I`ve been reading a lot about medieval festivals and tournaments lately,
and it occurs to me that the size, scope, importance and purpose of these
events are really much broader and significant than is portrayed by any of
the current domain actions or random events. Agitate, for instance, is
probably the closest domain action possible to portray a tournament put on
by a domain ruler, but that action does very little to describe many of the
social, economic and military affects that festivals and tournaments can
and did have. The Festival random event only has negative domain level
effects possible, completely ignoring the influx of trade, ideas, news and
information, etc. that were largely the function of medieval festivals and
fairs. Aside from that, I`m talking about festivals on a grander scale
than the Festival random event description talks about, so not only should
they be a bigger deal than a random event, but they shouldn`t be random at all.

Right now I`m thinking there should be two actions. A Festival action,
which would be an abstraction of any province wide celebration, and a
Tournament action which would have various military effects. I`m just at
the brainstorming stage, but the Festival action would focus mostly on
economics and prestige. That could have the effect of an Agitate action
(with a different level of difficulty and probably only effecting the host
province) but would also serve as a brief but profitable trade
route--something like Exploratory Trade.

Because of their role tournaments could provide a bonus not only to
attempts to improve existing units, but also to mustering new ones. There
is also an excellent opportunity to rid oneself of troublesome nobles
during a tournament, and the vast amounts of money spent on equipping
participants had to go somewhere. Some amount of that revenue could easily
find its way into a regent`s coffers. On the other hand, tournaments could
be very expensive to host, so any potential money earned should have a
similar opportunity to lose one`s shirt (or hauberk as the case may be.)

Lastly, both events have diplomatic and espionage opportunities
galore--both negative and positive possible for the noble. Rivalries will
spring up, alliances form, heroes rise from obscurity, and crowd favorites
trampled into the dust. The range of "gamesmanship" opportunities and
ruthless competition are rampant. It`s a beauty pageant where the talent
portion of the competition means beating the tar out of the other contestants.

Now, I`m not so much concerned about the history of festivals and
tournaments here. I`ve got that down pretty well. My question is how
might you guys interpret affects of festivals and tournaments at the realm
level?

What kind of revenue might a festival bring in?

How much cheaper and/or easier might it be to muster a unit if knights if
one has a tourney and they all come along and display their skill?

What would the loyalty reaction (if any) of the host population be?

How would other regents in the same province react to the event? Might
they profit incidentally or would they necessarily be harmed by the
event? (Historically, the Church was very opposed to tournaments, but this
was a relatively rare area of medieval life in which the Church`s
objections went largely ignored. In Cerilia, of course, we have a vastly
different religious structure from medieval Christianity, and it occurs to
me that many if not most of the temples of Cerilia would support such
events.)

What about the trade, espionage and diplomatic possibilities of a festival
or tournament?

Gary

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