Messages

I haven't thought that aspect through yet. Maybe. Maybe with a paraphernalia. I'm not really certain. I don't want to completely eliminate starvation for troops, just make it so you don't start to lose men the moment you cross the border.

I know this thread is wandering, but I wanted to suggest that the unit's ration limit could be raised by keeping carts around.  Caravans are on the way out (see: Dwilight/BT), but carts are still kicking about.  A unit has a suggested base (max) of 5 rations.  Each cart you're pulling about adds 5 more rations to the maximium (this 5 could be lower or higher for game balance).  When you buy them they start out empty, if you lose them any food goes with them.

Don't worry about cart "use" like wounded taking up space, etc.  Just give the ration max as (5 + 5 * carts) and run with it.

There's always been the requests for nobles to keep their units fed in famine regions kicking about.  A ration system is how armies operate anyway.

Regarding looting from battles: I suggest you just give every unit that survives the battle (winners and losers) +1 rations and be done with it.  Just assume soldiers are personally opportunistic and win or lose manage to rustle up some food one way or another.  That way you get a bonus for fighting and the devs don't have to work out another stats system for residual battlefields.

Regarding looting from regions: Looting granaries would reduce the regions' food stored 1 bushel per 1 ration looted.  Keep it simple and see how it goes for a while.

Instead of being paid to do courtier work, what about the option (random and increasing with the amount of improvement you've accomplished) to embezzle some of the region's monies?  It could be used to represent taking of bribes by the small nobility and merchants while you "cut the red tape" to their benefit.  If you take the bribes, there's a chance you get caught and your later work in the region will be less effective (as you've been undermining the improvements).

Just an idea.

On a related note, what's the fastest way to figure out someone's title(s)?

Right now I traverse to their family page, but is there a faster way?  It comes up when I'm trying to address a region lord I'm not very familiar with.  I still check the region page and the realm hierarchy pages, but neither one lists the official title of the character, nor has a link directly to their family page.  It's especially fun when I have to look up someone from another realm who is in the government to get their title correct.  Rarely is it just "Banker so-and-so" anymore.

Hopefully a small request about a useful link.

Every so often I try to look at my family page.  Unless there's a shortcut that I'm just overlooking it would be nice to get to it easily.  For example, I currently login as one of my characters, go to the realm's characters list and click on my family page.  It's a bit involved to get to my own data.

What I would really like is a change to the /userdata.php page.  The page lists your family name right in the middle like this:

The [family name] family, originally from [region of origin] ([continent of origin]), has a fame of [fame points] and family wealth of [never enough] gold.

Where is says [family name], could that be made into a link to take you directly to the family's page?

/UserDetails.php?ID=[your userid]

I consider this low priority, but it's bugged me for years and I just had to put it in the queue.

Thank you for your consideration.

There will be no substantial changes to region economies until after the new estate system is developed and extensively tested. After that happens, you will almost certainly need to re-evaluate your ideas. Chances are that at least some of this will no longer be applicable.

In that case, I shall bide my time and re-evaluate later.  I've got plenty to do in RL anyway.

Any word on the long-awaited updates to the trade system (ie: more goods to ship about)?  Just wondering....

Why? Nothing forces you to write to people you don't like... It can sometimes be convenient to have "not seen" a particular person's request.

I only worry about total lack of communication over such things.  A complete blank wall in a game/system where it's incredibly hard to see if someone is doing anything at all can be incredibly frustrating.  I understand that sometimes you need to "not see" a letter to buy time for something else, but if people make a habit of it as a way to just not do what people want then it can be quite frustrating.  I've got one region lord that I'm starting to jack up their duchy tax because they're "not seeing" any letters anyone sends them, though they keep wandering around.  If they just wrote back I would be more than happy to not tax the pants off them.

I do wonder how high they'll let me get their duchy tax before they deign to respond, though.  Maybe I should take bets.

And I'll ignore them like I'm ignoring the duchess who told me to send her my excess food for free.

