Conspiracies And Charters

Big Blobs Go Boom

One very unique aspect to Axioms is the scale. While it may turn out that will full gameplay done 40000 provinces eats too much RAM or something that is my target top size. These are roughly comparable to provinces in a Paradox game although there is a much more complex economic and population sim involved. If I have to settle for 14000 or something I’ll live. For the purposes of this article scale is important to allow for massive and complex imperial politics. The Roman Empire, the HRE, the Byzantines, China, etc. Although larger than those ideally.

I have a picture in my mind of an empire with roughly 1000 core provinces, so a 4th of the EU4 map, about 2000 major provinces, and 4000 outlying provinces in border states and in flux between being conquered or not. Not only can second tier and third tier rulers gain power in wars over core and major provinces but a kind of border lord style situation with characters and families gaining prestige from reconquest, adding new lands, or fortifying difficult positions would exist.

There would be plenty of room for large and profitable mercenary companies, an idea on my top 10 list for incorporation if at all possible, tons of backstabbing and treachery, and enough room for a true “Ancient Conspiracy” which is just my term for a multi-century to multi-millenia Conspiracy. Plenty of space and time for characters to make and keep/break promises, have large secret alliances that pretend to be in minor conflicts until the moment of triumph, and extensive intelligence networks trading secrets and desires to manipulate lesser nobles. Think of Dune with something actually beyond the Imperium or some sort of WH40k situation. Although technically a single planet fantasy version of that.

You would also have more than one major empire and dozens of large but not imperial states. Some room for Fantasy Englands and archipelagos on a vast inland sea. Part of having a big complex map, which is demonstrated, inadequately, by most Paradox games is a sort of choose your own difficulty thing. If you play as a Kingdom with a mid 3-digit number of provinces you could look out to the frontiers and wilds or inward trying to shave off a big chunk of a central empire. One of those would obviously have higher rewards as well as risks. Do you go for broke or are you a periphery state scheming with low and mid tier Imperial Princes but only as an ally who has no ambitions in Imperial lands yourself?

Very large empires allow for a lot of interesting trade or intrigue based play vs pure warfare or public diplomacy. Although you can still focus on those things if you prefer. As a mid or high tier Prince(these titles are pretty arbitrary and may not be what you are called in the actual game) you can create a centuries long conspiracy, promising ancestral lands or lands of your allies’ enemies, fighting frontier conflicts for prestige, slowly wending your tendrils into the trade networks of your rivals. Build up your intelligence network with blackmail for key moments of betrayal or public condemnation.

You can utilize the Propaganda system to push for reformist policies and weaken the general public opinion of key opponents. Just tons of complex stuff and if you are very good they’ll never see it coming. But if they do doesn’t that just make it more interesting? A little back and forth, playing with your prey before the kill? Would it be fun if it was *too* easy?

I want to keep a lid on the word count here so I won’t talk about trade wars in this post or how to cut off luxury goods not for economic but for approval reasons. This stuff could, and will be, a whole special post. I have talked a bit, at a high level of abstraction, about Conspiracies. Now I want to get to Charters.

Charters are the legal documents defining a polity. Like the Magna Carta or the Constitution and such. How do characters and titles relate to each other? Levies, taxes, the rights of various population groups. Think of a vastly more detailed version of the special mechanics for the HRE and Byzantines in CK2/EU4, altough for all nations. Just small and less stories states will be a bit simpler.

A state could have a single head or up to any number. Of course in the high double digits it gets a bit unwieldy. There is a dynamic opinion boost among all characters and populations for every extra person it takes to make the most consequential decisions. Dictators, co-emperors, triumvirates and tetrarchies, councils of lords, etc. The trade off is that everyone likes the main leaders more but there are more main leaders who need to agree. The federations of Axioms are on a different level from Stellaris or something.

It is also important to note that there are extra-politics/extra-title based power structures that can happen. Religions with hierarchies, trade guilds, etc. Even mercenary companies and various other kinds of guilds including magic schools and such. Non-landholding characters can control buildings, trade goods, mines, and so forth. You even have some groups holding just a single province but they aren’t lords. Of course a magocracy is a variant as is a plutocracy.

The AI should be able to develop their own charters though what they optimize them for depends a bit on randomness and on Consciousness. That is a super-class dealing both with “personality” similar to other 4X and GS games, as well as knowledge like languages or culture, and of course secrets and “desires”. I’ll dig into how Axioms moves beyond even the CK3 and Imperator systems in a later post.

I didn’t talk about ideology or culture or language here but those are key parts of how states function. A popular post I wrote on various forums and reddits years ago discussed the idea of a semi-tribal steppe society that worshipped dragons and how a particular character captured and chained a dragon below a volcano(that part is mostly flavor), using attribute-stealing magic to gain some of the power and appearance(though characters don’t actually have models) of a dragon to become a leader of the tribes and build a large state. Imagine if you discovered his secret? Defiling a divine beast(at least according to his culture)? Could you bring him down, bend him to your own aims, or simply kill him and have a trusted friend copy his strategy? Or just marry your daughter to him for an alliance backed by fear.

This post is already way too long so I’ll just end it here and think of a related area to focus on for the next one. Also I finally, after a few days, successfully upgraded the gui library I am using so hopefully I can start doing some actual mechanics stuff instead of boring backend crap on the game.