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[Eidre]

"Mornay, Lochlan, Craig. Here are the king's terms. Lead this army off field and he will give you each estates in Yorkshire, including hereditary title, from which you will pay him an annual duty-"
- Lord Cheltham, offering terms to the Scottish nobles, Braveheart.

Admittedly, subjects like those below have been touched on in the various posts about the dwavish economy, nobility, and so forth, but I haven't seen this particular idea.  Apologies if I missed this specific idea in the *extensive* (overwhelming?) discussion of feudal economics on this board over the last 6-7 years.

So under the assumption that the dwarven governmental structure is vaguely similar to feudalism (hinted at by the titles), what if the production mandates weren't just the products of the noble's diseased imagination but were imposed from the outside?

Historically, colonies were established to stake a claim to land, gather raw materials, provide a relief valve for excess (malcontent) population, and generally enrich the crown.  Under such assumptions, production mandates would, instead of being made and delivered to a stockpile (or made available for general use), be saved until the dwarven trade delegation showed up and then delivered as the fortress's annual duty to the crown.

Such mandates, instead of being based on the personality of the noble, would be procedurally generated based on the personality of the monarch, the needs of the kingdom in general, and what is most available (especially things that are uniquely available) in the embark location (under the assumption that the colony was initially funded to fulfill some sort of purpose for the dwarven nation as a whole).  Thus, an embark location rich in native gold (especially for a dwarven nation where gold was scarce) might be mandated to produce gold bars, gold goblets, gold furniture, gold coins, etc to be taken back to mountainhome, for the glory of the monarch.  An ocean-front embark might instead be ordered to send barrels of processed fish or sand (glass) materials.  An area with significant soil/clay/sand and fresh water might be mandated to send agricultural products (plants, flour, sugar, syrup, thread).  An area with large open flat pasture land might be compelled to send animal products (meat, leather, milk, cheese, wool, etc).  An area with iron and coal (or volcano) might be ordered to produce weapons and armor for the royal military.  And so forth.

If the required number/amount/quality/material of mandate wasn't available to deliver to the trade delegation before they departed, it would reduce the fortress's favor with the parent civilization, eventually resulting in being considered renegade and spurring officially sanctioned punitive raids by nearby dwarf settlements  ("dwarven ambush") and (ultimately) a military force from mountainhome to bring the colony back under the royal heel ("dwarven siege").  A fortress that survived such treatment would be in a state of revolt and (largely) an independent colony, and would therefore no longer receive caravans from the dwarves until they met with a dwarven diplomat and made peace (probably through paying tribute to the crown to reestablish favor).

Colonies that "kept their distance" and didn't create nobles (and therefore spur the desired levels of tribute) would also slowly lose favor with the crown, especially as their wealth increased, eventually resulting in the same treatment as previous.

As an even more deviant idea...what if the size of the embark location was tied to the level of noble?  Admittedly that would significantly affect the pre-game and site selection process, and it would require significant changes in the code to increase the size of the embark location during play (along with the associated hit to FPS), but it would also provide some (currently non-existant) motivation to acquire and upgrade nobles (as the importance of the fortress increased, the crown would grant them legal access to exploit more of the surrounding lands).  Maybe something like:
- Expedition Leader / Mayor - <5 map tiles (i.e. 2x2, 4x1, etc)
- Baron - <10 map tiles (i.e. 3x3, 4x2, etc)
- Count - <20 map tiles (i.e. 4x4, 5x3, etc)
- Duke - <30 map tiles (i.e. 5x5, 6x4, etc)
- Monarch - <40 map tiles (i.e 6x6, 7x5, etc)
As each nobility upgrade occured, the embark screen would pop back up and the player would be permitted to choose a larger embark rectangle that completely encompassed the one they were already playing within.

None of this would remove the furniture demands of the local nobles themselves; these make perfect sense since such demands are for their personal quarters and personal use.  Nor would it remove the ability to use excess trade gifts to curry favor with the trade delegation and attract the monarch to relocate.

