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[Wilfred of Ivanhoe]

Let me preface this by saying that I've been playing a lot of Crusader Kings 2 (pre-Conclave, of course). There have probably been some other threads discussing the addition of factions arising within sites, but I'd like to take a comprehensive approach at the possibilities and implications of intra-site and inter-site factions. Of course, any sort of faction system would need to built upon already existing and extensive systems of politics, law, economics, trade, guilds, and others, but I think it would add yet another layer of depth to fortress management.

Formation
I'd imagine that as site populations increase, there would, of course, be differences in opinion in how things should be done. Variations on the value of certain ethics between citizens and the site leader(s), the civilization leader(s), or the civilization itself could cause certain individuals to become discontented with the current administration. Individuals who all have similar dissatisfactions should be able to coalesce and form a faction that aims to impose their ethics on the site or the entire civilization. This group should obviously attempt to draw followers from the existing population using the existing mechanics for ethic conversion through conversation. At a certain point; based on, among other things, the intensity of the faction's dislike for the current administration, the severity of their demands/the difference between the current civilization values and the proposed values, the amount of supporters the faction has, the relative strength of the faction as opposed to the military force of the entity in charge, and the current laws; the faction should be able to deliver an ultimatum to the leader. The leader would then decide whether to implement the proposed changes or deny the faction, at which point the faction can decide to continue to gather supporters, depose the current leader, launch a civil war, or a myriad of other possible options. Although I did use ethics as an example above, the rebellion could also be a religious war, to either allow the practice of a certain belief system/worship of a particular god or to impose a sort of state religion that persecutes others; a slave emancipation campaign; and other possible points of contention.

There are quite a few implications regarding the hypothetical addition of this complex mechanic. The first one that comes to mind is that it might cause civilizations to constantly be in a state of civil war as factions that successfully break the country could install their institutional changes, only to have another reactionary faction arise, demand a change that is essentially a revert, and possibly wage war. This could create an endless cycle of war within a civilization and render pretty much every civilization so weak that they couldn't send armies in fortress mode. It would also be interesting to experience a massive insurrection in adventure mode, but that would have to be complimented by increased dialogue options (I've longed for a simple "What's going on right now (at this site)?" or a “What is happening (at this site)?” option).

Intra-site
Within a single site, such as a player-made fortress, site-based factions could arise for relatively simple purposes such as bettering the quality of life of the peasantry (lowering taxes, better quality housing, etc.), rejecting production mandates, or other things. These groups could occasionally send forth ultimatums to the local expedition leader, mayor, baron, count, duke, or king. The player would then open such an ultimatum like resident petitions and then decide whether or not to allow these groups to impose their demands. It may also be possible to negotiate on things that have a middle ground, such as lowering taxes 25% instead of the 50% that they demand. Of course, the rejection of such demands shouldn’t simply erupt in open, violent conflict in the fortress otherwise a person that wants a long lasting fortress would have to bend knee to anyone that decides to speak up. A more peaceful alternative could be that the mayor is replaced at the time of the next election, and, if the player intervenes by setting this person as mayor again, maybe it incurs bad thoughts in the opposing faction that lead to “less-than-lawful” behavior around the fortress (destroyed workshops, knocked over furniture, “stolen” possessions) that ultimately reduces fortress efficiency.

In the event of open conflict between members of the fortress, I think that the game should determine the separatists, the loyalists, and the noncombatants based on who would be most likely to join which group during the insurrection. Someone that feels strongly or has a profession that would be profoundly affected by the outcome of the conflict should be less likely to remain a noncombatant. For instance, if a faction consisting of mostly peasants or low-income laborers declares a faction war on the current administration, and other peasants that were not originally part of the faction should be more likely to join the separatists during the insurrection. Nobility and laborers that earn much more than peasants would, of course, be very unlikely to join such a group of separatists (unless their values mesh very well with those of these peasants) and would be more likely to join the opposing loyalist faction since they would be more in favor of the current state of order due to their current positions in society. In most cases, nobles, the captain of the guard, and his/her subordinates should side with the loyalists during an insurrection. The allotment of the rest of the dwarves to the three sides should be determined by how each individual feels about the issue at hand and by how prevalent individuals of their “caste” are in the separatist and loyalist factions.

Inter-Site
Along with discontent within a player fortress, discontent across the civilization should impact the fortress. If there is a revolutionary conflict in progress, a diplomat should be able to, during the standard yearly meeting with the fortress leader to see where this site’s allegiance lies, unless, of course, if the player site happens to be the capital. If the player aligns with a separatist group, then they should expect to see a loyalist army of dwarves arrive to siege their fortress in place of a dwarven caravan. As the conflict progresses, diplomats should continue to arrive every so often asking for peace and restoration of the established order until either the player accepts the civ’s demands or the rebels defeat the current administration. If the player aligns with the loyalists, then they should be able to receive a visit from roving bands of separatists whose size and strength should depend on the resources that they have been able to capture as well as how well-armed the separatists were to begin with.

If there is an active revolution within the civilization, then the effect should be felt at player-driven sites too. Maybe upon deciding your fortress’s administration’s alignment, your dwarves could receive the appropriate bad thoughts. Siding with the rebels should make your dwarves that have values more similar to the separatist rebels happy and incur bad thoughts amongst loyalist-leaning dwarves and neutral dwarves. Siding with loyalists should please your loyalist-leaning dwarves and incur the ire of your separatist-leaning dwarves and noncombatants. Declaring that you do not side with either should cause both loyal-ish and separate-ish groups to be displeased with your fortress administration.



