I don't understand the nuance, isn't this pretty self-evident too? Up to the cap, the smaller the estate, the more efficient it is, thus them more gold per % of size it generates.
You're still missing it.
I'm saying I would
change the code so that the
same estate you have today would start making more money, without the Lord making any changes to that estate, just because another knight took an estate in the region.
Gamey min-maxing response #2: creating a ton of tiny estates that no knight would like to take, in order to increase gold output for the lord.
a) So I'll make sure that the boost to the Lord's estate doesn't come until the estates are
filled.
b) What Indirik said.
It has secondary side-effects, though. As realms grow, they average income decreases, but their expenses increase.
I am not convinced that this is a strong enough effect to cause any practical problems.
And if it does, then...fine, you've expanded as far as your existing noble base will allow.
I don't have a problem with the idea that, given a certain number of noble characters in a realm, there is
some fixed maximum number of regions they can hope to control, and/or a maximum above which new regions are no longer adding any meaningful benefit to the realm. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say that a realm of 10 people should fall apart if it tries to control 30 regions.
