We’re starting work on Dynasties in Elemental.
Here’s a basic outline:
Sovereigns will get the opportunity to get married. Once married, they will, for a period of time, be able to have children.
The sex of the child will result in very different game options.
Males stay part of your family line. Females are married off to other families. However, should the sovereign of a particular kingdom die, then his kingdom is inherited by the player whose daughter is married highest up into their family.
Hence, if I marry my daughter off to the first born son of the sovereign of Kraxis and that sovereign is killed, then his kingdom becomes my kingdom.
Speaking of sovereign “killin’” we do plan to have an option where your sovereign cannot actually die in battle for those players concerned about sovereign assassination. However, AI sovereigns will “abdicate” if they think their situation is hopeless and rather than abdication being random, it will be based on the aforementioned succession rule.
We will have quite a bit of time to play around with this come January when the dynasty beta goes out. But this hopefully gives you some insights on how we’re currently looking at implementing this.
I would like to see succession based on respect, which should differ from diplomacy. For instance, maybe a fellow sovereign wants you to do something, maybe even a bit underhanded. You say No. This could give you a hit on diplomacy, but yet raise his respect for you. Ore depending on the personality of the sovereing maybe it just pisses him off. And I could see marrying kids between families raising the respect AND diplomacy between the two. (Hey, it's a fantasy game, right? ) And when a king dies I think the sovereign that he has the most respect for is who he leaves his kingdom to. I hear the arguments that the kingdom should go to his progeny, but if that is the case then when YOU die your kingdom goes to YOUR progeny and here comes the argument of playing on as your heirs, rather than it being game over.
Just one important reminder about succession : channelers are supposed to be rare, and nothing in the backstory tell us that their children get the same gift/ability/power.Moreover, as they are the only able to heal the land, no real faction can expect to compete if its leader is not a channeler.From that, we have a reason to ignore the first son/daughter of the previous leader (his/her father was a channeler, not him/her), and go for the closest channeler : the one who married its daughter (or son, if we allow gender-neutral marriages) to your noble family.
I can't wait to know for about the succession system. I agree that the framework Brad describes in this post seems a little simplistic and I'm confident it will be fleshed out in the next coming weeks. But for my fellow posters, don't focus too much on the subject, Elemental is not Crusaders Kings.
Sounds good!
Quick Reply
I like playing girls and if I was a sovereign I would make sure that my girls would follow the succession. So give the player the options of who is going to succeed without beign forced by the sex of the character.
Dynasties shouldn't be much about successions because if your sovereign dies, it's game over, so your own succession is out of the game, and making a mechanism just to milk the ai's sounds bad.
However, using vassals or satraps to keep control over remote parts of a big kingdoms sounds good, anf one could corrupt a satrap in order to gain him and his land to one's kingdom. This would be less likely with the monarch's son of course.
Regarding lines of inheritance, it should be customisable. Not everyone does it the same way.
For instance, French and English had different views on the subject, namely whether a woman could inherit the throne, which was a basis for the 100 years war (well, it's more like the French changed or made up a law which started it but it ended with different systems). In fantasy, the same situation happens in "A Song of ICe and Fire" where Dornians allow females to inherit in priority.
So it could be interesting to have different factions with different views on who is the legitimate heir of what kingdom. On sovereign death, if said sovereign had both a son and a daughter, maybe the daughter married into a clan that thinks she is the rightful owner of the land, thus causing a war unless an agreement is found. The kingdom could very well split up.
Anyway, the death of a sovereign should lead to a Council (user interface if player controls a potential heir) where all possible heirs are represented and claim what part of the kingdom they want, if any. Based on their votes and prestige, the cities decide to side with X or Y, and diplomatic relations change accordingly. Some bidding could probably be done at this stage, like "I'll renounce my rights on the kingdom and support you as a rightful heir if you give me city Z".
Question: If you find out a rival kingdom has successfully married off a daughter to the first born son of some other kingdom, will you be able arrange an accident for that first-born son, thus opening up the succession to whomever marries the next son in the line?
I agree with this.
