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BM is a game, games are meant to be fun, and random negative events you have no power over aren't fun. That's all I'm saying.

That's a statement I wholeheartedly agree with. Personally, I think its far more apt when discussing the Zuma. You've checked peasant population. I'd suggest a look at noble population. Bringing them active cost players. I'd know. I was one of them. Only nostalgia has me back.

Finton.

And I'm fairly sure their nobles are encouraged to arrest any Priests they see as an active policy. At least that was how they operated unless they've changed dramatically in the last few months.

Not knowing the code at all, I can only speculate. Insurgents are tracked. Normal police work, hanging rebels, etc. The higher that particular figure is, the more likely it is you will be attacked and robbed by bandits/pirates in that region. Rogues would be the most likely, with Core control being least likely. I don't know if this is the case, but since multiple factors are involved, I'd be fairly surprised if this wasn't one of them. Not quite what you were getting at, but..

As big as regions are - and we actually know how big these days - I march my 10 troops through a region with 10 hostile enemy troops and we'll have a battle. The odds of eleven men meeting another eleven men in the likes of the Desert between LN/LV and the Grand Duchy would, you'd think, be slim. Size really doesn't matter, so in which case if there's consistency, it doesn't have to matter for your suggestion either. If this is happening more than once in a blue moon, I like your suggestion. If its as rare as most here seem to imply (first time in a long time), is it not already balanced enough? Doesn't mean your solution isn't worth implementing either way but, for all the concern about this, its not really a fix if there's no problem to be fixed.

An Elder would be more use than gold at that point. The Lords can build the first level, pay for as much expansion as needed, but they can't expand a Temple already in their lands. Counter-intuitive if you ask me. Shouldn't a Priest be required to make holy a place of worship, but adding a wing to the Temple not such a big deal? Still, not the topic. With a bit more thought over the last few hours, the most likely reason I see a Priest with loads of gold is administration/logistics. You can't transfer what's in one local treasury to another, and often you'll have a big build-up in one Temple or a group of 'em, but not a copper in others off the beaten track or with ambivalent local lords. Or, in the case of SA taking over Caerwyn's lands with VE Temple's which need their treasuries emptied because there's no chance of them staying open when their new Theocracy is established. In such a case, a Priest is ideal because they don't have the same order of fealty as Knights or Lords and won't have troops coming in that might cause something of an incident with the new residents. In that case, they actually need to take the gold, have it on them, and risk losing it to bandits. Wartorn country makes sense, but also lower control and likely other similar factors. Having an honour-guard escort them as far north as they can go before meeting Astrum's armies would, in that context, make sense.

Yes, thank you, that was my point.  Some people end up carrying massive amounts of gold without much of a choice in the matter.  All well and good for a noble with troops, but apparently no longer for a priest.

Perhaps the risk is tiny, perhaps it is not -- given no one seems to know when this changed, the fact that it's happened once so far could mean a lot of things.
Yes.  Actually, there is.  Stocking temple treasuries, building expansions to temples . . . I suppose we don't need to do those things (and certainly, not all priests do them) . . . normal nobles also don't need to fight other nobles when their realms are at war, though.

Yep. Normal nobles can be courtiers too if they want. Wars = wartorn regions = plenty of work for courtiers.

If a Priest can't convince and/or trust a single other noble to move gold with their troops guarding it for them, that Priest should retire. It'd be better for their family, because clearly that Priest isn't achieving much. Should they have to? No. And they don't. One in a hundred chance, I said earlier, and that was probably more often than it happens. If they want no chance of getting robbed by bandits/pirates, get someone who can hire troops. Making "guard units" or whatever seems a waste of time to me.

