More Estate Features

[Tom]

The current estate page already says that it is a placeholder and more options will be added.

I've a couple ideas swimming around in my mind, but I'd like to bounce a few off you guys. Please provide constructive feedback. I am seriously getting tired of the whining, and it does nothing for the motivation of the volunteers in the dev team. So any and all "this sucks / I hate it" comments will be sent to the forum moderators to delete and/or reprimand/lock their posters. If you fear it has a negative impact, say so in neutral terms and list the reasons why.

So, the two various ideas:

• Estates can simply be enlarged among a simple axis - tiny, small, medium, large, vast - with a prestige bonus to its owner, much like a unique item (i.e. lost if estate is lost, etc.)
• Estates can be improved with various buildings to allow its owners features that are otherwise limited. A training ground could allow for recruitment, a vault could give banking options, etc. - all of these would then be available whenever the knight is in the region. While this would decentralize the game a little, it would still limit options to specific regions, so it wouldn't break gameplay. The only big change it would bring is that it gives realms with a capital under siege a recruitment option. That is in fact a change I like.
• Make estates the actual locations of a family, creating more options to do nice things with family gold, etc. - but only at your estate. I would like to give the people who are hoarding family gold more options to spend it.

[Duvaille]

1) Sounds good. The size could matter in other ways as well, but they could be added later on. One thing that comes to mind is that size could act as a simple bonus modifier for various tasks that the estate performs. Another thought is that a larger estate should have a cost in upkeep as well. Maybe not much, but the extra prestige should come with a cost.

2) In order to an estate to have a feeling of "home", it should have reasons for the character to visit it, and those reasons should mainly be fun things that you can do with it. Banking with a vault sounds good, and you could add a possibility of storing some unique items as well, thus halting or slowing the speed of their decay. Though the vault should probably have some sort of a risk built into it - if losing the region would not be enough of a risk (which I think it would).

I like the possibility of recruiting at your own estate, though it might be wise to limit it only to those recruitment centers that are present in the region. If you want to be able to have your knights defend the contested border better, you (or they) need to invest in their estates more, and to the RC:s at the border, which in turn creates a larger cost in losing them. It's all good.

Additionally, when you stay at your own estate, you should perhaps have better options for housing your men. Perhaps they would gain morale boosts and reduced or negated equipment damage. Perhaps that would be tied to the size of the estate as well. Not that the grunts would actually stay at your mansion, but a larger estate would have larger spaces for housing a greater number of men.

3) More meaningful options for family gold is always good in my book.

All in all, more features with estates could actually generate more incentive to compete over good estate locations. There could be special features tied to region types (and capital).

But what I would most like to see are features that would increase interaction between players. It would be very nice if you could somehow show off your nice estate to the other players. Maybe you could host parties and hunts and secret meetings at your place? They could help in bringing something fun to do during the inevitable times of peace. The parties could be something as simple as a temporary message group that is open for as long as the party lasts. It could be handled a little like tournaments, ie. leaving your unit behind. You could be listed as "socializing" when attending a party. This way you could conveniently bring together people who you want to meet one another. And if you invite an infiltrator, there is a possibility for mischief, and you have a detective story right there... And the parties and such would of course be financed with family gold. Perhaps large (and somehow succesful?) parties would possibly yield prestige and perhaps fame too.

But that's really off the tangent. I guess I am just excited about all the possibilities that the estates could have.

[Chaotrance13]

I very much like the first two ideas. The third I'm not sure on mainly as I don't have much family gold right now to actually spend. But, here's my reasoning at least.

The first idea I like for the simple reason that it can help give characters a boost in terms of prestige, and in turn the options of classes available to them. For example, unless the BT invasion transfers to EC in the near future, then unless something major happens in the inter-realm political situation, there's not going to be much fighting bar the odd monster or undead spawn. Yes, yes, I know people will say it's Battlemaster and you should do it through fighting, but it gives another avenue which as Tom has said, can also mean it is lost through fighting (by way of a takeover). Plus, if you've invested gold into your estate, and I'm assuming it would cost a lot to get up to the "vast" level, you're less likely to leave it. Of course, your Lord could be a complete ass and kick you, meaning that money is wasted. So it's a gamble - risk and reward.

As for the idea of buildings, I've always thought that my various estates would have a few places  which lend themselves to what they've accomplished. For example - Ravier and Malos are military leaders, so having a training or sparring ground for them on their estates makes sense. Viktor is an aspiring Priest - maybe he would have a small shrine to his faith which confers some kind of small religious bonus to the region. Alaron of course is a Lord - so having things like a vault again would make sense in an IC context of sorts. Yes, it would mean that things are decentralised but that could add a sense of extra strategy to fighting. If you know that one of the nobles in a region was funding the war effort by sending messengers from his vault away from a city, would you walk by and ignore it, or would you stop this line of funding by sacking the region? That in fact, is another point - if you have these buildings on your estates, it could be made that sacking a region also has an effect on any estate with a vault, or something similar in the case of other buildings or add-ons.

[Velax]

Yeah, I like all these ideas. Always thought we could do more with estates. There was a thread on this last year, actually:

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,299.html

[Anaris]

So, the two various ideas:

Two? 

• Estates can simply be enlarged among a simple axis - tiny, small, medium, large, vast - with a prestige bonus to its owner, much like a unique item (i.e. lost if estate is lost, etc.)

Eh, it's an improvement over the current system, but kind of feels "meh" to me.

   

• Estates can be improved with various buildings to allow its owners features that are otherwise limited. A training ground could allow for recruitment, a vault could give banking options, etc. - all of these would then be available whenever the knight is in the region. While this would decentralize the game a little, it would still limit options to specific regions, so it wouldn't break gameplay. The only big change it would bring is that it gives realms with a capital under siege a recruitment option. That is in fact a change I like.

