Centralisation/Decentralisation and Prosperity as a currency

Users who are viewing this thread

Ok, I was about to create a thread on the suggestion forum but I am too green how this works IRL or WORKED IRL for that sake.

The issue I try to propose a solution for is that due to high/extremly high prosperity combined with low / very low loyalty(production malus) and poor raided villages makes towns starve. Even with the worse maluses in the game, Prosperity goes down quite slow and makes the troubling times very long and revolts unavoidable.

My simple and abstract proposal is 2 decisions in the settlement management screen - Centralise and Decentralise.
Centralise moves prosperity from villages to the city and Decentralise does the opposite.

I don't know how relevant such a feature would be, I think it should add modifiers to the fiefs rather than instant changes? What would be the effects when ordering big numbers of workers/commoners/serfs/farmers etc around the way this would simulate?

Additionally, what is Prosperity to you? Am I right to quite directly connect it to human quantity or is there other parameters to read in here? Many parts of the human QoL seems reflected in Loyality rather than Prosperity but I guess the sad truth is they are quite mixed up.

Another decisions that could be done with prosperity as a currency is Militia Draft. A decision that adds a boost to militia growth and a malus to prosperity(And probably a small malus to the militia compsosition quality)

Help me understund the topic and how to make it into an accountable feature-proposal :smile:
 
Last edited:
I too see that as a problem. But I think the idea of a "peasant revolt" in general is a bit strange. Unlike today the ruling class of the day consisted of professional warriors who trained all their life for war. Revolting against such a class as a commoner who has neither the experience nor the equipment to fight on the same level would be suicide. Also culturally commoners generally knew their place. The church cemented the idea of the classes being gods will. Thus peasant revolts were quite rare during the middle ages. Also why should the town revolt against their lord? What benefit would they have for doing so? The villages won't resurrect themselves when the lord is gone.

I'd rather have a different solution: The ability for the player to select the option of rationing food in cities. This would have the same effect as the game behaves now: prosperity would sink slower but loyality would sink significantly, whereas not doing so would see the prosperity plummet instantly but the loyality untouched. When the player is indeed the one who causes people in the city to have less food available this would give them a real reason to start a revolt.

For the player this would be a choice between playing it safe with the city and risking loosing money to sustain his army or risking loosing the city whilst keeping his income high.
 
Unlike today the ruling class of the day consisted of professional warriors who trained all their life for war. Revolting against such a class as a commoner who has neither the experience nor the equipment to fight on the same level would be suicide. Also culturally commoners generally knew their place. The church cemented the idea of the classes being gods will. Thus peasant revolts were quite rare during the middle ages. Also why should the town revolt against their lord? What benefit would they have for doing so? The villages won't resurrect themselves when the lord is gone.

Not that uncommon. But peasantrevolts were not that "pure" that they are pictured in modern games. Often other estates(even the church) took advantage of the wrath of oppressed peasants and made them suit their own agenda by fueling the mob to dispose an unwanted lord and this is what happens in Bannerlord too, a new clan arises from among the revolter leaders.

I'd rather have a different solution: The ability for the player to select the option of rationing food in cities. This would have the same effect as the game behaves now: prosperity would sink slower but loyality would sink significantly, whereas not doing so would see the prosperity plummet instantly but the loyality untouched. When the player is indeed the one who causes people in the city to have less food available this would give them a real reason to start a revolt.

A town that is in the bad loop I described has no food to ration. They are starving, have an extremly high prosperity and raided villages, is recently conquered and villages will be raided again asap of their original faction. Impossible to handle even of I manage to pass it to a rightculture vassal who does the right pick of Governor. If they could refocus the manpower and standards to support and improve the connected villages, then they might have a chanse to get the town out of the bad loop.
 
I too see that as a problem. But I think the idea of a "peasant revolt" in general is a bit strange. Unlike today the ruling class of the day consisted of professional warriors who trained all their life for war. Revolting against such a class as a commoner who has neither the experience nor the equipment to fight on the same level would be suicide. Also culturally commoners generally knew their place. The church cemented the idea of the classes being gods will. Thus peasant revolts were quite rare during the middle ages. Also why should the town revolt against their lord? What benefit would they have for doing so? The villages won't resurrect themselves when the lord is gone.
"Rare" is a relative statement but lower class revolts did happen. I'm not expert and here is a list of medieval revolts that were largely lower class in character from the top of my head. I'm sure an actual historian would know a lot more:

Europe:
Peasant Revolt in England
Hussites in Czech
Peasants War in Germany

Muslim World:
Mamluks were a class of slave soldiers who rose up to control a sultanate

Japan:
Ikko Ikki movement

China:
An Lushan Rebellion

To say it was "suicide" is also not always correct. Sure, they lost a lot, but they won too. The Hussites won every battle and were only defeated through political maneuvering - and even in defeat some of their demands were met. Ikko ikki defeated many samurai armies and controlled areas of Japan for over a hundred years. Mamluks gained political power and overthrew the previous dynasties.

