cool infographic. We definitely need more of those, aspecially seeing how our rules become more and more complicated.
Some notes:
1. creating your own title does not move your influence to shared pool. It just freezes part of your influence into a title, which you can give to someone else, use to qualify for something, pass to your offspring.
2. When government forces individual to do stuff - individual also receives influence from the pool (1/2 of value)
3. There are some ways for government to act even with zero-negative pool: passing a law only takes personal influence to accomplish, so as long as the laws are not tyranical(not removing someone's freedoms) - government can still act(in more subtle ways).
Also, in regards to titles, you say the government gets to set the rules for title requirements it provides. What happens if someone is temporarily unable to fulfill those obligations. What if they are unable for an extended period of time? If I make a title using my own influence (no government) then does the title lose influence if I add requirements or is it still government decided (So for instance, head of house X. Obviously you have to be part of that family, making the title harder to take. Does it cost me influence to add that requirement)?
A bit of misconception here regarding the initial idea (not that we cannot change the idea to your vision though. everything is up for a discussion.)
Few points regarding original plan:
It should work more or less like in the real life: If there is some Ebenezer X, head of house X - it earns little awe in the souls of those who here about him. "Head of house X" is not so much a title as a situation in which Ebenezer X found himself. Ebenezer X, CEO of X Industries, however, makes much more sense and awe, but obviously this "CEO of X Industries" title can be usurped.
Titles are gateways to actions/abilities/privileges. and you can tie those privileges/abilities/action to titles. some are naturally bound(you need to be a military captain to command a squad), others need describing(you need to be "Miniter of Finance" to mandate additional minting).
Titles can be usurped regardless of the ideas put behind them. Like King of England. You kind of need to be from around England to qualify(or at least be somehow related to the previous kings), but even if you are a norman duke - you can usurp it regardless, as long as you have enough goonies with you.
We do not need an awful lot of titles around until we have an awful lot of laws and traditions around. Most titles will actually be used to qualify for governmental freebies(as title-influence qualifications are one of the most efficient ways government can control who gets the stimuli) and as an additional currency for political intrigue (as the only way to pass influence directly from one person to another).
Sooner or later government will start conserving shared influence for real emergencies, thus indirect control will become much more important. For example government wishes to perform a large-scale stone construction in the future. So it can mandate certain miner to mine 10k boulders and certain mason to cut 10k boulders into 40k blocks, which will taake a ton of influence and very pissed miner and mason. Not very good.
Government could instead mandate minting a ton of gold coins and try to pay with those coins to the miner and mason. That would most likely result in minting even more coins as prices would rise with the inflation. Not good either.
If, on the other hand, government would start by introducing a taxation plan and then allowing for tax exemption for freemasons(5 influence title, who is required to make at least 100 blocks per year). This would fill coffers with taxation money, train masons, deflate stone block prices, increase stone block stockpiles. All at the same time, with only unpopular law - taxation.
Why is title important here? Because it is a long-term investment. if one have created a title that requires to make blocks - one will make blocks for some time, instead of only when he is low on cash to pay taxes.
sure, this example is far-fetched for our game, but you get the idea.Title obligations(stuff one is expected to do while holding a title) though is an important part of the game. If a title has certain mandatory rules - there can be consequences. Or not. Traditions framework allows us to set pretty heavy fines for ignoring one's duties (up to -3 influence per period). Also particularly furious government can issue criminal laws forbidding posession of a title one do not fulfil service requirements for over certain period of time (who needs a broker who do not trade? who need a captain who do not fight?).
So in conclusion: creating a title "head of house X" is ok, but you may end up with a foreign head if some influential conman makes everyone believe he is actually a head of house X
Can I add influence to a title already made and upgrade it?
I personally do not see any problems with that, as long as mandatory functions are not changed. I think it can be discussed and added to the initial rules. Any thoughts?
I'm assuming the benefit of a title over wealth is that a title has to be taken in one piece while wealth can be broken up over time?
Titles are not exactly comparable vs. wealth. Title is a popular recognition of certain social role you perform, as opposed to wealth that you just have.