Brainstorm: Courts, factions, favourites, nobility, estates?!
EDIT: Before you start to read those walls of text, let me point you to the brief summary here.
This wall of text is not supposed to be a rant. I like EU IV. I really like it. However, I don't like it as much as CK and there are some things I'm not too happy with or rather some really paramount aspects of the early modern world that are simply missing in the game.
For example, I miss the characters from CK II. EU has an apersonal feel to it, as you interact with mechanisms and numbers (power, ideas, trade and production efficiency, stability, etc.) rather than with people. And even though the abstract mechanisms might in the end provide a plausible result (which is open for discussion), the workings leading to the results feel a bit strange, and are not really immersive or fun to play.
So, I asked myself what I would really love to see in this game and came up with the following ideas. Please just take them as a kind of brainstorming. I'd love to hear some opinions/feedback on it, or in genreal just hear if you feel the same. Do you miss personal interaction? Do you miss the most characterisic political instituation of early modern Europe – the courts? Also feel free to post your own ideas!
The following is but a suggestion how certain aspects (nobility, estates, factions, court) could be modeled into the game, replacing some of the current mechanisms (stability, war taxes, partly overextension) with less abstract, more immersive and historically plausible models. If they would really work out well or could even be realized (technical restrictions, AI-iusses) I don't know. As I've said, it's nothing but brainstorming that might give everyone an idea what I feel is missing in the EU-series. I also need to point out that I'm not sure that this model could be used to do justice to all the different political structures around the world. I'm positive, however, that with a few tweaks here and there it would make sense in a lot of cases. It's basically meant to represent interaction between the center (the crown) and court- or local elites (nobility, could also represent high bureaucrats). This new aspect of the game should trigger several "internal" conflicts that will curb your ambitions in "external" affairs, without necessarily threatening your existence.
So here is my idea of how court, factions, estates, nobility could be represented in the game (many parts are still missing, lack of time - I will add them a bit later):
EDIT: Before you start to read those walls of text, let me point you to the brief summary here.
This wall of text is not supposed to be a rant. I like EU IV. I really like it. However, I don't like it as much as CK and there are some things I'm not too happy with or rather some really paramount aspects of the early modern world that are simply missing in the game.
For example, I miss the characters from CK II. EU has an apersonal feel to it, as you interact with mechanisms and numbers (power, ideas, trade and production efficiency, stability, etc.) rather than with people. And even though the abstract mechanisms might in the end provide a plausible result (which is open for discussion), the workings leading to the results feel a bit strange, and are not really immersive or fun to play.
So, I asked myself what I would really love to see in this game and came up with the following ideas. Please just take them as a kind of brainstorming. I'd love to hear some opinions/feedback on it, or in genreal just hear if you feel the same. Do you miss personal interaction? Do you miss the most characterisic political instituation of early modern Europe – the courts? Also feel free to post your own ideas!
The following is but a suggestion how certain aspects (nobility, estates, factions, court) could be modeled into the game, replacing some of the current mechanisms (stability, war taxes, partly overextension) with less abstract, more immersive and historically plausible models. If they would really work out well or could even be realized (technical restrictions, AI-iusses) I don't know. As I've said, it's nothing but brainstorming that might give everyone an idea what I feel is missing in the EU-series. I also need to point out that I'm not sure that this model could be used to do justice to all the different political structures around the world. I'm positive, however, that with a few tweaks here and there it would make sense in a lot of cases. It's basically meant to represent interaction between the center (the crown) and court- or local elites (nobility, could also represent high bureaucrats). This new aspect of the game should trigger several "internal" conflicts that will curb your ambitions in "external" affairs, without necessarily threatening your existence.
So here is my idea of how court, factions, estates, nobility could be represented in the game (many parts are still missing, lack of time - I will add them a bit later):
1. NOBILITY/ELITES
2. COURT
3. ESTATES
(refers to the "political" estates, the representatives of the broader nobility of a region, which was the main partner/opponent monarchs had to negotiate with if they wanted to collect taxes. Many big conflicts in early modern Euorpe (especially prior to ca. 1650, after which the estates were gradually dispowered by "absolutist" monarchs) were conflicts between the crown and estates. For example: the crisis of 1619 in Bohemia that triggered the series of wars later known as the 30 years war was a conflict between the Habsburg rulers as kings of Bohemia and the estates/nobility of Bohemia. Not written down yet)
4. CONFLICTS
(between crown - estates - nobles; not written down yet)
1.1. Basics
1.2. Service for the crown
1.3. Factions (not written down yet)
1.4. Promotion and changing the noble landscape (not written down yet)
Each province/region on the map has a so called "nobleman". For european monarchies, a nobleman represents the most influential aristocrat in a province, his family and retinue of protegés included. You can conceive a "nobleman" as a single person, but also as a kind of faction, a web of "friendships" or a noble family.
