Questions / Suggestions

Haha. I'll change it if I get some forests or mountains or something.

Everything fits a standard geological map except the excruciatingly abnormal lack of forests in the world. xD

Excessive deforestation my friend. Europe went from being 100% forest to being agricultural farmland in the middle ages, and I expect our own civilizations haven't been any more merciful to nature.

I still need one last Arcane Trait.

I'm going to change to it soon enough.

I may have simply misread the rules, but something about the military maintenance system strikes me as odd.

For example, in the ridiculous case that a nation with a population growth of 5,000 (5 MP/week) keeps a standing army of only 6 Warrior Companies, they will nonetheless run at a loss of MP (6 MP maintenance - 5 MP from pop growth = -1) and eventually run out of MP. Did I misunderstand, or is this the reality of how the system works?

I don't know what Theo would say, but I figured that was the idea. If you play it right you can "stockpile" MP and then, for a short time, support armies larger than maintenance should allow.

Of course, now that MP and Maintenance are frozen during wartime, that doesn't matter so much.

Mp is calculated off of your total population, not your population increase. So my country gets 107 MP a week because of a total population of 107k.

EDIT: there is a mechanic in place, you can go without maintence on your troops, but they will run down and fight far less efficiently

That system shows that it's flawed if you start with 0 and have an increase of 5 MP a week.

Nobody started at zero. So it's fine.

Talis. How do you like this?

Trade Guilds - Trade guilds are organizations of workers who have banded together to gain better working conditions, increased salaries and so forth for their members. The trade guilds negotiates contracts with the employer, hopefully achieving more success than any individual employee could on his or her own. If the negotiations are unsuccessful then the trade guild might organize a work stoppage (or "strike"), limiting or curtailing the employer's income. Many kingdoms have bitterly resisted the creation of guilds and more than a little blood has been shed over the matter.
-- Guild Hall cost 5 Economic Points less.
-- All cities in the kingdom start with a Guild Hall.

That could work, but doesn't it forestall the use of Guild Halls in other kingdoms? You can't just go and build constructs in other people's territory.

If you ask and they accept you can. You're right though, you can't just go building Guild Halls in other people's kingdoms.

well it could work. Guild Hall price needs to be reduced though, either absolutely or in the price-reduction of the trait. 15 EP for a 2 EP a week trickle is pretty steep, especially since 1 EP is going to the nation that allows production.

Mille Sessau wrote:

That system shows that it's flawed if you start with 0 and have an increase of 5 MP a week.

Nobody started at zero. So it's fine.

Actually, not quite. Let's say I have 80 MP to start with and buy just 10 Warrior Companies while I have a pop growth of 5,000/week. That gives me a stockpile of 60 MP, a ridiculous proportion (75%) of my original MP. However, even in this case I am running at a loss (5 MP/week from pop - 10 MP maintenance). 12 weeks of peace (whether or not they come all at once) will destroy my stockpile. Now considering that each nation in this forum has a lower population growth, a much larger military, and a much smaller proportion of its original MP in stockpile than my extreme example, they wouldn't last half of that time without a war going on.

On the other hand, if what Ejrahk said is true, then I simply misunderstood the system to begin with, and the above is no longer applicable.

Random Resource suggestion:

Salt - Salt is a mineral resource used to preserve food and add flavor. Because of its functions the resource is commonly sought after.
- Reduces Logistics demands

Here is how the system works for a visual so maybe it will help.

Peace-Time
Confederacy of Caexi
Population: 92,400
Pop Increase: 1,200/week
MP Generation: 92 MP/week
Maintaince: 82/week [10% MP waived because of Hero]
Weekly MP Generation: 10 MP/week
Stockpile: 65 MP

During peace my kingdom generates 10 MP per week with my current army size. During war time this changed because we don't want people to spam units which will cause wars last forever. See below

War-Time
Confederacy of Caexi
Population: 92,400
Pop Increase: 0/week
MP Generation: 0 MP/week
Maintaince: 0/week [10% MP waived because of Hero]
Weekly MP Generation: 0 MP/week
Stockpile: 65 MP

As your can see all population and MP generation are zero during the war. I can replenish my forces for a time since I have 65 MP stockpiled, but once my stockpile is gone then my forces will be whatever I have. All this is so that 1. people use tactics to not only win battles but save their forces for further use and 2. so that wars don't last forever because people can't constantly replace their armies.

I think people should get some kind of reprieve though after they defeat an enemy and say there still at war with one of their allies. Or are in a two front war. For example, if I just made peace terms with Everwinter but i'm still at war with Zhufor logically resources would be freed up allowing units to be replenished.

Well you actually do anyways. Making peace lets you send soldiers who were fighting or garrisoning one front to the other.

Meh, not if you lost a lot of them in the initial battle.

Don't lose as many troops than, Ezria.

