Mayor/citizenship/faction system draft v0.9.2

[Darian Darkmind]

Ok, that makes more sense. Though still, the 50% is too much. How long does it take for a citizen or mayor to end it? Do they have to stand still next to the stone for 20-30 seconds or how is it done?

• The more the faction loyalty % of the town is, the longer it takes to convert the guards during a siege

And how does this work in action? What's the minimum and maximum numbers?

[Monad]

Nice additions, the only thing I dislike about them is the 50%. I was actually afraid you'd go with 50% instead of 70%.

I understand that at first thought it might make "perfect sense" to have it at 50/50. However, in reality, if your support is at 70% you're already doing a very bad job. If it's 90-95% you are doing a good job, 70% is bad, 50% is already horrible. 50% means you have already one foot in the grave when HALF of the people WANT the mayor or the faction out. In fact, at 50% support there should already be a vote for new mayor or new faction. If it's 50% it basically means you've already lost control and the town could equally be ran by the other mayor/faction instead.

Also, the main reason why it should be a lot higher, at 70% if not even 80% is because this also forces the current mayor and the faction of the town to work hard to keep it up. At 50% it's more like "Meh, I don't care as long as some(Read: My friends/their alts who live there) are happy" when they should actively push and work to keep everyone happy. It's an indicator that the mayor and the faction is doing a good job for everyone, not just for their own characters and friends.

Well I dont fully agree with you. The citizen opinions and stance can vary alot. They might have quite opposing side of views what should be or should not be done. If 50% thinks that the situation is awful, 50% can think the situation is awesome. That's why I think it's better to keep it fair.

[Monad]

Ok, that makes more sense. Though still, the 50% is too much. How long does it take for a citizen or mayor to end it? Do they have to stand still next to the stone for 20-30 seconds or how is it done?

• The more the faction loyalty % of the town is, the longer it takes to convert the guards during a siege

And how does this work in action? What's the minimum and maximum numbers?

I'm not going to bother into details before we have a good overview of the system. Let's work out and plan all the main aspects of the system before we start fine-tuning.

[Darian Darkmind]

Well, the problem with 50% is that it isn't fair although it might sound like that.

If 51% support you, on paper you might have the majority and you might be in control. However, 49% of the people who feel mistreated and unhappy are more than enough to run a revolution. Unlike people who are happy, people who are unhappy are always ready to fight because they don't have anything to lose. However, even if you "have the support" of 51% the happy people, it doesn't mean they'd stand up and fight for you. In fact, most likely at least if not over half of the 51% doesn't care even if someone else was in control, because most people are like sheeps and they follow whoever is in charge as long as someone tells them what to do. So basically if the support is at 51%, your real support, the ones prepared to fight for it is closer to 25%, but your opposition is pretty much full 49%.

If you get what I mean. People who are unhappy, say it out loud and rise up to fight against it, but most of the people who are happy don't care to fight for it, because they believe they are happy either way. Only those whosee the enemy as a tyrant who would take away their happiness will rise against it.

That's why you should try to keep at minimum of 70% support or you're extremely bad leader. At 70% you're already risking riots and revolution, because 30% is already so many people ready to rise against you versus the people who are ready to rise to defend you - unless that 70% absolutely adores and loves you, which, like I said is most likely not the case for at least half the people.

[Monad]

Well, the problem with 50% is that it isn't fair although it might sound like that.

If 51% support you, on paper you might have the majority and you might be in control. However, 49% of the people who feel mistreated and unhappy are more than enough to run a revolution. Unlike people who are happy, people who are unhappy are always ready to fight because they don't have anything to lose. However, even if you "have the support" of 51% the happy people, it doesn't mean they'd stand up and fight for you. In fact, most likely at least if not over half of the 51% doesn't care even if someone else was in control, because most people are like sheeps and they follow whoever is in charge as long as someone tells them what to do. So basically if the support is at 51%, your real support, the ones prepared to fight for it is closer to 25%, but your opposition is pretty much full 49%.

If you get what I mean. People who are unhappy, say it out loud and rise up to fight against it, but most of the people who are happy don't care to fight for it.

That's why you should try to keep at minimum of 70% support or you're extremely bad leader. At 70% you're already risking riots and revolution, because 30% is already so many people ready to rise against you versus the people who are ready to rise to defend you.

If less than 50% of the town citizens are in favor of the revolution, they can always talk with the opposing faction religion about a siege in that case, maybe pay them some good or money for the attempt to do it in forceful way instead politically. Or the citizens can try to use propaganda and campaign to get more citizens to vote against the current faction.

[Demian]

■If the faction loyalty is more than 50% the citizens can end the siege
■If the mayor loyalty is more than 50% the mayor can end the siege
What does these mean? Does it mean a mayor can click some button "End Siege" and no matter how many hours the other faction spent there, the siege is over? I hope not. The siege should not be end-able by the citizens or by the mayor as long as the loyalty isn't 100%, because siege is aggressive take-over and the people's wish mean little if someone is attacking them with cold steel. It might not be a good thing to siege a town that has high support to other faction, but it should still be possible through brute force.

