Vassalage

[Haba]

So far the three enduring factions in the game are the Goons, Wayneville and Bottleneck. But none of these has so far demonstrated enough invulnerability that I think their fighting force would survive a skermish as defenders. If I sign up to be a vassal what are the chances there will be enough fighters left after the first wave of attacks to defend me from the second?

Hey buddy-boy, there is no Wayneville on this map. Unless you consider rage's merry bunch to be that.

And no offence, but combat in the game doesn't quite work like it does in fantasy books. I'd say that when there are guys who can still go through a brick wall by themselves, that is enough of a deterrent for most dumbasses.

[Brickbreaker]

This can be done right now without the need for mechanics.

[Sidran]

This can be done right now without the need for mechanics.

I agree fully with this.

IMO developers and players alike should stop trying to replicate ugly remnants of history. Imagining empires and kings and their virtues is fine, but through history, people accepted all these deviations in lack of alternative. They paid, slaved, shared and honored "superior" beings only because they couldnt run away. At least in overwhelming majority of cases. Its same today, just not so harsh (or is it?). Those who made pacts and deals were mostly different only by their names. Their fundamental characteristic was that they lived on backs of peasants and slaves. Racketeering in many different flavors. I cant imagine anyone sane who would accept that position in a game. Or if you had plain formality in mind and no institutionalized racketeering, Brickbreaker told it all in upper quote.

In virtual realms, people can and will run away if they feel bad. So, all game mechanics must revolve around reasonable individual autonomy (much higher then in our bitter history). Start imposing political/social mechanics as they were and players will simply flee.

[Yolan]

*sigh*

[sabinati]

*doesn't get the point of the thread at all*

I DON'T WANT PEOPLE TELLIN ME WHAT TO DO!

[Prism]

I don't know how much any level of communication or whatever will do since no village has ever been able to directly protect their people from a raid, regardless of skill or numbers. If you could stop a raid by a group of "killer" characters directly instead of some weird game of raid -> retaliate raid forever that would be cool but while combat balance is skill borked you're going to get killed anyway, the only thing living in a village will change is that now you are going to get killed for something you didn't do.

Yes, combat does need balancing. But the idea here is about capitalizing on the already existing scent system. It's not ultimately about who is stronger, but who is more organized. There is no power on hearth that is going to prevent a little hamlet from being destroyed. However, a person might think twice about destroying said hamlet if they knew it belonged to a group who had the capability of harvesting and tracking the scents down to whatever hole they typically hide in.

Your average raider probably bets on the following when they find some random farm:

1.1 Killing this guy will leave scents, but once he is dead he won't be tracking me down. He also probably doesn't have any buddies who will.
1.2 Robbing this guy will leave scents, but he probably doesn't have the skill or guts to come looking for me, and he probably doesn't have any buddies who will.
2. Even if somebody _does_ come looking for me, I live far away, and behind a few brick walls. This random farm boy and or pals won't be able to break in while I am offline.

Just having clearly stated affiliations, and having those affiliations _mean_ something (i.e., have people who actually do chase down scents), would really change the whole name of the game.

Ya that actually make sense, the best (only) way to deal with the PvP system in it's current form is to heavily disincentivize it from ever being utilized.

[Pansy]

So, if I understand you, vasselage is something you will offer to select trading partners because it is in your interest to protect them? And at the moment the way it would work would be for you to issue a blanket statement, "The village of Mungopicker is under the protection of Bottleneck. This includes the three claims beside Mungopicker that are not in the village limits, and the seven members of Mungopicker Village: Glorn, Glab, Tweezle, Snergface, Mouse, China Doll and Catherine Elliott. Any one who steals, vandalizes or commits assault or murder within these three claims and the village, or who attacks these seven people in any location will be tracked down by the finest of Bottleneck's Rangers and summarily executed. Any village caught harbouring the scent of anyone who commits these crimes will be razed and all members who can be caught will also be executed."

But rather than vasselage (which according to my dictionary is a servile status, being bound to an overlord) you will do this for the sake of the friendship ties you have with Mungopicker and they will in fact not be required to do anything in return for these protections? Although you would informally expect them to continue to be good trade partners putting your interests to the forefront?

What happens if Mungopicker allows Spleeny to join, and he happens to be a griefer and drama addict, so he deliberately picks a fight with the village of Russian Riverbank? Say Spleeny grinds up a character to rage and attacks Parsimonia when she comes to trade with him. If she flees she would get hit in the back so she stays to fight, possibly even killing Spleeny, who might be willing to throw the fight with full tradition in order to cry murder. Then if Spleeny Jr. comes to you claiming Parsimonia attacked him, and Russian Riverbank sends a diplomat saying that Spleeny attacked her, how are you going to decide who to believe, given that you will have assault scents from both of them at the scene of the fight?

