Author Topic: There are rich pirates in D'Hara  (Read 39949 times)

vonGenf

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #45: September 07, 2012, 05:18:09 PM »
Considering what just happened to Von Genf, I would probably take some steps to fix that... It would really suck for Astrum if you lost 9,000 gold.

I never said they took 100% of the gold I had.
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Indirik

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #46: September 07, 2012, 05:19:51 PM »
Considering what just happened to Von Genf, I would probably take some steps to fix that... It would really suck for Astrum if you lost 9,000 gold.
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Carna

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #47: September 07, 2012, 05:20:17 PM »
I never said they took 100% of the gold I had.

You didn't, but it seems most of us assumed you did. Heh, rarity factor.

D'Espana

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #48: September 07, 2012, 05:26:51 PM »
What happens in Madina stays in Madina.  ;)

Sure  ;)

I never said they took 100% of the gold I had.

Then I retire my implicit condolences. You deserve being robbed for being so offensively rich, and I ask for a code change to have this cases solved with the bandits beating up the priest, for being so presumptuous. In fact, I'm actually considering becoming a bandit myself and paying a visit to vonGenf and Indirik. Ali Baba D'Espana? Sounds good!
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BardicNerd

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #49: September 07, 2012, 05:30:49 PM »
No, sorry; just because it's easy for you to accumulate thousands of gold doesn't make it any less of a massive amount.
Yes, thank you, that was my point.  Some people end up carrying massive amounts of gold without much of a choice in the matter.  All well and good for a noble with troops, but apparently no longer for a priest.

Perhaps the risk is tiny, perhaps it is not -- given no one seems to know when this changed, the fact that it's happened once so far could mean a lot of things.

My point was need. A Priest may want to for whatever reasons, but I'm fairly certain that there's nothing they NEED thousands of gold on hand for.
Yes.  Actually, there is.  Stocking temple treasuries, building expansions to temples . . . I suppose we don't need to do those things (and certainly, not all priests do them) . . . normal nobles also don't need to fight other nobles when their realms are at war, though.

Anaris

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #50: September 07, 2012, 06:03:02 PM »
Yes, thank you, that was my point.  Some people end up carrying massive amounts of gold without much of a choice in the matter.  All well and good for a noble with troops, but apparently no longer for a priest.

If you're getting your taxes in gold, you're inside your realm, and should be OK, IIRC.
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Carna

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #51: September 07, 2012, 06:03:32 PM »
Yes, thank you, that was my point.  Some people end up carrying massive amounts of gold without much of a choice in the matter.  All well and good for a noble with troops, but apparently no longer for a priest.

Perhaps the risk is tiny, perhaps it is not -- given no one seems to know when this changed, the fact that it's happened once so far could mean a lot of things.
Yes.  Actually, there is.  Stocking temple treasuries, building expansions to temples . . . I suppose we don't need to do those things (and certainly, not all priests do them) . . . normal nobles also don't need to fight other nobles when their realms are at war, though.

Yep. Normal nobles can be courtiers too if they want. Wars = wartorn regions = plenty of work for courtiers.

If a Priest can't convince and/or trust a single other noble to move gold with their troops guarding it for them, that Priest should retire. It'd be better for their family, because clearly that Priest isn't achieving much. Should they have to? No. And they don't. One in a hundred chance, I said earlier, and that was probably more often than it happens. If they want no chance of getting robbed by bandits/pirates, get someone who can hire troops. Making "guard units" or whatever seems a waste of time to me.

I think you're being ridiculously offended at the fact that it can happen, though its only happened once. If it happened every day to you, I'd say Tom doesn't like you. If it happens every day to Priests everywhere, its out of order. But its a reasonable risk when moving that much gold (and no risk to bonds, let's remember) and no one here, not even me, is saying that Priests can't have gold on hand. ITS HAPPENED ONCE. Its a means by which to take gold out of the economy, from characters that otherwise spend very little personally. If you're offended by that, by the possibility that you might lose all that gold, then don't carry it. If you want to carry that much, accept the risk. Those of us with troops marching into battle with plenty of gold to simply pay men (therefore disappearing it out of the economy) have a far higher risk of getting captured and robbed by the enemy judge.