My 2 cents:
If we are assuming the very unqiue roles of the "Sovereigns", then dynasties will have to take into account their special place w/n the world. I believe Frog mentioned that Sovs would have the ability to "imbue" their powers into other characters. This would probably for the basis of dyansties for the player? This would give the player the ability to "choose" his/her successor, either child or other person (which might cause some conflict, particularly if the original Sov gave his/her essence to someone who was not in "legal" succession), and imbue them with his/her essence. Of course this only makes sense if the Sov is not immortal (perhaps that is a choice for Sov creation/spell-would drastically limit the dynastical system for the player but give some perks of having your uber-Sov walking around).
Another question would be if producing offspring..erm...transferred some of the sov's original essence down the chain. Now to ramble a bit. This would make for a great book/sci-fi like story. The total "essence pool", if you would, would remain the same. However, the pool would gradually disperse over time: into cities, healing land, creating offspring. This would create an "Age of Magic" in the beginning, more powerful creatures roaming around, massive spells?, etc, gradually morphing into another "Age of Reason"?, assuming the AI/player chooses to dillute the pool around. I can see some interesting gameplay mechanics, such as a more dilluted pool making for a more populous, tech heavy society versus a more consentrated immortal sov hiding in the mountains who calls down meteo (both white and black) when he gets pissed. Would be interesting at the end of the game to have your society all advanced technologically but be unable to use higher level magic spells then have yourself think, well back when my Sov was around this would be easy.
Of course there would be lots of grey room between a completely dilluted society versus a sov who chose not to dillute at all. This would also be interesting in terms of dynasties if essence is inheritable. Marrying your son to a daughter of another Sov would produce offspring with an essence concentration versus just marrying them off to a local guild or whatnot.
ok
/ramble_off
From Brad's post:
"Speaking of sovereign “killin’” we do plan to have an option where your sovereign cannot actually die in battle for those players concerned about sovereign assassination. However, AI sovereigns will “abdicate” if they think their situation is hopeless and rather than abdication being random, it will be based on the aforementioned succession rule."
Something tells me when Frogboy says
he's talking about a simple option. Like in a toggle check box on the "Game Options" screen. I don't think he's talking about heirs and bloodlines carrying on after Sovereign death. I thought they were unshakable on the whole "Sovereign Death = Game Over" idea.
Am I wrong?
Can a Heir take over the throne after a Sovereign dies?
I don't think that Frogboy has changed his mind about that, Raven X. Surely he means a toggle.
I'm with the wandering canine here. I'd rather see no succession system at all than see every faction always following exactly the same practices. That would render what seems like a swell idea for a worthy subgame into a bunch of boring clickwork, at least after one had settled on a standard dynastic strategy.
I don't expect anything as truly complex as the real world, or even Ice and Fire, but it seems rather odd to be planning to support female sovereigns but not allow females to inherit ruling titles. And I particularly like the idea of being able to simply appoint an heir regardless of blood connections, especially if there's also breeding going on and players might need to keep an eye on rivalries between their chosen successor and a badly-behaved offspring.
Good point. So far we have no idea whether children will be able to inherit the channeling trait (is it in a single locus or in many loci? Mendelian or not? Ok, I'm joking). My personal opinion is: yes, why not. I see no reason why you cannot be succeed by your children (you can even give him/her a face-lift before the coronation) or even (the horror, the horror!) become a junior partner in a personal union. Actually, the inheritance system should work somewhat close to Europa Universalis III. Royal marriages should give you the right to claim the throne of kin, however succeeding in this claim does not mean annexation, instead the two nations can be joined under one crown temporarily, with the claimant over the throne being the major part and the one who lost its King the junior part. If time goes by and no one challenges your rule in the junior partner (I think events should make this difficult), then you might annex them. I digress.
