Please consider a different arrangement for voting.
As it is, it seems my vote is always last. The only thing that happens after I vote is that the ruler gets his chance to uphold the majority vote, or, as I understand it, consume his influence capital by overriding the vote.
While that's expeditious - it generally leaves me without a real choice! If we're voting on the new owner of a castle just taken, I'll see 72% support for candidate #1, 28% for candidate #2, and 0% for candidate #3. My choice is to vote a minimum amount on #1 - and piss off the two losers - vote maybe a large amount for #2 in hopes (why would I care?) of giving this guy the nod - and piss off the other 2, whether I'm successful or not, vote for #3 and assuredly lose my influence - and piss off the other 2 guys, OR ABSTAIN - which I do nearly 100% of the time. So effectively, I'm not a voting noble in this kingdom.
FAR better to let me go FIRST in the voting, choose MY OWN nominee... and then watch as nobles weigh in behind me. It would be instructive to see if I get any support if I nominate myself for a fief. Or, randomize my place in the voting. Maybe the leader of the army that took the fief gets first vote.
Item the Second: Very few nobles actually vote! Why? Because it costs them influence, which they may not have or not wish to burn when it's the currency that buys army cohesion. I object to this. When my liege's kingdom is boasting 20-30 nobles, I think they should ALL have their preferences noted in votes. After everyone got their basic vote in, they could then burn influence to bend the outcome. And here's another thought: make a nomination cost influence, rather than the basic vote!
As a player, I can't talk to nobles to see why they support who they do. I can't understand why the three clans nominated for a fief were chosen. (Along with everyone else - I get pissed off when I'm not even considered for ownership of a fief I just successfully sieged. Harrumph.) I DO see idiots who made not the first move to protect a newly-awarded fief lose it quickly and then get nominated again! If the AI aim is to levelize the ownership around the kingdom I can see why that clan might get nominated again, but why would the kingdom keep entrusting hard-won fiefs to incompetents??
Also as a player, I know really little about nominated nobles. It's not like I memorized all the kingdom's holdings in advance of a vote. I don't why I should choose Lord Clydesdale over anyone else. Did he just defect from Southern Empire and has no fief yet? I don't know. If I did, I might support him.
This business of automatically losing Relation with lords you didn't support doesn't work for me. I can't spend influence to keep up my Relations. I have a noble in my game who has made himself my everlasting enemy, just because he has been a candidate in 2/3 of my kingdom's fief awards and I haven't voted for him. I don't think that's reasonable.
So, could we please change the voting for fiefs to make them relevant? I think my suggestions would provide interesting choices for the player. Right now, I feel disenfranchised.
As it is, it seems my vote is always last. The only thing that happens after I vote is that the ruler gets his chance to uphold the majority vote, or, as I understand it, consume his influence capital by overriding the vote.
While that's expeditious - it generally leaves me without a real choice! If we're voting on the new owner of a castle just taken, I'll see 72% support for candidate #1, 28% for candidate #2, and 0% for candidate #3. My choice is to vote a minimum amount on #1 - and piss off the two losers - vote maybe a large amount for #2 in hopes (why would I care?) of giving this guy the nod - and piss off the other 2, whether I'm successful or not, vote for #3 and assuredly lose my influence - and piss off the other 2 guys, OR ABSTAIN - which I do nearly 100% of the time. So effectively, I'm not a voting noble in this kingdom.
FAR better to let me go FIRST in the voting, choose MY OWN nominee... and then watch as nobles weigh in behind me. It would be instructive to see if I get any support if I nominate myself for a fief. Or, randomize my place in the voting. Maybe the leader of the army that took the fief gets first vote.
Item the Second: Very few nobles actually vote! Why? Because it costs them influence, which they may not have or not wish to burn when it's the currency that buys army cohesion. I object to this. When my liege's kingdom is boasting 20-30 nobles, I think they should ALL have their preferences noted in votes. After everyone got their basic vote in, they could then burn influence to bend the outcome. And here's another thought: make a nomination cost influence, rather than the basic vote!
As a player, I can't talk to nobles to see why they support who they do. I can't understand why the three clans nominated for a fief were chosen. (Along with everyone else - I get pissed off when I'm not even considered for ownership of a fief I just successfully sieged. Harrumph.) I DO see idiots who made not the first move to protect a newly-awarded fief lose it quickly and then get nominated again! If the AI aim is to levelize the ownership around the kingdom I can see why that clan might get nominated again, but why would the kingdom keep entrusting hard-won fiefs to incompetents??
Also as a player, I know really little about nominated nobles. It's not like I memorized all the kingdom's holdings in advance of a vote. I don't why I should choose Lord Clydesdale over anyone else. Did he just defect from Southern Empire and has no fief yet? I don't know. If I did, I might support him.
This business of automatically losing Relation with lords you didn't support doesn't work for me. I can't spend influence to keep up my Relations. I have a noble in my game who has made himself my everlasting enemy, just because he has been a candidate in 2/3 of my kingdom's fief awards and I haven't voted for him. I don't think that's reasonable.
So, could we please change the voting for fiefs to make them relevant? I think my suggestions would provide interesting choices for the player. Right now, I feel disenfranchised.