I posted this about 6 months ago on the forums, but with the recent change Serenwilde made to Conquest/Benign, I thought it'd be apt to post it again

I was told to post here about my thoughts on Conquest Vs Religious Vs Commercial. Hallifax is one of the few orgs who have recently been every type of government. Some numbers for you would be these comparisons

Power Per Village Per Weave for Benign
Commercial: Between 8 and 50
Religious:Between 300-400
Conquest: 1000 even Conquest Pool*

*Conquest pool works as a pool of power where any discretionary powers (distort, ripple) or guard charges (15, or 25 per weave) will be taken out of the power pool first if there is any in it. This means that as long as you have at least 16 guards per village, you will be getting more power with conquest (on the tune of 600 power) per weave with benign. Conquest pool power also never decays or disappears even if you change government and change back.

In addition to this information, it was found that our revlogs were mostly the same going from commercial, to religious, to conquest in that the amount we were tithed remained within 10. (I will note that at the time I reported this and there was a change to it, but we were the last commercial org so nobody has seen how much the tithes have changed)

As a conquest benign city, if you have one village you will reach max village feelings guaranteed without working towards it at all. It is believed that benign feelings also gives you the most conquest pool power out of all of the styles (based on Help Government the last statement in the benign section If said nation is a Conquest Nation, the people of the village will make larger donations towards the Conquest Pool." So not only does it guarantee max feelings if you have a single village, but it also appears to generate the most power ((this does not come from personal observation, just from a conversation I had with Akyaevin and Ixion when we were discussing changing to conquest, and then the information in that help file))

Between Religious and Commercial, religious appears to take significantly less effort to influence up to max feelings than it takes Commercial. Religious also kills two birds with one stone in that it generates more experience, more gold, and and requires a skillset that is used in a wider aspect of the game than Commercial


In conclusion, there is no mechanical reason to be anything other than Benign Conquest unless you have no villages and need to get feelings up, and there is certainly not a single reason to be commercial.


I believe the first way to fix this is get rid of the clause that benign conquest generates additional power, second I believe you need to bring commercial tithing to about 10x that of religious as that is the power difference at present. Third, commercial government needs to be brought in line (again) with the ease of gaining feelings of religious organizations. Fourth, Conquest needs to not generate max feelings unless you are benign with multiple villages, or neutral with four, or never with despotic (max being second level perhaps)

Furthermore, it's possible the gods want Conquest Benign to be the standard for benefit, if so, then religious and commercial could be raised to be more effective if you raise religious to about 600-700 power per weave per village, and commercial to around 400-500

Commercial also has the problem that doing commodity quests in enemy held villages to boost feelings benefits the enemy org with increased tithes.

Allowing commercial governments to boost feelings in enemy held villages through the use of paranoia influencing ("not getting the best contract/deal"), while also retaining the boost feelings through commodity questing aspect might help to make it a bit more equitable.

Religious is nice because you get the power directly, instead of building up a 'supply'; for example, this is Glomdoring's current status:
TOTAL CONQUEST POWER AVAILABLE FOR GLOMDORING: 497375

That's half a million power that's basically 'future power'. Glomdoring doesn't get to see any benefit from it unless we stop generating conquest power entirely and buy a ton of guards / use discretionary powers on a wildly frequent basis. It only ameliorates future losses, but does not count towards anything at present.

So, yeah... benign conquest is pretty silly in that way. You feel like it gives a lot of benefit, but it really doesn't give quite as much as you think in the end. You can't do anything with the stuff. It's great if you've only got a couple of villages so that all the conquest pool is spent covering guards, though!

Religious also lets you influence with anything which gives you the ability to (over a very, very, very long period of time) raise feelings in opposing villages, which you can't do with Conquest. The passive gain from Conquest in other villages is so minute that even with a lot of villages you pretty much always stay neutral, so... if you're conquest, you're not able to get an advantage in other places. Thus, I feel Religious is fine as-is.

Commercial could use some buffs, in terms of greatly increased production (I'd say x2); I'm not sure that you need to allow influencing with paranoia in this case. Even if you're giving increased production to the enemy in opposing villages, you're also making it easier for you to claim it later...

Something else that might be nice would being able to do comm quests in villages that you are enemied to, as currently simply being enemied can shut you off from many of these.

Conquest is also nice when you're actually raided and don't have free discretionary powers. Its funny, being a conquest type is probably better if you're an underdog and less able to actually conquer, whereas if you're on top the benefits are not really as useful.

