Governance

[fugazi_]

I have been doing some research into how empires were governed in South East Asia as opposed to the Chinese and have found some interesting stuff that could give certain factions a unique flavor. If this is possible to implement however, will have to be seen.

Chinese rule was much more centralized then that from the SE-Asian Buddhist factions. For the Buddhist ruler this meant that his influence diminished greatly as the distance from the core region (capital) increased, with the result of very porous border regions with unclear boundaries. This meant that the Buddhist rulers ( I use this term as they were clearly religious leaders more so then their Chinese counterparts); had to rely on a very extensive agents network of spies and diplomats in the outer regions. This was to offer intermarriages, gifts, but foremost information and to show his presence.

Could this be represented in the mod by giving the SE-Asian factions an increased distance to capital penalty. To be offset by the presence of agents in these regions? The Dai-Viet of course had a Chinese influenced system and should be excluded.

Piety should be a more important asset for a Buddhist King of SE-Asia, to be able to rule efficiently then that of the Chinese faction leader. They would have to rely more on learning centres. Is it possible to implement this by adding a new set of religious learning centres (1 per faction, capital only), instead of acadamies for these Buddhist factions which would give the faction leader a x% chance of a piety bonus when he's staying in the city that has it?

If this could be implemented it would be a good start to represent the differences between the cultures and add some needed flavor in management between culturally diverse factions. Something what is lacking in most mods. Perhaps it could be the start or foundation of some sort of rebellion script to introduce a challenge faction? Is all this worthwhile digging further into, or am I going overboard now?

[Vaz]

In the "Conqueror" series, Jochi, the first son of Genghis was born 9 months after his wife was recaptured from Tartars, and shared very few of his outward features - notably the golden eyes that he, his 4 brothers, sister, and 3 other sons inherited from his Father (although his personality was most similar of all). He was virtually ignored, and wasn't trusted, down to him not being treated as a son. After not returning from a campaign, he had Jelme, Genghis' most powerful, long serving (bar his brothers) and accomplished general, the same who had instructed, and taught Jelme hunt down and kill him.

Instead, he lavished affection upon his 3 others, Chagatai, the "first born", and favourite, Ogedai, the strong willed, and Tolui, named after one of his Bondsmen.

Chagatai at first recieved the sword, which was Genghis's only possession of his fathers remaining (I cannot remember if he still had the Red Eagle, but I'll check tomorrow), but upon Jochi's successes both the North against the Novgorod, the Khwarezmian Shah, and finally, a duel against a Tiger from the Ghorid Kingdom, ended up fighting in front of an entire army. The tiger skin which was Jochi's symbol and "saddle" cover was ripped clean off by Genghis, and he took his fathers sword back of Chagatai. After listening to his Mother, his sister, his first wife (mongol) AND second wife (Princess, from Xi Xia), he eventually chose Ogedai as his heir. I do not have ready access to The Plains of Bone, but can find out soon enough to confirm what happened to Tolui.

The Khan was heavily influenced by Kokchu, an accomplished Shaman of the Naiman, who used poisons, hallucinogens, drugs, and the various properties of various animals, such as the poison sac of a Pit Viper to accomplish his reign of terror over both the peoples of the Mongol, and even extended power over the Khan, influencing his decisions to his own betterment - an example being in when attempting to starve out the city, The Khan had developed a technique of raising a coloured tent on one day, which would allow the city and all its occupants to leave unharmed, a different colour which would see the settlement occupied, and fighting men slain on the second. On the third, the siege would begin, and everyone would die - however, Kokchu persuaded Genghis to change his mind after raising the Black Tent, so he would get rich etc.

However, his power was ended after Temulun, the Khan's wife was raped and had her throat cut, after her husband was slain fighting the Shah. The Shah himself had led an attack on the unprotected camp after leading the Mongols away for battle. Well, he had fled the battle, happened upon the camp with his horsemen, to find crippled men, and only the women and children protecting the camp. This was when Kokchu took his chance. I cannot remember the name of whoever it was who discovered him. But yeah, that's the skinny.

So, that was Popular Fictions take on Mongols - I have no idea how "canon" it is, though.

[Yelü Dashi]

fugazi_ I like really these ideas and I think most of them can be fully implemented, but Augustus can confirm that for us. It will be important to provide a difference in style of gameplay for SE Asian factions.

Vaz Woah...that came out of leftfield didn't it ? And doesn't bear any relation to the thread title or the content of fugazi_'s post

Can I remind you gently that we are making a "historically-inspired" mod, therefore a fictional series of novels are not a particular good starting point for research (no matter how good a read they are) and some of the info is very inaccurate. For example it is well known that Borte was in fact kidnapped by the Merkit tribe, not the Tatars. And what is the relevance of the 'Red Eagle', or the 'Tiger Skin' or this Kokchu dude (can find no reference to him anywhere, so he's probably a fantasy character)?