You will be able to access a list of all the noblemen in your realm, providing you the following information for each aristocrat/family (besides the names of the family and the nobleman):
- opinion of you
- age
- modified stats (administration/diplomacy/military)
- rank (1-5)
- current grace
- money
- estates
- confession
- culture
- diplomatic faction
- (for immersion: coat-of-arms of the family, portrait of the nobleman)
Note that this is not really more information than the information associated with CK II characters, who even have fully detailed family relations and opinions of each other in the game. For noblemen in EU, this wouldn't be necessary. Nobleman don't need to have spouses, children, claims, opinions of each other (instead, their relations are abstracted via the factions-concept). Also note that even though EU IV covers the whole world, the amount of characters would still be lower than the amount of characters in CK II, because there would be only one noble per province, not 3-6 (1 per holding).
Some of the variables will be explained in more detail further below. Here are just some short remarks for each variable:
age
Age gives you a rough idea when the nobleman is going to die. He will be replaced by another member of the same noble family. However, there is a (random) chance that a noble family dies out, in which case you might install a new family (or let the estates do that). But in most cases, when a nobleman dies, the coat-of-arms will stay the same, money will stay the same, rank will (in most cases, see "court/graces/promotion" further below) stay the same. The skills and – to a certain degree – the opinion of you will change. So, in game-terms, "family" only functions a means to carry over opinion, rank and money from one generation of noblemen to another in order to prevent the exploitation of generational breaks. Children, spouses, etc. are not represented in the game in any way. We only need "age" in order to randomize the talent available to a monarch, in order to limit ascent, and in order to give the monarch more flexibility by letting certain positions become vacant from time to time. Moreover, in certain situations, a monarch can decide to ban or disempower a family and replace it with a different family.
modified stats
Stats (administration/diplomacy/military) are quite self-explicatory. They determine the talents of the nobles when it comes to "service for the crown" (see further below for details). A nobleman has a "natural" Talent as well as "modified" stats. Shown in the list should be the "modified" stats. Modified stats are natural stats modified by the noblemans' current opinion of you. Hovering over the number shows you the natural stats and explains that modified stats are influenced by opinion. Stats that are affected negatively are shown in red, stats that are affected positively are shown in green.
rank
Rank ranges from 0 (only for commoners) to 5 (very powerfull aristocrat). Rank is an indicator of power as well as claimed honour of the nobleman. The importance of rank will become clear if you read the whole of this suggestion (including the upcoming parts). The most important consequence of rank, however, is that you have to bestow graces on your nobles according to their rank if you don't want to risk to make them unhappy. If the (current) graces you give to a nobleman do not match his rank, his opinion of the crown will decrease and he counts as a "malcontent". If a nobleman receives less grace than his rank demands, the rank is shown in red in order to indicate a "malcontent". Vice versa, your "favourites" who receive more grace than their rank suggests, will have their rank shown in green.
grace
The amount of grace that you're currently bestowing on the family/noble. Grace (royal attention, privileges, presents, favours, promotions, offices) is managed via the court (see court for more details).
opinion of crown
This is pretty self-explicatory as well. The opinion is shown as a number. Hovering over it will give the detailed breakdown.
estates
Either a text or a coat-of-arms will tell you to which estates the noble belongs. This information is important because noblemen – as local elites - exert influence over estates that they're member of (the more so the higher their rank).
culture (faction)
The name of the culture of the family. One could think about implementing some chance that a family changes culture, but I don't think it is really neccessary. Noblemen of the same culture will group up and form a faction in your realm.
confession (faction)
The confession of the family. Noblemen of the same confession will group up and form a faction in your realm. The faction is visualised by the symbol of the respective confession.
diplomatic faction
This tells you whether the nobleman forms part of a certain diplomatical-interest-group. Noblemen who are located in a province adjacent to a "rival" province (a province owned by a country that you've defined as a rival) form such an interest-group. If you got two of these factions in your realm, they will compete with each other. Imagine these factions as "pro" and "anti" groups. Noblemen who are not adjacent to a rival province will be neutral. The faction is visualised by the coat-of-arms of the nation that the nobleman dislikes. Neutral noblemen will show no coat-of-arms.
money
The accumulated money of a family. Depending on the rank, there is a constant drain of money for each family. For example, a level 3 family could lose 0.3 ducats per month. This is offset by money that a family receives via presents, privileges and also offices. So, each family has a kind of balance. If the money of a family reaches 50, it will automatically rise in status by 1.
You will be able to access a list of all the noblemen in your realm, providing you the following information for each aristocrat/family (besides the names of the family and the nobleman):
- opinion of you
- age
- modified stats (administration/diplomacy/military)
- rank (1-5)
- current grace
- money
- estates
- confession
- culture
- diplomatic faction
- (for immersion: coat-of-arms of the family, portrait of the nobleman)
Note that this is not really more information than the information associated with CK II characters, who even have fully detailed family relations and opinions of each other in the game. For noblemen in EU, this wouldn't be necessary. Nobleman don't need to have spouses, children, claims, opinions of each other (instead, their relations are abstracted via the factions-concept). Also note that even though EU IV covers the whole world, the amount of characters would still be lower than the amount of characters in CK II, because there would be only one noble per province, not 3-6 (1 per holding).
