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[Deno]

Hello everyone,

I would like to make a suggestion regarding territorial claims and casus belli.

As I understand, claims on sites that used to belong to you are already a thing. I think it would be interesting to expand this to regions. Giving any nation or nation level entity as well as individual nobles a claim to any region that they have at least one site in. Of course such claims would need to be enforced. This could happen through diplomacy, trying to make other entities agree to not build sites in your region using the same mechanic with which elves ask you to not harm trees. Maybe you could even convince them to hand over existing sites, by negotiation, bribes, threats or blackmail. Or, if diplomacy fails, through war. Such wars would then be limited to destroying or conquering foreign sites in the region and/or pushing out foreign armies from your claimed region.

This brings to my next idea: Casus belli (Latin for “occasion for war”). As things are right now, I think that wars are often way too destructive. Nations often end up being wiped out after losing 1 or 2 wars, or they just lose so many people that they never recover. In order to limit this, and make wars more interesting, I want to suggest the implementation of a system of war goals. Basically, the attacking nation provides a justification or states a goal for their war. And that justification then dictates what the attacker is aiming for, what actions are taken during the war, and under which conditions peace can be negotiated. Using the example of a territorial claim, the fighting would be (mostly but not necessarily entirely) limited to the region in question, as I described above.

A wide variety of casus belli could be added for such a system. Claims to regions, sites, even artifacts. Personal grievances between rulers. Economic or trade conflicts. Religious wars to spread a religion or fight someone over religious grievances for persecution in the past. Raids for slaves and loot. Wars to vassalize a nation or make them pay tribute. There are many possibilities. Using the new intrigue system, it might even be possible to fabricate claims or make a target nation provoke you, so that you can “rightfully defend yourself”. Also attacking without a casus bello should be possible but have consequences for the ruler who gave the order. Both external as well as internal.

[Azerty]

You're right diplomacy (along with public law) needs to be more detailled.

And I would suggest the system planned for Victoria III: a polity would have disagreements with another, and both parties might try to solve said issue, whether by treaties, tributes or, if all esle fails then war. Resolution should depend of how valuable are the prizes to each contestant, the strength, whether collective or individual, and peculiar ethics (for exemple aggressive polities might use war more eagerly than others).

[Deno]

You're right diplomacy (along with public law) needs to be more detailled.

And I would suggest the system planned for Victoria III: a polity would have disagreements with another, and both parties might try to solve said issue, whether by treaties, tributes or, if all esle fails then war. Resolution should depend of how valuable are the prizes to each contestant, the strength, whether collective or individual, and peculiar ethics (for exemple aggressive polities might use war more eagerly than others).

Interesting suggestion. I am planning to write to more posts relating to this, one suggestion on the separation of civilizations and states and another on the internal structure of states. I was planning to use crusader kings as an example, so funny that you mention a game from the same company. Dwarf fortress creates such wonderful large worlds like no other game and I like the idea of fleshing out nations and how the interact both internally and externally.

[Fortressmaker]

This sounds like a good idea for some diplomatic improvements, but this means that the player should have the possibility to create claims on almost any entity and provoking severe wars. 

This means that wars will happen really often due to migration of important historical figures, for example:

A human adventurer from the kingdom of whatever arrives to my fort and decide to spend his live with the mighty dwarves, but he is the prince of that land, so i must have the possibility of conquering the realm and creating a new vassal realm with many sub-vassals and this already smells like an feudalistic s*hit system that will often guide you to rebellions and civil wars that could be added too. But this feudalistic system is hard to understand, and if a new player to dwarf fortress can claim something he will do that IMMEDIATLY, without any questions, and then, when the claimant on title will get the civilization rule ship, they will think that it was just a bug, but it is a rule.