[Manveru Taurënér]

Nice idea overall, one thing I'd change though is having the parent civ siege you only as a last resort in this context. For instance you could have an outside noble show up along with a personal guard to oversee your operations and dishing out further punishment in case of failure. Or if you have the goods and just refused/failed to send it they'd confiscate it and send it off themselves. There are probably a lot of different things that makes sense to have happen before going as far as being sieged and deposed, but I'll leave that for more knowledgeable minds to figure out for now.

One would also have to take into account the surrounding villages etc that's coming in the next release and will be further developed as we move along. In line with what seems to be the goal with these we'd then have the fortress as a hub for moving out goods from the surrounding lands as well, and it'd be the players job to keep the nearby farms/lumber camps/mines etc safe. Training the local militia, procuring armor and weapons for them and sending out patrols would all be necessary to make sure bandits, monsters or enemy raids don't hamper production.

As for the embark size part, I'm not sure how well that'd work. Since the surrounding lands will already be considered part of the hold with the coming release extending the local area of the fortress with further status doesn't make that much sense. Better then to link it with how much of the surrounding area is up for grabs for your own off-site villages and production sites.

[Eidre]

As for the embark size part, I'm not sure how well that'd work. Since the surrounding lands will already be considered part of the hold with the coming release extending the local area of the fortress with further status doesn't make that much sense. Better then to link it with how much of the surrounding area is up for grabs for your own off-site villages and production sites.

This would be functionally much easier to code actually; every time you get your nobility status upgraded, you could get a pop up window (perhaps linked to the civilisation relations) that would allow (require) you to take control of a smaller village nearby (perhaps with some choice involved, perhaps mandatory).  This would confer advantages (fishing village must provide you with a supply of fish in barrels, logging camp with wood, mining camp with ore, quarry with stone, etc), but would also incur the obligation to send troops to help defend (or station a garrison) to protect them when ambushed by goblins, titans, megabeasts, etc. 

It would add some interest to have an increasing stream of mini-caravans showing up from the surrounding villages with goods to pay their taxes to the local liege lord (you).  Imagine the narrative value of looking at your 'c' screen and discovering that the last delivery of taxes from DoomedFishingVillage was two years ago...you send out a squad of troops and they find nothing but charred ruins and dragon footprints...or a village of dwarven slaves ruled by goblins...or a bunch of hostile dwarven villagers who have erected a wooden stockade around the village and refuse to send any more taxes to the oppressive overlord...

Plus, how much easier would it be to devote your whole fortress's population to making your 80 z-level tall orthoclase statue of a zombie yak when all of your other needs (food, booze, clothing, mining) are being handled by the surrounding villages?

[Waparius]

Ideally agriculture would get much harder, to the point that if you want a fortress with a large population you're either building a farm-fort or relying on your hilldwarves. I kinda like the idea of balancing that out with increased demands from your fort's liege for more and more specialty items, so you still risk working your fortress to the bone if you get too good.

Additionally, when the world gets activated I love the idea of possibly having your mountainhome get attacked, and the loyalists-in-residence demand that you send some portion of your militia off to help break the siege.

[Andrew425]

I really like the idea that if you don't pay tribute a bunch of dwarves will arrive at your fortress with sticks and proceed to beat people until their master's orders are finished.

[Eidre]

I really like the idea that if you don't pay tribute a bunch of dwarves will arrive at your fortress with sticks and proceed to beat people until their master's orders are finished.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves!"
This suggests having a separate legal system for laws imposed by the local nobility and enforced by the fortress guard vs. royal laws imposed by the monarch and enforced by outside officials (royal guard?).  Having a group of guardsmen show up and deliver beatings, making arrests and dragging the offending dwarves off the map (for imprisonment at mountainhome), or even the Lord High Hammerer showing up to conduct a public execution would be highly entertaining (especially if the criminal was your Legendary Armorsmith).  And of course you couldn't attack the royal guard without causing a loyalty cascade...

The possibility of having steel armed and armored dwarves attacking your fortress would also raise the bar on military preparations; you couldn't get away with just a bunch of copper or iron serrated disk traps, and the enemies would have armor and weapons to match your own...a siege from Mountainhome should be something to be rightly feared.  For that matter, would dwarven besiegers be TRAPAVOID?  Immigrants seem to instinctively know where the traps are...

