Thursday, February 15, 2024

Proposal: Living Wage Employer

Timed out, 1-1 with 1 DEF. Failed by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 17 Feb 2024 19:23:22 UTC

Add “Gold” to the list of Maerials in the rule Stockpile, with a Defence Factor of 0. In the same rule, after ‘default value of 0’, add ‘except Gold, which has a default value of 10’.

Add the following to the end of the rule Serfs:

At any time, a Vassal can spend 10 Gold to increase their number of Serfs by 1.

If the following appears in the ruleset, remove it:

As a Virtual Action, a Vassal may Assign their Serfs to one or more Tasks, replacing any previous Assignment. If they Assign fewer Serfs than they have, any remaining Serfs are considered to be Assigned to Idle.

If the following appears in the ruleset, remove it:

* For each Task, apply its effects to each Vassal that has Assigned at least one Serf to that Task.

Add the following as a second paragraph to the rule Tasks, after the table of possible Tasks:

At any time, a Vassal may spend n Gold to Assign n Serfs to tasks other than their currently Assigned Task. A Vassal may, at any time but not more than once between each Fortnight action, Order Production, which is a Virtual Action which results in each of their Serfs applying the Effect of their current Task to the Vassal who controls them.

Add the following to the list of tasks:

Cast|For each assigned Serf, spend 2 Ore to gain 1 Gold.

An iteration on Vovoix’ suggestion:directing labour should be a conscious choice, but efficiently allocating your Serfs such that they don’t have to be moved often will reap benefits.

Comments

Desertfrog:

15-02-2024 18:03:50 UTC

I think it might be worth specifying how it’s determined which serfs are assigned; presumably it’s the vassal who says it in the virtual action but it isn’t really explicitly stated

Vovix: he/him

15-02-2024 18:28:21 UTC

Doesn’t the combination of assignment being “at any time” but production being a Virtual Action lead to dynamics of everyone waiting as late as possible to lock in their assignments so they can respond to what everyone else is doing? The Gold cost should limit the amount of back and forth movement, sure, but the timing problem still remains.

Josh: he/they

15-02-2024 18:42:53 UTC

Why would you? We’re not competing for resources and there’s no direct player interaction (and I’d vote against same should there ever be a proposal to make some).

This asusmption that the default strategy is towards last mover advantage seems casually disprovable by looking at past dynasties - the only advantage to hiding your moves is if you think there’s a single best strategy, and the solution to that is to design rules that ensure that there isn’t.

JonathanDark: he/him

15-02-2024 18:59:04 UTC

I guess it’s the copying-homework problem? Although that doesn’t seem like much of a problem to me at first glance. If one player comes up with the “best” allocation of Serfs and the others want to copy that player, will it matter?

Josh: he/they

15-02-2024 19:06:36 UTC

Nope. And if it does you change the rules to make sure it’s less effective in future.

Desertfrog:

16-02-2024 08:01:11 UTC

imperial

JonathanDark: he/him

17-02-2024 00:34:53 UTC

Nobody seems to be against this, so I’m going to tilt the scales with a for

If there’s anyone against, I’ll change my vote to a deferential. I could have started with that, but then it wouldn’t count at all due to having fewer than six Vassals.

Vovix: he/him

17-02-2024 00:44:19 UTC

I’m mildly against it. against

JonathanDark: he/him

17-02-2024 01:26:23 UTC

Fair enough. CoV imperial