Author Topic: Dukes and Duchies  (Read 11505 times)

JeVondair

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Dukes and Duchies
« Topic Start: September 26, 2017, 07:13:17 PM »
I was wondering about exploring the functionality of dukes. Why is it that Dukes can't manage their duchies the same way a lord can manage their regions? If a duke can appoint a lord, why can they not dismiss them? Why cant one duchess make an agreement with another to exchange a region from one duchy to the other if the mood strikes them? Why can't Duke's designate a ducal capital or a trading hub? Why can't dukes poor money into their duchies to improve things like roads.


I was going to make a feature request, but I'm unsure of where to begin. The Duke game seems a bit limited in terms of game-supported actions/options compared to their real-life medieval counterparts.
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Wimpie

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #1: September 26, 2017, 10:34:10 PM »
But most of all, why can't we rename the Dukes' title like we can the council positions?

Now that would be great!

Although, it might already be too confusing with all the personlized title names.
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Zakky

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #2: September 26, 2017, 11:36:11 PM »
But most of all, why can't we rename the Dukes' title like we can the council positions?

Now that would be great!

Although, it might already be too confusing with all the personlized title names.

Realm names and government titles are already confusing. I don't think allowing dukes to be changed will add too much confusion. You already see governor and representative depending on what government type you are using. I think it will simply make people happy by allowing more customization options.

JeVondair

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #3: September 27, 2017, 12:26:18 AM »

But most of all, why can't we rename the Dukes' title like we can the council positions?

Now that would be great!

Although, it might already be too confusing with all the personlized title names.

I can't recall the thread but someone once asked me to draw up new government systems and titles and I just never got around to it. But frankly, so long as we can edit ruler titles, everything else really should be customizable as well. I mean, what if I wanted to go french and say Duc instead? can't :-(


Realm names and government titles are already confusing. I don't think allowing dukes to be changed will add too much confusion. You already see governor and representative depending on what government type you are using. I think it will simply make people happy by allowing more customization options.

+1
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Wimpie

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #4: September 27, 2017, 08:38:06 AM »
Well I propose it because in Vix we use 'Head of House' instead of Duke. And we keep pointing that out to new people but it's hard when the game says you're actually a Duke of Duchess.

But when writing the message on here, I realized I already had to look up what position someone played every time somehting custom was used, and that's annoying as well. But one more couldn't hurt, I guess. It's something to take into consideration together with the other question you posed here. We need to find a balance.

Regarding your original questions, they do seem like a lot of work. So I'm saying there's some interesting suggestions in upgrading the Duke game, it might just not be happening anytime soon. Or perhaps when we can work it out some more what the exact additions would have to be.
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Chenier

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #5: September 27, 2017, 02:02:17 PM »
Only 1 person per realm gets to fiddle with these things, and imo, that's a good thing. Back in the days, nothing short of rebellion could change peoples' titles, and that only allowed 5 choices.

I don't really see a point to using foreign language titles, either. Duc is duke. It's the same thing. Are people going to start writing to each other in French too, for flavor? It just adds confusion for little to no return.

It was always the mantra that mechanics trump RP. If the game says something and players say something else, the game is right. If calling dukes kings or heads of houses or other such things are confusing... then maybe stop doing it?

That said, I do concede that some additional title-granting capacities can sometimes go a long way to favor richer RP. It's been requested in the past to allow to create new titles to arbitrarily hand out. I don't believe it was utterly rejected, but I think that some restrictions needed to be thought of, to avoid everyone getting their own vanity title.

To go back on the confusingness of existing customization, I would propose a suggestion, that I'm not sure I like myself: perhaps we could add title icons? We already have a little gender symbol. Maybe we can put a sword symbol to generals, a balance or coin symbol to bankers, a crown symbol to rulers, and a scroll or balance symbol to judges? This would prevent the need to look up any title of foreign government members. If more customization was truly desired (or just to compensate for the already existing multiple choices), this could be extended with a city icon to dukes and a mill icon to lords.

If we wanted the maximum possible customizationability, we could put up a list of all government title powers (assign militia, call peasant militia, ban noble, handle prisons, access granaries, etc.), and then let players break them up into, say, 3-6 titles. Preferably only changeable by rebellion. This would open up a few extra slots for semi-vanity titles, and message perks (message to all generals, for example) would remain unchanged other than for the fact of being switcheable (with at least 3 titles getting a seperate message group and no one getting more than 2).

