Title: Hosting Foreign Nobles
Summary: Much like prison, but no torture, banning, or execution.
A noble without a unit who is from a realm that is below federation can be 'hosted' by The Lord of the region. His time as a guest would be limited in a similar fashion as prison. The Lord would then decide whether to release him back to the region or back to the nobles own realm.
Details: The Lord of the region would either need to be there with troops to 'arrest', or have militia in the region to arrest him. With militia present, The Lord could order them to 'arrest' the noble in absentia. Or perhaps a noble with a unit is needed in the region to make the arrest, but the noble would be taken to the region lord's estate.
Keeping the noble in the region should cost a certain amount of gold, after all, they are accustomed to finery. Perhaps the extravagance and cost could be decided by The Lord or it could just be based on region type. All costs of the noble are payed for by the lord, including the trip home, unless the noble decides to leave early.
The restriction of a noble below federation could be changed to below alliance or perhaps not have any restrictions at all.
The gold may be forfeit or not. This may be dependent on stature of noble, or may be a comparison between noble and Lord (ie, The Lord would not be able to take the gold from another lord, but a Duke would.
The guest would not have access to their paraphernalia, and would not be able to see what kind of troops are in the region.
The noble would be able to communicate with all his usual contacts, The Lord would receive a copy of all letters to and from the noble. The noble would not receive any messages that are realm wide or part of any message group without the sender intentionally including the guest noble (I am imagining a check box like the keeping recipients secret feature).
The duke, and ruler could decide to host the noble instead of The Lord, thereby moving them to the ducal/realm capital and transferring control to the duke/ruler. The Judge can decide to release the noble at any time under selected conditions.
Clearly some of the aspects of this feature need to be fine tuned.
Benefits: At this point, nobles without units can travel wherever they like and bring paraphernalia like scouts with them. There are currently no methods of dealing with these nobles. This would increase international relations and disputes. This would also be fairly accurate to historical events.
Possible Downsides/Exploits: Nobles would no longer be able to travel without fear of being arrested. This would function similarly to prison other than communication restrictions, so it could be rather boring for players.
