Field of Glory: Kingdoms is all about cooperation and conflict between the various nations, factions and characters. This often involves warfare, but there’s a lot more to it.
Warfare is an important means by which nations interact, the era itself being violent and often ruthless. However, we wanted to include different ways of interacting with your neighbours and to interfere in their realms. Thus, you can give gifts to the Peers of a neighbouring kingdom to either improve their loyalty to their sovereign, or to encourage them to secede. You can also mediate between rivals to encourage peace, or incite tensions to encourage warfare. There is plenty of room for enormous manipulations, including rebellions, heresies, assassinations, monetary or mercenary gifts, and many other things.
Rebellions and revolts are another important aspect of the game. An ill-treated population could form a nation, or an important character could revolt. There is no guaranteed recipe to always avoid them, but you can minimize the risks or their scope. For example, by not giving command of a powerful army to an unreliable character or by giving some gifts to a governor with fragile loyalty. In the worst-case scenario, a trial for corruption or witchcraft will be possible against a Peer, or acquiring bodyguards if you know someone wants to attempt on your life.
We have some detailed and varied mechanics around diplomacy and court intrigue. Relationships between nations depend greatly on your territorial claims and religion. It will indeed be difficult (but not impossible) for a Taifa of Spain to befriend the Christian Kingdoms. Court intrigues primarily depend on the loyalty of the characters around the sovereign, but they will not all be known unless you have a spy network. The game also offers several multiple-choice decisions to multiply interactions with your vassals.
The abilities and personalities of individual characters play a huge role in diplomatic relations and the day to day running of the realm. The game keeps things simple and uses three main stats for characters: Administration, Military, and Piety. This allows players to easily identify the strengths or weaknesses of the character and what they can do if they become disloyal. In addition, all have between one and two particular skills that add a great diversity of possible actions. For example, a disloyal character with good military skills and the Deep Pocket skill will likely keep his entire army with him if he betrays you, while recruiting an additional mercenary company. This character is someone you will definitely want to ensure does not betray you with good troops.
As a ruler, your family also plays a key part in your control of politics, diplomacy and military activity. The dynastic game in Kingdoms is centred on the sovereign and his close family, but it is possible to arrange royal marriages by placing your daughters in neighbouring countries. This can be a double-edged sword if your sovereign dies first while the Authority of your kingdom is weak. Beyond that, the game does not aim to track your family lineage over several generations and across Europe, unlike a certain other famous game. In Kingdoms, the dynastic game serves the main gameplay focused on developing your nation.
There are many other factors and mechanics to consider too, all of which influence interactions between characters and factions. Religion and (to a lesser extent) culture creates great lines of fracture and tension. Commercial interests can also play a role, such as the Italian maritime republics placing trading posts that compete with each other. We even have historical traits, like the famous Auld Alliance between Scotland and France against the evil English. The key to a good mechanism is that it remains fun but still strongly historical – and this has formed the key to our design approach. If there is a choice to be made, we’ve prioritised fun, but always keep an eye on history. The game is clearly not a historical simulation, but it’s not just a game with a historical veneer. Through tester feedback over 18 months, we believe we have found the right balance between historicity and gameplay across hundreds of concepts and ideas. The players will, of course, judge!
Piety is always an interesting character trait for medieval games, in that there both clearly were variations in piety, but also variations in what that meant to different cultures (even within a religion), and extents to which religion really permeated almost everyone’s thinking as a more core part of life.
Were there particular factors you looked at in how sharp a divide you made religion in this game? Are there ways or factions that can have an easier job of reaching across religious boundaries?
We indeed consulted quite a few books and articles before deciding what to do with religion. We tried to place it in the role it had, without tension, because we know it’s a sensitive subject. The nations and nobles in our game will react differently to religions and populations of different religions through several attributes, such as tolerant, zealous, warrior of the faith, etc., which gives different behaviors and an approach that we hope is appropriate to different situations. We also decided to have the First Crusade systematically, even if the start date can vary, and we offer an option to reduce its impact if you don’t want it to disrupt everything.
Very exciting insights! Looking forward to playing the game 😊 I was intrigued by the possible trials for corruption or witchcraft that you mention. I was wondering how you integrated historical insights into how those take place. Just curious 😊 Thanks!
These are indeed important decisions that can allow you to get rid of a troublesome noble. Or perhaps you want to dispossess the noble and recover his fortune. As you can see, religion doesn’t come out very well, but let’s not fool ourselves; it was indeed an instrument of power and pressure. This is done through statistical comparisons of the abilities of the noble and the government conducting the trial, and nothing is guaranteed.
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