I still remain in favor of this legislation. Newer players may not even be ready to be a count under a liege, let alone an independent realm. These standards are encouraging vassals to fill up their liege's lands so we don't have giant realms with little settlements (i.e. the inactive kingdoms), and if they truly want to become independent, they will have to show they are truly dedicated to it and not wanting a title in the heat of a moment.

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Hasan 'Darius V' Stark

Protector of the Vahnic Exploration Company
Ilkhan of Greater Karastan-Laghima

Having gone through the entire process of starting under a liege, going independent, and rising from serf to Duke, I can say that there already exist plenty of things that discourage independence. First, you lose all rights to what you have built. Second, you revert back to the rank of Vassal and must petition the Council to claim land. Finally, every time you want to ascend in rank, you have to wait while people vote for you. Going independent is not easy, and I don't think it should be. However, putting yet another barrier in the way of it doesn't make sense to me because it will make it hard for people who very much want to go independent and may be better off independent to do so due to time commitment and having to leave behind such a massive amount of work to start over.

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Ulrik Gunnarson
Duke of the Gathered Races of Hermertia Homeland (GRHH)
The Chairman of the GRHH Co.

When was that true? It's certainly not the case now.




This isn't about rank ascension. It's about making sure vassals stay under their liege.



If they don't have the time and can't be that active, they're better off contributing to one of the massive kingdoms instead of a very small realm.

In addition, this legislation would necessitate better activity laws, as proposed here: http://hermertia.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=894

I wouldn't want to see this Vassal Retention law passed under our current method of determining who needs to vote on something. That would indeed be FAR too burdensome.

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Ealdorman Cerdic Beoden Accynnafon of Östlond
Runner Up of the Glas Claddach Boat Building Competition
Minister of Justice

I mentioned this on Mumble, but I will restate it here. I do not really see the point of this. If people want to go independent, they are going to do so. If they want to stay, they will stay. I do not see a reason to try and sway this. Given that there is plenty of room for new independent counties left in our world, I do not see why we would raise the bar for attaining count status. Yes, there are some abandoned counties, but they are small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. They are hardly going to choke out any future land claims for the foreseeable future, even if their number increased substantially.

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Guardian of Casadia
Master of the Slayers Guild
Minister of Hermertian History

The point is to be proactive.

We at least need some better guidelines for the future. The requirements to become a count varies a great deal, so there should be some kind of standard that the Council has for letting someone go independent.

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Ealdorman Cerdic Beoden Accynnafon of Östlond
Runner Up of the Glas Claddach Boat Building Competition
Minister of Justice

Why should a Count's claim for independence be treated any differently from any other land claim?
Just as when an existing county/duchy/kingdom claims land as an extension of their current borders, an independent count stakes a claim, if a good number of people murmur in agreement and no one complains, its fine to proceed. In the year I've been part of the server, I have never once seen a problem with the process

I brought up the possibility of having a formal process for land claims and expansions through the council several months ago and the consensus was that it would be too cumbersome and eat up too much already limited Council time. I agree with this and do not see what is different now

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Prince Septimus Cersil, Lord of Wychwood
Minister of Surveyors and Civil Engineers
Warden of the North
- Recipient of the Pyrencian Good Effort Award
- 2016 Winner of the 'Medal of S'alright'
- Stronger than an ant
- The Tallest

Again, it's about being proactive. When was the last advertising campaign? Having an epic video trailer thing for a campaign is going to bring in a LOT of activity. We shouldn't always blather on about "oh this was fine the past" then get annoyed when it takes forever to desperately change something after the fact. We should anticipate things.

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Ealdorman Cerdic Beoden Accynnafon of Östlond
Runner Up of the Glas Claddach Boat Building Competition
Minister of Justice

I just don't see what we need to be proactive about in this case.

Say we have a bunch of new people join at once, several become counts and wish to claim independence but shortly after become inactive and do not build much. The land claimed would be an insignificant fraction of our entire empire and would not impact future land claims to any degree. I don't see what problem it would create.

I still maintain that having uniform count requirements is the better option here. This would be more useful for a potentially large group of new players in setting out what we as an empire expect from them before they can claim their own lands rather than creating two tiers of counts, Those that have count status but cant move away and those that can

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Prince Septimus Cersil, Lord of Wychwood
Minister of Surveyors and Civil Engineers
Warden of the North
- Recipient of the Pyrencian Good Effort Award
- 2016 Winner of the 'Medal of S'alright'
- Stronger than an ant
- The Tallest

Perhaps a PSA to all current lieges, that they should perhaps consider countship at a slightly higher standard than normal, to be honest, the list you have in the OP is pretty much what Scrios gave me when I moved to Perth.

I kinda agree with Haedren on this one, as I always say when making decisions about the server: Removing options from a player - unless it is an extremely good reason - shouldn't be done.
We want to give people the chance to have creative expression. They might not do their best work in a liege's lands as they would not be around it forever, rather doing their best stuff in their own holdings independently.

Good discussion so far though

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Petra Ravnikaar of The Veil

I'm actually far more in favor of that but there's going to be a lot more disagreement over that for sure. A straight setting of and raising of standards for count would achieve the same results as what I suggested in the OP. Keep in mind what I originally posted was the result of discussions with several members of the empire.

Also, land claims are important to be worried about as more and more prime land is taken over time. Eventually (2-3 years) it could be an issue depending on application drive success.

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Ealdorman Cerdic Beoden Accynnafon of Östlond
Runner Up of the Glas Claddach Boat Building Competition
Minister of Justice