Bay 12 Games Forum

"Noble" is a strange term for people who are elected.  Real nobility is determined by blood, not votes.  And in a medieval setting, the point of nobility was to maintain political stability and provide for orderly transfers of power.

Here's a wild suggestion: Have some dwarves be noble by birth.  Designate and maintain dwarven noble families on a worldwide basis, complete with family trees.  Total War Medieval 2 has an example of what this might look like.  Maybe the initial expedition is led by a young nobleman set out to build his own fortune and expand his family's influence.

You don't have to keep the nobles, but there's a finite supply of them and they bring unique advantages.  Specifically they command respect, by virtue of their birth, with workers and with foreign dignitaries.

With workers, a noble maintains social order simply because the workers believe in the authority of his noble birth---and their belief makes it real.  Without nobles to push them onward, why would your average dwarf keep working once he has a roof over his head, a bed to sleep in, a full belly, and a mug full of ale?  Or maybe noble-less dwarves would start squabbling with each other, or even separate into competing factions.  As the population exceeds 25 or so, then the colony should start to fall apart because there's no one to hold it together.

As Toady says, somebody has to be the leader.  Historically, the point of nobility is that you don't have to kill each other to find out who the leader will be.  That's why, for example, you research Monarchy as a technology in the Civilization games.

With dignitaries, noble families would make for interesting foreign politics.  Wiping out one outpost could bring massive retribution from other family holdings.  Or maybe the family patriarch dies, and your top noble has a reasonable claim to replace him, sparking a war of succession.

What would a noble actually do all day?  Just what real nobles did: command the army, decide matters of justice, handle foreign relations, urge the dwarves to work harder, and maybe even do some work himself.  Maybe the player can exercise considerable control over the top noble.  After all, that's really the role that the player is taking.  We build mansions of green glass for our own glory, not for the happiness of the common laborer.  And maybe the player has more control over what goes on in the top noble's immediate vicinity, based on his authority level.  As the fortress grows, the noble has more work than he can handle, and so he appoints a minister to help in a specific area.  He can appoint a general to lead the military, a judge to administer justice, an exchequer to monitor the treasury, and so forth.  Or he can skip on the minister and do the job himself.

Sometimes nobles get killed, and that would stink but be entirely historical.  You should carefully guard your noble, just as they were (and still are) guarded in real life.  And it helps to have a couple of heirs on hand in case disaster strikes.

A modern democratic system of government in a medieval setting would seem very strange to me.  Think of Lord of the Rings:  In both Rohan and Mordor, the country's fate hinged on having a rightful and vigorous king.   Nobility used to be a really big deal, and it was entirely blood-based.  Let the other jobs go to selected specialists---maybe call them "professionals"---and maybe they can be trained in-house, or maybe they can only be properly educated elsewhere.  But the word "noble" really means something, so if you aren't really going to have nobles, then at least use a different word.