The incredible vanishing kingdom...

from Elemental Forums

Does anyone else find it a little weird that when a sovereign dies, their ENTIRE kingdom vanishes from the map without a trace (save for the roads)? It's fine for multi-player, but if you're playing the AI, I think it could be handled much better.

 

When the sovereign dies:

- All units are returned to the nearest city. Then, all but one champion per city desert (preference goes to dynasty members, and deserters resume wandering the map).

- Lvl 1 cities/outposts: 90% chance to become neutral, and lose 1 pop per turn until they disappear at 0, or are taken by another faction. 10% chance to become a bandit outpost that produces bandit units.

- Lvl 2 cities: Become neutral, and lose 2% of their original pop per season until they become lvl 1, then follow the above rule.

- Lvl 3-5 cities:

-- If there is a champion/heir in the city, the faction changes to, for example "Altar's supporters of <hero name>." Any hero-less cities that are lvl 3+ and close by may join one of these factions, up to 3 total cities per faction. All of these factions are permanently at war with each other, have a 50% resource production penalty, and will do nothing but try to wipe each other out until there is only one left, at which point the hero becomes a new sovereign of the original faction.

--If there is no champion in the city, and it doesn't join a successor faction, it loses enough housing & pop to become lvl 2, and follows the above lv 2 city rule.

 

This would make a conquest victory MUCH more interesting!

4,117 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I would just like to see the faction given to the eldest heir, unless there had been some issues with the ascension, in which case, the faction would splinter into several smaller factions.

 

That may be something for an expansion down the road, though.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, once upon a time, early in the game's development, the dynasty system was conceptualized as a significant strategic factor in the game. It was implied that all the factions married into a given dynasty would net a number of a faction's cities when its sovereign was killed.

Unfortunately, it didn't make the release version, for one reason or another.

ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

It's been brought up many times. Honestly, one of the sovereigns' children should take over the rule of the kingdom/empire. If there are no children, the empire/kingdom should be split up into independent cities.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Honestly, one of the sovereigns' children should take over the rule of the kingdom/empire. If there are no children, the empire/kingdom should be split up into independent cities.
End of quote

I feel like this should be the bare minimum. A more complex inheritance system would still be preferable for me, though. Diplomatic strategy is way weak, imho.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Not sure if anyone has ever played the earlier Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, but I thought they did a good job of making diplomacy fairly fun, and I think the ideas they put forth could easily be improved upon.

 

You could convince a General (in Elemental's case, a hero or someone in the dynasty) to rebel, attempt to take the throne for themselves or switch allegiances and create a pretty significant swing in power (they wouldn't even have to switch allegiance to your kingdom).  There were also ways to set up a war between opponents who were either getting too powerful, or who were really annoying but you didn't want to lose reputation by breaking an alliance and destroying them; besides, why do all the work when you can simply pay someone else to do it?  On top of all of that, you could pre-bribe generals to defect and switch sides in the middle of a battle which could definitely swing things your way if fighting against a more powerful faction.

Not saying that all of these would necessarily have to be implemented into diplomacy to make it successful, and they might not even work in conjunction with other aspects of the game, but it would at least give us a few more options in how to handle opponents and grow power from within, or weaken the enemy without having to swing a sword or cast a spell of any kind.

Feudal China was a brutal place, and I feel like a group of scraggly humans/fallen trying to scrape by in a shattered world would be pretty brutal as well.