Strategic Secessions

[Chenier]

That's an interesting idea. I'm not sure how well it would work, though. It would totally screw with any realm that did not have a nice, geometrically centered city to be their capital.

The buffer variable between minor nuisance and major nuisance should be tested out via calculations before being applied to factor this, as most realms obviously aren't perfectly circular. Running a test calculation to see where it would create the greater penalty, and then checking these case by case to see if it'd be justified would be a good way to proof-check the calculations. Most realms have a city close enough to their centre, after all.

I wouldn't remove the rule. Just because it's never been enforced doesn't make it pointless, because it probably has deterred a number of blatant strategic secessions.

That it isn't removed, however, means that some blatantly strategic capital moves have been passed off as being for RP reasons, giving them an unfair advantage over those not willing (or able) to stoop to that level, because of plausible deniability and the general consensus that it's better to let a guilty person free than to punish an innocent.

A mechanic applied to all would be more fair than a rule applied to none(/some). Got an RP reason to move your capital to your border with the enemy? Sure, whatever, just assume the consequences for it!

That way, it's enforced 100% of the time, and it gives people more freedom

[Bedwyr]

Honestly, I think the mechanic penalties for capital moves are already pretty significant.  Production/control losses, if you have a small realm it doesn't matter much and if you have a large realm then a big chunk is going to get hit with reduced stats from distance from capital.

[Chenier]

Honestly, I think the mechanic penalties for capital moves are already pretty significant.  Production/control losses, if you have a small realm it doesn't matter much and if you have a large realm then a big chunk is going to get hit with reduced stats from distance from capital.

Obviously not enough if the temptation is big enough for us to need a rule for it and for some to have weaseled their way into doing it unpunished.

Realms who move their capital to their border when they used to have a more central capital should not be able to get away with it unharmed.

Distance from the capital only currently affects rather large realms, even if the capital isn't central, as being small will offer bonuses that compensate. I mean, look at Fheuv'n. Iato's off in the corner, and all of our regions are running crazy tax rates anyways without having any distance from the capital problems. Just goes to show what other realms could get away with without suffering any penalties for ditching their capital on their border.

[Chenier]

An alternative would be basing the code on the most central region capable of being the capital, instead of the most central region, or a hybrid of both.

[vonGenf]

An alternative would be basing the code on the most central region capable of being the capital, instead of the most central region, or a hybrid of both.

How would you apply it to Ohnar West (the old Ohnar West, not the current shell)? It had four cities, all on its border, and a central heartland.

[Chenier]

How would you apply it to Ohnar West (the old Ohnar West, not the current shell)? It had four cities, all on its border, and a central heartland.

If the game considered the most central city instead of region, then if all of your cities are on the border it wouldn't have caused any extra harm.

As I said, test calculations should be run before any such thing is implemented, if it is implemented, to make sure that it only punishes realms that deserve it and is flexible enough towards realms that just have whacky geography.

[Kain]

Possible issues would also be, how do you count it when the landscape simply isn't flat and normal and therefore have lakes/islands and the like.

Think Riombara/Ibladesh. The most central capitol for Ibladesh would be in the middle of that big lake they have there :p

And IVF is a good case to consider too as it only has one city and the blight is on the other side so it has no choice but to expand to only one side and thereby have it's capitol in the corner, atleast until a new city has been taken.

[TDLR]

As strategic secession and capital movements are typically orchestrated to get troop recruitment closer to the military front lines, why not simply solve this issue by having recruitment centers in all of the duchies, with the only available troops in the recruitment center being those that were from each particular duchy?

I'm sure this has been suggested before (I mean, it's been 10 years or so), but it makes sense to me. I'm no history buff, but the time era, as I understand it, was really built around various powerful duchies operating together under a common banner due to a strong leader. Duchies would send their armies to fight for their King/Queen no? I assume those Dukes did not have to "recruit" troops out of a capital when the troops were trained within their own duchy...

So it would make sense to me if, and given the new tax code this might be a bit easier to do, Duchies worked much like mini-realms. Distance from the duchy-capital would certainly create more problems with control, which would be added to distance from the realm-capital as well. So that if Zonasa was fighting a war against Kindara and wanted to recruit troops from Azarons' cavalry center while stationed in Batesaor, it'd be really difficult to maintain or even do in the first place, because the Duchy would have to run through Hutael and Paplarmi, covering quite the distance and creating significant "distance from Duchy" control problems, on top of "distance from capital" control problems, which might make such strategies rather impractical.

Perhaps this has all been discussed, but it seems like it would alleviate the problems with moving a capital around for military reasons and strategic seceding.

