Alrite so what i have noticed from both strat 2 and 3 is that their are 2 problems.
1) inability for 1 faction to be dominant through strategic tactics, both through diplomacy and military
2) very little incentive for factions to attack eachother
the result: huge alliances that result in little to no fighting
My suggestion: First, change fief prosperity so that a high prosperity fief gets both a huge selling price for any player selling, and an extremely low crafting price for faction members crafting inside. Then change the fairaway bonus to have a negative bonus %, so if you craft goods in a +12 prosperity fief, you will get much less for selling the goods in the same fief.
Next, add in the faction capitals. Every faction's capitol fief will have a max prosperiy under normal circumstances. This will allow even small factions to have a good fief to start with. Then add a "sphere of influence" game mechanic. Basically all fiefs around your factions capitol will be affected prosperity-wise by your capital's influence. faction owned fiefs close to the capitol will get + prosperity bonuses, while neutral, non faction fiefs will recieve - prosperity bonuses. The further from the capital, the smaller the sphere of influence.
Ex. United Kingdoms of Calradia's capitol would be Jayek. So Jayek would yield a max selling price, max crafting price. Their next closest fief would be Ruvar. This fief would yield a decent selling price, say 18-20 and a decent crafting price of say 9-12 per good. However, their distant fiefs of Odasan, udiniad and fearichan would have a much worse selling price and crafting price, but at the same time, odasan would still be a great place to craft even at 20 per good because of the distance bonus it can recieve.
But here is the best part. MB is not part of the UKC, and they currently have only 1 fief. Their capital is Vezin. It draws influence to Udiniad, lowering the prosperity even further. So, the UKC either forces MB to join the faction, making them have a worse prosperity (very far away from Jayek) or they make them capture Fisdnar too and move their capital there to lower the influence it will have on udinia. Or they can continue to let them be soverign and thus make the current UKC owners of udiniad, Unknown angry.
How many factions would face similar problems? How many faction wouldnt??
NH- 1 fief south of FCC territory, would draw influence from 3 of their fiefs
Reddit- 2 fiefs close to UKC captiol, a capitol close to UKC fiefs, and a capital close to mutiple lljk fiefs
The Steppes- multiple factions fighting each other but the end result will be a cluster**** of factions their all with capitols influencing each other
Many other factions with large land gains, that would have almost all their fiefs negatively influenced by other factions, resulting in bad production
The Result:
1) many clans form under one faction, with most clans to far away from capital to be affective
2)Factions fight their neighbors to stop thier fiefs from being negatively influenced- forcing them to leave or join their faction, but the goal is to remove their capital from your area
Finally, in order to make everything else mesh, "Faction Renown" needs to be added. a high renown will equal a higer faction prosperity, which overall increases the faction's productivity throughout their entire empire.
lets say every faction that is formed starts with a +60 renown. Plus 60 renown is equivalent to +12 prosperity, so when they take a capitol, there capitol will have +12 prosperity, or a 25 gold seling price/ 5 gold crafting price. Then each neutral fief a faction takes, they gain +3 renown, resulting in a +12 prospetity in the capital still since it would take +5 renown to increase the prosperity. When a faction loses a battle, depending on the size, they lose renown.
Ex. UKC start with +60 renown, they take 4 neutral fiefs giving them 72 renown, and a +13 prosperity in Jayek, with something like a 32 gold selling price? However, the greedy Velucans and company start a war with Hate to increase their renown.
battle of udiniad: was like 1800 to 1500 at the start, and UKC won, so they get an a +8 renown, Hate lost, and they lose -4
battle of Vezin: think it was 1800 to 1700 and UKC won, mayb give them bigger battle, greater odds, a +10 renown, Hate loses a closer fight mayb they go -9
So UKC now has a renwon of 90
Their capital has a prosperity of +18, and their fiefs will go up accordingly, thier influence of neutral and other faction fiefs will increase
Result: 1)an obvious + for a single faction to fight
2) An negative effect to neighbor factions because ur Prosperity is influencing thier fiefs, more renown, more prosperity, more influence
3) Big factions thumping little factions to gt renown
3) a system that would allow 1 faction to take over the entire map since you now have the potential to make 100's or thousands gold with a high prosperity capital if you get a renown of 150+
4) Fear of large factions getting renown, fear of factions declaring war on you, fear of factions fighting butt-buddy neighbors to better themselves
5) the cause and effect of sphere of influence in deciding who your friends and allies are
Ex. Hobb types to Phantom Zero on steam: "Phantom your a bitch" Phantom declares war on the UKC. FCC and Chaos come to the aid of the UCK because A) the renown LLJK would recieve would negatively influence them. B) They will have a chance to gain renown for themselves
The entire goal of this is to make it possible for one faction to take over the map, without the boring butt-buddy diplomacy. It is not possible for an aggressive faction to not affect their passive neighbors with the sphere of influence, resulting in more regional wars, less neighbor allies, and eventual single faction super powers fighting each other
