Author Topic: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important  (Read 3791 times)

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Offline SPQR

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This thread is about ideas to help make the average individual strategus player more important and engaged in the game. Currently, the only thing the vast majority of the populace experience in this game is sitting in a fief transferring all their earnings to the clan occasionally. Here are my proposals to fix that:


Bring Feudalism to Strategus
Feudalism, as you probably all know, was the enduring political/military structure during the Medieval ages. In this system, power was distributed down the ranks in a layered fashion, with each rank swearing fealty to those above them. The King or [Insert Title Here] was on top and below him were the land-owning Counts and Dukes who swore fealty to him. Below the Counts and Dukes were lesser land-owning nobles who in turn swore fealty to them. And below each of these were knights and assorted peasantry. Unlike today, the state itself did not have a monopoly on power. Each layer (besides the peasants) had their own private funds and usually their own private army. They were expected to pay tribute to their feudal lord, of course, but each person down the ranks still had the final say on where and what would happen with their army and funds.

In strategus, on the other hand, the current political setup is more like a total war economy. Every player sends all their resources  in to the clan to form the the biggest dick-swingest army possible. There are two problems with this: 1) Its not realistic at all and 2) It's not any fun for the vast majority of those in it.

So, how can we change the political structure of strategus and empower the common player?

Three changes that I will discuss in turn:
1) Re-arrange Clan ranks and privileges
2) Change fief ownership rules
3) Implement a new taxation system and nerf transferring



Change 1: Re-arranging clan ranks and privileges
(click to show/hide)

Change 2: Changing how fiefs are owned
(click to show/hide)

Change 3: Taxation and Transferring
(click to show/hide)

Conclusion:
I know many of you will not like this idea because it decreases the power of the central clan leadership, but that is exactly the point. This game should not be a select few running everything and everyone else sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Strategus needs to be balanced so that the average joe can affect the game and have fun doing so and that is what I've tried to do here.

The idea is to make the individual matter. Medieval drama was all about conflict between individuals as they vied against one another for power, thats what makes it interesting, and thats what strategus should be about.
"It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow to fondle it." - Robert E Leet

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Offline CrazyCracka420

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2011, 07:30:28 pm »
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i love you man, and I agree 110%.  Hopefully the devs will consider (and implement) all 3 changes
« Last Edit: September 07, 2011, 07:33:57 pm by CrazyCracka420 »
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Offline Digglez

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2011, 07:32:05 pm »
+1
You've got some great ideas, hope to see some of them implemented.

Would be super cool if the transfers didnt happen instantly but instead spawned little caravas that had to travel on the map.  And they could be subject to attack by bandits/theives/vikings/etc.  Would mean people would have to better patrol their lands.  Players could spend money to reinforce their caravan from just wandering guys to horseback riders or maybe armored wagons etc.

Of course map would be need to be MUCH higher resolution.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2011, 07:41:21 pm by Digglez »

Offline Kalam

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2011, 07:49:37 pm »
+1
 I'm certain some of us would find ways to work around the system, going back to temporary dictatorships based on group assent or communism.

 The only issue I have with this is activity. Currently, we're able to delegate, delegate, and delegate some more. This means that no matter what time someone attacks us, there's always someone able to do something about it. If a fief and its garrison was under the sole ownership of one person who isn't online the day he's attacked...well.

 I suppose it could change the gameplay standard and introduce the concept of fully stocked standing armies, as opposed to the current norm of rushing to man and stock each fief as it's attacked.

 At any rate, if there was some way to make sure we couldn't return to the way things are done now, I think it'd be interesting.

Offline SPQR

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2011, 08:33:00 pm »
+1
Yeah I'm sure there are some loopholes I haven't thought of.

I just see strategus in this vicious cycle of:

Strategus is boring for rank and file players -> they barely participate -> clan leaders have to do everything -> makes strategus boring

Anything that gets joe schmoe involved more is a good thing, in my opinion. Even if it means making things tougher on leaders in the short term.