Some of the variables will be explained in more detail further below. Here are just some short remarks for each variable:
age
Age gives you a rough idea when the nobleman is going to die. He will be replaced by another member of the same noble family. However, there is a (random) chance that a noble family dies out, in which case you might install a new family (or let the estates do that). But in most cases, when a nobleman dies, the coat-of-arms will stay the same, money will stay the same, rank will (in most cases, see "court/graces/promotion" further below) stay the same. The skills and – to a certain degree – the opinion of you will change. So, in game-terms, "family" only functions a means to carry over opinion, rank and money from one generation of noblemen to another in order to prevent the exploitation of generational breaks. Children, spouses, etc. are not represented in the game in any way. We only need "age" in order to randomize the talent available to a monarch, in order to limit ascent, and in order to give the monarch more flexibility by letting certain positions become vacant from time to time. Moreover, in certain situations, a monarch can decide to ban or disempower a family and replace it with a different family.
modified stats
Stats (administration/diplomacy/military) are quite self-explicatory. They determine the talents of the nobles when it comes to "service for the crown" (see further below for details). A nobleman has a "natural" Talent as well as "modified" stats. Shown in the list should be the "modified" stats. Modified stats are natural stats modified by the noblemans' current opinion of you. Hovering over the number shows you the natural stats and explains that modified stats are influenced by opinion. Stats that are affected negatively are shown in red, stats that are affected positively are shown in green.
rank
Rank ranges from 0 (only for commoners) to 5 (very powerfull aristocrat). Rank is an indicator of power as well as claimed honour of the nobleman. The importance of rank will become clear if you read the whole of this suggestion (including the upcoming parts). The most important consequence of rank, however, is that you have to bestow graces on your nobles according to their rank if you don't want to risk to make them unhappy. If the (current) graces you give to a nobleman do not match his rank, his opinion of the crown will decrease and he counts as a "malcontent". If a nobleman receives less grace than his rank demands, the rank is shown in red in order to indicate a "malcontent". Vice versa, your "favourites" who receive more grace than their rank suggests, will have their rank shown in green.
grace
The amount of grace that you're currently bestowing on the family/noble. Grace (royal attention, privileges, presents, favours, promotions, offices) is managed via the court (see court for more details).
opinion of crown
This is pretty self-explicatory as well. The opinion is shown as a number. Hovering over it will give the detailed breakdown.
estates
Either a text or a coat-of-arms will tell you to which estates the noble belongs. This information is important because noblemen – as local elites - exert influence over estates that they're member of (the more so the higher their rank).
culture (faction)
The name of the culture of the family. One could think about implementing some chance that a family changes culture, but I don't think it is really neccessary. Noblemen of the same culture will group up and form a faction in your realm.
confession (faction)
The confession of the family. Noblemen of the same confession will group up and form a faction in your realm. The faction is visualised by the symbol of the respective confession.
diplomatic faction
This tells you whether the nobleman forms part of a certain diplomatical-interest-group. Noblemen who are located in a province adjacent to a "rival" province (a province owned by a country that you've defined as a rival) form such an interest-group. If you got two of these factions in your realm, they will compete with each other. Imagine these factions as "pro" and "anti" groups. Noblemen who are not adjacent to a rival province will be neutral. The faction is visualised by the coat-of-arms of the nation that the nobleman dislikes. Neutral noblemen will show no coat-of-arms.
money
The accumulated money of a family. Depending on the rank, there is a constant drain of money for each family. For example, a level 3 family could lose 0.3 ducats per month. This is offset by money that a family receives via presents, privileges and also offices. So, each family has a kind of balance. If the money of a family reaches 50, it will automatically rise in status by 1.
The following system would completely replace the current advisor-system and make some tweaks to diplomats and leaders. Each monarch has two advisory bodies and two kinds of "executive" agents that are recruited among your nobility.
Advisory bodies:
Privy council (for administration and diplomacy)
War council (for military)
Executive agents:
diplomats
leaders (generals/admirals)
The other agents are unaffected as noblemen don't engage as traders, missionaries or colonists.
The advisory bodies
A monarch can nominate up to three noblemen as councilors for his privy council and up to three noblemen for his war council. Who you're going to nominate will be influenced primarily by two questions/aspects:
1. A position in the privy or war council will be perceived as grace by a nobleman (see "court" for more information) and also by the factions that he is part of. This aspect is described in further detail under "factions" and "court".
2. Depending on the quality and opinion of your councilors, you will receive a malus or bonus on your (administration/diplomacy/military) stats. For the privy council, determine the mean of all the modified administration/diplomarcy-stats of the councillors. If the result is higher than the monarchs' administration/diplomacy value, apply a +1 bonus. If the result is at least two times higher than the monarchs' stat, apply a +2 bonus. If the result is lower, apply a -1 malus. Actually, it would be nice if the privy council would also be able to give you a bonus/malus on tax-income.