IF YOU START A WAR BECAUSE YOU HAVE AN CLAIM, THERES ALWAYS WILL BE A CLAIMANT WHO WILL GE6T THE LAND IF YOU WIN, AND ITS OKAY IF THE CLAIMANT IS YOUR BARON/COUNT/DUKE/KING BUT, IF ITS AN RANDOM CITIZEN OF YOUR FORTRESS HE WILL GO AWAY FROM YOUR FORTRESS AS SOON AS THE WAR IS WON, CAUSE THE TERRITORY IS NOW A CITIZENS PROPERTY, so i think that if the claimant is a citizen the claimed holding is now a vassal-dependend holding that has the right to change the rulership without you knowing that.


THIS WAS A SURPRISE.

Nakas alod!

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

You're right diplomacy (along with public law) needs to be more detailled.

And I would suggest the system planned for Victoria III: a polity would have disagreements with another, and both parties might try to solve said issue, whether by treaties, tributes or, if all esle fails then war. Resolution should depend of how valuable are the prizes to each contestant, the strength, whether collective or individual, and peculiar ethics (for exemple aggressive polities might use war more eagerly than others).

Interesting suggestion. I am planning to write to more posts relating to this, one suggestion on the separation of civilizations and states and another on the internal structure of states. I was planning to use crusader kings as an example, so funny that you mention a game from the same company. Dwarf fortress creates such wonderful large worlds like no other game and I like the idea of fleshing out nations and how the interact both internally and externally.

I think the inheritance/marriage system from Crusader Kings would fit SO WELL in DF.

All sorts of crazyness could result from you marrying your nobles to nobles from other sites/civs and them then inheriting stuff. And you could have all the stuff with the second in line to inherit the crown wanting to assasinate the first in line in order to be king or baron or whatever.

[Bjorn]

This is a great idea, especially the CKII and Vicky III references. I also think there should be the possibility of groups of settlements (ideally in the same region) to rebel against their parent civ and form their own state (under the same culture as their parent civ or a different one depending on the population) and even being able to take over the parent civ and either end that civ or assume its name and history as its own. To do so you could divide civil war into two phases. First being Civil War and the second being Secession War. In a Civil War, the one who wins becomes the leader but there is no break in continuity. The histories of both entities are merged in the end of the war and the entity that won becomes the new civ (or retains its contested position). But from the get go (or if a civil war takes too long) the entity could shift to a Secession war, and in such a war the goal then becomes to become an independent state separated from the original entity. If the rebel entity wins it becomes its own state. If it loses, it is destroyed. After a successful Secession War, the new entity should have a casus belli on the rest of their parent civ for a while, but if it actually manages to take over the entire civ it does not then become said civ but retains its separate identity, the parent civ then just dies off.

This is an interesting thing to do because it will make it so that after 1500 years of history, not all civs that are around are from year 1 (most of them actually probably won't be!), Making old civs actually something special, akin to China, Egypt or Iran.

Civil Wars could be caused by many different situations. It could happen because of a claiment (a prince claiming the throne), it could happen because of unfair taxes levied from a specific region or because of general or regional corruption causing life to be unbearable or giving a villain the opportunity to strike and take over in a coup, it could be because the king is horrible in general and a rando manages to get enough of a following to contest him, be him a noble or a commoner. Secession wars would usually either happen because a civil war was taking too long and the rebels decide to cut their loses or it could happen because of specific grievances of a specific region, either because of unfair taxes or because of unattended corruption in the area making either life unbearable to an honest population or become an opportunity for a villain to assert direct rule in the area he corrupted (here the villains update can be employed).

[Deno]

This is a great idea, especially the CKII and Vicky III references. I also think there should be the possibility of groups of settlements (ideally in the same region) to rebel against their parent civ and form their own state (under the same culture as their parent civ or a different one depending on the population) and even being able to take over the parent civ and either end that civ or assume its name and history as its own. To do so you could divide civil war into two phases. First being Civil War and the second being Secession War. In a Civil War, the one who wins becomes the leader but there is no break in continuity. The histories of both entities are merged in the end of the war and the entity that won becomes the new civ (or retains its contested position). But from the get go (or if a civil war takes too long) the entity could shift to a Secession war, and in such a war the goal then becomes to become an independent state separated from the original entity. If the rebel entity wins it becomes its own state. If it loses, it is destroyed. After a successful Secession War, the new entity should have a casus belli on the rest of their parent civ for a while, but if it actually manages to take over the entire civ it does not then become said civ but retains its separate identity, the parent civ then just dies off.

