It suddenly hit me that I've claimed that the setting was similar to the interwar period but the one single most defining characteristic of such a period was missing, so from now on open war can break up between Influenced and Stalwart mainland territories.
There is a new global belligerence value that can be modified by the player and lobbies controlling portions of the mainland. The player can put forth political proposals, just a little easier to pass than those of becoming an emperor or empress, in order either rise or lower this value using the colony's means. Lobbies ruling portions of the mainland, on the other hand, depending on their belligerence, will push over time to either spark a war or maintain peace though those policies mentioned in the previous post. This global belligerence value can be tracked in the same screen of the values of mainland territories.
A world war will have 2 main effects for now. It will increase Local Tension over time, and it will cause the policies of mainland territories to switch to wartime ones, which will more often than not involve attacks on other territories, increases in Tension and Instability, curling up of undesirable populations and the such.
The game now also tracks the total Strength of the combined territories of each faction to calculate some wartime odds. As you probably know, each of the 5 Stalwart cities start with a Strength of 5, while the Influenced protectorates start at 30, so wise Stalwart players will probably tend to have a bigger interest in keeping peace than Influenced ones.
Sounds interesting, but I was under the impression the Influenced had no official political positions? Rather it was a creeping thing corrupting the states from within, the one beastmen territory being the exception. (Not counting monsters.)Have I misunderstood something?
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, it was probably unfortunate to name them world wars in this post.
DeleteIt will depend on which lobbies are involved, but these wars will usually tend to resemble conflicts such as our contemporary "war on terror", with lobbies more or less violently trying to root out their enemies' ideologies at home or otherwise. A positive global belligerence value will lead to the end of tolerance for each other's subversive activities, if you will.
Not like any of these conflicts will be complete without opportunistic hordes of beastfolk and possibly ogres and monsters strutting into The Steppes, of course.