Anyway, making all your children channelers can create some game imbalance. It is doable to have just one inheriting the trait, in latent form. Let's say there is 15% chance for each children born to become a potential channeler. Therefore, if you have 6 or 7 children (a good number), you will ensure just one of them will inherit the trait. But that's not enough, the trait is latent so you don't actually know which one holds it (magical research on divination could help you sort this out). Assuming marriages are gender neutral, sending your offspring away becomes a tactical risk: you might lose a possible successor although could be gaining a diplomatic edge. Say, you send your channeler son to marry Princess Shakali of Zululand. Unfortunately for you, your son is a channeler. If you die, he could be the one inheriting the whole mess, but because of living in foreign lands and being married, he is in constant peril of being made prisoner, murdered or forced to turn your Kingdom into a junior partner. Just a thought.
I think things would be somewhat simpler if rulers were mortal. Successions and dynasties would then become important. The way it is, as LDiCesare said, it seems just a way to milk the AI or allow the AI to milk itself.
We can sketch this way:
Why this specific order? Because it is the order that would make most sense, excluding external and cultural factors, to the nation as whole (considering you already have a national identity and a centralized administration). It is preferable to have a local king then a foreign one and a king that always lived in your borders is better than one who spent a long time being influenced by a foreign court. It is rather irrelevant to delve deeper than that, mostly because the 'Channeler necessity'. You don't have a lot of options to fill the throne and it will be rare to have two children or more competing over the position. In this case, you can allow the player to choose if they both have the same status (unmarried, married at home etc).
The player could also chose the relative of his preference, though choosing poorly could have serious diplomatic and internal consequences i.e. choosing uncle Tom of Felixland instead of your monarch own son Phil will probably make your local populace furious over this spurious move, unless, of course, lil' Phil is a total slacker and hated throughly by his nasty habit of shooting random people with his magic crossbow.
How about this?
I think this allows us to have a "common enough" system that it's not a constant free-for-all, but there's enough variety to spice things up. Kind of like historical succession: the rules were basically the same within a given society, so everyone knew what to expect in general, but every now and then someone would throw a wrench in the works, resulting in The Hundred Years War and the like.
Thoughts?
I'd rather see no succession system at all than see every faction always following exactly the same practices.=
I actually agree with this sentiments. The faction's first born shouldn't be the only one who infuences inheritence, but the marriges throughout the whole lineage instead. I do think certain family members should have more influences then others, but I don't like the idea of faction A having one marrige to the first born and getting them on defeat, while another faction B has 6 inter-faction marriges and gets nothing.
I also like the idea of a nation going to 'civil war'. If two factions have sufficiently close standing in a defeated one, they defeated faction would split between the them, and the two factions would have a 'limited war' - The factions could only attack the cities once controlled by the now dead faction, and military action outside those areas would result in all out war.
I think stuff like that would add to the feel of the game instead of a rigid system of inheritence.
I'd like to see a system where gender does not dictate destiny. Why not let the channeler decide who gets married away from the family and who stays? Might not a female channeler keep her daughters as heirs and marry off the sons?
Here is a proposal:
If the heir is a military leader, you inherit all military units in his stack or within a certain range not under the control of another heir.
If the heir is parked in a city as a breeder or town leader then you inherit that city.
Capitol city goes to the firstborn heir.
Every other military unit has a chance of going rogue, mercenary or aligning with the nearest heir.
Other cities have a chance of going independent, pledging to the nearest military unit, or the nearest heir.
This way EVERY single heir matters and the more you can get in a single kingdom/empire the greater your chances of inheriting all of it. Placing your heirs with another would truly become a tactical decision.
Rivalries between kin. Always adds a level of realism, would make the world feel more alive. Choosing your heir. Would be nice. I like these two points you made. I don't want to see every nation practice the same form of succession either. Maybe if you pick an heir against your civilizations "guidelines" there might be some negative repercussions, but it might be worth it to get your daughter with all the good traits up there on the throne?
Oh definitely, I hope that civil war (based on disputes over who gets the crown) is common.
Heres how I always imagined the system would work:
Dispute in this example would then be over who has the rights to certain cities (land), rather than entire nations. Comments or suggestions?
