Traveling (Hedge) Knights

[Eldargard]

Title: Traveling (Hedge) Knights
Summary: Introduce mechanics that allow knights without an estate to be assigned to an army.

Details:
Currently, as I understand it, one must have an estate to be assigned to an army. I would suggest the General be allowed to add and remove un-landed nobles to armies as if they were the noble’s liege.

This would allow for a lot to happen. My main interest is the hedge knight. With this in place, I could see the following happen:

Noble: General, I am a traveling knight who has come to serve Kelperstan in its hour of need.  If you would be so kind, please assign me to an army as you see fit so that I may better aid this great nation.

General: Very well. I have assigned you to the home guard. I must remind you, however, that this assignment grants you no income. I would recommend that you find a liege. If you do not, you will be dependent on the charity of others…

Noble: I fully understand General. I have lived the lie of a hedge knight for many years now. I bring with me the resources needed to support my men for some time yet.

Time Passes…

Noble: Lords of Kelperstan, I have exhausted my funds and would require additional gold to continue fighting at your side. Any support would be appreciated!

Repeat…

Benefits:
I believe that there are many potential benefits such a change could introduce:
1.   It would be possible to play traveling or ‘hedge’ knights.
2.   Should a noble leave their estate while in the army, there is someone who could remove them.
3.   New nobles could be quickly be added to the army and become a part of the team while taking their time to find a suitable liege.
4.   The rush to find a liege, any liege, would be reduced which allows this relationship to be better developed.
5.     Rulers and dukes who are not region lords can join the army.
6.   Possibly more…

Possible Exploits:
This could weaken players incentive to find a liege? At the same time this is mitigated by the fact that having the General assign you to an army does not grant reliable income. You still need a liege for that. At the same time, you could convince another noble to manually fund your services with bank transfers thus allowing a hedge knight.

[vonGenf]

As a bonus, this would automagically fix the problem that Rulers who aren't Dukes and Dukes who aren't Lords can't be in an army!

[Anaris]

I'm not sure we really want to be encouraging people to be "travelling knights". That's not really part of the realm/team structure that is set up and that everything's designed to work with.

I would also note that this would permit realms that want to control the lives of their knights very tightly to run large portions of their army as unlanded knights getting their gold handed out from the Crown, and thus not really able to act against the Crown.

[vonGenf]

I would also note that this would permit realms that want to control the lives of their knights very tightly to run large portions of their army as unlanded knights getting their gold handed out from the Crown, and thus not really able to act against the Crown.

This can already be done, nothing in this proposal makes it easier to deny someone an estate, and orders can be given by the realm-wide channel.