For the war council, do the same for the military-stat. Actually, it would be nice if the war-council would also be able to give you a bonus/malus on force-limits.
You can of course also leave all seats of an advisory body empty and denying yourself any bonus. If you don't want to fill a position with one of your nobles, you can hire a commoner for a task. This will cost you a little junk of administration power and spawn a randomly generated character of rank 0 who has an automatic opinion of +200 of you. This commoner might cost some money (in contrast for noblemen, who serve for free) and he is not a member of any family or estate. However, surrounding yourself with commoners rather than with those who are traditionally entitled to be your advisors (i.e. the nobility) will upset the nobility of your realm (see court). If you're a small country, you will need to make use of commoners. However, since the number of aristocrats in a small country is also very low, you should be able to keep them happy (with grace) very easily, thereby balancing out the malus (favouritism) you receive for taking advice from commoners. If it doesn't work, one could allow smaller countries (and republics!) a certain amount of free (of favouritism) commoners.
One could even expand on the idea of "common" versus "aristocratic" advisors. Tech and ideas could slowly shift the balance in favour of "commoner-bureaucrats", increasing their quality and/or decreasing your nobles' opinion loss if you use them (which is already modeled via "court" though). It would also offer means to give certain realms a unique feeling. For example, China could rely heavily on bureaucrats.
If there are noblemen with roughly the same rank in the council, expect a precedence quarrel from time to time as en "event". You will need to take action. Depending on your action, you might offend one or the other party, resulting in a temporary opinion change. There might also be quarrels about certain decisions. So, for example, if you go to war with country X, or appoint nobleman Y as a leader, you could be informed that one of your councilors disagress with that and might be asked to reconsider your opinion (and prefer not to upset the noble). This will be described in more detail further below (see "factions", decisions of war could be paramount for members of political/diplomatical factions). So, appointing nobles of a certain faction as advisors should not a good idea if you don't plan to act according to their interests. It will only help to upset them and their faction even more! This would be a quite necessary thing in my eyes: characters have (political interests). After all, they long for offices not solely because of the honour attached to it, but also because of the influence on the monarch (you!).
Executive agents
One important note at the beginning: the calculations for the maximum number of allowed leaders, merchants, missionaries and colonists is not affected. But I would increase the number of available diplomats a bit, given that player will now also have to deal with internal affairs. So one or two additional diplomat-slots would be nice.
Diplomats and leaders still do the same things. However, diplomats have a few more options now. The biggest change is that the quality of their services will be affected by the quality and opinion of the nobles that fill these positions. Therefore, it is necessary to implement a measurement of "quality of service" into the game.
Diplomats
Diplomats still carry out the same tasks as they do now, but there will be a few more tasks (negotiate with estates, see "estates"). However, in order to give the selection of diplomats a meaning (other than just improving relationships with nobles and factions), the characteristics of a nobleman have to have some influence on the quality of his service. How to model in the quality of diplomatic tasks? It's not too difficult, and there isn't even the need to make each and every task be influenced by talent. Here are a few ideas:
Note that I'd actually make all diplomatic treaties take some time. So, if you have but one master-mind-diplomat, he can't be everywhere at the same time. And note that "influence" means that it can go in two directions: good diplomats can give boni, bad diplomats will give mali.
negotiate peace: the agents' diplomatic skill influences the aggressive-expansion-opinion malus, as well as the diplomatic-power-costs for certain items in the negotiation, and perhaps even the likeliness of the opponent to accept. Moreover, it will shorten the time of the negotiations.
offer alliance: the diplomatic skill influences the likeliness of the opponent to accept, and the duration of the negotiations.
improve relations: each point of diplomatic skill of the agent in exces/short of X increases/reduces to the speed of opinion-gain as well as the maximum/cap (100 right now).
royal marriage: diplomatic skill of the agent influences the time the other faction needs to think about it (which should be increased in the first place). Actually, I guess it would make more sense to make a royal marriage cost diplomatic power (perhaps even be a constant drain of diplomatic power?!). The agents' skill could then reduce/increase the diplomatic-power-cost.
proclaim guarantee: skill could reduce the diplomatic power cost, as for royal marriage.
support rebels: diplomatic skill further increase reinforcement-speed, and decreases chance of discovery.
send warning: I think that whenever you send a warning to a non-rival-nation of yours, you should get a small aggressive expansion-opinion malus with other countries. The diplomatic skill of your agent would influence the extent of the malus, representing how he makes up reasons for the warning and fight a war of propaganda. Moreover, a good diplomat will have a slight chance of giving you some prestige, a bad one will cost you some prestige.
send insult: same as "send warning".
fabricate claim: diplomatic skill influences the speed and the chance of discovery, as well as the malus for aggressive expansion?
