Allegiance

The contents on this page discuss a possible new feature. It may or may not be ever included in the game, and it may or may not be partially in testing somewhere (usually on the testing branch). In short, consider this page is a sketchpad of sorts and don't rely too much on things written here until this notice disappears. -- Tom

Allegiance is literally where you belong. This is incredibly important in a medieval world, and everyone always knew where he belonged to. You were never "Richard", you were "Richard of Ubent" (or from Ubent, if you were a commoner).

Layers

There are multiple layers of allegiance:

• Your Realm
• Your Duchy
• Your Region

Those for some configurations, any of these may be missing. A ruler, for example, might be independent of duchy and region (then again, he might be a duke or region lord). Likewise, a knight may own allegiance only to the crown, and not to a duke or lord.

These layers are also an indication of your status within the feudal society. The sooner you can say "I don't owe them allegiance, they owe me", the higher you are. Only the ruler can claim that the realm belongs to him and not he to the realm, but a lord (who owns a region instead of being owned by one) is higher than a knight (who only owes allegiance and is owed none).

Oaths

In a feudal society, allegiance is tied in closely with Oaths. Your allegiance does not come free (unless you are a commoner, in which case you are inventory and belong to the region anyways).

In a true medieval society, the oaths and allegiances binding the society together could get arbitrarily complex. In BattleMaster, we simplify things a little. The deal is: Service for Money.

Every level of allegiance can contain a benefit. Most often, only the lowest level will. For most knights, their belonging to a specific region (and thus oweing service to its lords, whoever he may be at that time) is in return for receiving a part of the regions tax income.

However, some knights might belong to the duke and receive a share of the duchy income. A few personal knights of the king might even receive a share of the realm tax collection, though such is usually reserved for the members of the government.