Expansion Mechanic: Traditions, Renegade Houses, Duels

[Chris Koźmik]

This topic is about TRADITIONS, RENEGADE HOUSES and DUELS BETWEEN NOBLES mechanics for the upcoming "Old Dynasties" expansion.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1437750/discussions/0/4204742223858849669/

Note that some of those are not fleshed out (yet). Feel free to propose stuff and get wild ideas :)

Discuss, provide feedback, comment, etc.

=========================

TRADITIONS:

Each great house has a tradition, the tradition bonus is active if the relations with the house are Cordial or better.

- Each Great House has a tradition (unique per house). When the relations with the House are at least Cordial the effect is active. Active traditions provide Empire wide perks. Tradition activates/deactivates upon audience.

Example traditions:
* Expert Legislators (+1 Legislation pt per turn).
* Skilled Administrators (+10% to Administrative points per turn).
* Agrarian Lords (+100% Food Processing Efficiency).
* Industrial Tycoons (+10% Cities Output, +30 Minerals Refining Efficiency).
* Financial Moguls (+10% Base Tax).
* Propaganda Experts (+10% Loyalty on all planets within at least Adequate Communication range).

I wonder, maybe it would be more interesting if there were like 3 traditions and houses share it (so each tradition is in two houses)? Then you need to have good relations with one of those houses only...
Or maybe make it that each house has one common tradition (shared with another house) and one unique (provided by this house only)?

Optional: Minor (vassal) houses have a tradition as well. The tradition became active depending on relations with the senior great house.

RENEGADE HOUSES:

Great House can be made Renegade which make them lose all votes in the Council and lose a lot of F.E.D. shares, fiefs, authority and so on. But if too many houses become renegade the people might start losing faith in the whole monarchistic system. The important part is that the renegade house is still within the Empire (sort of) so many mechanics still apply to those.

I would like to discuss Renegade houses more. The effect is quite obvious (Great House can be made Renegade which made them lose all votes in the Council and lose a lot of FED shares, fiefs, authority, etc) but we need to invent how the Renegade status is applied. Also, it's critical to make limit to like 2 renegade houses (otherwise other game mechanics will fall apart :D). Note that renegade houses would be excluded from many events (political agendas, etc).

Simple solution (more like an example):
- Any Great House can be made Renegade (summon to audience option), it causes -100 Opinion with all other houses and -3 (-5?) Stability. Each time the option is used the side effects are DOUBLED (so can use it once or twice the most in practice). Or just make a hard limit (max 2 can be made renegade).
- A Great House that joined a rebellion can be made Renegade on trial. In such case there is -1 Stability drop and no other repercussions (it also does not count as the "tyrannical renegade action" described above).

Extra:
- Renegade Houses get -500 vassal contract desirability towards all minor houses.

DUELS BETWEEN NOBLES:

Offended nobles can decide to solve their disagreement via a duel. Such duel can be made with the approval of the Emperor or organized illegally.

Dunno how to implement it. I was thinking along the lines of "a minor noble pop ups and ask permission for a duel, when you agree there is a chance the person will die (and be replaced with a new one)". For simplicity, Royal house members would never participate. Maybe also an event like "nobles organized a duel without imperial approval (which is illegal), how you react?"

[Captain Tofu]

o) Traditions / Domains

Each House could have it's domain, that is affected by your relations in terms of positive / negative and by the Houses Authority in terms of how much it matters (how much control they have over that domain).

Also that could affect planets/fiefs controlled by that House more than others. That would put relevance to who's fief that is.
Your House has no such tradition (as you choose your traditions at the beginning of the game. So planets controlled by other Houses is not bad by default - on the other hand less fiefs = less private income. And Houses might become unruly through events.

---

I would like it, if there would be more than 6 traditions and each House gets a random one assigned on turn 1.