Did you at least write back to the Duchess saying you wouldn't give it away?  If it's an unreasonable request, then please let the requester know you're telling them to stick it.  After the initial "up yours" notice, then ignoring them is fine.

Don't we have automatic caravans by now? Just set it up once and you're done if you don't care. Or just get a Knight who does want to do it.

The problem is that the automatic caravans work great until an emergency happens.  Mostly this boils down to looting/monsters or regions changing hands for other reasons.  Then the region lords who have never seen the trading pages stumble, and all too many just give up.  I'm not sure how to remedy the giving up part.

Someone mentioned that it's a much smaller percentage of players who enjoy the trading aspects, and that's good, but if we force a larger portion to try and understand it, that's were a problem crops up, especially when the results of the region lords failing in food management eventually tumbles realms.

You know that I've just realised, so many Lord probably have no idea just what stewards CAN do.

I'm often disturbed by how few lords know how any of the economy works.  I have to train people all the time on how to even send a manual caravan all the time, or that having their tax rate low might be nice on the peasants but it might also explain why they're asking for money to keep a unit in the field.  Mostly just have to be patient.

I've been at this game for a very long time (and have spent a lot of effort to understand the economic and good system of BM) but the buy/sell stuff is still a bit confusing when it comes to stewards.  It just doesn't come up enough for me to learn about it in detail.  The explanations here so far have cleared up a few things, but I'm not sure the current system is better than the one I proposed so far.  I do like that if I'm ever a steward again, I can really tank my region if I want.

such a sad tale  :'(

I lived through it. :-)

And there was some black market work to get that food freed. No comment on who was involved in that, though...

Feeding 160,000+ people takes 320 bushels/day (2240 bushels/week).  For a city that size, unless you have 7 *very* good food producing regions that never falter you'll never reach full population.  Darfix can handle 180,000 or more.  We did get over 160,000 and then in the heart of winter both of our defensive forces were crushed at the same time.  The rest of winter wasn't great because we couldn't recruit fast enough to rebuild a defensive force.  After that the realm didn't last a year.

There was no way to slowly bring the population down, or limit it so we just starved out and once you're on a bust cycle its really tough to recover.

point is, if you can't use healers, why can you hire them?

That's a good question, one that I had not pondered.  How about this: if you get sick because a region has no food, the healer works then?  Or if you get stabbed by someone tired of your preaching?  Beat up by a mob?  Trip on a rock?

It would be cool if you could bring healers along with you and they were useful to the people around you, but I wonder about the benefits at large (plus coding effort vs. game usefulness).

You realise that both the Lord and the Steward can place buy and sell orders that use the current Region Trade Balance rather then paying for them out of pocket right? It is one way I increase the tax income for my knights, by ensuring food my regions sells goes into the trade balance which is then distributed at tax time.

Yes, the sales from food do boost the knight's income as it stands.  This is especially important for more rural regions.  I hadn't pondered that implication yet.

I do want some clarification about buy orders, though.  When I issue a buy order in a region, that money comes out of my pocket and goes into the hands of the warehouse.  It doesn't come from the trade balance.  So if a Steward issues the order (last I checked, they could but I don't remember the details very well), you imply that money for the buy comes from the trade balance?  I thought it came right out of the Steward's pocket.  If it does come from the trade balance, then what is stopping a Steward from ordering buy orders in excess of the region's income?  I just want to be clear on the mechanics.

but you can't hire a scout.. you can hire a healer.. no?

Ah!  But you can keep the scouts you had before you became a priest class.  You can't send them anywhere, but you can retain them for larks.

The title says it all.  If a region lord wants the Banker to handle those mundane issues of food and money within the region, then let them!

I know this will bring some regions/realms back to the good ol' days where the Banker ran all of the food distribution, but the region lord would have 100% control over who their Steward was, it is their region after all!  The profits of food sales would still go primarily into the Lord's pocket anyway.

Just something to consider.

Bankers can use the shadow government to "take a bit off the top," why not a Steward for their own region?

Evil, but I assure you it happens all too often in RL.