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The feudal system was not the neat little pyramid that we get shown, it was basically legalistic chaos. A serf would owe his allegiance to his local lord, who would in turn owe allegiance to a regional powerholder, who would in turn owe allegiance to the king (there were far more layers, but I'll keep things simple). The thing is though, that peasant did *not* owe allegiance to the regional powerholder or to the king. If regional powerholder rose up in rebellion, the local lords under him would be expected to follow him in rebellion. Indeed, that's what happens in Crusader Kings. If a local lord nonetheless refused to answer the call of his regional powerholder, the peasants under him would stay put, and would not owe any loyalty to the regional powerholder.
As such, what would make sense would not be the system you describe, but rather lots of individuals forming their own personal relationships, and a kingdom being a complex web of loyalties. If you rise in the ranks, the companions you've gathered, the local ruffians you recruited, rise in the ranks with you, but the king himself would have no power to lift you through the ranks except by handing over his own property. If you're a baron but the king loves you, good for you, but you won't be made into a duke except by your own influence or that of those you have an oath with.
All this said however, the game is set in the equivalent of the late Roman Empire, before feudalism was standardised in any real way.
They have publicly stated that the game will not be feature complete as of March 2020 to prevent people from saying this. Obviously adding more features at this point would be doom for the project but the two-fold assumption that there was ever an actual solid timeline for the project AND that all features will be implemented in some form in March is rather laughable, my developer friend.
For a feudal system you also would need a lot of lords for lower ranks, but these might die more often and make relation buildup with them more or less useless. So they would be degenerated to quest givers and map patrols.
And since you can not own villages anymore, because they are part of a castle, which is own by a whole clan, a complex feudal system might be hard to integrate into Bannerlord, without changing many parts (again).
I hope the clan system is refreshing enough and does not left a bad taste like Warbands system.
But let's stick with Warband: The king rules over all in his kingdom. City owners are dukes, castle owners are counts and village owners are barons. It's not quite historically accurate but it is in there. Plus there are renown, controversy and honor to further qualify the status of a given lord, not to mention his personality which is not quite a status indicator.
In Warband not all mechanics are implemented with regards to lords' status. For example, sadistic lords don't have ever-growing negative honor, and upstanding ones don't have ever increasing honor. But still, those stats are in there.
Most of what you ask for doesn't add anything to the gameplay and adds excessive complexity for very little additional value. For example, geting recruitment bonuses and special troops and all that jazz. Why. Sure, your seneschal might be able to recruit more if you are a duke than if you are a baron, some troops from your barons and counts going to you. But beyond that and a share of the taxes from your nobles, the rest is huge overhead for very little additional gameplay value.
As for the special troops thing, I really love what Prophesy of Pendor did with knighthood orders and noble troops. You don't need anything else.
Overall you bring some good ideas, most of which I am sure TaleWorlds has already pondered thoroughly in their 10 years of working on the game, as well as the many mods for Warband that more or less exactly implement a feature you mention.
But the feudal system cannot get too rigid, or the freedom feeling from Warband will be absent.
Understood. My hope is that they will add those hooks/mechanics that could be exposed and used by modders so that some sort of system like this could be adopted.
(I honestly, for true, think they're basically going to pump out the game as best as they can after what could barely be called a "development process" of any worthy order and "make it do the thing." They will issue several "Giant FixIt Patch #__" for awhile and then... done.I hope that means they are going to give modders a huge amount of freedom.)
The concept was to "gamify" a sort of Feudal system, but within the bounds of what Warband generally ascribes to. So, it wasn't meant to be a detailed, realistic, system, but one that could "work" and give the appearance of such.
Lords are talked up, each with their own personalities, some that dislike others in their faction because of it, family relationships, behaviors dictated by traits, and have skills and gear and the like... But? Most of that is garbage. Why? It's not easily discernible by the player and to even try to drill down some of those things to then look for evidence of them actually being "in game" is practically impossible. They're meaningless. Only very few things get expressed in the game at all as far as Lords and their relationships with others in their faction are concerned. And, for the behaviors that the Player is interested it, the only things that matter about a Lord are their disposition towards the player and their base personality trait, which dictates their campaign map behavior. All the rest is completely wasted code, practically speaking, as the player doesn't "see it unfold" in the game.
