Isn't the balance there already though? As I see it, its not as if the realms with less cities are facing problems. The more cities you have, the more peasants you have to feed. Food, in my experience, is a fairly important part of any realm's survival and expansion. Can't do much if most of your regions are starving and you're bleeding population. There's nothing players can do about how the cities are spread, and I doubt they'd be spread any differently were this introduced, but would it not simply be a fact of life? Some realms are made up of tiny cities. Consider OW on FEI. Other realms have a single big city and no others. Luck of the draw as to where your realm is situated. There's no complaining of balance there and I don't see how this could change things that much. I've never seen distance from capital do the damage that TMP can, and the suggestion seems to be that being closer to the Duchy seat negates that penalty to some degree. Doing that, rather than having it as a benefit, would also answer the question of regions right by the capital getting a double-bonus, as it would simply be no penalty. Course, that's not me saying I think it would be a bad thing for proximity to have a benefit, but even limiting the distance penalty is a benefit.
The question, I think, is more focused on how it might effect the landscape of realms and duchies. Would the implementation of this change encourage the less patriotic lords to change their region loyalties to take advantage? And would others continue to suffer distance penalties to be a part of a Duchy for political/loyalty reasons rather than changing allegiance to a closer Duchy? Would regions reach a point where they're far enough from the capital and the ducal seat to actually take a double hit?
I dunno if I'd say this is a good idea. Interesting though. I am of the opinion that the Duchy should play a greater role in a noble's life than it does, for the most part, at the moment. Whether this will have that effect, I can't say, but it does add another layer to these sort of IC decisions. I like that myself, but is it an unnecessary layer of complication?
Finton.