Two more ideas came to my mind concerning these actions:
1) one could make rank of the nobleman an important factor (apart from the diplomatic skill) as well. So, for example, countries would usually send very high aristocrats to peace negotiations. So, whenever two countries negotiate (i.e. alliances, royal marriages, peace negotiations), it would be awesome if actually both sides had to chose a diplomat, and the side with the higher ranking diplomat would get a bonus. If they're of the same rank, precedence-quarrels could lenghten the duration of the negotiations. If that's too complicated (since you'd always have to keep a diplomat "at home" in order to offer other nations chances to negotiate), one could use the characters in the privy councils as "passive" diplomats as well. For other actions, especially covert actions, it could be better to use low-level noblemen. Using higher ranking men should increase the chance of discovery.
Leaders
The tasks (manoeverability and providing boni in battle) stay the same. The quality is hard to represent, since there is not a lot of bandwith when it comes to leader-stats. However, one could simply say that a leader will distribute his military-stat Points (+1) randomly to the fire/shock/manoever/siege-skills.
Advisory bodies:
Privy council (for administration and diplomacy)
War council (for military)
Executive agents:
diplomats
leaders (generals/admirals)
The other agents are unaffected as noblemen don't engage as traders, missionaries or colonists.
The advisory bodies
A monarch can nominate up to three noblemen as councilors for his privy council and up to three noblemen for his war council. Who you're going to nominate will be influenced primarily by two questions/aspects:
1. A position in the privy or war council will be perceived as grace by a nobleman (see "court" for more information) and also by the factions that he is part of. This aspect is described in further detail under "factions" and "court".
2. Depending on the quality and opinion of your councilors, you will receive a malus or bonus on your (administration/diplomacy/military) stats. For the privy council, determine the mean of all the modified administration/diplomarcy-stats of the councillors. If the result is higher than the monarchs' administration/diplomacy value, apply a +1 bonus. If the result is at least two times higher than the monarchs' stat, apply a +2 bonus. If the result is lower, apply a -1 malus. Actually, it would be nice if the privy council would also be able to give you a bonus/malus on tax-income.
For the war council, do the same for the military-stat. Actually, it would be nice if the war-council would also be able to give you a bonus/malus on force-limits.
You can of course also leave all seats of an advisory body empty and denying yourself any bonus. If you don't want to fill a position with one of your nobles, you can hire a commoner for a task. This will cost you a little junk of administration power and spawn a randomly generated character of rank 0 who has an automatic opinion of +200 of you. This commoner might cost some money (in contrast for noblemen, who serve for free) and he is not a member of any family or estate. However, surrounding yourself with commoners rather than with those who are traditionally entitled to be your advisors (i.e. the nobility) will upset the nobility of your realm (see court). If you're a small country, you will need to make use of commoners. However, since the number of aristocrats in a small country is also very low, you should be able to keep them happy (with grace) very easily, thereby balancing out the malus (favouritism) you receive for taking advice from commoners. If it doesn't work, one could allow smaller countries (and republics!) a certain amount of free (of favouritism) commoners.
One could even expand on the idea of "common" versus "aristocratic" advisors. Tech and ideas could slowly shift the balance in favour of "commoner-bureaucrats", increasing their quality and/or decreasing your nobles' opinion loss if you use them (which is already modeled via "court" though). It would also offer means to give certain realms a unique feeling. For example, China could rely heavily on bureaucrats.
If there are noblemen with roughly the same rank in the council, expect a precedence quarrel from time to time as en "event". You will need to take action. Depending on your action, you might offend one or the other party, resulting in a temporary opinion change. There might also be quarrels about certain decisions. So, for example, if you go to war with country X, or appoint nobleman Y as a leader, you could be informed that one of your councilors disagress with that and might be asked to reconsider your opinion (and prefer not to upset the noble). This will be described in more detail further below (see "factions", decisions of war could be paramount for members of political/diplomatical factions). So, appointing nobles of a certain faction as advisors should not a good idea if you don't plan to act according to their interests. It will only help to upset them and their faction even more! This would be a quite necessary thing in my eyes: characters have (political interests). After all, they long for offices not solely because of the honour attached to it, but also because of the influence on the monarch (you!).
Executive agents
One important note at the beginning: the calculations for the maximum number of allowed leaders, merchants, missionaries and colonists is not affected. But I would increase the number of available diplomats a bit, given that player will now also have to deal with internal affairs. So one or two additional diplomat-slots would be nice.
Diplomats and leaders still do the same things. However, diplomats have a few more options now. The biggest change is that the quality of their services will be affected by the quality and opinion of the nobles that fill these positions. Therefore, it is necessary to implement a measurement of "quality of service" into the game.
