Possible? Yea. So good luck.

The alliance of independent villages etc. prob won't happen as the game will probably recognize it as the birth of a new kingdom...

Don't you mean "Than" instead of then ;>

I think it would be hard, near impossible if the kings talk together. People are greedy beings, and since every land will belong under a kingdom they'll try to get the most out of it. There are some exceptions to this.

1. If you can find somewhere dangerous and isolated, almost hidden and make a city there then yes, especially if the count didn't know of you, then you could definitely be somewhat independent in practice, though not on paper.

2. If you could find a very isolated position, and easily dependable, which have enough land for you to set up a county seat (and become your own count) and then just continue to not pay taxes to the duke, then you could again in practice be independent.

Those are the only 2 ways I see it working, unless of course you have a county in between two kingdoms and you're just so charismatic that they'll let you be an independent city state, maybe you flushed out some backroom deals with them, but people don't give up land easily, especially if you're starting under them. But that, I imagine, would be very hard to do, near impossible even, but you can always try I guess :>

Don't know if the game mechanics will allow it, since every piece of land will always belong under a kingdom, so if you were to yourself become a small kingdom then maybe it would work? but I think there's a required amount of land needed to rebel and go independent :P

Hum, I hope not. If such an alliance where to exist I wouldn't actually want to govern those other villages nor would I want them to govern me.

Technically what you are thinking of is possible. The kingdoms will span the entirety of the known world, so there aren't any true neutral zones so to speak. But, since the kingdoms are so large, they will be hard pressed to monitor and maintain control over every square inch of it. So you could in-fact build a town or city within a kingdom's border and proclaim yourself king of that city. Of course, there also isn't anything stopping people from attacking you, or the kingdom trying to assert itself upon you.

As for building on the border between two kingdoms, I imagine it would work the same. The only difference would be that you would be considered a divided city. Which is a city that is built on the border of two or more countries and essentially is forced to govern itself as an independent nation while also adhering to laws of all countries it inhabits.

Divided cities are absolute nightmares to countries because they essentially are a neutral zone while at the same time they act as footholds. Eventually someone decides that they can't stand having a divided city on their border anymore and a war is fought over who has control over it. And when wars break out between the countries that the city inhabits, the city is usually the first one attacked, since it is generally the weakest due to it being unable to garrison its own armies or build proper defenses. (If you want an example of what a divided city is like, the most famous one that is still around to this day would be Jarusalem)

I think at best, we might be able to see Duchies become independent Kingdoms of their own. Any smaller than that though and they likely just get bullied by others soon after they win their independence.

Even though this isn't exactly what you mentioned, I think is worth noting that the Kingdom of Al-Khezam on Selene is a duchy that seceded from the Kingdom of Nirath.

It is possible, but it would require a lot of diplomacy to keep the bigger kingdoms from taking over. Even remote lands won't be remote forever, and so eventually all those independent cities might unity in a sort of federation to protect their way of life.

That being said, I would love to be a part of something like this. Explore the world. Find an extraordinary unclaimed place and begin a new nation. Perhaps, depending on the land and distance, there would be enough time to grow an army and defend it against invaders. It would be well worth spending a life trying :)

First a few points to clarify, every part of the starting map is owned by one of the Kingdoms and with each having many Duties and Counties, you may not be as isolated as you think. Also I feel towns and villages will be some distance from one another so merging two of them means that both towns or villages need to expand greatly and will not remain small towns and villages anymore.

That being said I am sure there will be certain areas that might not be that accessible such as islands or mountainous areas at the start of the game, and expanding to oversea lands which might be claimed by a starting kingdom but will be hard to access (even though will probably be owned by a npc kingdom of the area). So I am sure there will be places that the Counts just will find more trouble than they are worth to gather taxes from, however as they grow their rewards may make them more taxable, so they may start to put up with the hassles. Same goes for the towns and villages that are secret or unknown to the Count, when they get larger it will be harder to keep them under wraps but if played right I feel they are achievable.

