SP - General [POLL] Kingdom goverment types and succession laws

[EagleSoldier_]

Kingdom government types​

What I would like to suggest is to make two different types of governments. (I took inspiration from CK3)

Feudal​

Every feudal government (Empire, Vlandia, Battania and Sturgia) would be kept as it is. Vassals having certain obligations - paying a certain amount of taxes depending on wealth, joining or creating armies during war and voting on new laws, etc.

Clan​

Meanwhile, clan government (Aserai and Khuzait), while being similar there are distinguishable differences. While feudal vassals have obligations to their rules, the same does not apply to clan vassals as it is based on the relation and opinion of the ruler. Meaning if the opinion/relation with the ruler is bad/low they will pay little to no taxes. As to providing their armies, they would simply be reluctant to join an army created by a said ruler (even if he uses influence to call upon them), but still, some other members of the clan might join the army. Now to the most interesting part as we all know Aserai and Khuzaits are predecessors of the Sarranid Sultanate and Khergit Khanate from Warband. So it would make sense if there's a change in a ruling clan, the name of the kingdom would be dependent on the name of the ruling clan. From lore we know that Banu Hulyan believe they're the rightful descendants of Banu Asera which is why it is now called Aserai Sultanate, So maybe when a clan like Banu Arbas would become ruling clan it would become Arbasid Sultanate if Banu Sarran then Sarranid Sultanate, etc. The same goes for the Khuzaits as from lore they were banded together by Urkhun the Khuzait from originated the clan Urkhuanit meaning when Khergit or Tigrit clan would be in power, yet again the name of Khanate would change to said dynasty. I believe this would be a really cool feature that would make the game more immersive, diverse and would make for a different experience playing as Clan type of government.

Edit:

blackfalcon said:
Fair point. I guess the empire and vlandians would probably be the same type due to their origins and sharing alot of commonalities (then again the vlandians are more feudal whereas the empire I would assume should be more centralized) with the sturgians and battanians and khuzates being tribal and aserai being clan based.

The ultimate difference between clans/tribes and feudalism is that feudalism is top down. The king has land and he gives it to vassals who give it to their vassals. Tribes is more of bottom up. The king is little more than a common chieftain who has been given special status to plan raids etc... Think the Viking tv show. When Ragnar became king not a whole lot changed and people seemed quite free to simply ignore him at times. It was clear that earls held all the cards.

I guess the best way to implement this in a meaningful way would be for Feudal governments to function exactly how kingdoms functioned in Warband with individual lords holding onto their individual fiefs. Tribal would have individual lords holding onto their fiefs, but with more infighting, being able to declare war on people from your faction and challenging the king for his throne directly (despite that not holding much power) with clan based governments being basically how bannerlord works now, groups of chiefs coming together to form clans to give themselves more influence on the national stage, still with little ruler control and clans fighting eachother. With that said, that could be interesting. One big shame of bannerlord is that you can not start off as a regular person in a clan and work your way up to clan leader but maybe that could be a feature aswell.

Succession laws​

AFAIK, now there is only one type of succession and that's upon King's death/abdication all lords vote the new ruler. (Correct me if I'm wrong) It would be nice to see different types of succession considering the different cultures and histories each kingdom has. These successions could be either fixed, meaning they cannot be changed or there could be a possibility of changing the succession law. Which would require the votes of other lords. Or they could be also forcefully changed by lords after rebelling against their lord.

Vlandia ​

Vlandians would by default have the oldest male heir inherit the throne. (oldest female heir if there's no legitimate male heir) The first Vlandian king Osrac Iron-arm was the great-grandfather of King Derhert, which means the throne was passed on through male heirs.

Battania ​

Battania consists of loosely organized clans who have a fearsome independent spirit. So I see 3 possible options for them:

1. Upon kings death, new king would be voted by lords
2. Ruler himself would designate his heir, for example, Caladog could designate Pryndor (fen Morcar) as the next ruler once he passes away
3. The next ruler would be someone with high leadership, charisma,... skills and his power would also play a role

Sturgia ​

Due to Sturgians being two mixed cultures together I think the voting system would be the best option for them.

