Mayor/citizenship/faction system draft v0.9.2

[Evander]

Will all the towns have the free guards, or will all the guards require tax money?

It makes sense that if a mayor sets the tax at 0%, there won't be many guards around as there's not gold to pay for them.

I know the king sends the guards, but the king needs tax money to do so and surely he would not waste many of his guards to a place that doesn't profit him at all.

I agree. Every town should have some base amount of guards and with increase of taxes = increase in guard amount.

[Johnny Walac]

If the Mayor system works good when in action. Will we see more political offices? All with different perks to help with the town.

[Tyrion]

2.1 CITIZENSHIP BONUSES

• • Ability to vote and become a mayor
  • Ability to join the militia
  • Ability to buy special items available only to the citizens

Add a bonus of +1 or +2 to being a merchant citizen loyal to Lord Blackthorne (increase the timer to switch allegiances accordingly, maybe 1 week so that abuse does not occur).

Change Imperials blessing rite to add an additional bonus (+1 to +3) for merchants that have remained loyal to Blackthorne for XXX days and/or remove the rite entirely and replace with another (see Imperial Forums - Rite Replacement, for further details).

Edit: At any point with the scripting of this system, will there be a connection to account OR is there only a character connection?

Questions / recommendations above were missed.

Currently clearing guards is an easy matter and WOULD be taken advantage of [if a restriction exists on the guard pool] when raiding / sieging occurs. Will Argons detection system be released with any of these updates (or before)?

If the Mayor system works good when in action. Will we see more political offices? All with different perks to help with the town.

This and more diplomatic options through altar / mayor UI etc?

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

[Monad]

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.

[Darian Darkmind]

Maybe we should use the Ultima Lore a bit and make all towns have their own color, own virtue, own anti-virtue(Dungeon), own classes. A small bonus is given to that class + another bonus if fighting inside the said dungeon. One town might have a bonus to a nice dungeon, but not so much the class you want, where as a town that has nice classes might have a "useless" dungeon. There's not any "best" town to choose from. Each virtue also has it's Mantra/Word of Power, which could be some small activated bonus/bless/spell to the citizens or militia either used freely or inside the said dungeon/town.

1. Moonglow
Virtue: Honesty
Dungeon: Deceit
Symbol: Open Hand
Class: Mage, Alchemist, Scribe
Color: Blue
Powerword: Ahm Fallax

2. Britain
Virtue: Compassion
Dungeon: Despise
Symbol: Heart
Class: Bard, Tinker, Tailor
Color: Yellow
Power:word: Mu Vilis

3. Jhelom
Virtue: Valor
Dungeon: Destard
Symbol: Sword
Class: Warrior, Cook, Tamer
Color: Red
Powerword: Ra Inopia

4. Yew
Virtue: Justice
Dungeon: Wrong
Symbol: Scales
Class: Barbarian, Druid, Bowyer, Carpenter
Color: Green
Powerword: Beh Malum

5. Minoc
Virtue: Sacrifice
Dungeon: Covetous
Symbol: Tear
Class: Treasure Hunter, Smith, Tinker
Color: Orange
Powerword: Cah Avidus

6. Trinsic
Virtue: Honor
Dungeon: Shame
Symbol: Chalice
Class: Knight, Priest, Monk
Color: Purple
Powerword: Summ Infama

7. Skara Brae
Virtue: Spirituality
Dungeon: Hythloth
Symbol: Ankh
Class: Ranger, Archer, Bowyer, Carpenter
Color: White
Powerword: Om Ignavus

8. New Magincia
Virtue: Humility
Dungeon: -
Symbol: Shepherd Staff
Class: Tamer, Scribe, Alchemist
Color: Black
Powerword: Lum

Other towns that still needs to be worked out:

9. Vesper
10. Nujelm
11. Occlo
12. New Haven
13. Wind


O'well, being a fan of the original Ultima serie and its Lore, I'm just shooting ideas here.

[Monad]

Updated the original post.

Added:

1. FACTIONS
Factions are designed for and ran by non-religious players, however religion members can join as the citizens like anyone else. Point of the system is to improve the political aspects and strenght in the game by giving more power to the regular citizens and the mayors to decide their town affairs through voting, town perks and decision making.

2. TOWNS AND CITIZENSHIP
Clicking a townstone will open a menu showing the following specifics:
• Citizen loyalty % towards the mayor
• Citizen loyalty % towards the faction

• 2.2 TOWN SIEGES
  
  Converting the faction of a town can happen in two ways:
  • 1. Mayor launched 'siege' from the town stone (political)
    • If the faction loyalty is more than 50% the siege cannot be launched
    • If the faction loyalty is 0%, the siege cannot be overturned
    • If the mayor loyalty is less than 50% the siege cannot be launched
    
    2. Religion forced/organized siege (religious)
    • If the faction loyalty is 100% the siege cannot be launched
    • 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
    
    Applies to both:
    • The faction religion members can end the siege in their faction towns in all cases (unless the faction loyalty is 0% in the specific town) because they cannot change their faction
    • The more the faction loyalty % of the town is, the longer it takes to convert the guards during a siege

Changed Empire of the Lord Blackthorn to Kingdom of the Lord Blackthorn.

[Monad]

Edit: At any point with the scripting of this system, will there be a connection to account OR is there only a character connection?

Good question. I think biggest issue is with the account based houses. But for now I think best way to go is that from all the houses you own on your account, you can register your character to any of those towns, but of course one character can be a citizen of only one town, not multiple towns. So for example you can register all your characters as citizens of Moonglow or one character in Moonglow, one in Minoc, one in Britain etc. OR we can decide that you can only have one citizenship in one town from your account, if we end up with meta-gaming problems.

Someone also suggested that you can only have one mayor character in your account and I think that's good idea too but it's not fully decided yet.

[Monad]

This and more diplomatic options through altar / mayor UI etc?

I like the trade embargo option at least. Not too sure about the usefulness of the other options. I mean they don't necessary need to be scripted if there is no clear restrictions/benefits, they're more like status options achieved through RP and agreed upon.

[Darian Darkmind]

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.

■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. If Russia attacks Finland, I'm sure we'd all be against it, but there's very little we could do about it with our voice.

[Monad]

■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.