Desactivation/reactivation of border cairns

[Saergof]

Every border cairn needs to be activated once per week to remain active: to provide realm bonus and to collect authority.

• any person can activate border cairn
• inactive cairn do not drains authority but still expands formal domain around; no authority collected, no bonus provided
• activation does not require any additional costs, just a brief attention of any character

That way realm inhabitants can somewhat deal with uncooperative/unsupportive realms, and at the same time the realm holders can assert their influence on areas of particular interest despite opinion of local population:

• if realm holders wish to receive their taxes, they send a "tax collector" to activate the clairn (yeah, a naked alt, of course)
• if local population wish to receive the realm bonus, they send their "representative" to activate the cairn
• if no one cares about the cairn, it goes inactive
• if the local population wishes to be free, they can try to block access to the cairn
• if realm holders wish to be sure that cairn will continue to work, they make additional effort to secure that cairn, at the cost of random access to it
• that way realm holders will be forced to establish some relations with local population, to save the effort and to be sure that locals will take care of the cairn without additional attention from the capital

Also, that way the game can have Shire-like situations: "This land always was a part of Arnor." - "What Arnor?"

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On a related topic: what is the logic behind current cairn maintenance costs? 10 authority/day looks like 0 auth/day: one passing sprucecap with a hearthfire outside the realm can fuel the cairn for a week. If there is no some unobvious reasons behind this, I feel the 5x maintenance cost will still be cheap enough for vast expansion.

[Kaios]

Sounds like a ton of effort that could be easily alleviated through the use of bots. What is your motivation behind such a suggestion?

On a related topic: what is the logic behind current cairn maintenance costs? 10 authority/day looks like 0 auth/day: one passing sprucecap with a hearthfire outside the realm can fuel the cairn for a week. If there is no some unobvious reasons behind this, I feel the 5x maintenance cost will still be cheap enough for vast expansion.

It may not always be the case but you end up extending over a large amount of area that has zero inhabitants and almost no activity at all depending on where you start your realm and where you plan on extending to. A realm that is quite large and has a reasonable amount of activity could just as easily become stagnant over time and those cairns that seemed insignificant at the time might end up costing you quite a large amount when placed in bulk if your authority gain starts to slow down.

[Saergof]

What is your motivation behind such a suggestion?

I'm thinking about ways to deal with hypothetical uncooperative realms without creating another one. Currently it seems that one who does not wish to reinforce the capital has two options: to ask them to leave, or to move out.

through the use of bots

Yes, it can be botted.

Edit: one may change "once per week" part to "once per month", or different suitable interval, if that makes any difference. I think the realm should not be "make and forget" thing. The state that has not enough attention from its administration is fated to fall apart.

[Granger]

As far as I got the suggestion inactive implies that they act as inexistent (apart from reserving the area to the kingdom), so this would actually be an upgrade as they would not cost upkeep in unpopulated areas which would make claiming extended areas easier.

Sounds not that bad, maybe the downside of the some periods without activation making them destroyable could balance that.

[jorb]

Why? Just bot that shit.