Leaves me a little flat. The un-PCness of gender inequality does bug me, even if it's historically accurate for feudal culture. It also feels a little to much all-or-nothing as far as inheritance. I think, as others have sort of mentioned, I'd like a like it more along the lines of ways to influence minor factions. You might be able to get a portion of an opponents area to rebel if you marry your son/daughter into their noble house (e.g. think of the Bear Island clan in Stark's in GRRM's world). If an opponent sovereign abdicates, I think it'd be more interesting for his component "duchies" to split to various houses based on their inter-marrying with the other sovereigns houses and blood lines.
It's more complex, but I think it'd be more interesting.
The un PC nature doesn't bug me, but it might engender some bad reviews if it feels hostile towards women.
It would be nice to see a system that ends up with a at least a possibility of divvying up your territories between the other nations once your sovereign is destroyed instead of an all or nothing deal.
As I said, I think succession is a bit limitating for the role of dynasties. When successions do happen, it's important to know who each member of the family supports. So I think each character should be given an occupation, like governing a city, commanding an army. If they aren't given anything to do, they may become unhappy, turn into mercenaries or generally upset thier father/liege so he would want to build or conquer them a new city to rule...
Each city could also have a governor. That is, any governor, even a bad one, would be better than no governor at all. And it also means if you find a better governor, you can remove the previous one and replace him, causing the replaced guy to be quite unhappy if he suddenly gets in charge of a pitiful village instead of his big city.
My balk at the 'strict patriarchy' isn't about political correctness. It's because I think that some variations in lineage systems among the canon factions would simply be more fun than a one-size-fits-all approach, especially for those of us who end up very interested in the role-playing aspects of the game.
With a few different succession traditions, you could end up with games where you can marry off a pain-in-the-ass son to a younger daughter in a matriarchy, which could in turn lay the groundwork for that son to end up leading an enemy force against your realm as a way of escaping his annoying wife and punishing you for 'betraying' him.
It would be nice to have more options and more flexibility in the succession system than the system that wasy just laid out.
For example; while I understand most people in the european fantasy world will live as europeans, there must be some room left for magic and adventure. Ergo: maybe not all female characters are just marriagable options, and maybe some of your offspring can become heroes, knights, wizards, or sorceresses themselves, and be useful units that can, if not be controlled, be helpful to you.
However, I just hate the idea that this immortal god-wizard is spawning batches of submissive women and generic human males to go on living their lives.
If I'm playing as a demi-god, my offspring should be the back-stabbing, supernatural demi-god spawn that's found all throughout mythology and fantasy literature.
Complete with their own powers, interests, and desires. With real personalities.
Romance of the Three kingdoms the game had some of this with your offspring, being able to be made officiers (whether male or female) and some being able to perform magic or having other unique skills.
Really, though, I'd like to be protective of and proud of my offspring...or embarassed by them...not just treat them as a tradable commodity.
Before I copy&paste a wall of text, I want to say that I like that part mentioned by DamnedChoir of the offspring having their own powers, interests and desires. I had an idea similar to that but quite simple in comparison to it. Anyways, wall of text ahead. Read at your own peril. (in my tiny world, bold doesn't mean loud but important)
We have Kingdom A lead by Sovereign A, Kingdom B lead by Sovereign B, and Kingdom C lead by Sovereign C. Both Sovereigns have offspring: Offspring A1 and Offspring A2 for Sovereign A, Offspring B1 and Offspring B2 for Sovererign B, and Offspring C1 and Offspring C2 for Sovereign C.
We suppose as rule that the surpreme rule/command must come always from Sovereigns (Beasts and possibly some neutral cities are exceptions to this supposition). In a devastated world, these bings that can heal the land and weild powerful magics are sought as the best protection that one man can have. People might join one Sovereign because they like it, or just to avoid to be under the rule of one they don't like and from which they can be protected by being under the rule of otere different Sovereign.
In our first example Soveriegn B dies. Kingdom B would be left headless. The oldest offspring would inherit the rule and might face a different options:
In our second example, Kingdom A and Kingdom B had an arranged marriage between A1 and B1. From then onward, A1 passes to be part of Kingdom B. As in the first example, Sovereign B dies. The oldest offspring would inherit the rule and might face a different options:
If the marriage had been with B2 instead of B1, then the situation would be that of Case 1 and not this Case 2.