Diplomats
Diplomats still carry out the same tasks as they do now, but there will be a few more tasks (negotiate with estates, see "estates"). However, in order to give the selection of diplomats a meaning (other than just improving relationships with nobles and factions), the characteristics of a nobleman have to have some influence on the quality of his service. How to model in the quality of diplomatic tasks? It's not too difficult, and there isn't even the need to make each and every task be influenced by talent. Here are a few ideas:
Note that I'd actually make all diplomatic treaties take some time. So, if you have but one master-mind-diplomat, he can't be everywhere at the same time. And note that "influence" means that it can go in two directions: good diplomats can give boni, bad diplomats will give mali.
negotiate peace: the agents' diplomatic skill influences the aggressive-expansion-opinion malus, as well as the diplomatic-power-costs for certain items in the negotiation, and perhaps even the likeliness of the opponent to accept. Moreover, it will shorten the time of the negotiations.
offer alliance: the diplomatic skill influences the likeliness of the opponent to accept, and the duration of the negotiations.
improve relations: each point of diplomatic skill of the agent in exces/short of X increases/reduces to the speed of opinion-gain as well as the maximum/cap (100 right now).
royal marriage: diplomatic skill of the agent influences the time the other faction needs to think about it (which should be increased in the first place). Actually, I guess it would make more sense to make a royal marriage cost diplomatic power (perhaps even be a constant drain of diplomatic power?!). The agents' skill could then reduce/increase the diplomatic-power-cost.
proclaim guarantee: skill could reduce the diplomatic power cost, as for royal marriage.
support rebels: diplomatic skill further increase reinforcement-speed, and decreases chance of discovery.
send warning: I think that whenever you send a warning to a non-rival-nation of yours, you should get a small aggressive expansion-opinion malus with other countries. The diplomatic skill of your agent would influence the extent of the malus, representing how he makes up reasons for the warning and fight a war of propaganda. Moreover, a good diplomat will have a slight chance of giving you some prestige, a bad one will cost you some prestige.
send insult: same as "send warning".
fabricate claim: diplomatic skill influences the speed and the chance of discovery, as well as the malus for aggressive expansion?
Two more ideas came to my mind concerning these actions:
1) one could make rank of the nobleman an important factor (apart from the diplomatic skill) as well. So, for example, countries would usually send very high aristocrats to peace negotiations. So, whenever two countries negotiate (i.e. alliances, royal marriages, peace negotiations), it would be awesome if actually both sides had to chose a diplomat, and the side with the higher ranking diplomat would get a bonus. If they're of the same rank, precedence-quarrels could lenghten the duration of the negotiations. If that's too complicated (since you'd always have to keep a diplomat "at home" in order to offer other nations chances to negotiate), one could use the characters in the privy councils as "passive" diplomats as well. For other actions, especially covert actions, it could be better to use low-level noblemen. Using higher ranking men should increase the chance of discovery.
Leaders
The tasks (manoeverability and providing boni in battle) stay the same. The quality is hard to represent, since there is not a lot of bandwith when it comes to leader-stats. However, one could simply say that a leader will distribute his military-stat Points (+1) randomly to the fire/shock/manoever/siege-skills.
1.3. Factions (not written down yet)
1.4. Promotion and changing the noble landscape (not written down yet)
2.1. Grace
2.2. Malcontents and favourites
The main ressource that a court provides you with is "grace". Grace is the ressource that can be used to meet a noble's expecations. Higher ranking nobles will expect more grace, lower nobles are satisfied with less grace. A nobleman expects 10 points of grace per rank. If you don't fulfill his expectations, he will count as a malcontent, which means that his opinion of you will decrease steadily over time. Note that the expectations of grace can only be satisfied via grace, not by any other methods to increase opinion. If, on the other hand, you give (significantly) more grace to a nobleman than he would deserve by rank, he turns into your "favourite". This will make the favourite very happy (so you can fully exploit his talents!), but will give you an opinion malus with other nobles of the rank- or grace-level of the favourite.
There are several ways to permanently or temporarily generate "grace" (favours, presents, privileges, promotion), and you have a base "pool of grace" (royal attention, pomp and ceremony):
1) Royal attention, pomp and ceremony
The court itself and your royal attention is a source of grace. Imagine this as the amount of prestige, pomp and glamour that a court offers, and the capability of your court to create situations in which you can give certain nobles preference, or play off nobles against each other.
If you switch to your court-chart, you will see the amount of grace from royal attention, pomp and ceremony at your disposal. You can use pomp and ceremony by distributing it freely amongst your noblemen. You do that by assigning percentages of your total grace-pool to noblemen. Each point of grace that they receive in this way equals one point of positive opinion. If you take favour away from a noble (which you can do at any time), he will receive a temporary opinion-malus (1/2 of the favour-loss), which will show up as "out of favour with the monarch".
The size of the "royal attention, pomp and ceremony"-grace-pool will gradually increase over time. This will actually portray that in most monarchies, the power of the estates slowly declined while the power of the court-nobility and the court were on the rise (just to be finally replaced by the central power of the monarch and his bureaucrats). So, in phase one, you would be unable to control the estates with your nobles because your court is not capable of binding (strong) noblemen yet. In phase two, starting around 1650, you would be able to control the estates via the court nobility, but you would still struggle to keep court-factions happy. The last phase, probably setting in around 1750, would see you as an almost independent ruler who neither depends on estates nor court nobility. Since your court-grace-pool will be so high, you will have enough grace to satisfy all factions. And even more, you could distribute so much grace that you could make use of common bureaucrats. You don't need the nobility anymore.
