Small, beneficial effects to the region that provide incentive to have estates - INCENTIVES.
None of this "well just take stuff away and make it normalized". That's the same idea that was running around when estates first went into the game. Put benefits in to estates - rather than taking away things and make estates readjust them to the way they were previously. Its not a benefit if it just makes up for something we reduced that was there previously.
Hey hey, hey there. Wait a minute.
I do agree with estates overhaul, reducing requirements to make stability possible. I also like the idea that came up centuries ago that the knight could make small investments in his estate that would give a tiny advantage to the region, but would give him (the knight) some extra stuff (gold, food ?).
But hey, wait up. Estates weren't made to be punishment. Estates were made the way they are now to give knights some power on the overall scheme of the realm. "A region shouldn't be able to survive without a knight" - that's what we thought then, because many people didn't bother with oaths at all, they preferred to keep their money to themselves.
Okay, nowadays we think "fine, then the region should be able to survive without a knight, but at non-optimum values, like 50%" Except maybe cities. Optimum values should take in regards the local population, and estate requirements. A city can't be able to function at 50% without any knights, it's still a fortune in a single person's hands.
