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Village Revolts
As requested, please find here the opening comment on this contentious subject.
For me, as things stand right now, it is quite simply not working. Whilst there will obviously be a counter-argument that org size plays a major part in things, I beg to differ. For me, a number of things need addressing. I will briefly outline these below for your perusal.
Village feelings: These either need to go completely or provide some other benefit than they currently provide. Sure, it's fun for an org to build up feelings inbetween revolts, but it is my personal opinion that the feelings are just playing too much a part in the eventual outcome.
XP/Essence loss in org owned villages: This needs lowering. Many people are simply fearful about influencing an enemy org village owing to the massive losses. I would considerably lower this loss in said villages.
There's a couple to get the ball rolling.
Discuss.
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
I like the idea of just getting rid of village feelings.
It is impractical to enter an enemy village for prolonged periods of times. You have a large number of villages who are designed to be fortresses. You have a permanent distortion field hovering over them, a large portion of the villages can be guarded easily because they only have 1 or 2 entrances and if it is outdoors the entire thing will be littered with annoying statues. And at all times it is the owning org that controls these defenses, not the actual village.
So non owning orgs have a real hard to nearly impossible time upping their feelings.
And because I do not see them removing or changing village defense yeah, remove feelings.
I'm not really convinced they're 'too much' - elsewise orgs would be sitting on villages for extended periods of time, in spite of being unable to field much of an effort.
Feelings provide a bonus, but from what I've seen it's not much of one. It makes those doing well do a little better, those slightly disadvantaged do a bit better, and those who are just doing well resolve the situation a bit quicker. To point, even at maximum feelings, the benefit is less than simply using the Crusade campaign ability. The feelings gains for Empire may or may not need reducing, though, and the Conquest Pool gain as well. I do feel like Conquest governments 'gain' too quickly, particularly for something with minimal (no) effort.
You can point at feelings all you like, but it really feels like a red herring argument. Unless you have negative feelings, you really don't have too much of a disadvantage. It's uphill, but you can do it. Likewise, I've watched Celest get level 1 and 2 feelings on villages owned by hostile nations, and they remain a religious organization. While those villages probably aren't very well guarded, that's simply the nature of things. If you're letting your enemies' religious zealots come in and proselytize, you don't have too much room to complain.
Is the system perfect? Eh, probably not. I'm sure there's room for improvement. But as always, suggestions that start off with 'just delete it' aren't taken very seriously.
Anyway, I would like to keep at least the concept of village feelings but certainly could look at reviewing the best way to actualize their intent.
Still doesn't really help make Religious Despotic appealing, though.
I feel like Conquest is appealing solely because it's reward with 0 effort. Maybe we should just make Conquest governments not be affected by feelings period - good or bad - in lieu of generating positive feeling. It helps them hold more villages, and take more villages. Maybe at benign it has no effect, at neutral it has 15% of the effect, and at despotic it has a 30% of the effect. So if you're going despotic, you're actually getting commodities and power, but you have to deal with feelings (and no way to increase them), but to a lesser degree. Maybe we should just get rid of the Conquest Pool altogether then - I feel like it's 'too good' at the moment, and was added in just to ensure Conquest type wasn't unappealing. The negation (or partial thereof) of Feelings should be plenty reward.
So, to recap, my off-the-cuff thoughts are:
* Reduce commodity/power production to 0 in villages with Benign rulers, even for their own commodity shop.
That said, I don't believe passive gains from Conquest Benign, even now, are stronger than what players can do. I think Celest is a fine example of that. It takes a lot of effort, but they've worked a routine around it, and they're doing it pretty well.
While I don't necessarily mind reducing the passive gains from Conquest, you need to do something about enabling it to actually, y'know, have an active way to increase feelings. One type of influencing for which many village denizens are immune just doesn't cut it.
Also: Benign = 0 production? That's pretty silly (and very over-the-top). Your solutions kind of seem like a knee-jerk in the other direction, Eventru.
The conquest pool is nice, sure, but it is specifically in a pool for a reason. The power generated cannot be used on Ascendants, or on anything except guards / discretionaries (that's its limiter). That is, to me, its balancing aspect. If you have a huge pool, you have no access to any of it. It just absorbs some of your other incidental usage and helps buffer you against those costs, but you never get that power directly.
I personally feel that Conquest is fine as-is for that reason, as far as the rewards go. The only real adjustment I can see needed for it would be that it should have:
1) More ability to actively affect feelings, and
2) Less passive gain.
Halve the passive gain rates, and make it so that Conquest can earn positive feelings by Weakening, Paranoia, or Seduction influence.
Religious gives you direct power that you can use any way you want. You also get the full benefit of influencing, and can use whatever type any specific denizen is weak to.
Conquest shunts the power gain off into a separate pool that only funds certain things, doesn't let you use all the influencing types (empower and begging aren't very conquest-y and are also the mindsets of many village denizens, either friendly or brave), and gives a little passive benefit... but not enough to really make much of a difference, if you aren't getting out there and using your more limited array of influencing.
If we expand the influence types for Conquest, I'm of the opinion the passive gains should be more than halved, or remove the Conquest Power Pool (or drastically reduce its gains relative to Benign/Neutral/Despotic).
Anyways, my thoughts were just as I said - off-the-cuff thoughts. Most people seem to be making Conquest out to be the end-all-be-all, particularly as benign. Figured it'd be an easy way to make other aspects more attractive!
I have the same problem with pricing gold-sinks to gouge the people with money; if you look at the stockpiles, you're locking everyone else out of the market entirely.
Does it truly matter if Glomdoring has tens of thousands of comms? They're pretty much "out of the game" as it is at the moment, just like gold in the org coffers (a point that I believe you yourself made). Reducing village production to nil is thus pretty much shackling anyone who uses the villages or village-quests to build up their stockpiles.
The main reason that Conquest is seen as the be-all end-all is not so much for the rewards themselves as for the fact that it's easy set-and-forget. You get the passive feelings and you don't have to work for them. At the same time, you can't work for them, because influencing is restricted to 1 type, so there's no point in even trying. The easy solution is to reduce the passive feeling accrual and allow you to more easily influence (more types).
Touching the conquest pool accrual is... well, again, you're going after something that isn't even related to the problem just to make Conquest itself not be desired as an option at all (instead of appropriately balancing reward -> effort). Same with going after commodity production. You don't need to take a machete to the thing!
Syrath, Soraya, and so on.
It kind of feels like they are being sent in as sacrificial lambs to appease my bloodlust.
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
There are always ways to make a good message if needed. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea in general though; it sounds like it would basically make it far easier for orgs that hold villages to keep holding them.
There really needs to be more attention here in village revolts, so I understand why you would feel that way. No one else is doing nothing
Edit: for Spelling Xynthin *sniggers* >..<
Of course, your allies might not like that. Although then your villagers might hear good things about your allies. OH the decisions.