I wanted to put labels on stuffs. :) I want the player to perceive these traits and relationships as being "part of the game" and active in their experience. How to do that? Start labeling stuff... make it obvious, put a couple of behaviors the player can see or interact with in the game and then call it a day. The player "sees" these labels, can interpret them, sees their effect in-game and then adds it up to create a sort of "feudal system" in their head, with a few mechanics to support that which the player can interact with. It's a simple, gamified, representation that relies on relatively few things to support it in terms of mechanics, but gives the player some brain-candy.
The player may never achieve some of those ranks. They aren't there for "character progression" in terms of goals unless the player is really focusing on staying as a noble in a particular faction.
The real character "progression" component is designed, from my description, to be achieved by the player-as-king, giving the player further goals and rewarding their progress as a King. More nobles attracted, more "titles" awarded that the player could give to their nobles. And, those would have similar in-game effects as giving a Lord a certain type of fief. They'd just be a bit smaller for most nobles with the exception of Dukes, since "Unique Troops" would be the chase item for a Ducal award to a player-King's noble. (Most likely a troop associated with either a cutlure/region or a town fief the noble holds.)
So, it's supposed to be evident in-game by the player interacting with some components of it during the whole playthrough, but the most significant interactions would only be possible if the player really works hard within a faction or becomes a very successful King. (AI assignments would likely just be a matter of tallying up standard fief awards with some weight to an AI King's relationship with a noble if there are personality conflicts. The Day 1 assignments would be standardized in vanilla play for simplicity and it would be closely tied to the actual fiefs held by Lords as far as the AI was concerned.)
We don't know the scale of the singleplayer game, yet. Though, what I wrote above is certainly not something that requires lots of Lords at all and would certainly not require non-combat/non-Lord type units. A simple "Knight" is the lowest form of Noble possible in that system. Baron, is next, and then Dukes. Lots of Knights, several Barons, and maybe two or three Dukes for the largest factions. (A faction that controlled an entire Calradia map in Warband might have.. five Dukes? A limit could certainly be placed on the number of Dukes.)
I didn't know that villages couldn't be awarded as fiefs. But, certainly there's got to be some other analogue? Either way, if there is some way to determine if an NPC or Player is a "Noble" in a faction, then there's a way to create such a system.
There's little feedback present for the player to see these effects "in game" in Warband. There's their personality and behavior actions on the campaign map, more or less, and some relationship sort of behaviors as well as a player's reputation with them... but that's about it. A Lord with a big army likely holds a Town. Doesn't matter which one, really, and they may be the longest serving Lord with the most property, but all that mattes is troop count bonuses. (As you hint at concerning implemented/expressed mechanics.)
Obviously, my opinion differs. There isn't much added complexity there at all compared to what is "intended", but not expressed, in Warband. And, for gameplay, it does add another quality that can be progressed along two different routes - As a player dedicated to spending a lot of time in a particular faction or as a King seeking a larger kingdom and more nobles to unlock titles that have a real effect.
But, the biggest thing is the player's perception.
If you were playing a mod and saw a Lord with a label on him that stated "This guy is the Leader of the Jerk Subfaction of the Nord Faction" what are you going to think about that Lord? Well, he's the top Jerk and you probably don't like him right from the start, right? He doesn't like you because no Lords like you, just starting out. (Or few.) Throughout the game, you think he's a jerk and his buddies are all jerks, right? They have the label on their forehead, how can the be anything at all but "Jerks?"
But... they do nothing different than any other Lord in Warband with the exception of having a slight negative relationship with you because you don't have the reputation of being... a Jerk. In that respect, they just have some negativer personalities that it's difficult for the player to swing towards if they don't raid villages, attack caravans, and work hard to tick off the rest of Calradia.
That's the simple effect of a "label" or the player's perception. Harlaus is a fat bartard feasting machine... Why? Because Swadia often has unhappy Lords and Harlaus might have a slightly increased propensity to run to feasting tables. If Harlaus wasn't a fat bartard, how far would that interpretation go? If Swadia wasn't located where it was, would the player think they were crazy for feasts? And, if Harlaus didn't feast as often as other Kings, but had "Champion Pie Eater and Feastmonger" over his head, the player would still perk up everytime it was announced Harlaus was having "another feast."
