble's ability to command a unit effectively, and command the loyalty of his men. More prowess is always good, and could be on a scale of 1 to 100, filling blue as you gain prowess. With higher prowess (blue bar), your men can fight more effectively (CS boost, or cohesion boost?), are less likely to break in battle and you can lead more men due to your reputation as a good commander. Heroes and Cavaliers could receive a bonus to prowess that replaces their class ability to lead more men (and maybe have a minimum prowess requirement, similar to their current minimum honor requirement?).
Largesse (closed coin purse/open treasure chest) - This stat shows how generous your character is with his or her personal wealth. A double-edged sword statistic, both high and low largesse will give you bonuses mitigated by small penalties. Largesse can be raised by depositing gold at a temple, buying drinks at tournaments or for your men when morale is high; it will decrease over time, requiring an expenditure of gold to maintain high largesse (as well it should). As your character's largesse increases (blue bar), the size of unit you can command will increase, as will the effectiveness of your civil and police work and your men will wait longer for you to pay them, trusting that you *will* pay them eventually; however, a character who is generous may also be taken advantage of, and you will spend more money on unit upkeep. As your character's largesse falls (red bar), the size of unit you command will decrease and your men will grumble sooner if left unpaid; however, you will pay less money in unit upkeep, and your stingy ways make construction in your region or estate cheaper.
Brutality (closed fist/open hand) - This stat shows how much you are loved or feared by the peasantry and is another double-edged sword stat. As your character's brutality increases (red bar), the effectiveness of your police work, looting and hostile takeover actions is increased, and the control in your character's region (smaller cross-duchy effect for Dukes, and cross-realm effect for Kings) is increased; however, the morale in your character's region (and duchy for Dukes, and realms for Kings) is decreased and your friendly takeover actions and civil work are less effective; further, enemy friendly takeover actions are more effective as they are seen as liberators from your cruel oppression. As brutality decreases (blue bar), the effectiveness of your civil work and friendly takeover actions is increased, and the morale in your character's region (/duchy/realm) is increased; however, the control in your character's region (/duchy/realm) is decreased and your hostile takeover actions are less effective; further, enemy hostile takeover actions are more effective, as the peasants question how all your kindness is helping them now. The stat increases by taking actions that it boosts (only police work that boosts it is hanging rebels) and is lowered by taking actions that it hurts.
Prestige (helmet/crown) - This stat shows how much work you do for your realm and increases any time you take an action that is reported to someone within your realm. This includes civil work, preaching, bureaucratic work, police work, sharing new scout reports with your army, holding court and participating in battles. It affects everything you do in a positive way by making your actions a little bit more effective and increasing the size of unit you can command, while decreasing the amount you have to pay slightly simply because the peasants consider it a privilege to bask in your greatness.
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That's a pretty cool summary right there. If someone from the dev team can put it on the Trac, that would be splendid.
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OFaolain,
That not only seems encompass everything wanted/needed but also in such a easily understood way. 8)
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OFaolain,
Yes, it is good to see it all put together from the fragments. I like especially what you did with Prestige. In your model it is kind of a relative to Largesse, but where Largesse deals with donating gold, Prestige deals with giving your time for the greater good of the realm (among other things). In a way it could be seen as an "activity meter" showing not how much time you spend in front of the screen but how you use the hours of your character for the realm.
The bit about getting prestige for sharing scout reports with the army is a splendid idea. Even if some would choose to farm it for worthless reports. It all consumes precious hours and all the reports are useful to the commanders in one way or another (in what is NOT there as much as what is there). You might want to consider limiting prestige bonuses to reports of regions not within the realm of the scouter.
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I think every time your name is reported outside the realm, you should gain prestige also. Such as marshals, sponsors, unique item wielders and those who wound or capture other nobles in "Huge battle reports".
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That's a pretty cool summary right there. If someone from the dev team can put it on the Trac, that would be splendid.
Added under "NewStats".