THAT happens far more than just once.

Bedwyr

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #52: September 07, 2012, 08:42:28 PM »
My point was need. A Priest may want to for whatever reasons, but I'm fairly certain that there's nothing they NEED thousands of gold on hand for.

Funding a major temple building effort in a realm with new converts.  Say, for instance, a few lords in Madina convert to SA and request assistance in building properly glorious temples.  That would be a perfectly legitimate need that Priests would and should be used for.

May I make a counter-suggestion, instead of changing the chances or what not (although this may be incredibly difficult to code, not sure): If there are friendly troops showing in the region you are in, your chances of getting hit by bandits are reduced accordingly.  So, for instance, a Priest traveling with a hundred-man honour guard led by a noted Templar would have essentially zero chance of getting robbed.  And yes, I'm fully aware that regions are large, and the Priest and the troops might be on opposite sides of one in a lot of situations, but I think it would make a resonable compromise.
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Carna

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #53: September 07, 2012, 10:44:19 PM »
Not knowing the code at all, I can only speculate. Insurgents are tracked. Normal police work, hanging rebels, etc. The higher that particular figure is, the more likely it is you will be attacked and robbed by bandits/pirates in that region. Rogues would be the most likely, with Core control being least likely. I don't know if this is the case, but since multiple factors are involved, I'd be fairly surprised if this wasn't one of them. Not quite what you were getting at, but..

As big as regions are - and we actually know how big these days - I march my 10 troops through a region with 10 hostile enemy troops and we'll have a battle. The odds of eleven men meeting another eleven men in the likes of the Desert between LN/LV and the Grand Duchy would, you'd think, be slim. Size really doesn't matter, so in which case if there's consistency, it doesn't have to matter for your suggestion either. If this is happening more than once in a blue moon, I like your suggestion. If its as rare as most here seem to imply (first time in a long time), is it not already balanced enough? Doesn't mean your solution isn't worth implementing either way but, for all the concern about this, its not really a fix if there's no problem to be fixed.

An Elder would be more use than gold at that point. The Lords can build the first level, pay for as much expansion as needed, but they can't expand a Temple already in their lands. Counter-intuitive if you ask me. Shouldn't a Priest be required to make holy a place of worship, but adding a wing to the Temple not such a big deal? Still, not the topic. With a bit more thought over the last few hours, the most likely reason I see a Priest with loads of gold is administration/logistics. You can't transfer what's in one local treasury to another, and often you'll have a big build-up in one Temple or a group of 'em, but not a copper in others off the beaten track or with ambivalent local lords. Or, in the case of SA taking over Caerwyn's lands with VE Temple's which need their treasuries emptied because there's no chance of them staying open when their new Theocracy is established. In such a case, a Priest is ideal because they don't have the same order of fealty as Knights or Lords and won't have troops coming in that might cause something of an incident with the new residents. In that case, they actually need to take the gold, have it on them, and risk losing it to bandits. Wartorn country makes sense, but also lower control and likely other similar factors. Having an honour-guard escort them as far north as they can go before meeting Astrum's armies would, in that context, make sense.

BardicNerd

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #54: September 07, 2012, 10:56:16 PM »
If this is happening more than once in a blue moon, I like your suggestion. If its as rare as most here seem to imply (first time in a long time), is it not already balanced enough?
Actually, this is the first time that we knew that it has happened.  Which means we really don't have any meaningful data at all about how frequently it happens.  People have just been assuming that happens as often as often for priests as it does for other nobles, because there hasn't been much reason to think otherwise.

However, given Anaris's comment, it is probably different, since if I recall correctly (and I may not), normal nobles can get robbed even in their own realm . . . but that might be me remembering wrong.  It's been a while.

