Hinterlands

Hinterlands is a new feature which is not currently in the main game. Hinterlands is only active on the test server. You can find a link to this test server under the "Player Information" section on the in-game account page.

This page still under construction and might include outdated information

The Hinterlands update changes how regions are controlled by realms. Control is a new region stat which represents how much influence your realm has over the region’s administrative bureaucracy, and how much influence the bureaucracy has over the populace as a whole. The realm with the most control in a region is the region's owner; however, a realm needs at least 25% control in order to be able to own a region.

All regions owned by a realm now fall under two kinds of administrative status: Core and Hinterland. A realm's core regions are those which are well-managed and do not suffer from any of the Hinterland penalties. Only the regions which Dukes have invested Reeves in have the core status. A realm's Hinterlands are the regions that have no reeves invested in. Hinterlands produce less gold and food than core regions. More detailed information on the difference between the two region states can be found here.

Realms can affect not only control in their own regions, but also the control of other realms regions. This is accomplished by taking various actions, or passively through Duchy seats and Capitals. There are also new actions which will affect the control in a region: Attack the Administration, Release Prisoners, Help with the Harvest, and Rebuild from Looting. Additionally, courtiers now have the ability to increase their realm's control through the new actions: Assign Administrators and Streamline the Administration.

The effects on region stats now work indirectly, the actions you preform have a delayed effect by effecting a nominal value. Region stats will slowly move towards that nominal value over time, you can find more information on this here.

Control and Anarchy

Control is a new region stat which represents how much influence your realm has over the region’s administrative bureaucracy, and how much influence the bureaucracy has over the populace as a whole. The realm with the most control in a region is the region's owner; however, a realm needs at least 25% control in order to be able to control a region. A realm also needs at least 50% control in order to make a region 'core', and appoint a Lord all regions below 50% control are Hinterlands.

Control is displayed as a description on the region information pages rather than the actual number. Below is a table of the control descriptors, from low to high, and their value ranges.

Description	Percentage
None	0-4%
Slight	5-?%
Hinterland	??
Heartland	??
Iron-clad	??

Anarchy is a hidden value that determines whether regions revolt or not and has similar effects to how 'independence' works. Anarchy is now the *sole* contributor to region revolts, besides Control dropping too low to hold a region (Morale and Loyalty can help protect against them)

Anarchy is still under heavy construction and will be altered and changed in the coming updates, some effects like region revolts are not implemented yet.

Duchy Seats and Tiers

An example of how tiers are displayed on the Hinterlands information map

Control is primarily determined by duchy seats, a sort of duchy 'capital' which increases the baseline control of the duchy seat and surrounding regions.

Cities and Strongholds can be made into duchy seats by their respective duke, and duchies can only have one duchy seat each. By using the 'Hinterlands info map' under information, you can see which regions fall under what tier and where duchy seats are located. The map also shows which regions are core or Hinterland.

Tiers have various effects on regions, control range determines the baseline nominal control value. Control will stabilize within this range. Tiers also determine anarchy suppression, give morale and production buffs or penalties, and effects how quickly recruitment centers and workshops replenish.

Duchy seats takes 5 days to take effect from the moment a region is assigned a duchy seat. There are 4 "tiers" of distance from a duchy seat and realm capital, with 75 miles of each tier, these are the effects of each tier:

           Tier 0 (Realm Capital only): 
               Control range: 50-100
               30% Morale Bonus (up to 100%)
               30% Production Bonus (up to 100%)
               Heavy Anarchy suppression
               Standard RC/Workshop speed

           Tier 1:
               Control range: 40-100
               20% Morale Bonus (up to 100%)
               20% Production Bonus (up to 100%)
               Medium Anarchy suppression 
               Faster RC/Workshop speed

           Tier 2:
               Control range: 25-90
               5% Morale Bonus 
               5% Production Bonus
               Light Anarchy suppression
               Standard RC/Workshop speed

           Tier 3:
               Control range: 5-65
               No Morale Bonus
               No Production Bonus
               No Anarchy suppression
               Standard RC/Workshop speed

           Tier 4:
               Control range: 0-45 (Hinterlands only!)
               15% Morale penalty
               15% Production penalty
               Medium Anarchy increase
               Slower RC/Workshop speed, on top of Hinterland penalties

Reeves

Apart from sufficient control, reeves are needed to lift a region from Hinterland status to 'core' status. Reeves are like local sheriffs, that keep order and make a region manageable.

Reeves come from the nobles in your realm and are distributed through the communal realm reeves pool. Each noble provides 4 reeves for the realm, which can be used by the Dukes to assign to certain regions by either appointing a Lord or clicking on the 'make core' button for lordless regions, both under 'Govern Regions'. A reeve can handle approximately 2000 inhabitants at a time, you will need 100% reeve coverage to make and keep a region core. For example, the stronghold of Aja has a population of 20k, and thus needs 10 reeves in order to be cored.

