Birthright: Chimaeron

Maybe it should come out of Counter Espionage instead of normal RP pool.
It is really weird/awkward to say "okay you bid 5RP against a secret Law, but if you fail, you do not realize it was created"

It is my understanding that is what we have to do anyways by ignoring the turn report information in {} brackets which we do not have access to in character. Is that not correct?

Well, you don't have to say where the RP we bid went. We'd only know (by process of elimination) if we were only willing to bid RP on that one task.

Yes that is true. The {} bracket means hidden that the program won't actually hide for some reason. I guess it is hand waiving anyway, so it is effectively the same.

So you know you bid against something, but can't contest a created Holding cause you don't know it exists.

When do you know it exists? When they start contesting your holdings? Or do you need an espionage action?

Either one. Espionage action (which should be predicated on an actual reason unless you've established regular espionage province checks) or because they contest you and suddenly are known, or even if you try and fill up that empty slot and keep failing against all reason.

Imagine it like this..

Ruler: "Hey, I want yoze guyz to make sure no one else tries to collect taxes in muh name!" (spend 5 RP to oppose creation of any law holding)
Peons: "Lord, we did our best and joey the mooch is missing. He said he heard about some guys collecting taxes, but ain't no one seen him. And vinnie the tail is gone too! Maybe they got drunk and shanghaied onto a crew....or maybe what they were following up on was real" (this explains some regency being spent, but not clearly IC defining what it went on)

Player turn report "Fuck, a hidden law 0 that I have to pretend Mr Fancypants didn't create even thugh I see it on my turn report."

Last game I had some hidden holdings and they became a subject of discussion in a giant treaty. So I don't believe people are playing that they don't know about them.

If Birmail can't really handle hidden holdings, it might make sense to just drop hidden holdings.

Or, if we keep them, make it so they don't collect any income, so they don't need to be on the table for calculations.