It means that if the mayor or citizen character can get to the stone, they can end it through there. But of course that requires to get past the defense of the sieging party. So no, they can't just push a button without putting a fight in that case.

It doesn't really require all that much to get through the defense of the sieging party alone. If the siege can be ended like that, there should atleast be the same "chanting" time required as it is for religions. There are things like sneaking charges, sneaking skill itself, ressing the mayor at the stone, recalling etc etc.. 1 trick and the effort of possibly hours is over for the sieging religion.

[Monad]

It's no point to speculate or debate every detail at this point of the draft when we're trying to get the big picture tailored together. The point is that there is a possibility for mayor or citizen to end the siege if the support is high enough. How long it takes in seconds, how they need to do it technically step-by-step, and so forth is not an issue we and especially you need to worry about right now. I hope you trust us that much that we can solve and find a good procedure to things like that pretty easily when the time is.

[Evander]

■If the faction loyalty is more than 50% the citizens can end the siege
■If the mayor loyalty is more than 50% the mayor can end the siege
What does these mean? Does it mean a mayor can click some button "End Siege" and no matter how many hours the other faction spent there, the siege is over? I hope not. The siege should not be end-able by the citizens or by the mayor as long as the loyalty isn't 100%, because siege is aggressive take-over and the people's wish mean little if someone is attacking them with cold steel. It might not be a good thing to siege a town that has high support to other faction, but it should still be possible through brute force.

It means that if the mayor or citizen character can get to the stone, they can end it through there. But of course that requires to get past the defense of the sieging party. So no, they can't just push a button without putting a fight in that case.

It doesn't really require all that much to get through the defense of the sieging party alone. If the siege can be ended like that, there should atleast be the same "chanting" time required as it is for religions. There are things like sneaking charges, sneaking skill itself, ressing the mayor at the stone, recalling etc etc.. 1 trick and the effort of possibly hours is over for the sieging religion.

Like a non religion player could stand chanting long rite when bunch of trained religion chars comes to bash? Ofcourse it shouldnt be easy for citizen to stop it, but not too hard either.

[Tyrion]

Will Argons detection system be released with any of these updates (or before)?

What was the thinking behind using the wording of Empire and Lord Blackthorne?

Missed these.

Lord Blackthorn town perks could be have merchant edge on the perks, but I wouldn't go with skill boosts. Think of something fresh, new.
What would you suggest for British town edge on the perks? If we go with clear theme then it should apply on both.

I guess I don't agree with Lord British towns needing an edge or perk equal to Lord Blackthorne. Each Kingdom / Empire may have a benefit that is specific to that group. To your point however, I'm not certain how to provide feedback, since you're asking for a balanced approach that applies to both but Lord British protected towns will have the benefit of a religion w/ a PvP heavy tome to defend / manage their lands. Lord Blackthorne protected towns won't and should IMO have the RP contingency of being able to act as a trading empire. I guess I need more info, do you want to balance this part of the update or make them both unique?

[Monad]

I guess I don't agree with Lord British towns needing an edge or perk equal to Lord Blackthorne. Each Kingdom / Empire may have a benefit that is specific to that group. To your point however, I'm not certain how to provide feedback, since you're asking for a balanced approach that applies to both but Lord British protected towns will have the benefit of a religion w/ a PvP heavy tome to defend / manage their lands. Lord Blackthorne protected towns won't and should IMO have the RP contingency of being able to act as a trading empire. I guess I need more info, do you want to balance this part of the update or make them both unique?

You are mixing the religions and factions together. In a decision of joining Blackthorn or British towns, do you think the players will think like "ok, the religions both have veritas, solitude and strong guard rituals for my defense, but Law has single damage rite on top of that, okay I'll join them instead." No they won't. The tomes are balanced enough that players won't care about one single damage rite difference.

If a citizen is putting on the scale the benefits and disadvantages of joining British or Blackthorn kingdom, what he will think are the benefits what the town perks and faction perks makes possible for the character directly and personally. If Blackthorn faction give extra for the merchants automatically, of course there needs to be some carrot in British towns aswell which benefit the character directly. So an answer to your question is if either should give unique extra, both should give unique extra.

I guess I need to be repeating this for a while, which is understandable but don't think the towns as Law or Imperial towns, they will be Blackthorn and British towns and with this system they will have very little to none to do with the religions directly itself.

But then again I'm not sure if I'm in favor or a static perk what the factions give, but more like same option available for both of them, but the mayor is the one who chooses which perk to choose.

Will Argons detection system be released with any of these updates (or before)?

What was the thinking behind using the wording of Empire and Lord Blackthorne?

1. I don't know, is it necessary?
2. I didn't give any thinking for it to be honest. Imperial refers more to Empire than Kingdom so I guess from there in a split of a second. Why are you asking? What comes to Lord Blackthorn you need to contact the creators of Ultima about the history of the name. It's not a name we have came up with.