Social Game

[Platypus]

In a thread regarding the purpose of nobles I vaguely suggested a sort of realm wide strategic game to generate conflict and fun... To flesh out the idea a little further and open it up for consideration by the pbase I've added this post to it. If this is generally considered a silly idea let me know and I'll drop it, I have trouble telling a good idea from a bad one when I'm the one with the idea.

Here's how it would work:

Premise:

The Realm, particularly the Nobility left in peace would amass wealth, prosper and grow. The down side is that strong duchies leads to contenders for the throne. The best way to ensure that the monarchies strength is superior is to allow the Nobility the bleed their strength against each other through limited contest and warfare. By enacting special war taxes and fees the Queen can inflate her own strength at the cost of the Duchies. The superior strength of the Monarchy allows them to intervene should the limited warfare be exceeded, or any of the Duchies become terribly imbalanced.

The Game:

The realm would be chopped up on a strategic map with a certain amount of territories. The geography files in game actually show the breakdown of some of the duchies. The sea conveniently allows each duchy some access to the others, if a channel were assumed between the Dralth ocean and Kirulean Sea. Lithmore Duchy would be untouchable, so the affects of any conflicts would be secondary to the pbase.

Upon creation (or during the initial dish up) a gentry and up player may purchase territory (non-refundable xp) that is situated appropriately based on IC RP (A tubor character shouldn't own Vavard land unless he's got a really really good reason). Gentry should be limited to a single territory, and Nobles to a number based upon rank.

Once the land is divided up allegiance becomes the next big step. Individual territories wouldn't be near strong enough to stand on their own, so the Gentry lucky enough to old land would have to find a nearby Baron to swear allegiance to. The Barons would swear to the Counts, and all of a sudden there's a whole new set of social relationships.

Freemen can get into the game by swearing fealty to a land owner, taking up some post on their land, or serving them in the city. Possessing the allegiance of freeman might provide some sort of bonus to your territory. Otherwise Freemen can partake in the game by being hired to do shady tasks for the various sides.

More importantly there is a huge source of conflict. Nobles can attempt to buy allegiance, or outright buy land from various parties. If they feel particularly froggy they can pay the huge tax and engage in some form of limited warfare. Should tensions mount between duchies the appropriate racial tensions might show up in the city, giving the Reeves something to do besides chase down thieves.

Some upsides:
-Provides a source of conflict
-A source of 'Upward mobility' for many
-Acts as a Gold and XP sink, to discourage hoarding
-A game within the game that may be appealing to some

Downsides
-Implementation; as a concept I think it sounds nice, but much more work needs to be done before anything could be implemented
-No historical precedence I know of for any 'limited war'. Would be re-writing a bit of history, I think.
-Players must be active, unless the system is carefully designed

A few more ideas
-Not all territories are created equal. Some may generate wealth, others may support more soldiers, some might have defensible terrain. A wealthy land may be poorly defended and have to purchase men at arms from a population rich territory. A land might be strategically valueable, despite not having resources.
-Improvements for lands can be purchased to fortify them or increase their value.
-Freemen or Gentry might be able to acquire ships, which would be of value to the nobles
-A freeman player might join an army or ship and return from battle rich and skilled, maimed or dead.
-Neutral events could crop up on the board, peasant uprisings or mage covens.

Implementation Thought:

I'm not familiar with much of TI's code, but to get something like this off the ground quickly, a fast and loose coding solution might be to build the map using rooms disconnected from the main game. Rooms could be assigned special properties (getting into the area where I have no idea of feasibility) to where they generate NPC's, silver, or whatever over time. NPC's could then be moved about to simulate troop movements, set hostile to the other duchies, and be used to work out the results of a conflict. (Deeper into the no idea of feasibility). Territory owners could have some command giving them access to their portion of the rooms so that they could issue commands to the mooks or collect their wealth or whatever.


If there's any interest I would happily participate in further development of the concept.

[Kinaed]

We're in the midst of a first phase for something exactly like this. Go into the Ideas forum and Accepted ideas, then look for "Followers". Az will be turning out the first phase of this when he can. Right now we have to get the first steps in and see how people act with it because we're not sure how people will treat support.

I have a queztion on another thread asking peolle how they view a social system like thiz - fun or scary? Some ppl have said not fun b/c their advancement as a noble/person of importance would rely on others, but for my playing style, I'd love it. What about everyone else?

Btw, I can type... just not on a mobile phone.. :/

[Platypus]

I'm not certain that I fully understand the support concept as its been written about, so I've been cautious to comment on it.

What does it mean to 'support' someone?

The relationship is a bit vague for me. Also how is 'support' quantified? How does the currency of 'support' function?

I would need more information on the system to intelligently weigh in on it.