Khuzait Khanate ​

Same as Vlandia even if the ruling clan changes due to rebellion or abdication

3 Empires ​

@Torngasuk has already suggested different types of succession in the three Empire in his post here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...ons-by-different-succession-mechanics.402297/
But I will mention it here again:

To further differentiate the three different factions of empire, I would suggest that each adopt a different method of succession to the faction leadership, to highlight the distinctions between them. The southern empire should handle succession on a hereditary basis, as Rhagaea advocates (I might also recommend adding a few more relatives to her family tree to help with this), while the north should conduct an election among its various clan leaders in accordance with senatorial principles. In the west, Garios is an enthusiast of the soldier-emperor template, and succession should be calculated based on some combination of leadership ability and the number of troops under the candidates' command. - Suggestion by Torngasuk

But if there was the option to change the succession laws the Empire ones would be not possible to change since they are in civil war due to them having different opinions on succession and who's the rightful ruler.

Aserai Sultanate ​

Same as Vlandia even if the ruling clan changes due to rebellion or abdication

 

[svelok]

This kind of stuff would be neat but the mechanical, gameplay side of it just doesn't really impact the player all that much?

Like, in CK, succession laws are part of the core gameplay loop and a huge factor in the players acquisition and retention of resources, something that directly impacts the player in a potentially massive way several to dozens of times per campaign. In BL, that's just... not the case?

It's not that low impact features shouldn't be included, they'd be neat-to-haves. But there would need to be a huge amount of new connective tissue for them to be high impact additions. For example: if the ruler of Vlandia is Derthert or one of his children or passes to Vlandia's 2nd top clan or to its 10th top clan.... what difference does it make, exactly? It's not zero but it's all really indirect, obfuscated, or minor stuff.

 

[EagleSoldier_]

This kind of stuff would be neat but the mechanical, gameplay side of it just doesn't really impact the player all that much?

Like, in CK, succession laws are part of the core gameplay loop and a huge factor in the players acquisition and retention of resources, something that directly impacts the player in a potentially massive way several to dozens of times per campaign. In BL, that's just... not the case?

It's not that low impact features shouldn't be included, they'd be neat-to-haves. But there would need to be a huge amount of new connective tissue for them to be high impact additions. For example: if the ruler of Vlandia is Derthert or one of his children or passes to Vlandia's 2nd top clan or to its 10th top clan.... what difference does it make, exactly? It's not zero but it's all really indirect, obfuscated, or minor stuff.

Depends on how you look at it. If you as a player chose to be merchant, bandit, or mercenary then yeah it wouldn't affect you in any way. Even if you were vassal then unless something like a rebellion against the liege or inner wars was implemented, it still wouldn't affect the player. It would simply make for a more immersive roleplay-ish game. But if you as a player choose or happen to be king, then it would actually affect you a lot. For example, Prince Raganvad tends to declare war on everyone, and Sturgia gets destroyed in few years. You as the player want to maybe avoid it and have always control so once your character dies, you would play as your son that would also inherit the throne. Or maybe you don't trust yourself that much after seeing you're not that good of a leader so you decide to have the most powerful Head of clan your heir. Or maybe you simply don't care that much so you just decide to leave it to the voting system where lords vote.

When it comes to the government types. As I said the feudal is pretty much what we already have. The Clan type would affect the player. So, for example, you're the ruler but you have a bad relationship with a lot of your vassals or they have a bad opinion, meaning if you try to gather an army the army would be probably smaller than you would want. Which would mean you wouldn't be as effective as with a bigger army so you would have a bad time sieging enemy settlements, defending your own, and destroying enemy armies. also, you would get little to no taxes from the vassals with low opinion. Meaning you would have to rely fully on your settlements and caravans to keep you from losing money or going bankrupt.

But I understand what you mean. Perhaps these suggested features seem minor because of the blandness in diplomacy, conversation, etc.
Let's be honest the diplomacy is definitely better than it was at the release but still needs a lot of improvement and work put into it. Not to mention to have more conversations or different ways to interact with lords and other NPCs. I miss the random event from Warband where there was drama between companions and your decision would affect their opinion/relation with you, and even the possibility of them leaving the party. Using your companions as messengers. Romance is also very bland and needs a lot of work. But I'm starting to shift.

While at the moment it seems minor I personally think it is definitely something to take into consideration as it would make the game cooler, added more options for players, and would also affect players if done the right way. Btw sorry for this long reply sometimes when I start writing/talking I cannot stop lol. XD

 

[Tryvenyal]

Succession Law
- For AI Clans-
I think some different favourable traits/relations to predecessor would fit. Some favour a child of the current ruler, some favour a sibling and others oldest kin.

- For ruling AI Clan -
More strict - only "one" familymember can get support as the ruler, depending on cultural belonging. If that one does not exist, the ruling clan will be dethroned.