Personally, this sounds like a lot of work, though, and if we were to go in such levels of customization, I would much, much rather we instead prioritize the geographical mechanics of the game in order to allow mass migrations of realms and player-driven region type changes. The lack of titles is not a major problem for this game, but in some parts of the game, screwed up geography is.
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daviceroy

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #6: October 05, 2017, 06:17:23 AM »
Rulers can't dismiss dukes. Rulers can't do much realm stuff either.  They are often figure heads with diplomacy buttons.  One of my hopes would be That rulers were expanded. Right now, Dukes even have more power than rulers imho.  The impression i get is that this is by design.

Zakky

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #7: October 05, 2017, 06:35:41 AM »
Rulers can't dismiss dukes. Rulers can't do much realm stuff either.  They are often figure heads with diplomacy buttons.  One of my hopes would be That rulers were expanded. Right now, Dukes even have more power than rulers imho.  The impression i get is that this is by design.

Yes. Which is weird to be honest. The game is so centralized yet dukes still wield so much power. Feels like it can't make up its mind. If you want to be a strong ruler, you need your own duchy.

Eduardo Almighty

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #8: October 05, 2017, 02:59:46 PM »
When playing with Erik, he always used the term Margrave of Trinbar instead of Marquis to talk about himself... latter, the title was changed by the Devs  8)

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If a duke can appoint a lord, why can they not dismiss them?

And then I was punished when I did it by Erik's own methods.
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Antonine

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #9: October 05, 2017, 05:38:04 PM »
Yes. Which is weird to be honest. The game is so centralized yet dukes still wield so much power. Feels like it can't make up its mind. If you want to be a strong ruler, you need your own duchy.

Well as a general rule, it's not possible to dismiss any noble from a position once it's been given to them (with the exception of marshals/vice-marshals/ambassadors). That's always been part of the game - you have to either protest them out or get the judge to ban them.

But what I think would be a good improvement would be to make it so that every duchy has a capital and units from RCs within that duchy can only be recruited at the ducal capital. You could also maybe change the distance from capital penalty so that it uses distance from the ducal capital rather than the realm capital.

That would give rulers an interesting choice to make. They could centralise the realm into one large duchy, which would limit how big it could grow, or create multiple duchies which would increase the maximum size of the realm and its ability to wage war, but with the trade-off of undermining central authority by creating powerful dukes who could declare independence any time they felt like it.

You could also potentially make it so that nobles of a duchy can only recruit at their ducal capital. That'd also strengthen duchy identity and would prevent realms from just creating a new duchy on the frontline of whichever war they happen to be fighting purely for faster refit times.

JeVondair

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #10: October 05, 2017, 06:53:27 PM »
Historically, Dukes almost always held the majority of the power in Aristocracies. Kings were often Dukes themselves as a way of assuring their own power. A King could only strip a Duke of his power by either killing him, basically. But Duke's could and did dismiss lords that displeased them.
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Zakky

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #11: October 05, 2017, 08:39:33 PM »
Anaris has shot down the whole ducal capital idea for years. He has made it abundantly clear the game will only allow recruitment in the capital only.

JeVondair

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #12: October 05, 2017, 11:23:32 PM »
Anaris has shot down the whole ducal capital idea for years. He has made it abundantly clear the game will only allow recruitment in the capital only.


Oh that I know, I should have specified  it as more of an RP thing to be supported by Game mechanics so when you click on a Duchy link and it tells you who the Duke is it will also specify the Ducal Seat the Duchy is based around?
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Chenier

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #13: October 06, 2017, 02:18:36 AM »
Well ducal capitals have a number of problems, namely that there isn't, currently, any such thing. You need a city or stronghold to create a duchy, but you do not need to have either of these for a duchy to continue existing. These region types are currently the only ones that can be capitals, and thus allow recruiting (and banking), making them extra valuable. And even when a duchy has at least one, it can have more, and it doesn't mean the duke has any such regions, if any region at all.

I don't think those issues have ever been properly addressed in any feature request. If someone can flesh out a system that would make ducal recruitment sensible, I'm sure it would warrant at least a discussion.
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Zakky

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Re: Dukes and Duchies
« Reply #14: October 06, 2017, 03:37:07 AM »
Well ducal capitals have a number of problems, namely that there isn't, currently, any such thing. You need a city or stronghold to create a duchy, but you do not need to have either of these for a duchy to continue existing. These region types are currently the only ones that can be capitals, and thus allow recruiting (and banking), making them extra valuable. And even when a duchy has at least one, it can have more, and it doesn't mean the duke has any such regions, if any region at all.

I don't think those issues have ever been properly addressed in any feature request. If someone can flesh out a system that would make ducal recruitment sensible, I'm sure it would warrant at least a discussion.

Nope. Many suggestions came up over the years. None went through. You are free it give it another try though like many others have before.