Court days and internal management

[Trunting]

In this thread I would like to talk about features, which I have thought about for quite some time.

Historical context: In the medieval realms, the kings emperors of western Europe often sat at court and made decisions regarding matters the vassals presented towards them. Important vassals were usually able to influence the result of such decisions.

Gameplay implementation: Every X years the king of a realm holds a court day. If he doesn't, he'll gradually lose prestige. The X, the length of the court day and the matters discussed are influenced by how centralized the realm is.

At a court day, vassals can make petitions to rulers such as:

- territorial disputes with other vassals
- economics (taxes, levies)
- ask for a kings peace
- ask for pardons and releases from prison
- other events can occur

The entire court day would be comparable to the go to the hunt decision, where several events can occur.

 

[MatthewP]

In this thread I would like to talk about features, which I have thought about for quite some time.

Historical context: In the medieval realms, the kings emperors of western Europe often sat at court and made decisions regarding matters the vassals presented towards them. Important vassals were usually able to influence the result of such decisions.

Gameplay implementation: Every X years the king of a realm holds a court day. If he doesn't, he'll gradually lose prestige. The X, the length of the court day and the matters discussed are influenced by how centralized the realm is.

At a court day, vassals can make petitions to rulers such as:

- territorial disputes with other vassals
- economics (taxes, levies)
- ask for a kings peace
- ask for pardons and releases from prison
- other events can occur

The entire court day would be comparable to the go to the hunt decision, where several events can occur.

This is a great idea. Honestly I would love to see something like this become a core part of the gameplay loop, as the player's commitments and responses on court day partially direct their actions and their vassals' responses to them over the next several years. One vassal asks for some land from another vassal (either land actually changing hands or just modifiers to their territories) and it leads to the other vassal potentially getting disgruntled and starting a faction. Or the first vassal starts bragging about how the king is in their pocket, leading to some interesting decisions about how to handle it. Another vassal asks the king to press their claim, another asks the king to give them a special permit to disinherit a son, and so on. Each of these could have a set of event chains that can come out of it which are affected by characters' traits.

In the game currently vassals never want anything from their liege except for him to not own the duchy they live in. It makes them very bland in spite of all the character they actually have because it never manifests in anything.

 

[klopkr]

I've been suggesting and working on a concept around 'assemblies' for a while now. By assemblies I mean things like the Thing, Parliment, Estates general,Veche, etc.

There's an interface in game to invite everyone to your feasts already. I think that this interface should be reused to invite everyone in your realm again but to a parliament, thing, estates, etc.

Once everyone that should be there is assembled they can then vote on the topics that will make it to you and you get to pick one mission out of the suggestions to complete in the next few years. Do so and get a bonus, neglect to do so and face the consequences.

In some cultures, like the english, vassals opinion would tick down per year that you neglect to call the assembly until they get so mad they form a faction to go to war to force one... or worse.

With different cultures inviting different parts of society to their assemblies you could have different gameplay strewn across the map.

 

[luxfelix]

I dig it.

 

[klopkr]

To add on. I'd even suggest that some autocrats have a 'court session' like your suggestion which would call nobles, and peasants alike for their pet issues. It could be done every year or few months and give you a little opinion boost and unrest relief... if you succeed.

Tying it into small achievable missions just feels natural. Like the estates in eu4, or the councils in Imperator.

 

[Trinculo]

I imagine something like this would also give council members additional responsibilities and ways to have influence over the realm, which would be nice.

 

[Annonymus]

Would be nice to see, even in a mod

 

[BeyondExpectation]

This may be a bit too late game for effort, but weren't vassals at court for months every year in 13th century England for instance? It might be too performance intensive, but whether vassals are with the liege or at their estate could make for two different gameplay styles. Depending on the liege's strength and one's attributes, one or the other could be more powerful. Something it would be really good if this lead to was a possible by fact breakdown in liege authority, where even though the vassals are breaking laws by warring against each other or similar, he lacks the practical ability to intervene.

On the English note, I'd like to see a system where, depending on laws, the liege is required to have his vassals vote for him to be able to use their levies in warfare or make other similarly significant decisions to simulate parliament which could arise in England or elsewhere.