- For Player clan -
Heir designition as default with an option to enforce AI succession rules.

- For ruling Player clan -
3 effect to choose from in game setup if not selecting the "one": None/-20 vassal clan opinion/same as AI


I´m all for cultural differences. If that is best achieved with government-forms or cultural traits I don't know.

 

[blackfalcon]

Honestly no. Mount and blade was never meant to be an indepth feudal sim. That is one of the things that I don't like as much about Bannerlord is how it tries to simulate the power struggle between the ruler and the vassals, kind of like CK3. The problem is CK3 is an indepth feudal sim so it manages to do this great, while still making being a king etc... feel rewarding and different than being a count or duke. In bannerlord however, the difference between being a king or a vassal seems rather blurred. Being king in warband felt more impactful even tho warband had even less kingdom management.

Also, in regards to your governemnt examples, CK3 is a feudal simulator and every single government type in CK3 is feudal, even if they try to rebrand different variations for different flavor. For example, the byzantine empire was not feudal, it was an imperial state. This means that there were no vassals etc... there was an emperor with sole and absolute authority and beneath him were various administrators who had positions given to them by the emperor. However, it was fully centralized with taxes and the military being owned by the emperor, rather than semi independent states like in the fedual system. CK3 however, can not simulate the actual byzantine government as so much of the game is about how you handle vassals, so it just makes it feudal. This is the same with clan and tribal. In real life they do not function at all like how CK3 makes them function, CK3 just tries to make them fit into the mechanics of the game.

That is basically what we would be doing here. Warband is a feudal system and trying to work another 'government type' into the game will either create a faction that operates so differently that the game can not be balanced around all of them, or you have different government types that do not differ in any significant or meaningful way that simply add more complexity to the game in areas where it does not need complexity.

 

[EagleSoldier_]

Mount and blade was never meant to be an indepth feudal sim.

Sorry don't want to sound like a ****, but this sentence isn't really a good argument or argument at all. Like devs could use this to get away with AI being dumb at sieges. So why bother fixing it when it isn't sim. Like no, just because it isn't supposed to be sim doesn't really mean some stuff cannot be included (considered) or shouldn't be improved on (Fixed). Because then anyone can just make a pretty plain and boring game and be like "Well it isn't supposed to be realistic or sim so why should I bother improving the game, making it more fun?".

CK3 is an indepth feudal sim

Eeeh since when? As far as I am aware CK3 is a grand strategy game with RPG elements. Is it giving an authentic feeling of being a feudal ruler? Yes, but is really really far from being a sim or realistic. I mean even you said that some of the stuff in CK3 isn't like it was IRL. Then why do you call it a feudal sim? Did you read what you wrote down? Because for me it seems you contradict yourself a lot.

That is basically what we would be doing here. Warband is a feudal system and trying to work another 'government type' into the game will either create a faction that operates so differently that the game can not be balanced around all of them, or you have different government types that do not differ in any significant or meaningful way that simply add more complexity to the game in areas where it does not need complexity.

This also feels like you didn't read through what I was suggesting. I don't say you didn't it just feels like it. Since I stated that both are the same except like two differences. The first being the fact that the name of Sultanate and Khanate should/could be based on the ruling clan. If you consider Warband where are Sarranids which come from the clan Banu Sarran. Second is just the different way of obtaining taxes and relation having an impact on forming armies, that's it. I agree the second part is unnecessary, but still, I made sure to make it as simple as possible. (I guess I could call something different than government types, but too lazy to change it now) And I even agree with svelok since it is quite minor what I am suggesting. So can I ask what's complex about it? But thanks for your opinion either way c:

 

[blackfalcon]

Sorry don't want to sound like a ****, but this sentence isn't really a good argument or argument at all. Like devs could use this to get away with AI being dumb at sieges. So why bother fixing it when it isn't sim. Like no, just because it isn't supposed to be sim doesn't really mean some stuff cannot be included (considered) or shouldn't be improved on (Fixed). Because then anyone can just make a pretty plain and boring game and be like "Well it isn't supposed to be realistic or sim so why should I bother improving the game, making it more fun?".

How could the devs use this excuse to not fix sieges? At its core warband is a first/third person mideival combat/military commanding sim. Combat is like 70% of the gameplay.

Eeeh since when? As far as I am aware CK3 is a grand strategy game with RPG elements. Is it giving an authentic feeling of being a feudal ruler? Yes, but is really really far from being a sim or realistic. I mean even you said that some of the stuff in CK3 isn't like it was IRL. Then why do you call it a feudal sim? Did you read what you wrote down? Because for me it seems you contradict yourself a lot.