Even if you're enemied to the controlling org and not the village itself, you can get amnesty from the village leader to do comm quests. The problem is that it takes -so much- work to raise feelings as commercial, it's just not viable in unowned villages, or even in owned villages if you have more than two. Then there's the fact that there's only so many turn ins available per hour in the entire game, no matter how many villages you're bringing them to. We had to bring in comms constantly to get Rockholm to level three by the time it revolted. Any time doing quests elsewhere is wasted, because you won't have time to even get them to level one before you have to start working in your own village again.

There's just no reason to be Commercial, basically. No one knows what the fixed tithes look like, but do any of us really need more comms these days?

Does that even work? The villagers aren't loyal to 'the village,' they are loyal to the controlling organization... and getting amnesty from the village leader doesn't (or shouldn't) get you amnesty to the controlling org.

I promise, it works, I do it all the time. Way back, one of Halli's envoys made a report to allow comm quests even if you're enemied, and one of the other envoys said, "You know you can just get amnesty, right?"

Influencing, say, Queen Ptoma for Amnesty shouldn't be getting you Amnesty to Serenwilde. If that's happening, that's a pretty massive bug.

It doesn't, it only allows you amnesty to the village and to turn things into that village. If Celest owned Rockholm and Southgard (NOT FOR MUCH LONGER) getting amnesty to rockholm would not grant amnesty to southgard also.

I lol'd.

That is all.

Eventru:

Influencing, say, Queen Ptoma for Amnesty shouldn't be getting you Amnesty to Serenwilde. If that's happening, that's a pretty massive bug.

That's not what I said at all. You can get amnesty to the -village-, even if you're not mechanically enemied to them. We were told to do this by other envoys and admin, as if it were intended this way. If it's not, then the major bug is that it's possible to completely lock someone out of increasing feelings in a village by just enemying everyone.

don't most orgs tune statues against anyone not from that org in their villages?

Yeah, I think that absolutely needs to stay in place, by the way. It doesn't effect whether or not guards attack you in the village, nor whether or not it counts as enemy territory (they still do, it still does - effects like being open pk and distort still work), it just allows you to interact with the village denizens (and do comm quests) without *them* attacking you. Please don't get any ideas about changing this.

Xenthos:

So, yeah... benign conquest is pretty silly in that way. You feel like it gives a lot of benefit, but it really doesn't give quite as much as you think in the end. You can't do anything with the stuff. It's great if you've only got a couple of villages so that all the conquest pool is spent covering guards, though!

The benefit is village feelings making it incredibly likely that you will continue to hold the village, continue to slowly build up your conquest pool, and continue getting comms.

Glomdoring's glut of conquest power is a result of free discretionaries from constructs won in aetherflares, the fact that it has maintained a policy of minimal guards (because not so long ago, the conquest pool was -way down- and we didn't want that trend to continue), and the fact that its enemies don't really raid it, and haven't for ages. The fact that if you wanted to, you could give your greedy, faeling influence-alts the hundred guard stacks they would so dearly love, without even batting an eye, certainly is a benefit. Just because your org has chosen not to utlize the benefit does not mean the benefit doesn't exist, heh.

Religious also lets you influence with anything which gives you the ability to (over a very, very, very long period of time) raise feelings in opposing villages, which you can't do with Conquest. The passive gain from Conquest in other villages is so minute that even with a lot of villages you pretty much always stay neutral, so... if you're conquest, you're not able to get an advantage in other places. Thus, I feel Religious is fine as-is.

As far as I know the passive gain from conquest in villages it doesn't own was removed. Conquest is superfab for keeping villages once you get them and it was determined at some point that Conquerors did not also need to be able to effect villages they have not yet claimed, instead needing to approach those on neutral footing if they want to claim them. I'd love clarification on this, though.

The issue with religious is that it takes a lot lot lot of concerted effort to make the feelings rise - to the point where you can basically devote all of your play time to this minimally rewarding activity (little xp, little esteem), and see very little impact. Same with commercial, except that in addition to it sucking up all your time, you're also dealing with the fundamental flaw of hugely benefiting an org that's not your own in the process of trying to raise the feelings.

My only answer to the fundamental flaw part involves changing the way that villages tithe from comm quests. As far as I know from observation, tithes are calculated and distributed from two factors: available stock (which is generated at intervals throughout the weave) and comms quests. Comms quests immediately add to the available stock, but they are also tabulated somewhere unseen, and then that number is brought back at the weaving when the tithes are added up, and the appropriate amount is credited to the controling org.