Agreed, at least in how the Lords acquire special troops in PoP. I'd want a similar mechanic to that one that is either dependent on some sort of backstory component/culture for the given Lord or, more easily done, a variable based on certain specific fiefs that are held by that Lord. (So that Player Nobles have a rather simple way to acquire special troops when assigned to a fief that has them.)
I certainly agree. The player doesn't even have to participate in chasing after progression in that system, though some of it would likely come naturally as a result of the player's status as a noble in a faction or as King, who can award certain titles if they wish.
It's really rather simple. It doesn't rely on any mechanical concepts that are too far outside of what Warband already provides. I think the most unique would be "Awarding" special titles like Baron/Duke and others if they were present in-game. I don't know, for instance, if it's possible for a Lord in Warband or a mod to gain "effects" in that way, either having a special item in inventory, which they don't normally even have AFAIK, or an assigned "trait/bonus" which I don't think can easily be done in a dynamic way other than through assigning fiefs with properties as in PoP. (If you're familiar with Medieval II Total War, Generals can have both items and retainers that provide them with bonuses. The concept here is similar to that for Barons and Dukes. It's just toned down a bit for what makes sense in Warband. I can't address what makes sense for Bannerlord, yet. :)
I really like alot of your ideas but at this point in dev your words are better suited for modders. TW are just trying to push out anything they can knowing modders will fix the game.
Eh, it's worth a shot, right? :)
When I finally get my hands on the game, if I can do it myself, I'll do it myself... If I have to learn a version of C or Python or some other esoteric tongue necessary to create the incantations, so be it.
And, if a modder wants to do it, I'll be happy as long as they do it... "right." :)
I think it can be gamified to be a worthy submod at least. Working properly, it shouldn't negatively impact the player at all, but provide some extra progression/reward opportunities that can help define the player's character/kingdom.
Plus, it's boring as heck grinding down the progression line as a "King" in Warband. Once you get past a certain point, it's mindnumbing... That's another reason for adding the "chase item" of unlocking Titles that a player can Award to selected Nobles. Honestly, it gives the player some goals that can provide immediate feedback rather than a far-flung goal that requires the player to grind the heck out of the game with nothing new to experience.
"YAY, another Town... or castle I guess... I'm so enthused.... excited, even... yay... Why don't they just surrender already?"
That really needs to be dealt with in end-game play for a Warband successor game.
- Things that are hinted at in Warband but not really implemented
- What matters is the player's perception
It is fairly certain that in Bannerlord, anything hinted at, or shown in Warband but not implemented will be implemented as a fully symmetrical mechanic in Bannerlord.
Such as for example, in Warband a dude with a 400-man army will be "defeated in battle but manage to escape" and 2 days later he leaves his castle or city with another army of 400. And his garrison is the same as it always had been. How did he do that? Well, magic. The player can't, unless he spends a fortune hiring mercs, and the lord in the example has almost or absolutely no mercs in his army. The magic of asymmetrical mechanics.
That's an asymmetrical mechanic, and Bannerlord is getting rid of all those. Or as much as possible. So the money of NPC lords will be subject to the same laws as that of the player, troop recruitment, and so on.
Obviously recreating the feudal system as it used to be, or at least a nice subset thereof, is the very best way to make a game with credible mechanisms. I don't think they'll stray too far, and if/when they do, it'll be because they have not, after 10 years of trying, found a good way to code it in.
Player perception: this is where the M&B games differ. In these games, what matters isn't so much "player perception" but actually subjecting the NPCs to the same rules as the player, instead of just making it "look like" they are. That's the magic of M&B.
With good relation with villages the player can get up to 25 tier 4 troops (e.g. Khergit Lancers, Nord warroirs) per village for 10 denars per man. With decent trainer skill and level you can raise lower troops to tier 4 or 5 in under a week.
After one week you have a whole army, for maybe 100 denars per men, while an AI lords has not even left his fiefs where he spawned.
Bannerlord needs to make such mechanics more visible, than Warband and balance them much better.