Really depends how the NPCs treat you. Players will naturally want your taxes if you are under their land/control. So even if you find a spot not near any player, well you still have some NPC count ruling over you. Maybe you could find a spot really hard to get to. I'm thinking the Hrothi would be good for this, living inside a mountain and all. As others have said, I could picture a group of counts/dukes doing this. Way harder for a mayor to pull it off.

If anything it be way easier if you built the town from nothing with a group of mates. That way no one would know about it, for awhile at least.

The Venice-Singapore concept is very viable, and probably going to happen.

Not even because the empires can't take it, but because it's more profitable not to attack it to begin with. That is, of course, assuming it becomes a trade empire like Venice or Singapore.

Posted By Gunnlang at 02:29 AM - Wed Oct 18 2017

Really depends how the NPCs treat you. Players will naturally want your taxes if you are under their land/control. So even if you find a spot not near any player, well you still have some NPC count ruling over you. Maybe you could find a spot really hard to get to. I'm thinking the Hrothi would be good for this, living inside a mountain and all. As others have said, I could picture a group of counts/dukes doing this. Way harder for a mayor to pull it off.

If anything it be way easier if you built the town from nothing with a group of mates. That way no one would know about it, for awhile at least.

Yeah, that was kind of what I had in mind. Starting out above ground but in a mountain pass or some such where a river starts. Buying wood from a nearby Brudvir village for rafts to take things down the river and some meat to keep people alive till trade gets going. Mine stone in the mountain to build buildings and to export down stream for revenue by selling it and the wood in the rafts to some bigger cities down on the plains. Avoding building roads and instead just focusing on trade on the river. Building fortifications. In winter when the river freezes the village would be isolated and when food starts to run out some brudvir hunters can go out and hunt the forest for supplies during late winter. With time a tunnel to the other side of the mountain might be built allowing a trade route there between the kingdom on the same side of the mountain as the village and the kingdom on the other side if there is one. With time some tunnels could be expanded to other kingdoms allowing (relatively) safe land based trade routes to most kindgoms.

(I hope they do allow the contract logic to allow us to buy land below the surface without buying the land on the surface too even though the default behaviour is clearly that you own the land as far down as you can go when you buy a parcel of land)

Posted By Scheneighnay at 02:32 AM - Wed Oct 18 2017

The Venice-Singapore concept is very viable, and probably going to happen.

Not even because the empires can't take it, but because it's more profitable not to attack it to begin with. That is, of course, assuming it becomes a trade empire like Venice or Singapore.

I don't see how it's more profitable not to attack it to begin with, even if it's a trade empire. I mean Venice was almost in constant conflict with different kingdoms (the Ottoman-Venetian wars lasted from 1396-1718) with several other wars.

It's not more profitable for a kingdom to have a small city soak up all the traders and gold without getting any bite of that cake, it's much more profitable for the kingdom to take over that place and then have all that income go directly to the treasury.

It's also going to be very hard for the city to become a trade empire, because why would the kingdoms around it build roads through their own counties/land which would lead to the city state? There's no profit for them, they would much rather try to make one of their own cities a trade empire. The other thing is that the city state is most likely not in a favorable position seen through the eyes of the kingdoms, else they would most likely be very quick to try and secure that position for themselves (if it was an intersection between a lot of traffic and such.)

The only "viable" reason I can think of is if the city state manages to be placed between 3-4 kingdoms and then builds up an alliance with all 4, then 1 king can't go in and take it unless he wants to war all 4 (though even this would be very hard to do unless the city states give the kingdoms something in return.) But it's most likely still going to be a city state in constant conflict, with the kings trying to support a ruler that will bring the city state back under their kingdom etc. :P

I mean it's doable, but it's not going to be easy, and there's a big chance it's not going to be very profitable either in terms of trade (though at least you won't need to pay taxes to your count/duke/king.)

Posted By Liva at 1:28 PM - Wed Oct 18 2017

Posted By Scheneighnay at 02:32 AM - Wed Oct 18 2017

The Venice-Singapore concept is very viable, and probably going to happen.

Not even because the empires can't take it, but because it's more profitable not to attack it to begin with. That is, of course, assuming it becomes a trade empire like Venice or Singapore.