I think you're being ridiculously offended at the fact that it can happen, though its only happened once. If it happened every day to you, I'd say Tom doesn't like you. If it happens every day to Priests everywhere, its out of order. But its a reasonable risk when moving that much gold (and no risk to bonds, let's remember) and no one here, not even me, is saying that Priests can't have gold on hand. ITS HAPPENED ONCE. Its a means by which to take gold out of the economy, from characters that otherwise spend very little personally. If you're offended by that, by the possibility that you might lose all that gold, then don't carry it. If you want to carry that much, accept the risk. Those of us with troops marching into battle with plenty of gold to simply pay men (therefore disappearing it out of the economy) have a far higher risk of getting captured and robbed by the enemy judge.

THAT happens far more than just once.

I never said they took 100% of the gold I had.

You didn't, but it seems most of us assumed you did. Heh, rarity factor.

I like to carry 5'000 gold because, on the right occasion, you can buy people with that kind of money. Sometimes, whole realms. Is that good enough for you?

And I maintain my point. No one needs gold. Everyone wants gold, priests or not.

Yep. I've bought and paid for plenty of support. Its part of why I enjoy playing Republics. Get Duke. Bankroll whatever election you want. Not necessarily gain power, but gain major influence over your country. For me, that's a fairly good example. Bonds don't transfer realms, gold does in at least three ways that I've thought of off the top of my head.

Not so agreeing on the Diplomats, since they don't require hundreds, let alone thousands, of gold on person unless you're doing a Hireshmont-style tour of the continent. At least in my experience. Doubt expenses have spiked while I've been gone.

So yes, Priests might need hundreds or thousands of gold on hand, and not strictly for a predefined purpose. Having it handy, so to speak. That's if you're involved at that level, but if you have that much coin with you, you probably are.

Thanks for pointing that out, vonGenf. I wasn't advocating that Priests should have a limit on their cash-at-hand, nor trying to make an argument for more regular bandit/pirate attacks but I genuinely could not think of a suitable reason why you'd want to, let alone need to, have that much in gold instead of bonds or in the temple treasuries. Alternatively, I don't think a one in a hundred chance (picked a number out of the sky, obviously) or whatever it is negatively impacts Priests more than anyone else. If Priests face this, then warriors/courtiers without troops probably do too.

Anywho, yah, interesting discussion.

Finton.

Finton.

[NEED]

My point was need. A Priest may want to for whatever reasons, but I'm fairly certain that there's nothing they NEED thousands of gold on hand for. Hate it all you want, though I do agree that seems a bit strong, but can you give me a 'for instance'? You didn't in your post and I was/am pulling blanks. I'll happily concede the point (what's it to me?), but not on the basis that other classes and play-styles don't need hundreds or thousands of gold on hand either because we're talking about Priests, not other classes. Sticking with Priests then, I'll stick to the fact that nothing they do requires them to do laps of their continent with more money than Gold (or whatever deity it is they follow).

Here's the disclaimer: Priests may not need thousands of gold on them, but if a Priest is fantastically rich and wants to carry all or some of that wealth with him, that's the Priest's choice. They may not need to, but I'm hardly saying they shouldn't be able to if for whatever reason. Sure there's a question of bravery or stupidity, but that's more for IC imo.

Finton.

[need]

the tax thing... did i mention there should be a toggle so you can decide your taxes come in bonds or gold whilst within realm?

I like that idea myself. If I am a troop-carrier, having gold-on-hand to pay for troops, entertainment, etc. is obviously the ideal. If I'm trading though, I need bonds, not gold. There might have been a balance issue where defending forces need to refit less often because of it, but I figure that's not a bad balance to set. Probably don't know the full implications of this myself, but I'd suggest posting it in the ideas part of the forum. Something to look at at least, I'd hope.

On topic. Religions need nobles to survive and to expand. That hasn't changed since I started playing and I doubt it ever will. Priests do not need to carry thousands or even hundreds of gold on their person. They have no reason to and while others might think its a good idea, considering that you've got that handy "Arrest Priest" option in certain cases, and Judges can liberate prisoner's gold purses, pirates and bandits are hardly the only reason why its not always a good idea. Hundreds or thousands of gold, and no guards.