I assume by "the church" you mean the Catholic Church. Just a reminder that the Cathoic Church only influenced a small area of the world in the middle ages. If we assume a 1 to 1 correspondence with the factions in the game and real world examples only 2 factions would be influenced by the Catholic Church - Battanians and Vlandia. Khuzaits are based of nomadic groups and would be animist, nestorian christanity, or tengrisim. Sturgia are based of the Rus and would follow Russian Orthodox. Empire are based of the Byzantines and would follow Greek Orthodox. Aserai would be Muslim. So what the church teaches wouldn't be relevant for everyone, and was only relevant for a small part of the world in actual history.
 
I too see that as a problem. But I think the idea of a "peasant revolt" in general is a bit strange. Unlike today the ruling class of the day consisted of professional warriors who trained all their life for war. Revolting against such a class as a commoner who has neither the experience nor the equipment to fight on the same level would be suicide. Also culturally commoners generally knew their place. The church cemented the idea of the classes being gods will. Thus peasant revolts were quite rare during the middle ages. Also why should the town revolt against their lord? What benefit would they have for doing so? The villages won't resurrect themselves when the lord is gone.

I'd rather have a different solution: The ability for the player to select the option of rationing food in cities. This would have the same effect as the game behaves now: prosperity would sink slower but loyality would sink significantly, whereas not doing so would see the prosperity plummet instantly but the loyality untouched. When the player is indeed the one who causes people in the city to have less food available this would give them a real reason to start a revolt.

For the player this would be a choice between playing it safe with the city and risking loosing money to sustain his army or risking loosing the city whilst keeping his income high.

Usually in Europe there was always a revolt happening in some place. In some other parts, like in the late medieval Ottoman Empire revolts were pretty much a norm. Most of them were small, sidenotes in history pages, they weren't seriously threatening and you really have to dig to find information about them, they were small expressions of anger when the burgers or the farmers were unhappy about something - typically hunger or too heavy taxes. If life becomes too hard too unjustly, and people don't have any opportunities to continue life, they might as well rebel. Sometimes these rebellions were crushed so quickly that they didn't have time to grow, sometimes settlements were reached by negotiation, sometimes the crowd would just get tired and dissolve by itself. Most of the revolts are not listed in Wikipedia list of peasant revolts or anything like that because they didn't have any greater historical significance, but they did happen all the time.
 
Mamluks were a class of slave soldiers who rose up to control a sultanate
Who were also pretty much an elite class of themselves and established royal houses so not exactly peasants.
In some other parts, like in the late medieval Ottoman Empire revolts were pretty much a norm
Fine if you're talking about the modern age but frequent popular revolts in medieval Ottoman Empire? Gonna need sources on that.
Just a reminder that the Cathoic Church only influenced a small area of the world in the middle ages.
A millennia is a long time, so it depends which period we're talking about. Still I'd say approx. from the crusades onward Catholic Church was the dominant religious institution in Europe...
If we assume a 1 to 1 correspondence with the factions in the game and real world examples
How? The timeline of this Europe remake in BL is somehow even less coherent than it was in WB. It looks to be the migration period with the eastern roman empire being the dominant state (until recently by BL's start date) but then you have high period Normans so **** knows.
You're also saying the Battanians would be following the Catholic Church when they're essentially just ancient celts? You see the time line doesn't make sense because it hardly exists.
 
Last edited:
Fine if you're talking about the modern age but frequent popular revolts in medieval Ottoman Empire? Gonna need sources on that.


I wrote a few articles about the early Ottoman some years ago, so at the moment I'm hazy about the details and don't have all the books I had back then, but I'll tell you some examples.

The interregnum period 1402–1413 certainly created instability, which in addition to the on going struggle of succession caused several more or less popular revolts ro raise. History focuses on the main characters, who often channeled the dissatisfaction of people against their enemies to gain popular support (much like Skanderbeg did a few decades later). Sheikh Bedreddin led I guess the most popular one 1416 against the most powerful claimant, Mehmed I. He started in Wallachia, but were joined by other revolts in the area ruled by Mehmed. Interregnum is a fascinating topic, if you read about it (and also the sidenotes) you will notice how pretty much all of these rebellios princes met also smaller local revolts in their areas. Some of the revolts were raised to support another claimant than the one governing them, and some of them were born from general restlessness and insecurity of the interregnum era. Because of it, there were many occasions the future of the empire was very unsure.

As you know the Janissaries revolted quite often. The late medieval Janissaries are often romantically described as a super loyal and professional army of the sultan, but in reality the first Janissary revolt took place already 1449, when they successfully demanded better wages.

In the Ottoman heartland, Anatolia, there were revolts, because the local rulers had long roots in the Turkic nobility, and they wished recognization and sometimes even independence, also because differences in ethnicity and religion. A rebellion led by Şahkulu in 1511 was one example where the Turkmen and the Shia muslims revolted against the Ottomans.

The Ottomans faced revolts in recently conquered parts of Europe too. Albanian revolt 1432-1436 was led by Gjergj Arianiti, a friend of Skanderbeg's, also led several other revolts against the Ottomans. Of course a while later, Skanderbeg, a former Ottoman governor, led an over 20 year long revolt against the empire. Sometimes the revolts would give a somewhat founded claim to the Ottomans. They helped to put down the revolt in Morea, asked by the ruling Palaiologos family despotates, and later, as they did have to do the same too often, finally the Ottomans took over completely in 1460. Generally, in the area we know as Greece it was quite restless for the Ottomans all the time, from the very beginning.