This is an interesting thing to do because it will make it so that after 1500 years of history, not all civs that are around are from year 1 (most of them actually probably won't be!), Making old civs actually something special, akin to China, Egypt or Iran.

Civil Wars could be caused by many different situations. It could happen because of a claiment (a prince claiming the throne), it could happen because of unfair taxes levied from a specific region or because of general or regional corruption causing life to be unbearable or giving a villain the opportunity to strike and take over in a coup, it could be because the king is horrible in general and a rando manages to get enough of a following to contest him, be him a noble or a commoner. Secession wars would usually either happen because a civil war was taking too long and the rebels decide to cut their loses or it could happen because of specific grievances of a specific region, either because of unfair taxes or because of unattended corruption in the area making either life unbearable to an honest population or become an opportunity for a villain to assert direct rule in the area he corrupted (here the villains update can be employed).

Excellent idea, I was thinking of something similar and was planing to make a seperate thread for my ideas regarding nations and governments. My idea included splitting every culture/civilization into multiple states from the very beginning, like ancient greece and creating a more dynamic system of ever changing forms of government, nations splitting, uniting and emerging and stuff like that. If I find the time I will write a more elaborate thread on that.

[Azerty]

This is a great idea, especially the CKII and Vicky III references. I also think there should be the possibility of groups of settlements (ideally in the same region) to rebel against their parent civ and form their own state (under the same culture as their parent civ or a different one depending on the population) and even being able to take over the parent civ and either end that civ or assume its name and history as its own. To do so you could divide civil war into two phases. First being Civil War and the second being Secession War. In a Civil War, the one who wins becomes the leader but there is no break in continuity. The histories of both entities are merged in the end of the war and the entity that won becomes the new civ (or retains its contested position). But from the get go (or if a civil war takes too long) the entity could shift to a Secession war, and in such a war the goal then becomes to become an independent state separated from the original entity. If the rebel entity wins it becomes its own state. If it loses, it is destroyed. After a successful Secession War, the new entity should have a casus belli on the rest of their parent civ for a while, but if it actually manages to take over the entire civ it does not then become said civ but retains its separate identity, the parent civ then just dies off.

This is an interesting thing to do because it will make it so that after 1500 years of history, not all civs that are around are from year 1 (most of them actually probably won't be!), Making old civs actually something special, akin to China, Egypt or Iran.

Civil Wars could be caused by many different situations. It could happen because of a claiment (a prince claiming the throne), it could happen because of unfair taxes levied from a specific region or because of general or regional corruption causing life to be unbearable or giving a villain the opportunity to strike and take over in a coup, it could be because the king is horrible in general and a rando manages to get enough of a following to contest him, be him a noble or a commoner. Secession wars would usually either happen because a civil war was taking too long and the rebels decide to cut their loses or it could happen because of specific grievances of a specific region, either because of unfair taxes or because of unattended corruption in the area making either life unbearable to an honest population or become an opportunity for a villain to assert direct rule in the area he corrupted (here the villains update can be employed).

Excellent idea, I was thinking of something similar and was planing to make a seperate thread for my ideas regarding nations and governments. My idea included splitting every culture/civilization into multiple states from the very beginning, like ancient greece and creating a more dynamic system of ever changing forms of government, nations splitting, uniting and emerging and stuff like that. If I find the time I will write a more elaborate thread on that.

Yeah, pubic law is a very complex subject to write about, and I'm doing so since three years.

[Bumber]

Yeah, pubic law is a very complex subject to write about, and I'm doing so since three years.

What kind of law?