Talk:Better Maps/Polygon Maps

Should this get implemented Tom, I think you'll be able to stop development on BM. You'll have finished your masterpiece! This is the missing link. For all that efforts have been made to empower those further down the hierarchy, this is the thing that will finally distil power all the way down. I dearly look forward to the day when Lords and Barons freely change allegiance as is their want and Monarchs have to offer this and that to secure the allegiances of various baronies and duchies in order to proximate their wars. The fighting there will be over Knights by Barons as they try to build up a strong personal powerbase in order to gamble for greater influence and independence. It's so juicy and delicious I can hardly wait! --Revan 15:46, 22 November 2010 (CET)

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OMG growing regions with multiple small pieces of ground. Does this also mean, a city could 'grow' or a castle could be created in a piece of the region? --Schreuders 22:00, 22 November 2010 (CET)

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Didn't "regions" tend to be geographical first and foremost, traditionally? (Bordeaux, Tuscany, etc...) I'll be honest, my first thoughts were:

• Wow, realms lose some significance. It's the knights that determine a realm's borders now? Sounds odd.
• What is the motivation for knights that are completely surrounded by fellow realms-mates? Now they have even less reason to go to war with other realms? Not sure if the intent is to cause civil-war (which I don't think it will).
• Cities tend to have a lot of knights... do they get estates still? I don't see 10+ polygons in cities.
• Where do Lords fit in all this? Since knights (who decide the regions if I understand correctly) are in control, do they elect one?

As you can see, lots of questions. Which is to be expected for a draft proposal :) It actually reminds me a lot of some fantasy RPGs that I play (rather than mimicing history), or maybe of city states, which I generally prefer (in RPGs anyways)! -- Corwyn 18:42, 24 November 2010 (CET)

Good points. Some region borders are indeed geographical, but others are just arbitrary. We could define the type of edge of a polygon, and make it so that a region can not expand across certain types (e.g. rivers). I am also thinking about a few other restrictions, to prevent mega-regions and too many tiny (one-estate) regions. And cities are a problem in this system. --Tom 11:49, 26 November 2010 (CET)

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My first thought seeing this is that it would be the perfect setting to implement a disconnected estate system. Right now, the main reason (I think) not to allow people to be Lords of two places at the same time is simply to keep more positions open and to limit realm growth by player size and encourage people to seek new players. I understand in this new system region growth could in theory be limitless (although it would certainly be kept in check by things such as morale loss for huge regions). Therefore, would it make sense to allow people to scatter their estates around? This would really bring a part of feudality that we don't see much in the current system.vonGenf

Humm, re-reading the page, I now realize that what I said doesn't make much sense. I thought first the polygons would be auto-generated for each region and mostly empty, so that a region would grow in population as new knights arrived. If they are fixed and small in numbers and estates can only control border region, then growth is of course not limitless, and it is again a game of fill'em up. vonGenf

Alternatively, if the heirarchy system was reworked a bit, to make local lords act as a duke's knights rather than the duke having knights himself, the problem of city estates would be solved. On the same note though, this would require a lot of reworking I imagine, in order to accomodate this kind of setup. It would also make the Duchy a more important position, rather than the glorified Lord-with-seccession-power that it is now. This would make it a bit more Duke-centric than the system is now, but if regions could grow into cities, it would also be far, far more dynamic, allowing the landscape of the entire game to change if enough time was given. --Andrew 00:26, 27 November 2010 (CET)

Cities by definition are places of denser population. If population density is to be reflected in increasing estate requirements, then it seems very difficult to make cities work, as increasing population in one "estate" would essentially create a cap on local population which was homogenous continent-wide. However, one possibility would be to make estates not only expandable, but subdividable. Maybe have an option so that, when the population of your estate exceeds a certain amount, you have an option to "split the estate," transferring the newly subdivided section back to your region lord, who then can offer it out as a new oath. This would allow increased population density and greater dynamism, as you could cram more knights into more populated areas. Vellos 02:07, 27 November 2010 (CET)

Just a quick comment on this part: "It would also make the Duchy a more important position, rather than the glorified Lord-with-seccession-power that it is now". You might be in the minority in thinking this. In fact, people on the D-List seem to think that Dukes have a lot of power, perhaps too much currently. -- Corwyn 20:21, 30 November 2010 (CET)

That might be what he means by "glorified". Though imo that secession power + huge financial power (at least, larger than most) is real. It does make rulers want to have them on their side at all costs. I wouldn't go saying "too much", though. :P -Dominic "Chénier" 02:14, 1 December 2010 (CET)

Polygons and Cities

Just to say, I now want polygon maps so much! Incidentally, for cities, it might be simpler to keep them as one polygon affairs and make them an exception to the rules that apply to other regions. After all, a lord of a city didn't need knights to keep it under control, he needed a town guard or militia - so perhaps the way to go would be introducing a minimum level of militia or something? --Antonine 14:33, 16 December 2010 (CET)