Depends of exactly when we see the medieval period ending namely in the Ottoman empire. For example the Ottoman empire and their rival Hungary are both described as medieval during the time of the battle of Mohacs (1526). The Ottomans conquered Damascus in 1516 and there already were a several revolts in few years time, like al-Gahazi's, who named himself as sultan and revolted to form another Mamluk empire.

This topic fascinates me to no end, but as I currently have to work on another area so I have to be cautious to not get myself too deep in this lol.
 
I wrote a few articles about the early Ottoman some years ago, so at the moment I'm hazy about the details and don't have all the books I had back then, but I'll tell you some examples.

The interregnum period 1402–1413 certainly created instability, which in addition to the on going struggle of succession caused several more or less popular revolts ro raise. History focuses on the main characters, who often channeled the dissatisfaction of people against their enemies to gain popular support (much like Skanderbeg did a few decades later). Sheikh Bedreddin led I guess the most popular one 1416 against the most powerful claimant, Mehmed I. He started in Wallachia, but were joined by other revolts in the area ruled by Mehmed. Interregnum is a fascinating topic, if you read about it (and also the sidenotes) you will notice how pretty much all of these rebellios princes met also smaller local revolts in their areas. Some of the revolts were raised to support another claimant than the one governing them, and some of them were born from general restlessness and insecurity of the interregnum era. Because of it, there were many occasions the future of the empire was very unsure.

As you know the Janissaries revolted quite often. The late medieval Janissaries are often romantically described as a super loyal and professional army of the sultan, but in reality the first Janissary revolt took place already 1449, when they successfully demanded better wages.

In the Ottoman heartland, Anatolia, there were revolts, because the local rulers had long roots in the Turkic nobility, and they wished recognization and sometimes even independence, also because differences in ethnicity and religion. A rebellion led by Şahkulu in 1511 was one example where the Turkmen and the Shia muslims revolted against the Ottomans.

The Ottomans faced revolts in recently conquered parts of Europe too. Albanian revolt 1432-1436 was led by Gjergj Arianiti, a friend of Skanderbeg's, also led several other revolts against the Ottomans. Of course a while later, Skanderbeg, a former Ottoman governor, led an over 20 year long revolt against the empire. Sometimes the revolts would give a somewhat founded claim to the Ottomans. They helped to put down the revolt in Morea, asked by the ruling Palaiologos family despotates, and later, as they did have to do the same too often, finally the Ottomans took over completely in 1460. Generally, in the area we know as Greece it was quite restless for the Ottomans all the time, from the very beginning.
Your definition of popular revolts is leagues more different than mine. By my definition, just about all the examples you gave aren't really "popular revolts". I would consider a popular revolt to be, well, popular. To be carried out by the people (in this case the commoners), for the people. Meaning their political privileges, protests against high taxation, for recognition of national identity or total independence or any other reasons there may be. In many instances you cited the people's interests are hardly addressed, but instead those of their lords (or their allegiances) or chief-in-command (in the case of janissaries).
I did a thorough ten second research on google and saw that wikipedia defines it roughly this way as well:
Popular revolts in late medieval Europe were uprisings and rebellions by (typically) peasants in the countryside, or the bourgeois in towns, against nobles, abbots and kings during the upheavals of the 14th through early 16th centuries, part of a larger "Crisis of the Late Middle Ages".
I cited wikipedia so you can trust what i say
In a nutshell, a revolt wherein a mob mentality takes over which is likely the main reason that a majority of them failed (pretty much all of them, actually, regardless of scale): scattered or massacred, not nearly having the means to enforce their demands, unless they stood behind, say, a noble or a pretender, who then usually disregarded them once their own ambitions had been achieved. See Savonarola and the burning of the vanities or whatever it's called for a true popular revolt.
If we're clear on the popular revolts, the onto regular revolts. But again, in regards to much of what you mentioned I wouldn't come to the conclusion that revolts were "the norm", certainly not at the scale of the janissary uprisings (which were much more limited in scale, concerning exclusively [mostly anyway, there may be exceptions] the royal elites, not the common people) or governors gone rogue or the whole of the ottoman interregnum (perhaps the most unstable period of ottoman history).
To set a standard for what I'd consider the norm: Barbarians raiding Roman marshes in Imperial Rome (including WRE & ER) was the norm. An emperor could heard of it and say: "Oh well, send some governor on a retaliatory attack". On the other hand an Ottoman governor taking up arms and leading armies in force is not the norm. An ottoman emperor would mobilize and send a vizier on the march at the least (if we're still talking medieval ottomans, armies would certainly be headed by emperors).
Depends of exactly when we see the medieval period ending namely in the Ottoman empire.
Nowhere is the world flipped on its head overnight, it's not a fruitful discussion so I just say 500-1500, same as the rest of the world.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom