Domain Actions - Attitude Effects

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Raesene Andu@Oct 16 2004, 12:36 PM
Why do so many people think that the loyalty of the province's population towards its ruler should also affect other regents with holdings in the province? Sorry, but that doesn't make sense, yet out of 5 voters, I'm the only one who has voted for 1) or 3).

I think that Gray summed it up better.

It is called attitude not loyalty in 3.5.

There are mechanics present in 3.5 involved with attitude.

I think the core problem here is people still holding on to conceptions from 2nd ed and not letting go to embrace the mechanics/concpets of 3.5.

Now in 3.5 attitude applies to a relationship with someone in particular and not in vague atmosphere towards everyone.

Refering to it as coming from prosperity might make things have a better perspective. When things are going well people tend to support those who support what is happening and can continue the status-quo. Hence applying the bonus to neutral or friendly actions but not those against the province regent (who is the person most keenly associated with the status of the province at the time). {Works in almost all political situations from historical to present day, that is the person in charge is blamed/given credit for things going on whether or not he is actually responsible.}

[The Jew]

Nothing I state will apply to Sources. I agree with the little green guy. I'm in his campaign, I like having a seperateattitude rating for each holding type. It reflects the different attitude which people have towards different powers within their realms. Right now in america the scandals involving the catholic church have shredded the attitude of a decent chunk of the population against the catholic church regardless of what is going on in the rest of society.

The most important and consistent modifier would be the rate at which money is sucked from the populace. A ruler taxes the populaces, the guild holdings charge higher or lower prices for their goods, while the temples demand higher or lower tithes and may also set aside portions of their tithes for charity work.

If people wanted a simpler system, then I do rather like Ians. One loyalty check for the landed regent and then he can apply any bonus he recieves against or for other regents checks like a law holding. I would also add that if loyalty/attitude was negative that any new regent building up holdings should recieve it as a bonus. If you dislike what is going on in the realm, then a new untainted regent could easily play on that, and regardless will look better by comparision. It also would create conflict between an incompotent/high taxing landed regent and the guild and temple regents, since they would see their own base threatened by the prevailing attitude within the realm by any possible competitors. This could better explain the success of Ruornil against Diemed and the OIT.

[geeman]

The Jew writes:



> I like having a seperateattitude rating for each holding type.



It does reflect a certain amount of detail as your example describes; a

ruler might be popular while a guild, temple or even law holding in the same

province might not be so popular. IMO, that kind of thing is worth

portraying at the domain level.



Arguably, such things should be portrayed in the holding levels themselves,

as they represent the amount of allegiance the population of the province

has towards a particular regent, or the amount of control that regent has

over that aspect of the population. That is, a regent who controls temples

that becomes "unpopular" or otherwise suffers a hit to what is the loyalty

rating for the province ruler can be portrayed by him losing holding levels

rather than having an abstracted "attitude" rating for himself. On the

whole, however, I don`t think that`s the best solution because the same

basic premise could apply to the province ruler, and I think the seperate

ratings make more sense if the score is meant to portray either "happiness"

or "loyalty" towards a particular regent since it`s not very difficult to

view either of those things varying from regent to regent in a province.



The other issue was that in the original BR system, "Loyalty" only had

negative consequences for the province ruler. That is, if the people

rebelled they rebelled against him alone, while the other holdings in the

province might be unaffected by the events. Given that clerics had a free

agitate action, and one could interpret one of the uses of the Espionage

action as affecting loyalty (clerics got a free agitate and rogues a free

Espionage) that made province rulers vulnerable to a "loyalty attack" if you

will which no other regent was affected by. It seems like a guilder could

be rebelled against (things like bread riots, boycots or looting) just as

much as a province ruler might be.



Gary

[Osprey]

Yep, I prefer seperate loyalty ratings for each regent in a province, though I generally had holding regents go realm by realm rather than province by province as a landed regent does. This is definitely easier on the bookkeeping if running a campaign that spans an entire cultural region and more (like Anuire and its nearby neighbors).

I agree that taxation should be the single largest modifier affecting provincial loyalties - far more so than in the BRCS, where a landed regent with all of the law holdings could easily lay on permanent heavy taxes and rarely worry about the consequences.

On the flip side, populaces are generally more resentful of negative things than they are greatful for positive things. As such, high taxes should cause a larger penalty than low taxes add a bonus to seasonal attitude checks. Working from the 3.5 attitude tables (the same as are in the BRCS), I'd go with something like this:

High Taxes: -2 attitude per +1 GB in tax rate
Low Taxes: +1 attitude per -1 GB tax rate

This way high taxes season after season are highly likely to cause a downward slide in provincial attitudes - which is as it should be, given the harshness of life for medieval commoners, and the frequency of peasant rebellions precipitated by those conditions.

Also, effects of domain attitudes: I would prefer a set of modifiers that matches the actual attitude descriptions ("friendly" should have a positive effect, not a neutral one; indifferent should be the neutral). On the other hand, negative attitudes should have some serious consequences. This makes Agitiate a much more important action.

Helpful: +2 bonus to domain actions
Friendly: +1 bonus
Indifferent: no modifiers
Unfriendly: -2 penalty to domain actions, no levies
Hostile: -4 penalty, no levies, no tax collection, 30% chance of rebellion each month
Rebellious: This should be an additional category: if a Hostile province is further agitated, it should automatically become rebellious (where levy units muster themselves and make demands on the landed regent). Also, a Hostile province that makes a dismal seasonal attitude check should also be able to drop to rebellious immediately. A rebellious province should be treated as Contested until the rebellion is ended either through military force or successful diplomacy; the rebels seize the tax money/goods, and no RP is gained from the province or holdings which are the target of the rebellion. Rebellions put down by force should cause severe attitude penalties throughout the realm for some time to come - tyrants may cause quite a bit of trouble by squashing one rebellion only to have three provinces fall into rebellion the following season.

Note: rebellion against holding regents should also be possible. With holding attitudes in place, it could be quite interesting to have the populace rise up against a certain guild or temple (or a series of guilds or temples in a realm).

Osprey

[RaspK_FOG]

Would you mind explaining the options to me, Irdeggman, for I got somewhat confused...

[Athos69]

Originally posted by geeman@Oct 18 2004, 01:20 PM
Arguably, such things should be portrayed in the holding levels themselves, as they represent the amount of allegiance the population of the province has towards a particular regent, or the amount of control that regent has over that aspect of the population. That is, a regent who controls temples that becomes "unpopular" or otherwise suffers a hit to what is the loyalty rating for the province ruler can be portrayed by him losing holding levels rather than having an abstracted "attitude" rating for himself. On the whole, however, I don`t think that`s the best solution because the same basic premise could apply to the province ruler, and I think the seperate ratings make more sense if the score is meant to portray either "happiness" or "loyalty" towards a particular regent since it`s not very difficult to view either of those things varying from regent to regent in a province.

Gary, holding levels represent the concept of 'Market Share'. Bill Gates may hold 90% of teh Computer Holdings in the world, and Linus Torvalds may hold 1%, but I'd bet that their popularities are complete opposite (well maybe not, but you get the idea).

Holding levels and domain attitude towards are completely unrelated. Another good example is if you are a Haelynite in a province with a Haelynite and a Laerme temple in it. Even if you don't particularly *like* the leaders of the Haelynite temple, you aren't going to go and abandon the faith you grew up with -- the Gods are eternal, church leaders will eventually die.

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by RaspK_FOG@Oct 19 2004, 02:55 AM
Would you mind explaining the options to me, Irdeggman, for I got somewhat confused...

(1) It should affect only the province ruler's actions
(2) It should affect every regent's actions in the province
(3) (1) above, except for actions involving sources
(4) (2) above, except for actions involving sources
(5) (2) above except that there is a lesser effect on non-province ruler's actions
(6) (4) above, except that there is a lesser effect on non-province ruler's actions
(7) It should not have any effect on doman action checks
(8) Other (please specify in as much detail as possible)
(9) Abstain


Let's see if I can paraphrase them (I knew this was complicated from the get go).

Choice (1) is that domain attitude only affects the rovince ruler's actions (that is yes domain attitde has an effect)

Choice (2) Same as (1) domain attitude has an effect on domain actions for every regent in the province

Choice (3) - has an affect on only the province ruler's actions that do not involve sources

Choice (4) - has an effect on every regent's actions in the province that don't involve soruces

Choice (5) - has an effect on all of the province ruler's action in the province and affects the actions of all other regents in the province to a lesser degree (to be decided)

Choice (6) - has an effect on all of the province ruler's actions in the provnce (except for sources) and actions of all other regents in the province to a lesser degree (to be decided) again except for those involving sources.

Choice (7) domain attitude has no effect on domain actions in the province

The rest should be self explanatory.

[geeman]

At 03:59 PM 10/19/2004 +0200, Athos69 wrote:



>>Arguably, such things should be portrayed in the holding levels

>>themselves, as they represent the amount of allegiance the population of

>>the province has towards a particular regent, or the amount of control

>>that regent has over that aspect of the population. That is, a regent

>>who controls temples that becomes "unpopular" or otherwise suffers a hit

>>to what is the loyalty rating for the province ruler can be portrayed by

>>him losing holding levels rather than having an abstracted "attitude"

>>rating for himself. On the whole, however, I don`t think that`s the best

>>solution because the same basic premise could apply to the province

>>ruler, and I think the seperate ratings make more sense if the score is

>>meant to portray either "happiness" or "loyalty" towards a particular

>>regent since it`s not very difficult to view either of those things

>>varying from regent to regent in a province.

