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Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:39 am
by TF - The Fortress
While the ability Law Holdings brings to the table are significant, they are one of the least desirable holding types for a number of reasons, chief being lack of income.

While I do not wish to change the income they bring in, I actually believe they have the desired impact still, I would like to propose modifiers to ruling law up.

Temples and Guilds both benefit from a law holding modifier should the law holder decide to aid them, the inverse is not true though. Now adding in temple and guild levels would be overly generous and unbalanced. Instead I would like to bring back loyalty modifiers and provincial alignment modifiers in a way for Law Holdings only.

High loyalty gets you a +2 to the roll.
Average loyalty gets you a +1 to the roll.
Poor loyalty gets you a -2 to the roll.
Rebellious loyalty gets you a -4 to the roll.

Lawful-aligned Provinces get you a +1 to the roll.
Neutral-aligned Provinces get you no modifier to the roll.
Chaotic-aligned Provinces get you -1 to the roll (-2 to the roll if it would take the law to 50% or greater, and -3 to the roll of it would take to 75% or greater).

Thoughts and considerations?

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:57 am
by LMC - Lord Mayor Cowell
I like the thing itself. The downside is more work for DM I guess.

Could give law holdings a flat increase in roll to create and rule too for simplicity I suppose?

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:58 am
by YK - Yuri Khavlor
I agree law holdings need some love.

I disagree Alignment should be a modifier though. Any argument for Law holdings being easier/harder because a province is Lawful/Chaotic doesn't hold up. Law holding represents both magistrates and banditry. A chaotic province should be arguably easier to expand law holdings in; the populous are independent and are not organized to push back on your expanded influence. Lawful provinces are going to be harder for the same reason; the people already have traditions and systems in place, the momentum of which would need to be overcome for a new law regent to take control of this influence. From a game design and balance standpoint, why do chaotic alignments need to be nerfed?

They are already linked heavily with the military. Priority for musters, better troop variety. While it might be tempting to enhance this with training points, it leaves them without resource or variety of objectives/styles

Loyalty / Stability is a very underutilized component of the game. It represents a small speed bump to population growth, overcome with NWP leadership. There might be a way to enhance that mechanic to make law holders more useful and make priest demagoguery relevant too. Perhaps random events reduce stability if the law holder fails a check? Law holdings can be a modifier on resolving some non-adventure events.

I think the answer may also be going back to allowing Severe Taxes, without loss of loyalty if there is full law.

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:21 am
by AaH - Avicerra al Hamam
I agree that Law is a bit problematic for the higher province lvls. As there is increasing difficulty in suceededing the higher the Law you try to rule the cost compared to the benefit are very low. Having full law in province lvl 3+ is quite costly. The gain is marginal. Resulting in that most higher lvl provinces only have half law.

Example. To rule a law from lvl 3 to 4 has a DC of 14 which can be reduced to 13 with NWP Law. Cost is 1 GB and 4 RP. So you need more than 2 attempts on average to succeed. What do you gain from the Law? You get a bit more income if you have full law and can do severe taxes but the loyality still goes down by one lvl.

Not very tempting to get your law maxed out.

One thing that could be done is that each ruling DC does not increase by lvl and that the temples and guilds dont get benefit from the law when ruling. The law would just matter in contests. This way the different regents would have the same difficulty in ruling up the holdings and it would not get insane costly compared to the sucess chance.

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:24 am
by LMC - Lord Mayor Cowell
If the law does not matter for ruling other holdings, then that would make it even less likely for anyone to increase law.

Could let base thaco(without strength) matter. would be a boost to single class warriors too.

I still think easiest fix would be simply to make its base increase 5 instead of 10 like the other holdings. thought I agree it would be nice making loyality matter more. I´d go as far as do +4 for high, 0 for normal and -2/4 for the lower ones if so.

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:31 am
by AaH - Avicerra al Hamam
Law does matter the point is to make it easier to rule up. You gain RP from Law and you make a little income. You need it to train units. The problem is the disproportionate cost compared to the success chance. The chanse to rule a guild or a law would be the same. Under the current rules the law does not get any help.

What I proposed is a easy sollution. Of course more complex models can be made.

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:35 am
by LMC - Lord Mayor Cowell
There would be little real interest for temple or guild regents to invite a law regent with that change.

It would provide no additional income to a realm(well, RP), rather it takes some from their temple or guild so it would be a financial loss for them. And said temple or guild regent muster troops through temples or guilds anyway.

It might end up being financially beneficial to simply have no law. Yes, they would be far more fragile to attack but.. we have seen before, people do not muster troops until attacked, they wouldn't want law holdings until they are under attack either.

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:37 am
by YK - Yuri Khavlor
MM - Maro Mithrilhand wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:21 am
As there is increasing difficulty in suceededing the higher the Law you try to rule the cost compared to the benefit are very low. Having full law in province lvl 3+ is quite costly. The gain is marginal. Resulting in that most higher lvl provinces only have half law.
To this point, a Law holder can train all unit types under Elite Infantry/Knights with a Law 3 holding. A law 3 will be half-law or better for tax purposes, with few exceptions.

So the reason to have more than one law 4 holdings is:
Knight Capacity
Domain power for RP income
A Building Slot

While it is possible to bid RP to improve odds of success on the rule action, that would negate the RP income benefit with more turns before break even.

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:43 am
by AaH - Avicerra al Hamam
That is not true. Having half law present makes you take moderate taxes compared to low taxes. That is 1 extra income per province. That income is sometimes lost to the law tax again though. And mustering of units would not be possible for a fighter regent across the realms. Of course you can try to train the troops yourself as a guild or priest regent but that takes more actions.

Re: Law Holdings

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:27 am
by MaH - Meganno al Hamam
Just an remark: Source holding not even get the small gb income as law holdings get. RP income is the same and ruling up help is also only from other source holdings. Source holding have similar worthless problems with higher rulings in relation to ruling cost. Wizard regents always have income problems if not selling some of their rights away.