Capitals do not need any reeves and will always be core regions. Since the amount of reeves needed is based on population, it can be a good idea to move your capital to the city or stronghold with the highest population in your realm, so you can use those reeves elsewhere.

A noble can see where his or her reeves are assigned to at the 'Your Reeves' page under actions. Dukes can see more detailed information on reeves under the Govern Regions page, including the total amount of reeves in the realm reeves pool, how many reeves are required for each region in his or her duchy, and how many are assigned.

Upon joining a realm, a noble's 4 reeves are not instantly available for the realm, it takes a few days for the reeves to be trained until they are ready and can be assigned. When a noble retires or otherwise leaves the realm, the reeves that come with this noble also retire, this takes a while so the Dukes have time to adjust accordingly.

Core vs Hinterland

A regions administrative status is either Hinterland or Core. Below are the benefits and disadvantages of these states.

Core

Core regions have to follow some specific requirements, but are otherwise what you have come to expect from regions owned by your realm.

The first requirement is that they must be well-managed. At present, this still simply means that they have a Lord and at least one Knight, but I’ve already got plans to change this to be based on each noble being able to “manage” up to a specific number of peasants (which will mean that most non-city regions can be “well-managed” with only a Lord).

Hinterland

Hinterlands regions produce much less than Core regions—currently, 20%, both Gold and Food. Importantly, however, this only applies to Food after the peasants have eaten their fill, so regions that can feed themselves as Core regions can still do so as Hinterlands. They just won’t produce much for the rest of the realm.

Hinterlands should still suffer from distance from capital penalties.

Hinterland Penalties

Hinterlands suffer from Red Tape penalties, which come in three basic varieties:

• Inefficiency, which reduces production, and can occasionally cause problems with recruitment centers and workshops
• Corruption, which occasionally causes shipments of food or gold to go missing
• Disaffection, which causes loyalty and control to suffer, and can occasionally increase Anarchy
• Anarchy is a fourth variety, which is only generated in specific circumstances (not directly just from being outside the Core), and increases the chances of the region revolting.

There are also some other unique effects of these, beyond simple region stat debuffs. The Courtier ability to Survey Administration is now specifically for removing these debuffs.

Takeover

Takeovers work around two control values, the control of the regions owner over the region, and your realms control over the region. The goal is to increase your realms control over 25% AND exceed the value of the owner's control. The game then gives you an estimate of your total progress. Rogue regions have 0% control and are thus generally easier to take over.

These values are displayed like so: (the example used here is for a rogue region)

Currently, the takeover is roughly 2% complete.

• You have made 100% progress in reducing the owner's control.
• You have made 0% progress in raising your control.

Starting a TO

A takeover is started by clicking on start takeover under unit orders, a page will appear stating how many troops are needed to successfully initiate the TO. You can start this process even if you do not have enough troops at that moment, if you do have enough troops at the end of the turn the Takeover will actually start.

Supporting the TO

Once the TO has started you get the option to 'Help Takeover', this page shows you an overview of all the different kinds of actions you can take to help the TO. The most straight forward action is 'help takeover', which raises control for your realm, and can be done once a turn taking 6 hours of time. Other actions either raise control for your realm, or decrease that of the owner's.

Raise control for your realm

• Organize Repairs - aid the local rebuilding: For Courtiers only
• Survey Administration - find and eliminate red tape: For Courtiers only
• Streamline Administration - make the local bureaucracy work better: For Courtiers only
• Assign Administrators - improve the regional bureaucracy: For Courtiers only
• Civil Work - help repair infrastructure: Available if production relative to population is low enough to improve.
• Aid with Harvest - help bring in the harvest: Requirements unknown
• Rebuild from Looting - help to repair damage: Available if production is low enough after looting
• Police Work - help the local constabulary: Only for police units

Decrease control of the enemy realm

• Attack Administration - damage local control: Depending on the method used you also negatively effect other region stats (not available in rogue regions)
• Release Prisoners - This currently only affects commoner NPC prisoners—that is to say, it decreases Control. It does not allow early release for player characters in prison.
• Looting - this will also lower morale production and loyalty of the regions owner, looting has been reworked, for more information check looting.

All of these actions can be taken at any time, even without an active TO; however, an active takeover increases the control effects of the relevant actions.

The actions taken during—and recently before—the takeover are remembered by the peasants, and will affect the status of the region after the takeover is complete. For example looting the region will help with completing the TO, but also effects loyalty production and morale over time.

Decreasing control can also happen passively through the effects of Duchy seats and realm capitals radiating their control to nearby regions as described under Duchy Seats and Tiers.