There’s what I’ve been able to think about. If I have any other innovative ideas, I’ll be sure to share them here. If you have any criticisms or additions, please feel free to add those as well.

[NW_Kohaku]

Oh, Conclave isn't so bad.  I typically was declaring war on twelve people at once just to get some decent fights at my previous rate of conquest, anyway, and the addition of further internal strife to keep your monolithic blob from being an unstoppable superpower the instant you hit kingdom tier because I could hand-select and groom my heirs to have 200+ relations with everyone and a more centralized powerbase plus ever-more unstoppable retinue armies.

Anyway, I generally agree, although things like dwarves coming together to argue for lowered taxes requires dwarves actually pay taxes at some point... I also can't help but indulge my historical reading fetishism and say that most games get the response to taxation a bit wrong everywhere but maybe China.  Peasants did not have cash currency (coins) to pay their taxes with, they paid in kind, and they did not behave in a rational sense to tax rates.  They only really complained about taxes when they were hiked, because it was more than the "traditional" tax rate, no matter what that traditional tax rate may have been. That is, paying 10 bushels of grain in taxes was perfectly OK if that was tradition, but if it had been 8 bushels of grain before this, they would raise their voice in anger, and they would argue against it solely based upon the fact that it was against tradition to raise taxes any higher.

You might also be interested in looking over the Class Warfare thread, which covers much of the same topic, although it spills into some others. (Although, granted, I've been meaning to give that topic a good rewrite for a while, now...)

I think perhaps, however, that you're leaning a little too hard on CKII for your inspiration without taking DF's own strengths and quirks into consideration.  You're basically copy-pasting the faction system's mechanics, here. The thing is, CKII had vassals that joined any random faction just because they don't like you, and were looking for any excuse to start a war to gain power at your expense.  DF's strengths lie in its personality system that would benefit from a system where dwarves form their alliances based upon their own personal ethics and personality quirks, as well as, possibly, things like guilds. 

Keep in mind, of course, that Toady already does intend to make guilds of dwarves from particular job types, followers of particular gods, and other internal groups have their own internal cohesion and capacity to make trouble feuding with other internal groups.  (I quote a few Toady statements with regards to that in Class Warfare, and you can also look up the devpage to see some notes on what he plans to do...)

What I'd personally like to see most is a sense of "concentric rings of loyalty".  That is, a royal guard might be loyal personally to the king, believing in them with fanatical devotion, and willing to do anything for them no matter the cost, or they might be more loyal to the nation as a whole, loyal to the throne as an extension of their loyalty to country, or they may be loyal simply to the concepts of order and justice, and see honorable military service as the highest ideal to which they strive.  While these different loyalties may align most of the time, when one comes across "loyalty cascade" moments, it tells you which side they will break down on.  Like, for example, Erwin Rommel fighting out of loyalty to Germany in spite of distrusting Hitler, only to decide it was time to assassinate Hitler when he saw that Hitler would bring ruin to the nation to which Rommel was actually loyal, when most of the other high command were personally loyal to Hitler, alone.  If that king goes insane, (or is possessed by outside forces,) that royal guardsman, if loyal to the country might consider assassination to protect the country from the mad king, while a honor-driven guard might refuse to turn his blade on his lord, but also refuse orders even if it meant execution for disloyalty, while a personally loyal guard simply continues to follow orders even as the king sinks into madness. (And of course, a guard may simply be driven by fear of the consequence of disobedience more than any loyalty or ideal... Any number of driving factors can be simulated.)

Now, in the current version of DF, though, I'd expect the most sensible sets of groups would be ones based upon personality quirks that have needs.  Social dwarves might group up to demand better tavern/dining hall space. Order-driven dwarves might be outraged that there is no hammerer or justice system. Etc.

This basically leads to a pair of major function changes: One is that motivations/goals be made more flexible (probably handling more than one at a time) so that ambitions like a countess that wants to overthrow the duke and usurp his title can also be shared by mere craftsmen wanting to win a guild election to become the head of the guild, or being motivated by an abstract ideal such as "seeing a reign of law and order" and demanding harsher penalties for criminals. The other is that dwarves have some sense of loyalty and identity within their own sub-groups.

I don't think discontent is hard to brew in DF, but what it needs is that sense of unique dwarven identities that would drive them to group into political factions that make some sense in the first place.

[kontako]

I wanted to post this morning but I was in a hurry 

I don't think it's ideal to base factions off the CK2 system, namely because your vassals advertise to the whole kingdom which factions they're apart of (especially factions which are treasonous). Without this the factions wouldn't grow. In reality, people don't know for sure whether others will possibly agree or disagree with them. When being found out for treason and executed/ostracised is such a reality people tend to be quiet even towards people that think may agree with them.
If rebel / anti-government factions become a reality, I don't think they're going to be like CK2 and may be quite stagnant.

In my opinion, factions should be based off a demographic system:
* Worshippers of X (70% of pop.) demand greater display of opulence in temple
* Militarists (15% of pop.) demand greater variety of weapons
* Faction Z (90% of pop.) demands eradication of Faction Y (10% of pop.)

In these cases the factions aren't against the player but each other.

Although I feel this oversimplifies factions. A system where factions are made of groupings of sub-factions feels like it would better represent the population, where:
*Militarist worshippers of X, which are in Faction Y (8% of pop.) want ABC

My ideas for factions are underdeveloped, as you may have noticed, although I still felt the need to pitch in.