>

>Gary, holding levels represent the concept of `Market Share`. Bill Gates

>may hold 90% of teh Computer Holdings in the world, and Linus Torvalds may

>hold 1%, but I`d bet that their popularities are complete opposite (well

>maybe not, but you get the idea).Holding levels and domain attitude

>towards are completely unrelated. Another good example is if you are a

>Haelynite in a province with a Haelynite and a Laerme temple in it. Even

>if you don`t particularly *like* the leaders of the Haelynite temple, you

>aren`t going to go and abandon the faith you grew up with -- the Gods are

>eternal, church leaders will eventually die.



I`d generally agree with that. As I indicated, I think holdings should

have an attitude or "loyalty" rating, but I felt the idea that holding

levels themselves represent such things needs to get mentioned since it

seemed to be one of the arguments against the concept when I first

suggested it many moons ago.



To express that argument more fully (for the sake of full disclosure) the

population levels of a province are not affected by a change of loyalty (or

attitude.) That is, if a province goes into rebellion the province

population level does not decrease. Conversely, one could portray the

increase or decrease in loyalty more easily by raising or lowering the

level of a holding. Holding levels being more dynamic, the argument goes,

means they represent more temporal and situational issues like the loyalty

or morale of the population in relation to the regent who controls that

holding.



IIRC, the other arguments against the idea were that it increases the

workload of the DM, and/or the mainstay argument: that it is too

complicated/doesn`t need to be defined at all/not everything needs to be

adjudicated, etc.



Now, personally, I find using holding levels themselves to portray

attitude/loyalty/morale is a bit too abstract for my taste. I think a

morale or attitude rating for each regent`s holding in a province makes

sense because it can be used to portray the kinds of things like your

example of the conflict between a population`s personal like or dislike of

an individual ruler and the more lasting relationship of that population

towards the organization as a whole. It also reflects a sort of third

estate, or the effects of a "public regent" if you will making the

population a bit more than a simple, faceless statistic.



The whole system of loyalty that I used is a bit long but it basically

worked like this:



"Loyalty is measured on a scale from 1-10 with five descriptions of loyalty

levels: rebellious, poor, average, high and fanatic. Loyalty 1 or 2 is

rebellious, 3-4 poor, 5-6 average, etc."



"Loyalty is expressed by noting the province or holding followed by the

loyalty description with the loyalty score in parenthesis. If the province

Xampal(3/5) in the land of Frinstance has a loyalty score of 7 it would be

described as Xampal/Frinstance(3/5)-Good(7), or Xampal 3/5-4. A guild

holding in that province is described similarly as a guild(2)-poor(4), or

guild 2-4."



Each of the loyalty ratings rebellious through fanatic had its own

description of effects. For instance:



"Poor: Provinces or holdings with poor loyalty have a surly, distrustful

populace. They only grudgingly give their loyalty to their ruler. The

population or level of a province or holding with poor loyalty is halved

and rounded down for the purpose of determining [RP] and GB collection at

the beginning of a domain turn. A regent can muster only half the amount

of troops in a province with poor loyalty that is normally available to

him. A regent`s reaction adjustment benefit of the Majesty Score is

negated in provinces where his he has a poor loyalty rating."



The "reaction adjustment" would, of course, now have to be changed to

3e/3.5, but that`s the basic idea. I also used a few more conditions that

affected loyalty that accompanied some other tweaks to the BR domain system

(an additional level of taxation called "crushing" for example) and some

that made ten levels of loyalty a bit more practicable, but that`s the gist

of it.



The discussion of loyalty for holdings is available in the "Loyalty and

Domains" thread of the birthright-l archives mostly in weeks 4 and 5 of

July 2000.



Gary

[ShiroAmada]

Holding levels represent the % share of the population (temples) or market (guilds) that you control or influence. It has nothing to do with Attitude/Loyalty.

I think that the Attitude effects for Helpful, Friendly, Indifferent, Unfriendly and Hostile should also be written for Temples/Guilds.

As for Attitude for holdings, it is easier to do per province due to interactions with the Agitate domain action since Agitate is on a province by province basis. Hell, in Canada, the Bloc Quebecois are loved in Quebec province, but hated in the rest of Canada

[Hrandal]

I think there should be a Domain Attitude towards each of the organisations present in each province.

However, I also think that for non-source, non-land holdings it should remain at default of neutral unless specifically either Agitated, "overcharged" in some way or suffering from a random event.

This would mean you can get election style "mud-slinging" between Guilders as they ruin each other's reputation - decreasing the profit margins of both as people become disillusioned. It would also lead to a lot of money being spent on "spin-doctoring" in an effort to try and boost your flagging reputation.

Maybe if they managed to get their "brand loyalty" to fanatical level, they could have Levy units mobilising themselves to burn down each other's holdings without the Regent's permission.