[Captain Tofu]

o) Renegade Houses

I can't imagine, how that would work in detail.
Planets ruled by renegade houses could be overtaken by your house, but have a very low loyalty and security rating. Also, I smell rebellion! When a house has like 33% of the fiefs, events will spawn, in which other houses want a piece of that.
To renegade Houses: When declared renegate, the Houses will stumble over each other to get the shares and authority from the renegade house. Expect many events?


o) Duels

I would definetly allow royal house members for duels. That would be a consequence of very bad relations to other houses. I would give nobles more character than the authority and monarchy attribute. Also some sort of maturing / leveling up nobles over time (besides showering them with medals, which feels a bit hollow). That way, you do not want to lose them...or just lose the 'idiots'.

[Captain Tofu]

I can see a Espionage Agency or some extension of internal affairs for various actions. The higher their rating, the more likely to succeed (-empire size%). Actions could be a bunch of interactions with nobles & houses. From assassinations, to slender and property damage to other houses. Maybe to destroy shares or private money.
Each actions creates a secret of your house this time. That can backfire with events, where other houses might ally if you do not let yourself be blackmailed? Thinking into the blue there.

The Espionage Agency (a new resource?) might be another way to interact empire-internal between audiences. And this system is not bound to focus points but to economy (and gambling)

That is not quite the topic you started, but it very tightly plays into it. And it would serve the antagonistic interactions I suspect the renegade idea is meant to be.

[Inquisitioner]

Can renegade houses be pardoned and/or become loyal again or is it permanent?

[Captain Tofu]

o) Tradition Ideas
My idea in this area is, to modify game mechanics, that you notice a lot. Limitations and game rules. Just farming output or legislation seems unrecogizable. Such could be:

-) Communications Magnate: Opinion effects with other houses will be modified with relation level to this house. Hostile: x2/x0.5, Antagonistic x1,5/x0.5, Uncooperative x1.25/x0.75, Neutral x1/x1 and so on.

-) Supremacists: High Relations with aliens, esspecially minor aliens, will reduce their opinion. War with aliens will give you a boost with ship production (by relation level) and stability (depending on their authority). Losing core worlds reduces stability by 2.

-) ?: Certain events will occur more often with this house. Like border conflics or ownership over something conflicts.

-) Plotting: This house will generate secrets of your house if hostile and unveal secrets of other houses to you if friendly

[Chris Koźmik]

Originally posted by Captain Tofu:

I would like it, if there would be more than 6 traditions and each House gets a random one assigned on turn 1.

Hmm, so not all traditions are guaranteed on each run...

Originally posted by Inquisitioner:

Can renegade houses be pardoned and/or become loyal again or is it permanent?

I was thinking of permanent. It's more thematic I think and more dramatic and solves some possible problems/abuses (like: renegade a house and then bring them back but much weaker, repeat for each house, that sort of things).

[Chris Koźmik]

Thoughts on Renegade Houses and Rebellion.

Many people asked if a Minor House can be elevated and replace the Great house. I kept saying no, but after checking the code I got an idea how I could pull it off. So, that's an option. For example "during after rebellion trail you have an option for replacing the house with a minor house", it would not tell you with which one but the highest Authority minor house will be the one. It might be problematic with numbers (what if 6 great houses rebelled while there are only 5 minor houses?) but it could be solved (by "did not happen for house X due to lack of worth successors").

Anyway, how it would fit renegade houses? If one made a great house renegade, it means there is one less Great House slot... So a minor house can not replace renegade house?
Or make a renegade house automatically become a minor house... But it would make most of the renegade mechanics irrelevant (since minor houses have no fiefs, etc)... Dunno.

[Chris Koźmik]

Traditions and minor houses.

I was thinking, maybe add traditions to minor houses as well? Those would be active if the SENIOR activated their traditions (so under the control of the house they are a vassal of).
Could be displayed on the Great House traditions bar (and marked as Vassal traditions).

Note it would require 6+5 traditions if all to be unique (preferably more to assure not all are present during each game?) Which makes me wonder if there should not be "levels of tradition", like "If you have 2 or more cordial houses with the same tradition, then the tradition gets a better effect"? In such setup it might even make sense to make only 4 traditions total (with effect like +X per tradition) since like 3 houses would share the tradition?

Another thing, I wonder if the Royal House should have a tradition as well...