[II] Feature Preview 2: Degrees of Independence

[alpaca]

Italia Invicta Feature Preview #2: Degrees of Independence

Welcome to our second preview. I will try to make these previews a more regular appearance, so that you have a nice read now and then to build up your expectations.

You might ask yourself: What the heck does he mean with "Degrees of Independence"? The answer is quite simple: A ruler is never able to directly govern every city he controls. In fact most of the time he will have to restrict himself to a few core provinces and leave the rest to his subordinates or vassals. In II we will represent this by limiting the influence you have on a lot of your cities, in respect to both buildings and armies.
In our current planning we differentiate between four basic levels of independence:

1. Nominal Dependence

The highest level of independence. A settlement that is nominally dependent will have a lot of freedoms, which means you won't have a say in most of what's going on there. In gameplay terms this means you can't build anything (some buildings will possibly be created by the city population, but we're not sure about that yet) and you can only recruit insofar as you can ask the settlement for help, which will usually be granted to some extent. If the settlement doesn't support you at all, you get to choose whether to let that slight pass, or to declare them to be rebels, in which case they will become just that.
Furthermore, you don't get much income from this settlement as a lot of the money will naturally end up in the pockets of the local rulers.
On the upside however, these settlements will on average have a higher public order than their more dependent counterparts.
Examples for this will be a lot of the Ottonian's settlements that are nominally vassals to the Empire, but enjoy a lot of freedom.

2. Indefinite Dependence

The name hints to it: The next lower level of independence is a bit of a grayzone in your empire. You already have a good deal of influence on this region, possibly because the local ruler is weak, or because the city's power is too limited to really stand up against you. This LOI will unlock a few buildings and give you better recruitment capabilites, or at least make sure you get more support should you call for it.
You will also get more tribute from this settlement.

3. Reliance

The third level of independence is a settlement that relies heavily on your leader's direct interference into things. You will get to build a majority of the available structures in these settlements, and you get to finally have a large say as to which units are recruited here, which comes at the cost of having less units available and recruitment taking more time. Furthermore, you will get nearly full income in these settlements. Public order is more of a problem as people expect you to care for their demands to a larger extent.

4. Royal Demesne

Directly controlled by your dynasty, a settlement of this kind will give you full control over what goes and what doesn't, both building- and unit-wise. However this also means that you'll have to carefully cater for your population's needs and it will often be hard to maintain good order in times of turbulence. The increased income and completely free development are usually worth it, however.

So as it looks now, you will want to have as many cities as dependent on your leader as possible, right?
Wrong. You have to nurture a good balance between more self-sufficient settlements and those that rely heavily on your influence. This has multiple reasons which I don't want to disclose just now, but you will see them in our future previews (which as I said I hope will become a more regular entity now).


Until next time

alpaca



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[II] Feature Preview 1: View City

[Kongeslask]

Does this work anything like the government system in EB?

[alpaca]

Does this work anything like the government system in EB?

Well it's a bit similar, I can't really tell you how similar because I don't remember EB's system en detail, but the DOI will have a huge influence on what you can and can't do with the settlement.

[Herkus]

Very great ideas and innovations, though I have few questions.

A settlement that is nominally dependent will have a lot of freedoms, which means you won't have a say in most of what's going on there. In gameplay terms this means you can't build anything (some buildings will possibly be created by the city population, but we're not sure about that yet) and you can only recruit insofar as you can ask the settlement for help, which will usually be granted to some extent.

I guess settlements with nominal nominal dependence will use your own faction's budget to built those random buildings?
And what will determine the granting of troops - settlement's loyalty or governor's traits?

[alpaca]

Very great ideas and innovations, though I have few questions.


I guess settlements with nominal nominal dependence will use your own faction's budget to built those random buildings?
And what will determine the granting of troops - settlement's loyalty of governor's traits?

No actually, if we implement that feature (since we can't upgrade buildings by script it could only be certain things), the city will pay for that stuff itself.
As for the troops: There's quite a few factors that'll determine this, we will try to make the system as sensible as possible, and usually most cities are going to give you armies. There will be some special cases like excommunication where they might refuse to help you though.

[SigniferOne]

Just to get into the technical nitty-gritty of this, how do you plan to regulate independence, and what can and cannot be built? By a special building, "Control Building", which if you upgrade you increase in influence over the city?

[alpaca]

Yeah that's the way I'm doing it. I'm also storing the value away in an event_counter though so that I have an indy condition to check.
Also keep in mind that these restrictions are mostly a player-only feature. The AI simply couldn't handle it.

[SigniferOne]

That's fine if AI simply gets imposed a choice, who really cares if it goes through the same steps as a human, right? It's just for the human, to keep it interesting whatever faction he plays; his enemies will get automatic pre-coded choices of some kind, and no one'll be at a loss.


EDIT: How do you limit what level of control building the person can build? So that not all provinces are 100% controlled?