Repute

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

Idea, as posted to the mailing list:

So far, while many agree that more regional (or duchy) loyalty would be better, this same people also agree that realm-based thinking proves the most worthwhile for a character. I've thought about this before, and made suggestions, which don't work for a variety of reasons. However, I'd like to propose another idea.

Region based honour. A knight or lord of a region gets income from the peasants as part of the feudal agreement. But, the other side of that coin is that they must protect the region. Therefore, it would seem to make sense that if the people of the region suffer, its knights and lord should suffer for not honouring their agreement with the peasantry. The other side of this would be that if the region were kept "safe", then they would gain honour periodically for keeping that agreement. Now, this doesn't mean perfectly safe, as random monster and undead attacks may well do damage even if quelled immediately, but perhaps setting a bar for some region stat(s), and have the honour loss/gain be determined by whether it dips below that level and how long, and how long it stays above that level. Thus, lords and knights would have a great deal of incentive to protect their own region, at the possible expense of another. Lords would be more likely to surrender to an enemy rather than take the massive honour penalty from having the region burned to the ground. Dukes might well decide to keep their forces nearby to protect their territory (as a Duke would lose/gain honour to a lesser extent for the whole duchy) instead of marching off to defend another duchy, or to attack a distant realm.

Now, these penalties and gains should not be too large (except for massive destruction in a region), so those who wish to work for the realm can still do so. A great soldier would be able to weather the minor honour loss from small problems in the region easily, for instance.

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Possible Problems

• Need to make it neither too easy to gain nor too easy to lose honour this way.
  • Loss only if you didn't even try - if you were away when the region was attacked, not if you just lost the battle
  • But don't limit it to defending the region only, that would tie people down too much
• Probably a new stat, at least during experimental status - let's call it Repute

• Current problem, no one knows what the benefits/disadvantages are for having a high/low Repute value. Even if they aren't enabled, having some idea of what it might do would be good.

Points

Rough outline of a system:

• everyone starts with a repute of 50 (done)
• a day doing something that helps the region (police, civil work, etc.) always +1 if it has a positive effect (i.e. max +1 per day for this) (done)
• any looting in the region: -1 (per day, as above) (done)
• starvation within the region: -1 (per day) (done)
• defending the region against attackers: +5 (i.e. winning a battle in the region) (done, but incomplete)
• not being in the region when a battle there is lost for your side: -5 (done, but incomplete)
• a few minor ones are done already, but I'm not talking about them.

• good/bad marks are worth +/- 5
• winning a battle in a neighbouring region: +1
• selling food to the region (if it is in need of food) - maybe, but possible abuse potential (lord sending food away...)
• Priest effects?
• Courts and other lord effects
• Winning a battle alongside your marshal (i.e. gaining repute in the army) - +1 and maybe only in certain circumstances (not for very easy battles, maybe just +1 change, not real value, we'll see)