User:Foreign Curs/Suggestion:Expanded secret police options

I find the secrete police option of a ruler very interesting, mainly because it gives a more political allure to the game. That's why I've worked out this rather expanded form of a secret police.

Additional Employers

It's a bit of a shame that only the rulers can use a secret police. I was thinking of expanding this to a lot of other nobles with a title, because after all: when you have a title, you have the influence to have a group of men performing your dirty commands on your side. I suggest that also:

• Lords
• Other council members
• Guildmasters
• ...

Have the option of secret police, although limited to power their title could provide them. For example, a simple lord doesn't have as much options as a Duke does. Not having secret police:

• All title-less nobles
• Marshals (title is too volatile for such a function)

Additional options

And this could also be improved significantly! Only searching in a region or tracking a noble isn't quite enough. It's not logical the secret police is only limited to such things. Such are:

Additional options possible on all target nobles

When you investigate a noble, it's rather dumb you only know some of his unit's stats, his financial situation and whether he is in the underground or not. Of course, all these things appear on just one investigation, it would be rather dumb to say you only want to know one thing about a person. The main picture is: you order your secret police to get as much information as they can. I suggest:

• A report on the five last regions the noble has been traveling in. (Might be hard to recuperate from database though...)
• Find out what his # last actions and orders were. (Some money spend here and there can buy you a lot of information...)
• Find out what his last # financial transactions were. (Only logical that you find that out when going through papers...)
• Read through his # last send messages. (Again, some money, or some sneaking might just do the trick...)
• Find our what unique weapons he has. (You can hardly keep that quiet, and it's rather important to know...)
• Find out his allegiance and his taxshare of his liege.

This is quite like any normal secret police would do when checking up on someone. But some separate options available on all nobles:

• Beat up. Have your secret police beat up a noble till he's lightly wounded. When you're simply tired of his whining or undermining.
• Assassinate. Logically only till serious wounded. A bit like the infil action, only now performed by a band of rough men. Good to get rid of a political adversary at some moments. Chance of failing of course, as always. Also of being exposed.

Class-specific information to find out

It's only logical that if you happen to investigate certain classes, you can find out more extra to what you normally find out. Your secret police isn't going to step back from those papers just because it's specific to their class. They go through everything. And class-details are interesting. Trader:

• You can find out what his last # trades were.
• How much caravans he owns and how much food.

Infiltrator:

• Try to find out his wherabouts. Of course, the higher his skill, the lower your chance of finding that part out. But you can always try to ask around.
• Try to find out his last # class-related actions. Some things just get known under the common folk.

Priest:

• Last # class-specific actions. These things are important and easy to find out.
• Status in religion. You better know how big he s before you take him on.

Mentor:

• How many students.
• How many mentor points, plus how many he's spend already.

(Add if you can think of anything logical)

Title-specific information to find out

Some title-holders just have more information lying about. You can always take a peek. Judge:

• How many prisoners. Some money to the guards and you'll know.
• List of last # courts. Dull, I know, but still information.

Banker:

• Last # title-related actions.

Marshals:

• Formation they are currently set to.

Sponsor of an army:

• All the info the sponsor has over his army.

Ruler:

• Last # diplomatic actions.

Example of an information report

I'll do it on one of my characters, so I don't invent a situation that doesn't exist and doesn't seem unrealistic. Plenty of facts are however changed.

Miscellaneous information		Rumours
Name	Martana Curs	Honour	130
Age	42	Prestige	31
Class	Hero	Achievements	0
Finances	Carrying 16 gold and 53 in bonds	Repute	7
Location	Heen	Chivalry	0
Traveling	Apokh, Watto, Kording, Hcallow, Heen	Notoriety	0
Last 5 actions	Trained Men, Visited Bank, Payed Men, Repaired Equipment, Traveled.	Integrity	0
Last 5 Financial act.	Your men were unable to obtain this information.	Ruler
Last 5 Messages	Your men were caught during the attempt; your identity is not revealed.	Last 3 diplomatic actions
Unique Weapons	Brilliant Chain Mail of Life	-Alliance with Neo Grehk
Allegiance	To herself only.	-Federation with Vlaanderen
Last tax	53 bonds	-Federation with Sint

Costs & chance

Of course, just investigation anybody doesn't work. Everyone will have a price to, obtain information. The more information there is to find out about a man, the more it'll cost. But you can't make a selection of what I want to know and what I don't. Either you let your secret police to their work and get the whole package, or you just don't.

The chances of being discovered should be really low. I mean, it's normal some people are getting checked out all the time, and most of the time your police will only be in contact with commoners, who are not likely to tell on you. Especially since your secret police won't tell for who they work. Only for beating up and other very high risk options there should be a risk of getting exposed. The risk of your men getting caught, but not exposing you should be a bit higher. And then there is the risk of not being caught, but still not being able to obtain the info, well, that's higher again.

Each piece of info has its own chance run through it. It's not like when you've got bad luck you don't have any information. It's that you just won't have the information on 5 of the ten things your men could have investigated.

Why?

I'm a very, very big fan of realism. If something is logical, it should be implemented. I see way too many nobles open their mouths as if they are the ruler of the kingdom. Too many think they still live in some sort of democracy (ignore this when your realm is a democracy). You do have freedom of speech, but if someone doesn't like it, in medieval times they just shut you up. Noble or no noble, intimidation was very common. Sneaky secret police forces are common. Although not very professional, mostly just a few rough-looking beggars...

I hope this will also incite a lot of political drama. You can get to know things of your political adversaries or his knights. you can take out that very good candidate just before the elections to win yourself. It's dirty, damn it is dirty, but it was not that abnormal in medieval times.

How?

Mostly copying a lot of already existing code. For the 'beat up'-option, there is already teh code to beat up adventurers, just change the text. For the 'assassinate', infil-code. The rest (gathering information mainly) is more of a database-query, that should be rather easy to summon on a page. The only rough part is checking up what information you can give, obviously you don't give information about how many students if it's a cavalier...