Imho current social and realm system in Haven lack some impotant detail - i mean intermediate stage between medium сivil structures like village and gigantic like kingdom. Cause of this we have current situation when most land of any kingdom is almost completely uncontrolled by kingdom istelf - there is no actions to prevent crimes happened in kingdom borders, no actual protection for its hermit citizens or inhabitants, no countermeasures against ill-mannered behaviour of certain players (claiming of surfaced local resource nodes, claiming/destroying of quest npc, robbery and murder on non-claimed land, destroying of roads, docks, knarrs and so on) and almost no social interactions between neighbors. In short - no one actually interested in keeping public order and main problem that almost no one have any actual reason to spent his time or attention to this. There is no help from game mechanic and no good benefits as rewards for someone who even want to do so.
i don't like it and to solve such troubles i propose to implement such civil structures as Domain (or Province). How it should work:
1) When realm was established first 10 adjacent to coronation stone cairns will count as royal domain territory ruled directly by realm king, and any other 3-10 surfaced cairns that placed close enough to each other (control zone of each should overlap with control zone of at least 2 other cairns) can be turned into realm province or vassal domain of realm by its king. In charge of province king may appoint one of realm citizen what will give him lord of realm status and let gather ruler authority from domain inhabitants in separate from kingdom authority pool (which not reduce authority that domain inhabitats give to kingdom in usual way) and in slightly different way.
2) Ruler authority can be used:
- to change set of bonuses that realm provides to all its inhabitats to another realm bonuses (but they cannot require more authority objects that realm currently have) which will be active only inside domain borders;
- to amplification of realm bonuses (1-3 chosen by lord up to 200% effect, with additional upkeep cost from ruler authority) inside domain borders;
- up to half of ruler authority can be transfered to kingdom authority pool (once per week);
- to give lord of domain (and mb his party) short lasted temporary combat buff in times when domain or its inhabitants is attacked by some invaders;
- to give punishment debuff against criminal or ill-mannered inhabitants inside domain borders (-50% and -25% to total LP and Exp gained for example);
- to establish zone of estrangement around local resource nodes and quest npc inside domain borders, which will prevent possibility to do any claiming of them or harm to them;
- to establish and upkeep domain community structures such as: charter stones (without village claim requirement), community wells, safe trade areas, domain roads, community feasting areas and mb some others.
3) Ruler authority will be gained to domain pool once per week (during which lord of domain was active) and will be gathered and affected by next things happened during week inside domain borders:
- small amount of authority will be gained for each foraged, crafted, harvested, gilded, planted, chipped, chopped, catched, butchered, cooked, mined and manufactured in any other possible way item;
- some amount of authority will be gained for each completed structure;
- some amount of authority will be gained for each experience event (not as much as realm authority to kingdom);
- amount of authority will be slightly inscreased (0,1-1% of total week authority for example) for each unique visitor (different accounts) to local resource nodes - character will be count as visitor if he harvested some local resouces of just checked node;
- amount of authority will be slightly inscreased (0,5%-1% of total week authority) for each unique visitor (different accounts) to quest npc - character will be count as visitor if he completed quest related to npc or makes quest action with it;
- amount of authority will be slightly inscreased (0,1% of total week authority) for each unique user (different accounts) of any community structures (counts for each structure separately);
- amount of authority will be reduced on some amount for any crime commited (more severe crime - more authority will be drained);
- amount of authority will be reduced (1-5% of total week authority) for each unique unpunished criminal (different accounts) which was active and lived inside domain borders;
- amount of authority will be reduces for each destroyed/declaimed pclaim (5% of total week authority) which was owned by any inhabitants who lived inside domain borders for more than 1 months;
- amount of authority will be reduces for each destroyed/declaimed vclaim (10-15% of total week authority) which was owned by any inhabitants who lived inside domain borders for more than 1 months;
- authority will not be granted if lord of domain was killed/stripped of the title by king during week.
4) Lord of domain will have access to crimes log which happened inside domain borders and will be able set punishments debuffs noticed above to any criminal from it to make him leave domain or fix his behaviour.
5) To be able become lord of domain or king of realm, character should finish Noble and Royal credo quest lines respectively which should be possible to take as 6th and 7th credos of character (for example). Owners of such credos will provide some bonuses to whole realm even when they are just citizens of it.
6) King of realm may strip lord of domain from his title and appoint someone else on his place (with some restrictions ofc). Any players completely inactive for 2 months should lose his titles automatically.
Something like this - I hope implementation of such civil structure will lead to:
- appearance of vast, well controlled and guarded areas inside kingdom borders, which will make world of Haven more friendly to new players;
- appearance of distinguished and highly active nobility of realms, which will form some kind of realm goverments;
- start of political struggles between citizens of same realm;
- and makes war between realms at least slightly less meaningless.
p.s. I understand that this idea have many weak points, which can be easely abused by players or exploited by bots - but my idea not set in stone and i hope that it will be greatly upgraded with discussion here.