The attention, pomp and ceremony-pool of grace should be interlinked with administrative technology, (temporary) national decisions (e.g. court feast +20 pomp for 1 year), prestige, and, last but not least, your court-maintainance (similar to fleet/army/colonial/missionary maintainance).
Apart from that, I could imagine a seperate "national" court-menu where you can decide to build chateaux, residences, a cabinet of wonder, acquire a portrait galery, temporarily hire great artists to increase your pomp, issue certain court reforms (e.g. introuce burgundian/spanish court ceremonial), etc. etc. Actually, the non plus ultra would be if monarchs would actually compete for certain artists or objects to fill their wonder cabinets. That would add great, great flavour to the game. You would have your diplomatical agents negotiate for artists and objects.
2) Offices
Offices grant a certain amount of opinion-bonus that counts as grace. The amount of opinion bonus of positions in advisory bodies depends on the exclusiveness. The amount of opinion bonus gained from executive positions is fixed (+ XX).
Honour gained from council positions by noblemen
The honour that nobles gain for being a councilor at court depends on the exclusivity and their influence in these bodies:
If there is but one noble in your (war or aulic) council, he will receive X grace.
If there are two councillors, each of them will receive X grace
If there are three councillors, each of them will receive X grace
3) Favours
By spending administrative power-points (3 per rank of the nobleman), you will receive a temporary opinion-bonus that counts as favour. The effect will decrease over time. This represents how you do a favour for the nobleman, be it to decide a quarrel/conflict in his favour, arrange a marriage, admit his son at court, etc. etc.
4) Presents
By spendig some money (3 money per 20 grace?), you will receive a temporary opinion-bonus that counts as grace. The effect will decrease over time, so you might be better off with privileges.
5) Privileges
By granting privileges to the nobleman, you will receive a permanent (as long as the privileges are active) opinion-bonus that counts as favour. A privilege is a permanent flow of money to the nobleman, 0.1 per month for 10 grace. Note that this actually resembles a weak crown. If you have to satisfy many noblemen via privileges, this means that either there is a very strong nobility in your realm (higher ranking aristocrats need more grace), and/or that you didn't manage to tame the nobility via your court. So, if you have to allow a lot of privileges to your nobleman, this actually represents a low stability.
6) Promotion
By raising the rank of a noble-family, the family will be gratefull to you for two generations. However, raising a family without a reason will anger families of similar rank (via the favouritism-mechanic). Also note that even though promoting a family might be very handy and cheap now, you will have to struggle with higher expectations of the family in the following generations.
There are several ways to permanently or temporarily generate "grace" (favours, presents, privileges, promotion), and you have a base "pool of grace" (royal attention, pomp and ceremony):
1) Royal attention, pomp and ceremony
The court itself and your royal attention is a source of grace. Imagine this as the amount of prestige, pomp and glamour that a court offers, and the capability of your court to create situations in which you can give certain nobles preference, or play off nobles against each other.
If you switch to your court-chart, you will see the amount of grace from royal attention, pomp and ceremony at your disposal. You can use pomp and ceremony by distributing it freely amongst your noblemen. You do that by assigning percentages of your total grace-pool to noblemen. Each point of grace that they receive in this way equals one point of positive opinion. If you take favour away from a noble (which you can do at any time), he will receive a temporary opinion-malus (1/2 of the favour-loss), which will show up as "out of favour with the monarch".
The size of the "royal attention, pomp and ceremony"-grace-pool will gradually increase over time. This will actually portray that in most monarchies, the power of the estates slowly declined while the power of the court-nobility and the court were on the rise (just to be finally replaced by the central power of the monarch and his bureaucrats). So, in phase one, you would be unable to control the estates with your nobles because your court is not capable of binding (strong) noblemen yet. In phase two, starting around 1650, you would be able to control the estates via the court nobility, but you would still struggle to keep court-factions happy. The last phase, probably setting in around 1750, would see you as an almost independent ruler who neither depends on estates nor court nobility. Since your court-grace-pool will be so high, you will have enough grace to satisfy all factions. And even more, you could distribute so much grace that you could make use of common bureaucrats. You don't need the nobility anymore.
The attention, pomp and ceremony-pool of grace should be interlinked with administrative technology, (temporary) national decisions (e.g. court feast +20 pomp for 1 year), prestige, and, last but not least, your court-maintainance (similar to fleet/army/colonial/missionary maintainance).
