Opportunistic Aristocrats and Impositions

Somebody suggested a more reliable mechanism to get out of vicious cycles of Local Tension and the like. I've been thinking about this for some time and decided that the best idea was adding opportunistic aristocrats to exploit and blackmail players in this situation. I'm compassionate, see?

From the next version on, when you are in a dire situation, opportunistic aristocrats will approach you with tempting offers such as lowering the Local Tension, lowering your Weariness or granting you Arkhe depending on how many Merits or Arkhe they have themselves. You will be able to refuse these offers and continue to be free, but if you accept their help, they will be added as opportunists to your correspondence menu along other aristocrats.

These aristocrats will have a slightly greater chance of spying on you than self-seekers. Furthermore, just breaking contact with them won't be as easy, and will cost you an increase of Local Tension and a loss of Merits. The more Merits the aristocrat has, the greater the negative impact of the break-up will be.

These aristocrats will want you to do the dirty work for them in exchange for the resources they have invested on you, so they'll generate impositions over time. These are similar to job offers, invitations and such and will also be listed in the "Current Affairs" screen. They do not expire however, instead increasing Local Tension each by 3 until you complete them. Another mayor difference, of course, is that all the Arkhe or Merits earned doing these tasks will go to the opportunistic aristocrat rather than you. Arkhe and Merits lost on the other hand will still come from you.

Imposition are chosen from the aristocrat's native territory, so you'll have an idea about what to expect. If you end up indebted to an aristocrat from Arrakans' Scum Hole, you'll probably end up forced to compete in all manners of pit fights, while accepting the help of someone from The Free Mines will result in being forced to participate in riots and sabotage against mining corporations. If you are an outcast however, these impositions will be chosen from the territory in which you are currently hiding.

There is however a way out of these situations other than paying the price of simply breaking contact with these aristocrats. Units capable to murder and humiliate aristocrats after stalking/investigating them will now become a lot more useful. You might even want to go ahead and continue attacking and damaging the native territory of the aristocrat so that it will be destroyed along with everyone inside it.


To make dealing with these aristocrats easier, you will now be able to invite them even if you only own a Shelter or Refuge. The imposition system should also be fun to experiment with, so we might see more things done with it in the future too.