Offering your protection to other villages is in principle a good idea, and I'd love to see it tinkered with until it works. I'd be worried though, that the end result would be to simply link targets to you. Suppose the (no longer existing) faction of Wayneville wanted to poke Bottleneck, but had no easy way to get through their brick walls. (Eight layers thick??!! Forget it!) But on the other hand Mungopicker village has a pallisade with a few red spots... Assuming the (no longer exisiting) faction of Wayneville has not gone rogue and is attacking random accessible villages, announcing that not-really defended village of Mungopicker is under your protection is rather like issuing a dare to your rivals and perhaps could endanger Mungopicker more.

I don't see how this would work, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. There are a lot of issues and possibilities to work out. It will be interesting to see how you handle them and even more interesting to see how the different factions manage it.

[Blxz]

So, if I understand you, vasselage is something you will offer to select trading partners because it is in your interest to protect them? And at the moment the way it would work would be for you to issue a blanket statement, "The village of Mungopicker is under the protection of Bottleneck. This includes the three claims beside Mungopicker that are not in the village limits, and the seven members of Mungopicker Village: Glorn, Glab, Tweezle, Snergface, Mouse, China Doll and Catherine Elliott. Any one who steals, vandalizes or commits assault or murder within these three claims and the village, or who attacks these seven people in any location will be tracked down by the finest of Bottleneck's Rangers and summarily executed. Any village caught harbouring the scent of anyone who commits these crimes will be razed and all members who can be caught will also be executed."

But rather than vasselage (which according to my dictionary is a servile status, being bound to an overlord) you will do this for the sake of the friendship ties you have with Mungopicker and they will in fact not be required to do anything in return for these protections? Although you would informally expect them to continue to be good trade partners putting your interests to the forefront?

What happens if Mungopicker allows Spleeny to join, and he happens to be a griefer and drama addict, so he deliberately picks a fight with the village of Russian Riverbank? Say Spleeny grinds up a character to rage and attacks Parsimonia when she comes to trade with him. If she flees she would get hit in the back so she stays to fight, possibly even killing Spleeny, who might be willing to throw the fight with full tradition in order to cry murder. Then if Spleeny Jr. comes to you claiming Parsimonia attacked him, and Russian Riverbank sends a diplomat saying that Spleeny attacked her, how are you going to decide who to believe, given that you will have assault scents from both of them at the scene of the fight?

Offering your protection to other villages is in principle a good idea, and I'd love to see it tinkered with until it works. I'd be worried though, that the end result would be to simply link targets to you. Suppose the (no longer existing) faction of Wayneville wanted to poke Bottleneck, but had no easy way to get through their brick walls. (Eight layers thick??!! Forget it!) But on the other hand Mungopicker village has a pallisade with a few red spots... Assuming the (no longer exisiting) faction of Wayneville has not gone rogue and is attacking random accessible villages, announcing that not-really defended village of Mungopicker is under your protection is rather like issuing a dare to your rivals and perhaps could endanger Mungopicker more.

I don't see how this would work, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. There are a lot of issues and possibilities to work out. It will be interesting to see how you handle them and even more interesting to see how the different factions manage it.

Sort of sounds like real life. Makes me want to play Crusader Kings Again. All your arguments against actually sound like quite a convincing argument FOR this style of vassalage. And if little mungoville decided they didn't want to put bottleneck first it would be a vassal breaking free. Does bottleneck crush them and enforce their will like in history or do they let them go. Furthermore, if down the line little mungoville suddenly becomes big powerful mungoville would they decide to challenge bottleneck for power by raiding their town and killing lawspeaker and chieftne and taking control of the entire network themselves. Sounds almost like byzantine politics. This kind of system has the potential to open up a much deeper side of the game that has slowly been developing anyway.

[Onionfighter]

Indeed. Giving more options does not mean you are obligated to take them. The politics of this game are a great deal of fun, and if they can be improved, more the better.

[Pansy]

Sort of sounds like real life. Makes me want to play Crusader Kings Again. All your arguments against actually sound like quite a convincing argument FOR this style of vassalage. And if little mungoville decided they didn't want to put bottleneck first it would be a vassal breaking free. Does bottleneck crush them and enforce their will like in history or do they let them go. Furthermore, if down the line little mungoville suddenly becomes big powerful mungoville would they decide to challenge bottleneck for power by raiding their town and killing lawspeaker and chieftne and taking control of the entire network themselves. Sounds almost like byzantine politics. This kind of system has the potential to open up a much deeper side of the game that has slowly been developing anyway.

Well, I wasn't arging against it. My strongest point is that according to my dictionary that's not vassalage (bound servitude to an overlord.) I think it might be some form of patronage.

I was then trying to figure out how it would work and how well it would work. I don't think it would work very well because I have less respect for the intimidation factor that is being proposed as the main defense of the "vassal" villages. I think there are enough people playing this game because they want to fight, that announcing "Anybody who kills Flame will be visited with the wrathe of...(Fill in village name here)" will result in painting a target on Flame's back for a few suicide players, and be no protection whatsoever against people who don't keep a list of victims to avoid attacking taped to the side of their computer screen. I'm sure it will be some protection against a few strategic thinking players who will be picking more defenseless targets, but you'll have to try it out before you know how well it works.