Some recent discussions on how to make wars more attractive made me think on the factors that make conflicts unattractive.
These are two of them:
1) Big boss in the region you don't want to anger, because there is simply zero chance of surviving his/their anger. This may be even the one you want to attack.
2) Lack of personal benefits in waging a war but with risks of concrete losses. Past certain point expansion is only done indirectly, making conservative rulers/dukes prefer peace.
Both refer to the fact that there is a point in where big realms and their rulers start profiting much less from wars than they do for enforcing peace and a status quo. I believe we could attack those problems with some changes of perspective.
First is not allowing incredibly large realms in their current implementation to be feasible, but such has to be balanced according to the island. For example: North-East Dwilight. The success of the Morek Empire has killed the fun of the region. The only war/event that broke the eternal stagnation was Summerdale's suicidal crusade. And it had a very predictable end.
Now this doesn't mean realms should not be allowed to be successful, or we'd solve the first point at the expense of the second one, returning to where we began. What I propose instead is that we change the focus from warfare between realms with either conquest and 100% direct rule or colonization and 100% indirect rule, to a more medieval vassal-liege system of indirect rule but with some game-mechanics ties.
The idea would be to allow realms to be vassals of other realms, but lowering the maximum size any of those can achieve by themselves only. Being realm B's vassal would cost realm A a % of its total tax income, its ruler income, or some other form of revenue. The point of this is to create a hierarchy between the small feuds in where several are in the less comfortable position of inferiority regarding the dominating realm, which should not be in itself excessively stronger than the individual dominated ones. But being careful not to allow the mechanically-imposed tribute to be so taxing as to effectively making eventual opposition of the center of power impossible.
This would work on two fronts:
First it would make the dominating center of power a more fluid one, less rock solid. A small realm cannot hope to take on a large one, and causing it to break from inside is almost impossible when the positions are directly appointed by the ruler, the game mechanics promote a realm-focused nationalism, and the message system completely benefits the intra-realm communication. But if instead of absolutist France we are talking about the Holy Roman Empire conflict with the Emperor is much more feasible.
Secondly it would avoid the other side of the coin: lack of motivation for the rulers of such large empires to keep expanding. Past certain point they would have the option to destroy a realm they cannot keep and start a colony, which mechanics-wise are largely independent. If they could keep that kind of vassal-liege relationship increasing their own gold income, even if only slightly, but at the same time not being able to have so much direct control of the immediate vassals forming their Empire I believe we would have the best of both worlds.
Thoughts?