Can I advise to move post's like this to the Mongol research thread ? We should keep this thread strictly about 'Governance' if possible to avoid confusion. If you want to research the detailed history of the Chinggis's family and exploits I suggest you should read this

Cheers

[Vaz]

Sorta, went off on one - got a bit carried away, wrote stuff as I remebered, so its not entirely relevant.

Basically, it's a Family tree, with the Faction Leader able to choose his next in line to the throne. I think that a Knightly Order is the best way to do something like that?

As noted though. And I did realise that it was only a fiction book, in a historical game, so sorry about that. I seem to remember you suggesting I still made observations though - I guess not like so.

Regardless, thank you greatly for the book! I had heard of this before, but had yet to see it. Glad I did, it's amazing! +Rep - and enjoy your new gold star!

[Marcion]

Good ideas with the royal presence in the Sangha. I'm also reminded of cases where the rulers of countries, I believe the Thai states, would act as basically the chief judge and highest authority in monastic affairs. They decided what would be the proper interpretation of monastic law (in the case in point, it was whether monks could go with one shoulder bared, or had to wear the robe over both). This was a pretty rare occurrance, since the Theravada school is highly traditionalist, but it's something that we may be able to build on. Like say, if we have monks as agents.

Rulers in Thailand and Burma adopted the ideal of the "chakravartin" of the early Indian tradition of Asoka. They strived for the image of the ideal ruler, namely through support of the Sangha, and the building of infrastructure and facilities for public benefit. So maybe we could have a sort of competition between the south Asian monarchs (excluding Viet and Champa) over who was really the most dhammically sound ruler. With monks as agents, a player could use them to cause unrest in enemy territory, and maybe "convert" their monks with the probabilty dervied from the ruler's piety.

[Augustus Lucifer]

Okay, having read this now I'll address each suggestion in turn. They're good suggestions by the way, so please don't feel like my negligence is reason not to keep brainstorming on things like this.

Distance to Capital - The modifier used for it is a global one, which means it couldn't be altered by faction. HOWEVER, there is a script condition which can probably be used in traits called 'DistanceCapital'. What I'm thinking is we can run a check for settlement governors and give them some sort of governor trait. This could maybe be done using a simple check like 'GovernorLoyaltyLevel', which seems to use characer_record meaning it should work in traits, and just require only the lowest loyalty so it fires true for everyone. Reversing it might be less straightforward, since there's no 'IsGovernor' check, so I'll have to think about that, but one way would be to subtract it every turn start and give it back to all those who qualify. Then the DistanceCapital check can run after that, and grant a trait which gives penalties to things like settlement order and what not.

Piety/Religious Institutions - Also possible, might be worthwhile to tie into the religion system itself. One thing though is the countries like Pagan seemed to have a fluctuating religious situation. Would being a devout Theravada Buddhist necessarily be always beneficial? At that point had the conversion from Mahayana been solidified?

Monastic Laws/Competing Piety - Would need to have a better idea of how this would impact the play experience through things like bonuses/penalties. I don't have an idea for it right now, but again I don't necessarily see it as infeasible. It's just a matter of making sure any systems we implement have discernable gameplay impact.

[Marcion]

Monastic Laws/Competing Piety - Would need to have a better idea of how this would impact the play experience through things like bonuses/penalties. I don't have an idea for it right now, but again I don't necessarily see it as infeasible. It's just a matter of making sure any systems we implement have discernable gameplay impact.

...I guess that's referring to my post?

I'm not sure how to put it more clearly, since it is entirely a gameplay mechanic. From the perspective of vanilla MTW, it's something like the Inquisition. Except you have monks instead of inquisitors, and the monks can't actually put anyone on trial of course. So instead, if they're in the territory of a governor or king whose piety is not above a certain threshold, they contribute to the unrest. They may also be able to bring monks from other factions over to their own, if their own ruler's piety is higher than the rival one.

I don't have one example from history to back this up, it's just an idea to make SE Asia more interesting.

EDIT: Thinking about this more, the monk's piety needs to be involved. So how about the dissent threshold is 3 points below the monk's piety. Also, I think this should be a double-edged sword. The same thing can happen when your monks are in your own territory. But likewise, as fugazi suggested, there will be religious schools that can be built, and if the governor stays in a settlement that has one, he has a chance to raise his piety via traits. This might make the player have to pay a lot more attention to who they stick where.