Houses and Alliances - Keeping your House in order (Part 2)

• Part 1 (Houses and Alliances - Introduction)

• Part 3 (Houses and Alliances - House XP, Silver and Honour)

If you’ve created or joined a House via our web-based Guild Hub, you’ll be pleased to know that the process of establishing a shared identity in-game will be quite similar. It will require an initial investment of silver coins (20,000 currently), but otherwise creating a new House begins as you might expect - with a suitable name. Then, rather than uploading a logo or emblem, you’ll be required to design a banner. Similar to how you might design a flag in other games, you simply select your preferred colors, choose from a variety of heraldic shapes and then determine their order and transparency. If you’ve invested in the House Founder’s Pack, you’ll have extra scope for creating an awesome House logo, with more customisation options certain to be added as time marches on.

Assigning Leadership

In keeping with feudal tradition, the leader of a House is intended to be its most forthright and controlling figure, which is why the in-game House system is geared towards promoting a clear lineage of authority that starts with the founder of the group. While it will be possible for members to challenge for the leadership, the circumstances under which a new leader is assigned will be very limited. Indeed, unless unreasonably absent from the game for a significant period of time, the only person who will be able to reassign leadership will be the leader themselves.

Player Roles

House leaders will be able to grant some authority to individual members, but these powers – currently under development – are likely to be purposely narrow; ranging from being able to, for example, approve and reject membership applications, kick members from the roster and edit house proclamations (aka status updates). If the the current design is implemented, the most far-reaching power that a leader may be be able to grant is in allowing members access to manage the House stores and adjust tax rates (Finance Authority), while those with a planned Command Authority will be able to set military objectives by placing markers on the world map.

Headquarters

In the same way that generals have their own personal camp at which they can manage production resources, store weapons and billet troops, each House will maintain its own headquarters within its own provincial capital. Until the House is able to control territory, however, the HQ will remain in a nearby neutral settlement and will return to one if and when the house subsequently loses all its territories. If a house loses its HQ territory but has other territories, the HQ will be relocated in the nearest house-controlled territory.

Disbanding a House

The leader has to be the last member of a house in order to be able to disband it, which they can do by removing individuals from the roster. Once disbanded, the territories that were controlled by the House will become neutral. However, if the House being disbanded is part of an Alliance, its territories will fall under the jurisdiction of the “main” house in the alliance. If the house being disbanded is the main house, the next most long-serving house in the alliance will take over as the executor of the Alliance. Obviously if the departing leader is the sole member of a House which is the sole House in an Alliance, both will cease to exist.