I liked this one when we talked about it back on the dev mailing list before the forum was even opened

I think that as long as we provide sensible defaults, and don't set it up so that obsessive optimizers have an unstoppable edge over casual players, this should definitely at least be part of estates going forward.

   

• Make estates the actual locations of a family, creating more options to do nice things with family gold, etc. - but only at your estate. I would like to give the people who are hoarding family gold more options to spend it.

I like this one, too, and think it would be excellent combined with the second option.

(In general, I think we need more options for people with way too much gold, family and otherwise. Do you know how much gold some Darkan Dukes have on hand on a regular basis??)

[Indirik]

Stop giving away our secrets!

I do like having more options for estates. The idea of estates giving bit of prestige isn't very attractive to me, though. Sinking a lot of gold into an estate that can be taken from you at the drop of a hat, for no reason, and with no recourse, is a bit of a downer. I don't think it will generate the good kind of conflict, either.

Other options, like limited banking, recruiting, repairs, perhaps even some religious options, all sound good. But I would really like to see this tied to the estate building options that keep getting batted around.

[Tom]

I do like having more options for estates. The idea of estates giving bit of prestige isn't very attractive to me, though. Sinking a lot of gold into an estate that can be taken from you at the drop of a hat, for no reason, and with no recourse, is a bit of a downer. I don't think it will generate the good kind of conflict, either.

Oh, you and Tim are forgetting something...

What we discussed very long ago was different - it was regional production aids. I've since dumped that idea.

But the most important point you forget is that you think what you invested in the estate will vanish when the lord of the region kicks you out. It won't. It will stay with the estate until you demolish it (definitely need that option) or the lord removes the estate entirely.

Yes, that means an evil lord can kick you out of your great estate and take it for himself, or his friend.

Now if THAT doesn't generate some personal conflict, I don't know what will.

[Alpha]

The current estate page already says that it is a placeholder and more options will be added.

I've a couple ideas swimming around in my mind, but I'd like to bounce a few off you guys. Please provide constructive feedback. I am seriously getting tired of the whining, and it does nothing for the motivation of the volunteers in the dev team. So any and all "this sucks / I hate it" comments will be sent to the forum moderators to delete and/or reprimand/lock their posters. If you fear it has a negative impact, say so in neutral terms and list the reasons why.

So, the two various ideas:

• Estates can simply be enlarged among a simple axis - tiny, small, medium, large, vast - with a prestige bonus to its owner, much like a unique item (i.e. lost if estate is lost, etc.)
• Estates can be improved with various buildings to allow its owners features that are otherwise limited. A training ground could allow for recruitment, a vault could give banking options, etc. - all of these would then be available whenever the knight is in the region. While this would decentralize the game a little, it would still limit options to specific regions, so it wouldn't break gameplay. The only big change it would bring is that it gives realms with a capital under siege a recruitment option. That is in fact a change I like.
• Make estates the actual locations of a family, creating more options to do nice things with family gold, etc. - but only at your estate. I would like to give the people who are hoarding family gold more options to spend it.

This could really add to the game by making estates more than a money tree.

1. A prestige bonus from a more opulent estate would be natural.
2. The vault idea is great, I've always wanted to see something like that. I like estate recruitment, so long as recruitment was limited to some fraction of the total number of recruits in the capital or something similar to that. Since the majority of trained recruits are going to be sent to the capital barracks.
3. Speaking as a hoarder of family gold, I'd welcome the opportunity.

[Zakilevo]

1) it reminds too much of the old estates system. The old one made people re-enlarge their estates every time they moved. I see that this one will stay in the region unless the lord demolishes it but doesn't that make people stay in one region for long when they spent too much on the estates?

2) as for being able to recruit, do you mean you get to recruit like the capital or units from your home region? just by reading 2) I think we will most likely be recruiting our home region units.

3) I think this will also provide knights to be able to spend their gold on their regions like region lords. Having some self-customization will be pretty awesome. Having a training ground will probably make knights stay in their home regions instead of camping in the capital.

[egamma]

Sinking a lot of gold into an estate that can be taken from you at the drop of a hat, for no reason, and with no recourse, is a bit of a downer. I don't think it will generate the good kind of conflict, either.

This is my biggest objection. Why should anyone but the lord invest in an estate, when they can get booted at will, or perhaps gain their own region? We've probably had half the realm gain lordships in D'Hara in the past year. Now, I know that larger realms don't have that problem, but most knights would probably avoid investing in their estate, gambling that they will get their own region soon enough, or perhaps suspecting that their lord will 'steal' their estate from them.

One possible solution would be to have a prestige or honor penalty for lords that kick out knights.

[Zakilevo]

That is horrible. What if your knight is an ass and refuse to follow your orders? Maybe we should get that good mark and bad mark back.

[Indirik]

I guess the flip side to getting a good estate taken away from you is that you can be given a good estate, too.

As a regular knight, I wouldn't really want to bother upgrading an estate unless it grants me some solid bonuses. An extra 4 or 5 prestige isn't worth it, because prestige doesn't do anything for you, and estates for non-lords are just too temporary.

I think this feature can be good, but it really needs some killer functionality and attraction for the average knight to want to bother.

[Draco Tanos]

Like the general concept.

Tom, for IC religious purposes, I'd also like to recommend that nobles be able to build Personal Chapels, something that will function between shrine and level one temples.  Give it some options, but not as many as a real temple.

[Tom]

Actually, the whole risk thing is part of the plan. It means before you invest, you try to form a real bond with the region lord. And it gives you a great incentive to stay with the region when it, for example, switches realm (other than through a rebellion, which kicks you out).

[Perth]

If the end goal/result is to give people more of a sense of belonging and attachment to their estates/regions then I'm for it.