So you ended up going right back to the trait system you had before. Perhaps we need some kind of Beta system to test this stuff before we change things? I'm too tired to do much critique right now...

Needs more flexibility. One of the advantages of the tree system was that it let people focus or vary as they wished. Your current system doesn't have enough variability within categories. For example: everything in the religious category seems to assume some kind of devout people. What about my halflings? Their religion is basically an overgrown folk religion that has more to do with stories than actual faith. Where's my Agnostic Nation trait?

Be careful with the constructs. You're getting pretty specific, and it might start crimping people. When we're talking about nations of tens of thousands of people, some things are assumed. You honestly think a city of 50,000 isn't already going to have dozens of courthouses? Not to mention; some of the constructs don't even make sense in certain kingdoms. I'll use Shidrus as an example again: they don't have a court system. If you do something wrong, you get called before your local guild leader, then you get penalized for your actions.

*Edit* also, no one has any of these "royal flushes" at the moment, so it's not that big of a problem. It needs to be fixed, yes, but it's not urgent. We can afford to poke and prod this system before acting hastily.

I just want to get the following out of the way.

Talis, you're going to complain about whatever I've put up.

This is the fourth iteration of the trait system, and you complained about them all except for the first. I just want to get that out of the way.

I'll take out Mandate of the Gods and add Paganism, since that's acceptable.

Also, don't built Courthouses in Shidrus. Simple enough.

Well of course I'm going to complain about it. You just called me "the guy who checks my work," now I've got to live up to the expectation. Nothing gets better until we see how it gets worse.

Not building courthouses is an option, but it requires sacrifices hard bonuses for the sake of Roleplaying. Ideally the two should synthesize. Traits and constructs should complement the flavor, not contradict it.

My point is that when constructs get detailed, they can get kind of absurd. It's like those RTS games where you can have five houses and build a barracks, and that somehow gives you dozens of soldiers. A nation with 100,000 citizens is going to have dozens of courthouses, a town watch, hospitals, probably an entire section of the city set off for military structures such as stables, barracks and armories. It adds a bit of dissonance when we suddenly have to construct a single lumber mill in a place where, theoretically, there should be dozens of mills and a whole town of lumberjacks.

Well it's not that the kingdom doesn't have lumber mills, it just adds tangibility to it.

Like Caexi is about to buy the Irrigated Farmland.

That would be representative of dozens of farmlands over the entirety of his Foodstuffs Resources.

I don't want to get too indepth, you're right, but I want people to be less governed by the traits and allotted more flexibility via the path they want to go.

With the Social Trees, you got a more specialized tree but that's where it ended.

Yeah Talis you had a good economic base with a strong navy, but that was it. You couldn't continue growing your economy.

Now. Give me 2 tangibles for Paganism please!

And I think I'll add a Barracks construct and we'll be lookin' spiffy!

Alright, here's a doctrine that might work for you: Traits should provide a kingdom with a predisposition for whatever style the traits reflect.

In other words, if I want to play Shidrus as an economic powerhouse with a strong naval and military backing, I should be able to choose traits that will make it easier for me to grow my economy and navy. If Caexi wants to play a militarily powerful plains people, he should have the option to pick traits that make it easier for him to develop his army. And so-on and so-forth.

Yes sir. That's what I did.

However now there's a staircase effect.

Like you had ;

Colonialism (easier to create, maintain colonies)
Pro Armies (stronger, more expensive armies)
Trade Guilds (expanding economic base)
and something else.

Well now you can have that .. and with the additional constructs veer down the path you want, which, with Shidrus is an economy.

So you're building Marketplaces and such to facilitate that!

Indeed. The issue I see with the new trait system you have now is that it doesn't allow that level of flexibility.

For example, nearly everything in the Labor Civic provides economic bonuses. All Religion Civic traits provide cultural bonuses. All Military Civic traits provide military bonuses. Since we have to get one from each, it ends up being a rigid 1 - 1 - 1 setup. In the prior system, the different trees could be chosen and manipulated to make a kingdom strong in one area and weaker in others.

Here, I may be able to decide I want to focus my economic strength through trade instead of agrarianism, but I am going to have an economic strength. I may get to choose whether I want a rush of conscripts or a professional army, but I will have a military trait.

It's a matter of taste, to be honest, but I like the flexibility.

Following what you just said, I do agree.

I like the representation here. Everybody has equal representation.

1 - 1 - 1 - 1 as you called it. (Culture / Economy / Religion / Military ).

Except now with this set-up, you don't all stay 1 - 1 - 1 - 1.

Caexi can easily go 1 - 2 - 1 - 2 by building some Barracks and Farmlands.

I can go 2 - 1 - 2 - 1 by building some Theaters and Temples.

You can go 1 - 3 - 1 -1 by building Marketplaces and Harbors.

See what I mean?