[Indirik]

As strategic secession and capital movements are typically orchestrated to get troop recruitment closer to the military front lines, why not simply solve this issue by having recruitment centers in all of the duchies, with the only available troops in the recruitment center being those that were from each particular duchy?

Out of all the ideas that have been bandied around for non-capital recruiting, the duchy-based one is the one that Tom said he would look at, if he ever decided it could work. I think the idea was that you could only recruit troops from the duchy to which you belonged, and you would do it in the "duchy capital". (Which we don't have anymore...) It would not be open recruitment where anyone could recruit any troops that were available in the region. They would only be available to nobles who were aligned to that particular duchy. Not sure this would ever actually happen, though.

I assume those Dukes did not have to "recruit" troops out of a capital when the troops were trained within their own duchy...

No one is arguing that capital-based recruitment is historically accurate or "realistic". It's an obviously OOC game mechanic, intended to restrict recruitment and the way that realms fight wars.

[Chenier]

Possible issues would also be, how do you count it when the landscape simply isn't flat and normal and therefore have lakes/islands and the like.

Think Riombara/Ibladesh. The most central capitol for Ibladesh would be in the middle of that big lake they have there :p

And IVF is a good case to consider too as it only has one city and the blight is on the other side so it has no choice but to expand to only one side and thereby have it's capitol in the corner, atleast until a new city has been taken.

If the code considered the most central city, then realms that have their only cities on their frontiers, like Fheuv'n right now, would not suffer.

As for Riombara, there's a reason why Fwuvoghor and Grehk have not been part of the same realm in ages. Grehk has historical reasons to be the capital, but Riombara fully has the means to make their capital much more central. The only reason for not doing so is strategic. In other words, they never would (should) have been allowed to move their capital to Grehk had they rebooted from Rines instead, though historical reasons probably would have been used to cover the military aspects of not having your capital farther from your enemy. The form of their lands has been static for years, since the continent is open. It also has many advantages, such as the crazy amount of chokepoints they have (every region is basically a choke point) and how defensible their inner regions are thanks to these fortified chokepoints. Riombara would therefore not be unfairly penalized for choosing a less eccentric capital placement. After all, wasn't the old capital Athol Margos, and not Grehk? Or was it Rines? In either case, I'm pretty sure their true historical capital would be much more central than their current one is.

[Indirik]

As for Riombara, there's a reason why Fwuvoghor and Grehk have not been part of the same realm in ages. Grehk has historical reasons to be the capital, but Riombara fully has the means to make their capital much more central. The only reason for not doing so is strategic.

Strategic reasons are not the only reasons for it. You just said it yourself: "Grehk has historical reasons to be the capital..."

Does it make sense from a realm-administration-efficiency sense? No. But so what? The reasons realms choose their capital are not solely for efficient operation of the realm. If they did, you'd have people like Stue telling us that picking your capital to support efficient realm operation is OOC powergaming...

edit... fixed some stupid mistakes...

[Chenier]

Strategic reasons are not the only reasons for it. You just said it yourself: "Grehk has historical reasons to be the capital..."

Does it make sense from a realm-administration-efficiency sense? No. But so what? The reasons realms choose their capital are not solely for efficient operation of the realm. If they did, you'd have people like Stue telling us that picking your capital to support efficient realm operation is OOC powergaming...

edit... fixed some stupid mistakes...

Historical, as in status-quo. Not as in authenticity. The capital was, as I stated out a bit further down, originally on the isles. So in this case, it'd actually make RP sense to move it back to their old central location, instead of keeping it on the Enweilian border for obvious military reasons. Rines was their first capital, and I believe Athol Margos also served as a capital for a while.

[Telrunya]

Riombara's Capital was Grehk long long ago (as in First Invasion IIRC). It was Athol Margos for a long time afterwards. Not sure if Rines had any substantial time as a Capital. Both Grehk and Athol Margos would make sense for Riombara from historical perspective.

[Indirik]

Historical, as in status-quo. Not as in authenticity. The capital was, as I stated out a bit further down, originally on the isles. So in this case, it'd actually make RP sense to move it back to their old central location, instead of keeping it on the Enweilian border for obvious military reasons. Rines was their first capital, and I believe Athol Margos also served as a capital for a while.

"First" does not necessarily make it the most valid, depending on the character. For example, Perdan's capital was Partora when Balkeese joined the realm. To her, Partora was the rightful capital of Perdan, and therefore where she moved it as soon as she could after getting it back.

I am convinced that no matter where you move a capital, *someone* will be 100% convinced that it was a "strategic" move.

[Lorgan]

When we had this discussion in Riombara, I believe it was said that Grehk actually was the first capital of Riombara, but after Rio was destroyed it was refounded in Athol Margos. Both cities thus make sense.