Vassalage With 5 Metropolises

Xenantaya

The short version of this post is once a server has 5 metropolises, will there be any ability or incentive for nodes to siege or otherwise fight one another?

The long version is that my understanding is that the game will have the following rules (happy to be corrected if any of these are incorrect):
1. Weaker nodes near a stronger node become vassals.
2. A vassal node cannot siege or otherwise attack its parent node or any other vassal of the parent node
3. Nor can a vassal node attack any other node unless its parent node is at war with that other node.
3. When a server has 5 metropolises, every other node will be a vassal to one of those 5 metropolises.

My concern is what happens to node warfare once a server gets to 5 metropolises. Seems like the nodes with the biggest incentive to attack a metropolis will be nearby city nodes, but those nearby city nodes will be vassals to the metropolis and thus cannot attack. Instead, only another metropolis will be able to attack a metropolis. But why would they? Metropolises will be far apart from each other, and Metropolis A likely has little interest in fighting Metropolis B (or C, D, or E).

So when will get to 5 metropolises, what will be the incentives for the metropolises to fight each other?

And if there is no incentive for metropolises to fight each other, then how will other nodes be able overthrow a metropolis since the ones most interested in doing so will be vassals? Is the idea that a city that is a vassal of Metropolis A will need to negotiate or pay Metropolis B to launch a siege on Metropolis A (which puts the city at the mercy of negotiating with one of the other 4 metropolises)? Would a better idea be to allow players who are citizens of cities to engage in (lengthy and arduous) quests that would allow them to rebel and lay siege to their parent metropolis on their own?

xlangatangx

Xenantaya wrote: »

The short version of this post is once a server has 5 metropolises, will there be any ability or incentive for nodes to siege or otherwise fight one another?

Ability yes. Nodes will be able to fight and war. If a sieged node loses, it de-levels, creating an available 'slot' for a new node to become a metro.

Incentive for doing this?

1. Your world has 4 economic metropolises, but you want a scientific node to advance your crafting a bit easier. You sac one of the eco metros to make room for sci metro.
2. Your housing is not as valuable as you want it to be. By advancing to a metro, your property value will increase.
3. A node in a frozen biome has been a metro for 6 months. All content has been mined. You want to see if there will be new content/bosses by leveling a volcanic or desert biome to a metro.
4. You like war / PvP / being an agent of chaos / destroying the hard work of hundreds (thousands?) of people.
5. Guild drama.
6. How about real incentive? Here's a quote from the Man himself (copy pasta from the wiki) The longer a node exists the higher the prize it is to take and some systems with regards to crafting progression and/or rewards and bonuses or the reliquary that we haven't really touched on a lot, those systems are going to be so enticing that from an incentive standpoint it will compel other groups to either potentially break alliances or siege the city in order to take the goods that are potentially in it. So, from an incentive standpoint we have that at play. - Steven

Jahlon

Nodes can have fights against each other via Node Wars, however when it comes to Node Siege those are kicked off by an individual.

You as an individual can join in on Sieges. There are two very specific mechanics at work when it comes to Node Wars (aka Node Relations) and Node Sieges.

Plateau

It think xlangatangx covered most of it. Personally I expect the most motivating reasons for Metros to fight each other will be #6 and #3: Metros will house great treasures that people want to take (I think these incentives will build up over time, btw); and eventually people will just get bored of a Metro and move somewhere else, weakening it's citizenry.

Oh and people just like huge battles sometimes.

Xenantaya

@Jahlon If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that a city that is a vassal to a metropolis cannot declare a Node War on that metropolis. But that citizen players from that vassal city can complete the quests and gather the resources necessary to declare a Node Siege on the parent metropolis, regardless of the fact that they're citizens of the vassal city? If so, that obviously would address my concern.

mcstackerson

Xenantaya wrote: »

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that a city that is a vassal to a metropolis cannot declare a Node War on that metropolis. But that citizen players from that vassal city can complete the quests and gather the resources necessary to declare a Node Siege on the parent metropolis, regardless of the fact that they're citizens of the vassal city? If so, that obviously would address my concern.

Yes, that is our understanding of the current system

Jahlon

Xenantaya wrote: »

@Jahlon If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that a city that is a vassal to a metropolis cannot declare a Node War on that metropolis. But that citizen players from that vassal city can complete the quests and gather the resources necessary to declare a Node Siege on the parent metropolis, regardless of the fact that they're citizens of the vassal city? If so, that obviously would address my concern.

To the best of my knowledge, yes that is the case.