Friends, Allies, Retainers

A deeper and more targeted look at building power through social connections

I’m putting out several posts a day on average because a lot of these are copied or rewritten from my old blog posts on blogspot. Should slow down in a couple days.

One of the lower level parts of Axioms that makes it a true D-I-P focused gamed is the detailed system of character interactions and how that impacts the opinions different characters and populations have of each other. There are a lot of different kinds of interactions in the game. Character to character, those that involve primarily action points, those that involve money, cultural or family exchange.

Some of the stuff is lightly touched on in CK2. They let you pick characters to educate children under your control. Axioms goes quite a bit farther, something possible primarily because it doesn’t have stats and traits similar to those in CK2 and Paradox games in general.

Fostering

There is fostering which is a major institution and pretty effective. Lieges and vassals as well as potentates who were merely allies can trade children. In Axioms the higher the child in importance the higher the opinion bonus. Additionally a fostering agreement increases in value over time. Breaking one not only causes direct penalties but like other improperly ended agreements causes reputational diminishment among all characters and populations who are aware.

A more extensive deal might involve education at older ages which can result in the child picking up the talents of the other family partially. Characters, families, populations, and states have a sort of learning/training “background”. So if you do a lot of stuff with intelligence networks you gradually gain a higher base skill and superior learning capability over time. In another post I’ll discuss the research/knowledge system in general in more detail.

Betrothal/Marriage

Axioms has a more detailed system involving betrothals and marriages although relative to other character interactions it is actually a smaller percentage of binding characters and families than in something like CK2.

Marriage provides a good opinion boost, especially in cases where the spouses like each other. Multiple marriages between families sort of stack. I’m considering whether to make dynasties an actual thing where you get dynasty wide bonuses from actions. The current system and alternative to dynasties is that characters with a familial relationship get 2x the opinion bonus-malus towards a character who engages in an action that makes someone they like or hate happy.

Marriage is something of a starting place for more shadowy actions. When you marry someone who likes you to another character you will find it easier to use that relationship to manipulate the other character.

I’m still considering how to handle marriages with more than one person. As a fantasy game designer I have no strong opinion for or against different kinds of relationships in the game. Various laws and edicts, which I’ll discuss in another post, have the potential to be added. So there might be something about cousin marriages, polygamy, temporary marriage, just breeding with no marriage, and various other stuff.

Bribery, Flattery, Feasts, And Ceremonies

As noted in previous sections there are impacts on actions beyond the directly involved characters. When you bribe someone that is mostly a secret and won’t impact opinions unless you are discovered. Flattery is an action that takes just attention points. I’m split on having a private version. The public version gives an opinion boost but also obviously gives adjacent characters some feelings depending on if they like you or hate you. I’m debating whether to have a unique bribery button on whether it should exist in an intrigue or conspiracy panel or what.

Feasts exist in many games from CK2 to Star Dynasties to various other indie strategy games. There are implementation details that are distinct in most of those games. In Axioms a feast can be held for an occasion, a person, a victory, a religion, and perhaps some other reasons. I might make it more generic or I might make celebrations, festivals, and feasts distinct actions. In any case they are obviously public events. Feasts cost money and resources and will provide a variety of benefits beyond just opinion boosts of various kinds. I haven’t locked it all down.

Ceremonies may be rolled into feasts or not. Usually you’ll make religious or personal commitments. Ceremonies might penetrate farther from their location or something and be more valuable. I’m still working out how to handle variable scale of feasts and ceremonies and what impact that has. Feasts and ceremonies provide opinion changes based on who you invite and who accepts and there may be unique decisions during them. And perhaps unique random events.

I think I might allow ceremonies and even feasts to impact non-character entities. Celebrating families or religions or nations. They’ll probably tie into the next thing I’m going to talk about.

Commitments And Promises And Declarations

These are something of a public version of small conspiracies. A character or some entity the character is part of will make public claims about future actions. As long as you are known to keep your word these will matter. Of course even if your character or entity has been previously unreliable you can still engage in these activities and then follow through to get back into good standing.

You might promise unilaterally never to do wrong by a certain family. Or to hold celebrations every year for a religious or other reason. At neutral or above there is an immediate impact based on your choice of commitment. At lower levels there isn’t a penalty but the payoff only comes after you meet the obligation you created. You get a boost in honor or something everytime you abide by your declaration and you get a penalty any time you fail.

This is an explicit aspect of a general goal of creating a system whereby because the game allows for so much more treachery you can build solid relationships that are more than normally significant. Also binding the future actions of entities associated with your character makes for some interesting gameplay. Additionally you can convince, through methods fair and foul, other entities to make these promises which the world will then hold them to unless they can easily prove they were forced.

Having an unbreakable bond with a vassal or retainer and entities adjacent to them through familial and other ties can be quite valuable. Especially when organizing a large conspiracy or something. You can even make declarations of future actions like prosecuting a religious crusade or various other things semi-similar and then solicit assistance. Declarations as “Open Conspiracies” is a very good source of potentially unique emergent gameplay. Hopefully this mechanic really pans out in practice.

Hidden Bonds

Of course the mechanical support for truly reliable public alliances also allows for better flavor for secret allies. A conspiracy that takes several centuries or a couple millenia to pay off requires a rock solid trust between at least the major participants.

I am planning depending on time to have not only covert versions of the normal bond building actions but also some unique hidden actions. Of course we can also discuss the public but still grey actions such as holding hostages in the medieval sense. This was common and not considered dishonorable compared to the modern conception of hostages.

I’ve talked in an earlier post about the Conspiracy system at a higher level. In a future post, perhaps the next one if fancy strikes, I’ll detail some more low level stuff you can do with your Intelligence Network. This actually doesn’t just concern skullduggery but also your general knowledge about the world. Troops movements, trade, what resources and buildings exist where, and various other stuff. A lot of stuff you could, inappropriate flavor wise, find in the ledger automagically in many games relies on an appropriate application of your intelligence network in Axioms. Additionally a sort of grand strategy version of fog of war is peeled back by expending resources here. You can trade not just secrets but also information that different characters have gathered.