That's just asking for trouble. Duh. Get a noble, with troops to actually guard against these things, to do your couriering if you don't want to take the risk. If you do want to take the risk, that's obviously your business but nothing anywhere says it has to be the best option.

Finton.

Let me first say that MI are my personal favourite troop type. No denying that they're not as good as archers with ranged or infantry with melee, but I like the combination of both. It makes them good militia, as we all know, and also makes them fairly effective at hunting rogues. Where they fall down, every time, is actually fairly stupid. They have the same tendency as archers, unless running aggressive or murderous, to retreat from melee combat every time. This is wonderful if you're fighting monsters. Your MI just keep taking shots and if they happen to get caught, they'll survive. For pitched battles, this makes MI worse than useless. While Velax was General of Arcaea, we actually had this conversation both IC and OOC.

Now, I don't want to see MI to be the next feature cut but keeping them as they are is almost painful to watch at times. So, what I am asking is if the responses of MI when acting "normal" could be changed to not have them behave like archers running from a charge but instead fire and then take the hit. This doesn't make them any more powerful. As a matter of fact, MI rarely die these days because they stay out of melee combat more often than not.

I'd have dropped this into feature requests, but as its more a change than something new, here seemed better. Might be reasons why this won't or can't be done, but its been bugging me for months now. I could either stop caring or bring it up so...

Anywho, thanks for looking at this and I look forward to feedback from devs and fellow players alike.

Regards,

Finn.

It's a conspiracy to keep Hireshmont in power.

Ah, but I've gathered the Chenier family have a long dubious (a compliment, seriously) history of this kind of thing. Maybe Hireshmont's just a lucky benefactor?

As far as I know, the republics of Dwi have their elections around mid-winter. The clock on the Realm Government page ticked down accordingly, but is now back to 90 days before the next election. Am I missing something or is this a bug?

Finn.

Remember that the duke is not necessarily the lord of the city anymore.

Trust me, people IC won't let me forget. Yet, in spite of that odd change most Lords of Cities remain as Duke's. And when that's the case (as it is in the majority of cases), where's all that fealty and stuff? Not seeing it, right now.

This is kind of an example of one of those areas where Tom wishes the game was one way, but the players just don't play it that way.

Geronus hit the nail on the head. Unless you're going to contradict the answers Tim gave, nothing changes for 99% of people and situations IC.

And yeah, being Duke of a city halfway sucks if you can be Duke of a townsland. Genius  ::)

Finn.

Tim,

Thanks. I had concerns but your answers have dealt with them. Back to IC :D

Finn.

A few questions:

1) Does this non-IR prevent Rulers/Bankers/Judges/Dukes from enacting consequences for failure to uphold expectations, legislation, instructions and so forth?
2) On the matter of Ducal tax as a consequence and actually somewhat off-topic, can Lords have their estates in other regions or is doing so a bug?
3) "The banker can't take your region away, nor can he punish you in any other way for not doing as he says" - What if he takes the matter to the Judge?
4) "Likewise, it is not your job to feed the nearest city. It is the job of that city's lord to do so, for example by issuing buy orders for a fair price" - Cities have been intentionally starved before. Does this statement have any effect beyond clarifying what is already the case?

I'm guessing this is just laying out what we already know, but I do have some concerns that this will have the effect of an IR, whereby lords have the right to deny food and the duke of the city does not have the right to send an infiltrator or raise Duchy taxes (though with non-specific Duchy taxes, that's halfway impossible already) or Bankers can't go to the Judge to fine a region lord for causing problems with trade agreements. That is a woeful amount of power to hand to every rural lord when their supposed fealty in most realms is to their Duke or their King.

A fair agreement can usually be expected and Lords can already and have already made use of their power of production, but the statement issued implies that Bankers and Duke's can't do anything about it. That is a big change, and I'd like to be certain if that is the intent more than clarification for those who are unaware.

Finn.

The Zuma are as likely to be assimilated into SA as the Lurians are to stop their in-fighting. Longshot, to say the least :(