I don't see how it's more profitable not to attack it to begin with, even if it's a trade empire. I mean Venice was almost in constant conflict with different kingdoms (the Ottoman-Venetian wars lasted from 1396-1718) with several other wars.

It's not more profitable for a kingdom to have a small city soak up all the traders and gold without getting any bite of that cake, it's much more profitable for the kingdom to take over that place and then have all that income go directly to the treasury.

It's also going to be very hard for the city to become a trade empire, because why would the kingdoms around it build roads through their own counties/land which would lead to the city state? There's no profit for them, they would much rather try to make one of their own cities a trade empire. The other thing is that the city state is most likely not in a favorable position seen through the eyes of the kingdoms, else they would most likely be very quick to try and secure that position for themselves (if it was an intersection between a lot of traffic and such.)

The only "viable" reason I can think of is if the city state manages to be placed between 3-4 kingdoms and then builds up an alliance with all 4, then 1 king can't go in and take it unless he wants to war all 4 (though even this would be very hard to do unless the city states give the kingdoms something in return.) But it's most likely still going to be a city state in constant conflict, with the kings trying to support a ruler that will bring the city state back under their kingdom etc. :P

I mean it's doable, but it's not going to be easy, and there's a big chance it's not going to be very profitable either in terms of trade (though at least you won't need to pay taxes to your count/duke/king.)

Remember that attacking that city would harm the trade with them, harming your own kingdoms economic activity involving them as well. You'd lose access to anything you'd depend on that you'd only get through them, and you'd lose any income you'd get from selling things too them. It's kind of like the situation with Taiwan and China right now. China wants Tainwan, but actually attacking Taiwan would risk destroying exactly what makes Taiwan valuable in the first place. Trying to absorbe Taiwan through diplomacy is a much more attractive idea to them for obvious reasons even if there might be drawbacks to that too. The same applies to a whole host of other smaller nations. Sure the Ottomans where in war with Venice, but not really to take the city itself, but rather to get control over other areas that Venice held control over. Something they could do without actually harming the economy too much.

There is no such thing as a remote area where collecting taxes will be too difficult and thus you'd be left alone. Every region of the empire has it's own bureaucrats and people in charge who answer to the Monarch. You may think your village, town or little bunch of villages are far out in the wilderness but it isn't, even if other players weren't in charge there you'll still be under NPC Counts who Answer to NPC Dukes who answer to the King/Queen and they will do their job, they'll come and collect your taxes, they'll enforce laws, they'll have baronies and troops and everything else just as another player would. You're going to be in a Kingdom and that Kingdom will unlikely allow you to secede in any way and you'll no doubt be expected to pay up like everybody else or the order will be sent down the line to the Dukes and Counts and Barons and soldiers whether real life players or NPC Characters to deal with the rogue element in the Kingdom i.e. you.

Posted By SoulSpark at 3:02 PM - Wed Oct 18 2017

There is no such thing as a remote area where collecting taxes will be too difficult and thus you'd be left alone. Every region of the empire has it's own bureaucrats and people in charge who answer to the Monarch. You may think your village, town or little bunch of villages are far out in the wilderness but it isn't, even if other players weren't in charge there you'll still be under NPC Counts who Answer to NPC Dukes who answer to the King/Queen and they will do their job, they'll come and collect your taxes, they'll enforce laws, they'll have baronies and troops and everything else just as another player would. You're going to be in a Kingdom and that Kingdom will unlikely allow you to secede in any way and you'll no doubt be expected to pay up like everybody else or the order will be sent down the line to the Dukes and Counts and Barons and soldiers whether real life players or NPC Characters to deal with the rogue element in the Kingdom i.e. you.

Well, I'll wish them good luck then. Sooner or later they'll realize that the troops they're sending of costs more then they'd ever be able to drive in as taxes, especially after factoring in the costs of actually transporting things to and from the village, both the tax money and the supplies of said troops. Gurilla war is a thing after all.

It's easier to just tax the people they do controll a bit more to meet the demands of their monarch.