Loyalty

from Elemental Forums

This thread got me thinking. What if not only the allegiance of children was in question, but also that of adults? Being an Erfworld fan, I thought that a loyalty stat would make the political games of noble families much more interesting.

Basically, every family member (not heroes or regular troops) has a loyalty stat, which can be influence by various elements upon which I shall elaborate further down. The idea is that the dynasties are unlike your unfalteringly loyal units which obey every order, but are more like "natural allies"; they are inherently loyal to their progenitor, but their structure is parallel to your empire, rather than being an inseparable part of it. This approach opens an additional possibility of sides being aligned with more than one family, making for a complex weave of noble houses.

This system's merit is found in the ability of your enemies to influence that loyalty stat. The main way of doing so would be through political intrigue, or diplomacy, as it is more commonly referred to. This could be a fascinating departure from the traditional and quite frankly boring approach to diplomacy, which is limited to simplistic alliances and exchange of technologies. A diplomacy-driven empire would cause betrayal and strife in enemy families. This system also lends itself perfectly for a powerful espionage option, with the threat of turning some of your important assets against you. Nobles with low loyalty may even remain with their original side, but may offer enemies information in exchange for riches or some other reward.

Loyalty should also be influenceable by magic, though such an approach would be the sledgehammer to the scalpel of politics. Using a spell to modify a family member's loyalty would be very effective, but the affected sovreign would know immediatly who the spellcaster is, and of course, the charm could be broken via normal anti-magic measures. Therefore, a magical approach to modifying loyalty is brutal and short-term, as opposed to the subtle and long-term mundane machinations.

Finally, it would be interesting is certain natural events could influence loyalty as well. For instance, imagine the good-hearted prince who is ordered to commit atrocities in the name of his father, and subsequently vows to defeat his wicked parent by defecting to his enemies; or picture the king's cousin, stationed in a lone and distant outpost, struggling to survive despite harsh conditions and constant attack by wild creatures. When the enemy comes proposing the aid which his king has declined for so long, he turns without hesitation, preferring to save his men rather than uphold his vows of allegiance.

Of course, this entire system suffers from a problem we are familiar with; simply put, it might just be too complicated. However, I believe that it would make diplomacy and espionage much more interesting and lifelike, making noble family members into individuals with their own goals and desires rather than another piece on the board.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

The loyalty mechanic have been rather successfully implemented the Total War series iirc. Generals originating from a defunct faction could create a resurgence and low loyalty generals can be bribed (not family members though).
I agree that it could create great strategic options if loyalty could be influenced in a number of subtle ways. I wouldn't like my heir to suddenly turn on me because some enemy dropped a big pile of gold on him, but his loyalty could be slowly stolen away by magic, orders that goes against faction alignment and what have you.

But yes, this might prove difficult to balance and implement in a simple and obvious way.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I really like these ideas of political and social intrigue. While I think that actually turning the soveregns own family should be nigh impossible I think it would be cool to have other 'neutral' families that you could recruit from if you gain their loyalty. But that they could switch sides eventually.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I just logged in to start the same thread, but see I was beaten to the punch.  I think its a great idea.  I think especially since there are not the usual fantasy races to spice things up, the Loyalty concept could be a great addition.  Taking a page from the euro boardgame playbook on designing great games, loyalty could be used to help limit the runaway leader problem.  For example, you have a leader/hero that has developed into a quite powerful and effective individual - as much as you'd like to take advantage of his prowess, you worry about his growing power. Perhaps he should be shipped off to a remote region or position of less influence, or do you risk leaving him as is? Perhaps you must use bribes to ensure his continued good service.  Loyalty could be used as a limiting factor on how powerful heroes can become.

The other thing I like about the loyalty concept is it can be used as a counterbalance to the strengths that often arise from the ability of "evil" factions to do whatever.  For example, evil often is stronger via the use of dishonorable tactics like assassins, surprise attacks, etc.  It would be an interesting and thematic counterbalance if playing an evil faction also created much more fear about the loyalty of your commanders.  Evils nations should be prone to constant treachery.

Fun, fun, fun!

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, i have always liked to idea of loyalty. Unfortunately it is very difficult to model it accurately and realistically in a game. It requires you to have complex intelligent AI that is able to 'reason' out the most desired path.

Existing games that model loyalty (based on playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms) do it only on a superficial level with a loyalty stat which merely determines how easy it is for enemies to bribe or a percentage chance to rebel. Maintaining loyalty therefore boils down to constantly rewarding the general with lots of gold and items to boost his loyalty.

To model the kind of loyalty and political intrigue we are talking about, would require a dedicated engine for modelling behvior of each individual hero/general. Each hero would have to have his own alignment or belief system. Example, razing an enemy village to the ground would probably anger heroes with good alignments, whereas sparing the lives of villagers would probably anger those of evil alignment.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I think a loyalty stat would be very important, especially for allowing civil wars/splits in vassal families (which would be awesome)

-Think of your best vassal family spltting early for half (whatever %) to join the enemy in a campagin.  Could bring up some very interesting possibilities.  Not to mention the joy in hunting them down over a hundred years.  Hatfields and Mccoys? Pffsha, they got nothing.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Goodmorning all,

I like this idea, it fits well with what i was suggesting back in https://forums.elementalgame.com/361586 and https://forums.elementalgame.com/354543 . 

Spys would be units with hidden true loyalties  who would have two loyalties numbers, one shown to the spyed on channler and a real one to the channler they came from.  this would also allow units to have missions to errode the loyalty of heros / family members of opposing factions by spending time with them and guiding them to disloyal thoughts.

just my 2copper 

Take care   Robbie Price