The list would go on as more marriage possibilities exists and relations with the different Kingdoms are considered. I hope there is no need for me to complete this list... right?
I understand that offspring, the same as recruited/encountered Heroes, will be Heroes and have attributes/stats/skills/traits... Married or not, they will be able to fill some roles to the point where sometimes you'll have to decide between sending off to another kingdom as part of an arranged marriage or keep them under your rule to abus... make good use of his/her abilities. In resume, they will be heroes that can be traded in the name of good will, blah blah blah.
I'd like to mention, not believing it'll make it but mentioning it anyways, that it'd be nice if each of those Nobles and Heroes had the same point of view as your Sovereign about the other Kingdoms. At least at the beginning.
Let's suppose that the diplomacy scale between two Kingdoms varies between these values:
Relations between Kingdom A and Kingdom B are at 0, for example. WHen the offpsring of those Kingdoms is born, they take the current value of that relation as theirs, and update it accordingly as it changes. So if later the relation between those two kingdoms raises to 1, the offspring internal scale will raise to 1 too.
Kingdom A and Kingdom B ally to fight the evil Kingdom C. A1 and B1 fight together in some battles against the armies of Kingdom C and this battles working together creates a bond between them. Altough A1 and B1 still has the same value as their Kingdoms in that internal scale, it becomes modified by +1 because of this bond. For now, I won't so far as adding a relationship trait like "X1 likes Z1", just that internally each of those heroes has a modifier to the scale related to the other Kingdom. So while Kingdom A and Kingdom B are at 1, A1 and B1 are at 2.
The war continues and in one important battle, the armies of Kingdom B retreat. Event that nearly costs the battle for Kingdom A. THe relationship between Kingdom A and Kingdom B doesn't alter but A1's modifier, who was at the battle, is reduced by 1 for Kingdom B becoming 0 and leaving him with a relation of 1 with Kingdom A. Later the same event repeats and altough it doesn't hurt the relation of the Kingdoms, A1's modifier, who was again at the battle, is reduced by 1 again. Now his relation with Kingdom B is of 0 while his Kingdom's is 1.
Those are just examples of how "Personal experiences" of Heroes (offspring of the Sovereigns or not) could affect their viewpoint of other Kingdoms. Why? Well, marrying off an offspring that hates the Kingdom where he is sent (The Kingdoms might have a relation of 1 but he has a -2) might have some bad political consequences appart from taking him some time to settle there (if he evers settles). Or a Heroe that really likes another Kingdom (the Kingdoms are at 0 and he is at 2) might decide to join that Kingdom when you declare war on them. It'd not work as simple as I described it but just an example. Marrying to another Kingdom an offspring that really loves her new Kingdom can give some nice political bonuses and improve the relation between the Kingdoms. And many many more examples.
Potentially, the offspring can be something really impressive. Heroes can benefit of most of their systems too. Problems before anyone here "dares" to post them? "Too much micro!!" could be one. "The AI wouldn't know how to deal with it" could be another. "I don't like it" is another. In my defense I'll say that I just wanted to mention it. I don't expect to see this ever. But one can dream and share that dream.
How long does the offspring live? We know that the Sovereign cannot age or die of old age. But his sons and daughters? They don't share such trait and will be only channelers if the Sovereign imbues them. But will we lose them after X turns or will they stick through the whole game? Are they supposed to produce more offspring once married? And that same offspring marry too? And get even more offspring on the board? You could end with a legion of Heroes just with that. That's why I ask. Losing a Hero because of old age would be a sad moment (emotionally if you were fond of him and from a gameplay point of view) but it would make sense.
Very insightful, Wintersong. Thank you. Your questions are also extremely valid and unless answered will throw us in fairy land of vain speculation. Remember also what Frogboy said: not everything is set to stone, so rulers could be turned into mortals and the channeler trait could be inherited - it will depend on what is best.
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