In short: if this functions the same way as it does for normal nobles, priests should have a way of managing their risk that isn't a non-answer like 'carry less money,' if this does not function the same way, the devs should say so, and it becomes just a normal part of the priest class.

Vellos

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #55: September 08, 2012, 02:14:41 AM »
Not so agreeing on the Diplomats, since they don't require hundreds, let alone thousands, of gold on person unless you're doing a Hireshmont-style tour of the continent. At least in my experience. Doubt expenses have spiked while I've been gone.

Spending 10,000 gold buttering up foreign dignitaries, making friends, supporting philanthropic causes, and generally being a goodwill ambassador is very, very easy to do. I can testify to this, having done it more than once.

Priests SHOULD be able to be ADVANTAGED gold-couriers. That works well for game balance, it works well for making the class more fun for players, it is historically accurate, and it has no evident downsides that I can think of. There's no threat to game balance in allowing a priest to carry a large amount of gold unthreatened. There's no improvement to anyone's gameplay experience reducing the utility of the priest class.

The burden of proof should not be on those of us who think we should be able to carry gold freely; the burden of proof should be on those who believe there "should" be a random chance of bandits/pirates/robbers/whatever. In what way does that improve the game? For what reason would we have that additional feature?
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Bedwyr

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #56: September 08, 2012, 03:33:31 AM »
I'm all in favour of there being consequences for actions.  People who wander around alone in uncontrolled lands get robbed, I have no problem with.  People who wander through wild lands with a sizable guard contingent, not so much.  I just want there to be a way to edge the odds in my favour (grins).
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Vellos

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #57: September 08, 2012, 03:37:28 AM »
I'm all in favour of there being consequences for actions.  People who wander around alone in uncontrolled lands get robbed, I have no problem with.  People who wander through wild lands with a sizable guard contingent, not so much.  I just want there to be a way to edge the odds in my favour (grins).

I agree.

But if the options are, "Random chance of theft, about which I have no control, other than not using one of the more valuable functions of my class," and "No random chance of theft," I would think the burden of proof should be on demonstrating why we SHOULD have that random chance.

Obviouslly, yeah, I think there should just be some way to "insure" yourself: paraphernalia that you have to regularly pay would be one way to do this. It'd be double-cool if you could only "buy" them at temples. And triple cool (though as soon as I say this I realize it'd be very exploitable) if the "pay" you gave to your paraphernalia piled up at the temple where you hired them.

All of which I'm sure is fiendishly complicated: so maybe just a simple paraphernalia, "Bodyguards," or maybe "Constables."
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Indirik

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #58: September 08, 2012, 03:46:16 AM »
Before you can state that priests should be able to run around with large amounts of gold, you should ask yourself why bandits were put in place in the first place.

The ability to courier large amounts of gold around the map at little to no risk is not something to be desired. (Just think about it. If it was intended, then they wouldn't have bandits in the first place to prevent/discourage it.) Nobles traveling with units can be attacked, imprisoned, and have their gold stolen. Priests... cannot. So if you want the ability for priests to be able to carry around massive amounts of gold, then it's up to you to justify why that particular class should have a function which it was never intended to have, and only had because no one ever bothered to implement attacks to prevent it. It's presence was unintentional, and taking it away is not removing a feature/function.

Why should the ability to courier large amounts of gold around the map be *added* to the game? I suggest that if you want it added, that you file a Feature Request to do it.
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Alpha

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Re: There are rich pirates in D'Hara
« Reply #59: September 08, 2012, 03:53:16 AM »
All of which I'm sure is fiendishly complicated: so maybe just a simple paraphernalia, "Bodyguards," or maybe "Constables."

I mentioned this earlier. I'd really like for priests to have the option to hire guards( maybe templar). Guards would protect priests from being attacked when preaching, reduce the chance of successful arrest, and stop robberies. Maybe hire them from a sufficiently large temple?