As for pre-equipped armies and fiefs and I think we're going to start seeing that become the new trend anyway since you can't buy equipment out in the field anymore. Which means that if you needed to equip a fief you'd have to have a friendly fief nearby to enter and buy equipment for.

Of course once item crafting is implemented then "buying" equipment will be obsolete anyway.
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Offline Bjarky

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2011, 09:46:28 pm »
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i fully agree with 1 and 3.
very nice ideas  :D
nr. 2 i think it will backfire way to often on clans, given this is das internet  :twisted:

Offline Shadowren

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2011, 10:34:09 pm »
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I agree 100%! You have some great ideas and hopefully they are taken seriously.

 8-) Best of Luck 8-)
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Offline Lt_Anders

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2011, 10:35:23 pm »
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That Idea, plus other changes would work MIRACLES. If the map had zones of control, then you could use Zones of Control Plus the clan tax idea to make things efficient.
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Offline hotcobbler

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2011, 10:39:48 pm »
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Some very cool ideas here. Especially chief ownership. I think the ranks should be nameable for differently themed clans, and also should be flexible in number, I.e. max 10 min 2 ranks (highly layered vs. total dictator) and let the clan creator set this when making the clan.
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Offline Teeth

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2011, 10:43:02 pm »
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As long as we dont give people priviliges because of their birth, these are some good ideas.

Offline Jarlek

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #10 on: September 07, 2011, 10:57:59 pm »
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Nice!
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Offline Kafein

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #11 on: September 07, 2011, 11:17:48 pm »
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Very nice suggestions, I'm sure there are ways of exploiting/circumventing what the point was but still very good ideas.

Offline SchokoSchaf

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #12 on: September 08, 2011, 12:30:37 am »
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+1

Add some sort of troop upkeep too.
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Offline Panoply

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #13 on: September 08, 2011, 03:20:41 am »
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SPQR, I like you. Can we be friends?

I'm certain some of us would find ways to work around the system, going back to temporary dictatorships based on group assent or communism.

Yeah, most definitely. Hopefully this system would change that mindset to a more individualistic one though. Count on egoism to save the day.

The only issue I have with this is activity. Currently, we're able to delegate, delegate, and delegate some more. This means that no matter what time someone attacks us, there's always someone able to do something about it. If a fief and its garrison was under the sole ownership of one person who isn't online the day he's attacked...well.

That's a good point. The clan tax will at least make it easier for clan leaders in one sense of micromanagement. Here's what I'm thinking... Currently, you can only "reinforce" someone by transferring all your stuff to them. Under SPQR's system, that would be highly impractical. In my vision, I'd have reinforcement more as if you're within the attack radius of a battle, you "combine" your army with theirs, but you still command your own roster and hire for it. Now that we have roster size scaling with army size, we could also scale individual roster sizes appropriately once the reinforcement timer is over.

Eg. If a knight is within range of a battle between an allied knight and some other party, he could reinforce the knight, but both knights would maintain individual control over their rosters.

Eg. If a knight is within range of a battle between an allied noble and many allied knits and some other party, he could reinforce his allies, and have control over his own roster, but his allied noble would also be able to control his roster.

In this way, if the fief owner is away the day it's attacked, any allies in the vicinity can still reinforce and take command of their respective rosters and form up some kind of defense.

This is more a concept than anything, because I'm sure I've overlooked a lot of things, but the details can be changed.

Offline Panoply

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Re: Bring Feudalism to Strategus - Making the individual player important
« Reply #14 on: September 08, 2011, 03:27:03 am »
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I've also been playing with the idea that larger zerg factions, while naturally getting more troops, would on average have less gold per troop and so be poorly equipped. Smaller factions, on the other hand, would have higher gold per troop, and so would be better equipped.

I was trying to come up with a simple way to make this work, without encouraging large factions to just "split" in strat, while remaining a single faction for all intents and purposes.

This proposed system provides an easy way around that, since you can just say... add a gold tax based on the number of vassals underneath them, that are kicking up troops and gold. Or what have you, but yeah. These are just my random thoughts. Yeah double post, but it's a separate thought from the previous.