CK is a grand strategy game but its angle (which I feel was much more prevalent in CK2 to be fair) is that you play as a single person in a feudal system which provides unique challenges that differ from games like Europa Universalis, basically playing as a king but not having full control over your own country.

This also feels like you didn't read through what I was suggesting. I don't say you didn't it just feels like it. Since I stated that both are the same except like two differences. The first being the fact that the name of Sultanate and Khanate should/could be based on the ruling clan. If you consider Warband where are Sarranids which come from the clan Banu Sarran. Second is just the different way of obtaining taxes and relation having an impact on forming armies, that's it. I agree the second part is unnecessary, but still, I made sure to make it as simple as possible. (I guess I could call something different than government types, but too lazy to change it now) And I even agree with svelok since it is quite minor what I am suggesting. So can I ask what's complex about it? But thanks for your opinion either way c:

Fair point. I guess the empire and vlandians would probably be the same type due to their origins and sharing alot of commonalities (then again the vlandians are more feudal whereas the empire I would assume should be more centralized) with the sturgians and battanians and khuzates being tribal and aserai being clan based.

The ultimate difference between clans/tribes and feudalism is that feudalism is top down. The king has land and he gives it to vassals who give it to their vassals. Tribes is more of bottom up. The king is little more than a common chieftain who has been given special status to plan raids etc... Think the Viking tv show. When Ragnar became king not a whole lot changed and people seemed quite free to simply ignore him at times. It was clear that earls held all the cards.

I guess the best way to implement this in a meaningful way would be for Feudal governments to function exactly how kingdoms functioned in Warband with individual lords holding onto their individual fiefs. Tribal would have individual lords holding onto their fiefs, but with more infighting, being able to declare war on people from your faction and challenging the king for his throne directly (despite that not holding much power) with clan based governments being basically how bannerlord works now, groups of chiefs coming together to form clans to give themselves more influence on the national stage, still with little ruler control and clans fighting eachother. With that said, that could be interesting. One big shame of bannerlord is that you can not start off as a regular person in a clan and work your way up to clan leader but maybe that could be a feature aswell.

 

[EagleSoldier_]

How could the devs use this excuse to not fix sieges? At its core warband is a first/third person mideival combat/military commanding sim. Combat is like 70% of the gameplay.

I just used it as an example since it shows how dumb of an excuse/argument that would be. Again I wouldn't call it a sim, but I get where you come from. Still, Warband or Bannerlord would need even more detailed combat and commanding system. I am currently ok with the commanding system, sure there could be more options but I'm ok with it. What I want more is for TW to take as much time they need to fully polish and fix siege battle and I think it will be worth the wait.

CK is a grand strategy game but its angle (which I feel was much more prevalent in CK2 to be fair) is that you play as a single person in a feudal system which provides unique challenges that differ from games like Europa Universalis, basically playing as a king but not having full control over your own country.

Agree, tho technically if you execute anyone who doesn't like you or agree with you then you can have total control over your kingdom. Or you'll get dethroned and executed that's also a possibility. XDD It's 50/50

Fair point. I guess the empire and vlandians would probably be the same type due to their origins and sharing alot of commonalities (then again the vlandians are more feudal whereas the empire I would assume should be more centralized) with the sturgians and battanians and khuzates being tribal and aserai being clan based.

The ultimate difference between clans/tribes and feudalism is that feudalism is top down. The king has land and he gives it to vassals who give it to their vassals. Tribes is more of bottom up. The king is little more than a common chieftain who has been given special status to plan raids etc... Think the Viking tv show. When Ragnar became king not a whole lot changed and people seemed quite free to simply ignore him at times. It was clear that earls held all the cards.

I guess the best way to implement this in a meaningful way would be for Feudal governments to function exactly how kingdoms functioned in Warband with individual lords holding onto their individual fiefs. Tribal would have individual lords holding onto their fiefs, but with more infighting, being able to declare war on people from your faction and challenging the king for his throne directly (despite that not holding much power) with clan based governments being basically how bannerlord works now, groups of chiefs coming together to form clans to give themselves more influence on the national stage, still with little ruler control and clans fighting eachother. With that said, that could be interesting. One big shame of bannerlord is that you can not start off as a regular person in a clan and work your way up to clan leader but maybe that could be a feature aswell.

+1