Large realm penalty

[Zakilevo]

So, how has this affected the game so far? It has been implemented sometime ago, hitting larger realms like Luria and Sirion hard.

What do you like about it and what do you dislike about it? How could it be improved if you do not like it.

[Constantine]

Is it one of the game's hidden features? I didn't see anything hinting toward large realms being penalized in-game or on the wiki.
Can you explain this feature to those of us who are not devs or their close friends?

[Andrew]

If Zakky means what I think he does, it was announced 9 months ago as part of the same announcements everyone sees when they login and on their family page: http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,6724.0.html

1) The large-realm penalties—which have been broken or largely ineffectual in the past several years—will be fixed, and tightened, to ensure that it's no longer possible to have a vast, sprawling empire with no one around to maintain it. We strongly recommend lords in the largest realms on each continent to cut their tax rates in half in anticipation of these changes going live, and the lords in all other realms except the few smallest to reduce tax rates by at least 2-3 points.

I wasn't playing at the time this was brought up, but I found it with a few minutes of skimming announcements.

[GundamMerc]

I've seen it have a huge effect. Luria Nova nearly disintegrated, Sirion the same, and Morek broke apart due to internal issues long before it came into effect, but if it had been unified we would have seen an effect much, MUCH more severe than we saw in either of the former cases, as Morek had less nobles than it had regions. The whole realm would have collapsed, imploding rather than just fragmenting as it did.

[Gabanus family]

Is it one of the game's hidden features? I didn't see anything hinting toward large realms being penalized in-game or on the wiki.
Can you explain this feature to those of us who are not devs or their close friends?

I thought it was well known to everyone. It was the talk of the day, prob even weeks, at that time. Sirion still operates region with like 7-8% tax rates because otherwise it will have large problems. Luria crashed as it implemented the division of the 'kingdoms' too late and the divisions that did take place only made things worse.

[Zakilevo]

Here are my thoughts

It downsized large empires. Also created a couple new realms over all. Some realms are too big and was getting too rich. The penalties pretty much got rid of most advantages of being a large realm. Gold was reduced severely which crippled some large realms from maintaining their armies. Medium sized realms and small realms do much better.

Some small realms came to life and I haven't seen the introduction of the smaller realms doing much just yet. What I am worried about is having too many small realms. It is good to have more small realms in theory when we can fill them up with people but there will be small realms that just don't have enough realm to make it interesting. I think each realm needs at least 15 nobles to be functional. Otherwise, it will just stay boring or fizzle out.

[Zakilevo]

Is it one of the game's hidden features? I didn't see anything hinting toward large realms being penalized in-game or on the wiki.
Can you explain this feature to those of us who are not devs or their close friends?

Check Andrew's links. This was discussed sometime ago before it was implemented. Obviously it has been long enough for some people to forget or some didn't pay attention in the first place then only found out later to their surprise and dismay.

You can also find these changes from the changelogs posted by Vita` in the announcement thread.

[Vita`]

Anyone can update the wiki manual, and are even encouraged to do so. The in-game Mentoring Forum, or this forum, can be used to ask any questions on anything one isn't certain of, to get an authoritative statement.

[Constantine]

I will update the wiki if I can be provided with some concrete information concerning this feature. So far I've still got nothing.

[Vita`]

Each realm's acceptable tax rate is visible to all lords, on GovernEstates.php, at the beginning of the tax advice paragraph.

It starts at the default 10% rate (except War Island, which starts higher to allow more leeway room for conquering the entire island).

• If your realm has a large population, the realm-wide acceptable tax rate is lowered; if your realm has a small population, it is raised.
• If your realm is wealthy (realm economy), the rate is lowered; if it is poor, it is raised.
• If your realm has a region count that is a lot higher than the average region count for your island's realms, the rate is lowered; if your realm has a region count that is a lot lower than the average region count for your island's realms, the rate is raised.
• If your realm has a population that is a lot higher than the average population for your island's realms, the rate is lowered; if your realm has a population that is a lot lower than the average poplation for your island's realms, the rate is raised.
• If your realm is in anarchy, the rate is lowered.

[Zakilevo]

I didn't know population actually affected it. Not sure that is a good idea. I feel like you are punishing larger realms twice. In BM it feels like having larger population is more of a punishment since you require a lot more food.

[Vita`]

You assume that each specific penalty is a large enough number to matter by itself. They are all factored together to allow a more nuanced penalty function that includes multiple measurements of large realm advantages. Judging a realm solely by one of these metrics would be too simplistic.

[Constantine]

Calrification: by population do we mean noble population or commoners?

If it's the latter, I think it makes sense. It discourages realms from hoarding too many cities, which is a great thing if it works.

[Vita`]

Its commoners (that is, total population of all the realm's regions, not advies).

Well, part of it is so that realms that have more regions, but less population each, can be on more equal footing with realms that have less regions, but more population each. So, hypothetically, there could be a realm that does indeed have multiple cities, but they are smaller cities, comparative to a single-city realm (like say Ibladesh, Giask, Wudenkin et cetera). In which case, one would be more penalized by having more regions and one more penalized by having more population. Same as for regions with more gold than others, with realm economy adjustments.