Factions

## Introduction

Leading a faction does not entail leading a country. Factions are any group or organization from a criminal syndicate to a kingdom. Factions that include government begin when a player character controls a city or the majority of a city through its economy or its military. Factions that are not governments are criminal organizations (other than Syndicate government types), guilds, adventurer parties, companies (economic types) or mercenary companies.

Government factions have the added benefit of being able to regularly recruit and make use of soldiers as well as control territories. Their typical drawbacks include the requirement to pay upkeep to maintain buildings in their territory (such as a barracks) and the need to keep their citizens happy. Factions that are not governments do not have this requirement but may find themselves regularly running into supply issues without a steady base of operations.

Factions are not required to implement wars against one another though citizens (mostly due to spy network interference or due to demand for specific resources) may potentially instigate wars on their own or call for war (reducing citizen happiness if their demands are not met). Additionally, citizens may require access to specific resources that can be accomplished via trading routes or negotiations with other empires. If the basic necessities of civilization are not met (food, iron, fuel) citizens may still rebel and attempt to overthrow their governments even if otherwise they would normally be extremely happy.

## Governments

 Monarchy
 Oligarchy
 Republic
 Syndicate
 Theocracy

## What can a government do?

A government can (mechanically speaking) benefit from any of its buildings that it owns. Ownership can be collective (multiple player characters owning buildings together), individual (a single player owning the buildings) or any other combination of ownership. Governments can take actions that are not normally available to individual players and likewise have these actions taken against them.

 Open Borders
 Peace Treaty
 Taxation/Tithes
 Trade Agreement

 War

## Casus Belli

A casus belli is easiest described as a 'reason for war'. Citizens, regardless of affiliation, generally dislike war. As such, regardless of who or what their nation is fighting, they will inevitably grow tired of the war and unrest will begin to spread. Some casus belli have immediate unrest gains while others can even potentially reduce overall war weariness.

 Crusade

Additionally, the invading empire may spend 25,000gp to declare a defending city as holy lands. After the war is over, if the invasion was a success, any cities designated as such are reclaimed as well.
 Impose Ideology

At the end of the war, all subjugated towns are made into a new empire. If all towns of the defending empire were subjugated, the defending empire ceases to exist.
 Rebellion
 Subjugation

## Citizen Happiness

Citizen happiness is directly affected by what buildings are available in their town. Happiness, unless modified by government, edict or law, is capped at 10 and has a minimum of -10. Largely, citizen happiness is inconsequential to the daily running of a city. However, at a low enough happiness level (war weariness also affects happiness) citizens can begin striking, sabotaging or even open rebellion. Sometimes citizens will begin creating their own spy networks to assist the other side as well.

There are a number of resources that citizens need to remain happy; food, access to iron and coal (to build homes, heat homes, not starve to death). When any of these resources are missing, a city's happiness is immediately reduced to -10. If these resources stay unavailable for more than a month, the citizens will begin to revolt and the army will almost certainly disband.

Arenas, bakeries, brothels, taverns, temples and wineries all directly affect citizen happiness in a positive way. Having one available in a city increases its happiness by 1. There is no benefit to having excess happiness save that it is harder to push your citizens into rebellion.

## Troops, Fleets, Sieges and Heroes

Troops in regards to factions are not counted as individuals. Armies are many troops and moving those troops individually on a battlefield is both unwieldy and also impractical for players. Instead, units are grouped into companies which represent a number of troops that are banded together in order to remain effective on the battlefield.

Companies have a maximum size that they can be which is affected primarily by government type and laws passed by the government. The base company size is 100 units. When a company has reached 100 units (unless of course the maximum capacity was raised) it cannot hold any additional units. Certain heroic units can also increase the size of a single company that they are attached to though these particular units will be exceptionally rare. Infantry, cavalry and similar units come in companies however siege weapons and boats only come as individual units due to their cost and effectiveness.

Companies that are not in garrisons must be accompanied by a hero unit. Hero units affect the size, morale, damage, health and sometimes even the movement speed of a company. A hero unit can accompany multiple companies at a time and is not limited to leading a single company. Multiple heroes can work together leading a group of companies. A single hero may lead no more than five companies.

Fleets do not require heroes to lead them. Boats and siege weapons both are considered individual units that are not formed into companies. Heroes may still be attached to them, and some heroes will be able to affect these units. Siege weapons do not count as a company for the hero to lead but a hero can have no more than five siege weapons in their group.

## Happiness

Citizens have a base happiness of 1 in every city once the town hall building is established. Some resources will affect citizen happiness as well as some buildings. There is no reward for excess happiness of citizens aside from the lack of rebellion from them. These resources are listed elsewhere on this wiki (page link needed).

The lowest citizen happiness can go is -10. At -10, a city no longer functions (all employees, even those not in the employ of the state, refuse to work while the city is in this condition), laws are rendered moot, and rebellions occur frequently. If the citizens manage to capture the town hall, they will depose their leader (and kill them if they are capable) and a new leader will be positioned from another faction.

If citizens are missing the basic resources required to run a town, the citizen happiness is automatically set to -10 regardless of any happiness related buildings or resources. These resources include iron, farms, fuel and lumber. Resources can be shipped to towns provided the resources have access to a road that can reach the other town or a harbor in both towns. A route is all that is necessary to establish that the town has access to these resources and specifics of how many pounds needs not be stated. A single resource can only supply two towns, however, thus expansion is necessary for many empires. For example, an iron resource cannot be shared across six towns and instead can only supply two.

If citizens have access to other resources as well as the basic ones, their happiness is improved. For these resources to apply, there must be a building that harvests them. Such resources include but are not limited to fish, whales, wild game, gemstones, gold, silver and similar resources. Unlike basic resources, these resources cannot be shared between towns to improve happiness at all.

## Town Size

A city cannot grow beyond a total of 10 buildings without a town hall. This includes every type of building within the city. Outposts count towards a city's build count and are applied to the city that is closest to them as well as any buildings built in the outpost's tile. In order for laws to affect a town it must have a town hall which can be found on the construction guide. The town hall does not contribute to the first ten buildings of the town (meaning it can be built even if a town already has ten buildings).

Additionally, a farm is required for every five buildings in a town. If the town has access to the fertile ground resource, the farm can provide for ten buildings instead of five. If a harbor has access to a fish or whale tile, it counts as a farm for the purpose of providing support for buildings. For a town to proceed beyond thirty buildings, a castle is required. Beyond that, no town may exceed a total of fifty buildings.