If control drops below 25% and anarchy is high enough a region can revolt and join a realm with more control in the region then the current owner.

Colony Takeovers

Colony Takeovers (CTOs) will be added back into the game, but they have not yet been added. When they are added, there will be a 15 noble requirement to perform the CTO. The "colony" will be an actual entity within the realm that can have people joining it before the actual CTO starts.

Looting

Looting has been completely reworked. All looting now targets specific estates within the region. Looting has also been simplified down to: Steal Gold, Steal Food, or Pillage and Maraud. There is still an option to attempt to slaughter peasants, but it is only available for realms you have declared Hatred against.

Looting will decrease the region owner's AP, your realm's AP a bit in the short term, and makes it harder for your realm to keep AP up in the medium term, especially after the TO is complete.

Peasants (and minor nobles) will now keep small amounts of gold and food for themselves. The two most important effects of this will be:

• Looting will now target the gold the peasants hold, rather than the tax vaults (which should really be better guarded than they have seemed in the past)

• The food the peasants eat is the food that they hold. This means that starvation will not hit quite as quickly, but it also means that there is a limit to how fast food can be distributed once they have been starving.

Region statistics

Region statistics are Morale, Loyalty, Control, Production and Anarchy and work a bit different with the Hinterlands update. The various effects on region stats work indirectly, the actions you preform effect a nominal value. Region stats will slowly move towards that nominal value over time, thus the effects of your actions manifest with a delay. This means that if you hold court, or do police work for example, the effects of these actions are no longer instantly visible on the region page but become visible over time as they start to take effect.

Anarchy is an invisible region stat, you wont be able to get a hard number for this stat, but it does work in a similar way, with a nominal value determined by various modifiers.

A detailed report for your regions nominal values and how they are determined can be found here. You will have to adjust the region id in the link to see other regions, this page is for Barad Lacarith which has region id 68. You can see the region id's on the normal region pages, by clicking them on the map or in the region list and checking the link. (which is: https://hinterlands.battlemaster.org/region/2/68 for Barad Lacarith)

(the example region used here is Brackhead a tier 1 region)

Base line values for control are the effects of Tiers, upon which the other effects are stacked like in the example here.

93% Final value for nominal control (40% baseline + total control buff)

It also shows current control, the difference between current and nominal control determines whether control will increase or decrease over time.

Current control is 91.2%

Nominal control is 93%, so control is expected to increase next turn.

There is also a region buff page with some more detailed information for your region only, you can access this page on the command page.

Other Changes and Misc Info

Damaging & demolishing recruitment centers now works differently: it’s much harder to do permanent damage, but much easier to disable them for a short period and clear out the recruits currently in them.

Travel time is reduced by 2/3 within your own realm, and increased by half in realms you are at war with (including rogues). We recognize that this may cause some issues on Dwilight; we plan to be conducting a review of travel times on Dwilight some time during the Hinterlands play-test, with the intention of ensuring that they are not too great a burden. Within your realm, you can take special advantage of this speed boost by moving up to 2 regions in a single turn.

Region Lords can "Hand out food..." via the Command menu. This can be done once per day, with a limited amount of food, at a cost of 2 hours. This allows Lords to manually distribute more food from the granaries.

There is no restriction on moving the capital to a Hinterland city.

Test Server

The next major feature package for BattleMaster, named Hinterlands after its most prominent new feature, is complete in draft form, and needs play-testing to ensure it won't cause an undue level of disruption when it is brought live to the main game. Because of this, a special, temporary, play-testing server is available where you can help to make sure it gets a proper level of testing. This will be a much more volatile experience than the game as a whole, with major balance-changing updates potentially coming frequently and with little warning. All players who have been in the game at least a month are welcome to join the play-test.

Please be aware that as this is a play-test, there are some differences between it and the usual way the game works.

• First of all, the play-test will be temporary. Everything that happens here will be completely wiped away once I have enough data to feel reasonably confident that the balance of Hinterlands won't massively wreck the game on the main server when I send the code live there.

• The play-test is completely separate from the main game. Nothing done here will affect the characters, families, or continents in the main game in any way.

• Because this is a play-test, while I do want to see more or less "normal play", there will also be things I specifically need tested. As such, I may sometimes ask particular players or realms to do things that aren't particularly beneficial to them militarily, so that I can get better data.

• Depending on my available time, there may be certain time windows where I run several extra turns on the play-test in order to get faster feedback on particular features. I will try to announce these clearly, along with what I want tested, ahead of time.

• While the rules of the main game all apply here, and we still won't allow "names" like @@DragonSlayer782@@, or characters roleplayed as being non-human, we will be somewhat less strict with the level of silliness allowed in the play-test.