[II/AD] Feature Preview 3: Authority

Italia Invicta/Anno Domini MXVI Feature Preview #3: Authority

Welcome to our third feature preview. This will continue where I left off last time, explaining partly why you won't be able to have all settlements being largely dependent on your ruler.
This will be about a nice little feature that was suggested by Re Berengario I and which was inspired by the game Crusader Kings by Paradox Interactive, and which improves upon the effects of your leader's authority attribute (which are measly at best in the vanilla game).
The essential idea behind the feature is that the larger his empire is, the more difficult it will be for a medieval ruler to maintain it, which means that he will have to delegate the task to subordinates most of the time. We want to represent this in multiple ways, the most fascinating of which is that you can only control a limited number of settlements directly, and the others will be forced into a state of more or less far-reaching independence from your rule.

We didn't work out the exact numbers yet of course, as this is something that will have to be seen in the testing stages when we have most of our features in and purring away, but I can already tell you that the number of settlements you can control will depend on your leader's authority (as has been hinted above). As a rule of thumb you can expect something around one settlement per fist that your ruler can control to a large extent.
Which settlements these are is completely up to you, so you have to wisely consider which to convert and build up, because building projects will be quite expensive. Don't worry about losing the money, as the buildings won't be destroyed when a settlement becomes more independent, but they won't be functional, either, so you could say it's a bit of a waste.

There's a few other interactions with your leader's authority worth mentioning (I know it's quite vague but then again it's fun to tease you guys :smug2:):
- A leader with high authority will increase public order and the loyalty of your generals
- Diplomacy will be influenced by it
- Some building options will only be available with certain authority levels
- It will influence the cultural conversion of newly-conquered settlements

So, you can look forward to seeing quite a few implications of this, and it'll pay to closely watch your leader's authority.

Until next time

The II/AD team

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[II] Feature Preview 1: View City
[II] Feature Preview 2: Degrees of Independence

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Originally Posted by alpaca

The essential idea behind the feature is that the larger his empire is, the more difficult it will be for a medieval ruler to maintain it, which means that he will have to delegate the task to subordinates most of the time. We want to represent this in multiple ways, the most fascinating of which is that you can only control a limited number of settlements directly, and the others will be forced into a state of more or less far-reaching independence from your rule.

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Lets say, I send my heir to the distal province to become governor there and once he enters in the "settlement" - I may no longer control him or get him out of there?

And what will happen if I by accident move my state's capital to the province which belong to me but is out of my control?

Continuing this way, you'll become "deeper" than Paradox games, which is great.

BTW are there any chances to have something similar to the "civil wars" back in MTW, just hoping that you have considered or brainstormed this idea by an accident.

No, what is meant with control is the ability to recruit armies and build things.
I don't know if you read the Degrees of Independence preview, but that's the gist of it really. We'll force the player to go down the levels until he meets the requirements we impose on him because of his leader's authority.

So for all gameplay considerations, the city will belong to you and controlled by you, but you won't be able to do too much with it, so you'll still be able to control your heir and moving the capital is possible, but I'll make it a proposed house rule to have your capital wherever your leader is.

As for the civil wars: Yeah we considered it, we'll have to run some tests if it's a feasible feature though.