This is something we are thinking on, the death/disappearance of the kingdoms.
Yes, yes, yes please.
Kingdoms continuing to live, gather forces on seemingly no income, get tons of mercenaries they don't have to pay, and raid your villages after you have already defeated them is
really annoying, and just serves to add to the grind of the game rather than the challenge. I would love it if kingdoms simply knew when they were beaten.
I do not have a clear idea on how it would be conducted though
Warband did it well, as you probably already know - after too many days, say 10, without holding any territory, the AI kingdom is dissolved.
All the nobles in that faction will immediately either join another faction they have good enough relations with, or go "into exile" (permanently disappear).
For kingdoms to die, I believe there should be a way for new kingdom's to emerge as well yet this is a complicated process demanding high development and quality assurance effort.
I would
love to see Taleworlds implement something like this in vanilla if it's not too difficult.
The reason I would like such a feature is to add a challenge to the
very late-kingdom phase and the end-game, one which gives the dynasty features Taleworlds has created a purpose. Currently, after the player has conquered ~70% of the map, they have no serious opponents left for the entire process of capturing the last ~30%, so it becomes boring and pointless. And when they have conquered 100% of the map (end-game), they don't have any opponents at all except looters and rebels, both very easy to beat.
So, if new kingdoms popped up as a serious threat to the player in the stage where they have conquered 70%-100% of the map, that would add a fun challenge.
But as a player who wants to see the game be fun and not frustrating, I have three strong recommendations:
* If such a feature is so difficult it would hold up other features too much, I'd prefer to see the destruction of kingdoms implemented without it. After all, it could always be added separately later if TW so wished, possibly as part of a DLC. But kingdoms being destroyed is something that
needs to happen for the player conquering the world to be less frustrating.
* New kingdoms emerging for their own sake should not happen just for the sake of deepening the simulation. It should happen with the goal of making the game
more fun. This can be achieved by adding a credible, serious threat to the very late game which actually challenges the player.
*
The phase of the game where your kingdom owns 1%-70% of the map is already challenging and grindy enough, so any feature which adds new kingdoms should not make this phase more challenging as the game would become awful! It should
only make the
very lategame/post-game more challenging.
So, here is how I could suggest such a feature being implemented in a way that achieves these goals: civil wars, where clans plot to secede from your kingdom.
Every year, one clan in each kingdom (including the player's) is selected randomly, and has a 1% chance of starting a Plot to secede from their kingdom.
This small chance is increased if the clan leader has low relation with the ruler, a different culture to the kingdom, or the Devious trait. It is also increased slightly if the kingdom holds 15 or more fiefs, and greatly increased if the kingdom holds more than 75 fiefs. It is decreased if the clan leader has Honest trait.
If the clan leader becomes a Plotter, they start trying to secretly convince clans to join them every few days, starting with the clans they have good relations with. Recruiting plotters is based on the clan leader's relations with the plotter, relations with the ruler, and Devious/Honest trait. The clan leader will either decide to secretly join the plot, say nothing (stay in the kingdom), or expose the plot to the ruler. The plotter can also ask the player to join if they are a vassal. When a plot starts in the player's kingdom, they get a "plot occurring" popup, which says: "Your spies hear rumours that an unruly noble plots to take over your kingdom by force, and is trying to recruit clans for a civil war! Make sure your armies are ready."
If the Plot is exposed, or the Plotter feels they have enough support, a Civil War is then openly declared. The Plotter, and any supporters they have gained, secede with all their fiefs, form a new kingdom ruled by the plotter (and of the same culture of the plotter), declare war on the old kingdom and will not accept peace. All seceding clans lose 50 relations with the ruler, and the plotter loses 20 relations worldwide for being a traitor. Players can choose to start a Plot as an alternative way of starting a kingdom, though it has those downsides.
That or something similar could achieve the goal of making the lategame/postgame more fun as once the player conquers all of Calradia, they can (if they choose) see how long their dynasty can hold it together in the face of civil wars. But it would avoid making the midgame too difficult as small kingdoms wouldn't have to worry about civil wars, only large ones.
One idea we have is that the kingdoms which "dissappeared" can reappear with certain conditions or events (such as low loyalty in several of that kingdoms original towns at the same time, or maybe "successful" rebellions can claim the ownership of the fall kingdom etc. Still these are hypothetical. Reducing them to mercenaries also requires a way for them to climb back up or there would be unwanted game states where all former clans are mercenary clans etc.
I don't necessarily think defeated kingdoms returning would make the game more fun, in fact possibly the opposite. There would need to be some quite major, counter-intuitive recovery features for an AI kingdom to claw its way back after losing its clans and fiefs. It also wouldn't be very representative of real life, deposed monarchies which lose all their territory and troops and supporters usually tend to stay deposed. And once the player has defeated an opponent, they want them to stay defeated, rather than clawing their way back over and over. If you make such a mechanic too weak, there's no point to it, but if you make it too strong, players will find it even grindier to progress through the game as they constantly deal with "zombie kingdoms".
I'd prefer seeing new kingdoms raised to prominence by breaking away from my kingdom once I get too big for anyone else to beat me.
However I believe that original problem with destroying kingdom discussion stems from the fact that they keep spawning and returning to battle endlessly because of the way spawn mechanic works. Perhaps the spawn mechanic can be adjusted to reduce the strength / delay the spawn of the new parties created.
This would be good too, just a slight increase in delay would be nice.
Taleworlds just shows they have no idea of how to balance this game.