[Urist McRas]

There would be a lot of unfortunate accidents. I wouldn't volunteer for that kind of job.

[Dirst]

There would be a lot of unfortunate accidents. I wouldn't volunteer for that kind of job.

I could see that ending very badly for the fortress.

But I'm a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should be shot in the head by a police officer, or if should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning... then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room... and that, I do not forgive.

[Xazo-Tak]

For tribute, I think satisfaction with tribute could be something that lowers very slowly, and is improved by how much in excess of trade acceptance you pay with dwarven caravan trades.
If the Dwarf$ required for trade with a dwarvern caravan is 1,000, dropped to 950 because of your broker's skills, and you're paying 1,100, then the excess of 150 counts as paid tribute.
And any items that the Outpost Liason will be paid well for could have their value stacked on top of that, to make sure you give your civ what it wants.
So, ten $10 rings and a $100 mace boosted to $150 by civ requirements gives you a trade value of $250. If the caravan trade is $200, then that meants your excess is 50, and the mace adds on 150, boosting your tribute to 200.
How much tribute satisfaction decay is affected by fortress condition could depend on the empathy of the dwarf claiming the tribute.
If there's a lot of death or your food stocks are very low, a high empathy ruler would let up on the tribute, perhaps even send food/temporary uncontrollable soldiers your way.
That generousity backed by increased tribute on those who fare well, of course.
Chance of tribute decrease or food/soldier sendings and how significant they are is proportional to empathy.

[Ramaraunt]

One idea is taxation. If the king is especially tyrannical, he could require unrealistically high taxes that leave your fort in a state of poverty. This would work better if the economy system was added back in.

[MDFification]

Agreeing that this should wait until the economy is reimplemented, and tied to that feature in the init.
As far as I'm aware feudal lords often did accept taxation in the form of goods, but the upper levels of the nobility (nobles with multiple vassals like dukes & kings) received their taxes from their vassals (not their own estate) in the form of currency. They also received a form of taxation in terms of levies; a vassal had to fund, train and equip a certain amount of soldiers for his liege to call upon in times of war.

Seeing as your fort is apparently intended to be surrounded by tributary sites (hill dwarves and whatnot) I'd say the player would be the second tier of nobility; the should be receiving goods as duty from surrounding territories, and exporting metal currency as duty to the king. Surrounding vassals do supposedly contribute troops to your army (when going on the aggressive) in the future; some of these and some of the player's military should be able to be summoned by the king, placed under his control and sent off to war.

Relying on currency would simplify things for the player, and lead organically into using currency to pay for other things; hiring mercenaries, paying for the construction of roads/tunnels, or paying tribute to avoid being attacked for example. It'd also just make more sense to not implement taxation until you've implemented the economy that's supposed to support it, so by the time the feature would probably be implemented you'd be using a lot of coins anyway.

Before the player gets to reign over surrounding territories, however, material goods as tribute could easily be implemented, and makes more sense in a fortress's early years when superfluous metal is likely scarce.

[condonzack]

I'm thinking of my fort, where my civ doesn't have pig tails. But me, having breached the caverns, DO. I kind of think that all this comes with the appointment of the baron(ess). At that point your are more then a colony and the whole mix of responsibilities and rewards kicks in. To start with coins are pretty easy to make so having a certain $ worth of coins as taxation would be cool. Of course it would depend on other things too, like how much metal gets smelted. The game already has a mechanic for your civ to prefer certain exports. I imagine it would be integrated into the outpost liaison stuff. Basically a number of options is given (Either make so many pigtail seeds/thread, so many metal crafts, or so much glass windows.) and there is consequenses for failing your quota.

On the reward side, becoming nobility would bring with it the planned hill dwarves. But I think stuff easier to integrate with the game as is would be possible. Like if you are sieged for long enough a band of steel coated murder arrive from the mountain homes!

And when YOU are the mountain home? In comes the taxes!

[Beneviento]

I like the idea of tribute in the form of military support (sending off soldiers when the crown calls), if only for the possible hilarity of a group of soldiers called to go off and fight the goblins for the king walking into... a goblin siege.