Apart from that, I could imagine a seperate "national" court-menu where you can decide to build chateaux, residences, a cabinet of wonder, acquire a portrait galery, temporarily hire great artists to increase your pomp, issue certain court reforms (e.g. introuce burgundian/spanish court ceremonial), etc. etc. Actually, the non plus ultra would be if monarchs would actually compete for certain artists or objects to fill their wonder cabinets. That would add great, great flavour to the game. You would have your diplomatical agents negotiate for artists and objects.
2) Offices
Offices grant a certain amount of opinion-bonus that counts as grace. The amount of opinion bonus of positions in advisory bodies depends on the exclusiveness. The amount of opinion bonus gained from executive positions is fixed (+ XX).
Honour gained from council positions by noblemen
The honour that nobles gain for being a councilor at court depends on the exclusivity and their influence in these bodies:
If there is but one noble in your (war or aulic) council, he will receive X grace.
If there are two councillors, each of them will receive X grace
If there are three councillors, each of them will receive X grace
3) Favours
By spending administrative power-points (3 per rank of the nobleman), you will receive a temporary opinion-bonus that counts as favour. The effect will decrease over time. This represents how you do a favour for the nobleman, be it to decide a quarrel/conflict in his favour, arrange a marriage, admit his son at court, etc. etc.
4) Presents
By spendig some money (3 money per 20 grace?), you will receive a temporary opinion-bonus that counts as grace. The effect will decrease over time, so you might be better off with privileges.
5) Privileges
By granting privileges to the nobleman, you will receive a permanent (as long as the privileges are active) opinion-bonus that counts as favour. A privilege is a permanent flow of money to the nobleman, 0.1 per month for 10 grace. Note that this actually resembles a weak crown. If you have to satisfy many noblemen via privileges, this means that either there is a very strong nobility in your realm (higher ranking aristocrats need more grace), and/or that you didn't manage to tame the nobility via your court. So, if you have to allow a lot of privileges to your nobleman, this actually represents a low stability.
6) Promotion
By raising the rank of a noble-family, the family will be gratefull to you for two generations. However, raising a family without a reason will anger families of similar rank (via the favouritism-mechanic). Also note that even though promoting a family might be very handy and cheap now, you will have to struggle with higher expectations of the family in the following generations.
Each rank corresponds to -10 opinion of "rank expectation". If the rank-expectations of a nobleman are not met by bestowing the respective amount of grace (royal attention and pomp, privileges, presents, favours, prmotion) to the nobleman, then the nobleman counts as a "malcontent" and his opinion of you will (in addition to the static malus) further decline over time.
So, for example let's say there is a noble with a rank of 3 that holds but a court office that equals 10 grace. This will make him a malcontent:
rank expectation: -30 (for rank 3)
grace (office): +10
result: -20
Not only will this translate into a -20 opinion malus, but also the noblemans' opinion of you will further decline for him being a malcontent.
If, on the other hand, the favours you give to a nobleman exceed his rank (at least by 5 points?), then he counts as a "favourite", which will upset all the other noblemen a little bit, the more so, the closer they are to the rank of the favourite.
malus for nobles of the rank-level of the favourite -10 ("He doesn't deserve being treated better than us! With his ill advice, he has too much influence on the monarch! He is a crawler!")
malus for nobles of the grace-level of the favourite - 10 ("A lousy social climber that does not deserve the same honours as we do!")
The court-chart will show you the opinion-malus due to rank and the favours given to each nobleman. Favourites will have these numbers marked in green, malcontents in red, giving you a direct visual feedback where your "troubles" are.
So, for example let's say there is a noble with a rank of 3 that holds but a court office that equals 10 grace. This will make him a malcontent:
rank expectation: -30 (for rank 3)
grace (office): +10
result: -20
Not only will this translate into a -20 opinion malus, but also the noblemans' opinion of you will further decline for him being a malcontent.
If, on the other hand, the favours you give to a nobleman exceed his rank (at least by 5 points?), then he counts as a "favourite", which will upset all the other noblemen a little bit, the more so, the closer they are to the rank of the favourite.
malus for nobles of the rank-level of the favourite -10 ("He doesn't deserve being treated better than us! With his ill advice, he has too much influence on the monarch! He is a crawler!")
malus for nobles of the grace-level of the favourite - 10 ("A lousy social climber that does not deserve the same honours as we do!")
The court-chart will show you the opinion-malus due to rank and the favours given to each nobleman. Favourites will have these numbers marked in green, malcontents in red, giving you a direct visual feedback where your "troubles" are.
(refers to the "political" estates, the representatives of the broader nobility of a region, which was the main partner/opponent monarchs had to negotiate with if they wanted to collect taxes. Many big conflicts in early modern Euorpe (especially prior to ca. 1650, after which the estates were gradually dispowered by "absolutist" monarchs) were conflicts between the crown and estates. For example: the crisis of 1619 in Bohemia that triggered the series of wars later known as the 30 years war was a conflict between the Habsburg rulers as kings of Bohemia and the estates/nobility of Bohemia. Not written down yet)
4. CONFLICTS
(between crown - estates - nobles; not written down yet)
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