So, to combat the problem of hugely benefiting a not-your org by doing comms quests in bulk: Ensure that doing them in villages where your org doesn't match the controling org ONLY adds to the ready stock and not the tithe. (This would also serve as a great reason for people to do comms quests in their own org, particularly midbies looking for tasks.) Or, in the case where the person doing the comms quest is from a commercial government, instead of adding to the tithe number, give that comm-in-reserve directly to the quest do-er. (This would also solve the problem of comms quests on their own not being a particularly beneficial use of their time.)


Finally, the passive gain for conquest is too high. Hallifax is now at +3 feelings in Talthos, and for the majority of time since that revolt, we had only one village. That shouldn't happen. Conquest reads like it is designed for orgs with large holdings to sustain those large holdings. Therefore, the greatest benefits should not kick in until the holdings are sufficiently large. +3 feelings means a truly excellent chance of retaining a village. That's a big bonus. That shouldn't be achievable when your "empire" is only 1 state large. So consider toning this down.

Talan:

So, to combat the problem of hugely benefiting a not-your org by doing comms quests in bulk: Ensure that doing them in villages where your org doesn't match the controling org ONLY adds to the ready stock and not the tithe. (This would also serve as a great reason for people to do comms quests in their own org, particularly midbies looking for tasks.) Or, in the case where the person doing the comms quest is from a commercial government, instead of adding to the tithe number, give that comm-in-reserve directly to the quest do-er. (This would also solve the problem of comms quests on their own not being a particularly beneficial use of their time.)

If we can get village logs of some sort, sure. It's something I've always wanted - it can just be whatever comm quests are turned in by members of your own org, and that would be enough without getting invasive or debilitating to other orgs using the village at all. Comm quests are obnoxiously hard for an org to reward for since there's essentially no way to track what comes in unless you are literally sitting right there watching the exchange as it occurs. A simple record like that could go a long way in rewarding comm questing.

If we can get village logs of some sort, sure. It's something I've always wanted - it can just be whatever comm quests are turned in by members of your own org, and that would be enough without getting invasive or debilitating to other orgs using the village at all. Comm quests are obnoxiously hard for an org to reward for since there's essentially no way to track what comes in unless you are literally sitting right there watching the exchange as it occurs. A simple record like that could go a long way in rewarding comm questing.

I wouldn't mind it, provided, as you indicate, that it did not log non-citizens. That would make commercial even lousier. I'm not aware of anything that selectively logs like that, however. Even if powermask were extended to encompass it, this would not be enough, as it would more or less put people on particular alert. I'd be willing to forego the log if this were implemented for these reasons.

To restate what people were saying previously:

Villagers base their enemy response (ie the thing where they attack and refuse to accept commodities from enemies) off of enemy status with the village itself. They don't care if you're enemied to the org that controls the village, as long as you're not enemied to the village itself. So if, for example, Revan were to walk into Southgard, he could influence the dwarves there and turn in commodity quests for credit without any of the villagers being upset and be perfectly fine as long as he avoids walking into any guards or statues.

Guards, on the other hand, base their enemy response off of enemy status with the organization that controls the village, and don't care who does or does not have status with the village itself. So, despite me being enemied to Southgard, Celest's guards in Southgard don't harass me while I'm in Southgard, as I'm a Celestian and thus cool with all Celest-loyal guards by default. I can walk straight up to the Queen and influence her with amnesty without anything going wrong, as long as I don't greet any dwarves on the way to the village leader.

All of that works exactly how it should work and absolutely no changes are needed.

Greleag:

To restate what people were saying previously:

Villagers base their enemy response (ie the thing where they attack and refuse to accept commodities from enemies) off of enemy status with the village itself. They don't care if you're enemied to the org that controls the village, as long as you're not enemied to the village itself. So if, for example, Revan were to walk into Southgard, he could influence the dwarves there and turn in commodity quests for credit without any of the villagers being upset and be perfectly fine as long as he avoids walking into any guards or statues.

Guards, on the other hand, base their enemy response off of enemy status with the organization that controls the village, and don't care who does or does not have status with the village itself. So, despite me being enemied to Southgard, Celest's guards in Southgard don't harass me while I'm in Southgard, as I'm a Celestian and thus cool with all Celest-loyal guards by default. I can walk straight up to the Queen and influence her with amnesty without anything going wrong, as long as I don't greet any dwarves on the way to the village leader.

All of that works exactly how it should work and absolutely no changes are needed.

Correct. A few people implied it was working in a different manner. That's how it's intended to work. B)

The problem being that having guards attack you as you try to do commodity quests (for Commercial) makes them difficult or impossible, thus making Commercial non-viable.