Lots of good points.
mayhaps at least give different fiefs different purposes?
The problem with that, is that if a faction can only grab a village, if villages are specifically X thing, how does that faction can do Y,Z ? I think the current approach is good, fiefs can be set to be anything, but the number of available upgrades give a limited window.
Possibility of construction of new fefs with the restriction on the minimum distance from each other
Time honoured fiefs is a large part of Strategus lore, I think it would be best to not change that.
Also since fiefs are directly linked to maps, and maps have a huge importance on defensive potential etc... Even if we could randomly set maps to fiefs we create, it could create imbalances.
I know it would refresh the experience of everyone to have a kind of new map, or at least more dynamic, but there is just too much at stake.
A compromise to that would be the ability to settle fiefs at the beginning of the round, which would be used as a "voting to fiefs" function. X people would be needed to settle a fief, and the fief would be given to one of the "settler" randomly. No more AI fiefs, and people would be rewarded for organising their members to gather at certain places and build their kingdom. If that system is employed, it would be a big incentive for people to "prepare" their faction, recruit members, draw claims and plans, before the round starts, which would guarantee a big playerbase right off the bat.
Also if fiefs can be settled, they could potentally be unsettled destroyed... 
If settling is impossible, voting for fiefs or random distribution are the closest ideas. Any other ideas to eliminate AI fiefs + give an interesting start?
Basically defender got to choose server in their settings and attacker could attack whenever. So EUs would attack NA during their work hours and NA would attack EU during their 3-6 am sleep hours.
My take on nighttime is that it should be "forced on, server set", and individually managed for EU and NA.
People who "join" strategus need to choose either EU or NA before spawning, can only be reset by special admin actions with a proper justification (no "I want to exploit").
EU set players have enforced nighttime which pushes all battles toward EU primetime, priority to defenders.NA set players have enforced nighttime which pushes all battles toward NA primetime, priority to defenders.EU/NA nighttime/primetime to be decided.
This could create "choke points" where the servers have too many battles, especially if we manage to increase strategus popularity. We might need more servers for this system to work, and I've been told that it wasnt impossible, so
fingers crossed.If that was possible it would mean there would be near no battles during the wee hours and the work day (even in the week end) which is bad for certain people but good for most.
In that situation, one map for EU/NA would be conceivable with the least tears possible.
so to make trade even between factions that might not like each other more interesting mayhaps limit the kinds of weapons and armors each fief sells?
every fief sells all low tier gear, but medium and high tier shit is scarcely distributed. also some things can only be loomed to +3 in certain fiefs.
- return the ability to convert troop-pop pop-troops
- players and fiefs generate pop (% from current pop), pop generate LP, LP+resourses are spent for building and crafting
Fiefs management will vastly stay the same, but there is a couple changes that I think will benefit the game, namely:
- removing discounts + removing malus to reselling- changing from "all items are available at -1" to "no items available at all" in unspecced fiefs
- invest PP to open each specific shops at +0 items (body armor, throwing weapons)
- invest more PP in a shop to give +1 to all, +2 to all, +3 to all, each +1 = +10% value
- when an item breaks, it goes straight to -1, -2, or -4 (even if started at +3), each -1 = -10% value
- breaking should not be 100% guaranteed, more like 25-50% for each individual items (like how repair works in general)
So if you want a +3 army, you gotta pay a lot for the increase in efficiency. And when such an army gets dented, the reselling is hardly close to the initial cost.
An army of +0 would be way cheaper guaranteed, and reselling the broken pieces after, would be close to the initial cost.
So there would be a real decision between "should I make more +0, or less +3?".
Quantity, or quality? Instead of the actual no-brain, everything to +3 discounted and produced en masse.
Capturing gear would become a very beneficial way to make money too.
There will also be a change to population/crime and maybe the introduction of a new parameter.
Converting pop to troops and troops to pop should be a reality, but will need to be monitored closely.
Crafting will, I think, stay AI controlled. From what I gathered from the past, crafting was a bit broken when player controlled, and boring, no?
